This isn't a mountain

The first petals of snow were gently falling down the sky, painfully reminding them all about the time they had already spent in this world. Warm breaths turned to white vapor in the cold air of the Halfdvar Highlands, a wilderness in the northeastern Upperland. Few humans lived here, and they were far between. As it was the case from the dawn of civilization, the mountains and the hills were a refuge to outcasts, criminals, or just those who lived in peace but did not conform to the rules of lowland societies, or of their princelings and self-proclaimed monarchs. It was a harsh land, uninviting to farmers but gracious to herders and nomads.

It was also a great hunting ground for Players.

The hunting expeditions from Upperland were different from those of Rockbase. Where Rockbase people knew of dungeons, either simple five-man delves or more challenging gauntlets for twenty to fourty, and then formed expeditions specifically for that purpose, the Upperland enclave went on patrols and fought whatever they found - and sometimes, a something found them. It was not what a video game had trained them to work with, but it was exciting. It kept them on their toes, always thinking, never assuming. They were becoming adaptable.

The Outpedestrians were a Clan formerly known as Outriders, but in the current situation there was nothing to ride on, so they adapted their name.

The morale was high. They had a good haul from their current patrol and were on the forty-nine-kilometer trek home, having lost only thirteen of the thirty-six members. Those who fell to the treant-like Spirit of the Woods - a terrifying foe to meet at night - were already respawned back home, and they would be relentlessly mocked by those who survived, once they returned. Such was the group’s rule, an incentive to not fail and a reward for not doing it.

They looked forward to reaching Narvelund, near the main city of Highmesa. There was a natural hotspring there, a frequent stop for parties that ventured east. The place was quickly becoming a second base of the Players of Upperland, further supported by all kinds of merchants looking to buy the rare goods that only Players could obtain - exotic hides and furs, metal ingots, venom sacs, gems, weapons. There was a time when the more economy-oriented people were worried about inflation that their activity could cause. That did not come to pass, but some costs of living for common people certainly went up.

The surviving twenty-three were led by Mameluk, a Wych of renown, who had been at best a fourth most important person in the Clan before their exile to this world. The three above him were not in this world with them, so the helm fell to him and he accepted. The raid group walked in a single file retracing the path they had taken six days before. They were alert and carried their weapons where they could reach them at a moment’s notice. The Highlands taught them that quickly.

From the side came Lemonboot, a spear-Hunter who had been scouting forward for the group. He went straight for Mameluk and stopped him.

‘You need to see this,’ Lemonboot said and pointed over his shoulder to a ridge he came down from, through the ferns and pine trees. He looked shaken but unhurried, so apparently whatever it was, was not a huge beast coming their way.

‘Haha, what a cliche,’ said Mameluk, but followed his scout without question. They had known each other for seven years, and the trust between them was such that he needed not to question him. He gestured for everyone else to follow uphill. If there was something interesting up there, everyone should see it to make better decisions if something happened to him.

‘Look there,’ Lemonboot pointed his arm far north, where none of them had gone before, and held it up long enough for everyone to see the direction. ‘In the distance, just below the horizon. There’s a stretch of moss and grass, with patches of gray, without trees.’

Mameluk followed the instructions and scanned the late-autumn landscape in the distance, and did not see anything.

‘What are we supposed to see?’ asked Mahang at his side, squinting her eyes.

‘I was going to ask that,’ Mameluk said.

‘Pay attention. Look at one spot, try not to blink if you can.’

They looked, and looked, and eventually noticed. The terrain in the area that Lemonboot had indicated was… moving? There was a very slow, almost imperceptible, rise and fall, on a frequency of a minute or so.

‘What is that?’ asked Mameluk. ‘Is that ground… breathing?’

‘It’s huge,’ observed Kaiji, their Bard. ‘See where it ends over there? That thing is a small mountain.’

Lemonboot picked up a stick and drew a shape in the dirt.

‘See this? Now look there on the far right, low, find this shape. Follow the ridge line right. See how smoothly it curves towards us and then goes left again, and how regular the vertical outcrops are? This isn’t a ridge. This isn’t terrain. This is a tail.’

‘Holy crap,’ whispered Kaiji. ‘Then, if that is a tail…’

‘...over there, to the left, this must be its hind leg…’

‘...its torso, and a wing… it looks punctured?’

‘...behind it must be its head, but it’s facing away from us, over in that direction!’

‘Just that wing must be, like, a hundred and twenty metres long. We can’t even see the entire thing from here.’

‘Yeah,’ concluded Lemonboot. ‘That’s a damn huge-ass dragon of all dragons.’

Twenty-three faces stared, incredulous.

‘We’re going to need reinforcements for this,’ said Mameluk. ‘A ton of them.’

—

This was sooner than Cobbalt expected, but he did not mind. When Hemmson, the unofficial leader of those unruly and untrusting Players of Upperland who recognized his authority (or any authority at all), had come to him with a mission Cobbalt happened to actually be in the boat, although pulled out to dry land where he and his carpenter friend Cheesus were repairing it after the last voyage to and from Sorostade, improving it, and copying it.

They felt in their bones that there would be those who wished to travel southwest, to Sorostade. Not everyone enjoyed the free-spirited life in Highmesa. Some wanted structure. Solutions. Hope. They heard Cobbalt’s tale about that place to the southwest, where they actually worked together. But it was far. Really far.

Hemmson had come to Cobbalt over ten days before. This time the route west took him longer than previously, even though he already knew where to go, and it was not due to his skill or effort. The sea is its own master, he knew. The winds and the tides care nothing for your needs and wants.

But he did make it, in the end, and found it pleasantly warm compared to the continent to the east. His boots once again thudded on the decks of Sorostade’s riverside quay. He moored his boat securely, retrieved his kitbag, paid the mooring fee at the harbourmaster’s office, and wondered what his next step should be.

Grace be unto you, Blessed Champion, said the harbormaster to him for a goodbye, an unexpectedly religious phrase as far as Cobbalt was concerned. Technically I am a Monk, but does he take me for some kind of actual cleric? He did not remember being addressed like that before.

Hemmson told him to ask the Administration of Rockbase if they wanted a challenge and come meet them. But the feudal lord of Highmesa - Cobbalt could not bother to remember the man’s strange title - also had a missive for the king of Sorostade, much like the first one he had received from Tepper. It was a power-measuring contest, an exchange of pleasantries masking a probe into each other’s intentions and capabilities. There would come a time when Cobbalt would be perceived by both power centers as a threat because of his unique position between them. Hopefully, before long, someone else would be facilitating the talk between them, or they could just do it themselves. There was nothing they could do to him if he refused to work with them, anyway.

He had actually lied to himself. He did not wonder what his next step should be, for he knew exactly what it should be. He had been thinking about it every day of the voyage over the waves. Pen-pushers and dragon-pushers can go to hell, he had something more important to do.

Eastend street. Torvis’ flower shop, the one where the girl named Marie worked. A bouquet of Prasteria, if they’re still in season. Then onwards to Rockbase.

As he made his way there, he wondered about the odd tension between townsfolk. He noticed some old man pointing to Cob in anger, and another woman telling the old man off.

Stranger still were the few places that looked as if a bomb had been dropped on them and the blood incompletely washed away near them.