Kingdom Come

by James Osiris Baldwin

  Suri hacked and sliced, and in another minute, the monk was free. He got stiffly to his feet, rolled his shoulders, and grunted. His bare arms were tattooed solid black. He glared at the exit like it owed him money. “Ai-yai-yah, my spine. Thank you, lady. Now, if I don’t get a piss, a drink and a smoke in the next thirty-three minutes, I’m going to kill this lying Rotzlöffel on principle.”

  “Fuck you,” I snapped. “We just saved your skinny ass.”

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, meshugga.” Vash took a step forward me and brandished a finger. “Your dick will never be long or hard enough to take that quest. My cheeks would crush you like a maggot, except… we do not crush maggots, do we? Like this little guy.” He crouched down to pat the baby Swamp Hag as it inched its way across the floor. “See? Harmless. And look at its little mouth-butt!”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and willed the pain to stop.

  “Okay mate, look – my h0okwing is fucked up and I’ve had just about enough of this. It’s time to drag you back to the funny farm.” Suri wiped her dagger clean, then sheathed it. “Can you walk?”

  “Of course I can walk!” He flipped his braids over one shoulder and limped off toward the door. “Na-tsho schrodna, ‘can I walk’? What do I look like? A worm?”

  I rolled my eyes and looked over at Suri. She shrugged, her expression slightly pained.

  “Istvan’s going to be thrilled we found you,” I said as I trotted off after him. “Fort Korona is-”

  “You! Bitga yaru!” Vash rounded on us in the doorway, pointing at me. “Your whore’s mouth is not clean enough to speak my prince’s name! I’ll make my own way back.”

  “Woah woah woah." I held up both hands. “Dude, no. You aren't storming off through the swamp by yourself, okay? We were sent to find you and take you back."

  "We have a dragon and can fly you back to Korona,” Suri added. “It’d be a hell of a show for the garrison.”

  The D-word stopped him in his tracks. He turned to face us, eyes wide. "Dragon? Are you shitting me? You travel with a dragon?"

  "Yeah." I felt a tic start at the corner of my eye. "And like the rest of us, she’s tired and beat up and really wants her dinner, so if we could play nicely and act like grownups until we get back to the Fort, that would be great."

  "Take me to this dragon," he said, to Suri. "I must pay my respects."

  Suri looked to me, her eyebrows raised. "She's Hector's dragon. You need to talk to him, mate."

  "No." And with that, he started marching for the entrance to the main cavern again.

  Suri clicked her tongue. “Jeez. I can’t be fucked with this.”

  “Yeah. I always thought monks were more like… you know…” I hesitated, thinking of the word. “Contemplative?”

  Suri snorted. “You gonna be able to straighten things out with him?”

  I shrugged. “I knew something like this would happen when I broke the Kara Bukat Talom. It’s okay.”

  “It’s not, because if you hadn’t, Vlachia would be in the shitter right now.” Suri jerked her head toward the door. “Do we need to be worried about him pushing you off your dragon?”

  I shrugged. “He’s been polite about it so far. He could have just gotten up and tried to kill me. That’s what he’s supposed to do. Breaking the Kara Bukat Talom is a big deal.”

  “There’s gotta be some exception,” Suri said. “You saved my ass and headed off a royal assassination.”

  I shrugged with my hands. “Planning assassinations is one of the things it’s used for.”

  “Jesus fuckin’ Christ.” Suri made a sound of disgust. “Well, let’s go get him before he tries to jam his tongue up under Karalti’s tail. Gods knows he seems like the kind of bloke who’d try.”

  We trooped back out to find Vash huddled over Cutthroat with Rin. He laid a hand on the great dinosaur’s neck as she grunted and twitched, closed his eyes, and chanted a short prayer in Tuun. A little green plus sign appeared next to her potion status ring, which was now 91% full.

  “That should help. She looks like she is struggling through a Bonefuse brew, eh?” He asked Rin.

  The Mercurion’s brilliant eyes flicked me to me. “Uhh… I think so?”

  “Excellent. Now, excuse me.” Vash stood and went to Karalti, who was busy preening under the edge of her wing. She perked up as he approached. I shook my head and went to join the vigil over Cutthroat.

  “How long until we know?” Suri asked.

  “About a minute.” I squatted back on my heels, one hand resting near the Spear.

  Cutthroat moaned as the status climbed to 97%. I checked the buff that Vash had given her: it improved the Stranging rate from 50/50 to 60/40. Suri sat down on the slimy ground and scooted forward until she could take the hookwing’s head onto her lap. She stroked her behind one eye as the twitching intensified.

  [98... 99…]

  The hookwing’s breathing caught, and for a moment, everyone went still. A whole second passed, and then one golden eye snapped open, its pupil contracting to a tiny pinpoint that rolled up first to look at Suri before affixing its baleful gaze onto the rest of us one by one.

  “HUUURRREE!” Cutthroat kicked a couple of times, then struggled up off the ground into a limp. Suri let go of her, and we watched anxiously as the hookwing hopped a few steps forward, then gingerly put her weight on the left foot.

  The three of us let out a sigh of relief.

  “Phew!” Rin dusted herself off and pushed her mask up to show her face. “Nice crafting, Hector! Looks like it worked perfectly!”

  “Yeah.” I rubbed the back of my head. My braid was messed up from the fight, and I fought down the urge to pull it out and re-do it. Vanity had to wait. “I would have kicked myself if we’d lost her. She’s my second-favorite murder chicken.”

  “AHEM.” Karalti looked up from her silent conversation with Vash, who had knelt in front of her. Her eyes narrowed. “WHAT did you just call me?”

  “I didn’t call you anything.” I crossed my arms and grinned back at her.

  Suri came up and bumped me with her hip. She looked better now, the shadow of worry no longer written onto her face. “Hey, lover boy: now I know my baby bird isn’t gonna die, want to go loot the Broodmother with me?”

  “Sure.” I made a face at Karalti, and she flicked her tongue between her teeth, letting it hang like a blue flag from her mouth.

  We trudged over to the massive corpse. The Broodmother was almost shapeless in death, like a huge raw haggis that had been split with a knife. Moving stiffly, Suri slowly crouched down and began scanning her HUD. “Let’s see… lot of monster parts here, potion boy. Oooh, blue-grade mana.”

  “I need that!” Rin called out.

  “Hot.” I cozied up to Suri’s side, leaning in a little while I did the same thing she was doing. The Broodmother had a lot of loot. Yanik [Marsh Scout armor], weapons, money, jewels…

  6500 Rubles

  249 Olbia

  Bluecrystal Mana x 5

  Swamphag Queen Slime x 140

  +3 Vlachian Saber

  Yanik Marsh Scout Armor

  Manual of Physical Health

  +2 Mastercrafted Spellglove

  Fine Leather Pouch

  Staff of Ghost Touch

  Black Opal x 4

  Sapphire x 3

  Light Steel Shield

  Ring of Web

  Ring of Force Shield

  Vash’s Sanctified Iron Gauntlets

  A grin split my face. “Look at all this! Holy shit, that’s a lot of gear.”

  “Yeah. Let’s split that gold. Mind if I take the Ring of Force Shield and the manual?” Suri asked me. “They’d be real useful.”

  “They’re all yours,.” I was about to impulsively add Vash’s gauntlets to my Inventory, then thought better of it. “You should go give these to him.”

  “I’m gonna level first.” Suri accepted the heavy gloves, and they vanished as she folded them into her pocket of hyperspac
e.

  I trooped back to Karalti and the now prostrate monk, and as I grew closer, she looped me into their telepathic conversation.

  “… and the pita bread has to be hot! With extra garlic sauce, because I’m a big girl now and-” Karalti nibbled her talons, her crests flaring upright. “Oh! Hector! This guy says he knows how to spit-roast! We can have kebab every day!”

  “From what I’ve heard out of him so far, that’s not the kind of spit-roast he’s talking about, Tidbit.” I swaggered across as Vash pushed himself up to stand.

  Karalti winked at me, then craned her muzzle down toward the monk. “So yeah - and extra sauerkraut, okay? But only for veal. Lamb goes better with sweet pickles.”

  “Of course, my lady. Your command is my greatest pleasure.” Vash swept into an exaggerated bow in front of her, then turned to scowl at me. “You! Get your filth away from this holy creature! Sss!”

  “Sure, asshole, I’ll get right on that.” I clapped Karalti on the forearm, waiting as she leaned forward to rest on her winghands. Vash, visibly aghast, looked on as I put a boot up on her elbow and clambered up onto her back.

  “Stop that! What are you doing!?” He caught his braids to either side of his shoulders and pulled on them.

  “It’s okay!” Karalti chirped, cocking her head from side to side querulously. “Hector’s mine! He likes Burna, too! You don’t need to worry about him!”

  “He… ‘likes’ Burna,” Vash repeated flatly. Then his face twisted in a snarl. “Is nothing sacred to you, dog? Not oaths, not dragons, not anything?”

  “Some things. I was real busy worshipping your mom last night.” I sat down cross-legged on Karalti’s back and looked down at him. “Are you coming up, or what?”

  Vash stared at us for a couple of seconds. For a moment, I thought he was about to fly up, kung-fu style, and punch my face through the back of my head. But instead, he slid his hand into one of the pouches on the heavy belt he wore and pulled out a bag. From that, he removed something that looked remarkably like a joint. He lit it with a match; a rich, skunky smell wafted to my nose.

  “Mother jokes. Burna’s balls. I’m too tired for this shit,” he muttered. He took a deep hit and held it like a pro before blowing it out. He coughed, briefly, then closed his eyes. “Fine, Rotzlöffel. Have it your way, but before we leave this place, I must find my gauntlets. This stupid bitch of a worm sucked them off my arms like a two-ruble dockyard whore.”

  It crossed my mind to tell him that Suri had them, but… nahh. “Sure, man. You do that while we level up.”

  Vash grunted, and clomped over to the dead boss to start pawing through its innards.

  “We need to pick up the Ix’tamo, too!” Rin exclaimed, bouncing over to Karalti as she stood. “Karalti, do you think you can carry it?”

  “Yeah! I can carry a lot now!” The dragon squinted her eyes, like a smug cat.

  I nodded. “Leveling first, though.”

  “Okay! I need to level as well and make a couple of quick adjustments to Hopper and Lovelace, so, take your time!”

  Rin ran off to continue repairing her turrets, while Suri joined Cutthroat. While they worked, I lay out on Karalti’s back and opened my HUD to level her up, and was shown a familiar chart:

  “Let’s see here... we’re not choosing any skills from another path, are we?”

  “Nope! The Path of Alacrity is fun.”

  “My thoughts exactly. Okay… let’s see here. Level 10 gives us ‘Wings of Deception’.” I selected that, and then did my best to manually read the description:

  Wings of Deception

  Your dragon is the daughter of Matir, and her blood sings with the Words of Shadow, Illusion, and Life. She has flowered into adulthood and has gained the ability to create shadow copies of herself (1 copy per 50 Mana points, minimum 1 copy) that look, to all intents and purposes, like herself, her rider, and any gear she may be carrying.

  When the copies are made, the dragon teleports one body-length in any direction and splits off into multiple images. Her mana and HP are evenly divided between herself and her dopplegangers. For example, if the dragon creates 3 copies (for a total of 4 individuals), each one will have 1/4 of her total HP and Mana pool.

  Shadow Copies will naturally mimic their creator in movement, speech, and attack. Commanding the copies to take independent action takes great strength of will, but is possible with the right training. Maintaining the copies costs 1 Mana per second per copy.

  The copies can take damage, cast spells, and strike with any attack the dragon knows - however, spells cast by copies use 50% more mana, and breath weapon damage dealt by copies is reduced by 75%. For example, a dragon with three copies who uses a breath weapon deals one instance of normal damage, and three instances of 25% damage. Physical attacks suffer no penalty until the copies expire.

  If a copy is damaged over its maximum HP reserve, the dragon will not take damage. The copy will vanish and will not be able to be resummoned until the dragon has rested for 6 hours. If the original dragon is damaged beyond her reduced HP reserve, all copies will vanish and her HP will refill to its normal pool, minus the damage she sustained.

  The dragon’s bonded rider is also copied, and can perform attacks - however, unless the rider also has an ability to create shadow clones, the attacks will be illusory and deal no damage. An invisible rider will remain concealed. If the rider if thrown off during flight, the shadow rider/s will also fall. The dragon cannot replicate non-bonded riders or passengers.

  Copies look, feel and sound exactly like the dragon summoning them until dismissed. The clones created by Wings of Deception are tangible manifestations of mana and cannot be identified purely by physical appearance - magical means must be employed to discern copies from their original caster. The difficulty rating to pierce the illusion increases with your dragon’s level.

  Oh. My god.

  I rubbed my eyes, then had the system read it back to me again to make sure that my dyslexia wasn’t playing a cruel prank on me. And as she did, a grin split my face. “Karalti. I am about to smash this ‘accept’ button harder than I have ever smashed anything before.”

  She craned her neck to look up and back at me. “Uhh... okay?”

  “You’ll only be able to ninja-magic one of these copies, but even that is going to save us so much HP in the air. This Wings of Deception thing is a gamechanger. I’m almost worried it’s like... like a mistake.” When the option to accept came up, I screamed ‘YES!’ in my head at the HUD.

  When it closed, Karalti closed her eyes and drew a deep, startled breath as the air around us darkened. Through the film of shadow rising around her, I saw the others turn to look. It intensified, deepening, and then the black vapor seemed to suck into Karalti’s body through the seams in her scales - and into me. We shivered at the same time, and then she opened her eyes.

  “Ohhh.” Her violet and silver irises churned with power, folding in toward her pupil like magma at the heart of a volcano. “Ohhhhhhhh! Yeah! This is neat!”

  “Yeah.” My heart was beating fast at the possibilities. “Let me go see what combat abilities have opened up for me. Maybe there’s something complimentary to it.”

  “Wait... so if I make a copy of me, and they do a quarter of my damage, then we do 125% total.” She paused for a moment.

  “Yes. And this shit is going to scale up. You could end up doing 350% breath weapon damage or more by end game.” My mind was suddenly racing with ideas on how to use this ability to our advantage in fights with larger dragons. Would Baldr, Lucien, and Violetta’s dragons have comparable abilities?

  I scrolled over to my sheet next to see what combat abilities I had to work with at Level 19. There were three new options:

  Obsidian Scales (Dark Dragoon)

  Your dragon’s damage reduction is increased by 5% per ability level when you are riding her.

  Lance Assassin (Offense)

  Every adrenaline point adds a 1% chance of instantly killing your enem
ies on a critical hit. The maximum target level increases with each level in this ability.

  Aura of Terror (Defense)

  You induce Terror in your opponents, demoralizing them and forcing weaker opponents to flee from your presence. This is a passive ability that is active in combat and can be activated manually at other times.

  “Hmm.” I tapped my lip, mildly disappointed at the lack of shadow-copy abilities. Three abilities, all of them tempting in their own ways, plus several existing ones I wanted to level. I only had three Combat Ability Points.

  Obsidian Scales was the one I felt I ought to take, because it would make Karalti less likely to be hurt in combat, but Aura of Terror was pretty fucking cool – and potentially very useful, if not in this particular war, then in future mass combat scenarios. Lance Assassin was promising, but only once I got an ability that increased my chance of landing critical hits. I checked out the full ability description and found that it was effective on enemies based on their EXP. Lance Assassin I would only instakill enemies with 50% of my experience or lower, but every point you dumped into that ability raised the ceiling by 15%. Lance Assassin X gave you a 10% chance to insta-kill enemies with 185% more EXP than yourself – good odds, especially in a fight with multiple opponents. If I could level it to ten between now and, say, Level 30, then I would take it in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t be able to level combat abilities to Level X until I was Level 45, though – so Lance Assassin was going to be great around end-game, but I was better off focusing on mastering my active combat abilities for now.

  In the end, I decided to leave the new options alone and level my current abilities instead: Rain of Glass II, Master of Blades IV, Whirlwind Butcher IV. Whirlwind was my Adrenaline Point generator, and the MoB/Rain of Glass combo required a lot of AP. While I didn’t want my Tidbit getting damaged, her new Wings of Deception ability was going to go a long way toward improving her defense. As I was just about to close the sheet, my eyes snagged on the Gift of Matir abilities list. I hadn’t yet used the Shadow Lance ability, and it was still marked ‘new’. I’d forgotten about it: not good. That was something I definitely needed to work into my tactics.