In the middle of a densely wooded forest, three moonwolves were prowling through the bushes, looking for their next prey. While the three were of the same species, each had unique characteristics. One of them had a longer snout, while the other had a slightly longer tail, and the last one was a bit bigger than the other two. What all of them shared was a big faintly glowing disc on their forehead and several smaller ones running along their bodies, this is what set them apart from being normal, although much smaller wolves.
Soon enough their prey appeared, a small injured wribbit, the little critter jumped from tree to tree, gliding so well it could probably fly if it tried hard enough, but its injured leg couldn't hold up to the strain of its powerful bounces and ended up giving away making the creature fall to the ground.
Not letting the opportunity pass by the three wolves prepared to pounce on the poor blessed beast. However, it wasn't their turn to hunt tonight. Above them on the trees stood two figures who have been tailing them for a while. Aiming to save the wribbit one of the figures signalled to the other, while using strange hand movements. The result of the silent chant was that black spots began appearing on one of the wolves.
About thirty appeared before it noticed, but it was already too late. Needles came flying from above and started hitting the marked spots, but the wolf was quick, and before all of the spots could be hit it swiped the rest away with its tail. However, this didn't bother the attack much, the reflected needles' shadows continued towards their targets, and as the shadows hit, wounds appeared on the wolf even though the needles weren't there.
"Lovely new sneak attack Aspek, there is a small problem with it, you only hit one of them."– said a nonchalant female voice belonging to one of the figures.
"Single target spell, the ghost wounds still guarantee another hit." – responded a young male voice.
They didn't have time to continue chatting, one of the wolves which had a long snout reacted to the voices, and opened up its jaw firing a sonic wave up into the trees. The attack missed, but it allowed the lunar light to shine through the forest's thick canopy. As the light enveloped the canines, their plates shined brighter, and the wolves began to grow in size. Now three times as large, the predators showed their true colours, barging their teeth at the trees above, looking for the attackers.
Not taking the fight seriously, the woman barged her teeth back at the wolves, in response she was almost blasted in the face by another sonic attack.
"I'll call that one Barky"- she said while giggling to herself."
"Lelen stop playing around and do something."
"Okay, okay, mister I can try out my new skill but others can't have fun" – she muttered under her breath.
Still, she was reliable when she needed to be so she prepared to attack. After pulling out a blowpipe from thin air, it began to glow light blue and from it came a huge icicle trying to impale Barky, but before it could do any damage, the biggest wolf of the three puffed up its fur. The wolf's coat became abnormally large and seemed to have consumed the icicle in its endless fluff.
"Oh, that one is now Fluffy!"
"All right then, allow me to kill Fluffy." – said Aspek in a cold voice, used to the weird nicknames.
With quick hand movements, he guided mana into the shape of an eye glowing with red light, floating in place. Then he threw some wooden spikes into it. In response, the eye started burning and fired the burning shrapnel right into Fluffy's fur. Aspek's guess about the wolf's weakness was right, and the inflated fluff ignited in a flash burning the wolf under it. Fortunately for the wolf, the icicle stuck inside the fur ended up saving its life. Yet a second later it was betrayed by the ice as it was hit by another attack, impaling it right in the heart.
"Couldn't have stolen a kill any better." – reacted Aspek.
"Aw you poor thing, you can have Barky instead, leave the unmutated alive then."
Angered by the death of their ally, the two remaining wolves took up formation, with the injured wolf taking up the front, and Barky firing shouts from the back. The onslaught of sonic attack wasn't the best choice against Aspek. He used his mark again, creating a large grey eye, which when held in front of him started absorbing the sound shots fired. The magic eye kept enduring the hits until its pupil couldn't keep diluting, at that moment all the previous sonic attacks were fired back right into their sender.
Being hit by several of its own attacks at once was enough to make Barky shut up forever.
"All bark no bite." – remarked Lelen as she fired another icicle in the already dead wolf.
Now only one wolf remained. Being already injured, it decided to try fleeing, and without anyone trying to stop it, a few seconds later it was completely out of sight. Not bothered by the fact Lelen created a small ice pole in her hand and handed it over to Aspek. With a flick of his finger, he launched the pole, and as if it was natural it flew in between trees and ended up flying right into one of the ghost wounds.
Now that their hunt was over Lelen started looting the corpses, while Aspek went and got a small furball, which has reached a bush during the fight.
"What are you doing with that thing?" – asked Lelen covered in blood from rummaging for the soulstones of the wolves.
"Obviously helping it"
Aspek took the injured wribbit and poured one of his health potions on it. Wribbits were quite a rare sight, not because they weren't common, but because they were always moving at a speed where their features are hard to make out. In this rare moment that one was still, he could make out what it looked like.
It had small black eyes; its hind legs were enormous compared to the rest of its body, while the small front legs were connected with a light blue membrane to it. The blue mixed pleasantly with its snow-white fur. On the top of its small head were two twisting long ears, which wiggled happily as it drank the rest of the potion from the bottle.
"I heard that they are really delicious." – said Lelen while getting closer to the bunny, while still covered in blood.
"Not this one."
Aspek let the furball go, and with a quick bounce, it was gone. After Lelen was satisfied with the butchering, the pair started going back towards their camp.
"Since you healed dinner instead of killing it, you'll have to cook once we get back to base."
"Am I not the one cooking every time I am stationed at this watch camp?"
"The least you can do for making us pick out spikes from the spare bed every time you sleep in it."
"Not my fault I have to go to sleep battle ready."
The two bickered along the way back, and in around twenty minutes they arrived back at the base. At the entrance, an old woman was sharpening a huge axe.
"We are back boss!" – exclaimed Lelen as she went to wash off the blood from her face.
Not even paying attention to her, the boss instead looked at Aspek expecting something.
"As the reports said Moonwolf threat present, 3 encountered, 2 killed, 1 injured and tracked. Location of the den not yet confirmed."
"Good work out there, I'll get Trand, to validate the find. If true prepare for a raid tomorrow. For now, rest, that's an order." – said the woman with a sweet voice not fit for her rough appearance.