Dragon Seed: A LitRPG Dragonrider Adventure (The Archemi Online Chronicles Book 1)

by James Osiris Baldwin

  I grimaced, and closed the Path menu. Maybe something would open up for me, and I could avoid committing to the boring sword-and-board build. That was something to ask when I reached the fort and had the chance to talk to someone less up their own ass than Knight Commander Arnaud.

  On top of skills, I also had some basic Warrior abilities to choose from. I decided on two offensive abilities with damage that would work well with Doubletap: Power Attack and Bluster:

  Power Attack

  Required Level: Warrior 3

  Required AP: 5

  Damage: 200%

  Max 2 Targets

  Attack Speed +10% for 5 sec

  Stun on good hits

  Chain with Doubletap

  Can be used in combination with other attacks.

  Bluster I

  Required Level: Warrior 3

  1s action to regenerate 5 AP + 10HP per level

  Cooldown: 25s

  The journey to Fort Palewing would give plenty of opportunities for me to skill grind, so I put my failings out of mind for the time being, closed my sheet, and lay down. Now that I thought about it, I did feel stronger. My arms and chest were a little thicker, my limbs a bit more flexible than I remembered them being. I’d taken it in stride, but they were changes that the game had made to me. You didn’t assign stat points in Archemi, so the game was only reacting to the ways I’d been exerting myself. It made me wonder what would happen if, say, a mage locked themselves in their study and didn’t come out for a year. Could stats go down as well as up? Hrrm.

  Sometime in the middle of these deep philosophical thoughts, I fell asleep again… and this time, I did dream.

  I chased the flickering black tail of a dragon’s shadow as it streaked across the earth, battling faceless creatures with Power Attacks and Doubletap lunges. They looked like weak shades with translucent limbs crawling with script, unraveling whenever my staff struck them. They spoke in small, whispering voices I didn’t understand, as if they were trying to tell me something in the moment before they vanished.

  We rose with the sun, and Rutha called for breakfast to be brought to our room while I prepared for the journey north. I hadn't realized the importance of her position until then: the way the servants acted around her, and the deference of the guards and the quartermaster when she and I went to visit. He was practically tripping over himself to get me the gear that I would need for the long ride into the mountains. Whoever ruled here – King or Queen, I hadn’t asked – they held Rutha in high regard and basically let her have run of the place.

  I traded in my saber – given my performance in the training yard and the new spear that I just received, I'd already given up on swords – and got some basic cooking gear instead. They let me keep the armor, and in exchange for the useful but cheap items I'd looted off the ship, I was able to get a pack with 30 slots and an array of survival and camping gear, plus the gear I needed to keep my armor mended and my spear as sharp as possible.

  “Thanks,” I spoke aside to the quartermaster once everything was packed. “This will help on the long walk. How long does it take to reach this fort?”

  “Well, missiure…” The quartermaster watched me shoulder the pack. “Actually, the Lady has instructed me to give you a hookwing to carry you. I made arrangements, but…”

  “But?” I shuffled the pack from side to side once it was on, checking the items against my weight limit. I could carry about four hundred pounds without difficulty, thanks to game physics. The pack put me at about 150, with plenty of slots left over for loot.

  “Nearly all of our hookwings are in the north, or are being requisitioned for the civil war defense army,” he said sheepishly. “We have a very limited stable to choose from… and by that, I mean the captain was only willing to part with… well, the mount we have for you has some ‘issues’.”

  That was likely because I didn’t have any amity with the captain, or much fame in Ilia. I raised an eyebrow. “Which is it? Lame, or retarded?”

  The quartermaster rubbed the back of his neck. “Not exactly, no. Actually, quite the opposite, on both counts.”

  “Great.” Smiling ruefully, I tightened the pack’s strap around my waist. “Let’s go.”

  The quartermaster reluctantly rounded the counter where he worked, and led the way toward the stables. Rutha was waiting for me there. She was leaning on a cane, her leg splinted and wrapped in bandages, and was watching two young squires in full plate armor trying to wrangle the biggest, meanest, scarred-up hookwing I had ever seen.

  The animal was the color of coal, with cruel gold eyes and an iron muzzle that encased most of her face. The squires had their visors down and were hanging on for dear life while the big raptor lunged like a snake at one of them. She couldn’t open her jaws, but the collision of muzzle and helmet knocked the boy over onto the ground.

  “This is, uhh…” The quartermaster stopped well back from chaos as other stablehands ran over to bring the enormous dino-bird under control. “This is Curvena, missiure. Though everyone calls her Cutthroat.”

  “Faaantastic,” I said flatly.

  “She comes from champion destrier bloodlines,” the man said quickly. “I mean, bred for battle for generations, and worth a fortune… but unfortunately, she never properly imprinted, and she takes the battle to her rider more often than not. To be blunt, missiure, you may be better off walking.”

  I went in closer, and the hookwing reared her head up, fixing me with one baleful yellow eye. She had a silver icon over her head that allowed me to look at her character sheet.

  Cutthroat

  Level 6 Hookwing Female

  Reputation: -400

  HP: 250

  Age: 7

  ==Abilities==

  Gore: A hookwing’s kick does double damage and causes Bleeding.

  Disembowel: A power attack with the front claws with a 1% chance of instant death.

  Bite: 40-75 damage

  Special: Berserk Rage: When injured, all attacks do +50% damage, but the mount becomes uncontrollable by all except the most experienced riders.

  Description: A hookwing destrier bred to carry knights into battle, Cutthroat proved too temperamental to send into war. Unusually large, cunning, and bad-tempered, she hates other hookwings and strange riders. The Captain of the White Gulls uses her to haze new recruits.

  While I wondered how Archemi’s combat system would handle me breaking my neck if I was thrown from this thing, Rutha hobbled a wide circle around my mount-to-be, and came to stand by my left hand. “This hookwing is… very energetic, isn’t she?”

  “She’s a psycho hose beast, is what she is.” I replied.

  “Can you handle her?”

  Damn, she’d played the machismo card. Now I had to say yes. “Sure. I’m not letting this overgrown chicken get the best of me.”

  Cutthroat stomped her clawed feet as I approached, rattling in her throat. The muzzle kept her from biting me, but I was leery of the two and a half foot-long ebony spikes that gleamed between the feathers of her arms. They were as long as scythes and just as sharp.

  This couldn’t be much different than riding a bike during stunt work, could it? I drew a deep breath and planted my hands on my hips. “Okay, Hannibal the Cannibal. Either we get along, or I’m going to turn you into a turkey dinner.” I turned to the shuddering stablehand near me, “Give me those reins.”

  The squire passed them over, and gratefully got out of the way.

  Cutthroat’s tried to bite me repeatedly as I pushed her hook arm in against her flank to stop her from skewering me, got a foot in the long stirrup and pulled myself up into the saddle. She hissed, and as I reached down to grab the stirrup so I could shorten it, she shook herself like a dog. I was pitched off her side onto the ground, far too close to her taloned feet.

  [You have taken 5 points of impact damage!]

  “SCREEE!” Cutthroat immediately seized on the chance to fuck me up. She began dancing and stomping around, forcing me to rol
l and scramble to my feet to avoid being mauled. Sweating and clutching my back, I rejoined Rutha. She had shrunk against the far wall. The quartermaster had disappeared like a fart in the wind.

  “Too much to handle?” she asked, this time with her brows arched.

  “Hell no.” I straightened my back and winced. “But once I get on that saddle, you know as well as I do that she isn’t going to stop… so I thought I had better say goodbye now, you know?”

  Rutha smiled again, but this time it was a little sad. She reached up to cup my cheek with a delicate hand. "I had a terrible time on the Arabella, but I have to admit, it turned out well. May the Lord and Lady keep you on the road, Hector. It's dangerous beyond the city. The Civil War was decided here in the south three years ago, but it still rages in the north. There will be all manner of bandits and Stranged creatures."

  “I’m pretty sure Cutthroat here eats nails and barbed wire for breakfast,” I replied. “And if there’s any monsters, I’ll be able to test out this old stick. I’m an adventurer – sticking monsters is what we do."

  “I know.” She looked down, then back up to me. “I suppose this is goodbye for now?”

  She really was a beautiful woman, but whatever bond had formed between us wasn’t anything like love. Whatever it was, it still felt good, and I was okay with that. I patted her hand, the one on my face, then drew her into a careful hug. “For now. Next time you see me, I’ll be a dragonrider.”

  She hugged me back. “I believe you.”

  Cutthroat sneered and tossed her head as I approached, pulling her lips back from twin rows of curved, dagger-like teeth. I tossed the Spear to the recovered squire while the other one hung on grimly to the hookwing’s reins, then grabbed the saddle and pulled myself up. When she tried to shake me off this time, I was ready for it. I clung to the feathers on the back of her neck as she snapped and bucked. When I was sure I had my seat, I reached out a hand. The squire passed the reins to me, then got the hell out of the way.

  The hookwing flapped her arms and screeched in rage, but I hung onto her back like a flea. When she lunged forward, I hauled back on the nose reins, forcing her to lift her head up and depriving her of forward vision. She shrilled angrily, trying to pull the reins from my hands, but the rings and muzzle stopped her from succeeding. The battle between us was decided – for now.

  “Thanks for helping me with this, guys.” I held a hand out for the Spear. The second squire rushed in and passed me my weapon.

  When she realized she couldn’t get me off her back, Cutthroat snarled and shifted from foot to foot. On a tight rein, she seemed to calm down… but still felt like sitting on top of a missile. With one hand white-knuckled on the leather straps, I arranged my things and then looked down to Rutha. She was solemn, her eyes wide with concern.

  “Hector… I think you should know. A lot of recruits go to join the Skyrdon,” she said. “Most of them never return. They keep their rites and training secret, as they have for thousands of years… but everyone knows it’s dangerous and very few Skyrdon result from a great number of hopefuls. Historically, lords only sent their bastards there, because they either died or became a Skyr, usually the former. They’d never risk their trueborn children.”

  “I’m not too worried,” I said. “I’m Starborn. I died on the Arabella and respaw… uhh, came back to life. Whatever they do there, I’ll make it.”

  To my surprise and dismay, Rutha limped up to us, perilously close to Cutthroat’s sickle arms. As the dinosaur bristled with rage, the sorceress reached back into the small leather satchel she’d brought with her to hand me up a pair of items: a scroll sealed with violet wax, and a small, hard object wrapped in a scarf that smelled like her perfume.

  “Your Writ of Good Standing,” she said. “And an artifact. The artifact is a Stone of Guiding… it will help you orient yourself to the north.”

  “Thank you.” I loaded them into my inventory: [The Writ of Good Standing], the [Stone of Guiding], and [Rutha’s Token]. “And don’t worry – this won’t be the last time we see each other.”

  Her lips curled, and her eyes darkened as she stepped back. “I’m sure. Hosca Kalin, Hector. Stay well.”

  That took me aback for a second… because I understood her. She’d spoken in Tuun.

  “Burnamarladik. Burna spare yoOOOU!” My very serious and emotional farewell was cut short by Cutthroat, who had no time for this human nonsense. She spun around before I’d finished speaking, nearly throwing me off and almost knocking Rutha down with her tail. While I hauled on the reins and shouted obscenities, Cutthroat bulldozed her way out through the stable doors and into the yard, roaring and snapping at anything in her path.

  “Brakes!” I shouted back toward the stable. “Where are the fucking brakes!?”

  “Remember! You can’t push with reins! Only pull!” Rutha called out helpfully, waving from the double doors.

  Pulling on anything did very little as Cutthroat thundered forward, using her head like a battering ram to scatter soldiers and other, smaller hookwings as we headed for the gate, ploughed our way through it, and exited into the great open expanse of the world beyond.

  Yay! Adventure!

  Chapter 19

  The Devs had advised us all that there weren’t going to be much in the way of mob spawns in settled areas. However, the lack of encounters didn’t matter – because my mount was a fucking monster.

  “Will you just ffff--- WILL YOU CALM YOUR TITS?!” Bouncing and flopping in the saddle, I roared at Cutthroat as she barreled down a village street. Townsfolk screamed and ran – or fell – out of the slavering hookwing’s way.

  The land beyond the city of Liren was taken up by farms and overcrowded, dirty, sprawling villages. The road had a lot of debris shuffled to the sides. Broken wagons, ripped tents, and other flotsam that suggested to me that there had been a lot of refugees here, and not long ago. Everything smelled like piss and hay, and the ground was muddy under my mount's feet. The stench clearly didn’t agree with Cutthroat, because she took every opportunity to stop and counter-piss on things, like a territorial dog. And there was nothing I, the grand motorcycle virtuoso, could do to stop her.

  Refugees were everywhere outside the city. They squatted under canvas lean-tos or shivered in tents. Others toiled in fields, commanded by overseers and watched by bored, sweating soldiers. Everything seemed fairly orderly, until I reached the end of the main thoroughfare and rode out past the final guideposts into the wilderness beyond. The turned up earth and thin layer of long, brownish grass, the big pits and snapped off tree trunks where there had once been forest all spoke of the same thing. This had been a battlefield, and the war that had been fought here had merely been driven north.

  After about fifteen miles, Cutthroat finally began to get tired. I, accordingly, relaxed my guard. This was a terrible mistake. She threw me twice: once so that she could run off and maul one of the few monsters we saw, an emaciated [Ghoul] that had been digging around in an old field, and once again when a loud explosion in the distance startled her into a homicidal rampage against the nearest tree. I had to battle my mount the entire day, and my Riding skill skyrocketed. I went from Beginner 1 to Apprentice 1 in barely forty miles. After that, I’d had enough. I got off and began to walk, leading Cutthroat by her reins until I found somewhere suitable for us to camp.

  With my mount tied to a tree and out of my hair, I began to flex my Gathering skill, picking whatever I found, collecting wood, hunting small animals, and digging at interesting-looking surface veins of ore. As I practiced and my skills grew, the HUD began highlighting items of interest, making it easier to spot plants or ore that I would otherwise overlook. Rutha had given me some basic Alchemy collection tools: a siphon, to collect blood; jars and bottles, and a small, sharp skinning knife. Cutthroat got to eat her fill of fox and wolf and weasel, and I got to slowly grind up my overall level and some life skills. Very slowly. The EXP reduction and level cap thing was killing me.

  I follow
ed the map all the next day, the terrain becoming increasingly wasted the further north we rode. Toward the late afternoon, we hit the Ourthe River – but where there was supposed to be a bridge, there was only a ruin surrounded by an encampment of soldiers. It had burned from end to end, the remains trailing in the water on either side of the bank. The difference between the land on the south side of the river and the land to the north was stark. Across the water, the earth was barren and scorched. Dogs ran yelping across smoldering fields, while plumes of thin haze rose up into the sky.

  Alarmed and alert, I guided my mount to the entry to the camp, where four Ilian soldiers were stationed: two halberdiers, two crossbowmen. They regarded me with suspicion.

  “Halt! In the name of the Warden!” One of the men called out. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

  “A traveler. I’m headed for Fort Palewing, to join the Skyrdon.” I didn’t dismount to speak with these men. They looked rough, unshaven, and pissed off.

  “And me mother’s a mermaid,” the guard retorted. “The likes of you? Join the Skyrdon?”

  My eyes narrowed. “Yeah, actually. Where’s the best place to cross the river?”

  “Lyrensgrove’s the only place to cross now,” the soldier replied. “Assuming it ain’t been burned to the ground. There’s still fighting on this side of the river to the west. This is the reserve camp.”

  And an impromptu prison, by the look of it. There were ranks of prisoners in locked and barred wagons, their arms hanging through the bars, voices raised as they begged, moaned, or shouted insults at the soldiers outside the doors.