41.1ᴘᴀᴛʀᴇᴏɴ.ᴄᴏᴍ/sᴛʀᴀᴛᴏᴛʜʀᴀx

Rain took his first few steps back out into the grassy plain. A light rain was falling from the clouds above. Lyra scowled at him from where she hung from his paw.

"I can stand now! I promise! My legs aren't afraid anymore!"

Rain lowered his paw a little, letting her take her own weight. Her legs held for a moment then she began to sink earthward. He pulled her up again.

"This isn't fair! You're not even doing anything but you're still so- so!"

Rain interrupted, "You need to fix this fear thing, but for now we're going to have to do something you won't like."

"Wha- Wait, hold on! N-no!"

Rain wrapped his large paws around her hips and lifted her, then ducked underneath her legs and put her on his shoulders. The sheep girl trembled in fright.

"Oh, oh gods, this is such a bad idea!"

She looked down, the ground was suddenly very far away. She swallowed and her legs shivered and shook out of her control. She sat over his shoulders, her thighs spread by his neck, her hooves hanging down over his pecs. She was literally riding this terrifying beast! Her breathing accelerated.

"P-put me d-dooowwnn! Oh goddssss!"

"No. And if you pee yourself up there I'll go with the simplest solution and eat your legs."

"Nuu! Don't say that! You'll make it worse!"

She tried to curl up on herself, make herself smaller, but found herself getting closer to Rain's head. Her trembling hands found his ears and she clutched at them desperately, one large warm ear held in each hand. She could feel Rain's powerful heartbeat through her thighs. She was so close! So close to him!

She let out a cute little helpless whimper.

"You're fine see? There's nothing to be scared of."

"I'm riding an eight foot tall super strong wolf monster who loves to eat people! There's a lot to be scared of!"

The sheep girl clutched her thighs tight as she could around Rain's neck, her hooves drawing together. She couldn't get away, everywhere she looked was predator! There was only one answer. She closed her eyes… Yes, already she felt a bit better, there was only the huge muscular mass between her thighs, the rise and fall of his breathing and- oh gods this didn't help at all!

"J-just g-go! The sooner we are done with this the sooner I can get off!"

"Hold on!" said Opal. She was looking up at Lyra with her arms crossed, clearly pretty annoyed. "Why does she get a ride? She's taking my spot! I should be riding you!"

Rain paused and looked down at the Goblin. "She can't walk so she can't use her ability to make me invisible without being carried."

"So? Who needs that shitty power. Just attack anything that approaches!"

"You don't really mean that Opal."

"Hmphh!" the Goblin huffed and turned away. As she turned Rain saw her lip tremble slightly. He tilted his head. Was Opal... jealous of Lyra? Well, he wasn't about to let her stay feeling down. He reached out with his paws and scooped the surprised Goblin up into his arms, cradling her up against his chest, relieving her of her rucksack in the same motion. Opal looked up at him with round eyes then snuggled into his fur.

"This, this works…" she murmured softly.

Red gave the now girl-covered wolf a worried look.

"I'm not doing that! You're not carrying me!"

"I was never going to," said Rain flatly.

Opal waggled the Kobold's chain. "You're the vanguard Red, you meet the enemy head on, like a hero."

Red put a claw to his chin, thinking. "Wait a second, that's just a fancy way of saying I'm bait!"

"Really heroic bait yes," murmured the Goblin.

"I've changed my mind, please pick me up!"

"No."

"C-can we go now?" said Lyra, her legs clutching ever tighter around Rain.

"Yes, make us invisible… This will hide our tracks right?"

"Oh, um, yes, well you'll see." The sheep girl shifted her hips and steadied her grip on Rain's ears. "Okay, on one, two, three!"

Rain looked down to see that the Goblin held in his arms appeared as though she was cast in shadow. He glanced at Red who was staring around where Rain stood, a wary look in his eye, seeing straight through him and into the distance. Rain looked down wondering how Lyra's ability dealt with the chain. It didn't seem to, or at least that is what he first assumed, then he noticed that the length of the chain hanging from Opal's fist that dipped below the grass was more shadowed than the length of chain that led up from the grass to the Kobold's collar. Partial invisibility. Imperfect but he supposed it wouldn't be that noticeable considering the length of the chain.

He experimentally shifted a foot, then lifted it up. The grass beneath his paw fuzzed and then seemed to unfold and slip back into an unflattened state, the blades straightening and arranging in such a way that it was indistinguishable from the rest of the grass around it, it was as though nothing had ever touched it. He pressed his broad foot pads down on the grass experimentally squashing it down then lifting away watching the grass blur and fuzz and shift back to normal.

"Is this an illusion or is it actually happening?"

"It's uhm… Well I don't understand it fully if I'm honest, when I got the Class, Rescuer, I went to see a Class scholar. They said it was only the third time they'd come across the Class and then they told me lots of complicated stuff about true manifesting illusions which went over my head. What's left behind, in the end, is real I think."

"...Could you use this to repair things?"

"Mmm, I don't think so, not unless you broke the thing you wanted repaired yourself while under the effect of my skill and it would have to be something that suggests you were there when left behind."

"What happens if you accidentally drop something? Like a note that has your destination written on it?"

"I dropped a sandwich once. The Skill vaporized my sandwich after I took a few steps. It was really traumatic. Uhm, other times I have dropped coins and the skill buried them in the ground, it took forever to find and dig them up. There's also, well this is a little embarrassing, once I dropped a pair of panties and the skill merged them into the carpet!"