Tynesday, 31st of Janus, 5662 AE, 468th Year of the 5th Era
“Shields up, men! Archers prepare your volleys… release!!” As Sir Churchward barked his orders at his men, they archers from the baron’s militia alongside Percy released a rain of arrows towards a wave of wolves and wolfbeasts, killing many and wounding some more before the heavier knights and infantry moved forwards to finish off any stragglers. I was with the rest of the adventurer’s at the front of the formation dealing with a couple of werewolves and dozens more wolf beasts.
For the past two days, our expeditionary forces had been intermittently accosted by several large-ish waves of wolves and wolfbeasts and occasionally some werewolf parties at fairly regular intervals. In fact all these attacks as well as some other hunting exercises on the side between me and Ivan - as we had partied up using the user interface allowing us to share our experience points - had allowed myself to progress and leveled up to level 24.
We had been marching at a steady paste along the forest trails where a day ago we had forked off of the main paved roads of the county and had entered an older trail which was heavily forested and looked to be of seldom use outside of perhaps some hunters, poachers, and perhaps some smugglers if the many rotting corpses of people in varying degrees of decomposition we regularly came across along the way was anything to go by.
This most recent attack that we were currently facing was the largest one yet. The sun was already beginning to set and we had only just begun to set up camp before dozens of these infernal beasts beset us. We only had a short amount of time to prepare ourselves from the warning our scouts provided us. Though we have yet to suffer any fatal casualties so far, there were still a few men among the militia with heavy wounds and a couple of knights with less grievous injuries. It wasn’t long until our position was surrounded that we managed to set up a defensive stance.
As the militiamen and knights were holding off the rear with the support of Percy and the archers, the rest of the party - mainly coordinated by Sir Hunt - took the vanguard against the rest of the wolf forces while Mother Margaret provided healing and care to the wounded members of the expedition and saying a few prayers and incantations to strengthen us.
I was sending a flurry of slashes and torrential strikes towards the wolf wave, blowing the beasts back by quite a bit, but such a display of attacks was surely depleting my energy and mana reserves. Luckily for myself, I wasn’t alone in this endeavour as after I sowed a little chaos among the beasts, Ivan came crashing down with a powerful strike to the ground, causing massive ice stalagmites to appear further tearing apart the beasts while a few still indeed resisted. Amidst this chaos, I could see Harry was holding up well enough on his own, sending out powerful strikes with his large broadsword. While his attacks weren’t necessarily laced with any visible elemental powers like mine or Ivan’s were, I could still catch a few glimpses of a shining blue aura from each slash of his sword.
As the numbers of the wolf beasts were greatly thinning at a rapid rate, it was then Jenny had finished an incantation as flames were gathered as an orb above her before being sent out and burning the rest of the beasts in a massive wall of fire. A majestic display in its own terrifying way all things considered. I finally walked up to a beast that was still struggling on the ground. From the looks of it, it appeared to be a general-type wolf beast, but regardless, after I buried my sword blade into its neck, it died just the same.
*You have gained 400 XP!*
With that, the grueling battle had ended without too much issue besides the fact that our expedition’s forces were now terribly fatigued, being depleted of a great amount of energy and stamina and because of that, rest was required. As the men were continuing to set up the encampment, I was gathering the soul essence stones from the corpses of the beasts while other soldiers were setting aside the beast corpses to be burnt or stripped of their pelts. Jenny was also gathering the soul essence stones on the ground. Based from what Alfred had taught me and from what I’ve read and researched for myself, these soul essence stones or ‘soulstones’ as they were more commonly referred to were similar in property to mana stones and were of great value mostly to mages and enchanters to restore their mana, power their devices, strengthen their enchantments, so on and so forth. Thus, they could be sold for a pretty penny, and that was all I needed to know for now to convince myself to keep them.
After I had gathered all the remaining soulstones I could and inspected my equipment for any wear and tear, I made my way to some of the militiamen and knights who were still setting up some tents before I immediately offered to help set up the tent. It was already nightfall and the moon was greatly shining in the dark sky when the encampment was fully set up and we had some campfires built.
I was out of my armour with a comfortable shirt on and inside one of the tents with a book to read to help me get a little rest from the exhausting battle I had just gotten over with. The book was a fairly interesting one among those Alfred lent me. It was titled ‘The Great Bestiary of Marterius’ written by a former Elven adventurer who had travelled the great expanse of Orbis as he described a multitude of great beasts and animals along with quaint illustrations of said beasts for every entry. Unlike the many compendiums and bestiaries of Earth written in the middle ages by scribes and scholars based on and collected from rumours and hearsay to which resulted in less-than-realistic depictions of animals, the artwork within this book was quite acceptable and semi-accurate to the beasts they were describing. This of course should be of no surprise considering the bestiary was written by a thousand year-old elf based on his own personal experience thus lending more credibility to his account, but still when compared to the information one could acquire in the modern world be it through the internet and more updated encyclopaedias with photorealistic images on them, the work still left much to be desired.
Regardless of that, as I was sifting through the pages, I happened upon the section of creatures one would consider to be more ‘mythical’ as far as animals from earth goes. Manticores, drakes, dragons, wyverns, unicorns, and pegasi. I found it amazing how the bestiary talks of them with a sense of realism as in this world they were just as part of reality as any other beast or creature. It was a while before I finally came across a page that peaked my interest and that was the entry on the gryphon. The book read,
‘The gryphon is a powerful creature with a mighty eagle-like head, a muscular body with four legs supporting mighty talons and a pair of mighty feathered wings allowing these beasts to dominate both the land and the skies. The griffon makes its homes in places of high altitudes such as the hills and mountains and tend to move around in groups known as flocks though it is not unheard of a few mighty individual griffins who hunt on their own. The beasts can be found naturally in both the the continents of Terradome and Euris but they are believed to have originated in the Faraway lands of Atraxia. Ancient Atraxian folklore would have us believe that the first gryphons were the spawn of the Great Guardian Falcon-God Shahbast and the Lioness Hashtashira and from there spread out throughout the many lands of Euris. It is not known when the griffins arrived in Terradome but it is evident from the ancient records of the Aurians that they had already been a presence in the Archioric peninsula for thousands of years and have concentrated their numbers in those lands of Archior where the Feldonian Kings have long made use of the beasts in warfare and to they are the beast to which Feldonia owes its symbol and heraldry.’
The entry was interesting enough as it continued to list off several more subspecies of griffins differentiating one from the other based on its size, fur colour, with the griffons from the eastern continent being more lion-like in their body structure and more terrestrial compared to the ones in Feldonia. As I was continuing to read and lazing off, I noticed the flaps to the tent were lifted as I saw Ivan standing at the front.
“You know reading in the dark like this is bad for your eyes…” Ivan said as he folded his arms with a smirk “Always the bookworm, Charlie.”
“You’d be surprised by how clearly I can see and read, especially with the skills we’ve gained since entering Orbis.” I retorted back with a slight scoff without bothering to take my eyes off the bestiary I was still engrossed in. “Besides, as someone gifted with the ‘dark element’, it isn’t something even exclusive to myself.”
Ivan only snorted back with a slight chuckle before informing me that Hunt had required both of our presence around the main campfire in the middle of the encampment. I only breathed out a heavy sigh before I got up and followed my friend to Hunt. When I got out of the tent I could see Hunt already in a discussion with Sir Churchward and the other adventurers. I once again tried to exhale the mental fatigue out of myself before I approached the leader of our expedition. It didn’t take long for him to notice our arrival before he called out to us.
“Ah, there you two are!” Hunt called out with a smile
“Is there anything more I could be of assistance to, Sir Hunt?” I asked the veteran adventurer as I stood at attention next to Ivan. “I heard from Ivan that you might have something to ask of us.”
“Aye, Indeed, Charlie. It’s unfortunate that I have to ask you two of this considering that we had just done away with our most recent attack but though thankfully we have yet to incur any deaths or severe casualties in this expedition, our foremost scouts had been injured during the last fight and would need to be tended to by our healer.”
I nodded as I took a seat on a log next to the man along with Ivan. I could see where this was going but I figured it was the least I could do so long as I had support.
Hunt continued with a more serious tone, “I have seen your prowess Charles and I now know fully well that what Lord Alfred and Sir Blakebow have told me were no exaggerations. I fully recognise your skill and it is because of that that I now ask of you to help continue the reconnaissance effort until we reach the ruins of the old fort. We still have more than a day’s worth of marching to trek there and the absence of any form of reconnaissance would be devastating to our efforts as we would be walking in blind. I believe both yours and Ivan’s abilities would provide a safe enough precaution to continue our expedition in the safest way possible and I would also like to remind you that the goal here is information and pathfinding not hunting, if you deem to see anything dangerous, you immediately return to our main force and inform us. Losing any of you would be a tragedy we can absolutely not afford. So what do you boys think? Are you up to the mark?”
As Hunt looked at us with expectant eyes, I couldn’t help but shrug and give a light smile before I nodded my head. “If you deem us up for the task, then I see little reason to refuse. Though I can’t speak for Ivan, as Alfred had instructed me, I am well pleased to lend any service that I can for this expedition.”
“I agree with Charlie.” Ivan said as he placed his right arm on my shoulder “I’d be glad to provide support for my brother-in-arms here. Besides, assigning this job to us would only mean we’re the strongest and most fit for the task, unlike some other more crude individuals here. Hahahaha!”
I knew as soon as Ivan said it he was just trying to rile up Harry who made an audible scoff. Hunt was less than pleased with Ivan’s remarks but he could only give an exasperated smile while he massaged his forehead with his thumb and index finger.
“Alright you two, can get a few more hours of rest and food before you would have to go out on the scouting mission. I only need you two to scout out for a few hours ahead before returning-” As Hunt was talking, Jenny chimed into the conversation.
“If you wouldn’t mind me interjecting, Sir Hunt, I would like to volunteer myself as well to accompany these two on their mission.” Jenny said to our surprise. Hunt had raised an eyebrow wanting to immediately reply before Harry had spoken out first.
“That’s insane!” Harry said as he got up and knelt in front of Jenny with his hands on the side of her arms “It’s too dangerous to have our most valuable asset out on something like reconnaissance and I doubt those two would be able to protect you out there! Please tell me you’re not seriously considering this…”
“I must say I am inclined to agree with Sir Whitefield.” Hunt said as he rested his put his hand on his chin “If I may ask though, what would be your reasons for accompanying the two on this mission?”
“I am only thinking for more effective scouting, I might be able to provide support for Charles and Ivan.” Jenny answered “I would have you all know that I’m also currently able to cast a crude detection spell over a specific perimeter to better aid in detecting whether or not any hostile presence are about while Charles would be able to confirm my preliminary detections with his exceptional speed and hunting abilities. In the meanwhile, I’m sure Ivan could provide cover both in the form of defense and him shrouding ourselves in some form of shade.”
I have to admit, the girl’s reasoning was solid and I was mildly impressed with her ability to take into account mine and Ivan’s abilities to come up with the most efficient strategy. That and the fact that she’s able to utilise a special and unique non-elemental form of magic only speaks towards her ability as a mage. It was for these reasons that I voiced out my opinions, “I am inclined to allow the Lady Montverde to support us in this endeavour.”
“Don’t encourage her!!” Harry exclaimed towards me in frustration as he stood up and glared towards me with a menacing look. In response to the provocation, Ivan too stood up in front of me. I could only sigh at the needless drama that was forming before Harry continued “I will not leave the safety of a Noble Ducal Lady to the dubious hands of someone I know little of. This is insanity! Ivan is still a new adventurer whilst Charles is yet to even register! I beg you, Hunt, reconsider this!”
“Harry, stop it!” Jenny said with a visibly annoyed tone “I appreciate your concerns, of course, and I know they come from a place of worry but I am not some dainty glass flower you need to coddle to every step of the way. If I wanted to be treated as such, I would have never left my father’s court. This behaviour of yours must cease as it is unbecoming of you. I am starting to question whether you see me as a Lady or as a possession of yours.”
“Jenny, that’s not-!!”
“ENOUGH OF THIS!!” Hunt finally shouted with a voice that I could feel reverberate in the air around him which surprised everyone there. The atmosphere quickly became silent as even Ivan gulped at the veteran’s tone. In the past several days we’ve been on the expedition I had never seen Hunt be anything less than cordial so this sudden ferocity was surprising to say the least. It was a few more moments of silence before Hunt heaved out a heavy sigh and regained his composure. “After giving it some thought, I too can see the merits that Jenny had brought forward regarding her participation in the scouting. I believe with both Charles and Ivan to protect her, the Lady’s safety would be ensured and so I will allow you to join the two.”
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Before Harry could voice out his disapproval once more, Hunt gave the big man a stern look as he raised his hand slightly to silence the man. “Sir Whitefield. I would like to remind you that as Branchmaster and Leader of this Expedition as well as your mentor and party leader, I am not pleased by how you’ve been acting lately, questioning me on my decisions as well as your derisive attitude towards both Charles and Ivan. I don’t believe you are a child that needs to be chastised for an apology, but regardless I feel the need to have a talk with you after this.”
With that said, Hunt gave another exasperated sigh before he dismissed the rest of us except for Harry. It was going to be a long night for him, I could tell, but with only a couple more hours left until my own task, it would be an equally long night for me.
***
Odesday, 1st of Febrinna, 5662 AE, 468th Year of the 5th Era
Right after midnight, Ivan, Jenny, and myself set out of the encampment to begin our scouting mission. There were several knights still awake acting as sentries to keep watch over the encampment as the others rested. As we passed through the outskirts of our small encampment, we made our descent into the dark forests, covered only by the light of the almost full moon.
As far as I have been in this foreign world, I had only travelled through the woods closest to society along the paved provincial roads and perhaps only slightly went by the wayside. The forests here though were eerily quiet with only the occasional squawk of birds and perhaps a few owls to provide us company. Now, I’m not a superstitious person nor was I a coward, but I won’t lie when I say that the forests here were creepy. As if a vengeful spirit would arise at any turn. Considering we were now in a world where magic and fantastical beasts exist, I would be remiss to think things such as spirits or undead too exist. Though most modern forms of entertainment deemed the undead ghouls or zombies to be on the lower end of the powerscale of monsters, it doesn’t take away from the fact they would still be damned terrifying to come across.
Putting all those thoughts aside, though, I focused myself back to the task at hand, noting the landscape and observing if anything was particularly out of the ordinary. Though fears of undead and other monsters were well and plausible, there was a far more objectively real threat in these forests in the forms of the accursed wolf beasts and perhaps werewolves.
In the first couple of hours of our reconnaissance, the three of us did not come across anything particularly dangerous. Each time Jenny casted her detection spell, hostile life forces were quite few and far between and they were only the common mana beasts of the land, akin to other animals. Some scarce presence of the local forest lions and curiously some terribly sharp toothed squirrels though those little buggers would perhaps only be a modicum amount of danger to small children. But even then, the effect the recent Malcanis cult’s activities had on the local environment was apparent. The wolfbeasts must have terrified many of the usual prey animals and judging from some smaller torn wolf corpses and half-eaten lion corpses, engaged in fierce fights with the forest’s natural inhabitants.
Jenny had once again casted a detection spell - something she did at regular intervals spaced far enough apart so as to not strain herself - which had a rough radius of around half a square kilometer give or take. After a while she said she detected a presence of a few small wolf parties before I nodded to start my hunt as Ivan shielded Jenny and cloaked themselves in darkness. After half an hour of quietly hunting the wolves down, I whistled to give the signal that area was clear. As we moved along the scouting mission, I had left several marks on trees and rocks along the way to provide a visible trail for our forces to march along the next day.
Another hour passed like that without much issue and the three of us were content to call it a day after covering a good distance to return to our encampment after determining the safest and most efficient possible route towards our destination. Just as we were about to leave, we heard a muffled screech coming from a distance away from our current position from an eastward direction. Immediately the three of us raised our guards once more as we waited a few more moments.
“What the hell was that?” Ivan muttered under his breath as he began to shroud the three of us in darkness
Soon enough, we heard the screech a second time as it sounded as it was coming closer to our position. This time, I could see Jenny had a bit of a startled expression across her face before I had deemed to ask her, “Jen, you know what creature could make that sound?”
Jenny nodded slightly while still cautious before answering, “There’s no mistake, that’s a griffon’s roar. I have spent too much time around the griffon knights not to recognise that distinctive screech… But what’s a griffon doing all the way out here?”
“Well, looks like we’re about to find out…” I said as I directed us towards where the sound came from to investigate.
After heading towards the direction of the griffon’s screech following a small creek heading towards the same area in the forest, we came across a small clearing of the forest and that was where I had laid my eyes upon one of the most majestic creatures I had ever seen up to that point. What laid before the three of us was a griffon, far larger than I had expected from reading the bestiary as well as the fact that its fur was coloured like platinum with its feathers too being pure white. Around the griffon I could even see a faint glow though it was so faint I could almost feel it was fading.
“How could this be… In all my years growing up in the court of Skysea, I had never once seen a griffon as grand as this and… Oh dear!” Without a second thought, Jenny had almost leapt out towards the beast laying on the ground. I felt my heart skip a beat at what I could only consider as such a stupid action as I tried to stop her.
“Jen, what the hell-..” As Ivan too was heading towards her to grab her, Jenny had shooed him away as she quickly shouted
“It’s Injured! We have to help it!” It was only when Jenny said that that we noticed blood starting to pool around the laying griffon, staining its pristine fur a crimson red. Ivan and I immediately rushed along with Jenny though with slight caution as we provided cover for her in case the griffon had any ideas of turning hostile. From what I’ve heard from Alfred and read from the bestiary, wild griffons were proud beasts and highly territorial and were difficult for even high-ranked adventurers to deal with easily.
However, as we approached the majestic beast, its only response was to give us a fatigued glance and a slight whimper before closing its eyes as it was breathing with much difficulty, it’s thorax expanding and retracting at an increased rate. It didn’t even bother to struggle in showing us the least bit of hostility. As we finally got closer to the griffon, we could finally see horrible wounds inflicted upon it as the metallic smell of blood invaded my senses. Horrible gnashes riddled its body while one of its legs was broken in a way that it twisted almost to the point of separating from its body. One of its wings appeared to have a sizable chunk of it bitten or torn off by another creature as well as other parts of its body retaining similar torn pieces of flesh with bite marks around it.
"...It’s… It’s too much… I don't think she can make it..." Jen finally said with a sullen look on her face as she was kneeling next to the griffon after examining its wounds "Mother Margaret is our only healer and she’s hours away in camp. Our healing potions as well won't be of any marginal effect towards injuries of this extent..." She caressed the griffon’s hide as she said with a depressed tone, “I’m sorry big girl…”
“What manner of creature could possibly render a griffon to this state?” I voiced my thoughts out loud at the sight
“I have a couple of ideas…” Jenny said with an expression that was now far graver than before “And I wouldn’t like to see if they’re correct. We have to get out of here and warn the others-..!”
Just then, a couple of ungodly roars could be heard from the skies breaking the silence of the night just a short distance away from us. As if on cue, two terrifying creatures appeared on the horizon, as large as a small bus, wings like those of a bat that double as their arms with long sharp claws, a pair of hind legs with raptor-like talons, and most distinctively, a serpentine like head with a short snout and a long neck. Covered in greyish lizard-like scales with a line of menacing spikes on their backs.
“FUCKING WYVERNS!! DUCK!” Ivan shouted as he grabbed both me and Jen and got us down. One of the wyverns had swooped in and had missed us by a mere hairbreadth before it flew back to the sky.
Things just weren’t going our way that night. To think of all creatures we would be having to face it had to be bloody wyverns. Smaller not-so-intelligent members of the draconic family of beasts according to the bestiary, and while a good number of wyvern species had been tamed for use of the militaries of many of Terradome’s countries and knighthoods, much like the griffon, its wild individuals were highly deadly and highly aggressive. While the bestiary had said that wyverns do occasionally go out and hunt in forests such as this, I still cursed out my luck that tonight had to be one of those nights. I quickly took a peek at the wyvern’s stats and saw that they were approximately above level 30 in strength. Al had said in passing once that a gold-ranked adventurer could go toe to toe against a wyvern but with our current strength I don’t think it’d be that easy.
“Do you think we can take ‘em?” Ivan asked me with an exasperated chuckle
“Do you think we could even escape regardless?” I asked back “I don’t think we even have a choice here…”
"It'll be difficult, but judging by the fact those scaled monsters have sustained serious injuries from the griffon, I think we might still stand a chance..." Jenny waved her arms a bit in front of her as sparks and flames appeared around her, ready to arm herself with her magic against the beasts.
“Yeah, I’ll take those chances…” Ivan said as he too readied his stance with his berdiche battle axe
Though the odds were grim, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit excited as well. “Alright boys, looks like we’re gonna be doing this the hard way.” I said as I unsheathed both my weapons. “Ivan, you try to focus on that bastard to the left. Jenny, if I may be so bold to request of you to play a most pivotal supporting role in this battle…”
As I said that, the two nodded in affirmation of my directions. Jenny immediately finished an incantation as she conjured up a dozen or so floating balls of flames around her as well as casting a spell to boost our strength immediately after.
The two wyverns had already locked on to use and were once more making a descent towards us to make us their meals. Oh, we’ll give them a meal alright. One meal these bastards would take to the grave.
"Ivan, If you could give me a boost! " I said to Ivan as I approached him
I soon ran up to Ivan and jumped on his large axe ready to be launched by him as I unleashed a powerful gust of wind alongside Ivan's immense strength to propel me a hundred feet in the air towards one of the wyverns in the air. My speed seemed to have caught the beast by surprise as I immediately latched on to its back and began searching for weak spots on its hide to properly stab and injure it.
The wyvern tried its damnedest to shake me off but I latched on to it like an annoying flee on a mangy dog, using all kinds of wind gusts to do my best to bring it down to the ground. Looking at the base of one of its wings, I raised my Windwyrm and brought down a savage slash towards it. With a hard and satisfying crack, I broke one of its wings and in turn the beast immediately became unbalanced and was headed for a crash landing.
The other wyvern that Ivan and Jenny were handling put up a good fight but they eventually managed to bring it down to the ground with one of its wings being severely burnt to a crisp while the other one was frozen and had ice stalagmites protruding from it, tearing apart the flesh. Looking at how it wasn't paying attention to the skies anymore, I redirected the wyvern that I was handling to collide into its friend and it did so with a resounding crash.
Just before the moment of impact, I had let go of the beast and jumped off, cushioning myself by releasing some strong gusts of wind from my sword slashes to cushion my fall. I had effectively used up a good amount of my energy in doing so and when I looked at Ivan and Jenny, I could also see that they were starting to look worse for wear. It was at this moment that I put in all my remaining strength into lunging my blades deep into the side of one of the wyvern's heads while summoning small cyclones inside of the beast through its open mouth.
The beast quickly became bloated and not long after that, its body began to fall apart as parts of it were crushed from the inside out by the massive pressure changes caused by my wind magic as it looked like a bloated inflatable doll, killing it in a most agonising way. This world wasn't a linear game, and I had long realised that I should use as many out of the box tactics and moves as I could possibly think of in order to level the playing field.
As if a light bulb lit off in his head as he saw what I did to my wyvern, Ivan immediately froze the other wyvern's hind legs before crushing it in one great stroke of his axe, rendering it immobilised as Jenny approached it and set off a satisfying explosion spell through its open mouth and utterly obliterating the other wyvern. Just like that, the problem was dealt with. With the battle going as it did, we didn’t even realise thar the sun was beginning to rise.
*You have gained 3000XP!*
*You have gained 3000XP!*
*You have leveled up!*
*Your wind affinity has been upgraded to level 3! More powerful wind manipulation and attacks are now possible.*
Ivan and I both managed to level up and in doing so managed to recover our physical energy and health which had been severely depleted. Even though physically we had been restored, it didn’t change the fact that our mental fatigue was still there but even so it was at least bearable. However, because she wasn't a user like us, the same couldn’t be said for Jenny as her fatigue had caught up with her as she dropped down to her knees as her legs gave out. Ivan was quick to check up on the young noblewoman.
“Jen, are you okay? Are you hurt?” I asked with concern in my voice
“Does she look okay to you?” Ivan snorted as he was trying to hold Jenny up
“I… I think I’m fine. Pfft… That battle really took it out of me.” Jenny said as she was panting a little heavily “Thank you for the support Ivan… but… uhh… I think I need to sit down for a bit… to.. Gather my energy and strength.”
“It’s alright, take it easy, Jen.”
“That being said though… What about the Griffon?!”
Jen’s question finally reminded me of what the main predicament was in the first place. The griffon was on its last breath and it was such a horrible scene to see such a majestic creature be brought down like that. I was honestly half a mind to just leave it there but I also contemplated whether it would be best to just put the beast out of its misery. That was of course until... *SMASH*.
*You have gained 8000XP!*
"Dude, what the actual FUCK?!" I screamed at Ivan as out of nowhere I had just witnessed him lop off the gryphon's head off to which he only shrugged as if it were an inconvenience "Are you actually crazy, you psychopath?!!"
“I… I don’t even know what to… I think I’m going to faint…” Jenny said she put both her hands on the ground to keep herself from laying down
"Oh would you two just calm down and stop being so dramatic." Ivan merely shrugged off my screaming and Jenny’s concern before he gave us his reasoning "It was going to die soon anyways, and I don't see how leaving it to die a slow and agonisingly painful death would be any better than to just put it out of its misery with one nice and clean chop of its head.
Jenny could only stare blankly at the man not even knowing how to respond as she was as stupefied as I was. However it wasn’t long before I just sighed out and said, “Let’s just go back to camp guys. I’m sure the others are already starting to worry wondering where their scouting team went. Jenny, are you able to walk?”
With my question Jenny would snap herself back to reality as she tried to get up but it wasn’t long until her legs gave out again and she was about to fall when luckily Ivan had caught her by her arms. Without a second thought, Ivan had swooped the Lady up off her feet and carried her in a bridal carry position.
“You’re lucky I’m so tired now, Ivan, cause if I wasn’t I would be educating you on how not to act like such a brute!” Jenny said as she puffed up her cheeks in a pout but at the same time put her arms around Ivan to stabilise her position in being carried off by the man.
“Don’t worry Jen, I’ll be collecting the soulstones and I’ll distribute the best ones to you. I’m sure you’ve earned it…” I said as I had walked back to the corpses of the dead wyverns before lopping off their heads and tying a rope to carry them as proof that our party had slain these two great beasts. I had also approached the corpse of the white gryphon and had taken its soulstone. But in doing so, I noticed something which I didn’t previously realise was in the clutches of the griffon.
"Guys take a look at this! It's an egg!" I let out a gleeful chuckle as I raised my findings towards my friends who saw it with a look of surprise "I think this egg is something the griffon laid and what it was protecting from the wyverns. This is a great haul, methinks!"
As Jenny saw the egg in my hands she immediately shouted, “Charlie, keep that egg safe and if I were you, I’d keep it hidden from the others! Illegal possession of something as precious as a gryphon egg is punishable by a royal edict and until you can show the Prince-Imperial what you found, it’d be best to keep that a secret. You have no idea how valuable that thing is! Anyways we have to get back to camp and quickly report all of this mess to Hunt!”
I merely smiled and nodded before storing away the egg to keep it safe. My mind was racing at the prospects of potentially having a gryphon as a pet or even as a trusty mount. With such foolish thoughts filling my head, I immediately quickened my pace as I caught up with Ivan and Jenny as we made our way back to our encampment.
Stat Screen [https://imgur.com/5bisgF3]