They stepped back into the inn to find Drakmalorie and Arkmathus waiting for them. Drakmalorie spoke first.
“Lya Hollis Ware. I don’t have to ask what brings you out here, but I am wondering what you are doing in here in the Inn with my new associate, Duke.”
“I see you all know each other. Then I guess I don’t need to make any introductions. She’s here to buy me a drink and attempt to seduce me.”
Drakmalorie burst out in laughter. “I’ve spent long enough dealing with humans to know their standards of beauty and let me say this. Lya, you’re pretty and I’m sure you have your pick of the clutch when it comes to mates, but I’ve seen his mate, and you are not even close to her comliness. Oh, and the drinks are free here so good luck winning him over with your purse.”
Lya looked back at her with a death glare as Duke called Travis over. Travis smiled at the four of them. “What can I get you all?”
Lya asked, “Is it true that the drinks are free here?”
Travis’ smile broadened. “Everything is free here, m’lady. Drinks, food, lodging. It’s all provided for already.”
“What do you mean provided for already? Who’s paying the tab?”
Travis looked over to Duke who’s own smile joined the others’ and explained. “There are a number of Inns like this one scattered around Teldin. They are all provided by the Kingdom of Stormstride.”
Arkmathus looked pointedly at Duke before speaking. “Isn’t that your kingdom, Duke?”
“You’ve done your homework. Very good. Yes, it is my kingdom that provides the Inns. They are magical and quite the wonders.”
Lya looked around the table. “I don’t like being made a fool of, but I suppose I walked into this one all by myself.”
“I would say you walked in with Duke, actually.” Arkmathus joked.
Lya slowly shook her head before speaking again. “You wouldn’t happen to have any Stardust Brew, would you?”
Travis chuckled. “Of course, I’ll have one prepared for you right away.” He looked to the others, waiting for their orders.
“Bloodwine?” Arkmathus inquired, receiving a nod of affirmation from Travis.
“My usual.” Duke added.
“Deluvian Plasma if you will.
Travis returned less than a minute later depositing drinks in front of each of them. “Anything else I can get you?”
“I could really go for a steak right now.” Duke responded.
“Medium rare, with the usual sides?”
“That would be perfect. Anyone else? Feel free to order whatever you want. The Inn’s kitchen is quite diverse and able to accommodate most requests.” What followed was a number of orders from the other three that Duke didn’t even have a context clue for. His XENOGLOSSIA translated the words, but that didn’t help nearly enough.
Still, Travis smiled and returned several minutes later with tray upon tray floating behind him. He deposited all the food orders with the pair of dragonians receiving the vast majority of the plates. Duke gave them an appraising look. “Hungry?”
Arkamthus chuckled from deep in his chest. The vibration set the entire table to shaking in sympathy with him. “If this tastes as good as it smells, I will have to reconsider the life choices that didn’t bring me here sooner.”
“Well, don’t let me hold you up then.” Duke replied. “Everybody dig in.” What followed was like nothing Duke had seen before as the dragonians tore into their meals with claw and fang, tearing chunks of flesh free and throwing them back down their gullets with their necks stretched to the ceiling. The sounds of pleasure that accompanied were hard to mistake as the dragonians were practically purring.
Lya gave Duke a knowing smile as she figured out the fork and knife that came with her meal. Perhaps it had something to do with her observing Duke eating his steak. It had never occurred to him that utensils wouldn’t be universal but after a moment’s thought he realized that to think they would be was absolutely foolish.
“How is your, what was it called? Copish?” Duke asked.
“It’s called Copeshe. Co-Pesh-eee.” She enunciated for Duke’s benefit. “And it’s probably the best I’ve ever eaten. My aunt would slit my throat if she heard me say that out loud. Her’s is legendary in my family. Even my late husband would have loved it.”
Drakmalorie paused in her flesh-tearing bonanza to choke down another slab of ripped meat and add, “See, Duke, she’s even telling you that her husband is dead, and she is available.”
Duke stared back at the dragonian with disappointment. “It is beyond rude to speak of a dead spouse like that.”
Lya interrupted before things could go further. “It’s fine, Duke. Different culture, different customs. If her mate were to die, she would consume his body in remembrance of him.”
Arkmathus added, “And what a meal that would be. She wouldn’t be able to finish it in one sitting. My spirit would be quite offended.”
Drakmalorie playfully smacked him. “You’ve always been too big for your own good. And you would have me for a snack and still be hungry.”
He saluted her with a leg of some beast and tore another jagged chunk from it, crunching happily on the bone as well as the meat.
“Different customs, indeed.” Duke acknowledged. “So, Lya, do you mind if I ask what happened to your husband?”
“No, I am proud of him and his life. He was the head of a research center funded by the Concordiate. After a chance encounter with a space pirate and a quite singular solider with PTSD, he tried his best to help them both. Both were horribly wronged by the Concordiate but that is far too long of a story. Ultimately, he wound up chasing after the soldier with the pirate who wasn’t really a pirate anymore. In the end, he died in a conflict with the Concordiate military. But he made the bastards pay dearly for it – cost them a capital ship and all its escorts.
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“My husband was a gentle man at heart, but when push came to shove, he stood with a stronger spine than any warrior I have met standing for what was right rather than what was easy or convenient. When the truth of it all came out, the Concordiate fell apart.” Lya finished with her chin held up in pride but a tear still forming in her eye.
“She hunted down the remaining members of the Concordiate responsible for her husband’s death and that is what led her to the hunter’s life. She’s a bit of a legend amongst us. Which makes me curious as to why you are all the way out here, Lya? Yes, this is an open contract, but not one I would have expected you to pursue.”
“So many were coming here that I was actually hoping to find a new place to call home. With this many hunters converging, I figured the gossip would be good about opportunities. And if the opportunity was right for collecting the bounty that would make the decision rather easy for me.”
Duke shook his head, asking with a sly smile. “So, Lya, catch any good gossip yet?”
“I’ve heard a few things that made me cautious.”
“Such as?”
“Such as you singlehandedly killed the entire crew of an Octuul Clone Army ship and the ship itself never made it back home.”
“They took the first shot.” Duke responded dryly.
As if on cue, the door to the Inn slammed open before anyone could say more. Floating through the opening was a creature unlike anything Duke had seen before. It had a central orb of some kind that floated in the air, but the vast majority of the creature was made of thousands of wispy strands that were attached to the central core and floated outwards as if blown by a nonexistent breeze.
“Friend of yours?” Duke asked.
“The Svaldmehok are friend to no bipedal prey.” The creature announced. Duke quickly realized by the complete lack of response from the other three at the table that he was the only one to understand its language.
“That’s a Svaldmehok, if my guess is right. Nasty things. Best to kill it with fire.” Lya announced.
Duke calmly stood from his seat and announced. “There is no fighting in the Inn. If you want to try your hand at the bounty, go on outside and I’ll meet you there.”
The other three chuckled but Duke felt something touching his skin and the resultant notification raised his ire.
*** You have been struck by 82 tendrils of a Svaldmehok. Four have managed to penetrate your ARMOR SKIN and have injected you with a paralytic venom. Your REGENERATION has cleared the venom from your system for now, but further exposure could have a compounding effect. ***
Duke growled and TELEPORTED the central mass of the creature outside. A cloud of tendrils spread out over nearly every surface around the door but were quickly absorbed by the Inn. “Excuse me, I have a rude, unwelcome guest to remove.” He stood from his chair and made his way through the door.
Outside, Duke saw that the body of the creature was ineffectually rolling around on the ground, attempting to get away. Duke strode up to it, shouting. “When I say that there’s no fighting inside the Inn, I mean there is no fighting inside the Inn!” He proceeded to line the creature’s body up and kicked it as hard as he could muster, using his FORCE Ability to keep it from exploding until it was hundreds of meters overhead where he instead used the Ability to crush it to paste.
He turned back to the Inn to see the others laughing at the scene. He smiled back at them. “I have a thing about enforcing the few simple rules I keep. It didn’t seem to want to listen and, well, it made a great kickball.”
“You tore off all its tendrils. It was as good as dead already.” Lya responded, mid chuckle.
“It shouldn’t have attacked me after I told it to take it outside. I’m really quite reasonable about these kinds of things. Wouldn’t you three say?”
He received words of general agreement before his chest exploded inwards and out his back from a tremendous blast of energy that came from the roof of the Inn. Duke tumbled to the ground, seeing that over 20 million of his Health vanished in the single shot. His REGENERATION was fast at work, healing over half a million Health every second, but this was a hit he didn’t see coming and was not prepared to handle at all. He responded by immediately TELEPORTING a kilometer straight up and focusing his DUNGEON SENSE on the area around the Inn to try and find his attacker.
It didn’t take long. He quickly realized that it wasn’t an individual, but rather a ship of some sort that was hovering over the Inn. I didn’t see that when I came out or when I kicked the ball of fun, so it must have been in some sort of stealth mode. If so, I might not be far enough away from it to prevent another shot like that one. Back to Plan A. As in attack!
Duke focused on the rather obvious weapon mounted to the underside of the craft that was beginning to glow a bright orange. Without a further thought, he TELEPORTED the weapon from its emplacement, pointing it straight back at the craft. He was rather disappointed when the weapon didn’t fire. Would have liked to see that go off. Oh fuck, this hurts. Duke’s ribcage was starting to reform, sprouting from his also regrowing spine.
The ship turned and pointed Duke’s way, he guessed it was to bring some other weapon to bear but decided not to find out since he was still missing a significant portion of his torso. It really is remarkable how well my remaining skin held me together. Is that a function of ARMOR SKIN? I wonder if it could-
He was interrupted as another part of the ship started to glow with energy. Oh, right, still fighting. He prepared to TELEPORT again while the ship shuddered violently before rapidly losing what little altitude it had to start. The glow ceased and the craft slammed down onto the roof of the Inn where it paused briefly before proceeding to slide down off the Inn to finally crash to the ground.
When it landed, Duke saw Arkmathus leap from the Inn’s roof and proceed to tear into the metal of the craft with his claws glowing a deep, energetic purple. Strips of metal and random parts rained down from the roof of the craft as the dragonian continued his assault. Duke slowly lowered himself towards the ground, waiting for the crew of the ship to come out. Using his DUNGEON SENSE, He could see them panicking as Arkmathus started tearing his way through the inner hull but was not entirely sure why they were panicking so much until he realized that the ship had come to rest on the main hatch, leaving it inoperable.
“You planning on killing them?” Duke called out to his new dragonian friend.
Arkmathus paused in his rage-fueled thrashing to look poke his head out of the crater he was digging in the ship. He looked down at Duke, his face full of wonder. “I thought they had disintegrated you!”
“Disintegrated? No. But they did hit me pretty damned hard. Still healing from it even.” He gestured at the slowly closing hole in his chest.
Arkmathus stepped back and climbed out of the hole. “Your kill.” It was a simple statement, but it spoke volumes of respect for Duke. It was only then that Duke truly realized that Arkmathus was trying to avenge him. He filed that away for reference.
He stepped up to the craft that was roughly ten meters across and about half as tall. Continuing to use his DUNGEON SENSE, he identified two strong points close together and near him on the hull. He gripped one in each hand. He then put all his regrown back muscles into pulling those two points, and the ship apart. At first, the resistance was significant, ship hulls being built to withstand all kinds of forces. But, in the end, Duke’s 11,000 points in Strength were just too much as there was a ping followed by a horrendous screeching sound as the ship’s hull simply parted alongside the left strong point.
Duke’s arms flung wide as the hole opened up to his entire wingspan, giving him a direct entrance to the bridge of the ship and the four figures cowering behind a crew-served weapon that was pointed in his direction. Before they could even fire the weapon, Duke filled the entire ship with 100,000 Mana worth of ACID. He also ducked to the side just in case.
Moments later, a greenish-grey goo of melted parts of the ship and its occupants started dripping out of the torn front of the ship. Duke nodded as the experience notification hit him. With a quick CLEANSE and RESTORE, he walked back towards the three watching him. “Well, that was something. Anyone up for desert?”