Seventh Talon_Dragonrider's Fury

by James Patton

  Spells - All Novice, Journeyman, and Adept spells are considered Innate, and anything above Adept requires a skill slot. Spells in your book will light up if you have learned how to hand cast the spell successfully. Any spell you gain knowledge of will appear here, but it will remain darkened until you successfully cast the spell.

  Some spells, like Primary abilities, will appear her but they will be informational only.

  Utility - These skills are typically crafting, but could be as simple as survival skills. Crafting is expansive, and you will need a mentor and schooling to advance it. Advanced utility skills may require an Active skill slot.

  One Skill Book modification that is common knowledge is the Crafting Recipes book. Once you learn enough recipes, you will have access to this book which will contain all your recipes, theories, and sketches.

  Elemental Shield is an Innate category by itself. All ranks and modifications are also Innate. Every sentient creature can use one, and it is the most important skill you have.

  “Damn man, there is a lot of information in here.”

  “Ya got no idea girl. Look at mine.” Gantz said and opened his book to show her. There were a lot more tabs, colors, and way more information than her book had. “Wait until ya start making things. All of it ends up here in some form. Don’t let me stop ya; please touch the Elemental Shield section, because ya gonna need it if they are hunting ya.”

  In the Innate skills, she clicked on the Shield tab and saw Elemental Shield. The ability was scrawled with an elegant hand, almost like calligraphy. She touched the spell, and it flipped to another page describing it.

  Elemental Shield - A shield manifests as your strongest Affinity, if two Affinities are equal it combines them. Maintaining your Elemental Affinity is very important, do not make decisions that affect them lightly.

  Current Affinities

  Light - 75%

  Dark - 75%

  Fire - 75%

  Water - 75%

  Earth - 76%

  Air - 80%

  How to cast Elemental Shield: Close your hand into a fist, and then with your palm facing outward, open your hand and spread your fingers out. Everyone is proficient enough to use the verbal component. To do this, spread your fingers out and say ‘Shield.’ Remember, with magic, the intent is critical.

  Elemental Shields do not leave the second stage of spellcasting until struck, and then it briefly becomes visible to all. A strike is considered the cast, and the Feedback gained is determined by the attack. Only a Seer can see magic before the casting stage, so unless an Elemental Shield is struck, it is invisible to most people.

  Seer - This is the term given to anyone that can see magic before stage three.

  The text provided no other information, so she had no idea what the Affinity numbers meant. A new tab for her Affinities appeared, and she checked that too. No additional information existed. Finally, she gave up and closed the book.

  The moment the two ends touched, the book disappeared from her hand. Immediately she put her hand out in a fist and opened up her hand as suggested. From her palm, she felt a vibration and could feel the shield form around her. It was invisible, but she could feel her goosebumps rising on her flesh as it responded to the energy around her.

  “Very good. I think we are done here then ya? If ya see Midnight again, tell ‘im he owes me. I miss my cigars, and if he can send some, I’d consider our debt paid.”

  “What am I not understanding about Affinities? I see the numbers, but not the meanings. And is it normal to have all affinities at 75% or better?”

  “As for the 75%, that is not normal at all. I’m guessing its ‘cause ya a Mercury Elf. Ya kind don’t usually make it to adulthood. As fer the rest, I’d probably screw up the explanation. Better off askin’ a mage, but only if ya plan to become a mage yaself. They are a prickly lot. Now ya best be hurry’n back, it’s gonna get dark soon, and ya do not want to get caught out at dark.”

  “Osprey?”

  “Naw, aye-ayes. They be like large tree rats, with a long thin middle finger that pierces arteries before ya know its there. Mosta the time they stay in their trees, but ya think ospreys bother ya, wait until ya see an aye-aye.” The old man shivered which made her giggle nervously. “Ya be fine, stay on the road and do not pass under a tree after dark.” Gatz started laughing but said nothing more about the aye-aye.

  “I’m glad I was able to assist the elderly, even if he is a grumpy old bastard.” She grunted in response to his story which was messing with her head.

  “Oh ho, there is a feisty creature in there. For helping an old man and allowing ‘im to feel young again by talking to a pretty young woman, I gift ya with a bit o’ knowledge. Remember the trials be about what is in here and here.” Gantz said pointing to his head and heart. “This old bastard thinks most of these Champions be spoilt. They don’t be knowin’ that Champions should think about more’n themselves.”

  “Thanks, I will remember that. I’ll give you a piece of advice in return. Careful of letting your dialect slip, people might think you are an impostor.” She found herself grinning ear to ear at the old man’s charm, and he looked alarmed at her revelation. “Do not worry old man; your secret is safe with me. You are a good man, even if you don’t see it.”

  “Ya full of surprises, girl. If ya make it outta here, look up me son, Henry Gatz. Last I heard, he was up north somewhere. Tell ‘im I said ta teach ya the trade. Now git, ya might make it back before dark if ya run.”

  She grabbed her weapon belt off the fence and took off running back down the hill. Downhill was much faster, and she gave all trees a wide berth as she went. The old man might have been messing with her, but she was not about to find out.

  Boh

  Chapter 8

  Veragon

  Neuroma provided me freedom. Odditek Online gave me a new life, and I spent years running exploring. I took to virtual living as if it was real. Nothing scared me more than returning to my damaged flesh husk. Not even the monsters imagined from the darkest nightmares.

  -from Boh’s Journal, June 7th, N138

  The innkeeper was still behind the bar by the time she strolled through the doors, but there were not nearly as many people sitting around. It made her more apprehensive, not less.

  “Where is everyone?” She asked the innkeeper.

  “Champion business. I stay out of it. Ya deliver that letter?”

  “I did.”

  “Well looks like ya got yourself seven days at my inn, not including today. I’ll mark it down. Since you did me a favor, you can have this task. I assume you plan to do a Trial tomorrow, and the valley with the guardian has a lot of berry bushes. Take this sack and fill it and bring it back to me. It’ll get ya another two days.”

  “Alright, I can do that.” She took the sack and the piece of paper with the task on it and put it in her pocket.

  “Do not go out again, stay in your room tonight.” The innkeeper said so softly she was not sure she heard him right. There was a nervous energy in the room that she felt when she entered and had no intention of waiting it out.

  Room 18 was nothing fancy, and it was on the ground level making it hard for anyone to sneak up on it without others noticing. The innkeeper probably chose it deliberately, and she felt like she owed the man once more.

  The room itself had an additional lock on the inside and a bar that she slid into place. The room had no windows because it backed up to another room. The only way in was through the door.

  All of those preparations and she could not rightly say why she felt uncomfortable here. No one said or did anything that felt off, but the night felt hostile enough that she slept with the gun and knife close to hand.

  The next morning she saw that nothing had been disturbed and breathed a little easier. Until she removed the bar on the door, she had felt safe. The wooden bar was solid wood and cracked down its length. It was whole when she slid it into place last night, so something exerted a lot of force against it.
Whatever or whoever it was had failed to get in, but it was damn close. The outside of the door, she saw nothing out of the ordinary.

  “Morning, Boh.” The innkeeper was sweeping the hallway. “Breakfast is in the pot near the fire. Its just porridge, but its filling and will hold you over most of the day.”

  “Thank you, Lucas. Uh, I hate to ask more favors of you, but could I get another bar for my door?” She asked innocently enough, but the innkeeper’s eyes shifted towards the main room before nodding.

  There was something seriously wrong with this place, so the faster she completed the trials, the better. Every time she started to feel at east, something else indicated danger.

  The main lobby had a fireplace, and she could see the porridge in a pot hanging from a hook. It was not directly over the fire, and she walked over to it finding the bowls stacked on a nearby table. She gathered her food and a spoon and saw the food was how Lucas had described it.

  No one sat at one of the long tables near the middle of the rooms, so she sat down near the end of it. Seconds after she sat down, another man she had never seen sat across from her. He had a silver spoon in his hand, and he went to dip it in her bowl.

  The gun in his face told him that might not be a good idea, and she pulled the hammer back to make sure her point was understood. Leave.

  “Just taking my tribute, trust me the consequences of fighting me are not worth it.” The jackass told her, but she ignored the danger signs. Like a man with this much confidence was bound to have friends, bad ones.

  “Tribute implies respect or dependence, I neither respect you nor am I dependent on you. Get your own damn porridge.” She growled at him, mostly because she had never been a morning person, but also because the guy pissed her off. Her hand was shaking because she was sure she was going to use it.

  The entire room went silent, and the man leaned into her gun making it impossible to miss him. He had better gear than she did but he was still a Champion like her.

  “Let me help you.” He sneered at her, and she smiled back at him. “Go on then, pull the trigger.”

  His finger dipped into her porridge, and she pulled the trigger. The man stared at her stunned for a moment before he slumped back and then fell off the bench as the life left him. On the ground, after he died, was the silver spoon he had tried to dip in her porridge. She took it as a trophy.

  The others in the room did not look at her, but then a laugh she recognized came from the corner. It no longer had the wet wheezing sound, but it was unmistakably Red.

  “Well Boh, if you were to kill anyone, that was not the guy you wanted to do in. That man harasses all the Champions, and is the leader of a guild that calls themselves the Rough Riders.”

  “Don’t care. No one sticks a finger in my food.”

  “At least she did it point blank, or she might have killed one of us. Right, Hurk?” The man from the beach said, and she found herself laughing.

  “Well I got a Trial to complete, so gentleman it has been fun,” she told them and stood up to go.

  “Wait, Boh,” Red called after her. “That guy and his crew are the ones that beat me and cut off my hand. Be careful on your return.”

  “Thanks for the warning.” Once outside the inn, she found the eastern road and made it to the fork in good time. At the fork she continued straight, remembering that the road south led to the beach and leatherworker.

  The road eventually went through a cave, or maybe more of an overhang, either way, it cut through a nearly impassible section of bluffs and cliffs. The mayor lied, this cave was about a mile long. It had sections exposed to the sky, so it was easy to traverse. She stepped out into a massive forest and hoped the path led to the Trial.

  Berries were as abundant as the innkeeper had said. So she filled his sack and then ate her fill. They gave her a little pep to her step, but that could be because the forest was thick enough that the osprey could not reach her. Or at least she hoped so.

  The path came to an intersection, and she had no idea which way to go. There were no signs, and there was no one around to ask. Tieing the sack of berries to the back of her belt, she waited several more moments hoping something would indicate where she was supposed to go.

  Spinning in circles, she observed everything, and she was about to go left when she smelled smoke. Her nose honed in on it and the smell came from the right pathway. About thirty yards down the trail she found it, a campsite with a smoldering fire. Someone had dumped water on it creating a lot of smoke.

  The gun was in her hand, and she pointed it at the densest parts of the forest.

  “Who are you?” A man spoke from nearby, but it was hard to say where. It was like she was talking to ghosts.

  “Boh, and you are?”

  “Oscar. Why are you here?”

  “The Trial…” She said slowly, wondering what other reason should possibly have.

  “You aren’t with the Rough Riders?”

  “I am new, and I think I just killed their leader. So no.”

  Several voices were laughing, and she felt like they were all around her. Her gun went into her holster because what good would it do her, except as a scare tactic. Instead, she pulled out the spoon, somehow realizing its significance.

  “You took his remnant?” A man dropped from the tree above her and whistled as he got a closer look at it. “You have a serious death wish, but I do like to see some Champions still have a spine.”

  Several more people came out from places that should not have been able to hide a person. Before long the fire was going again, and at least fifteen people were doing chores around the campsite.

  “We move about, and it makes it hard for them to find us. They like to hunt us down for sport, and we lack the weapons to fight them. At one point they will try to take your gear. Stash it if you can, especially now that you killed Drater.”

  “I do not plan on being here long. Can you direct me to this guardian?”

  “Sure, me and some of the others will escort you. The woods are mostly safe; it's just the other Champions you have to worry about.”

  “What about the aye-ayes?”

  Oscar was laughing so hard that tears were beading at the corners of his eyes. Composing himself, he finally just shook his head at her.

  “Look.” He pointed up into the tree’s canopy, and there was netting or a nest. A rat monkey was there, and she had no better words to describe it. Hell, its head almost looked feline. It also did have that creepy middle finger that put her on edge. “Relax, they mostly eat plants and insects. They look scary as hell but are harmless. Someone is just trying to mess with you.”

  “That old bastard, I’m going to kick him.”

  “Yea, old man Gatz does not like those creatures, never understood why. Come on. The trick is to just stay on this path. Without a woodsman class, you will get lost and turned around if you stray.”

  They walked in silence until they came upon a bridge and found another Champion there fishing. “Afternoon Termin, we are moving to the east today,” Oscar informed the fisherman.

  “I heard,” the man said, but his eyes never left the water.

  “Do not swim this river. It’s filled with—”

  Termin yanked a long thick beast out of the water, and it looked like a legless lizard. Nimbly, Termin removed its head.

  She wanted to call it a baby crocodile, but its body was elongated, and it lacked limbs. Not quite a snake either, because it had a long snout with two rows of sharpened teeth.

  “Those. It’s filled with those,” Oscar informed her. He probably did not realize he was repeating himself. “We call them Snakodiles, but I did not come up with that name so don’t blame me.”

  “Later Termin,” Oscar said by way of farewell.

  They crossed the bridge said nothing else until they approached the cave. There was quite the crowd forming as several more people joined them. The cave entrance itself was large enough to fit Midnight, and sitting in the middle of it was a giant h
ippo-lizard? Whatever it was, it was big enough to eat her and one or two of the others.

  “A Veragon. It is not intelligent, but it is strong and dangerous.”

  “Why is everyone here?” She asked.

  “Call it a rite of passage. Every newbie comes here expecting to be the one to get past, and none of them do.” Oscar seemed distracted.

  “Any advice?” She asked.

  “No. We stopped trying to influence newbies because sometimes they come up with a good idea and we try to use it. So let's see what you got!” Termin told her and waved his hand like he was shooing her forward. She did not even know he had followed them.

  She walked towards the creature and hesitated.

  “Don’t forget your weapons,” Oscar called out, breaking their rule of influencing the fight.

  Her hand drifted towards the revolver. She could see the creature’s thick hide, and the gun was just going to piss it off. The thing was like a hippopotamus with scales and very sharp teeth. If a single round penetrated its hide, she would be surprised, and the knife might as well be a toothpick.

  Shrugging, she left her weapons where they were and walked forward. Maybe she could kill it with her attitude.

  “Hello,” she called out.

  “Come. I eat,” the Veragon replied. It turned and walked back into its cave, and she felt the vibrations of each footfall.

  Looking back at the others with a questioning look, Oscar just shrugged. They weren’t much help, and so she followed the Veragon into the cave.

  Boh

  Chapter 9

  White Dragon Scale

  I struggle to remember his face, but his voice is always with me.

  -from Boh, Audio Roll 0022

  Once she was inside the cave, she flinched at every sound and dodged every shadow, but nothing attacked her. The tunnel cut sharply back and revealed a living space. The bed was a mat on top of a slab of stone, and the table near the fireplace was at least six inches thick.