Katerine woke up excited. She would leave on an adventure. She started her morning ritual with taking a brush and bushing all her tails. She found it relaxing and peaceful, taking a brush through the fur and making it glossy. Her long hair on the other hand she made nice with some spells. She had already had enough fights with long hair in her previous life.
She wore some easy fitting dress type outfit that covered her from all angles and had some enchantments against damage. She had estimated it was about as tough as some thin iron plating. Not much against a real blade or weapon in this world, but enough for traveling in the woods.
She prepared two piles of similar clothing and laid those on her bed in preparation.
Glacia and Vulcania left their room in that order for breakfast.
““Good morning! When will we leave?””
Oceatica walked up to the twins and gave them a hug. “Not so fast. We first have a gift for you.”
Oceatica got a present from behind her back and gave it to Glacia and Flamitar had another of the same size and gave it to Vulcania.
The twins hugged their parents. ““Thank you.””
Glacia and Vulcania opened the presents at the same time. Out of the presents came two collars. The collars were a solid band with a small ornament at the front. It was black and red for Vulcania and white and light blue for Glacia. The ornament was a symbol that represented the both of them. A circle with from the bottom heat waves going up and from the top icicles going down.
Glacia thanked her parents again, “Thank you it looks beautiful. And I am guessing I am missing a few enchantments. Can you tell me what it all has?”
Oceatica grabbed her collar and showed, at the back, a stretching enchantment. “This here is how you put it on. You put it over your head and make sure all your hair is out and close it up. It has some strong enchantments to survive all you can throw at it and can self repair at an incredible rate if it does get destroyed.”
Vulcania had spotted that the entire collar was made out of solid mana, something that can easily be replenished. She activated the stretchiness mana at the back side and put it on. After removing her hair from the loop did she tighten it. “It fits great. And looks great as well. Come on Glacia put it on as well.”
Something Glacia quickly did with the help of her mother. Flamitar explained some more. “It also has six small subspace pockets. Each is only about as big as a normal backpack, two have been enchanted with a cleaning enchantment. In about two days, everything you put in will be very clean. Of course it is a lot faster if you do it by yourself. The two next to it have a drying enchantment combined with an anti rot enchantment. It is for your tent. You can pack it up wet and put it in and it will not rot, break or deteriorate no matter how long you store it for. Lastly, the last two have a preservation enchantment. All food will remain good for about four times as long, from experience that is longer than you will ever need.”
Vulcania jumped and hugged Flamitar. “Thanks, this is a great gift. I will treasure it deeply. And I will make use of it right now for packing all my stuff.”
Oceatica spoke up once more, “all the subspaces also have a weight reduction enchantment. To make sure your neck does not break with sudden movements. Now quickly pack up, I will make you some lunch and hopefully you can leave with dad within the hour.”
At the end of packing the twins each had one pocket of clothing, one full of tents and bedrolls and one with food. Glacia had a set of pots, pans and cutlery in a cleaning pocket, freshly taken from her own home, and Vulcania had a big coil of rope, for adventuring and night activities in a drying pocket.
The twins and Flamitar were jogging down a road to a city named Illusion Edge. This city was built as a frontier outpost near the illusion forest that had the kitsune village at the center. The name was never changed from founding despite no longer being near the edge of the forest anymore.
Flamitar pressed on the twins heart, “I have long since given up to convince you to hide your tails, but please be careful. There are a lot of people our there that would give quite a bit of money to get you as slaves, pets or trophies. I do not want to need to save you every other month. Others will tempt you or people close around you with a lot of money to make you do their bidding without needing to resort to the illegal spectrum. Kitsunes are a legendary nearly extinct figure in most people’s minds and we are, following many myths and legends, very strong with magic. So you might get asked to teach them magic.”
Glacia piped up, “dad, we already had this conversation six times already. We will be careful, and we will tell them that the only magic we can teach them is in their words ‘gamble’ magic. I am not even sure non-kistunes can even learn that properly from all the stories we heard.”
The rest of the two day trip went by without anything noteworthy happening.
The edge of the forest was in sight. It was lunchtime on the second day of traveling and the first day after leaving the village.
Flamitar proposed, “Let's eat lunch at the edge of the forest.”
The twins spoke up at the same time, ““Great idea.””
When they reached the edge of the forest they looked out over the fields and a city in the distance. The city was big with thick and high walls. The walls had been built from ordinary stone. It was visible that this was a country near a time of war. No building was outside of the walls and the walls and watchtowers were manned with lookouts for any potential threat.
The distance between them and the city one would estimate at half a day's travel. But for the kitsunes it would be closer to half an hour.
They ate lunch with a good view of the city. “Dad, will we, kitsunes, ever fight the humans for forest land?”
“Yes, we have clearly defined our area of land and if any humans get close enough to it we will talk to the corresponding authorities. To make clear to the other party when we will see an action as a declaration of war. If they do not respect us we will fight them. Speaking of humans, I will disguise myself when I am in the city, do not expose me. This might compromise not only quite a bit of my items and favors but also might complicate the situation for a lot of other kitsunes. You already know the story we are going with. I am an old friend of your father and I am doing him a favor getting you safely to the city and to a good inn and getting you registered at the adventurers guild.”
Fancy magic storage collars? Neat! Would be super convenient if those existed in real life
Story has been good for the most part, though some decisions I question, but it's mostly a matter of personal taste. There have been some grammar mistakes and stuff I saw as I was reading (happens automatically for me), but nothing bad enough to disrupt the reading or make it confusing as to what was intended to be said. Though there were a few descriptions that made no sense like the "statue of the twins sitting on each other's necks" from chapter 9 that was apparently supposed to be one of the twins sitting on the other's shoulders, but I'm not directly counting that as a grammar mistake or typo, just a confusing, unclear description
Thanks for the feed back. Glad you are not pushing your personal opinions on me and only saying them.
I have no complaints with anything so far. I have been enjoying the story just fine as it is. I'm already reading it because I enjoy it, so you don't need to change the way you're doing anything to try to impress me.
Disclaimer: I am not reading this with the mindset of an editor/proofreader so I wouldn't notice the kinds of minor imperfections that could only be found at Grammar Nazi level of nitpicking. I have no idea if any of those exist in this story or not.
Great to hear, This is just the kind of feedback I wanted. No need to be a proof reader or editor while reading.