I glance over at the body of the large creature and do a quick Analyze. It is called a Forest Gore and is level twenty five. No wonder my White Tailed Fox Form leveled up three times from one battle. I did not kill it, or do all that much damage, so I only got a part of the Exp for its death. That small part was enough to give me three levels. I felt a lot better by the time Russell and Anise had managed to skin and grab various parts that must be of some value to someone from the Forest Gore. I really don’t want to know what someone would want with the teeth or the eyes of the Forest Gore. I was lucky that none of my bones were broken when I hit that tree. A benefit that I did realize earlier about leveling up my forms is that my body heals up faster. The bruises that I knew was going to take a while to heal were gone before an hour had passed. At least mostly gone. Thinking back, this rapid healing might be why I was able to recover as quickly as I did after almost dying while fighting the Elder Red Ear. I entertain the idea of switching back to either my German Shepherd Form or my Kitsune Form. It would be easier, but no. I need to learn how to fight as small canine without the crutch of magic. I must soldier on. Russell packed away the… nails? Why does he… no nope don’t want to know, into his pack and looked over at me. “You ready to move Elise?” He looked worried. I yipped and moved over and bumped my head against his leg to reassure him. Pettran looked over at me, curiosity and disbelief on his face. Russell sighed “You want to keep on trying to take on the creatures by yourself don’t you?” It was more of a resigned statement than a question but I answered anyway with an affirmative yip. “She can’t be serious.” Pettran growled, he turned to glare down at me “You can’t be serious.” I am very serious, but I do appreciate his very well timed save. I gave him another yip. He hissed. “You would have died had Russell not distracted the Forest Gore long enough for me to come save your fluffy tail.” He shook his head and looked away “I would have thought that someone who had already died once would not be in such a hurry to die again.” Wow, he said that last part more quietly but still loud enough for all of us to hear. “Pettran!” Anise scolded. Pettran’s lips thinned as he looked away from everyone.

Despite his protests Pettran allowed me to take on the next five creatures on my own. The first three of them kicked my butt… into trees. I know that we are in the forest and there are a lot of trees which makes them readily available but why do they all feel the need to kick my poor small body into them. It has nothing to do with my digging my sharp little fangs into their ankles and feet making it hard for them to move and it probably hurts a lot. Judging by the screams they insist on making when I dig those little canines into their flesh, it hurts. By the fourth creature I had gotten the hang of biting hard and letting go quickly so I wouldn't get caught by the creature that I am attacking. It causes damage to the creature and makes them bleed heavily while slowing down their movement speed. It took a while but I slowly bled the fourth creature, some kind of cross between a monkey and a lizard and it is seriously creepy to look at a scaled monkey. Lucky for me my little teeth are small enough to slide under the layers of scales and reach the flesh. The monkeys here do not seem to be used to feeling pain. Those scales must protect them better than I thought. My teeth slid under the scales so easily that it makes it hard to imagine them being much protection. By the fifth creature, another Forest Raider drawn in by the blood, I was feeling confident in my dart and bite technique. This time I aimed my dart and bite at the small exposed throat of the Forest Raider. This time I did not release when I darted off and tore out the little feline’s throat. The others joined in the fight when the rest of the Forest Raiders rushed into the clearing with their claws and fangs bared and hissing. Too many for me to take on all by myself, but between the four of us we took down all seven of the Forest Raiders. My White Tailed Fox Form had been raised to level nine by the partial exp from the first three creatures that I fought. After killing the fourth creature I had heard several dings in my head, which I ignored with the sudden attack from the Forest Raiders. The creatures in this part of the forest are a lot higher level than the ones Russell and I fought when we first entered the Forest. While Russell and Anise started to break down the monkey and the Raiders I decided to take a look. White Tailed Fox Form level 9-10, Unlocked new ability: Ankle Biter: Level 1. Increase chance to cripple a target when biting at tendons and joints by (1)%. White Tailed Fox Form level 10-11. I was right, I do get another skill at level ten. Now I need to level up my German Shepherd Form and my Kitsune Form to level ten. I switch over to my Kitsune Form and start in on eating the high leveled discarded meat. Man it does not taste good, but it does increase my exp for my form level. I like meat a lot better when it is cooked. It is a good thing that I am in my canine form because I would get sick from eating this as a human.

“She is the little fire fox again. Does this mean that she is done trying to solo creatures a lot bigger and higher leveled than her?” Pettran asked Russell. I think that it is the first time he has spoken to him. Russell flushed and walked over to me. “You ready to stay as a group now?” He asked. I nodded and yipped in agreement. I am done with my crazy solo runs. I have perfected the dart and bite. Now I need to work on my more mystical arts. I pranced over to Russell and pawed his leg. He looked down at me and sighed. “Really? You want me to carry you and your pack?” I yipped in demand. He sighed again. Before he could reach down to do my bidding Anise came over and picked me up. She set me on her shoulder and patted my head. “You can ride on my shoulders Elise. You are just adorable.” I take a look around me, Russell’s hair is a mess of curls, but short enough that I am not afraid of setting his hair on fire when I let loose one of my Firefoxes. Anise has much longer and curlier hair than Russell. She keeps it tucked up in a tight bun and if I push it over just a little and move so my tails not touching her or her clothes then I should be good. I move over on her shoulder just far enough to make sure that my tails are clear. I dig my claws in her shoulder, not too hard, but enough to make sure that I can keep my balance. Once I feel steady I yip at her and she gives Russell and Pettran a nod. “We are good to go!”

It turns out that shooting fire while riding on the shoulder of a moving person is harder than it looks. We lost our whole supply of water putting out the first three small fires. We had to go out of the way to find another source of water to refill our stock. The best part about the detour was that Anise is good at making fresh skins into waterskins. She and Russell took three of the White tailed Fox skins and cleaned them in the small fast running stream and stripped the hair and scraped the skin so that the water would only taste like old animal skin instead of having chunks of animal skin in it. I have gotten used to the taste of old animal skin in my water. Before coming to this world I would have been horrified to have any kind of taste in my water that was not some kind of fruity flavor with bubbles. Man I miss my flavored water, and soda. I really do miss drinking sodas. They don’t make soda in this world. I have not been to a town yet but from what Russell has said about cuisine in this world there are no sugary drinks. The closest I will be able to come to finding one is something alcoholic. One benefit of staying in my Canine Forms is that I have not been hit too hard with sugar withdrawal. I have experienced several bouts of shakes and weakness. I just wanted something sweet, some sugar. It does help that Russell’s food is just so good, it makes the urge to throw things and chew on random plants to see if they have any sugar or sweetness in them become much less intense. In the first few weeks of my new life here I was held back only by the desire to not poison myself by chewing on random plants. I did gnaw on some that I saw that the other creatures around me were chewing on. Most of them were bitter, but one just one, and it had to be the rare one, was sweet when I chewed on it. When I got my Herbology skill I learned that it is called Sweet Yellow. Since the flower is yellow the name does make sense. I do think that the naming of things in this world are rather simple. I have made a point of gathering some of the stems from the batches of flowers and leaving the rest. Got to let them grow or else there will be no more sweet treats. I have not asked Russell to make me something sweet. Maybe I should. It has been long enough that I have managed to clear the sugar from my system. Stupid Dog Faced God did not think to rid my body of all the toxins, the addicting toxins of my former world that would be absent in my new one before sending me here. The caffeine headaches and shakes were not pleasant but had nothing on the sugar withdrawal. Stupid inconsiderate gods. Still I would like some sweets in this world. When we finally get to a town then I will share some of my recipes with Russell and see how he does at baking, so long as they have ovens in this world, and flour and baking soda. They must have some kind of equivalent of flour and baking soda right? Right.

Anyway, Anise and I got into a rhythm after the first few fires we had to put out. She would turn to face our target and move as little as she could while I threw my fire balls, this time I made sure to aim where they were going to be using the slight movement of their muscles tensing to determine where they were going to attack, instead of aiming where they used to be. Which is what I was doing at first and was what caused all of those lovely fires that we had to put out. It is really lucky that we are heading to a large body of water so there is some kind of stream or creek to follow. Nothing so big as a river like there are in other forests, like the first one I traveled through. It did not take long for me to reach level ten with my Kitsune Form. Movement of Ash: Vanish into a cloud of ash and reappear in another location. Line of sight or within (20) meters. This is a really cool new skill. I now know how that first Kitsune that I found vanished into a big cloud of ash after we talked. Once I got my Kitsune form to level twelve it was getting dark so the four of us found a good little clearing under a large tree that has good ventilation.