Continued from here
She placed the refined wells in the Bottomless Chest for safekeeping, as much as Sombran's Immortal Domain could safeguard the storing of concentrated ether. Then Winfreda set out to find the trail of the Mirror Wolf. It was dark which was no problem for Winfreda, except that the wolves weren't using darkness as their cover, so much as they used their hides, which shifted and changed to match the colors around them. It gave them a perfect mirrored camouflage. Almost illusory. Winfreda had thought to create an item that could defeat such illusions on the fly, but as it was she'd rely on Egil, if illusionary it truly was.
But she suspected it might not be magic that enhanced these particular wolves. It was merely a precaution, as she fell into step and tracked back to the site of the rabbit massacre.
The viscera was still there, not having snowed the last day. Remarkably less fresh, of course, but still visible against the white of snow. Along the way, Woe tried to find tracks, but the wolves were clever in the way they evaded tracking.
The wolves backtracked, circled around, even seemed to stop at trees, which made Winfreda wonder if they were climbing them and going along the high branches to avoid leaving tracks on the ground.
Mirror wolves were clever, no doubt. They were as adept at avoiding tracking by hunters, as they were at finding out their prey.
Winfreda summoned Egil to her, and he descended onto the gauntleted wrist of her left forearm. "Woe gal. What wanted?" It cawed.
Winfreda smiled at Egil, and pat his beak, even offering him some bits of bread left over from dinner. The raven gratefully ate them down, and then stared expectantly at her. She nodded, and said, "Fly ahead, see if you can spot any of these mirrored wolves."
So saying, she cast him off with her left arm, and Egil flew around, trying to get a bird's eye view of the situation on ground. She pursued the trail, circling out to try and find a trace of the wolves, some imprint on the snow or ice, or on a tree. Anything. Finally, about a hundred feet out from the epicenter of her search, she caught a trail.
Egil still didn't make an alarm of seeing the wolves, so this might've been an older trail. Still it was more than she'd received in a break of searching for the beasts. She followed it down, toward a low clearing in the middle of the White Pine Forest.
She was able to make her way silent, and untrackable in part due to her blessing by Ziell. He allowed her to pass through snow and wintry landscapes without leaving signs of her passage, or making much sound at all. At least sounds that stood out as rhythmic march of humanoids, which tended to scare away the wildlife.
She found the tracks, and they seemed to meander a bit as they entered the clearing. Toward the edge, then circling around and into the middle. There, she followed them. For a moment, it appeared she'd found a hole where the mirror wolves were digging out. She knelt to inspect it.
Something caught on the corner of her eye. A glint of light, or else flash of movement. Then, she turned her head swiftly only to catch the wolf as it was pouncing upon her!
She bowled over, and the slippery ice bent her ankle beyond what it should've been. The sprain was immediately painful, but not as much as the wolf's maw that closed in around her left forearm. She panicked for a moment, but then Egil came down and began pecking at the wolf's flank. Winfreda used the distraction to summon a shadow short-sword that was imbued with Kuvarakh's toxin. He drove it into the wolf, and it caused it to hack up its grip on her forearm, and recoil.
She let her ankle flop back into place, and slid around on the icy forest floor. With some effort, she was able to lift herself to standing, but it was a challenge without support. The mirror wolf disappeared into the tree line, as Winfreda inspected her sprain. It was terribly red, and would likely bruise, and need to undergo some rest. But in the meantime she needed a splint for it, and a bandage for her forearm, to cut off the circulation there.
She chose some sturdy-feeling wooden branches to splint hte sprain from ankle to knee, as Breen appeared and manifested, to ward off any attacks from the wolf. Winfreda thanked Breen silently, as she wrapped cordage from the bottom less chest around the splint branches. These were tightened enough to keep her ankle from flopping around as she walked. She'd have a limp even as she pursued the wolf, but as it happened, she wouldn't need to.[/knowledge[
It reappeared, at the outskirts of the clearing. It stalked from side to side, slavering at the mouth from the blood still on its tongue. Its coat was brilliant even in the darkness, and she could just barely make out its shape as it darted in and out of the treeline.
Egil flapped overhead, slightly wary of the wolf now that it'd driven it off once. Breen whined piteously, and Winfreda gave him a look, "Really Breen? You could try and be a bit more intimidating."
Still, the diri of sorrow did its best to guard Winfreda as she put herself together as much as was possible, wrapping her off arm with a tight tourniquet.
When at last she was ready for the wolf, she summoned her solid shadow arm, to replace the left that flopped at her side, uselessly cradled against her chest. The left shadow arm was then armed with a net to throw upon the wolf if it neared, while her right held the hunting sword it'd already summoned, which tasted the wolf's blood.
Winfreda held the sword, pointing it at the wolf as it glared at her.
Then, something unexpected happened, and her quarry disappeared from sight, as if it'd never been there.
Winfreda cast about, as stably as she could manage with one good leg. She cast glances this way and that, trying to find the mirror wolf, but finding nothing.
As if on cue, Egil flapped his way down to her shoulder, and revealed the Mirror wolf just as it's maw was snapping at her, coming forward to attack...
Continued here
