“Dry well.” Mulbane says.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Alliot asks.

  “It’s fancy ass military speak for ‘this wyvern den or burrow has nothing of interest and our target isn’t here’ or something to that effect.” Bron says.

  “Ah! Got it.” Alliot nods along with Bron’s explanation.

  “It would’ve been crazy and funny if we found Krosstetch’s lair on our first try.” Malo chuckles.

  “Come on. Let’s keep looking.” Mulbane says.

  “Ugh, alright.” Olion groans. “My legs are killing me.”

  Ren’s legs are tired again. Trekking up and down these mountains in search for a wyvern, a monster that can fly, is killing her legs. The frequency between her breaks are getting shorter while their duration is getting longer. Ren is resting her legs by lying in a patch of grass while staring up at the sky. There, various wyverns are flying every which way. None of them have a trunk on their face or a mace for a tail. None of them are Ren’s target.

  “Ugh. This is killing the girl’s legs.” Warumasa groans.

  “Haauh. Yeah. I noticed.” Agnoir joins in his groaning. “Hey wizard, you got any summons for Ren?”

  “In theory, yes. In practice, no.” Apherward says. “There are loads and loads of summoning spells I could impart to her. The problem is that she may not be able to handle all the magic that runs through her body once she casts something like a summoning spell. On top of that, she hasn’t formed a contract with anything like a spirit.”

  “Wait, a summon… a mount...” Warumasa thinks for a moment. “Yeah, let’s get one of these dumb monsters to do all the walking for our girl.”

  “Oh shit. An actually smart idea from you.” Agnoir cheers. “Fuck it. I’m all for getting the girl a sweet ride.”

  “And why don’t you just have the girl take those training weights off?” Apherward asks.

  “Because she needs to get stronger.” Warumasa says.

  “I don’t care. I just want the girl to get a ride.” Agnoir says.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Apherward groans.

  Ren suddenly shoots up from her lying position. She looks around and sees a rustling in the distance. She quietly rushes that way and peeks around a tree to find the source of the rustling. Standing on a sheer rocky cliff was a cloven hooved monster resembling a goat with brown fur, a red mane and 4 eyes. It hopped higher on the cliff and looked like it stood on the most procarious of footing on the mountain face. Ren used her skill to catch up to it

  “Dark Step.”

  Ren appeared above the monster and fell down towards it. From beneath her cloak, she pulls out a rope. She falls onto the monster’s back and wraps a rope around it’s head and neck. With Rem’s sudden appearance on it's back, the monster bucks and twists. It uses it's legs to leap up and down the mountain’s face. It clears great distances with a single bound of it's hooves. Ren tries to tie the rope around it’s horns as it wildly bucks and bounds in this mountain range, it attracts the attention of a griffon who happily flies down and lunges it’s talons out at the goat monster. The goat monster bucks it’s hooves into the gryphon’s talons and knocks it off balance and leaps back to a mountain side. It then bounds off the mountain face and back at the gryphon. This time the goat monster bound above the gryphon and stamped on it with it’s hooves. The gryphon began to fall from it’s lofty mountain heights and the goat monster continued it’s wild leaps and bounds.

  Off in the distance, a dull brown lizard monster was staring down a deep red lizard. They snarled and stared each other down. They circle each other and are waiting for a moment they deem appropriate to strike at their foe. The brown lizard monster swiftly lunges out at the red lizard monster. The red lizard monster spread it’s arms and legs out to reveal that it has patagium, webbed skin known for it’s use by flying squirrels. The red lizard leaps back and spreads it’s arms and legs to stop it’s backwards momentum and stalls in place mid air. The red lizard then closes it’s arms and legs to perform a front flip. During this front flip, the red lizard aims to slam it’s tail against the brown lizard in an overhead swing. The red lizard’s tail is covered in spines. The brown lizard backs away before the tail can reach it. The two are back to a neutral position where neither has the advantage.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  After a moment of staring and circling each other again, a girl trying to wrangle a goat monster stomps down on the brown lizard from a staggering height. The goat monster continues to buck wildly and charges straight for the red lizard. With it’s goat horns, the goat monster slams into the red lizard’s chin and sends it flying in the air. The brown lizard staggers to it’s legs again and the goat monster bucks and kicks it in the torso. The force drives the brown lizard onto a mountain face with enough force to make a gouge mark on the side of the mountain while it uprooted trees. The goat monster then finally manages to buck Ren off. The rope in her hands tears and she is flung into the distance. The goat monster charges off in another direction to make a mess of that mountain side too.

  Ren goes careening through the air. With the rope in her hands torn, she lets it go and gains access to more lumberjack worthy rope from beneath her cloak. The force that launched her took her into the flight path of a glistening white scaled wyvern. This glorious and magnificent creature gifts the sky with grace and poise unmatched by any creature before it. Then Ren comes by and strings a rope around it’s neck carried by the momentum that initially launched her. The wyvern goes wide eyed and it’s neck violently bends to the force carrying Ren. Ren manages to stop herself in the air by using the wyvern’s neck as an anchor. Ren tries to find a seat on the wyvern’s back, but she misses and starts to hang from the rope she tied to the wyvern. The wyvern loses control of it’s flight and begins to fall. It catches a glimpse of the girl who tied a rope to it’s neck and tried to blast her with it’s ice breath as they both fall. Ren swings wildly and the breath of ice misses her.

  Ren and the wyvern crash into an icepeak on one of these mountains. Ren and the wyvern start to tumble down the mountain face. Ren is the first to regain her bearings. While the wyvern still tumbles, she leaps onto it’s back and grabs at the ropes tangled along the wyvern’s neck. Ren tried to reign in the wyvern. The wyvern stops tumbling and stands on it’s 4 legs. It beats it’s wings and tries to buck Ren off it’s back. Little balls of snow start to form throughout this process and they begin to roll down.

  Hearing the sound of combat, a giant ferocious creature bursts through ice and tree to reach Ren and the wyvern. A massive yeti stares at the two who encroached on it’s home and territory. The yeti grabs a tree, pulls it from the ground and throws it at the two. The wyvern snaps to look at the larger monster throwing a whole tree at it. It deftly leaps to the side to dodge the yeti’s first welcoming gift. The yeti makes a grand leap into the morning sky and brings it’s fists down with the force of a meteor in a bid to squash the wyvern and girl. The wyvern makes another leap. Ren wraps the rope around her wrist as the wyvern bucks wildly. Once it is wrapped around her hand, she points her hand at the yeti.

  “Blind.”

  The Yeti’s head violently jerks back and it tries to grab something off it’s face. Unfortunately for it, a magical creation such as this cannot be simply peeled off it’s face. The wyvern continues to leap up and down to try and buck Ren off it’s back. The yeti flails it’s arms wildly, knocking over trees throughout it’s fit of blind rage. Now the snow and trees begin to tumble down the mountain in larger quantities. The quacking rumbling, not from the mountain, but from these two monsters shake the mountain top. Snow, trees and even the stone and dirt beneath the both of them begin to come loose and fall down the mountain side.

  In a furious fit, the wyvern tries to knock Ren off it’s back with a daring strategy. The wyvern begins to charge at the yeti with it’s 4 legs. The wyvern leaped into a front flip to try and slam Ren off it’s back and into the yeti. Seeing no way to maintain her position in the face of being sandwiched between two monsters, Ren lets go of her grip on the rope and leaps away. The wyvern and yeti collide and they both go tumbling down the mountain. Even the two monsters tumbling down the side shakes the mountain.

  Having failed to acquire another mount, Ren wipes some sweat from her brow and takes a moment to look around for another victim of her antics or for anything else of interest. At the peak of this mountain, something seems to have come loose. Ice had been shattered and loose earth fallen. Behind it and buried beneath appears to be a giant leathery surface of some kind. Ren treks up the snowy mountain peak to approach it and get a better look. It appears to be the eyelid of a giant monster. Before this, Ren had only encountered monsters the size of buildings. However, this eyelid was the size of those building size monsters. This would make every monster Ren had encountered up to this point nothing but a fly to this massive monster. Ren reaches a hand out and touches the leathery eyelid. It is cold to the touch, but not dead. This is likely a hibernating giant monster. A monster that easily matches the size of the mountain Ren was standing on. Soon this monster will stir awake. From what was told to Ren during briefings about this particular quest, this monster will likely stir awake for a bit and try to get comfortable again. It will use mountains as pillows and try to find some comfort as it sleeps. There are a handful of monsters of such size in the Evershifting mountain range. It seems Ren had found one of them.

  In the face of such intense size, Ren throws some rope at it. The rope does not go around the mountain or this monster’s head. Ren goes to where the voices in her head approximate the neck and back to be. She sits down there and points a finger forward.

  “Go.”

  There is no response.

  “Mush.”

  Still no response.

  “March.”

  Despite Ren’s best efforts there is no response. Her attempts to get the mountain sized monster to act as a mount for her and have all failed. Voices in Ren’s head had their hopes dashed. Dreams of a monster the size of a mountain crushing all in it’s wake and stride were not meant to be, it seems.

  Ren stands back up and starts down the mountain. She spots a strange quadrupedal monster with dull red skin, no eyes and what look like blunt claws. Ren prepares some rope and takes up a position to leap onto it’s back. With all preparations completed, Ren makes a leap for the monster to try and wrangle this one. The monster then claws at the dirt and it begins to rapidly burrow beneath the ground. Where there was once a monster, there is now only loose dirt. Ren slams into the dirt and her rope splays out onto the ground helplessly. The monster is nowhere to be seen. Ren stoically picks herself back up and continues on her trek down.

  Ren spots what appears to be a giant pickled cucumber with a pair of eyes and 4 thick legs biting down on a corpseroot, the tree monster she had encountered the day before. While this giant pickle was dining on the tree monster, Ren makes her preparations and leaps onto it’s back. She wraps a rope around it’s neck and pulls hard. The pickle does not react to Ren. Instead it continues to eat the tree monster. Once it is wrapped in some loose sort of reigns on the 4 legged pickle’s head, she raises her arm in triumph. Then she tugs on the rope reigns. The giant pickle monster continues to tear into the corpseroot with it’s teeth. Ren whips the reins. The pickle monster still does not respond. Ren sits there for a moment. After some time, the pickle monster swallows the corpseroot and proceeds to start walking. Ren is still sitting on it’s back and carries her with it as it walks. Ren remains idle while it starts to walk.

  “Fuck yeah! We got one!” Agnoir cheers.

  “Ugh, a boil grigos.” Apherward groans. “Really?”

  “Is that what this thing is called?” Warumasa recoils with his voice as he speaks inside Ren’s head.

  “Yes, it’s a dumb thing that just just… eats… and has hide that’s really damn tough.” Apherward says. “Did I mention how dumb these things are?”

  “You did, yes.” Warumasa says.

  “Seriously, I saw a herd of these things walk into the mouth of a volcano.” Apherward says. “They’re not even a herd kind of monster. For some reason that I can’t fathom, they just grouped up and died by walking into lava.”

  “Yeah, I could see that.” Warumasa says.

  “Hey! Fuck you two! Our girl got her first ride.” Agnoir snaps. “Mounts aren’t cheap in this economy!”