DREADWOLF - Chapter 111

She moved the map to one side and looked down on the actual town of Silvara, honestly not that different from the inked scratchings, a small town smaller than Lynthia, surrounded by enchanted walls.

After all of the Orcish loot had been put into her Fleece Harbour Skill, her wool space, they had camped for the night amongst the wreckage of the crates and chests and barrels, then, in the morning they had set out intent for Florens.

This time Rain was not burdened with carrying so many tons and had been free to choose a pace. He had chosen a very fast pace, picking up Lyra and Opal and then sprinting full tilt through the forest at a frightening speed, crashing through trees that got in his way, or leaping from rock to rock when they came upon stone filled meadows and clearings, a black shadow that blew threw the peaceful forest leaving birds shrieking in alarm and small animals fleeing for their lives… for all of a second before he was once more gone leaving the wildlife wondering what it was that had just passed.

They had made such ridiculously good time that what Lyra had assumed would take days to journey to they had arrived at by midday. Being far far faster than a sprinting horse’s top speed, and able to keep it up for hours and hours somewhat broke her sense of distance. He had been fast before, but after the Orc tribe Rain seemed to have boundless energy to spend.

Silvara. One of the feeder towns around Florens, that is, a town without its own dungeon, instead relying on access to the especially enormous dungeon under Florens for leveling.

“You want us to go in there?” gravelled Rain, peering down at the small town.

Lyra Hesitated then nodded. “I think so, yes. It’s not that we need to it’s just, well, practice.”

“Practice?”

“Floren’s walls are a lot more secure than this, with many more guards who are far higher leveled. If something went wrong I don’t know if we could make it out alive, probably not if there are any guard captains around.”

“Ah, you want to do a trial run to see what might go wrong. If something does go wrong here they won’t be able to stop us from leaving, better that happen here than in Florens.”

“Yes, this way is much safer, I thought you might appreciate that with, you know…” she glanced meaningfully at Opal who was lazing on a boulder sunning herself.

“Fine, but how are we supposed to do this?”

“Well obviously the fake persona of Fitz we got away with in Lynthia won’t work, and you’d have to be a noble or have real connections to be allowed to take a monster as threatening as you into the city, I can’t bribe my way into- well, maybe actually with the frankly obscene amount of treasure we have, but there’s no way I’d find a private place to do that and more importantly the guards would likely just say no, this isn’t like out in the backwards sticks, guards actually guard here, uh, no offence.”

“Then magic it is. Invisibility.”

Lyra shook her head. They will have elves with truth lenses all over the place on the walls, we’ll be seen instantly. I do know there are some branches of the dungeon below Florens that extend well outside the city walls, my plan was to go in on my own, find information on where they are, then have you dig for a few weeks until we found them, then travel through the dungeon and come up into the city from there.”

“That sounds… bad, it would be far easier to just use your new Skill.”

“Exactly! You go into my wool space and then I just walk through the gates! Probably. I believe it works differently than a dimensional bag and shouldn’t be noticed when it’s turned off, but I uh, don’t know for sure…”

“And testing it here instead of at the extremely dangerous and protected city gates is the smart thing to do.”

“Yup!

“Alright, lie down so I can go inside of you.”

Lyra’s smile froze on her face. “Uh- y-you -want to do wh-what now?” she squeaked out.

Rain tilted his head. “I need to go into the wool space, it’s easier if you are lying down.”

“Oh! Ahem, I mean, yes! Very well!”

The sheep girl looked around and finding a nice flat boulder she stepped onto it and then awkwardly sat down. Rain approached and took hold of her legs, crossing them, making a larger space. He paused as he was about to dip into her lap.

“If anything happens Lyra, let me out.”

Lyra nodded then watched, pink-cheeked, as his nose pushed into her lap. In moments his head was inside and he was struggling with his shoulders. The black wool spilled from her legs, boiling outward to take him, and soon he was shoving his shoulders inside. Lyra gasped, their apparent ‘link’ being stimulated in the most embarrassing way. She grabbed hold of his back as he slipped inside, fingers clutching, breath coming in desperate gasps.

“F-fuuuurrrccckk!” she groaned as Rain’s rear passed into her, then his legs and tail, and then he was gone.  She slumped back, breathing hard as her wool sprung back to normal.

Opal appeared above her, an eyebrow raised.

“Well, are we going in or what?

“What? Oh, yes!” she sat up quickly tidying her dishevelled hair and got to her feet. “I think since you, uh, need to be safer since you are pregnant now you should get in my wool space with Rain or the dimensional bag with Red.”

“Nah, I’ll just be a fake slave again, it’s way too stuffy in there and Red won’t shut up about gold.”

“It’s dangerous, you should-

“Make me sheepy.”

Lyra sighed, but she supposed a goblin was hardly going to draw attention, especially in a town next to Florens which contained a vast number of Goblins, so many that they were just part of the background, unremarkable.

“Alright fine, but stay close to me. And don’t draw any attention, no jumping into shadows or waving around swords or harpy talons.”

Lyra glanced over her wool, realised it was still black, and let the Skill drop. Her wool returned to its usual snow white and she let out a breath of relief.

“Why are you turning it off?”

“Because it drains me far more than my invisibility, I can’t keep it active unless I want to pass out while walking through town.”

They set off down the slope and soon arrived at the entrance. Unlike Lynthia the gatehouse was fully guarded and hadn’t been understaffed by an expedition to a dungeon. That meant two elves, each of them with violet lensed spectacles waiting by the gate, along with a number of other guards, each of them heavily armed and wary. The two elves weren’t facing in their direction, but as they neared they both turned without warning and looked directly at Lyra, their senses obviously superior to the other guards, both magically and non-magically.

Clearly they recognised something was amiss as they both immediately lifted the violet spectacles hanging from chains on their chests to their faces and peered at her through them, smooth professionalism in every motion.

“Ah, h-hi? I’m just coming through if that’s okay?”

The two elves didn’t reply, only looking over her body, becoming particularly fixated on the dimensional bag at her hip. A good thing Lyra supposed, better that than they think that she had an unthinkable Skill like Fleece Harbour.

“What’s in the bag?”

“Nothing special, can I go in?”

One of the elves took a step forward, adjusting his spectacles and leaning down close, peering hard at the bag, his eyes narrowing. He suddenly seemed to understand what it was he was looking at and grabbed hold of the opening spreading it to look inside. He then jerked the bag as though to sift its contents, dragging Lyra along with it, a Kobold squawk of alarm following her own.

“H-hey! Do you mind?! That’s my stuff!”

“I know,” said the elf, straightening. “Just be grateful I’m not taking you in for a talk. All that gold, and a Kobold slave, is quite curious. You have the look of the city about you alright so I suppose you think that’s normal to just carry around.” He shook his head as though exasperated by frequently annoying city dwellers.

She was suddenly very grateful that she had put Vash into her wool space and only left enough money in the dimensional bag for emergency bribing.

She passed through the ivy clad gatehouse, guards eyeing her suspiciously, and entered into the town proper, cobbled streets and old crumbling buildings dotted with spring green moss. The town wasn’t terribly busy but there were still a number of people around. Still, she barely drew a glance, Opal even less so, and they were free to wander through the town’s winding streets until they found the market, the air filled with braying and mooing, the clatter of cooking, and the raucous voices of boasting arguing merchants.

“This seems fine,” said Opal curling a finger through her hair and eyeing the people passing by, “Levelers really don’t think they are under threat at all when they are inside their precious walls huh?”

“…No, not from monsters at least. The nearest leveler is way more of a threat normally… unless the walls fall, or a dungeon breaches, and that’s…” her voice faded away as she found someone blocking her way, a large rabbit person wearing intricate puffy clothing patterned with chevrons, his black furred ears pierced with multiple gold rings stood tall above his head and a pair of violet spectacles hung from a gold chain from his neck.

Lyra blinked up at him, then tried to step around.

The rabbit person stepped to the side blocking her way.

“C-can I help you?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on your name.”

“What do you want to know my name for?”

The rabbit gave her a long studied look then turned his head and nodded across the street. Lyra followed his gesture and found a large notice board, a notice board covered in sheets of brown paper. Standing proud in the centre of the board was a crude sketch of a half woolie half elf in coloured chalks, the wool done in white, below it the words ‘Lyra Bellerhorn, Wanted, Dead: 50,000G’.

Lyra turned back to the rabbit person, “So, uh, m-my name is not that- uh-”

“So what is it?”

Lyra stared at him, frozen, like a fox caught in the lamp light.

“It’s-

“Well?”

Lyra’s mouth opened, closed, then she turned around and quickly ran away.

The rabbit person didn’t seem to register what had happened for a moment, but then they cried out “Hey!” and chased after her, an amused Opal following in their wake.

Lyra fled down the street, hooves clattering on cobble, eyes darting madly, there! She spotted an alley and dashed into it.

She needed an escape, anything, but the alley was empty and worse a dead end, invisibility wouldn’t work, the rabbit person intent on her bounty would see straight through it with those spectacles. She was trapped, doomed, but then maybe she didn’t need an escape, just a disguise, and, conveniently, she had one, her Skill made her wool and hair black, very different from how she was depicted, yes, this was perfect, and she had time, the rabbit person was slow catching up.

She focused and willed her Skill to trigger. In moments her wool was slipping from white to black and then-

Rain exploded out of her leg, ripping himself free from the wool in a moment, scrabbling at the ground, a terrible wheezing rasping escaping his throat, desperately trying to draw in air, his eyes bloodshot, paw clutching desperately at his throat.

Behind him Lyra thrashed on the ground, hips thrusting into the air as a wet patch appeared on the cloth, eyelids fluttering, practically frothing at the mouth as she trembled and shook.

Rain, completely oblivious to this, still desperately trying to breathe, staggered blindly to his feet, stumbling from foot to foot, then, promptly passed out, his eyes rolling up into his head as his entire nine foot five height toppled like a fallen tree…. Straight into the alley wall, which gave way like wet paper.

The family of four elves sitting at the table inside were nearly crushed as Rain came through the wall, smashing down in the middle of their dining room, his head going through the table, cutlery and dishes scattering around the rubble and fur, the four of them leaping back from their chairs, shouting and screaming in alarm.

Outside the rabbit person dashed into the alley and came to a hesitant halt, gaze moving from the still squirming and moaning black wooled sheep girl, to the enormous hole in the alley wall, a mound of black fur lying still beneath a scatter of rubble.

“Huh.”

Stratothrax

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