Prologue - A Brave New World
Act 1: A Brave New World
The spoon clinked around in the mug as I stirred the hot chocolate. On a freezing winter night like this one, there was nothing in the world that could beat wrapping myself up on the couch in a blanket with some warm cocoa.
Wind and snow from the storm outside beat against the windows furiously in the dark night. I had tuned the television to the weather channel, where the anchors were already calling this the ‘storm of the century’. I grimaced as I saw the predicted snowfall. It was going to be hell to try and shovel all that tomorrow morning.
As I plopped down on the couch to start scrolling through my phone, a text message popped up on the top of the screen.
'Wanna chat?' It was my friend Zach, and after a quick response of 'sure' he sent me a call.
"How's it going man? Jesus, it sounds like the storm is even worse over there than it is at my place. I can hear it even through the damn phone!"
I stood up from the couch and walked over to a quieter area before responding. "Yeah it's pretty bad, the way it's going it almost feels like a demon is trying to get in the house."
"Ooooo, spooooky."
"Ach, I'm not worried. Santa is the only eldritch being of winter I know of that can break into people's houses. Mid February is a bit too late for him to be skulking around," I joked.
"Yeah man, if there was anything out there you'd be fine. You’ve got the name for fighting monsters, don't you Geralt." I let out a small sigh at the snickering tone in his voice. Ever since Zach first got into the Witcher years ago, he has occasionally teased me about my name. “Anyways, what are your plans for tomorrow? With this weather, it’s not like we can go out for the weekend.”
“Nothing much, was just planning on shoveling off the driveway and playing some games,” I responded. We talked for a while about our small plans to stay inside this weekend, and about the various little events going on in our lives.
Eventually it became time for me to retire for the evening, and I bid Zach good night. As I pulled the covers over my head, I tried to get some sleep over the sound of the storm raging outside.
A few short hours of sleep later I was jolted awake by the sound of shattering glass. The wind began howling through the house, and I immediately fumbled out of bed. As I ran down the hall towards the noise, I could already see snowflakes drifting in the air around me. Rounding the corner to the living room, my worries were confirmed.
The window had been smashed to pieces somehow by the storm, with snow and shrieking winds pouring into my home. The inky void outside seemed like a portal to the abyss, and as soon as I approached the window the room started to get cold.
Unnaturally cold, colder than even what the weather report had suggested in a matter of mere moments. The temperature was plummeting rapidly, and the way the storm swept through my house sent my mind into a racing panic. I spun on my heels and tried to sprint out of the room to somewhere safer.
But the wind and snow buffeting me stripped me of my balance, and I stumbled around blindly as it became impossible to see anything even a foot away from me. The freezing cold bit me to my bones, and I already couldn't feel my fingers.
After what felt like hours, but could only have been a few moments of my blind panic, I collapsed to the ground and tried to curl up and preserve what little body heat I had left.
It ended up all being in vain however. The cold snuffed out the last of my life, and as my eyes drooped shut, I could have sworn I saw an eagles feather swirling in the blizzard around me.
I woke up to the morning sun shining through my bedroom windows. The light washed over me and stirred me awake. With a heavy yawn I raised my claws to my eyes to rub the sleep out of them, and stretched my wings for the day to come.
Wait a damn minute here.
I blinked a few times to clear my head and stared blankly at my new appendages. Sure enough, instead of seeing the hands I was used to, a pair of clawed forearms had taken their place. I could feel a set of wings on my back that were shifting around uneasily, the alien sensation only adding to the absurdity of the situation. Bringing my brand new claws to my face, a quick prod at where my mouth should have been confirmed my suspicions when instead they met the keratin of a sharp beak.
I whipped my head down between my forearms, no… not forearms, forelegs now, to see a pair of lion paws on furred legs at the back of my body. To complete the picture there was a lion’s tail swishing back and forth behind me. Looking at the front of my body, eagle became lion at the base of my chest, but my furred front legs had eagle talons as forearms.
Yup, there was no doubt about it at this point.
I was a griffon.
And as that realization sunk into me I did the first thing that came to mind. I screamed loud and long, the eagle’s cry that came out sending birds and critters fleeing at the sound of a predator.
I fell to the ground, mind racing, as I tried to rationalize my situation.
Before I had taken a look at my new body, I had thought that what had happened last night was just a nightmare. But there must have been something, otherworldly, about that storm. Whatever had smashed into my house that night, it had decided to shunt me off of earth and into a brand new world. It didn’t even let me stay human, instead transforming me into a mythological griffon.
I flopped onto my back in the grass and stared up at the sky. I wasn’t even in a human body anymore. I had no information about where I had found myself now, and I had no idea where to go next.
At least from what I remembered, it was a pretty common trope that griffons were the mounts of mighty knightly orders. They also were pretty much universally recognized to be intelligent little beasties, which hopefully meant that I didn’t have to worry as much about concealing my intelligence, even if any people I came across wouldn’t immediately assume that I was sapient. So I could hopefully count on me being a rare and tameable creature to stamp out any ‘kill on sight’ mentalities, as long as I myself wasn't aggressive.
Either that or I was a savage monster that was destined to receive a blade through the eye from the Butcher of Blaviken himself.
Well, regardless of whatever rules this world was running on, there was nothing to be gained just sitting here in the forest waiting around to starve to death.
Looking around said forest, I could at least admit that it was a very beautiful sight. Evergreen trees filled most of the space around me, with the occasional oak and birch mixed into the glade. There wasn’t a great deal of undergrowth in the forest, giving me a decent line of sight through the woods over the ferns and grasses. I wondered if some of the berry bushes I could see were edible, but risking them didn't seem like the greatest idea at the moment. Snow-capped mountains rose in ranges in the distance. It reminded me of the lands of Skyrim, or Banff, someplace of crisp northern beauty.
With no idea about anything in the surrounding area, I figured that just picking a direction and walking was as good a course of action as any. At least whatever had brought me to this world had bothered to give me a rough mental software update on my new body, so I could manage to walk alright as long as I didn’t think too hard about it, and start applying human leg mechanisms to a quadruped.
But after a little while of plodding through the woods, I felt that it was time to take flight for the first time like a proper griffon should. I was giddy at the prospect, as virtually all of humanity since the dawn of time dreamed of what it would be like to fly like a bird among the clouds, and now I would get to live it. I spread my wings and crouched to the floor. I felt the breeze ruffle through my feathers, and with a mighty push I launched myself from the earth.
What followed was less the majestic flight of an eagle, and more the spastic actions of a drunken chicken. My takeoff went well enough, but when I tried to move my wings to fly I quickly learned that whatever griffon instincts I had been gifted did not cover flight. Or maybe my human mind was just unable to reconcile with the presence of wings, since I had absolutely no frame of reference on how to move my wing muscles to propel myself.
The result was that after a few uneven strokes, I came crashing back down into the forest floor with a squawk. At least my ineptitude made it so that I didn’t make it that far up when I tried, so I didn’t break anything when I dropped like a rock. Groaning on the ground, I was forced to face the fact that I would be resigned to walking until I could get some time in practicing with my new wings.
After walking through the forest for a few more hours I came across a dirt trail cutting through the woods. This at least gave me a direction to head in, and the hopes that I would find something useful along the way, like a rabbit. Or a deer.
I could feel my stomach complaining about a half day of hiking with nothing to eat, and I was more than ready to try out my new predator instincts. But as I continued on, the undergrowth in the forest began to thicken, and it became near impossible for me to spot anything around me. My eagle eyes were not that useful when surrounded by leaves.
‘I could fly like I’m supposed to be able to, this wouldn’t be an issue,’ I grumbled to myself as I kept plodding along the path.
Eventually I passed a bend in the trail to get around a massive fallen tree, when I spotted something that sent me retching.
Laying against the side of the tree was the mutilated corpse of a fellow griffon. I didn’t know exactly what was out here in these woods that could tear into a griffon like that, but I sure wasn’t interested in finding out. Despite my revulsion, a glint of metal by the corpse caught my eye, and I stepped forwards for a closer look.
The griffon had tattered remnants of leather across its body, and spilling out from a scabbard beneath the griffon was a gleaming sword. The sword had a simple long blade extruding from an unadorned crossguard and hilt in cruciform style. I couldn’t see any sign of whoever the rider was, but I had a hunch that whoever they were, they had ended up the second course of whatever tore the griffon apart.
As I took a closer look at the corpse, I felt the feather on the back of my neck stand up.
There weren't any maggots in the wounds, and blood still dripped from some of the wounds lacerating the body.
This was a fresh kill.
Almost as soon as I had made that revelation I heard movement coming from the underbrush behind me.
‘Shit shit shit!’
Not willing to trust in my claws against whatever horrific monster was about to jump out at me, I went for the sword. Mother nature may have her own course charted out for this encounter, but I wasn’t willing to go down without a fight.
Diving for the blade, I quickly wrapped my claws around the hilt and tugged it free from the rest of the scabbard. After a brief struggle levering it out from under the body, I had my new weapon at the ready.
I spun around to face the oncoming threat, but stumbled as I lost my balance on three legs. My head snapped back up as I heard the sound of growling in front of me.
Emerging from the brambles came what looked to be the sorriest excuse for a wolf I had ever seen. Its grey fur was patchy and coarse, and the thing looked like it hadn’t eaten in weeks. In fact I could see the outline of ribs poking through its thin fur.
I almost let out a laugh of relief at the sight of it. I seriously doubted that this thing could have been responsible for killing that poor griffon and its rider.
Despite its condition, its hackles were raised and it was looking at me with the wild and dangerous eyes of a desperate beast with nothing to lose. While I may have been the superior predator in this instance, the intensity of the gaze made me flinch away.
Desperation had given it a sort of wild strength, its muscles coiled in defiance of its apparent frailty.
As I was sizing up my opponent, it was clear that they had been doing the same, and the mangy beast suddenly crouched down and leapt at me. Diving to the side to get out of the way, I swung my sword to intercept the wolf’s jump.
I got lucky and felt the sudden force of the wolf colliding with my blade in midair accompanied by a yelp of pain, but the mass of the animal ripped the sword from my grip and sent it tumbling to the ground along with the wolf.
Both of us tried to scrabble to our paws, but the wolf managed to be faster than I was.
It clamped its jaws around my outstretched left wing, and bit down. Hard. I hissed as I felt its fangs dig into my flesh. There was a sickening snap and a sudden unbearable pain shot through my body from my wing. I tried to yank my wing away from the wolf, but the bastard was holding on tight.
Panicking, I swung my claws up into the wolf and felt them rake across its face. With the sudden intrusion of talons into its eyes, the wolf finally let go of me and leapt backwards.
Immediately I went for the sword again, and was able to scoop it up while the wolf shook blood from its head and tried to recalculate its position.
I didn’t give the opportunity, and I charged towards the beast with my sword ready to spear it.
With the initiative on my side this time, it was the wolf’s turn to dodge but its paws failed to find purchase on the ground, and I quickly closed the short distance between us.
I rammed into the wolf, and drove the simple blade as far as I could into its side. The sword sank nearly to the hilt in its sorry fur, scraping off one of the ribs and lodging deep in the vitals.
Remembering the sensation of the wolf’s jaws on my wing, I tried to pull my weapon free and make some distance between us, but once again my lack of experience hindered me.
I had pushed the blade in so deep it was stuck fast. As I wildly tugged at the hilt to get it back, I was able to get it free with a sickly squelching sound as I levered it out through various organs and innards on its escape.
Stumbling backwards on my rear, I took a moment to observe the results of my efforts.
Whatever I had managed to lodge my sword into, it had the desired results.
I watched in morbid fascination as the wolf spasmed on the ground, trying and failing to stand over and over again, as blood poured from the gaping wound on its side. Eventually it gave up on its efforts, and just lay there gurgling on its own blood.
Feeling a sense of pity for the miserable beast, I limped over and stabbed my sword as hard as I could into the skull of the animal. A brief crunch sounded out, and the wolf fell still.
Silence reigned in the following moments, as I sought to catch my breath and sat on the ground opposite from the two corpses that now occupied this small section of trail. Setting my bloodied sword beside me on the ground, I held my claws to my head as I tried to calm my racing thoughts.
Despite being wounded, I had prevailed over my first opponent, whose blood even now continued to flow from its side and paint the grass where it lay red. But my victory had been made far easier by both my lucky find and the miserable state of my foe. If a full wolf pack came after me, or whatever monster killed the poor bastards whose sword I now held, I could kiss my life goodbye.
I realized quickly that I had to get to work, and get away from the trail and bodies before they attracted more attention.
I decided to start with the corpse of the griffon, or more specifically the scraps of leather and fabric that were on it. Prodding over the remnants of one of my now-kin sent my stomach bubbling, but as I looked over whatever remained of its attire I managed to find a few items of use.
The first of course was the scabbard, attached to a loop of leather with a buckle that wrapped around the waist of the griffon. Tugging it out from under the poor sap, I was able to fit it snugly around my own waist. I picked up a swath of relatively clean cloth, and wiped the blood from the blade as best I could before sheathing it back in its proper home.
The second grand treasure was found by following another set of leather loops on the corpse. With a little bit of effort, I was able to flip them over to reveal a saddle bag. I unbuckled it from the corpse and settled down on the game trail to sort through it. First was a small pouch with drawstrings that turned out to contain a handful of coins, mostly coppers with a few silver and near the bottom a single shining golden coin. With no understanding of their value, I set them aside to continue looking through the bag, finding two large chunks of flintstone as well.
I hummed approvingly, being able to start a fire might not be something a typical knightly mount was capable of, but it made me feel a lot more at ease with a way to deter predators or cook any food I found.
The next thing out of the bag was a rolled up leaflet. Opening it, I was both shocked and immensely pleased to find I could read it. The content wasn’t good news though. It was a bounty posted by some ‘Lord Silas’ about a group of bandits that had taken up residence in the local woods. Apparently there weren’t many of them, the bounty estimated 4-6 of them out there. The posted reward of 14 silver seemed quite high to me for such a small group, but what did I know? There weren't any images on the paper besides what looked like a noble seal on the bottom, so I couldn’t gather any more information about the world from it.
The only other thing in the bag was the most valuable to me at the moment. A small roll of linen bandages. I immediately scoured the trunk of the fallen tree looking for two decently straight small twigs I could snap off. Sitting down I was able to hold them on either side of my bent wing with one claw, and wrap the whole affair with bandages using the other. I hissed as I felt the sting of fabric on the open wound, but with a few minutes of tight wrapping I had made what I considered a decently serviceable splint for my bloodied wing.
Wounds treated and corpse looted, I turned my attention to my victim. The wolf’s unmoving form lay there in the grass as I thought about what to do with it.
The unpleasant emptiness in my stomach ended up making my decision for me. With no other easy option for food besides cannibalism, I drew my blade again and began hacking at the hind legs of the wolf. To both my delight and discomfort, I found that my claws were well suited for the delicate work of snipping the few tendrils of flesh that connected the leg to the carcass. Dinner begrudgingly sorted, I tucked the leg under my good wing before pushing my way through the brush once again.
It wasn't long after that I heard the sound of water nearby, and heading towards it I emerged into a picturesque clearing with a river. Taking a seat on the river bank, I set down the spoils of my hunt, and set about preparing a fire. Striking sparks from the flint, I soon had a fire going to roast my meat using my sword as a makeshift skewer.
After a not particularly appetizing meal of wolf, the only issue remaining as the sun started to set was where to sleep. Not wanting to take my chances down on the ground, I took to clawing my way up into the branches of a large oak tree near the clearing.
I was soon glad that I decided to climb up that tree, as through a break in the canopy I spotted the sight of uniform fields that could only have been a few miles away from where I was camping. And sitting comfortably on a small rise surrounded by its fields, I could make out the boxy shapes of a village against the darkening skies.
With civilization existing so close to me, I had a choice to make and considered my options thoroughly.
Finding a griffon in the woods with clear signs of intelligent civilization on him assured me that griffons weren’t inherently monsters in this world, and since I had bedecked myself in the trappings of civilization I could reasonably expect that the villagers wouldn’t attack me on sight. My best hope would be that they would think I was the property of some knight-errant, would try and seek out my ‘owner’ to return me, and as a result pass me off to the local lord. That would be my ticket to the wider world, and hopefully someday I would be able to convey my intelligence to others and figure out what had happened to me.
The other option I had was to embrace my new animal self, but the idea of living in the woods like this for the rest of my life didn’t really hold any sway to me. I was a soft sap used to the luxuries of modern society, and I was willing to bet that life as effectively a warhorse would be a lot more comfortable that being out here in the sticks, especially when winter came about. The mountains and pines convinced me that winter was absolutely going to be a real concern where I was, and I had zero interest in sleeping outside in a blizzard.
Besides, this was a whole new magical world to explore! Civilizations and histories to uncover! And I wanted to be a part of it. Being part of a noble knightly charge against the forces of evil held an undeniable romance, even if I was the thing the knight was sitting on to do so.
My mind made up, I resolved first thing in the morning to make my way towards that village and rejoin civilization.
As I made myself as comfortable as possible in the tree, I idly wondered what the population of the village was composed of. Were they humans, elves, dwarves maybe? Who knows, might be that griffons are all actually sapient, and I’m not the exception here. I chuffed to myself as I drifted off to sleep.
A whole village of griffons, now wouldn’t that be something to see.
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rather glad to stumble across this story, looks good!
Intriguing. I'm definitely keeping tabs on this one. And thank you for letting us know that you have a storyboard for where the story will go, it waylays the fear that the story might just stop.
Watched. Definitely looking forward to what you have to offer!
great story so far
Let’s be real, nobody would complain about this guy breaking in. XD
Alright, this story shows great potential & promise. I will keep an eye on this…
Interested! I love kingdom builders
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