Druidification

Together, the six wolves moved through the ditch towards the source of the sound. Now knowing that there was set of buildings in the distance, they moved quickly through the ditch until it came into sight. It took a bit for Nat and Shannon to catch up, as the hunting pack moved ahead at full speed, but that meant that the two of them were not visible as the group neared in to the buildings. Once they were able to see the wolves once more, they were already slinking up to the front gate, keeping to the ditch and keeping as low of a profile as possible. As they got closer, the small goblin figures that were milling about became clearer. None of them seemed to notice the hunters that were sneaking up to them, but one of the goblins seemed different than the others. All they could tell at this distance was that it had some more clothing on. Circulating her energy back to her eyes, Shannon tried to look closer at the goblin that stood out amongst the group. Startled by what she was seeing, she turned to Nat so she could warn the wolves, but she was a hair too late.

Shrieks filled the air as the wolves launched out of the ditch towards the unprepared goblins, immediately trying to finish some off. the first four they came across fell easily, the canine teeth ripping through their throats. As the three remaining normal goblins tried to fight back against the larger predators that were attacking them, Max pounced towards the one that looked stood out. Clothes wise, all he had on was a small headpiece made out of wires and bone, but both of his arms were covered in runic tattoos. His eyes had a similar fright that the others did, but his hands moved up in front of him. As they did, black mist started running down his arms, before pooling in his open palms. As Max was about to land on the goblin, the black mist popped out, projecting a round shield right in Max's path. The shield was only as big as his torso, so his head and paws were stuck over. As he was not able to get any grip or traction on the black construct, he tried reaching out to snap the goblin between his teeth.

As he did, the goblin seemed to regain some of its sense, but not quite fast enough. All around it, the other goblins were either dying or dead, with the canines tearing them apart. Mike came in from the side and bit down on the tattooed goblin's neck, before shaking his head back and forth. As he did, the black construct that was holding Max in the air vanished. However, the black mist ran down the goblin's right arm once more, before taking the form of a dagger. As a last-ditch effort, the goblin stabbed his attacker in the shoulder with the dagger, right before his head was ripped clean off. By now, the entire group had ended the small monsters, with Mike being the only one wounded. As Nat and Shannon reached the group, Mike howled out in pain and collapsed where he stood.

Natalie rushed over to him to see what the issue was. As she checked his body, she came across the spot where the goblin had stabbed him, and was shocked. Black mist swirled around and was slowly growing in size where the wound was. Trying to pull it out, Nat grasped at the mist. However, this action not only had her fingers move through it as if it was not there, but also caused whines of pain to come out from the jaws of the wounded wolf. As Stephanie came over to see how her fellow wolf was doing, Nat flooded her eyes with the energy so she could see his internal energy. And what she ended up seeing was not pretty.

The green nature energy that filled him up was slowly dissipating in the wake of the black mist, almost as if it was an infection. Not only that, but the speed with which the energy was darkening was rapid, and did not leave much time. While they did not know how this would affect him, Nat could feel what might happen. As she mentally felt out to him to try and soothe him, she felt the bond itself weakening and dispersing. Panicked, she put her hand over top of where his wound was and did the only thing she could think of that may help, given how she could not physically deal with the mist. She sent her energy out of her palm and flooded the wound itself.

The whole thing seemed to be quite similar to a battle of cells, but usually the one who won in that scenario was the cell that was either most numerous, or propagated the fastest. However, Nat could not help but notice a few weeks back that while the wolves were filled with the green energy, they themselves did not actually produce any. It was as if they ran on energy batteries that filled up whenever they spent time in her Soulscape. Given that the black mist was currently propagating as it tried to spread through Max's body, she directly gave him an infusion of energy, as if to supply him with needed antibodies. After all, she could not store and take things out of the Soulscape herself, and Mike was currently unable to think about going in to the nature-energy rich environment inside of Nat.

As the entire group watched on, Nat poured most of her reserves into Mike before the black mist finally receded. She collapsed on the ground beside him, both of them breathing hard as if they had both just ran a marathon. Looking over, she was glad to see that not only did all remnants of the black mist dissipate, but his face seemed much more at ease. After a few minutes, she stood up and looked at where the wound had been, but was confused to find no mark at all on the wolf. Did her infusion heal him up? Or was the attack itself only on the energy, completely ignoring his physical body? Either way, he was not fit to continue out here today, and would need to rest inside the Soulscape. Right before he lost consciousness, he followed the directive to head inside, and was followed closely by Stephanie. She seemed worried for him, and it was not too big of a deal for her to go in as well. After he went in and passed out, the rest of the group continued on their path northwards, albeit with far more worries to think about.

Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Selvaria, Viktor, Saganatsu, Eeleater, John, Jacob, Onean, Neal, Sebastian, Ethan, Sir Hellington, Adam, and Kevin for supporting me and my writing! Remember that I keep Patreon ten chapters ahead at all times. Our next goal on Patreon will be getting up to 50 patrons, which I will then spend more time each month writing some side stories and shorts that show other perspectives throughout my stories!

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