It was raining. Not one of those gentle summer drizzle rains people like to dance in. Not a healthy downpour feeding the plants and serving as background noise for a funeral. No, this was a liberal torrent, one that immediately soaks you through to the bottom layer of your clothes even through the best raincoats. Good thing bird feathers are water repellent. I knew only one type of bird really struggling with water in their feathers. And I knew because I was one of them.

This was one of those things you never really think about until they hit you. Somehow I had dodged larger amounts of water for all of three months. Granted, two of those were spent mostly in a cave and a lot of that time I was asleep or stuck in my own mind, but still. This was the first experience I had with water since I hatched.

Huddled up in my little cave I watched the waterfall rushing down in front of me. It blocked nearly the whole entrance and of course, there had to be a tiny edge of rock jutting out into what was normally air and create a mini rainstorm in my home. It sucked. Feathers stuck together, eyes squinting through the misty drops, feet slipping whenever I readjusted my position. And worst of all: wet food.

At least I had food stashed and did not have to go out in this horrible weather. I was very confident it was impossible to fly in this weather even if my feathers did not soak the water like a sponge.

There was another problem with the rain. It was cold. Even though we should be approaching summer soon the water was nearly freezing to the touch. Nothing I could do about that besides making sure the water did not reach my down. That would be a fast ticket to hypothermia.

There was one upside to this stupid weather. The wolves had left. Or more likely hidden away in some cave or somewhere similar. I really hoped they had left. I wanted to hunt more large prey but I did not want my targets to be alert. And those mutts had been searching and scanning the valley for traces of me for almost two nights now! Good thing I had wings. There was no way they could trace my smell through the air.

The torrents slowed down at the end of the day. At least I thought it was the end of the day since the sky got darker even though the rain lessened. I still had little interest in taking off. I would most likely just crash with my wings soaked this much. One last little snack was kept in case the rain picked up again. The wolves were back as well, I heard them howling again. Even if there were any traces of me left before, now they would find absolutely nothing. Maybe I could just wait one more day for them to leave?

KRAKOOOMM

A penetrating flash of violet seared my eyes accompanied by a deafening crack. Great. A thunderstorm. Now I could not even rest properly. Maybe one of the wolves would be unlucky and get hit? Unlikely, but one could hope.

KRRAKKRAAAKKOOOMM

'Another flash, this time even a double! And I thought the storm was letting up!'

I edged forward towards the waterfall that had shrunk enough to no longer splash half its water into my cave. The lightning strikes continued in an unpredictable pattern, most of them to the west, a few right above.

And then I saw it. An enormous shape of darkness was lit up violet and white from a lightning bolt. It had a snake-like body floating high up in the sky, only parts of it showing through the near-black clouds. Small fins and tendrils stood off to the side as it was taking a tranquil stroll towards the east.

I stared. Hard. My superb vision was impeded by the curtains of water but I made out how a few of its tendrils let off charges of electricity into the clouds every once in a while. Was this thing making the thunderstorm?

What had I gotten myself into? Just taking up a simple territory near my birthplace should have let me live a quiet and relaxed life. The occasional Feathered Wyvern attacking me seemed like a Sunday walk on the beach compared to going deeper into the mountains where that monster came from.

But then something else stirred in my heart. A sense of wonder. Where there were beasts this amazingly terrifying, there had to be places they lived. What would the home of a gigantic lightning-snake-dragon look like? Was this size normal or did it somehow get to such a high level it surpassed all limits of its species? I wanted to know. I had to know. And I would get stronger and explore. Learn all there was to learn about this terrifyingly beautiful world.

When I came back to my senses the rain had turned into another world-ending torrent. This time I wondered if that monster was responsible for it. Maybe this was just how it said hello?

My last snack was eaten soon and I spent the rest of the night waiting for the rain to end. At some point, the clouds started to recede and left behind a few straggling puffs and streaks of white lit up by the morning sun. I was hungry but not enough to chance flying with my still wet feathers. So I spread my wings slightly and sat on the edge of my cave entrance to dry in the wind and the early rays of light.

It looked like a hurricane had gone through the valley. Trees were uprooted or ripped apart. Some of them lay on the slopes above the tree line. Water was still flowing down from the mountainsides turning the rivulet into a flooding river. Broken trunks and bushes were taken out of the valley. I even made out occasional bodies of dead animals popping out of the waves.

My gaze went over the caves closer to the ground and I made out the wolves digging through some smaller carcasses. So they had survived. With most of the trees ripped from the ground I had little cover. There was no chance for me to sneak up on them and catch stragglers. So I decided to leave them be. There would be other targets less aware of my presence and with more cover nearby.

As I sat there deliberating where to go next, I had a look at my Status. It was a little difficult to keep track of my Skills. Maybe I could adjust how it showed? It turned out to be very easy. I could not make it show anything not part of my Status but I was able to move anything it already showed wherever I wanted it to be. Apparently, the system already had the Skills categorized because as soon as I grouped them they got labelled appropriately.

Species: Great Eagle Owl (fledgeling)

Age: 0

Name: -

Gender: female

Status: sapient, healthy

Level: 4

Class: [Assassin lvl 9], -

Strength: 8

Constitution: 8

Dexterity: 15

Perception: 20

Intelligence: 13

Wisdom: 9

AP: 0

Skills:

Racial:

Utility: [Owl Senses lvl 3], [Preening lvl 3], [Owl Stomach lvl 3], [Soundless Flight lvl 3]

Offensive: [Solid Grip lvl 3], [Intimidating Screech lvl 2], [Owl’s Shadow lvl 3], [Aerial Combat lvl 2],

General:

[Maths lvl 4], [Identify lvl 2],

Assassin:

[Sneak lvl 4], [Surprise Attack lvl 3]

For some reason, I had to group [Solid Grip] and [Owl’s Shadow] with the offensive Skills even though they looked like utility to me. Grappling was certainly a part of fighting but I did not have the strength or body mass to efficiently use it for that. And the shadows were used primarily for hiding, as father showed me.

My feathers had dried mostly by late afternoon and I was hungry. Really hungry. So after a bit of [Preening], I decided to take off. With the size of the storm, there would be devastated trees and little cover for quite some ways of travel. While dangerous when near the wolves it would be very helpful with finding myself a quick meal.

I followed the valley through the bend. It extended a long ways southwest before splitting off into two in the distance. Not long after I left the wolves behind I found myself a meal. Animals closer to the ground had a far harder time escaping the streaming torrents and the debris thrown around by the winds. There was a liberal feast of meat stuck beneath the forest’s remains for scavengers to help themselves.

While I preferred to hunt, food was food. But I stayed away from claimed bodies. There was some kind of cat, looking a bit like a panther. A few groups of raptors, the birds not the dinosaurs, had taken over their own parts. There was enough to go around though and I did not want to pick a fight when hungry.

When I took off again and flew further down the valley a form shot across a nearby pass. It smashed into one of the feasting parties and half the birds scattered along with an explosion of mud and blood. When it receded I spotted a familiar form. A Feathered Wyvern. This time though it was a much larger specimen. Probably an adult.

It had the same dark-brown leathery skin as the fledgeling but its back was ridged with small spikes. It had dirty-white feathers splotched with red and brown from its landing lining both its wings and tail. The skin crown was patterned with black lines forming mesmerizing swirls. Its claws and fangs curved like cruel daggers.

I immediately found a nearby cave to hide in and made myself as small as possible while still watching the area. Not one moment after I settled in the next shadow dropped into the valley. Followed by another one shortly after. And then another one. A whole flock of wyverns streamed across the passes from the west.

Within minutes the only things moving were the wyverns nicking, screaming and growling at each other and the river streaming down the middle. And then they left. Just as fast as they appeared, they were gone again. A few of their own bodies left behind, killed by their own kin. Most of the carcasses untouched or only partially consumed.

If I had to guess, they were following the storm. Taking out most of the animals feasting on the bodies left behind would make them grow very quickly. And because they had to keep moving to keep up with it they did not have enough time to thoroughly kill each other and thin out the flock.

I really wanted to get stronger…

Flying through the devastated valley I spotted some movement here and there. It seemed some animals had survived. Nothing big enough for me to really level, but enough to avoid starving.

It took me a whole night to reach the split and now I had to decide if I wanted to go further south or straight west. In the south, I could see mostly undamaged trees in the distance. The storm had come from the west and spared the area. I wanted to see where that monster had come from. Maybe it did not even have a home and just constantly flew a great circle but I still wanted to take a look. On the other hand, I was guessing there were larger animals down south. Anything large enough to give me lots of experience and still survive the storm might be too dangerous for me to hunt.

I was unsure what to do. What settled my internal debate was that I was only guessing with the feasible targets being more common to the south. But I knew the lightning-storm-snake had come from the west and it would be easy to follow its trail. So I took off to the west.