A few more small skirmishes happened around, we were all too happy to end a small clowder of a dozen cats that attacked without much preamble, each of them hissed and scratched, but they were not hard to handle, each of them weakened and hungry spirits that had nothing else to feed on, surrounded on all sides by much more powerful spirits.

Each of us had lost a small bit of our health, other than Fox who had taken a good amount of damage from his squeezing like an orange from the first spirits that we met, he was the worst with bruises all over his body. Those pains would not heal without some food and good relaxing rest, or some truly mystical healing that we didn't have. We kept going, we had a quest to finish. Continuing in the same direction, we got to another mound and started climbing up since nothing was waiting for us.

Brown-face had taken the lead, he started to climb the new pile, and Tree-shredder followed shortly behind him. They were halfway up it when the whole pile swayed a bit and only those still low to the ground noticed it. Trash began to shake and fall along the edges, B.F. got hit on the head with a barbie falling down, which hit him feet first and surprisingly hit the right spot to hurt a bit. A kitchen sink, bottom piping, and marble top slammed onto T.S.'s head making him lose his grip and fall, he would be feeling that one shortly. Fox, who was still on the ground, caught him and the sink fell between Monkey-feet and me, who dove out of the way.

Brown-face held on as a tentacle of corruption swatted more trash off of itself in its big reveal, stretching up into the air as though it was a single tentacle of a giant octopus breaching a water's surface. Energy flowed through it and it sprouted four limbs stretching out from the initial shape. A mouth formed on it as well, "Good, good doers. Food."

Fox had to get T.S. out of the fighting area, so he took some time to move him out of harm's way for now. In the current area, M.F. and I were not in a good spot, one slam from one of those limbs would hurt quite a bit, so we spread out, I backed up a bit and stepped gingerly on a pile of old clothing to get a shooting vantage point. Monkey-feet dove right in at the base of it and had to climb for a few seconds to get to the flesh of the thing. Brown-face was near the midpoint but was shaken a bit as a limb swung in. He climbed quickly to get out of the way and found a car engine to stand on and with one arm swung the staff. It didn't have nearly enough power behind it, and bounced off of it as though he hit a tire with it, the creature had a rubbery hide.

One limb stretched out trying to reach for Monkey-feet, but she had gotten close to it and it had no limbs to swing at her. Another stretched out for me , but it couldn’t reach me. It leaned forward to get a better angle.

B.F. dug in with his claws a few seconds later and it worked better, opening a small wound. A dark liquid oozed out around his claws and he smeared it onto the spirit's rubbery skin. A limb was angled right and it retorted the claw hit with a tentacle smack against the wall of muck, dealing a nasty blow to B.F.'s health.

Like her namesake, M.F. climbed up the pile of trash, easily gripping slippery plastic and a goo-covered broken tent to scamper up and dig one of her enhanced claws into the thing, which again pierced the rubbery hide, but did little serious damage to the large spirit. It struck back quickly with another tentacle smashing her with a downward swing which flattened her against the trash pile of this thing's home, she screeched out having what seemed like dislocating her left shoulder.

Fox had dropped off Tree-shredder quite a few yards away, he slapped Tree-shredder’s face a bit and he woke up. Fox blurted out quickly, “Big spirit, help when you can,” and he rushed back to the fight.

An arrow flew from my bow at the spirit that loomed over us. It had a wide body and couldn’t move it, so I hit it like I could hit the broad side of a barn, barely. The arrow dug in, but no nasty things happened other than more shifting of smelly garbage, and boy, was it smelly. The combination of the bursting out of condensed gasses and the creature filled the air, distracting us and making our eyes water, making it harder to watch out for, or hit it.

Brown-face dug his claws in again for a small amount of damage but dove higher onto the pile of holey clothing and full trash bags that broke his fall, but did nothing better for his senses. His eyes watered from the smell and nose gunk came out since he was holding his breath. The dive helped him dodge one of the limbed tentacles down swipes. He breathed in and out through his mouth trying to withstand it, wiping the slimy gunk from his upper lip.

Monkey-feet dug in her claw, which did meager damage as well, she used the time instead of getting another swipe in to get out of the way by climbing up, narrowly dodging another swipe.

An arrow flew as I didn’t know what else to try to do. Fox made it back into the clearing where he could get a full view of the nasty thing, the smell was un-wolf-able and his eyes watered having to look at the corruption this thing exuded.

B.F. had to dive up the hill, then back as two tentacles targeted him swiping heavily on the piles of trash. A mound of mold took to the air near him, making him cough, barely able to breathe in general, he breathed in a mouthful. He was a tough wolf, but breathing in mold from this place was no good. Right away his coughing fit was nasty and he backed off a few yards.

M.F. climbed to get a good vantage point and jump swiped the spirit, from the back of its, well let’s say body, to the front, like the was running and grabbed a flagpole and swung around it like a gymnast. When he saw it, it gave Fox a bit of an idea.

He scampered up the pile to join M.F. on the other side of the spirit. He called out for B.F. to back off and breathe, then told M.F. to climb back up without digging in with her claws but wait for him if she made it up, he had an idea. She nodded and they rushed up. She matched him for speed as they climbed nearly thirty yards up into the air, which was about where the spirit had bent to strike at everyone easily.

Wobbling to his feet, T.S. made it back to the clearing area, a tentacled limb slamming the ground less than ten yards away woke him up a bit. He looked over and saw B.F. backing away with his eyes watering and his face covered in some sort of powder, I was over there shooting, and it would take him a bit to climb up like Fox and M.F. He called to me, “Hey, get me the nifty sword.” Nodding, I dropped the bow, and opened the bag.

T.S. watched the thing try to keep it from slamming right down on his face, but the thing was distracted, he made it over to me and the sword rose out of the bag like it was breaching the water’s surface like some fancier sword. Carefully since the sword was blade first, he pulled it out of the bag all of the way and gripped the handle. He jogged over to the pile and did what he could to walk up the pile to get to the base of the spirit waving around like it had no control of itself.

As he walked and watched for the limbs reaching down, he infused the sword with some more of his spiritual energy, he needed a good strong swipe to do his part.

Getting to a point where they could grip the thing with their legs as they climbed, Fox called again, “Dig in and drop.” She tried to give him a strange look, but the spirit was so round, she couldn’t see him, but she got the idea when she saw his arms reach around, dig in, and loosen his body a bit to start sliding down. She followed suit, digging in, and loosening her grip to be able to slide down the slippery pole like it was the sail of a ship and she was tearing it apart. Down they slid the whole way that they could, and it peeled the spirit like a banana.

Just about the time they landed on what would be ground floor, the tentacle had been swinging back and forth, loosening more trash, but in obviously more pain than it had felt before. Black mush oozed down the limb from the wounds and screeching was heard from the strangely formed mouth.

T.S. finally made it to the base of the spirit as it swung down towards M.F. and Fox, the base of the spirit could plainly be seen having shaken off so much trash. Once he felt like he had poured as much as he could into the blade, he went as far to one side as he could see the mass, dug the sword deeply into the flesh, and grabbed the handle with both hands and rushed it across the base of the spirit like it was a massive fish to debone.

The limbs were already coming down on M.F. and Fox, both of them were slammed to the ground. M.F. could barely move having a broken bone or three, and Fox was stuck on the ground having the wind knocked out of him.

The spirit jerked to one side, and stretched up to its full height, nearly thirty yards into the air. It then flopped downward in an inability to control itself, it was nearly about to crush its enemy with the mean sword in revenge, but it lost all strength and it began to disperse in an oatmeal of oily gunk that smothered Tree-shredder in corrupted spiritual energy. Every surface of T.S.’s body was covered in a mushy black oil.

Coins sludged out of the spirit, and the oily goo coalesced into a pile of different coins, we all heard the clang of metal on metal. They had fallen not too far from T.S. and I went over to pick it all up. There was a little pile, enough for a decent split, but we still didn’t know much about them. I hoped we would soon find out.

I asked if T.S. was ok, he nodded. T.S. was getting up and looking around for something to wipe off, but didn’t have a whole lot of luck, everything had some smudge of either goo, or food. Destroying the spirit didn’t dampen the smell in any way shape or form. I walked up to find M.F. still on the ground, holding her arms inward to her ribs, and she grunted in pain as they knitted and changed location to form back into our natural place.

I asked if she was going to be ok, she shook her head. He said, “Let me go get Fox, we’ll see if he’ll be able to help.” He walked to the other side of the pile, where Fox was sitting up, bruised and beaten down for a few seconds, but he got his strikes in.

I remember getting his attention, “Alpha, M.F. could use some help, she is more hurt than usual.” Fox looked concerned and got up to walk over to her. I kept walking to check to see if B.F. was up, and he was actually still coughing in another area walking some distance away. Out of the bag, he pulled one of the water skins and jogged over. B.F. had a colored powder all over his face that he was trying to wipe off, but his hands were smeared with something else that smelled foul.

I called, “Brown-face, hold up, I have water, stop moving, it is safe for now.” That made him stop, but he couldn’t stop coughing. Pouring water all over his face, he brushed off the filth, I poured more on his hands to clean them a bit as well. I pulled out one of B.F.’s shirts and handed it to him, he used it to wipe off his hands, then his face… but there was still mold all over his face. I pulled another water skin out and drenched B.F.’s face with water, which helped a lot, allowing him to breathe and wipe himself down.

B.F. nodded, not sure if he could actually take the effort to thank me for helping him, Nodding back, I turned to go back to the rest of the pack.

Fox had M.F. up on her feet, she had done a good bit of healing, but a bunch was left to go. T.S. was up, and wiping himself off with his hand, a little bit of ooze coming off with each brush.

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Rustling was heard in a small pile near us as we walked out of the clearing of the area, and out popped the Rat spirit from earlier. “You win. You do good.”

Fox still had Monkey-feet’s arm around his shoulder, “Yes, we won and destroyed the corrupted spirit, your dump is safe for now.”

The Rat’s nose scrunched up in a strange gesture, “Safe? No, hurt finger.” A roar was unmistakingly heard from far off in the ocean of trash, a guttural roar that shook the ground.

Rat continued like it was nothing to be surprised over, or scared about, “Gifts, someone leave, each.”

It stood and waited for little versions of itself to bring things. T.S. walked forward and got a nose crinkle from the Rat, “Smell.”

He objected, “Me, smell bad, here?” Gas fumes were wafting around everywhere, there had been dozens of rotten eggs around somewhere close by. The Rat presented to him a shirt, it was not some shiny and clean magical shirt of defense, from what it seemed, it was a shirt stained in jelly that was a little past its prime. B.F. tried not to cough, but walked up and got pants, dirt-stained pants, but at least they had no holes in them.

M.F. hobbled up and got a leather cap, it looked like there was a protective side of leather that covered an ear, and the other side should’ve had one too, but it was torn off. She had to take out a container of what looked like a lab experiment and decided to give it a wash before investigating more, but thanked the spirit anyway. Fox walked up and got a serrated switchblade which was supposed to collapse down into the handle, but that was broken, but he thanked the spirit reverently.

When I walked up, Rat fished out a claymore from the trash pile close by, a huge sword with a huge handle and the longest blade he had ever seen. It was huge in the rat’s small hands and I marveled at its size, it was nearly as tall as he was. Rat tossed it to the side and it dug into the muck of a nearby hill, was brought a hammer, a regular hammer to mash in a set of nails when building a fence, Rat tossed it over its shoulder. It was given half of a metal disc, if it was whole it would be about the size of a large dinner plate. It looked like it was made of leather and metal, had arm straps and handles on one side, and was tarnished on the other. That was thrown in front of my feet.

Picking it up and looking at it for a few seconds, it looked like the nicest gift he had ever gotten, and my eyes widened and watered from either the smell or the realization of the gift. It seemed like a half shield, there were metal pieces jutting out along one side like they could be used to either fit something or to punch into something else. There was a sharpness to it as well, the thickness of the top part of the shield was obvious, but the lower part of the shield was thinner, like it was meant to be both shield and weapon. It had some discolored powder all over it, in the cracks of the markings, caught in some of the edges, but he didn’t care. Thanking the spirit, I hugged it to my body.

Rat also said, “Also.” A pile of coins dropped in front of us. Quite a few coins dropped a foot above a trash can lid, and fell into it with the metal on metal clang.The coins went into mega bag. We had collected quite a few and still don’t know what we are for just yet. Rat continued, “Go home,” then dug into the trash heap behind it and vanished.

We walked the decently long way out of the dump, no spirits bothered us after we had cleared the ones who had struck out at us recently. Once we cleared the dump area, we realized how our shallow breaths in the area were disrupting our bodies. The gulps of fresh air were already helping. A hundred yards out from the nearest trash pile we all sat smelling the fresh air of the spirit realm again.

Sitting for a break, we each got a water skin and salted meat to munch on.

Since we had some time to relax a bit in the fresh air, even though we all still smelled as though we had been in the dump area for a week, it was fine for Fox to explain. "There are two different types of coins we can collect from spirits, one represents our spirit energy, Adin. It is the lighter-colored coin and spirits trade it like money to add to things like rituals, and powered items, and they swallow it for power. Chah is the darker coin and it is money. They accept it in our spirit markets and as payment for services. their bodies produce it as they die, it is how our spirit world represents the compensation for being a more powerful thing.

With the small amount we've collected, we couldn't do much, but eventually, we'll get much more. Can you count to see how much we have right now, boy?"

The pile was pulled out of mega-bag. "From what you are telling us, these are Adin," pointing to the lighter and brighter colored coin, "and the other Chah," pointing to them, a more dull and thicker coin. I took a bit of time to separate them, "We have found fifty-nine Adin and seventy-three Chah." At least, I’m pretty sure that was our meager numbers from such a long while ago.

Fox nodded, "When we get the ritual to meld things into us, we can make some pouches to hide with us, but that bag can be a place we can put many things to either keep or sell later. What a find the boy got," Fox smiled from ear to ear, and we were all happy to be alive sharing the meager snack and counting our wins.

Fox continued, "The gifts we got, I wouldn't recommend we put them on till we wash them, but there must be something to them. Spirits don't just give away plain clothing and junk as gifts," he pointed at the shield, "don't breathe too close to that, it is mold covered, you'll have a coughing fit like B.F. over here," pointing to Brown-face. "Just wipe it down with what you can, and we'll rinse it all off at the nearest river. We'll need to learn how to clean this type of stuff as well, we'll need oil to brush stuff like that away, water can make the metal eventually rust."

I felt the edging of the shield. It had thin edges around it, but a more thin, even sharp area was around the bottom. I imagined forcing it downward to break through something. There was so much mold, I couldn't tell what the design was if there was one in general. It wouldn't fit in mega-bag, but I was happy to carry it after shaking and wiping it off. At the time, I had a bit of spiritual energy left that he used to infuse the shield, it repelled a bit of the mold, but much of it still stuck. I also hoped that it would do something neat, but it did nothing different so far, but it did gladly drink in some of my energy.

The others gave me their gifts since we couldn't carry them when jogging, the shirt, pants, hat, and blade all fit easily into the bag. I marveled at the bag, either worrying or hoping it fit things forever, he'll have to see if our eventual spirit could tell him anything more. He asked for someone’s help strapping the shield onto his back, which ended up being stranger than a wolf named Fox, but we got it in a workable spot for now, wrapping a thin rope around my body to keep it secure.

Many of our wounds had healed, but Fox and Monkey-feet still had some bruising that would eventually heal. We finished our light snack, and formed into wolves to start jogging home. On the way, we stopped at a lake to try to clean our gifts off in human form. As we got our gifts out and put them on the beach of the lake, the water began to ripple more than expected with the light breeze through the area.

“What?” A humanoid shaped spirit of water rose out of the water watching us and wanting to know what we were doing. It startled us a bit, but it was something we should’ve expected.

Before thinking about it, I said, “We were hoping to fill our water skins and clean off these spirit gifts we got in your lake. Do you mind?” Fox held his head down, realizing this probably should’ve been done on the material plane. Spirits won’t be around and we can get away with it.

The spirit replied, “You clean things and get water at my lake? What am I supposed to do with that gunk?”

Fox grabbed my shoulders and pulled me back, “Great spirit,” every spirit bigger than a puppy loved to be called as such, “do not worry about the gunk, can we at least fill out water skins? Not much.”

The spirit continued to drip in the lake as it let the breeze blow its limbs around, it asked in a questioning tone, “Coins?”

Fox answered with a sigh, “Small amount, yes.”

The spirit waited a few seconds, “How much water?”

Out came six water skins and they dropped on the ground next to the lake.

The spirit answered, “One Chah.”

Fox nodded, “Fair enough,” and he nudged me to pay the spirit, which was done.

The spirit looked at it, looked back at them, “No clean, away from gross place for reason.” It sunk back into the water. We filled our water skins.

At our next rest in a couple of hours, we shifted into human form to talk. Fox started, “Next time we get to a lake or river, we can go to the material plane to clean off the stuff. Spirits will want coins or for them to do things for us if we ask them to help us clean stuff. It probably would be done quickly, but it will cost coins and we don’t have so many.” Each nodded in understanding, and I nodded realizing we could’ve gotten things done for free if I just kept my mouth shut.

We jogged back, taking longer than before because of our bruises and the few stops that I tried to ask for due to the discomfort. Getting their attention was hard enough, but they eventually got the idea after once. In an attempt at charades, he finally got one of us to pull off the shield from my back, and then I formed into the larger wolf, widening my back, and having us try again. The shield was a bit of a better fit, but still wasn’t well secure. It was also harder to keep staying in the larger wolf form, it took more concentration.

When we woke up the next morning, I almost immediately added more of his spiritual energy into the shield just to try to give it enough to try to form with him when he wanted, and it wasn’t enough. Even Fox was tired of stopping, so he tried to help, adding some of his spiritual energy. He had much more than any of us so far, but that wouldn’t be for long, we would quickly gain strength and spiritual energy from our totem.

After dumping nearly half of his spiritual energy into the shield into only wanting to help it materialize out in forms that can use it, he felt a sort of give and after another testing, it melted into my wolf form, and I jumped up on all fours half a dozen times, a most un-wolf-like jumping especially still in the form of the larger wolf. They told me I looked more like a horse or bull bucking and kicking my front and back legs. We all couldn’t help but smile though at how goofy I looked at the time.

All of our wounds had healed from the corrupted spirits harming us and we continued our slow jog back home. We eventually got to a river in the spirit realm, broke our way through the material plane, and pulled out our gifts. Rinsing them off, the gunk, mold, and old foodstuff wafted in the water, and downstream.

Like the other gifts, when we added some spiritual energy into the items, we felt a sort of give when we got to a certain point, but didn't know what to go for other than making it form with us and fit in forms when needed. I hadn't been able to regain any more spiritual energy after using most of it after his rest for the shield, but he still watched to see what might happen.

It might not seem spectacular, but it was something mystical and anything as such was better than watching the wonder of the spirit realm around them.

My bag still flapped against my side as I jogged, but I didn’t care. That bag was so cool, I just wished he knew more about it. Eventually there would be more testing... like pull everything out of it, and just fill it with dirt... lots of dirt... but then he figured he would just hope his spirit could help out a bit more. After another couple of rests on the way, we eventually made it back to our territory.

Looking around, we expected some sort of clue to continue, some sort of sign the spirit that was to be our totem would be around, but saw nothing new. We asked around, no one heard or saw anything out of the ordinary. We relaxed and got back into the swing of things back home, but each of us wondered what was expected of them.

That same night, a stew had been made for our return and we sat around talking with the other pack. We were asked, "This is your spiritual quest, so we shouldn't help too much, but think over what happened, who said what." We did think it over and came to the same conclusion, we had made it home and were waiting to see what happened. We had searched all over the spirit realm when we made it home, and nothing was different.

It hit me like a train, "The Rat spirit, it said go home. Did it mean to come back here? We passed by its home in the dump on our way out, nothing was different out there." I was slurping another spoonful and my eyes widened as I looked around with food dripping out of my mouth. Fox, Brown-face, and Tree-shredder were eating another bite, but he looked over at Monkey-feet, and her eyes were about as wide as mine as she looked back at him, she finished her bite before me.

Monkey-feet said, "Oh Gaia, it didn't mean our home. Hurry up, we have to go back to the den." The rest of them other than me put our own down on a place close to them, a stump here, a small table there, and stood up.

The other pack member sitting there shouted, "Hey, don't you dare, you sit and eat, we don't waste food here, not a damn bit." We all sat back down and slurped our food and darted off.

Six minutes later we made it back to the lake, looked around, and broke through to the spirit realm. The hole was open and waiting seemingly for us. It was nighttime and fairly dark as we walked into the darker hole. There were small shafts of light sneaking through the ground from above allowing us to see a small distance ahead of us as the feeling of the den was different. Most recently when we went in, the den had a few screeches of little badger spirits, the feeling of a bit more life within, but it felt much different. There were no eyes watching us walk through, there were no noises, and the walk was ominous and gloomy.

We continued to walk and made our way near the end where we had met the badger, but there was not much in that same area other than darkness. With a little more checking for detail, we actually did see something, it looked like dark eye lids, like something had its eyes closed, but it was spiritual, no form to it.

Those lids shot open seconds after we noticed, glowing green, ominous and daring.