Noah walks into the kitchen up to the sink, putting the bowl into the rinse water for the day. "I'll let it soak for a bit." He thinks to himself, holding his paw to his stomach to try and keep it from growling as loud. "I better get some food ready for myself and Kohre before I go back upstairs." Noah walks over to the icebox; such technology lost is remade with some of today's techniques. Chrysander and Archibald walk past the kitchen door to the storage room followed by C. Earlier that morning Noah and C had gotten up early to clean it up so they could use it to sleep while rob stays in bed. "It’s hard to believe we had that much junk stashed in that little room." Noah thought to himself as he hears the jingling of the front door's bell, quickly rushing to the counter. "Hello and welcome to C's sund- G?!" The blacksmith lumbers in with deep fresh cuts and gouges.

"Nnngh sorry for disturbing you like this." The muscle-gutted timber wolf says as he hobbles to the counter, Noah placing his paws onto the massive wolf's back and focusing his energy on the wounds. "I'll patch you up best I can before I get C, okay?" G nods and pants, gripping the counter as the bleeding slowly stopping. "All right, lie down behind the counter and I’ll go get C." Noah says as he rushes to the back rooms where C was making sure that Archibald and Chrysander had all they wanted before they fell asleep. C leaves the room and almost bumps into Noah, understanding the situation and running out to help G. "I sent Noah to the back to grab some poultice herbs, his first aid stopped the bleeding faster than I would've heh. Here, let me take you to the kitchen so you can relax in a chair." C says with a soft smile as the weakened timber wolf up to his feet. C and chrysander hear Noah running and go to investigate, finding the blacksmith in the kitchen being patched up. "What the heck happened?!"

Chrysander exclaims, few would dare mess with a blacksmith and live to tell the tale but a hunter's blacksmith is a cut above regular blacksmiths. "Heh, glad to see you two're here. Now I can get a couple answers while I explain." G slowly explains that a last night a small batch of commander level masks came in and ransacked his workshop, he managed to knock three quarters of the group out but having a big mix of mammals and avians it was hard to keep them down, especially bears and crows. The bear masks have the strength and stamina to go toe to toe while a crow can use their aura to spread nerve toxins when they land a blow. "They never said what it was they were after, they just trashed my furnaces, busted my anvils, they even cracked my work bench too." Archibald nods and chrysander looks to C.

"I remember this M.O. from a couple of big marks before, usually to say 'back off' or 'we have eyes everywhere'... But this, this sounds like a mark saying 'we only give one warning'..." Chrysander nods in agreement. Noah looks around to the seasoned fighters, all of whom have seen three major sieges in their lifetimes, and walks out of the kitchen to check with rob and Kohre but C catches his son before leaving. "I know it’s a bit much to ask but could you grab Rob's Artemis and the wolf mask for us? It'll definitely give us a clue or two on which direction to head." Noah nods with a weak smile, knowing how important it is that his father asked for him to go in his place means that they must need to prepare for a group channeling. It’s not an uncommon practice when high ranking masks like the Roc are found but only the most seasoned can bypass the traps, chasms, and pitfalls hidden within even the fragment they have right now.

Precautions, anchors, and shielding is always handy to be able to bypass some of the masks tricks but if you have a familiar item like the Artemis and the wolf mask or even the spider mask when you’re trying to tame something so powerful is still a major advantage. As Noah got to Kohre and Robs room, Kohre finished telling his younger brother everything he could to try and bring him up to speed. "And it was last night that I was taught the basics of healing. I haven't had a chance to talk to C yet about what the other two found last night, it must've been pretty important if they stayed downstairs this long." Kohre says to Rob, occasionally glancing to the wolf mask on the night stand as Noah walks up. "Mr. Chrysander and the mayor want to borrow this mask and the Artemis; I hope you don't mind Rob." Rob looks to Noah and nods.

"Go ahead... It will help me keep my head a little clearer without them so close right now..." Noah tilts his head, looking to the mask then back to Rob. "Okay then..." Noah says as he slowly walks out of the room with the items in tow. 'Something big must've happened to him while he was asleep for him to be so quick to part with a mas- Now is not the time to think about that!" Noah thinks to himself as he briskly walks back down the stairs and back into the kitchen where the adults are still trying to decide their next course of action. "We have a fragment of the Roc mask; we should channel it now before he reappears!" Archibald growled as he slammed his journal on the table for emphasis. "You've lived through the terror of two Rocs and a Thunderbird, and yet you think it'll be easy? Rob and Kohre didn't land a scratch on his body, and barely managed to survive the encounter at that!" C says with a raised voice.

"Please calm yourselves, both of you!" Chrysander says placing a paw on their shoulders and sighing. "There's a lot we still don't know and though the answer is probably in front of us we still need to proceed with caution, after all we are dealing with a Roc that his himself from the hunter society's gaze for almost 10 years. The patience he has and the cunning he must possess may match all of ours combined if not more so from what I saw." Archibald growls and scours through a different book, seeing if he missed anything in his written history of the mask hunters’ organization about recorded Roc battle strategies. C stares at the wolf mask, curious to know what's recorded on it but also worried about what Rob had to face. "... C? C, are you there?" C turns away from the mask to see Chrysander, G, and his son staring at him.

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noah belongs to  noahpupper
other characters are mine
this is not a fan story

 jolijacques is the one who made this thumbnail