First Blood

Orion groaned as he pushed himself slowly to his feet, pushing away the long black strands of hair that had fallen into his face. His hairtie must have broken when he fell, but that was, miraculously, all that seemed to be broken.

"I guess I'm tougher than I thought," he chuckled breathlessly, then winced as the motion pulled at one of the cuts on his face.

As he brushed the dirt off his clothes, he took stock of his injuries. His head was pounding, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped, and what other small cuts littered his exposed skin were minor enough to ignore. It was hard to gauge internal injures, because his entire body felt like one big bruise, but nothing felt like a particularly sharp pain except in his left ankle, which twinged ominously when he tried to put weight on it.

He glanced around. The bottom of the ravine was sandy, with sparse vegetation, and wider than it had seemed looking down at it. The sides were sheer rock faces, with not enough texture to get any kind of grip for climbing, and he could see a multitude of indents and deeper tunnels branching off to either side. His eyes caught on a smaller alcove not too far away, which seemed fairly shallow. Night would be coming soon, and with it, the monsters. Standing out here in the open would make him an easy target.

He limped a few steps towards it, but the pain quickly became too much to bear.

"Hm. I need some kind of crutch..."

His attention turned to the longsword strapped across his back. It was a keepsake from his father, never used, as like most practitioners he had always relied solely on his magic to fight, but in this situation, maybe it would come in handy.

He undid the clasps holding it in place, keeping it sheathed, and leaned his weight on it experimentally. The length was good, and it was sturdy enough.

He apologized silently to his father, and continued towards the cave.

The cave wasn't quite as small as it appeared at first glance, he noted as he approached, as it took a sharp turn after barely a few feet, giving it the impression of being little more than an indent in the ravine wall.

He stepped inside, planning to sit down and properly wrap his ankle, but caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye.

Turning, he saw a large black boar that seemed to have been sleeping a little further into the cave, but was now climbing to its feet, snorting agressively.

The creature was massive, and as it lowered its head to charge, the light caught on the razor edges of its huge metallic tusks.

Orion swore softly. Of course the first cave he wandered into would be the den of a steel-tusked boar.

He raised his free hand, mouth opening to chant the incantation for an ice shield, but froze just in time. His Core had been shattered. If he tried to do magic in this state, it would almost certainly kill him.

The boar didn't wait for him to sort out how he felt about that, though, and he barely got his sword between himself and the beast before it speared him on its tusks.

The impact combined with his already unstable stance was enough to unbalance him completely, however, and he fell back, hissing in pain as his already bruised body collided with the floor.

The boar snorted softly, and it might have just been the lingering effects of his recent head injury, but Orion could have sworn that it was laughing at him.

He managed to pull himself into a half-sitting position, but then the boar was on him again, tusks clearly angling for his throat. He growled as he again blocked the attack with the sheath, raising his legs to kick at the boar's underbelly, and somehow summoned the strength to heave it off of himself completely.

The boar lay on its side where he had thrown it for a second, clearly stunned by the unexpected blow, and he took the opportunity, scrambling to unsheathe his sword before plunging it into the creature's throat.

The boar squealed and thrashed, and Orion pushed away from it, watching warily from a distance until it went still.

As the sound faded, he let out a long breath, slowly sinking to the ground.

This battle, at least, he had won.