I hit and bounced off of the rolling muscles of the beast’s back, tumbling to the side. I lashed out, burying my claws into the bristles of its fur. I failed to penetrate down to the flesh, but it wasn’t like I wanted to give the damn bastard an excuse to buck me off and the fur was more than tough enough to support my weight.

My arm on the other hand… damn, it, but dangling from one arm as I bounced wildly against the flank of a sprinting animal was not a secure position even if was my good arm. But no, my damn brain had reached out with my dominant hand, and my foolish hope of it being fucking recovered already was proved a lie as every bounce and jerk brought back a little more pain than the last.

I pulled myself up and seized a handful of fur with my left hand as I clawed my way up hand by hand. The boar, like most four legged beasts, moved in great leaps and bounds, making each step more than powerful enough to throw an unwary rider.

Of course, I wasn’t the goblin I had been a week ago. I pulled myself tight against the boar’s flanks in the moments when it landed and leapt, only risking letting go with one hand to haul myself upwards during the split second where we hung in the air and hunkering down with both hands clutching desperately again when the pounding impact of landing threatened to throw me off.

It was a deceptively difficult act, but I managed to match the timing well enough to scale up the hump of muscle on the boar’s shoulders. I’d just have to center myself on it and then I wouldn’t have to keep fighting gravity anymore.

The fur beneath me immediately jerked backwards as the boar abruptly slowed and flung me forward in comparison. I locked my grip on the bristled boar back, but my feet swung out from under me and landed on the boar’s face as I scrabbled for purchase. I found it not long after, catching a claw on some protrusion and pushing off it to swing back around and up over the muscle hump.

I landed with one leg on either side, straddling the hump and finally reaching some degree of stability. With my new position facing forward I could even see ahead of us instead of the wall of meat and fur that I’d been pressed up against before.

On the other hand, I wasn’t seeing us rushing through the trees, or even the boar sending the forest up in flames, but rather a very pissed off looking boar staring dead straight at me with a very goblinclawesque wound in the hollow of its right eye socket.

I froze, running through all the escape options in my mind. Straight ahead would carry me furthest from the flames, but I’d be right in its path, I could go back and hope the boar didn’t want to risk the flames…

The boar squealed in fury as a blazing cone of flames burst forth from its snout. Its head turned towards me and I tensed as I prepared to jump clear and take my chances with the fire, but as the fur on its neck scrunched up and its glare went from righteous rage to impotent fury I realized it’s neck had reached the limits of its movement.

The bulky creature didn’t have the flexibility to flamethrower anything on its own back! The flames only intensified as the boar continued its futile struggle against its own body, but they grew no closer even as the boar spun in circles like a dog trying to catch its own tail. I was forced to close my eyes against the brilliant fire and could feel the edges of my raggedy ensemble singeing with the furnace heat, but I was in no danger of actually catching on fire, not yet.

Funny how being directly on top of something trying desperately to kill you could be the safest place to be, but I guess the boar should have invested in some Dexterity instead of becoming a wall of meat and bone that shot fire from its face.

Yeah, I might be a tad bit envious.

The boar’s eye narrowed as it strained, roaring flames quieting to the hard hiss of an extended exhale, but even making a stupid constipated face wasn’t enough to turn the boar into an acrobat.

Eventually it had to admit defeat, sending out a deafening squeal as it shook itself furiously, spraying flames every which way. Having completed its baffling arson, the boar resumed barrelling forwards, carrying me safely away from the flames.

Well, safe was a relative term. Dismounting would be a trick, I could already see that, but that was a problem for future me. I’d just keep an eye out for any sturdy looking trees to scamper up and worry about actually surviving my escape when I was good and far from this damn inferno.

The boar huffed and puffed as it ran, but as it seemed to realize I was still hanging on it stopped its even breaths to begin one long inhale.

That immediately set off alarm bells, given it had done just that right before I’d first seen it breath fire. It couldn’t be dumb enough to try the same shit again, right? The damn piggy bastards were far smarter than their brutish appearance suggested, as many goblin foraging groups have learned to their detriment. The tribe had often competed with this beast’s more mundane cousins for the nutritious mushrooms they loved so much, and we’d lost as often as we’d won.

Maybe it wanted to roll over in some embers? Impossible to say, so I stayed and waited. This boar could be as strong and smart as it wanted, but I would still be faster. Err, in reflexes, not flat-out sprinting speed obviously. I wasn’t entirely confident I could react fast enough to evade whatever it was gonna throw at me, but at this point I was willing to take a hypothetical fiery death over the all-too obvious fiery death all around me.

“Hrrrrrrnnnnnnnnggggggghhhhhhhh!” The boar squealed again, with its same stupid constipated face, but no flame came forth from its ugly boar face. Still, the effects were more than evident. The bristles all across the boar’s body quavered and shook before rippling in a spreading wave. Its face was affected first, bristles stiffening and sticking out as they gained a strangely metallic sheen.

Shit. Shitshitshit, what did I have to answer this? The rippling change spread like wildfire, I could see the bristled boar fur hardening into razor wire inches in front of my hands, but I didn’t jump.

I could easily save myself that way, but I was overcome with a powerful deja vu as I watched the wave reached my entangled hands. As if there were a simple solution I was just igno—

Fuck! “[Rag Armor]!” I screamed the words out of my mouth as fast as possible, registering the activating Skill the same instant I felt the fur stiffen in my hands and dig into my hasty protection.

I breathed a sigh of relief as the supernatural fur fail to instantly cut through my [Rag Armor]. Sure, I could feel it digging into my skin even through the cloth, but it was a dull feeling, kinda like when you held onto something too tight, nothing like the sharp pain of a blade. A similar feeling pervaded the rest of my body as the stiffening effect spread across the rest of the boar, but it wasn’t any more threatening there.

Uncomfortable, yes, threatening, no. A handful of hairs slipped past my [Rag Armor], but alone they couldn’t do much more than prickle my skin. It was ironically similar to the experience of brushing up on stinging nettle leaves, I could only imagine the pain of touching the boar’s hide unprotected.

Or not imagine, I had more important shit to deal with, like how long could I actually maintain my [Rag Armor]?

“[Soul Sense]!” I activated my most convenient Skill, as attempting to mediate my way to soul perception seemed somewhat, shall we say, less than ideal at the moment. [Soul Sense] would allow me to monitor my energy burn and duck low hanging branches at the same time, an essential for any realistic skill use.

Fortunately my [Rag Armor] had done some maturing in the last few days, even without the influx of any additional soul energy. The soul could produce some energy on its own after all, and it appeared that maturing a Skill wasn’t the resource hog that forging entirely new levels was, because [Rag Armor] appeared to be up and running without any noticeable strain.

I laughed into the wind, letting the rushing air snatch back my exhultation and drag it back into the inferno behind me. I wasn’t going to die!

The boar snorted beneath me and veered left. A low hanging branch materialized from the green blur ahead of us, which the boar helpfully set on fire before it grew too close to target with its fire breath.

The beast hunkered its head down, just to be extra sure it wouldn’t accidentally shield me with its face, but it was going to take more than that to throw me off. I twisted my hands in its fur, ignoring the pain of razor spines in order to secure my grip, before letting myself begin to slide off its back to the right.

It was a precarious position, with only one leg slung over the boar’s back to support my hands and nearly every aspect of leverage gleefully clamoring for my demise, but it put the mass of the boar’s muscle and spine between me and any incoming obstacle, which was what mattered.

I heard the impact as the boar slammed through the branch with wood splintering force and half a second later I felt the impact as what remained of that branch hit me. The broken end stabbed me like the world’s shittiest spear and my whole body jerked backwards an inch as it tried to drag my dumb ass with it.

But the something snapped first, and I was like ninety percent sure it wasn’t any of my bones. I hauled myself back onto the boar’s back, where I wouldn’t fall off and get trampled, before glancing back to check on my leg, which, come to think of it, hurt an awful lot for something that wasn’t broken.

I was greeted with the sight of half a dozen inch long splinters buried in my thigh. Ah, that would be the issue then. I’d hoped my [Rag Armor] would do a better job of protecting me from goddamn splinters of all things, but momentum counted for a lot, and if the boar had anything, it was momentum. Really, you wanted to take a glancing blow if you had to take one at all, and getting stuck between a rock and a hard place was basically the worst way to get hit. If the attack couldn’t glance off, well then something else would have to give, probably you.

Or the weapon, if you were a lucky bastard like me.

I debated the merits of yanking the embedded splinters out, but eventually gave in to the merits of my trademark ‘how long will it take to kill you?’ prioritization method. The potential infectious hazard of leaving it in extended contact with my insides would take at least a handful of days, but blood loss had no such restrictions. Better to leave these handy wooden plugs in for now.

I looked back to the front, ready for whatever else the boar was gonna crash me into, but it seemed more concerned with veering back to its original course. Strange to think that there might me a method to the beast’s pyromaniacal madness.

If a normal boar was smart, might a magical boar be smarter? The thought was chilling. In the metaphorical way unfortunately, I’d honestly appreciate a way to cool off right now. Hopefully this beast wasn’t one to hold a grudge, cause I did not want a sentient boar hunting me down for revenge. Honestly, I doubt I could survive a dumb boar after my ass, let alone one capable of using strategy.

I took the opportunity to check up on my soul and found all three Skills humming away. [Rag Armor] was holding up alright, but still noticeably less than it had been before. The hit I’d taken hadn’t been good for it apparently, but if I had to guess I’d say that it could still last for another ten to twenty minutes under the current strain, less if I took another big hit, more if I was willing to take the risk of draining it to the point of near collapse.

[Beggar’s Disregard] was active in the background, as I was just leaving it on for insurance at this point, and of course [Soul Sense] was helping out with all the soul-checking so I wouldn’t lose focus and fall to my death.

I let [Soul Sense] keep running in the background as I refocused most of my attention on the world around me. I only really needed to keep an eye on [Rag Armor] anyway, the real world had far more than a single threat to be aware of.

I began to worry when the boar seemed to turn back towards the fire for a moment, but it was just making sure it was in the exact right place and quickly returned to moving away again when it found where its trail had veered left, resuming its previous destructive trajectory across the forest floor.

Except it wasn’t the same as before. The boar quickly stopped spewing fire, instead raising its head to the air and bellowing out a powerful cry. Its call was answered seconds later by the bellows and squeals of at least a dozen other boars unseen in the tangled undergrowth around us.

Shit, was it getting its brethren to help rid it of the nuisance on its back? It might not be able to hit me with its own fire breath, but any of its friends could easily hose it down in flames. I sat up straighter on its back, rocking with its movements to keep my balance as I readied myself to leap free at a moments notice.

I scanned my surroundings with ear and eye alike, but I caught nothing more than the fading roar of the fire behind us. However eerie, that was actually a good sign. No matter how magical these overgrown pigs were there was no way in hell they were able to move silently. If I could only hear the other boars when they were deliberately communicating then they couldn’t be that close.

If the boar’s fellows were truly closing in to end me I’d at least have some slight warning. If not… I’d keep an ear on the fire. As soon as it was far enough in the distance to be safe I’d be off this damn boar and safe in the trees. Either way the end of this ride was in sight.

Unfortunately the end of my troubles wasn’t. Even as the roaring fire faded into the background I heard a new roar from up ahead and the woods grew darker around me. I swear, if there actually was a giant-ass monster ahead of me I was going to lose my fucking shit. I came up with bizarre shit like that specifically so the horrors of reality would look smaller. If reality had the gall to live up to that I was gonna stab it straight in its nuts.

But as the trees thinned I realized that no, this shadow was not cast from some monster out of legend. Or if it was it was standing very still cause these plants hadn’t been getting full sunlight (magiclight?) for a long time, if ever.

The jungle only grew more open as we progressed, until it couldn’t rightly be called a jungle anymore. Still a forest certainly, but it not only lacked the density of true jungle but the trees were short and stilted things compared to their towering brethren.

Muscles surged beneath me and the boar’s back slammed up into me. I had a brief moment of panic as I tried to figure out what new trick the beast was playing at, but relaxed when I realized the simple truth: it was jumping. We sailed through the air and I caught a split second glimpse of a pit beneath us, full with the tangled bodies of lesser animals impaled on the sharpened wood stakes lining the bottom.

It looked like I wasn’t the smartest thing in the dungeon after all.

The boar barrelled onward, but I was just about done with this. The boar had stopped throwing fire everywhere and the existing flames wouldn’t spread nearly as well through the more sparse vegetation here, so I’d probably be safe without the boar’s speed.

I just needed to find a good place to dismount. The problem with shorter, sparser trees of course, was that it would be a lot harder to vanish into the foliage above. The boar didn’t seem to be paying me any mind at the moment, but I didn’t want to make myself an easy target. Even an apathetic enemy might lash out when given a good opportunity.

Unfortunately the trees looked to be getting even rarer up ahead. Why, they were growing so thin that it almost looked like…

Open air.

I leapt free, hitting the dirt and rolling in the mud, seconds before the boar leapt out itself, plummeting through the empty air with a happy squeal.

My moment hadn’t ended with my landing, and I tumbled in a painful sprawl of limbs until I scrabbled to a stop mere feet from the edge. I rolled over to look upwards and took a deep breath.

“The fuck!?” I’d thought I’d been riding a goddamn boar, not a fucking lemming!

I rolled over again and crawled up to the edge, ignoring the pounding ache of the splinters embedded in my leg. If that bastard had almost killed me, I at least wanted the satisfaction of seeing its broken corpse.

But the sight that greeted me when I reached the edge put any and all boars out of my mind.

Far above me towered the very pillar tree I’d been striving to reach, not only a thousand times bigger than I could have imagined from its distant appearance, but drastically different from my assumptions as well. It was the source of that second roar, a river of water crashing down along its surface with all the force of nature behind it.

It was like the raindrops that clung to the undersides of leaves after rainfall, or the morning dew. The water clung to the surface of the trunk as it flowed downward, appearing almost invisible from a distance as it blended into the tree’s trunk. It was only from my current closer position that I could see the plumes of water that shrouded its base in a constant haze of white mist.

A hollow had formed around the tree’s base, perhaps from the crushing weight of water beating against the ground. Either way, a wide lake began beneath the mist and stretched out to reach the bluff I was perched upon. I could see that damn boar, still very much alive, paddling through the water towards an island where a small horde of its fellows were already gathered.

An island which, at its peak, possessed a towering totem of carved wood. It had at least a dozen heads along its length, but the greatest and largest topping the structure was an immense boar with spiraling patterns engraved along its tusks.