The gryphon flapped its wings and Melia’s heart beat rapidly in her chest. A great big, silly smile spread across her face and she couldn’t help the squeal of laughter that spilled from her mouth.

  “Weeeee hehehehe!”

  She raised her hands up like a child taking their first ride on a roller coaster, waiting to climb that first hill before the inevitable plunge. She felt a pair of arms cling tightly to her waist, much like a safety bar coming down, though unlike a rickety old ride at an amusement park, Melia doubted she could fall off even if she wanted to.

  Besides all of the straps and belts the [Flight Master] had checked and rechecked, keeping them all in place, the gryphon itself seemed to be trained in safety, too. Melia felt it cast a spell from a branch of magic she was entirely unfamiliar with, but was pleased to discover was organically part of the animal’s nature. Its purpose was to keep a rider on the gryphon’s back, and Melia supposed a creature like this needed magic to survive anyway, so why shouldn’t it have something to assist it become a better mount?

  Much like herself, she wondered. Perhaps there was something inherently built into magical creatures large enough to carry others that kept said others from falling to their doom when in the air.

  The gryphon took two short steps forward, crouched low, and sprang into the air with the force of a rocket. Melia’s eyes watered, her chest felt tight as air was pressed from her lungs, and it felt like a pair of mighty hands was pushing down on every inch of her body, trying to keep her on the ground. She heard the others' surprised voices through her earpiece, and Ellesea doing her best to calm an agitated catgirl behind her. It seemed like Melia was not the only person taking their first ride on a gryphon.

  ?

  Melia watched the tall, imposing buildings of Lakeridge shrink beneath them as they circled higher, and soon the town looked like a delicate diorama sitting atop a glass table. The rush of adrenaline had steadied along with their ascent, and now that she didn’t have the force of gravity pressing all around her, eating all her attention, Melia relaxed. She could feel the mighty beast below her practically quivering with power; its steady, rhythmic breathing and the constant beating of its wings. They did not hover in the air, perfectly still and stuck in place like a character in a game that had simply levitated up, and Melia could feel the push of power and thrum of magic constantly fighting to keep them aloft. But judging from the giddy, almost excited feeling of joy radiating from their mount, the gryphon really could do this all day.

  At first, Melia was curious about how a flying mount might work in real life. Not the scientific necessities required to facilitate natural flight, but the logistics of one person paying another person to take them from one place to another.

  In the game, a single player would march up to a [Flight Master] npc, pay a fee, and instantly get spirited away toward their destination. They’d be stuck on an uncontrollable, pre-guided ride on rails that would not stop or be deterred until it reached its destination. In fact, that small detail had upset a good many players at the beginning who had inadvertently misclicked their destination and ended up stuck for a long time, having to wait until they reached their incorrect destination before they could reroute to their intended spot.

  In the game, this eventually got fixed with an “emergency landing” button, which was decidedly not as extreme as it sounded. By hitting a large red “X” on their hud, the player would simply be rerouted and dumped off at the next stop in the flight line. No refunds, but at least they could save a little bit of time.

  In life, Alastair had spent the better part of 15 minutes confirming the details of their journey with the [Flight Master], who made sure to explain in triplicate all the nuances of flying. Once they confirmed their destination, their full party, and most importantly, payment was received, an attendant readied their two gryphons while the [Flight Master] somehow conveyed instructions. Melia assumed skills were involved, because despite how smart the gryphons were, they were still beasts, and very proud ones at that. But once they were in the air and the gryphons were fully in control, any doubts Melia had about their competency melted. As it so happened, Alastair and Jessica’s gryphon was in the lead, while hers followed right behind. And it truly was right behind, with the second gryphon almost close enough to stretch forward and nip at the floating tail-puff of the first one’s lion-body.

  Once they were in the air, there was no stopping these majestic beasts. In more ways than one. Each of their birds was in the low 500 levels, higher than all of [Sunrise] other than herself, and the only monsters in the air, a pair of [Vultures], took one glance at them and fled. Melia assumed nothing short of a dragon would take them down…but she wasn’t going to test that theory personally.

  But that also meant they did not have a way to steer their own mounts, who would not listen to anything they had to say, even if their riders started shouting furiously. The [Master] had warned them against physically alerting their mount to a change in plans, as it would ignore any pokes and prods but would treat anything more than a simple swat as an attack and react accordingly.

  Thankfully, gryphon maulings were incredibly rare, but Human stupidity was appallingly not.

  ?

  Melia was initially curious about where their flight path would take them, and was very much giddy with delight as she realized the gryphons followed the exact same path the ones in the game would have taken. Strictly speaking, if they wanted to take the direct route to Horizon, they should have traveled directly west and a little south of Lakeridge. There, they could have taken a straight line over the Sienna highlands, the Serenity Forest, and the northern quadrant of Gold Coast.

  But that would not have taken them over any landmarks, points of interest, or indeed, any other towns.

  Instead, as designed in the game, they started by traveling north. The route took them over the lake until there was nothing around them on all sides except the still, calm water. Melia could see a [Thresher] emerging from the water and placed a hand on her belly. It wasn’t time to eat and she was currently flying with her friends. The [Threshers] were surprisingly delicious, though, especially the ones with plenty of fatty blubber.

  Once they had reached the middle of the lake, the gryphons banked right and made a wide, sweeping turn that first pointed them east before circling them all the way around to the northwest. Melia wondered if there was a special reason for that specific turn. When she flew in her true form, she never needed to worry about “normal” things like weather patterns, air currents, updrafts, or headwinds. Or any type of physics-based phenomena. She just went from point A to point B. And she was much, much faster.

  She couldn’t really call the gryphons slow, since they were clearly moving faster than any horse, but they also didn’t feel truly fast. Melia didn’t feel the typical blast of cold air against her face, the rush of wind ringing in her ears…and really, she was glad for it. It was yet another unexpected part of a gryphon’s magic, encasing its riders in a bubble of relative comfort and warmth. It was still loud, but not deafening. It was still cold, and all the girls were wearing coats, but nobody froze. And most importantly of all: there were no bugs splattering on their faces.

  All told, Melia felt they were traveling slightly faster than the average car on a highway…maybe 70 miles per hour, give or take. It could have even been all the way up to 90 or 100, Melia really didn’t know; only that it was much, much slower than her “cruising” speed, which was probably close to three or four times this speed, and not anywhere close to as fast as she could move.

  Eventually, they left the lake behind, and they started flying over the rocky highlands. Occasionally they would see a monster or two scattered about, and on a particularly flat stretch, they got to watch a giant tarantula get gored by a boar. Behind her, Y’cennia fidgeted and she heard Ellesea sharply rebuke her: “Don’t you dare drool on my hair.” Melia chuckled to herself; apparently, she’d taught the group to appreciate bacon.

  Around an hour after takeoff, Melia looked down at the feet of the approaching mountains and couldn’t help but smile; she knew they were traveling the same old path. Even though she had seen it several days before, below them sat the old, decrepit gatehouse, the passage beneath the mountain.

  “What is that?” she heard Y’cennia ask. It was slightly odd hearing her twice, as Y’cennia had activated her chatgem, but the echo was incredibly minor and she could drown the “real” one out alongside the wind and focus on the voice in her ear.

  “Some kind of gate,” came Jessica’s voice, helpfully stating the obvious. She heard Y’cennia laugh and Ellesea grumble impatiently.

  “What did she say?” the [Mage] demanded, and suddenly Melia understood the frustration her companion must be going through. Yes, even she would have thrown a fit if she were forced to endure an entire road trip listening to half a conversation.

  Alastair started spouting off reasons somebody might build a gate right there, all while Y’cennia tried her best at live-relaying what was being said, but she was awful at it, like the worst ever game of telephone.

  So, Melia had a thought. She took out a small slab of stone, something the size of a slate she’d prepared for exactly these kinds of moments. Speaking words of power into existence was feasible, but it used a considerable amount of energy that was not at all efficient to maintain. Melia wasn’t worried about the cost so much as she was concerned with her power messing with everything in the area, as she’d come to find after the [Inspection] fiasco at the guild. Especially not while they were traveling hundreds of feet in the air.

  She unclipped the chatgem from her ear and stared at it intently. She heard the words as they came out, no visible speaker to be seen. So why couldn’t she create one of her own? She forced one of her fingers into a draconic claw and scratched a rough 4-point star into the stone. From there, she wrote a few runes to amplify what was being said so that everyone within a small radius could hear. Presto-donezo: instant gratification and a crappy wireless speaker.

  It was still wildly inefficient compared to what she could do if she really put her mind to it, and comparing the sizes of the speaker and the chatgem was like comparing the original, room-sized computers to a modern smartphone. To top it all off, she didn’t have anything onhand to power it, so she had to physically hold it the entire time so it didn’t turn off. Her mana reserves were more than sufficient to act as a portable battery.

  “I wish you’d show me how you do that,” she heard Ellesea sigh from behind her. Melia tilted her head back and gave the upside-down face above her a wide smile.

  “Whenever you’re ready, let me know, and I will.”

  Ellesea looked surprised but very pleased, and she surely filed that tidbit away to cash in later. But for now, she could actually hear what was going on.

  “…suppose it might be some sort of holding cell? This far away from civilization, maybe there used to be a Titled beast around these parts they needed to contain?”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Oh, that’s right. They were talking about the mountain pass.

  “No,” Melia finally cut in. “That’s a gated tunnel. It leads into the Ashlands.”

  “What?” Jessica asked. “All the way through the mountain? That’s gotta be miles long!”

  “Mhmm,” Melia agreed. “It pops you out near the base of the Incinerated Spire.”

  “No wonder there’s a massive gate,” Alastair whistled in appreciation. He was likely thinking of the swarm of monsters that might have followed the dragon over the mountains if it hadn’t been slain.

  “But it clearly hasn’t been used in decades, look at it,” Jessica countered.

  Melia and the girls leaned to the side to peer past the gryphon’s wing at the gate below them. They had already passed by and it was almost out of range, but they could still see the massive structure carved into the stone.

  “It was built by the dwarves,” Melia said with a shrug, as if that explained it. Apparently, it did. She heard a few appreciative murmurs over the speaker before Y’cennia eventually asked, “Why did they let it get…like that?”

  “The story goes, the key is lost,” Melia answered. If the game lore was true for other things in this life, this should be no different.

  “Really?” Jessica asked. “That’s a shame. Wait,” Melia could practically hear her narrow her eyes. “If it’s locked and the key is lost, how do you know about it?”

  “Because I have a copy,” she chuckled. She reached into her inventory and pulled out her massive key ring, flipping aside countless keys to get to the right one.

  ?

  [Rymerust Key]

  ?

  Level: 0

  Rarity: Epic

  ?

  Key to the Ashlands.

  ?

  It spent long years melting in the stomach of a [Thunderlizard], but it has since been reforged.

  ?

  “Wow,” Ellesea sighed. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “What the hell?” Jessica asked. Looking ahead, Melia could see the [Hunter] peering back at them intently. “Why do you need so many keys? How do you have so many? I’ve got, like, two keys. One to my mom and pop’s place, and one to the apartment I rent at the abbey. That’s not a key ring, that’s a weapon.”

  Melia grinned, but put it away before she accidentally dropped it.

  “I’ve got keys for all sorts of things!” she bragged. And it was true, even if most of them were released in the early stages of the game. Before physical keys were removed in favor of listing unlocks in a system tab, they occupied an inventory slot. Something far too precious to be taken up by items that didn’t actually contribute to a fight, or assist in profiting from one.

  “Most of them are for dungeons,” Melia continued. Her mind went back to a time when all the end-game dungeons and raids were physically locked behind gates and closed doors so that people who didn’t earn the right to access them couldn’t play them. The developers must have had an odd set of standards regarding that, though, because they made it so the doors and gates would remain open for a short time, letting anyone waiting outside waltz right in. So long as a single person opened it up, for the next four or five seconds or so, it was free game. Those keys were not easy to get, often being rewarded from long or complicated quest chains. There was a small community of people who made a small fortune simply by waiting outside of dungeons and selling their “services” to people who wanted to raid a dungeon without going through the effort to unlock it themselves. Eventually, this behavior was patched out in favor of higher-tier difficulties (and their better loot) being locked behind attunement, which had its own set of growing pains.

  “Those were all…for dungeons?” Jessica asked. She’d seen the ring and it was not small.

  “Not all,” Melia replied. “There are a few for other things.”

  Such as the keys to her guild house or personal apartment. She was curious to see if those still worked…but also a little afraid to find out. She would be absolutely mortified if she got caught trying to break into what she thought was her own home, only to have the front door open and a complete stranger walk out, yelling for the guards to arrest an intruder. She had to imagine there was some sort of vacancy or abandonment clause, especially after a hundred years. But then again, she had set up the maintenance fee to automatically draw from her bank account, which was still quite full, so maybe not?

  And then there was a final key which she had noticed, but had no idea what it actually did. It wasn’t one she collected herself, and when she first scanned it, it made her shudder.

  ?

  [Obsidian Key]

  ?

  Level: 0

  Rarity: Divine

  ?

  Unlocks the Obsidian Mansion.

  ?

  Death could only keep her shackled for so long.

  ?

  First off, there was no Divine tier of rarity in the game. It went up to Artifact, which was pretty much reserved for story plots or other world-shaking events.

  Second, Melia really didn’t like to think about what the flavor text might be implying.

  Third…she didn’t actually know what the key unlocked. She could make a few good guesses, considering the whole “obsidian” theme, but she, herself, was not aware of any important building called by that name.

  Talk from there moved to dungeons, mostly what the group thought about [Astoria] and how soon they might consider running it again. According to their system sheets, their lockout already reset, since more than a week had passed. Speaking of time, the original buff Melia had given them from dancing around the fire had expired, and now that she thought about it, it had been over a week since Ellesea had attended any class in person. Melia never attended college herself, but she guessed that some sort of physical check-in might be required, since she didn’t think they offered any remote learning. No wonder Ellesea was keen to return to Horizon.

  So much of their time recently had been eaten up with travel. Even with the amazing advantages Ebonvale had as a fantasy world, with flying mounts and honest-to-goodness teleportation, she had still spent more time traveling back and forth than she had actually doing anything of value.

  That needed to change.

  Now that Y’cennia had passed the rest of the team level-wise, the others needed to catch up. Even if they didn’t, even if they were totally comfortable staying where they were at for the rest of their lives, getting around faster would still be immensely beneficial. Melia decided she didn’t want to put it off any longer.

  Mounts. They needed mounts.

  Maybe after this trip to Horizon, she would finally have to look into buying a horse. Part of her would always miss her Nightsaber, and maybe that was the real reason she hadn’t brought it up with the group yet. But soon. Very soon.

  …or maybe she would give up and simply fly them all to the Everbloom so she could buy a new one? Did her reputation still exist? Or would she need to grind it again? She had the time, but she didn’t know if she was ready for the commitment.

  A low whistle drew her out of her contemplations.

  “Would you look at that?” Jessica was saying. “I never knew something like this existed.”

  “Who do you think climbed all the way up here to build it?” Alastair asked.

  Melia peered to her right and looked down on the mountains they were passing, instantly receiving a jolt. Apparently, she had been lost in thought a lot longer than she realized, and they were much further west than they were before. They no longer traveled north, having worked their way into a high valley between two continuous peaks along the mountain range, and they were now angling south.

  They’d just hit the end of the valley, where a very familiar building stood, ominous and derelict, its black stone walls gleaming in the sunset.

  Home was the first thought that instantly popped into Melia’s mind. It was the mansion, her mansion. Ellesea had a little bit more to say.

  “There are several legends about that place,” she began in a spooky sort of voice usually reserved for stories around campfires…until Y’cennia jabbed her in the ribs. Ellesea coughed and straightened up.

  “I don’t think anybody knows the original founders. Some say it was a fortification left over from the early days of the kingdom, before the land knew peace and the monsters spawned in higher levels. Some say it was a holdover from the ancient defenses to protect against the dragons when one turned part of the mountains into the Ashlands. Records indicate it may have originally belonged to a noble family that has since died out. Some say it was home to a cult that worshiped Khazrudin the Black, or others like him, while others say there’s uncounted treasures waiting in its vast halls. Who can really say? I believe it’s called the Obsidian Mansion.”

  A choked laugh of surprise escaped Melia’s before she could stop herself.

  “Oh, I always forget,” Jessica’s amused voice came through the slate. “You were around back then, weren’t you? Any idea what it was used for a hundred years ago?”

  “Ahh,” Melia began sheepishly, “Like Ellesea said, who really knows? At least who originally built it. I don’t know.”

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re hiding something?” Jessica accused.

  “Wellll,” Melia dragged it out, “I suppose those old rumors got some things right. There aren’t any jewels up there, I can tell you that. And I don’t know about cults.”

  Melia sincerely hoped there wasn’t a cult dedicated to worshiping her; she didn’t know what she would do if there was.

  “And you know this…how?” Jessica prodded.

  “I used to nap there all the time,” Melia admitted. It felt weird and strange saying it out loud, and she could feel the judging stares boring into her. Until it finally clicked.

  “You…oh gods,” Y’cennia whined. “And you’re a dragon. A really big, black dragon! They were right!”

  “No cults!” Melia insisted. “And technically, I’m an Obsidian dragon.”

  Suddenly, the key in her inventory made a lot more sense, even if she didn’t like the implications at all. Especially not with how the system seemed determined to turn her into some sort of bad guy. What with all the titles, the flavor texts, and not to mention her actual class.

  What did the gods of this place think she was? She was just a nerd who liked RPing and video games. She wanted to craft, build fun things, live a life of leisure, and explore the world.

  Maybe pull a few more pranks on the brothers at the abbey.

  She wasn’t cut out to be the big evil, even if she sometimes dressed like it.

  “You used to nap there?” Jessica repeated incredulously. Her voice brightened, a light bulb seemingly going off. “Hey! Is that where you woke up? You said you were resting after getting gravely injured. Is that why you visited the abbey? Because you were so close? And hey! Does that mean it was you who roared?! Then isn’t all of this all your fault?!”

  “Hey,” Melia pouted. She couldn’t see Jessica in front of them, but she could imagine the girl waving her arms around dramatically. “It might have been, but you didn’t need to put it that way! And I took care of it!”

  “Understatement,” Jessica scoffed to herself, “But not wrong.”

  “Is that where your friends attacked you?” Y’cennia asked in a small voice. Melia was taken aback. She didn’t think her friends would make the connection so quickly, because she herself didn’t really think about it that way. But they were smart, and Melia supposed they were right as well.

  “Yeah,” she said sadly. She had to wonder… whatever happened to the RP crew? Had they moved on to different stories? Had they found another dragon to continue in her stead?

  It had been a game to her, but in this world, it may have actually been real. She didn’t fully understand how the game connected to reality, and she supposed she might never.

  She stared behind them, where the mansion had disappeared into the distance. Maybe it was worth investigating further. At the very least, she knew there was one thing she wanted to do.

  “I think I’d like to visit again sometime soon,” she said aloud. “And maybe I’ll take you all with me.”

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