Between her injuries and her forced solitude, the Wolf was forced to adjust her sleeping habits to sleep more in spurts, occasionally waking up to stretch and pace around her den to check for easy prey or intruders before going back to a nap.
She hadn't been this active since she was a pup, but necessity meant she couldn't sleep as much as she might have wanted.
There was nothing she could do about it right now. Her longer, less sporadic cycle would have to wait until she was healed and eating regularly again, and the safety and strength that came with it.
Still, she was recovering much faster than she expected, even with Fast Healing. The wolf-voices told her it doubled her natural healing, but this felt more like three or four times as fast, something she was sure she wouldn't have noticed before passing that Trial.
The more she thought about it, the less it made sense. How was she healing this quickly? Were her wounds more painful than deadly? That didn't make sense, either. The wolf-voices claimed she was nearly dead when she first heard from them, and, unsure, she asked them again, just to check.
As if to confirm her suspicions, the wolf-voices no longer claimed she was at deaths door, but 'merely' badly wounded.
Why? It was comforting to know the wolf-voices weren't lying to her, but she still couldn't understand why she had healed faster than the Trait implied, so she checked it again, to ensure she had understood it correctly, and found the wolf-voices had changed their description of the Trait to answer her questions.
Fast Healing Rank 1, guarantees healing equal to passed natural healing checks every day, increasing with Rank
Was it that she simply didn't understand enough for the wolf-voices to properly explain before, or did her Trait change somehow? She doubted it was the latter case; it wasn't that the amount of healing increased, but that the explanation of her natural healing had become more precise.
Was healing without the Trait not guaranteed? That would account for the incredible speed she was recovering, at least, but without more information, she couldn't be sure.
Perhaps the wolf-voices would answer if she asked how natural healing worked, but she doubted she would be able to understand what they told her right now. She knew so very little about the Records and the voices that comprised them, after all.
More importantly, she could move a little easier now than she could the night before, not enough to return her to full speed, but it should be enough to start hunting a beaver as she'd planned, so she went down to the stream to get a drink and wash herself.
There wasn't anything she could use besides the mud to cloak her scent while she tried to hunt, but she could at least clean her fur and dampen the distinct 'wolf' smell on her.
Her fur was mostly black, like her fathers and several of her siblings', with flecks of light yellow, grey, and even white in places. Black fur on wolves in the forest was a little less common than brown, but not so much so she'd never seen a black wolf besides her own family.
Then again, they might actually be her family, a few generations apart, now that she thought about it. She didn't know where her father got his black fur, after all.
She got her eye color from her mother, though. A striking, bright yellow-gold, the color of blood, to her eyes, but now that she was examining herself, she couldn't help but wonder if that was her real fur and eye colors. She had the Partial Colorblindness Trait, after all, and she couldn't guarantee that what she was seeing was the real color.
She couldn't even be sure that blood was actually the color of her eyes, or if it was a result of the Trait.
What if she and her pack were brightly colored and their prey could see it?
She growled at the thought, and started digging mud from the stream, kicking it onto the shore so she could roll in it to cover her fur as best as possible.
It wasn't perfect, but it would have to do. Perhaps she'd look like a strangely shaped lump of earth or rock to her prey. It was the best she could hope for, at any rate.
Could she somehow gain a Trait to counteract the effects of Partial Colorblindness? The Trait likely prevented her from being able to spot some animals based on their coloration, and that was a weakness she couldn't abide.
She had noticed some snakes blend in with leaves and fallen branches very well, and their fangs were extremely dangerous, so even if it didn't let her hunt more easily, finding a way around the Trait might save her life.
To her surprise, the wolf-voices answered the thought immediately, informing her that she could use Insight to remove the Trait, for the same amount it took to gain Fast Healing.
She grumbled in annoyance and resignation at the answer while she padded along the stream. Another Trait on the list she needed to save Insight for. There were already so many, and each might individually save her life in some manner. Prioritizing them poorly could end badly for her.
She could only hope to continue getting Quests and Trials from the voice in the days and moons to come. Otherwise, she couldn't imagine how she might earn those Traits, that power.
Was it even possible to earn Traits without using Insight? The only two she'd seen thus far that didn't alter her body in some fundamental way were Whisperstride and Pain Tolerance, and maybe Shadowhide, but the name of that one implied it would change her fur somehow.
She could ask the wolf-voices, but she doubted she'd get a real answer. After all, intent mattered, and she didn't know enough to form the intent properly, yet. At least she could tell she didn't know much.
Consumed by her questions, she wandered along the stream on instinct, letting her nose search for the sweet-musky scent of a beaver.
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The moon was high in the night sky, uncovered except by a few cloudy wisps that lazily drifted over it, when the Wolf finally caught the scent she was looking for.
She should have scouted and found a place before coating her fur in mud. She ill-liked being filthy like this, and the urge to dive into the water to wash herself had grown almost unbearable by the time she found the scent.
She couldn't do that, as much as she wanted to. She'd need to immediately cover herself in mud again to prevent the beavers from picking up her smell, and disturbing the area too much would likewise put them on edge, and she needed them relaxed and unaware.
She knew that catching a beaver was possible for a lone wolf. One of her elder brothers had caught one when she was a pup and brought it back to the clearing she'd been playing with her father in at the time, but she didn't know how he'd done it.
He couldn't have explained, after all. He was just a wolf, unawakened by the Records like she was. Even if he had been, barking, growling, and body language could only communicate so much information.
Showing her would've been out of the question, as well. She wouldn't have understood what he was doing when she was that young if he'd tried, anyway.
Lacking any other option, she found a place close to some smaller trees, and laid down in the bushes, watching the stream intently for any sign of a beaver.
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The hardest part would be sitting still without sleeping for however long it would take for one to show up, if it did.
Truthfully, if one did show up, she would likely catch it very easily, if she could be patient enough to not attack immediately. Beavers were incredibly slow on land, and not much faster in water, but she was even slower in the water, and they had dens she could not follow them into. All she really had to do was avoid its notice long enough for it to get closer to the trees than the water, and not miss when she lunged at it.
This is where Shadowhide would have made a difference. Wolves usually hunted by running their prey down, but hiding in ambush wasn't out of the question, either, though she'd only done it a few times as a pup, and never to hunt something so large as a beaver.
Still, it was her best option, and even injured, she was sure she'd be faster than a beaver on solid ground.
The wait, and the boredom that came with it, was what worried her, so she let her mind drift a little to the questions she'd been considering while she walked before.
The information the voice gave her was always heavily restricted, just a few bits and pieces before and after a Quest or Trial. No, that wasn't quite right. The skill unlocks also had messages from the voice in them, and its words from her first Quest rang in her mind.
'Knowledge is power. Guard it well, spend it wisely.'
Was the voice intentionally hiding things from her or misleading her, or was there a restriction on how much it could say to her at once? Could it be both?
Likely both, she decided. With knowledge came understanding, and understanding allowed the wolf-voices to be more specific and detailed in their explanations of her Records, and the voice had explicitly stated it wanted her to entertain it, so it was probably feeding her just enough to keep her interested in its games, but not enough to let her manipulate her Records to their fullest.
And were both messages truly from the same voice? The first message always seemed like a description she didn't need, always implying things that the second message, after it told her what her task was, never did. The first message never called her 'little wolf', either, or referred to itself in any way.
She started to grumble, to express her irritation at constantly being called 'little wolf', but caught herself. She couldn't risk her prey hearing her before her teeth were around its neck.
What even were the Akashic Records, anyway? Would the man-things know, if she could ask them? They were the smartest things around, as far as she knew, barring whatever the voice was, so if anything knew, it would be them, she was sure.
She'd never be able to communicate with them, anyway. She knew that they could exchange information with a variety of noises, so many she couldn't even begin to comprehend the amount of things they could tell each other, and she knew a few, from watching and listening from the cover of the forest while they sat around their fires, but only a few.
Still, no matter how many she learned, it didn't matter; she'd never be able to reproduce those sounds to ask them her questions, and the chances of them learning her sounds and her somehow getting the point across would be... next to impossible, at best.
After all, she'd never heard of a wolf or any animal aside from the man-things with the kind of vocal range they had. A few birds, crows and ravens, in particular, came close, but even they were lacking in that regard, and if they couldn't do it, there was no way she could.
If there was a Trait that would let her, it would be an extremely expensive one, to change her so drastically, surely.
She nearly growled again, but the sound died in her throat as her eyes drifted over a lump surfacing in the stream.
Her prey was here, and it took almost everything she had to not immediately rush after it. Even as she mentally strained, she could feel her feet and claws start to dig into the dirt, tense and ready to launch herself at the beaver as it climbed from the water.
No, she needed to be patient, she couldn't rush now. It might be her only chance at this spot. If she failed now, the beavers here would be much more cautious, making any future attempts that much more difficult.
She waited as it sniffed the air, watching for any sign of alarm, in case it smelled her, but it didn't, not as far as she could tell, and it slowly ambled away from the muddy shore and into the grass.
Just a little more, she just needed to wait a little longer. Just until it got a little closer.
It stiffened suddenly, halfway through a step, and she reacted a fraction too late, leaping from her resting spot to grab at the rodent as it turned to rush back to the water.
She missed with her teeth, but slammed one of her paws onto its tail to slow it, and snapped at it again, catching it this time. With a heave – this one was heavier than she expected – she whipped her head up and around to throw the animal away from the water, and further from its home.
It slammed into one of the trees with a satisfying thud, snapping a few branches as it fell, and she took off after it at once, paws kicking up dirt and pebbles.
It was dazed from the impact, not quite immobile, but even if it hadn't been, she was so much faster than it on land, and her jaws closed around its head and squeezed until something crunched and it fell limp.
She'd done it. Her shoulder screamed in pain, each heartbeat sending a jolt through her side, but she'd done it.
With her prey dead, she dropped it to examine it, and realized it was an adult, easily enough for two meals by itself, maybe three, if she didn't mind eating it after the flies got to it, and she didn't mind that at all.
Just this would be enough to get her back to full strength, especially if she continued to scavenge and graze the entire time.
The Wolf would live, at least for another half-moon.
She growled in delight, picking her prey up again to carry it back to her den. She would normally eat it on the spot, but she couldn't eat the entire thing in one sitting, and she refused to waste it by letting others scavenge what she left behind.
She would just eat what she could during her breaks on the way back, and keep the rest in her den for the next night.
Lesser Quest Complete!
Starvation is but another tool of the Reaper. Eat well, and stay its blade.
Insight earned!
Good. Famine will rob you of your strength, little wolf, and you will need it.
General Skills Name None Agility Race Wolf (Awakened) Athletics Competent (Growing) Gender Female Stealth Proficient (Growing) Age Adolescent Evasion Proficient (Growing) Insight Some Melee Competent (Apex) Health Badly Wounded, Malnourished Intellect Stamina Energetic, Lightly 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, guarantees healing equal to passed natural healing checks every day, increasing with Rank Quirks Temperature Tolerance Rank 1, increases comfortable temperature range by a small amount per Rank