Monstrous Compendium Ch3 bit – Need More Coffee

“Magebred dire horses.” From the sound of that set of thumps – a book and elbows on a table? – Dynamm had settled in with one of his favorite SAO hobbies: local lorebooks. “Did you see the little side-claws, up above the hooves? I wonder what else they’ve got in the bloodline. If the locals can breed them to carry weretigers without freaking out… oh, wow. Is that what I think it is?”

“If ye think that be a white drakkensteed, then aye, ‘tis.” The elder’s voice was noticeably warmer. “Snowclaw has been one of our studs for nigh on forty years, now. His colts are too wild for any life save draconic steeds or the battle-lines; his fillies are still a handful, but they and their get do well for us. Have ye handled horses in your own world, then?”

“No, Shaman Tetsutora,” Dynamm said regretfully. “My family used to, in my great-grandfather’s day. But that was a long time ago.” There was a rustle of pages. “Sorry, if this is a stud book you probably don’t want outsiders-”

“That, ye may discuss with Tae, and her sire Lusliat,” Tetsutora said firmly. “’Tis their book; I only borrowed it a time to check a few remedies. The Mistfeathers keep the best bloodlines in our village, but they lost much of their clan in the Last War. And they are proud. Perhaps an outsider might do for them something they are unwilling to ask of neighbors.”

So there are more quests here, Kirito thought. Interesting… wonder if I can find something good–

Tetsutora raised her voice a bit. “And were I minded to screech of spies, young one, I’d sooner point my claw at a half-grown man-cub who has not the courtesy to tell his pack he’s still breathing.”

Busted.

“He’s up?” Klein pounced on the edge of Kirito’s cot, almost tipping them both over onto the floor before the redhead shifted his weight. Klein yanked on the edge of the fur in a brief tug-of-war, grinning into Kirito’s blinking eyes. “You’re up! Damn, you scared me. You just fell over, and Issin said you burned through all your MP into your HP, and I didn’t know anybody could do that, and how did you even find us, last I heard even Argo couldn’t keep track of you, though she thought you were hunting wererats on the lower levels-”

All in one breath. Kirito blinked a little harder. Glanced around the wood and bamboo of a village infirmary at a relieved guild and old shaman weretigress. Then back at a wide-eyed Klein. “Did you… have coffee?”