Chapter 3: The packmaster
So... I'm stil unsure whetever it was a great idea or a bad one.
I'm currently in the middle of a wolf pack, so, bad news. Good news, they're sleeping. Bad news, I'm under a pile of the beasts. Good news, It's just cubs. Better news, they're wearing sweaters. Obviously sweaters that I've made. Oh, actually the matriarch is awake. Annnnnd she's licking my skull.
How did I get in this situation ? Well, remember last time ? I thought that if I managed to tame a pack of wolves, maybe I could become the lord of the forest or something. You know, easy job, not much work, no taxes, looking incredibly cool being surrounded by wolves while playing with - i mean masterfully handling my scythe. I mean, there's a reason why my coat is named Forest's Hades' Coat. That's kinda the title I aimed to get. It's not like I have anything else to do.
So, after hearing the big bad wolves howl, I tried to track them down. Problem : wolves have large territories AND, in packs, are constantly on the move. In fact, they spend a lot of their time hunting because of their low succes rate : only half of their hunts are successful. Surprising ? Not so much. Every predator has ups and downs. Very few always catch their prey. In terms of the success rate, the best hunter is actually the dragonfly. Truly, nature is incredibly fascinating. And that's in our own, magicless world !
So yeah, tracking. It was hard. Harder than it was for the boar BUT, once I found their territory, I just went around collecting stuff. I cut down a tree with my axe, quickly made a pickaxe and mined some rocks, cut some plants and herbs with my sickle and I even got to use my bone-whip - now named Spinebreak - against a... Thing ? It was like a human but with a skeleton made of wood, mud instead of flesh and vines instead of hair. My system called it a Lifethief. It was singing a weird lullaby when I found it, holding a dying young deer by the neck, stealing... something from him.
"Little ones, come to play...
Little ones, spend the day...
Together with me...
Just you and me...
Little ones, come for a while...
Let's play and smile...
Together we'll fish some alewife...
Just share with me your life..."
Yeah, you understand why I killed it now ? And that thing couldn't notice me. I mean litteraly. When I was in front of it, it was like I didn't exist. My guess is that its senses can only catch living things, so, as an undead, it was like I didn't exist. By the way, apparently, this thing wasn't an undead but a spirit, something born from the world itself. Good reminder that a fantasy world isn't just about magic, fun and adventures but also terrible things like curses and creepy monsters.
So yeah, killed it in one swoop of Spinebreak. Really effective. I guess the bones did some kind of death damage ? I don't know, it just worked. That thing screamed, withered and died. Apparently the sticks, mud and plants that it was made of hold some kind of magic energy or something, so, into the inventory it went. And guess what ? When it died, the plants in the area seemed livelier, the birds chirped even more and overall nature was healthier.
So, I decided to wait near the deer's corpse for the wolves to arrive and, suprisingly enough, it only took an hour for them to show up. Other predators passed by but they all fled when I got anything related to the lifethief out of my inventory. Good to know that animals will avoid going near that thing - or in my case, its parts.
So, the wolves showed up - awesome. And that's when I realised some miscalculations on my part. First, fantasy world, fantasy wolves. Sure, out of the six that came, five were grey and "only" as tall as my waist but the white one, the leader, the matriarch ? Yeah, you guessed it : horse-sized, again. Second, I'm wearing leather made out of the hide of a boar. It might be clean enough that humans can't smell it but wolves definitely can. So, away we we went, the deer and I, him held by the legs by two different wolves and me held whole in the maw of the matriarch.
And, would you look at that ! Not a mark on my coat despite the knife-like fangs ! I really had a great idea using this giant boar's hide. Anyway, back to the story.
So, the wolves finally reached their den after picking up a few more preys along the way : another deer, a big pheasant and a boar - a normal sized one. There were three more wolves at the den, two other grey ones - except these two looked skinnier and somewhat sick - and a big, black one. By big, I mean the same size as - if not a bit bigger than - the matriarch. Our dear patriarch however looked even worse than the other two : missing patches of fur, a blind eye and a lot of recent scars. I don't know what it fought but it must have been pretty strong.
So, after being dropped on the ground inside the den, I noticed three more wolves : cubs. But something was wrong. They didn't have fur although they seemed to have reached the age to have it. Probably a genetic issue. The hunting party brought a deer to the patriarch - who, I realised, had a broken leg - and the other deer to the two ill wolves. As for the boar and myself, we went to the cubs. It appeared that, me being a skeleton, the wolves assumed I was already dead. As for the pheasant, the hunting party shared it before joining the matriarch who already went away to hunt some more on her own. The patriarch kept looking in her direction, even after she went away. Only after some time passed did it start to eat and that's when I noticed something horrible for the poor beast : it had a broken jaw. And, seeing how badly damaged it was, at this point, it would have been better to just get rid of his jaw and replace it by an artificial one.
While I had these thoughts, one of the cubs started playing with my skull, sticking its paws in my eye sockets. As you can guess, I simply stayed still and - no of course not, I immediatly jumped out of reflex. Just you try and have a wolf cub put its paw in your eye socket. You can guess what happened next, the sick wolves and the patriarch immediatly understood that I wasn't dead - at least not enough to be eaten - and started growling. Truth be told, they couldn't have killed me : the ill ones were too weak and the patriarch couldn't move.
So, what did I do ? I took out some of the boar's meat and gave it to the cubs. The adults kept on growling for a bit and then stopped. They still looked at me threateningly but it was a good start. The cubs were happily eating the meat which allowed me to take a closer look at them. Indeed, there wasn't any hair on them. They were like xoloitzcuintles - the dog equivalent of the sphynx for cats. So I had an idea : sweaters. Hey, it works with puppies so why not wolf cubs ? Plus, I had all of this boar hair to get rid of. Quickly I crafted those sweaters and, after giving meat to every wolf at the den to keep them occupied and show that I meant no harm, I put them on the cubs. Once again the adults were mad but they quickly calmed down after seeing how happy they were with their gifts.
After a while, I managed to get close to the adults and inspect them. I gave medicinal herbs that I had picked up to the sick ones and studied the patriarch a bit more. Poor beast. The damage was worse than what I anticipated. The jaw was ruined and so were a lot of his bones. That's when I had an idea. I slowly backed away, went out to kill some more things and came back. Why ? Come on, guess. Leveling up ! Evolving in fact !
APPRAISAL !
[Belfas Mortimer
Level 3 Skeleton
Titles : None
Passive abilities :
-Undead : does not need to sleep, unlimited stamina, immune to poison and illness, immune to temperature effects, cannot die unless killed
-Bone body : limbs can be removed and put back easily and without taking damage, cannot burn
-Heirloom of bones : greater affinity with items made out of bones
-Watching skull : cannot be blinded by magic or darkness
-Hunter : has an easier time tracking and hunting, better use of the spear
-Lumberjack : has an easier time identifying and cutting trees, better use of the axe
-Gatherer : has an easier time identifying and gathering plants, better use of the sickle
-Evil hunter : has an easier time identifying and killing creatures born from evil, better use of the whip
-Heirloom of Death : deals more damage to entities of the life attribute, better use of spells of the death attribute, enhanced Heirloom of Bones, better use of the scythe
Active abilities :
-Crafting
-Dismantling
Spells :
-Bone doctor : can heal and enhance bones, can fuse bones and flesh
Equipment :
-Forest's Hades' Coat
-Forest's Hades' Shirt
-Forest's Hades' Pants
-Forest's Hades' Boots
-Forest's Hades' Gloves
-Forest's Hades' Scythe
-Forest's Hades' Spear
-Forest's Hades' Axe
-Forest's Hades' Sword
-Forest's Hades' Harpoon
-Spinebreak
Overall rank : E-]
That's quite the upgrade ! No more cracks too ! Still yellowish, but that's fine ! There's also all the progress that I've made on my own. Things are starting to look good. So yeah, the point of this was to gain something like Bone Doctor but this spell is even better than what I hoped for. Sure, fusing flesh and bones maaay seem like an evil necromancer thing but hey, it's actually pretty good. I used it to heal the patriarch's broken bones - well, those that COULD be healed, his jaw was definitely ruined. At that point the hunting party returned, threatened me until the den's wolves calmed them down aaaaaand that's how I ended up in this dog lover's heaven, surrounded by sleeping, happy, wolves. The patriarch still cannot hunt but I have some plans for that...
Muahahahaha- ah, stop, no, don't lick inside the eye sockets ! Bad mama wolf ! What would your husband say ! Ah, not you too !
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone