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For the entire night, the only thing I did was dig. I would come up with another plan of attack later, but for now, my main objective was to escape. Even though it had been more than three hours since I jumped into my hidey hole, I could still hear the agitated squawks and screeches through the airholes I made. Given the number of harpies I injured, maimed, and killed, I doubt they are going to calm down anytime soon.
As for where I was digging to, I am tunneling down at a steep angle, hoping that I exit the side of the mountain, hopefully low to the ground. And now that I am forced to tunnel through solid rock, I come to realize that it is a lot more mana-intensive than I first thought. Until now, I have only been moving solid clumps of dirt around, so molding meters of solid mountain rock out of the way was exhausting my mana at an alarming rate.
I try out a few methods to make my shifting of solid rock go faster and more efficiently, but with that comes noise and serious vibrations that make the harpies up above go into a frenzy. So I am stuck going at a snail's pace.
***
Eventually, I made it to the base of the mountain, made a small, removable stone trap door, and dashed into the woods after a harpy flew past above me. It was a terrible night, with all the strength and mana burning through in the tunnel's stale air, I was hungry and thirsty a lot more often than usual, making me burn through my water canteen and the small pack of jerky I always have on me.
It also took me a few tries to reach the bottom of the mountain. During the last few attempts, when I made it to the mountain's edge, thinking I was home free, I poked a hole to the outside, only to see and hear that harpies were still patrolling the area, forcing me to double back and dig further down.
When I reached my hiding spot, the first thing I did was cook myself a hearty meal from the rations I stashed away with the rest of my loot, eat, and go to sleep in my tree.
By the time I woke up, it was night again, and I was not willing to drag this out any longer. Now that the harpies were wise to my game, instead of searching every nest, I was going to take a gamble and assume that the heirloom I was looking for was in the harpy queen's nest. All I needed to do was find it.
Sounds simple enough, but I knew that was far from the case. First things first, I had to track the queen birdbrain back to her nest. Under the cover of darkness, I may just have a chance.
As I look at the harpies' mountain, even in the dark of night, I can tell from the silhouettes moving around that not all the harpies were asleep, and among those figures, there is the biggest of all the silhouettes, the Harpy Queen, keeping vigil on the mountain I just escaped.
Now I just had to sneak back under the cover of night and see where she flies to when she is done looking out for me.
***
After resupplying myself with extra rations and an extra waterskin, in case this takes longer than my estimates, I move out. When I made it to the mountains, I stuck to the vegetation of the valleys between the peaks. But unlike the woods, the valleys between the peaks were rocky and sparse in vegetation. The only things that could hide me were shrubs instead of trees with their wide canopies.
This called for some improvisation. I sneaked from shrub to shrub, cutting the small to medium-sized shrubs at their base. After that, I tore holes in the hooded cape I was wearing and stuffed the shrub cuttings into those holes, securing them with some string. I essentially made a shrub camouflage, so if I lay down, I would look like a large and somewhat long shrub.
Speaking of, I picked up the sound of flapping wings and lay on the ground face first. The flapping soon came to a halt as I turned my head up to see what was going on. On the edge of the mountain, I could see a harpy's silhouette, and judging from the size, it was just a normal harpy.
Taking my chances, I slowly crawl my way through the valley while keeping my eye on that harpy. Thankfully, it decided to fly somewhere else, leaving me to travel at a faster pace.
I knew the Harpy Queen's nest was somewhere in the inner mountains, so I went behind the mountain where I saw the Harpy Queen perched in vigil. When I reached the valley between the outer and inner mountain peaks, I took off my shrub cloak and laid it on myself like a blanket while looking at the sky, and waited to see the general direction the Harpy Queen would fly when she was done looking out for me.
***
When the first beams of daylight hit the mountains, I saw the large wings of the Harpy Queen flying above me. I quickly donned my shrub cloak and began moving toward the Harpy Queen, using the remaining darkness to my advantage.
I was just lucky that the hormonal harpies who stayed up to look out for me were all doing it from their own nest, so they did not need to fly above me to get back to their nest like the Harpy Queen.
After passing two peaks, I finally arrived at the central peak. It was shorter than the outer peaks but considerably wider than the other and had what appeared to be a lake surrounding it.
If I had to venture a guess, this place did not look like a neutral formation. Aside from the outer peaks, this place looked like it was crafted. Maybe some ancient creature or mage that had a knack for rock shaping.
Near the top of that fat peak was what seemed to be a cave entrance.
I did not see her enter that cave entrance because she was a lot faster than I, but it was a safe bet that she was there.
After checking to make sure the coast was clear, I made my way to the edge of the lake.
Not wanting to get wet or have a nasty surprise if something hungry was living in the lake, I was going to need to jump across, but it was at least a twenty-meter jump, and there was no way I was going to make that jump unless I used my Primal Aura, but i was weary of the Harpy queen being sensitive enough to detect me.
Instead, I used water instinctive magic to freeze a few meter-wide sheets of ice, and manipulated them to line up to the other side, and used them as stepping stones to get to the other side.
After getting to the other side, I melted the ice and planted myself next to a shrub on the small circle of land at the foot of the Harpy Queen's peak, and deployed my camouflage. Now all I had to do was hide and wait for the Harpy Queen to leave her nest so I could search it.