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“Are you LISTENING?” Nogar asked. “We. Should. Run.”

“Or we could burn it.” Mohr said. “It’s just flesh, right?”

I blinked. “It could be a lot of flesh.” I said.

“How much flesh are we talking about?” Doran asked.

Nogar answered. “It’ll mass equal to about a squad or two. But that’s not the worst of it. It will have duplicate organs, which will make it resistant to criticals.”

Zoltar stroked his chin. “So it’s a lot of life force all in one place. It’ll take us a while, even blasting it with our greatest spells.”

“If the Taint is too strong, then we might not even have those spells.” Mohr said.

“Thus the Neeglings.” Negla said.

.....

“It doesn’t work like that.” Nogar said. “At best, the Taint will divide between the neegling and yourself. At best.”

“So, what?” Negla asked. “Three or four neeglings each?”

“Shall I start catching neeglings?” I asked.

“Yes, you must.” Negla said.

“Worthless!” Nogar said. “I need you here, convincing my circle that this is DUMB!”

“Is this dumb?” Doran asked me.

“It’s a legitimate horror.” I said. “Taint will keep us from using our strongest magics. If we get close, it’s just going to eat us with a touch. If we manage to hold at range, we know of at least one magical ability it has. I’m not sure how skilled our... allies... are with their weapons.”

I scratched the right side of my jaw. “It took us two days to walk here. Could we call for reinforcements?”

Zoltar snorted. “We know what the Voice of Rakkal would say about that.”

“All right. If we ARE doing this, we need a plan.” I said.

“Traitor.” Nogar spat toward me. That curse spiraled, began gathering Taint into itself before...

“Burn Curse.” Mohr cast, the flames blinding both myself and Nogar.

“I should ask the morlocks for a spear.” Negla said. “Wolf magics aren’t going to be of a lot of use here.”

Mohr made a gesture behind her back. “You could summon spirit wolves.” he told her.

“I’ve only got the two of them.” she said, “And... Spirits... Taint...”

Zoltar scrunched up his face. “Could they ride in the bodies of plains cats? I mean, I’d hate doing that if I were a wolf spirit, but its better than...”

“Could we strap neeglings to the back of a plains cat?” she asked.

“Negla.” Doran said, “Please stop with the neeglings. We’d have to enchant the damn animals.”

“Wait.” I said. “Is that the problem with using them to help absorb Taint?”

I drew up the files holding everything I knew about Lifeshaper.

“Bad news?” Mohr asked.

“I have enough Lifeshaper powers to do half of one. It’s not like feeding them each a healing potion would...”

Doran slapped his thighs. “Potions! Genius. Negla, Critter. Go forth. See if we can get twelve neeglings.”

“There’s only four within range.” I said.

Negla punched me in the shoulder. “Then we walk and find more. Come. Who wants to do boring planning, anyway?”

“Well, I do.” I said, following her anyway.

When we were a safe distance away, she said, “You have nothing that resembles tact, do you?”

I shrugged. “Truthspeaker. Titanspawn. People hate me anyway, why should I be nice to those who won’t be nice to me?”

“One catches more flies, as the saying goes.”

“Flies taste terrible.” I said, to which she laughed.

“So why do you think we were sent away just as we were beginning to form the plan?” she asked.

“Nogar doesn’t want the plan at all. He’d rather us run and leave a horror at the flank.”

“A horror currently stuck in a building.” she said.

“Which will, sooner or later, get out.” I said. “True, I’d rather face it with an army. And I’m not enthused about doing it with a bunch of morlocks who might just try to kill us afterward, but it needs to be done.”

She snorted. “You think this can be done?”

“You don’t?” I asked. “Why the insistence on neeglings, then?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’d rather not get Tainted. As an adept, magic is a good part of my life. I like the idea of my pack hounding something big, bringing it low to the ground. But by the same token, I’m not a fool. This sounds like something that kill some of us.”

I whispered. “This is why we need the best plan we can get.”

“Oh, are the neeglings... never mind, I see them.” she whispered back.

Now neeglings are a lot like long-eared rabbits. They burrow, they primarily eat vegetation, and they poop everywhere. And, they’re not like rabbits. They have oily quills among their fur, and claws, and have no problems biting plains cats when there are enough of them.

Oh, and they’re FAST.

One can be forgiven for thinking it’s magical. It’s a combination of evolutions. Adrenaline, metabolism, little...

What? I like evolutions. Nature is a wonderful and varied thing.

Oh.

I suppose I don’t want to tell this story, or this part of the story, depending upon how one views things.

But my desires are not relevant to what actually happened back then, are they?

We formed a system group, so that we could share my Beast Senses, plan our movements without risking our voices giving us away.

<You’re a lot bigger inside your own head.> she sent. <You don’t have to shout.>

<Sorry. > I toned down my sendings. <I’m used to less sensitive group members.>

Her smile was a thing predatory and fueled by hunger.

<This will take long enough without stopping to cook one of them!> I admonished.

<Are you serious about not taking the Aware ones? We’re long enough. We’ll be out all day.>

I grunted, and four pairs of ears turned my way.

<Right. > I sent. <Sorry. >

<Is someone there?> the mother sent. <We can hear you, you know.>

I had been crouched, but stood to what height I could.

<We mean you no ill.> I sent. <Those who can ask not to be eaten should be.>

<That’s an exception out here.> the father sent. <Not the rule.>

“What are you DOING?” Negla asked.

“They’re sentient.” I said. “Needless harm is off limits.”

“Assfart.” she replied.

<So, > the father asked, <Why are you here?>

<Well, we’re hunting for a dozen non-sentient neeglings.> I sent. <I don’t suppose you know where we should look?>

The mother sent a wave of [Disgust]. <As if we’d help you do that. You know, even the animals sometimes give birth to Awakened.>

<I thought that was becoming a rarity.> I said.

<Rare isn’t the same thing as nonexistent.> father replied.

<I thank you for your honesty.> I said.

<You might look in the north by northwest.> one of the daughters said.

<Bellflower! > mother snapped. <Do be silent!>

Well, we DID look there, and found a pack of gaunt, mangy plains cats. They didn’t share my religious views, and...

There were seven of them, and even lean, they were about double the mass of neeglings.

“You can’t be serious.”

.....

“Of course I am.” Negla replied.

The pack closed around us.

“If you don’t kill any of them,” she said, “I think we can tie them up, put them in bags, and use them the same way the neeglings would have.

I sighed. “They are aware.”

“I’m not asking you to DO anything.” she argued, “Only to not kill any of them. We’ll do the rest.”

I lowered my vision, and took in a long blink. That’s when the one nearest me leapt at my head.

“There may be...” I swatted it to the side with my shield. “A better solution.”

She snarled, taking on a layer of fur, her hands becoming paws. “If you can find it, then let’s do that. But Wolf rarely shows mercy to those who would hunt it.”

I squinted. “I’d never really liked plains cats, given that one of my early encounters one of them had disemboweled me.”

One of them feinted, so that another could bite my left thigh and tried to pull me off balance.

“There you go.” she said. “They deserve it.”

“But they don’t.” I said. “These are a different set of cats entirely.”

I brought a fist down on the skull of the one to my left, turned right just in time to catch another on my shield.

“Hey!” Negla said. “Alive, remember?”

“Even if you do eventually convince me, they’re not making this easy.” I said.

“Hiss, hiss, easy. Hiss, hiss.” she mocked, grasping at empty air where there had been a cat’s neck.

<Combination move. Shield Strike. Flip Throw.>

I took note of how my System moved my body, so that I could practice how to do it manually. “I don’t think we’re going to be in shape to do this again. How sure are you that we can improvise muzzles?”

“I dunno.” she said. “How much rope do you have?”

“You didn’t bring rope?” I asked.

“We came out here for neeglings!” she reminded me. “I have sacks and twine.”

I sighed, pulled my dagger from inventory.

“Hey, we want them alive!” she shouted.

“I guess we’ll see.” I said.