I woke when Kiri leaned back against me. I reached around and nudged her to lie down, and I would take the watch. She pulled over a sheepskin and lay on it against me, sandwiched with Pānihi on her other side.

I stayed awake, working on restricting gravity from moving through my aura. Kiri doesn't seem to feel my aura either. I am fairly certain she knows I have an affinity, and I suspect she thinks it is related to the pendant.

I am certain she does not have an astral affinity. I would expect her to feel like Felix did, especially with my Spiritual Sensing in my aura at a much higher level than it was back then. I might be wrong, but I'm reasonably sure. Maybe Felix had awakened his affinity before me, which is why I could feel him. That is possible.

Gravity is strong. I feel I am progressing, and I got closer when I used my whole aura and not just the edge. It passes through the edge, but it passes through the whole volume, and the whole volume can act against it. Small steps at a time.

Kiri and Pānihi are early risers. I'm accustomed to dwarves who sleep in. I was awake because I was on watch, but Felix was grumpy about getting up early.

Kiri stoked the fire and checked the pelts. "Thanks for letting me sleep against you, Ivan." I was still in my bear form, and it was hard to communicate, so I just grunted. "I was twelve when I went to stay with Dad, and it was just him and Auntie Drica for a long time. Auntie Drica had a Dire Bear bond called Težka, and I often slept on him. It brought back pleasant memories. Thanks."

A Dire Bear was a monster. I was not aware you could bond with monsters. That opened up a whole lot of questions. As I was still in my bear form, I put them off till later.

I grabbed a hunk of raw meat and had breakfast with Felix and Pānihi, as Kiri watched amused.

I then changed into my human-looking form and went down to the creek to wash. I came back and got dressed in my tattered clothes. Kiri didn't react like Goldie or Makara. She just treated it like normal rather than making suggestive comments, and I really appreciated that. It was just normal.

We packed up camp and set out at a moderate pace. Pānihi ranged ahead again.

At one point, Kiri said, "I think we have a lot in common. Neither of us can just be ourselves around others."

That was insightful. I am not quite sure how we so quickly got comfortable with each other, but we certainly have.

Kiri brought down some fat wood pigeons with her bow, and Felix fetched them from where they fell. "These are really tasty," she said, "and those feathers are quite good as fletching for my arrows."

"Watch you don't shoot Kahz," I said.

"Yeah. Do you know why he is following us?"

"Kevin worships the ground you walk on."

Kiri rolled her eyes. "Maybe I will get Pānihi to give him a fright." Definitely don't cross Kiri.

We didn't speak often. Just often enough. She was fiddling with my pendant a lot. I don't know what she was doing, but she was persistent.

Suddenly, Kiri's head jerked up, "Pānihi has probably found the scent of a monster. Do you want to see if we can take it down?"

"It will be more interesting than this stroll through the countryside," I said.

"This way," and she picked up the pace."Do you have a monster kill yet?"

"Yeah."

"Did you get Monster Hunter and Regeneration?" Kiri asked.

"No. I got a Damage Mitigation skill instead."

"Weird," Kiri said. "Regeneration is the most common from the Hunter classes. It has kept me alive a few times. Do you have some potions?"

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"A couple of general ones and a bone mending one in my pack." Kiri just nodded. Having other team members know where the potions are can save your life.

"I have a couple of general ones in my pack, too," she said. At least she wasn't stupid enough to just rely on her regeneration.

We ran for an hour before my Olfactory senses deciphered the monster's smell. Pānihi must have it at a much higher level, possibly even master's level. It was not a smell I recognised. It smelled of dirt, fungi and old shit. It was definitely what we were following. I wonder how Pānihi thought it was a monster?

"How do you know this is a monster?" I asked.

"Spiritual Tracking," Kiri said. "It," she paused as she leapt over a fallen log, "it only works on those with high spiritual signatures. Monsters and affinity users."

"Affinity users?" I asked as I crashed through a bush, relying on my Tough Hide more than my ragged leather.

"You leave part of your body behind, which contains your spiritual signature—blood, hair, skin, etc. The signature fades but this monster left a huge pile of shit, so Pānihi picked up its scent, both spiritually and literally. Pānihi's Olfactory is Master level, so normal scent tracking from there."

I am going to have to watch where I shit. There are all sorts of skills around. Maybe not having fur is an advantage. I would leave less of a trail. I made a mental note to find out how long spiritual signatures last on dropped fur.

Felix took off ahead.

The monster was travelling fast, and it had hooves. From the depth of the tracks I saw, it was heavy.

From my Guard training with the Commander, I was already trying to think of the best ways to attack this monster. With large creatures, using spears is often the best. Neither of us had spears. I watched the terrain looking for places that might help. Hooves are usually not so good on rocky areas.

Up ahead, I heard barking and a large cat scream. Kiri notched an arrow, and I readied my axe as we Sprinted the last section.

As we came over the rise, I saw a huge bone-covered creature circling, trying to keep Pānihi in view and its huge tusks, ready to charge. Pānihi was circling and limping with blood dripping from a hind leg. Felix was nipping at the monster's rear legs while barking, distracting it and avoiding being kicked or trampled.

As I Sprinted forward, I saw an arrow bounce off the bone armour. I heard Kiri swear at missing the gap, and another arrow struck. This must have been a Skilled shot as it cracked the bone.

Then I was there, bringing my axe down, empowered with Death Strike. I struck the joint in the bone by the rear leg, and the armour/exoskeleton blunted the blow, but the axe hit the leg bone and came to a jarring stop. I am sure the leg bone wasn't even chipped, let alone cracked.

Then the monster turned to face me, and I got a good look at it. It was larger than I in my bear form. Its back was about level with an average horse's shoulder. It was bulky and shaped like a boar. The face was the face of a boar with huge, nasty tusks for gouging. One of the tusks had blood on it. It was covered in bone plating like armour. I was pleased to note that the crack Kiri's arrow made was not repairing quickly, so it only had a normal regeneration. Normal for a monster.

As I dived away from it, my Cosmic Aura and Void Sensing picked up additional details. The joints in the bone plating were strikingly visible in Void Sensing, but the Spiritual energy packed in there was dense and interfering with further sensing. I did sense internal bones, so the bones outside the monster were armoured plating, not an exoskeleton.

The monster's internal layout seemed consistent with a boar, just upsized. I could even sense the location of the centre of the source of spiritual energy, which was above its heart. This will be its monster core.

I watched as three arrows struck the Dire Boar at the same time, some sort of Triple Shot from Kiri. They also must have been powered shots, as the two that hit the bone plate cracked it, and the third hit a joint and broke through and lodged there, but it wasn't deep. The cracked plate was not the same as the first bone plate she cracked, and I noticed that it was healing slowly.

"Those were poisoned," Kiri said, "to start wearing it down." Only one of the three arrows actually delivered the poison, and this thing would take a lot of poisoning. We would need multiple strategies to take this down.

I watched as Pānihi went for the throat while its attention was on me. The throat had bone scales along it as well, and her enhanced bite only broke one of them off, and she was thrown away.

While the Dire Boar was throwing Pānihi, I landed my axe on the cracked scales with the spike end and Seismic Smash. Seismic Smash was more for use with blunt weapons, and was best with a shield, but I didn't have one of those. The power was reduced by the smaller surface area of the spike, but the cracks got bigger.

I was not fast enough dodging away, and the boar's tusks ripped through my tattered armour. My Damage Mitigation reduced the tearing, so my Tough Hide was enough to stop it, as I rolled away.

I tried to use Frigid Void on its heart. The bone plating and the creature's own bones seemed to resist and reduce the power of the skill. It let out a bellow of rage and charged me. It seems I angered it and have its focus. Frigid Void is going to need a lot of energy to get through the bone and freeze the heart, but it's not happening right now.

I turned and ran downhill, with the boar hard on my heels.

Arrows peppered it, and I saw a couple more penetrate the cracks, delivering more poison. Felix was chasing it with Pānihi.

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