“All right,” said Cuby, her eyes focused on a panel that I couldn’t see. “Being overcautious paid off.”

“I’ll say.” I was still above 80% Hit Points—we had essentially killed the second devil without spending any resources, a significant improvement over the first. I brought up our new ability, then whistled.

Ability – Gift of Empyreal Flight

Uses: 1

Cast Time: Instantaneous

Effect: Empyreal Flight for 5.0 Seconds

You grow a pair of ethereal angel’s wings, gaining the ability to fly for 5 seconds and gaining immunity to effects which would impair control of your character as well as slowing effects. Use of this ability removes slowing effects current affecting you (but not effects which impair control of your character).

If you can already fly, the duration of this ability is extended by an additional 3 seconds.

“That’s a nice gift,” I said. “It pays to be as virtuous as we are, I guess.”

“Definitely!” said Cuby.

“I wonder if virtue and vice are split like experience,” I said.

“Probably.”

“Let’s hope so—that way Haroshi won’t have whatever the equivalent is. Maybe he murdered his way up on his lonesome, though—I don’t know. How’s your level?”

“Almost 12!” said Cuby. “But I’m just going to get a basic ability. We need to find those class cards.”

We continued through the tunnel, searching it to find very little except for a dead dwarf and a dead human. Then we kept traveling through the pass, which soon opened up to a grand sight: rocky, tree-strewn slopes ahead of us that rose and converged to form the base of an enormous mountain, its snowy cliffs rising into a gray cloud. It was the biggest mountain we’d seen yet.

“Mount Mirrak,” I said. “Somewhere around here is Mirrakatetz, though I don’t know how we’ll find it.”

“We can climb it, and then glide around it looking for an entrance,” said Cuby.

“If one of its guards don’t tell us first,” I said. Then, thinking of something, I added: “We could have picked up some climbing equipment in Aranar.”

“We didn’t,” Cuby said plaintively.

“Yeah,” I said, staring at the slopes of the massive mountain ahead of us. “Oh well—let’s get going. I’m sure we’ll find some monsters soon enough. I’m past halfway to level 9.”

A light snow began to fall as we traveled, melting in our hair and where it touched the ground, dampening everything. Soon enough I was proven correct as the road opened up into a clearing at the base of the mountain where we could see a demon ahead of us: a corrupted goat.

Ramthorn – Level 9

It was easily the biggest goat we’d seen yet, and almost comically muscular, the bulges and contours of its body clear even under a thick patch of shaggy fur. Like all corrupted goats, it had horns like a ram that bore long, thin needles—my demonology told me that these bore a corrosive poison, along with the standard line to say that it was unintelligent and obeyed greater demons.

We took it apart much like we had its lower-level brethren: Cuby threw her dagger, I started casting a Supercharged Implosive Missile. The Ramthorn shrieked, then charged Cuby, who dodged out of the way before hitting with a Blinding Strike, then an Opportunistic Strike and a few more attacks as it struck her Mana Shield.

I finished my cast and hit it with an Supercharged Implosive Missile… and it struck the goat for almost 700, putting it at 40%.

A sense of unease came over me. This basic monster had something 1500 Hit Points… and I had 950, total. Why the fuck did a level 9 goat have more Hit Points than a level 8 chosen?

This thing is strong! said Cuby.

Built for groups, is my guess, I said. Hasting.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I cracked my Moment of Mastery to get a double-dodge in, then finished Supercharged Haste on Cuby, who hit it with a second Blinding Strike before we both finished it off with another missile and some melees.

But before it fell, I heard another series of shrieks coming from the nearby trees… and looked to see three more of the demon-goats, two level 9s and a level 8, charging out of the trees toward us.

How hard did that thing hit you? I asked.

Just under 100.

I blinked. The Supercharged Mana Shield was just over 300 Hit Points—Cuby had taken one attack, but if we ran out of tricks these three could waste us in a matter of moments.

And they were goats.

My options ran through my head in a split second: maybe Unnatural Terror was highly effective against them if they were afraid of the wyverns. Maybe putting a Psychic Parasite on each of them, or the two that weren’t terrified, would let me tank, especially when Reactive Armor triggered on the first attack—powerful they may be, they seemed to have the Precision and Defense Rating of normal level 9s.

But Cuby thought of a simpler approach and jumped into a tree.

I found my own tree, leapt into its branches, and started casting missiles down at the goats. The first of them rammed its head against the tree with stunning force, and I had to question how sound our strategy was as the boughs around me shook and the sound of splintering wood filled the clearing.

Nonetheless, the tree stayed standing even after the third goat had rammed it full-force, though it shuddered and made splintering noises in between each blow.

I’m useless again, Cuby lamented.

Let the tree tank, Cuby. I dropped one of the goats shortly afterward, and even as I saw the very roots seizing as if about to be torn from the earth, I took solace in the fact that Mighty Leap had cooled down—and there were plenty of trees to tank for me.

Then I heard the undeniable screech of a demon wyvern.

Fucking hell, I thought, looking up to see a dark shape diving toward me amidst the snowfall, single eye burning red. It spewed a bolt of greenish fire that engulfed me a moment later, but I was more concerned with its talons—I waited as it approached, preparing to leap to another tree.

I saw the figure riding the wyvern too late—a black-robed man with mangled metal fused into his face, chanting words as part of his spellcasting. A moment later a bundle of chains flew through the air to strike me, and I was helpless, immobilized by a Hex of Chains before the wyvern broke my Mana Shield to grab me with its talons while I was still burning with its poison fire.

I’m getting the cultist, Cuby said, and as the hex expired and the chains fell away from me my Heightened Hearing Skill let me pick the sound of her kukris striking flesh along with grunts of pain from above, on the back of the wyvern.

Unhappy as I might have been with the situation, I could recognize that the worst was over with: my Hit Points were ticking down to 70% from the debuff, but I was in no danger of being dropped to my death. As the wingbeats bore us both higher, I started a Fragmented Supercharged Implosive Missile, then launched it into the wyvern to deal just over 10% of its Hit Points.

“Holy shit,” I said, starting another cast. I finished two more—then I saw a black-robed figure fall through the air beside me, and then the wyvern dropped me from its talons.

I was more than a hundred meters in the air—and I was shocked to see the black-robed cultist cast Charm of Gliding even as I did, his Hit Points at 60%. Cuby landed on his back a moment later, kukris sheathed as she seemed to grapple him into a spin that totally ruined his ability to glide; I fell into a dive as I watched them both plummet to the ground below.

I shouted a warning to her as I saw the ground come up under them… but Cuby knew what she was doing, using her Mighty Leap to spring off his back a moment before he cracked against the stones below, dying.

I landed beside her a moment later and started to cast a Moment of Mastery, sure that I’d be using it to evade another burst of fire in a moment—but then I heard a set of shrieks beside us, and turned to look down a steep slope toward the clearing we’d just been flown away from. All three of the ramthorns were leaping up the steep slopes toward us with ease.

“Oh, shit,” I said. “The goats are goats.”

Which made no sense in the moment, I confess. But what I meant to say was this: the goats, being goats, have an ability to maneuver up steep surfaces which I had heretofore underestimated and am presently intimidated by.

Cuby did a fine job: she ran right at her charging ramthorn, leapt as she placed her palms against its forehead, and flipped over it in a feat of, well, spectacular acrobatics.

I got knocked on my ass and poisoned, completely blindsided by a hit that dealt almost 200 damage and brought me down to almost 50% and ticking. The goat reared up before me—and then a flash of light blinded it as Cuby rolled into range to deliver a blinding strike.

Tree! she shouted.

And I leapt to my feet, leapt into a nearby tree, and saw the cable of Cuby’s grapple gun fly past me and into the crown of my arboreal neighbor before being followed by Cuby herself.

Then I heard the crash of a goat against the trunk of the tree, the shriek of an angry wyvern that I’d shot three times and needed to shoot seven more… and the shriek of yet another wyvern, doubless drawn by the noise. The branches shook around me as I finished my Moment of Mastery.

And all we’d wanted was to kill a single goat.

“Welcome to Mount Mirrak,” I muttered.