Griffins, you can’t trust them with your money even if it’s a kid you can’t trust any of them unless you know them truly. After we arrived at Auria’s Gale we were given a “special” escort further down the sea banks to Griff Glade where it’s mostly populated by griffons, ponies, and other species were there like the minotaurs, sheeps, deer, and hippogriffs.(Not the ones from the movie.) It was a good place to trade in nearly anything that can be shipped across the sea or hunted on this land. The mayor here gave us the proper greeting that Griffons do when they see potential, a bottle of ale in hands/claws along with a decent size table full of food. It may be true that the griffins are greedy at times, but it’s the older folks you gotta look for as they had years of experience in their lives to know that being a greedy bird would be a ticket for bounty hunters to hunt them down.

Cynder was confused by the hospitality that the mayor was giving us, she knew that the griffins were a greedy bunch of featherbrains thinking nothing but gold although that’s not fully true. I was expecting the dragoness to act greedy with the food and the gold around giving me the reason to deal with her, but she didn’t act the way I expected her to act. The griffins around living in Griff Glade were surprised to see a dragon with us, some even went so far to slap her on the ass which they receive a backhand with claw marks on their cheeks. I can’t be angry at her for hurting someone as they did assault her with a slap on the ass, so I just ignored it and called it self-defense...despite the claw marks on the griffins’ cheeks.

Wyndbain gained some attention from the young ones running around when we arrived, he didn’t care that the children were running around him as long as they don’t violate him then everything would be fine. My old friend had no purpose of having kids since he wishes for a hunter’s death, one that will not give our curse to his bloodline as an endless cycle, I too have that wish.

He may be the oldest canine that ever lives but this curse of two souls bonded together and the black blood that turns us into monsters every full moon. We did not like the fact that nearly every night it’s a full moon, the blood in our veins moves like Blood Worms moving around inside your body slowly killing you from the inside. What prevented the transformation? That’s easy, a silver medallion blessed by the goddess of light keeping the curse from taking over and containing the corruption from taking over, but doesn’t get rid of the black blood.

This medallion is kept close never leaving from my side actually it can’t be taken from me unless you ripped out of my chest. Most hunters must go through a trial before becoming one, you must endure the pain of having the medallion surgery place inside you as well show them that the pain just gives you the will to live through it and continue the hunt no matter how much pain you had suffered. A confusing method they had thought up and it’s so complex that not even those who join up to do the surgery barely understands it. Each time I touch it the cold metal would remind me that I'm still human because of this.

“It is surprising to see you again Hunter,” Old Crow began to speak as he pours another bottle of ale into his chalice. Crow the mayor of this town was a raven hybrid panther that favors a sword and a blunderbuss as his weapons when he was once a young hunter taking care of this town when the forest had once surrounded the griffins’ civilization. That old crow yaps about his youth how he dealt with a pack of wolves, these shares the similarity of the diamond dogs, that had kidnapped villagers for their own guilty pleasure. I can go on and on from all the stories he had told me but now wasn’t the time. “Usually you stay in the borders of Equestria hunting down the guilty making sure that the innocent are safe, I rarely find you here in the borders of the Griffin Empire.”

“That bounty, the one Miss Quilt posted up, I came here to turn in that said bounty. And I was hoping for a place to settle away from civilization somewhere on the outskirt of your town where none of the ponies would know where their so-called ‘hero’ is at.” The table didn’t go silent, hell Cynder didn’t give me a look about settling down in the Griffon Empire. I felt something poke the side of my leg before sharp talons dug into my skin as that something climbed up my legs. Leaning back in my seat slightly moving my chair back a bit to see a pair of silver eyes staring up at me.

“Ruby.” The little griffon climbed up my leg using her claws to grip onto my pants and her hind legs to kick herself up, she had trouble climbing up my legs but she managed to pull herself up to my lap where she curled up like a cat. Wyndbain noticed Ruby’s black granite dark red tip lion tail hanging off the side of my chair, he looked up at me then at the tail and back up at me.

‘Seems like she missed her idol,” Wyndbain jokes as he tried to stay silent. I rolled my eyes and looked up at the end of the table where Crow seemed to be thinking. My gaze fell back to Ruby, who was snuggled up against my chest now.

“I believe there’s a house available near the outskirts of Griff Glade’s forest, but you know how the wildlife is Hunter being dangerous that the caravans that pass through for trade need to be escorted by hunters. That house is free ever since the last landlord died there a decade ago making it free for whoever wishes to live there.” The old crow took a swig of ale from his chalice and refilled it again; bird rarely gets drunk whenever he drinks which was kinda good for being an uncle. I took a sip out of my chalice then set it down.

“Bandits?”

“None, nothing would go near that house, not even the wildlife.” Runes might be protecting the house, keeping those who dare tries to enter outside unless they know how to disarm the runes or knows the right phrase to enter; a password to be exact. I ran my hand through Ruby’s smooth fur getting a purr from the little griffon as I taken another bite of what’s on my plate.

‘Has to be a barrier type rune to keep everything out from entering. How else would nothing go near the house, not even a bandit,’ Wyndbain said believing that three or more barrier runes have been keeping the place abandon for a decade or else the place wouldn’t have been suggested by Crow. A house that has been abandoned for a decade makes it sound like people avoided the building, but this one had runes to keep everything out. I know several types of runes from my past experience on using them as an arena, there was the regular barrier keeping everything in and out, the second was the same as the first except if your blood was used in the runes then you can go in and out whenever you want, and the third is what most mages in my world would use as a prison the invisible walls would shock or burn you depending on what type of element you engraved in it.

Nodding my head slightly as I brought up another spoonful of mashed potatoes up to my lips. It felt weird eating well-made food from experienced cooks, I don’t mind eating tasty food that’s better than mine it’s just I’m not used to eating food that has been cooked by someone else.

In the corner of my eyes, I saw Cynder staring at me with a bottle of ale in her hand. When she noticed my gaze on her she snapped her head away from me, if I could fire a beam of magic through my eyes then Cynder would have two holes in the back of her head. I need to ask Cynder the reason why she follows me, the dragoness had multiple chances of leaving us but she chooses to stay with us.

After having “lunch” with the mayor of Griff Glade the three of us left the town to the forest nearby. Crow gave me a map of the forest circling the spot in ink where the house was located. It was good to see that again even if it was just an hour or two of seeing each other.

The forest around Griff Glade was a dangerous one but not as dangerous as the Everfree forest, both which has exotic creatures that the other didn’t have. Wolves were not like Wyndbain because how parts of their body had bones sticking out like armor and had the ability to walk on their hind legs like a werewolf but easy to kill; no silver bullets were required to hunt the animals in the forest making it a safe hunting round, well safe-ish. My first time coming here in the Griffon lands was when Wyndbain and I were on a bounty going after a rogue assassin that attempted to kill Luna because how many of the ponies still believe her to be a demon than their princess that’s when we met Crow training her nieces, the second one was a dragon half breed having parts of a griffon and dragon. He and I didn’t get along when we first met has always trying to get one another with a bullet to the head or a blade in the guts. Good times, good times.

Griffins have only advanced to single shot guns the old school ones; single-use shot for one barrel unless there are two. Their path that they have chosen to follow in evolution was following up the paths of modern weapons, but they weren’t the only ones. In Equestria I noticed that there have been a rare few ranged weapons similar design to the flintlock rifle and pistol except the hammer doesn’t have the flint and the gun doesn’t use gunpowder but a blue crystal that’s the size of my thumb embedded behind the barrel where the powder goes and the hammer was flat. Around a ten or twelve of these Equestrian versions of the flintlock, I encounter the projectile they fire was an orb of magic the same size of the original ammunition for a flintlock. After being used there’s some type of cool down the gun goes through leaving them open for any attacks. Time is changing indeed.

The house Crow spoke of was indeed near the outskirt of the forest and was in great conditions as there was no sign of decay, but there was indeed a barrier around it. Whoever had own this place must have wanted it to be kept from the hands of those wanting to buy it. The runes that were set up for this barrier was easy to find as they were carved in stones angled to make a triangle hidden underneath bushes near the house, but the cost of disabling the runes was destroying them.

“Cynder, there’s nothing to be afraid of it’s just an old house and the place where Wyndbain and I live now. You have nothing to fear.” The dragoness that apparently still with us clung to me like her life depended on it. She would not budge an inch closer to the house and wouldn’t let me go to investigate the house, there wasn’t anything around that could have scared her like this other than the house in front of us. Dragons have fears; I know that because everything else that lives has fears even if you’re all high and mighty you will always have fears.

A dragon’s grip was one thing I never wanted to undergo again being squeezed almost to death like a teddy bear wasn’t on my to die by wish. No matter how much strength I had and how many times I tried to pry Cynder off she wouldn’t budge. She mumbled something under her breath something about someone in one of the windows. When I looked up at the many windows facing us there wasn’t anything else but curtains and darkness behind the glass.

“Cynder there’s nothing up there,” I told her but she kept on mumbling to herself. There was no way out of the killer grip of the dragon other than one thing, and so I did what most men would be proud of doing. Raising my hand high up above my head I gave Cynder a warning with a slight tap on the back with my other hand, but that she didn’t even move her arms to feel her back. With nothing to regret on the aftermath. With one great swing down my leather gloved hand smacked Cynder’s butt cheek causing the dragoness to shove me down as she yelps and flies up into the air.

In my head, I heard Wyndbain laughing out of control as he rolled onto his back kicking his legs. Slapping a woman’s ass was one of the many things I didn’t do on my list but now I can mark that off my list. Sadly, even if I do fall for the dragoness I cannot impregnate her or else the black blood would carry on through my sons and daughters; my curse is like a plague if I ever have impregnated a woman then my offsprings would turn into monsters.

I got back up to my feet and looked at the house, this is where I’ll be living for the rest of my life. My ears picked up the sound of flapping wings, but before I know it Cynder was giving out her battle cry.

Author's Note

Hello, everyone, another chapter of the Hunter is out and this one took me a few hours to plan this up in two different parts. The first part is obviously this but the second one would be in Celestia's point of view.

That's all for now what I have to write down for now so chow!