Zones of Alacria- The Dragon Gate

by K R Dimmick

With my stats sheet tidied up a little, I had a closer look.

  STATS, ATTRIBUTES & SKILLS

  NAME: Orianna

  LEVEL: 9 (Progress 55%)

  HEALTH (HP): 310 (10 x 25 + 40 + 20)

  MANA (MP): 530 (10 x 34 + 40 + 0)

  STAMINA (SP): 310 (10 x 25 + 40 + 20)

  STRENGTH: 25 (25 + 0)

  DEXTERITY: 58 (25 + 33)

  INTELLIGENCE: 49 (20 + 29)

  TOUGHNESS: 25 (25 + 0)

  ENDURANCE: 25 (25 + 0)

  FORTITUDE: 41 (20 + 21)

  WISDOM: 56 (20 + 36)

  KARMA: 100

  BONUSES:

  +10% effectiveness to Fire Magic

  +10% effectiveness to Spirit Magic

  Magic Skills:

  Fire Magic: 3 (Progress 17%)

  Spirit Magic: 5 (Progress 90%)

  Physical Combat Skills:

  Archery: 9 (Progress 2%)

  Dodge: 8 (Progress 16%)

  Stick Fighting: 2 (Progress 10%)

  Non-Combat Skills:

  Inspect: 2 (Progress 15%)

  Stealth: 7 (Progress 52%)

  Partnering Skills:

  Pet Bond: 2 (Progress 10%)

  Crafting Skills:

  Alchemy: 39 (Progress 50%)

  Gathering: 10 (Progress 0%)

  Herbalism: 20 (Progress 0%)

  The fight had done wonders for several of my skills. I’d increased quite a few of them, especially Spirit Magic, and, much to my delight, Pet Bond had now reached level 2. Not that I knew what that meant.

  Talking is easier. Recovering from my shock, I looked at Soter.

  “Has anything else changed?” I asked.

  We have skills.

  I needed to see these skills. I thought Soter skills. Nothing happened. I tried pet skills. Again nothing. What about Pet Bond skills? That worked. A selection filled my vision.

  Congratulations! You have 1 Pet Bond Point to spend

  Select one of the skills below.

  Share 1.

  Combine 1.

  Transform 1.

  It looked like all these skills would give me a second level option to pick from in the future. I focused on Share to find out what it did.

  Share 1

  Share your selected pet’s body for 10 minutes.

  You move out of your body and into their body. You can see, hear and experience everything they can. You have no control over them. There is no distance limitation.

  Cooldown: 24 hours.

  Cost: 1 Pet Bond Point

  Combine 1

  Combine your HP, SP and MP with all your pets for 5 minutes.

  You or any of your pets can use the combined pools

  Cooldown: 1 hour.

  Cost: 1 Pet Bond Point

  Transform 1

  Transform yourself into a copy of your selected pet for 10 minutes.

  Your body is transformed, and you gain identical skills to them, temporarily losing all your own skills. You are in complete control over your transformed body. There is no distance limitation.

  Cooldown: 24 hours.

  Cost: 1 Pet Bond Point

  Well that was interesting, I’d had no idea Soter had mana points.

  Of course. I am alive.

  Good point. I decided to go through the options closely before I picked one.

  It looked like, if I took Share 1, I would become a passive passenger in Soter’s body for those ten minutes. The bonus was the lack of a distance limitation. That meant he could be anywhere else, and I would simply pop into his head and go along for the ride. I could see this being useful if I wanted to spy on someone or see what was happening in a certain place that a wolf would be ignored, but a human would not. It was an interesting option. One that I could imagine would progress to longer times and possibly extend to getting some control.

  Combine 1 had some intriguing language. Obviously, I could have more than one pet. If, or when, I did, then I got to share all three pools. As far as I could tell, Soter didn’t use his mana for anything.

  Correct. I do not.

  That meant I could rapidly increase my mana pool for a short time in an emergency. It also meant he could increase his stamina for a short time as well, and either of us could have access to extra health if my healing skills were being blocked for some reason. It was a very tempting option.

  Transform 1, on the other hand, was calling to me. I could become a wolf for ten minutes. I had zero idea how useful it was going to be, because while I could scout out somewhere like I could with Share, I would be in trouble when I transformed back. Not to mention all the issues with what happened to my gear and weapons. I shuddered, remembering stories I’d read as a kid of Marvel Comics characters ending up mostly naked after a transformation. Perhaps that one wasn’t the best option, after all.

  “Orianna?”

  I looked up to find a young elf standing in front of me, looking like he was trying desperately to hide the fact that he was nervous about something.

  “Yes. How can I help?” I said, smiling at him.

  “King Faelyn wants to know when you plan on joining the council meeting. He says they’re waiting for you.”

  “Oh.” I had no idea I’d even be welcome, let alone expected.

  “Can you lead me there?” I asked, standing up and pushing away the information about the Pet Bond skills.

  38

  Death and Rebirth

  “At last. Have a seat,” the King gestured irritably to the one spare seat at the table.

  I glanced around the room. Like Arik’s room, this one seemed to have been grown out of the tree, rather than being carved. Unlike Arik’s room, however, this one was extremely large. It was only on the first walkway level, so it was much lower down. However, there was a huge table with twelve seats around it, tapestries on the walls, and what could only be two thrones on a small dais at the far end of the room. I guessed this room did double duty as a throne room and council chambers.

  King Faelyn sat at the head of the table, with Queen Elysyia on his right and Cara, the human liaison, on his left. Also around the table were Kira, Arik, Mikael, Damir and four older elves I hadn’t yet met. I could only assume they were the elders of the group. I took the final seat at the bottom of the table, opposite the King.

  “Now that we’re all here,” King Faelyn looked pointedly at me and I felt my face go red. “I’ll get right to the point. Andrew and his army should never have gotten anywhere near as close to us as they did. I have seriously underestimated him. If it hadn’t been for the quick thinking of our newest ally throwing that Freezing Bomb, I suspect El Sanctum would have been breached today, despite our barrier.”

  There were murmurs of assent around the table.

  “Firstly, has the barrier been repaired yet?” the King asked, looking at Damir.

  “It has, Faelyn. I’ve grown stronger since I originally put the barrier in place, too, so it should be more effective than it was before. It should keep out anyone without immediate knowledge of where El Sanctum is.”

  Of course, that was the problem. Andrew had spent time here, so now he could tell his guild members exactly where here was.

  “We were caught unaware, with minimal patrols out, unfortunately,” added Kira, who seemed to be speaking for the hunters. “No one has breached El Silvam without dying a swift death for years. We even sent a group of travelers to be reborn a couple of days ago. When Kailu’s party was announced, everyone wanted to join in. That meant the amount of patrols out this morning was at the bare minimum, especially after the drinking last night.”

  She looked down at the table, her cheeks flushing slightly.

  “It was extremely convenient for Kailu to return to us, weakening our defenses the day before an attack, don’t you think?” One of the elder elves spoke up.

  “It’s not like we could’ve left him in the jail,” I blurted out. “And besides, Andrew has been attacking him for a while now. I really don’t think he’s on Andrew’s side. It was j
ust lucky timing on their part.”

  “Was it?” the same elf asked. “Or was he planted in that jail to appeal to your weak traveler mind?”

  “If that’s the case, then Mikael, Cara and Allion could be just as guilty,” I glared back at the gray-haired elf I was rapidly starting to dislike. “I rescued all of them from Andrew’s prison too.”

  “Enough!” Bellowed the King. “We are not looking to blame someone. We have covered this before, Nym. I will not hear another word against Kailu. He has done no wrong and is not our enemy.”

  The text above the elder elf’s head changed to read Nym Ardelio - 27. He lowered his head, but didn’t look at all repentant, despite the King’s obvious anger. There was something about him I didn’t like, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  “What do we know about why the attack occurred?” the King asked.

  “He’s spreading the lie that the elves are responsible for creating the corrupted beasts that are attacking Ratters Town,” Mikael chimed in. “It’s the reason he’s offering them protection sigils, or at least it’s the reason he’s giving them.”

  “My gut feeling is that Andrew is actually responsible for the corrupted beasts,” I said.

  Everyone’s head swiveled to look at me.

  “When I was in the Dragon Hunters’ prison, they had a group of rabbits in one of the cells. The day after the sacrifice, the rabbits were gone. Then, yesterday, we saw several travelers from the guild collecting more rabbits and squirrels in a large cage. My guess is that the artifact Andrew is sacrificing people to is somehow creating the corruption. I just don’t know how exactly, and of course, I don’t have any proof yet.”

  “Describe this artifact,” Damir urged.

  “Well, from what I remember, it looked like a ball of green energy held between four sticks. Andrew chanted something I couldn’t understand that made me feel nauseous listening to it. The chanting caused dark tendrils of energy to flicker around the green ball. When they sacrificed a man to it, a ball of white energy joined the artifact and the dark tendrils disappeared. That’s really all I remember, I’m afraid,” I said, shrugging.

  “Hmm,” Damir said, “I don’t know a lot about the Dark branch of magic, but I do know that when you combine dark magic with something like pure life force energy, one will corrupt the other. In return, that corruption has to go somewhere. Andrew obviously doesn’t want the corruption in his artifact. Equally, he doesn’t want it to go into any of his followers, or his future victims, so the rabbits do seem like a likely destination for it. I’d say it’s pretty safe to assume Andrew is the one behind the corruption.”

  Congratulations! You have completed the quest: Corruption 1

  You have received 20,000 XP.

  My little green XP bar increased to 75% as I was finally able to report my suspicions to King Faelyn about the source of the corruption.

  Congratulations! You have received 10 Reputation Points for delivering on your promise to Cara Legatus.

  This grants you the ability to start a guild or settlement.

  The tiny, golden lights that had surrounded me all that time ago, when I’d made the promise to Cara, seemed to burst out of me and disperse. No one else said anything, so I could only assume they couldn’t see them. Either way, I now had one less thing controlling whether or not I succeeded, so I was very happy to see them leave.

  “What I don’t understand is why he’s handing out protection sigils to safeguard the locals from the corrupted beasts, if he’s creating the problem?” I said. “There must be some ulterior motive because I know for a fact that he thinks the locals are here to be used however he wants.”

  “Perhaps we need to know what those protection sigils really do. I think that will tell us why he’s offering them,” said Cara, causing a notification to pop up in my vision.

  You have received a quest: Corruption 2

  Discover what the Protection Sigils do and report back to King Faelyn Sophos.

  Completion of this quest will give you 20,000 XP and 5 Florins.

  Do you accept? Yes / No

  I quickly thought yes, although, unless I was still desperate for the XP, this would probably need to come after I’d figured this riddle out. At day three, my time was seriously starting to run out.

  “I think it might be time for me to share what I know about Andrew from his time here,” sighed the King. “I was a young child when he arrived. I’d just been given my first bow and raised to hunter status. He was one of the first travelers my parents let me meet. Most simply came and went, consulting the King and Queen and getting their blessing to travel to Goran Thedgate.”

  The King nodded at the look of surprise on my face.

  “Yes, I’ve seen this riddle you travelers have. It requires you to visit Goran Thedgate. It used to be that no one could get there without the elves’ permission because it was part of our forest. You see, it is a sacred place for us. It’s where we believe our spirits go when we die. It is supposed to be a great honor to help a traveler on their journey, so a group of us would always accompany them. Sometimes, that group even included the King or Queen. Usually, it was people the traveler had become acquainted with or impressed in some way. In Andrew’s case, my mother, the Queen, had been taken in by him and his charismatic nature, and had decided to join the party for his journey.”

  The King stood up and started pacing around the room.

  “Once a traveler arrives at Goran Thedgate they are required to drink a potion to cross into the realm of the dragons, through what is called the Dragon Gate. From what I’ve been told, that potion has a side effect that causes your true nature to show itself. When Andrew drank that potion, he went on a killing spree. He killed everyone in the party that had been sent to accompany him, including my mother, the Queen. What very few people know, and what needs to remain hidden for now,” he stopped, turning to look at the people sitting around the table, “Is that I had secretly followed the group and witnessed what happened.”

  A few sharp intakes of breath came from the older council members.

  “I’d also been deceived by Andrew, and had asked to go, but I was told I was too young. Sometimes, however, young people think they know better than their elders. So, I snuck out, telling the guards I was going hunting, and I followed the party all the way to Goran Thedgate. I was a child, so what I saw terrified me. I knew there was nothing I could do to stop him when the ten fully trained fighters in the party had all gone down. It was like they’d simply frozen up and let him kill them. I’d never seen anything like it before, or since. It was a one-sided slaughter. My mother was the only one who put up much of a fight, but as one of our lower level magic users, she didn’t really stand a chance. I watched Andrew disappear through the gate before I ran back to tell my father what had happened.”

  The King slumped back down into his chair.

  “When I returned and told my father, it was like he was under a spell. For some reason, he decided to cover it all up, and instead of the truth, he told the elves the party had been ambushed and killed. Andrew returned a while later, but something about him had changed and my father seemed determined not to notice it. I caught glimpses of Andrew holding something and muttering to himself. He became obsessed with Alchemy, Tinkering and Jewelry. He studied long and hard and quickly progressed through the ranks. His teachers seemed to fall under his spell, just like my parents had. He also started wearing a large, glowing, white jewel on a gold chain around his neck. I assumed it was simply a piece of jewelry he’d made. However, one day, I caught him looking triumphant over some discovery. I watched as he took the necklace off, held the jewel up in front of his face and told it that now he’d get his revenge. He put the jewel down on the Tinkering station and started chanting in a language I didn’t recognize.”

  The King took a deep breath and looked up at me.

  “It was just like you described. Simply listening to him made me feel like my insides were being turned to liquid, but I couldn�
��t bring myself to turn away. No one would hear a bad word about Andrew, so I knew it was up to me to work out what was going on. I watched as the jewel grew brighter and brighter, until suddenly, it exploded. The glowing energy of the jewel, however, stayed behind. It was like nothing I’d ever seen. Andrew somehow grabbed that energy and forced it into some artifact lying on the bench that looked like a glass ball held between four sticks. At that point, I ran. I did everything I could to convince my father to exile him, but got nowhere. That night, Andrew left for good. It turned out he’d poisoned the minds of a number of elves and created quite a following. Just as Andrew passed through the barrier around El Sanctum, his followers started killing every magic user we had.” The King glanced up at Damir, “Well, one thankfully escaped without Andrew realizing it. As far as we know, all of Andrew’s followers were killed off in the fight that ensued.”

  Nym’s face flushed as he stood up. When the King turned to look at him, he simply nodded and walked out of the room. I guess he must have lived through Andrew’s deceit as well and was still angry about it.

  “What was that glowing energy?” I asked. “Because that sounds exactly like the artifact I saw him sacrifice that man to.”

  “My guess is that it was someone’s soul,” Damir said. “Just like the white energy you saw come out of the victim.”

  I started to feel nauseous again.

  “I’ve heard there is a Dark Magic spell that will allow the user to trap the soul of their victim in a crystal. It’s called a Soul Crystal,” chimed in Arik.