“What the hell?” Katarina asked, sitting up and scratching her head, looking around. I sat up as well, and we both moved to look out the front of the cart. The first rays of pre-dawn light cast the world in a faint glow. We had moved higher into the mountains. The road ended in a cliff about ten feet to our left, falling away beyond sight. Other distant peaks dotted the horizon around us. The mountain rose, a steep incline of rock, to the right of the road.

  The donkeys were stomping and hee-hawing, screaming as if facing down a demon. Abernathy was waving his hands, yelling at something. I looked around. The road continued around the mountain, curving out of sight to the right. I didn’t see anything but the road, the mountain, and the drop.

  “What in the hells are you waving at?” Katarina asked.

  “That creature in the road!” Abernathy said. He sounded... drunk? “Don’t you see it, standing right there? Scaring the donkeys? Damned game, why would they put a weird porcupine-sloth up in the mountains?”

  “Uh, Abe, there is nothing there.” I said.

  “What are you on about? It’s right there. I can see it. The donkeys can see it. Why would we… oh.” He swayed on the bench.

  “Oh, I see. Shared hallucinations. That was not in my calculations. Damn and —” he broke off to yawn. “Damn.”

  The donkeys continued braying for a few seconds, then stomped their feet a few times and calmed. Their heads drooped. Abernathy guided them up against the side of the mountain. “Well I guess this is as good a spot as any. Need to write it down before I forget.”

  He pulled out a notebook and becan scrawling notes, mutterine to himself. He fell asleep with the notebook in hand, half a note scribbled. I looked over his shoulder and read: ‘Side effects include shared hallucinations and exhaustion after four hou —’. He had begun writing an ‘r’, but he fell asleep mid stroke and it became a line that led off the page.

  “What just happened?” Katarina asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

  “I think Abe and —” Both donkeys began snoring, sleeping where they stood. “Yeah, and both the donkeys just discovered a few side-effects with the alchemical concoction Abernathy cooked up to stave off sleep.”

  “That… that doesn’t seem very helpful. I mean couldn’t he have just stayed up until dawn and passed out if he needed to? Without seeing — what did he call it? A porcupine-sloth?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t know how any of that works, maybe he can refine it somehow.”

  I pulled up my map, thankful for the feature that filled it in as long as someone in your party was aware of the progress made. We were still early in the pass, truly into the mountains. I looked around. The mountains ahead continued climbing higher, progressively higher into heights that felt impossible.

  “Mind taking a look around, see if you can see anything nearby we should be concerned about?” I asked, pulling a dead chicken out of my inventory. Encore stretched, growing all nine tails and both sets of wings as he did so. He snatched up the chicken.

  “Of course, right after breakfast.” He spoke through a mouthful of chicken, hopping from the cart and soaring down to the road.

  I followed the kitsiho out of the cart, looking around. Now that the cart was pressed up against the side of the mountain, there was about twenty feet between us and the sheer drop. Katarina hopped down beside me and proceeded to calmly stroll right up to the edge of the cliff.

  My breath caught as my heart leapt into my throat. “Be careful!” My voice rose a few octaves from the panic.

  Katarina whistled. “That is a loooong drop down.” She bent at the waist, looking over the edge, and my heart stopped. I gasped, and she stood, turning and smiling at me.

  “What? Afraid of heights?”

  “Not really. I didn’t think I was at least, but that is so far down. You’re so close to the edge. What if you fell?”

  “What, you mean like this? She jumped in the air, doing a back flip off the side of the cliff. My stomach twisted in a knot and I called out, taking a few steps forward. She stopped herself, launching herself off a platform of solidified air into a front flip and returning to nearly the same spot she had jumped from.

  I staggered forward another step and fell backward on my rear, panting. “Oh right, you can double jump,” I said.

  “That’s one way to put it,” she replied, “never really thought about it as a double-jump, but it makes sense. And in case you forgot, if we do fall, you can come save me.” She looked at me, a dangerous gleam in her eyes. “Did you forget about that?”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  I laughed. “How could I forget? Best five seconds of your life, I didn’t forget.” I took in a few deep breaths.

  “Good, better not.” She sternly replied.

  “Still, that skill has an eleven hour cooldown. I would prefer to save it for emergencies. Not… mountain-top gymnastics.”

  “You’re right, I just couldn’t help it. Your face! You should have seen your face! It was green!”

  “Yeah, I still feel like throwing up a little. That wasn’t nice.”

  “Aw, I’m sorry, lute-boy. How about I make us breakfast to make up for it?”

  I laughed. “I appreciate the sentiment, but…”

  She eyed me, daring me to continue. “I… think I will make breakfast, if you don’t mind.”

  “Potatoes are hard to cook, okay?”

  I nodded my head. “Right.”

  “And salt is a lot stronger in Veil!”

  “I don’t know about that one, Kat. I think they did a good job on the salt. Maybe you just put a little bit too much in the soup. And that grass?”

  “I thought it was wild onion!”

  “Did you inspect it?”

  “It looked like wild onion!”

  I repeated the question.

  “You know I did… after we realized it was…”

  “Bitterblade grass.” I finished for her.

  “Okay fine, you can work on breakfast. I’ll try to start a fire. Going to be hard in this wind. Maybe Abernathy can make a stove or something.”

  Katarina spent the next half hour fighting the winds. I tried helping, to no avail. Eventually we decided to just eat some of the warm food stored in our inventory, though that was running out quickly. Everything we had grabbed on our way out of the city was either cold or raw, which made up the bulk of our supplies.

  Encore scouted the area after eating the chicken, one of his favorite foods. I had added dozens to my inventory upon learning this. They had not been immune to the red mist and we stumbled upon a hatchery near the docks that had supplied me with plenty of bodies to store. He didn’t see any immediate threats.

  “I’m going to practice transforming a bit,” I said. “From within the cart, just in case someone happens upon us. Can you keep an eye out?”

  “Aww, I don’t get to watch?” She sighed. “Yeah, I guess.”

  I spent the next few hours switching between forms, getting my Transform skill up to 25/50. It was tiring, but I sprinkled in bits of Radiant Winds to restore my energy levels when needed, also leveling up my Stringed Instrument Mastery to 8/100.

  Encore watched me for a while, joining in on the transformations for a bit, practicing forming the subwoofers on different parts of his body. He was able to produce the best resonance from the areas around his shoulder blades.

  I shifted between races of similar build to avoid needing to remove any articles of clothing and prevent an unnecessary drain on my mana. Katarina peeked in the wagon a few times, a mischievous smile on her lips.

  Encore was out scouting again as the sun began approaching its zenith. Abernathy stirred for the first time in hours, groaning. One of the donkey’s ears twitched.

  “Finally done sleeping off your speed?” Katarina laughed. She was leaning against the back of the cart.

  “It’s not speed,” Abernathy groaned. “Ugh. Feels like I got hit by a bus.”

  “Hmm, sounds suspiciously like coming down from a drug.” Katarina quipped.

  “Lotta experience with that, yeah?” Abernathy groaned in reply, sitting up.

  “Well… no. But that’s not as funny.”

  Abernathy groaned in response.

  Encore: Someone approaches. She was not on the road when I first circled the area, but is now walking towards the carts. She will round the bend soon.

  Encore drifted from above, landing on my shoulder as I stepped down from the bench in front of the cart. Katarina and Abernathy walked around the back of the cart and the three of us watched as a tall, beautiful woman turned the curve ahead, walking towards us with lithe, graceful steps. She walked on wooden shoes with two vertical planks protruding from the bottom and wore an elegantly embroidered silk robe. Her straight black hair was tied up and bound by a narrow spike of jade. An instrument was strung across her back that closely resembled a lute, but it was slightly larger and had more narrow features. Some kind of hand-sized pick was wedged into the fret.

  “Greetings!” She called as she approached. Her eyes were on Encore.

  “Hello,” he replied, leaping from my shoulder and walking up to her, growing into his normal size. He sniffed at the air.

  “It has been many, many years since one of the blood has ventured through this pass. I have come to extend an invitation, for you as well as your companions, to my home. It is nearby.”

  “I saw no such place on my flight,” Encore replied.

  “Naturally, but I saw you. Tis’ the reason for my invitation. I am sure that I am not alone in this, and I think it best you come with me.”

  Chanter: Do you know her?

  Encore: No, but she smells familiar. I think her to be a distant relative. I think she can be trusted. It is a feeling from deep within.

  Chanter: I trust your gut.

  Katarina: I don’t know about that. Didn’t your gut tell you to trust Chanter?

  Katarina: I’m joking, don’t look at me like that!

  Chanter: I wonder if she is a bard. See that lute on her back?

  Katarina: That isn’t a lute. It’s Japanese. At least, outside of Veil it is. We visited my mom’s family once and I recognize it. It’s a biwa, that thing stuck in the neck is a bachi. They were used as part of story-telling in Japan, I wonder if its the same here.

  Chanter: I guess we’re about to find out.

  “It would be our pleasure to accompany you,” I said. She looked from Encore to me, her eyes moving down to my hands, to the lute at my back, then to my eyes. She smiled and my heart rate accelerated. Katarina shifted next to me.

  “Lovely. Please, follow me. My home is near. It is safe, protected.” She turned, and spoke over her shoulder as she began walking back around the bend. “Bring your beasts of burden and cart, there is plenty of room for everything.”

  Brandon's Shameless Self-Promotion! :) You can read 20 Chapters ahead on my ! Check it Out! Proceeds go towards my writing (hoping to get an audio book made of Book 1 here in the near future!)