Since it was on the way, Maladrain agreed to take a short detour to get me more chalk. A small little cliff about an hour’s walk from the village had all the chalk I’d ever need. The cliff itself was made of limestone, and although it wasn’t as good as imported chalk, limestone drew well on slate. So, whenever I ran out of chalk sticks, I would just walk here with a chisel and carve myself a few more. When we arrived, I made sure to get five sticks since it sounded like I’d need to do a lot of communicating in the future.

After I finished collecting chalk sticks with Maladrain’s dagger, he sat on a rock and indicated I sit on another. The forest was still muddy from the rains two days ago, so the ground wasn’t a good option.

Speaking of dirt, my robes had more than enough of that on them. I was no devout follower of my patron, but I still had a good deal of reverence for the god who wanted to help me and others, despite my disability, so I didn’t want to see her robes dirtied. Or maybe I’m just sentimental. Probably closer to the latter.

I handed him his knife, and he put it back into a small sheath on his belt, then pulled the clay box filled with my documents of the Mudmule out of his backpack and opened it. “So, let me get this straight, since you said some strange things in your notes.” He began idly shuffling through the pages. “The Mudmule always wakes from hibernation on the 8th of June, then passes through a valley that’s eight miles from our current location, and when you tracked it back to its hibernation spot, it melded into the ground, leaving no trace?”

I nodded.

“The Mudmule, you say, has about 350 Str, 17 Dex, 510 Con, 20 Wis, 21 Int, and 25 Cha. The reason you bothered to measure The Mudmule’s constitution and strength to such great levels was because you think it is actually a [mutation] of an animal you call a ‘mudmule’, and The Mudmule is just a [colossus] class of that animal. Am I getting this right?”

I nod.

“Where did you get this [mutation] nonsense from?”

I pick up my slate then begin writing {A [trader] once came to the village with exotic goods, and he rode a creature identical to The Mudmule, at least in appearance.}

“I get it, I think...I know I already gave you a ton of Exp, but I can’t take your word for any of this.”

I nodded and shrugged. Many of my claims could be confirmed if he stopped by my village and asked around, but I wasn’t going to say that.

“But there’s something I don’t get. The Mudmule is a [collosuss] [legendary monster], with unique abilities pertaining to it alone. I don’t see how a random mule-thing gets to become a boss like that.”

{[legendary mount], actually. Read closer.} I had stated in my notes it was a [legendary mount], which is simply an animal with a legendary class built for riding.

Menus don’t show everything to everyone. Any piece of knowledge in someone’s menu can be forcibly found, but not everyone has the tools to find that knowledge.

Every bit of information on the menu has some sort of [visibility] level(I don’t know the specifics) and cannot be publicly seen without using a [menu method]. Not all [menu method]s are made equally, though, and some are able to see more than others. I found The Mudmule’s classes through the [observe] [menu method], which is easy to use since it can be used by anyone if they study something for long enough but isn’t very effective compared to more exclusive [menu methods]. People can also allocate their Exp to decrease the [visibility] of certain menu information. I put about 10 Exp into making my magic skills harder to see, mostly as an experiment. If I wanted to make it even harder to see, though, it would take 30 more for another decrease to its [visiblity].

Maladrain shuffled to a page of notes, where I drew and diagramed The Mudmule. “Oh, I missed that...what’s your point, though?”

{[legendary creature]s are one of a kind} wipe, write, {It’s likely that powerful people would want to see} wipe, write, {if turning a [legendary creature] into a monster would work.}

“That’s a, uhh...far-fetched argument. Plus, you have it written that it’s a [legendary creature] and a monster, which makes no sense! Wouldn’t it turn into a [legendary monster], then?”

{Ever heard of the [reincarnation] spell?}

“Yeah, it’s a spell only available to the highest level [druid] classes. It can bring someone back to life, so long as they died that day, right?”

{Not quite. It gives the person a new body} wipe, write, {It can change your race.} wipe, write, {However, some races have unique classes. If a} wipe, write, {[dwarf] with [miner zealot] as their class was to turn into a [human]} wipe, write, {they would retain that [race exclusive class]} I wasn’t actually sure about that, but my notes really were true, so I exaggerated my certainty a little.

“So...you’re saying that since The Mudmule’s class was [legendary creature] beforehand, it stayed that way, even after a race change?”

I nodded. {It acts like an ordinary mule as well, all it does is eat trees.}

“You’ve got an interesting argument. I’ll give you that, kid. Let’s go check out its travel path, and I’ll verify your firsthand account.”

He stood up and started walking away. I was getting sick and tired of walking on a sprained ankle. It might only have been a slight injury, but I really didn’t want to keep walking another four miles with growing pain. {Piggyback.}

After a moment, he realized I hadn’t followed and turned to look at me. “What’s the holdup...Piggyback?! Girl, just because I call you a kid doesn’t mean you are one. Why should I do that?!”

{Sprained ankle}

“Oh...wait, don’t tell me you’ve been walking on a sprained ankle this whole time?”

I nod.

“Jeez, kid, why didn’t you say sooner!”

My [observation] has found the following parts of The Mudmule’s menu.

Fatt’ah: Age 149

Neutral

Patron: none

Classes: [legendary mount] [colossus] (probably[mutation])

Race: [monster]

Note: My menu does not list [mudmule], only [monster]. I suspect tampering with its [visibility], as I’ve never heard of a creature with a race called [monster].

Level: 32

Base Stats(Est.): Str: 350 Dex: 17 Con: 510 Wiz: 20 Int: 21 Cha: 25

Note: the [collosus] class seems to increase its strength and constitution stats to outrageous values. This probably implies something strange about how the menu displays physical values or how the class functions because if those scores were multiplicative to its true size and strength, that would imply it has 35 times the strength of a mule the size of a mountain.

Inherent skills: [mud gallop], [bark eater], (visibility too low to see other skills)

Trained skills: ??? Note: likley includes its special ability to turn nearby dirt to mud]

Magics: [turns mud underneath into weird mud people, according to the stories]

The valley The Mudmule passed through each year was well known as the Cobold Valley. As you can imagine, [cobold]s live there. The [cobold]s that had lived there the past few decades were known for avoiding direct confrontation, and instead placing deadly traps. Or, in other words, they were opportunists.

I sat on Maladrain’s back, holding on easily with my newly increased strength. I didn’t weigh much either, so it was a wonderful relief from my sprained ankle.

“I wouldn’t be too worried about their traps, kid. I had to get a course in [trap detection] before I could join the guild, so I got this in the bag.” I kept in mind that he probably wasn’t going to be very reliable at it. He may have had a trap detection skill, but if he wasn’t paying attention or used to the types of traps we were dealing with, he could easily be taken by surprise. Which is to say, I wasn’t going to put my life in some stranger adventurer’s hands.

“If this thing really is just a giant mule, could we not tame it? It could be used as a siege weapon, melting castle walls into mud with no struggles, but...that seems too easy...right? Guess you can’t talk while you’re on my back. Anyhow, I’ve never seen someone control a [colossus], but it would be an impressive feat, for sure. After all, if it really was an animal in the past...hmm...”

I took a look around as he rambled on. We were almost at The Mudmule’s path, where large trees fell to The Mudmule each year, then grew all the way back for the next year’s culling, somehow. The [cobold]s were known to be resourceful, though, so they used trees as traps since the work was cut out for them(pardon me). I slid off Maladrain, landing on my healthy leg, then pulled out my slate, {Watch out for traps built of fallen trees.} Good communication is key to staying prepared, right?

He turned around to see what I was doing. “Oh, don’t worry, kid, I’m not gonna miss their traps.” This guy was just begging to be knocked down a peg in dramatic fashion. I wasn’t gonna give him the luxury of losing, though.

{What do you know about [cobold]s?}

“They get summoned by a [dragon] and go rogue when the [dragon] dies. Then, they usually use traps to survive. I’m an adventurer. You really don’t need to worry about my skills.”

{You’re missing one thing,}

“What?”

{They can take the sapient class, [trapper] and even upgrade it to [master trapper]}

“I feel like that wasn’t ‘missing’, but what’s your point?”

{I’m fairly sure one of them has [master trapper].}

“A [cobold] getting a master class? That’s unlikely, in a place like this.”

{These [cobold]s have lived in this valley for over a decade.} wipe, write, {They are very careful}

“I suppose that’s possible if a cobold gets that old. If they really do have a [master trapper], then you’ve got a good point.”

{If I slap your shoulders, that means to stop.}

“What am I, a mule?”

{A pig.}

“Rude.” He said jokingly.

Along the way, we found one of their traps. A small tripwire that would make two large trees fall on top of unwary travelers. Traps like that are normally very difficult to make, but with the expertise of, say, a [master trapper]...

“Damn, you were right, kid. If I weren’t traveling at a slow pace, I wouldn’t have noticed...Not that I don’t have a contingency, but still.” Yeah, you better pay attention to me, or you’re gonna lose harder than a snail in a wyrm race!

A few minutes later, we arrived at The Mudmule’s path.