"Feathered cloak!"

"It was terrible Walter! There were six orcs and none of them were wearing clothes!" Evren said in a voice filled with fake terror.

"It's lucky you made it out of there in one piece." Walter replied while holding in a smile. "So, did you find anything to hunt?"

Evren clicked his tongue, "You're no fun. I think I found something in a cave. It looked like bear prints, but they were bigger, and something seemed odd about the tracks. I can't put my finger on it though."

Walter asked, "Think it could be a red bear?"

Evren thought for a moment before agreeing, "Yeah, it could have been a red bear. That would explain the weird tracks." He nodded absentmindedly and said, "I've got Levi helping me with the rings for Fletcher's armor. I'm going to be making rings tomorrow as well. I don't think we'll be able to finish by the day after. No, I'm going to make a quiver tomorrow. I'll give Fletcher all the manticore arrows I have."

Evren suddenly remembered, "Oh! Gallus wants us to take down an ent and bring back as much wood as possible, so we may need to make a couple trips. The ent's in the same spot it has always been, so we can hunt the red bear first and then go after the ent. I've got a couple axes we can use. I'm just not sure how much the wagon will be able to hold. And, if the weight is too much, I may need a hand pulling it up the hill."

Walter said with a smile, "I'm sure Harley wouldn't mind pulling it up the hill with you."

Evren shrugged oblivious and said, "Yeah, but you're stronger and I'd rather get back sooner than later if we need to make several trips."

Evren thought for a moment, "By the way, have you decided on your armor yet?"

Walter nodded and said, "If you can make it easy to move in, I'll take the plate, otherwise banded, unless you can do both."

Evren replied, "So you don't want a full plate, maybe just a breast plate with some banded pieces for the arms and legs?"

Walter nodded, "Yeah, that sounds right. Can you put a dragon on it?"

Evren said, "You'll have to draw the dragon so I can copy it. But that would look pretty cool having a red armor with silver inlaid dragon. Maybe… Oh! One on each shoulder. And maybe a dragon head helmet?"

Walter shook his head, "I'm too pretty for a helmet."

Evren shrugged, "I wouldn't know."

Walter said, "Aww… Anyway, I'm heading to bed. See you at training tomorrow."

Evren shook his head, "No, tomorrow I'm working. Just continue as normal without me. I've got a lot I need to do still before the day after."

Walter nodded and headed off to his house. "Later then."

The next morning, Evren woke up earlier than usual and went for his normal morning run, then headed to the forge to start working on the rings. Fletcher's armor would be made from mithril so it would be lightweight, yet strong.

Evren spent the morning and late into the afternoon working on making the rings. As both Evren and Levi had been working on the rings, and Levi had worked on them prior, they thought they would have enough to begin construction on the armor. Making chain armor would be easier than the scale, but it would be more tedious. Evren would start working on the front of the chain shirt, while Levi would start working on the back.

As it got later in the evening, Evren headed to Gallus's home to see if the feather cloak was finished. He knocked on the door and the face of the old man peeked out at him. The two men stared at each other for a while, neither saying anything. When Gallus nodded, he backed up into the house and left the door open for Evren to follow.

Evren stepped inside and saw the feathered cloak lying over the table. He stepped forward and ran his fingers across the soft feathers. The color ran from pure white near the back of the head, to a mottled brown at the base. The cloak did have a hood, but it was made from fur lined dear skin and had no feathers on it. The contrast of the brown of the hood and the white of the feathers was striking.

Evren picked it up and admired it, "How does it work?"

"Pour magic into it. You'll be able to float off the ground and move around a little until you stop putting magic into it. No matter the height, you'll drop to the ground like a feather." Gallus replied.

"How high can you fly?" Evren asked.

"Three, four meters at most." He said.

"Thank you, sir. I'll be sure to get this to her in the morning. We found a red bear to hunt. That should be enough to make her armor and have some left over to use for Fletcher's as well." Evren said.

"I thought you were making mail for that boy." Gallus replied.

Evren nodded, "Chain for the chest, but I want to use leather for the bracers and gloves, and the legs. It'll be more of a vest to cover the important parts. I was going to use deer leather before because of its flexibility, but the red bear leather should be stronger."

Gallus sighed, "Its too bad you didn't have lamia leather then. Its soft like deer, but tougher. Not as tough as red bear, but tougher than deer."

Evren looked at Gallus, "Those are the half cat, half people ones, right?" I didn't see any, nor any tracks of them."

Gallus nodded, "I doubt there's any left nearby the fortress, unless they migrated back. They were hunted pretty exclusively by Grandia. Many of the half beasts were seen as an abomination against their goddess, but they valued the materials from them. What a double standard, huh?

"Wild lamias are about as smart as orcs and just as viscous but the two don't get along at all. If you see one, you won't see the other."

Evren had a sudden realization, "Ah, that makes sense. Plenty of orcs in the forest south of the fortress."

The next morning, Evren pulled the emptied cart to the teleport glyph and met up with the others. Joseph, Pascal and Amelia were there as well. After Evren stopped pulling the wagon, he walked up to Joseph and pull the cloak of feathers from his bag and handed it to him. When he was done, he walked over to Walter.

Joseph took the cloak to Harley and said, "I don't know why Evren didn't just give this to you," he started to say, but then was interrupted by Evren "Because you and the old man requested it."

Joseph looked back at Evren and shrugged, "Anyway, this is for you dear." He said as he handed her the cloak of feathers. Harley took the cloak with big eyes and a happy look of surprise.

"Its sooo soft!" she said as she hugged the cloak, "Thank you grandpa!" she said as she hugged Joseph.

Meanwhile, Evren said to Walter, "I've got an axe for you when we get around to that tree. It should be effective, unless you want to run through the minotaurs really quick for another mithril one."

He then turned to Harley and said, "Harley, put it on and put magic into it. Don't be scared about what happens though."

Walter asked, "How long would it take to get through the minotaurs?"

Evren scratched his chin in thought, "I'm not sure," Evren then asked Joseph, "Joseph, can you back door the boss rooms and fight them again?"

Joseph thought for a moment and said, "Maybe? I remember people working to get specific things from down here, but not whether you can get in through the back door."

"WAAH!" Harley said as she began floating off the ground. She wobbled around unsteadily for a while, like a drunk before finally getting her feet under her. She floated for a moment with a bit of fear in her eyes, then she slowly lowered to the ground. She walked around for a bit, then jumped up and down a few times before putting magic into the cloak again and floating upwards.

As she got used to it, she rose and lowered herself, then moved around in circles before she started laughing while she was flying slowly around the group. She floated up to close to four meters, and then stopped. "Aww, this is as high as I can go?"

Walter said, "Yes, it's not designed for flight, it's to get you out of a sticky situation. It takes a lot of magic to maintain, so you should be careful how much you use it."

Evren smiled and said, "Looks like we just found a way to increase her magic capacity."

Harley shouted, "Yes! I'll do it every day until I pass out!"

Evren and Joseph looked at each other, expecting the other to assume responsibility.

Amelia said, "Harley, you can't do that, honey."

With a tinge of disappointment, Harley replied, "Ok, mom." And she floated back down to the ground in the middle of the group.

Evren pulled the wagon to the glyph, "I'll go first." The rest soon followed after.

When they all got to the surface, they found the sunlight to be dim and it was snowing outside. It was the first time they had seen snow before, and many of the party were excited. Evren pulled the wagon forward as the others played around in the snow. After Evren slipped and slid down the hill with the wagon following behind him, they all slid down the hills laughing along the way.

When they got all the way to the bottom of the hill leading to the fortress, Evren looked up at the hill and sighed, "It'll be a rough journey back up that way." He said to no one in particular. He turned around to his party and said, "Starting around here is where the undead rise at night time. It seems to be only around the base here, so once we travel down the road a ways, we'll leave the area they're in. We're going to follow the road south for a while, and when we reach a certain point, we'll leave the wagon by the road and go off into the woods to hunt the red bear.

"I think I'd like to just hunt the red bear and worry about that tree later." He said as he pulled the wagon along. When he was scouting the other day, he was running everywhere, so he doubted he would make it to the red bear by nightfall.

When they got to the area, they had turned of previously, Evren told everyone to stop for the night. They got the tents and bedding from the wagon and set up a camp. Evren had Harley use fire magic to clear the snow away from a spot near the tents while he and Fletcher went off in search of wood. When the returned, the found the area cleared away, and some logs in place to sit had been dried off as well and were still steaming. They rested in turns through the night, everyone paired off except Evren to stand guard through the long night.