69 Missing Beasts

Muninn had spotted some squirrels being wary of a specific area in the forest. He flew down closer and saw a dark grotto in a small hill. This grotto was secluded and open aired. It filled with broken trees. At its center were several weak wolves on the verge of dying. Munnin sent these images back to me.

Why do they all look starving? Some of them are so weak I can push them over. This doesn't look like a fierce tribe of wolves sending packs of undead after us.

"Elder Ullr, can we stop here for a moment I found the den of the wolves largely vacant."

Ullr looked at me and nodded whispering something to our coachman.

"Are we going to check it out?" Nix asked.

"Yes, I can tell that it's not far and the path is safe. Munnin is headed back here currently to guide us."

Sif looked concerned. "Do we have to leave the carriage."

She still hasn't recovered from that first fight I see.

"The left over wolves there are starving and won't hurt us. I think there's something more strange afoot and we can find clues there."

Sif thought about it for a moment before I chimed in again convincing her.

"I think finding the source of these wolves is the only way we are gonna be able to stop the attacks. I have a bad feeling about the dead wolves."

Sif then agreed.

Ullr then hopped off the carriage first. "The coachman will stay here for a bit. I will go with you. I have a strange foreboding as well."

Sif got excited at this and immediately dismounted the carriage.

We weren't far behind.

______

Arriving at the cave entrance to the grotto I am immediately hit with a strange feeling. As if going in this grotto will lead to calamity.

Ullr felt nothing so I ignored it as fear.

Walking I noticed the vines covering the walls indicating this formation has been here for a while, I also couldn't help but notice big paw prints on the floor. These are some extra large wolves!

None of the wolves muninn saw were big enough to leave prints like this.

Walking through it seems the plants and foliage was roughed up a bit.

I'm no detective but the half cracked tree at the entrance to the grotto is not normal.

As we make it through the other side of the cave we are met with the open air grotto.

As muninn had shown me, most of the trees in here were wrecked.

There was a creek leading in here but no wolf was drinking at the moment.

I can see a large dam like den in the center. That's where most of the wolves are gathered.

Approaching with Munnin on my shoulder.

In the den there were only extremely juvenile pups and one older wolf. This wolf was an extremely large while the rest were slightly smaller than the undead we've been dealing with.

Their was one commonality though. They all looked to be starving.

Approaching the oldest wolf I can see the rest couldn't even put up a fight. They couldn't even get up.

Sif was gonna stop me from getting too close but I raised my hand to stop her.

I look at this white wolf and kneel close to it.

It turns its head to look at me making eye contact.

I then have muninn read its thoughts.

All I saw was a burly bald headed man and a group of evil people, the look of the Cubs face, and it's feelings of defeat.

I use nature's language to begin to communicate after to get clarity.

"What happened here?"

The old wolf responded, "They came and took all my children. They took them from their families." It whimpered while howling at me.

"I am to old to provide for the Cubs. They were just born when they were taken and don't know how to hunt. Many of them have starved or died already. I can do nothing to help them besides bringing food to split between everyone. Now I barely have the strength to walk anymore and my next hunt will likely be my last."

Wolves are predominately pack animals. They coordinate with each other to track and hunt prey. In this environment filled with demon beasts, they likely have to step up their coordination and learn new tricks. Because the adults were taken away leaving behind this lone grandfather who can barely move already, these Cubs were left without guidance.

They likely don't even know how to use their ability to reanimate because if they did they would have plenty of fodder to figure it out. This old timer is clearly on his last leg and can't demonstrate anything to his grandchildren.

"Do you know how many of them are there and where did they go?"

The old wolf looked to have a gleam in his eye.

"There's twelve of them. They took all eleven children I brought into this world."

He bowed his head for a moment. "The other ones were too small to know, but the only one that remembers their smell is me."

Wolves are born Deaf and blind for the first few weeks.

At this point Sif was crying. It looks like she was listening in. Nix and Ullr were confused aobviously since they can't hear the conversation between souls.

"Elder Ullr do you think we can take care of a few bandits without killing their wolf companions?"

Ullr thought for a moment before responding, "It depends on their relationship. If they have them contracted through the druid art or some other means, it'll be hard to remove the bandits without hurting them."

Ullr continued, "Likely we would have to capture them before deciding anything."

Thinking about it I look to the older wolf and talk to him. "I can't promise you anything, but I can at least try my best to recover them."

[Helping animals over humans?]

Have you ever owned a puppy before?

[No, I'm a goddess I haven't ever owned a puppy]

Well, you can ask any animal owner what would happen should anyone hurt their puppy and likely they would all answer along the same lines of finding the perpetrator and punishing them somehow.

It's not about species for them, it's about clearing up some messed up people before they hurt others.

In this case this bandit clan is obviously targeting us for some reason or other. Not to mention that, but they have likely enslaved the wolves.

Though, from where I'm standing, even if the wolves are dangerous predators and don't really deserve such kindness; I'd rather have a regular pack of wolves in this forest than those guys.

Wolves don't hunt for sport or coin and bandits I can assure you will take everything your worth.

[I can see your point, so lesser of two evils?]

Also the wolf kindly asked me. It would be remiss of me to not help. I guess talking to animals has changed my subconscious opinion about them.

Looking at Ullr with strict eyes I can tell he's looking at me to see what I can do.

The old wolf then slowly stood up. He spoke to me saying, "young ones this will be my last hunt. I will lead you to them."

"Hold on old timer."

I look at him the smile. Hunger is an issue but I luckily know of one remedy to assist my friend here.

That's right the all powerful life potion to the rescue.

I have to transfer the substance inside to make it compatible for wolves but that's actually easy because the subject of my treatment is right in front of me.

"Hand me a drop of blood and place it on this rune if you will." I passed over the bottle of life potion with a rune on it.

I didn't know how this happened before but runes were the actual reason Life potions could be used for multiple species. Just put a piece of life (cells preferably dna) on the rune and the life essence on the tin side will be calibrated for that species.

The more I learn about forgemastering the more I figure out how related everything is to it.

The wolf was confused but did so. I then split the essence inside into three parts.

"This should be enough to recover. Give one to two other Cubs who can fight and yourself".

Starvation is a subject that hasn't been studied for obvious reasons. But the main cause of death by starvation is likely your body had already catobolized all your fat, then your muscles, followed by starting to break up essential lean tissue and esssential connective tissue in order to function. The break up of material in the body can likely lead acidic to byproducts filling the bloodstream like keytones. So what if I just fill the wolves with free cells to regenerate what's lost.

Instant fuel for the tank. This is only a temporary measure obviously but, at least they will be able to fight.

I watched as the elder cleared his bottle healing some old wounds and looking a bit meatier than before. This wasn't a minor Life potion but a regular one.

"Loki your mother gave you that to protect yourself. Why are you using it on them," Nix asked.

He always plays devil's advocate doesn't he?

"I am protecting myself. The best defense is a good offense sometimes and we will be taking on about 23 opponents without being able to kill any of them. This will not be easy and we will need all the help we can get."

Ullr smiled, "Who are we attacking? The bandits you spoke about."

"Yes, this pack is in dire straights since all the able bodied adults were taken. Those leftover can't fend for themselves. This same group is likely the one responsible for sending those undead after us. They might even know of Ullr's presence. In this case, rather than let them make plans about us and endanger our lives, we should strike first removing them before they remove us."

Ullr smiled weirdly, "If you didn't look starkly similar to both your parents, I would have thought you were Vili's kid."

I smiled at that remark.