The warped wyvern, Krosstetch, has seemingly come back for another round against the girls who covered it in wounds. However, this battle seems to be taking place a great distance in the sky. Ren’s left arm droops limp to her side, they are riding a green wyvern who is not happy with their treatment of it and this wyvern is the only thing keeping them in the air. Ren has no means of flying and if Sophie does, she has not revealed such to Ren or Krosstetch yet. For as many wounds Krosstetch has, Ren and Sophie are now burdened by their environment. Simply put, this is a horrible situation for Ren and Sophie.

  “Shit!” Sophie shouts.

  Krosstetch spews out more of it’s fire breath. Sophie has no stirrups, but she still kicks the wyvern in the side in a bid to command it to move out of the way. Thankfully, the wyvern beats it’s wings and moves out of the way of the fire.

  “Alright, asshole, you want a round two? You got one!” Sophie cusses at the monster.

  From Sophie’s hand, a boomerang appears and is swiftly thrown. Krosstetch seems to be a bit slower with the weight of another monster on it’s tail, but the warped wyvern has much more experience dodging in mid air than the untrained amateur wyvern rider.

  Krosstetch counters by beating it’s wings hard. The force of the wing beat throws the green wyvern the two are riding off balance. It tries to follow up with a backflip and uppercut with it’s tail. However, where the tail is normally a spiked tail, there is now a dead monster that resembles a pickle on four legs. The swing is very slow to come out. So slow that the wing beat had already sent the target too far to ever be in range for a follow up attack. The various injuries it had sustained earlier, as well as this corpse it is literally dragging, is starting to burden Krosstetch. Still, the warped wyvern continues it’s pursuit.

  After failing to land a follow up attack, Krosstetch dives after the green wyvern still trying to find it’s balance in the air. The warped wyvern bears it’s claws as it dives for the other wyvern and it’s riders. Before Krosstetch reaches them, a boomerang struck it from behind. Krosstetch joins the spinning out of control in mid air party. Sophie takes this time to yell at Ren.

  “Can’t you do something about this?” Sophie asks.

  “I’m trying, but I can’t load the powder in the musket when we’re spinning like this.” Ren says.

  “What?”

  Sophie looks down at Ren. Ren is trying to fill her musket with black powder. She is pressing her powder flask against the barrel of the musket, but the wyvern they are riding on is spinning out of control and the powder does not seem to be cooperating with typical musket loading procedure. It’s bad enough that Ren only has use of her right hand. She has the musket tucked between her legs and is using her hand to try and bring the powder flask anywhere near the barrel of the musket. A valiant attempt, but futile as black powder refuses to go into the barrel and flies off into the distance.

  “Are you kidding me?” Sophie snaps.

  Ren’s legs are no longer seated and she begins to drift off of the wildly spiraling wyvern. Sophie has to grab Ren by the belt and pull her back down onto the wyvern’s back.

  “Oh! You’re useless!” Sophie shouts.

  Krosstetch regains it’s balance before the green wyvern does. It looks at the two girls and wyvern before starting to slowly glide off somewhere. The green wyvern barely manages to regain it’s own balance. As soon as it regains it’s sense of direction, Sophie snaps to attention and looks around. She sees Krosstetch, the goal of this journey, slowly flying off to a mountain side. As fast as the green wyvern has a moment to collect itself, Sophie bashes the heel of her boot into the wyvern’s side as though she is using a stirrup. The wyvern slowly flaps in the direction of Krosstetch’s slow gliding.

  Krosstetch stops at the opening of a cave entrance high up in a mountain side. Krosstetch lands with a heavy thud and scrambles to walk inside the cave. The corpse of the boil grigos is dragged inside too, leaving clear drag marks. The green wyvern manages to follow Krosstetch in time. To the green wyvern’s relief, Ren and Sophie hop off it’s back.

  “It’s in here.” Sophie says. “The thing left a trail too. Let’s go and- huh?”

  Sophie goes wide eyed as she examines this cave entrance in more detail. The trembling in the ground was light, but still noticeable. No doubt the work of the mountain sized monsters outside. The slight rumbling shakes the interior of this cave. Against the wall of this cave, there are what look like totems and statues behind nets. When the ground shakes, the nets keep these totems and statues standing upright. It is apparent that they are not installed in the ground or otherwise not secured by any other means beyond these nets against the wall. Further inside, there are also a variety of rare materials. They appear to be uncut gems the size of horses, some strange boulders and glimmering raw metals. At the center of this cave is what looks like a ritual circle for the purpose of magic. At the edges of the magic circle are other such totems and statues.

  “What is all this?” Sophie stammers.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “Some magic stuff.” Ren says. “This ritual circle seems to be running a numeric sort before calling specific variables and data. But it’s running it all in a series and not parallel. The ritual circle is finding and extracting information of some kind. The caster of this ritual is looking for something.”

  “Yeah! I know, idiot.” Sophie snaps. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out! I can see the while loop! My question is, who put this together? And why is it in Krosstetch’s lair?”

  “Because someone put it here.” Ren says.

  “I know. Do I need to slap you?” Sophie shouts.

  “There’s just no pleasing you.” Ren says in her blank tone of voice.

  As the two argue, from deeper in the cave, they hear the sound of creaking metal. Looking down deeper into the cave, a tiny spark flashes in the dark. After a moment, a massive object rushes towards them. Ren and Sophie part and dodge out of the way. Flying out of the cave entrance is a large black orb of some kind. It takes a moment, but Sophie and the voices in Ren’s head discern it to be a cannonball. Where a cannonball flies, there is a cannon. The two look deeper into the cave. Where the drag marks they initially followed lead deeper, the sound of a noisy wheel squeaks. It’s not easy to see in the dark, but Krosstetch’s trunk swings. The sound of squeaking resumes and from the darkness, a cannon wheels into view from the darkness.

  “Is that a cannon?” Sophie yelps.

  To answer her question, Krosstetch spits a tiny spark of fire onto the fuse of the cannon. The fuse practically vanishes and the cannon fires another cannonball at Ren. Ren deftly dodges the cannonball. Krosstetch then throws the whole cannon at where Ren was. She had already dodged a cannonball by leaping from left to right, so throwing the cannon itself at where Ren had already left seemingly served no purpose. Now Ren was standing behind Sophie. Krosstetch then pulls another cannon from deeper in the cave. Krosstetch shows that this new cannon is loaded and fires it at Sophie and Ren who had leapt behind her. To leap back to where Ren was would result in them being struck by a thrown cannon. It is now apparent that Krosstetch aims the new cannon at Sophie and Ren. A shot lined up for a two for one kill.

  “Shit!” Sophie cusses.

  In front of Sophie, a massive tower shield appears and she grips it in both hands. Krosstetch fires and the cannonball slams into the shield. There is a violent crashing sound. Sophie is knocked off her feet and thrown back. She is thrown back into Ren who is also knocked off her feet. Then the both of them are launched out of the cave. The two young women are swiftly reminded that they are still on a mountaintop. They fall to the mountain side and begin to tumble and slide. After a bit of tumbling Ren, Sophie and the shield Sophie summoned stopped when they hit a boulder.

  “Ah! Shit!” Sophie shouts. “Where the hells is that wyvern?”

  “It flew off already.” Ren says. “See?”

  Ren points off with her one working hand. In the sky, there is a tiny speck in the sky that vaguely looks like a green wyvern flapping it’s wings and trying to get away from the two of them.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Sophie groans.

  From the cave entrance a stone begins to peek out. More and more of it is revealed and a perfectly round boulder begins to tip over the edge and roll down the mountain side.

  “Uh oh.” Ren says.

  “Shit!” Sophie says.

  “You have a super rock busting hammer?”

  “I- I do but…”

  “But?”

  “My arms are broken.”

  “Really?”

  Sophie flails her arms which are apparently broken.

  “Wow.” Ren says.

  “I want to see you block a cannonball with a shield and come out with no injuries!”

  “Well, I wouldn’t do it with a shield.”

  “Shut up. We’re about to be crushed by a rolling boulder.”

  “I’m borrowing your shield.”

  “What?”

  Ren grabs Sophie by her belt and plops her down on her own shield. Ren then pushes off and the shield starts down the mountain side like a sled.

  “Really? A sled?” Sophie scoffs. “What are you, five?”

  Ren ignores her words and continues down the sloped mountain. Despite Sophie’s reservations, the shield is perfectly serviceable as a sled. Aboard the shield, Ren weaves through trees and jutting rocks. A mountain ledge leads to a ramp that is perfect for jumping. Ren turns into it and uses the opportunity to jump over a river.

  “Was that really necessary?” Sophie groans.

  “Nope.” Ren says in her usual tone of voice.

  Behind the two, a heavy thud shakes the two. Behind them, the same boulder is still rolling after them.

  “You’re joking!” Sophie stammers.

  Ren makes a hard turn. A turn that should not be possible for a naturally rolling boulder to make. Despite that, the boulder makes that unnatural turn.

  “Is that magic?” Ren asks.

  Ren points her hand out at the boulder.

  “Water Arrow.”

  Water shaped into an arrow lances out at the boulder. The water impacts and there is a chip in the perfectly round boulder.

  “Hey! Idiot! Use your Stone Wall spell already.” Sophie says.

  “Don’t tell me how to use my spells.” Ren says.

  “I will back seat you as much as I need to if you’re this bad at spellcasting!”

  “Stone Wall.”

  Ren points at the boulder again and a wall of stone shoots up from the ground. The boulder strikes the wall. Despite that, it keeps spinning and grinding into the wall Ren conjured. The wall stands firm in the face of an aggressive boulder.

  “Watch the road! Watch the road!” Sophie shouts in Ren’s ear.

  Ren runs over a loose rock and the shield spirals out of control. Both Ren and Sophie are knocked into the air.

  “See! I knew your ass would screw this up! That’s why I have to backseat you!” Sophie shouts.

  Ren and Sophie crash into a river. Ren manages to swim up to the surface without issue. Ren stares blankly at the river while her left arm floats up to the surface unmoving. She looks around and doesn’t see Sophie anywhere. Ren dives back down in search of her. Sophie is still under the water. She violently kicks her legs, but her arms have gone still. Ren dives down to her and pulls her up by the collar of her shirt. However, once Ren points Sophie in the right direction, Sophie kicks her legs and swims up past Ren. Sophie’s head finally breaches the surface. She coughs out a lot of water. Ren pokes her head up shortly after.

  “What now?” Sophie asks.

  “We ask for help.” Ren says. “Hey, Lucia!”

  Ren waves both of her hands. As she does, Sophie goes wide eyed.

  “What the fuck?” Sophie stammers. “Wasn’t your left arm broken?”

  “Don’t worry about that.” Ren says. “Help me get Lucia’s attention.”

  “Who in the world is Lucia?”