“Ready?” I knelt beside her out in the yard. She lay on her side, one wing tucked underneath her, her spine arched toward me. That meant I could drill down from the top instead of having to hold the tool upright.
“Yeah. I’ll tell you if it hurts.”
The drill Mix had given me was basically a steampunk power drill with a long diamond bit. It was powered by a small capsule of green crystal mana. Resolutely, I set it against the dark scales of my dragon’s back, sweat running down my forehead, and gently depressed the trigger.
Karalti flinched as the drill bored through the thick keratin ridge on her back, and I pulled away. “Hurt?”
“No. It’s okay,” she said. The tip of her tail flicked on the ground, sending up puffs of dirt and dust. “Just feels weird.”
“Right.” Nervously, I resumed my work.
Karalti lay there placidly as we started to bore through what I had always assumed was solid bone. But the fins weren’t actually bone – they were more like very thick fingernails, keratin mixed with the black nacre-like substance that gave her dark scales their camouflage. They were extremely tough, but we weren’t going to paralyze her by drilling through them, provided we weren’t too close to her spine.
“It doesn’t hurt at all,” she said once I was about halfway through. “Makes my bones feel funny, though.”
“Better this than your wings, then.” I wet my mouth – it was dry with anxiety – and kept drilling. “You want to try flying after we get this on you?”
“Yeah! Flying is the best thing ever!” Her tail began to twitch harder. “We should go to the auction that way.”
“If you think you’re strong enough to carry me and our gear.” I pressed my lips together as I felt the drill bit sink into the ridge, then punch through. “There. That’s one. Five more to go, and then it’s on to potion making.”
“I decided on what Path I want, by the way,” Karalti said. “Is it a good time to talk about that?”
“Sure.” I started on the next hole. Mix had marked the exact places I needed to drill. This activity wasn’t technically a Crafting skill, so nothing was levelling up while I worked on this. Only the leatherworking part would raise my skill EXP.
“Well, like I said, flying is the best thing ever… so I want to take the Path of Alacrity,” she said shyly.
“Yeah, I like that Path, too.” I smiled, leaning onto the drill as it ground out a round hole about an eighth of an inch in diameter. We had to bore them out, then widen them with a chisel bit. “Why do you like it?”
“Because I want to be faster. And it has more magic… you get some bonus Lexica with it.”
“You like magic, huh?”
“Yeah.” She heaved a deep sigh. “And there’s a spell I want later, too.”
“Which one?”
She hummed in her throat, and her toes curled. “I don’t wanna tell you.”
“You don’t? Why not?”
“Nuh-uh. Not telling. But can I choose a spell at Level 9? And take the Path of Alacrity?”
“Sure.” While I worked, I bought up the Path descriptions and looked over the Skills, curious to see what spell she might want. There was a relatively long list, but none of them leaped out at me as being particularly special. An enhancement for her breath weapon, polymorph, a teleporting spell, and a tracking spell. I recognized the tracking and teleportation spells – they were the same magic that Knight Commander Arnaud and his team had used to track and rescue Rutha and I when we were stranded on the coast of Zaunt. This was probably a veiled game-speak way of ensuring she ended up with the teleport spell. “So, you sure you want Alacrity? Want me to lock it in?”
“Yeah!”
Before I confirmed it, I went into her submenu and had a look over the Path ability summaries, ensuring they were what I also wanted.
Path of Alacrity Abilities
Level 5 - Split Turn: Burn 5 mana points per second to immediately change momentum while rolling. This allows for 90 degree and 180 degree turns in any direction. 2 bonus Lexica.
Level 10 - Wings of Deception: Create a brief illusory decoy in midair and teleport a short distance in any direction, then attack your distracted enemy for double damage. 1 bonus Lexica.
Level 15 - Death From Above: Dive at an enemy and strike their weakest point while continuing to move at full speed. x2 damage, sharply increased critical hit rate. A successful hit causes the Bleeding (normal hit) or Hemorrhaging (critical hit) debuff. 2 bonus Lexica.
Level 20 - Parabolic Mastery: Your dragon has mastered her control of gravity, allowing her to stall herself in midair and recover from tumbles that would send other dragons falling out of the sky, even while injured. In addition, her wings become stronger: Wing injuries become 50% less likely to occur and 50% less disabling in the event they are injured. 1 bonus Lexica.
Level 25 - Skydancer: Your dragon has unparalleled abilities of evasion and maneuverability while flying. She gains steep bonuses to Stamina, Evasion, and Dexterity, and gains the Burst Flight ability that allows her to briefly launch through the air at near-supersonic speed. 2 bonus Lexica.
The other Path was essentially a combat-focused path that allowed you to turn your dragon into a tank, but it was better suited to someone who needed their dragon to do all of the heavy lifting while they were in the air, literally and metaphorically. For an armored knight who was their dragon’s personal assistant, spotting attackers and protecting their vulnerable wings, the Path of Power was probably better. The Path of Alacrity was better suited to a mobile DPS unit like me.
The Path of Alacrity would lead into the Shadow Wing advanced path at Level 30. That AP was focused on precision attacks, stealth, and crippling abilities that were a good compliment to my own – and, I hoped, a good compliment to an acrobatic aerial partnership. I selected the Path, and paused to confirm.
Karalti shivered, and closed her eyes. Her head flopped onto the ground. The Path selection added 10 more points to her Dex, and 5 each to her Str and Sta, just like that.
While she digested the information, I had the HUD read out her new ability description:
Split Turn
The Path of Alacrity turns dragons into masters of the sky and their own bodies, allowing them to perform aerial feats that should be impossible for a creature of their size. Split Turn is one of those feats.
Normal dragons possess awesome momentum in the air, but relatively little dexterity due to their size and weight. However, your dragon partner can now literally turn on a wingtip, cutting the air like a swallow. While using Split Turn, your dragon burns Mana at 5 points per second to speed her flight and allow her to change the course of her forward momentum with supernatural dexterity. She can fly around sharply angled corners, u-turn while in the air, and perform a vertical ‘figure eight’ turn to completely change direction.
Both of your dragon’s wings must be undamaged to use Split Turn. To safely ride your dragon during Split Turn maneuvers, you must have a Dragon Riding skill of 5 or higher. If your skill level is lower than this, you risk having an accident, falling off your mount (if unsecured), or sustaining injury (if secured). If your dragon exerts more g-force on you than your body can handle, you will suffer damage, penalties, and debuffs appropriate to the level of force.
“Looking good,” I said. “So, my plan for training is to take some small, short flights, and work up to longer ones. We have to increase your strength and stamina before we get too ambitious. Sound okay with you?”
“Yep.” Karalti had ceased moving, and lay in the weak sun like a gleaming sculpture of black opal, her eyes closed. “I need to meditate for a while on this though… It’s a lot of changes.”
“Think you’ll be ready for tonight?” I began to bore hole number five.
“Uh-huh.”
“Good.” I sighed, setting the drill against the mark for the last hole. “Because I’m a hundred and twenty percent certain that tonight is going to suck.”
Chapter 27
Despite its everyday realism – the sights, smells, and sensations of an early industrial-era city, with magic and monsters – there were things in Archemi that reminded me that it was a game. The crafting, especially. Watching Mix fit and craft the saddle was like watching God create something à la Genesis, with parts precisely cut and hammered together at a pace that was impossible IRL. All the leather shapes fit together like a puzzle. I knew there was no earthly way an item of this complexity was able to be created in five hours or less… but somehow, it worked. And the NPCs thought nothing of it.
“This turned out well,” Mix said to me, as he buckled the finished breastplate across Karalti’s keel and patted it fondly. “You really want no other restraining straps than these ones on the stirrups?”
“Nope,” I said. “That’s why I made twenty health potions while you were busy. The whole point is to learn without training wheels.”
Karalti bobbed her head and made little gurking noises of excitement as she flexed one wing, then the other. Eighty gold had bought us a sleek, long saddle that was sculpted so that I could lie down, stand, crouch, or ride astride. There were grips to the front and back, points for lashing gear, and iron footrests to either side of Karalti’s ribs that allowed me to buckle my feet in and take a jockey position on her back. The short swallowtail end was held flat by the heavy brass dorsal rings that kept the saddle under tension. Our ten-slot saddlebags sat forward of the rings, but behind the shallow cantle – the scooped back of the saddle.
“You’re crazy, sang’harik,” Mix remarked, locking the last strap in place. “But I am satisfied with this saddle’s design. When she grows and you need another, let me know.”
***
About twenty minutes later, with barely half an hour to spare before we needed to be at Kobayaz, I knelt on Karalti’s back on the edge of the tallest building in the Tanners’ District. It was a massive granary and warehouse complex that backed against the city walls, at least fifteen stories tall
“I always joked around that if my parents made me go to prom, I’d have jumped off something tall to avoid putting on a tuxedo.” My voice echoed behind the concealing half-mask of my helmet. I could barely hear myself. “Maybe we can just fly back to Vulkan Keep and rejoin the questline tomorrow or something?”
“I don’t think that’s how that works,” Karalti replied.
“Probably not.” The wind howled over us up here, chilling my skin even through layers of armor and clothing. My hands sweated on the saddle grips, and I was trembling with about six parts excitement, one part cold, and three parts sheer, gut-wrenching terror.
I’d flown dragonback before, but that had been a very different experience than what we were about to do. For one thing, Talenth - the ex-Knight Commander’s dragon - had been about a hundred feet long, with a back big enough to carry six people. Karalti’s back was about as long as I was tall. For another, Talenth’s saddle had tie-down straps, plus an experienced rider guiding him. Karalti’s did not, because neither of us really knew what we were doing. Getting on my dragon in the middle of a fight and gliding twenty feet to the ground in broad daylight had been one thing. Straddling her back the way I would a racing bike, on the edge of a granary a hundred and fifty feet off the ground was quite another.
“Now... Let me think...” I said aloud. “Head down, ass up when you’re diving. I think that’s right.”
“Uhh… I guess?” Karalti shifted restlessly from side to side. “Who told you that?”
“This airforce pilot I knew. But he might have just been hitting on me.”
Karalti giggled. “Okay... you still wanna go?”
“Yeah. Let me do one last thing.” I drew a deep breath, focusing on the Mark of Matir, and invoked Blessing of the Raven. The energy of the Dark God hit me like a shot of caffeine to the brainstem. When I opened my eyes, the bonus skill EXP buff icon floated at the corner of my eye.
“Okay.” I stared out over the city and narrowed my eyes. “My body is ready.”
The dragon bunched like a sprinter beneath my thighs. Even at her Level 5 size, I could feel awesome, fiery power surge through her body. She relaxed her wings out to the sides, letting them catch in the breeze. As she did, I felt her second heart speed up and fall into sync with the first. Dragons had two hearts, and while I didn’t yet know much about the biomechanics of why, I suspected that one of them was basically just for flying.
My chest and ears thumped in time with the rhythm. I buckled my feet in, backed my ass up, put my face against the base of Karalti’s neck, and drew a deep breath. Anticipation built into an eye-of-the-storm sensation, the feeling of being so excited, so wound up, that your mind was empty and calm.
“Hold on! And don’t fall off!” Karalti wiggled to test her traction, and before I had time to reply, kicked out from the battlement and threw herself into the open sky.
Anyone who has ever felt really good torque knows that roller-coaster thrill: your teeth step back in your head, your skull pounds, your guts feel like they got left a mile behind you on the road. You can’t do anything but cry out with shock. It’s arousing. It’s addictive and unsettling and terrifying. It’s a high so intense that you will always be chasing it, no matter what happens.
“HOLY SHIIIIIT!”
We fell about twenty feet before Karalti gained lift. I howled with wild laughter as my stomach lifted up behind my eyes, then fell out through my asshole. Her wings pumped to either side of my knees, and all the blood in my body rushed down into my legs as she began to climb. When she levelled out, I slid back into the shallow scalloped seat of the saddle, and for a moment, I regretted telling Mix that I didn’t want restraining straps. Then she dropped a wingtip and rolled gently to one side, and my lizard brain screamed at me that this was It. I was dead, I was going to fly off and burst like a ripe tomato when I hit the ground.
Karalti sensed my sudden terror. She straightened up so quickly that she nearly pitched me off. “Hector! Are you okay!? What’s the matter?”
Time had slowed, and for several seconds, I couldn’t reply. My eyes were watering from the ferocious wind as I stared out over the city. It was beautiful. Taltos glowed orange and charcoal from up here, bathed by the light of the setting sun. “I’m fine. Fly properly, just like how you would without a rider. Just try not to do anything too crazy.”
“Okay. Lean with me… I felt you pushing back against the turn before.” She rolled to the left again, circling in and beating her wings to climb back up. My heart skipped a beat as the torque shifted back, then forward again. The muscles of Karalti’s back surged under my hands and against my knees, and every time she lifted and dropped, I felt like I was going to fly off into the wind.
My entire body thrummed with tension, hands white-knuckled and shaking against the grips. “This is fucking incredible. Oh my god. Why did I let myself get this far away from the ground?!”
“We’re not that high, silly Hector.” Karalti’s voice was thick with mirth, but warm as well. “You having fun?”
“This is the second-most awkward hard-on I’ve ever had!” I was yelling telepathically for some reason.
Karalti bellowed joyously, and before I had time to adjust my position, she rolled sharply to the left and veered into a strong, cold stream of wind. Her wings filled with air, and suddenly, we jolted upwards, higher and higher. My stomach pulled down, and I barked a cry of excitement that turned to manic, wild, howling laughter. When she topped out and beat her wings to join the swiftly moving coldstream, she picked up speed. Tears were pulled back along my cheeks, my heart raced, my fingers pounded in time with my pulse. I was terrified, moved, and exhilarated all at the same time.
It was the best I had ever felt in my entire life.
“This is amazing!” I shouted, as we thundered over the city wall, heading for the country estate marked on our minimap.
Karalti’s ribs flexed like a bellows as she settled into a glide. She was panting, neck straight, her horns held tightly to her
skull. I tried to minimize my drag the way that I would on the back of a motorcycle, flattening down. We passed carriages and hookwings the size of Matchbox cars on the ground, winged over a crossroads inn and a small cluster of summer homes, and continued toward the Kobayaz Estate. Notifications began to trickle in.
[You have reached Dragon Riding 2!]
[Karalti has learned Laden Flight 1!]
[You and Karalti are a good match! You earn +10% skill EXP for Riding: Dragon and Laden Flight thanks to skill synergy!]
[Would you like to learn about Skill Synergy?]
“Not right now!” There was already a lot to get used to beyond the act of holding onto my dragon’s back. The game’s interface had adapted to being in flight. An Augmented Reality display had appeared, overlaying the terrain of the air and sky and helping to keep me oriented on the horizon. This gyroscopic jet fighter-style vision was not something I’d had before the Trial of Marantha. When I scanned the patchwork of fields below, the AR highlighted landmarks of interest – places where we could do sidequests, landing zones, even a couple of random monsters prowling a ruined hut. I could zoom in with my vision, too – to about 200% magnification, which I figured was also something I’d gained from my dragonrider mutations.
My stomach plummeted as Karalti suddenly jolted and lost altitude. When she dropped again, I looked to make sure nothing had happened to her wings. They were fine, but her wingbeats were off-rhythm. I banished the HUD and refocused on her. “You alright?”
“This is hard!” Her breathing was becoming more labored, the muscles of her back and shoulders shuddering with effort. “We gotta practice more!”
“Time to land, Tidbit,” I said. “We can walk the rest of the way.”
“No, I can make it!” She rallied out of sheer stubborn pride, pumping her wings to stay in the air stream, and then angled her head toward the manor yard. Kobayaz was at the back of an orchard, with a cluster of buildings surrounding a central court. There was a crescent-shaped carriage yard out front, currently filled with an array of vehicles.
Trial by Fire: A LitRPG Dragonrider Adventure (Archemi Online Chronicles Book 2) Page 24