Some time passed before the village had fully gathered, and Morris led the group to go speak to them. Niphru didn’t pay much attention, other than when he was introduced to them. In order to avoid confusion, he stated that when he approached the town, he would put up an illusionary marker up in the air so they knew not to attack.
Once it appeared the people would at least tolerate him, he went back to mostly ignoring the talks. Mostly, they simply went over what the group had talked about before, with a few extra details and tasks included by Morris.
As the talks finished, Niphru informed Morris that he would try to find the missing group in the forest and, after he expressed his understanding, began to head toward the gate nearest the wilderness. Meanwhile, he spoke with Dawn over their link, letting her know he would be extremely careful.
Part of his agreement with her was to continually give her updates as to what was going on, so as soon as the guards at the gate let him out, he let her know he was leaving. The trip to reach the forest was completely uneventful, and he wrapped himself in all the illusion he could before leaping up above the trees on a series of planes of force magic.
From his vantage point, he was able to spot numerous large birds in the distance, as well as a few clearings and less dense areas. While he couldn’t see much through the more densely covered areas, it did at least give him a basic idea of the lay of the land. After his look around, he descended back to the edge of the woods and began wandering around, trying to see if he could pick up the scent of any humans.
He did find a few, but it appeared that they were all from people he had noticed at the village, so he simply moved onward, senses alert. After traveling a short distance into the woods, he decided that he wanted to try to make it harder to smell him, and sought out a place with plenty of leaves and dirt. Once he found a good-looking place, he used his limited water magic to pull some liquid from the air, spreading it around.
After wetting the leaves and producing some mud, Niphru slipped out of his harness and repeatedly rolled around in the muck to cover himself, hoping the scent would mask his own. Upon finishing, he returned to his prior efforts of advancing into the wilderness while avoiding anything that might be dangerous. As he traveled, he regularly stopped to see if he could smell anything that might lead to humans, such as ash, smoke, burned flesh, or cooked food.
He found quite a few animals as he traveled, but unfortunately, by the time he decided to stop for the evening, he had not located anything likely to lead to people. Instead of continuing as night fell, he began digging into the dirt near a tree, forming a small burrow for himself. After sharing with Dawn that he was settling in for the night and putting half his illusions over the entrance, he curled up and attempted to sleep.
Some time before the sun rose, he was awakened by something large snuffling nearby outside his little den. Moving carefully, even if he was silencing himself with illusion, he poked his head out and looked around. A short distance away, he spotted a somewhat overweight bear stuffing itself with berries.
No longer worried that something was looking for him, he relaxed and padded away, resolving to find something to eat for himself before going too much further. He had to admit that he wasn’t looking forward to going back to uncooked food, but he would live. Then again, he mused, he could cook things, just without spices and side dishes, which was what he had originally been thinking of.
Unlike the afternoon before, he actively sought out some of the scents of other animals, ignoring several of them as he spotted them. Eventually, he found a mutant lynx, though at least this cat wasn’t like the one that had ambushed the group a few days prior.
Though the creature seemed to smell something, it didn’t seem terribly concerned, just looking around and sniffing for a moment before wandering away. Some observation showed that it had oversized canines, as well as much more heavily muscled front limbs than normal. Due to the changes to its limbs, it had an odd gait, though Niphru couldn’t see anything he could use to his advantage.
Eventually, as he was deciding to just attack it directly, it leapt at a tree and scurried upward, coming to rest on a large branch. This somewhat changed his plans He moved three of his illusions toward it before forming a strong plane of force beside it.
Since these things possessed no smell, sound, or appearance, the cat remained relaxed. Or at least, that was the case until he condensed the illusions into an intense ball of flame over its head and repeatedly smacked it back into the branch every time it attempted to escape.
This ‘fight’ ended up being pathetically easy, the creature dying before it could even leave the tree. Since he had focused the fire on only burning it, the tree remained mostly unharmed, aside from some claw marks. Another push from his force magic toppled the body off the branch, and he approached it, bringing his foxfire down to cook some of the meat instead of immediately burning it completely.
Once he had eaten his fill, he stepped back and added in his fire magic, quickly destroying the corpse so nothing else would consume the mana-enriched flesh. After putting the fire out, his ears twitched as he heard something odd in the distance, though he couldn’t be sure as to what it was. Turning towards where he thought it came from, he began traveling again.
A short while later, he became quite annoyed at how dense the foliage was becoming, especially since he had needed to burn quite a few mutated plants that had posed a threat to him. Tired with this, he took to the sky once again, rising above the canopy with his magic.
Oddly enough, he spotted a thin plume of smoke in the distance, and, curiosity aroused, he shifted his travel toward it instead. Some time later, his ears twitched at the sound of shouts and the occasional roar. He sped up, eventually finding the source of the smoke.
In a large clearing, a dip in the ground led to a cave. As smoke trickled out of the hole in the ground, two men in torn crimson leather were trying to hold off a heavily twisted bear with flaming torches. Apparently, it had been threatened from behind quite a bit, given the spikes growing from its hindquarters, an uncommon sight on a large predator. The other adaptations were more in line with what he expected.
The skin of the beast drooped, showing that it was much looser than normal, likely to make it harder for prey that fought back to get a good grip. Additionally, its head was much larger than normal, with a shockingly wide mouth full of nasty-looking teeth. The claws upon its limbs were also significantly larger than normal, as were its muscles. It did, however, remain with only four legs at least.
A closer inspection showed numerous cuts on one of the front legs, as well as the broken blade of some kind of weapon wedged into it. It also seemed to favor one side, a sign of less obvious injury. While Niphru initially thought maybe it lived in the cave and was trying to drive them out, the entrance was far too narrow for it to fit.
There were, however, signs that it had attempted to dig into the ground to reach inside. As he watched, one of the men was slightly too slow, and the bear swatted the torch from his hand before lunging forward. Seeing this, the man clumsily threw himself into a roll, barely avoiding the beast’s teeth.
Since he had already identified the men as members of the group he had been seeking, he descended closer to the fight and peeled off three of his four illusions, turning them back into foxfire and sending them below to join the men in holding off the bear.
As the creature pulled back in caution, he flickered one back to an illusion to state, “I’ve been sent to find you. Do not attack me when I reveal myself; I am a fox rather than a human.”
The men predictably seemed quite wary from hearing a message coming from thin air, but they could hardly do anything about it. As the unarmed one scrambled back to the cave and the other pulled back, Niphru pulled on his fire magic, forming a constellation of flame.
As the beast decided to risk the fire around the remaining man, Niphru struck. Dozens of bolts of flame curved to impact the beast’s head, several slamming into eyes and nose in an attempt to cripple its senses.
The man flicked his gaze up into the sky as the bear recoiled in pain, seeking the source of the sudden streaks of fire. As Niphru was still hidden behind an illusion, this was a fruitless endeavor, especially in the very limited time he could take before returning his focus to his opponent.
Since he had a moment, Niphru took a look around and, finding no birds that may attack, finally pulled away his last layer of illusion and sent it down as another ball of foxfire. The second man re-emerged from the cave carrying another flaming branch and paused for a moment, gaping as he looked upward at the fox standing calmly midair.
A roar broke the man’s distracted gaze as he snapped back to awareness and rejoined his comrade. Six sources of flame darted to and fro, the bear swinging its head back and forth between them. Since it seemed to still be able to see, Niphru once again began forming a constellation of flame, aiming to try another strike against its eyes from above.
Before he could send the fire down, however, the beast swiped at its nose with one large paw. While it was distracted, he set his orbs of foxfire to burn its throat, worried about the sheer size of its head possibly making it take too long to burn. He then sent his array of fireballs down as well, targeting its eyes again.
The men were clearly startled by this but kept together, watching the sudden storm of flames engulf the creature before them. An enraged roar ripped out from the bear as its eyes exploded from the heat driven into them, and it thrashed about wildly, falling to the ground as it tried to move its other front leg before setting down the first.
Immediately after impacting the earth, it began to toss about, the foxfire staying firmly over its throat and burning away. Horror was clearly visible on the faces of the two men as they backed away toward the cave opening.
Seeing that the beast seemed to be crippled and dying, Niphru descended from above the trees, careful to still remain well above the reach of the beast when it stood, and pulled a foxfire away from the creature, turning it back to an illusion so he could communicate again.
