SAVE POINT 6
Rosabella
A high-pitched shriek rattled the surrounding trees. The ground shook with footfalls. No wonder the zombie foxes were running! I jumped back, knocking clumsily into the rest of the group, as a savage scream bellowed through the treetops again, rustling the branches overhead like a focused hurricane—clanging them together like each one was a different silver utensil.
Completely shredding my eardrums.
I clapped two hands over the tender flesh of my eardrums protectively, my entire body wincing and writhing painfully beneath me—could sound make your ears bleed?!
“That is not a Snargel,” Rainer growled.
No shit.
[System Alert: SILVER RINKECLAW, DRAGON 4 Approximately 30 Feet Away.]
“Fuck,” I heard Dormouse mutter under his breath.
And the kid’s words started a seizing in my chest. My breath shortened. If ever there was an opportune time for a panic attack to begin, it seemed like right now had all the prerequisites. I gulped in air, trying to focus on what I figured was safe, sturdy ground under my feet. …So, why was that ground shaking?
“System, what is a Silver Rinkeclaw? Bring up its stats?” My voice trembled. My heart thundered in my chest and ears.
[System Understands Query…Loading Response…]
“It’s a dragon,” Rainer blurts, his bushy eyebrows twitching over a grim expression, “It’s a Level 4 dragon—"
[System Answer: A Silver Rinkeclaw Is A Medium-Sized Dragon With Silver Scales And Extra-Large Incisors. Distinguishable Due To Its Sixth-Clawed Foot And The Pattern Of Darker Scales Which Run Down The Ridge Of Its Back.
STRENGTHS: Enhanced Stealth, Increased Strike Damage From Claws & Ability To Spit Acid. WEAKNESSES: Below Average Intelligence & Awareness. Easily Distracted. Just Don’t Distract It By Letting It Spit Acid In Your Face.]
NAME
SILVER RINKECLAW
CLASS & LEVEL, SIZE
DRAGON 4, MEDIUM
HP
75/75
Armor Class
17/20
ABILITIES /20
Strength
+4
19
Agility
+2
14
Endurance
+3
17
Intelligence
-2
8
Awareness
+0
11
Presence
+2
15
CM
0
“Damned nasty buggers and clearly hungry by the looks of it,” Rainer griped.
But I wasn’t looking at the Nomad speaking. I couldn’t help it. I was laser-focused on the serpent head snaking through the underbrush, rippling muscles underneath silver scales like a swan’s extended neck. The dark clouds overhead only made the beast’s form seem more threatening, shadowing the ferns where the tremors in the ground told me it was stomping its feet. I shuttered. Apparently a ‘medium-sized’ dragon was still pretty enormous when compared to…well, my human form.
This was not a cute, Pokémon dragon...
Its eyes, sharp as an eagles’, scanned the forest. Its slanted nostrils expanded, in and out, with each shuttering breath, and its silver scales glinted in the sunlight, each like singular knife blades…
And I didn’t even have one.
A thundering roar detonated over my ears. My breath caught and dried up any saliva in my throat. It sounded...well, fucking terrifying. Had it seen us? I couldn’t really tell—
[System Query: Would You Like To Hide Or Fight?]
A shield icon with a magnifying glass overtop of it hovered beside the words.
“Umm guys?!” I turned, searching desperately for some kind of aid, “A little help here?”
Please say we weren’t supposed to fight this thing. This armor, no matter how magical, certainly couldn’t help much against a beast like this, and I didn’t even have a weapon! I knew I had to Level Up to save Dad, but there had to be a different way—
Almost immediately, I noticed that I was the only one in our group with the hovering system query. The glowing letters in front of their system pop-ups still said:
[System Alert: SILVER RINKECLAW, DRAGON 4 Approximately 30 Feet Away.]
…Well, except that the distance meter was ticking down…
…25 Feet Away…
The beast sniffed at the air.
Oh my God. Even this tall brush wouldn’t hide us for much longer.
“Guys!” I screamed.
The pink-haired girl’s eyes narrowed, squinting at my system query. “Wait, why does special-sticker girl have an Examine Opportunity popping up, and we don’t?” she protested.
Examine Opportunity?
“Rosabella, click on the shield magnifying glass icon next to your prompt, hurry!” Dormouse urged.
My fingers shook as I lifted them. There—
[System Reward: Congratulations, You Have Added A New Skill. +5 XP, 33/100
EXAMINE: Allows A Gamer To Inspect A Situation Or Object More Closely. Examine Opportunities Are Indicated By The Shield Magnifying Glass Icon. Manually Click On The Icon Or Speak The Word ‘Examine’ Out Loud To Initiate.]
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
I rushed through the words, adrenaline seeming to help my eyes read faster.
“Examine!” I whispered.
[System Query Examined… +1 XP, 34/100]
[Upon A Closer Look, You Discovered This Is Not A Simple ‘Hide’ Or ‘Fight’ Situation. The SILVER RINKECLAW, DRAGON 4 Possesses 1 CM Diamond In Its Nest. Original ‘Hide Or Fight’ System Query Dismissed.]
“A Creator Magic Diamond?” I breathed. My eyes wandered to search the groups’ staring faces. “Isn’t that what I need to—”
“To activate your Creator Magic, yes. One of three,” Callen, the gray-haired Trader, nodded solemnly. Behind his blank, blinking eyes, I saw a stormy sea of thoughts crashing into each other.
“So, the system is trying to uplevel her? This just proves my special-sticker theory—” Joy started, her grating voice droning at the typical one-tone pitch.
But Rainer cut her off, “If she gets the Diamond at all. That Dragon is a Level 4, Rosabella’s a Level 1 if you’ve forgotten." His red-tinged cheeks shook with aggravation.
Why were they all talking like I wasn’t standing right here?
“I’m simply saying I think we need to consider the fact that the system may be trying to help,” the warrior girl protested. Her eyes flashed fire brighter even than her hair.
“It isn’t like before. The new system is never trying to help. There’s always a motive,” Callen interjected.
“Guys?!”
This time, it was Dormouse’s thin plea, not mine.
My head whipped around, but it was too late. Because, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dormouse’s system alert hovering over his sheet-white face.
…10 Feet Away…
His expression morphed into wrinkled, utter terror. Just like mine. Oh shit! The dragon was—
Yellowed incisors, larger than half the length of my arm, hissed directly in front of us, a wad of saliva dripping from where silver scales became black lips. Shit. The creature roared—a braying, bellowing war cry which shattered the air like a million sharp objects being thrown at my face—
Pointed and thundering.
Rushing in my ears.
A wall of fire blazed towards us, the tendrils of the orange and red edges licking and rolling over on each other—coming directly at my face.
The scorching heatwave seared at the skin of my exposed cheeks and neck—
I shrieked and leapt away, shaking out my searing palms and slapping at the skin of my face to bring feeling back there where it’d gone smarting and, then, numb. A system message popped into view: my lowered HP.
[-2 HP, 4/8]
Fuck. Thank goodness this armor was fire resistant, or I would have been hit with even more damage—
“Rosabella, run!” Rainer yelled, hefting a battle axe high in the air.
But the pink-haired Warrior, waved an annoyed hand between us, “No, idiot! We have to get her to Level 2. If she dies, so does this world. Rosabella, trades, collecting objects and combat get you XP. Trade me something you have on you now—anything!” Her bubble-gum-colored hair streaked across her frantic face in straight strands.
“I—” I stammered. Anything? God, I kind of stood with the pink-haired, Joy girl on this one; I didn’t want to die—
I patted down the pockets of my body armor, but there was nothing—nothing that I had on me.
In the blurred line of my vision, I saw the dragon rear. The dirt beneath me quaked like it was afraid too. But I didn't have time for the luxury of that emotion. My fingers fumbled at the neckline of my armor, ripping the small ruby out of the gold, metal piece there. I held it up.
“You can take this in exchange!” the girl waved a dagger at me. “You need a weapon anyway. The trade XP will move you towards upleveling—"
[Proposed Trade: ROSABELLA, GAME MAKER 1 Trades Tiny Ruby, JOY, WARRIOR 11 Offers Leather-Wrapped Handle Dagger.]
[Will You Accept The Trade?]
[Yes] [No]
“Yes!” I shouted. And I launched the jewel at the pink-haired Warrior. She caught it with much more grace than I would have expected. The girl threw her dagger at me.
…Well, not at me, just, in my direction. I didn’t catch it. It landed awkwardly near my feet in the grass with a soft thud.
[System Alert: Trade Accepted]
[System Reward: A Very ‘Sharp’ Trade…Literally, +15 XP, 49/100]
But I didn’t have time for the system’s jokes…
“Go!” she screeched, nodding her head to the side, while drawing two, long katanas from her belt simultaneously, “We’ll distract the Rinkeclaw! Find that Diamond!”
I didn’t need to be told twice.
[System Alert: Leather-Wrapped Handle Dagger Acquired. Object Will Be Placed In Your Inventory Unless You’d Like to Equip. Would You Like to Equip?]
[Yes] [No]
“Yes,” My voice was a low growl at this point. How many options did I have to go through just to make it out of here alive?
The system pop-up cleared with a whoosh, and I looked down to see the dagger’s leather handle no longer in the grass but secured in my fist. Awesome.
[System Alert: Weapon Equipped.]
OBJECT
LEATHER-WRAPPED HANDLE DAGGER
REQUIRED CLASS & LEVEL FOR USE
NONE
Basic L1 Weapon. A Bit of Metal, Wood & Leather Put Together. Did a caveman create this?
Augment Capacities
+1 Strength
Baddie Points
+0
Good, whatever. I dismissed the words with a quick swipe. I needed to get out of there. I dodged into the underbrush while hearing the rest of the group charge towards the beast with raucous battle cries. Thorns and leaves snagged at my clothes. Behind me, I heard something splat and a man’s yelp. An acid stench choked my nostrils.
I broke through the bushes, already nearly out of breath. My eyes swept the clearing as fingered the weapon Joy had given me, pressing it more firmly into my palm and trying to force oxygen into my failing lungs.
My heart rammed in my chest—
In my ears—
...What good was an all-but-glorified pocketknife now anyway?
Against a beast?
A dragon?! Or any of those zombie fox things I’d seen?
…Still, I sure as hell wasn’t about to go without it.
The clearing was a maze of rusted-out train cars—like they'd been parked one day hundreds of years ago and never seen the light of movement again. Moss grew over metal and wood parts, suffocating the train cars in green where any shadow covered. Others, in the rows, were burned black, scorched from, well, the obvious, and falling apart or badly dented like the weight of something had been thrown against them.
I could guess what.
…And I had to find this thing’s nest to try to get the Diamond? Fabulous.
I lunged for cover in the nearest train car, wrapping my fingers around the steel doorframe and yanking my body inside like the pure existence of a wall might, somehow, make me feel safer. To bad it didn’t really work.
The metal floor creaked and wobbled as the shadow of the ceiling slid over my head. What now? A quick glance in front of me showed that a line of train cars connected to this one. Rows of metal seats, peeling paint from abandonment and age, lined the way forward with a narrow aisle through the center of each one. Maybe, if I stayed in their shelter, I could peek through the windows and find the dragon’s nest without facing the beast? …Or would the beast just flip the cars over it if caught me inside?
It was a risk I was going to have to take. Still, doubt and fear hounded my mind like an unyielding fist on a door:
This was crazy.
This was absolutely insane.
There was a dragon out there—a real dragon?! This shouldn’t be happening!
But it was. It really was. And, if I wanted Dad back safe, I was going to have to suck it up, get ahold of myself and find this dragon’s nest. I swallowed, and, feeling like a tiny fieldmouse, I ducked hurriedly through the length of the car, racing down the metal floor, balancing between the transition to the next and whipping into the door of a second car. My body felt like it was on fire from the adrenaline. My white boots flashed underneath me as my eyes swept what I could see outside from the windows. Where would a dragon build a nest?
That's when I felt it.
A warm breeze fluttered the ends of my brunette hair past my shoulders, but it wasn’t the breeze. I turned, leaning over a row of rusted seats, to peer out the nearest train car window. Past the metal box of the window and the clearing beyond, the lush side of the forest rose, where huge trees spiraled their lime-green torrents upwards, branches spreading out above like arms extended to the heavens.
But it wasn’t there either.
I heard the Silver Rinkeclaw shriek again in the distance.
I shifted my weight; the metal floor squeaked beneath me as I looked back towards the noise but—the feeling wasn’t there either.
...What was it? If I could just put my finger on it...
I turned.
And it caught me again.
Swept me up.
Exhilarating.
Like a breath of fresh air whisking towards me in the wind, diving into my mouth and lungs—reviving me, tingling there...
My eyes locked on a burrow in the ground beside the tracks, just outside the window. Rocks and dirt were kicked up into a pile, and a hole left in their place carved into the grassy bank. …Wait, was that the shield magnifying glass symbol floating just over it? The one for the Examine Opportunity?
I scrabbled out of the car, the soles of my white boots thudding down the exit stairs, shaking the whole car, but I didn’t care. I jogged forward, closing the distance between me and the burrow. Loose dirt rolled downward with each of my steps towards it—
The feeling intensified.
Tingling and sparking in my fingers—nearly setting my hair on fire with warmth and joy...
It felt... It, strangely, felt…like home.
“System, Examine!” I blurted, nearly out of breath from both the run and my own excitement.
[System Object Examined… +1 XP, 50/100]
[After Taking A Quick Look, You Discover That This Is Not An Ordinary Hole. You Found The Entrance To The SILVER RINKECLAW, DRAGON 4’s Nest. Will You Enter?]
[Yes] [No]
Yes, of course. So, why was my body shaking like a leaf?