The harpy bear lunged for Clanker’s torso, but Sophia slammed into the beast's neck before it could latch onto anything else. The impact knocked Clanker’s forearm out of the beast's beak and he ran to pick it up. It snapped back onto the joint of his elbow like magnets and he backed away. 

“What do we do?” Eric yelled to Sophia. 

Sophia shoved on the neck of the harpy bear and backed away. It backed off too, eyeing the party. 

“It’s too big for us to handle,” Sophia said. “I could poison it, but it would only slow it down before it killed us anyway.” She studied the beast as it nearly filled the exitway of the cave. 

“Not much chance of running passed it,” Clanker said. “That bad birdy is too big.”

“By the way,” Eric said. “What were you trying to do?!”

Clanker shrugged, skeletal face pulling up at the edges of his mouth as well in that impossible way only he seemed to think was normal. 

“I thought it just needed a good pet,” he said. “I was apparently wrong.” 

“Rose?” Eric asked. “Any input?”

“I recommend utilizing the terrain if possible,” Rose said. “When at a disadvantage, often external sources are the best places to draw from for a successful encounter.”

Eric looked around the cave but didn’t see any loose rocks or other things to throw at the beast. He looked up instead, noticing the stalactites that jutted from the ceiling of the cave, some of them as long as four feet. 

“Any way you could knock some of those down?” Eric asked Sophia.

“I don’t have any weapons or skills that would be strong enough,” She said, following his gaze.

“I have a bit of blood stored up,” Clanker said. 

“What do you mean?” Eric said. 

“In the empty bone marrow,” Clanker said. “I can store small amounts of blood for later use. I thought it prudent to keep some from the rabbit, knowing things would likely get dicey with you, Eric. Good thing I did, too.”

“Who wants to be the bait?” Eric asked. 

Clanker huffed. “I suppose I should be,” he said. “I can get it the closest to the falling stalactites to guarantee it gets skewered.”

That’s the moment the harpy bear decided to charge the party. Eric and Clanker dodged to the side as Sophia barely sidestepped its large head, grappling onto its long neck. After a small struggle, the harpy bear ripped free of her grasp and backed off again. Sophia had gotten a small scratch across her side from a stray claw but she had managed to get out her dagger and got a good stab in before the harpy bear pulled away. 

Sophia turned to Clanker and nodded. He huffed but moved to the center of the cave while Sophia and Eric slowly moved to the edges. 

“Oh here, birdy, birdy,” Clanker said, hand out as if he held a nice treat for the harpy bear. “Look at me, all bone and marrow for you to chew on.” As he said that, a small trickle of blood seeped out of his right wrist and up into his palm. 

The harpy bear sniffed the air, then moved forward, slowly this time. It had begun to spit and cough out black blood, the poison having spread. It didn’t appear to affect its movement, however. 

Just before the harpy bear began to lunge at Clanker, he muttered something under his breath and his palm glowed a vibrant red. He then raised his palm to the stalactites and said one word.

“Roar!” 

A shockwave of sound pounded into the hanging stone inverted towers, cracking them at their bases. A few began to fall, then almost all of them. They fell like falling stars, plummeting a good twenty feet. They had gained enough velocity that the larger ones fell with great momentum. 

The harpy bear had already left the ground in its lunge when Clanker let the spell lose. 

However, it pushed off the ground and flapped its massive wings once, barely able to extend fully inside the cave. It was enough to dodge most of the smaller falling missiles, but the larger ones fell fast and two took it straight in the neck, one between the bones that connected its wings to the shoulders. 

The harpy bear let out a loud, deafening screech. It hit the ground in a wave of dust and blood, still moving a bit.

The few stone missiles were not enough alone to have killed it, unfortunately. However, the poison that Sophia had inflicted did just enough to slow it so that it would eventually bleed out. 

“We should get out of here,” Sophia said. “Before it musters just enough strength to kill one of us.”

Eric and Clanker nodded, grabbed what few belongings they had, and then ran for the cave’s mouth. 

The party burst out of the cave in a huff, heaving heavy breaths. Even Clanker.

“Why…” Eric said between breaths. “Are you breathing heavy? You don’t have lungs.”

Clanker stood, then stopped his deep inhales.

“Habitual, I suspect,” he said. 

“Party experience received,” Rose said. “Overall strength has increased. You have also gained greater control of your passive in addition to Light Dominion.” Eric grunted in satisfaction.

“Shouldn’t we try and salvage something from the harpy bear?” Eric asked. 

“No,” Sophia said, still slightly out of breath. “My poison pretty much ruined anything we could get out of the beast. I have to be careful what I use my poison on, otherwise I might not get paid.”

“Makes sense,” Eric said.

“Trouble seems to follow you, Eric Otherworlder,” Sophia said. “Not sure what I’ve gotten myself into, but I kind of like it.” Her smile was a tad on the devious side, a bit of dark humor seeming to blend into the genuine smile. 

“Yes, it’s so exhilarating,” Eric said.

“On the bright side,” Clanker said. “If that was human blood instead of rabbit, the entire mountainside would have likely been torn away from the roar spell I used.”

“What are you?” Sophia asked, her breathing slowing considerably, as had the bleeding from the claw scratch.

Eric sat down on the ground, letting his body fully calm and rest for a moment. 

Don’t freak out, he thought. I have to keep it together. For you, Rose. I must find you, or I’ll go crazy.

“Often finding a greater purpose can give the lost a strong foundation to stand on,” Rose said. “Seeking out your Rose is admirable, but the day-to-day progress of said goal may not be enough motivation on days where there is no progress. Finding something that you can do to give you purpose enough to seek out your main goal may be necessary, much like you would fuel a car to reach your destination.”

Eric nodded slowly, unsure how to make that happen. 

Any suggestions? He thought. 

“I fear that this would be pointless unless you came up with it on your own,” Rose said. “An internal strength will outshine an external one.”

Eric got hung up on the word ‘outshine,’ taking his thoughts toward an idea that might help him do as Rose suggested. 

“Well,” Sophia said. “I guess we get moving, especially soon, because we do not want to get caught out here at night. The cave was bad enough, but a night under the stars out here could be deadly.”

“I second that,” Clanker said. 

Eric stood and dusted himself off. 

“What direction was the main road, again?” Eric asked. 

“East a bit,” Sophia said, then looked at the sun. “That way.” She pointed in the opposite direction of the cave’s entrance, directly parallel to the foot of the mountain and the ridge they were currently sitting on. 

Eric followed her pointing and saw out over the valley. He hadn’t noticed the beauty of the plain and landscape below the mountain. He could also see Golstadt below, nestled up near the mountain, with farms and sheep dotting the area outside the smaller town. The evergreens and foliage that hugged the snowcapped mountains reminded Eric of some European mountain range, rugged yet breathtaking. 

“Is something wrong,” Clanker said. 

“No…” Eric said. “Just…I see familiarity in this landscape. There are parts of my world that are beautiful like this.”

Sophia grunted in agreement.
“We should get going, storyteller,” she said. “There is very little between us and any protection that a city wall can provide for us.”

Eric nodded, then held his hand out in front of him. 

“Lead on, warrior princess,” he said. 

Sophia glared at him. “What does that mean?” 

Eric smiled. “I didn’t mean to insult. You just seem like…well never mind.” He again nodded forward. 

They moved down the mountain a bit before finding a more stable path to walk as they neared the main road between cities, the arteries of the wilds and city-states. 

***

The main road turned out to be fairly busy.

Carts moved past where the party had moved down the ridge and exited a grove of what looked like aspen trees to Eric. People seemed to travel more in caravans for safety, which one was passing at the moment they reached the main road. 

“We lucked out,” Sophia said. “I bet the safest place on this road would be with a caravan like that one. Though won’t be much faster than walking.”

Rose, Eric thought. Are there any faster methods of travel I could use? 

“If danger is a concern, no,” Rose said. “The only faster way would be by horseback or a similar method. However, it is unlikely that the party could acquire horses without significant financial expenditure in this instance.”

Eric nodded to himself. Then looked at Sophia. 

“We should probably stick with these caravaneers,” He said. 

Sophia nodded, then motioned them forward towards the front of the caravan. It wasn’t difficult to catch up to the front with large wagons pulled by a team of what looked like oxen. The beasts, however, had shorter horns, maybe a foot long, protruding from their skulls, not to mention that there was a third one coming out of the center of their forehead. 

Sophia waved to a man on horseback trailed by a few others both on horses and walking beside his mount. 

“Ho, caravaneer!” Sophia yelled to him. “Have room for a few weary hunters on our way to Bracharest?” 

“What coin have you?” The man said, eyes wary of them, especially when he caught a glance of Clanker.

“Enough,” Sophia said. “But I am sure you wouldn’t mind a few extra blades to protect your valuable cargo and other clients traveling as part of the caravan.”

“You would fight if needed?” The man said, eyebrows raising.

“If it means a free ride here and there,” Sophia said. “And strength in numbers.”

The man nodded, scratching at a thin beard that barely covered his chin. 

“Very well,” the man said. “I could use more help in the rear. I lost a man about two days back from a gryphix.”

“Nasty, those are,” Eric said. Sophia shot him a glance. 

“Didn’t catch your name, sir,” Sophia said. She held out a hand to him, which was a bit difficult at the pace the caravan kept.

He reached down to shake it anyway.

“Berald,” the man said. “Caravan escort is my business.” He nodded to the party and dismissed them to join the rear of the group.

Eric and the party stepped away, slowly moving down the caravan while also letting the rear catch up to them.

“Sorry about that,” Eric said. “I was just trying to feel like I fit in a bit.”

“That’s going to be difficult,” Sophia said, a smile on her face. “But I suppose I can’t fault you for it.”

I just want this to start going well for me, Eric thought. I want to find a purpose while I’m here.

They reached the end of the caravan and joined with another of the caravan’s soldiers, a hulking man with a pleasant smile. 

As they introduced themselves to the soldier, a crazed yell sounded far behind the caravan, like that of a man halfway between death and ecstasy. 

In a pillar of dust and wind, a creature fell from the sky and slammed into the ground, slowly standing from the impact. A set of wings tucked behind it as it stood on two legs. In fact, through the dust, Eric noticed that it appeared humanoid in shape. 

It was, however, far from human.