Having realized that he spent the st period of travel mostly without cheg out his new harness, Niphru decided to focus on that, examining the entments built into it. While he wasly an enter, he did at least know the basics, so it also served as a good learning opportunity.

  The foremost crystal focused on strengthening anything attached to it, which he felt was an excellent choice, given he had always attached the pouch with his mana stohere. sidering that the oime he had been separated from it, he had, for ck of a better term, died, he felt that keeping it safe and nearby was his primary requirement from any equipment.

  Apparently, the mages who produced the new harness were aware of the importance sihey had prioritized the safety of anything stored at his chest. A quick examination of the other entments revealed that no others were desigo do anything simir.

  One of the others, which took up a rge se on his back, was desigo trahe weight of the harness more evenly, making incredible use of the principle of spells having a terforbsp; Somehow, it shifted a focal point around, using that to push upward with force magi the heaviest se and the terforce to push down on the opposite side.

  He had wondered why it seemed more fortable than the old o hadn’t quite noticed that effect, merely that it felt more fortable. Clearly, he would have to ask who made it, as they must be quite talented in force magic.

  The others were far, far less impressive, though they’d have been very useful if he was alone. There was a simple water-gathering crystal, which pulled water from the air. Another o a small breeze blowing when activated. A third produced a small fme on demand, something he doubted he would ever use, given that he had his foxfire as well as fire magic of his own.

  The sed to st one was quite iing, however. It used earth magipress the ground u, and when he asked, he learhat it was inally desigo ensure a sturdy and ft base for a tent to be anchored upon. Sineither Dawn nor himself were terribly good with earth magic, it would prove to be quite useful if they were out without the rest of the group they’d been w with.

  The st entment was extremely simple as well, simply p a small light a few feet above the harness. He also doubted he would ever use this one, as Dawn could use light magic, he had good night vision, and he had his foxfire as well, giving him three alternatives he could use.

  If it was for a a mage, the entments would run dry quickly, in some cases, at least. The force magie on his back would falter within a few days if he didn’t feed it the mana it needed but instead let the mana stoake the burden. This made him very gd that he had accepted the drain without questioning it, as a mana stohat rge would be difficult to repce it wore down from repeated discharging.

  As best as he could tell, most of the harness seemed to have been made by someoh a goal of simple generic tools, and then an expert had added the two more advanced aspects ter. Given that o with strength, he guessed that Morris may have had a hand in it, sih was ofteed to it ceptually.

  The meneritments had only taken a few mio figure out, but the one on the front that protected his mana stone was plex enough it had taken several hours to puzzle out. The one on the back was much more difficult, taking several days—and actual experimentation—to uand.

  By the time he had determined what they all did, they had almost arrived at the vilge. Niphru had been so focused oask he had set himself that he didn’t remember what the others had called it, and he didn’t want to look foolish for not knowing, so he just went along with calling it ‘the vilge’ like the others were.

  Instead of the normal peaceful trip into the vilge, they ran across numerous animals roaming the pins. Clearly, something was wrong if they had made it beyond the vilge.

  This one was beside a ke, and, oddly, it had a wall fag the ke that was covered in spikes. More disturbingly, the wall appeared to be covered in dried blood. The other walls seemed to be in poor repair, and the reason why became clear as they approached.

  Ohey made it to the cleared area around the walls, they saw numerous corpses of different animals, some mutated, others unged. The number of predators was surprisingly high, sidering that they generally had rge territories within the wilderness and rarely approached the edge he vilges.

  Additionally, the walls were all manned by people wielding slings, a rather unusual sight. It was rare for a vilge to actually heir walls, let aloo have them watched tinually.

  Eventually, they made it inside and spoke with the elder of the vilge, finding that the group of warriors from the church had not returned in over a week sihey went into the forest. During that time, creatures occasionally left the forest, and not all of them were stopped by walls, some of them climbing over and attag people both during the day and night. This expihe guards atop the walls.

  Furthermore, the ke was more active retly, with some of the amphibious animals fruitlessly dashing themselves upon the wall. It seemed they were more worried about dealing with the corpses and clearing the pins behind the vilge than defehough, to be fair, they had killed quite a bit just outside the walls.

  When asked why they hadn’t disposed of the corpses, the elder ughed and remarked, “We have no mages, and very limited firewood. With the forest so dangerous, we ’t get more wood to burn them. We’ve been occasionally throwing them into the ke, but the attacks from that dire got worse, so we aren’t doing that too often.”

  Oher hand, they simply didn’t want to burn down the grassnd, despite it being part of their job of proteg the pins. Hearing this, Morris simply told Niphru to go ighem, and he gdly left, leaving the talks to the others and taking Dawn with him sihis vilge didn’t know him.

  It only took a few moments to reach the walls from the elder’s house, and from there, he could easily hurl bolts of fme into the grass. While they did weaken quite a bit over the distance, simply lighting grass on fire was easy enough.

  Iingly, some of the vilgers cheered when they saw the smoke rising from the pins, and he couldn’t help but ask about it. While they were wary of the talking fox, seeing Dawn following him with no seemed to relieve some of their worries. It turned out their previous elder had died two months prior from a heart attack, and the oo take over wasly perf their duties well.

  Following that bit of information was a mention that they shouldn’t blindly follow their orders. After a short discussion with Dawn as they walked back, they met up with the group again at the elder’s home just in time to hear Morris shouting at him.

  As they walked in, he gnced over at them, a deep scowl on his face, then turned back to the elder and firmly stated, “Since you ’t handle your own vilge, you are no longer in charge, and I will be direg things from now on. Call for a meeting of the entire vilge. Now.”

  While the man scurried outside, cursing the whole time, Dawn and Niphru rejoihe rest of the group as Morris sighed. After shaking his head, he looked up again and asked, “Dawn, Lisryn, Viera, you’ve got more experiehahers in how vilges actually fun; what would you suggest we do? If your ideas are good, I don’t mind implementing them.”

  Lisryn hummed under her breath for a moment before shaking her head and replying, “I should let the others speak first.”

  Dawn frowned as she thought, then stated, “Either the elder, I mean former elder, is a coward, or the vilgers are, and I don’t think they would have survived if they were. More active beasts just means you ’t send out small groups of people. When it got bad at our vilge, my mother told people to group up with multiple hunters. It should be possible to get wood to burn the corpses if we do that.”

  Viera nodded, adding, “I was going to say the same thing. We should also be careful of the ke. I send lights into the water to make it easier to spot anything trying to approach while we are busy elsewhere. Fire won’t work very well there, so a handful of vilgers with slings are the best bet if something does attabsp; We should also find out the situation with food. If there isn’t an abundance of food, we could use some of the bodies outside.”

  Lisryn smiled at their ideas before joining in as well, “Both of those are good ideas. You missed that we don’t need as many guards as are currently on the walls. Nor do all of them hat many people, even if an attack happens. We are fag wild animals, not soldiers or bandits. One or two people easily sound an arm, and there will be time for others to get ready and join them. We also o talk with the vilgers ao know them better.”

  She paused for a moment to take a breath before tinuing, “It seems they are well-armed already, sihey seemed pretty fident when I was examining them. It is possible, however, that everyone who use a sling well was on the walls, however foolish that would be. I don’t trust that man to not work people to the boh how he was ag. I didn’t see any farms when we arrived, so we should ask about those as well, ahem properly maintained again if they have any.”

  After taking another quick break, she resumed, “And we o know what happened with the group from the churbsp; We didn’t send our best, but they weren’t pushovers either, and they should have reported back by now. Morris, do you think your hawk could help with that? Niphru as well, maybe?”

  Morris nodded, replying, “Those are all good ideas, and we start with them. I’ll ask Kel to take a look from above, but I’m worried about his safety, so he will not be cheg too closely. Niphru, the choice is up to you if you want to go into the wilderness. We ’t take the whole group this time, however, so there is much more risk.”

  Niphru paused to think before stating, “Before anything else, we he vilgers to know who I am and accept me. I don’t want to run bad get attacked.”

  This caused everyoher than Dawn to pause before Morris slowly responded, “I’d holy fotten about that being a problem, Niphru. Is that why you rayed from the group i vilge as well?”

  To this, Niphru nodded and remarked, “Yes, I use my illusions to appear human, but that won’t work if I’ve got to move quickly. I’m surprised no one said anything about me not using any at our st stop.”

  “Alright, it sounds like we have a good starting point thought out, so let’s wait for the vilge to gather and expin the ges we are making.”