Chapter 66: Drinking, Shooting, and Balloons
As it turned out hunting deer with a flying lightning gun was incredibly efficient. The only problem was the rather singed nature of the result. Only four of the hides didn’t have substantial burn marks on them, luckily for Tom and the others, Jackalope had been in charge so she received the brunt of the verbal abuse from Nunuk for ruining such fine red-deer pelts.
The result was that they were banned from hunting using Jarix’s lightning breath. At least until they could come up with a way of doing it without destroying the valuable pelts. Then there was the matter that they really needed to hunt the woods rather than just the grasslands on the outskirts.
Jarix was nimble enough to fly between the heaven oak trees but the regular trees in the undergrowth were off-limits and he would also need a clearing or a perch of some kind to land. They had secured a sizable amount of meat once again though so they had time to work with. Given that Jarix ate more than the rest of the keep combined, they didn’t have much breathing room though, they were going to have to keep up the pressure. Tom had a feeling this was gonna put a dent in his ammunition supply then, 'cause he sure as shit wasn’t learning to use a bow right now.
He had bigger things to worry about, such as how to wind the rotor by hand in a reasonable time and how to keep Shiva from getting more than slightly drunk on his precious fuel. She and Raulf had been very merry when Tom had finally made it to the workshop. Kiran gratefully exchanging Tom’s hard helmet for his soft warm hair. Turinia was also still in Tom’s arms as he didn’t trust her and Holdey was quite over their differences yet.
“Did you at least mix some of it?”
“Ohh yeah, we’re halfway with the first metal can, jug thing” Shiva replied with a sly smile clearly feeling good right now.
“Great and how much have you drunk of that stuff ?”
“We made a jar in the middle, *Hiik*, taste okay when watered down,” Raulf replied seemingly proud of the fact. Tom had been planning on teaching them how to make proper whiskey but it would seem that wouldn’t be necessary, the shittiest moonshine in history apparently did the trick.
“Wanna sip?” Might as well see how bad this stuff actually was. He accepted the small glass jar and took a small sip. It burned, but it had definitely been watered down, at least by half.
That did upset his inner engineer a bit as he had worked so hard to make this stuff as pure as possible. Aside from tasting like half-strength medicinal spirits, it wasn’t that bad actually. He had half expected to puke on contact, it just didn’t really taste of anything. Hell with something to mix with it might even make a decent drink… and Jarix had sorta solved their fuel problems for the time being, since they didn’t need the quad bike.
But they didn’t have anything to mix it with, the only juice they had was that berry stuff they made themselves, of which there was preciously little. The children had gotten some during the feast for Vulzan last time.
“So wadaya think?” Shiva questioned as Tom stood there pondering.
“I guess it’ll do for getting you drunk”
“And that is the important part” Shiva went pointing a finger at him. Tom just shook his head, she was right though it would definitely do that and more cheaply than the beer if they didn’t use the purest of the resulting distillate. Maybe just keep the leftovers from the runs for drinking, that couldn’t hurt… much.
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“Do you think we can grab a proper drink or two while we are there?” Balethon questioned. Playing dice had lasted almost an hour but now the general conversation was doing the trick.
“Sure these court things usually take ages. I would be surprised if we even get to the court within a week. Then they might have to go through several sessions for which we may or may not be required.” Dakota clarified for them.
“Sweet, think we got enough money to stay for that long though?”
“If you wanna get drunk every night no, but that is on your bill, I’m paying for the tavern and meals though”
“Really?” Sapphire asked, surprised. She had thought they would be splitting at least the meals.
"Yup. Nunuk was feeling generous or perhaps more busy with figuring out how to get her claws into the bitch, I don’t know”
Sapphire had brought every coin she owned and now she could spend them as she pleased. What did she want to spend it on though?
“We need at least one good night out, come on girls, it will be fun.” Balethon tried in his most convincing tone. Sapphire didn’t have a problem with that idea though.
“If it means you won’t get drunk and cause a scene if we end up having to attend something more high class then sure. I’ll indulge you.” Dakota replied, Sapphire knew damn well that Dakota didn’t mind a good drink every now and again. So she guessed this was about making Baltethon believe they were doing him a favor.
“High class? Are you expecting some nobles to invite us to something?”
“We have friends too, Bale boy, might need to go see some of them. Don’t forget you are talking with one right now”
“Never been to something like that,” Balethon admitted. During her time in the capital, Sapphire hadn’t exactly been part of high-class society either. She had gone to a very nice ball after she won the championship, that had been quite the experience at the time.
“Sapphire, didn’t your big brother work at a sorta normal tavern?”
“Yup, the Sweet Dragon”
“Sounds like a good place to start” Sapphire had never even seen the place, so she just crossed her fingers that her brother had a decent taste in establishments.
“A bit early to worry about that isn’t it?” Cabrera joined in, clearly not having left the discussion entirely. “That is an alright place though I've been there before. We still got day’s worth of flying to do so we were wonderi...”
Tirox stuck his head over Cabrera’s shoulder. “Wondering if you had any more stories about Tom” Tirox seemed like a very excitable fellow with even worse manners than Jackalope, he didn’t seem malicious though, so that was something. “You know... that you are allowed to tell”
They certainly had a few they should probably avoid anything concerning weapons, Sapphire didn’t quite know what they were allowed to say. There was the one where he fought Rachuck till he passed out.
“What about the one where he fell asleep on the floor with Jackalope in the smithy and we all thought they did you know what?” Balethon asked eagerly.
‘Okay that one then, at least he would be the one telling it then’ Sapphire thought to herself. Then she noticed all eyes were currently looking at her, Dakota had scooted up beside Balethon looking expectantly at Sapphire as if to insinuate that she knew the story. ‘Damn tactician and her quick thinking’ Sapphire muttered to herself before beginning.
“Well, it all started with the feast following the battle, where we saved all of you.” never mind Sapphire had done diddly squat during that fight.
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As they all sat in the grand hall Tom was fiddling with the projector. He had tried to make the computer write in something that looked like draconic symbols to no avail, hence he was still stuck with movies that made sense even if you didn’t know what people were saying, or at least that could be easily explained. He had really wanted to show them We Were Soldiers or maybe Band of Brothers...
In the end, he had gone for two movies. First was one for everyone to enjoy, kids included. Much to their delight. He had considered Wall-E but he wasn’t feeling up for explaining space or being accused of heresy yet. In the end, he went with Up because who couldn’t love that?
Thinking back, that particular movie did have a darker opening than he had remembered as he was currently buried beneath every kid in the keep, all yammering about how unfair it all was. It was at moments like this he wished Esmeralda was up and about already. Most of the others were too busy asking about things like, what is a balloon why do they all look so weird, so not much support there either. In hindsight, he should also have explained animation a bit more thoroughly than “Imaginary pictures that aren't real”
It got so bad a halt had to be called to proceedings while he went about explaining what an animated movie was, what the premise of the film was, what a car was, that yes they had running water in their homes and no he couldn’t just use balloons to fly like the dragonettes because that would be impractical.
“But you could do it?” Fengi questioned
“Only if I find helium and rubber. Which are both of the things needed to make balloons and remember, this is just a story. It isn’t real. Balloons can’t lift much. I would need as many as the house just to lift me.”
“Then why does the house fly?” Raulf questioned.
“In a story, things don’t have to be true, you can lie to make it more fantasti...cal. Kiran would you mind?”
“I fell off sorry” Kiran replied as he clambered up the front of Tom’s face to his usual spot.
“So remember, most of what you see isn’t how it is. We could make a movie like this where humans could just fly. That obviously won’t work in the real world, now would it?”
There were nods from around the room, Tom sighed a bit he hadn’t expected this to pose so many problems. He had continued the movie deciding to let the movie do the talking for him and just not explain anything other than what was being said. The questions started dying down, soon the adults weren’t taking it too seriously anymore and the kid’s often not realizing when something was off. by the time they found the talking dog Dug Tom was happy to see laughter around the hall even if there were a few heads shaking here and there.
They even really rooted for our unlikely heroes. He had almost feared they would side with Munzt being a hunter. There was more laughter and held breaths as Tom let the movie work its magic, they were all having a great time.
“Evil man can’t fly, he too heavy” Kiran let out, sounding a bit too cheerful at Muntz’s death.
“Good riddance, he wouldn’t have survived an encounter with Kalestine” Wiperna concluded.
No arguing there, Tom threw a slightly worried glance at Jarix. Maybe they too needed to worry about ending up in a Muntz situation on that front. Those were worries for later though right now they had a movie to enjoy. They had even cheered for Russell when he finally got his badge at the end. Then the questions started again, Fengi clearly not able to hold it in any longer.
“Tom I know the house wasn’t real but was the big gray thing? It’s like a flying building, that wasn’t real either right?”
“Yes and no. It's called an airship and they did exist, they weren’t capable of carrying that much stuff though. They were huge though”
“Were? Why did you stop making them?”
“They were expensive and dangerous. They liked to blow up.”
“That sounds bad… why did you build them in the first place then?” Fengi did have a point that hadn’t been the best sales speech, that didn’t matter though it wasn’t like he could make one anyway.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“They could fly. You could sleep in a comfortable bed and wake up somewhere new who doesn’t like that . On that note, we need to get you lot of the bed it’s already past your bedtime”
“Tom, can we get a dog like Dug?” Calhoun Tried in doing his best to be adorable.
“Not unless we find one, you can’t make a dog”
“What about the collar thing, could we put one on a deer to make it speak?” Holdey added in very excitedly
“I’m Afraid I’m a bit to stupid to figure out how those collars work, sorry” There was a universal flattening of ears at that around the kids. Shiva just had a chuckle from the corner.
“Talking deer, that would be something” Well she wasn’t wrong.
“Now come on we need to get you lot tucked in” Wiperna and Fengi helped herd the kids up to their bedroom for the night.
There was the usual protest but in the end, they were all nice and tucked in. One advantage of dragonette children was that they were clearly a lot better at sleeping than human kids and with lights out it didn’t take many minutes before the yammering died down being replaced with cute little snoring.
For the adults, he had gone for something with more spectacle, racism, and most importantly more flying. As he sat back down at the table arranged so they could see the screen the title card came up “Red Tails”
‘This should be good’ Tom thought to himself.
He did his best to explain the setting and what was happening in the ground scenes. They were familiar with WW2 so that helped. That and the fact that they were utterly mesmerized by the aircraft. There had been questions sure, but they were mostly what the planes could do and the movie did great at that part at least spectacle-wise. It almost managed to distract the experienced flyers from some of the maneuvers being pulled.
The whole black human had been a whole new can of worms though. Tom had expected that and they needed to know. Still, there were a lot of uncomfortable questions. Tom elected not to answer and let the movie do it for him since that had worked so well last time.
The fact they were more like a dark brown than the ashen gray black the dragonettes were used to helped a lot. The fact they quickly proved themselves pure of soul and damn effective combatants did win the dragonets over rather quickly though. It did also help that they were clearly all fighting similar judgments on screen. Tom even saw quite a few ashamed faces amongst his friends once they figured out the kind of life these people had and what they had gone through to fly. They had to fight for the right to fight. Unlike everyone else.
They thoroughly enjoyed the fight scenes as he had expected, even the fatalities. They were a lot better at handling a plane with a guy being shot down it seemed they could more closely relate to that. It also helped that Tom compared the bombers to dragons. Jarix and crew of course had more than a few questions on those defense guns and Jarix had seemed a bit disappointed at their effectiveness.
Tom had assured the young dragon that that was down to the planes going three or four times faster than any dragon could in level flight and that of course did make them very hard to hit. The results once they did hit were nothing to sniff at either so in the end, the dragon had seemed content with the weapons performance even if he was already talking of more than one gun now.
Tom had tried to sell them the idea of bombs. Without much success though. Short of attacking a city or a keep he could see why. It wasn’t like hostile dragonettes would just sit there and wait to be bombed after all.
“What about my father, I don’t know where you would drop them, but he does like just cruising along nice and steady. You know nothing too strenuous.” Jarix snickered.
“Sure I don't see why not. If you wanna hit with level bombing you need to be very steady.”
“What's the alternative?” Zarko questioned sounding curious.
“Dive bombing” That got their attention. “Basically you dive at a target aiming yourself at them like you're gonna crash into them, then you drop your bomb and pull up. Rather simple really”
“I could do that,” Jarix concluded.
“And bring down a keep in a single run” Zarko added. “it has been done with big rocks and things like that during sieges, but nothing like what those things are dropping.
Tom could literally see the horror on Radexi's face at having to deal with a dragon dive-bombing the keep. The poor dude wasn’t having an easy time as of late and with the report of possible hostiles in the area, that hadn’t improved.
“How would you defend against that Tom?” The captain asked, trying to sound professional and to his credit only failing slightly.
“Anti-air guns, and fighters. Not much else you can do” Tom admitted. “Or build something that can survive the hit.”
“We sorta have fighters. We can’t just rebuild the keep, soo… what is this anti-air gun?” Tom sighed internally at the notion of adding yet another thing to his list of stuff that was likely never gonna be complete. He guessed he could put this one under cannon for Shiva though.
“I got a clip that will show both I think” It took a bit of searching but he did have Midway, that scene where they dive-bombed the carriers, unrealistic as it was, should do the trick.
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It had been a long while since Sapphire had last slept on dragonback. She did feel a little sorry for Arch and Baron, having flown through the night, but they wanted to make a small town by nightfall today.
“Good morning sleepy head" Tirox teased as Sapphire got up, instantly regretting the decision as she was hit in the face with the ice-cold wind. Laying back down she was sheltered behind Canabrera, who still appeared to be sleeping. “Or maybe not” Tirox went again with a chuckle.
“Shuus, it’s cold” Sapphire replied pulling up her bedroll tighter.
“Ain’t that the truth” It came from Dakota who had apparently decided to take cover behind Sapphire during the night. “What time is it?”
“Too early" It came from Balthon who was one notch further down the line, clearly not happy either.
“What do you think they are doing back home?” Dakota asked.
“Don’t know. Probably nice and warm though” Sapphire responded.
“I take it you don’t do much cold weather training?” Tirox responded in an obnoxiously optimistic tone. Couldn't he just let them complain in peace? “I was wondering, you're Sapphire right?”
“Yup that’s me” Sapphire replied in an annoyed tone. He knew that they had all introduced themselves already.
“As in Sapphire Rayland? The one who took the tonselra championship, what was that… 15 years ago?”
“Yup to that one too” That was a new one, she couldn’t remember the last time somebody had recognized her. Not that there had been many chances for anyone to do so in the last decade.
“No way, my sister played against you then!” Sapphire rolled over to look at him. He had her attention now.
“What was she called?”
“Nuory, she only made it to the quarter-finals where you knocked her out” Sapphire needed to have a think on that one it was a long time ago.
“I do remember she was pretty damn good too, what happened to her in the end, did she keep playing?” There was a clear ping of sorrow in Tirox at that one for some reason.
“Oh, she… she died the next year competing, made it to the semis that year” Triox went, faultless optimism cracking under what was clearly a big loss to him.
“I’m sorry to hear that… don’t wanna pry but…”
“Hit a pole and broke a wing. Snapped her neck when she hit the ground, she didn’t even scream” Triox replied with a shrug. “Just a stupid mistake”
Sapphire laid her head back down looking up into the clouds attempting to remember. She could remember the match against her well enough, she didn’t have time to look at her opponent though. All she remembered was that it had been a close call. She had seen accidents as well, of course, that was the reason she took Dakota up on her offer. She didn’t want to be next to be carried off the field.
“You're not going back to compete again are you?” He sounded concerned, she guessed that was more than understandable.
“Nah never, those days are over. Besides I would be better at archery these days.”
“You a good shot then?” Oh, he had no clue how good.
“So good I wouldn't be allowed to compete in most competitions,” Sapphire replied with a cocky smile and a chuckle. It was true of course, there wasn’t much point in having her shoot at some target 100 meters downrange, that would just get real boring real quick.
“Udanti, got one who thinks she’s a good shot” ‘this might be good fun’ Sapphire thought to herself getting up. The wind hadn’t changed its mind about being so cold though so she laid back down again. No one else got up so she was clearly not alone in that decision.
“I heard you well enough, I’ll whip her arse once we are on the ground don’t you worry” It came from below, Sapphire guessed her challenger had slept in the belly netting then.
Dakota rolled over to look at Sapphire. “Destroy her” Dakota whispered, the two of them had a little competition for who could put on the most devilish smile.
It had been another quiet day of flying. As the sun was starting to have an effect they passed Hookbill Gorge, which was quite the spectacle. Supposedly it had once been the home of a dragon calling himself Hookbill who would raid and plunder traders and keeps in the area. That was centuries ago but the name had stuck. The gorge itself was more like two mountains protruding for kilometers up into the sky. The cloud cover had obscured the bases so it looked more like two massive slender spikes that they flew between. Sapphire had almost expected something nasty to detach from the towering peaks and make a break for them but nothing happened.
Vulzan had brought out another game for them to try. Sapphire hadn’t seen it before it was apparently called jump claw. It was a small board where you would stick wooden pegs into the holes which made up the track. then a spinning wheel in the center was used to determine how far you could move. if you passed someone else's peg they went back to the start. First to get all their pegs home won.
It was a simple yet fun game, even if only four could play. That didn’t mean you couldn’t cheer the others on while you waited for your turn.
They had made it to the small town of Ylditz before nightfall where Archeon and Baron could sleep and eat. They would set up a more comfortable camp with actual tents and a campfire. Lighting a fire on Archeon’s back wasn’t exactly possible but next to him while he slept was more than welcomed by the venerable dragon.
It was an idyllic little town, buildings all strewn around the central keep. Sapphire put the population at around 150 maybe 200 so it was a lot bigger than their home and there was obviously safety in numbers. The keep could hold everyone in a pinch but for the most part, they slept in their houses.
They had just about finished setting up camp on the outside of the little village and begun to go over the plan one last time. Udanti had come up behind them a few of the escorts following along at her heels.
“So archer girl. Ready for a spanking?”Udanti seemed very sure of herself, head held high and ear perked. Her tone was more teasing than malicious though, this was just a friendly competition. She was an older dragonette than Sapphire, probably somewhere between her and Dakota. “I see you got a proper bow as well, afraid yours couldn’t cut it?”
Sapphire had been scheming with Balethon and Dakota to make this as fun as possible. For starters, she was holding Dakotas bow, with Baltheon hanging on to her real one Dakota made a quick getaway to get on with her part of the plan.
There wasn’t much prospect of interesting things happening so the archer's duel was the evening's only attraction apart from the local tavern so most of them were gathered around. Sapphire didn’t mind a crowd though. Hashaw was currently perched atop Baron’s head watching with interest.
“Just don’t cry when you lose,” Sapphire replied confidently as ever.
“Wanna pick a target and go first or shall I?”
“Why don’t you start”
“Very well” Udanti nocked an arrow in her bow “Range to that tree with the cleft trunk. What do you say... 80 meters?”
“Yeah thereabouts,” it was a far target, Saph would give her that. “What are we shooting over?”
“A round at the tavern?”
“Sure thing.”
“One in the center of the cleft and one in each branch,” she stated confidently. Then she drew and fired 3 arrows in rapid succession. She was almost as fast as Sapphire when it came to rate of fire and she hit her targets which was very impressive and every shot was perfectly centered. There was a good chance she used magic to guide them then. This just got interesting. She seemed very pleased with herself as she turned to Sapphire expectantly.
“Not bad, my turn” She might have hit, but she lacked flair, something Sapphire knew a thing or two about. It helped a lot when competing to be a crowd-pleaser, at least if you wanted a decent meal that night.
Sapphire nocked an arrow in Dakota’s bow, drew and fired normally using only the slightest hint of magic to land the arrow right in the center of the cleft, swearing a bit she didn’t manage to break Udanti’s arrow, that would have been awesome. Then she drew another and pretended to sneeze as she fired sending the arrow low skimming across the grass before it miraculously pulled up burying deep into the left branch. To much oohing and aahing from the crowd. Sapphire smiled a bit to herself as she continued her shenanigans.
“Oh, that was lucky wonder what happens if I” Sapphire loosed another arrow deliberately aiming high and doing her best to seem surprised by the shot. She then carefully guided it back down on target, landing squarely in the right branch. Three perfect hits.
“Gods dammit” Udanti protested, clearly not pleased. Sapphire was far from done though.
“Huh, would you look at that… Baltheon real bow” Sapphire demanded switching tone, holding out her hand looking sternly at Udanti.
Sapphire swung her hand above her head, that being the planned signal for Dakota who came flying overhead and began dropping four of the pieces of firewood she had borrowed from the pile for the campfire.
Sapphire drew and fired in rapid succession nailing all four pieces, one by one. The power of her new bow ensured the arrows hit before she needed to send the next one. She might be good, but guiding two at the same time was still beyond her. By the time all targets were hit the first one hadn’t even reached the ground yet. As the last of them came down Sapphire turned and bowed to her audience with a flourish.
“I told you she was good” Archeon went in a very serious voice. “That’s gonna cost you a beer.” Of course, the trader was more worried about the monetary costs, Sapphire mused to herself shaking her head a bit.
“Yeah yeah, she got any more of those pieces up there” Udanti questioned, Sapphire just nodded “Very well” Udanti raised her hand doing the signal and Dakota came around again and began dropping more pieces.
Udanti raised her bow and fired, hitting the first one, but she was slow on her follow up shot, spending time leading the target before firing. She was good, no question about that, but Sapphire was rather confident right now. The second shot hit as well but by the time her third left the bow, Sapphire had already finished. As Udanti took aim at the last target she didn’t have time to lead it and she just fired early hoping for the best. The arrow went way high and Sapphire could see it starting to curve in flight, no doubt about using magic then. It wasn’t enough though as the arrow went flying over the firewood and off into the woods downrange.
“Dammit… You spend too much time practicing” Udanti conceded, she was gracious in defeat and Sapphire had to give her that especially after just having lost an arrow.
“What can I say? It’s my job” Sapphire went, running a finger through the tuft of soft fur on her crown.
“What kind of bow is that though, that thing shoots like crazy”
“Oh this little thing.” Sapphire went brandishing her weapon “It’s just one of Tom’s creations, in time he might sell you one.” That obviously caught both Archeon and Vulzan’s attention. Hashaw too came over with her best archer, a quiet woman named Laetho, at least Sapphire thought that was what she was called, she hadn’t actually said yet.
After a short demonstration, as well as a personal best for Vulzan in terms of draw weight, he was ready to order a dozen already. Hashaw hadn’t made an attempt to get her bow so she guessed Tom had agreed to her demand of receiving the design then. Hopefully, he had gotten paid for that.
“What about this one then surely more could be made” Vulzan tried in vain.
“I can’t do that and you know it. This is a prototype” Sapphire revelled in using the fancy word which no one except the trio from the keep understood. “It means it is the first one ever and it’s mine.” She stated proudly as she slung it over her back where it belonged, tapping it daintily.