The Griffin Amulet

Li grunted to herself as she pushed her way through the thick undergrowth of the forest; having gone all the way into the deep dark woods of Germany in response to rumors about an ancient amulet or something that had magical powers. Li’s treasure hungry side just couldn’t resist the thought of it and so the Lupeo had donned her adventuring gear and got herself over into Europe as quickly as possible. Of course, she wasn’t alone in this quest, and had brought a friend along with her. Twilly, one of her many boyfriends (she was rather the polygamist) and almost literal pack mule, as the part horse part red panda part fox mix’n’match critter was carrying all her kit on his back.

“Urgh, damn it Li, why do you have so much crap?” he whined, weighed down by the size of the backpack containing her various provisions.

“Oh hush ye wee baby, its spare gear fer if we get into trouble!” Li replied, smacking her companion’s red furred shoulder affectionately. Twilly just groaned in annoyance and continued to follow her.

The trail they were following was quickly becoming choke with trees and bushes the further they went, indicating that nobody had been to this part of the forest in a very long time, perfect for the duo as it meant they wouldn’t be encountering anyone else, but also frustrating as it meant extra effort to squeeze through the shrinking gaps between said trees. Twilly also had some issues with it, but then again the poor guy was lugging around the heavy pack of crap Li had forced him to carry for her, being the lazy Lupeo she was. The dirt path slowly began to be replaced with old looking stones; it seemed they were getting closer to their goal, as even the trees started to look older and more gnarled as they ventured deeper into the Germanic forest. After some more walking (and loud complaining from Twilly) the path diverged from the woods and seemed to be leading them towards a clearing of sorts, a sizeable gap in the otherwise dense trees.

Breaching the trees, the pair saw what they had been looking for: An impressive, ancient looking stone structure similar to ancient burial mounds found all over Europe, complete with the stone obelisks and towers. The front section of this site seemed to dip down into a depression which revealed the sunken, heavy looking stone doors that led inside it. Li smirked and looked to Twilly, with that twinkle eyed look of someone who’s formulating many plans and ideas on doing this at once. Twilly just nervously smiled back, he knew how Li could get when it involved treasures and money. Following the Lupeo’s lead, he trundled along behind her as the approached the monolithic structure’s descending entrance, stopping at the doors.

“They’re solid, no pushin’ ‘em open Twilly.” Li grunted, running a hand down the stone.

“Well then how the hell are we gonna get in? You have any bright ideas?” her companion responded in mild annoyance, Li clearly didn’t think this through.

“Drop yer pack Twilly, I know how tae get through it.” she retorted, grinning. Twilly did not like the sound of that.

He did however comply and allowed Li access to the bulging backpack, in which she rummaged for a minute or two before with a triumphant ‘aha!’ she pulled out, clutching something in her paws. It was a chunk of C4 explosive. Li’d brought explosives and had made Twilly lug them around.

“What.” He said bluntly.

“I came prepared, now ye might wanna get well back!” Li laughed, slapping the glob of explosive material onto the stone doors, to which Twilly yelped, picked the pack back up and clopped away as fast as his hairy legged hooves could take him, Li jogging back too after sticking a small metallic blasting cap into the plastic, complete with a receiver for a signal, and produced a detonator from the backpack. Her friend covered his ears in anticipation as Li clicked the cylindrical primer, and with a loud *THOOM*, the doors were blasted into pebbles.

“Woo!” Li cheered, enjoying the loud explosion.

Twilly didn’t reply, he was too busy dealing with being temporarily deaf.

Li rolled her eyes and knocked his shoulder, signaling him to follow her down through the blasted open doors, and to pass her a torch too. Complying and shaking the deafness off, he slowly followed behind her again as they entered the darkness of the ancient barrows. It was stuffy and dusty in there, with only the torch’s light and that of the sun filtering through cracks above illuminating it for the plucky duo. Twilly’s hooves clopped on the stone floor, while Li’s pawsteps made soft slaps against it. They walked along and down, stairs winding and twisted, the occasional old looking artifact here and there being discreetly stuffed into the backpack,

“Damn, how far down does this place go?” Li sighed, leaning on the wall to catch her breath and wiping sweat from her brow, it was unpleasantly warm at the depth they had achieved.

Twilly rolled his eyes and set the pack down; they had entered into a large room with many sealed looking doors on the walls, two stories high with stairs going up to the second level. It was totally empty, save from bits and pieces of broken masonry. He took a bottle of soda from the bag and gave it to Li before getting one for himself, and they had a small break in this chamber. Li walked around a little bit and shone the torch on the closed doors, noticing that they all bore an odd, runic looking language carved into them…Gothic? Vandal? Either way it puzzled her, and she went to retrieve a camera from the pack to take a photo of it, perhaps it could be of research value. But before she could, her foot sank into the dusty ground suddenly, and there was a click. She blinked and looked down, seeing that she had stood on a stone pressure plate, and the room was now shaking.

“Liiiii, what did you do!?” Twilly whined, putting the backpack back on.

“Hell if I know laddie but it did something!” she replied, reaching for her sword in its scabbard on her back.

The doors around the room save for the main ones at the opposite end of the chamber slowly opened one by one, and then the place fell silent again. Li looked around to see what would happen…and then they came out. Creaking bones, rattling hisses and the clanking of aged, rusted armor. Skeletal warriors of old emerged from hidden coffins, awakened by Li’s mistake and angry at this disturbance of their final resting place. Eyes aflame with a dull blue glow in each vacant socket, and jaws calking with naught but barely audible groans and clicking, all eager to end the lives of these intruders who dared tread upon their home.

“Well, shit.” Twilly grumbled, not expecting anything less from his girlfriend’s bumbling.

“Well I’d be lyin’ if I said I didn’t think this place’d be totally deserted laddie, seems we woke up the residents and they’re lookin’ mighty bloody cranky!” the Lupeo joked, drawing her claymore.

Twilly went to go into a battle stance to aid her but the weight of the pack threw the pandoxorse off balance and he faceplanted with a loud thud, pinned under the baggage. Li just facepalmed and groaned as the skeletal horde stared her down. With a croaking battle cry they began a loping charge, attempting to flank her. Li strafed them first however and swung her blade at the nearest undead, the magically reinforced and sharpened steel easily cleaving through the ancient Gothic armor of the skeleton and neatly severing it in half with a low moan, its blue eye glow fading away as unnatural life left its bones. Another swing to her left decapitated an axe wielding former tribal warrior attempting to sneak up on her, and one to her right bifurcated two more, and Li laughed at how easy this was, while Twilly just struggled to get the backpack off of him.

One of the wretched things swung its jagged blade clumsily while Li was distracted smashing the skulls of two of its companions together with enough force to break them apart, the third skeleton’s sword making contact with Li’s belly, slashing down it and leaving an ugly wound that made her roar out in pain. The beast’s triumphant rattling was short lived however, as Li’s gut knitted itself back together in a minute or so, the powers of Lupeo regeneration. If the poor bag of bones could have gulped, it would have, before a now angry Li punching it so hard its skull flew off with a squeal, cracking against the wall. Her belly now sported a small scar though, but it’d heal, and now her shirt and snowy white gut fur was stained with blood too.

The other skeletal warriors went down fairly easy, put once again to eternal sleep as Li panted and allowed the adrenaline to drain from her slowly, the battle was over…until a sudden, sharp pain from her rear made her scream. Craning her neck back she realized an arrow was now lodged in her blubbery behind, the perpetrator being a lone skeletal archer who was now very clearly regretting his actions as Li stomped over to him, bearing down on the long dead fiend. The archer trembled so hard it actually shook itself apart, probably sparing itself the much more unpleasant fate of Li using him as chewing aids. Disgruntled, Li hobbled over to the mumbling backpack and lifted it off of the near comatose Twilly, who gasped for air.

“Thanks.” He groaned, panting and enjoying the stale air more than the dust he’d been inhaling for the last five minutes, “A-are they gone?”

“Aye, I nailed ‘em…do me a favor would ye laddie? Get this fuckin’ arrow out me arse?” Li asked, a bit embarrassed, turning around to show the bolt embedded in her left buttcheek.

Twilly laughed a little at this and ripped it free, making the much larger female roar like an angry tiger before coming down to a canid whimper of pain, rubbing her bleeding cheek pathetically. After letting her nurse her wounds for a little bit, and slapping a plaster on it for good measure, and also Twilly now sporting a bruise after Li thumped him for wanting to ‘kiss it better’, they went towards the chamber’s main doors, preparing to most likely use more C4 on it, with the risk of cave in of course. But as they were about to slap more exploding Play-Doh onto it, the doors rumbled open slowly before them…revealing a new skeleton warrior, decked out in full armor and carrying a big sword. Growling at them and snarling in its long dead language.

“Welp” Twilly shrugged.

Li just groaned in annoyance and shoved the pandoxorse away, making him fall onto his back and wiggle like a turtle before backing up to let this new challenger into the chamber to fight her. While Twilly detached himself from the pack slowly, and out of harm’s way, Li’s claymore and the ancient broadsword of her opponent clashed in a flurry of steel and iron, the skeleton lord’s blade matching her own in durability, sparks flying as they parried one another again and again. Li growled and realized she wasn’t going to win in a straight fight with this thing; it was as good as she was, and probably had even more experience in fighting given who it was before it died. She needed a plan…and then it came to her.

“Twilly!” she barked, “Throw me some o’ that C4!”

He blinked but nodded, and tossed her a chunk of the explosive and the detonator too, hoping she knew what she was doing. Li caught it and went into a roll to avoid the strikes of her aggressor, before lobbing the C4 at him, making it go down into its chest armor due to the large gap where his neck was, being a skeleton and all. The beast stopped attacking and looked down at itself, seemingly confused by what had been thrown at it, before slowly looking up at Li, who had gotten a good distance from it, detonator in hand.

“Nighty night Skeletor.” She quipped, before pressing the switch.

The skeleton lord’s mouth opened a split second before its body was disintegrated in a fierce blast as the explosive charge went off in its armor, taking out a chunk of the ceiling too. The blast was nigh deafening in such an enclosed space, but both Li and Twilly were able to withstand it. Both anthros groaned as they shook the dizziness of the blast off and looked to the opened doors, leading once again down into darkness. This time however they weren’t that long and quickly terminated at the entrance to another large room, thankfully lacking the many coffin doors, which contained the prize they had been seeking for so long: The griffin amulet! Held in the palm of an enormous stone statue carved in the likeness of what must have been the Goth chieftain who had this site built originally, sitting atop a stone throne. It also contained another amulet in its other hand, one which had not been mentioned to the pair before they had set off…bonus prize it seemed.

“Look Twilly, the amulet, and another one too!” Li beamed, “we’re in luck today eh? Let’s grab ‘em and get outta here before anything else happens!”

Twilly nodded and approached the right hand while Li approached the left, and they slowly took the amulets, fearing a trap…but nothing happened. Disappointed (but very relieved), they gave each other a high-five and fastened the ancient artifacts around their necks, the griffin amulet held a red gem in a golden mold that resembled a griffin, the other was a blue gem, its mold resembled some sort of bull, a minotaur perhaps? The admiration of their new jewelry was short lived though, as while Twilly rummaged in the pack for a snack, Li suddenly groaned out in pain and was hunched over, clenching her hands.

“Uhh…Li? You alright?” he asked, timidly.

“No…guh…something’s…w-wrong…I…grah!” she yelped, arching her back suddenly as a loud crack echoed throughout the chamber.

The pandoxorse watched in alarm as Li doubled back over and looked like she was in considerable discomfort, if he wasn’t seeing things, she seemed to be growing larger in size, and her back was beginning to bulge out at the shoulder blade, straining her shirt. Her paws were staring to lose their fur and the skin was hardening and turning black, turning into scales as her claws grew and fingers began to fuse together into gnarled talons. Her teeth began to discolor and turn black, and seemed to also be merging together and pushing out of her mouth, her nose also stretching into it as her snout warped and lost fur, becoming a beak. Her feet remained largely unchanged in shape but they were swelling up to a larger size as her legs began to crack and shift into a non-humanoid shape, like that of a more common beast, jean shorts tearing as her legs bulged out with muscle and continued to change.

“What’s…hrrrappeninnng…crrrawwww…to…meeeeeaarrrrrwwwwwwk!?” she roared, as massive eagle wings burst from her back, tearing her shirt clean off, her breasts having receded into her bulging pectoral muscles as she continued to shift into something else.

She fell onto all fours as the last of her humanoid features left her, eyes going from hazel brown and dark blue to a uniform golden color, her hair falling out and being replaced with feathers, and a final, loud eagle screech to signify the transformation was complete…Li was now an enormous, powerful looking griffin, panting and clacking her beak as her mind tried to process what had just happened.

“L-Li? You still…in there?” Twilly asked as he slowly approached her.

The now griffin Li cawed loudly and nodded, unable to speak intelligibly anymore but still very much herself, and annoyed. Twilly breathed a sigh of relief and petted her head, making her coo a little, but before they could figure out a way around this new development, the ‘minotaur’ amulet around Twilly’s neck began to glow blue, and he realized that things were about to get rather unpleasant for him now too.

His muscles tensed and flexed repeatedly, making him grunt, and he felt them starting to expand. His hooves, already quite large, grow even larger and thicker, and his wagging tail began to lose fur and shrink, becoming a dinky, bovine looking appendage. He looked at his hands as the fingers swelled out and merged together into three digits each, and the growing muscles tore his shirt off, to his actual mild enjoyment. And then the actual pain happened, his mouth felt like it was burning up, teeth flattening from fangs into thick, plant crunching molars and muzzle widening into a big snout, horns painfully growing out from the sides of his head too as he started growing taller and broader, his shorts thankfully surviving his transformation from pandoxorse…into a 7ft minotaur. He just blinked as the pain ended, looking himself over and feeling his face, horns, muscles and tail in disbelief.

“…Heh…heheh…guess I got the better deal here, I can still talk!” he chuckled, in a deep, baritone voice.

Li squawked in indignation and stomped her talons, probably griffin for ‘oh fuck you”. Twilly just ruffled her head feathers and noticed something by the statue, in the rubble. Inspecting it, he saw it was the handle of something, and he pulled it out, easily due to his muscles. It was an immense two sided battleaxe, and in pretty good condition too. A grin came to his bovine face as he swung it around a little and felt it was so light for him, it’d make a great new weapon for this minotaur form if he had the fortune of keeping it.

He turned around to Li again and was about to jokingly ask if he could ride her out of the tomb, when the whole place shook violently, small bits of stone falling down from above…the statue was moving slowly, it was standing up. Li crowed in alarm and stepped back, still finding her feet on all fours, as it got to its full height…and its stone eyes opened up, revealing that same blue glow from the skeletons. It rumbled at them in the ancient Gothic language, probably angry cursing at them awakening it and stealing its treasure, before raising a mighty stone boot and attempting to stomp on Li. The griffin dodged it but found she couldn’t fight back at all, there wasn’t enough room for her to fight back at her size, so Twilly sucked up the fear he felt, let out a manly bull bellow and punched the golem in the leg…and then let out a pained bray as he probably just broke his knuckles.

“How am I gonna…!” he cut himself off and realized he had an axe, and then facepalmed because of it.

He swung it at the golem’s leg and it did chip into it a little, but not much, he needed a strategy, and he thought of one quickly. He ran over to Li and after some gesticulation and reassuring words, got her to let him climb aboard, and then bucked him upwards towards the golem’s face, and he grabbed hold of its carved features. It let out a low roar at him and tried to shake him off but he held on tight, and then swung the axe into the stone beast’s eye, which seemed to hurt it since it staggered and hit its back against the wall. It managed to grab him though and threw him to the ground, winding him. Twilly realized it was too strong to fight…but then he remembered what Li had done to the skeleton lord. And as luck would have it, there was one piece of C4 left…now to get back up to his head.

Once again getting his griffin friend to send him skyward, Twilly latched onto the stone king’s face and when it opened its mouth to shout, he tossed the bundle of plastic explosives into its maw, and leapt back down from it. The golem made a sound, unmistakably a “Huh…?” in confusion, before Twilly smiled up at him with the detonator in his huge hand.

“Consider yourself dethroned.” He grinned, pressing the button.

The king’s head exploded in a shower of debris and the mighty giant fell backwards against the chamber wall with enough strength to crash right through it, and tumble off into an abyss below…but was that sunlight out there? The duo looked out beyond the gap and realized the chamber was backed up against a ravine, and above them was the clear blue sky and the treetops…they were out.

“Well, there’s our way out…heh…but how are we going to…?” Twilly thought, scratching his chin.

Then he looked at Li, who looked back at him. If she could talk or emote much with that beak he’d see a ‘NO’ kind of expression, but he smirked and picked up the backpack easily and plonked himself upon her back, the griffiness groaning under the weight.

“Allons-y Li, Allons-y!” Twilly laughed, patting her back.

Li growled as best she could and spread her wings, jumping from the chamber and free falling a little, before pulling up and soaring free of the abyss, a majestic creature with a less majestic passenger, letting out a triumphant screech as Twilly whooped along, mission complete, and with enough trinkets besides the amulets to sell for a hefty profit, and also that shiny new battleaxe too. It was a hell of an adventure, but it was only one of many, the duo would likely face.