The Wolf let out a sharp exhale as she settled onto the roots of a tree for a break. She'd spent a frustratingly long time searching for a suitable place for a new den, scrounging for whatever edible plants and insects she could find along the way, but it hadn't been enough, not by far.

The new den would serve as a back up in case something moved into the one her pack had made. Their scents would linger awhile, but that wasn't enough to guarantee safety there, not without other wolves to bounce their howls through the trees to make it seem like there were more of them.

The trick worked even on other wolves, so she couldn't be sure that a given neighboring pack was actually as large as it sounded. In fact, it probably wouldn't be, but that didn't mean there couldn't be ten or more. The more wolves a pack had, the more numerous they could make themselves sound by choosing a good clearing, spreading out, and howling at different pitches and in different tones.

It was even more effective the more wolves there were. Two could sound like ten, but ten could sound like fifty, and that was assuming each wolf participated.

Alone, she could, at best, sound like two or three, and such a low number would be almost inviting other wolves to move in.

No, her best option was to remain quiet and stealthy, and have back up dens spread around the forest so she could leave her main den if she had to.

Unfortunately, to fulfill her Quest requirements and get its promised reward, she couldn't simply subsist on scavenging whatever she found, either. Even if she hunted rabbits, she'd need at least three of them in a single day, and large ones at that.

Foxes weren't a good choice, either. Not only would she need to eat more than one, just like rabbits, but they were faster than her, and smaller, too, so they'd be able to slip away very easily. Their size meant they wouldn't be much of a threat to her, but that same size would make it almost impossible to catch one, and they had senses just as sharp as hers.

No matter how many animals the Wolf thought to hunt, they were almost all either too big too hunt by herself, much less injured as she was, or too small to finish the Quest. If it were just keeping herself alive, she could scavenge and hunt smaller animals, but the Quest wanted her to eat, not just survive.

Occasionally, one of the man-things or some other predator would kill something and leave its carcass behind after being interrupted, but she couldn't rely on that kind of luck, especially since she'd need to come across the dead animal before it even cooled to make use of it.

Other animals were just as hungry as she was, after all, and even deer would eat meat if they came across it.

Beavers were likely her only option.

Well. They were her best option, at least. The other barely counted as an option at all.

The heart of the forest, the thought of which raised her hackles unconsciously. She'd never been that deep in the forest, but whenever she ranged close on a hunt with her pack, they could smell it.

It was dangerous there, in a way the hunger or man-things weren't.

Still, it was there, however risky. She'd need to keep it in mind, just in case.

Even if she really didn't want to.

The Wolf shook the unsettling place from her mind with a full body shudder, as if it were water she could simply shake off, and turned her thoughts back to her dens.

Normally, wolves only used dens when the mother of the pack was expecting another litter, or when the pups were still very young, prefering instead to sleep together in clearings, weather permitting, but she couldn't do that, not injured, and definitely not alone. Just resting here at the base of the tree made her feel uneasy, without her parents or siblings to back her up.

She had to keep moving, out here, and the anxious feeling had grown too strong to ignore while she'd been thinking, so she slowly got up, stretched as much as she was able, and started wandering through the trees aimlessly once again to search for prey and potential places for new dens.

What other habits should she change? Hunt during the day, maybe? Beavers were nocturnal, like she was, but very little would expect a wolf to be hunting during the day. Yet, at the same time, hunting during the day meant her prey would see her coming more easily.

There could be something easier to catch she didn't know about during the day. That wasn't impossible; she'd spent the majority of her life awake with the moon high in the sky, and this recent stint of daylight was more than she'd seen in seasons.

No, not yet. She'd need to solve her immediate problems first, and then risk a few exploratory hunts during the day, if only to see if she could.

While she half-limped through the woods, shoulder aching and wounds throbbing, she found herself growing more and more frustrated with her injuries, as she'd seen multiple small animals in the bushes, but had been too slow and too loud to catch them.

She was slowly starting to understand why she'd never seen lone wolves before. Without her pack, she could barely subsist for a day, much less thrive, and she didn't have the advantages of the other predators. Not the huge size and power of the bears, the wings of birds, or the too-fast reflexes of the foxes. She didn't even have the traps the spiders used or the low profile of the snakes.

Traps... She'd seen the man-things use them before, too, but different kinds. Snapping, shining jaws, pits, even some that looked like bent saplings until triggered.

Maybe there was a trap she could lay? If only she could figure it out. Another thing to consider and explore later.

If she had the hands of the man-things... They made everything look so easy. Carrying things, using different kinds of claws they could change whenever they wanted.

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Then again, they were soft, without the hides they wrapped themselves in. Maybe that was the trade-off for their hands.

Once, she'd thought them ridiculous, wandering the forests by themselves or only in pairs, but that was before she'd met her adversary. She knew better, now. They only needed one or two, with their flashing claws and hides of earth and beast alike.

They were strong, and clever. They made up for their weaknesses with the strengths of other animals.

The Wolf wanted to fight one again, when she was stronger.

She growled unconsciously, and pulled herself from those thoughts. That would have to wait, likely several seasons, if not longer. She needed to heal and grow first, figure out how to survive properly without her pack.

But, she could start by learning from the other animals and their methods. She would not learn to fly or climb any better than she could now, but she could emulate the snakes and the bears.

Bears defended themselves by being very big, and making themselves seem even bigger with their heart-shaking roars, and snakes managed it by being nearly unnoticeable in the leaves and shrubbery, and she was smarter than them both, now, thanks to the 'trial' she'd completed.

She still had a little way to grow, of course, if her mother and father were anything to judge by, but whatever growth she had left couldn't put her on the same level as a bear, nor would her fur suddenly change to green to blend in more easily.

That settled it. She would get Shadowhide after Light Drinker and Light Eater, and, in the mean time, look for opportunities to practice her growling and barking, to make it more intimidating.

Skill Unlocked!

Fie and spitfire, deception and intimidation

Charisma Skill: Speech available!

Charisma Skill: Perform available!

Strike fear into the hearts of your would-be hunters, little wolf.

There were more skills than what she had? Of course there were, there had to be. How else would the man-things make and use their traps and too-sharp claws? Though, for all she knew, they grew them, and they fell off later. Deer antlers would do that sometimes, though the deer wouldn't carry them around with them afterwards.

Her tail twitched in amusement at the thought of a deer stag carrying his antlers around with him, clamped between his teeth, and she discarded the idea in favor of the man-things' claws and traps being a skill.

How many other skills could she gain access to? Was there a limit? Admittedly, she couldn't think of any others she might be able to unlock right now. The only thing she suspected even could be a skill was the creation of traps, but she had no idea how to even begin on that one, and that suspicion alone wasn't enough to get a similar notice from the wolf-voices.

Perhaps that was the difference. Having some basic level of how to actually apply and learn the skill.

At least the wolf-voices had told her what each was for. Speech, to convince, persuade, and deceive, and Perform to seem like something she was not.

Together, they'd work to make her more intimidating.

No, that wasn't quite right. It was based on context? They seemed to overlap, particularly deception and pretending to be something she wasn't, but the wolf-voices had seen fit to separate the two, so she decided to trust them, for now. It wasn't like she'd be able to figure out the difference with what little she knew at the moment anyway.

For now, she simply turned around and slowly started moving back to her den, and, more importantly, the stream near it. She was tired and thirsty after spending so long trying to find easy prey, and each stride sent a jolt of pain through her shoulder.

General Skills Name None Agility Race Wolf (Awakened) Athletics Competent (Growing) Gender Female Stealth Proficient (Growing) Age Adolescent Evasion Proficient (Growing) Insight Little Melee Competent (Apex) Health At Death's Door, Malnourished Intellect Stamina Tired, Fatigued Survival Proficient (Nascent) Attributes Willpower Strength Above Average (Nascent) Discipline Untrained (Growing) Agility Above Average (Growing) Charisma Fortitude Average (Apex) Speech Untrained (Nascent) Intellect Average (Growing) Perform Untrained (Nascent) Willpower Average (Growing) Charisma Low (Growing)

Traits Racial (+) Feats Heroes Fall Increases combat skills against Hero or Champion-tagged foes, increases resistance to hostile reputation effects Strength of the Weak Grants a small bonus to learning speed for combat skills, and increases Destroyer Affinity by one step General Terrain Adaptation Forest, removes penalties for poor footing in chosen environment Fast Healing Rank 1, doubles natural healing rate for every Rank Quirks Temperature Tolerance Rank 1, increases comfortable temperature range by a small amount per Rank