In The Mountains

Character: Evan Avis
Town: Kobekan
Stage: 3- Mount Challenge
Challenge: 3, B

You feel stronger, the trials of your strange new environment are being to wane. You find yourself able to run, leap, jump, and fly father and faster then when you first arrived. Do you explore with your new found mobility? What do you find?

Many brave men have faced the dangerous peaks of Kobaken Mountain, and many more took their last breath on its unforgiving slopes.  To climb those mountains was a dangerous dance with death that only the seasoned of climbers ever returned.  They came from all over Hetherev at their chance of glory, of fame, of scaling the cliffs and perhaps nabbing a few priceless artifacts from the secretive monks that called those mountains home.

One such explorer was a young man named Barabim, a bright-eyed adventurer with an insatiable thirst for adrenaline, and he saw to get his fix in these infamous peaks.  He ventured out with a group of ten, promising to return in a week.

A week passed, then two, then three.  The explorers never made it back to the tiny town at the foot of the mountains, and were pronounced dead.  "Such a shame" the villagers said, but it was far too frequent an occurrence for true grief.

But then, two days later, Barabim, covered in frost and clothed in the tattered remains of his hiking clothes, burst into the tavern.  The place went into a frenzy!  He was alive!  The bartender gave him a pint of the strongest ale he had, and the villagers gathered around to hear his tale.  One man, though, stood off to the side.  He was clad in the tell-tale orange robes of the monks, though looked nothing like them with his pale skin and mousy-brown hair.  But it was clear the mysterious man was listening with bated breath, just like the rest of the villagers.

"We were hit by a blizzard," Barabim began, taking a sip of his drink. "I couldn't see my hand even if I pressed it against my face.  I got separated . . . I tried hunkering down, tried to seek shelter, but I knew I was out in the open.  Damn storm swooped down on us like a great blue icy dragon.  I knew I was done for.  So I kept crawling in some vain hope I'd find a cave, or something."

Another sip. 

"I was crawling, the storm seemed to lessen, I could now see my hands but barely anything else.  And then . . . then I saw something approach me!  A great shape getting larger and larger.  It walked upright, like a man, but its shape was all wrong.  Didn't look like nothing I have ever seen.  And it was carrying a light, and the glow . . . well, when I saw that light something in my mind knew that I was saved. ="

The monk smiled to himself.

"It walked right up to me and the first thing I noticed was it had wings--massive wings, so big it blocked the wind, but I still couldn't really make out what it was.  The creature then took me in its arms and flew me . . . . ah, somewhere.  Can't remmeber what happened next.  I just remember waking up right outside of town not an hour ago."

"It were an angel, I say!" a villager interjected.  The other villagers muttered in agreement, nodding their heads.  Barabim, however, frowned, deep in thought, then shook his head.

"Nah, it weren't no angel . . . kinda looked like a giant brown chicken--"

"A CHICKEN?!"

Barabim jumped and turned around.  There was the monk, looking utterly infuriated, but at the same time, seemed to be quite embarrassed.  All eyes were on the strange man, and all the monk could do was stand there, his cheeks growing hot from embarrassment. The monk muttered a hurried apology, gathered his things, and swiftly exited the tavern.

"Giant brown chicken, of all the things that ungrateful little turd could say," Evan fumed under his breath.  He started to glow rather strangely, and he transformed into a large bird-like creature.  A garuda.

"Honestly, do I LOOK like a chicken?!"
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Evan saves a mountaineer from certain death.  Doesn't get the thanks he was quite looking for.

See the drawing come to life here! ichikowindgryphon.deviantart.c…