<~> CHAPTER 11

I was a little worried about my new clothes/armor. Before the fabric I had wrapped around myself wasn't disturbed when I transformed into my larger werewolf(?) form. But I just got this stuff, I didn't want to risk losing it the second I got it.

("Why don't you try shifting just your arm? You seemed to be able to do that with your claws,") Luna helpfully suggested.

I sighed. ("Well, it is better to know if shifting will destroy my stuff every time now and whether or not I am going to be doomed to be a streaker for as long as I want to use my powers.")

My comment got a little, almost silent, giggle out of her which made me smile.

I held out my right arm and winced a little as I shifted just my arm. Like before my arm was swallowed up in the wispy black smoke that formed my coat in werewolf form. I couldn't tell yet if my clothes were still intact and I was scared to find out. I held my breath and shifted it back revealing... my arm still in its sleeve.

I let out a dramatic sigh of relief at the averted crisis of being a flasher anytime I wanted to not die.

Luna laughed at my antics and gently pushed my shoulder. I grinned back at her before standing up and taking a few steps away.

("Okay, moment of truth. It works on my arm but it's time to find out if the rest of it will survive to protect my modesty anytime I have to fight.")

I shifted into my full umber hound form once again. I was getting used to the changes to my senses now and I didn't suffer as much vertigo when I shifted anymore. As much anyway. I stood up straight, the cool lakeside air felt good on my fur. I glanced down at my body, in this form I looked naked but any of my indecent places were hidden inside the smoke. I had already explored around a bit while shifted and it didn't seem that any of my parts were mirrored in this form. I was like an action figure down there when I was like this. I didn't fully understand the logic this ability operated under but I was relieved that I didn't have to worry about it.

I shifted back to my human form and happily all of my clothes were right where they had been before. ("It looks like we've confirmed no one will have to see my bare tits every time I have to transform back and forth,") I said with a grin.

("That's a shame,") Luna said. A moment later it was like her words caught up with her and she sheepishly turned away.

It's not just me right? I never had the most functional 'gaydar' or anything but there's no way I could be interpreting that wrong right? This cute fox girl was kind of into me... right?

Before I could pull on that thread any longer Maxwell walked up to us and said something to Luna. This language barrier was really starting to kill me. I was slowly becoming closer to Maxwell and Piper but we still couldn't even talk.

("Maxwell says he wants to get moving soon. Piper has gotten more sleep but he's afraid we're wasting a bit too much time. It's not too bad since you needed to confirm some things about how your magic works but we need to keep moving if we want to make our payments,") she told me.

("What kind of payments?") I asked.

Her ears went back and there was suddenly a bunch of hurt in her eyes out of nowhere, it seemed that whatever that was about is a landmine. ("I'll... tell you about it later. It's nothing that should affect you, especially if we make our quota. With your help we should be fine... no problem.")

That last part felt like it was aimed more at herself than at me.

I nodded and hesitated for a moment before placing my hand on her shoulder. She jumped, not expecting the touch, but then she put her hand on top of mine and smiled. ("Alright, no more dawdling,") she said.

I got up and started helping clear the camp. There wasn't much I could do, it was mostly their stuff to pack up, but I helped put out the fire and collect the tent pieces.

Piper smiled at me and waved me over to her. While I watched she slowly folded and packed up the tent, trying to show me how she does it? I'm not sure how much I'll retain without practice but I'm glad she's actually trying to teach me something.

I pointed at the tent. "Tent."

She squinted her eyes at me for a moment before catching on to what I was doing. She pointed at the tent. "Fossak."

"Fossak," I repeated.

She shook her head. "FOSS-ak"

"Foss-ak," I repeated again.

She nodded and pointed at another thing and continued to teach me the words for things. Here and there she used some of the words she taught me in a sentence but I couldn't make heads or tails of the sentence structure. I couldn't tell if it followed the same 'subject-verb-object' structure I was used to, and if it didn't, I couldn't even begin to interpret what the rules were yet. It was nice to finally find a way to communicate directly though, limited as it was, and it didn't slow us down much as she ran through new words. While the sounds didn't sound too weird to me, trying to keep them straight in my head was a challenge. I was constantly mixing some of them up but Piper was patient with me and kept pointing out new words or reviewing old ones.

When we finally finished packing up, it felt strange. The time of day hadn't changed at all in here, the ever-present moonlight always lit the blue lake in the center of the large cavern.

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I turned to Luna. ("Are we going to go hunt the frost salamanders now?")

She held up a finger and turned to Maxwell and wrote in the dirt with her boot. He replied and she turned back to me. ("He says we can do that if you're still up for it. It might still be easier to hunt goblins though. Right now we were trying to gain experience fighting but the frost salamander organs I told you about last night would be more valuable.)

Hm. ("How about we start with the frost salamanders? It will give me a chance to eat some and you guys can take the frost organs of the ones I kill. After that, we can go kill some of the goblins if it hasn't been too long.")

She turned to Maxwell to relay the message before turning back to me. ("Are you sure that's what you want to eat?") She looked a little grossed out.

I laughed. ("They taste pretty good to me actually.")

The four of us crept up toward the cave with me taking the lead. It seems the guy I'm replacing was also a forward scout and with my newly heightened senses, I'm a good replacement for him. Perhaps an even better one from the way Luna talked. I peeked into the mouth of the cave and saw the frost salamanders spraying their liquid frost all over the ground again. There were only two this time, that's good since this was more about eating and less about collecting their organs for me. Collecting their organs... even the thought sounds gross. Not that I'm one to talk, the reason I'm hunting them in the first place is to eat their meat raw.

("How much help do you want for this?") Luna asked. I could detect the tinge of worry in her heart's voice.

("As much as you want to give. I'm confident I can kill them alone.")

She turned to the two others and sparked a quick hushed conversation. ("Maxwell says to just do it. We'll try to help if you get overwhelmed. Oh, and Maxwell says to avoid tearing out their necks.")

I nodded, perfectly fine with that.

I lowered my body to the ground and took another look into the cave. This was as close as I could get to them without being seen. These things were prey, food, and I was hungry.

I pounced into the cave and was on top of the closest one in an instant. I wanted to preserve as much meat as possible this time so I decided to attack it from behind. After tearing a few of these open I knew right where I could break its spine without damaging any of the organs and fouling up the meat.

My claws dug into the ice monster's back and disabled it immediately. The other one was quick to react and blasted me with its frozen mucus but it didn't even feel cold this time. I ignored the salamander's breath while I finished off the first one by crushing its skull while carefully avoiding its neck.

With that done I turned my attention to the second one. It was almost as if the monster's eyes had widened as it tried to turn and scurry away. I won't let you run. The frost salamander hadn't made it more than three steps before I was on its back too and I killed it in much the same way. The only thing that bothered me about the fight was that the second one had covered me in so much of its slime. The stuff felt gross, like snot.

My three new friends walked into the cave once it was clear the monsters were dead.

I remembered how the water fell around me when I shifted earlier so I tried to do the same with the mucus and managed to escape with most of the snot on the ground rather than all over my clothes. When I turned to my friends I saw a brief moment of panic from them and Piper even took a step back.

I frowned and looked at Luna. ("Is there something wrong?")

She smiled and shook her head. ("No, we're just surprised. We didn't think you had something like cold resistance and your eyes look... a bit more unsettling in this dark cave than out by the lake.")

I looked around the cave only just now realizing the entire thing had been lit from my eyes rather than any other source of light. I was becoming so used to the eerie white light of my eyes that I wasn't even registering how dark a lot of these places were.

("Would you mind dragging one of these over? The two of them together are making it too cold for us to extract the frost organ,") she asked.

I nodded. It was a bit odd they were no longer cold to me. I remembered their spit hurting me the first time I fought them. This time their slime was just a bit uncomfortable at best, I had taken the second one's mucus head-on without any trouble. I shifted forms again and pulled the corpse up to the three of them before stepping away to give them room. I wanted to watch what they were doing, maybe I could help in the future.

Maxwell rolled the body onto its back with the neck exposed. Then, digging into his pack he covered the lower half of his face with soft leather and put on thick gloves. Next, he pulled out a bundle of leather and unrolled it to reveal a half-dozen knives of different shapes and sizes. He selected one and then began to cut into the thick muscle of the monster's neck. The cartilage was a bit tougher there I remember, easier to pull out than pull apart. I blinked, realizing I was fantasizing about ripping the monster's neck out. Damn, I was really fucked up now. I shook my head, I needed to watch this, this was important.

He cut into the bottom of the monster's throat before turning the body to the side and draining out the immediate blood from the area. If he had been preparing the meat to be taken then he may have drained the blood properly but Luna had said it was inedible, he was just getting it out of the way so he could get at his actual prize.

Another knife was pulled from the bundle, this one serrated. He began to saw into the side of his neck while carefully going around a specific point. When he finished he pulled out two small chunks of meat dripping with frosty mucus. He wrapped that in some linen Piper had handed to him before putting it deep into his bigger-on-the-inside bag.

Luna tapped me on the shoulder. ("This one is done, will you move this one and bring over the other one now? And uh, I guess you can start eating this one...") she said hesitantly.

I nodded and dragged the corpse away from them before replacing it with the other one. I had seen enough. I might not be able to reproduce the exact knifework it required to extract the organs myself but I now knew what it looked like at least. It's good I was such a tomboy because most of the girls I knew back home would have been too squeamish to watch that. Would I have been too squeamish?... I wasn't sure anymore.

I turned my back to the group, fully aware of how gruesome this might look to them, and began to dig into the frost salamander. It tasted as good as I remember, I closed my eyes and groaned at the exquisite flavor of the meat. I wasn't much of a steak eater before, in fact, I had to force down the high-protein diet I was eating while I had been training for the triathlon. Now things were different, the taste of raw meat was amazing, better than anything I had ever eaten, and I couldn't get enough.

By the time I was finished with the first one, Maxwell had finished with the second one so I dug into that one too. Maxwell and Piper had stepped outside to avoid watching but Luna stood nearby and watched me eat. I didn't know how to feel about that... but she didn't comment on it after.

I didn't want her to see me like a monster... but sometimes I truly felt like one.