I was furious.

No, I was beyond furious.

I was thermonuclear pissed off.

And why exactly am I pissed off at this exact moment?

Because some motherfucker robbed me of my gold, my laptop and worst of all gave me a fake ass golden idol when he let me go to return it to the king.

This bastard, no, this lowlife piece of shit, is going to have himself the worst day of his life and he will remember this day as his last normal day on this waking world.

I stormed out of the griffon palace and out the front gates, a gleam, sharpened iron sword was firmly in my right hand and not a single griffon guard bothered to stop me to take it away from me. They all saw how angry I was and they knew that if they tried that they might be ending up losing a talon or two or even a pair of wings in the process.

If people can see my mood then they can see a pitch-black storm cloud was raging over my head, thunder and lightning coming down hard and that would normally be a clear enough indicator to stay the fuck out of my way.

But instead they got out of my way because they can see me storming down the streets, sword in hand, knuckles roughed up, my face red enough that some might think that it will explode violently, and that quite a few of them can hear my teeth grinding.

My plan was to go back to the griffon hideout and to kill everything in my way until I get to Tazul's room and gut him like a fish before tossing his still-breathing body out the window to let him get eaten alive by the feral beasts that wander the forest he calls home.

Power walking through the streets of Griffonstone I saw several dozen griffons out and about, all of them celebrating that the idol is back, and they knew it was back because they saw me carrying it back but they don't know that it was a fake the entire time. While they were all out celebrating by dancing, drinking whatever alcohol they can get their grubby talons on at that moment, and most of all, all of them are cheering me on because they think of me as a hero.

They shouldn't be cheering for me right now because if they know what I am planning to do then they might try to stop me and throw me in chains. I don't think griffons will normally condone murder of one of their own so easily, unless they know what this asshole did, of course.

Several griffons came up to me and tried to congratulate me on getting the idol back but when they saw me with a sword in my hands and my none-to-pleased look on my face so they kept a fair distance away from me, a few on the other hand instead hugged me from the sides or patted me on the shoulder on a job well done but one look from me, a death glare of the highest order, set them right as they immediately left me alone.

I did not have time for their happiness nor their cheerfulness.

I am a man on a mission, and that mission is to skin that bastard and use his skull as an athletic cup.

Thinking on it now though I had to reorganize my thought process on I am going to go about doing that.

1: Get down mountain.
2: Go into the forest.
3: Find the griffon's compound in the forest.
4: Kill everything that has a pulse.
5: Get back stolen shit.
6: Profit.

Maybe have to add 'Rescue the captured griffons, again' to my list somewhere...maybe after 4 and before 5...maybe after 5 and before 6? I don't know but I am going to have to rescue them again and this time I will not fall that honey trap of a princess again.

Soon enough from exiting the griffon's royal palace I was halfway through the city when I came across a few sets of familiar faces that was standing in my way.

Well by standing in my way I sorta mean that they are standing at a food cart trying to get their meal from the hen standing behind it.

Grandpa Gruff, his two bodyguards, and even Greta were standing in front of the food cart while the hen on the other side, who I can now tell is Gilda, are talking back and forth about something but as soon as Greta saw me she waved a talon to try and bring me over without alerting the others.

Normally I would have accepted Greta's request for me to come over but I was currently blinded by blind fury and rage to accept her request so I ignored her for the most part until I was right in front of her before making my current intentions clear.

"Not now Greta, I have a griffon to murder and a princess to save." I said with a grunt before walking past her, and for a moment I thought she was going to just accept my answer as it is and now question it but it would seem that she has something else in mind for me.

As soon as I walked past Greta she grabbed me by the arm and yanked me hard enough to almost cause me to lose my footing and eat shit and fall, but I managed to reassert myself and maintain my balance before turning around to face my griffon friend.

Who also seemed to be giving me a questioning and also fearful stare.

"Dude, you can't just go and kill somebody! That is illegal you know and that won't get you out of our deal so don't even think about it!" my griffon acquaintance said as she tried to talk me out of killing Tazul, well she doesn't know who exactly I am out to kill, only that I am going to go out and waste someone.

"Wasn't planning on getting out of it, and besides Greta, it isn't illegal when you are going to kill a traitor to the country!" I said with a bit of a deranged cheer to my voice as I twirled the sword in my hands before yanking my hand free from Greta's talons which at the time seemed like a good idea but instead it wasn't.

Turns out that it wasn't a good idea at all.

Did you know that griffon talons are sharp enough to cut into flesh with ease if they have been sharpened recently?

I didn't.

Greta's talons dug into my left arm and just like a cat's paw with their sharp claws, these griffons have the same thing but their talons are sharper and longer than the average house cats by at least a factor of two or three, depending on the griffon.

Dropping my stolen sword on the ground to grab at the wounded area, I tightened my hold on my left arm as I started to bleed from the three claw marks on the back side of my forearm while the thumb talon just barely cut my wrist. If she was holding just a little bit tighter than I would be in a life-or-death situation and bleed out.

Lucky me.

"What the fuck Greta! Why the hell are your talons so sharp! They weren't the last time you grabbed onto me like that!" I shouted as I held my wounded forearm to staunch the flow of blood as Gilda rolled her eyes from behind her food stand and flew over to where Greta and I were standing with a roll of bandages in her talons.

"Really Greta? The first time I get to meet your friend and you already cut him up?" The griffon said as she landed beside Greta and handed her the roll without so much as asking a price.

I guess she might be one of those nice griffons that I heard about.

"Shut up Gilda, how was I supposed to know that he doesn't have a tough hide?" Greta says as she wrapped my arm with the bandages that her friend offered to her.

Or not...at least she offered me some bandages.

"Gee I don't know, maybe just be seeing how thin looking he is? Sure I see some muscle on him but not enough to dull the pain." Gilda said as she went back to cooking fish on her mobile stove.

While the two hens were talking about me as if I wasn't even there, I was busy tightly wrapping the bandage wrap around my forearm and with a small metal pin I stitched the bandages together so they don't fall apart when I am moving.

With my injury taken care of and the girls talking about some sort of heat wave that is supposedly coming in three months, I kneelt down and grabbed my stolen sword before taking just a single step towards the main entrance into Griffonstone when I was stopped by a pair of talons grabbing onto my left arm.

"Woah there buddy, where do you think you are going?" I heard Gilda say that as Greta grabs me by the left shoulder, trying her best not to cut me up again.

"Yeah, you are not going anywhere until you tell me why you have to kill somegriffon!"

Letting out an exasperated sigh I turned around to face the griffons standing behind me, Grandpa Gruff was nibbling on a slightly charred cod fish on a stick, his two bodyguards doing the same thing but with what looks like a trout and a bass on a stick. Greta and Gilda were both staring at me, expecting me to give them a good enough of an answer and seeing how that I easily got clawed by Greta without her even trying I might as well make it easier on myself.

"I am off to kill some griffon who robbed me of at least ten pounds of gold and a very valuable personal object of mine. And also that he is leading a group of bandits that also just so happens to have kidnapped the griffon princess." I said while eyeing the fish cooking on the stove, the smell of it was making my mouth water very badly as I hadn't had anything to eat in a long while.

The purple-tipped griffon saw that I was hungry and then tapped the jar that was on her stand, a clear indicator of 'one fish for X amount of gold coins', and seeing how I was so damn hungry at the moment, I thought that any price is worth the savory taste of a cooked fish on a stick, as long as there is no tarter sauce n relish.

Reaching for my gold pouch I pulled out gold coins and dropped it in the jar and as soon as the coins hit the rest that was in there, the hen grabbed one of the fish-on-a-stick and passed it to me. I don't know what fish I am holding right now, maybe a trout or cod, or maybe even pike, but what I do know is that this juicy baby is gonna be nothing more than fuel for my murderous rage against a certain griffon and his motley crew of thieves.

I utterly destroyed that fish-on-a-stick, leaving nothing but small bits of fish meat on the stick before tossing it aside and buying a second one which then went onto a third until finally ending at my fourth fish-on-a-stick and uttering out a belch worthy of praise and song.

"Gross...but do we know this griffon your about to kill?" Gilda said as she flips over a salmon over the grill, not really looking up at me as she focuses on her fish.

"Nope, just some asshole who is about to look great hanging from my mantelpiece over the fireplace." That and I wonder if I can get that griffon's dead corpse stuffed and placed into a sitting position in the dining room of my home when I get one.

"Sick." Gilda says as she turns over a fish, Greta on the other hand is looking a bit green around the gills...err...head feathers.

"Well then don't mess with me, plain and simple. Don't want to get brutally murdered and have your remains used as a piece of furniture by me then don't do something to warrant me wanting your head." I said as I flicked the fourth empty stick onto the floor before wiping my mouth of any remaining crumbs and was about to leave but someone else had to say something.

Turns out it was Grandpa Gruff and it would seem that he has some wisdom to pass onto me.

"Ian, I don't know who this griffon is, but if they are willing to kidnap somegriffon and rob you, then they are not to be trifled with. Take every caution that you can, I would hate to see the Hero of Griffonstone get injured, maimed or worse, killed. Stay safe out there." And with that said the elderly griffon turned back to Gilda's food stand and ordered another fish-on-a-stick, leaving me to swallow his advice.

Nodding at my griffon friend who started me on this road I turned back to face my other two griffon friends to see that they too are nodding at me and with their acceptance that I am about to commit a justifiable murder, or that they are just doing it so I don't turn the sword on them (which I won't), they let me leave.

As I started to get out of earshot I heard Greta shout something at me just as I reached the arch leading out of the city.

"Ian! Don't get yourself killed now! You still owe me a favor!" Great, now I have another reason for not dying.

This favor better not be something stupid, like moving shit out of your home and putting it in another building.

I can only hope that I don't get killed, it would really suck if I was slain by a bunch of thieves.

Walking out of the city I made my way back down the mountain, this being my second time climbing down and I must say there has to be a faster way of doing this without getting myself killed or breaking an ankle in the process. They should probably put into an elevator system or maybe even some sort of sliding lift that goes up and down. Hell I would even take a trolley if they had one here.

Putting one foot in front of the other while thinking of what I am actually going to do when I get to Tazul's manor.

Maybe set it on fire and burn it down to the ground...but that would kill the griffon princess and her entourage.

Or I could set it on fire after I save everyone? But then that would mean I would have to have knocked out or killed quite a few of the griffons in there to get to them so that is also out.

Shit I didn't really think this through now did I?

Please, just leave the royal palace with a stolen royal guard's sword and kill them all? Like hell that is going to work! They will fucking eviscerate me in seconds with their talons! Hell they have swords as well so they will just dice me up and probably serve me as dinner!

As soon as I realized that I was pretty much putting myself one foot in the grave and foot on a banana peel I was about to turn myself around and ask the king for assistance but something stopped me from doing so.

When I turned around to start heading back up, I saw that coming down the mountain in hot pursuit of me was a scrawny-looking diamond dog and he was running at me full sprint before tripping over his own paws and landing face first right at me feet. Kneeling down I helped my somewhat clumsy friend up off the floor before asking him what is he doing all the way out here, let alone why is he even following me.

"What are you doing here Scrawny? Go back to the palace and stay there, I'll be right back." I was wondering why he was following me because I know that this dog can't fight his way out of a paper bag let alone fight a griffon and expect to survive.

Huffing from exhaustion the diamond dog was holding his knees as he tried to catch his breath and the moment he did I saw that he was carrying a mace on his hip with the exception that this mace was nothing more than a single hunk of iron with a smooth ball at the end of it the size of an orange.

"I am here to help you." Yeah, I can see that! But seriously though, where the hell did he get that weapon and why the hell is he even out here? I thought I left his ass back at the palace so that he would be safe!

"Why?" I just have to know now.

"Was told to never leave my alpha's side." Never leave my side...wait...

Alpha?

That threw me through a loop as I play back those words in my head countless times, rolling it around as I tried to come up with a reason as to why my friend would say that.

"Who told you to never leave my side? And why am I your alpha now?" I can give myself three guesses as to who told him to follow me, but what is really grinding my gears is my friend here telling me that I am now his boss.

Why?

"The bird king, he said I can't leave your side, and you're my alpha because you saved me. Old Alpha kept me around cause I'm runt, you kept me around because you care about me. You are my new alpha now!" And with that said Scrawny stood up to his full height but this time he was now standing by my side and waiting for me to tell him what to do.

Achievement Unlocked! Got your first party member!
Achievement Unlocked! Friend of the Deep: Recruited a diamond dog!

Sighing to myself I shook my head as I come to understand that my friend is now going to be stuck with me for the foreseeable future of forever. Now it wouldn't be so bad assuming he won't be trying to sneak into my bedroom when I am getting laid or worse, try to go into the bathroom while I am still in it and using it.

"There is nothing I can say that will get you to go back up the mountain and wait in the palace is there." I said with my eyes closed and when I heard nothing I guess that was him silently saying 'Nope' to me.

Pinching the bridge of my nose I sighed in displeased anger but for the time being I was just going to let it go, after all if I am going to be walking to my death than I would at least have someone to send back to tell how I died to those few who knew me. Although thinking about it now, there are only like...four...maybe five people griffons that know me, and one diamond dog, so the list of people that will miss me when I get killed is abysmally short.

I know that I won't be able to tell him to go home and leave me be, I decided that it might be for the best that he joins me on my quest for revenge. He might even be able to help me get pay back on these assholes!

"Fine you can follow me, just don't get hurt." And with that said I sealed his fate by binding his to mine.

Accepting the fact that my friend also just called me alpha, it is making me wonder what exactly this would entail for me to do...

"So Scrawny, ready to head out and bag us a lying bastard?"

"Yes alpha! He lied to you and almost got us in trouble! Punish him!" My dog friend said with a happy bark before raising a fist into the air, obviously this guy is just being a yes man since I am his alpha. At least I now have a yes man, usually those only exist in the corporate ladder.

With that said and done, and with my friend in tow now, the two of us headed down the mountain towards the outskirts where the forest meets the dead grass just at the base of the mountain. It was when we were coming down from Griffonstone did the weather start to take a turn for the worst as I saw a few griffons moving grey clouds around in the sky, I thought weather controlling was impossible but then I remembered what world I am on and that normal Earth physics have been thrown out the window and into a well-placed shredder at the bottom of the building. This would be something else I would have to ask a griffon or someone else who has knowledge on weather manipulation whenever I get back from scalping and skinning a backstabbing griffon in his own home.

As we arrived at where I had first landed in this strange new world, the weather above me started to churn and change as quickly as it appeared and that was when I felt a strange tingling sensation climb through my body, like getting statically shocked after rubbing my socks on the carpet to build up a charge but this was all over my body and it wasn't going away anytime soon. I thought it was just goosebumps acting up on me like any other time they show up but this time it feels more like I am being statically charged and that the next thing I touch might explode.

I could have walked through where I landed in this world but instead I walked around it, I don't know why but something inside me was telling me to avoid the area at all costs, so I listened to it. Walking around the patch of dead grass I steadily made my way to the edge of the forest and when I have arrived at its boundaries the weather kept on churning for the worst and it finally decided that now was the time to turn into a downpour of rain.

The strange sensation died as quickly as it arrived, shaking off the goosebumps and my paranoid fear that I am being watched by otherworldly beings, my companion and I arrived at the forest's edge and gazed at the innumerable trees that lay before us.

Pulling my hood over my head I cross the threshold into the forest and started to make my way deeper into its folds to find the lair of the treacherous backstabber who robbed me.

With the sun still up it would normally make it outright impossibly for me to be concealed from sight, but due to this forest thick foliage and stormy weather that is already hiding the sun from everyone, I am now hard to spot and I am already thinking of a plan to get back my precious gold and belongings.

Normally finding ones way back to a location they have only been to once would either be impossibly or highly improbable, but for me I got very lucky. That and I also went only in a straight line so if I could replicate its effects then I could easily return to the griffon's compound.

And after several hours of walking in a straight line and with Lady Luck on my side I managed to find the building hidden in the forest and now that I can look at it from here, I think I am going to take back that errant thought of burning it to the ground. Instead I am thinking of taking it for myself, after cleaning out the dead bodies and cleaning the bloodstains from the wood and carpets.

'This would make an excellent vacation home...so as long as no wild beasts break into it when I am gone, or another band of thieves invades it and claim it for themselves.'

Nodding to myself I steadily yet slowly crouched down and made my way to the compound, doing everything within my power to keep out of sight from the few windows that I can see, and I can see that there is no one standing by them as far as I can tell. With the inside of the rooms with the windows being laminated by lanterns or torches, I can see rays of light pouring through the open spots and from my vantage point of being outside and crouching near a bush I spot nothing to worry about.

That is until I hear the faint sound of somebody opening the heavy wooden doors leading into the building and as I readjust my position behind the bush I spot a lone griffon stepping out, holding a hammer in one talon and underneath a wing was a small wooden barrel.

I can't tell from here what it is but I can safely bet that it is either booze or some form of oil to be used as a lubricate for whatever the hammer is going to be used for.

Spying on the lone griffon I watch as the door is closed behind him and to my luck the griffon was moving near the door before putting down the hammer and small wooden barrel on the ground to stand on his hind legs to get some height to grab the lantern attached to the wall.

Seeing that he is distracted and currently cannot hear me approaching, I moved as quickly and as quietly as I possibly could and attacked the unsuspecting griffon. With his back facing me and his head looking at the barrel as he poured in oil into the lantern I grabbed him by the beak to silence him and stabbed him in the spine to kill him.

The griffon tried to scream out in pain but with me standing virtually on top of him and the fact that my sword came out through his chest and has also severed his spine he dropped like a rock onto the ground all the while letting out a muffled screech before finally going silent as I yank the sword upward. My sword tore through his spine as it was pulled upward, the blade sliced through more of the griffons spine before coming out through the base of his skull and flung blood up onto the wall and into the air before coming back down with the rain.

Staring down at the corpse that now lay at my feet, the rain was doing its best to hide any evidence that he was killed by washing away the blood that is on the ground and the wall, and as for me? I was gasping for air as I just stare at the dead griffon and it doesn't sink in yet that I had just killed a sentient being who possibly might have a family somewhere.

'I...I did it...didn't I? I killed him...he's dead...holy shit...'

Achievement Unlocked! First Blood: Kill your first enemy!

The sound of gravel being stepped on from behind alerted me to my friend's presence and as soon as I turned around I saw that he was mortified and was shaking in fear at the sight of me standing over a dead body with a bloodied sword still in my hands.

As it turns out I would also later learn that diamond dogs hardly ever kill anyone unless it is absolutely necessary, I guess this is because that they obviously capture and enslave everyone they come across that can't escape from them.

"Is he...is he dead?"

"Yes, and he won't be the last one to die tonight Scrawny." I said as I laid my sword down beside the corpse before searching it for anything of value and/or a set of keys for the building.

Looting a corpse in a game makes it look so much easier than it does in real life, and right now I had to roll the corpse over three times before I finally found a set of bronze keys on a rope key-ring that was around his neck.

Relieving the key-ring from the dead griffon I took my sword and cut the rope to make it smaller and tied the now smaller ends with a square knot and placed the smaller bundle into my right front pocket before grabbing the hammer on the floor and stood up back to my full height and headed toward the door.

"But...why?" Scrawny said with his voice full of fear. He is obviously old enough to have sex and yet he isn't mature enough to handle the death of some griffon. Strange but I guess not everyone is used to death like I am. I feel bad for the griffon but I am not getting too bent out of shape over it.

Maybe there is something wrong with me.

"Because Scrawny, if we are going to get back the idol and rescue the griffon princess, and also recover my gold and laptop that was stolen... we will have to go through every single griffon that gets in our way. They will not spare us a second time and will try to kill us if they catch us."

"Remember this my friend, it is either us or them, there is no grey spot in between this. These griffons chose to follow a man that is willing to betray his king and imprison his daughter all for a seat of power to rule a nation. If he is willing to commit treason than he is also willing to do other unspeakable horrors onto his own people." And with that said I slowly made my way to the front door and with the door ever so slightly open, I pulled the handle back and as soon as it was open enough I took a gentle step into the foyer of the griffon manor.

Today is the day that I can no longer go back to what my old life was, or ever will be normal.

Today, I am innocent no longer.

Next Chapter: Blooded Feathers Estimated time remaining: 13 Hours, 54 Minutes