Daniel sighed, again. Rory had probably thought it was funnier to not explain. Unfortunately, Daniel was going to reluctantly go along with his plan. He didn't see his parents as a lovey-dovey couple, but they were stuck with children and grandparents most of the time. He could accept that it would be nice to give them some space. He did feel a jealous twinge at the idea they needed time without him there, but he managed to let it go. It wasn't easy, but he felt good about resisting a childish impulse for once, especially since it was a negative one. Still, if this plan was some manipulation for another dumb joke, he'd make Rory regret it. He needed to promise himself that much, just to accept the thing.

So he explained what Rory had said to Gemma. He felt his interest increasing as he took a second, closer look at the page Rory had left. As well as expected information about habits and physical characteristics, there was a section at the end with speculation on skills the fox species might have. It seemed that not all members of the same animal species had the same skills, similar to humans. There were several other skills mentioned, one of which was the vine tail abomination. Apparently, the vines were attached to the spine and could continue to move for some time after the fox had died. It also stated that different foxes had vines in different configurations. There was no mention of it being some symbiotic plant or something similar, however. Was that too obvious to put down, or were vine and fox the same creature? On a similar line was a mention of some foxes growing a wooden shell to protect their chest and head. Trying to imagine it from the description, Daniel flitted between an image of a fox with a bark like a second skin and one with planks of wood attached to the side like armor plating. Some of the other skills were vaguer or marked as only possibilities. Supposedly they could identify some parts of other creatures' status via the sense of smell, but it was hard to pin down or prove the mechanics. And there was a suspicion that they had skills to help them communicate and work as a pack, but this seemed to be an assumption due to their close relation to other species with similar skills.

Gemma agreed to play along and went to the same chest of drawers Rory had been poking through earlier. She came back with a pouch she set on the table, before turning to look through more of the junk.

"What's in that?" Daniel asked.

"Writing tools," she said.

Daniel poked inside, finding an assortment of strange implements, including something he assumed were quill pens and a weird horn that he thought might contain ink.

"Can I try this out?"

Gemma returned with a plain book which she opened to reveal empty pages. She pulled one free and placed it in front of him. Then she moved to the weird horn, fiddling with it to remove a section from the end which she also put down. It seemed to be an ink well.

"Do you know how to write?" she asked curiously.

Daniel thought the more important question was should he know how to write. He shrugged and decided to try it out. Figuring out the quill and ink wasn't too bad. Things went better once he decided on as light a touch as possible. The actual writing was trickier, or more accurately, shakier. He should have been doing this to practice his coordination the whole time. But he found that he could manage by resorting to writing in block capitals, it wasn't pretty but it got the job done.

"I guess you do," Gemma commented, picking everything up and stuffing them into a satchel. "But your handwriting is ho-... unique."

"That's a nice thing of you to say. Thank you."

"You are very welcome. Well then we seem to be ready do you want to head out?"

"Let's go!" Daniel said, raising his hand in the traditional Laston salute he had invented. If he could do dumb stuff like potentially revealing writing ability he shouldn't have, then he could also indulge his dumb childishness.

"Alright then," Gemma said, heading for the door.

"No wait, Aunt Gemma, you have to do it too."

"Let's go? Is that right?"

"Yes, that's good. Just remember to pass the tradition on to your kids someday."

"Did Rory tell you to do this?"

"No," Daniel denied, feeling insulted. "That's quite rude you would think that."

Gemma led him to the stream, claiming that was a good spot to find the sort of creatures Rory didn't like to deal with. The stream was noisy, water churning its way past rocks, and small enough for Daniel to jump across at points, so he did until he remembered why they were there.

"So this is part of your job?"

"Yes, we keep an eye on a stretch of the forest all the way up to the border. Part of that is understanding the wildlife."

"Isn't that dangerous?" Daniel asked. The fox monstrosity was bad enough, he wouldn't like to see something similar on a larger animal.

"No the only scary thing is the wolf packs further north, but they refuse to go near to humans so it's rare for us to spot one of them."

A pack of plant-type wolf monsters? Daniel imagined a large ball of vines, rolling about the forest with wolf mouths sticking out at various points. He shuddered, resolving to never go further north.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"You don't need to worry about that, I grew up in the cottage it's safe for kids here." Gemma said, "Marcus wouldn't have let you come today if it wasn't"

Daniel cast around, seeing a few insects here and there, and catching a brief glimpse of some type of rodent that quickly disappeared. He wasn't too sure what exactly he was supposed to be looking for. Gemma pointed him to a point where the stream turned a corner, and a pool ballooned out of the slow side of the turn. Getting closer, he spotted a small frog creature sitting on a half-submerged branch on the opposite side of the pool.

"Now what?" he asked Gemma quietly.

"Now we observe," she said, "Do you want me to do the picture?"

"Yes please."

They sat quietly together on a convenient rock, Daniel watching the frog while Gemma got to work. He wondered if it was a frog or a toad, but didn't want to disturb Gemma by asking. He got out his status tablet as he watched, figuring he could plan out a description for the frog in the notes section before putting it to paper. Rory and Gemma didn't seem to have much respect for books or paper, but Daniel didn't want to use them as standards for good behavior or common sense.

The frog was a normal earth size, thankfully, so it wasn't easy to make out all the details from where they were. Its skin was a green color, with black polka dots. When he noticed that the black spots were protruding, a part of his brain clicked and decided that made it a toad, not a frog. It probably didn't matter anymore if that was something he just made up or a memory from Earth, but it seemed right that lumpy meant toad. Warts and all. He tentatively put down river black lump toad as a name, figuring that might follow a convention. Daniel was hoping for it to show something more interesting. Maybe spit acid or some type of mind control ribbiting would be cool. Instead, it just seemed content to sunbathe, although it had slowly rotated itself so it was facing more in their direction.

Quick as a flash, the toad jumped forwards, not aiming for them but slightly to the side and upwards several feet. As it reached the apex of its jump, its mouth opened and a tongue shot out over towards a tree branch where a tiny bird was sitting. Daniel had sprawled over backward trying to follow the overhead motion, but as quick as the frog was Gemma was faster. Her hand had shot down and picked up a small stone, which she threw, hitting the toad mid-air just before its tongue could reach the bird.

"Jesus Christ Bananas!" Daniel cried as the bird flew off in a panic, not caring how nonsensical he probably sounded. Gemma did not seem particularly troubled as she walked over to where the toad now lay unmoving. But she did speak as she bent down to pick it up.

"I probably didn't need to do that. It startled me when it came towards us."

"Can everybody do that? With a rock?" Daniel asked.

"No they can't," she answered proudly, "I tend to put a lot of my points into Dexterity."

Daniel's eyes widened at that, considering. He could probably move at the same speed, given the practice to be that smooth in the situation. But the casual accuracy was beyond him.

"How high is your dexterity now?" he asked as Gemma came back to him. She looked up, about to answer, but then stopped herself.

"Let's talk about something else," she said, bringing the toad close so Daniel could see "It's only out cold, this should make it easier for you to get a good look at it."

Daniel inspected the toad, unable to find any sign of injury, although he guessed it was covered in lumps by default. He remembered a thunking sound when the stone hit, and touching one of the lumps, he thought he could tell why. They were made of some kind of wood. Toadwood, perhaps. The creature looked slimy, even the lumps, but touching it didn't bear that out. He would still rinse his hands in the river when he was done though, he'd just need to make certain to keep an eye out for any friends it had. The animals here were crazy. Gaining more confidence, he ran his hand over the skin, and then pulled a leg out and felt the muscles. Lying unconscious in Gemma's grip, It didn't seem too different to an Earth toad, toadwood lumps aside.

"Was that a jumping skill, do you think?" he asked Gemma.

"I do. It wouldn't have the strength for that otherwise."

Animals with skills and stats. It seemed it wasn't only weird plant parts that made them monsters beyond his expectations of normal animal behavior.

"You can put it back now I've seen enough," he told Gemma.

"You don't want to eat it?" They're pretty tasty."

"We spent too much time becoming friends with it to do that," Daniel protested. That plus it's gross. And it'd probably have splinters in it.

As Gemma put the toad back on its branch, he added to his notes on the animal. Then on the way back to the cottage, he read them out aloud so Gemma could check what he had so far. She seemed to think it was fine, apart from the name.

"It's forest not river, you can tell that from the lumps," she corrected, "and speaking of those if you have that as a skill it shouldn't be in the name."

"Because not all toads have them right?" he asked as they entered the junk-filled room again.

"Right. I've seen ones like this without."

She laid out the writing tools and the open notebook for Daniel in the cleared spot on the table. On the left page was an extremely detailed drawing of the toad on the branch. It made him think he should have been observing her work instead of the toad. He moved his status tablet so that it was floating in front of the book, ignoring the weird look he was getting from Gemma from his hands interacting with something that she couldn't see. He carefully copied his notes into the right-hand page, using block capitals and succeeding at avoiding wonky letters or inkblots.

> Forest Small Green Toad.

>

> Small toad with dark green skin that looks sticky but is surprisingly dry to the touch. The creature did not smell, and its skin was not toxic. Appears to enjoy sunbathing by forest streams. Diet includes small birds. Observed to hunt by ambush, surprising prey with a powerful jump and long extension of tongue.

>

> Both the jump and the tongue extension have been seen to reach several feet, probably due to a skill. Some of the toads have a skill granting small black wooden lumps to grow on their skin.

It didn't seem like a lot, but he probably would need to study more toads to find out more. He had kept things short, strictly sticking to what he had been able to observe, avoiding more evocative impressions to be more in line with the page about foxes. He had also agonised over a new name, but Gemma had given him one she said she picked at random, claiming the name wasn't important unless it had incorrect information in it.

When he was done writing, he noticed Gemma had been replaced with Rory, who was reading what he had written from over his shoulder.

"This is really great work, Anne," he said, lavishing on the praise, "I'm impressed. I think I can actually get some use of this. You'd be a great help if you ever want to do more of this. And Gemma was telling me how much she would love to get to spend more time with you."

Daniel wondered what angle Rory was playing at now. Who was the joke on this time? He had a suspicion it was on Gemma. Then, going to put away his status tablet with his mind, something else caught his eye.

"This would be a great help," he said slowly, thinking things through, "with your job for landtrust?"

"No, I told you it's ranger work. We learn about the animals in case monsters start showing up," he said, "Why would you ask that?"

"No reason," Daniel said, looking at his status.

> Compendium of Creepy Crawlies gained.