They went about trying to find Faian but seemingly out of nowhere, Eztari appeared once more. The man suggested they instead find the camp's Huntmaster, the man in charge of organising hunts and foraging in the local area. It was a joint effort between the Huntmaster and the quartermaster that meant all the soldiers and camp workers were well fed.

“I’ve heard he actually has been having a little bit of a problem recently that you might be able to help him with,” Eztari said as they walked.

“Oh?” Zalia said, interested.

A chance to build some more goodwill with the soldiers and army around them was an opportunity she would take. Couldn't hurt, right?

“Yeah, some thief has been stealing food and no one can track or find the damn criminal. You lot are supposed to be excellent hunters, maybe you can,” Eztari explained.

“Worth a look,” Zalia said.

Neither Zen or Ember said anything and she assumed Indis agreed with her thoughts. The woman would have spoken up otherwise.

They ended up on the other side of camp where something akin to an entire kitchen was set up. It was a mostly outdoors affair, various large kilns, fires, benches and other cooking stations were set up under a large waterproofed cover. Under the cover a few chefs organised and ordered around a whole host of soldiers, the men and women running around preparing various ingredients in anticipation of the quickly waking camp of hungry soldiers. In the centre of the whirlwind of action stood two people, a man and a woman, who were writing and talking over several books and sheets of paper.

“Just in there,” Eztari said, pointing to the man and woman Zalia had spotted.

She looked dubiously at the quickly moving storm of people rushing around in the space.

“Should we wait until they’re free?” Ember asked, looking similarly dubious.

“Oh I think you may end up waiting a very long time if you do that. No, just go and talk to them now,” Eztari said.

“You’re not going to introduce us?” Indis askes, obviously detecting something in the man's words and tone.

“Good luck!” he said before fading into the camp once more.

“Sooo, who wants to go in there?” Zalia asked.

All of them turned to Indis who just sighed,

“Only because all three of you suck at talking to people,” she muttered.

They watched as Indis walked into the people blender that the camp kitchen was. She was pushed around and had to struggle and shove through the mess towards the centre. After a minute or so and half a bowl of soup spilt on her arm, Indis finally made it to the centre. They watched as she quickly spoke to the two organisers and pointed back towards them before saying something more. Both of the people listened and once Indis was done talking, conversed shortly before nodding. The man put down the paper he was holding and made his way towards Zalia, Zen and Ember. Unlike Indis, the man barely struggled to move through the crowd as people noticed him and moved out of his way as fast as possible. Indis quickly followed in his footsteps, using the path he created to make her way out as well. The man who approached looked well into his fifties with greying hair and weathered skin. He was somewhat short and wore simple work clothes but despite the toughened and weathered appearance had a kindly expression on his face.

“Greetins, I heard you lot wanted to volunteer ya help,” he said.

Much like his appearance, the man’s voice was rough but kind.

“We heard you have been having a theft problem?” Zalia said inquisitively.

“Ay, some rascals have been having a heyday with our supplies. Makes feeding this lot a real pain in my ass,” he said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder.

“We can imagine, would you mind showing us where you keep your supplies?” Indis asked.

“Ay, I can do that. We’ve had plenty of our men lookin around to see what they can see but nothin so far. Might be you lot can find something we can’t, being in the profession and whatnot,” he said.

He turned on the spot and began leading them towards an area around the other side of the kitchen area.

“Started about the time we set up this damned camp, some of the lads reckon it's forest spirits stealin our supplies but I've seen cheeky sods pull all kinds of tricks claimin spirits before, I ain’t tricked by it,” he explained as they walked.

“How do you know it isn’t spirits?” Zalia asked.

“Spirits don't want no food lassy, they have no need for it. If they wanted us gone from their forests there are much easier ways they could be about it,” he replied.

“Fair enough,” Zalia said.

They then arrived at a large storehouse that was sat on the other side of the kitchen area to where they had first arrived. It was somewhat near the wall of the camp so Zalia could definitely see it possible that something from the forest was making it's way into the camp to take food.

“Any ideas what is taking the supplies?” she asked.

“Not one. Whatever it is only takes fresh meat from our hunts and only at night. We’ve tried postin guards but they either don't see nothin or end up claimin spirits in the morn. Bloody sods probably fell asleep at the post,” he said, still maintaining a cheery and kind expression despite the scathing words. The two guards standing by the door looked down at their boots.

“We’ll see what we can find,” Indis promised.

“I’ve no doubt about it,” he said in reply, before unlocking the door and leaving them to it.

“Lock up behind ya,” he called out as he walked off.

“That was the Huntmaster encase you didn't catch on,” Indis told them.

“Yeah, thought as much,” Ember said.

“Should we have a look around?” Zalia asked.

“Yeah, split up and see if we can find anything,” Zen agreed.

“Hunt” Zalia thought towards Boreal.

“Hunt!” an enthusiastic reply came into her mind.

Boreal began walking around the building and Zalia went another direction, focusing on her Hunter’s sight passive. It would passively work without her conscious thought but when it came to very subtle tracks it definitely worked better when she focused. She first walked around the outside of the building, carefully examining the ground as the rest of her team went inside the building. She did a full circle of the building, finding plenty of tracks, just none that seemed suspicious. The biggest issue would be the fact that it was a busy area, especially each morning as breakfast was prepared for the waking camp. This meant that there were the tracks of many soldiers and cooks around the area. Even with her newly improved sight from Boreal’s shared passive she was still not able to find anything. She went inside the building just as Boreal trotted up to her, looking a little annoyed,

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Find anything?” she asked the others.

Indis and Ember shook their heads.

“An apple,” Zen said, chewing.

She sighed at him.

Zalia and Boreal joined the hunt inside, inspecting each corner and print they could find. She was about to give up on this path and suggest they wait until night to see if they could catch something when Boreal meowed. She turned to look at her and found Boreal looking up towards the ceiling. She looked up and saw in one of the corners that a piece of meat appeared to be stuck halfway inside the thatched roof.

“What the,” Zalia murmured, “hey guys, come look at this.”

The others came over and looked at it as well.

“They’re slipping through the roof somehow?” Zen asked.

“Looks that way, though it looks like it's almost… a part of the roof,” Zalia replied.

She frowned,

“Hey come outside and give me a boost,” she told Zen.

They went outside and with the help of Zen and her single air step managed to jump up onto the roof of the building. What she found was both surprising and what she expected. The piece of meat was half sticking out of the roof on top as well. She tried to move it but it was like it had become a part of the thatching. She nimbly jumped back down to the others,

“Yep, sticks out of the top. It's almost like it got half phased through the roof before getting stuck again,” she explained.

“Hmm,” Indis said.

“I have heard of some creatures with the ability to move through solid objects, like spirits,” Ember said.

“I was thinking just the same thing,” Indis added.

Zalia looked up to the ceiling and then to the nearest wall. It was about fifteen metres, a jump she would have previously thought impossible but with her newfound strength and abilities she could probably do it herself at this point. She walked towards the closest part of the wall, carefully inspecting the ground as she went. She found nothing and moved back towards the others who were looking at her oddly,

“Sorry, I thought I would check for tracks. I’m thinking they might be jumping from the wall to the roof then phasing through somehow,” she explained.

“It's possible, might be tracks on the other side of the wall. We could check it out if you want,” Indis said. It seemed she was coming to trust Zalia’s intuition.

“Wouldn't the camp watch up on those towers have seen anyone jumping over the wall?” Zen protested.

But Zalia was already moving, she ran towards the wall and jumped as high as she could, using her air step to reach the top of the wall with her arms and haul herself up on top of it. She grinned down at the others,

“Be right back!” she called down, before jumping over the other side of the wall.

“Zalia!” Indis protested.

She landed lightly in a crouch on the grass, now on the other side of the wall. She looked around carefully, focusing on the ground and the marks on it. Going slightly further out she finally found something. It was the footprints of a four legged creature with giant paws, except the imprints were much less deep then she would expect them to be. She frowned at the tracks inspecting them, the ones closer to the fence were slightly deeper indicating the creature had jumped at that point. She wasn't surprised the camp's men hadn’t been able to see the tracks, she barely could with her years of experience and abilities focused on this exact task. She turned around and with a run-up, leapt up to grasp the top of the wall and haul herself over again. She jumped back down, landing gently to see Indis glaring at her,

“Oh yeah, some kind of animal is jumping the wall alright,” she said.

Indis gave her a pointed look.

“Hey!,” she protested.

“Good find,” Ember said, trying not to laugh.

Boreal meowed at Zalia indignantly, annoyed at having been left out of the trip over the wall.

“Don't worry little one, we’ll be going out there in a minute anyways,” she soothed.

“I don't think Boreal can understand you Zalia,” Zen said.

“I’m pretty sure Boreal is more intelligent than you Zen,” Zalia retorted.

“Anyways, let’s go around the other side of the wall since the rest of us can't jump it,” Indis interrupted.

“Sure, see you there,” Zalia replied.

“Oh no you don’t,” Indis said, but it was too late.

Zalia had scooped up Boreal and put her on her shoulders, running and jumping the wall once more.

She closely inspected each track and tried to determine why a creature with such large paws would leave such little indent in it's tracks. Eventually, Indis, Zen and Ember came up from around the side of the wall.

“See the tracks, here and here,” Zalia said, pointing them out.

Indis was giving her some pretty poisonous stink eye but they all looked at the tracks she pointed out anyways.

“Bloody hell Zalia, I can barely see those even when you point them out,” Ember said appreciatively.

“Let’s track them shall we?” she asked.

“Sure, how many of them are there do you think?” Zen asked.

“Not sure, it's quite hard to tell. It looks like one most of the time but sometimes… maybe two,” Zalia replied.

It was quite hard to see but she thought the creatures might actually be intelligent enough to walk in each other's tracks, looking like one creature. Added to the fact that they left such light imprints meant it could be one, two or three and she wouldn't be able to tell. What her ability did still manage to tell her however was that the creatures had come not so long ago, having come maybe four or five hours ago.

The tracking took a long time. Thankfully, they had left in the morning and had a lot of daylight left but still, even with Zalia’s skill it was difficult. She kept having to backtrack, sometimes having to search the nearby area as the tracks simply vanished. Each time however, they managed to find the track once more and finally after an hour, she was able to apply her mark to the creature. This helped greatly as she could determine the general direction of the creature which meant she could find the next sets of tracks much easier than before. Zen, Ember and Indis were of basically no help in tracking but she had expected nothing else considering the difficulty even she had. Boreal surprised her though, managing a couple times to find the next set of tracks before her a few times. Finally, after four and a half hours of tracking over the time of which they had to stop for Zen to eat once more. Apparently as Zalia had to eat less and less each day the large front line warrior had to eat more and more.

Zalia knew they found what they were looking for as the sky above them began to darken by some magic. Zalia gestured for her team to be quiet and stay where they were as she slowly and carefully moved up and over the small ridge ahead. She began crawling until she could see over the other side.

Over the ridge sat a small pool that glittered like it was reflecting the stars. The sky above had gone dark and though the sun could still be seen it's light had been reduced to that of the moons. There was a clearing around the pool, the space occupied by various sized stones upon which the creatures she had been tracking laid. Some sleeping on the stones, some walking around, were large wolf-like creatures. Each creature was translucent, as if not quite real with stars sparkling in their coats of thick fur much like the pool they surrounded. The entire clearing was surrounded by the large ridge that Zalia now peaked over with thick trees that grew into an almost wall-like defense for the area. She had a feeling that without her Hunter’s mark ability she would not have been able to find this place. As she looked closer, a stone deep within the pool was reflecting light like it was mirrored, emitting a soft light in the darkness of the water. Her initial thought of there being around one or two of the creatures was obviously very wrong with the sight of a dozen or more of them visible in the clearing, with more possibly away or hidden. She very slowly and quietly moved back away and to her team.

As she arrived back where her team was, she signaled that they should move away and so they did. Only once the sky was normal once more did she dare speak,

“We have a little bit of a problem, I don't think we can deal with this alone,” she told them.

Seeing Indis’ frown, she explained what she had seen, the pool, the sky, the wolf-like creatures and how many there were.

“Did you manage to see what rank any of them were?” Indis asked.

Zalia shook her head,

“Didn't want to get close enough to see, too dangerous,” she replied.

“We should definitely get some help then, not worth the risk,” Ember said.

Zen and Indis also agreed and so they made their way back towards the war camp. As they moved quickly through the forest, Zalia’s thoughts were stuck on the ethereal beauty of the creatures she had seen.

“It would be a shame to kill them,” she thought.

And in thinking that, she realised that she didn't want to. There was something about the creatures that her mind told her not to disturb them, that in a way they were on her side. She pondered those thoughts as they went, trying to come to a decision.