Spear of Destiny

by James Osiris Baldwin

  “Oh my god, w-we thought you were dead! Like dead-dead!” She accidentally headbutted me in the chest, driving the wind out of my lungs as she bounced up and down. “I-was-so-worried-you-died-and-the-spawn-glitch-happened-and-you-couldn’t-respawn-and-just-kept-dying-over-and-over-”

  “We’re okay, seriously.” I gave Rin a friendly one-armed squeeze, absently bringing up the Kingdom Management menu. “The Heart of Memory you gave me recorded some info, so we’ll review it and me and Karalti’ll debrief everyone on what happened. But before I call a meeting, I need to sort out the day’s agenda. Istvan, I’ve got gold for you to take to the Treasury vault. Captain Vilmos, I need you to invite three people to report to the Great Hall: Zlaslo ul’Tiranozavir, Ur Gehlan, aaaaand...” I held up a hand as I quickly checked the Kingdom Management > Mass Combat menu. “... Wing Commander Vászoly, Ravensblood Dragoons 1st Company. We need to send scouts to Bas County to get intel so we can finish up Kitti Hussar’s quest. Vash, if you can find Taethawn, I’ll schedule him for a hearing so we can sort out his pay.”

  I looked around the holographic menu screen to find my friends and companions blinking at me in a daze.

  “What?” I squinted at them.

  “Apparently our Lord Dog grew a couple of pants sizes while he was away, eh?” Vash’s scarred and shattered face twisted in a wolfish smile.

  “We already sent scouts to Bas,” Suri said. “I’ve been handling the Kingdom Quests while you and Special-K were AWOL. Check the list.”

  I opened up the menu listing our Kingdom Quests, and saw she was right. We’d had about ten outstanding quests, all of which now had NPC heroes or Starborn players handling them. The biggest quest still on our list was The Last of Her House. I couldn’t remember it word for word, but as Navigail read it out, I knew the description had changed:

  Kingdom Quest: The Last of Her House

  Lady Kitti Hussar is the 14-year-old daughter of the Count of Bas, Myszno’s southernmost county. Lady Hussar’s entire family perished in the Demon War.

  In the aftermath, Zoltan Gallo, a veteran knight who deserted Count Hussar on the battlefield, has rallied a militia and declared himself the new lord of Bas. In addition to oppressing the citizens who survived the war, he has given Kitti an ultimatum—marry him, forfeit her inheritance and elevate him to the noble class, or die.

  You have given Lady Hussar shelter and a reprieve from her stalker, and now, you await the return of the Yanik Rangers and Royal Dragoons who were sent to scout Zoltan’s base: the fortress city of Solonovka.

  Difficulty: Moderate (Level 20-25)

  Rewards: 2700 EXP, 40 Build Points, Unlock New Resources (Barley, Silver, Mana), +400 Renown (Myszno, Renown (Bas)).

  Special: Quest must be completed within 7 days.

  “Crap. We missed the early completion bonus.” I heaved a sigh of relief anyway. “Thanks for handling those.”

  “Of course. I’m next in the chain of command. It’s my duty,” Suri said. “Couldn’t have done it without everyone here, though. ‘S been a stressful week.”

  I smiled at her, then inclined my head to Captain Vilmos. “Nix the meeting with the commanders for now, then. We’ll get everyone together when the scouts return. Did they give an ETA?”

  “The Ravensblood Dragoons believed their mounts could make the flight to Solonovka in half a day,” Captain Vilmos replied gruffly. “They have been gone three. We pray for their return tonight or tomorrow. As it stands, we only have ten days before the autumn harvest begins. If we don’t get him out now, Gallo will fill Solonovka’s granaries and cellars with food and dig himself in like a tick.”

  “If I have to go down there and harvest it myself, I will,” I said. “Don’t worry. We can pay our soldiers, as soon as we get this gold into the treasury. Istvan, you’ll find what you need in Karalti’s saddlebags.”

  Istvan drew his heels in with a click before striding over to her. Karalti obligingly crouched down, and he unbuckled one of the huge bags on her flank to look inside. When he saw the contents, his eyes widened: he cleared his throat and closed the bag again. “It’s good to have you back, Your Grace. I will handle this.”

  “With skill and discretion, no doubt,” Vash remarked. “Hrrun. What else happened while you were gone? Oh, yes—the crab merchant-turned-mayor who claims to represent Karhad is here.”

  “Mayor Bubek?” I asked him.

  “I still cannot bring myself to call that self-appointed sloven ‘Mayor’,” Istvan said, scowling. “But yes, Bubek is here with some issues. Given you gave him conditional status, we put him up in a guest room in what remains of the gatehouse.”

  “Awesome. I’ll see Taethawn first, then Mayor Bubek.” I swiped over to the Kingdom Management schedule, and added in the slots. “Vash, you’re the fastest. Can you notify them? I’ll squeeze the ducal booty into the Voivode’s throne and sort out the Orphans Company now.”

  “Your Grace, I will send them.” Istvan gave me a brisk nod. “You ought to keep Vash close. After that assassination attempt in the Ducal Chambers, I think all your staff will feel better knowing he is by your side.”

  “Yeah. No more dying for you,” Karalti chimed in. “The last time was kind of bad.”

  “Sure.” I clapped Vash on the shoulder—the one without the prosthetic. “Guess you’re on bodyguard detail, Vash.”

  Vash laughed. “I’ll be gentle.”

  “You better be,” I said. “Just remember: small, circular motions.”

  Suri crossed her arms. “You aren’t even gonna take an hour to catch up with us?”

  “After all this is over and done with, sure,” I replied. “Dinner and a movie, whatever you want. For my own sake, I need to hit the ground running and get all of our admin out of the way first before we relax.”

  “Yeah! Do ALL the Voivoding!” Karalti stiffly beat her wings behind us, throwing up a cloud of dust and small stones, but then dropped back down to hug at her stomach. “Urgh. Istvan? Can you hurry up and get that treasure offloaded? If I don’t get something to eat soon, I’m gonna die.”

  Chapter 10

  Somehow, I—Dragozin Hector, formerly Hector Park, Private First Class—had ended up in charge of a Vlachian province large enough to be its own small country. The fantasy of ruling a nation was pretty common in the gaming world, and if you could put the game down and go eat some Cheetos when you felt like it, being the lord of all you surveyed was a great way to relieve stress. But Archemi didn’t feel like a game anymore. I’d been here nearly six months, and now it was just... life. A life that came with dragons and awesome friends, beautiful women, and delicious food, but also responsibilities. In my case, those responsibilities included twenty-one thousand square miles of territory, 2.2 million people, 10 counties and at least three major ethnic groups. All of it was mine to rule. I was doing my best not to fuck it up.

  I returned to my quarters, where my anxious butler helped me get ready to do Important Duke Stuff. The bathtub in the Ducal Suite was basically a giant kitty litter box without the mess, because my half-vampire self needed to sleep buried in sand to gain the Well Rested buff. That meant I had to take my actual baths in the Princess Suite, which had belonged to the old Voivode’s infant daughter. It was done up in shades of pink and pearl and still had the girl’s collection of stuffed toy dinosaurs on the counter. There was also scented bubble bath, which I made liberal use of—because if I had to wash in a Hello Hookwing-themed bathroom, then by god I was going to smell fucking fabulous.

  After scrubbing off the filth of the last several days, shaving my face and the sides of my scalp and refreshing my Tuun braids, I started to feel almost demi-human again. I let Rudolph the Butler help me into my one and only [Vlachian Nobleman’s Outfit], poked some food into my face-hole, and then I was off again: jogging deliriously down to the Great Hall.

  I arrived to find everyone ready for me, other than Taethawn. The guards were guarding, the throne was throning, and Vash was in his position to the chair’s
left—the heart side, where the Voivode’s bodyguard customarily stood. I nodded to the men and women protecting my seat as they saluted, dropping down into the humble chair that served as the ruling seat of Myszno.

  “Oh—you smell nice,” Vash remarked. “Is that jasmine?”

  “Probably.” I leaned back, opening up my HUD. Archemi’s holographic interface was modular, so I pulled up the Kingdom Management windows I’d need and pushed them to the left, then set my character sheet and Karalti’s to the right. “Okay, let’s get this orgy started. Where’s Taethawn?”

  “Who knows?” The monk sighed. “Istvan notified him, but Meewfolk being what they are, he’ll be here somewhere between five minutes and half an hour.”

  “Pretty much what I expected.” I had an Ability Point to spend, but decided to save that until I could properly assess my available combat skills. I quickly doled out my skill points, assigning two to Leadership and one to Strategy, bringing both Skills to Beginner 10: the maximum level I could attain before mentoring under a trainer or reading a Journeyman-level Skill Tome. No sooner had I confirmed that than I got a notification.

  [Your Steward has added 55,099 gold olbia to the Treasury!]

  [You have 65,862 olbia available for projects or withdrawal. You have 120 Build Points.]

  “Nice. Istvan just dropped fifty-five K in the bank, and there’s a lot more where that came from,” I said. “Not enough to rebuild the university, but still. It’s better than it was.”

  “Indeed. Though out of curiosity, where did you source all this gold?” Vash asked in Tuun.

  “Lahati’s Tomb,” I replied, in the same language. It was one of many reasons I was happy to keep him as my bodyguard. No one else in the castle besides Karalti spoke Tuun, so we could discuss Important Duke Stuff in relative secrecy. “And no, we didn’t graverob the last dragon queen of Myszno. She gave her grave goods and those of her clanmates to Karalti as an inheritance.”

  Vash grunted. “I’m glad. Or we would be having stern words.”

  “Believe me, Karalti has strong opinions on that as well.” I closed my sheet and opened Karalti’s. “I’m going to zone out for a bit. Need to read over Karalti’s new Path.”

  “I’ll make sure no one emerges out of the curtains to stab you.” He reached into the front of his Tuun herder’s jacket, and pulled out a long-stemmed pipe. “Do you mind?”

  I grinned at him. “No, but Istvan will chew you out if he catches you smoking on the job.”

  “Taethawn won’t.” Vash shrugged, already preparing his bowl. “As vices go, majza is not the worst. It keeps me alert, and it helps with pain.”

  “Your arm still bugging you?” I motioned to his right arm, the mechanical one. He’d lost the original in possibly the most epic way imaginable: by punching a diving dragon in the face. Rin had replaced it with a high-end magical prosthesis. The first attempt had nearly killed him. The second implant was doing better, or so I’d thought.

  “No, not the arm.” He shook his head. “The blows I took to the face smashed my sinuses into little pieces. They have caused me pain ever since.”

  I cocked my head. As much as I liked Vash, there were a lot of things I still didn’t know about the guy. For example: why was he a self-described ‘kinslayer’ with fifteen dead relatives? “How’d you get them?”

  “The scars?” He cocked his eyebrows as he lit his pipe, eyes closed. “My sister.”

  I blinked a couple times. “Your sister smashed up your face? What the fuck for?”

  Vash took a long drag off the pipe and shook his head. “Nothing I feel like recounting right now. But...”

  “But what?”

  “I may need to ask a related personal favor of you someday soon. That is, if this common scoundrel can request such a thing from a great and noble lord such as yourself.”

  That got a laugh. “Cut it out, dude. You’re starting to sound like Istvan.”

  He gazed piously toward the ceiling. “You are what you eat.”

  I snorted, and turned back to Karalti’s sheet. ‘Navigail, read out Karalti’s new Path of Royalty descriptions for me.’

  The Path of Royalty

  Grace, power, and charisma: three qualities embodied in Archemi’s queen dragons, some of the most powerful creatures to ever fly the skies of Archemi. Like the queens found in bee colonies, queen dragons are born to rule—but to do so effectively, they must advance in the Path of Royalty.

  The milestones of the Path of Royalty are available at the same levels as those of her Combat Path (the Path of Alacrity). All milestones that would be accrued prior to her current level are gained automatically. By advancing your dragon’s level through battling and training, she will gain more abilities in both the Path of Royalty and Path of Alacrity at Levels 20, 25, and 30. The Path of Royalty does not have an Advanced Path option.

  Abilities on the Path of Royalty can be leveled. By spending Lexica—the points used to gain new spells or improve currently known spells—you can improve your dragon’s Path of Royalty abilities from Level I to Level V.

  Ooh—that was neat. Karalti’s Path of Alacrity abilities didn’t have any individual ability advancements, so that was a big change. I brought up the Path menus, scanning the new abilities Karalti had gained from her communion with Lahati:

  Level 5: Queensong of Life and Death I

  As with all Paths and Advanced Paths, the Path of Royalty has a foundational ability key to the use and advancement of the class. For your dragon, this ability is her Queensong. The Queensong is a special, magically-charged vocalization which allows your queen to communicate with fellow dragons—and other species—at vast distances. It is unique to each queen dragon, reflecting and magnifying the elemental Words of Power written into their genes.

  Your dragon has the Queensong of Life and Death. Once per day, she may emit a cry which—at her discretion—either restores 50% of her allies’ maximum stamina (to a maximum of 100 allies) or causes the Fear and Nausea debuffs to susceptible opponents (to a maximum of 100 enemies).

  The Queensong is a magical ability, not a sonic attack, and is therefore not affected by the Mute status. However, powerful anti-magic fields (Level V or above) will nullify the effects of the Queensong. The Queensong will in turn degrade the effectiveness of anti-magic fields, weakening them by one spell level.

  Level this ability to improve the number of daily uses, effective range, resistance to antimagic, and number of allies/enemies affected by the ability.

  Level 10: Wingleader I

  Your dragon telepathically calls to your allied dragons, uniting them into a fearsomely determined unit. Your queen dragon selects up to 10 allied dragons who will instinctively form a unit at her direction, gaining immunity to fear for 10 minutes, +10% speed and +10% damage against one individual target.

  Level 15: Pack Tactics I

  Your queen telepathically summons allied dragons into a savage fighting wing, directing them to encircle an enemy and tear them to pieces. You select up to 10 allied dragons to form a unit, who gain +15% aerial maneuverability and +15% speed against 5 or fewer targets for 10 minutes. If the unit can encircle the enemy, they gain +25% damage against those targets and one extra breath weapon charge. If an ally achieves a critical strike against an opponent’s vital area, they gain +25% additional damage to that strike.

  Level 20: Lifebringer I

  Your queen dragon gains the ability to heal allies with her Queensong. By spending 80 points of mana, she can target as many allies as her Queensong is able to affect and heal them for 100 HP per unit.

  Level 25: Harbinger I

  Your queen’s song turns dark and terrifying, instilling terror and sabotaging your foes’ will to fight. By spending 80 points of mana, your dragon’s Queensong induces the Terrified debuff in susceptible enemies and injures them for 500 HP. Terrified enemies in mass combat scenarios will break rank and attempt to flee. If the enemies are Undead, the Queensong does not induce Terror, but instead deals double dam
age.

  Level 30: Armor of Darkness I

  Your queen dragon uses her intense connection to the Darkness and Life elements to protect and fortify your allies. The queen, her rider, and all allies within range of the dragon’s Queensong gain +250 magical armor, immunity to fear, +25% attack speed, and regenerate 10 HP per second for 10 minutes. Ally melee and ranged attacks deal damage to Incorporeal enemies, and all affected allies deal double damage to Undead.

  My eyebrows climbed further and further toward my hairline as my HUD cheerfully narrated this absolute BEAST of a Path. Healing a hundred or more people at a time? Hundreds of people dealing double damage to Undead? Me being me, my first response was to kick myself. If I’d trained her harder, been BETTER at this damn game, we could have had some of those advantages when we’d fought the Demon.

  “Idiot,” I muttered. I was about to assign Karalti’s Lexica for her... but then hesitated. When she was younger, I’d have done it without a second thought. But now? It didn’t feel right. She needed to choose for herself.

  “Hrrn?” Vash glanced over at me.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “Nothing I can fix right now. All I can say is, gods help the Demon if he ever tries to pull shit in Myszno again.”

  A few minutes later, the doors at the end of the hall opened, admitting the commander of the Orphans Company. Taethawn the Bleak was easily the tallest Meewfolk I’d ever met. Archemi’s cat people were generally well over six feet tall, but from his clawed hind feet to the tips of his triangular ears, Taethawn pushed eight feet of long limbs and lean muscle. His ears were heavily chipped, pierced with mis-matched rings, and his eyes were different colors: one blue, one yellow. He didn’t wear any clothes to speak of, just pounds of jewelry and weapons: rings on his fingers, toes, and tail; silver claw sheaths, bracelets, chokers, and two jeweled scimitars. His modesty was preserved by his short, sleek coat of grimy white fur.