Into the Dragon's Den (Axe Druid Book 2)

by Christopher Johns

  No. We would turn our sights on things that deserved killing. War’s people and anyone who stood in our way of getting Balmur back.

  At the base of the mountain range, we dismissed our mounts, had a light lunch, and began to ascend the rocky terrain. We did so quietly for the most part. Bokaj would point out portions of rocky outcroppings that were unsafe and trails that were cold. The last time we, Yohsuke and I, had visited these mountains, we had been lucky to avoid these things, but now? It seemed like we were destined to have a little rougher of a climb coming our way.

  Thinking back to that quest, the one that had brought Kayda into my life, made me realize what was here.

  “Hey, guys,” I said quietly. “Remember to keep an eye out for Goblins. There was a raiding party here that attacked Kayda’s mom. Speaking of which, Kayda?” I felt her attention turn toward me from her new-found perch on a large boulder a dozen yards to our right. “Go fly for a bit, baby. Let us know if you see anything.”

  “Jesus, fuck!” Muu jumped when Kayda dipped close to the group and lifted into the air. “Warn me next time you let my personal nightmare out of the bag, okay?”

  “What are you talking about, man?” Yohsuke smacked him lightly. “She wouldn’t hurt you. She’s family.”

  I thought back to his interactions with her before. The hesitancy. The screaming. Her likening him to a scared, shaking mouse. He hadn’t truly been playing in the square when she came into the picture—he’d been afraid and had likely tried to suck it up to make sure Daisy would be okay. That Kayda wouldn’t be seen as a monster.

  “I don’t know why, but I’ve always been afraid of birds,” the green Dragon Beast-kin spoke with a shiver along his back that made his tail sway. “I don’t know if it was from a movie I saw or the weird way that they can be cool one minute then flipping the fuck out the next—I don’t know. But I hate them.”

  Muu saw the look of hurt on my face, and the rest of the party began to look at him oddly too. “Look, I’m not saying that I hate Kayda. I’m sure she’s cool. She has been since I met her, but it’s going to take work for me to get over this fear, man. I mean no offense.”

  “Right on, I get that,” I said after a moment. I could understand. Hell, I knew people who had an unreasonable fear of all kinds of things. And Kayda was a big-ass bird. “I feel like shit for never having noticed before. But yeah, don’t worry, man, I’ll let you know when I bring Kayda around next time. If it helps, she does think you’re interesting.”

  “Well, tell her I said, ‘I know,’ and let’s get moving.” Muu tried to smile, but I could tell he was a little shaken.

  We left it at that and moved ever northward. Late that afternoon, we found a small cave to sleep in that night and keep us out of the wind. There weren’t any tracks to be seen, animal or otherwise, so we assumed it was safe. The temperature dropped in the cave a bit, chilling us a little. Not that Bokaj gave a damn. The Ice Elf race meant he could be outside naked in a snowstorm and be comfortable.

  The rest of us slept easily that night. Yohsuke and Bokaj took two of the four-hour watches since their Elven blood meant they only needed four hours in a trance-like state as a full rest. The plan for the following evening was for one of them to sit up with Muu and get him used to the watch rotation.

  The next day, we climbed even higher. The plateau where we had found Kayda was looming closer. She hadn’t gone toward it due to trying to keep an eye out for us, but she had thought about it.

  She knew what I knew about the area thanks to my memories, and those memories weighed on her mind, filling her with a sense of both dread but determination as well. The weight of the emotion on her chest fell on mine as well, and it made it harder to breathe at times, but she deserved to know where she had come from, to see her former home outside of a memory tainted by the stress of trying to save her life.

  After a couple hours of walking, we found it. It was just as I remembered, flat with rocky, glass-like protrusions from all the lightning striking the sand and stone in the area.

  What I saw that was new were the huts that had been erected and now stood around the large stone walls of the perch the Lightning Roc had used as a nest. There must have been a dozen or so huts—I couldn’t tell for certain due to our low vantage point and the large former shelter of the Lightning Roc. They appeared to be erected from wood and some scavenged branches from the trees below in the forest, tied together at the top by rough-spun rope, then held in place by stakes beaten into the rock somehow like it could be packed up and moved. Weird.

  “Fuck, those things weren’t here last time,” Yohsuke spoke. His voice startled me, and I almost slipped on some loose gravel. Luckily, Jaken caught me, and only a little loose rock fell. The clattering was most likely lost in the wind, but it was good that he had caught me.

  “Do we move on,” James was looking as best as he could, but I doubted he could see anything, “or do we investigate?”

  “I’ll go owl and see what I can see.” I stood back a bit and looked to my friends. “If it’s Goblins, there could be some good experience here for Muu.”

  I looked to the sky and sent an order to Kayda to stay high up. There was no telling what was here, and with her HP, she wasn’t the ideal scout for this. She understood, but her attention was all over the place.

  “Bokaj—you help me cover Zeke,” Yohsuke ordered quietly. “James, you got Muu. Both of you mind our six. No telling what is around here. Jaken, you got the swivel. Anything moves on our flanks, speak up.”

  Everyone but Muu nodded and went about what they could. Bokaj equipped his bow, and Yohsuke kept his eyes on a swivel for any signs of movement or hostility from the huts ahead.

  Jaken turned his back and ducked down to watch the path we had used to climb up, and James took Muu by the arm and sat him down.

  I lowered myself from our position and walked back down a ways before I jumped from the ledge and shifted mid-fall. My owl form came easily, and I glided down until I felt a wind thermal catch my feathers and lift me with a few beats of my silent wings.

  As I came to an easy hundred feet above the little village, I could see that there were indeed more huts behind the large rock structure, but as I mounted the structure itself, I sensed no signs of life. No signs of a struggle. No heartbeats, no noises other than wind. I could smell that something disgusting had lived here, but the scent wasn’t as fresh as I was expecting.

  I dug up a bit more courage, then coasted down on the side of the stone structure that my friends could see, and landed on the ground. The huts had cloth doors of some heavy material, like horse blankets or winter blankets. I peeked into one of the open ones and saw more blankets on the ground and little odd baubles and trinkets of little value here and there. Still—no life, signs that life had been here sure.

  I poked around a bit longer and kept finding much of the same.

  I shifted back and waved for the rest of the group to join me. Jaken brought up the rear, while Yohsuke and James took the lead. Bokaj took the middle with his bow still at the ready with an arrow nocked, and Muu walked beside him.

  “No signs of life,” I explained. “Bokaj, you want to try and find a trail?”

  “Honestly?” he asked quietly as he had Tmont sift through a hut. She came out and hissed at the whole thing. “Not really. Whatever this place belonged to isn’t our concern since they aren’t here. Whatever it was though, T hates them pretty fucking bad. We should probably move on.”

  “You think this wood is from the forest down there?” I asked as I stared at one of the huts.

  He tapped the wood and examined it before shaking his head. “Nope. It’s not dense enough. It’ll stand the wind thanks to the stakes, but it’s meant to be mobile I think.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a little odd, this whole place is a ghost town?” Yohsuke interjected. “No obvious signs of a struggle, no blood, no easy trail—just gone. That should freak all of us the fuck out. I mean, I ain’t a bitch, but this has me
a little nervous.”

  I nodded, the hair on the back of my neck and arms rose a bit. I didn’t know if a Kitsune could get goose bumps, but it sure as hell felt like it.

  “I’m usually one to suggest we have all our facts straight,” Muu began. “So let’s get out of here, right? I’d rather not see what respawning is like in this game.”

  We all looked at him for a moment, then it hit us—we hadn’t told him that we weren’t sure if we would come back.

  Not it, said Bokaj mentally as he turned his back and began to move cautiously north.

  Same. James patted Muu on the shoulder as he walked by.

  Should probably be you and Jaken, Zeke, Yohsuke told us and began to follow the other two.

  Jaken and I nodded to each other and looked at Muu, who seemed to be gathering that something was wrong.

  “We need to talk, man,” I said gently. “Come on. Let’s walk.”

  “I’ll watch our backs, Zeke. You go this first bit.” Jaken fell back a few paces and began to look around.

  “There are no guarantees that if we fall here, we come back,” I explained. “The Gods say that they may be able to do something for us—but it’s just talk until we know for sure. They say that if they can’t bring us back here, they may be able to see our consciousness back to our world. Again—no promises. They don’t know. So, while this world—this universe—is based on our video games and tabletop games, it’s no game. We could die here. Forever.”

  “I have a spell that will bring someone back from the dead, but it only works up to three minutes after death, takes all my mana and a hundred HP, and it takes a full day to recharge,” Jaken interjected from behind us. “Between all of us, we can keep you alive, but that’s the skinny of it. So, try not to die.”

  “Fuck.” The gravity of what he had just heard seemed heavy. His shoulders had drooped, and he trudged forward slowly, head hung low and his eyes half-lidded. “We could all die. I could never see my mom again. Some of my other friends—my family? There’s no guarantee.”

  I pulled Muu into a side hug and spoke as gently and encouragingly as I could, “That’s why the Gods here chose us. They knew we would fight tooth and nail for each other. None of us are going to let you die. Just like we know that you will do everything you can to save one of us.”

  He picked his head up and began to stride forward a little easier after hearing that. “That’s why you’ve all been hard on me to train like you have?”

  I nodded, and Jaken spoke for both of us, “The Gods sent you here to help us, and you will, but we need to be sure that the time we invest in you and ourselves is well spent. It’s to help us get into the Hells and get Balmur back. Then we turn our sights on War’s people. We’ve gotta stop them, man, or they’ll come for Earth, and all our struggles here go to shit. You gotta be ready.”

  He stopped and stared at the ground a moment longer before looking back at us. “I’m glad you guys know all this. Let’s get this shit over with and go get Balmur back.”

  “Attaboy!” Jaken fist bumped Muu, and they began to walk off ahead.

  I sent a mental message to Kayda that it was okay for her to go and mourn her mother’s loss now. Her appreciation and trepidation hit me together, and I had to stop to fight the dizziness that came with those emotions. I closed our bond a little, like turning a water nozzle down and watching a torrent become a trickle. I watched her physically dive from the cloud cover and descend on the structure. With it being abandoned, I wasn’t worried for her safety.

  I worried for her heart.

  Chapter Four

  We stopped about a twenty-minute hike from the site of the abandoned village and the Lightning Roc nest to rest and plan. Whatever had stayed there had been more intelligent than Goblins. Could they have been nomads?

  “You know if there is an area with that many huts and hovels that there’s likely a large group of potential enemies roaming around here,” Muu spoke the thoughts we all had. “Do you guys have anything that could do well in a group fight?”

  A few of us chuckled, I answered, “Well, take a seat, man. A few of us can put a collective hurt on a lot of people. I think between myself, Yohsuke, and Bokaj, we have enough AoE damage to need a really big stick to shake at it. Nah mean?”

  He grinned. “Good. Because we’re gonna need it. I can feel it.”

  “Oh?” Jaken raised his eyebrows. “You feelin’ it now?”

  Muu nodded, and we all laughed a bit more. Yohsuke threw a rock at him half-heartedly. “Feel that, puto?”

  I had to admit, the thrill of a potential fight was enticing. I had been itching to stretch my muscles once more in a good fight, but the fact that Muu of all people was telling us he felt a fight coming was a bit unsettling.

  “Let’s get serious, damn it.” Bokaj was busy checking the arrows in the quiver on his hip.

  Yohsuke shook his head in exasperation. “Let’s gear up for this shit then. I’m gonna throw Star Burst into my Ring of Storing. What about you guys?”

  “Well, I can throw mana into my ring.” Jaken focused on his ring for a moment, and the ring began to pulse steadily with blue light, then stopped. Jaken held his head a bit from the effort, so I cast Regrowth on him to help. He smiled in appreciation at me.

  “I’m gonna go ahead and cast Star Fall into mine,” I informed the others. “Let’s take some prep time and get you some more enchanted arrows, Bokaj?”

  “Wait,” Muu said, throwing his hands out as if to halt the conversation. “You mean you can enchant shit and you haven’t given me some sweet-ass power-ups?!” He looked at me as if I had stabbed him with his favorite knife. “You betray me, sir.”

  “Dude, you’ve literally never asked.” I held my hands out to my sides in a display of openness.

  His eyes narrowed at me dangerously, and it made me smile wider.

  I couldn’t help teasing him, “Look, I can’t get you one of the earrings that I have because it’s outside what I can do for my level, but there are things I can do. And again, you never asked. I didn’t want to shove your nose in it.”

  “IF I COULD MAKE MAGIC HAPPEN, YOU WOULDN’T HAVE TO!” he whispered vehemently. He seemed to be getting that stakes were higher here, so volume could be an issue. I had to admit—I was proud.

  “You’d never shut the fuck up,” I said with a grin. “Let me take care of Bokaj and our weaponry first—then I’ll work on your shit. Cool?”

  “If it’s amazing? Sure. Fucker.” He huffed and sat down next to me. “I’m watching all of this fuckery.”

  “Whatever, dude.” I chuckled and made a gimme motion at Bokaj. He forked over five more mithral arrows, and I got to work.

  I’d done this process before, making arrows of storing. The concept was about the same as a Ring of Storing—the spell is stored into the metal portion of the arrow until impact releases it. The impact acts the same as the intent and focus needed to activate a spell stored in a ring. I copied the ring on my finger almost exactly line for line but included a pentagram that was almost closed. I put the spell I wanted inside, then sealed it with the necessary mana.

  After half an hour of focus and explanation to Muu after each arrow was complete, I handed Bokaj three Arrows of Fireball, one Arrow of Star Fall, and an Arrow of Mass Regrowth. The last one I wasn’t too sure about how it would work. I know for me, it allowed me to heal up to so many creatures around me for a bit and gave a decent amount of regeneration. It was an experimental one. I hoped that it would work the same as the spell—you cast it, and any ally in the sixty-foot radius is healed.

  But experiments can fail at times too. Here’s hoping we didn’t need it. The enchanting had gone smoothly too. Much more so that it had initially—maybe I was getting the hang of it? Maybe the Celestial blood rite was affecting that kind of magical skill as well. We would see over time.

  The spells left the arrows looking all the same, so to tell the difference, Bokaj painted the shafts with a little paint he had from his wood
working kit. The Fireballs were red, duh, Star Fall black, and Mass Regrowth was yellow. Easy enough to tell apart, but he said he would pack them at the back of his quiver on his hip so he could actually know for certain where they were.

  I looked at Muu critically—he had been respectful and let me work until I finished each arrow, then he asked his questions.

  “What are you thinking enchantment-wise?” I asked with a friendly sigh.

  “Well, what kind of enchantments can you do?” he wondered. His hand had wondered to his chin, the little scale-goatee scritching with his clawed-fingertips moving through them.

  “Take everything you know about enchanting in other games,” he looked excited as I spoke, “and toss it into the fire.” He actually groaned at that. “On Brindolla, what counts when enchanting is intent, focus, engraving, and mana. Inside those four things, my ability to enchant is pretty unlimited. Granted, I’m not the most powerful enchanter—not even close—but what I can do is helpful.”

  “Right on,” he said with a nod. He closed his eyes for a moment. “Okay, can you give my weapon elemental damage? Make it so I can jump higher? How about a defense boost to my shield? Oh! Or maybe a dampener?”

  “Woah!” I waved in front of him. “Pump the brakes, man. What was that last thing you said?”

  “Dampener?” I motioned for him to continue with the idea. “Oh, yeah. So if I have to take an attack or parry, it dampens the force of the hit I take.”

  That’s actually a pretty cool fucking idea. I smiled at him. How would I do that though? But wait, would that affect the damage done by the blade inside it? Would that dampen the force generated by the inner mechanism?

  These were questions I couldn’t really think to answer myself. Maybe if I confined it to the upper portion of the item? But would the enchantment work well if it were in such close proximity to another? There were too many variables for me to be completely comfortable with that level of complexity on an item that could save my friend’s life.