Some more Zeldi training - Kiko was finding she loved this weapon, it was so cool! - stamina building and strength building exercises and an hour of what was apparently becoming enlightened to the flow of the universe through all things. It was apparently magic related, and Kiko used that to catch a quick nap because it was not going well for her at all.

After all this activity - and a restful night that was very serious because Ele didn't even ask to bed Kiko tonight - came the morning. The kitsunes were outfitted with proper shoes, leather jackets to go under the uniform, and weapons of choice. Kiko picked up a Zeldi to match Ele, and a brace of knives. She wasn't super talented with throwing shit, but she had manual dexterity and depth of vision down enough to make an accurate throw if needed.

The excursion was a lot more than just a few guys going to cut trees; carts prepared and followers bringing rods for fishing, baskets for gathering herbs, bows for hunting. Apparently people took advantage of the situation to get a bit of everything, which was understandable. Feeling nervous and not sure if she was going to be able to connect properly with the guards and Fatherborn, the caravan set out!

Not content to just smack the closest tree and call it a day, they wandered for an hour until they got to a specific grove of trees. Darker than the trees that surrounded it, and thrice as tall, this was what the Kitsune Woodsmen were looking for, as tools were retrieved and work began. The followers had dispersed, taking a guard with them to fish and gather, or leaving alone to hunt. Splitting into four quadrants of five men to cover each direction, it was here that Kiko found why the party was so large.

Far from the patrolled cities and policed outskirts, in the depths of the forests and mountains, stalked the Beasts. First sighting was called by one of the Watchers, a pair of Scraps approaching the noise. Scraggily looking dogs with little cohesion, they were known to attract their own kind with baying howls once they had found an point of interest. Furious and cadaverous, they were little threat to a trained warrior, but did have a habit of appearing in large number and could overwhelm small groups of two or three. Smaller clans had to set traps and clear out a parameter before gathering, but large clans like Yeni's would just match the number of Beasts wholesale and meet them head on.

The howls came, signalling the attraction of it's kin, and a few seconds later the howls stopped as Kiko threw a knife at it. Not a shot that would kill instantly, but one that caused a great deal of pain. The second beast would rush into the group of Kitsunes and be impaled on the tightly packed formation of spears and Zeldi.

This was the next hour, Watchers calling breach points for each quadrant of Kitsunes to cover, and beasts being slain. Kiko got laser focused on the incoming targets and thrusted for the skull as accurately as possible, focusing on ignoring the blood and jolt of driving the metal through flesh and bone. Just when everything seemed to be going well, a nearby tree was almost obliterated when a bulky suit of armour was smashed into it. Following, came a trio of giant bull-men, taller than the suit of armour and massive in muscles. The front bull was bleeding out of numerous wounds, and then died when the suit of armour launched a twelve inch nail through it's eye with a resounding crack.

Pushing out and off from the tree, the suit of armour met the charge of the second bull-creature head on, catching it's horns and digging short spikes into the ground with it's feet to reinforce posture. From here, the suit smashed it's head against the bull's skull and then activated high beam lights from the eyes, burning the bull's retinas. While it seemed the suit was doing pretty well against this bull creature, the Kitsunes had their own problems with the fact that the second creature had decided to not bother trying to deal with the suit, and turn it's head towards the Kitsunes gathered instead...