She's never seen anything like it before - it looks very similar to a spell (unlike the thing where Zisel turns into animals, which is magic but very different from a spell), but it's also obviously not a spell. And he says he can do it more times than either of them can cast a first-circle spell... interesting. 

She thanks him for showing her.

No problem.

She chats with Zisel about it a bit, later that evening. She thinks he might be another kind of druid? With some weather magic instead of an animal friend.

"Like you, with healing spells instead of summoning ones."

She nods.

It's a beautiful clear night. She stargazes, with the other druids still up that late, until she falls asleep with her head rested on Damisa.

When she's heading back to her usual haunts the next day it's a good thing someone warned her about the zombie animals; there's an undead-smelling fox lurching around over there.

Zombies are slow, and from what she remembers they've got bad senses, but they're hard to hurt with a bow or a staff. A tiger, however... 

She's done a lot of combat practice with Damisa, and he's fully grown, now. She signals to him to circle around it. 

This dogcat is BAD. It SMELLS HORRIBLE and DOESN'T MOVE RIGHT. 

(He moves into position behind it, silently, and watches Kaitiaki intensely)

The zombie fox is stalking a mouse, for a value of stalking that does not involve a lot of stealth but has not actually alerted the mouse yet.

Okay. The plan - get the thing's attention with Flare (and a shout), then focus on avoiding getting hit until Damisa can get his claws into it, and then Cure it if it's still up - healing hurts undead, Zisel taught her that. If they do it right, it shouldn't get a chance to hurt either of them, or that poor mouse.

Damisa is in position. She stands up from the underbrush, shouts "Mockery of life, harm this land no longer!", and casts her orison, aiming it right in front of the zombie's face.

He is READY TO ATTACK but his bestfriend has NOT GIVEN THE SIGNAL so he will instead SILENTLY APPROACH until the TIME IS RIGHT.

(Stealth is a class skill for him, and in the dark, he's almost silent as he approaches.)

The zombie fox is completely unprepared for... most things that could conceivably happen to it... this thing included.

She's going to bash it with her staff to get its attention, then, and whistle loudly.

He is RIGHT BEHIND the BADWRONG dogcat because bestfriend has MASTERFULLY DISTRACTED IT and it is time to jump forward and KILL KILL KILL.

...He's not biting it, though. It smells TERRIBLE.

Puny thing, fear his Claw! And also: his Claw!

It does not fear these things because it's now fully dead.

Phew. That was nice and easy. (And they saved the little mouse!)

She gives Damisa a HUGE hug, some of the dried fishmeat she carries on her for him to snack on, and soooo many pets. Goooood kitty! Mighty hunter! The star of the show!

omnomnom YES he IS the greatest thank you for noticing!!!

She carefully washes his claws and her staff with created water, and then gathers up all the remains and makes a pyre to burn them on. It smells terrible, but she wants to make sure it burns clean through, so she sets up camp upwind and carefully feeds the fire until none of the remains are left. (She says a small prayer to the Green for the poor fox.)

Afterwards, she tries to see if she can track the way it came from - there might be more of them. And... whose 'territory' is she in right now? Might be good to warn them...

Whoever it is was presumably just at the same meeting she was and has heard that there is a concern.

She can with some work find the zombie shrew that probably infected the fox but it's got its leg trapped in a hole and probably hasn't made a lot of progress since then.

Makes sense. She will dispose of the zombie shrew in the same manner, and then head back home.

When she next meets up with Zisel, she lets him know what happened and where, just in case it helps.

"They're all over the place, I found a zombie raven and a whole nest of rats. I'm not sure if birds can spread it, but no taking chances, yeah? We'll have our work cut out for us getting them all."

Kaitiaki nods grimly. The Forest provides for them, and return, they protect the Forest. That's how it works.

She trains with Damisa on ambush variations, and on the scent of the undead. She starts preparing commune with birds at least once a day, and uses it to ask them if they've seen any zombies. (It takes a few tries to figure out how best to get across what exactly she's asking, but once she does, this works great). 

Mostly it turns out to be small things, like the fox or the shrew, and she and Damisa can dispatch those. Sometimes, they're big enough that she's not as sure, and so she takes advantage of her knowledge of the area and the fact that zombies are slow and mindless to lure them into the deep ravine that runs through her part of the Forest.

He SURE DOES NOT LIKE that the BADWRONG things are everywhere now, but he's not afraid. He and bestfriend are ON IT and together they are MIGHTY.

She tries to checks in with Zisel more often, both for practical strategic reasons and because this is stressful, and she finds even his silent company soothing. (It takes her a while to notice the latter reason, and once she does, she's not sure what to make of it.)

Eventually they're able to go a few days without spotting a zombie animal, and then a whole two weeks, and then a month but a neighbor's seen one - and if they don't slack off they'll have them routed by winter.