Durability: 100%
Weight: 3 lb
Special: +2 Str, Critical Hit Damage Bonus +8%, chance to Stun +1%
A thick spear with a large blade. The silver ash haft is firm and silky to the touch.
The Alpha Rod easily had the best stats out of anything in the local weapon store, but the woman staffing the counter leered at me knowingly as I took the girthy polearm in hand. “Here you are, sir. And if you use our weapon to bring in the Slayer of Taltos, will you recommend us to the Volod? It would be a great honor for my father, the smith.”
“Oh, absolutely,” I swung the polearm a couple of times, testing the balance. “I’ll be sure to give His Majesty a blow-by-blow description of how I reamed the Slayer of Taltos with my new Alpha Rod.”
Karalti waited for me outside, surrounded by a crowd of awed NPCs. She was hamming it up for them, strutting back and forth and accepting worshipful offerings of food and coins. Some of the dragon groupies were praying.
“Thank you, thank you,” she was making a rare broadcast to the gathered faithful. “The emissary of the gods accepts all offerings of fish and tasty meat-kebabs! Extra blessings for lamb!”
“Okay, ‘Emissary of the Gods’, time to saddle up,” I muttered, reaching up to clap her on the shoulder. A few people gasped.
“You dare touch the sacred draak!?” A plump nobleman in purple silk and a spiffy hat took a step forward, a hand on the hilt of his rapier.
“She’s my dragon. Don’t make me smite you, for in my hands, I wield the mighty Alpha Rod.” I wrapped a hand around the rope harness I’d made as a temporary saddle, and pulled myself up as Karalti crouched down. As I hauled myself onto her back, I felt a familiar itch just before a yellow ‘water’ drop icon began to flash out the corner of my eye. The fucking Pee icon. “Ugh. Why does this game tell me when to pee?”
“Wat?”
“For some fucking reason, there’s this HUD icon that alerts me to the need to relieve my bladder.”
“Well, if there wasn’t an alert, how would you know?” Karalti bobbed her head goodbye at the flash mob congregation and nosed through them. NPCs gasped and reached out to touch her as she passed. I had the passing urge to kick their hands away, but they weren’t doing her any harm.
“It’s just so arbitrary,” I said. “For one thing, why do I have to pee in a video game anyway? For another, the pee meter could have filled at the palace in the morning, but no. It has to be here, in the middle of the street. And I don’t think Taltos has any public toilets.”
“So you just get your thingy out and pee on a wall. That’s what the other man was doing.”
I rolled my eyes skyward. “I’m not a fucking animal, and I’m not pissing against walls in the middle of the goddamn street.”
“You are too an animal! Humans are made of meat, like everyone else.”
“Oh, that’s right. You’re an apex predator.” I groaned aloud. “Literally everything you say sounds like something a serial killer writes on his holiday cards. Now give me a second. I have to message Suri.”
“Okay.”
First, I checked for a reply from Rin, again. She was still a dead signal. I searched my map for her icon, but came up blank. At a loss, I sent my trusty Beserker companion a voicechat invitation. To my surprise, she actually picked up.
I decided to kick things off in a mature note. “Hey gurrl. How’s it goin’ over dere?”
Instead of speaking, Suri sent me back a couple of emoticons in our HUD window: a giant middle finger and a dog. I actually laughed out loud.
“No, in all seriousness though,” I replied. “We should probably make a game plan for tonight. You know as well as I do that it’s going to be a screaming howler monkey shitshow. The Volod’s answer to ‘suspected terrorism’ is to try to bait Kanzo out into a situation where all the prospective targets can be massacred at once. Because video game mission logic, I guess.”
“Okaaay. Well, I’m dress shopping right now. Can we vid-chat after I’m done?”
I didn’t know what was funnier: that Suri was out dress shopping, or that she didn’t know what a video game was but still used words like ‘vid-chat’ without any sense of recognition or irony. “You didn’t ever strike me as the dress-wearing type. I can join you, if you’d like?”
“I’m the ‘wear whatever the fuck I want’ type. And no. At best, you’ll be bored shitless.”
“Aww, come on. I love going shopping with the girls.”
“I shop alone. You can see the dress at the auction.”
“Don’t worry, I’m just teasing you. Do you happen to know if Taltos has a civilized man’s toilet available to the public?”
“No. But I’m sure you can drop into the Armory and they’ll make you a diaper.”
I sent her the middle finger emote this time.
After weapons, our second stop was the saddlemaker’s – except that when we got to the entry to the Tanners' District, it was closed. No fewer than ten guards were lounging outside the portcullis. Two of them were riding hookwings. There were also three large mastiff-type dogs lounging in the shade. For the time being, they didn’t look particularly ferocious.
“Let’s see how that Negotiation skill is levelling up.” Annoyed, I rode up to the guards, tapping Karalti so she turned side-on to the small crowd of men. “Excuse me, sir. I need to get in there to do some trade with one of the locals. King’s business.”
The guards eyed me warily. Only one of them spoke up. “No one’s allowed in or out of the silverskins’ ghetto. That’s our orders.”
“Are your orders flexible?” I asked, with a wince.
“I’mma set the gate on fire if they don’t let us in.” Karalti pawed the ground, wings and crests rising. “I want a proper saddle.”
The guards looked the posturing dragon, then at each other. The first man nodded. “Ten rubles says they’re flexible for the likes of you.”
“Ten? You’d skim ten rubles from the agent of the Volod and the Emissary of the Gods herself?” I pointed angrily at Karalti.
“Heresy!” she squawked aloud.
For a moment, they all glanced at Karalti uncertainly, and then, without another word, one of the guards turned around and unlocked the winch that turned the portcullis.
“Good hustle, Tidbit.” We watched them work, and when the gate was open enough for her to slink underneath, I flattened myself down against her back and we went inside. The portcullis came down a lot faster than it went up. It hit the ground behind us with a rattling boom.
The Tanners’ District was now a ghost of itself. The neatly paved streets were nearly empty, and all of the industry we’d seen during our stay with Rin had vanished, locked away behind shuttered windows and closed doors. I felt like we were being watched from the narrow row houses. Human soldiers hung around the main intersection in tight cliques, staring suspiciously at the few Mercurions who were outdoors. Those Mercurions were taking no chances: they wore concealing cloaks, broad-brimmed hats and their signature masks. They had hunched shoulders, and their heads swiveled to track us as we passed by.
Guilt crushed me down like a cigarette stub into an ashtray. I knew, technically, this mess wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t even entirely condemn Andrik for wanting to protect his people and consolidate his power as a feudal king… but like a cigarette, the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth.
“I really think Rin is right about Kanzo,” I remarked to my dragon. “That Kanzo is being blackmailed and he’s being forced into this. But… damn, Karalti. I don’t know if I did the right thing by helping her run. She could be out there, making bombs or some shit, and it’s my fault if she is.”
“Yeah, it is.” Karalti replied cheerfully.
I scowled. “Gee, thanks.”
“Nuh-uh. You decided Rubber Lady didn’t do anything bad, and if she did, then you were wrong. And that’s okay.”
“Is it, though? The NPCs – I mean, the people here – basically have real feelings and real suffering. I feel
like I’m in over my head. I’m too dumb to work this shit out without a quicksave function.”
Karalti hissed through her side teeth, making a pitiful sound like a deflating balloon as she shook her head. “Stop saying that. It’s not true. You’re not dumb.”
“I sure as hell feel like it.”
“My blood sings the song of Pride, the Words of creation and destruction,” she replied testily. “The clanmates I choose to link my blood with are not stupid.”
The sudden sharpness - and maturity - that I heard in my dragon’s voice jolted me out of the confusion and self-pity that was creeping up on me. Karalti sounded so... adult.
“You’re right. I’ll try and think myself out of this hole later.”
I took us by Rin’s shop, and my heart fell when I saw the state of it. The door had been smashed, and what little we could see of the inside was trashed. Two burly Joh Mercurions loomed beside the entry. They wore sleeveless leather brigandine armor and carried wickedly sharp javelins. Their silver teardrop masks were identical, the mana swirling with sigils that gathered into the image of a single eye with a spiral pupil.
“Stay back, sang’hi,” one of them called as we came to a stop. “And keep moving. You are not welcome here.”
“I’m Rin’s friend.” ‘Friend’ seemed like a bit of a stretch, but I cared about her. “I just wanted to know if she managed to get out-”
“That is none of your business. We are protecting the Master Crafter’s goods. Bat’haxalta et’.” The other one jerked his head toward the street.
“Righty-o. Well, you gents have a lovely day,” I said. Karalti bristled, but I shook my head and twitched my heels against her ribs, signaling for her to keep walking.
“These guys must be keeping their spare javelins up their asses,” I said to her. “Not that I blame them.”
“Mm.” Karalti swung her head, scenting the air. “I hope the saddle guy will talk to us.”
The saddlery was attached to a stable that was set up for creatures Karalti’s size. There were a pair of toothy, feathered, griffon-like creatures lashed to hitching posts at the front – quazi, I guessed. They chirped and clattered their beaks at us as we rang the bell at the gate. After several minutes, a slender, heavily robed Mercurion peeked out from around the corner of the building at us, her face obscured by a smooth dish of metal.
“I’m here to see Mikhail. I have a commission for him,” I called to her – or at least, I thought it was a ‘her’.
‘She’ did not reply, except to vanish back around the corner. Nearly fifteen minutes passed before I could hear anything but the murmur of speech from inside the main house attached to the stable. The sylvan Mercurion reappeared, accompanied by a hulking man in a heavy leather apron. Mikhail was also a Joh Mercurion, the largest and most obviously masculine of their race’s six different body types. He had a high ponytail of silver hair, and as he strode toward us, he pushed his mask up onto his head. He looked alarmingly like Sephiroth of Final Fantasy fame... something that momentarily gave me a twinge of nostalgia. I’d grown up playing my grandparents’ games, and that game - and character - was one of my favorites.
“Sorry to spook your clanmate,” I said through the fence. “I’m looking for a saddle for this girl here. I heard you’re the best.”
“I am,” he said simply. “And my name is not Mikhail. It is Mix’hxian. Mikhail is the name the sang’hi give me. I prefer Mix.”
The middle part of his name sounded like a wooden clicking sound, so I was grateful I didn’t have to try and pronounce the whole thing. “I meant no offense. I’m Dragozin Hector of Tungaant, and this is Karalti.”
“Karalti.” Mix echoed the name as he unlocked the gate and threw it open. “The silhouette cast by the moonlight when it touches an object.”
“Sorry?”
“That is what her name means in Tlax’it,” Mix rumbled. “We are both People of the Blood. We still share some language with the dragons.”
Karalti gaped her jaws in the imitation of a human smile. “Kochi gul-gabi!”
“Kochi suna, sulunkraati.” The Mercurion bowed his head, and motioned for us to follow him into the workshop behind the conjoined house-stable complex.
“What does that mean?” I asked Karalti. “I still know shit-all about Mercurions.”
“It means like… uhh… your face is awesome? Like when you tell me I’m pretty. And he told me I’m pretty, too.”
I blinked. “You told him he’s pretty?”
“Yeah! Because it means his clan did a good job making him. That’s what you say when they take their mask off like that. They only take it off when they wanna get to know you.”
“How do you know this?”
Karalti chirped out loud, flipping her wings against her ribs. “Rin told me about it! She said that masks are really important for Mercurions, but she doesn’t wear one as much because she’s Starborn.”
“Huh. She explain why?”
“Kind of. She said that the masks show what House you’re from, and if you don’t wear one, it’s like showing off. You could offend someone and start a fight. She said that Mercurions like to fight a lot, so...”
“So you don’t want to be flaunting your family’s goods on the street.” I chuckled. “Weird. You know, I’m worried about Rin. I wonder if these guys know where she is, or if she’s okay.”
“I dunno. But even if they do know where to find her, I don’t think they’re going to tell us.”
“No? Why?”
“Sang’hi is a really rude word.”
Chapter 26
Mix’s open-plan workshop had an array of works-in-progress laid out on saddle forms. They were obviously of high quality, and beautifully made. Three other Mercurions were here. I couldn’t remember the names of their body types, but one was tall, thin, and androgynous, while the other two were stocky, short but feminine, and similar in build to Rin. They paused in their work, watching us in inscrutable silence.
“I have never made a saddle for a solonkratsu,” the craftsman said. He collected a long measuring tape from a workbench stacked high with cured leather hides of various animal species. “However, I believe I can adapt a quazi saddle blueprint to fit her.”
“How long will it take? And what’s the cost?”
“The base price is 80 olbia. If you do not want it tooled, it can be done quickly.” Mix hung the ribbon over his shoulder and looked more closely at Karalti “Hmm. There is already one unique challenge for this project – her wing membranes. We will not be able to use a tightening strap around her abdomen unless her membranes are pierced.”
Ouch – 80 olbia was pricey. Karalti’s crests flared, and she reared her head back, looking at me nervously as I slid to the ground. “I know the dragons I saw in Ilia had small holes for tack cut into their wings. Any other options?”
He shrugged. “Extend your wings, sulunkraati, and I will make an assessment.”
Karalti shook herself out, and then lifted and stretched her wings. She kept the tips folded in so that they didn’t snap out and strike the ceiling. Mix walked around her, asking her to kneel down so that he could see the shape of her back and wings from in front and behind. I could see the problem too. The edge of the thick membranes went nearly one-third of the way down her tail. I watched on with my arms crossed, and when Karalti met my eyes, I nodded and smiled.
“The wing piercing would be the most efficient route,” he said slowly. “However, I have concerns. Her membranes are too soft. The dragons you saw most likely had the holes made when they were freshly hatched, then stretched and tempered as they grew. That is how skin works. Even if I cut the holes and cauterized the edges, they would become prone to tearing. She would experience cycles of tearing and healing until they scarred.”
I frowned, thinking back to the dragons of the Eyrie. Their wingholes for their saddles had been thickly scarred and tough-looking, and there was probably some technique to creating them that I didn’t know. “Right. W
hat are our other options?”
“A tail cinch is sub-standard. Too many moving parts.” The Mercurion reached up to run a smooth, alabaster hand over the dorsal ridges at the base of her tail. “As for other options… Hmm.”
“Wait.” I joined him by Karalti’s hindquarters. “Are these dorsal fins of yours sensate, Karalti?”
“What do you mean?”
I took out my dagger, and rapped the edge of a fin with the hilt. “Feel that?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“What if we pierced holes through these?” I asked the crafter. “Could they be used as anchor points?”
“Those could be used as anchor points, though we would have to drill through them and weld the saddle attachment rings in place,” Mix mused. “Though a screw-on clasp would also work to allow for replaceable rings… and that would also mean a lighter saddle. Yes, with ingenuity and proper tension, that would be possible.”
The thought of drilling into Karalti’s dorsal ridges made me nervous and a little queasy, but it was better than weakening her wings. At her current small size, even small holes could be a liability. Not to mention, I didn’t want to do anything the way the Skyrdon did if I could avoid it. That wasn’t just out of conceit – in the event of us having to ever fight one or more dragon knights, our tactics, gear, and abilities needed to be wildly different than anything they were used to having to deal with. I rubbed the base of her tail. “What do you think, girl?”
“Drilling sounds scary. But I’ll do it.” She leaned against my hand. “I wanna fly with you more than anything. Because then you’ll love me, right?”
“What do you mean ‘I’ll love you’? I already love you.”
She flattened her wings back against her body, shifting from one foot to the other like a new hatchling. “Yeah, but you’ll love me the best then.”
“I’ll always love you the best. Don’t you worry about that.” I clapped her on the leg. “Alright, Mix. Let’s mark her up and get started.”
***
We blocked in between 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. for crafting. While Mix and his spouses – plural – and kid worked on the structural parts of the saddle, I had to drill the holes we’d need through the bony dorsal ridges of Karalti’s back.
Trial by Fire: A LitRPG Dragonrider Adventure (Archemi Online Chronicles Book 2) Page 23