One morning at breakfast, Amilya warned Niphru, “I’ve heard from Morris, the Church of Conflict has heard that we have an Awakened fox here and are sending a large group of warriors here. It is best if you hide, though I will still do what I can to protect you. Unfortunately, they don’t care about laws and will likely try to hunt you down and kill you. Being in the village will make that much easier for them.”
“What? Why would they want to kill me? I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?” Niphru questioned.
Amilya replied, “No, they just believe humans are superior and any threat should be killed. They regularly cause problems in the capital by hunting the Awakened there. Mages tend to keep them safe in their towers, but it means they can’t roam the city. I was hoping you wouldn’t have to know about them for much longer.”
“But if they go around killing people, how can they still exist?” asked Niphru.
“Well, the people in charge still haven’t fixed the laws to account for Awakened, despite them being around for so long. And the warriors of the Church of Conflict aren’t all bad, they regularly go into the wilderness and kill the biggest monsters they can find nearby. This means that they help out the villages a great deal with stopping true monsters from reaching them,” Amilya responded, before sighing and continuing, “I do wish the laws would be updated, Awakened are clearly people too, but the law only protects humans.
Niphru whined before asking, “Why wouldn’t they want the laws to protect everyone though?”
Shaking her head, Amilya replied, “A lot of those in charge agree with the Church of Conflict that humans are the only beings that matter. Others don’t want to risk their position. Anyway, at the rate they tend to travel, you have about three days to find somewhere to hide from them. I can’t give you any advice because they will question me, and I have to help them or I might lose my position and be unable to help in the future.”
“I’ll go try to find somewhere then. Thank you for the warning. Will Dawn be okay?” Niphru responded.
“You are welcome, and Dawn will be fine, though I’m sure she will miss you. When the church leaves, we will come find you again like we did before. Actually that reminds me, I still have some of your fur which can be used to track you magically. Let me go grab it so you can destroy it,” Amilya stated, before leaving the room.
A moment later, Amilya returned with a small box, opening it up to reveal a tuft of hair. She took it out and put it into the fireplace before waving Niphru over. She then spoke, “Could you please burn that hair? This way you know it is gone and cannot be used to follow you.”
Niphru nodded, then sent his foxfire into the fireplace and burned the hair down to ashes before bringing his flame back to himself. He then replied, “Thank you for this as well. Hopefully we can meet again soon. I already miss Dawn and the food.”
He thought for a few moments as he left. He could ask Diara for help, she was often in the forest as well. But the more he thought about it, the less it seemed like a good idea. If the Church’s people were going to be asking about him, she might be forced to talk as well. Perhaps it would be best if he were to find somewhere on his own.
As he wandered into the forest, he realized something he should have noticed before, namely that his danger sense didn’t seem to activate at the same distance into the forest as before, and that area had increased with his second mutation. If he kept going into the forest, he should be able to get further away while still being safe. And since his intelligence had recovered, and even increased, he should be able to risk another mutation to expand that safe area even further.
With a basic plan in mind, he raced towards the barren trail through the forest, as that would allow him to move more swiftly, and he cloaked himself in an illusion to remain hidden. As he ran down the path, he considered more deeply. He could make a den, stay there a little while, then go even deeper with another den. Perhaps even a third. That should put him well beyond where the humans traveled into the forest.
After a while, his sense of danger started to warn him he was getting close to the edge of where he could travel safely. At this point he decided to make his first den, rapidly digging into the ground near a tree trunk in the trail, still surprised at the complete lack of life.
Following the creation of a small den, he explored the area around the empty trail, finding a few trees that had dropped nuts, as well as a few berry bushes he could snack on. Grabbing a bit of a snack, he then headed back to the small burrow he had made. Holding an illusion of nothing out of the ordinary above the burrow, he curled up and fell asleep.
After waking up, he went hunting, tapping a squirrel with mana to startle it into jumping off the tree it was perched on. Following this meal, he could feel the mana density was starting to become dangerous, but as that was intentional, he ignored the sense of danger. Instead of leaving, he explored even further into the forest, following the same dead trail.
As he became tired again later in the day, he began digging a second burrow, though it was a bit too dangerous this deep in the forest to stay. Once he had it dug out, he returned to the first den, curling up and sleeping again after setting up his illusion.
He woke up part-way into the night to an intense burning sensation, he focused his will on storing the mana safely, and felt all of his mana flow into his body. A sudden feeling of alarm struck him as he somehow knew this was a very bad thing to allow happen. Pushing with all his will, he shoved the condensing mana into his mouth, struggling to hold it there for the time it continued to compress. A moment later, he spat out an amber-colored stone that he could feel was linked to himself.
Nudging the stone, he could sense it was strongly connected to him on multiple levels, and somehow knew it was vital to keep it protected. He tried extending a tendril of mana and instead it emerged from the stone. Likewise, his illusion seemed anchored to the stone, and when returned to foxfire, it was linked to the stone rather than himself.
However, he did notice that the pressure from the ambient mana was immensely decreased, funneling into the stone instead of his body. Considering this, he carefully picked up the stone in his mouth and headed deeper into the forest, sleep forgotten in his excitement and curiosity.
Even as he reached the newer den, he didn’t notice any significant danger from the mana, though he did have to expel some intentionally as he could feel a sense of fullness from the stone. Reaching out a long tendril of mana and then snapping it off at the root seemed to do the trick for an hour or so. As such, he repeated this several times, marveling at how it no longer hurt to do so. Upon completing this task, he curled up to sleep again, placing an illusion above his burrow again to make it look like just more barren ground.