by Rue Vespers
Rosy rolled into a flower patch and smacked into a pedestal. Popping up as the announcer blathered about health points, the teacup hopped furiously past Jenner and back up the steps with its spoon pointed to the dragon like a sword.
“How about you try ME on for size, you scaly asshole? CHARGE!” the cup bellowed.
Staring at Rosy on the jumbo screens, the stadium howled.
“Watch out, Fang-tail!” the announcer said, weeping with laughter. “You’ve pissed off a tiny teacup! Here it comes!”
“Rosy, no!” Jenner yelled, running up the steps after the cup.
The dragon raised a big foot in anticipation.
Rosy leaped off the pathway just as the foot began to descend, bouncing so fast from pedestal to statue to broken column that Jenner could barely keep track of it. The dragon reeled back and unloaded a fire strike, jerking its head violently to spray the flames over the line of columns where the cup had disappeared.
“Rosy!” Horrified, Jenner slid his arm out of the straps, flipped up the shield to grasp the edge, and hurled it like a Frisbee at the still-spouting dragon.
It was light only to Jenner’s perspective. The shield nailed the dragon in the throat and cut off the fire. Choking, Fang-tail staggered back as the shield fell to the ground.
Jenner sprinted across the pathway, his fist cocked for another blow. Throw a punch, recover the shield, block the inevitable fire strike, and . . .
Laughter.
“Uhhh . . . Cover your eyes, kids, we’re having a wardrobe malfunction here!”
Jenner heard the words, but they didn’t register in his brain. The teacup reappeared at the top of the tallest column. “Get the ruby, kid! Get that fucking ruby!” Launching itself into the air, it threw a cupful of dirt into the dragon’s face.
The ruby had slipped from Jenner’s mind completely! He twisted to the side and bolted past the dragon. The unguarded chest was only two tiers away. Running between smashed columns, he heaved himself bodily up a wall and dashed through the weeds.
“Fang-tail, stop fooling around with that teacup! He’s getting away!”
A very large statue had fallen over here. The facial features were still discernable, those of a troll, and its thickset form was so massive that it was inches higher than the next wall Jenner had to climb. The stairs to the next tier were too far away to reach without the dragon cutting him off, so Jenner closed his free hand and gloved hand into the weeds covering the statue and hauled himself up. The crook of the creature’s elbow made a groove for his foot; a marble fold of its loincloth another. The weeds and marble were slippery, but the Gregallan glove had such a strong grip that it held him up when he lost a foothold.
He mounted the statue within seconds and stood upon its hip. The treasure chest was below him. Triumphantly, he leaped for it.
He leaped, but he didn’t land.
A powerful force jerked his left arm over his head. It was the dragon, wings beating hard and the claws of his back foot wrapped around Jenner’s upper arm. The audience cried out as Fang-tail flew over the treasure chest and away, pushing higher and higher into the air with Jenner dangling below.
He slugged the dragon’s leg with the Gregallan glove. Fang-tail shrieked in pain, his claws loosening. Jenner wrapped his metal fingers around the beast’s ankle and wrenched his upper arm free. Fire lashed past him, missing by millimeters.
The dragon rolled in the air. The world overturned in a dizzying kaleidoscope of screaming faces and marble columns and jagged lightning. Only the glove let Jenner maintain his grip as the beating wing slapped into his forehead.
He climbed.
As the dragon twisted and turned, rolled and spouted fire over the ring, Jenner moved hand by hand up the leg to the flank. The tail battered at him, slamming into his back again and again. Though it flattened him each time against the scales, the spikes were unable to pierce through Jenner’s skin. He reached the beast’s back and seated himself between the short spines.
Congrats! You have earned a merit trophy for Dragon Rider!
Congrats! You are now Level 5!
Fun Fact Time! Dragon riders of Talvenor are an elite-
He should have disabled all of the notifications when he was down in the lounge! “OFF, GODDAMMIT! OFF!” he screamed, although the blocks were already flying away.
Fang-tail shrieked and bucked. Jenner pinched his thighs hard and kept the glove in an iron grip around the spine in front of him. As they righted in the air, he switched hands and slugged the dragon on the back of the head.
“ . . . DO YOU SEE THIS . . .”
The announcer and the stadium seemed a million miles away. The blow sent Fang-tail reeling down towards the garden.
“ . . . 15 HP . . .”
They were moving away from the treasure chest. Jenner punched the dragon again and shifted his weight, Fang-tail screeching but complying with a reverse in course.
“ . . . 12 HP . . .”
They came up fast on the chest far below. The fight wasn’t out of the dragon yet, though. Jenner heard the whistling sound an instant before the spiked tail hit the back of his head. He was slammed down along the dragon’s neck by its force, the spine pressing into his abdomen.
Fang-tail rolled once more, and Jenner let go.
The crowd screamed as he plummeted.
He hurtled down in a blast of fire that chewed through his clothing and sizzled in his ears. The garden rushed up fast to meet him, Jenner falling right onto the treasure chest and smashing it to smithereens.
He rolled onto his back and thrust the ruby into the air.
For one delicious heartbeat, the world was utterly still.
Then the stadium exploded.
“DID YOU SEE THAT? DID YOU SEE THAT?” the announcer bellowed over the sound system. “The Teacup Guy fell eighty fucking feet from the back of a dragon, got the ruby, and still has full HP! And he made it to Level 5 in the process! Hogdoor’s hairy balls, DID YOU SEE THAT?”
They’d seen it, and they were going crazy. The stadium was awash in popcorn being thrown upwards like confetti.
Rosy hopped up to Jenner as the glove melted back into a bracelet. “KID! You just won five grand!”
Unhurt but shaky, Jenner sat up. The dragon soared downwards to land elsewhere in the garden as a silver box with an attached camera lens zoomed over to Jenner. A bright, robotic voice emanated from it. “Hello, champion! This is Reporter-Box X24 for Talvenor’s morning news. How does it feel to win this loot theft match?”
“It . . . it feels great,” Jenner stammered.
“Tell our readers what you’re doing this for! Are you saving up for a new car? Trying to make that house payment? What in the world possessed you to place such a high bid for an untried gladiator? Tell Talvenor!”
“I want to live,” Jenner replied, gathering up his wits and looking straight into the camera. “I’m dying out there, Talvenor. I don’t know if I have hours or days, but I’m dying while I upload on old ACT1 nets. I need to save up for some ACT2 nets so I can reach 75% before my body quits on me. I love this game, I love the people I’ve met . . . well, most of them . . . and I’m so excited to be here in Scrambled Lives! So if you need a substitute fighter and you have money to light on fire, give me a call. Nothing is getting past these scales . . . or this teacup!”
He put Rosy on his shoulder. “I’ll take you down!” Rosy yelled, and hopped into the lens with a wild cry before bouncing back onto Jenner.
A dark-haired man came up the stairs. It was Fang-tail in his human form, waving merrily to the audience as they went to pieces in the stands.
Getting up, Jenner glanced down to his shredded, burnt clothing. He needed to buy a whole new outfit. This one was toast all the way down to his charred boots. Fang-tail chuckled at Jenner’s rags and offered his hand. “Hey, man!”
The ruby vanished, and Jenner shook with him. “Good game.”
“No shit!” Fang-tail smiled for the robotic reporter until it flew
away to capture reactions from the audience. Then he laughed and clapped Jenner on the back.
“We’re cool?” Jenner asked in surprise.
“Dude! We’re so cool.” The shifter’s smile was genuine. “There’s no such thing as bad publicity in the ring. Do you know how hard it is to stand out among hundreds of thousands of active gladiators? Being a loser is better than being ignored. They’ll know your name across Talvenor by tomorrow morning, and they’ll know mine, too. I’m doubling my bid, so thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I hope you get a set of ACT2 nets, man, that’s a bummer. And . . . yeah. Here.” Fang-tail took off his long-sleeved shirt. “Tie that around your waist.”
“Why?”
“Your ass is hanging out. My dragon side kind of ate your undies.”
Jenner clapped a hand over his ass and was shocked to meet bare skin. “Oh, crap!”
He tied the sleeves hastily around his waist and waved to the audience with Fang-tail. The cheering went on and on as scenes from the challenge replayed on the jumbo screens. The bracelet vanished from Jenner’s wrist, as did the shield on the ground nearby. He assumed they were being returned to the lounge.
Then he blinked, and so had he. Jenner and Fang-tail were standing outside the little tent clinic. “But I’m not hurt,” Jenner said.
“Still have to check in, and if you ever do get hurt, you can buy a health potion here,” Fang-tail said, dipping through the flap.
Jenner followed him. Three unoccupied beds were separated by curtains. A white-haired doctor cried out, “Fang-tail, let’s get a look at you!” and waved him over.
“The Teacup Guy,” said a young woman in a highly amused voice. “Come with me and take a seat.”
Whether a real player or an NPC dressed in nurse’s scrubs, she was startlingly pretty. Her hair was moss green and deep blue, the locks moving sinuously over her shoulders and down her back though the air in the clinic was still. Her skin had an underwater cast, shifting between shades of pale blue with the light, and her eyes bore a purplish hue. Silver piercings decorated the shells of her ears, linked by chains.
Not pretty. Beautiful. But beautiful in a different way than the succubus Mereene, who commanded attention by the sheer force of her radiance and rendered everybody stupid with it. The nurse’s beauty was more understated than that, yet Jenner was still riveted.
He went after her into a curtained room. Bits of his singed shirt flaked off his chest to the floor. He brushed at his stomach and more fell, though a few were fused to his skin. Picking at one, it peeled away under his nail.
As he sat down on the bed, Rosy leaped onto the pillow. Quite rudely, it snapped at the nurse, “He doesn’t need to buy a health potion!”
The nurse was consulting a shelf of potions and instruments. Pulling out a pair of tweezers, she said calmly, “Do you need a health potion, teacup? I thought you were a goner when the dragon spat fire through the columns.”
Rosy looked extremely pleased with itself. “I was down on the ground getting dirt. The fire went right over me. Were you up in the stands watching us play?”
“No, I stepped over to the armory to watch on the screen there with Brigid. If you want to watch the recap, it should be playing. Brigid loves to chat matches with the participants afterwards.”
With a howl of joy, the teacup hopped out of the room. “I want to see the recap! I want to see the recap! Out of my way, people! Teacup coming through!”
“Little cup, big personality,” Jenner said. “I’m sorry it was rude about the potion cost.”
Wryly, the nurse said, “I bet you apologize a lot for your friend.”
“Yeah, I do. Rosy missed a class or two on social graces.”
“Well, it’s a fair charge. I’ve had some pretty rude thoughts myself about the cost of health potions in my time. How are your health points?”
“Full.”
“Good. Then let’s clean you up and send you on your way.” Giving his chest a quizzical glance, the nurse said, “Why don’t you take off what’s left of your shirt and we’ll see how much of it is singed on?”
Jenner pulled his ruined shirt over his head and discarded it in the trashcan. She leaned over with the tweezers to peel off a few remaining bits. A lock of light green hair fell forward and flushed a deeper green as she worked. “Okay. Let’s see your back.”
He rested on his stomach upon the bed and felt painless pinches. “I’m Jenner.”
“Ocelo,” the nurse replied.
“I haven’t seen anyone like you before.”
She chuckled and that was an underwater sound, deep and rumbling and dreamy. “I scrambled into a mermaid in the Snapteeth Islands to the south, oh, about six months ago. It’s where the world ends.”
She was real, not an NPC. Looking at her over his shoulder, Jenner asked, “How did you get to the city? Why did you come here?”
“I came because I came. At first, living in the Snapteeth was like a tropical vacation. Mermaids move very slowly up their levels, if they choose to move at all.”
“Why would you choose not to?”
“We already live in paradise, so there is little drive to achieve. But some of us . . .” She smiled to indicate that she was speaking of herself. “Some of us eventually desire a little more excitement than endless sun and sand and water races. I did a few sea quests to earn my legs, and traveled the desert to the forest, and the forest to Galadras. I’ve been here . . . a month or two now? Time is different to me in this form.”
She tugged free the shirt from Fang-tail and put it aside. The tweezers pinched at Jenner’s ass before moving down to his thighs. “Amazing, these scales. You took a dragon fire strike to the back, a chomp to the buttocks, and you don’t have a mark. Does this hurt?”
“No. Uhh . . . could I get directions to the nearest clothing store?”
“No need for that. You’re hardly the first player to finish a match in tatters. There’s a tiny store past the armory with men’s and women’s apparel. And showers, too.”
“Great show, man!” It was Fang-tail, who snagged his shirt and grinned down to Jenner’s bare ass.
“Great show,” Jenner echoed.
Ocelo chuckled as the dragon shifter left the clinic. “You thought he would be angry with you for defeating him.”
How had she known that? “Yeah,” Jenner admitted. “I would have been angry to lose.”
“Dragon shifters love a good blood feud out there, don’t get me wrong, yet the ring is the ring to them,” Ocelo explained, a singed piece of fabric falling from the tweezers. “They fight hard but leave it behind when a match ends, win or lose. I do love dragons for that quality.”
“So he’s really not mad at me.”
“Not at all. If you run into him at a tavern sometime, he’ll buy you an ale and introduce you to all of his friends. I’ve yet to meet a sore loser among the dragons. It’s demons you have to watch out for.”
“That much I know.”
“Mmm.”
“Have you ever been a demon?” Jenner asked.
“Oh, yes.”
“What was it like?”
“It was a strange time, and a darker lens through which to see the world. I don’t regret the experience, not exactly, but I have no need to repeat it. There. I think that’s all of it. You can take yourself over to the clothing area now.”
He got off the bed. “Thank you.”
She brushed blackened scraps to the floor. “I’ll see you back here tomorrow afternoon.”
“You will?”
“Yes, but only tomorrow, I’m afraid. A storm is coming.”
The storm was already here, but he didn’t contradict her. It was something about the way she said it, her eyes trained eerily on an invisible point over his shoulder. He had the sense that she was looking into a place beyond the curtained wall, beyond the lounge and the gladiator rings, perhaps beyond Galadras itself. Then she snapped back into herself and nodded to him b
efore returning the tweezers to the shelf.
In front of the screen with the armorer, Rosy was yelling at the recap as Jenner went to the showers. Afterwards, he wrapped himself in a towel and examined the mannequins in the clothing store.
Ping.
He quickly pressed the code for a pair of moderately enchanted pants and a shirt.
Ping-ping.
Still barefoot, he answered it. The dragon/elf named Prince Nicodemus gave him a nod of thanks. “Tied for third,” he said with cool pleasure.
“Congratulations!” Jenner said sincerely.
“I have already received a furious message from ScrambleThis, who hadn’t realized how close I am coming to usurping his place. That was most gratifying.” Prince Nicodemus’s lip curled upwards on one side. “The game gods willing, I’ll surpass him in the next few weeks. My deepest gratitude for your assistance, Teacup Guy, and good luck to you in your upload. The five thousand dollars should be in your outer-world account, and I took the liberty of transferring three golds to your inner-world account. You’ll find them in your purse. Treat yourself to an excellent dinner tonight. I recommend the culinary wizardry of Atellier’s. You’d never know it was code.”
A competitive glint shined in Prince Nicodemus’s eyes. “And now for the next merit trophy. Until we meet again.”
Jenner’s purse reappeared in his pocket. He took it out and loosened the drawstrings to peek inside.
Gold! He snatched the coins out in wonder. Each one was printed with the visage of a High Council member. Two were wizards, and the backs of those coins had wands; the third was a shifter, so one side of the coin had her human face, and the back had her green-scaled dragon face.
Three golds wouldn’t buy him that stunning sword in the weapons shop in the Rundown. It would barely cover the cheapest wand with the lamest spell. But with three golds and all of his silver, he could definitely cover a much better inn than The Queen’s Crown. One with rooms that had attached bathrooms.
He bought socks and a pair of boots before going to the armory to retrieve Rosy. The armorer slammed her hand on the counter in good humor to see him. “Boy, I bet a silver against you and your cup and it’s the last time I’ll make that mistake!”