160. Bonds: Wiremu

“You’re hot.” was the first thing Astrid said to me when I got to camp. She must have some sort of skill to find problems in people.

Ört noticed my finger. You can’t hide from the healers. My armour was all dried out from the heat, and this was my Boar hide with Heat resistance. Luckily I made a second set, but this was going to be a problem. Hopefully, Mayakku can enchant a minor self-repair, mitigating heat damage. I will need to ask her.

My Regeneration levelled. Maybe I was being cooked from the inside. I looked at our Status. Puia already had a new Skill, and it was levelling fast toward Apprentice. Thermal Manipulation (Mineral), and I was feeling better all the time. The Elemental Bond also levelled. I checked Tāoke, and he was in heaven. He finally had an internal heat source. As a cold-blooded animal, he had to rely on me, the sun, or, more usually, Oske for heat. Now he had Puia. Soon he would probably have Thermal Manipulation (Mineral) for himself.

“I am fine,” I told everyone. Astrid blatantly didn’t believe me. Maybe she’d had some stubborn patients before. She was a dwarf from a dwarven team. Of course, she had. “Obviously, there is something new I am settling in with. It will settle, and I will explain later.” I looked at Astrid, “This is another of those ultimate confidentiality things.”

“Shit,” she huffed. “I am never going to be able to get drunk again.”

I lay down for a rest and to let Puia do his thing. Her thing? Its thing? I decided to designate it to be a him, I guess, much like Tabitha calls Nyx a her. Elementals don’t have gender, and I probably just witnessed the birth of Puia. I concentrated on my new Elemental Bond, which was on the cusp of Apprentice level already. Apprentice level would help us learn from each other, but I just needed things to settle for a bit.

I woke as the camp was stirring. Ört was at the fire preparing breakfast. I went over to join him. I was starving.

“Elemental Bond?” he asked quietly. He was far too smart. I nodded. “Maybe I should have gone with the Plant Elemental Core rather than the troll,” he said.

“I think that would mostly just be acid,” I replied. He nodded.

I reached into the fire and grabbed the pan with my hand. I grabbed the sizzling steak from it, and I put the pan back before throwing another steak in it. The heat of a cooking fire was nothing to my new Heat Resistance, which was at lava level. I took a bite. Ört just watched me.

“You are going to have to let me look at that finger of yours sometime,” he said.

I nodded. Ört was always fascinated with new things and figuring out how they worked. Kryddor came over, and Ört gave him an affectionate rub and then tossed him a raw steak.

I took another bite of my steak as I watched Kryddor rip into his. Puia asked if I wanted sharper teeth as I seemed to be struggling. Teeth are just bone. We sharpened the front teeth, but nothing obvious like Kryddor had. I bit through the steak easily. Tāoke thought I should have fangs like him as they were the best. I stuck to slightly sharper front teeth for now, and even then, I would have to be careful not to bite through my tongue.

We got underway just after dawn. My temperature seemed to be back to normal. I was feeling out Puia as he was with me. My mind went back to teeth and Thermal Manipulation. I could probably cook my food as I chewed it. It would probably take too much energy.

We got back close to the wolf traps near dusk. We made camp and decided to check the traps in the morning. I heard some wolf howls overnight my Hearing Aid indicated it was from the area of the traps, so I figured we had caught something.

The first cage we checked was smashed open. I figured we had caught one of the alpha wolves, and they were too strong for the trap. There was a male wolf in the next trap, and both Najprej and Drugič tried to bond with it, but it wouldn’t bond. Astrid also tried but failed. I remember when I was a kid, I wanted to bond with a wolf just like my master. At least Najprej, Drugič and Astrid all have significant Mental Attributes to back up their attempts, unlike my younger self.

Ört led them to the next trap while I stayed to skin this angry young wolf. I discovered my stone finger could turn into a very sharp stone knife. It was quite brittle, but that didn’t matter so much when Puia could just rebuild it. I guess I now have a whole different meaning to giving somebody the finger. I think Puia’s Molten Rock Skill is the equivalent of my Granite Manipulation for lava.

My Hearing Aid picked up shouting from the next trap, and it sounded like Astrid. I finished up quickly and went to see what the problem was. When I got there, Astrid was still red with anger, and it was aimed at Ört and Kryddor. Kryddor was hiding behind Ört with her tail between her legs. I raised an eyebrow at Ört.

“This trap didn’t catch a wolf,” he said. “It caught a Forest Stoat. Kryddor was about to kill it when Astrid stopped him.” Loudly and vigorously, I assumed.

I looked at Astrid again and noticed she had a fury object inside her jacket. She had obviously bonded with it. I was surprised a stoat had triggered the trap.

“Have you given it a name?” I asked her. She nodded, so I said, “Perhaps we can introduce it to Kryddor in a less violent manner.”

“She is called Trassig,” and she coaxed it out of hiding and approached Kryddor. They sniffed each other, and Trassig hissed at her. All is not yet forgiven.

I then introduced her to Tāoke and Modrica, and Skavt introduced her to Težka and Oske. We moved on to the second to last trap. It was empty. Najprej and Drugič were getting disheartened.

“We can reset the traps and come back before we leave the city,” I tried to reassure them. “We can even set more traps.” I checked my Skill, and it had levelled. Yes! After Journeyman Level, Skills get really hard to increase. Trapping had been stagnant for a while.

The last trap did hold a wolf. There was a second wolf outside the trap whining and scratching at it. I sent Najprej and Drugič forward. When the wolf scented us, it turned toward us with its hair standing up, teeth bared and growled at us. Najprej and Drugič moved slowly forward, their low voices speaking orcish in a soft manner. I wasn’t aware of Orcish being spoken softly before.

The female wolf settled down and stopped growling, Najprej feeding her and then bonding. Drugič fed and then bonded with the one in the trap. They were both females. Najprej introduced us to her bond Borec and Drugič to her bond Lepa. They were both pleased as anything.

Skavt made some comments about the bonds being suitable as one is always trying to get the other out of trouble. She got stuff thrown at her for that.

Everybody went quiet when Astrid said, “Borec is pregnant.”