The bedroom had a huge round bed covered in furs, like a four-poster nest. A smaller table in the room was laid out with drinks and a plate of small fancy sandwiches for me. God, what was it with this place and late-night sandwiches? Eating was about the last thing on my mind, now that my dragon was disemboweling a deer on the living room flagstones.
I was tired and dirty, restless after the events of the night, and in desperate need for some ‘me time’. Fortunately, this place had an awesome bathroom. I stuck my head in and saw a big stone hot tub sunken into the floor. A pipe in the wall trickled a fresh supply of water in, and another pipe in the tub carried it away.
Satisfied, I went back out and called to Karalti from the bedroom door. “Okay, Tidbit. I’m going to take a bath, and I don’t want to be disturbed. Literally the only reason you need to call me for the next hour is if a ninja assassin appears in the living room. And even then, if you can take care of it, please do.”
“Okay!” She clamped her jaws down on the deer’s skull, pulling it up and out of the carcass with the vertebrae still attached. Her eyes closed with pleasure as she used her tongue to pick through the gooey mess. “This is great!”
Gross as it was, I couldn’t help but feel a touch of pride in how strong she’d become.
A little voice in my head sobbed with relief as I retreated, closed the door to the bathroom, stripped, and then slid into the hot water. It was bubbly, like mineral water, and my lingering HP deficit began to rapidly recover.
Once I was settled down, I pulled up my sheets and alerts and began sorting through the backlog of notifications, hoping I’d missed a reply from Rin. Nope. Chewing my lip, I crammed my worries back into their box, then brought up my sheet and did a double take. My Advanced Path was no longer ‘Dark Lancer’. It was now ‘Dark Dragoon’.
I checked the relevant alert, curious to see what had caused my Advanced Path to change names:
[Congratulations! Now that your bonded dragon has reached Level 5, she is eligible to take her first Path. To reflect her new abilities, your Advanced Path has been changed from Dark Lancer to Dark Dragoon!]
[You have one new Ability Tree: Dark Dragoon]
[You can learn new skills and abilities!]
Awesome. This had to mean that Karalti was big enough to carry me in the air. Just.
When I’d first started playing Archemi, my upload had been so weird, so chaotic, and so frenetic that I’d barely had time to get the hang of things. I’d only really looked at what abilities were available to me and picked the ones that had seemed the best at the time. Now that I wasn’t rushing around, I could get a better look at my Advanced Path menus and submenus and theory crafting beyond the ‘Hector Survives Dragon School and Doesn’t Get Raped to Death by a Giant Tentacled Frog’ build.
My character menu had an Active Abilities Tree that allowed me to have up to ten abilities in play. There were grayed out circles on the tree that indicated I’d eventually be able to have fifteen once I hit Level 30. Each ‘sphere’ contained one of one of the abilities I’d selected to use as I’d leveled up: Blood Sprint, Shadow Dance, etc. The one at the bottom contained the one Ability I had to have: Jump, which was the core ability of the ‘Dark Dragoon’ and other Lancer classes.
The Abilities were selected and managed in the Ability Submenus: Attack, Defense, Special, and now Dark Dragoon. They were fairly self-explanatory. Special contained status-effect and Area of Effect maneuvers, almost like magical abilities, which fit in generally with the Dark element part of the Dark Lancer class. I browsed over to the Dragoon submenu and groaned. Dammit. None of this had been there when I’d planned my build, and there were now ten more abilities to sponge up my precious ability points. And some of them were awesome.
At Level 11, I had 25 ability points to spread out. I queried ‘Clear Character Abilities’ and got a prompt in reply:
[Do you wish to cancel all your current abilities and return your ability points to your pool?]
“Sure do,” I replied aloud.
[Are you sure? This cannot be undone.]
“Yep.”
The Active Ability Tree glowed softly, and the glowing orbs that signified my abilities drained away. As they did, my vision blurred. I groaned as my head throbbed, and a nasty, creeping emptiness pushed in. Suddenly, the only thing I could remember how to do, both theoretically and in my body, was Jump.
I drew a couple of deep breaths to recenter myself, and then dunked my head under the water. When I rose, I felt better.
Okay. Time to get cracking.
Each Ability Submenu had ten skills, for a total of forty available combat abilities. Each one could be leveled up to Level 10. Level 10 abilities were pretty insane: Jump X basically let me leap 50ft into the air and deal x10 damage to a single target. It also chained with several other Jump-related combo moves that made this ability ideal for mass combat and David-and-Goliath boss situations. I was going be to flying around like some wacked-out Chinese martial arts movie hero by endgame, which was 200% okay with me.
Not all of the abilities were able to be accessed at my current level. At every level, I unlocked one or two new abilities. There was a cap to how much I could raise the abilities I’d selected that depended on my Path level. At Level 11, I could learn Jump III, but not Jump IV. That would have to wait until Level 15. The cap increased by one for every five levels I gained.
That meant that at key levels - 5, 10, 15, and so on - I faced the choice between leveling an old ability or selecting a new one – to a maximum of ten, because I only had ten active ability slots. No matter what I did, each one cost a single Combat Ability Point. I got a fixed two points to spend per level, plus the three I’d gotten at Level 1. That meant that my endgame build – Level 100 – would ideally comprise fifteen maxed-out abilities, with the spare points allocated to abilities that supported and enhanced my core set.
I didn’t have to spend any points to acquire Jump I - that ability had been a freebie, thanks to the fetch quest I’d done for the librarian of the Eyrie back in Ilia. I used three points to bring Jump I back up to Jump III. It was my core skill for a reason, allowing me to avoid attacks vertically and chain strikes in all directions.
I had a look over the summary grid for my available combat abilities:
Offense
Dictum: Strike up to six targets and recover 2% of HP and AP.
Blood Sprint: Strike up to 3 targets, deal +150 Bleeding damage over 10 seconds, boost attack speed for 5 seconds. Chains with Blood Storm.
Blood Storm: Can only be used after Blood Sprint. Strike up to 5 targets, +10 HP recovered on good hits.
Whirlwind Butcher: Hit up to 6 targets and recover 10 AP on every good hit.
(New) Shattering Darkness: An attack that freezes and cracks an enemy’s (natural or man-made) armor. Reduces enemy DR by 5% every ability level.
Defense
Shadow Dance: Basic evasive dash reduces damage by 70% at the cost of HP (25 HP per dash). HP cost goes down with each ability level.
(New) Lightning Reflexes: Damage received while evading is reduced by 5% per skill level.
(New) Death by a Thousand Cuts: Chained with Blood Storm. Mark targets with a curse that lowers their attack power by 2% per skill level, and increases your attack by 2% and Damage Reduction by 5%. Percentages rise as you level the skill. Max 1 enemy per skill level (Max 10).
Special
Mantle of Night: Boost movement speed and special attack power 20% for 10 seconds.
Bluster: Taunt your enemies and regen 5AP + 10HP per skill level.
Umbra Burst: Draw Dark mana from the air and emit a chilling burst of enervation that deals Dark damage and has a chance to inflict the Frozen debuff.
(New) Obscuring Veil: Chain combo from Jump. Deal x2 damage with a very high chance of inflicting the Blindness debuff.
Dark Dragoon
(New) Plunge: Your acquired resistance to g-forces has increased, even if your head is above your feet. You are abl
e to withstand an additional 5 negative G’s per skill level.
(New) Adrenaline Junkie: You and your dragon regain +10% AP during flight. Scales with skill level.
(New) Leap of Faith: You gain the ability to better control your direction in the air if you fall off your mount, even while moving at high speeds. You experience time dilation of 1 sec per skill level while falling.
I actually gasped out loud as I read over the last ability. Oh, the possibilities. One of the issues I’d had with the Dark Lancer/Dark Dragoon class so far was the question of how to integrate the flashy jumping and lunging lance attacks with aerial combat in any meaningful fashion. Jump, plus Plunge and Leap of Faith were the solution. The combat style I’d need to train for this was insane - literally insane. Death’s Head Mode level of difficulty, ‘jumping-off-dragons-flying-at-high-speed insane’.
But it was possible, and I got a bit high just thinking about it. I’d always wanted to skydive.
I forced myself to lay back in the bath and calm the fuck down before I went too crazy, then made some quick adjustments to my character plan and went back into the Path menu to assign my points.
I dropped Doubletap, Power Attack, Bluster and Umbra Burst entirely. The first three were holdovers from my starting Warrior Path tree, and were now too weak to be of much use. I’d originally planned to keep Umbra Burst, but it was a basic damage attack and fairly Adrenaline Point-hungry, and I was better off spending the points on something better.
I went for the Blood Sprint > Blood Storm > Death by a Thousand Cuts combo chain first, and leveled both Blood Sprint and Blood Storm to III and Thousand Cuts to II. That was my main damage combo, crippling enemies with the Bleeding status, recovering HP, and cursing them with weakness I could then exploit with the Jump > Obscuring Veil combo. I leveled Obscuring Veil to III as well. Now I had one effective forward push combo, and one vertical jumping combo.
Next on the menu was Shattering Darkness. I leveled it to three. Dealing 15% DR reduction to an enemy was awesome, allowing me to make every strike count more. I also reselected Whirlwind Butcher, and leveled it to II. It was a solid crowd-control attack, and more importantly, it regenerated Adrenaline Points, which allowed me to use more special abilities.
Shadow Dance was a given: that move had saved my life more than any other skill I had. Shadow Dance II had a negligible 10 HP cost per dash, which was easily regained by landing some hits. However, there were better evasion-dash moves further along, so I didn’t power-level this ability.
My last six points went to Plunge and Leap of Faith. Plunge III meant that I could do all kinds of wacky shit while I was flying on Karalti’s back and not worry as much about passing out because she dived while my head was above my knees. Leap of Faith III improved my gyroscopic orientation and would dilate my sense of time by three seconds. Non-stunt people would probably be underwhelmed, but I’d been stunting bikes since I was too young to legally own a license. Three seconds to plan your next move was an awfully long time to make a decision while falling. On the front lines, three seconds of movement was the difference between getting shot in the head and a bullet whiffing past your shoulder. I trusted my reflexes, but this would make them even better. I had a feeling it would also help during Jump maneuvers – especially once I began leaping to truly supernatural heights.
I confirmed all of my selections, and a warm pressure blossomed inside my skull. My vision blurred, and my heart began to pound as knowledge - too much knowledge - flooded into my mind and body. I twitched and thrashed, splashing water over the sides of the tub. My muscles tightened, my jaws snapped together. When it was over, I was left panting for breath... but I could feel the swirl of new power and focus.
Grinning like a madman, I pulled myself up out of the bath and sat down on the edge to do my weird Tibetan-Viking hairdo. I shaved my face and my head on both sides, then braided the long, mohawk-like strip of hair tightly along my skull and down the back of my neck. It was split off into two thinner plaits from my nape. Each plait was woven with strips of faded red silk and tied off at the ends with a chipped bronze ring. I stood after that, and had a look at myself in the mirror. The training I’d been doing showed in the way that my body had hardened and leaned out. I looked like I’d been working with a Hollywood personal coach for six months. Not bad for just under a month of hard living.
There was only one thing that marred my studly appearance. On my left shoulder was a weird black void, a triangular patch of missing pixels about three and a half inches long. It was an artifact of the one and only time I’d died since my upload. It hadn’t caused me any problems, but as I poked and pried at the numb, featureless scar, I couldn’t help but think back to Rin’s warning about ‘corrupted data’. Meh.
After all that was done, I wrapped a towel around my hips and threw open the door. Karalti was already waiting for me on the bed. She took up about two-thirds of it, a gleaming black crescent of scales and tail, but she’d arranged the furs so that I could lie back against her chest and belly.
“In Soviet Vlachia, dragon spoons you,” I said. “Let me put on some pants first. You’re still too young to see me stark naked.”
“Doesn’t bother me,” she replied. Her eyes half-closed as I moved to my pack and equipped my clothing. “I’m naked all the time.”
“Seriously, don’t make this weird!” Laughing, I crawled up onto the bed.
Karalti unfurled one leathery wing, arching it over me like a dark tent. As she did, her scent washed over me. It was becoming more adult, somehow: a rich, intoxicating floral scent, fresh and near water, like something you’d smell in a rainforest. The name of the right flower was on the tip of my tongue. It wasn’t jasmine… It wasn’t honeysuckle or rose… What was it?
I was still trying to remember what Karalti smelled like when I fell asleep, and didn’t even realize I’d passed out until the deep velvet darkness resolved into erratic, disturbing dreams. Dreams of war, both modern and fantastic, all of it warped and buzzing like a faulty VR headset. My brother without a face, reaching for me. At the end, as I was starting to rise out of sleep, I found myself floating over a raging battle between the players who’d betrayed me and a monster I’d never seen.
Baldr, Violetta, and Lucien fought alongside three young dragons in a crumbling temple, dodging falling rocks as their opponent - a massive golden ogre with pits of light for eyes - swung a tree-sized club at them. Dead soldiers and knights lay scattered on the ground like broken dolls, but several were still standing at the perimeter of the battle. Among them was Skyr Arnaud, the Knight Commander of the Skyrdon of St. Grigori, and the Novice Master, Skyr Tymos. Their fully-grown dragons were nowhere to be seen. They were holding off waves of glowing skeletons with hammers and shields and magic. The skeletons were not human... They looked like the skeletons of humanoid birds.
As I watched the trio of players rain down blow after blow on their opponent, I glimpsed what lay behind the ogre’s bulk – a huge door. It looked like a cherry blossom, with five petal-like segments surrounding a small pentagram core. Staring at it, I felt an odd sense of recognition… a feeling that intensified as a man came up beside my disembodied self and turned his head toward me.
“My Herald,” Matir’s voice was like a thousand dry leaves slithering over concrete. The god was tall and slender, dressed like a rogue in close-fitting leathers and a long cloak made of swirling shadows. Instead of a face, he had nothing but a spiraling void of sucking darkness with an ember of light burning at the very center. “They have found the Gate. We do not have much time left. Heed the message and act.”
…brrr-brrr-brrr- brrr...
The sound – faint at first – grew louder as Baldr teleported from the ground to the ogre’s back in a swirl of white vapor. He rammed his sword in next to the monster’s spine, hanging on with gritted teeth as the beast writhed around in agony. A bolt of frost leaped from Violetta’s hand and took the ogre in the chest, slowing it enough that Baldr could climb up on his swor
d blade, using it like a step to reach the base of the ogre’s neck. He drew a second, shorter sword from his belt, and plunged it into the base of the creature’s skull.
…BRRR-BRRR-BRRR-BRRR…
I flailed awake and sat bolt upright, clutching soft fur under my hands. Sweat poured off my skin. Gasping, I searched around for the source of the sound. It wasn’t Karalti. She was still curled around me on the huge bed, her nose resting on the tip of her tail, her wings drawn in against her body. Her breathing was clear and quiet and slow. The fireplace crackled softly with embers. Rain slapped against the thick glass window.
My HUD was flashing a yellow exclamation mark alert. I’d never seen an alert like this one before. With anxiety gnawing at my belly, I called up the menu, and the vibrating alarm stopped buzzing. The alert was in my Message Center. When I had my HUD read it out to me, my jaw dropped. So I read it again. And again. It got worse and more surreal every time I heard it.
World Alert: Ilia
The ruler of Ilia, Warden Scandiva, has fallen! This is a Server Alert to announce the new Warden Protector of Ilia and Knight-Commander of the Eyrie of St. Grigori, Lord Baldr Hyland.
Chapter 24
Holy shitdicks.
This was not good. Like, on a scale of one to bad - and in light of what Rin had told me about Ororgael - we had firmly entered FUBAR territory. “HOW? How the fuck did Baldr become the Warden of Ilia AND the Knight-Commander of the Skyrdon in two freaking weeks? He was like… Level Ten when we left?”
I sank back down, stunned. I’d been worried enough about fucking Arnaud. The Knight Commander had been the Prince Charming of dragon knights: blond, blue-eyed, lantern jawed, completely punchable. He was the kind of dangerous son-of-a-bitch who’d do anything to preserve the status quo, but at least he’d been largely honorable. Baldr Hyland was not, and I had an awful feeling that Arnaud – and probably his dragon, Talenth – were now rotting in shallow graves behind the Eyrie.
Trial by Fire: A LitRPG Dragonrider Adventure (Archemi Online Chronicles Book 2) Page 21