“That’s probably because you were.” Foxy patted his back “Fully legally, though. You were still lucky, that the prince is a Yellow, with a Blue you would probably have gotten nothing at all, still fully legally. As you probably have realised by now, Elves don’t really like other species, and parvenus even less so, so we have a lot of laws that make you pay through your nose, and there are lot of taxes and contributions that are normally only optional, but against a non-Elf they would be applied. I know of a few that the prince could have applied here but did not. Be grateful.”

Prof was grateful. Very grateful. He only hoped that the owners would not report for the looted animals, so they at least would have cargo carriers. He wasn’t planning to open a logistics company, but with, say, three out of the seven captured equines they would have enough transportation.

As they planned, the party visited the festival the next day - Mini was, of course, wearing some provocative pieces of fabric that could be called a garment only with great reservations. Prof would have defined the holiday as a typical village day: the local song and dance ensembles performed on the stage, artisans and vendors nestled in the stalls, and there were lines in front of the street food and sweets stands.

There were even games: the patrons could throw and shoot stuff for a couple of Leaves and win prizes. Foxy told him, that in bigger cities they use Goblins or Kobolds as targets, not the painted boards like in Willowflower, and in the capitol they sometimes even have some of the larger Greenskin or Lizard species.

Mini supplied, that using undead was more convenient, they could be reused next year, and if they weren’t hit by Critical Hits, the damage wouldn’t even be large. Perhaps the biggest difference (not counting the live-fire exercises against other lifeforms) to a Central-European village day was the costumes. Almost everyone put on at least a mask, and many dressed entirely in costumes.

“The costumes and masks symbolize family ancestors or legendary characters, as well as fairy tale figures associated with summer.” Foxy explained to Prof. “See that girl over there for example.” She pointed to an elf dressed only in underwear and a red cloak, with two wooden daggers attached to her waist, and her mask forming a smiling face with big eyes.

“She’s dressed up like Fiona the Fast. I don’t exactly know why these are her symbols, it’s something like she had dealt with the enemies with the two daggers in. At least that was what she was known for. Then there’s that fox-masked man with a foxtail tied to his belt. The Summer Fox, a popular fairytale hero, he is always in trouble, but also manages to get out of it with cunning. As far as I can see, the prince is dressed as the Spirit of the Trees. He symbolizes the eternity of the forest, the power of the wilderness. An interesting choice from a Yellow, the character would have fit a Green better.”

Around noon the competitions started: short-distance running, hurdles, long jump, mixed gymnastics, archery. The main attraction was a chase, a girl dressed as a rabbit had to be caught and taken back to the stage. Prof didn't really understand the rules, a mage sometimes painted random areas in different colours, depending on the colour, either the “rabbit” or the “hunters” were not allowed to enter or leave the area, and the audience could even block the “hunters”.

Pretty much the whole town was having an excellent time. Prof could have bet in the beginning that the dozen of “hunters” would win easily, but surprisingly, the “rabbit” won in the end. When she received her prize after general congratulations, it turned out that Caoilfhoinn, their host, was the “rabbit” and she had won the contest for the tenth year in a row.

Even after the hunt was over, her opponents were genuinely happy with the rabbit’s victory, carrying her around on their shoulders with great laughter.

Before the big concert in the evening, Prof and others sat down under a tree to talk. Prof was already curious about a thing or two that he had never had the opportunity to ask before.

“Say, Mini, why do you always call Foxy Little Wolf?”

“What do you mean? That’s her name.”

“How does Foxy Delahaye mean little wolf? I’m quite sure it doesn’t have that meaning in any combination in Elvish. That much I have already learned.”

“Because it’s not in Elvish! In my tongue, Fokssi de la Haye means Little Wolf from Haye. Sure, the two alphabets are completely different, and the pronunciation is a little different, but Foxy is close enough to Fokssi to make Little Wolf the result!”

Prof was sincerely amazed at this profound linguistic accomplishment, it was amazing to have some meaning in one language for a word in another! Even if it was spelled and pronounced differently. “Truth be told, my name is in the Wolf-Brown dialect of Elvish. Foxy there means Rabid Person. My foster parent came from Forestdeep, and had the last name Delaheye, though.”

“Is that why Shinead called you the Rabid right away?”

“No. That’s a nickname that stuck to me since I was a child and has nothing to do with my name. Among the Elves I’m usually called Farkas Hayeből. Due to the peculiarities of the Elf language, it also has a lot of extra meanings, some not really flattering.”

“Where did the nickname come from?”

“Ehmmm… Let’s say, short temper.”

That was strange. Foxy did have the Impatient negative Perk, but being impatient was different to having a short temper. Since obviously Foxy did not want to talk about it, Prof didn’t dig further.

The conversation then turned to Foxy’s and Mini’s past adventures, their future plans, and so on to local conditions in general. They both indicated that they would definitely follow Prof for a while, neither of whom had a specific plan. Which was also true for Prof.

It was assumed that Shinead would start hunting down the clan’s attackers anyway, which was as good for spending time as anything else. It was suggested that after the attackers were hunted down, to take a look at the Valley of Torments as well as the small kingdoms to the West of it.

As it turned out, the northern third of the continent was mostly uninhabited and vastly unknown, so Prof did not dismiss the idea to organize an expedition to there in the footsteps of famous Earth explorers. Prof hoped that, unlike a significant number of Earth explorers, they would not disappear without a trace, and the natives, petting their full bellies would deny that they had ever been there.

First of all, they had to wait for Shinead to return or hunt down the two-named beasts.

The evening concert was given by a group of musicians who were said to be famous in the Domain, and the “lighting” was provided by some magic users. Prof would have pinned the style close to folkrock, which was a pretty big change from violin-harp-flute folk music during the day. Despite not using pyrotechnics and electronics, the show wasn’t bad either, they solved a lot of things with magic that wasn’t possible on Earth. The illusions of winged thingies flying over the audience, for example, looked particularly good.

Mini tried to get them to dance shortly after the show started, unfortunately none of them excelled in either [Dancing] or [Party], (in fact, Mini wasn't either, but she wasn't prepared to be held back by such little things), and they didn’t wanted to mingle too much, so the vampire threw herself into a crowd of a few hundred alone. Prof was almost certain she would have a good time - or would be arrested for sexual harassment.

A welcome surprise of the evening was, that a Wolf-Brown (Prof decided to stick with that addition, so he could refer to the right Elven race, next to Fox-Brown and Cat-Brown) mage reported to them. He heard about the task to hunt the beasts, and was willing to join the party for the hunt.

In contrast to Earth-idea about cute cat- and dogeared girls, the Beastkin-Elves (or at least the Wolves, Prof haven’t met Cats and Foxes yet) on Arkadia looked like beasts walking on two legs and having opposable thumbs. The mage was wearing only a loincloth, not unlike the fake one Foxy wore. Prof was already aware that Elves only wore clothing for convenience, and had nothing against being naked, obviously the Wolves did not even made that minimal effort.

They had fur, why wearing clothes? The Wolf, named Oisin, agreed to wait a week for Shinead to return, but could not wait for much longer. Prof really hoped, the Red Elf would return in that time frame, so they could have a full party for the hunt. If she returned later and the Wolf left, they had to find a fifth member again – and given that they didn’t have much luck finding adventurers for their party in the last weeks, Prof didn’t put much hope in replacing Oisin on short notice.

The week after the holiday was spent in quiet again, Prof progressed well with learning Elvish, and since the party had solved virtually every minor task around town, the days were largely idle. On the evening of the seventh day, Prof decided that they would go hunting the next day even without the elf girl, when finally Shinead arrived late in the night. She was visibly exhausted and fell into her bed without any further conversation, so the report was left for the morning.

Foxy, Mini and Prof had already finished breakfast – they sent the mage back to his guest house, since it was clear, they won’t be able to go on the hunt that day - when Shinead joined them. She had more tattoos than before (a broken cross on her left cheek, bloody tears beneath her eyes, crossed daggers below a crown on her right temple), and the bird above her eyebrows also received more additions and colour.

She also put some piercings into hers nostrils and left eyebrows.

It started to get a bit overboard with how many decorations she got – and there were probably a few more elsewhere, Foxy told Prof a bit about how the Reds inked a lot of bodyparts with their achievements.