“Are we sure we want to do this?” Lily asked nervously. “I mean, we have a lot more worth doing than rescuing one village in a neighboring nation.”
Leo had to admit that was true, but the comments from Neha and Ru had been getting to him—he hadn’t really done anything to earn his huge treasure haul… treasure that was ultimately taken from this world’s people, even if he’d taken it from the ones that had robbed them first.
But if he could somehow reduce the damage to this city and save a lot of its wealth, he would feel far better.
And another level or two wouldn’t hurt, either, although he would have to wait for the dragonflight to end for the reward to be worth the risk.
How to do this was the question… “Ru, could you teach Hugh and Zun to be similar enough to the dragons of the Eighth Vale that you guys could effectively be spies?”
Ru’s eyes widened. “That’s putting me right in the middle of a ton of my fellows who would want to kill me!”
“I’ll give you another hundred gold if you do this for us,” Leo said.
Lily winced at the amount Leo had offered but didn’t say anything.
Ru hesitated. “It’ll be hard, since they’ll need a tongues ring to talk… but I think I can pas them off as a dragon from another vale, one that didn’t need the increased magic of the Eighth Vale. What’s your plan?”
“Well, if you go in and join their gang, and convince them that there is a super-secret treasure that you were searching for, perhaps you can stall them from leaving with everything. In the meantime, I’ll try and enter the city and contact the leaders here for whatever we plan.”
“They can’t be that dumb,” Zun snorted.
“It’s not dumb, but I haven’t seen any real social sophistication… I mean, the dragons mostly live in tiny groups and use punching to solve things. I think even the smart ones might be unsophisticated enough to fall for it.”
“Really?” Neha asked, then giggled.
“I think they will,” Ru said. “The idea that their was secret elf treasure didn’t feel preposterous to me in the first place, and I’m right here as you plan it and a bit smarter than most of my fellow dragons as well.”
“Well, even if they fall for it, won’t they just wreck the whole city if we convince them of that?” Hugh asked.
Leo slowly nodded. “Good point. Convince them it’s in a graveyard or a field outside or something instead. Maybe take a great piece of our treasure—although not an artifact—and plant it somewhere.”
“I don’t think the sky elves of The One Land have graveyards anymore than the high and wood elves of Averia do,” Lily said.
Leo sighed. That was also a good point, but they needed an outline first—they could work on details later. “Okay, work with me. Once we have a dragon team on the inside, and they trust you, we can stall them till the dragonflight ends. At the same time, I’ll contact the local authorities and convince them to play like they’ve utterly given up. Then, when the time comes…”
“We strike!” Andul said, smashing the flat of his axe against his giant shield with a bong.
“Exactly,” Leo said.
“Hmm…” Ru mused, rubbing the center of his face. Finally, he looked up. “I think… I think it’s doable.”
“Alright… tomorrow, after you’ve met and convinced them of what you need, we’ll meet at that shattered tower, there, okay? Fly there after noon, and we’ll already be there. We can coordinate the specifics then.”
“Wait, don’t go yet,” Hugh said. “I need to work hard to get my story straight. Sophisticated lying and such isn’t my strongest tactic either you know…”
***
A few hours later, the three dragons flew off to introduce themselves to the dragons of the city. Leo, Lily, Neha, and Andul headed for the city, Leo floating and the other three each riding one of Neha’s three foxes, which had each become about the size of a tiger after the latest rounds of growth from the bracelet.
Neha herself had always been distinct with her purple wood-grain skin and leaf green hair, but she now had a magical fox banner strapped to her back, making her far more noticeable, as well. Lily and Leo were normal elves, although their increasing stats meant that Lily was now closer to five-and-a-half feet tall as opposed to her original few inches over five feet, and Leo was well to being around six-feet-four-inches.
Andul was still a normal sized dwarf, but he was in utterly abnormally sized plate mail. He needed a tiger sized fox to carry him, and the quick game of ‘rock, paper, scissors,” that the foxes played to see who would have to carry him made Leo laugh.
They did their best to time the rush into town when the sky dragons were distracted by Hugh and co running up on the dragons. Once the patrol flew down to intercept his friend, Leo and his team sprinted across the fields around the city and entered the outskirts of the buildings as fast as possible. Fortunately, they remained undetected by the dragons.
“So, what now?” Lily asked. “Just walk around and ask for any remaining leadership?”
Leo glanced around at the town around him—a couple of the tall, thin buildings the sky elves of the One Land preferred were toppled around them, and the smell of fire and death wafted through the streets like an almost physical presence. No one was on the streets, but Leo caught movement around a few low windows.
“Let’s head in and try to find someone as we go, yeah.”
They walked down the streets more sedately now that they were inside and would appear a bit like they belonged in the city. Enough to fool dragons from a distance, at least.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
As Leo continued to walk along the side of the road, sudden screaming erupted from a a few blocks over.
“Let’s go!” he cried, flying up and over the first building.
“It might be dangerous!” Lily cried out, but she was already spurring her fox in the direction of the screams, after Andul.
Neha teleported to the top of the building Leo was flying over.
Leo immediately saw a tall tower, with a roughly twenty-foot wyrm, thick and bulky for a wyrm with thick black scales and sporting three pairs of legs, digging into its side, ripping wall away. Its face had multiple forward fang spikes around the eyes and on the forehead, which would hinder Leo’s favorite tactic of going for the eyes.
Leo wasn’t a dragon expert, but he had been gaining a decent understanding of them over the years he had been adventuring beside one or more and hunting quite a few others. A twenty foot dragon, if it no levels, would normally be about Level Fifteen to Eighteen equivalent. With the dragonflight, that probably meant it was around Level Twenty Five to Thirty.
I’m Level Twenty-One—a very strong Twenty-One—and we have a whole team… it’s not suicide, at least.
Leo flew in fast, grabbing a rock with his mind as he did, slamming it into the dragon as hard as he could at the same time he triggered his brutal reaction and slashed up the side of the dragon with Moonfall.
Moonfall was just Heartseeker on steroids, and Leo was shocked to see that he still didn’t do that much damage. This thing was rocking a huge armor build and empowered—it was taking about twenty-five damage off every hit, like a damned armored personal carrier or something. His rock and his two sword blows all hit for about thirty damage each… but the fifteen damage wasn’t much compared to the fat dragon’s health pool, obvious from the minor damage it took.
I need a critical, preferably a real nasty one.
Neha appeared and touched the dragon, and part of its side disappeared. Her attack wasn’t devastating, but it also ignored most armor—whatever she touched just poofed from existence in small amounts.
The wyrm turned—abandoning the tower it had been destroying and the people he had been hunting—and screamed, “Why would you defy me, bug!” It did and clawed at Leo with a complicated motion with two sets of claws while pulling its head away. Leo was shocked that the squat dragon had chosen to use claws against an aerial opponent, but easily weaved through the two claws. Maybe it’s just trying to prevent its weak spots from being struck?
Even as he did, however, the wyrm blasted a huge spray of acid from its mouth. Leo was caught by surprise, and blacked out for half a second from pain as acid washed across his whole body. He came back to full consciousness inside a building, in agony, noting the fifty damage notification.
Leo glanced at the hole where he had obviously exploded through the wall when he lost control as he was flying. Fuck! A second hit like that would easily kill me. I need to stop pushing myself right to the edge of my capabilities!
Although part of Leo knew that was how you got stronger and he would probably never stop.
He hit himself with a regeneration, then another. Neha touched the dragon and disappeared parts of it twice while Leo recovered. He used analyze on the dragon.
Dread Multi-Limb Destroyer Wyrm
Level 1(18)[28]
Earth, Water
Health: 150[400]
Stamina: 60
Essence: 40
Physical Attacks:
Bite: Damage 2–30[4-60]
Claw: Damage 1-20[2-40]
Crush: Damage 15–30
Magical Attacks: Acid Breath: 30’ cone 30 feet long for 10-70 acid damage.
Defenses:
Armor: 15[25]
ALL energy resistance: 5
Special Abilities: Various/unknown Earth.
Ooh, another three-name dragon from this kooky world! Kinda four names, really. You’re moving up in the world. I fail to understand why this world can’t use Toth naming schemes… I mean, what’s wrong with “Storm Dragon” or “Mud Wyrm?”
Oh well. Since you just idiotically attacked a wyrm with four-hundred health during the dragonflight, I suppose it’s all a moot point for both of us. Nice knowing you, me.
Fuck… I need to do an insane amount of damage, Leo thought, wracking his brain for a solution. Physics or Chemistry?
A sky elf exploded out of the building, moving so fast Leo could barely follow it—far faster than terminal velocity. It—he, Leo thought—carried a spear with a glowing topaz tip, and whipped around the wyrm fast, poking it. But the wounds barely got past the armor, despite the utterly ridiculous speed, since the elf wasn’t willing to strike with its speed behind it.
Ridiculous speed… Leo thought suddenly.
He flew out of his building again. Andul and Lily had come around the corner, and Leo flew next to Andul while grabbing a roughly fifty-pound chunk of debris that had fallen from the building.
“Give me thirty seconds!” Leo shouted to Andul, who nodded. Magic flowed from Andul into his armor and he leapt at the dragon, suddenly far more mobile than usual. Andul slammed his axe into the wyrm’s side, drawing a tiny amount of blood and the wyrm’s attention.
Leo exploded upward as fast as his telekinetic flight allowed, currently a bit over fifty miles an hour, carrying the chunk with him. He sailed into the sky as Andul was beaten around by the wyrm. At his speed, he reached his target of an eyeballed fifteen hundred feet and maybe a bit more in under thirty seconds. He oriented himself head down, then released his powers.
He fell fast, along with his chunk of building stone. It headed straight down. Leo knew from his reading that a person would fall at about a hundred and twenty miles per hour, nearly twice as fast as his telekinesis could push stuff, in a normal atmosphere. Here, he wasn’t sure, but he still accelerated rapidly.
As he fell, he guided his stone with telekinetic pushes to keep it on track as it headed down. Within seconds, the wind was blowing against him, his skin pulled tight as he fell.
As he got close, he simultaneously gave his rock another telekinetic push downward, temporarily accelerating it past terminal velocity, and pushed himself up and sideways, trying to come out of his fall before he impacted.
Leo watched with half his attention as the rock fell true, slamming down onto the back of the head of the wyrm, right at the base of the skull behind its horns, a perfect shot.
Leo hits Dread Multi-Limb Destroyer Wyrm with accelerated telekinetic rock, doing 277% of base damage. Strike is critical. (Damage is 459 (50 base from telekinetic strike, x2.77 for accelerated hit, x3.5 for critical (base +1 +.5 predator +.5 telekinetic sight +.5 for agility) -25 enemy armor)
Dread Multi-limp Destroyer is slain.
The rock smashed into the back of the head of the wyrm and blew it open, pulping the brain beneath in a shower of blood and gore.
Leo growled at the pathetic experience he got—a mere 1%, roughly, after it being formally three levels below him and him splitting it multiple ways.
If that had been actually Level Twenty-Eight I’d be near a level higher. Still… that was epic.
Andul came up, wiping gore from his armor. “An excellent blow, Yer Highness! Absolutely excellent!”
At the same time, the sky elf flew in with a blast of air, landing next to him.
He smiled, showing perfectly white teeth, while still raising an eyebrow. He was dressed in extremely fancy blue-enameled breastplate and carrying his glowing spear facing upward. He was extremely good-looking, even for an elf, with a decently muscular frame, tick golden hair cut close, indigo eyes, and a chiseled jaw.
“Who are you, friend?” the sky elf asked. Then his smile got a touch wider. “Besides my savior?”