-Lost-
Somehow, I am certain the person clinging onto my back is Fen. Yet, she should be a wolf. Since when could she transform into a human? Was it a new technique, like when she first began to use the ice attacks? Or has she always been able to?
Images of what the wolf look like in human form are flickering through my mind, trying to match up what little I could feel against my body to an image.
‘No. I should not think those things!’
Slamming my eyes shut I force all unnecessary thoughts out of my mind.
“You may not want to help Verde, Fen, but I do. We can’t just leave her there.”
“Yes… You can. Just pretend… She doesn’t exist.” Her icy voice sends shivers through my entire body with each word, but it isn’t exactly an unpleasant feeling.
“She is there because of me. Being responsible, I could not do that.”
“… Only… If you buy me clothes…”
A short silence passes over, neither one of us knowing exactly what to say next. I break the silence first by agreeing to buy her something to wear.
The embrace disappears from around me and when I turn around, she has already transformed back into a wolf.
Opening my inventory I go to get the scroll of shrinking, but, even after three full searches it was not there. I shake my head from side to side, refusing to admit that I have run out of the scrolls.
“Umm. Fen,” Looking up at the wolf as I speak, “it appears I may have, just potentially, run out of shrinking scrolls.” I try to play it off with a laugh but the sound that comes out is too dry to be called that.
The wolf gives me a furious look, stepping away from the passage entrance while reliving bad memories.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen! Honestly!” Raising my hands above my head, pleading innocent to the wolf, “And I’m not going to drag you through a tunnel again. You know, last time wasn’t pleasant for me either.”
I can’t help but say those last words with a considerable amount of bitterness.
“These paths are a great deal larger than the tunnels near where you were, so you should be able to walk down them easily enough.”
The only problem is going up floors. With her massive body she will not be able to climb the narrow ramps around the edges of the seemingly bottomless pits.
She begrudgingly follows behind me as we leave the area to go rescue Verde on the second floor. I was correct in saying the pathways were indeed larger. Fen can comfortably walk down them standing upright and there is a reasonable amount of room on either side of her. But, she would not be able to do any evasive manoeuvres if we were attacked.
I consider how odd it is that we fought the boss after collecting the dungeon loot. Normally it would be the other way around, you fight the boss, and then you gain the rewards after.
It was a nice trap to have the boss sneak up behind the player who was all excited about the chest, but it was just too different to any role playing game I have ever played before.
Lost in thought, we arrive at the ramp to climb to the second floor. Fen nervously shifts her gaze between the ramp and me, suspecting I may trick her again.
“Fen, I need you to do something for me,” the wolf takes a few steps back, a few ice bolts forming in the air, “Calm down! It’s not something like that! All I need you to do is transform into a person while we go up, then you can turn back into a wolf.”
The ice bolts shrink in size, but they did not completely disappear. They whittle down till they are about the thickness of a finger, before being launched at my eyes.
“Hey! Cut it out! I won’t look. You can just walk behind me!”
Dodging the attack, I turn around and stand at the base of the ramp, facing the other way. Before long, faint footsteps walk up behind me, stopping directly behind me.
“You… Peek, and I will… Your eyes…” It was menacing, yet I could feel the nervousness in her icy voice.
“You’ve already tried that. It failed.” I retorted a little more sarcastically than I planned to, but there was no changing it now.
A pair of arms sneak under mine, raising them up over my head as I am placed into a choke hold. Two small ice bolts with dagger tips form in the air, a hairs width away from my eyes.
“I will… Your eyes…” She repeats the words, this time having a slightly greater effect on me.
“Okay, okay. No peeking!” I wasn’t going to anyway, but the cold beads of sweat on my forehead tell me I have to make it perfectly clear to this wolf.
Fortunately, the arms release me and the ice bolts dissolve into dust in response to my words.
Two nervous hands grip onto the back of my cloak as I start walking along the wall. Slowly getting higher, we climb up the pit hole to the second floor.
Once we get to the top Fen let’s go of my cloak and whispers, “Sorry… For not showing you… Before…”
I turn around surprised, but she has already turned back into a wolf nearly three meters tall.