7 - Critters!

“I don’t like the idea of spending the night in here.”

Woolie and I rested by a spring we found in the dense woods. Dense, but enough light was able to shine through the collection of balder trees in the area that animals were out and about.

I busied myself tying more vines around the tusks I recently acquired, allowing a safe grip for me to use them as knives. They were about as long as the tip of my fingers to my elbow, a versatile, all-purpose length.

“Muu!” Woolie called out to me, wiggling his ears.

“What is it, Woolie?”

In front of him were a bunch of curiosities. The now familiar red berries my diet consisted mostly of, an assortment of flowers and leaves, as well as a couple of strange mushrooms.

“Meh.”

I picked up one of the berries, receiving a nod of approval from Woolie.

“Are you giving me survival tips, Woolie?”

I picked up a pink flower next, resulting in a frown and shake of the head from Woolie.

I went down the line, learning about the various edibles and inedibles. I was certain there were useful herbs thrown in there as well, but to Woolie it was probably all the same—food. I’ll have to experiment on the safe ones later.

I enjoyed seeing the various reactions Woolie had to each item, until I held out a bunch of purple, grape-like fruits with spiked leaves.

“Bueehhh!” Woolie cried out.

“Hmm? What’s wrong with these? You were the one who picked them out, Woolie. Are they bad- Ah.”

I squeezed a little too hard and squished the little balls in my hand, resulting in a sticky, gooey mess.

“BEHHH!!” Woolie began to wail.

“O-Oh… alright, alright. You shouldn’t have brought them to me if they were that dangerous…”

It must be one of those that are poisonous only when ingested. I made a mental note to remember what they looked like as I wiped the residue off with some large leaves, then washed my hands in the spring water.

“Still, this place looks so different now.”

As we traveled further into the forest, the trees became more and more varied, the difference in their height larger than before. They gradually stopped growing straight up, their trunks now twisted and bent in dramatic angles.

Vines grew all over the place, so much I could probably swing across from tree to tree if I wanted to. Moss was everywhere too, whether it be on the surface of large rocks or the bark of tree trunks.

Strangely, the sense of danger I felt before with the boar was mostly gone now. At least, enough for me to be able to relax. I began seeing more wildlife about the area as well, most of them somewhat familiar, but at the same time quite alien to what I was used to.

For example, a lot of animals here could be categorized as being ‘long’ or ‘round’. I saw a ferret-like creature scampering along the vines, twisting and twirling its elongated body around branches to swiftly maneuver about the woods.

There was also a particularly… plump rabbit. Other than the solid, stone-like sphere embedded on its head, it looked mostly like a rather portly counterpart of the ones on Earth. That was until it decided to escape my sight by shooting off like a bullet into the bushes, and I quickly gave up on the idea of ever catching one for dinner.

The birds were very rotund, their heavy bodies defying logic as they perched with their almost non-existent feet in rows along branches and vines, their strange singing making up most of the ambient noise of the forest. Why, I can hear them going at it right now-

“Mi- mii- miii- SKRREEEE-”

“That vocal range is insane.”

Is it some kind of mating call? I have no idea, and as much as I’d like to stay and observe what in the world’s going on with the animals of this forest, I thought it best we kept moving.

“Come on, Woolie. Ready to go?”

“Muu!”

After securing my bladed tusks onto my back with a harness made of vines, I hopped onto Woolie’s back, hoping to make it out of the forest before sundown.