I open my eyes and I see the inside of the wagon, then I notice the sound of the wagon moving, and lastly, I hear Marina saying in a relieved tone: <You are finally awake! I thought that cat might have done more than bleed you… But then you grew another tail and one of the beads on your necklace became strange… so I thought you should be fine, but you were out through all the night...>

Wait… Another tail?! I get up and check my backside and yeah, the third tail is there, behaving the same as the other two, and for the necklace, I take it off and look at it, and indeed the first bead now has a flame inside of it, it’s red and it's still like it’s frozen. I wear the necklace again and say: <Thanks for healing me… I won by the skin of my teeth, and I was too tired to move afterward>

<Understandable, by the size you show you don't have much blood in you if you start losing it, plus the creature you fought, while it must have been pretty weak, it’s still pretty good at knowing where to strike, the necromancer cat, is known for killing their target with minimal damage to the body, so they can reanimate it and use it to the full potential.> Marina explains to me.

<Well, it also used air magic, or whatever he used to push me around, and I didn’t know you were foreshadowing necromancer cats when you were talking about that other realm, or I would have asked more information.> I say, wondering why that cat was here in the 1st place anyway.

<I’m sorry Ivo, those cats shouldn't even be this deep in our realm, their realm is almost a month of travel from here, given that there might be some living in our realm which hide and can’t be accounted for until they emerge.> Marina says, sounding puzzled.

<Maybe they still have something to do with whatever happened at my Fortress Shrine? and by mine, I mean where you guys found me, that cat did mention that it didn't expect to find a fox around… but it also might have been just trying to mock me, or taunt me> I say pondering if the cat might have ties to those who tried to seal the last owner of my body and was trying to move into my fortress shrine. But no matter, I can speculate as much as I want, I still have no clue as to who tried to seal the other fox, though I would like to find out, just so I know who to stay very far away from.

Marina nods and says: <Well we should get to the next village by tonight, there is zero chance that a creature like a necromancer cat...>
I interrupt her and say <Necromancer cat is a bit long-winded, do you guys have a shorter name for them?>
Marina stops talking and says annoyed, but it fades away quickly <Huh? Oh! yeah, I didn't want to confuse you with names, we call them Necra, some just abbreviate them to Neca, I use Necra, it's not like the extra r makes it that much more long-winded. What I was saying before you interrupted me is that there is no chance a Necra would go through all the distance I think he went through without someone taking notice, especially when human dead bodies are involved.>

I nod, makes sense, normal humans do tend to not enjoy other humans turning up dead, time to address something that is going to be vital to my survival from now on: <Marina, could you teach me how to use magic to heal? the only way I could figure out on the fly was cauterizing my wound, wich well, hurts, and not really easy to do mid fight> I ask, figuring out this was the most magical energy I would have until the next battle, so might as well put it to use on something that will save my life, or someone else’s.

Marina nods and says: <Cauterizing? no matter, using magic to heal someone or yourself should be a piece of cake for you, as you should be able to use magic to alter yourself in any way you want, making yourself stronger, faster, whatever, healing works the same, for wounds you just boost your or someone else’s body regeneration qualities, that stops bleeding, and mends flesh. For poison or illness, it's a bit harder and requires you to know what to look for. With poisons is generally easy, as you just need a sample of the poison, you examine it with your magical senses, find it in the patient’s body and eliminate it, if they are not in danger of dying you can also just speed up how quickly the poison leaves the system, in which case you don't need anything… except the knowledge that the patient won't die. For illness, I’m not even explaining, you are gonna need someone specialized in them, as you need to be very familiar with what the symptoms are and where the illness is actually attacking, or else you might be “healing” something that is fighting the illness instead of the illness itself. Needless to say, medicine is better to heal illness than magic>

<Will it work even if the wound won't heal by itself? or if it’s infected?> I ask

<It should work, preventing a wound from healing naturally, and preventing a wound from being healed magically is generally two very distinct things. If it's infected you should have healed before then, but if you find someone with an infected wound, you need to clean the wound and treat it normally before healing it. I have some basic healing herbs and liquids to use on such occasions, I apply them, wait like a day and if the person is still alive I use healing magic. Now, a disclaimer, this is just how to use raw magic to heal, there are some creatures able to actually mend wounds with a snap of fingers, Time magic, Life magic, Nature magic, those 3 aspects mainly skip all my explanation and instead use different methods...>

Before she can start explaining those methods too I raise my hand and ask: <so say I wanna practice… do I just cut myself and practice?>

<oh dear no… don’t cut yourself, you can capture an animal or something and practice on it, cutting it and not yourself. Oh! also, needless to say, you can't heal dead things… if a body’s living functions have ceased, no amount of healing will bring them back, unless again, time, life, nature… maybe even death magic is involved.>

I nod and get up and jump out of the wagon noting Lionel was marching right beside it.

<i’ll be back with something to train with, the last thing I wanna do after sleeping all night is be cooped up in the wagon, and hunting seems like something fun to do… maybe I’ll learn how to not be noisy in the forest> I say to Marina and Lionel, I wave at them and run into the forest, wondering for how long will we be in a forest.

I get into the forest and finally took some time to mind my step in the forest, learning not to brush against all of the bushes and undergrowth, avoiding dry leaf piles, or dry sticks.

It took me a lot of time to figure out wind and smell properly, but after that I managed to find a squirrel, minding his business, eating something up in a tree, so I take some time to turn into a feral fox so that with a smaller body I could climb up making less sound, then I quickly creep up the tree digging my claws in the bark avoiding the branches that would make noise if I touched them and once I was on the same level as the Squirrel I jumped on it and squished it against the branch as it squirmed to get free. I changed back to my anthropomorphic form and took the squirming terrorized squirrel down keeping it firmly in my grip.

I brought it back to the Wagon as the adventurers had stopped to eat and rest the horses.

<The hunter returns> Evan jokes seeing the squirming rabbit in my hand.

<Don't joke… it took me all morning to get one> I say chuckling.

<We all start somewhere Ivo, how was the forest? calm or silent?> Evan asks inquisitively.

<Pretty silent, I mean birds and critters are running around, but nothing big, even after I stopped making noise, I could only see small creatures> I answer him truthfully, as I wasn't looking for anything big to capture, and thinking about it, I didn't see anything bigger than a squirrel or rabbit.

<Worrying… I know for sure the forest around here is a hunting ground for a few of the villages around here, it's even regulated, hopefully, the animals were just spooked and didn't leave completely> then he shrugs and continues: <not that it’s our problem, travelers can't hunt in here anyways, I thought you would run into some ranger patrolling, but if they didn't find you well, I only hope that the next village is fine>

I shrug too, I couldn't even smell humans anywhere in the forest, so there was nothing I could add.

Time passes as I practice healing with the squirrel for a few hours before its yells of pain every time I scratch it gets too painful to listen to and I let it go and spend the rest of the time ironing the kinks of form changing until I can comfortably switch in a matter of seconds.

The sun starts setting when we get to a village with its gates closed.

Lionel enters the wagon with me and says: <Try to not show yourself, if the gates are closed it means the village got attacked, or they think they are in danger, the last thing they want to see is a fox going around.>

I sigh heavily and ask: <what if I put up an illusion? I can do that now>

Lionel sighs too: <I guess it can work, I doubt anyone will be able to tell the difference, though don’t leave our side unless I tell you to, ok?> 

I chuckle and say jokingly: <Ok dad.>

Finally a chance to interact with humans. I focus on the only human form I know instinctively, myself, and create a shell of the same form around myself, it fits awkwardly since I’m taller than my body is now.

<How does it look?> I ask Lionel as I try to move around and make faces.

<Looks awkward, but human enough if you just need to follow us and talk> Lionel answers.

I have to admit it feels like I'm a puppeteer, or stuck inside a costume that is way too big for me, but it takes only a minute to get the hang enough to not accidentally knock into things and after securing the wagon near the walls we approach the gates.

This village walls were still very crude and made of sharpened wooden trunks, no walkway or watchtower near the gate and I question myself why… like, how do you know when the way is safe again? 

The question is answered when we get to the gate and the gate itself has slits where to look out from, still very far from ideal… like do they not know how to build watchtowers? The gate is also made with a smaller door, probably to allow people to still go out without having to open the gate.

Lionel walks up to the smaller door and knocks, someone quickly opens the slit and asks in a concerned voice: <W-who is there?>

<I’m Lionel Picano, of the Picano adventuring group, can we get in?> he asks politely

The person says relieved <Yeah… hum… bring the wagon too, you might not find your horses come morning…> I can hear someone else on the other side of the gate talking to him in a hushed tone: <you dumbass, ask him for the plate 1st> the guy stumbles and says <...that is if you have your plate>

Lionel pulls out a metal plate from under his armor and shows it to the man behind the slit and adds: <I have 2 more members and a helper, we are journeying to the capital to sell some loot>

the man says: <well that does seem like an adventurer’s plate...> 

Another person from behind the gate speaks up and says threateningly: <If you guys are brigands or monsters know that there is already another adventuring party in the village, so they’ll deal with you if you try anything funny.>

I sigh… got to love when a scared person gives up the advantage, given, we don't know how many of them there are, but if we wanted to attack the place knowing to not come in or be ready to fight is already better, no matter though, at least we get to meet other adventurers.

Lionel sends Evan to get the wagon and we are let in in a hurry.