Chapter 65

“Wha-what do you want Red for?”

Rain didn’t answer, his luminous eyes dancing about the room, looking for the little Kobold. He couldn’t eat Lyra or Opal, Lyra because he promised to protect her, and Opal because it was Opal, but Red? He was desperate and irrational enough that the little lizard guy was in an extreme amount of danger.

A flash of red caught his eye and he looked back to Lyra. A scaly red muzzle was at her hip and it vanished into a bag at her side as he turned. What in the hell was that? Was he now so hungry that he was hallucinating things? This was bad, really bad, he needed to find something or he was actually going to go fucking insane from hunger.

“D-do you want to e-eat him!?” Squeaked Lyra. Her knees were trembling like leaves and she kept glancing nervously at the bag on her hip.

Rain narrowed his eyes and took another step toward her, the sheep girl nearly fell over as the colour drained from her face.

“Wait! Wait! Th-there has to be another way!”

Rain shook his head and advanced on her. “tEll mE wHere,” he snarled.

“Y-you need food right! Well what about the forest! There has to be some animals! Something to hunt!”

Rain raised a shaking paw and curled it into a fist, his claws digging so hard into his paw pads that it drew blood, running down his arm in streams. He stared at it, wondering if he was going to start eating himself at this rate. The forest wouldn’t work, they’d walked through it for a day and seen nothing that would sate him, he couldn’t wander around the woods hoping to find something, he needed something now.

“NoThing in foRest. THERES NOTHING!” he roared.

Lyra flinched back in fear.

“What about the town?” piped up Opal, “There’s loads of people to eat in town!” she noticed Lyra turning to look at her with a horrified expression. “Fiiine, or pigs and sheep and horses, I saw lots of those in the leveler market thingy, pens full of them!”

Rain turned on the Goblin who looked up at him boldly, practically daring him to eat her.

After a moment he managed to jerkily nod his head. That was true, the town was filled with delicious food, so much food, enough to put out the fire.

“B-but we can’t get in, the barrier Opal, he can’t get inside!”

Rain shook his head. “I broke it.”

Lyra blinked, then a sudden flash of understanding. “The rune on the wall? You broke it on purpose! You knew! Yes, this can work, and with my ability it might not even be a complete disaster, just a quick run inside, grab some cattle from the market to fill you up and then we jump back outside and everything will be fine! Completely and totally fine!” said Lyra, her voice becoming a touch hysterical.

The sheep girl seized on the plan, a plan was reliable, safe, a way out, much better than being trapped in a room with a giant hungry wolf monster looking at you like you were dinner. Things would go smoothly and it would be like they had never been there, just some random market cattle disappearing in the night, the town would assume it was regular normal cattle thieves right? right?

Rain turned and looked toward the town and took a step toward the door. Lyra realised that he was about to leave without them.

“W-wait! You need to use my invisibility or you’ll be seen!”

Rain took another step, ignoring her, he was too far gone to care about being seen. Not good.

Lyra not knowing what else to do grabbed hold of Opal and leapt toward Rain’s back, activating her climbing Skill in the same moment, the one for saving people from ravines and cliffs. Her hands reached out knowingly and perfectly grabbed hold of his fur for maximum leverage, adrenaline overriding her fear of him, or perhaps she had just gotten more used to him. She quickly scaled the wolf monster with Opal in arm and wrapped her arm around his neck, holding on tight, her free arm holding Opal at her side, both girls atop his back.

“Okay, we’re readeeeeeeeiiiEEEEE!!”

Rain moved.

The floor cratered beneath his feet and his explosive acceleration took him across the room in an instant. Lyra cried out as they headed toward the too small door, they were never going to fit! Of course, she needn’t have worried, Rain went straight through the wall.

Lyra coughed and sputtered as a cloud of plaster dust enveloped her head and bits of wood smacked off her skin. It was a good thing she could lean on her Skill to remain attached to Rain’s back, she doubted she would have stayed atop him otherwise. The room they had emerged into flashed by and Rain threw his paw wide smashing through another wall, not even slowing his pace.

That was one way to get out of the maze-like mansion quickly, make a straight line through it.

Five rooms, six rooms, then a hallway which Rain bounded down, then through another wall, and then they were in the lobby and headed toward the front doors, Rain was nearly running on all fours by this point, like an animal, it made it easier for Lyra and opal to hang on, but it also allowed Rain to run even faster.

They barreled through the front doors of the mansion, blasting the doors off their hinges to go tumbling across the front carriage drive as he ran across the lawns and forested gardens toward the front gate. Rain didn’t hesitate, powering down his legs as one he leapt into the air, sending his entire mass sailing upward as Lyra let out a scream of terror on his back, along with a cry of excitement from Opal. He thudded back down o nthe other side, his feet just missing the top of the gate, and slipped back into a bounding sprint.

The forest rushed past in a dark shadowy blur, the night sky above providing scarce illumination through the treetops. Lyra had a difficult time of it, small branches kept whipping against her head and she had to duck down with Opal to avoid getting swept off by the larger ones. She spat out a leaf that had somehow found its way into her mouth as they burst free from the tree line, Lynthia’s huge heavy stone outer walls shining under the many coloured moon above.