The frog looked down imperiously on the surge, trying to mimic the dark one’s countenance from its own hilltop - and with quite good results, frankly. Previously, it might have hunkered down in fear and hoped that the terrible struggle would be over soon.

  Not anymore. It was a new, stronger frog now!

  A headbutt from a passing goat knocked it off its pedestal and off the summit, sending its body tumbling down the slope, together with its pretenses at greatness.

  After carefully extricating itself from the heap of gravel it had ended up in, pulling some pointy stones from its flesh and spitting out a few more... the frog had to acknowledge it wasn't quite on the dark one's level yet.

  And maybe its safe, little, comfy cave was still the better spot for now. But only because this surge was truly intense! It wasn't just the amount of creatures anymore: there were many powerful outliers strong enough that it would do better to avoid them, even with its new skills. And in such great numbers they weren't exactly 'outliers' anymore.

  It couldn’t avoid a little tremble in its step.

  Down there was a death trap, and it had to choose this very moment to dive right into the fray. But trying during a downtime would be making itself an obvious target for the entire garrison and there really was no time to dawdle anymore, to see if the next surge would be any better - which it wouldn't.

  Admittedly, luck had truly been on its side, granting it such a long respite to grow stronger, refine its techniques and countless other diversions besides.

  But perhaps the frog had pushed it too hard. Because while it wasted time on dubious pursuits, the surges had steadily become worse and worse, with no sign of diminishing. Until this terrible, terrible state, which was still likely the best chance it would ever get.

  Getting past that angry throng would be a struggle and a half even if it had all the time in the world.

  Which it didn't. Not only for the guards with their inscrutable means and the knight with its unpredictable outings, but now that so many powerful creatures were rushing over, more and more of them seemed to snap out of the daze induced by the calling and realize there was a treasure right there for the taking.

  That turkey that had been digging inside the bison's flank without a care in the world, somehow without the guards or anything else noticing... It might just be the stress of the situation, but the frog couldn't remember ever wishing ill on a creature as much as to that one, in that moment. If it had been possible to attack from a distance... despite its fervent distaste for predators and those others that attacked unprovoked, it wasn't sure it could have kept itself.

  Luckily, the throwers on their outcroppings noticed eventually, and they could strike from afar. They'd skewered the hateful thing so badly there was no recognizable flesh there - which was unduly satisfying even now, thinking back to it. But that had been far too close.

  As for how the frog itself would avoid getting skewered once it got there, well...

  ...

  And then there were the tremors. It wasn't just hummings anymore, and it probably hadn't been for a long time. How could it have not realized sooner?

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  Everything was shaking for real now, and hard. The underground had become deadly even for one as dexterous as the frog, as it had discovered climbing back here. The hard way. It wouldn't be going down anytime soon after that scare.

  Rockslides and landslips were common now, tunnels were shifting and entirely new cracks were opening, even up there on the castle's hill. The guards were hard at work trying to fill them, but it was a pointless endeavor, their efforts coming undone at the same speed as they built them up. Thinking on it now, it must have been them that barred the tunnels back then, rendering the underground approach impossible...

  In any case, the great turkey scare had been the warning the frog had sorely needed: it had wasted enough time.

  Before any smarter creature got ideas, before the knight came out and rushed over, before the very ground opened up and made the bison disappear forever...

  That gem and those filaments had to be recovered. Now.

  Ducking, weaving, twisting out of the way of mean things that were too big and shoving back those that weren't, the frog was painstakingly making its way through. But things were getting out of hand faster than it could keep up: the closer it got to the castle, the harder it became to keep everything in check.

  This wasn't its first such struggle, of course. Many times, coming here with its friends, it had been completely surrounded, angry creatures all around. Or back during that surge, when it had first gained its moves.

  But this time there were no friends to watch its back, nor a mystical trance to guide it along. And the situation was shaping up to be worse than any of that regardless.

  Up till now it had only skirted the edges of this chaos. Now it had dived straight into it.

  ... Or so it thought, before it came to what was basically an impassable wall of writhing flesh, and realized that up until now it had still only been skirting the edges.

  Flesh, fur and scales squashed together under such pressure that smaller, weaker creatures were simply popping every now and then.

  A veritable wall of death.

  The frog wasn't that fragile of course, but judging by the width and the slope of the trail, they weren't even close to where the first line of guards should be. If things were already this dangerous here, what would it be nearer to the bison?

  ... But nevermind that! Now wasn't the time to doubt itself! It was time to put its moves to the test and push its way through: it would get the bison's gem whether these creatures cooperated or not.

  So it steeled its will and threw itself at the wall of flesh, trying to apply its moves as much as it could: to push, shove and generally force something in there to yield and allow it to get in.

  But it was a pointless endeavor, that ended very soon with a stray hoof knocking it off its feet and back outside.

  And truthfully, the frog couldn't even be angry about the treatment. Better than getting getting dragged in.

  It got up and laid against some huge boulder to think calmly, while dusting itself off.

  Getting hit and and pushed and crushed from all sides was not a good time. Even that minuscule stay had been more than enough.

  Some unknown creature tried to lunge from behind while it was thinking, and with a quick duck the frog happily tripped it into the wall of death, never to be seen again.

  Outrageous! Its moves hadn't worked at all! Worse, its instinct was clear that it had been no accident, but simply an incompatibility with the situation. Even such a powerful asset meant nothing if it couldn't be applied.

  But how could that be? The dark one had moved through a similar throng with ease, back then, under the frog's very own eyes! Even if that mysterious, inspiring creature was still much better, the difference shouldn't be so stark. Probably.

  Complaining aside, the reason was clear: its moves were good for finesse, and dexterously moving through a fight. They weren't any good in a contest of brute strength, like trying to shove that much stuff out of the way. Trying to force the issue would only end up like before.

  As for how had the dark one ignored this fact and walked through as if it were all empty space, that was just one of the many mysteries around the alluring creature. If only the frog had watched that! rather than focusing on the bison's fight, maybe it could...

  Its gaze was captured by something big coming along, and its thoughts trailed off. A creature quite bigger than the surrounding ones, approaching in that very moment. A sheep.

  Through sheer bulk and brute force, it would make its way through, regardless of what its neighbors thought. As things of that size were wont to do.

  Were they now...?