(Jade POV)

I sigh, almost done with my monthly maintenance.

I checked my RAM, removed all the cookies, cleared all the dust and so on.

Now I get to clear out the spam filter. Lets see what do we have?

The normal spam, some dating sites, a few virus messages…

What do we have here? A message from Zane… how did that get in here?

Let see, he is busy due to finals and finishing of his end term project so he won’t be able to come online, and he wanted to know how much progress we made on on helping his Alpha inside of TtA…

I better go check that out… before it slips my mind again.

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So what progress have we made since last time?

Zane’s quest has made very little progress, there don’t seem to be any large predators in the vicinity so progress has be rather slow.

Still I should assign a few of our own hunters to aid him. Preferably the more experienced ones so that they don’t become the hunted.

And it seems like we have made some more progress towards taming the Bok-Tar beetles.

If you can call it as much, after all it just a single beetle that at the end of the day come back towards the village edge to sleep there.

I decide to pull up the screen for more information.

Tameable and Domesticated Species

Tameable Species: 1

Domesticated Species: 0

* Gylari Hive-birds

* EMPTY

So now that we have them tamed I can get more information for them.

Species details: Gylari Hive-birds

The Gylari Hive-bird is a small species belonging to the Hive-bird Family.

Gylari Hives have somewhere between 8 to 12 Brood mothers, each of these brood mothers have around 15 lesser birds of themselves.

The species lives mostly of small bugs.

The Brood mothers can lay and hatch up to 2 eggs each week, they will only do this to replenish their brood.

The main product of a Gylari hive are feathers and to a lesser extent meat and eggs.

That isn’t overly useful, but I guess they aren’t domesticated yet.

The biggest question is whether there is a use for the feathers besides decorational purposes.

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( Nym POV )

I am lying inside of my hut.

My eyes closed.

The sound of rain hitting the roof.

I am totally exhausted from earlier but for some reason I can’t fall asleep.

I decide to get up and throw a few more branches into the fire pit.

Earlier today the hunter decided to go after a herd of Candur.

The hunt itself was successful but a fair few hunter got hurt, everything from claw marks to burn wounds.

I spend a good part of the afternoon healing those who got burned, now I am spend I couldn’t even heal a scratch if I wanted.

I sit down close to the fire and look around for something to do until I fall asleep.

Eventually my eyes fall on a pile of feathers I got gifted by the goblins that are taking care of the Gylari Hive nest.

I grab them and scavenge around my hut for a few more pieces of useful materials, some scraps of leather and a few pieces of wood.

I simply start working with no clear idea of what it is that I am making.

I simply sit there mindlessly working on something without purpose, waiting for the sleep to catch up with me.

Slowly my thoughts drift off.

Leaving me to wonder what the future will bring, when Jormund finally comes back.

When he walks up to me and holds me inside of his arms.

I will look up into his eyes and no words will need to be said, for we will be together.

We will be happy inside of our tribe, with his family overseeing and all of us living together in…

A sharp pain stirs me from my dreamlike state, looking I see that my little project has broken in two and the remnants have cut my hand.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Angrily I throw the ruined thin into the fire.

The wood, leather and feathers all burn together.

Once more I start to scavenge my hut but this time I am looking for powders, herbs and water. Everything that I need to clean the cut and make sure it heals properly.

I find everything that I need and start washing the cut, removing the splinters.

I only now do I notice that I forgot to open the ventilation hole at the top of my hut, the smoke that has build up inside of the tent causing me to cough.

I get up and open both the ventilation hole and the main entrance allowing the smoke to dissipate.

After a little while all the smoke is gone except for the small trail leaving up from the fire pit towards the ventilation hole.

Still somehow something feels off.

Nothing seems like it moved and no one could have entered the hut without me noticing.

I go back to my spot and sit down concentrating, something is different then before.

After a few minutes I give up finding out what changed and resume the task of taking care of my wound.

When looking down I notice that my wound is gone, almost as I healed it.

But I didn’t have any energy remaining, so I couldn’t have healed it right?

Unless... it was something inside of the smoke.

Looking at the fire I spot a single feather.

I reach for and it bring it closer for inspection.

It looks just like any other feather, nothing that indicates it would have had any effect.

I yawn, it feels like finally my sleep has caught up with me.

I guess testing the feathers can wait for later.

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( Jor POV )

a gently warmth touches my shoulders.

When I turn I see the savanna light up in the light of a new day.

After a night of standing guard, I do a few stretches and head home.

While heading towards my hut I stop the pair of wolfkin, I believe their names were Garuu and Alpha? Is that even a name or just a title?

I feel a sudden urge to ask how their doing before going to bed.

"Hey! How is the hunt going?"

The biggest one, the Alpha, huffs and shakes his head.

"Not well, we keep trying to find something worthy of hunting but…."

"There is nothing around! We should have gone back to the mountains, at least there we could find one of the Ardron."

"What are you exactly looking for? Because there’s plenty of game to go around."

"Both of us are nearing the age at which hunting will stop being a possibility for us, normally a wolfkin would go on one last hunt in order to show his worth to the pack even at his old age.

But I am the Alpha, I have to show that even if I don’t hunt I can still protect the tribe from danger.

In order to proof this I have to find the biggest and meanest thing around and defeat it with no help, except for my bloodkin."

He gestures towards Garuu.

"So you are searching for a hunter, the bigger the better. I have a few idea of things that live around here that fulfill those requirements…

Is there anything else that affects the prestige of your hunts?"

The pair of wolfkin sinks into thought, after a short while the Alpha shakes his head.

"No nothing comes to mind."

"So would magical affinity have an effect on the hunt?"

"Magic? The creatures that use magic are far and few between, although I guess facing a large predator that has some magical abilities would be more challenging than a normal beast."

"In that case I think I know what you are looking for, but it won’t be easy to hunt."

"And what kind of creature is it that you are thinking of?"

"I am thinking of a putrikan, its a large insect predator that prefers ambush strategies."

"How large are we talking here?"

"Let me try and remember everything about them.

They are large centipedes easily 7 meters in length, their prefered prey are Bok-tar’s but they will go after anything that gets to close.

The putrikan also has an earth affinity, which it uses to burrow and disguise itself while lying in ambush although they have been know to improve their relatively weak armor.

They move at speeds which belie there size and make use of a set of vicious pincers in order to pierce the skull of their victims."

The Alpha carefully listens but I can tell from his body language that he is excited.

"Yes... this foe seems adequate for proving my worth to the tribe. Where do we find it?"

"This is where the problem lies, putrikans can remain dormant underground for…

Well I don’t really know how long, at least several days...could be weeks.

However I should be able to locate the general area where it's hidden."

"In that case your coming with us! The faster we find this thing the quicker the fight will be over with!"

Garuu places one of his hands on his brothers shoulder and gently calms him down.

"Maybe allow the human to rest first. We wouldn’t want our tracker to fall asleep."

I gently nod my head in thanks and reach out my hand.

"That does sound nice to me, meet up here tomorrow morning?"

The Alpha grips my arm in a warriors grip and shakes it.

"Agree!"