Telepathy Is Taxing

Kai couldn't see the faces of any of them due to their masks symbolising the animals they represented. However, he could see the disappointment oozing out of Crow.

"Come on, boy, shake!" Kai told Bear with an excited tone of voice, as if urging a dog to perform tricks.

Deer scoffed and turned his head away. At least he didn't seem hostile, at the moment. However, Bear looked to be at his boiling point, especially after Kai's mockery.

"I'll show you how to shake, all right," Bear spoke in anger, gritting his teeth and reaching his own hand towards Kai.

It was Kai's first time actually hearing Bear speak, as well. He had the voice of a man in his 40s. His size was also somewhat comparable to Gort, and the voice was quite befitting of such a man. His voice was authoritative but wild.

Bear gripped Kai's hand and slowly raised him to the air. Crow wanted to stop him before Bear did anything, but Deer stopped her with a nod, it seemed he wanted to see where this would go.

Kai was surprised by how easy he was raised into the air. Sure, he was all bones, but he was sure his weight still wasn't anything to scoff at.

"I am Bear," said Bear and brought Kai closer to his face, "The last man who got this close to me shat his pants."

Kai was truly fearful, he tried to free himself from Bear's embrace, but it felt like his hand was trapped in some pressure machine. Bear's fingers would not open at all.

Eventually realising there was no escape, Kai shrugged and added, "Well, you see, I'm not wearing any pants."

With these words, both Crow and Deer broke into laughter. Kai had finally heard the voices of all three witches. Deer sounded a lot younger, perhaps close to his own age.

Bear looked below and saw that this skeleton indeed wore no clothes. It wasn't odd that a skeleton undead wore no clothes, but none of them had ever thought about this fact, before. They were usually mindless undead creatures, after all, not a person like Kai.

Bear scoffed and dropped Kai. He turned back and stood at a corner of the oasis, waiting for the enemy to arrive. Deer came up to Kai and patted him on his back.

"Next time you mock Bear, be ready to take a beating," Deer spoke.

The way he spoke was very similar to Kai's own speech. Kai thought that perhaps he had found a kindred spirit. That is, until Deer added, "It had been decades since I last laughed like that."

"Decades?" Kai questioned. He had many things to ask, "How old are you guys? Why do you rarely speak? How is it that-"

"Let's save the chitchat for later, we need to prepare," Deer said and joyously added, "We may need to cleanse the forest again."

"Cleanse?" Kai asked.

"The forest is getting too crowded again. However, corpses are great mulch!" Deer quickly replied.

Kai thought to himself, "For a people renowned for their absolute silence, this guy has quite the mouth on him."

Crow was seemingly talking with Deer and Bear again via mental messages. Seeing Kai so perplexed, she gave a talisman she drew on a piece of wood to Kai. As soon as he held it, he was also privy to everything they were talking about through mental messages.

If Kai had a face, they could see his awkward smile. He thought, "I don't have pockets, am I supposed to keep holding this?"

Deer threw him some rope seemingly fashioned by himself. "Tie it to your body, then."

"Holy shit," Kai thought to himself once more. "Can these guys really hear my thoughts?"

"Yes," Deer added.

What followed was a three-way conversation with Kai mostly listening to them. It seemed there was a third party who had entered the forest. Coupled with the demons, these visitors had killed a lot of the forest's creatures.

The Skinwalkers would kill another if they saw someone kill any of the forest's spirits, yet according to Deer, hundreds of spirits were already dead.

There was a force newly arriving from another part of the forest actively hunting them. They were doing a great job if they wanted to provoke the witches.

Kai, not being able to contribute, had only served to stop their conversation at a few points as he was unable to separate his actual thoughts from the messages he sent. Right when Kai was listening to the witches discuss this new force, he removed the talisman and put it away for the moment.

Not only did they have no inkling of where Arthur could be, but also joining heads with three others was taxing on Kai.

"I'll rest for a bit," Kai thought to himself and felt happier, at least his thoughts were his own for the moment. "They are talking about boring stuff anyway."