Chapter 10: Taking Initiative

As I was in the middle of figuring out which key would finally open the restraints locking the Griffon, I nearly dropped the whole chain of keys at the most unexpected series of sounds. It was clear, feminine, quiet, and tinged with palpable worry. But most important of all, it was intelligible and articulate English coming from the Griffon.

“Oh Gods, what am I going to do!?”

“What? How are you speaking English all of a sudden?”

“English? What are you talking about? I’ve been speaking Standard Pony Equish this entire time!” The Griffon looked down for a second as she muttered under her breath, “Everyone is supposed to know it, even the Diamond Dogs that captured me did.”

“Well, I don’t know any Equish and yet here we are with me somehow capable of perfectly understanding you,” I said before sliding over another key to try to free the Griffon again.

“That’s—” When the next key resulted in yet another failure, I pulled it away from the lock and the undetectably accentless English that was coming out of the Griffon switched back to unintelligible screeches jarringly quickly.

“What the—? I can’t understand you anymore. I wonder…” I said as I looked at the keys and the Griffon who had grown quiet. I hesitantly reached out with another key to try and free her. It failed. But, I kept the key in the lock and said, “Try saying something.”

“Like what?” She responded.

“Interesting,” I muttered before letting go of the key and asking her to repeat herself.

Screech!

“I need physical contact to understand your speech?” I wondered to myself before reaching over to touch one of her claws.

“Careful! I haven’t had time to trim my talons and blunt their edge!” She worriedly blurted out.

“Guess that answers that question.”

[World Quest Completed!]
[Name: Griffon Rescue Chain Quest 3]
[Description: Perfectly Cleared]
[Reward: +1 Stat Point, +1 Skill Point, Griffon Rescue Chain Quest 4]

[Milestone Quest Complete!]
[Name: Perfect Clear 1]
[Description: Achieve a Perfect Clear on a Quest with Variable Outcomes.]
[Reward: +25 Exp, +1 Ability Point]

[World Quest]
[Name: Griffon Rescue Chain Quest 4]
[Description: The fourth of a chain of decisions you need to make to resolve the situation before you. Choose between (1) Asking the Griffon about the slave encampment, (2) Refrain from asking about the slave encampment until the Griffon is out of its effective territory.
[Reward: (1) Variable, (2) Variable]

Welp, things had been going way too smoothly until now. I had a feeling my decision would end ruinously for me either way, so I chose to ask while it was still an option.

“Thanks for the heads up,” I lamely said to her concerned question. I kept my foot touching her as I took back my hand from her talon and continued looking for the right key to free her. “Say, what’s the deal with this place.” I vaguely asked.

“Oh, it’s just horrible!” The Griffon didn’t hesitate to start venting, “I know it's in bad taste to stereotype, but these Diamond Dogs aren’t helping their case. I thought it was just tasteless rumors going off ancient history that there were still Diamond Dog packs that legalized slavery. It might have been foolish of me to have camped out in Neutral Territory, but still…”

“Slavery is a known practice for the Diamond Dogs?” I asked.

“It was, several hundred years ago. In school, I’d been taught that the Canian Empire outlawed it to maintain relationships and economic prospects with the rest of the world, but more than one of my frequent flier buddies had warned me to look out for rogue tribes that followed their own laws. I wish I had taken them seriously.”

“That’s… Never mind,” I said stopping myself before I could start on a tangent. “You know, I wonder what’s going to happen when I manage to free you.” When the Griffon looked at me with confusion, I clarified, “I mean to the rest of the Diamond Dogs or whatever other race of slavers are here.”

“Well, if we manage to escape, they will definitely find out about their dead and our getaway before authorities from my home country of Griffonstone can arrive to expunge them. There might be a chance that they arrive before the remaining slaves that are left behind in restraints starve or dehydrate to death, but I wouldn’t count on it. It’d take me at least a couple days of almost nonstop flying to get home in my best state and I’ve been malnourished for weeks in this place.”

“Uh… I didn’t kill that Diamond Dog,” I said, gesturing at the unconscious body. “But, your military would be ok with it? No arrest and capture followed by a court trial or something more humane— er, civilized?”

“Sure, for an upstanding citizen of an established country. For these barbarians who practice enslavement and have committed other unspeakable crimes under the purview of Neutral Territory, they’ll be issued orders to be killed on sight.”

“Sounds fair enough to me,” I shrugged, coincidently right before finally getting the right key to open the Griffon’s restraints.

As I helped the Griffon out of her restraints, she stretched out her wings and— Holy shit, she must have a good three to four-meter wingspan. For someone who had been admittedly malnourished, poorly treated, and was more than likely unkempt, the only way I could describe her as she continued to stretch her body to wring out all its kinks and numbed muscles was “fucking majestic.” I’d probably be intimidated if there wasn’t a veritable mountain of reasons to be comfortable in her presence.

“So, what now?” She asked and the only reason I could understand her was because she had the wherewithal to approach and touch me before she spoke after I’d stepped away to let her stretch in peace.

“Well, I have a couple more questions I was hoping you could answer me before I escorted you out of here.”

“Shoot,” she simply said. I almost asked her how she could possibly know that kind of slang, but refrained as time was of the essence. At any moment, another slaver could walk in and potentially sound the alarm.

“Here’s the deal, with murder being much more acceptable than I expected I want to try my chances at clearing out this encampment. The problem is, I have no idea how many slavers or slaves there are, or even the layout of this place. So, any information you have that might help with that would be appreciated.”

“Are you packing some serious magic because, and forgive me if I come off as rude, you don’t look like you can take the average Diamond Dog on in a direct fight, nevermind the dozens that are part of the pack in charge of this place,” she said while poking a wing at one of my armor covered arms.

Yeah, I wouldn’t be so confident in my chances either without my Gamer powers. Compared to the Diamond Dog I’d knocked out, my arms were like three to four times smaller and though my legs were much longer, they weren’t any thicker or looked tough enough to really do any damage against its bulky frame and thick coat of fur.

“I can take care of myself in a fight,” I brushed aside her comment. “Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to help me. In an ideal world, I would subdue all the Diamond Dogs here and manage to restrain them all without killing them. But I’m confident I can take on even a large group of them at the same time.”

“If you say so,” she clearly did not look like she believed me, “I can recall 25 of them, maybe 26 distinct Diamond Dogs but there could be more I just never ran into while working in the mine. Also, there were way more slaves; too many for me to accurately tell. There’s at least fifty and that’s on the conservative end of the spectrum.”

“As for the structure of this place… You must be familiar with the entrance up until the three-way split. You took the left path to get to the Detainment and Torture Room, here. The middle path takes you to the Mine and the right path takes you to the Barracks where most of the Diamond Dogs go to rest. If you go down the middle path towards the Mine, on the first level before the Mine proper is the dwelling area of the slaves. That’s where we’re only allowed to be there to eat and sleep for six hours every day.”

“The Mine itself is structured like a typical mine with a branch dug out for each individual slave to mine rocks and gems out of. Depending on the strength of each slave, they are assigned to different levels of the Mine. The weaker ones are placed higher up as the rocks and gems get more compact and harder to extract the lower down the Mine you go. The only other thing I can think of that’s worth mentioning is that the alpha of the group and his ‘posse’ are rumored to live somewhere between the middle to lowest levels of the Mine. I’ve never seen the alpha or his group, but that’s what I’ve heard.”

That… That was a lot of information. The situation in this enslavement camp was worse than what I was hoping for, but far from the worst thing I could imagine, and anything better than that had to be good enough of a motivator for me to continue.

“How likely am I to encounter a Diamond Dog alone, like buddy over here,” I asked.

“What?” The Griffon tilted her head in a way that I was tempted to label “cute.”

“I mean, how well trained are they? Where I come from, it’s a standard practice to have at least two people in these sorts of authoritative positions — law enforcement, military, to clarify — to have each other’s backs. What am asking is whether or not I just got lucky to catch this guy alone. If I ran into more than one Diamond Dog at a time, I can’t see how I’d maintain the cover of stealth.” I was specifically asking because of the 4 Intelligence that “buddy” had.

“Oh. Well, I think you’ll be fine. Now that you mention it, whenever I have seen guards or members of the military back home, they are always in pairs, aren’t they?” She shook her head, “But to answer your question, it’s rare to find a group even as small as two Diamond Dogs together. Unless they need to interact with each other to get something done, they tend to put all their attention on whatever their job or task is. They’re also known to be pretty dumb, which I’d like to claim is a stereotype… But hopeful, it turns out to be true!”

The enthusiasm and sheer schadenfreude she gave off with that last comment was frankly unsettling. I couldn’t fault her for it, though. I’d probably feel the same if I was in her place.

Author's Note

And so we have dialogue... At last!

Hopefully with Diamond Dogs, Griffons, and actual speaking being introduced to the story, the story will be back up after I submit it for manual approval.