Vitmori POV

There's always something happening, isn't there? Dread and the Sinners ran off and nearly killed themselves; I mean, what did they expect with just barely over two days of training? Luckily their muscle memories and instincts managed to keep them alive long enough to escape, but it almost wasn't enough. I believe I have an idea about some strategies to combat the ooze, but between possible recovery times, fitting them with the proper equipment, and some more thorough team training… Well, it may be a bit before I let them delve into the depths of the caves again.

In other news, I've got a rabbit resting in my impromptu medbay with Dread and Gluttony. Though… Medbay is just a fancy word for a cave I carved out, filled with the skins of some fluffy goat horse things and the white deer skins for bedding. I set it up at the absolute bottom of my bubble, mainly to make it easy for that lizard healer to get to them and back down to the Longhouse area with the others. I considered posting my healer zombies in the med bay to treat the rabbit and maybe tend to Gluttony and Dread's wounds. However, I can't help but worry that in Dread and Gluttony's cases, stirring up the mana in their damaged bodies would be like trying to fill a paper mache cup. It may do the job for a while, but something is bound to fall apart. As for the rabbit, well, it would probably give the poor guy a heart attack to not only be in a room with zombies but also alone with zombies with the faces of those who abducted him. So I'll leave him in the increasingly capable hands of the lizard herbalist.

The other sins got off relatively light, even Envy, despite the extensive acid burns along his back. After all their wounds were cleaned, I let the healer zombies loose among them and got all their wounds tended to. For the time being, I've got the sinners meditating in their training room. I want them to work out what they could've done better and see if they can come up with solutions and strategies on their own before I offer my two cents.

Frisby seems okay overall; perhaps a bit shaken up at how quickly things hit the fan. Ultimately I've decided to keep her on the backline until she's settled in, so her focus is back on my greenhouse project; with that in mind, she's started going on walks down the mountain and foraging for things on her own. Well, she hasn't gone very far into the woods, but considering the last few centuries in a limbo of nothingness she had gone through, even I would be taking my time to enjoy the sights and the warmth of daylight. I honestly don't expect her to have too much to show anytime soon, though gardening was always a maddeningly slow process, so it's bound to take some time until anything bears fruit, as it were.

Now then, onto the clan of cats. Basti had been out and about doing some mass hunting; she stumbled across a massive pack of some kind of snake wolves who were in the middle of traveling north for warmer territory. It was only bad luck for them that I had set Basti out on the local fauna the other day. Though the regrettable part was that when the pack scattered, half of them ended up in the path of the rabbit and some kid. Another failure of mine was that it took nearly half an hour before any of mine had noticed what had happened and were even able to find the rabbit. For now, I'm just waiting to hear back from her; she was supposed to gather the wolf corpses in one place, so I'll reach out through her and pull them into my storage all at once.

I… I don't think the people at the Longhouse blame me, hell I don't even think they know to blame me. But I know what happened there was my fault, and I can't be so careless with those in my protection ever again. I'll have to find some way to make it up to them somehow.

The cubs all seemed to have made their way around the Longhouse and settled among its inhabitants. The blue cub has shown a clear and distinct interest in herbalism and perhaps the art of healing itself, and because of that I've decided to name her Sekha. She seems to be particularly observant and intelligent for her age; I would say she is somewhat reserved and possibly even standoffish when interacting with the community's children, but she seems to tolerate the adults well enough. Though when compared to her runt brother, she could be seen as almost pleasant. I wonder if I could eventually teach her and the herbalist a thing or two about modern medical practices. I would love to see how they apply that knowledge to the seemingly boundless potentials of magic and otherworldly medicines.

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As for the white-furred cub, she's become quite the little chatterbox. In a few days, she's picked up humming, some minor singing, the words yes, no, hi, and bye. Honestly, I'm genuinely quite impressed; I might have been scared or even shocked about the idea of talking animals if I hadn't first met Jack or even Frisby. I wonder why she isn't already fluent like Jack or Frisby. Is there a reason she's had to learn it from scratch, or is it something else? Maybe she wants to learn the hard way? Or is she trying to fulfill some kind of requirement? It's quite an excellent little mystery I hope to see resolved eventually. Beyond that, she's also proven to be handy as a kind of nightlight, keeping some of the children company at night who are afraid of the dark.

Next is the runt and the overall youngest of the group; he is… Prickly, to say the least. Not very friendly, skittish, and quick to stay out of sight whenever someone is close to spotting him. It's interesting to watch him manipulate shadows in the way that he does. He takes to it like a fish in water and all instinct, from what I can tell, since Basti hasn't taken the time to teach him anything in particular. I wonder how long he'll take to catch up with his mother or surpass her. With that in mind, he's currently the only cub contributing to my mana already. Sure, his contributions are relatively slight since all he's hunted are some rodents and a few particular crunchy little bugs, but it's something, and it's already helping him grow beyond his siblings.

Finally, there's the most surprising of the bunch, the red cub, who I've decided to name Hephtio. Considering he was the biggest and rowdiest of the cubs, I would have put money on him being a little fireball of mischief and destruction. But contrary to my assumption, Hephtio was enamored with the flames of creation, the desire to build and make all sorts of things. For now, he's been hanging around the two cooks in the community, watching, learning, and tasting as they prepare meals for the others. When he's not with them, he's following Trisha, my new Blacksmith, and listening to her talk about her time around the forge.

Speaking of which, I really ought to start dedicating resources to set up a smithy soon, but I have other pressing matters to attend to now because of Dread and my mistakes.

Jack has taken to his duties rather well; he's expanded his array of crewbirds to cover the forest on the other side of my mountain. The half that faces toward the Hegemony. I haven't given too much thought or attention to that half of my territory now that I think about it, especially since everything so far has been happening on the side facing the Theocracy. The bird is a natural leader and doesn't appear to have much issue when it comes to delegating scouting duties to his lieutenants, who, in turn, run their crews of birds in various sections of the forest around my mountain.

Oururu is currently resting in his burrow within my chamber, the serpent having exhausted himself using his farsight ability from within my chamber to coordinate with Basti in hunting down the entire wolf pack. While I'm confident he got a lot of good practice when using his ability, I do not doubt that doing it for so long would wear anyone out. He's been settling well into his new size, but since he returned from fighting Frisby and her brood, he doesn't go out very often. I've tried asking about it once or twice, but he just tells me he isn't that hungry. While that does worry me, I can feel that he is at least being honest about it, so I've opted to let sleeping serpents lie.

I had been in the middle of looking over Dread and Gluttony's wound when I realized that it'd been quite some time since I put Basti to the body-gathering task, and she had yet to notify me about it. But just before I can reach out to her, I'm suddenly all too aware that she's already waiting in my core chamber, sitting patiently before my pedestal. 'Basti? What's going on? Why didn't you wait for me to collect the bodies?'

In response, she gave me a very feline mischievous smile before summoning her shadowy wings. Upon unfurling them, I couldn't help but be taken aback for a moment as many wolf corpses just spilled out into the stone sand beside her. After a few more moments, she gives her wings a little flap before recalling them to herself.

Time and time again, my right hand never ceases to surprise me. It's always something new with her. 'Since when did you get your own storage Basti? You keep getting new tricks like this, and I might develop a complex.' I mused to her, and I couldn't be more proud. The fact that she can do this for me now means I can save mana on pulling things into my storage from outside my bubble of influence. I mean, now I've got a considerable chunk of mana I can use for something else, which is fantastic news. Looking over the wolf bodies, I happened to spot something else that didn't fully belong as I looked back over at her with surprise. 'And when did you have time to hunt a bear??' I could feel the smug satisfaction just oozing from Basti, even as she just nonchalantly grooms one of her paws. It's well deserved, for sure, but I appreciate how hard she tries to remain modest despite the utter carnage lying around her.

Looking over the wolf bodies some more, I happen to notice one of the wolf's forelegs just lying limply in the sand, clearly having long been separated from its original owner when inspiration struck. 'You know what, I think I have an idea on how to speed along Dread and Gluttony's recovery.' Though at that, Basti stopped mid-lick to tilt her head curiously as I began sifting through the wolf corpses.