I open my eyes and I see the inside of the wagon, then I notice the sound of the wagon moving, and lastly, I hear Marina saying in a relieved tone:

Wait… Another tail?! I get up and check my backside and yeah, the third tail is there, behaving the same as the other two, and for the necklace, I take it off and look at it, and indeed the first bead now has a flame inside of it, it’s red and it's still like it’s frozen. I wear the necklace again and say:

Marina explains to me.

I say, wondering why that cat was here in the 1st place anyway.

Marina says, sounding puzzled.

I say pondering if the cat might have ties to those who tried to seal the last owner of my body and was trying to move into my fortress shrine. But no matter, I can speculate as much as I want, I still have no clue as to who tried to seal the other fox, though I would like to find out, just so I know who to stay very far away from.

Marina nods and says:

I interrupt her and say

Marina stops talking and says annoyed, but it fades away quickly

I nod, makes sense, normal humans do tend to not enjoy other humans turning up dead, time to address something that is going to be vital to my survival from now on: I ask, figuring out this was the most magical energy I would have until the next battle, so might as well put it to use on something that will save my life, or someone else’s.

Marina nods and says:

I ask

Before she can start explaining those methods too I raise my hand and ask:

I nod and get up and jump out of the wagon noting Lionel was marching right beside it.

I say to Marina and Lionel, I wave at them and run into the forest, wondering for how long will we be in a forest.

I get into the forest and finally took some time to mind my step in the forest, learning not to brush against all of the bushes and undergrowth, avoiding dry leaf piles, or dry sticks.

It took me a lot of time to figure out wind and smell properly, but after that I managed to find a squirrel, minding his business, eating something up in a tree, so I take some time to turn into a feral fox so that with a smaller body I could climb up making less sound, then I quickly creep up the tree digging my claws in the bark avoiding the branches that would make noise if I touched them and once I was on the same level as the Squirrel I jumped on it and squished it against the branch as it squirmed to get free. I changed back to my anthropomorphic form and took the squirming terrorized squirrel down keeping it firmly in my grip.

I brought it back to the Wagon as the adventurers had stopped to eat and rest the horses.

Evan jokes seeing the squirming rabbit in my hand.

I say chuckling.

Evan asks inquisitively.

I answer him truthfully, as I wasn't looking for anything big to capture, and thinking about it, I didn't see anything bigger than a squirrel or rabbit.

then he shrugs and continues:

I shrug too, I couldn't even smell humans anywhere in the forest, so there was nothing I could add.

Time passes as I practice healing with the squirrel for a few hours before its yells of pain every time I scratch it gets too painful to listen to and I let it go and spend the rest of the time ironing the kinks of form changing until I can comfortably switch in a matter of seconds.

The sun starts setting when we get to a village with its gates closed.

Lionel enters the wagon with me and says:

I sigh heavily and ask:

Lionel sighs too:

I chuckle and say jokingly:

Finally a chance to interact with humans. I focus on the only human form I know instinctively, myself, and create a shell of the same form around myself, it fits awkwardly since I’m taller than my body is now.

I ask Lionel as I try to move around and make faces.

Lionel answers.

I have to admit it feels like I'm a puppeteer, or stuck inside a costume that is way too big for me, but it takes only a minute to get the hang enough to not accidentally knock into things and after securing the wagon near the walls we approach the gates.

This village walls were still very crude and made of sharpened wooden trunks, no walkway or watchtower near the gate and I question myself why… like, how do you know when the way is safe again?

The question is answered when we get to the gate and the gate itself has slits where to look out from, still very far from ideal… like do they not know how to build watchtowers? The gate is also made with a smaller door, probably to allow people to still go out without having to open the gate.

Lionel walks up to the smaller door and knocks, someone quickly opens the slit and asks in a concerned voice:

he asks politely

The person says relieved I can hear someone else on the other side of the gate talking to him in a hushed tone: the guy stumbles and says

Lionel pulls out a metal plate from under his armor and shows it to the man behind the slit and adds:

the man says:

Another person from behind the gate speaks up and says threateningly:

I sigh… got to love when a scared person gives up the advantage, given, we don't know how many of them there are, but if we wanted to attack the place knowing to not come in or be ready to fight is already better, no matter though, at least we get to meet other adventurers.

Lionel sends Evan to get the wagon and we are let in in a hurry.