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         My brother beside me finally noticed the intruder and went to jump up in preparation to draw his sword, but quickly thought better of it when a large pile of weapons and armor appeared behind him. A staring contest took place for a few minutes until I realized it was drilling a hole in my cigar with its gaze, and it suddenly came to me, it wanted to trade. I gave a relieved cackle and elbowed my brother before telling the other to grab a few cigars and a bottle of wine for our new guest. Bill, the one on cart duty, quickly rose onto two legs and rummaged around until it tossed out a cigar case and small bottle of our second finest wine to me which I promptly rolled to the, hopefully, new trading partner. The coyote easily opened the dual cigar case and grabbed one before leaning in close to the fire to light it.

           The dull orange glow from its now lit cigar made one of its eyes to eerily glow and with each puff, the smoke danced around the creature. Suddenly it began to laugh madly which caused us to laugh as well until a deep and gravelly voice caused us pause.

“It's rare to see your kind this far into the cold.” It said in a series of barks and whimpers.

I was shocked that it knew our language, not many bother or have the chance to learn it.

“I could say the same to you coyot, I didn’t know you guys could even leave the deserts,” my brother beside me responded.

The coyote chewed on the cigar for a second while looking into the fire before peering back, “You are mistaken, I’m not a skinny,” it tapered out its final words in a laugh.

Huh, I thought for sure he was a dark shaman from the desert tribes, but I guess we were just taking a guess based on its current form. There was a silence for a while as we continued to puff away and after a little bit, I joined in on the conversation.

“We never give up the chance to practice our craft and make some money,” I took a long draw from the cigar, “You know, we are not that trusted or welcomed back home. Up here in the cold though we are embraced with open arms and wide smiles, especially in these tribes.”

           We continued to sit in silence while drinking and smoking until the creature asked one last question, “How often do you pass through?”

Hmm, looks like we may have a new recurring trade partner, “Every other moon cycle usually.”

Taking that as the end, the coyote pushed over his still full wine bottle and half-empty cigar case which I assume means it wants more. Bill understood it the same way and grabbed one of our boxes of cigars and a pot of wine before placing it near the creature. With one final laugh, the darkness reached out and engulfed both the coyote and its new bounty. I shivered at the sight of such a hard feat being performed like a simple party trick. With the creature now gone, there was only one thing on our mind, what was that thing?

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           What a hospitable group, usually they are so fearful of me that they pass out or become incoherent. I dropped off my supplies into the shack’s basement and went back to retrieve the bones before placing them in a pile nearby. With that done I resumed my previous mission of gathering information about the village, but after a few hours, nothing particularly interesting happened so I decided to do some infiltration. Dropping down from the treetop I maintained my coyote form and leaped over the wall. I landed softly on a residential home and began to stalk the shadows. Soon I remembered why I’m not a fan of large settlements, I could hear every heartbeat and every breath. I could sense the iron and metal tools and utensils in every house as well as the calm brain waves of the sleeping residents. The smell of unwashed humans lingered on every surface, along with the smell of animal feces wafting from the barn.

           All the smell and sensations caused me a slight headache, should I dull my senses? I don’t really like doing that, but It should be fine as long as I keep an eye on magic signatures. Ugh, I forgot how much settlements cause me sensory overloads, its not even the height of activity or anything, everyone’s asleep. I dropped down from the rooftops and started peering through windows in a very creepy like fashion, there’s no helping it really, in search of nothing in particular. The interiors looked like the work of trappers, with abundant furs everywhere. I didn’t find any bedroom, so I moved to the second floor and found a lit fire pit and several people wrapped in furs asleep around it. I had smelled smoke before, but I thought it was a fireplace or something, not a stone fire pit on the second floor.

           I took a close look at the internal activity of the residents and found that, like everything else, their magic content was abnormally high. I debated whether or not to snoop around some dreams but left it for later in case there was a dream shaman around. I dropped down and checked the other houses until I got to the biggest, by a slight margin, house on the block. Hopefully, it belongs to the leader, if there was anyone’s dream, I should snoop around in it was his, or her. I was very careful with my approach because of a rough ward surrounding the perimeter. Quickly my caution paid off when I detected very thin lines of thread crisscrossing the surrounding ground. With smooth steps, I weaved through the early warning systems until I got to the window. As I placed a paw on the window seal it started to throb slightly causing me to remove it quickly, you would think that after all these years after that incident I would remember that the layer protecting me from iron was damaged on that hand, but noooo I always forget.

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