“Oops.” He drove both blades at my exposed ribs.
[Barrier Shirt negates Heartstrike!]
[Lucien lands a glancing blow!]
[You have taken 1101 damage!]
[You are poisoned!]
[Warning! Your Armor durability is critically low!]
The ancient Tuun chain shirt burst, and splitting pain wracked through my torso, stunning me. Most of my HP vanished like a bad dream. Lucien kicked off my chest, sending us tumbling through the air. I oriented just in time to land on my feet, but stumbled under Rutha’s weight and fell back with her onto my ass. Karalti bounded forward with a roar, shielding me with her body as the pair of dragons drew deep, magically charged breaths.
And Ignas began to laugh.
At the same moment that Lucien vanished and reappeared on his dragon’s back, hundreds of hidden murder holes opened up around the Parade Ground all at once. A forest of cannons and rifles emerged, every one of them aimed squarely at Lucien and Violetta. The dragons froze in place.
The Volod crossed his arms, raising his voice to be heard by the riders. “I don’t know if your enlightened liege is much of a historian, but Vlachia is one of the oldest civilizations in Artana. You really think we’ve stood for three thousand years without being prepared to defend ourselves from a couple of dragons?”
“We’re Level 55. We can tank it.” Lucien sneered. “Vesper!”
“These are Wyrmsbane rounds, boy.” Ignas jerked his head toward the nearest row of cannons. “You’ll get out of the way, but that decrepit beast of yours won’t.”
His words hung in the air. Suri and Rin stood side by side, weapons in hand. The soldiers and knights held their ranks, faces pale, but determined. Fighting the cramping pain from the poison on Lucien’s swords, I stood up with Rutha in my arms.
“Wyrmsbane?” Lucien’s nose wrinkled. His expression turned distant as he consulted his unseen HUD. “Violetta, is that even a real buff?”
She gave him a curt nod, but remained silent. The raspy breathing of the two mutated dragons was the only sound for nearly a minute.
“So, now that we have an understanding, I will ‘advise you as to how things will work going forward’, as you put it,” Ignas finally said. “You, Lucien, will run back to your master like a whipped dog, and you will tell this so-called Emperor of Nothing what I said. I give you my thanks for alerting us to his intentions.”
“Oh, we will. And when we come back with a legion of dragons, you’ll wish you’d never insulted us.” Lucien spat down at me. “Come on, Vi.”
The female rider stared me in the eye as her dragon spread his wings and bunched, then kicked off the ground. The frigid downdraft blasted the courtyard, knocking down the nervous soldiers and forcing the Volod to one knee. Shielding our faces, we watched the twisted creatures rise into the sky before vanishing into a dark nimbus.
“Hector!” Rin’s anguished cry came from behind me. I turned to see her running for us, her turrets flanking to either side. “Are you okay?!”
“I’m mildly poisoned, mostly dead, and I have a cold, but I’m alive.” In all honesty, I was rattled. I hadn’t seen Lucien move. His Dex was up to god-tier levels now… and who the hell knew how powerful Violetta and Baldr were. His ‘glancing blow’ had ignored my armor and would have killed me if not for the improved Spear of Nine Spheres and its +300 HP bonus.
I pushed the pain aside and knelt with Rutha, looking over her injuries. She was slashed with deep lacerations – many of them infected – poorly healed bones, bruises and old blood.
“My god. This poor woman.” Rin crouched down on the other side, reaching out to smooth her hair back from her face. “Who were those people?”
“We’ll talk about it later. Here, Hector. Drink.” Suri held out a fan of potion vials to me: three green and one black. I took them and threw back the [Common Antidote] like a shot, then drank one of the green [Concentrated Moss Tinctures]. The next one I tried to give to Rutha, but it was hopeless. She couldn’t swallow. I took the rest.
[You have healed 450 HP!]
[You are no longer poisoned!]
[HP: 632/1283]
I was still in the orange after all that, but the crushing pain in my sides lifted. The humiliation? Not so much. I flashed Suri a small, wan smile. “Thanks.”
“She’s been beaten with a razor whip.” Suri pointed at the lacerations on Rutha’s skin. “Used to see that in Al-Asad a lot. Whips that had shards of metal knotted on.”
Rin’s eyes were tearing up. “I knew that players wouldn’t always be kind to NPCs… but this is terrible.”
“Strange as it sounds, I think whatever happened to Violetta was worse.” I gathered Rutha into my arms and stood. “She used to be okay, you know? She wasn’t part of Baldr’s clique. Lucien was. He was a weak coward, and now he’s a vicious, nasty weak coward. And Baldr… Jesus.”
Ignas strode up to us, cloak billowing in the wind. “Power is like a magnifying lens, Hector. If you are a good person, it will bring out the best in you. If you are a coward, a fool, or a sadist, having power only makes you more so.” He motioned with a hand to one of the Knights of the Red Star, who bowed and went to one knee. “Rytier, take Lady Rutha to the infirmary, and tell Masha that I command she attend her personally. The Lady was Ilia’s frequent emissary here... I wish to know she is being well taken care of.”
“Hemen, Majesteri.” The tattooed knight saluted with a fist over his heart, then rose and barked orders in Vlachian to his squad.
A pair of soldiers came forward to take her up and bear her away, but I ached with suspicion. “Your Majesty, we must be careful. As much as I care for her, Rutha is mixed up with Baldr. She could be compromised.”
“You question the lady’s honor?” He furrowed his brows.
“No, not her honor. Baldr’s. The Architect that’s possessing him… he’s like a disease that corrupts people, like those two people we just saw. And your brother.”
Slowly, Ignas nodded. “I see.”
I jerked my head toward the retreating soldiers. “Rutha might not be working for Baldr intentionally, or even willingly, but she could still be infected. There’s something about this that feels like a trap. Like it was staged.”
“Hector’s right. There was no reason for them to give us Rutha,” Suri said. “If that little blond cunt was tellin’ the truth and they’re really Level 55, that sorceress probably could’ve waved a hand and killed the lot of us without too much trouble.”
“Curious you say that.” The Volod rubbed his hand over his mouth, thinking. “She lied.”
There was a pregnant pause.
“About the Wyrmsbane?” I asked.
The Volod nodded. “Yes. There’s no such thing, not as such. I mean, there are magics that affect dragons, but they are decided by element. The ruse was a last-minute gamble on my part.”
“Well shit.” Suri looked to the sky. “We’d have been fucked if she hadn’t fudged it.”
Ignas shook his head. “Not necessarily. Ebisa is a match for the sorceress.”
As if summoned, ghost, the unseen assassin stepped out of her Stealth cloak and fell in by Ignas’ side. Ebisa was a Mercurion like Rin, but she was her physical opposite. Most Mercurions were beautiful works of art, but Ebisa was more like an unfinished sculpture. She was rail-thin, her skin a matte flat gray. Her sharp features were hard and hawkish: instead of eyes, she had four gemstones in a band across her face. She always wore a mask in public.
“The riders are not as powerful as their dragons. If they were, they would have detected my position.” Ebisa’s voice was as harsh as a crow’s, rough and husky. “But the Tuun speaks true. This elf was their bargaining chip, and they threw her on the table and left with their tails between their legs. It was too easy.”
“You are a cynical shrew, Ebisa. But yes, indeed.” The Volod seemed entirely unsurprised by her sudden appearance.
“A cynical shrew who has protected your bony Sang’hi ass for l
ong enough to have gained some wisdom,” Ebisa replied wryly.
Ignas snorted. “True enough.”
“You aren’t putting Rutha in the dungeons or anything, are you?” I asked quickly. “If she’s been turned into some sort of trojan, it’s not her fault.”
“Of course not. I will warn Masha of this disease she may be carrying. We will place the lady under guard in the hospital and keep her isolated for the duration of her coma,” Ignas replied. “Much as it pains me to do so.”
Ebisa flowed like a ribbon of smoke to join Rin, who was starting to look dejected. She patted the Artificer on the hip, and the girl perked up, blushing bright blue. “We could keep watch over her for you, sire. Mercurions fear no human disease.”
“You could, but I have need of you elsewhere. Your gift for strategy will be of great use to us. We must have the briefing on Myszno. I’d planned to have it tonight after the Dark Moon festival, but we will have to move it forward.”
“How are things in Myszno looking?” I asked. “The Unto Death quest?”
Ignas gave a little shake of his head, lips pressed together. “The messenger who staggered into the Great Hall this morning carried dire news, now made more dire by the need to deal with this Ilian whelp. I won’t explain out here – we shall adjourn to the War Room. I want all four of you there. Karalti, too, if she can stick her head in through the window.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” Suri dropped into a courtly bow.
“Sure.” I looked back to Karalti. Her wings were drooping, the tips almost trailing on the ground. She was still staring up at where her siblings had vanished. “If it’s alright with you, we’ll meet you there in twenty.”
Ignas gave Karalti a shrewd look, then inclined his head. “You have my leave. Do what you must. And do not fear these threats of war, Hector. As I told you during my coronation, I will not be extraditing you or Karalti to Ilia. You have my solemn word before these witnesses.”
I turned back to him. “Even if it means going up against Baldr?”
He nodded. “The White Sail Alliance will never allow this Starborn whelp to muster beyond his own borders. Ilia is not a large country, and soldiers march on their stomachs. We will freeze trade, enforce sanctions, and starve any aspirations of his ‘empire’ even forming.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth, considering his words. Even though I could open my HUD and view my Reputation in Western Vlachia – it was up around the +1000 point mark now – I still had to ask the question for my own peace of mind. “Why are you protecting us?
The Volod drew himself up like a dignified heron. “As I told you the day of my coronation, it is a matter of honor. You and your queen brought a murderer to justice and helped to restore me to my rightful throne, and now you prepare to ride to our defense. Vlachia is in your debt.”
“Then thank you, for both our sakes,” I replied. “I mean it.”
Ignas bowed his head, then turned to confer with Ebisa in Vlachian. Suri squeezed me on the shoulder as I walked by her, and I clapped her forearm before moving on to join Karalti. Her nostrils flared as I approached.
“Come on, Tidbit. Let’s fly and talk,” I said, switching back to our silent speech.
“I don’t want to talk. What is there to talk about?” My dragon hissed and snapped her jaws, flexing her talons into the grout between stones, but she dutifully positioned her wing so I could climb it.
“I know you don’t feel like it, but you need to. What’s eating you?”
“I dunno.”
She didn’t say anything else during takeoff, but I could feel the tension in her body as she took wing. Only once we were in the air did she speak again.
“Those two dragons… they were my brothers. I could tell by the way they smelled. What happened to them? I don’t understand.”
“I told you about Baldr, from Ilia. He’s been possessed by one of the Architects, the beings who created this world, and that being – Ororgael – has corrupted them with Void magic,” I replied, leaning with her as she dropped a wingtip and headed back the way we’d come.
“Like the bad king. Andrik.”
“Yup.”
Karalti flew in pensive silence for the rest of the trip to the War Room. Fighting the urge to press her, I tried to relax into the quiet, to make it less awkward, but I was also pretty wound up. We’d been in Archemi six weeks, and Baldr was already the ruler of a nation. Lucien was his high-ranked lackey. If the lackeys and their dragons were Level 55 already, how powerful were Baldr and his mount?
Trying not to sneeze into my helmet, I bought up the EXP table in the ArchemiWiki to check how much experience a dragon needed to reach Level 55, and blanched. Fuck me. That was a big number with a lot of zeroes. Even if Karalti and I had trained from the minute she was born until this moment now, fighting mobs all day and all night, we wouldn’t be anywhere near that. It wasn’t fair, and it made me feel just a little more hopeless about those seventeen points I still needed to level up. But what was the point, when my opponents were so overpowered?
Before the dark thoughts could overwhelm me, I narrowed my eyes and studied Vulkan Keep’s defenses from the air. If Baldr attacked, he wasn’t going to have an easy time of it. There were multiple rings, starting with the bridge over the canyon valley that served as a moat. Then there was the barbican, a fortified gatehouse which led to a kill zone separated from the main castle by another gatehouse, the only way through the outer curtain wall. The wall was partly built into and camouflaged by the obsidian stone of Mount Racosul, the huge dormant volcano that loomed over Taltos below. There was the outer bailey just behind that, a crescent-shaped open space where most of the ancillary buildings used to manage the Keep were located. The inner bailey was built more directly into the enormous natural cave structure behind the castle, which sheltered the keep from aerial attack – an important feature for fortified positions in Archemi. The volcano concealed the strongly fortified living quarters and defensive elements under the direct command of the Volod. The Parade Ground, on the other side of the mountain, was pretty much the only open area and was outside the main walls. Flanking towers were embedded to either side of the inner bailey, the patrolling guards concealed by crenellations along the walls and reinforced caverns from above. Vulkan Keep wasn’t some whimsical Elvish relic. It was ugly and blocky, but it had been built to be impregnable, not pretty. So far, so good.
The War Room was on the top floor of the donjon, the highest tower of the keep. Like the Eye of Sauron, you could stand on the balcony that was shielded above and in front, and look out over the Keep, the parade ground, and the switchback road that ran down the mountain across a fast, icy river and ended at the gates of Taltos far below.
Karalti soared down in an elegant arc to land on the edge of the balcony. When she had her balance, she flipped her wings, folding them neatly against her flanks, and hopped down to the broad catwalk.
“Are you alright?” I unbuckled myself from the saddle, but didn’t slide down.
“No.” Her normally girlish, chirpy voice was uncommonly serious. “But… Do you think…?”
She trailed off, tail lashing, and flattened her crests down against her skull.
“Do I think what?”
The little dragon shook her head, restlessly flexing her killing claws against the stone. “Do you… do you think… my mom is still alive?”
I felt a pang behind my ribs that had nothing to do with the lingering ache from Lucien’s swords. “I don’t know.”
“I never got to meet her.” Karalti began to pluck at the edge of the wall with her dexterous hands, picking at the seams between stones. “My blood tells me that I have to meet her, at least once. If I don’t…”
She trailed off again, hissing softly with frustration.
“If you don’t meet her, what happens?” I asked.
“I tried to command my brothers before. I told them to leave. They should have listened to me.” Karalti replied. “We are blood-kin, and I am
their Queen. They should have obeyed me. But there was nothing. It was like… they didn’t recognize me.”
“That’s because they’re Stranged, Tidbit.” I swung my leg over to sit side-saddle, bracing my heel against her wing shoulder. “They’re fucked up from whatever cheats Baldr used to make them level so fast. You can’t expect them to act normally.”
“No. That’s not what I mean.” She darted her head back and forth, then turned around to pace. “My mother has something that she must give me. If I’d been allowed to hatch properly with her, I ‘d be able to command them, Stranged or not. I can see her when I close my eyes sometimes. She gives me something from her mouth and passes the mantle of Queenship to me.”
I frowned. There was a lot about dragonkind I didn’t know, given my strange start in Archemi. “If you’re having visions of her, I’d like to say she’s alive. She probably has to be careful how she contacts you.”
“Do you… do you think she loves me?” Karalti craned her head around to look back. “Be proud of me?”
I reached out and chucked her cheek. “There’s no way she couldn’t love you, Tidbit.”
Karalti’s luminous eyes searched mine, and her horns lifted a little. “What… what is she like? Is she smart and beautiful? She must be, if she has so many males courting her.”
For once, I didn’t want to tell Karalti the truth. Not all of it, anyway. Her mother was obese and sickly, chained deep in the bowels of the Eyrie just as she’d been her entire life. I shuddered to think how she was being treated now, after helping me escape. But despite it all, she had preserved some dignity, the spirit and the will to fight on. Karalti was living proof of her courage, and her power.
I fixed my dragon with a steely glare. “She never got to live the kind of life you have. But your mom’s a fighter, and she’s super smart. If she’s alive, the thing that’s keeping her going is knowing that you’re fat, dumb and happy. And free.”
“Yeah. I guess.” The dragon looked down. “You know, I’m happy that I’m getting bigger, because it means you can fly with me and I can protect you better. But sometimes, I still feel really small.”
Archemi Online Chronicles Boxset Page 80