After our interesting little… altercation, I managed to grow the vines all the way up the side of the cliff. It did however take frequent make out sessions, I mean… magical refuellings, to get it there.

Once it was fully grown, we clambered our way up the makeshift ladder, although the task was a lot harder than I’d thought it would be. I’d climbed ladders before in my life, but when they’re this tall… it was an ordeal. My upper body strength was also not at all what it used to be, thanks to my transformation, even if my legs were now on the thicker side thanks to all the walking we’d been doing.

So, we had to take frequent breaks at each ledge or outcropping of rock we made it to. The rest stops were kinda nice though, as it led to exhausted cuddling, which was fine by me. There was also the part where I got to stare at Grace’s ass as she climbed above me. She had a really nice ass. I wanted to squish it with my hands, and made a mental note to grab it the next time we were kissing.

When we finally pulled ourselves up and onto the ledge with the road, we were pretty exhausted, and opted to just lay on the grass and rest before we actually got up.

“Let’s never do that again,” Grace wheezed. “I thought I was fit, but that was gnarly.”

“Agreed,” I said with a chuckle that quickly turned into a cough. “Exercise is dumb.”

“No, exercise is great,” she chided me. “Climbing unstable vines over a bottomless ravine is not great.”

I made a sound of disagreement and smiled over at her, catching her eye. She rolled her her own eyes back at me and tried in vain to smother the growing grin on her face.

“You’re a dork,” she accused me affectionately.

“Thank you,” I replied gravely, as though accepting some prestigious award. “I’d like to thank… well, Bray I guess.”

“He is probably the one who corrupted you into dorkdom,” she nodded thoughtfully, playing along for a second before her grin launched itself back onto her expression.

Her comment, plus her grin caused me to bubble up in giddy laughter, which cascaded into her doing the same. We laughed together for a good minute before we managed to calm down. I think there must have been a lack of oxygen up here or something because honestly our joking around hadn’t been that funny.

As the laughter subsided I sat up and looked about us at the ledge we found ourselves on. We’d fallen into a patch of rough mountain grass that bordered most of the edge of the cliff, the occasional tree or shrub breaking up the monotony. The highlight of our surroundings though, was a wide cobblestone road that wound its way along the center of the ledge, our grass on one side and a pile of loose debris from the cliff on the other.

It would have been a fairly pleasant scene if it wasn’t for the dull, muted grey light that filtered through the clouds above us. Instead the scene was slightly eerie, even with the mundane looking wagon train approaching in the middle distance.

“Well, we found the road,” Grace remarked. “And some Obrec too. We should ask them for directions.”

“We should,” I agreed, then gave her a sideways look. “Your Anve has been getting pretty good, you wanna do it? Assuming they even speak it.”

“Oh, um… sure,” she said, not sounding at all sure. Oh dear, this is what happened when you tasked two socially anxious people with approaching strangers.

“I’ll talk to them,” I smiled, reaching over to play with her hair. It was so soft and thick, I wanted to snuggle my face into it here and now.

Instead, I struggled my way onto my feet and began to stretch out all my sore and abused muscles. Maybe we should ask for directions and then call it a day. I could really do with a warm, quiet bath right about then.

When it was close enough to make out details, the caravan train was a little different than I’d been expecting. We’d spent so long in medieval land down in the plains that I expected them to be pulled by horses, but they were definitely not pulled by horses. They were pulled by a sort of strange hybrid between an elk and a mountain lion.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

The creatures had long, sinuous furry bodies like a large feline, but their legs ended in hooves rather than paws. Their heads had the familiar wedge shape of a feline too, except that their eyes were situated on the sides of their head to search for predators. In addition, their teeth were broad and flat, indicating that they were predominantly herbivores. The final oddities were the huge antlers they sported that curved back before flaring out, and the massive fluffy tails that swung low for balance behind them.

The wagons themselves caused me to bark a laugh that was quickly stifled. They had suspension. Turns out people on this ring knew about a comfortable ride after all, the humans were just predictably lagging behind. The wheels also had what looked like a mechanism to extend metal spikes out to hold them in place on an incline. If I was honest, it looked like the obrec were quite a lot more advanced than the local humanity was.

As they approached, I noticed that they came in two groups, the first being the people who were obviously the merchants, while the others were guards wearing ornate armour. My first thought was that the armour looked heavy. It was full plate, each individual section of which had been stained a dull bronze colour and carved with celtic looking whorls and knots. Their helmets looked sort of like a barbute helm, with a T-shaped opening at the front, although they had holes for their antlers to stick out at the top, and a complex opening mechanism to keep the head enclosed and protected.

All in all they were pretty damned intimidating, and I felt my courage waning by the second. I was meant to just… talk to these people? Oh dear.

The guards saw us pretty quickly and there was a whole lot of talking between them as the wagons slowed to a stop. For a moment I was confused, until I glanced at Grace, who’d stood up beside me, and noticed her hair and eyes. Right, we were both quite clearly mages.

Slowly, with their helmets removed, two of them approached us, one man and one woman. The woman was tall and almost handsome in a feminine way, while the man was a little smaller, looking lithe and quick despite the heavy armour he wore.

Glancing between themselves for a moment, they stopped, the woman speaking up. “Greetings Mages. What is your purpose in blocking our path? We wish to pass in peace.”

“Um, hey,” I said awkwardly, a little intimidated by her formal speech. “We’re not blocking you, it’s fine… we just wanted to ask which way it was to Millowhall. We uh, got lost doing… magic things.”

The two armoured obrec glanced between one another again, and this time the guy spoke, “You… got lost? Doing… magic stuff?”

“Yeah,” I said with a sheepish smile. “It’s a long story. Is it okay to uh, get directions? Please?” I asked hopefully.

“A mage with manners?” the woman muttered, a confused frown crossing her face for a moment. “Yes, directions are… fine. We are heading towards Millowhall now, there’s a tunnel up ahead that takes you there. It’s not far.”

A mage with manners huh? Our kind really had made a name for themselves, and not in a good way.

“Oh cool, thanks,” I smiled, turning and raising an eyebrow to ask if she caught the conversation. “You understand that?” I asked in english.

“Yup,” she grinned. “The chick was a little harder to understand at the start though.”

“Yeah she was using really formal speech. I think she expected us to be the super uptight noble sort of mages,” I explained.

“Mages?” she asked, before she realised that yeah, she at least looked like a normal mage. “Oh right.”

“Where are you from, if you don’t mind us asking? I don’t even recognise the language,” the guy inquired, glancing between us like we’d just been dancing naked.

“Oh, um… Avonside. We’re from the Order of Eleos,” I told them, feeling a little weird claiming to be from some organisation that was actually just five people.

“Wait,” the woman blinked. “I’ve heard that name before!”

“They’re the ones that some of the mages back home were talking about. Bumped into Eilian the Golden I heard,” the guy replied, looking at us with interest now.

“Right!” she exclaimed, a grin forming on her face. “The ones who wounded Lord Fennelsomething. Whatever his name is.”

“Oh yeah!” he nodded. “Did you really do that?”

“Yeah, our leader shot him with a uh… ranged weapon,” I nodded, a smile forming on my face. I liked having that reputation, it was a fun one. The people who roughed up the asshole murderer cuntface dickwad.

“Well done,” the woman nodded happily. “Bastard has hunted down half our allies in human lands, now it’s looking like we’re going to have to close borders and fortify. It’s like your kind has collectively gone mad, no offence.”

“Not our kind,” I shook my head. “We come from…” I paused, discreetly casting the ring location spell before pointing, “That way. Avonside is a whole lot different.”

“Interesting,” the woman pondered, then shrugged. “Would you both like to ride with us into the city then? Sitting on a wagon is much easier than walking.”

“Oh, please,” I said thankfully, my legs crying out in song at the impending relief. “My legs are killing me!”

“I’m Merwig Thistlescar, but you can call me Mer, and this is my brother, Otho Thistlescar,” she smiled happily. “We’re Stonechaser clan. Come on back to the caravan.”

“Thank you,” I said, giving them both a smile and shifted to indicate my companion. “This is Grace and I’m Ryn, nice to meet you!”

The two obrec turned and began to walk back to their wagons, making enthusiastic gestures as they went. Grace and I shared a puzzled look but followed their lead, wandering along cautiously behind them. We’d been told that the obrec were odd, but so far we’d just met Eilian, who’d been mostly normal, if a little flirty and eccentric. The way these two had done a one eighty into friendship mode the moment they heard something good about us though… that was different.