Apologies to Dr. Bob Bakker. But he'd probably like this so I'm not too sorry.
(Yes, I know what the actual dinosaur renaissance is. That's why Deinonychus is playing the role of da Vinci.)
Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7
Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11
The next morning dawned just as cool and foggy as the last. This was usual for the Haunted Woods, and Isengrim enjoyed the frequent cloud cover over the region. Werelupes were creatures of the night, and the sun often hurt their sensitive eyes and overheated their thick-furred bodies. Isengrim and his pack used to be largely nocturnal, but over the past few years had eased into being more active during the day, to better facilitate relations between them and their diurnal allies.
Not to mention his owner was a morning person. By the time
Isengrim was ready to open his eyes, Terra was already up and about, nibbling
on a bit of bread and dried fruit for her own breakfast before she helped a
groggier-looking Pharazon get Gwyneth fed and watered. Suhel and her packmates
had gone off on another hunt. Connor was still asleep, while Lexora had been
woken up by her own coughing a while ago, and never managed to get back to
sleep.
Takeshi Shudō, the head writer for the first seasons of the Pokémon anime, wrote some novelizations of the first episodes of the anime where he went more in-depth about the society of the Pokémon world as shown in the anime. In the anime universe as Shudō envisioned it, people were legally considered adults at age 10, which is why Ash and Misty can romp around Kanto without any adult supervision, and why 10 is the minimum age one can be registered as a Pokémon Trainer.
Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7
Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11
The trip to the old keep would take two and a half days from here, but they would be far from boring ones, Isengrim thought as they began their march through the forest. The Haunted Woods was full of wild beauty, and the company couldn’t be beat. The only things dampening his mood were the curse, Connor’s struggles, and the nagging fear that someone or something might have found the staff by now. After all, it had been nearly fifteen years since that keep was destroyed—more than enough time for looters to comb through the ruins.
But he tried not to let that get him down. After all, the air was cool and clean, the trees were aflame in autumn colours, and he and his party chatted and sang as they went. Lexora was quite good company, and the secondhand shopkeeper had a great deal of secondhand stories from her father about his globetrotting business exploits.
Isengrim was fascinated with everything Mr. Fitchet had seen
and done in places like Shenkuu and Krawk Island. Someday he would have to
figure out a way to travel over Neopia more widely without causing too much
trouble. The fact that he still had business ties to quite a few individuals on
the wrong side of the law had made his dealings with other kingdoms
complicated, and lately the fact had begun to set less and less well with him.
He thought that when he returned home, he should devote some time to trying to
figure out a solution.
