Dungeon Raider System

Luna wanted to live an ordinary life at home for as long as she could before going back to her friends, though nothing about the tiny huntress would be considered even near ordinary.

Hunters would consider her an oddity due to her minute stature, her rare trait and her nature as a hybrid. But even hybrids would regard her as a strange creature due her being born in her wolf form and her strange behavior that didn't fit with beasts or humans. And to humans, well, everything about her was strange as those who interacted with her were always left with the uncanny feeling they just met something not entirely human. This meant that everyone considered her to be nothing short of a freak of nature.

That said, there was one aspect of Luna that made her stand out in a good way. It wasn't deemed as odd, weird or strange but rather as something extraordinary, her knowledge about anything and everything she thought to be interesting which included most if not all of natural phenomena.

From the way a human body worked to the tiniest detail on an insect. From minerals to plants and everything in between. Her range of interests was as wide as it was deep and she dedicated most of her life studying just to comprehend the world she lived in.

Whether or not her obsession with knowledge was related to her character, her being in the autistic spectrum or if she just wanted to capitalize on the one thing that made her normal would be difficult to ascertain even to her closest friends. But this was mostly due to her friends not really caring about her and completely accepting her just the way she was.

On a regular day on her not so ordinary life, she found herself having a peaceful lunch with her mother and sister. It was precisely what she always dreamed of and unfortunately to her, it was not enough. She had her family, but she lacked something she desired over all else. She needed a challenge.

On that fateful afternoon, Luna played with the salad with a disgruntled attitude which of course no one noticed because of her inability to convey her emotions. Not that it bothered her as this allowed her to completely focus on the topic at hand.

"This is a leaf." Said Luna.

"Yes, dear, it is. Just because you're a lycanthrope doesn't mean you don't need to eat healthy to grow up." Moonblaze said.

"Mom! That topic is forbidden!" Cassandra butted in.

"Don't worry, I'm sure she'll grow up to be just like me." The wolfish mother winked at her children with a playful attitude that Luna didn't particularly enjoy.

"I need to conduct an experiment for my research." Luna retreated making her family believe her to be angry.

Nothing could be further from the truth, though it did bother her that her sister Cassandra was tall, slender and beautiful while she remained petite, albeit well endowed. But that kind of frivolous line of thought was of little importance to Luna now that an idea crawled deep into her mind.

"What if cryptids react negatively to a particular plant based compound?" She voiced to herself in a manner much similar to when Uriel conducted his own research. She didn't find it too helpful as no one replied, but putting it into words helped her inwardly excuse herself for running away from lettuce, one of the vegetables she disliked.

The following days Luna went out early in the morning and returned late at night carrying all sorts of weeds and plants she didn't even know by name and while the small town did not possess a library, most of the citizens were well versed in the flora. At least to a point that allowed Luna to identify some of the plants.

She categorized them by filum at first, but plant taxonomy remained as elusive as always so she settled with a personal arrangement based on aesthetic parameters.

It was this kind of unusual behavior what brought Luna's mother to be deeply concerned about her daughter, though Cassandra tried to reassure her that it was way better for Luna to be playing with plants rather than the neighbors as her scientific curiosity had caused more than one misunderstanding over the years.

Luna's experiment advanced to the next stage when she asked for permission to leave the protective area provided by the totems as she wanted to field test it with as many cryptids as she could find.

This kind of behavior was also concerning to her mother, though Cassandra still dismissed it as Luna being Luna. Nothing out of the ordinary with her wanting to play with cryptids and it was still better than her asking to play with the cattle.

The first cryptid Luna found was an unlucky beast rank serpent made of vines and while Luna was strong enough to kill it a hundred times, keeping it under control turned out to be more than she could do on her own and she ended up getting bitten on the hand.

"Oops." Said Luna looking at the path the vine serpent took off first and then to the far distance where the town was located.

She could feel the poison throbbing in her veins and was able to recognize each symptom in real time, but without a medkit or even supplies she had no other choice but to chase after the snake. Such a feat was impossible for a human, a hunter and even some hybrids, but Luna's wolfish form was far more beastly than that of the rest of her kin which allowed her to track down the serpent before the last stage of the poison kicked in.

It was then that she noticed a pungent smell, something that tickled her nostrils and seemingly got to her brain causing an immediate headache. Mistaking it for the effects of the poison, Luna pushed forward until she caught the slithering culprit that poisoned her and with but a single bite she ended the test subject's life then returned to her human form.

"Next time I'll make sure to find something more manageable, but I need to write down the experiment anyway." She talked to herself in the middle of nowhere, finally understanding the allure of talking to herself.

With the cryptid dead, its body soon vanished along with the poison running through Luna's blood and she sat down expecting the symptoms to get better, but her headache only grew stronger. Luna knew the poison was bound to disappear along with the carcass of the cryptid, which is why she immediately understood there was something else going on.

She scanned her surroundings looking for a different cryptid, only to find the source of the pain she endured now was not a cryptid but a plant.

"Wolvesbane..." She muttered the name of the plant suspected to be related to her kin in some way and although painful, she was glad to have made a breakthrough in the subject despite her initial goal of avoiding a salad had been achieved on the first day.

Luna usually ran into ethical dilemmas that would stall her research, yet the kind of dilemma she now faced was of a completely different nature. The question she asked herself was not whether or not she should be investigating the plant but rather if it was worth the trouble or not.

So far, she experienced in her own flesh its effects and pleasant would be among the last words Luna would use to describe them. And if just by being in the vicinity of the plant, Luna could not help but wonder what would happen if a werewolf were to ingest the plant or if it was injected to directly to the bloodstream.

Many questions ran through her mind, but the ever increasing effects of the plant made her realize she was running out of time and in the end, she was forced to return home empty handed and, as her sister would later shout out loud, also butt naked.

Luna wanted to explain how she had to transform into her wolf form and did not have her orichalcum underarmor on, but decided to remain silent and just eat the scolding of the century.

"You cannot walk around naked in this village!" Cassandra used her army voice on Luna for the first time ever.

"Now, now, darling, don't be so harsh on Luna. She must be on heat, it's a natural process and much needed for us to preserve our species." Moonblaze inwardly thought how come she didn't think of Luna's strategy herself and she wondered if that would have made her husband fall for her faster than he did, but more importantly, she questioned if it would work during the next mating season.

Luna returned the next day for the wolvesbane wearing a makeshift hazmat suit made of plastic bags and nothing else, a daring attire her sister did not approve in the slightest. It wasn't like Luna had a choice since Uriel had yet to show up on her town and hazmat suits were not easy to come by, but watching her sister walk around technically dressed yet naked at the same time prompted Cassandra to follow Luna.

She knew Luna was an odd one better than anybody else as she knew her from the moment she was born and they always had a close relationship even before Luna shifted into a human for the first time. She knew it was unlikely that Luna would be meeting up with a man, especially since she knew how little care Luna had for such matters, but nothing could have prepared Cassandra for what she saw when Luna returned to the exact place where she spotted the wolvesbane.

What happened next was truly an outstanding event, something no one could have expected as it defied all logic. What happened was... a story for another day.