I watched as Alphinaud tried and failed once again to make a fire. "Need any help?" I asked for the third time. "I can do this!" Alphinaud said. I shook my head as he went back to trying to make a fire. Alphinaud scraped a rock and a piece of flint together. His grasp on the rock slipped and it fell onto a stick, catapulting the stick into my face. I yelped and Papalymo shot up from his nap. "Oh gosh, Jackie are you ok?" Alphinaud asked. "Yeah, I'm fine. Be careful!" I said. "Sorry." He mumbled as he looked back at the unlit fireplace. It was covered in an orange powder. "Well maybe if you would stop making spark powder-" "I'm not trying to!" Alphinaud swept the powder into his hand and poured it into the mortar and pestle. "Can we take a break and get some fungal wood?" He asked. "Of course." I replied. I whistled and Papalymo bolted over to me, hopping up onto my shoulder. "Wait, before we go..." I pulled a sharp, metal axe out of a nearby storage box and handed it to Alphinaud. "Jackie... how..." he muttered in awe. "I gathered metal ore and smelted it to make this for you! Honestly, it wasn't that hard, but I thought we could use an upgrade from those old stone tools. Here, I made you a pick axe too!" I handed another metal tool to Alphinaud. He stared at the brand new items in his hands. "Thank you, Jackie." He said, strapping the tools to his belt and giving me a warm smile. It felt so good to see him happy... after yanking my own new tools out of the storage box, we were off. Traveling through this world made me feel an odd powerful feeling. It made me feel stressed, but also happy and calm at the same time. This is so weird. As we neared a fungal wood tree, I pulled out my brand new metal axe. Alphinaud did the same and we swung at the bark. We gathered more fungal wood than we would have with the stone tools. "Woah, these work great!" Alphinaud exclaimed. There was a low growl, which made Alphinaud shoot up. "Don't worry, that was probably just my stomach." I waved a hand and went back to work. We continued to chop at fungal trees for a while before there was a pained squawking sound and the crunch of bones. The growl sounded again. I swiveled around, axe still in hand. Alphinaud copied my motion. There was a wolfish creature, no, five wolfish creatures, all standing just a few feet away. They seemed to be preoccupied by a mangled dodo that I guessed they killed themselves. We slowly put our tools away, then started to back up. The one creature that looked like the leader of the pack ripped up the dodo in seconds. "They are ravaging that poor bird like it's candy!" Alphinaud whispered. I shivered as we continued to back up. These things, these ravagers, were nothing to mess with. The leader ravager's head shot up and turned toward us. Papalymo whimpered and the pack howled. "RUN!" I screamed as Alphinaud and I broke into a dead sprint, heading in the direction of our base. One of the ravagers caught up with me and chomped down on my tail. I yelped and spun around, grabbing my axe and swinging it into the ravager's skull. It's jaw went slack as it fell into an unmoving heap on the ground. I had killed it! Alphinaud screamed as two other ravagers knocked him to the floor. In a flash, I dove at one and knocked it clean into a tree. It fell to the floor unconscious. Papalymo jumped off my shoulder to fight off the other ravager that had Alphinaud pinned. A pure white ravager tore a hole in the tough material of my left shire boot. I kicked it in the snout and ran over to help Alphinaud. The ravager had gashed him deeply. Rage pulsed through me and I took the ravager's neck with my bear hands. I yanked it off and threw it into the leader of the pack, who was about the bite down on Papalymo's head. Quickly turning around, picking Alphinaud up, and whistling for Papalymo to follow me, I sped off toward our base. I creaked open the behemoth door, moved inside, then slammed it behind me. I could hear the remaining ravagers growling outside the door. Papalymo was licking Alphinaud's face, trying to help him feel better. "T-thanks bud. J-Jackie?" His breathing was ragged. "On it." I said, already working on bandages and wraps.