Glade ducked behind his modified shield, silently cursing every dwarf he had the misfortune of coming in contact with.
“Gent! You said we were only scouting!” He cried as an ice blue flying lizard, roughly the size of an iguana with wings, breathed a cone of frost at him.
The freezing breath was mostly blocked by the repurposed table top he was using as a shield, but the attack was still strong enough to numb his arm.
“Bah! Quit yer belly achin,” Gent called back before pulling the trigger on his crossbow. The flying reptile squawked as the bolt slammed into it, dropping the annoying creature to the ground. “Everybody knows that the best way to scout is to poke ‘em in the eye and see what happens.”
Huffing in annoyance, Glade used his aura sense on another of the creatures as it swooped in to attack him.
Lesser Ice Drake, Level 4
Attunements: Air ?%, Water ?%
Health: 75/75
Mana: 80/90
Stamina: 90/160
Status: Agitated
The morning had started innocently enough. After the knockdown, drag out brawl the entire clan had participated in the night before, everyone had decided that scouting the area and regenerating mana was the wiser course of action. And by everyone, he meant himself, Krazzik, and Kedryn. Everyone else had either been knocked unconscious or didn’t care.
Gent, his team, and a few others planned to do the actual scouting, but Glade had refused to be left behind. He had been the only one of their group who hadn’t spent much time outdoors. After over a week of traversing the nightmare infested tunnels beneath the ruined settlement of Storms’ Rest, Glade felt he deserved a break.
The early spring weather in the mountains was exactly what he needed. With his new winter clothing, courtesy of the Adjudicators, he felt right at home. The sky was a clear blue with interspersed clouds so white they practically shone with their own light. The trees were tall and vibrant, and the vistas of forested mountain valleys covered in patches of snow were heaven sent.
Then they had begun hiking up a poorly maintained road on the side of a mountain cliff toward a waterfall. No sooner had they taken their first step along the snow-covered path than the ice drakes had attacked.
“Watch out!” Riya called, loosing a stone from a sling Gird, the dwarven specialist blacksmith, had made for her earlier that morning. The smooth river stone slammed into another of the annoying creatures that had tried to blindside Glade, dropping the ice drake to the ground.
Glade gave her an appreciative nod, taking in her shadowy form before spearing the stunned lizard. Riya was a banished elf, her people cursed for some infraction that happened over 1,500 years ago that made it impossible for them to enjoy the comfort of trees without severe consequences. Thanks to a magic ring they had found, the elf was able to bypass the curse’s effects so long as she could continue to feed the ring mana.
Without missing a beat, Glade called out to another member of their group.
“You’re up Kid!” Glade cried, taking in another agitated swarm of blue-skinned drakes that were on their way.
In answer, Kedryn fired two balls of flame from his hand, guiding each unerringly toward the closest pair of drakes. Fire splashed against the creatures’ blue scales, wrapping around them like a living snake until nothing but fire could be seen.
Both drakes screeched in pain, swerving frantically to get away from the flames. One slammed into the cliff face with an audible crunch while the other dove toward the icy waters of the river below.
Instead of finishing them off with his magic, Kedryn manipulated the flames to leap to the next closest drakes, who panicked just like the others.
Bringing his attention back to the level 4 lesser ice drake bearing down on him, Glade readied his shield. With barely a thought, he activated his time dilation skill, slowing down his perception of time to little more than a crawl.
The drake moved as if it was trapped in molasses, its head arching back as it drew in a deep breath. If given the opportunity, it would blast Glade with yet another coating of freezing ice, not something he wanted to happen given that his arm holding the wooden shield felt like it was one step away from becoming a popsicle.
Instead, Glade triggered his telepathy skill, immediately connecting to the drake in front of him and one other just a few feet away. Ever since defeating the lesser astral spider queen, Glade had increased his telepathy skill levels into the trainee ranks, allowing him to connect with two minds instead of just one.
As soon as he connected, Glade activated his psychic attack, which was pretty much him screaming directly into the drakes’ minds using telepathy. There was likely a better way to attack someone’s mind, but hell if he knew how. Besides, the results were good enough for him.
You have attacked two Lesser Ice Drakes with a weak psychic attack and inflicted 13 points of metaphysical damage each. The Lesser Ice Drakes are disoriented for the next 130 seconds (10 seconds for every point of metaphysical damage).
Glade cancelled out his skill as the two drakes squawked loudly, their eyes rolling in the back of their heads before losing consciousness. The one in front of Glade flew straight into his shield with a crash, after which it crumpled limply to the ground where he promptly speared it through the throat. The other drake plummeted past them toward the raging river below.
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“Would ye stop losin our dinner!?” Gent cried, re-cocking his crossbow and ramming a bolt in place. “Ice Drakes might be pests, but they be fine eatin!”
“I bet they taste like chicken, am I right?” Kedryn joked, moving his twin flames to their next victims.
“What’s a slagging chicken?” Gent called back, firing into the oncoming swarm. The bolt took down another drake, which fell to the ground with a screech.
Kedryn gave the dwarf an incredulous look.
“You know, flightless birds that not only taste delicious, but also lay eggs you can eat?”
“There be lizards with feathers that do the same thing,” Gent said, straining to rearm his crossbow. “They be right nasty beasts though. The smallest o’ them stand 3 feet tall and can run faster than a sober dwarf chasin a cart full o’ ale and be twice as onery.”
Kedryn just shook his head, a look of disbelief on his face.
“Keep your head in the game,” Glade called, but internally his heart sank. No eggs? He loved a good, fried egg over toast. Just the thought of not having that for breakfast ever again, not to mention buffalo wings on game night, soured his mood.
An excited voice entered his mind, nudging Glade into explaining what, exactly, was an egg and how would one go about eating it?
“Uhhh… That’s not important at the moment,” Glade projected to Ember, an unknown entity of significant power that had been trapped in its egg for untold years until he had rescued it. He also knew the comment wouldn’t dissuade Ember from digging for more information, not unless he could provide it with a distraction.
Fortunately for him, the needed distraction was bearing down on them.
“Are you ready to cast Ember Stream?” he asked, sharing his vision of the approaching swarm. While their form of communication relied mostly on impressions rather than words, they seemed to understand each other well enough. Ember had even begun conveying thoughts in one-word sentences.
Ember gave the mental equivalent of a nod, its excitement swelling within Glade’s chest and mind at the opportunity to help.
“Great! Remember, just like we talked about,” he said, sending Ember a mental image of three short bursts. The last time his little companion had used this spell Ember had been catatonic for most of the day because he had used every last bit of mana it had.
The remaining 20 or so of the lesser drakes flew past their fallen without a care, winging recklessly toward their small formation.
“Now!” Glade projected to Ember.
Three bursts of flying sparks erupted from Glade’s outstretched arm, each group comprised of dozens of burning particles that flew through the air, colliding with the swarm of oncoming ice drakes. Squawks of surprise mixed with screeches of pain ripped through the air as the flying lizards tried to get away from the burning agony.
More than half dropped to the ground. The rest of the dwarves and Riya rushed forward, putting the creatures out of their misery before they could get airborne again.
Glade and Kedryn ran with them, but instead of joining the throng ending the drakes, the two soldiers brought forward their wooden shields to intercept any of the other ice drakes that might retaliate.
They needn’t have bothered. Any drake that hadn’t been brought down was already flying as fast as they could back to the cave.
‘Good job, Ember!” Glade praised, sensing the egg had stayed conscious this time.
Feelings of warmth and excitement flooded him, causing his normally stoic expression to soften into a smile.
“Now that be how to handle some drakes!” Gent laughed, coming up to stand beside Glade. “Who knew that pyros could be so useful? Now, lets push forward and see if we can get inside that there cave afore another swarm comes a callin!”
Glade and Kedryn shared a look with one another before agreeing with Gent’s plan. Ever since arriving on Veil, they had heard that having fire magic was looked down upon. But every time they had come close to learning why, some life-or-death situation would invariably raise its ugly head, forcing them to push off the question for another time. Either that, or the others who knew they were from another world would beg off, saying the conversation could wait until later.
“Not this time,” Kedryn growled, rushing ahead of Glade to catch up with Gent.
Glade looked behind him to confirm that Riya was out of ear shot and busy harvesting the ice drakes.
“Gent, quick question,” Kedryn asked once they had caught up to the dwarf. “You keep calling me and Captain Glade pyros, like that’s a bad thing. Can you explain why?”
“Hah! Good one!” Gent snorted as he trudged through the wet snow. “As if ye o’ all people didn’t know.”
“Actually, Kedryn was raised outside of what you would call a normal upbringing, as was I. Where we are from, this wasn’t necessarily a problem,” Glade said, hoping the misdirection would work. Only Riya, Krazzik, and Bragden knew that the world of Veil was not their home. They had all agreed it was best if they kept that a secret from the rest of the clan, seeing as they didn’t want to cause an uproar. At least, that was the idea for now.
“Ahh,” Gent said, a look of understanding coming over him. “Yer one o’ those kinds o’ royals. No wonder ye don’t know nothin. The answer be simple, o’ course, on account that all pyros be criminals. That’s why there be a bounty on each and every one o’ their heads.”
“Wait, what!?!” Kedryn balked, his eyes bugging out. “We’re not criminals!”
“Is that what has yer nose hairs all twisted up?” Gent laughed. “You two be the exception, that be as solid as good dwarvish gold. No, a royal elf and his bonded would be exempt from the bounties see’n as the elves are the ones that pay for them in the first place.”
Glade stopped walking, as did Kedryn, shock on both of their faces. They hadn’t been expecting that. No wonder the others had wanted to wait until the right time. This changed everything.
“Here we are,” Gent said loud enough to be heard over the waterfall, raising his crossbow to his shoulder as they approached the cave entrance. “You two best be getting some o’ that fire magic ready just in case we get mobbed again.”
With those final words, the dwarf turned the corner. Both Glade and Kedryn rushed to follow, only to stop once they too rounded the corner.
Everyone stared, taking in the sight for a full 10 seconds.
“So that’s what a mana well looks like,” Glade said, though he was sure nobody could hear him over the sound of the waterfall or Gent’s curses.