When I climbed out of the tent in the morning, it seemed I was the first one to wake up, Lorraine was still sleeping, I already learned that she is a deep sleeper. I took some water and grabbed a sandwich from my inventory, they even had bread in this reality, for some reason, it took a lot more time before it spoiled.

Abby climbed out of her tent and sat down across me, I smiled at her, “Hey, how was your night?”

She yawned and stretched, “I think I slept okay, how did you sleep?”

I smiled at Abby, “Oh, I fell into a deep sleep after a while.”

Abby laughed, “Were you too occupied for some reason?”

I gave her a sandwich, “I have no clue what you are talking about.”

Funk came out of his tent, he took a sandwich and leaned back, after a while, Lorraine came out of her tent, she sat down next to me and leaned on my shoulder.

Funk looked at her, “I have no clue how you made someone like her smitten with you.”

I shrugged, “I don’t know, it just happened.”

Lorraine giggled, “If someone ever asks how we met, I have to tell them how he hit on me while he was walking around in his underwear.”

Abby got up, “While you guys are fun to look at, I think we should start walking north.”

Funk got up, “I agree, and the remarkable thing about having set up the tents once, is that you can easily take them with you.”

I laughed, “That is right, we can just pick them up.”

Abby nodded and picked her tent up, then I picked up our tent and Funk did the same with his tent, we cleaned up after us, and then we started walking north.

As we started walking, Lorraine slowly took my hand, she blushed as she did, I think she is not just infatuated with me, she has a full-blown crush on me.

The landscape soon turned into a brown colored rocky road, It made me want ice cream. Around us, I saw mountains, and rocks were scattered everywhere, It looked dead and alive at the same time, our road slowly turned into a sand road. Close to our proximity, I heard whistles and sounds of odd-looking creatures to say the least, while they seemed curious and amicable, better safe than sorry, so we kept a safe distance.

It’s clear these are bulky and muscular creatures, I think they might be burrowing creatures of some sort, as I saw one of them disappear by digging into the ground, I am glad we brought plenty of supplies. As a whole new world was unfolding before my very eyes, while it seemed to look like just any other rocky area, it looked as if I was on an alien world.

Abby seemed to be looking around her as well, For once, I was not just the only one gawking around.

While we kept on walking, Abby and Funk walked in front of us, they were talking, Lorraine looked at me, “What do you think Steve?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you want to be my boyfriend?”

I looked at her, confused and amazed at the same time, “Woah, It is very fast, don’t you think?”

Lorraine smiled, “It is, allow me to explain more, it is a cultural thing, wolf people tend to find a mate for life. Yes, we have flings, but we have a special kind of sense, it just tells us when we have found the person. This always comes from the female wolf people. You lit up that sense with me, and my mom taught me, when you feel it, jump at the opportunity, and I think, if you did not feel something for me, we would not be taking a detour to Moonhelm.”

I looked at her, “You are not bullshitting me? Wolf people females have like a super sense for finding the one and that is why you are putting in this much effort? Like back in the clothing shop? Our tent stop?”

Lorraine nodded and smiled, “That is correct, I might not have found a decent person in a while, but I respect my body. I don’t go around giving it up randomly to people, even if I am infatuated by them. So, do you want to be my boyfriend?”

I stopped walking and drew my sword, “We can continue this conversation soon.”

Suddenly, a rock flew our way, I jumped in front of Lorraine and chopped it in half as blood flew everywhere. Lorraine whispered in my ear, “And you keep trying to protect me.”

I chuckled, “There are more rocks from where this one came from.”

We both looked at the hills and many small rock—like creatures came our way. They had these short legs, Lorraine unsheathed her claws, we both looked at Abby and Funk, they had not seen us stop and had kept on walking, Lorraine sighed, “We will catch up with them soon.”

Another rock jumped towards me, and I infused my sword with dark energy and sliced it in half. However, another one came through and hit me on my head, it exploded, It left a small bruise on my forehead. A whole storm of tiny walking rocks came our way, I started swinging my sword like a mad man, I saw Lorraine use her claws to mow her way through them with ease.

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However, the rocks kept coming our way. As I slashed them into pieces, I had numerous rocks that jumped against me, leaving bruises. “Lorraine?”

“I am doing fine but, it seems they are trying to get through us, instead of attacking us.”

I chuckled, “That is what I wanted to say, but just keep slashing them,” Lorraine and I ended up back to back, trying to let the rocks pass through and chop up the ones that came too close.

As the storm of living rocks ended, we suddenly heard a crack coming from the ground, and I saw something shoot up and hit Lorraine, She flew away, and then I looked at the strange creature. It had four legs and seemed to have some kind of wolf like body. However, it has a giant head that seemed to open wide, mainly for crushing rocks.

As I ran towards the creature, it seemed to perfectly blend into the environment, as the skin had the same color as the rocky road we walked on. I jumped with a big leap and landed on the monster that had pinned Lorraine to the ground, I had to drop my sword as I wrapped my arms around its neck and started wrestling with the monster’s head.

Lorraine looked at me trying to keep its head up, she tried scratching the creature with her nails; However, it seemed its skin was too tough to break through, I put my hands on the sides of its mouth and opened it. “Can you shoot energy, Lorraine? I cannot hold its jaw open much longer, it is going to snap my hands right off!”

She stretched both her hands, they reached inside the jaw of the monster, She shot a double beam of green energy, The beast, whatever it is, I’ll call it a chomper, as it has this giant mouth for chomping rocks. It made sense why the rocks ran away from it, never mind that, the creature blew up into a million pieces. I got launched and rolled over the ground, Lorraine looked at me, I chuckled and gave her a thumbs up, She let out a sigh of relief.

I slowly made my way towards Lorraine, she still lay on the ground. “Are you injured?”

She looked at a cut on her leg, “Just a minor wound, but my leg hurts.”

“You will be fine, have you ever seen a creature like that?”

Lorraine shook her head, “I have heard about them.”

The ground shook, another chomper jumped out of the ground, with its mouth wide open, and its mouth was big enough to chomp both of us. I grabbed Lorraine and rolled us away, and we looked at the chomper disappear into the ground.

I panted and looked at Lorraine, “That one is bigger, maybe you killed its baby.”

Lorraine let out an awkward chuckle, “To be fair, it tried to bite my face off first.”

We felt the ground shake, and I rolled on my back and gathered dark energy in the palm of my hands. Lorraine looked at me and started gathering green energy in her hands and stretched them, I put my hands next to hers.

I started to breathe slowly to focus on the energy brewing inside of me, then we heard the ground crackle and the chomper jumped out with its mouth wide open. It came our way, we saw the giant mouth come at us, I screamed, “Fire those lasers!”

Lorraine chuckled as she unleashed her energy at the same time as me. Our energy beams went straight into the chomper, and it blew into a million pieces, Blood and guts rained over us, Some hard pieces started landing on us. I rolled myself on top of Lorraine and raised my back to catch the hard pieces falling down on us.

Lorraine looked at me, “You are doing it again, protecting me.”

I sighed, “Fine, I like you, you are pretty, we have things in common. We both might be the last of our race, you make me feel something I just don’t feel when looking at regular humans.”

Lorraine smiled, “Is that a yes?”

I let out a grunt as a heavy claw landed on my back. “I think we are rushing this. However, I think I have been a poor judge my whole life, you know what? I am going to give this a shot and let you be the judge of it, this is a cultural thing. Are all wolf people getting hitched within a few days, if your wolf sense tingles?”

Lorraine nodded while giving me a gentle smile.

“Then, yes, I want to be your boyfriend, but I’ll check about that cultural thing”

Lorraine giggled, and then she kissed me while blood kept raining down on us.

We heard footsteps come towards us while we slowly got up, Lorraine leaned on me, her left leg had been injured more than she wanted to show.

Abby looked at me, “What happened to you guys?”

Lorraine sighed, “Rocks, and what did you call them?”

“Chompers.”

Lorraine nodded, “Chompers, they had these giant mouths to crush rocks, they tried to crush us.”

Funk finally caught up with Abby, “Are they, by chance, blown up?”

I smiled, “Yeah, we blew them up Alright. Did you see tiny rocks? They attacked us.”

Abby laughed, “Yeah right, rocks attacking you!?”

Funk looked at her, “They are called rocklings, and they are usually not hostile. However, if they were fleeing from a rock crushing monster, it makes sense why they would attack.”

Lorraine nodded, “I was thinking the same thing, Should we move on?”

Abby nodded, “Yeah, we’ll keep a better eye on you guys.”