Chapter 16

As Froll, Dhuk and Grud walked away from the space allocated for their tribe, soon they entered The Spirit Moon Tribe proper. Even before entering the tribe, Grud could feel the tingling sensation of what he now knew was mana radiating from the center of the tribe and as they closed into the center, they saw The Ancestor Rock. It felt like the tree from the underground cave but much more powerful.

They went past The Ancestor Rock and entered the biggest hut Grud had ever seen. In all the past years he attended the meetings, only the chieftains and shamans would go further into the Spirit Moon Tribe's living area, not that other tribes members were not allowed, it was just rude to go walking around in other people's living area without being invited.

As they entered the huge hut, Grud saw five people sitting on wooden logs waiting to receive them. Grud had only seen them when they opened and closed the meetings. Unlike most tribes, the Spirit Moon Tribe had in addition to their chieftain and shaman, a vice-chieftain, vice-shaman and on top of it all a Chief Shaman.

The Spirit Moon Tribe's chieftain, Dhun, was a middle-aged man that looked as wide and muscular as Froll with a big scar on the left side of his face that went across his now missing left eye. Next to him was Crig, the vice-chieftain, he looked a bit younger, not as wide as Dhun but no less muscular with scars on his chest that looked like they came from a Big Tooth Cat.

Then there was the Spirit Moon Tribe's shaman Eba that looked about as old as Dhuk. She was an old, wrinkled, boney and hunched-over woman who looked like would keel over any moment but her complexion and vigor in her eyes said otherwise. Beside Eba was a rather average-looking middle-aged man with different charms and trinkets hanging around his body, this was vice-shaman Ghak.

And finally was the Chief Shaman of the Spirit Moon Tribe, Zargall, he looked even more decrepit than both Dhuk and Eba with his emaciated-looking body and his eyes clouded over with cataracts but somehow with the way he was looking at Grud's group, it seemed like he could see just fine.

Dhuk and Grud gave a small bow and Grud followed, Dhuk then greeted their host, "Chief Shaman, Shamans, and Chieftains. Thank you for welcoming us, the Rock Skull tribe, to this meeting. May this meeting be fruitful" This time it was the Chief Shaman that spoke "Good to see you again Dhuk, I see the spirits have not taken you away yet." the Chief Shaman grinned, and the other shamans and chieftains including Froll sighed while Dhuk grinned back and said, "And I see that bag of dust you call a body has not given up yet, did any of the spirits accidentally try to take you away thinking you died sitting up?"

Zargall barked a laugh "Ha…. if they want to take me away they are going to need to fight me for it…" Shortly after a little more back and forth, the two old coots devolved into childish name calling and Froll pulled Grud aside to sit down and wait for the old men to get it out of their system.

Once the two old men settled down with smiles on their faces, Zargall asked "Now with all that out of the way, who is this young man leaking mana all over the place" Dhuk turned to Grud who was looking embarrassed and trying his best to put into practice the methods to keep his mana from leaking everywhere.

"This here is my apprentice and future shaman of the tribe, Grud…. He just started learning a few days ago." this time it was Eba who spoke up, "Just a few days and he got so much mana leaking all over the place?" Dhuk fidgeted awkwardly and looked at Grud "Well this case is a bit weird…. Long story short, he ate a Monster Core and did not die" Hearing this, all five of the Spirit Moon Tribe leader's eyes almost popped out of their sockets while staring at Grud.

Vice-Shaman Ghak blurted out the question "By the Spirits, how did you survive?" Grud shrank back into his seat under their intensive gaze "Errr…. It hurt a lot and my wife said that I was burning up and dragged me to a pool of water and submerged my body to cool me off. After that, I seemed to be able to sense mana."

After saying that, the shamans, including Dhuk, instinctively gathered together and started discussing theories while interrogating Grud for more details while the chieftains looked at Grud with pity.

After an hour or more of questioning, Grud was slumped on his seat mentally exhausted. Froll seeing an opportunity, interrupted the lull in the discussion, "So, besides Grud being able to sense mana, there is a more important subject at hand."

This caught everyone's attention. "When my tribe was traveling here, we were attacked by two large packs of wolves. This can only mean one of two things, either they are breeding too well and ran out of prey from where they came from or they are running from something that chased them out."

After a few seconds of pondering this Chieftain Dhun spoke up "There is one way to see how serious this problem is, we wait for the other tribes that come from your general direction and see if they faced the same attacks as you."

Froll nodded in agreement "We may also need to prepare for the number of wounded people to increase, my tribe is mid-sized and we already had quite a few injuries, fortunately, no deaths. But the smaller tribes may not be so fortunate." There were nods all around and the Rock Skull tribe was requested to assist the Spirit Moon tribe with preparations for the injured with them, Froll readily accepted the request and after some talks, the meeting was adjourned.

Dhuk stayed behind to catch up with the old shamans while Froll and Grud headed back to assist with the setup of the camp and pass along the news of their tribe preparing for more injured to come when the rest of the tribes arrive.

—

As Grud and Nita left the cave, the Wisp followed them. As the couple traveled further from the cave, the Wisp's world expanded, she moved among new trees, saw new sites and new animals. But she did not forget to join back with Nita when she was going to get filled up with Grud's seed.

Despite having a stronger bond to Grud, Nita's body just felt more comfortable to inhabit, which was no surprise as the Wisp was literally fucked into shape while it was in Nita's body to feed off the life force being pumped into her.

On one of the days when she was exploring the surroundings, she suddenly felt the emotion of worry and anxiety come over her bond with Grud and shortly after from Nita. The Wisp rushed over to her bonded couple to see what was wrong, she saw Grud prod some tracks and sniff the air and said something about wolves.

The Wisp did not understand her bonded's language at first and could only feel the emotion and certain concepts flow over the bond. This concept of vocal language was interesting.

The Wisp had only truly communicated with another being only one time in its life, it was a passing wisp like herself that was curious of the world and drifting on the wind, the communication between wisps was instinctive, they would touch each other and communicate almost instantly.

But this language her bonded was using was far from instant, she had to extrapolate the meaning of the words they were using with the emotion and intent she was feeling while watching over the bonded couple.

Over the next few days, it looked like her bonded couple seemed to be in a rush and Grud was carrying Nita while moving at a faster pace. It was only when she sensed another rather large quantity of living beings further up ahead, that she knew why they were in such a rush.

What was most likely to be his "Tribe" was under attack by many beasts she had seen quite a few times. Even though she worried for her bonded, she was happy to have learned the name of this beast, a "Wolf".

After Grud and his tribe chased off what was left of the wolves, the Wisp wanted to wander among the people of her bonded to see how they lived, but before she could carry out that plan, she sensed one of the tribe members that have stronger mana than the rest of the tribe.

It may be a lot weaker than the mana of Grud, but it was smooth and structured in comparison to Grud's wildly flowing mana which was leaking everywhere. This man whose lifeforce looks to be greatly diminished compared to the others may just be able to see her. And she did not know how these beings would react to that.

The last time something actually managed to see her was the slime and it always tried to eat her. It almost succeeded when she first met the slime and did not know what it was. So the Wisp decided to wait and learn more about this tribe before doing anything else.

After a day of rest, the tribe seemed to be on the move again, while the tribe was traveling, the Wisp was exploring the new sites as they went. That was until the tribe closed in on the crater. The Wisp felt the mana in the air and decided to explore ahead of the tribe.

After flying over the crater walls, she noticed other beings like her bonded's tribe and as she flew further in she saw what was producing the mana, it was a tall rock that looked to be impaled into the ground and around it was other wisp like her, they were bobbing around playfully and some were chasing each other, but with a general feeling of playfulness.

Seeing nothing to be worried about, besides sensing a bunch of people around that had mana flow like that man with greatly diminished lifeforce from Grud's tribe, the Wisp approached her fellow wisp in her ball shape.

When the rest of the wisps noticed her, they came rushing towards her and she did something instinctive to her. She started playing with the other wisp, some bobbing around, some flying in weird patterns and some chasing later, she felt she had acquainted herself properly with the other wisp and went up to one of them and touched to exchange information.

After exchanging information with the other wisps, she had her answer of how these many tribes of Grud's people were towards beings like herself. The wisps were usually left alone to do their own thing, every now and then some of the people with the smooth and structured mana flow, what she now knew were "Shamans", would do something akin to the wisp's exchanging information, but in a very limited fashion.

Other than the pseudo-wisp info exchange, these tribes were fine to be around and seemed to be happy whenever the wisp showed themselves to these tribe people.

That was when a thought came to the Wisp, 'I wonder, if I can interact with Grud, can he give me the same pleasure he gives Nita?'

—

After getting out of the Chief Shaman's hut as fast as he could in case they called him back for more questions, Grud followed Froll back to the site allocated for the Rock Skull tribe. After arriving back at the tribe, Froll told Grud to set up his shelter and that besides hunting, the next two days will be free and easy for the tribe to rest. Walking into the tribe, Grud looked around for Nita but failed to find her.

After asking around, some of the women told him that Nita brought the material they would be using to build a temporary shelter, further away from the area used by the majority of the tribe. While explaining this, those women were giving him weird looks while blushing.

In a world with little in the way of entertainment, gossip was the go-to pastime of the tribe women and the gossip about Grud made its way around to all the women in the tribe, strictly the women. They did not want their husbands to get jealous and no matter how adventurous the single ladies of the tribe were, they were not so adventurous after hearing of what Grud was packing in his loincloth and the state of Nita's body every night. If having sex with Grud was somewhat in the realm of normal men, he would have been swarmed by single women due to being a very powerful hunter and fighter.

After a few minutes of walking, Grud came upon a small open area where Nita was laying out the poles that would act as support for their shelter. Grud came up from behind Nita, hugged her from behind and kissed her cheek. "My love, why have you chosen this secluded place? Even if the Spirit Moon Tribe's territory has no big predators, it should be safer to place our shelter nearer to the rest of the tribe."

Nita turned her body around while still in Grud's embrace, squished her breasts into Grud's body while looking up at him with her large doe eyes and said "Because now that we do not have to travel for some time, I want to have someplace away from the rest of the tribe, so that when you ram and pump your seed into me, I can moan as loud as I want."

Shortly after Nita said that, Grud grabbed and lifted Nita by her THICC, Phat ass up to his height, and aggressively kissed Nita and she responded in kind. After a few minutes of the two of them tongue fucking each other, they broke off the kiss and Grud, with great motivation, went about setting up the rest of the shelter for two.