by Charles Dean
The idea of recruiting players and not just NPCs didn’t sit well at all with Darwin for some reason. He liked Kitchens and Minx well enough, and Daniel, Valerie and Mclean were fun to talk to, but the thought of any others left a sinking feeling in his stomach like he had swallowed a giant ball of lead, and it was working it’s way down his gut. “I haven’t considered that.”
“I’ve read many times about the need for a warrior to have a general and resolute acceptance of death, that he must understand and accept his fate before even unsheathing his sword.” Kitchens sipped his sake again. “But accepting that you will one day die and giving up now are two different things. Consider your options carefully before rejecting a great force like the players of this realm, especially when they are likely to be your enemies if they are not your allies.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Darwin nodded, understanding that if he didn’t find a way to pull players to his side in the upcoming war, they were likely to side with the King. He had been able to fight the ninjas, but even for him it had been a tough battle.
“Fair enough . . . and don’t tell Minx we were drinking before a fight.” Kitchens finished off his sake and put the glass away. Darwin tossed his glass over to Kitchens after he was done so he could stash it too.
“Shall we?” Darwin said, riding up to the giant platform hosting the boss.
“I need to tell Kass her impression was perfect,” Kitchens snickered.
“What?” Darwin asked, missing the punchline entirely.
“Nothing. They’re waiting. Let’s do this.” Kitchens shot off towards Kass and Minx on the other side of the arena.
On the way over, the massive, iridescent, feathered dragon perked its head up and started flying directly at Kitchens and AzurWrath. While maintaining the shape of a western-style, European-themed dragon, it was the size of three wooly mammoths.
Crap, he’s spotted us before the fight even started. Darwin panicked, looking around at the drakes behind him. Do I call for backup, or can we do this?
“Darwin!” Kass yelled when she saw the dragon move. “We’re on our way!” Kass kicked off with Minx like bullets towards the two men. It was starting to look like all five of them, the dragon and the four players, were going to collide in mid-air until the suicidal game of chicken came to a close with Kitchens and Darwin pulling up and Kass and Minx diving down as the dragon barreled past the dreaded collision point.
Once the dragon realized that it had missed its target, it stretched its wings to their full span to stop its forward momentum, creating a giant gust of wind and almost instantly halting it in the air. It then yanked its tail around to slice at Kitchens and Darwin. Kitchens dodged it, but Darwin’s drake wasn’t fast enough. The jet-black dragon barely managed to lift its arms and legs up to brace for impact as the tail came sliding into it, the force of the hit throwing Darwin off his comfortable seat and sending him flying up the drake’s neck.
Kitchens, who saw the whole thing, flew over to catch Darwin, but it was too late. Darwin wasn’t falling where Kitchens had thought he would. Instead, Darwin had managed to sink his blade into the tail of the boss as it rushed past him with his black mount carried away by it, leaving him hanging off the tail long enough to slow his fall and throw his trajectory a good ten or twenty feet higher than Kitchens had anticipated. Luckily for Darwin, Kass and Minx had gone under the dragon during the turn, and Minx was able to get herself positioned in time to catch Darwin.
“Forget his eye; I caught the whole guy!” Minx laughed as she held Darwin with impressive strength in the same fashion as the knight always caught the damsel back in children’s movies. The princess-like-carry turned out to be a rather awkward position for Darwin, who sat overflowing her small arms.
“Ummm, thanks, but, could you . . .” Darwin motioned at the feathered dragon. “You know, throw me on that guy?”
“Sure sure! Minx the Lynx can do it all!” she laughed excitedly, pulling her drake up and charging the dragon.
Kitchens circled with Kass around the flanks of the dragon, looking for an opening, while Minx just went straight up the middle in her usual, haphazard fashion. The feathered fiend turned and faced her, wings still spread out as it hovered in the air, and opened its mouth to release a giant, elephant-sized blast of molten-hot fire breath. Darwin flinched at first as the fiery torrent pummeled into Scaley Waley, but Minx didn’t even blink, she just kept pressing forward. Sure enough, the angle of the drake’s head was just right that the scales on its head and neck took the entire hit of the flames leaving her unscathed.
As Minx got closer, the dragon started reaching out with its front claws to try and either swipe or grab her, but she, still holding Darwin in her arms, tossed Darwin like a hot potato right into the dragon’s chest and dove under the monster to avoid the mauling.
Darwin, soaring through the air in an awkward arms-flailing fashion as if he were an inflatable tube man, managed to land straight on the foe’s chest, where he would have just bounced right off if his Burizza’s Blade hadn’t managed to sink far enough in to create sufficient leverage to swing himself back towards the beast.
“You got it?” Kass asked, circling under the boss just far enough away to stay out of immediate attack range.
“Yeah, I think I got it,” Darwin grunted as he dug his second Burriza in. Then, at the last minute, he rolled across the dragon’s chest and out of the way of an incoming claw intent on removing him. “Kitchens, can you get on its back? I’m hurting it here, but it’s barely anything at all. We’re going to need to get its neck.”
“Got it,” Kitchens said, diving onto the back of the almost stationary dragon as it kept swiping and pawing with its front claws in a mad grab to swat the pesky Darwin-fly.
Darwin wished he could see how well Kitchens was fairing on the back, but, as soon as he landed, it was evident he had done something. The dragon started to spin around in the air faster than a tea cup carnival ride, throwing Darwin to first one side and then the next as he changed directions, the whole time shooting out fire balls that landed harmlessly on the four Drakes circling him.
“I’m at his neck on this side, can you make your way up his chest on that one?” Kitchens called out below.
“Yeah, I can try,” Darwin did his best to dodge the flailing dragon arms as he dug his Burizza’s Blades, one after another, into the dragon's chest and climbed its scaly exterior like a ladder up to its neck. “I’m ready on this side! You still good?”
“Behead the beast!” Kitchens shouted, and he and Darwin both stabbed the giant oak tree sized neck. The shrieks that came out of the dragon as it reeled in pain midair were loud enough to physically hurt Darwin, and it took every bit of willpower he was able to muster up in order to not grab his ears in pain. Finally, relief from the screams came when his blade finished severing the boss’s jugular and cut into the windpipe. It was going smoothly except that, at this point, the nearly dead dragon’s wings fell limp, and where it once was hovering in the air, it now began to sink little by little as gravity bore it downwards.
“Minx! Kass! Can you get us off this thing?” Darwin yelled for help from his two companions as soon as the creature began plummeting towards the ground, happy to find Kass and Toothifer waiting for him as soon as he pressed off from the creature’s neck.
After the boss crashed into the ground, Darwin was preparing himself for the next phase of the battle on land. Instead, what he saw was the beast writhing around in pain like bacon trying to avoid touching the pan as it flapped about in its own guts
A familiar message popped up in front of him:
You have reached Level 50!
Please choose from one of these abilities:
Ketchup is a vegetable! (Passive) - Heal 1% life every 3 seconds blood splatter is on you during combat.
If you can't find the right nutrition for your meal, just pretend like ketchup is a vegetable. My school did.
Knock off the horns, brush off the hair, and run it thro
ugh the kitchen! (Passive) - +10% to flat elemental resistance. +10% additional resistance to fire magic.
Extra crispy is only good for chicken fingers, not a good slab of beef. Make sure to always order your steaks rare or don't even bother.
Tiqpa, I pick ‘Ketchup is a Vegetable!’ Darwin answered without a second thought. Elemental resistance was key, but every enemy he had encountered so far bled, and he desperately needed ways to heal since they lacked a proper support class.
“What did we get? What did we get? What did we get?” Minx practically bubbled as she bounced as much as ran to the fallen boss for loot.
“Well it seems there is only a blade, a staff, a bangle, and a really large stone,” Kitchens said, going through the loot.
“What? No daggers? That’s not fair!” Minx frowned with a harumph and threw her arms over her chest.
“Well, like I said, there is a bangle, Band of Feathers. Do you want it?” Kitchens offered his daughter an actual band of feathers, iridescent like the dragon.
“And the staff?”
“Here you go,” Kitchens handed her a black staff with red flames crawling up and down the sides of it. The flames must have been for decoration though because none of them seemed to burn either Kitchens as he passed it to Kass or Kass as she held it.
“So what’s with the stone and the sword?” Darwin asked, wondering which one he would get.
“Well, the sword isn’t really suited to any of us. It’s one of those squiggly-bladed zweihanders, albeit a cool one. I still don’t see one of us wielding it,” Kitchens said, pulling out the flamberge. As if to match the theme, the entire blade was burning.
“I could give it a try.” Darwin took the blade out of Kitchens’ hands. Dragon’s Final Hymn: 485 Damage, +30 Power, +20 Speed, +10% Fire Resistance, Damage is halved when dual-wielding. Well, this feels comfortable enough, Darwin thought. He felt a rush as he swung the sword back and forth in front of him. “This thing is actually really cool,” he said, grinning and watching the lava-like flames that dripped and flung off of the blade as it arced through the air.
“You’re welcome to the blade, but I think this last one is meant for the faction,” Kitchens said as he tossed a red and black stone to Darwin, who had to quickly put his new zweihander away so he would have a free hand to catch it.
“What is it?” Kass popped up on Darwin’s side and eyed the stone.
“Heart of Fire. When owned by a faction, it grants all faction members a bonus of 5% Damage and 1% Vitality.” Darwin blinked a few more times and probably would have rubbed his eyes if his hands weren’t busy holding on to the rock.
“That’s amazing,” Kass said. Minx and Kitchens slowly nodding their agreement as they all stared at the rock.
“Yes, yes, it is.” Darwin smiled. Things were working out better than he could have hoped for.
Chapter 8: Guilty Pleasure
Qasin:
Qasin felt his blood boiling as the beady eyes of the citizens stared at him and Eve. He saw the way their eyes squinted, their teeth gritted, and he heard the way their voice shifted from higher pitches to lower tones. He knew why they were staring. This wasn’t fame; this was disgust. These were the same beady eyes he had grown to know and loathe from the Human Council, and just that connection made his hand grip even harder on the hilt of his sword as he walked through the streets of the Animal Kingdom’s capital. It took every ounce of his willpower to not slice them all open from front to back.
“Careful.” Eve put her hand on Qasin’s shoulder as his eyes began to harden. “Don’t let your rage give up our strategic advantage.”
“Did you not recently divulge to me that, with certainty, you knew he wouldn’t be here?” Qasin could feel his face reddening as the stares kept following him, but it wasn’t just the disgust that drew his ire. He was used to being hated. He was used to being the worthless monarch who let his people lose land and borders to White-Horns and Black-Wings. It was the scene replaying through his mind, that girl getting thrown to the ground and pushed around. It was the way he had watched them treat a seemingly respectable person like trash because she was Human and the knowledge that it was the same with him. They weren’t looking him over with hatred, but rather they were looking down on him with disdain.
“I did, and I can guarantee it. He is not here anymore.” Eve straightened her back and removed her hand from Qasin’s shoulder.
“Then why must we remain in this irksome place? The only remedy that could possibly cure these ingrates of their twisted disposition is a good blade.”
“And I agree, but we aren’t the ones to deliver it to them. We need them as bodies in our plan,” Eve spoke in a hushed tone, signaling with her hands for Qasin to do the same. “Remember, every day we’ve been away from Darwin, his forces have likely grown stronger. He won’t be the easy man to reach that he once was.”
“Why do his forces matter? I thought our goal was merely to find him.” Qasin turned his head to look at her. What am I missing here?
“Because, when we go to visit him, we have to steal him from Stephanie,” Eve grumbled. “We weren’t able to snag him before she got his hands on him.”
“I thought you said that you met up with him prior to their introduction.”
“Yes, I did; but, since I needed more time to finish preparations, I sent him to go get something for me. Unfortunately, she had already killed everything in the dungeon he was supposed to retrieve the item from, and she had assumed the position of the boss there. She used the reward as a way to sink her claws into him.” Eve was unusually irate. Normally, she gave roundabout, vague answers, but now it was all being clearly spelled out. She was past the point of peeved, and every mention of the name Stephanie caused her red eyes to burn brighter like a fresh ember being struck by wind.
“So we have to fight our way through his entire army because you don’t think he’ll listen to you? How is he going to be more likely to listen to you after that?”
“It’s not going to be about convincing him anymore. It’ll be about stopping him,” Eve said. Then, after making a loud huffing sound, she added, “And that’s enough of the subject. You’ll just have to trust me.”
“The last I remember, you were the one accusing me of rushing to violence.” Qasin smirked for the first time since they had entered the city. She had been holding his lack of diplomacy over him at every opportunity, yet now she wanted to go to war before even starting the discussion.
“Diplomacy ended almost thirty years ago.” Eve shifted her eyes again, but the crimson flare was visible.
They kept walking in silence, the eyes of everyone following them until they reached the royal palace. There, they were greeted by two tiger-men who stood in front of a white gate that blocked their entrance to a set of stairs leading up to the main palace. “They keep popping up everywhere,” the first guard said as Eve and Qasin approached. “How this filth keeps making it through the gates, I’ll never understand. Someone should fire the guards that let them slip into our pure and beautiful city.”
“You know we can hear you gents.” A smile spread across Eve’s face as she walked defiantly up to the jabbering Pantheras. “Don’t you think it’s a bit rude to talk about your guests like that?”
“Ugh, the wannabe monkey is talking to us,” the guard on the left said, looking down at Eve.
“I have been told there is more than one way to skin a cat,” Qasin threatened as he did his best to repress the bile brought up by being around such scum. The threat wasn’t idle, either. It was taking everything in his power just to stop his weapon from quenching its thirst. “Should we try a few out?”
“Do you hear that? He’s saying our lives are in mortal danger,” the right guard pulled up his halberd into fighting position. “I believe that means we get to kill him, and it won’t be breaking the peace. We’ll be enforcing it.”
“Kill him? Why don’t we start with hurting and work our way from there? I love to hear his kind scream, a
nd that woman . . .” The other guard also grabbed his halberd, a wicked grin growing across both their faces as they licked their lips and readied themselves for the fight.
“Stop it,” a panda who was passing by called from above. “The two of you would not win a struggle with them if you trained for a hundred years, and I’d rather not lose any of my children to wanton violence.”
“I take it you are the King we have come to seek an audience with.” Eve ignored the two guards and walked right past them. “My name is Eve, and I believe you’ll want to hear what we have to say.”
Qasin glared at the two guards for a minute and then followed Eve up the stairs to meet with the Panda King.
“I consider myself more of a father than a King, but I suppose you could title me such.” The Panda King turned and began to saunter to the gardens on the side of the palace. “Now, if you’ll excuse my bluntness--time being a commodity I don’t always have--what brings two Humans reeking with the smell of burnt blood and steel to my doorstep?”
“News, Your Excellency, dire news. A man came through here a while ago, eyes red like mine and skin just as pale. I’m sure he stood out,” Eve said, her head moving very slightly as she followed the Panda King’s expression.
“Yes, I remember the young man. He had great potential,” the King scratched his chin thoughtfully. “He was a very bright, talented and helpful lad. He is currently aiding us in solving many of our bandit issues. He should be back shortly. Why do you ask?”
“Are the bandits Human?” Eve followed up.
“Yes?” The Panda paused, looking at Qasin, whose hand had gripped the hilt to the point his knuckles were white. He continued as if he owed an explanation: “You know how our Kingdom goes through waves of species revolts. It’s nothing against Humans in particular. It was Felines before them.”