The thing was coming down on us, claws outstretched, its horrible beak opened wide to reveal a black, barbed tongue. Panic took over, and all I could think to do was shove myself sideways in the direction of the rooftop, snatching Keshry and taking her with me in my attempt to dive from the creature’s path. But I couldn’t do anything about Destrien, who held his ground—frozen by terror or bravado or some combination of the two.

And then the beast landed directly on top of him, a thunderous flurry of leathery wings and lashing tail.

“Oh shit!”

The shout ripped from my lips even as I screamed inwardly at myself to make for the footholds and to drag Keshry to safety with me. But when it came down to it, however stupidly, Destrien had tried to defend us…and I couldn’t bring myself to abandon him unless he was definitely already dead.

So I forced myself to look closer, braced for the worst. For ripping and tearing, blood and rended flesh.

But instead, there were glyphs.

(Innate Bond)

And the creature….the dragon-vulture-giant-fucking-cat-thing…it was purring.

Purring.

And what’s more, it had glyphs.

1Gem Opal

Consume Ability

It was nuzzling its face against Destrien’s where he lay pinned beneath it. Carefully, he pulled one of his arms from under its paw and brought it up to scratch at the scales that ran down the sides of the beast’s neck as it rumbled and licked his forehead.

“Oh, very nice,” said Keshry, thumping her tail rhythmically on the stone in what I thought might be a kobold clap.

Nudging and rolling his way out from under the creature, Destrien wiped his hands together and sighed. The beast nuzzled up against him, nearly knocking him sideways.

I balked.

“What…what just happened? What is that thing?”

“He has gotten his first familiar as a Garnet,” answered Keshry.

“The one and only familiar I’ll have for the next decade or so, at the very least,” said Destrien, indignant. “What was meant to be a careful and sacred choice, reduced to an act of desperation.”

“Well, uh, thanks,” I said, more than a little jealous. I’d always wished I could have a familiar, just like every other reasonable human being to ever exist.

I was beginning to form a theory as to the overarching nature of an Opal’s power, and the fact that this beast had something called “Consume Ability” only seemed to reinforce it, assuming the Gems worked the same for them as they did for kobolds. Even more to ask about once all of the necessities are handled.

Destrien scoffed at me.

“I didn’t do it for you,” he said, looking over my shoulder to Keshry, who was on her way to the tunnel already and not paying attention to either of us. I followed suit, remembering with sudden excitement the whole reason we were all up here.

Shelter! Shiny rocks!

Scrambling back up over the rise of stone, I scanned the entrance of the tunnel, getting a better look at the bones first. There were skulls, several of them. But none of them seemed exactly the right size or shape to belong to a kobold. Though it was honestly kind of hard to tell.

And then there were the gems.

“Ascended, my Scruffy certainly has been busy,” marveled Destrien, snatching up a reddish one and eyeballing it. “I don’t suppose the school will let us keep these, but then again...”

I knelt to get a closer look at the nearest sparkly stone myself, grimacing just a bit as I reached into a pile of ribs to snatch it up. It was a deep blue crystal about a third the size of the opal in my chest, heavier than I’d expected. And as I palmed it, a glyph appeared.

Sapphire

Oh, neat.

A few paces ahead of me and ignoring the gemstones entirely, Keshry continued down the tunnel. Pocketing the sapphire, I straightened and started after her—keeping my eye out for opals. Destrien trailed slowly behind us, his new familiar purring along at his side as he picked through its leavings. As we rounded the curve of the tunnel, it leveled out and opened into a broader space.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Jackpot.

It was a cave fitted as a sort of bunkhouse, almost—warm and awash in the dim, flickering light of dying sigils carved into the ceiling. Along the heavily graffitied walls to either side of us were rows of oval-shaped depressions, carved into the ground and overgrown with live, cushy-looking moss. Even if they weren’t meant to be beds, they could certainly be used as such.

Clearly the vulture-thing thought so, as one of them was covered in a mess of feathers, shed bits of skin, and bones. But thankfully that’s all the mess it had made, apparently being one of those creatures fussy enough to do its business somewhere other than where it slept.

There was an opening at the far end of the chamber which lead to a tiny greenroom—crude, but leagues better than going off the edge of a cliff. My hopes of food and running water were dashed, though. It had neither, unless perhaps the moss was edible.

“Should…should we tell the others?” I wondered, more than a little reluctantly.

“Hmm, no, I don’t think so,” said Keshry, going over to one of the moss-bed things and poking at it. “If we do, they’ll only keep us from here as well.”

“But if we don’t, and we don’t go back down, don’t you think they’ll come up to investigate at some point anyway?”

“Probably,” she said. “But this way, we can be here for a little while, at least.” Flopping down onto the moss, she rolled from one side to the other, testing it out. From the way it gave beneath her and the scent it emitted at the pressure, it seemed like the indentations were actually pretty deep underneath all that moss, and filled with soil.

“Wait…you don’t think this counts as ‘inside,’ do you? Will we get expelled for coming in here?” My blood went cold as the belated thought occurred to me.

Stupid stupid stupid.

“It’s basically a cave and it’s open to the air,” said Destrien, coming up to the bed beside Keshry’s and dumping an armful of gemstones onto it. “No civilized person would call this inside. Anyone want to help me gather up the rest of these gems and stash them away before the rabble kicks us out? We can always come back for them later.”

“The elders definitely know those are up here,” I hedged.

“Yeah, but they didn’t say anything about them. For all we know, first ones to claim them get to keep them.”

“Er, alright,” I shrugged, looking around. “I guess we can bury them in one of the beds? Just be really careful about how we lift up and replace the moss so they don’t see what we’ve done.”

He clicked his tongue.

“Let’s do it.”

While Destrien and I hid the goods, Keshry sifted through the bones, picking out the ones that still had bits of rotting flesh on them and removing them from the cave. The others she just sort of brushed sideways, clearing a path through the cleaner carnage. Meanwhile the creature sprawled out on its chosen bed, chewing one of its fresher bones.

Shelter, down. Bathroom, down. Water…more-or-less down as long as it rains regularly. Now we just need to sort out food.

I eyed the vulture beast.

“So, Destrien…what does it mean, exactly, when something’s your familiar?”

The skyborn looked up from inspecting our hiding job, expression momentarily bemused.

“Ah, right. You’re a know-nothing.” He finished patting down the moss and then looked over at his new familiar.

“What it means is that this creature and I are bonded, forever. He won’t hurt me, and I can’t hurt him. He’ll go out of his way to protect me, and I can ask him to carry out requests…but until our bond has had time to strengthen, whether or not he actually will is questionable. And I can share his senses from a greater distance away than I can anything else.”

My tail began to thump at the stone. I tried to still it, but the tip just kept on twitching.

“So you can use him to go get food for us! I mean,” I gestured at the bones. “Seems like he’s doing a lot of hunting anyway.”

Destrien curled his lip-equivalent.

“Hunting? Condorgrags are scavengers. Scruffy only directly attacked us because we’re in his territory. But yes, I suppose I can try to send him out for something.”

Going over to the reclining beast, Destrien crouched before it and brought his hands up to either side of his face, simply staring at it for almost thirty seconds while it purred and lashed its tail. Then he stood up and stepped back, and the creature got up as well, turning and loping off up the tunnel.

“What did you ask it for?”

“Fresh meat. Something that recently died and that isn’t a kobold.” He pulled a face. “I was very clear about that part.”

“Meat? But we don’t have any way to cook it.”

Destrien scoffed, trying and failing again to share a look with Keshry, who was currently rocking slowly from side-to-side and staring at the wall.

“You sure you’re not yourself? Sounds like something a krada would say.”

I frowned.

“What do you mean? What’s the point of getting meat if we can’t cook it?”

“Not starving would be one point,” said Destrien, lifting a finger. “But if you’re too fancy for raw meat, all the more for Kesh and me.”

Something clicked in my head.

“Wait, so we can just eat any meat without cooking it? And we’ll be fine?”

Destrien cocked his head a bit.

“Yeees? Any edible meat. Could you not, in the other world?”

“Well, we could eat some kinds of fish and other things raw under certain circumstances, but most raw meat would make us sick or give us parasites.”

“The bad kind, I assume?”

“Yes, the bad kind! Anyway, we should probably be spending more time out there, where we’ll be visible from the ledge. Maybe poke around the other tiers a bit. It’ll take the others longer to get suspicious if they’re not wondering where we went all day. I mean, really, we should only be up here either when everyone else is asleep or when we need to be for the greenroom or whatever.”

Destrien groaned.

“I suppose you’re right. But food first, yes?”

“Oh yes.”

The snake digestion theory was quickly unraveling. Despite everything I’d eaten the night before, my stomach had been growling…and even raw meat was sounding strangely appetizing.

As Keshry stood, walking up to peer more closely at the part of the wall she’d been staring at, Destrien’s ears perked, his eyes unfocusing somewhat.

“That was fast. Well done, Scruffy.”

“He got something?”

“Yes, it’s—oh no wait, he’s eating it now.”

“You can’t stop him?”

“Nope. Oh! I think he’s saving the back half for us, though. Yes, he’s on his way.”

Oh great. The back half.

“Hmm,” said Keshry, from her spot over near the wall. “I think—”

She went suddenly silent as the sound of footsteps echoed down the tunnel, a familiar scent intermingling itself with ours. A few seconds later, the golden bastard themselves stepped into view. The same kobold who’d forced me out into the open to begin with.

“Who told you lot you could leave the ledge?” they demanded, glancing around appraisingly before leveling their glare on me.

I shrugged.

“No one, we just kinda did it.”

The Golden One prickled, their fur raising, wings spreading as they bore down on me.

And that’s when the dying light-sigils went out.

There was a very brief moment of silence. And then a flare of brilliant blue-green illumination bloomed from the wall where Keshry pressed her hand to the stone. Her eyes glowed blue, too, their pupils and irises seemingly vanished.

Then the cave went very, very cold.