Tyrus put his elbow over the edge. He's so close now, he could see the peaks of the mountain here. His claws dug into the dull granite. The mechanisms that lie beneath his fur and skin protested as he pushed them beyond what was advisable.

With one heave, he managed to put himself atop the outcropping he was hanging on to. He had been trekking for days now, just to glimpse the wonder that was Mount Anapoda. He lay his back upon the flat top and panted to let in the cool mountain air. His resting body lay on his pack of stuff. His limp tail trailed behind him, languid like his overworked body.

The trail he had been trekking was very craggy and difficult. The bag on his back had lightened since the start of his journey. It was already costing him a fortune from all the bent bones he had acquired. He was rather miffed that he had bent the steel bones he had on his arms from an unfortunate fall midway through the journey. The much cheaper bronze bones weren't up to the task of arduous climbing. They had bent so many times that he had cut holes on his biceps so that he didn't have to take off his skin every time one of his arm bones inevitably bent.

After his system had sufficiently rested, he began rising up to see how far he had gone. It seems that he had reached the plateau where the mountain began to rise. There in the distance, Tyrus could see Mount Anapoda in all its glory. Unlike all the mountains he had known and gone to, Mount Anapoda was unique in that instead of being wide at the base and tapering to a point at the peak, it started as a needle-thin filament connected to the earth and then widened as you went up.

Tyrus craned his eyes to gaze at the expanding glory of the mountain. The mountain was like a funnel of rock and dirt that connected the bottom realm to the heavenly realms. The mountain wasn't simply barren dirt and rock, there were groves of pines and oak hanging from the mountain's dirt. Above him was the spreading heights of the mountain's slope, gently rolling into the distance like a second ground above. The ultimate edge of the mountain was yet to be discovered as the mountain's expanse turned blue in the distance.

As he marvelled and awed at the mountain in the distance, a large crack appeared in the vision of his left eye. The cracks expanded until it consumed wholly his leftward vision. His left eye shattered inside his eye sockets. Transparent green liquid poured out his eye, staining his pale bluish-gray fur.

"Dragons dang it," Tyrus cursed. He simply had to sigh. His eye had been with him for nearly eight years. He guessed that the low air pressure of the mountains had exacerbated the hairline fractures in the glass.

He reached up to his left eye and began loosening the cap that kept his eye from sliding out. He gripped it carefully with his wing-hands, turning it with well-practiced ease. He sometimes had to curse the winged nature of his race.

As soon as the cap had been removed, he began shaking the glass shards out. The contents of his sockets soon slipped out. The green glass tinkled upon the stone with some fragments shattering into much smaller pieces. He procured a handkerchief from his pack and began cleaning the insides of his socket. This also let him remove fragments that couldn't be taken out by simple shaking. The proper cleaning of the orifices prevents numerous accidents and irreversible disorders.

Once it has been thoroughly cleaned, he took out a small box from his pack. Within, it cushioned a small glass cylinder containing green liquid and some strange mechanisms. He quickly slotted the object into his left eye socket. As soon as he capped the eye, the vision on his leftward eye returned. His left eye produced a crisp vibrant image in his brain. It was as clear as it could be, lacking any blemishes, blurs, and scratches characteristic of any old eye. He adjusted the inner mechanisms until his vision resolves to his preferred contrast and saturation.

He looked upon the mountain before him with a two-sided vision. One side was crisp and clear while the other scratchy and slightly blurred. He'll have to avoid buying eyes from the optician. The green tint of the vitreous humour is simply too strong, washing his color vision a bit.

After that ordeal, he took out his navigation tools from his bag. He oriented his sense of direction with a compass and ascertained his location with a map. He brought along two maps, one of the ground and the other of the mountain. Due to how the mountain was oriented, there's an expansive landscape spreading under Mount Anapoda's terrain. A single simple map couldn't map both of them at the same time without overlapping.

He produced a spyglass and promptly pointed it to the mountain in the distance. He began scanning its cliffs for any landmarks and structures. Soon, he would spot something that looked like a cathedral. It had high vaulted ceilings with sharp and pointy spires. Beside the building stood a tower whereupon its top idly spun a giant metal pinwheel. Like the mountain upon which it was constructed, it stood upside-down, hanging its roof above the ground.

"Yes!" Tyrus screamed in delight. They were right that the dungeon was on this side. "Placeholder Temple Name," he screamed the name of the dungeon.

His arms quaked as he thought of the treasure that he could obtain there, treasures that are only talked about in legend. He put his hand into his pack and took out his spell wheel. It was a typical spinner divided into six equal sections. Each section alternated between red and green, and each of them had a phrase written on them. Summon Wheel of Cheese, Loose Flaming Arrow, Cause Grass to Grow: such phrases were printed onto the board of each of the spinner's slices. Tyrus smiled as thoughts of those underwhelming words be replaced with something more powerful.

He slotted the spinner into a slot near the end of his tail. He gave it an experimental spin, and the magic landed upon a slice. The sorcery engraved upon the instrument flowed from its vessel and into his system. The spell-form floated about in his spirit, ready to be released at his behest.

"Granite to Marble," he declared. The warm magic flowed from his heart and into his arms whereupon it jumped from the tips of his claws and into the stony ground. Wherever the magic had touched, the stone which composed them transformed, changing their composition from grey granite to milky white marble.

"Okay, we're good there," he remarked. "No complications on the spinning mechanisms nor the magitek."

Tyrus looked on to the rest of his journey. From here on out, the landscape had been flattened into a plain. There was no risk of his spinner being lodged off and dropping into a deep gorge.

He smiled, his eyes till locked upon the dungeon in the distance. The treasure they held will be his.