Ch. 39: The Incredible Mountain Range

"Griffin Mountain is the ancestral home of the Gryphon race. It's nearly impossible to get to without flying. That's why Rosy's father hasn't attacked it on a large scale yet." Reese explained as they walked. A small group that included Reese, Doma, Rosy, Adrian, and a handful of Gryphons had broken off from the resistance's main camp.74

After two weeks of walking, they were scheduled to get within eyesight of the mountain range that held Griffin Mountain some time before the end of the day, so Reese was taking the chance to tell Adrian a bit more about the place while Rosy and some of the Gryphons scouted ahead.

"Really? Not one attack?" Adrian wondered.

"Not quite... about five years ago, Rosy managed to pull off a small-scale raid. Fortunately for us Gryphons, not even she could make it up the mountain unscathed without burning through all of her stamina, so we were able to push her back after a fierce battle." Reese admitted. With Rosy's strength, even holding her off was an incredible feat. It was no wonder that the resistance wanted their full support.

"But that's still an incredible feat. Only one attack... ever. Even the Drakelands have been getting smaller as they lose a passage or so every other year when the king manages to infiltrate it." That alone spoke volumes about how difficult it was for a normal person to get to the city on top on the Griffin Mountain. Out of probably countless people trying, only Rosy had succeeded, and only barely at that. 

"But if it's nearly impossible to get there on foot, how are Doma, Rosy, and I going to make it?" Adrian asked with trepidation. He had a bad feeling about this.

His bad feeling turned out to be true. "Doma's not going. He's going to be entering the Drakelands using a nearby passage. We'll spend a month or two on the mountain, then we'll meet up with him. By that time, he'll probably have convinced those stubborn lizards to allow you two in."

"Wait... So Rosy and I will be making that impossible climb by ourselves?" Adrian asked.

"Technically, us Gryphons will be watching over you, but yes. We'll be flying, while you'll be climbing. Unfortunately, it's the only way."

"Can't you all work together to, I don't know... carry us up there?" Adrian asked. He'd seen a few of the other Gryphons with them transform over the course of their journey. Their bird forms were literally indistinguishable from real birds, but enough of them should be able to carry someone as light as Rosy, at the very least.

"It's theoretically possible, Prince... but we can't do it. The only way that the Gryphons in the city will realize how unsafe they actually are is if they learn that people other than Rosy can make the climb. We need to ensure that they realize that the Shadowborn king can actually threaten their own safety." Reese explained to him.

"We need to hurt their pride... in order to make their thinking paradigm shift." Adrian realized. It was a common fallacy among strong kingdoms, so Adrian had done extensive research on it. The more pride that a strong kingdom had, the less inclined they would be to adapt. Something extreme that could totally destroy that pride, like a large-scale invasion in a city with a tough wall, would inevitably throw those types of civilizations into panic.

Unfortunately, once the mountains came into view, Adrian realized how stupid he had been to think that he was capable of climbing it, just because Rosy had done it in the past.

From what he'd been told, Adrian had believed that Griffin Mountain was just a single large hill that most people couldn't climb due to the low air pressure at higher altitudes. He'd never seen a real mountain before, and he'd been naive. 

Griffin Mountain was not just a single mountain, but an entire range of mountains. In order to get to the actual mountain where the Gryphons lived, the group would need to traverse the majority of each mountain between it and the edge of the range. At the minimum, that was twelve mountains in total. According to Reese, Gryphons could do it in two days, but Rosy had taken over a month with almost no breaks. That was five years ago, so she'd not even been thirteen back then, but still...

"It's just as majestic as I remember it being..." Rosy muttered beside Adrian, a hint of awe in her voice. She wasn't wrong about its majesty. Several dozen large mountains, with a single, incredibly tall mountain in the center. Some of the mountains reached the clouds, but the one in the center went beyond them. It was incredible. Adrian couldn't imagine actually  climbing that monstrously high peak.

"You really climbed that?" Even from so far away that it was barely visible at all, the peaks seemed to reach into oblivion. From close up, Adrian was sure that he'd lose the courage to attempt a climb like that.

"Yup. It took me over a month of back-breaking labor. And after I finally reached the peak, I was almost killed by the Gryphons up to. Fell nearly 50 feet and broke more than a few bones. A horrible experience." She remembered, a complicated look on her face. Going back to an area where she'd experienced such a complete defeat... it must have been hard on her.

"I don't know if I can do that." He admitted.

"You'll be fine. You're stronger than most people. It'll be a tough climb for the both of us, but it should only take us a month or so." She tried to reassure him. It didn't work very well... "Anyways, we won't actually be climbing it today. We'll stay in the city that my father set up near the base of the range. It's full of people who've trained to attempt the climb, and security is weak. A group like ours shouldn't stand out too much there.