With the way that Walter had talked up the other side of the mountains, Isaac had no idea what to expect, but even if he did, he wouldn't have been disappointed.

Isaac stood slack-jawed as soon as he got a good look at the world beneath them. Leaves of blue, red, yellow, purple, green, and every color in between them cascaded out towards them from a very clear focal point just past the horizon. The colors contrasted, complemented, and concealed each other in dizzying patterns that gave a feeling of completeness and wholeness even though they were entirely asymmetric. With the sun hitting them from high to Isaac's left, the density of the forest was on clear display. It looked as though walking between the trees could be impossible in some places where the pattern intercepted itself. It was an abstract painting made of nature turned into pigments and twisted into its own artificial ecosystem.

As Isaac stared awestruck at the scene before them, he couldn't help but mumble aloud: "You under sold it."

Walter chuckled. "Burn it into your memory, because we're gonna be haulin' ass from here until the first rest stop." He informed them. He then licked his lips and whistled a bird call out across the stony slopes of the mountain range. It wasn't quite loud enough to echo loudly back at them, but it was loud enough that anyone within a few hundred feet would've been able to hear him.

Lenna looked over at Walter with a hint of suspicion in her stance but mostly curiosity. He had warned them about the dangers of the other side of the mountains and then whistled out across them as soon as they had crossed. "What was that?" Lenna asked him.

"I'm letting Gypsy know that we are heading out and asking her to keep an eye and ear out for trouble." Walter explained.

Lenna nodded and then looked back out over the wondrous patterns of grays that painted the massive forest beneath them. "It is very pretty." She commented.

Walter nodded. "Yeah, it loses some of the novelty after the tenth time, but it's still a sight to behold." He then shifted his weight lower and tighter against Copper. "Ready?" He asked the duo.

Isaac finally peeled his eyes off of the forest to look at the mountain below them in more depth. The road was little more than a wagon-wide hiking trail in some places, in others it was magically leveled because the terrain had just been that impossible to cross, and in others the trail almost seemed to vanish entirely. Loose rocks and the occasional ice patch that had refused to finish melting waited patiently to send someone sliding off the side of the trail and down the slopes that were approaching eighty degrees in some locations, averaged around fifty, but never got below thirty.

"Lenna, be careful." Isaac told his wife.

Lenna nodded. "I'll try." She promised him. "Are you and your horse going to be alright?" She asked Walter.

Walter smirked. "Copper'll be fine. I just need to hold on." He assured them with a nod. "Ready?" Isaac and Lenna nodded.

"As ready as I'll ever be." Isaac commented.

"Go!" Walter started them and threw his weight down lower and closer to Copper's back.

Copper started at a walk for the first three steps which seemed like it was just long enough to bring doubt to Walter's impression of a race down the mountainside. She then moved to a trot at about the speed of a good run. She only stayed like that until they reached the first bend, around forty feet away, and then as soon as they had switched back, she took off in a steady gallop.

Horses often wore blinders while working to help keep them from getting spooked or distracted. Adventuring horses were no different. In fact, horses tended to get spooked when monsters or charging bandits arrived and that could prove fatal to their riders. For that reason, every adventuring or caravan horse that Isaac and Lenna had seen wore blinders, except for Copper. As they struggled to keep up with the, well over a decade old, horse, Isaac and Lenna realized why she didn't wear blinders.

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Copper's every footfall was sure and stable. Isaac could faintly feel some magic at play around her horseshoes, but it still took a horse with total confidence in both herself and her rider to maintain such a pace down switchback after switchback along a mountainside. She slowed to a canter for each switchback but then launched back up to twenty miles per hour as soon as they were clear of the sharp turn. She was instantly locked in and completely focused on her path, herself, and her rider.

Isaac and Lenna took off after her as fast as they were comfortable with. As they approached the second switchback, Isaac tried to slow down but his cleats skipped off some of the smooth stone and his feet went out from under him. He dropped onto his kneepad and the skirt of his armor and slid into the turn. In a blink he shadow-stepped back up and turned to the right so he wouldn't lose most of his momentum as he continued after Walter and Copper.

Lenna drew her sword and used it as a counter balance as she tried to match Copper's speed but failed. She was able to keep up with Isaac, even with his smart teleport saving more of his speed and momentum that he had lost from falling. She made it until the fourth switchback before some stones caused her feet to slip out from under her as well. She went down on knee and hip just like how Isaac had, only she couldn't teleport to fix the mess up. Instead, Lenna stabbed her sword into the ground with a quick burst of mana enhanced strength. She was stopped almost instantly and then had to get up, turn almost completely around, and then continue down the next slope. Isaac had shadow-stepped and turned himself around to be there just in case Lenna needed him to save her from taking a very long tumble down the mountainside.

"I'm fine." She told him.

Isaac nodded and smacked her shoulder as he imparted enough death flames to cleans any exhaustion she had built up so far. Right after he had done it, he realized how big of a mistake he might've just made. He quickly turned to look for Copper and saw her shake her head and then lower it a bit more. She seemed just a little less steady as she hit the next switchback but she was otherwise fine.

Isaac let out a sigh of relief. "That could've been horrible." He whispered. "I didn't think about it until it was too late."

Lenna nodded in agreement. "Yes. It could've been. But it wasn't. Let's go before they leave us up here." She told him.

Isaac nodded and they started their run down the mountain again. Thankfully the road wasn't too steep, around eight to twelve degrees for most of it, which was a bit too much for non-magically altered horse drawn wagons but was well within normal traversing inclines for riders. The real difficult parts were the sharp turns that even magically enhanced horse drawn wagons would struggle to handle. Those sharp turns, combined with the incline and slippery rocks, made moving at a fast speed a death trap even for people on foot. Thankfully, Isaac and Lenna had their ways and Copper was more than up to the challenge with whatever enchantment her shoes had on them.

Around ten switchbacks in, Isaac and Lenna watched as a giant red fox leapt from the path above and to their left, fifteen feet down to the path they were on, took one bounding leap towards the edge, and then jumped twenty feet down to the next path below them. The pair quickly slowed to a stop and shared a look.

"Shamesh or do you think you can figure out a landing?" Isaac asked his wife.

"I can figure out a landing." She told him. "A dozen feet is going to be my safe limit."

Isaac nodded. She was going to have to still use the path somewhat but she wouldn't have to use it the entire way to the one hundred and seventy degree turn that marked the end of each section. "I'll follow you." He told her. "As long as I teleport less than fifteen or twenty feet, I'll be fine." Lenna nodded in agreement and they resumed their trek down the mountain, only this time, Lenna spent quite a bit of time in the air.

By the time Isaac and Lenna reached the resting spot where Walter had set up camp, the sun was still an hour and a half away from setting. Walter was brushing Copper as she ate from a feeding bag. Carved into the stone there was a giant runic ward poured with platinum that almost seemed to hum softly to Isaac's mana senses.

"You guys took your time." Walter greeted them with a smirk. "I figured you would've flown down or something. When we get into the forest, flight's ill advised, but it's fine for goin' up or down the mountain."

"Why'd you race down here?" Lenna wondered.

"We had plenty of time." Isaac spoke aloud the unspoken part of Lenna's thought.

"Copper'd been cooped up for too long." Walter explained. "I tried to take her out for a run regularly, but the mountains aren't very conducive to that."

"Where's the fox?" Isaac asked. She was once again nowhere to be found.

Walter nodded towards a bolder that was just the right size to sit on. Isaac shrugged and walked over it, he stopped when Walter started to chuckle and looked over his shoulder at their guide. "No." Walter told Isaac. "That's Gypsy. She's asleep. Look carefully."

Isaac gave Walter an incredulous look and then turned back at the large stone. He squinted and focused for a moment before his eyes went wide. He could see the edge of the outline of her tail where it wrapped around her and hid her mouth and one eye from view. The thing was, she was the same color and visibly the same texture as the stone under and around her. She had blended in so completely to the environment that Isaac never would've noticed that she was there if Walter hadn't said anything, well, unless he tried to use her as a seat later.

"She's wonderful, isn't she?" Walter asked with a proud and knowing grin. "Like I said, if she doesn't want to be found, she won't be."

Isaac nodded as the duo both turned to look at Walter. "I really want to know where you found her, and how you got something like that to follow you around." Isaac told the Engineer.

"That is a long story for another time." He told Isaac. "Our trip down the rest of the mountain will be at a much more sustainable pace. We can talk more then, for now, it's time for dinner and then we can talk about what enchanting work you want me to do."

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