The snow had begun falling steadily, but not heavily. It wouldn’t matter so much inside the forest, and would be beneficial for her, but she was worried about the siblings. Snow cut down on visibility and masked noises, so there was a higher possibility of an ambush catching them unawares.

The sun was still up, but the light was diffuse and the world almost seemed to be holding its breath. As Maura took a moment to consider everything, the siblings were making loads of noise. They had left the perimeter of camp a minute ago, and Maura was already worried about their chances of survival.

Eric was grunting a little while he adjusted his equipment. He had a spear, shield, and short sword. His spear was currently gently latched to the sled, and his shield was resting over his shoulder on top of his warm cloak. He was clearly someone that reinforced their body as he drug the large sled behind himself as almost an afterthought.

Amber was slightly better, but she still made too much noise as she readied her bow, which was too long to maneuver well in close combat in Maura’s opinion.

Maura pondered what to do, and decided that she might as well begin teaching herself how to use wards. Theirs was an ideal situation in which to use warding. Maura used her air magic to hide her scent, but she could probably do something similar to the sled with a ward and perhaps Amber’s bow?

She kept thinking about that as she waited for the siblings to show her how they normally hunted. It was taking them a while to ready themselves and if Amelia were here she probably would have prodded her to be more proactive, but this Maura wasn’t that Maura. She was a hunter now - her steps silent, her body aligned with nature. Her patience was almost without limit.

Eric started looking around, obviously having lost Maura despite her standing pretty close. She stood up a little and opened her cloak so she created some movement and contrast and Eric finally spotted her.

He almost yelled, but clearly mastered that impulse before saying in a ‘quiet’ voice, “There you are. You’re a little spooky, you know? Anyway, I’ll be drawing a bit of attention at ever increasing intervals and volume as we slowly walk about a hundred feet inside the treeline. When something comes, I’ll distract it while Amber finishes it off. It’s what we do almost every night and has worked for many years.”

Maura’s face was almost entirely hidden, but even if it wasn’t her conflicting feelings wouldn’t have been seen. That plan was as close to the exact opposite of her own philosophy towards the wilderness, but they seemed to know what they were about. She kept her face totally passive and nodded, then began to track around them as they moved.

There were a few beasts nearby that Maura would only tentatively label as monstrous, but they were afraid of the noise from the siblings and stayed hidden. Maura couldn’t help but silently judge their skills as they walked.

Eric made plenty of noise with his heavy tread and jangly steel armor. Maura hadn’t yet placed any wards in order to witness what they could do unassisted, so she could smell the humans easily. Now that Maura looked a little closer, she could see that the metal that made up Eric’s armor was mildly magical. She had no idea how it had been created, but her initial opinion that it wouldn’t do much good might have been wrong. His shield and spear tip were also imbued somehow and that, plus the fact that the mail coat covered his arms torso and down to his knees, had Maura second guessing his unpreparedness.

Amber’s armor followed the opposite philosophy, from what Maura could tell. She had a padded gambeson for protection, but it left her arms free so she could use her bow. The bow itself was some form of monster wood that Maura had seen before but didn’t know the properties of. The rest of her clothing was thick wool or warm furs and she was significantly more quiet than Eric. It seemed that the idea really was for her to go relatively unnoticed while Eric pulled attention.

Maura had to remind herself that the people she had seen used mana in strange ways that she didn’t really understand just yet. The noise level and general fearlessness that the siblings displayed wouldn’t have worked deep inside the dangerous areas, but she had to admit that it was probably effective around here.

After a few more minutes of walking, she sensed when they finally managed to draw attention of something either strong or dumb enough to attack. It reminded Maura of the badger/wolverine thing she had killed for her bedroll, but had a minor earth or wood attunement to it. When it appeared, Eric had his shield ready and dropped the sled’s rope to pick up his spear with a speed that Maura hadn’t expected.

Eric hissed and jabbed at the monster to keep its attention and Amber moved with some stealth to the side until she could get a decent shot. He moved with much more speed and grace than Maura had been anticipating and did his job well. The monster was pushed back with his shield during the initial rush, then Eric just kept himself moving and prodded the spear as they faced off.

Eventually the monster was moved into an ideal position. Amber powered her arrow somehow and fired it straight into the eye of the monster. A small detonation clearly annihilated its brain, and it fell dead to the floor.

Eric placed his spear down and moved towards the monster while continually scanning his environment. He picked it up as if it barely weighed a thing and brought it back to the sled where he wrapped some cloth around the wound to keep any blood from leaking and latched it down securely.

With a little bit of a start, Maura realized that they reminded her of how she had been at the beginning of her journey. Not terrible, but with a lot of room for improvement. They hadn’t yet learned the lessons that had been forced upon her, probably because they were in a much safer area. That was the objective of civilization, afterall.

He ‘whispered’, “Maura! That’s a pretty easy representation of how we hunt. Where the hell are you, girl?”

Maura appeared next to him out of the slowly falling snow and he jumped a little. Amber almost screamed this time and then shot Maura a venomous look.

Maura waved Amber a little closer and once she was near she whispered, “That was very different than what I’m used to. It worked though! This monster is barely magical though, and I think Amelia wanted something really nice?”

Amber looked a little peeved, but Eric happily nodded and said, “Yes, that’s the impression I had as well. How do you want to go about it?”

Maura pondered for a moment before she asked a question that had been on her mind for a while. “Can you two not sense the manasphere?”

Both siblings looked confused, and Maura decided to come back to that later, maybe while in camp.

She waved her hand a little and said, “I can sense a few decent targets. I’ll go hunt one and use it to bring something small but more magical from deeper. Watch out for mundane animals fleeing, but with the current snow they are more likely to stay still. Continue moving slowly in this direction, I will return.”

Before either sibling could respond, Maura was gone. She was a ghost in these relatively familiar woods. All of her memories and instincts fell back upon her like a beloved and threadbare cloak.

Maura skipped past some dangerous flora and made her way towards the most magical being she could sense in the area. As she drew closer she could sense other, stronger things further out. Her target had an aspect of snow or maybe crystal. It would be a challenge to sneak up on in this environment, but it wasn’t too dangerous.

When she laid eyes on it, it was only the size of a medium dog. Judging by the tracks it had been hunting earlier but was now content to curl up and digest in assumed safety. Unfortunately for it, in the wilderness safety was an illusion.

Maura was cognizant enough to remember that this would be a trade good, which meant little to no damage to the pelt or possible important aspects of the monster. Being crystalline or ice aspected meant that the eyes might be valuable, so she would have to go in through the mouth and into the brain.

It took two minutes or so to position herself. Once she was in position she scuffed her feet deliberately along the snow. As the weasel-thing perked up and opened its mouth to hiss Maura shot her spear forward like an arrow and pierced it just right. She had to guess at the force required, and ended up almost not using enough to pierce its head, but she managed and with a few twitches it laid still.

Now, she had her bait.

She kept the carcass on the tip of her spear and began to scan for something that would be worth the most. Now that she was further into the wilderness, she could sense much more activity. She wondered if there was some reason other than how often the area was patrolled that could explain why it was so much safer close to the trail, but she shook off her curiosity to focus back on the hunt.

There was a heavily metal aspected creature that Maura felt she had a chance of drawing closer to the sled. Metal aspect monsters were rare even in the deep dark, so she figured it would probably be worth a bunch to the tribe.

She kept the air tightly flowing to hide her scent as she moved silently to find a good path. Once she had found what she wanted, she used the carcass to spread a line of scent and tossed a small rock near the monster to wake it up.

It looked like a silverish boar/deer. It had a boar’s body, but it’s legs were too long and it had some antlers mostly made of metal. It wasn’t super fast, but now that it was a little riled up, it followed her trail well enough.

Maura kept leaving the scent trail and quickly made her way back to the siblings. They were strapping down a smaller cat creature of some kind onto the sled when she arrived. Maura quickly hissed a little at them so they would notice her. Amber spun around with an arrow on her bowstring, and Eric turned towards her with his shield, but they both recognised her and stopped.

Maura quickly placed the crystalline marmot on the sled and before either of them could get distracted said, “A larger metal aspect boar-thing is coming, get ready!”

Boars aren’t known for their subtlety, and metal aspect monsters even less so. It had noticed the human smells and began to pick up the pace, just plowing through everything in its way. Eric looked a little worried but readied his spear and kept light on his feet in case he would need to dodge.

Amber scooted back a bit to give him some room, but Maura wasn’t going to allow it to get that close. This was a truly magical beast, and it would probably be very difficult if not impossible for their equipment to do much to it with how tough metal monsters were. Maura assumed that was the case, anyway. They really should have taken some time to learn how each other’s skills worked before beginning to hunt together, now that she was thinking of it.

Maura quickly pulled on the strap for her cloak to release it and let it fall to the ground. She braced herself, using her intent to harden the snow to keep her feet on secure ground. She got in the perfect form to throw the spear and waited for just the right moment.

As the monster plowed into the clearing, Maura waited for it to have its front legs just beginning to rise into the air so that the head would stay in a predictable path then released her spear with all of her strength.

Her spear shot out faster than a ballista bolt and nailed her target expertly. It pierced the monster’s left eye and continued into the head. The tip poked out from the back of the monster’s head a little, but it stuck well. The head initially flipped up, but then it fell forwards, grounding the end of the spear which lodged into the ground. All of the carcasses momentum was shifted into the ground as the spear bent slightly and its rear legs flipped past the now stationary head before it fell to the ground.

The noise that the monster had made while it plowed towards them followed by the large crack of the spear’s impact made Maura stay on high alert. She left the spear as she pulled out her sword and had an air spell on the tip of her tongue in case it would be necessary.

It seemed that the beast had scared any other monsters too much for them to do anything, and now the forest was silent as the grave. Maura began to relax as Eric let out an explosive breath. She tensed again and looked at him in surprise, but he was just staring at the monster wide-eyed.

Amelia broke the silence next by moving closer and saying, “Hells, that was terrifying. Maura, that’s an apex beast! Or at least close enough to one. I think it might be a Steel Gundercraw? That is worth more than half of the pelts we’ve collected on this whole trip combined!”

Maura felt a mixture of embarrassment and confusion. She said, “That is not an apex beast. It’s middling, approaching high perhaps, but only due to its heavily metal aspected nature.”

The siblings looked at Maura as if she were a new person. Amber eventually said, “You still look a bit like a kid playing dress up, but I think I might owe you a more sincere apology.”

Eric snorted and finally shook himself out of his dazed state. He said, “Alright, we can handle all of the back patting and hugging later. I think we should follow Maura’s lead. In fact, I think we should just get rid of these two we found earlier, Amber. I’m not sure if you noticed, but she also brought back a Crystalline Weasel. If you can do what you just did a few more times then I think we can call this a highly successful hunt, Maura.”

Amber said, “Really? Oh wow, those are nice! Okay, yeah. Let’s do it your way, Maura. We need to make sure not to bring too much back though or it would draw too much attention.”

Eric snorted again with a quick laugh and said, “What a problem to have.”

Maura had been feeling more and more embarrassed but also agitated at the amount of noise they were making. She nodded and said, “Okay. Try to keep the noise down please. I’m going to try to put a ward on the sled to remove the scent of the carcasses, and maybe make it glide on the snow better.”

The siblings quieted down and they got to work. The Gundercraw was quite heavy, but Amber and Eric managed to latch it down well enough. It took Maura a few tries to properly place a simple ward that imitated her updraft spell, but it was a simple enchantment to add. She had no idea how long her first ward would last, but it should be plenty long enough to last the rest of their hunt. She just had to remove it before they got back to camp in order to keep her ability a secret.

She only thought about that after she had begun, and felt a little bad. She had made an assumption that because Eric and Amber were Amelia’s children that it would be okay for her to use her spells around them, but she hadn’t been specifically told she could. In fact, she had been told almost the opposite, but she just hadn’t thought about it until that moment.

She sheepishly asked for another huddle and said, “I might be in trouble. I made a mistake. I don’t think I was supposed to use magic around you but I’m not sure. Amelia said it was supposed to stay a secret. Can you keep it a secret? It could be very dangerous for everyone in the tribe and myself specifically if people find out I can use magic.”

The siblings had been interested in watching her work, but now that her words were fully understood they both had pensive and worried expressions on their faces.

Amber leaned in close and said, “I didn’t even think about it, but you are absolutely right. We’ll have to tell mom and dad, but we can keep it a secret. I’d be angry about it, but it seems like you didn’t realize until after you cast? Yeah, well… we’ll figure it out. Don’t do that again!”

Maura nodded furiously, angry at herself. Once they were ready to move again, Maura cleaned her spear one more time then put her cloak back on and began to hunt in earnest. She understood about not getting too many things, but she also really wanted to make something nice for Eric’s wife, and maybe Amber as well?

She kept her senses open as she slid through the wilderness for something that might work and focused on smaller but more magical creatures. They only had so much room on the sled, afterall.

A few hours later it was truly dark and they had found a spot with bare earth near a stream to do some butchering after her most recent kill. They didn’t need to worry about getting lost, as they could still see the break in the treeline out onto the trail occasionally. The sled was getting a bit heavy to move with the ten animals on it, even for Eric, so they decided to lighten the load considerably by removing bits that they had no use for. It was also a good idea to take out certain organs and such to allow them to freeze in the cold air and not spoil. The carcasses themselves would freeze rapidly once the chest cavity was open and most organs removed.

Maura had found something that she could make into a perfect gift for Amber. She had noticed that while Amber had decent boots, they were far from silent and the snow clumped on them a bit ruining her gait and probably becoming quite cold. She would make her a pair of boots like her own that had two layers to keep the outside cold enough not to have snow clump, but were warm and well padded to keep her silent. One of the beasts had a perfect pelt for what she wanted with light grey, tan and brown coloring to it. It would work well for camouflage even without snow on the ground.

She had been on the lookout for something to make into a gift for Amelia and Eric’s wife, but so far wasn’t having much luck. She wanted to make Amelia a set of small knives that would look nice enough to use at the table. Well, relatively small - they would be large in her hands. She would use the antlers from the metal beast for the handles, but hadn’t found a monster with claws the right size just yet. She needed claws that were sharp on their outside edge and had very little curve.

She also hoped to find something with a horn large enough to carve into a nice comb or pretty sticks that could be used to hold hair up as a gift for Eric’s wife. Maura had her own comb and a few sticks in her pack, but it wouldn’t be the same if she couldn’t carve them specifically for her.

As they began to butcher and clean their kills, Maura surreptitiously created a perimeter and updraft without the siblings noticing. She had to practice at hiding magic, but knew that without the siblings being able to see mana or sense the manasphere that she was safe for most of the things she did.

They chatted quietly about the different beasts and what they wanted to keep. They dug a large hole in the ground with a shovel from the sled and after a half hour or so had everything ready and cleaned up.

Once the sled was properly loaded and secured Maura whispered, “There’s two things I’ve been looking for, and we probably have enough already. Would it be okay if I hunted for those specific things and you two just made your way towards the caravan? The monsters will probably not be worth taking with us, so I can just harvest what I need and leave the carcasses.”

Eric shrugged and said, “Sure. What exactly are you looking for? We might have something in the tents already.”

Maura shuffled bashfully and said, “Well, I wanted to use the hide from the wolf thing and the antlers from the Gundercraw and a few other things to make gifts. But I want to hunt for everything myself and for it to be a surprise!”

Amber looked a little annoyed for a moment before she shook herself and said, “I would be annoyed that you are taking some expensive items, but then we wouldn’t have any of this without you, so I can’t. *sigh* Alright. We’ll wait for you if we get to camp before you get back. We’re probably about a half hour to an hour away from the clearing.”

Maura nodded a few times and with a quick ‘thanks’ dashed off to look for what she wanted. If she was to join the community, then she could do so as a hunter to hide her magical skills.

She really wanted to make gifts. She’d never been able to give something to anyone else before!