The badger’s spiritual body broke apart on the ground, coins rolled along the ground oozing out of the body. Fox changed form into human, and picked up those coins since he was close, then he walked over to the other coins and picked them up.

There were a total of twelve coins of one type and eleven coins of another type. He just put them in his pants that formed as soon as he fully formed to a form that could wear them. The rest of us followed his example and formed back into humans so we could talk.

Brown-face asked, "Hey alpha, what just came out of them?"

Fox answered, "Spirit coins, there are two types and we got some of each. Don't worry about it, for now, there weren't many, and we just disbursed the first spirit to come and be interested in being a totem for us. This is another lesson for you Brown-face and the rest of you, the spirits are most often testing us. Something that might seem basic as a spirit going to a watering hole could be one of the biggest tests of your life."

We stood at attention and answered as we always did in near unison, "Yes alpha."

Fox continued, "That spirit might not have been the most powerful, and wasn’t so impressive, but it was deciding whether we might be able to work together, now we won't know. To tell you the truth, I would like something a little more versatile than a badger, but we will figure something out. Most often there is a spiritual quest to go through to make sure there might be compatibility."

Minutes passed, many more still, and we sat by the lake again, listening to the sounds of the spirit world. Allowing it to take us in, to whirl around us. The wind around us was a gray color, slightly foggy and cool as always. We could tell when there would be a chill in the air when it was a light blue, and a bit warmer when it was more orange in tint.

Monkey-feet was fidgeting the least for some reason. She rubbed her arms up and down as though doing something such as killing that spirit had a sort of cleansing effect and took away some jitters. It also might be the calming that tasting a spirit that breaks apart in your mouth gives you a taste of their spiritual energy, but who knows?

Our first real fight against a spirit was successful, we had gotten some coins, but nothing else nifty dropped from them, we hoped perhaps we could meet more badgers. Perhaps more would show up so we can practice killing them?

The spirit who scored us showed up, possibly an hour of us waiting, we didn’t have watches and there was no sun so we couldn’t tell. The vibe around us was so calming, but we easily heard the spirit walking up on its humanoid bare feet. It pointed with the board it had towards a direction along the beach, and a cave started to peel away from the grass and mud. It stretched and bulked up like it was waking up after an afternoon nap. It stretched at the top into a point at first, then yawned back down as though it was closing its mouth, just tall enough for even Fox to walk through.

The spirit was looking at the board it had and it was walking towards, then onto the lake. It walked the surface of the lake for nearly fifty yards staring at the board when it finally looked up, realizing where it was. It dropped into the water, just realizing gravity works just as well. It didn't surface again.

The teens wondered if we should be worried about the spirit, but we looked over at our alpha who was already walking along the beach toward the cave entrance, so we followed.

The yawning cave entrance looked like it was grown right from the ground, as though a huge spirit dug its fingers into the earth and raised it for us to walk in. Rocks fell to the ground as we walked up, a root from a close-by tree wrapped back towards the wall since it had become loose in the air. Young insect spirits poked their heads out into the open area not expecting it but ducked their heads back after seeing it and the humanoids coming towards them.

I remember the feeling when we walked under the cave entrance, my skin crawled from the critters that were above us, and likely under us as well.

Fox let us know, "I was told this once before, bug spirits are good food. You never know if you need to survive in the spirit world for some time, we might help you survive in a pinch."

Being told that didn't change the shiver crawling at the back of my neck. Each of us brushed the top of our thick hairs pushing away imagined bugs that had not dropped, I walked along also fascinated that bugs were all over, and wondered how they tasted. There probably were many more bug spirits than animals, just like in the material realm.

We continued to walk down the tunnel for about fifty yards, we had gone a bit underground, the tunnel turning a couple of times, but no winding tunnels to lose ourselves.

After the first length, there were some smaller tunnels leading off to the side. Being a bit shorter, some beady eyes looked back at us when we looked down. Brown-face nudged Tree-shredder with his elbow, then started to form into a wolf, T.S. followed him into the other form, but Fox darted over before they went down the tunnel.

Our red-haired alpha grabbed an ear of each and yanked hard before they went down the tunnel. He whispered, "You two have got to be kidding me, do you not realize where we are? We are in a den. Don't you smell that?"

The two boys sniffed up into the air.

Fox continued, "That is a larger badger you smell, and whatever it is, might not appreciate you going after their younger spirits. Don't go after them, just wait until we know why we are here."

We continued down the tunnel, it didn't slope downward far, but it was further than we expected. There were another four tunnels that were little areas of beady eyes, but each of the next times, those eyes vanished through the dirt.

From what I could figure, we might have gone perhaps a hundred yards total before we felt the ground partially rumbling.

A large honey badger at the height of Fox standing tall, but larger going deeper into the tunnel trudged towards us with big paws, claws that put ours to shame, and a pointed snout, sniffing around as it walked up. It did not attack first, we hoped it wouldn’t. The smaller badgers did give us some trouble, but mostly because they were smaller. This was much larger and also likely meaner.

Its white fur along the top was caked with mud, it had some bugs jumping off back into the walls if we had the time. Its body had been scraping them from the cave walls naturally. A worm was much too slow as the badger showed much more dexterity compared to the rest of its form, scratched it off of a shoulder, and scooped it up into its mouth with its tongue. It chewed the worm into pieces looking at each of the werewolves in its den, hoping we wouldn’t be as easily broken apart in its sharp jaws.

With a high pitch, uncharacteristically high for a large badger, it squeaked out, "Jailers... angry. Reason?" It growled at them.

Fox asked, "You angry, why? Reason?"

The badger squeaked loudly back, "Young!"

Fox attempted to reason what it meant, likely meaning it did not appreciate us killing its young, so this thing's young ones could be spirit totems. The other badgers weren’t honey badgers, but we must have been within the same family. Likely meant it was fairly powerful.

The two wolf teens walked to either side of Fox and growled at the spirit, and Fox put a hand over each of their muzzles.

Fox called out to the much larger spirit than them. "We’re sorry, they hurt us also, how can we make it nice?"

Monkey-feet was a little freaked out that a huge spirit beast was in front of us, but I remember my smile from ear to ear. Putting my hand out, I walked up slowly like I was foolish enough to pet it. A high-pitched growl came out of the giant of a badger and it looked back at Fox, it asked in tone, "What?" It looked back at me.

Monkey-feet grabbed an arm and pulled back whispering, "Don't, what is wrong with you? This isn't a pet, look at it, it could take a good chunk out of you easily."

Trying to put his fingers on hers, I tried to pull away, but her grip was sturdy, it even pinched my arm a bit. He said, "Okay, okay, let me go." She released me.

The badger swished its head from side to side, thinking for nearly five seconds and deciding something, it squeaked out, "Predator.... bird... stop."

Fox asked, "Stop? Stop what? Is it attacking you and your children? Stop it from flying? We can try."

The badger spirit stood there and waited without response. Fox asked, "Where has the bird been?"

The badger responded, "Other side."

Fox bowed slightly not letting his eyes leave the badger's, he slowly walked back and grabbed the two wolves by the hairy coat, and pulled them back. The pack followed his lead out of the cave, looking down the small pockets of space to the sides, we saw no more eyes looking back at them, just very small holes leading away from the larger ones. We walked at a quick pace to get out of the cave, when we all left the mouth of the cave, it slowly closed and the ground melded together like there was no spiritual entrance.

Fox called out, "Back to the material realm, we need bows."

Part of our training has been with bows. The most skilled with us has been Brown-face, which is often why he was excited when we practiced it. This time he got to try to kill something with it, which also seemed to have him thrilled.

Fox told them, “Three of us will be with bows, the others will be wolves on the ground to chase and attack as soon as the bird hopefully hits the ground. We wouldn’t want it to fly off after dropping it to the ground. One arrow probably won’t kill it, but won’t easily let it fly off, that is if we find it. It is probably flying and attacking, so trying to catch it in a tree is best. B.F. you will be with the boy and me. We will shoot down the spirit, and M.F. and T.S. will rush it.”

Brown-face asked, “Aww come on alpha, can’t Tree-shredder be with the bow with us? He is much better than Runt.”

Fox answered, “Oh, is that what you want B.F.? I forgot to ask you what our plan should be, didn’t I? We will get to the other side of the lake as wolves so it doesn’t take us forever to walk. You two holding bows will shift first so that the bows can be attached to our form, the others can run without the bows on our backs. I can't wait until we can learn the ritual to meld clothes and weapons into our forms, it makes life so much easier."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

On the material realm, the young pack met with those of our tribe for a few minutes. Those that needed them got bows for the hunt. The older pack members asked, "Ahhh, you are on your spirit totem quest? That takes me back." They all smiled in nostalgia. "Be careful of those spirits. Remember they hurt a lot more than you might realize. Protect yourselves and each other. A defense to survive to the second hit is more important than making that first hit a powerful one."

The whole tribe was a part of the wolves, and none of us were skittish around the animal forms. B.F. got unstrung, old-fashioned bows and had them laid on top of us. With the bows unstrung, the string wrapped around the wolf a couple of times, then tied in a loose knot to be untied and strung when used.

Fox already had a bow and quiver bonded to him so that it would meld into his body in other forms, which was filled with ten arrows to be shared that disappeared into his skin so that it could not come free. It only took a tiny amount of spiritual energy to call the item out of his body.

Only natural things could be melded into the skin, no plastic or unnatural stuff, unless it is magical and designed to. As the ritual is prepared, any unclean parts of items would be rejected. Even a small part to be plastic would be against Gaia's magical restraint.

After being prepared to get moving, we left and made our way out. We jogged lightly as wolves to the lake. The wind rushing through our fur was so much more exhilarating than running with all of our weight on two legs. Lightly panting, we made it to the lake, looking around for anything strange such as someone looking around that wasn't one of us or something else that didn't seem out of place. Seeing none of that, we broke through the mist to bring us into the spirits' home realm.

Following the lake one way, we made it to the river that fed out of the area. It was not wide enough for most humans to be able to jump, but as we've been over enough, wolves have athletic things a little easier than humans. We cleared the five yards of a river with a running jump without so much as breaking our stride.

On the other side, where there was some representation of some trees in the area, we stopped and continued panting, well I continued panting after the short sprint.

We all sniffed the air trying to get the scent of some bird that was going after the badgers, but we didn't get anything. Birds don't exactly have a regular smell of a territory, and less so in the spiritual realm, they don't eat or drink regular food, just other spirits, which doesn't bring the need for number one or two.

Slowly, we shifted with a muscle spasm or three back into our human forms, first Fox shifted to pull off the two bows, and the other two shifted to string them. Monkey-feet and Tree-shredder just stayed in wolf form.

The spirit world is not a place of night and day unless it is designed as such, so there are few ways to stalk or hunt prey. You could sometimes hide behind structures, but spirits have great eyesight representing the spirits that we are meant to be as well, so sneaking up on a bird might be a bit tough, but we'd try.

Weaving around quite a few trees, we started to smell more bird in the air than expected. Through the territory, there was the smell, dogs and wolves know it but it can hardly be described. Birds might seem mostly feathers and beaks, but there are plenty more, feathers get oily, and birds eat bugs, but others as well.

This was just the representation of the bird, spiritual birds fight with spirits, but don't eat meat, or leave bones around near our nests, they just eat the energy, just like werewolves do when we defeat a spirit. The smell was in the air, so we started searching the trees and sky more often than just ahead.

A screech ripped through the calm sky, “Jailers!” It was a loud high-pitched call of as you guessed it, a bird. “Hate! Jailers!” A hawk, a wolf-sized hawk up in a tree is who we were trying to find. It was brown for the most part with white streaks around its feathers. Its beak was curved at the top, and its claws were sharp, digging into the tree branch where it perched.

We were not there to discuss political situations with a spirit that we were here to kill, werewolves are seen as policemen or jailers by many spirits. Spirits are meant to be kept on our side of the realm. If they break through, it is the job of the werewolves and others like us to force them back to their home realm. If a bird spirit got into the material realm, it would be the equivalent of a pigeon overload, or in this case hawk overload, diving in and attacking all pigeons in the middle of a city.

Mass human freak-outs, although hilarious, would be a great disruption to most lives. From what the alpha has told them, from what he has heard, it used to happen in the old days. Disease used to have very strong spirits that would break out in different territories and ruin many thousands of lives, these days with the concentration of humans, it would probably be more like millions.

Anyway, back to the murder of an innocent bird spirit living its life. The hawk saw us stop when we were caught and watched us like… itself. It was a large hawk and it partially bent the tree it was perched on, watching us and partially waiting. Fox sent out a sort of hand gesture for M.F. and T.S. to walk out a little way and stay quiet, but try to walk around in a large arc trying to flank the spirit.

A loud cry from the bird, “Jailer! Hunt, no rule break.”

Fox drew its attention a bit, calling back, “No rule break, needed find!”

The bird screeched back, “Why?!?”

Fox tried to form words it might understand, “Badger angry we need badger nice.”

The hawk called, “Badger hunt?”

Fox answered, “Maybe? We hunt for badger, it make us!”

The hawk cried, “I fly, no hunt!”

Fox called back, “Fly away?”

Hawk called back, “No,” but in an almost human tone that was hard to catch, spirits are easy to lie, manipulate, or even be scary. The sarcasm left its mouth as though it was a child saying it wasn’t tired while yawning. Fox wanted to try to believe it, but it found a territory, and most if not all spirits are territorial. It would be back if we didn’t disperse its energy back into the spiritual realm and Gaia.

Fox called out, “Accept!”

The bird hopped over to another side of the branch to see Fox, and it also saw me around the same tree, at least part of him, (he was not so practiced in being stealthy). It looked over and saw the two other wolves trying to be sneaky, but as a hawk, no chance could we try to be as sneaky as it was at seeing them. We weren’t backing away, we were trying to go around it. It screeched again and tried to fly upward, “Home! Home!” It took off leaping a short bit into the air and dove after T.S. Its speed through the air was impressive, but it could still be seen.

An arrow flew from Fox’s bow, and glanced off the bird’s wing, scoring a blow but it didn’t stop it. It called out in its dive, going right after the wolf it saw between the trees. Tree-shredder didn’t expect to be attacked by a bird as he still was trying to be sneaking between the trees, but he saw it seconds before it hit, and jumped forward to get behind the next one he was about to hide behind, but it scored a claw against his rump taking a little chunk out of his trunk.

In the adrenaline and embarrassment, T.S. didn’t call out but kept running to hide behind the tree, he would wolf the pain, and it would heal. The hawk took to the sky again and perched on another tree. This other one had a bit of space around it. With the new vantage point, the spirit saw everyone, including the other addition of Brown-Face and Monkey-Feet.

The bird screeched, “Mean, mean jailers!” and dove again towards T.S. taking another chunk out of his back, but T.S. wasn’t going to be another statistic of the dangers of bird on wolf violence, so he bit back towards the spirit and grabbed a few feathers out of the spirit's body, unable to get a wing. He spits out the feathers, but the bird’s wing oil was strangely tasty.

The strange sensation of tasting any part of a live bird was strange enough, but he never thought the taste of bird oil that covered its feathers to protect itself in general, including against water, from what he said would be akin to tasting crispy bird skin. As his tongue tasted it, it was just a strange bit he couldn’t get over. The hawk was back in the air and flew quickly for another tree. Brown-face’s arrow caught it, this time in the back of a clawed leg. Its leg twitched from the added weight of an arrow for only a second or two as it landed awkwardly in the tree. The arrow loosened as it did, and it shook its leg to free the arrow.

Another dive back towards T.S. was in the air, I tried another arrow, but he hit the tree branch under it, missing. The spirit swooped around the tree T.S. was using and landed on his back like it was a runway, this actually did make him growl in anger and frustration, the damn bird was elusive, and hit on the fly. It didn’t fly off this time though, it dug its beak in, and dealt another decisive blow against its jailer closer to his neck. In shock, Tree-shredder dropped. A piece of meat was in the hawk's mouth as it took to the sky again. Another arrow flew from B.F.’s bow and glanced off of the bird’s wings.

It took to the sky again, flapping to get above the pack, it landed on another branch to check the surroundings. One jailer was down and it hoped wouldn’t come back up, but one was calling out things to do, that one needed to go.

Fox called out, “Monkey-feet, part warrior!”

With a new target, it took back to the sky, the little things that flew with it, the pointy things, mattered not. It flew to another angle to get at Fox and dove right at him. “Alpha drop,” I caught the hawk diving in, and was behind another nearby tree. Fox trusted the call and dove, the claws of the bird narrowly missing his scalp, but striking a sharp claw mark on his back. A little pain but he was ok, another arrow flew at the bird scoring another hit, but it couldn’t stop to hurt the one calling out orders to the rest of them, it took back into the air.

As Monkey-feet started forming into a person that could speak, she called out, “Come over here you overgrown pigeon!” The partial warrior form increased the werewolf’s toughness, strength, and all of the good battle stuff.

Thinking that maybe Fox should call out to see if T.S. was ok, but to be honest, I didn’t care if he was or not. Brown-Face was focused on the fight too from what I could tell, looking in the air for the bird. We all saw it take an arc through the air and come back in our direction. It tried to avoid the bows but went after the one that just called it a pigeon, how dare the jailer offend it like that, it was a proud hawk and it seemed not to like that sort of insult.

It was surprised at another arrow that came at it from Brown-Face which missed. As it went after another jailer who had no bow from what it could tell. It dove in and stretched out its claws. This other jailer was fast, as it flew by it lost the area to hit, and took back to the sky. As it swooped to get higher, a hand came down on a wing, but it couldn’t grab it. The wing did buffet in the jailer’s hand though and came loose, the sensation was strange for the both of them, but not-so-sharp claws came down from her, raking against its wing.

The hawk called out in pain and took to the sky again, it landed and looked at its wing. It had lost a few feathers, and it was ok, but it was reassessing. The hawk said quietly, “Too many jailers…” It had to think fast, could it do anything about us in its home? Wait, wasn’t there another….

An arrow ripped through the meat of a wing and the hawk lost it, screeching at the top of its lungs, which was pretty high-pitched for the highly-sensitive hearing wolves. It was able to take off at first, being a spirit meant it didn’t hinder just getting hit once in a wing, but it felt a pull-down, a jailer had put something on the arrow. It was a string, a strong string was wrapped around the arrow, it had to be a tough shot, but it connected in this case. The hawk’s eyes widened more than usual as it was pulled from the tree, losing all control of its flight, and landing on the ground.

Flapping wildly, it wasn’t easy to get close to it at first, but another arrow in another wing and it started to weaken. B.F. stood over it like it was a prized kill that he bagged himself, smugly smiling at the bird as it weakened. M.F. had formed back into a wolf since she didn’t currently have any clothes to put on and it was strange enough for a wolf as a naked girl running with boys. She had been told she had to get over her modesty, she is as Gaia made her.

T.S. had gotten off of the ground and was walking over to the bird, his back and neck healing slowly, but he could walk. He growled in anger at the spirit.

The bird called out not nearly as loudly, “Mean jailers…” Everyone was walking closer to it as the bird was sadly trying to plead with us without words, it lowered its head in loss, and it sniffed in a very un-bird-like manner.

A question escaped my lips, “Can’t we just let it go? We can take it somewhere else and it won’t be able to hurt.” Tree-shredder growled at me , having had a bit of a loss in this fight.

Brown-face released his bowstring and laughed at him, mocking me, “Listen to Runt, wanting us to let the spirit go when we are on a quest to kill it from a huge badger who is part of our quest.”

Fox smacked B.F. on the back of the head. He quietly answered, “Boy, it is the way of things. Spirits hunt each other, we hunt them, and if we are against each other, we sometimes fight on one side or another. If we did not defeat this spirit, we could have some other quest eventually, that is if another spirit would accept us.”

The hawk flailed meekly at the arrow in its wing.

Fox said with his bow at the ready, “Get your bows ready, all at once.”

The hawk called out much more quietly, “I go?”

Fox stretches his bow with an arrow cocked, Brown-face, and I pull the bowstrings at the ready as well. Fox calls out, “At once, each of us on three, we can make this quick.”