Artefact Hunters: Ikimono's Mirror

     All things considered, that accursed mirror could have done much worse than a Biyako.

     Brynn shifted her weight a little to adjust her pack and blinked against the sudden brightness outside the cave. The rocky ground was hard and gritty against her bare paws, but at least they still were paws. Her fur remained, if not her longer Neopian hair, and her ears and snout and tail made the same movements she’d instinctively known throughout her life. Even being forced onto all fours, while frustrating and a little disorienting, was not quite alien. Kougras were technically quadrupeds by nature, after all.

     Even so, she was already tiring of the downsides. She blinked a few more times and rubbed at her eyes with a forepaw in a desperate attempt to get a better view of her surroundings, but it was no good. Neopets with normal vision saw all the same colours and had at minimum a certain solid “baseline” of visual acuity, regardless of species. Going from a Kougra to a feline petpet had robbed her of some of that detail and several colours, leaving much of the lush, springtime flora she remembered from before she’d entered the cave faded and a little fuzzy.

     She couldn’t even say for certain that her fur was still orange. She guessed as much, and could at least tell it wasn’t the stark white of an uncoloured Biyako, but to her eyes it seemed a muddy greenish-yellow that blended with the leaves and grasses of the surrounding forest. The effect hadn’t been as pronounced in the darker recesses of the cave, where most everything was grey and brown stone and sight had been largely left to her more familiar night vision. Out here, it was more than a little unnerving.

     Behind her, she heard Hanso take a deep breath of the open air and say, “Well, at least it’s still nice out.”

     Brynn grunted in response, and frustration welled up at the fact that she couldn’t say anything more specific. Like her new body, Biyako's vocalisations were at least familiar enough. She’d grown up a roaring cat in a family full of them, and Hanso had known her for long enough to pick up that a growl meant anger or frustration, a chuff was pleased and friendly, and a grunt was more-or-less neutral. But it all felt so imprecise on its own. And that lack of precision had almost resulted in Hanso jumping straight into a magic-infested pool against her desperate and garbled attempts to warn him away.

     In all honesty, she felt foolish about the whole incident. She’d known that Ikimono’s Mirror was unstable. Yet she had assumed it would be on some ledge, where she’d need to see it up close for anything to happen. She’d been relying on the nature of her ascent, on being able to divert her eyes whenever she reached any suitably large shelf and then tuck the artefact into the satchel she’d had slung over her shoulder once she found it by touch.

     When she’d fallen into the pool, she wasn’t even sure she’d seen the mirror before its magic overwhelmed her. She certainly hadn’t noticed her own reflection in the thing. Perhaps she had caught some unknowing glimpse, or perhaps some property of the water had negated the need to look at all.

     Whatever the case, she was now going to be stuck as a petpet until their mission was all but over.

     “Okay, let’s see here,” Hanso muttered, breaking through Brynn’s stormy thoughts. He had leaned back against the mountain face just by the cave mouth and was studying their map.

     “It looks like Kasuma Village is just a little further down the valley, maybe a half hour’s flight? Seems simple enough.”

     Brynn plodded up to him, and he tilted the map so that she could see the area he was pointing out. The map detailed most of the Misty Spires, a series of high jagged mountains located in the northwest corner of the Skeithback Mountains that ran north to south along Neopia’s largest continent. Most of Shenkuu was within the bounds of the Misty Spires, and navigating among the narrow peaks could be difficult without flight. As Hanso said, though, Kasuma Village didn’t seem to be too far away in either distance or elevation.

     That much was a relief, because his comment had just made her realise that they had another problem.

     “Here,” he said, packing away the map and the now extinguished lanterns. “Take off that pack, and I should be able to find a place for it in the Alkenores’ saddlebags.”

     Brynn shrugged her pack off, but cast a wary glance at the pair of Alkenores the two of them had left tied off at a nearby tree. The petpets were of an exceptionally large breed that could be ridden. They’d been instrumental in helping their riders move quickly among the mountains.

     Hanso grabbed her bag and went over to untie the steeds. Rohane, the one he’d been riding, nuzzled into his hand and made a low trilling sound. Hanso chuckled and took a moment to scratch behind Rohane’s ear before finding a place to secure the extra bag.

     “You coming?” he called back.

     Brynn continued to eye the larger petpets as she approached them. Most hooved petpets were prey creatures, and reacted poorly to predators like Biyakos. Then again, Faerieland didn’t have any natural predators larger than the insectivorous Faellie. Its native petpets shouldn’t have developed that prey instinct.

     Rohane’s antennae twitched when he sensed her, but he didn’t do much more than look her way, tilt his head curiously and chirp. Brynn let out a relieved huff and loped up to where the two Alkenores could better see and smell her. Her own, Boraxis (the stablemaster was a big Neoquest fan), leaned his head down and ran his antennae over her head. She couldn’t tell exactly what he was sensing, but he seemed to recognise her as a friend if nothing else.

     That still left the bigger issue. Hanso paused beside Rohane’s saddle to regard her and Boraxis with a frown. “I… guess you can’t exactly climb up into the saddle, huh?”

     Brynn gave him the flattest look a Biyako could muster and let out a low rumble. ‘Climbing isn’t the part I’m worried about,’ she tried to convey.

     Hanso completely missed her meaning. “Here, let’s try this,” he said, rounding the side of his own steed.

     Brynn reluctantly let him pick her up. Better to get this over with than struggle to make him understand her again, especially on the off chance this actually worked.

     Hanso set her carefully on Boraxis’ saddle. “Okay, I’ve heard stories about Warfs doing stuff like this. Just – just try sitting in the middle of the saddle, and it might work.”

     Brynn did as suggested, but she felt awfully unstable for being in a seat that was about to move. Her foreclaws dug into the saddle. She eyed Hanso with her ears pinned back just a little. ‘Were the Warfs riding Neopet-sized steeds that could fly?’

     Boraxis let out a couple of low chirps and craned his head to look at his awkwardly-placed rider. Not knowing what else to do, Brynn leaned forward and took the reins delicately in her teeth. She rumbled again. ‘This is a terrible idea.’

     “Okay,” Hanso said again. He mounted his own Alkenore and, with a few light tugs of the reins, had Rohane turn towards the direction of the village.

     Brynn was contemplating how to manipulate her own reins without having to lean her whole body when Boraxis sprang into motion. Following his fellow Alkenore’s lead, he trotted around in a half circle and fluttered his wings to hover a couple of feet off the ground.

     Ooh, this was not stable. Brynn was already shifting in the saddle. With no chance of reaching the stirrups or even sitting up properly in this form, she couldn't say she relished the idea of normal overland travel. Flying, she was now certain, was completely out of the question.

     The moment Boraxis touched down, she jumped down from his saddle with a low growl and started along the path by foot. ‘Not happening. We’re walking.’

     Behind her, she could practically feel Hanso wince. “Ah, sorry,” he said. “Just had to give it a shot, you know?”

     Brynn sighed and waited for him to dismount. She didn’t really blame him for anything. It would take a lot longer to reach Kasuma on foot than if they’d managed to make riding work, so she could understand him wanting to try it. And it wasn’t his fault that she could barely voice her thoughts like this.

     Even so, this was shaping up to be a long journey in more ways than one.

     Hanso was really starting to wish they’d hired Unis for this mission.

     “I mean, I know it wouldn’t have helped with the whole riding thing,” he rambled, loosely holding the reins of both Alkenores as he picked his way through the trees. “But we could’ve at least sent one ahead to scout out the best route to the village and let this Ryuji guy know we’re coming. Heck, a Uni could probably fly over, get what we need from him, and be back in half the time it’ll take us to get down there by foot!”

     Ahead of him, Brynn’s ears twitched, and she let out a low grumble to signal that she was still listening. Hanso sighed. At least Alkenores were personable enough that they followed pretty easily. They weren’t much good for conversation, though.

     Hanso wouldn’t admit it out loud, but that was another reason he wished they had Unis with them. Despite spending his fair share of time on his own as a thief – especially after he left the Guild – he had realised back during the Faerie crisis that travelling with other people made things way more interesting.

     For these missions, it was usually just him and Brynn, at least once they were out in the field. Using petpet steeds and other forms of travel tended to be easier than finding available Unis for hire, so they only bothered with the additional help when the mission looked like it was going to be dicey.

     Most of the time, that was fine by Hanso. He and Brynn worked well together, and she was easily his favourite travel partner. He didn’t need much more than her, at least when it came to artefact hunting.

     Now, though… It wasn’t like Brynn wasn’t still here, still attentive. But she didn’t feel entirely like herself. There was no banter, with her pretending not to laugh at his off-colour jokes and letting him know when he’d genuinely gone too far. No sword strapped to her back, feeling so much like an extension of herself that he felt more secure just by looking at her. Right now, looking at her only made him doubt their chances of getting through this mission without further incident.

     In a desperate attempt to banish that unease from his mind, he spoke up again. “You know, maybe all those Faerie pets are on to something. Flying looks like it’d be super useful in general, even with Faerieland on the ground now. I know there were a couple of times I wished I had wings to make heists easier.”

     Brynn’s ear twitched again, and she turned her head to glance back at him. Hanso had to pause for a moment to navigate his way down a ridge, letting go of the Alkenores’ reins and whistling for them to flutter down after him. Brynn followed close behind, taking advantage of her smaller body and natural agility to hop down from one rocky outcropping to the next.

     Once they’d reached the bottom, Hanso took a few more moments to reorient himself with map and compass before taking hold of Rohane and Boraxis’ reins again.

     “Of course, painting myself would mean losing my handsome Blue coat. I dunno if I could pull off that purple colour Faerie Ixis gets. And anyway, the wings look way too delicate for me to want to mess with. You could probably manage it, though. I bet you’d end up a sweet sunset kind of shade, and Faerie Kougras get those big, intimidating wings. Nobody would mistake you for the ‘delicate’ kind of Faerie pet.”

     Back ahead of him now, Brynn suddenly stiffened. Her ears pricked, her hackles rose, and she started letting out a deep growl.

     Hanso raised an eyebrow. “It was just a thought, sweetie. I like the Orange look, I wasn’t suggesting you had to change it or anything.”

     But then he heard it – a rustle of branches and snapping of twigs that were a little too much for the movements of some mountain petpet. They were walking alongside the ridge, now, and it veered off to the side some hundred or so feet ahead of them. He thought he could see the road leading to Kasuma Village through the trees up ahead, and it struck him that this wouldn’t be a terrible place for an ambush.

     As if to prove his point, two cloaked figures darted out from behind the far corner of the ridge. One of them, a wiry Green Nimmo, had a drawn bow pointed at his chest. He could see a sai strapped at her waist as well, and her Red Skeith partner held a rough cudgel in one hand while a bundled net hung at his hip.

     The Nimmo looked down at Brynn, still growling and poised to strike, but kept her weapon trained on Hanso. “Nice Biyako you have there,” she said in a fake conversational tone. “Well trained, by the looks of her. I’d suggest you call her off before things get ugly.”

     For a moment, Hanso could only stare open-mouthed at the pair. Was he seriously getting robbed right now?

     Shaking his head, he sputtered, “Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?!”

     The Nimmo affected a shrug. “Considering I’m the one with an arrow pointed at you, I don’t see how it really matters.”

     The Skeith snickered at that. Hanso didn’t dare make any sudden movements, but his eyes darted around for something he could use. Along with her longsword, Brynn had a shortbow and a quiver of arrows strapped to Boraxis' side in case of emergency. But she couldn’t exactly use either weapon right now, and Hanso was still training to use bows and was far better with his dagger than a sword. The Alkenores had started pawing at the ground uncertainly, but while they had the demeanour and training to keep their heads in a tense situation, he doubted that included much of an active role in combat.

     Looked like it was time for the old fallback, then. He looked over the two robbers like he was appraising them and raised an eyebrow.

     “So, you two hang way back from the road and hope the big guy over there doesn’t alert travellers before you can start sticking pointy things in their faces? This has to be, what, the first time that’s actually worked?”

     The Skeith bristled. “Hey, that’s stereotyping!”

     Hanso gave him a flat look. “You’re holding the blunt weapon and letting your buddy do the talking. And my Biyako heard you long before our little chat started. You’re not exactly helping your case.”

     He hoped Brynn would forgive him for calling her “his” Biyako. The comment had its intended effect, at least: the Skeith took an angry step forward and opened his mouth to argue more, to which the Nimmo rolled her eyes and turned toward him. She loosened her grip on the bow and lowered it as she did so.

     “Oh, give it a rest, Kaito. It’s not like he knows how we –”

     She cut off with a shriek as Brynn took advantage of the lowered weapon to launch into her chest. The sheer force of the pounce knocked the Nimmo over. Brynn wasted no time and bit her hard in the forearm, eliciting a howl of pain and forcing her to drop the bow.

     The Skeith turned with wide eyes and raised his cudgel to strike the attacking Biyako, but Hanso was already on the move. He rushed forward and barrelled low into the bigger pet to throw him off balance. The Skeith yelped and stumbled, but held his ground and turned his attention to swinging at Hanso instead.

     That was just as well, because the Nimmo had managed to grab her sai with her other hand and was now thrusting it toward Brynn. The small weapon’s movement had forced Brynn off of her, and the transformed pet stumbled awkwardly as her unaccustomed body betrayed her in the chaos of battle.

     “Kaito, the net!” the Nimmo barked.

     The Skeith paused just after forcing Hanso back with a swing of the cudgel to pull the net from his hip. In a deft, practised motion, he tossed it outward so that it unfurled and fell heavily over Brynn before she could finish regaining her bearings.

     Hanso snarled. “Oh no, you don’t!” Ducking under the Skeith’s next wide swing, he reached up and grabbed the thug’s meaty wrist. With a careful twist, he pulled the cudgel out of the Skeith’s hands and gave him a quick whack with it that forced the air out of his lungs. Then, a stolen weapon tucked under one arm, he dove for the net that Brynn was trying to untangle herself from and pulled out his dagger to cut through.

     “No!” the Nimmo snarled, clutching her wounded arm and stumbling to her feet. “Yasu, the potion, use the potion!”

     Hanso was trying to saw through a fistful of net when movement above caught his attention. He looked up just in time to see a flurry of feathers and a thin-walled potion bottle falling right at his feet.

     The next thing he knew, some time had passed, and he felt a full-body chill. Accursed freezing potions. The cold was wearing off now, though, and he was able to push the unpleasant sensation aside as bigger things demanded his attention.

     In particular, his impromptu battleground was practically empty now. Aside from some roughed-up ground, the only signs of a scuffle were the shattered remains of the potion bottle and a few drops of blood over where Brynn had bitten the Nimmo. The robbers – all three of them, apparently – were gone.

     So were the petpets. Including Brynn.

     Fighting down a creeping panic, Hanso whistled for Rohane and Boraxis. They’d probably startled and flown off in the confusion, but they wouldn’t have strayed too far from him. And Brynn had escaped the net and chased the robbers off, and now she was making her way back. Yeah. That was it.

     Hanso started on a short circuit of the area and whistled again. With the ridge on one side and no real clearing to speak of, he didn’t have to do much more to take stock of things than pick his way round the nearest rocks and trees.

     As he rounded one boulder, not far from where he’d first encountered the robbers, a jumbled pile caught his eye. He approached it with a frown.

     It was the Alkenores’ saddlebags. And his and Brynn’s packs. And her bow and arrows.

     In fact, as he rummaged through everything, he realised that the only items of theirs that were missing were Brynn’s sword and the tack the Alkenores had been wearing.

     For the second time in just a few hours, Hanso’s breath caught in his throat as the pieces fell into place. The thieves’ particular interest in Brynn, who they didn’t know was a transformed Neopet; the way the Nimmo had switched from attacking to trying to capture an aggressive Biyako the moment she had a chance; the fact that the Skeith even had a net, much less one he was better with than his own weapon.

     These weren’t highway robbers.

     They were poachers. Petpet smugglers.

To be continued…