Lucinda was standing just outside the forest, giving herself one last chance to consider her choice of the day.

I think it has to be the giant spider. It’s dangerous, but it will also be dangerous when I can become it. Oh, I can just imagine the look on people’s faces when they threaten me and I turn into a terrifying giant spider!

Her path set, Lucinda started off into the forest. Unlike the previous day, she chose to enter from closer to the centre of the southern edge of the forest. She wasn’t entirely sure where the spider’s cave was located, but she was fairly sure it had been close to the centre.

About an hour later, Lucinda had still seen no sign of the river, when a sudden rustling from a large bush adjacent to her caught her attention. As she spun to investigate, a large form burst out from the foliage careening into her and sending her tumbling along the forest floor.

Regaining her bearings and preparing to defend herself, Lucinda relaxed slightly as she saw what had assaulted her. It was a large grey boar, much bigger than the one that had chased her away from the berry bush two days prior. She would have been more concerned, but the boar in question seemed much more interested in getting to the food stored within her pack – which had separated from her sometime during the collision – than attacking her.

As she considered what to do about the situation, two more boars burst out from the foliage. The two new arrivals were much smaller than the first boar, and looked more like juveniles. Lucinda’s annoyance quickly faded away as she realised the larger boar was simply trying to get food for its young.

“You could have just asked…” she called out softly.

Getting to her feet and dusting herself off, Lucinda began projecting her emotions towards the larger boar, trying to erase any concerns it might have about her presence.

Well, I was after spiders, but this is too good an opportunity to pass up.

Lucinda slowly approached the large boar, carefully watching its reaction as she got closer. But, even as she drew near enough to touch the hungry animal, it didn’t seem to pay her much attention. The same couldn’t be said for the one of the two younger boars, who had begun rubbing its head against her legs.

Feeling more confident after her time with the deer, Lucinda reached for her pack that the larger boar was still trying to get into. It reacted as she started to pull it away from its mouth, sending a loud grunt in her direction, before trying to push her away. Lucinda managed to keep hold of her pack, and quickly pulled out the food the boar could no doubt smell.

Unwilling to risk hand-feeding the large animal, Lucinda simply unwrapped the nuts and tossed them onto the ground. The boars quickly pounced on the food, snarfing it down in mere moments, before turning back to her with an expectant look.

“Sorry, that’s all I have,” she replied spreading her arms wide.

The large boar began sniffing her and her pack, clearly unconvinced. Lucinda endured a brief prodding by the animal’s snout, before it realised there was no more food to have. With nothing to keep it interested, the boar soon decided to head elsewhere, with the two younger boars following closely behind. Rather than just follow them, Lucinda decided on a different strategy.

“Hey, wait,” Lucinda called out, though her words seemed to have no effect on the trio of boars.

Lucinda’s idea was a bit of a long shot and not something she’d attempted before. But, since learning of her innate ability, she’d been considering how she’d used it in the past and decided to try something new. Typically, she always tried to project an emotion, but when she thought about what that actually meant it wasn’t exactly clear. In the end, she’d realised that maybe she could just project any old thought, and this was a good a chance as any to try it. So she began trying to project the idea of food, specifically from a tree bearing chestnuts she had seen earlier.

To her surprise, the boar immediately came running over to her and began sniffing her again, causing her to burst into laughter as the animal’s nose prodded her all over even more thoroughly than before.

“Stop that!” she said, trying to control her laughter.

As the boar finally let up, Lucinda realised that while her idea had worked, it wasn’t quite enough to get across what she wanted. Instead, she tried to project the idea of having the boars follow her as she slowly backed away from them, but this was less successful and the larger boar soon lost interest in her.

Changing tact, Lucinda again focussed on projecting the idea of food, but this time she gently started pulling on the snout of the large boar, while verbally asking it to follow her. It took a while for the boar to give in to her suggestion, but eventually it began moving towards her on command. She didn’t think for a minute it was suddenly tame, rather it was simply putting two and two together: There was food, and she would take the boar to it.

Lucinda began leading the boar and its two young towards the chestnut tree. It took longer than she’d expected as the large boar kept losing interest in her, instead focusing its attention on sniffing various foliage. But, with some effort, Lucinda eventually managed to reach the tree in question with all three boars trailing behind her.

The tree wasn’t particularly tall, allowing Lucinda to reach a sturdy enough branch and begin shaking the tree, prompting the chestnuts within to begin falling around her, which the boars immediately started investigating with their snouts.

Lucinda watched them for a moment, but quickly realised they weren’t having much luck removing the prickly outer casing of the fallen chestnuts. Instead, she opted to help them out by prying them apart with her knife. She quickly set up a steady rhythm of chestnut opening, and the larger boar even realised what she was about, nudging some of the fallen objects towards her.

Before long it seemed the larger boar had decided it was time for a nap, as it unceremoniously lay down and closed its eyes. The two smaller boars continued running around energetically for a while, never straying too far from their parent, before they too decided to get some rest.

Sitting down against the chestnut tree, Lucinda kept watch over the sleeping boars, gently stroking one of the smaller ones that had decided to sleep with its head on her lap, and despite the early hour, the peacefulness of the situation soon had her dozing off too.

She awoke sometime later as the boar in her lap twitched violently in its sleep. Not much more than an hour had passed as best she could tell looking up through the canopy at the position of the sun. Extricating herself from the sleeping animal carefully, Lucinda got up and stretched off her sleepiness.

Now what kind of traits do boars possess? A penchant for consuming any and all food they come across? I’m not sure that will be of much use to me…

With little else to do, but wait, Lucinda settled back down next to the boars. But, before long her waiting was interrupted by the sound of leaves crunching nearby under the foot of something.

Turning to find the cause, Lucinda saw a young man whom she vaguely recognised as a fellow town dweller. Unable to recall the man’s name, Lucinda called out a general greeting.

“Hello,” she said.

“You! You’re real! My eyes did not deceive me!?” the man replied.

Oh… what’s wrong with him? He sounds half-mad.

“Are you okay? Did something happen to you?”

“No! I won’t hear the words of one such as you. Keep your foulness to yourself!”

“Please, calm down. I’m not sure what you are saying.”

“Aiieeeee! Silence! I must tell the others. Warn them of this despicableness!”

Before Lucinda could attempt a response to the man’s rambling he turned tail and fled. Leaving her in a state of complete bafflement.

What was that about?

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

She pondered the man’s words for a while longer, but soon noticed the boars had woken up, likely disturbed by the conversation that had just taken place. Pushing the bizarre event out of her mind, Lucinda got up and moved over to the large boar. She’d had an amusing idea before the young man had shown up, and now that large boar was awake, she wanted to test her luck.

Doing her best to send out calming thoughts, Lucinda carefully scrambled onto the back of the large boar. It was more than large enough to carry her, and she managed to reach the highest point of its fur-covered back without too much difficulty. Content her action wasn’t upsetting or hurting the animal, Lucinda got comfortable before letting loose a command for her new friend.

“Onwards!” she cried.

Unfortunately, the boar didn’t really react to her wish, even when she tried projecting the thought using her innate ability. As she continued sitting on her not so trusty steed, the boar decided to continue onwards of its own accord before long.

Lucinda was initially sitting upon the boar’s back, but soon had to adjust her positions so she was lying on her front, when she began being beset by tree branches, which the boar naturally did not try and avoid.

Well, this is kind of pointless and impractical, but I can’t say it isn’t fun.

The party of boars meandered through the forest, without any discernible purpose as far as Lucinda could tell. Eventually, by intent or coincidence, they reached the river, and as the boars started drinking Lucinda got down from her furry seat.

“Thank you for your hard work,” she said, gently patting the head of the drinking animal.

Just as Lucinda went to refill her own waterskin, she received a new status notification.

You have cleared stage 2 of 3 for class unlock: Shifter

“Yes!” she cried out, eliciting some snorts from the boars.

Only one more to go… And then I can become a Shifter! As soon as my birthday comes around at least. Just three more days…

Her work for the day complete, Lucinda said farewell to her boar friends and made her way south towards the entrance of the forest. The boars followed her for a bit, before deciding to go their own way as she got closer to the forest edge.

As she emerged from the forest, Lucinda realised it was slightly earlier in the day than she had expected. Thinking about how to spend the unexpected free time, Lucinda suddenly recalled the strange young man she had met in the forest.

Maybe I should ask around, and see if anyone saw him. Although, I suppose some time has passed since then… I suppose I can ask at the temple.

With some reluctance, Lucinda made her way towards the centre of town where the temple resided. She hadn’t set foot in the building since she’d stopped working there a few days prior, and she had thought that might remain the case for a while longer.

Just inside the doorway, she found one of the Clerics waiting to greet temple visitors.

“Hello Lucinda, this is a pleasant surprise!” a tall and thin woman named Heather, greeted her.

“Hi Heather, how are things?”

“Oh, well enough. It’s been mostly quiet, honestly. Is there something you need from the temple this fine day?”

“Yes actually, did you happen to admit a young man into the temple earlier?”

“Hmm, can you give me more details? We’ve had a few male visitors today.”

“Umm, I think he was about medium height, a bit lanky, with brown hair. But, more importantly, he seemed a bit addled. He was raving about… well, I’m not sure what really.”

“Oh my, that doesn’t sound good. I’m sure we haven’t had anyone like that in today, I’d remember certainly. You might want to inform the militia instead. If he’s still out there he could be a danger.”

“Ah, yes, maybe I should. Well, thanks for the help.”

“Not a problem, I just hope the poor man can be found and helped.”

After bidding the Cleric farewell, Lucinda headed in the direction of the militia building, which like the temple was situated in the centre of town, just opposite the town square in fact. The building itself was a large stone building, with an almost flat slate roof, and outside stood a neatly dressed man wearing the standard militia uniform, and holding a halberd.

“Hello,” she said to the man as she approached.

“Hello Lass, something troubling you?” the man replied in a gruff voice.

“Yes, you could say that. Earlier today, I met a young man who seemed to be a bit off. He was ranting about strange things, and well I thought it best to let you know, in case he was still out there.”

“That is troubling,” the militiaman responded with a pensive look. “I don’t believe we’ve had any ravers delivered to us today. I’ll pass the word around the patrols and I’m sure he’ll turn up soon enough. Thank you kindly for the information.”

“My pleasure,” said Lucinda with a smile.

Content the situation would be solved, Lucinda made her way back home. It was still over an hour before her mother would return from the temple, so she decided to spend the time trying to coax more birds onto her window sill.

She’d managed to attract the attention of several different birds before she heard her mother return home, two small ones and a large plump sea bird. Reminding herself to sneak more seed up to her room before she ran out, she went downstairs to help her mother with dinner.

“Hi, Mother, how was work?”

“Hi Honey, it was quite pleasant thank you. We have a new apprentice Cleric just starting with us, her parents moved here only a few months back.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Lucinda replied, feeling somewhat guilty as she was reminded of her own departure from her role at the temple.

“Yes, she’s a bright young girl. I think she’ll do well. How about you? Did things go well?”

Lucinda told her mother about her time spent with the trio of boars, focussing her tale on the rather fun experience of riding the larger boar through the forest.

“Goodness me, I admit that sounds like an enjoyable experience. I hope you were careful though, boars can be quite dangerous.”

“They were very friendly. I don’t think I had anything to worry about. Oh…” said Lucinda, as she suddenly realised she’d neglected to mention her recent discovery. “I forgot to tell you, Waflaw, he’s the Druid that’s teaching me, discovered I have an innate ability that lets me influence animals.”

“That’s wonderful!” her mother replied. “I had no idea. But, no wonder you’ve had such little trouble within the forest.”

“Yes, it has helped a lot I think. Waflaw also mentioned these sorts of things are passed down from parent to child. Did we have a Druid in the family?”

“I suppose I should come clean…” her mother began. “My mother, your grandmother, was a Druid. I meant to tell you sooner, but I just couldn’t find the right moment.”

“Why have you never told me about her?”

“Well, she was a bit at odds with the law,” her mother continued, speaking quietly and casting a glance at the window as she did. “And that’s putting it mildly. I don’t think she was a bad person, though I’m sure there are likely others that would disagree.”

Lucinda was stunned. Not only was her grandmother a Druid, but apparently an outlaw of some kind. It was almost unthinkable, as her own parents were both law-abiding citizens and devout Clerics in service of a benevolent God.

“Wow, I don’t know what to say…”

“Promise me you won’t tell anyone. I haven’t even told your father.”

“What… Really?” Lucinda stammered out in response, receiving a second shock in just a few short minutes.

“I know, it’s silly really. I meant to tell him about it years ago, but I kept putting it off back then too. Maybe once this business with the arsonists is over, I’ll find the time. Anyway, let’s get started on dinner.”

Lucinda helped her mother prepare a simple but hearty dinner, which they eventually sat down to eat when Lucinda’s father returned home from the temple. Lucinda chose not to retell her experiences of the day for her father’s benefit, as she was sure he wasn’t interested. Instead, she recalled her encounter with the strange young man.

“I met a young man today in the forest, but he was very strange. He seemed delusional, and ranted on about something before fleeing back towards town. I asked around when I returned later, but no one had seen him.” said Lucinda.

“Indeed?” her father responded. “I hope you reported this to the militia, that’s something for them to handle.”

“Yes Father, I did. They said they would keep an eye out for him.”

“Good, and I’m glad you’re not hurt.”

“Did you recognise him?” her mother asked.

“Not really. I’m sure I’ve seen him in town before, but I can’t recall his name or what he does.”

“Oh well, hopefully, he doesn’t do anyone any harm in the meantime.”

Conversation flicked to various other topics as dinner continued. After the meal, Lucinda tidied away the mess and retired to her room. As was now typical, she repacked her pack and went straight to bed. She fell asleep before long and was beset by strange dreams filled with giant spiders.