In the morning, someone somewhere called out the time. A lot of people moved, but Shiori did not, and I agreed. She had thrown an arm over me at some point, and the mutual warmth was good for us both. The cold didn't bother me in my fox form, but the warmth made me ache less. We both fell back asleep and stayed in bed until someone came to find us.
A woman in her twenties with a long braid of auburn hair and cheerful brown eyes eventually peeked in and said, "Hey, Shiori. I heard you were back. I knew you were tough, and you'd escape in no time."
The grin she shot Shiori let me know she had, in fact, been worried but was very happy to encourage her anyway. I decided I could like this person. Shiori groaned, but she opened her eyes and smiled for real for the first time.
"Nena!" she exclaimed.
I reluctantly moved so Shiori could get up, and then she hugged Nena hard. I looked at Nena more closely.
[Nena - Ranger, level 18]
Oh. I bet she was the one who was training Shiori to be a scout. I stretched out and watched them talk. Shiori gave Nena a much more brief version of her story that sounded a lot like it was crafted to make her worry less. They seemed very close, and that made me a little homesick. It was okay. I'd be healed in no time.
After a bit, Shiori turned to me and said, "You should rest more. I will find you some food. I'll be right back!" And she was off.
Nena looked at me and then looked at me. That was fair. I had just used [Insight] on her too. Her eyes widened a bit at that.
"Demon slayer? Wow. That’s a tough fox."
I just nodded at her, which took her aback. "You really are a spirit, huh?" I tipped my head side to side.
"Sort of? How can you be sort of a spirit?" I just blinked at her a few times.
"Don't want to talk about it?" she asked.
"I'm not opposed to talking about it," I replied in a series of foxy chirps and yips, causing her to bark a quick laugh.
"Okay, I see your point. Wow. They said you were like a person, but I didn't really understand before."
I winked at her and curled up to rest.
"Can you really destroy the slave collars?" she asked suddenly. I sighed and then nodded.
"That will give people a lot of hope. It was pointless to try to save anyone with a collar before. They'd just sit and starve. With you here, maybe we can really start to make some ground."
I didn't comment. I closed my eyes. I was so tired, and I knew I needed to start doing some good soon. I wasn’t sure how to take the collars off without blowing my cover, but it seemed like a good place to start. The demonic traits nonsense didn't seem to affect my fox spirit form. I guessed I'd have to figure it out.
"Do you know anything about the [Hero]?" she asked quietly.
I opened an eye at that. She had her arms folded on the edge of the bed and was looking at me like a hawk. "You do, don't you?"
I closed my eye, but she went on, "I've never heard of a spirit like you. I bet she summoned you, didn't she? I know there have been summoner [Heroes] before."
Very subtly, I shook my head.
"But you do know her!" she concluded.
I whined. I wanted to nap.
"I knew it! She's going to come here and help, isn’t she?" she asked. I opened my eyes and saw the hope and fear radiating from her. "That’s why you're here?"
These people were holding on by a thread. They needed help. I am going to help. I blinked and then just nodded and closed my eyes. Just not today.
She stood up and quickly left after that. I knew I'd regret it, but she wouldn't. I woke up after a bit to the smell of meat and found Shiori had returned and brought me some food. It was some kind of bird and some oatmeal. She was still standing next to the cot, talking quietly with Nena. Nena wanted Shiori to rest for at least a few days before going back on missions, but Shiori didn't want downtime. She wanted to be busy and helpful and, if possible, to get some revenge. I wasn’t sure how they had caught her in the first place. I felt like she'd go down swinging. I didn't know her terribly well, though. They were still talking when I was done eating and I was asleep again before they finished.
I spent nearly two weeks like this. At first, I stayed in my small bunk, but Shiori and Nena would both come to get me from time to time and carry me off somewhere else, putting me on a pillow in the sun or taking me around the cavern's camp and showing me things and introducing me to people. There were more than I expected, at least a few hundred. I saw very few classers, though, and while most looked like they were ready to fight, they also looked thin. I also learned where I'd ended up. This cave was in the side of West Peak, high above the city. From how people had described West Peak to me before, I had assumed most people here would be beast kin, but they were closer to a quarter of the population. After the first three days I was not as exhausted anymore. It helped me enjoy the little trips more, but more importantly, I was able to focus on my soul, and I made much better progress. Once I got started, it was like an idle phone game in a way, finding damage and fixing it, finding corruption and removing it. Some of what the devils had been seemed fused with my soul and I couldn't do anything about that. But a lot of it I was able to find, remove, and break down into more “me” energy. I spent much of my time relaxing working on this and it had become a regular part of my daily routine. Today was different, though. Today, when I finished and prepared to nap and recover some brain energy, I heard a chime.
* Congratulations. Through your actions you have evolved your trait [Empowered Soul] to [Purified Empowered Soul]!
“Well, that is neat, I guess?” I thought to myself. I really needed to figure out how to define some of my skills and traits. I still didn't fully understand the world's system. There were so many things Lilith had been planning to teach me that we never had a chance to go over. It was a lot of things most people here learned to do as a child, and I felt very restricted not knowing them.
I was on the upper deck of the airship on my pillow, and I knew from experience that sometime soon, Shiori would be here to collect me. She had wanted to get back into doing real scout work for the resistance, but they were keeping her in the local caverns, training with Nena and doing simple tasks like hunting for food. They had been feeding me very well, sometimes trying to force me to eat more than I really wanted to. I could walk without pain now, though, so I knew it had helped. I needed to start giving back to these people. I stood up and walked to the railing to watch the sun go down. I stared out the cave opening and wondered if everyone else was alright. We had still been in a party when I'd been taken at the ball, but something had removed me from it. I wasn’t sure if it was being unconscious, the distance, or maybe even something special about the ritual chamber. I doubt Amélie would have removed me otherwise.
As I mused, I heard steps coming up behind me, as expected, before noticing that it was a few sets. I turned back and saw Shiori was leading Naomi and a few others. They had a stretcher with them, and on it was a boy who couldn't be more than ten years old. He had a slave collar around his neck. He was just lying still and facing the ceiling. I could see the strain on his face, but he couldn't fight back against the curse. I knew what they wanted, so instead of making them ask, I walked down the stairs next to me into the shadows of the first deck. I yipped at them, and they followed. They placed the stretcher on the ground, and only Naomi and Shiori stayed behind. In the shadows down here, I was a ghost.
"Is she still here?" Shiori asked, looking around.
Naomi didn't respond. I didn't want them to see me and what I'd become. I didn't want to scare Shiori or make Naomi think I was a monster. I was trying to figure out a way to do this without risking them seeing me when someone opened the door at the end of the corridor. They both looked away. The moment their eyes were looking away, I took my chance. I shifted, and with a clawed hand on both sides of the collar, I snapped it apart. Quick and easy. When they turned back, I was already a fox, walking up the stairs. The boy was sitting up, gasping like he had been drowning, and holding half of the collar in one hand.
At the top of the stairs, Nena was waiting, and as I passed, she said, "I guess I didn't really believe it." She followed me as I went down to the mess hall. Then, she gave me a look when I stopped at the plates and stared at her.
"Alright, you little fox." she relented before making me a plate.
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The food here wasn’t bad, but I wanted to hunt. I had already decided that starting the next day, I would at least join her and Shiori on their morning patrol. The longer I was here and recovering, the more I was able to pay attention to the conversations going on around me and notice the social queues. Most people gave me space on the occasion that I traveled alone, but those who did pay attention to me did so with an air of expectation. It was probably a mistake to have been answering any of Nena's questions the first day I was here, and I was gathering she was a bit of a gossip. To be fair, it was only a mistake for my desire to avoid attention. What she was telling people was helping them feel hope.
To me, the bigger problem was that I didn't really know how to be a [Hero]. I knew I had a strong class, and so far, I had done a decent job at fighting monsters with it, but this was kind of a big deal. This was a village's worth of people fighting to save a city. I knew nothing about saving cities. But I did know that when I would stress about big school projects, Mom had always stopped me and helped me take things one step at a time. Step one for me was going to be this patrol, even if no one but me knew it yet. Nena was already using them to teach Shiori, so I could listen in and learn, too. I could figure out what they were even doing here or patrolling for. And then I could figure out how to help. As I thought about these things, I made it down to my bunk. I hopped up and made my way to the foot of the space. I could move back when Shiori got here.
Shiori was older than I had thought, which was more apparent when she was cleaned up, fed real food, and wearing more than very baggy torn rags. I think she was only a year or two younger than me, and now I kind of understood why everyone thought I was so young when they found me in the forest wearing too big clothes and only up to their knees in height. She still had nightmares, and I could feel her reluctance to do a lot of things, but she was very strong and brave. She didn't let anything hold her back. I felt like someone like her should be a classer, and I didn't really understand why the world didn't see that, too. She had so much potential to do so much good.
I had been working on learning to write as a fox, too. I was a little ashamed to admit this because it made me feel extremely silly. But it mattered now because I disagreed with the world on the state of Shiori, and I wanted to try to help. Trying to figure out how to communicate with her was a bit tough at first, but when I tried to remember any stories from back home that might help, the answer finally clicked in my brain. First, I had tried the obvious. I found stone, a terrible choice, and tried to carve into it. Realizing how dumb that was, my claws tore it easily enough, but it just chipped into a mess, I next tried wood which was more forgiving. It was also still a nightmare. It turned out that writing by claw is very hard and not very practical. I was lying on the airship's deck one day when the solution came to me as I trained my [Lightning Control] by playing bug zapper with some small gnat-looking insects. One had hit the deck and I arced a bolt right into it, scarring the deck. Sure, it spread a bit and made many small lines, but the main strike area was dark and defined. Part of [Lightning Control] was keeping that more defined and controlling the grounding of the power. It was a perfect kill-two-birds-with-one-stone kind of thing, and I realized as soon as I started how ridiculous it was. It was satisfyingly fun though, so I kept at it. There might have been many little dancing foxes burned into the front of the airship's deck. People need to appreciate art.
I was well settled in and deep in meditation when Shiori came in. She was exhausted and quiet, so I could tell that she must have been working very hard today. Usually, she'd start talking to me about something, but this time, she just crawled into bed and backed into the wall, as was her preferred sleeping position. I walked up next to her and settled down where it was best to keep us both warm. That was my preferred sleeping position.
I closed my eyes and was drifting off when she finally said, "That boy is doing okay." I cracked an eye and looked at her, waiting to see if she'd go on. It took a minute, but she did. "He's just ten years old. His father was a ranger, too, and everyone thinks he'll be a ranger. You did a really good thing."
"Thanks, I guess." I chirped quietly at her. She stroked my head.
"I wish you could talk back. I like that I can talk to you, and you are a great listener. It's just lonely sometimes without people I can have a real conversation with."
"What about Nena?" I inquired in a little purring chirp bark. I think I almost got Nena's name right. I think she thought so as well. Or was it easier for her to pretend? I don't know.
"Nena? She's kind of my teacher. I'd be a real apprentice to her if I had gotten a class. She's very nice, and I think maybe she thinks of me like a kid sister, but mostly, she just teaches me skills. It's not the same as having a friend."
I hummed at that and just moved closer.
"Yes. You understand."
And I did understand. Maybe one day we'd be more real friends. We were quiet after that, and it didn't take long to drift off to sleep.
We both popped awake as we heard the watch captain call out the morning hour. Normally, I would move and let her get up and ready before going back to resting. I had decided yesterday that it would be the last day of that. I had moved around without feeling any serious pain. My mind was clear. I had even shifted yesterday, and it felt much more normal. I was only in my humanoid state for a very brief time, but the previous screaming agony of it was gone. I had moved surely and swiftly. I was ready.
Shiori stood up and stretched as usual, and as soon as she stopped, I leapt up onto her shoulder. She nearly fell over from surprise, but I was more than agile enough to just sway with her antics and keep my perch.
"You're coming to breakfast with me?" she asked, and I nodded.
We made it to the mess hall, where she made us both a plate and then sat down at a table full of other scouts. She put my plate down next to me on one side and sat on the other, and we both began to eat.
"I see we have a special guest this morning," Nena said as she sat across from us.
I nodded at her in affirmation and greeting and then returned to eating my oatmeal. It seemed I could eat pretty much anything, even as a fox. I had stronger preferences for meat, but I was still an omnivore. As everyone finished eating and stood up to leave, I hopped back to my perch. No one complained, and they all went outside, standing in a large circle with twice their number of other soldiers.
The man who had first greeted Shiori when we'd returned seemed to be in charge of this group, and he joined us all shortly after. He gave me a look but said nothing. He quickly divided everyone into teams of three, two soldiers and a scout, and assigned them areas to patrol. I hadn't actually sat in on these little morning meetings before, but it seemed that we would all be taking over an area that was being patrolled previously by another set of scouts who were returning. We'd likely pass them on the way out, and they could let us know if they'd seen anything unusual. They took this all very seriously, which made me think that perhaps they weren't as safe here as I had thought.
When all the groups were set, it was just Nena and Shiori, so I guessed he counted me as a scout today. That made me feel a little pressured, but I was also happy to be included. We weren't assigned any soldiers, I assumed, because Nena was training Shiori, and our patrol would be more focused on that. They moved quickly, and I was glad to be on Shiori's shoulder instead of having to chase them. We left through a crack in the wall that led into darkness but was visible in [Starlight] as soon as we entered. It was something everyone was sort of used to, with me usually being around the airship somewhere. Our meetup point, as it turned out, was a small hidden dip at the top of a ledge overlooking a cavern filled with a maze of deep cracks in the ground. It was impossible to see down into the maze as there was very little clearance above it, but if someone were carrying a light source, you'd know they were coming from some distance away. It was one of the coolest formations I'd ever seen.
From their conversation I gathered that the spot always had two guards and it was an excellent spot for teams of scouts to stop and hand over their shifts. The team coming back looked exhausted. The man leading their team walked up to Nena and started speaking in a sort of bored tone about several different areas that were named after different rock formations and a whole lot of nothing going on. The two members with him were also younger, so I had a feeling that this patrol was usually safe and used for instruction. I was okay with that. I wanted to learn about what was going on.
With a bounce in her step, Nena began leading us down a path. Once we had moved on a bit, though, she got more serious and became more cautious and watchful. We crept through several large caverns and a few narrow channels before we got to a very large cavern. There were a few hand holds cut into a wall that they both used to quickly climb up to a narrow ledge overlooking the cavern. It had a bit of a lip that let them hide if needed.
Nena pointed out over the cavern at some dark spots on the ceiling, "Those are droppers. They are an ambush predator. If someone walks under them, they will fall from the ceiling and cover them like a blanket. Their undersides are barbed and secrete a very sticky corrosive substance on anyone caught within them. As soon as they hit the ground, they will clamp onto it and their victim and press out all the air. They're bigger than they look from this far away and very strong. It's nearly impossible to get out without someone on the outside helping you." she lectured. I looked at them, then back to her, and put out some claws.
"No Foxy. We don't kill them. They are dangerous, but we can always check where they've moved around the room. Often, the cult’s hunters don't realize they are here until it's too late."
I nodded at that.
"Most of these chambers have natural traps like these and many others that we've set ourselves. It's important to stick to the path that I'm showing you."
I nodded along to that, too.
"The traps are a big part of what keeps us from being overrun," Shiori added.
It seemed smart. If you didn't have enough people to fight, make it too hard for the enemy to get to you. The day proceeded with us making our way through caverns and passages. Shiori began leading us after our first stop as Nena watched her. Shiori reported back the traps she spotted, how she'd seen them, and how they worked. She showed us tracks she found, both from the previous patrol and some small wildlife and monsters in the caverns. Each time, Nena would add a little bit of information on how to see these things to me. I listened to all of this as well and through the next few hours, a set of chimes rewarded my diligence.
* Congratulations. Through your actions you have unlocked the skill [Detect Traps]!
After unlocking the skill, I started walking with Shiori and trying to help. It wasn't exactly fun, but I needed the skill experience, and it helped build good habits. The walking was doing me some good, too. I felt like I was working out the stiffness that had set in. I had figured out from watching how I healed that there was a difference between healing damage and healing serious injuries. I had a [Hero] perk, [Fast Healing], that closed most cuts and wounds within a day. A serious injury was different. When I was brought to the airship, I had many broken bones, torn muscles, and damaged organs. They healed much faster than usual, yes, but it wasn’t just HP recovering. The injuries had temporarily lowered my max health. It seemed each injury needed so much health recovery dedicated to it before it would heal, and I could begin to recover HP normally. The feeling of really moving around like this was a relief.
We stopped for lunch at another hidden ledge. It gave us a great spot to watch for trouble from a distance without revealing ourselves. Anyone who knew anything about me would know I was here. The room was lit up in starlight, but anyone who knew that about me, I was happy to have found me. We ate trail rations and watched the room. Shiori and Nena spoke in whispers while we were eating.
"This place is always empty. Maybe a monster will show up sometimes, so we have to keep an eye and ear out anyway." Shiori told me.
"There are a few spaces like this on the far side of the mountain we can use for training," Nena added.
"The biggest things are the giant lizards. There are a few kinds, and they can all sneak pretty well in here. It’s good because the one time a cultist group of slavers came through this way, they were ambushed and eaten," Shiori said.
That made me wonder where she had been captured.
She continued, "The major downside is that if they catch sight of you, they will hunt you relentlessly."
"The paths we use will avoid them for the most part," Nena added. "We likely won't even see them. They like to stay in their small territories. We'll be fine so long as we don’t trespass."
I nodded along to all of this when I felt the wind shift, pulling at my attention. I stopped and turned to watch the room. The wind didn't bother me unless it was important. I watched far across the chamber as it slowly got brighter until I saw a group of people walking in through another path. They had several balls of fire floating over their heads and were all armed.