Saying people went about their lives again after the departure of the adventurers wasn't quite right. Couldn't be - every single person in town but me was dead! This was borne out when I decided to go to the fountain at the center of town and get a drink of water. We walked calmly, Gelidia and I, through the wreckage of a town that must have been quite a sight in its heyday, and I unceremoniously threw myself into the water. She sighed.
"When I first met you, you had your head buried in the fountain." she said, as if she expected me to respond. All I could make for a moment or two was gurgle gurgle noises in response as I found the water... turning pink around me. Dangit! It didn't stay pink for long at all though - the water... just miraculously cleared out again as the blood of my injuries washed away. I looked at it, and blinked at her, tilting my head!
She sighed. "It's pure - it's always pure. It's an ancient form of charity. So what do you do first thing in the morning when you changed back yesterday?" She asked, head on one side as she smiled at me.
I considered that, then perched on the edge of the fountain, tail splap-splap-splapping into the water. I tried to say 'Well I dove in again!' but what actually came out was... something like MARRRERRER MREH HAAH!
She nodded and beamed a big faker smile at me, saying "THATS RIGHT! YOU DOVE IN AGAIN DIDNT YOU!" in an overblown, mocking 'talking to idiots and animals' voice and I made a chuffing noise. She opened her mouth to speak again and I timed it just so - I shook off vigorously from head to toe, just as haaaard as I could producing a noise like FLOPPA FLOPPA FLOPPA FLOPPA. I figured... she could touch me. That probably meant I could touch her. And since water could touch me? She got soaked! She let out an indignant GASP and jerked away from me, visibly dripping, eyes blearied shut and mouth wide open as she sputtered and gasped!
"BUHH!" she said, with feeling! "HOWWDIDCHU-- BUHHHH! ITS COLD!" I stuck my tongue out at her, and even if my face was a funny shape, I felt the grin as what it was, tongue lolled out, breath coming in happy pants and a kind of whining yappy huffy noise that verymuch resembled a hyena's 'laugh'! Brief interlude while Gelidia dried herself off and I laughed at her! Serves you right for making fun of me and treating me like a dog! The way she blushed and sputtered at me made me think people didn't mess with her often when she'd been alive.!
"What I want to know is what the hell those adventurers were doing here." she said grouchily. "I mean.. that guy was trying to end you. Why?" and I hunkered down off the edge of the pool to scratch at the dust again.
I SAW HIM TODAY AT THE RIVER
"Well that's no excuse to... try and..." she looked at me, like... seriously looked at me. Then she remembered that I'd been absolutely covered in gore yesterday. And naked. "... And that makes a bit more sense. I can't figure why he'd try to end you though. If you weren't a Riftwalker, I'd ask you if you'd done something dreadful in another town... but..." she gestured at me and my waggy tail.
"... You don't seem the kind. I mean, you chose PEASANT. Doesn't cover why he'd even be here... or attempt what he did, the way he did." she said thoughtfully.
DO ADVENTURERS JUST HUNT MONSTERS?
"No" she said "Not just because. Monsters come back, that's the thing. Undead monsters like myself, we simply respawn - you saw that. Monsters like YOU don't, though, but if he was really after you, he wouldn't have been in there alone, he wouldn't have been hiding until then." she said thoughtfully.
I perked my ears, and got up. "What?" she asked, and I bounded off towards the inn without drawing another word! My Wolf was just as confused, but I pressed my nose to the ground like I'd seen dogs do and drew in a thoughtful sniff of the air. I could smell myself... and the rain, but not much else until I got to the inn. I sniffed were the wizard had been and though the rain was pummeling his scent... he might as well have still been standing there for how clear his scent was.
FEAR my wolf told me. SMELL FEAR
Now that she highlighted it to me, I could tell. Yeah! I could smell fear! I let my nose lead me inside. I could smell fear from someone else too, and I could tell the difference.
"Oh great, atavism. Are you losing your marbles, Goldie?" Gelidia said, and in a flash of irritation, I scratched SCENTS in the woodwork with a claw. She blinked, but didn't pester me further as I pressed my nose down again. Fear. Different fear. I could smell... the man Torch. I looked up and... I could see a phantasm of smoke and vapors in color and... and sound as he tumbled through the air and... landed on the back. I blinked.
> New Skill Acquired: [MONSTER] Keen Senses
> Due to Synergy, [MONSTER] Keen Senses has evolved from a synergy into [MONSTER, COMBAT] Wolf-Ren. Any skill points invested have been refunded, and the skill has been reset to rank F.
>
>
> Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Wwwwwwwwhat the fuck? Wolf-Ren? I was briefly inundated as the world around me shimmered and moved like... like colored smoke and reams of fabric shifting over my eyes until I could make sense. I could see... and hear... but I could also smell just as clearly now, and... see and hear what I was smelling, and... see what I was hearing. It was impossible to describe, but and at first it made my brain twinge strangely before I could make sense of what was happening.
Sounds I heard... occupied a kind of physical space in my head. I could not only see scents in the air, but... see the shapes of them in the air, and as I buried my nose in the scent of the boy flipping through the air as he had, as I smelled the shock and pain in him, I heard... a phantasm of his heart beating.
PUNK
My wolf had it dead right! I had slapped him good. That was more than enough revenge for him trying to kill me. I didn't want him dead... I just wanted him NOT TO FREAKIN DO THAT AGAIN. I could feel Gelidia near me, and... see her in my mind's eye. She occupied space, and I could... I could feel that. World... I could feel her presence near me! She reached out, and I could count her fingers before she pressed them into my sodden fur. I had been exactly right, too! I looked at her, ears perked, and saw her in this new vision. She looked... well, part of me could see her clearly, as I had this past day. But another part of me knew she was insubstantial. I could touch her... and she could touch me, but only because of the curse I'd taken for picking up the coin from the well. She'd insisted, but...
Twice-Cursed. It wasn't just a cool title the World gave me.
"You're worrying me a little... are you alright?" she asked, her face wracked with a touch of trepidation. She expected me to be going insane, I realized... because that's how werewolves were, usually. The fact I could reason, could act rationally, wasn't just a rampaging killing machine, that was the strange thing when you got right down to it. I nuzzled into her hand and made a very soft grunty noise to reassure her. I took her hand, quite gently, and knuckled my way into the kitchen to scratch at the floor with a claw.
GOT A NEW SKILL I wrote, and my tail waggled behind me as I looked up at her, ears perked high on my head!
"Oh?" She asked, clearly interested, folding her arms over her midsection.
I nodded.
WOLF-REN - ITS A SYNERGY SKILL!
"Wolf-Ren? I've never heard of that one. What's it do?" she asked. How... the HELL could I even begin to explain... how beautiful the world looked to me right now? What did the menu say about it?
[MONSTER, COMBAT] Wolf-Ren, Rank F: 2%, The ability to see, hear, and smell things all at once in a synesthetic image of the world in your mind.
I wrote the skill description out dutifully, and Gelidia gave me a funny look. "What the hell does that mean?" I thought about that a moment, and then wrote
I SEE SMELLS AND SOUNDS AND SEE THE WORLD AROUND ME IN MY HEAD
She made another face - one of even deeper confusion. "What an odd skill! I've never even heard about that kind of thing." then something seemed to occur to my spooky friend. She gave me a look, as if noticing me for the first time, and blinked a few times.
"Wait... you're not an idiot at all, are you?" she asked, and I gave her the dopiest doggie grin, ears swiveling towards her as if to say 'WHO, ME?' She couldn't help but grin at that and chuckle, mirth dancing in her eyes. "I didn't even think about it - but you're LITERATE, Emily, and... have a vocabulary with words I've never even heard of" she laughed
"You are the weirdest werewolf I've ever - annnnnnd you're back to being sort of horrible. Perfect." She sighed as my wolf absolutely piloted me to the pile of deer bones and the meat I hadn't had a chance to preserve yet.
What do I want with bones?
MARROW GOOD
Oh. Right! I didn't resist my instincts - just picked up a bone and felt my jaws closing over it, crunching away at it again, and again, and again until it broke in my mouth and a.. taste flooded me. My senses flickered and sparkled with red and pink beautifully, and the taste was... intense, strange, metallic, and... delicious. God, was this what dogs liked about bones? Was this what dogs experienced? Gelidia sighed and sat on the stove, oblivious of its warmth. I lost track of time as I munched away, interspersing bites of well-butchered but quite raw red meat I'd carved earlier with cromches of bones I decimated my supply of meat and destroyed a lot of bones in my jaws, but... soon I was satisfied.
GOOD FOOD
I agreed, licking my paws clean for a moment before thirst gripped me as well. It took only a moment or two to convince my Wolf to touch the rune. It didn't look like anything to her... but we pushed mana into it, and... water flowed out! I simply put my mouth beneath the faucet and drank my fill, tail wagging behind me as I did so, body replenished of things I'd needed so badly and not fully realized. I could see Gelidia getting up in my mind's eye, and reaching out to pet me down my back. I let it happen. Her cool touch was pleasant, and a bit of attention after a meal was just what the doctor ordered, I felt. I pressed into her hand a little, and made a grunty noise of enjoyment. She blinked at me... and clearly she'd had dogs, because she grinned and got into it a bit, digging her fingers into my ruff and scratching down my back! to a spot just above my tail, then up again behind me ears! She got on the floor in front of the stove and dragged me down after her, pulling my huge head into her arms and just... showering me in gentle affection.
"You were so brave tonight..." she breathed, and the words danced in my perceptions like starlight, filling me inside and out. "Good girl. I meant it - you're welcome here. If you want... this can be your home now. Nobody would object." she said, but I'd already accepted that. Even so, it felt good to just... be somewhere I was welcome. Nobody had played with my hair since... since... I tried to think of his name, but it wouldn't come. Gelidia's scent, like moss and ozone, like the water in the fountain and the dampness of cool stone underground, it mingled with her gentle petting over my ears, and I fell aslee for what had to be the first time in literal days.