I spend the night doing some physical training, as I cannot practice magic or get out as anything I can do will give me away, and increasing my strength will help me not waste magic. I spend the night splitting the time between resting and training, doing pushups, situps, all of the normal routine exercises that wouldn't make noise to not disturb Lionel and the others, and not require equipment because of course, I don't have any.

We get summoned very early in the morning while the sun is barely rising and everything is showered in red, the idea being to get as much light time as possible while hunting for the renegades.

The village looks a little less gloomy with the morning light illuminating the houses and with people starting to go about their business.

We set off in relative hurry, still making sure everyone is present but with no time to even say hi to each other before we set off.

With us there are 3 rangers and Layla, I’m glad when Pick’s team says we are gonna split, with each adventuring group taking 2 scouts each. The plan is that if we find the renegades all in a group we’d send the 2 rangers to call for the others, and if instead, they were split, to prevent the escape of the one we find with any means necessary and then look for more.

We set off into the forest with a word of caution from Pick party about sneaky traps, so I am fully utilizing my senses of sound and sight. The forest is still eerily silent, given that there was the occasional call of a bird or small animal, but it was far from the forest full of game that was described as needing to be protected from poachers, so I’m even more unsettled, as one would think that these renegades would be stealthy enough to not upset the forest, not make it silent… I fear that my adventurer friends might have made the step longer than their foot this time, I can only hope I’m strong enough to carry them over that extra length.

Nothing happens for the majority of the morning, the rangers don't pick up any unusual tracks, though it's nice to know that they still find tracks of larger prey like boars and deers so they should still be around. One thing I notice though it's the faint smell of death, the same smell that was around the undead animals… Maybe the other animals smell it too and avoid the place?

We keep on following the ranger through places where people can easily hide and it was clear someone was indeed camping in the woods, we find signs of at least 4 of them, and signs of the forest being disturbed, from what the rangers say we must be close as they are changing camping spot while staying in the general area. I still have the feeling at the back of my head that something is gonna go bad, and it just keeps on growing stronger, knowing why I have this feeling would be great but right now all I can do is focus on trying to not get us all ambushed.

We go a few hours still and the rangers start to find traps, I am very thankful for their knowledge of the forest, as the renegades even though they don't know the forest seems to be able to plant very dangerous traps in the perfect places… a tripwire connected to a bag full of who knows what, spikes, hidden in the undergrowth, even a few traps meant to break your legs if you step too close to a tree.

All of a sudden though, I hear Marina gasp, and I quickly turn around to see 3 figures covered in clothes, only their feline legs, and eyes are uncovered, all of them of a dark color, they are standing side by side and the center one has Marina in their grasp, a cat claw knife to her throat, the other 2 are at his sides bows pointed at Lionel and Evan.

The one threatening Marina says his voice full of malice, and through the bends of the mask they are wearing you could see the mouth moving:

They made no noise, nothing, only a growing feeling of dread to warn me of them, but now Marina was held at knifepoint, and I wreck my brain for a way to save her, though I see no way, anything I can do will give time to the figure to slit her throat… though maybe…

As Lionel and Evan are “standing off” weapons at the ready, I decide to try the cunning approach, I step forward, looking as confident as I can and rip my illusion off like a mask or like a cape, showing my true form and say adding as much wickedness and intimidation to my words as I could muster:

It kinda works, the figures seem surprised by the sudden fox, the two with the bows instantly aim at me and the one holding up Marina flinches surprised by my show, and gives her enough space to cast her magic and force the figure to back off. Immediately after that, the rangers bolt deeper into the forest hopefully to go call reinforcements.

Evan and Lionel charge the figures with a bow and are on them before they can aim the bows back and start fighting with them, Evan with a shortsword, and Lionel with his two-handed hammer.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The figure that was forced by Marina to back off smirks and says tauntingly positioning himself behind Marina: Before me or Marina could do anything the wind seems to change, Swirling around the figure as something pierces right through Marina’s chest and flies at me. Naturally, I dodge it, thankful for my quick reflexes, and rush straight past Marina, hoping to Mother she isn’t dead and pounce the figure, we both fall down and in a flurry of claws and knives he throws me off, but not before I get a few nice marks trough his clothes, but he does the same, scoring a few light wounds on my body. He is clearly outmatched in a straight physical battle so I need to keep it like that, ignoring the bleeding I lunge at him again aiming to bite his right shoulder, of course, he casts his magic and throws me off my attack, but I already expected something similar and I readjust grabbing his hand as he tries to go for my throat with his knife. Assuming this figure is a cat person and hoping they are not heavy I shift him so I can shoulder charge him straight into a nearby tree. The move succeeds mostly but I trip on something due to the figure struggling and the awkward maneuver and end up hurting myself too against the tree, all in all, both of us get enough time to recover after the hit and the figure says:

He then pulls out what looks like multiple darts the size of a finger and the wind starts swirling again around him as he throws them at me and then casts his magic to make them fly at bullet speed, I make an attempt to dodge, but they were like a burst from an automatic gun and I close my eyes bracing for the pain…

But it doesn't come, instead, I smell blood, I open my eyes and see the back of Lionel’s armor in front of me before I can react he reaches behind to grab me and throws me forward, I catch a glimpse of him as I move past him and I can see that the hail of darts broke through most of the armor and are lodged there… I knew this would not have ended well… I need to win, fast, before they all die.

In one swift motion, I pull out my stiletto and chuck it full force at the figure who was recovering from the cast and rush him again, as expected the figure casts his magic again sending the Stiletto flying right back at me, but I sidestep it and engulf myself into flames as I cast my magic all around me making myself look twice as big with flames and tackle the figure planning to burn him to death before he can do more, I dig my claws and teeth into him holding onto him as tight as I can as he screams: but he doesn't manage to break free as he repeatedly stabs at me a few times before through my bite I start absorbing his life energy signaling his departure from this world and in a matter of a short time there is nothing but a foul-smelling charred corpse in front of me.

I don’t have time to catch a breath as a blast of wind snuffs my flame and another figure in heavy armor picks me off the charred corpse with one hand raising me on my feet, and with the other charges a punch, I cannot defend myself and I get hit straight in my stomach with a bone-shattering punch and get sent a few steps away by the sheer force, I fall right beside the body of one of the figures with a bow, his body unmoving and his neck and head at an awkward angle, I fake to be KO hoping the heavily armored figure doesn't approach me and stealthily reach over to the body and focus to for the 1st time attempt to drain someone’s life without a bite. It takes longer than I would have liked to, but the pain and bleeding I sustained so far don't help me concentrate, and around half a minute later I manage to get the life energy from the body, I feel better than I have ever been. I drag myself behind a tree looking at the battle. Marina is laying on the ground, Lionel is still fighting, how? I do not know, Evan seems to be the one that is less injured though his wounds seem to have weakened him, probably due to the bleeding not stopping… two more figures joined the battle, and one of the original figures is still fighting like he is full of energy, one of the new figures is the one that punched me, he doesn't seem to have weapons, but he is huge, their build is almost double Lionel’s, while the other one is thinner than even the ones we fought before and shorter, not nekra short but short nonetheless, and he wields a staff with a white clouded gem embedded into the top, both of them still have their whole body covered in clothes, except the short one which has the legs free like the others, the short one also seems to be flying around with his magic, supporting the other two with healing and precise bolts of hair to prevent them from getting hit.

I finish healing myself feeling ecstatic about all the energy within me and very ready to finish this fight… I need to be smart though, I got no chances against the heavily armored one as long as the thin one is alive.

I shapeshift into a feral fox and use a simple illusion to conceal my tails as I fear they might hinder my sneaking. The short one is flying around so I sneak where they are flying about and wait, it doesn't take long for him to focus on casting his magic, and knowing better than to bet on a single attack I create the illusion of a multi tailed fox, fill it with fire and have it lounge at the short one.

The remaining slim figure warns the short one of my ploy and the short one turns and blasts the fox, the gem in his staff seeming to shine every time he casts his magic.

The blast breaks the shell of the illusion releasing the flames within creating an explosion… that wasn't my idea but it worked, all of the enemies focus on it.

They don’t see me and I can aim a flaming bolt as big as me at the short one, this time though as I cast my magic it takes the shape of myself, a feral fox with 3 tails and lunges at the enemy, I admit I had myself focused on hiding myself so maybe that shaped my cast… Interesting.

The fox-fire hits its mark enveloping the short figure in flames and he falls as they start yowling in pain, even if not for long as my flames turn it into a charred corpse pretty quickly.

As the body is burning arrows come in from behind the last 2 enemies forcing them to take cover and I take that time to have myself a life energy snack before changing back into my anthropomorphic fox and running to Marina’s side, hoping she was still alive, and that those arrows were the others coming in to take care of the last two.