A month had passed since the encounter with the Black Boar. Each cub had just about doubled in size, and the plumage covering the back of their front legs had grown nicely. Mother, having spent the month teaching and guiding them, seemed to decide that her children were finally ready to gain some independence. She called their attention with a soft bark, and when they were all looking she indicated towards them and gave the signal to start a hunt.

Mother had previously led them on an expedition to find some rabbits and while spectating allowed them to do most of the work, correcting what she deemed wrong as she watched them try their hand at it. The 7 of them managed to catch 13 rabbits in total, and she, the youngest of them, had even managed to catch 3 on her own. Before sending them off, their mother divided them into two groups, one containing the 3 that showed the most aptitude, and the other containing the 4 weaker members of the pack. This hunting configuration is the way that Chamrosh cubs usually hunt, one smaller group containing the strongest members of the den, and one larger group containing the normal and weaker ones. Having apparently displayed sufficient ability, the youngest was placed in the group of 3. She was with one of her brothers, who had dark red fur, black plumage, and blue eyes, and one of her two sisters who had light red fur, black plumage, and yellow eyes. She got along with all of her siblings and felt that these 2 in particular would make a good team.

They set off towards the stream, where they had been led on the day of their birth, without a clear objective for what they intended to find. Spotting something ahead the youngest dashe forward, it was a pair of large footprints in the mud embedded in a soft patch of ground. She sniffed at it, and recognized the lingering stench, it belonged to a bear. On one of their previous adventures, they had all seen one, a huge dark bear with piercing yellow eyes. It had been the first time that the then hatchlings had seen their mother cower in fear, and one appraisal of it’s status made it clear that it was fully warranted. It’s stats were nearly double that of mother’s reaching a total of 2628, it was not a foe that they could hope to defeat or even escape, so they hid in some nearby brambles until it left.

Taking this as a sign not to go that way the trio took a path perpendicular to the direction of the steps. As they walked they saw very few signs of life in the area, there was a faint unpleasant scent in the air that only got stronger as they forged ahead. Further down the path they walked there were markings on the trees, strange symbols were carved into their trunks. The youngest examined them, she of course did not know what they meant, but got the distinct impression that it was some kind of territorial marking. They continued cautiously, careful not to be seen or heard by whatever had made the markings, when finally they saw them. A group of 5 small green bipedal figures, staring at something on the ground, poking and prodding at it with thick branches. The young monsters looked at one another and came to a silent agreement that this would be their first prey. As was automatic from birth all 3 cubs had immediately done an appraisal on the “goblins” the moment they made visual contact.

Name

Tak

Species

Knave (goblin) level 9

Age

4 years

Rank

Fox (202)

Job

Warrior

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STR

33

INT

18

AGI

25

END

44

DEF

21

MAG

9

ADT

36

LCK

16

This was new, she had never seen anything with a “level” before, nor had any previous status displayed that “job” thing. Though this did not dissuade her nor did it seem to bother her siblings. Each of the “goblins” had low enough stats that only 2 of the 3 cubs would have been sufficient to handle them. Their endurance and adaptivity stats were a little bit worrisome, but their average strength, low intelligence, and abysmal magic, made the group of little green men laughably weak in her eyes.

Her brother made the first move, he opened his mouth and shot a shard of blackness from his maw. He was so far the only cub out of the 7 that could use magic, unlike mother who preferred fire, earth, and decay magic, he seemed to be primarily proficient in dark magic. The bolt impacted one of the goblins in the back of the head, causing it to collapse, unmoving but still alive. Naturally the remaining 4 knaves noticed, and quickly readied themselves for combat. Three of them held large sticks, which she deduced were used for bludgeoning, and one was holding what seemed to be a slate of tree trunk. She made the next move, sprinting forward, closing the distance between herself and her prey instantly. She swiped the eyes of one of them and then the throat of another before quickly jumping back to avoid a nasty hit from one of the clubs. 3 goblins left standing. Her sister, the sibling with the highest strength attribute, reached the fray and finished off the goblin who was now missing its sight, before delivering a swift kick with her hind leg to the one carrying the trunk. As it turned out though, the purpose of this trunk was to block attacks, the force from the kick pushed it back but did not actually do any damage. The bolt of shadow that zoomed towards it several seconds later was similarly ineffective as it too just sunk right into the shield. Having observed these 2 failures, she decided to try something, she swung her front leg not at the goblin but at the side of the barrier it held, blowing its defenses wide open. Not one to hesitate she immediately took advantage of the vulnerable position her opponent was now in and sunk her fangs deep into its neck. In the meantime her siblings had finished off the final goblin and thus they had won.

Still feeling proud of themselves after their battle, they inspected their work. They would have to leave 2 of their prey behind since they could each only drag one knave, so in turn they selected the goblin they would take back to the den. She had decided on the one who had the shield as he was the toughest opponent out of the five. Once everyone had the arm or leg of their chosen prey firmly within his or her jaws, they began the trek back to the nest.

They arrived back to see that the party of 4 had returned first, it seemed that they had found some weird large rat things with long legs that she had never seen before. Mother dashed over to the freshly arrived trio and began sniffing, licking, and just generally fawning over them. Once she apparently felt satisfied that they were all unharmed, mom finally glanced at the prey they had brought back and seemed a little bit impressed. Kita stared at the goblins inspecting their corpses for the battle damage and nuzzled her cubs as if to say “good job”. Filled with a fresh sense of pride after being praised by mother, she went over to greet her other siblings. The thing they had caught had been torn up pretty badly, it seemed that they had all worked together to whittle it down and then jointly dragged its body back to the den.

After eating her fill, she and her siblings crawled down into the burrow that served as their bed, and went to sleep. Tired from the events of the day, they may have been ready to hunt on their own, but they were still little and all that hard work had taken its toll.