Author’s corner: HELLO HELLO! CAMEO GALORE TODAY! HOORAY!

ANYWAY, as I said, there’s a lot of cameos here today, one you guys might know, another others will know, and the last one, NO ONE KNOWS! No one important, at least… Probably. This last one is actually my horde character from WoW, so there, now you know it.

ALSO, I decided to take a mid-term approach to the whole Boss-fight / No boss-fight thing. Why? Mostly because it wasn’t something I planned initially, so I didn’t really think on how It would affect the story at all. On the other hand, if I didn’t, the next PLANNED boss fight would take quite some time to appear… So I decided to do something kind of like the triple-lynx battle at the beginning. But it will happen in a few chapters yet.

ALSO(2), I’m halfway done with the character list, as it’s a lot more troublesome to make than what I expected. And it might not be complete, so I will probably need some help from you guys for any character I might have missed, so Yeah.

ALSO(3), As I said, there is going to be a very crazy, Wargon-legit momment these next chapter, so don't be surprised! ^^

ALSO(4), Some people noticed that I used War when Red and Wulf talked about Wargon, Instead of the usual Gon. It's a little something I've been doing, in that those who know him back from before Insania call him that, while those who meet him inside Insania call him Gon. How many of you noticed this? Cookie to whoever did!

Have a good read!

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After our little scene with that strange guy, we covered the remaining ground with ease. Thanks to Aura freezing up the river’s surface, we didn’t need to follow the road down towards the bridge. The effort left the poor fox tired so I gave her something else to eat and asked the others to walk a little slower to give her some time to rest.

The bad side of taking this self-made shortcut, was that we were left right in the middle of the forest with no road in sight and the mini-map didn’t show anything either. Even when zoomed out to the max. Thankfully, I had my own GPS available.

Letting my very own Goddess positioning system guide us through the forest, she led us in a straight line through the forest. I didn`t really bother with asking her if this was the correct direction, as she knew even more than me. The downside of walking in the forest was that we had many encounters with monsters while walking around.

But thanks to Red, Wulf and Pea, we quickly laid waste to anything that came at us. Not that it would be dangerous, since the strongest ones were only level twenty, the only one who had some trouble were my father and sister, since they were still only level thirteen. Well, this also meant that they earned a whole load of experience during this, so they reached level fifteen easily, meaning that they could use the weapons that I made them.

And it’s only in times like this that I understand how different their hunting style is from mine.

Red specially, is someone I wouldn’t want to have as an adversary. She commanded the wolf, the hawk and the lizard so that they would surround the target and harass them, while making sure that the only place it could run away was in her direction. Then she would bow the hell out of her target. Her attacks themselves didn’t do much damage, but her pets compensated more than enough, which was a bit scary, when you think about it.

My father had a much more straightforward approach to battling. He would charge ahead and start swinging his axe wildly, and the moment he had enough rage, he would land a heavy slash that dealt a good chunk of damage. Not that I really had any doubt, knowing how he plays his games.

Pea, on the other hand, was a bit strange. The moment she went into battle, some strange wooden and crystal thing would pop out from her pocket and start circulating around her. And whenever she was about to be attacked, the thingy would fly in front of the attack and create some kind of barrier in front of her. Meanwhile she wildly rained light balls on the enemies. If I’m not wrong, the skill is a basic light-magic called smite or something. The only problem is the sheer amount of spells she let out. It’s downright ridiculous.

Aura and Lieutenant went on with their combo, just like during our training spree. Lieutenant would climb on the back of the fox, who used her ice armor to approach the enemy and land her scary as hell freezing-charge. Lieutenant would use this chance to jump at the enemy and start using his daggers to attack, before jumping back to the fox so that she could go for another charge. And they actually had a different strategy for each armor that Aura used. As I said, my pets are getting better than me at hunting…

Anyway, this meant that we quickly finished up the enemies that came toward us, not losing too much time with our hunts and so on.

By the time we left the forest, Wulf and Pea were both level sixteen and morning was coming up. We found ourselves looking straight at what looked like a farm, with many kinds of crops and animals roaming around. After a quick search, we found the entrance of the farm, which led to a small road that went straight towards a small village, which according to Crys, it’s the village we had to go.

Taking out the paper that Goulder gave me one last time, it said that I should look for a dwarf in the biggest house of the village. Shrugging, we and the others quickly made our way towards the village, seeing said house standing right in the middle of the village.

“Sorry, but the lord is out right now…” The dwarven guard told us while shaking his head.

“Any idea when we can find him available?” I asked him. “It’s about the disappearing livestock.” This made the guard widen his eyes for a moment before stopping to think.

“Come back during afternoon. The lord should be here by then.” The dwarf told me, and I nodded.

“So, we have the whole morning free. Anything you want to do?” I asked the others.

My father and sister decided to look around and see if there was anything they could hunt safely. Red decided to look around for possible pets for herself. We marked to come back here during the mid-day, so I also left to do my things. Usually, I would search around for things to hunt, but since I only had one or two in-game days before Yuu and Hanbei arrived, I decided to speed things up a bit.

I talked around the city to see if they knew something about the missing livestock. As this was a fairly small village, rumors ran around quickly, so I found out that the one whose property was attacked laid on the other side of the village. I quickly thanked the dwarves I talked to and ran there with Aura and Lieutenant.

One thing I noticed while walking around, was that the races that lived in this village wasn’t as varied as the ones I saw back at Eldor. Here, dwarves, clockworks, trolls, dark elves and such were much more numerous than the other races. My guess is that since this isn’t a capital, most of the races are the one that settled here a long time ago and didn’t have many chances to mingle with the others. But then, I could be wrong.

Leaving that aside, I quickly crossed the village, passing around some odd sights, like a turtle-like clockwork with a forge on the side, which made me wonder whether it was a player or not. According to Cyg, these kind of clockworks can be built if I know the method, but can very rarely be found on the wild. Lore-wise, they are clockworks that aren’t sentient, created by people before going wild for a random reason.

Sadly, the turtle one seemed to be tamed, as I saw some clockworks making something with it. I really wanted to fight against it….

Oh well…

I saw as some red fences appeared up ahead, which according to the dwarves I asked, was the one which was attacked. When I looked around, I saw as some strange animals that reminded me of a large boar, almost my size, that had some kind of rock plating on his back. They roamed around eating the grass peacefully, sometimes giving me a glance before going back. There were also some normal cows and pigs around, but they weren’t all that notice-worthy.

I quickly walked around the fences while looking for a gate, In the middle of the way, I saw some broken fences that had been hastily fixed up, as they were still unpainted, which I found a bit strange, since on the other side of the farm was the base of a mountain. There wasn't even a forest there to serve as the home of a beast or something of the kind.

Just to be sure, I asked Aura to see if she could pick up any strange odor from the area, and sho nodded after that. I made a mental note to check on it later.

I shook my head, deciding to leave that for later before going back to searching for a gate. Seeing a dwarf working around on some crop fields, I quickly called him and asked where the gate of the farm was. He looked at me a bit suspicious, but shrugged it and said that I could just jump over the fence.

I became a bit suspicious myself, but I quickly did what he told me and went towards him.

“Good morning.” I told him as I approached. “I was sent by the Silver Gauntlet to take a look on the missing livestock, and I wanted to talk with the owner of this place…” I told the dwarf. He widened his eyes at this and nodded.

“Ya… I’m da owner ‘ere.” He said as he put the hoe on the ground and supported his stocky body on it. “Loran Steelseed.” He said extending his hand. I quickly took it and we shook hands. “So, wat do ya want to know?” He asked me with his rough voice while taking out his large straw hat and fan himself.

“Well… Mostly anything you might now, if there was any change since last time or something else of notice…” I said with a shrug. “I just got here and know next to nothing of what happened.” The dwarf frowned at this, before nodding.

He pointed towards the broken fence and took us there.

“This place was destroyed on da first day.” He said with a sigh. “Fixed it fast. But was broken again yesterday.” He said annoyed. “Dere were bloodspots down dere. Two on da first day, one two days later, and one yesterday.” He told me while pointing towards four different directions. “Cow on da first two and the last time. Two pigs on de third.” He told me briefly, to which I nodded. “I’ll be working on ma field over dere, so if ya need anythin’, you can go see me.” And with that he walked away while mulling something.

I smiled a bit awkwardly at the dwarf. His tone sounded a bit annoyed, similar to the one of these old unsocial farmers. I was a bit uncomfortable with the way he spoke to me, and I had the feeling that he only talked to me at all was because I came here to solve his problem. Or else he wouldn’t even bother with me.

I turned towards Aura and Lieutenant and had them head towards one of the spots the dwarf told us, while I went towards the remaining two that seemed to be closer together.

“Hey, Gon… Isn’t what he told us a bit strange?” Crys asked me while frowning slightly. I turned towards her a bit confused.

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

“Didn’t he say that he had to fix the fence twice? Once on the first time and once again yesterday?” She said, I frowned a bit before understanding what she meant.

“I… See… The fence was broken twice, yet there were four attacks…” I said while stopping to think and she nodded. “That’s strange when we stop to think about it…” I said while holding my chin in my hand. Crys nodded with me while making the exact same pose and tilting her head sideways.

Soon, we arrived at the said spot and saw a large area on the ground with some small spots of dried up blood. I crouched at the ground to take a better look at it. Thanks to my tracking skill and the short training that I received when getting the skill, I noticed something. An area on the ground had signs of being stepped up by some other kind of animal besides the usual, but all I could get was that it was a heavy animal, as the trail was about to run cold. If I had come here one day later I wouldn’t be able to get even this.

A short look around didn’t help me find anything else. The animal probably didn’t stay here for long enough to let any kind of trail. I took off to the next area, taking a good two minutes walk until I reached it. A good look around didn’t help me find anything new, so I sighed loudly before looking in the map for Aura and Lieutenant. Seeing that the fox was closer and was already approaching me.

She approached me and I quickly gave her a pet for her good work, before pointing towards the other place where I found the blood. She nodded to me and quickly started to sniff the ground, only to stop looking a bit confused.

“What’s up?” I asked her, and she blinked surprised, before turning to Crys. I waited patiently for the moment. Some simpler things she wanted to say I could understand easily, but the more complex things she would talk through Crys. It was a nifty feature of having a speaking pet, I guess.

“She said that the smell here is different from the ones she found on her area.” Crys told slightly surprised. “They are similar, but definitively not the same according to her.” The Crystal elemental told me surprised.

“Similar… But not the same?” I asked confused. “Two of the same type of animal?” I asked her confused, but Aura shook her head saying that she wasn’t sure. I stopped to think for a moment, before seeing lieutenant approaching us from afar, carrying something in his hand.

Unknown Cracked Scale (Qualityless) (Quest item)A red cracked scale from an unknown source. It seems to have shielded it’s owner from a powerful blow.

I frowned at this. A quest item when I don’t even have a quest? Strange. Actually, the fact that I didn’t get a quest when Goulder spoke to me at the bar was a bit strange itself… Oh well, I’ll think about it later. I thanked lieutenant by giving him a small medal I had made some time ago.

I made one as a joke back when I was waiting the forge to smelt the metal from Excel-loran for Yagver’s armor. But Lieutenant simply went crazy when he saw that and started accepting them as rewards. It was a bit tricky making something small enough to fit on his clothing, but after getting the hang of it, I made a small stock of medals to give to him whenever he did something great.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

He reminds me of a dog from a VERY old cartoon. Heck, I’m even called Richard!

Anyway, we took Aura towards Lieutenant’s place and had her sniffing around. It seemed that the smell was the same as the scale’s one, as well the one she first found. I nodded to her and started searching around the area with my tracking skill.

What I found out was that there wasn’t any trail in this one. This could either mean that the animal was lighter than the first one, or this attack came even before than the other ones.

We searched around for a little more until it was afternoon, but we didn’t get anything too big except that there was a trail leading from Aura’s towards the broken fence. We could barely make out the claw-like marks and what appeared to be something that was dragged with the culprit. Probably the body of the animal.

I talked a bit with Loran, but the dwarf left it very clear that he had nothing else to tell us, as both attacks happened at night, and sent us off in a slightly annoyed tone.

I met with my father, sister and Red up in front of the lord’s mansion and told them what I found out.

“Maybe it’s two different beasts?” My father told me immediately, and me and Crys nodded.

“That’s also what I was thinking… But why two of them at the same time?” I asked confused, but my father shrugged, not knowing either.

A moment later, one of the guards came to us and saying that the lord could talk with us now. We quickly went in towards the entrance, where a troll using a heavy plate armor and having his long red hair tied into dreadlocks greeted us.

“Follow me to the lord.” He said bluntly while adjusting a mean looking axe around his waist. “An don’t try anything too funny.” He told us with a serious tone.

“Not even jokes?” I asked almost instinctively, receiving a mean glare from Red and an amused look from my father.

The troll stared at me for a moment, before a grin appeared in his face.

“Nah… Jokes are fine, I guess…” He said with an amused tone while turning back towards the mansion and guiding us through he carpet leading towards a corridor. We walked through the whole corridor until we reached the deepest part of the house.

Opening the door, we found ourselves within an office of kinds, where a white haired dwarf was sitting on a table. But even with his white hair, he didn’t look any older than the usual dwarf. Hearing us entering the room, he quickly lifted his head towards us and nodded briefly towards the Troll.

“So these are the ones… Thanks for your help, Gazluz.” He told him. Wait, Gazluz? That name sounds oddly familiar… The troll nodded briefly before leaving the room closing the door. The dwarf raised himself from the desk and extended his hand towards us. I took it and shook. “I’m Olaf Stoneheart. And it seems that you’ve met the head of the town-guard, Gazluz.”

“I’m Gondorrer Tailsban…” CYGNASDAMMIT! GET IT RIGHT AT LEAST ONCE, WILL YOU? “Gondorrer Gravelheart. These are Naarya, Uhtred, Stiorra.” I said pointing towards each one. I felt tempted to also introduce Aura, Crys and Lieutenant, just for the fun, but I decided to take this a bit more seriously than usual.

“I see… It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He said while nodding to the others and sitting back on his chair. “So, I heard that you came to help with our situation here?” He asked me, and I nodded while passing him the letter from Goulder. He took his time reading it before nodding. “This letter said that you came here immediately after hearing about it from Goulder. I take it he didn’t tell you much, did he?” He asked with a sigh while smiling slightly, like someone thinking of a foolish friend.

“He didn’t, but I already made some investigations before coming here.” I told him. He looked slightly surprised, so I started to tell him what I found out with my investigations. He listened quietly during all the time, nodding at the end.

“I see... So there’s two different offenders…” He said in wonder. “Any idea where they come from?” He asked me curious, and I nodded.

“From the looks of it, they come from the mountain near Lorran’s farm. And since only his place was attacked, I think that it might be fairly close to his place.” I told him. “Any idea on what might have been?” I asked him and the Dwarf nodded.

“You said you found a scale, right? There’s some salamanders that live in that mountain which match the description of the scale you found.” He said. I blinked surprised for a moment. Salamanders are those not-quite-dragons fire-spewing lizards, right? “But they usually hunt on the other side, where the slope isn’t as steep as this side. They never really bothered us, so we didn’t even think of that.…” He told us with a sigh.

“Then, you think something might have kicked one of the salamanders away from its cave or something?” I asked him and he shook his head.

“No… They are the strongest monsters on that area, so there isn’t anything that’s capable of doing it.” He denied my hypothesis.

“I see… Then it could be something else…” I said with a sigh before stopping to think. But my father spoke before me.

“Why didn’t you ask Gazluz to go check it out? He looked strong.” He said slightly suspicious, and the dwarf smiled awkwardly. I nodded in agreement when I stopped to think about it, it’s a bit strange that he asked for mercenaries when the guard looked more than strong enough.

“There’s been rumors of a bandit group appearing around the area. If the guard captain were to leave the city we would risk being raided.” He said with a sigh. “Even if it only end up being a rumor, it helps keeping the citizen feeling safe, so I can’t really send him off…”

“I see. It makes sense.” My father said while nodding and sitting back on his chair.

“Then I guess it’s left to us to check it then?” I asked him and he nodded.

“If you could do that. I would be grateful.”

QUEST:

Livestock disappearance.Olaf Stoneheart is troubled with the fact that some livestock have been disappearing in his land and have asked you to check the source of the problem before it gets too dire.

Only need to find out what’s causing the disappearance of the livestock. But resolving the situation may reward you with a bonus.

Bonus reward for completing the quest quickly.Rewards:

Talk to Lorran or Olaf for your reward.

Oh! So there’s the quest! I quickly accepted it and left immediately afterward.

“Look, there’s a chance we might fight a really strong monster, so it might be better if you two don’t come.” I told my father and Pea. They looked confused at me so I explained. “If it’s really a salamander that spews fire, there’s a chance that it might have many attacks that cover a large area and it might hit you two, even if you are only watching it.” I told them.

“I see… We will go back to the place we found earlier then.” My father said with a shrug.

“Why can’t we go with Booh?” Pea asked confused, not really getting my explanation.

“Because it’s very dangerous.” My father said patiently. “And we could bother Boh going there.”

“And why can Baah go with Booh?” She asked while looking at the elf who was resting besides her pets.

“Because Baah is very strong.” I said. Probably even higher level than me if I were to say.

It took some time, but we finally convinced Pea to stay behind and wait with Wulf before setting off.

Me and Red, who said that she was curious on what was happening, made our way towards Loran’s farm until we reached the broken fence, from there we split while walking towards the mountain, looking for some place that we could use to climb up. After a few minutes she contacted me via the chat, and I quickly ran towards her direction.

She had found a narrow path that zigzagged it’s way up through the grey stones that made the walls of the mountain. I gulped loudly seeing how dangerous it looked and saw that Red agreed with me in there.

We quickly started climbing our way through the path. Red even dismissed her pets beside the hawk that could fly so that they wouldn’t need to worry about falling. I looked towards Aura and Lieutenant, but I saw that they didn’t need much help. Aura used her ice armor and increased the size of the claws, which cut easily into the rock, giving her some better footing while Lieutenant simply rode on her back. Crys simply floated lazily around us.

Feeling a bit jealous of my pets, I made my way up through sheer brute strength. Clinging tightly to the rock as I climbed.

Still, it wasn’t as bad as what you usually see in these action movies, with us moving tightly against the wall on narrow path while shouting at each other amidst the screeching wind. Still, it was unnerving looking down and seeing the steep fall beneath us, so we took our time climbing up.

After some time, the path spun around the mountain, leading us to the other side where we could see the much softer slope that even had some grass spots and trees here and there. From afar I could even see a small animal hopping here and there.

Behind us, we saw a large cave that even with a brief glance I could see that it was being used recently. But since this was on the other side of the mountain we thought that it probably wasn’t the place we were looking for since it had direct access to the opposite side, which is where the salamanders usually hunted according to Olaf.

We sighed in defeat and turned back to the path so that we could go back and search again, but before we took even the first step, a loud sound came from the cave near us.

It was a loud threatening sound, just like the growl of beasts I had grown so used to hear, except that this was much, much louder than anything I’ve ever heard, even when taking the echo in account. I gulped loudly while slowly turning back. During this time I caught sight of Lieutenant and Aura, both of whom looked simply terrified.

And they were those Aura and Lieutenant, who dared to fight a boss on their own.

I slowly turned my head towards the cave, but thanks to the darkness of the cave, I couldn’t see anything inside it.

But then, I saw it. A pair of pure yellow eyes with vertical slits, staring right at me. Except that they were much bigger and ferocious looking than anything I had seen. We stared at each other for a moment, the growl slowly growing louder the longer we exchanged our stares.

Then, it approached us. Slowly. Yet I could clearly hear as a large pair of claws scratched the ground beneath it. Yet it sounded so sharp that I thought I was hearing a sword being sharpened.

And then, I saw its body.

A large body, probably as big as doggy’s, if not bigger. Yet, the pressure it emitted was nowhere near the one that the dungeon boss’ emitted. It was far stronger. So strong that I was completely unable to move, with only my knees trembling as I watched it slowly approaching me.

It’s head came into the light, revealing its sharp-looking head with a dangerous looking muzzle, clearly one used to bite at its foes and used to eat meat.

Behind said head was a long neck that linked to a strong body that was double my size, yet only needed a pair of dangerous looking claws to support it’s whole weight. A long and thick tail served as a counter-weight on the other side, since it’s body didn’t stay straight up, but horizontally against the ground.

Finally, a huge pair of leathery wings, spotted with spikes on the outer bone side laid closely to the body, yet if it were to open it wide, it would surely not fit within this cave, even as large as it was.

Finally, Dull green scales and shells covered it’s whole majestic body. So though looking that I wouldn’t be surprised that even my strongest attack would be stopped by it, barely leaving a scratch on it’s surface.

“It’s… It’s a… A…” Red started speaking, the word not coming to her lips. “A… D… Dra… A dragon…” She finally muttered after some time.

But I shook my head at her words. No, it wasn’t Dragon. I knew that as I saw the beast slowly raising its head and starting to look towards us from upwards.

“No… It… Only have two legs…” Crys said in the same shocked tone. “It’s… A… A wyvern…” She said while making a gulping sound. “A greater one at that…”

No… It’s… Still not right…

The beast’s mouth slowly started to flare up as some small fire-spots escaped from between it’s teeth. The chest slowly expanding as it took the air in.

“It’s… Not it…” I said with a slightly trembling voice. “It’s… It’s…” I gulped loudly once more, not managing to find the words.

Just as the beast’s mouth started to spread open, the words that I wanted to say came out.

“IT’S A RATHIAN!” I SHOUTED EXCITED.

Everyone else froze at these words. Crys looked at me shocked for a moment as she tilted her head in confusion. Aura and Lieutenant were in a similar state, not really understanding my words. Red simply blinked in shock before covering her face with her hand.

“You… You didn’t…” She said while holding back a sigh.

“A Rathian…?” Crys asked me confused.

“I’m a what now?” Came a third voice, sounding almost disembodied.

And with that, the wyvern was looking at us, its face slightly frowning.

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(Alive)Author's corner: For those who don't know, here's a page about Rathians!