Today was just full of lessons. Lessons like “don’t challenge a hive of beetle wolves with only four creatures” and “seriously, why the fuck are you screwing with the hive of beetle wolves”. I would have laughed at my honestly stupid mistakes if it weren’t for the fact I was still running from them. Well, maybe later, assuming I could survive this.

I had been right in my guess that more beetles would soon be coming after us after the ambush, though I hadn’t expected them to come so damn quickly. Seriously, those little bastards really knew how to work their terrifying insect legs!

And as it turned out, the beetle wolves were much better at running through the dense forest than I was, and keeping out of range of them was becoming more and more difficult. Thankfully I shouldn’t have to go too far, as I had stuck to the edges of the beetle wolves’ territory and not gone super far in. After all, I might be stupid but I wasn’t an idiot.

Bits of memories would flash through my head, images of a gnoll running through the forest, placing his feet expertly thanks to a mixture of years of experience and primal instinct. Everytime the memories hit me, I would become just a little faster, just a little more surefooted, and I was certain that without my inheritance guiding me right now, I would have already tripped and been overrun.

The foxes were doing a bit better, but not by much. Their agile bodies were naturally suited towards the forest environment, however their heavy injuries didn’t exactly help them move quickly.

What if we had only managed to get away from the beetle wolves the first time because we got out of sight, not because we left their territory? Shoot, I hadn’t thought about this nearly as much as I should have. It would be kind of silly for them to abandon prey that they are pretty much outrunning just because they went a little too far after all, right?

Dammit, I really was so stupid for thinking I had thought of an amazing plan. If I survived this, I needed to go straight to the library and spend at least a week reading up strategy, survival, and general tips on how not to die a horrible death.

A strange movement from my foxes brought me out of my thoughts. They had suddenly accelerated ahead of me and turned around, facing the oncoming group. Before I could open my mouth and yell at them to keep running, they began to glow and after a very brief pause, streaks of silver light shot out from them and into the beetle wolves. 

I spared a glance behind me and saw that the volley had managed to instantly take out about ten of our pursuers, a full fifth of the group chasing us! Sadly, that seemed to be the most the foxes could do at the moment, as they were likely already exhausted from the earlier fighting and the wounds they took, so they immediately turned around and began to run again.

The attack had not been pointless though, as it seemed to cause the beetle wolves to hesitate, and they began to slow down. I kept running, of course, not willing to accept a possibly false sense of security, but in the end there were no more traps and eventually the beetle wolves fell out of sight.

Once I was certain we were in the clear, I collapsed on the ground, panting. We weren’t quite out of the woods yet, literally and metaphorically, but I needed a moment to pause and collect myself.

Somehow, I had honestly thought my little ambushing idea would let me take out the whole hive. It had been stupid, arrogant even. That being said, I really had learned a lot. For one, it was now clear that on the spot planning was not my specialty. I was simply too prone to panicking, especially when in the thick of things.

In the future, I would need to make sure I was never directly in the action, and be in a position where I could calmly direct my allies from the back lines. I’d also need to find better ways to test my limits in the future. I had thought I had a realistic idea of my own flaws, as well as the flaws of my troops, but obviously I still overestimated myself.

Vowing I would visit the library after this had sort of been a more in the moment thing, but honestly it really wouldn’t hurt to spend a bit studying. Not only that but I needed to try exploring these memories I kept getting. From what I could tell, most of them were coming from a gnoll, and a pretty strong one at that. It was supposed to be possible to get skills by truly absorbing your inherited memories.

Well not [Skills], like the ones that let you shoot magical silver arrows, but you could learn something like fencing, cooking, or really any mundane skill that would normally take months if not years of practice to learn and master. Maybe I would be able to find something that would help me be able to think clearer under pressure?

I had a lot to think about, but here in the woods probably wasn’t the best place to think. I was lucky today, not only managing to escape death once, but twice. Not only that, but by the looks of it my foxes had actually gained enough power to get a new skill. In a sense, you could even say this whole trip had been successful!

But now it was time to go home. More carefully than ever this time, my foxes and I limped back to my domain to lick our wounds and grow from my mistakes.

Myewphi

After talking a lot about our respective stories with another author (check out chronicles of aonus), I feel like I am starting to get a better grasp on what I want gem to be like. This chapter gives a taste of where I am going with him, partly with the much more sarcastic internal dialogue, as well as his musings on his own weaknesses and how he plans to improve.

Characterization is honestly the hardest thing for me in writing, but good characterization is what I value most in the books I read so I desperately want to get better at it. A part of me is afraid I was too sudden with the tone shift in this chapter, making the internal dialogue sarcastic way too out of nowhere, but honestly the change had to happen eventually and sooner is better than later?

The next few parts are def gonna be focusing on really fleshing out Gem as a person, as well as his teammates. If anyone has any good tips for how I can do that,,, i'm all ears lol

Anyways, thank you to everyone sticking with me as i do my best to find my writing style! I can only hope that by the end of my journey youll all be able to enjoy my stories, and more importantly characters, even more!