To the Stables!

Ellie didn’t waste time. She headed towards the stable-like structure jutting out from the palace.

“It’s a bummer I can’t play with my new toy… I do have some other new things in my bag of tricks though,” she thought out loud.

Ellie jumped as a bird screech came from above. The sound was followed by sporadic movement and banging. She moved over to a door at the base of the tower and a staircase was visible through the glassless window. Opening her bag she took mental stock of the things she had at her disposal.

She gently turned the handle, trying to be as quiet as possible. As the door opened the sound of banging and screeching intensified. Climbing the staircase, she jumped again when a smaller and higher-pitched screech pierced her ears. Now that she was closer, she could hear more vocalisations; the new ones made her think of murlocs on helium from WoW.

As she climbed, she finally reached a point where she could see into the room. It was quite dark and the loud atmosphere made it harder to focus on the interior, but it seemed to be some kind of aviary, though the perches were all empty.

Ellie could see where the altercation was; blue and white feathers flew through the air in an almost smoke screen. A very large white and grey owl was struggling with two small creatures attempting to climb onto its back. The creatures were bipedal from what Ellie could tell. They were similar in size to most of the fairies at Lani’s grove; they almost looked like Lord of the Rings orc action figures.

Another small cry came from her left and Ellie’s attention was drawn to another fight. This time three of the tiny creatures were struggling with a little gryphon, which was so cute she wished she could snuggle and gush over it. She didn’t have time to think how adorable the little owl-kitten was, as it let out a cry of pain and its once white and blue feather coat began turning red.

Ellie’s jaw clenched and she brushed her hair back, before she pulled a small pouch out of her bag, followed by a black velvet mask that she pushed against her face and secured behind her head. Ellie peered through the round glass visors, a beak now slightly obscuring her vision, the metal tip glinting in what little light there was in the tower.

“Hey, you disgusting little monsters, take this!” she yelled, waving her arm with the now opened pouch and allowing dust to spread through the air. The occupants of the room didn’t have time to react as they grew sluggish. The attackers lost their grip, falling to the floor. The two avians were affected slower but were also slowing down, becoming more drowsy.

Ellie lept into action, rushing over to the two creatures near the owl. She used the tagger that she’d gotten from the stout god, clipping their ears, then rushed over to the other three and clipped the first two, pausing at the last. She looked down at the thing that injured the little gryphon clenching her jaw and cast Observe

Name: Ru’k

Family: Gobliniod | Branch: Fernken Gremlin
Size: 28cm | Weight: 50g | Sex: M
Level: 1 | Points: 1

Creature Description:

Fernken Gremlins are quite playful, they will often pull pranks and practical jokes. They’re quite energetic and enthusiastic so they sometimes take things too far.
Usually they are mostly harmless, and only pose a threat in large numbers when threatened.
Fernkens would much prefer to run and hide than fight with anything larger than themselves unless hunting, in which case they will group up into a company of around three dozen to hunt a sizable prey animal.

Thoughts:

Want ride bird cat. Pet and feed and play.
No mean hurt, make better how?

Her anger faded upon reading the creature's page and she sighed. “I guess it didn’t know any better,” she mumbled. The dust that she’d thrown into the air was being carried away by the wind or settling; looking down she could see the sleeping gremlin begin to stir. With a little urgency, she leaned down and clipped the creature's ear with the tagger after which it vanished.

“Five points, nice. Now let’s look at this little baby,” Ellie gushed as she kneeled next to the gryphling, pulling off the plague mask she’d worn to protect herself and storing it back in her bag.

She rummaged around, searching for something to heal the little thing. “Shit, I forgot to put it in. Doesn’t matter, I think I have everything I need. Probably better to use a topical salve anyway,” Ellie thought out loud, pulling out her mortar and pestle, as well as some ingredients.

“Okay, willow bark for pain relief; marshmallow root to help speed up healing, as well as fighting irritation and inflammation; common wormwood for anti-microbial and fungal; and a small amount of honey, to bolster healing too,” Ellie recited as she put each into the mortar, then began to grind and muddle until they turned into a paste.

The small gryphon began slowly awakening, crying out in pain. Finally, Ellie called Ace, who skittered down her arm and stood on her thumb looking back at her. She focused and transferred some of his fire mana into the mortar.

Ace ran back into his hiding place and Ellie began smearing the paste onto the gryphling’s wound. Luckily the wound wasn’t as bad as she’d initially thought; it was still quite a deep nick but it seemed that the amount of blood was due to where the cut was rather than severity.

As the paste covered the area, the gryphon settled down and shook the final remnants of sleep from its head. A loud screech came from behind her and wings beat the air as the owl leapt into the air towards her. Ellie turned, curling into a ball to shield herself, waiting to be clawed or bitten, but instead, she heard large talons clack against the wooden flooring.

Lowering her arms, she saw the owl now looking down at the gryphon. The bird looked back up at Ellie, and back down before opening its wings and backing up. The small owl-kitten limped over to Ellie, and nuzzled against her, letting out a mix of a mew and owl coo.

She slowly lifted her hand and stroked the soft feathers on the creature's head before casting Observe.

Name: Nox

Family:Gryphon | Branch: Highland Tiger/Northern-Frost Eagle Owl
Size: Head-to-body 61cm, Tail 33cm, Wingspan 184cm | Weight: 3.1 kg | Sex: F
Level: 4
Creature Description:

Gryphons are magnificent creatures that come in all shapes and sizes. Like many other chimera, gryphons can occur naturally in places with concentrated magic, though they’re most often the result of magical breeding. One gryphon can be vastly different from another depending on the avian and feline mix.

Highland Tiger/Northern-Frost Eagle Owl Gryphons are quite prolific hunters and are known to hunt on land, air and water, though favour rodents.
Light on their paws, they are able to traverse the land stealthily and easily climb trees, but more impressively they are almost silent while airborne.

Personal Description:

Nox was bred as pest control for the palace grounds, and though she is still young, she’s been praised for the diligent work she’s already done.
She is also unofficially Princess Aerie’s animal companion and can often be found napping in the princess' bedroom.
Nox is incredibly grateful that you healed her and won’t forget it anytime soon.

Ellie continued to stroke the soft down of the gryphling as she looked at the owl. She hadn’t been able to really see the bird properly before because of the commotion and the bad lighting of the aviary, but now with it only a metre or so away, she could stare into its eyes. Each orb staring back at her was black with tiny specks of white forming little constellations.

That wasn’t all she noticed. The Owl seemed much larger up close, it stood a little taller than her while she knelt on the floor, and she could now see the colouration of its feathers. It was predominantly white, with grey and black, but the feathers on its face were a beautiful shade of blue and she could see a light cyan colouration to its wing feathers.

As she stared, the owl tilted its head and the ear-like feathers on top of its head twitched. Ellie smiled warmly, letting out a soft laugh before deciding to Observe the owl.

Name: Oje [əʊ-jɛɪ]

Family: Owl | Branch: Northern-Frost Eagle Owl
Size: Head-to-talon 107cm, Wingspan 225cm | Weight: 5.12kg | Sex: M
Level: 4
Creature Description:

Northern-Frost Eagle Owls are as their name suggests from the north, they are adapted to the frigid cold. Though they have been found as far south as Titan’s Tooth Isles where the weather is a little warmer.
They are known for hunting medium-sized rodents and other animals; they have even been known to snatch large hare and snow foxes.
Their natural habitat is in and around areas filled with magic which is a factor in a lot of their physiology including their eyes, size and the blue colouration in their feathers. It is also why they are often the bird half of many natural gryphon species. Though spells and potions work particularly well on these magnificent birds, they themselves are no more magical than any other owl.

Personal Description:

Oje is quite advanced in age now and has been relieved of most of his duties. He now helps to train other owls and acts almost like a shepherd for the skies around the palace.
He is the proud father of several owlets as well as three gryphlings, including Nox.
Due to the attack he was initially wary of you, but given his experience with humanoids, he wasn’t quick to aggression when he saw you over his young gryphling cub and was relieved once he saw that you had tended to Nox’ wounds.

“So… are you what happens when animals live in places with magic then? Also, I think I can assume that your name isn’t said the way I expect it to be, which is why it has IPA after it. I really should have learned the phonetic alphabet better; I’ll try and remember to type that into an IPA reader when I’m out of the barrier… Speaking of, I should probably get going. Petting an adorable baby gryphon might be nice, but I want to win, not only that, I need to find some secret areas,” Ellie said.

She gave the gryphling one last ear scratch before standing. The small avian feline stood with her and limped a little before taking to the air, landing in the rafters. She looked for a moment and then the tiny gryphon walked backwards and vanished into the darkness.

It wasn’t like it was too dark to see her anymore, more that she vanished when she walked into the shade. A chirp mew called to Ellie as if to beckon her.

Ellie looked around before dragging some crates over and gave Oje a soft pat after he helped push one particularly heavy crate. Climbing up to the rafter, Ellie couldn’t see a floor where Nox seemed to have walked, only a thick wooden beam running in the other direction. Nox’ head appeared in front of her, making Ellie flinch before reaching out and tapping the air on the other side of the beam. To her surprise her fingers collided with something solid.

She slowly and carefully crawled through the air until her head poked through some kind of cloth. Inside was a small den that reminded her of the treehouse she had as a child. As she looked around at the glowing jars and stuffed animals, she spotted a quill and pad which seemed to sparkle like a quest item in a game.

Nox jumped up onto the desk next to the glowing items, and Ellie moved closer before reaching for them.

Secret Location Discovered! Aerie’s Secret Hide-Out
Reward: Scribes Gryphon Quill + Note Taker’s Pad + 10 points

“That’s a good amount of points actually, maybe I should focus on that, though I’m not sure how the others are going,” she noted. Just then a window appeared in front of her.

Score board:

Robin: 16
Ellie: 15
John: 10

“Guess I should go down into the gardens and go secret hunting.” Ellie smiled as she headed out of the tower, giving the two avian creatures a light stroke as she passed them.

Hope you enjoyed, please LIKE the chapter, many of you bookmark but unfortunately there's no way to see how many bookmark each chapter, so I'm not able to gauge how well received the chapter is to hopefully improve in the future.

I would love to hear back from you so if you have any feedback at all please feel free to leave a comment, DM me or head into my branch discussion page in the gamer discord server.

The last way to show you enjoy my work is to visit my coffee page, you can leave a one-time tip. Or you can also become a member which gives you access to my private discord and early chapters, as well as early looks at commissioned art.

Finally, I'd like to give a special thanks to my members.

HungrySkate
Atreides
Thisisnotaname
Mekkosadx
RoninTorish
Chiyo
Mouvar
HeroKid
Markas Lin
aBardNamedLily
Airda Notna
And the other members that prefer not to be named