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  Princess Fluffy Mittens Scratchalot was actually having a great time!

  As the “Lioness Princess” of the only beastkin kingdom on the continent, she didn’t often get the chance to leave her kingdom’s territory. The first half of the trip had been more or less what she’d expected. A slow journey through the pass and into the most dangerous forest on the world. (Distant rumors say there might be an underground forest even more dangerous somewhere deep.)

  The battles had been quite thrilling at first, but one could only be excited for so long before frustration set in at not being allowed to actually fight the monsters.

  Her confidants and advisors always spouted the same things: you’re too important to risk, the whole point of us being here is to protect you, please just stay out of the way for once… actually she really needed to give that last one a stern talking to for his glib tongue.

  When she had chosen who to take on this expedition, she had purposefully chosen the more “free thinking” individuals expressly so she wouldn’t have this problem, what could have gone wrong?!

  Probably her father, the wolf-kin king. For all of his sternness and regal bearing, even she herself had to admit that he tried to spoil her too often.

  He once executed a poison taster for “sampling too much of her birthday cake.” It was her birthday and he was just doing his job for goodness sake! She had actually rather liked that guy.

  Anyway, while they were scouting out the deeper forest area one of her scouts happened upon a curious scene! Not only had they found their target, an interestingly long lindworm of some kind, but it was completely unconscious, lying near a giant gryphon corpse!

  The find and capture was so easy that everyone involved suspected it was a trap the whole time! Then they got the system emergency mission notice, as well as its apparent completion almost directly after. They must have barely gotten into range right at the end of the quest, something that happened infrequently in the adventuring business. At least, that’s what her advisors told her.

  The lindworm hatchling had awoken on the second day of heading back and it had spoken to her! None of the dragons they used for war or labor in her kingdom could speak as far as she knew! She was elated to learn something new! Though, its voice was…

  The princess couldn’t help but wonder if dragons could get sick, because this dragon sounded like it was halfway in the grave. Its words were quite raspy, but also rather nasal? It could also simply be that the thing was still too young and its voice would grow with it. She simply had no way of knowing.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Their expedition’s dragon expert had died to a pack of termutts. Creepy bug dog things with patchy fur, a big bug head, and a habit of killing things by infection from all the plant detritus the monsters’ diet mostly consisted of. He had died two days after the actual attack when he came down with petroemia. A nasty sickness that quickly petrifies its host's blood, solidifying them from the inside out like some kind of reverse-petrification spell.

  Still, he had been one of only three deaths! That would be a new record for an expedition if they could all just make it back now!

  Which is, of course, exactly when the rocks fell from somewhere high up on the ravine’s sides. Two knights hadn’t been able to move fast enough and had been crushed instantly as the boulders, some as large as the heavily armored carriage they had to hatchling in, smashed into the bottom of the ravine in quick yet earthquake-inducing secession.

  With her adrenaline pumping more heavily through her than ever before, she did the first thing that came to mind and dullied out orders, needing to lean rather heavily on her leadership training as she did her best to make sure her people were prepared for whatever this might be.

  She soon realized what must have happened when she noticed glittering dust slowly falling in their direction.

  “Fey attack!” She shouted warningly to her compatriots. Those darn elves and their trickster allies would pay for this!

  “Pixie dust!” Someone else warned.

  “Don’t breathe it in!” Another shouted the obvious.

  Pixie dust can have a variety of effects on those who happen to inhale it. A heavily psychedelic effect being the most well known. Her kingdom was constantly digging out smuggling operations that trafficked the stuff as it was also known to be rather addictive.

  Using her garment’s elbow as a makeshift mask, she yelled out orders.

  “Mages! Hurry up and blow this dust away already!”

  “We’re trying Princess!” replied the lead wizard. “But with the ravines' natural geology we don’t really have much wind mana to work with!”

  The Princess’s guardian knight and steed lifted his shield just in time to deflect an arrow! *Kaink!*

  “Archer from above!” The centaur shouted out in warning, “Princess, we need to keep going and get out of this ravine as quickly as possible!”

  There was a cry of pain as one of the mages was struck in the shoulder with an arrow. It was all happening too suddenly and too fast for Princess Fluffy.

  “Y-yes Quincy, you are quite right,” She agreed with her centaur knight/steed.

  “FORWARD!” Quincy bellowed authoritatively, “Focus on protecting one another! The armored carriage can take a beating, so try to use it as cover if you can! NOW GO!”

  And with that they were all racing through the ravine. High up on the sides of the ravine, Princess Fluffy could barely make out the figure of elves peeking over the sides of their ledges to take disturbingly accurate pot-shots at her expeditionary force as they moved past as fast as they could. Three more of her kin were downed by the rain of arrows before they saw the opening that signified the exit out of this death trap. She let out a growl of anger when she saw that the Fey had made a barricade in an attempt to close off the exit.

  Thankfully, her scouts, though obviously greatly diminished, were already halfway through taking it down. The quickly grown brambles were thankfully not very effective against the burly badger beastkin she’d happened to have recruited.

  “Make way!” She shouted to the scouts in warning. “Everyone, behind the armored carriage, we’re smashing straight through!” She silently apologized to the hatchling likely being thrown about within said carriage.

  With a mighty crash and a sound similar to cannon fire, the way was cleared all at once as the block of metal on wheels absolutely decimated the barricade made of wood, likely as hard as lesser metal!

  And just like that, they were through! They didn’t even slow down yet, though. They moved fast and hard along the base of the mountains until they were safely out of the territorial greyzone that most ways into the inner continent consisted of.

  ~~~