Chapter 1

Riding an angry, hungry dinosaur is hard at the best of times. Riding an angry, hungry dinosaur through a crowded city port with a stuffy nose and a baby dragon kicking you in the kidney? Welcome to the glamorous life of a virtual reality video game adventurer.

“Karalti! Can you not!?” I hissed down toward the struggling bundle that wriggled inside my cloak, struggling to control my mount as she snapped and lunged at passersby.

“Karalti see!” The hatchling scrabbled with her feet again, thrusting her gleaming black opal nose out from underneath the cloak. “Ahh! Smells good!”

“Karalti!” Fighting not to sneeze, I reined in Cutthroat with one hand, and shoved Karalti’s snout back under the cloth. She squawked with indignation.

“Nuuuu! Hector!” Her telepathic voice whined inside my head. “Karalti see!”

“Karalti keeps her snoot out of sight before the bad men come and take her away.” I thought back, trying to sniff back the mucus that was threatening to run out my itching nose. It was the Common Cold debuff, which I’d picked up from sleeping out in the woods on a cold night. The debuff wasn’t serious – a 5% reduction in my Perception skill – but it had me on edge. About a week ago, before I’d been uploaded to Archemi, I’d died from the flu in real life. I hated being sick.

“The bad men aren’t here,” Karalti grumped back.

“You don’t know that, and neither do I. Please stay hidden.”

“Bleeh. Oki.”

She managed to contain herself for all of five seconds before her snout poked out again, nostrils working. “Smells sooo good-!”

“Stop it!” I immediately regretted growling aloud, because the itch in my nose built to a sudden sneeze – and Cutthroat lost her goddamned mind. The hookwing roared and spun her body to the right, and rammed us into a stand loaded with ice and teetering piles of freshwater fish.

“What the- ARRGH! MY FISH!” The vendor sprung up as the stand collapsed. “My godsforsaken FISH!”

My irritable Allosaurus-sized war machine bellowed down at him. Swearing as only an ex-soldier could, I hauled on her reins and got her back under control. Only for a moment. The fishmonger ran out in front of Cutthroat, screaming: "My family will starve! Starve! My fish are ruined!”

Cutthroat was a hookwing: a feathered raptorine dinosaur who was eight feet tall at the shoulder, about twenty feet long from nose to tail, with tattered plumage as black as pitch, blazing golden eyes, and a temperament that could only be described as ‘nuclear’. Each one of the hooks her species was named for - the fused digits of her hands - were wickedly sharp scythe-like claws as long as a bastard’s sword blade. I barely even had time to wince before she lowered her head like an angry bull and charged the man down.

The vendor screamed. I screamed. Karalti screamed because screaming was fun. Cutthroat roared as she knocked the man to the side and darted her head towards his gut, and the only thing that saved his life was the iron muzzle that encased her head like a cage.

Instead of eviscerating him, Cutthroat nipped his shirt through her face-cage, picked him up, and threw him. I didn’t even see where he landed – Cutthroat was off down the road, boiling with saurian road rage, and I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop her.

“Sorry! I’m really sorry!” I called back over my shoulder.

“Funny fish guy! Karalti see!” Karalti’s entire head popped out through the gap in my cloak this time.

My HUD flashed an alert. [You have lost -250 Reputation in Bryos. Current Reputation -125: Troublemaker. Law enforcement has been alerted.]

It was enough to make a man weep.

Cutthroat charged all the way down the main boulevard beside the docks, scattering people out of the way. I hauled on her reins, but it wasn’t until the rings were about to tear out of her nostrils that she finally stopped, sneezing with irritation. Karalti giggled the entire time, and she kept trying to stick her fucking head out.

I took several deep breaths, fighting down the twin urges to yell at her and plead with her, and marched Cutthroat down the dirty road. “Karalti - I know it smells great here, but you need to stay under the cloak. We now have T-minus ten minutes before the Mata Argis arrive.”

“Oopsie.” Karalti said soberly.

“Yeah. Big oopsie.”

The city of Bryos was the largest in Ilia, bigger even than the capital, Liren. It was, however, by no means the prettiest. The Bryos Skyport was a filthy sprawl of markets, docks, taverns, inns, whorehouses and warehouses. Sailors, beggars, and merchants vied for space. The magitech engines of flying ships from all around the world hummed, roared, and surged at the ends of the wharfs. The air was full of the smells of fish, frying food, dung, magic, and machine grease. Behind the racket, the thunderous sound of Archemi’s harsh oceans could be heard below us, the sound of waves the size of mountains washing up against even taller cliffs. If it weren’t for the HUD - my Head’s Up Display - the HP rings that flashed into view when I focused on people, and the way that certain objects were framed by rings of different colored light and labels, I’d have completely forgotten that Archemi was actually a videogame.

My hope was that Bryos had enough ships coming and going that we could vanish before the Mata Argis showed up. They were the reason that I had a cold, and why I was still only Level 8 – barely – and Karalti was only Level 1. We were currently marked with the Fugitive status. Every time I’d attempted a sidequest, visited a merchant, tried to stay at an inn or made any trouble after escaping the Eyrie of Saint Grigori, Ilia’s finest appeared out of thin air and began to hunt us. Each time we’d fought them, they’d gotten harder. The last group, in some podunk Ilian village I couldn’t even remember the name of, had been ten levels higher level than me. There had been no fight: we’d had to run.

“Not even little peek?” Karalti asked, as we cut down an alley toward the docks.

“Not even little peek.”

“Ooookaaayyy.” Karalti wheezed a long-suffering sigh, and withdrew back into the cloak, leaving only the tip of her nose and her nostrils outside. “Karalti smell?”

“Karalti can smell. But keep your head covered.”

“Eeep!” She made a happy chirp, nose working overtime. “Smells good! Like fishies!”

I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t help but smile.

Since fleeing the Skyrdon of St. Grigori with Karalti four days ago, we been relentlessly hounded by the Mata Argis, the secret police who enforced the Warden’s rule in Ilia. They wanted to kill me and drag Karalti back to the Skyrdon, the dragon knights who would force her to breed the next generation of enslaved dragons for their order. As a result, we had been making do by hunting and brewing potions, killing monsters, and dispatching mercenaries and bandits. The EXP had been pathetic, but the potions I’d been able to sell for a silver here, a silver there. Still, without the ability to do much in the way of quests, levelling had all but ground to a halt. Entering Bryos was a huge risk, and the only reason we were in the city at all was because it was the only way to escape the reach of Ilia for good. I intended to get on a skyship for my fictional homeland, Tuungant, and leave this stinking shitheap of a country behind.

Gold rolled and clinked inside my pack as we turned a corner and lit on the inn I was supposed to be looking for.

The Whistling Clam - yes, really - was a large ramshackle inn with three stories and two balconies, the kind that was sure to be smashed during dramatic player-vs-NPC bar fights. The entire building was painted sky blue, the color flaking off in patches from the damp filthy wood beneath. Anxiously, I walked Cutthroat over to a noticeboard highlighted by my HUD. A blinking blue arrow hung over the flight schedule for Tungaant.

Glancing back down the street, I reached out to it and ripped a copy into my Inventory, turned Cutthroat around, and nudged her to walk back down the alley beside the inn as I had my HUD read it to me telepathically.

“Let’s see…” I muttered aloud, reining Cutthroat to a stop. “Oh man, we are so frickin’ lucky.”

“Huh?” Karalti’s nose lifted up the edge of my cloak.

“There’s a flight boarding in thirty minutes. Long trip with about ten port stops… but still.” I said, folding the timetable back into my Quest Items. “And the fee listed on the Archemipedia checks out. All we have to do is stay down and stay cool, and we’re out of this pigpen.”

“I’m hungry,” Karalti said, her tone dreamy with longing.

“You’re always hungry, little Tidbit.”

“Can we find something to eat?” Karalti pressed in against my back, shivering and hot.

Ever since hatching, Karalti had been ravenous. She hadn’t grown much in size since she’d hatched, but I’d noticed that the closer she got to Level 2, the flakier and duller her scales had looked and the more she’d wanted to eat. And damn, the kid could eat.

“There should be a stable around here somewhere,” I replied. “I can smell it. Come on, Cutthroat. Move your butt.”

Cutthroat stopped trying to scratch her muzzle off and began to pad forward, tail lashing.

Most riding animals in Archemi were meat-eaters, so public stables provided them with offal, spoiled hides, rodents and probably the odd murdered pickpocket in ‘hospitality troughs’ outside inns and taverns. The troughs and stalls reeked terribly, but hookwings were scavengers capable of stomaching even the rottenest meat. I’d learned this when Cutthroat returned to camp one night chewing on a human body she’d dug out of a bog. She’d been fine. I, on the other hand, would never be okay ever again.

I basically let Cutthroat guide us to the nearest stable, which was on the other side of The Whistling Clam in a small courtyard facing Hell’s Walk, the street dividing the buildings from the docks. She surged eagerly toward the stalls and the trough of sun-ripened, fly-blown pig guts inside. Surprisingly, there were no other hookwings in there already. No stable hand, either.

I kept an eye out behind us, and finally opened my cloak up. “Okay, Karalti. Go grab something to eat.”

“Yay! Food’s the best! Yay!” Karalti kicked off my leg, flapping like a bat. One wing hit me in the jaw, snapping my head back. Once the stars faded, I dropped down to the ground with a sigh, catching Cutthroat by the reins. While she foamed at the mouth, I unequipped her [Iron Muzzle] and folded it into my inventory. “Don’t eat too much, Tidbit. You have to be ready to fly.”

“Oki!” The little queen dragon landed gracefully on the edge of the trough and began to chow down like her life depended on it.

I was worried that I was doing something wrong with her. According to her character menu, dragons grew and matured by levelling. Karalti was still the size of a small dog, with feet and hands too big for her scrawny neck and wedge-shaped head. When she’d hatched, her gleaming black skin had rippled under light with colored fire, like opal. Flashes of blue, orange, green, gold and red glowed between every dark scale. Now, her skin was dull and flaky.

While my saurian buddies pigged out, I went to the outside of the stable and kept watch over the strangely empty yard. From here, I could see out the gate and onto the street with perfect clarity. I kept an ear out for strange noises or conversations, and restlessly brought up Karalti’s Path information.

DRAGON CHARACTER INFORMATION

LEVELING YOUR MOUNT

Your NPC mount has her own EXP pool that is independent from your own. Like you, she levels by gaining experience from combat, training, and practicing her skills. Unlike you, your dragon only gains three kinds of EXP: Combat EXP, Skill EXP, and a special type of EXP called Lexica.

Combat EXP is gained by going on adventures, fighting enemies, and completing quests. When your dragon completes a quest with you, the two of you each receive 100% Combat EXP from the quest. Any EXP you gain from winning combat is split. If you fight and kill a monster but your dragon doesn’t help, only you gain that EXP. If the two of you kill it together, you each earn 50% of the total EXP from that monster.

LEXICA

Lexica is a form of EXP unique to dragons that allows them to comprehend the Words of Power written into their blood. As your dragon gains more Lexica, they can learn spells and unique abilities in addition to their Path and Advanced Path. All dragons are born with the ability Gift of the Blood, which allows them to begin interpreting and manifesting Words of Power without needing to use any special tools or extra mana. At Level 2, they have enough Lexica to manifest their most important Word: their breath weapon.

Lexica EXP is gained as your dragon matures. Between Level 2 and Level 31 (when she is fully mature), she will gain a total of 60 Lexica points that can be spent on spells or unique abilities. This is enough to select 10-20 possible spells/abilities. You cannot change these abilities, so choose wisely!

Most spells require 3 Lexica points to acquire, but some spells/abilities require as many as 6 points.

Dragons are immune to mana toxicity and do not need any tools to control or contain mana when performing magic. However, the tradeoff is that the dragon’s abilities have a long cooldown period, and casting too many spells in a row while airborne may cause the dragon to faint while flying, as each spell depletes their blood. They are also restricted to the spells and abilities determined by their type. Your dragon’s character menu lists their type and sub-type (if applicable).

Your dragon is a Queen dragon, which means that the Words of Power in her blood are unique to her, and the combination of abilities and spells available to her are not shared by any other dragon in Archemi. Her skill trees and the advanced paths available to her reflect this.

My dyslexic ass was still no good at reading, so I had the HUD telepathically narrate the page to me for the millionth time while the noise of the street filtered in. Even with the mental chatter, I could hear and distinguish every conversation going on outside and on the balconies of The Whistling Clam. That was because I was now literally a mutant. I had passed the Trial of Marantha, the test given to aspiring dragon knights so that they could withstand all of the challenges that riding and fighting on a dragon presented. G-forces, extreme temperatures, vertigo, and perhaps most importantly, mana poisoning.

“...What do you mean you saw him with Kella?!”

“...Clams and cockles! Fresh clams, six for six!”

“...I don’t know. That hulk looks like it couldn’t make it crosst me gods’ damn bathtub, let alone the Sea of Blades...”

“... girls at THAT place got the pox. Last time I went there, woke up three days latah with blistahs down there...makin noise no blistahs ought to make.”

And a different voice: more cultured, out of place. “...Yes, foreign. He’s quite distinctive, with long hair like in the drawing... yes, he has it tied back, like a savage. You saw him? Where did he... is that so?”

My eyes snapped open.

“Karalti,” I said aloud, turning to stalk back inside the stable. “Go hide in the rafters.”

The little dragon chirped and cocked her crested head, a fillet of meat still dangling from her jaws. She regarded me with innocent violet-white eyes, radiating confusion.

I pulled the Spear of Nine Spheres off Cutthroat’s saddle and spun it around until the long, glaive-like blade pointed down. “Go. The Mata Argis are here.”

Karalti hissed, and then sprung into the air. At Level 1, her wings were still long enough and strong enough to carry her short distances, even when weighed down with food.

I went to the edge of the stable, the head of the Spear held low to the ground. The weapon wasn’t much to look at: a seven-foot long, dark metal polearm with faint engravings softened and dulled by age. The head of the glaive was a full-tang, curved metal blade. I’d scrubbed the tarnish off, but even after close to a month of use the weapon – an ancient magical relic – still looked like a broken antique:

RUINED SPEAR (SPEAR OF NINE SPHERES)

Soulbound Weapon

Slot: Two-handed

Item Class: Relic

Item Quality: Ruined

Damage: 25-55 Slashing or Piercing

Durability: 27% (-6 damage)

Weight: 1 lb

Special: +2 Dexterity, Soulbound, +50 HP, +2 Defense

A weapon reputed to be the Spear of Nine Spheres. To repair it, you will need to find a Mastersmith capable of reforging Lazula (bluesteel) magical artifacts.

"Time for me and you to do what we do best, my girl.” I adjusted my grip on the Spear. “Break shit and kill things.”

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Chapter 2

From the shadows, I watched the seven men move into position. One Mercenary stayed outside of the fence while the other six filed in and fanned out. They acted like professionals who knew how to work together, but the way they were moving told me that they weren’t a hundred percent sure where I was. Either that, or they had someone approaching from behind the stable. They were probably DPS: a Thief, Rogue, Assassin, or similar Path.

I pulled Cutthroat around by her reins, pointed her in the direction of the approaching vanguard, and swatted her as I gave her the codeword command for ‘attack’. “Icecream!”

The hookwing knew what that word meant. Murder.

She lowered her head and charged out of the stable, breaking out into the open with a roar while I bounded out back to face the unseen rearguard.

Two Level 10 Mercenary Rogues, one with a net, the other with a crossbow, had jumped the fence and were coming up from around the building. I nearly ran into the net-carrier - and reflexively brought the butt end of my Spear around to hit him on the side of his head. As he staggered, I triggered one of my skills, Shadow Dance. I shot to the side, a blur of darkness, as the other man aimed and fired his crossbow in the wrong direction. I emerged out of Shadow Dance almost right behind him, slashing at his neck.

[You Backstabbed Mercenary Rogue!]

[Critical Hit!]

The Mercenary’s head went flying, hitting the other guy as he scrambled up. He was hardened enough to not juggle it and scream. Covered in blood, snarling obscenities, he hurled the net at me and drew a pair of daggers. I heard men screaming in front of the stable, then a saurian shriek of rage - and pain.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart!” I called to Cutthroat, knocking the net away with the butt of the spear and whirling it to parry the first sword strike with the pointy end. “I’m coming!”

Mercenaries called to each other, and boots thundered around both sides of the stable as I dodged, blocked, then hit the soldier’s blade with a powerful strike, sending it flying out of his lacerated hand. I triggered Lunge, and drove the foot-long spear blade and part of the haft through his chest. He was a high enough level that it didn’t kill him outright, but the kick to the chest to get the spear out of his body and the [Bleed] debuff sure as hell did.

There was a cry from the yard. “He’s out back!”

“Where’s the dragon!?”

Hiding, assholes. I ground my teeth, and charged out to join Cutthroat.

The hookwing was surrounded, trying to fight in multiple directions at once. Men with pikes kept her from their throats, while crossbowmen plugged her full of bolts. Three [Mercenaries] were torn apart like wet rags on the ground.

I willed my body to become immaterial again. The tattoo on my right hand blazed with cold, sending shooting numbness through my body. My HP drained fractionally as I slithered into a haze of dark smoke. I dashed in past Cutthroat, supernaturally fast, and reappeared just behind one of the Mercenaries who was attacking her. He spun, panicked, and struck a glancing blow off my shoulder armor as the others rushed in. I danced back like a ghost, blowing around one of the pikemen and reappearing behind and to the side of him. The mobs converged on me, and as soon as they massed up, I deployed the nuke: my newest ability and first AOE attack, Umbra Burst.

“Hrragh!” I slammed the end of my spear into the ground, discharging the built-up dark energy in my body. Twisted thorny vines of shadow sprung from the ground, lashing out to capture - and puncture - legs and arms. The men screamed in confusion and fear as ice crawled up along their flesh. I capitalized on the short Frozen debuff with another ability: Blood Sprint, which powered a slashing strike that knocked three of the men off their feet and sent them to the ground, and its combo chain ability Blood Storm.

The dark mana swirling around my spear turned dark red as I whirled the polearm around and cut a swath through the Mercenaries. Each successful blow restored health, and my HP jumped well above what I’d lost using Shadow Dance. Three of them screamed and fell to the ground, their skin dry and stretched tight over the bones of their faces.

Two weeks ago, I’d have been disturbed by what I was doing. But now, I had Karalti – and I would have eaten a man alive if that’s what it took to protect her.

“Oriaysal!” The Mata Argis Agent, who had stayed out of the battle until now, leveled his hands at me. Only then did I spot what he’d been hiding under his cloak. He was wearing gauntlets reinforced with black matte crystal capsules and flexible tubing, the leather glowing with runes.

A spellcaster. He’d been letting his men wear us down. And he was Level 25.

The spell went off like a flashbang, blinding Cutthroat and me. It was like being stabbed in the eyeballs with a needle. NPCs who had been drawn to us to watch the fight fled, while screams of terror echoed from the street.

I struggled to keep position, hold a fighting stance, but I took hits from all sides as the Blindness debuff ticked down. Worse, I heard the mage speak another Word of Power. “Thoram!”

Thunder cracked, and suddenly I was flying, and not in the fun way. The energy slammed into me and surged through my limbs. Like a bowl of wet noodles thrown at a wall, I hit the side of the stable, limbs turned to jelly, then bounced and clattered onto the ground.

Or at least, I thought it was the stable. My vision swam back into view, and I saw that I’d actually flown across the yard, through the open gate, tumbled across the road, and hit the side of a large shipping container at the water’s edge. Barely ten feet away was a flimsy knee-high barrier and a sheer five-hundred-foot drop into the churning abyss that passed for Archemi’s oceans. 300 HP had vanished like a bad dream.

Groaning, I picked myself up to see the spellcaster whirl around and cast on Cutthroat as she charged him down. This spell engulfed my hookwing in a cloud of ice. Cutthroat gave a croaky squawk as she toppled to the ground.

Fuck, this guy was fast. I gulped down a couple of healing potions as I dashed for the gate and slammed into the swordsman who barreled at me, clumsily swinging. I slashed him to the side, and he fell, clutching his spurting throat. I bounded forward, leaping like a cricket in a bid to land on the mage, but my spear and feet slammed into an invisible barrier. My eyes widened, just before he casually blasted me with the other hand.

This time, I hit the corner edge of the shipping crate and crunched instead of bounced.

[Warning! You are Stunned!]

[Current HP: 25/440]

[Warning! This enemy’s challenge rating is dangerously high!]

“Urrgh…” The blood beat in my temples. I had to keep this fucker away from Karalti.

“You there! Search the stable!” The mage called back over his shoulder as he stalked through the gate and out to the street. The Stun counter was still ticking down, and I struggled to move as he closed in on me, hand raised. Lightning danced around his fingers. “And you, heretic! Where is she? Where is the queen?”

“Have you checked your ass? I heard it's pretty roomy in there.” I spat blood, moving to hands and knees. I still had the Spear of Nine Spheres wrapped in one tight-knuckled fist, for all the good it was doing me.

“You are in no position to sling insults.” The masked Mata Argis Agent had a cold voice, dark with anger. “Where is she!? What have you done to her?!”

“The same thing I do to your mom every night.”

The mage wrenched me to my feet with a spell, his gauntlet burning with blue fire. “Have it your way! We will extract the information at base without any need for your input. By the power vested in me by the Warden of Ilia-”

His speech was cut off by a furious black blur of claws and teeth. Karalti dove at the back of his head and hit him at full speed, sending him staggering toward me. He flung his hand out just before his concentration broke, but the spell was successful. I was whiplashed around in mid-air before being slammed down onto the rough ground. I hit the knee-high cliffside barricade hard, and felt something crack in my chest on the rebound. My arm went numb, and my spear skittered off across the dirt.

“Karalti! No! Stay back!” I yelled, rolling over to scramble up.

The little dragon’s neck swelled. She hissed and spat, kicking with her powerful hind feet. She caught her sickle claw on the edge of the mage’s mask and kicked it free, baring a surprisingly young face. He looked like a Mormon: pale, pointed face, wavy nut-blond hair. Karalti got one good slash across his eyes before he caught her by the neck like a turkey.

Karalti squealed, and my guts froze cold.

“Let her go, you jackbooted piece of shit!” I roared, blood pouring from my nose, and charged at him, desperate to provide any distraction at all. If they took her...

“Hold fast!” The last swordsman was running towards the pair of them with a net outstretched.

“No!” I screamed now, real terror overwhelming common sense, self-preservation, even the need to breathe. Every day, I was haunted by what had happened to her mother, and what would happen to her if they took her. “Let her go!”

“Hector!” Karalti screeched, little limbs flailing as the pair of men closed in.

The soldier reached them before I did. He threw the net over Karalti’s struggling body, snaring her wings, and grabbed her in a bear hug.

“Stand by! Hold her! Don’t worry - she’s too young for fire!” The mage was struggling to see and catch his breath. He went to go pick up his mask. I bellowed, charging him, but he wasn’t distracted enough to ignore me - with a dismissive sweep of his hand, his magic sent me sprawling.

“HECTOR!” Karalti twisted in the soldier’s arms like a fish, slashing and biting. he tried to pull away from her, but a lucky claw caught him in the neck and he went down, blood spraying from his carotid. He dropped and she fell with him, still struggling in the net.

[Karalti lands a devastating blow! X5 damage!]

[Mercenary Soldier is hemorrhaging!]

[Congratulations! Karalti is Level 2!]

“Time to end this,” the mage panted, standing over me. He levelled his smoking hand at my chest. “The Knight-Commander sends his regards.”

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Chapter 3

Six feet behind him, Karalti’s body was consumed by a kaleidoscopic haze. The opal seams in her scales spread over her entire body. The guard nearly dropped her as she seemed to liquify, then doubled in size. It distracted everyone, even the mage.

Before she’d even stopped glowing, the dragon reared her head back and opened her jaws wide. “CHAAAA!”

A thin plume of burning liquid, like ghostly white napalm, burst from her mouth. The net caught fire, and when it hit the Mata Argis Agent, he caught on fire, too. It spattered the ground, and wherever it landed, white flames erupted.

The Agent’s cloak caught like he’d dipped it in gasoline. The heat was so intense I could feel it from the ground. I recoiled as he jumped back and to the side, shouting a new spell. “Bla’pahaz!”

Water condensed out of the air around him in a sphere and dumped over his head, like someone had poured a bucket over him. The water sloshed down, saturating his clothes... but the flames were not extinguished. Clouds of steam spewed into the air.

“AAAAIIIIIEEE!” Now he was boiling alive instead of frying. He spun away from me, clawing at his robes to get them off. I rolled to the side and clapped a hand down on the haft of the Spear of Nine Spheres. Maybe we could pick away at him like this? Maybe we could...?

The mage snarled another Word of Power, whipping the dust and dirt on the street around himself like a tornado. The earth covered him, and when it fell away, the flames were extinguished. His HP was still in the green - the fire had distracted him, but Karalti was still only Level 2. It hadn’t injured him that much.

“Bad man!” Karalti’s raspy, parrot-like speaking voice cut through the air as she charged the Agent at a run, leaping into the air with great beats of her wings. “CHAAAA!”

“Karalti! NO!” I shouted, but it was already too late.

The mage blocked the napalm stream with an energetic shield, and then swatted the little dragon from the air. She cried out as she tumbled away, rolling to stillness in the churned dust of the street.

We weren’t strong enough. We just weren’t strong enough, and I wasn’t strong enough to protect her. Teeth gritted, I burned through my healing items and prepared to charge anyway... except that someone else got there first.

“FOR TALTOS! FOR HONOR!” The man who emerged out of the cloud of dirt was massive. Six and a half feet tall, shoulders wider than a door, a saber in his hands. The Mata Argis mage got a shield up between him and the newcomer just in time, but the blow of that sword against the magical barrier send him skidding across the ground.

The mage looked nearly as confused as I did. He was preparing his return attack when a bright bolt of energy slammed into him from my other side. I glimpsed a small, wiry man in bright blue robes, with a steel-gray ponytail and mage-gloves that crackled with energy. The Mata Argis Agent staggered, reeling close to the barrier overlooking the cliff, and I saw my chance.

Wheezing from broken ribs, my HP throbbing in the red, I charged the mage and tackled him off the edge.

Whatever magic school the Mata Argis mage had been to, they apparently hadn’t taught him how to fly. He howled all the way down, plummeting like a comet into the crushing hundred-foot waves that thundered against the base of the cliffs. Archemi’s physics was a bitch.

[You have defeated Mata Argis Agent!]

[You gain 200 EXP!]

[Congratulations! You are Level 9!]

[You have unspent ability points!]

[You have unspent skill points!]

“Karalti!” There was no time to gloat. Struggling for breath, I ran to my hatchling. She was up on her feet, but she was down below half HP. A man in bright blue robes moved away from her as she flapped toward me.

The dragon hit me in the chest and knocked me on my ass. She clung to me with four sets of pointy claws, wings beating wildly. “Hector! Hector is hurt!”

“Hector’s gonna be fine.” But Cutthroat wasn’t. With Karalti pressed in close to my hip, I limped across the smoking ground and back into the stable yard, to the huge body sprawled on the ground. I dropped to my knees beside Cutthroat, a lump rising in my throat. The hookwing was, to all appearances, completely dead. Out of habit, I jammed my fingers under the edge of her jaw, feeling for a pulse, even as my HUD display showed me her level and remaining HP. It was at 5 out of 460, and dropping slowly.

[Your Mount is in a critical condition! You must restore HP equal to one quarter of her total HP to stabilize her.]

“Shitballs,” I said to no one in particular. I raided my inventory - there were ten Bonebreak Poultices that each healed 50 HP, six Moss Tinctures that healed 70 HP, and a bunch of mana-infused potions that I could use, but would be toxic to Cutthroat.

I slapped a poultice onto her wounds and pulled the dinosaur’s head onto my lap. Her skull was as long as my torso, but I pried her jaws open and poured two Moss Tinctures down her throat and returned the empty bottles back into my inventory. Cutthroat twitched, then kicked spasmodically along the ground as she regained consciousness, tearing long furrows in the dirt. Then she whimpered.

[Cutthroat has been stabilized! HP: 145/460]

“The creature is badly wounded.” The blue-robed man had joined us, brow wrinkled with concern. He looked to be in his early fifties, and he had a scholarly, handsome face, with wise dark eyes. The huge knight who had intervened in the fight hovered by his left shoulder. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with an impressive moustache and strings of black runes tattooed over his cheeks and under his eyes. He was dressed in a fine chainmail tunic underneath black and red lamellar armor, which made him look like some kind of Slavic samurai.

“Yeah, she is. Stand back.” I uncorked the second Moss Tincture and poured it in, shoving my arm into her mouth to make sure it went down.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Putting my hand in Cutthroat’s mouth wasn’t the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but it was definitely in the Top Ten Dumb Ideas of Hector Park. When her eyes flickered open, dark and hazy, I had about a second to pull my arm out and scramble away. I barely managed to stay out of reach as Cutthroat snapped at me, jaws clapping together barely inches from my face.

Karalti hissed at her and drew a deep breath. Before I could stop her, she exhaled wheezily in the hookwing’s direction, but only a few tiny drops of burning liquid and saliva sprayed from her mouth. None of them landed on the dinosaur, and Cutthroat almost looked offended.

“Oh.” Karalti hunched down, looking up at us from the ground.

I turned to regard the pair of men who were still shadowing us. “Thanks for the assist.”

To my surprise, both men went to their knees. The big knight bowed to the hilt of his sword. Blue Robes flattened himself down on the ground.

“Please forgive our imposition, rytier,” the smaller man – mage? priest? – said as he rose back up. “We saw you and your draak in distress-”

“-We could not let these rogues continue their assault on this holy creature, or you, her sacred guardian!” The knight finished. He had a deep, booming voice to go with the moustache, but gentle eyes. He gazed at Karalti as if she were an angel fallen from heaven.

Karalti leaned in to sniff them curiously, wings buzzing. I rolled my shoulders and grimaced. People were beginning to stare at us, which was literally the opposite of what I wanted right now. “Well, thanks. I really appreciate it, but we have to find a ship and leave. The next wave will be here any minute.”

“Please lend us your ear for a minute more, rytier,” the knight said. He had a strange, thick accent. Not Russian, but definitely somewhere east of Germany. “I am Ur Kirov, Knight of Taltos and a representative of His Majesty Andrik Corvinus the Wise, and this is Father Petko Matthias, priest and scholar. We come from Vlachia, where your draak is a most holy being. We were, in all honesty, on our way to a royal vessel when we spied your entanglement with this knave and his-”

I groaned. “Well, thanks again, but we don’t have much time. Where are you going with this?”

“Ahh, well… we have been recalled to mighty Vlachia at the Volod’s request following a great tragedy in the kingdom.” Kirov sheathed his sword, nodding thoughtfully and with a disturbing lack of urgency. “I was sent here to protect Father Matthias, but by the power invested in my office as a Knight of the Red Star, I would offer you and your draak sanctuary aboard our vessel.”

My eyes narrowed. I’d had enough of Archemi’s knightly orders to last me a lifetime, but this guy was too ridiculous to not be sincere.

“The Volod ordered that we should bring any skilled adventurers with us to address the problems of the kingdom,” Father Matthias added softly. “But to find a true draak in the company of a skillful warrior… it can only be a sign from the Nine.”

The Nine? That caught my attention. I caught Cutthroat’s reins in one hand as she tried to limp past me and pulled her to a stop. “Wait. You’re a priest of the old gods? The dragon gods?”

Matthias glanced at the nearest bystanders. “Please be a little more discreet, rytier. Their worship is outlawed here.”

Kirov clasped his hands together, beseeching me. “We cannot in good conscience abandon a draak and her guardian in these barbaric lands. I would beg you to consider our offer.”

I frowned. The gamer in me said that these two were about to offer me a quest - a juicy one, given that they directly served their king. But I’d been avoiding people ever since leaving Fort Palewing, and the string of betrayals and the gross abuse of the dragons that the knights of the Order of Saint Grigori committed had left a bitter taste in my mouth. Still, the name ‘Vlachia’ rang a bell somewhere... and after a couple of moments thought, I remembered. Vlachia was the country where I was meant to meet up with Matir.

“Hold on a second.” Keeping one eye on the two men and one on my hookwing and dragon, I opened up the description of the first major quest I’d ever received:

ONGOING QUEST: THE TEMPLE OF THE HIDDEN SEED

When the Dark Star rises to the sky, journey to the Thunderstones at Myszno, a village in the east of Vlachia.

Reward: ???

Difficulty: Level 12-15

“Do you happen to know where the Village of Myszno is?” I asked Kirov.

“Myszno? Why, of course!” His moustache bristled, and his eyes turned distant and dark with emotion. “Myszno is both a village and a province, down near the southern border of Vlachia. It is a sight that would melt the heart of any painter. The endless forests, the rolling hills, the mountains soaring into the sky like…”

“Myszno village is a place of pilgrimage for the local natives,” Matthias added, rapping Kirov’s armored sleeve to shut him up. “There is a holy place up in the mountains near the town, but rumors of monsters and worse have grown in recent times. However, it is not anything I can speak of comfortably out of doors, especially on Ilian soil.”

Interesting. I was betting that ‘holy place’ was the Thunderstones, whatever they were. I nodded sharply. “Alright. I’ll talk with you. You said something about a ship?”

“Yes. Our mighty steed awaits.” Kirov nodded. “Now, please, come with us so that we might see you aboard, and journey with you to safety.”

----------------------------------------

Chapter 4

The Vlachian royal ship was called the Hóleány - pronounced ‘Hoo-lan’. It was easily the nicest ship in the port: a sleek cruiser with four huge magictech engines and layers of waxed silk sails.

The pair of men led me and my saurian friends down the harborfront with some urgency, half-sheltering Karalti and me with their cloaks. Guards were pouring from the city now, stopping and frisking people, pulling back robes, harassing dark-colored hookwings and their owners. We reached the gangplank just ahead of the tide of angry soldiers.

“Shelter, at last,” Kirov said hoarsely. He looked to Father Matthias. “Please, Father, you and our guests must go first, lest these rogues try to breach the deck. I will stand guard until you are hidden.”

Kirov seemed to be a real, honest-to-gods chivalrous knight. I didn’t argue with him. I just scooped Karalti in my arms and carried her up to the ship like a big puppy. Cutthroat limped up without complaint, too injured to be her normal rage-driven self, while Father Matthias followed up behind her. Well behind, so that she didn’t knock him off into the sea with her lashing tail.

“We have facilities for your hookwing,” he said, once we were on board. “We will stable her, and then retreat to the guest quarters to discuss our dilemma.”

“Thanks.” I looked back over the railing, watching as a unit of black-cloaked soldiers swept down the road. They were about five hundred feet from us, but I could see them clearly, zooming in my vision like a sniper scope. “We need to hurry. The Mata Argis are going to be on us any minute.”

Matthias was looking at my eyes and face as if he were seeing it for the first time. “You have the dragonsight? That means you trained with the Skyrdon of Ilia. And she-?”

“Karalti escaped a fate worse than death, and so did I.” I blinked, refocusing to close range. “Let’s go to the below deck.”

The priest escorted us there. Cutthroat was anxious on the ship, hissing at every shadow until we locked her into her stall. I unequipped her muzzle just as the ship’s engines began to roar. Her feathers flattened against her skull, and she crouched down, eyes darting from side to side.

“That’s a good girl. Sit down and don’t murder anyone, okay?” I patted the door, and left with Matthias for the main deck. “Thanks, by the way. You didn’t have to do this.”

“It is our honor,” he replied, leading the way back up the stairs. “Our vows include that of hospitality. Your Karalti is a rare and precious creature. How did you come to accompany her?”

I liked his choice of words: ‘accompany’, not ‘own’. “The short version is that the Skyrdon of Saint Grigori enslave their dragons, including Karalti’s mother. Her mother gave me Karalti to protect. She asked me to give her a good life.”

“The gods judge us by the way we treat those in need,” Matthias said, slowing to turn and duck his head. “Do your people worship the Nine, then? You’re not Ilian.”

I rubbed my arm. “I don’t worship any gods, but I work for one. It’s kind of like a side job.”

“Meaning?”

I shrugged, and pulled my glove off to show him what lay beneath. “Meaning one of them put a stamp on me, and asks me to run errands for him.”

The Mark of Matir was a nine-pointed star that was similar to a chaos star, with an extra arrow and a question-mark like symbol at the center. It was burned on like a primitive tattoo, but the black lines almost seemed to float underneath the skin.

“Bogdi vris!” His hand flew to his mouth. “The sigil of Chernobog!”

“You mean Matir, right?” I pulled the glove back on and tucked my sleeve in.

“He is The Keeper of Night, the Prince of a Thousand Names. The dragons called him Matir. In Vlachia and the Sathbar Plains, we call him Chernobog, the Black God. And you… you are more than an adventurer.” Matthias spread his hands. “I cannot believe my eyes, but… here you stand. Is it true, then? Does Chernobog stir?”

“Seems like it.” I nodded. “I don’t really know much about him though, to be honest.”

“It is something for discussion later. For now, we should get a drink. I will send someone to see to your hookwing and restore her health.”

Karalti yawned, flashing rows of needle-sharp teeth. “Soooo sleepy.”

“We’ll get you to bed soon, Tidbit.” I thought back. I spoke aloud to Matthias. “A drink sounds good. Is there any way we can arrange a bed for Karalti?”

“Of course! Come, we shall see to it at once. And perhaps I can tell you what I know of Chernobog… his mark on you surely explains why you desire a pilgrimage to Myszno.”

***

So much had happened in the two weeks since my death that I’d barely had time to sit down and think, let alone grind out levels and skills. I’d arrived in the game in a slave ship, led a rebellion, and in short order found myself trying to join an order of dragon knights. They’d turned out to be assholes, and since escaping with Karalti, we had been running and hiding from them and their agents. For the second time this month, I was back on an airship. But this time, I wasn’t a slave. And thanks to Karalti’s mother, neither was she.

We were well out over the Bay of Knives, the channel separating the Ilian Peninsula from the rest of the continent of Artana by the time that the four of us – me, Kirov, Father Mathias and Karalti – gathered together in the Royal Suite on board the Hóleány. There were thankfully no royals aboard, so we spread out like fat men on a sofa. Karalti was a snoring ball of wings and scales on the grand bed, curled in the middle of the red silk sheets. Me, Kirov and Matthias sat around a small but well-stocked bar, drinking a little bit of everything and a lot of some things.

“Slivovitz!” Kirov boomed, setting a shotglass of clear liquor in front of me. “This will put hair on your stones, rytier! To the Volod!”

“To the Volod!” I picked it up and threw it back. It was fruity, but strong enough that my eyes watered. Still, before being uploaded to Archemi, I was a Korean-American dropout who’d hung around bikers and then soldiered for five years. All of those circumstances meant that I could definitely hold my own in the liquor department.

“Rytier Hector, we come to you with a grave matter indeed,” Kirov said, shaking his head and setting his glass down. “It is no exaggeration to say that Taltos, and indeed all of Vlachia, owes the dragons its foundation. Our cities, our culture, even the land itself was shaped by the mighty Solonkratsu. We venerate their gods, but especially Khors, the God of the Forge. The Church of the Creator is the closest ally of the state, giving us inspiration and a moral framework by which to live.”

“Okay.” Ugh, religion. Not entirely sure where this was going, I helped myself to another shot of slivovitz.

“Something is preying on my brothers in the city of Taltos.” Matthias gestured animatedly as he spoke. “Priests of Khors have been murdered by some manner of terrible spirit.”

Kirov muttered. “Ghosts. Bah.”

The priest shot him a sharp glance. “Do you really think a flesh-and-blood assassin could have convinced Franz Darko to commit suicide? Impossible. The ocean would rise to the skies before that happened.”

“Wait a sec.” I held up a hand. “You just said these guys were murdered.”

“They were. Franz would not kill himself: suicide is anathema to Khors, a coward’s death.” Matthias’ scholarly face hardened. “No… something killed Father Abel, and something killed Darko, and the same being has killed one of our great prodigies, Brother Orban.”

“So two senior priests and one junior priest have been murdered so far?” I asked.

They nodded.

I studied Matthias. “Why do you think it’s a ghost?”

“I am a scholar of the supernatural, among other things.” Matthias shook his head, then reached for the bottle. “Kirov, tell him the details of what you told me. They nauseate me to repeat them.”

“Very well.” Kirov slouched back into his chair, his hands resting on his stomach. “The first to die was Father Lazlo Abel, a patriarch of the church and tutor to the royal throne. He was beaten to death in his own study with one of his own books, and a quill forced into his eye.”

“Jeee-zus.” I grimaced, and threw back my next shot.

“The second to die was Father Franz Darko,” the knight continued. “As His Grace said, he appears to have committed suicide. He was found hanging from the rafters in his sacred forge. The room was locked from the inside. We did not assume it had any connection to Father Abel’s demise-”

“But I do,” Matthias interrupted. “I know Franz like my own brother. He was a ferocious man, full of fire and spirit. He was a man of honor, and even if he were to kill himself, he would do it in the manner of a warrior. He would not hang himself like a brigand, and especially not inside his place of worship.”

“The third victim was found only days ago.” Kirov’s dark eyes glittered with worry as he spoke. “Brother Orban… he was a great Mastersmith, a senior monk and a protégé of the High Forgemaster, Agoston Toth. Orban went missing in the catfolk ghetto, where he was serving the poor with his craft. Two days later, he was staked out in the public gardens for all to see. I received a letter detailing the scene. What I read was… grotesque.”

I frowned. “Give me details. How did they find the body?”

The knight sighed. “His neck was wrapped with barbed wire, the kind found on the district wall separating the ghetto from the rest of the city. His body was drenched in sewerage, a chamber pot left on his head. We found a rat in his mouth, rammed down into his throat so only the head protruded. That was what killed him.”

“Not the staking or the wire?”

“No. The staking was… surgical in its precision. It is possible to keep a man alive on such a device. The wire was not tight enough. And the rat was still alive, though barely. It had kicked his throat apart.”

“That is some horror-movie-level shit right there,” I said. “That kind of murder doesn’t scream ‘ghost’ to me, though.”

“No one saw or heard a thing,” Matthias replied, lighting up a small pipe. His hands shook as he coordinated the match and sandpaper. “The city guard did not see anything. Not the staking, not the screams… nothing. He did not have time to fight back. It is as if he materialized in the gardens in the dead of night.”

“Nothing human could do this,” Kirov insisted. “But there are creatures with the kind of strength to commit such atrocities. This assassin – monster, ghost, whatever it is – has been named the Slayer of Taltos. It must be destroyed. That is why the Volod ordered that we search for suitable adventurers capable of dealing with such a creature.”

“And you are a Starborn, are you not?” Matthias added.

Yep – this was leading to a quest. A big one. I folded my hands on the table. “Yeah. I’m Starborn. What is your Volod offering to the person who brings this creature in?”

“That, I cannot say. It will be exceedingly generous, but you will have to discuss the reward with him,” Kirov said. “But to start with, you and your dragon will be given full hospitality and guaranteed sanctuary in Vlachia. Will you help us?”

NEW QUEST: THE SLAYER OF TALTOS

Priests of Khors, the draconic god of Fire and Craftsmanship, are being murdered in the Vlachian capital of Taltos. Matthias, himself a priest of Khors, and his bodyguard Sir Kirov have been recalled from their mission in Ilia and tasked with finding a hero capable of bringing the Slayer to ground. They believe you can help them restore order in Taltos and bring the murderer to justice.

Difficulty: Hard

Recommended Level: 12-15

Rewards: EXP, Fame in Vlachia. Speak with the king, Volod Andrik Corvinus III, to negotiate your material rewards.

Special: This is an evolving quest. Updates will appear in your log.

The offer of sanctuary by itself was tempting. Wherever we went, the Mata Argis was bound to follow – even if I took Karalti back to Tuungant, like I’d originally intended. But if I was directly under the protection of a foreign king… well, that offered a measure of safety. Not only that, but I had to get my ass to Vlachia soon anyway. I still didn’t trust Matir, but I was willing to fulfil the terms of the quest and see where it led. I could do this quest and level up, then head to Myszno.

I looked over at Karalti. She had rolled partly onto her back, her foreclaws clasped over her eyes. She was sound asleep, snoring away despite the noise we were making. The fight with the Mata Argis had exhausted her.

I hit confirm with a small nod, then stood and offered a hand to Matthias to shake. “Fine. Count me in.”

----------------------------------------

Chapter 5

Three days later.

We woke with the sun onboard the Hóleány. Or more accurately, I woke with the sun. I was curled around Karalti under a down comforter, her back and wings arched against the front of my body. The single level gain had made a huge difference to her. She had doubled in size, and her scrawny hatchling neck was filling out, becoming smooth and muscular. She was still smaller than me, but even though she was the little spoon, she still somehow managed to take up two thirds of the bed.

I didn't wake her straightaway. Instead, I slowly pulled back the covers and drank in the sight of her. The little dragon slept on her side, with all six limbs curled against her body, her head tucked down, the tip of her nose sticking out from under the blankets. The flaky dull scales had been replaced by new, bright blue-black ones that practically glowed under light. They were smooth and warm to the touch. By the dawn light, her dark scales rippled with deep veins of color. It was an eerie, beautiful effect, as if she was sculpted from perfect black opal.

Now and then, I reminded myself that she wasn’t real, but inevitably concluded that it didn’t matter. Archemi was my reality now, and not a day went by where I wasn't grateful to have Karalti in my life. She was curious, mischievous, adorable, and needy, but she was also deeply loving, with a powerful need to please and to learn. I stroked over her folded wings, her horns, her shoulder. She continued to snooze on while I bought up her character sheet for review.

KARALTI - QUEEN DRAGON

LEVEL 2 HATCHLING

Strength: 12

Dexterity: 17

Stamina: 13

Will: 15

Wisdom: 5

Intelligence: 12

HP: 250/250

MP: 50/50

Affinity: Darkness/Life

EXP: 374 (233 to next level)

Lexica: 2

Spells: 0

SKILLS:

Acrobatics 3

- Aerial Acrobatics 4

Dive

[Karalti has two unspent skill points!]

ABILITIES:

Gift of the Blood: See detailed description for more information.

Eviscerate: A power attack with the front claws.

(New!) Ghost Fire: 65-90 damage; sticky fire that burns underwater. 2 Charges, 30 min recharge time.

Bite: 25-30 damage.

Gore: A dragon’s unarmed attacks do double damage and cause Bleeding.

SPELLS:

None.

Karalti had two unspent Skill Points from her last level and one new Lexica point. She was also halfway to Level 3 already – probably because she’d landed some fire damage on the Level 25 Mage. At Level 3, she’d be able to take her first spell, but I was going to hold off selecting one until Level 4 or 5. Each one of my dragon’s levels came with a selection of two possible spells. Provided she had the required number of Lexica points, Karalti could learn either of the spells before or at her current level. This meant that if you hoarded points, you could get better spells later on – though when I brought up her Magic tree, I noticed that some powerful spells required ‘lesser’ versions of the same spell to be selectable. Greater Darkness needed Darkness as a prerequisite; Telekinesis needed Presdigitation.

Level 3 had a good pair of basic spells: Detect Magic and Shadow Double. Each one cost 3 Lexica points, so she would be able to take one. I was going to have to see what kind of combat role she played at larger sizes. Both spells were potentially very useful, especially as I was not capable of using any magic – just special abilities that chewed up Adrenaline Points and-or HP to execute powerful attacks and evasive maneuvers.

With a hand resting on her snoring flank, I brought up her Path menu:

This was also something I already had to think about. Dragons levelled differently than players. Superficially, it was similar in that Karalti got to take a Path and then an Advanced Path, which in this game was equivalent to taking a Class. There were some differences. Players started out with a basic general Path – Warrior, Mage, Specialist, or Artificer. At Level 5, they had the option to take a specialized class, or Advanced Path.

Karalti had to grow to Level 5 just to take her basic Path, which was less like a character class and more like a developmental track for her that shaped her strengths and weaknesses. She wouldn’t get to take an Advanced Path until her soft cap at Level 30. I assumed that was because of how powerful dragons were at levels 1-30 compared to the average player character or NPC. Advanced Paths were an endgame feature for dragons.

DRACONIC PATHS: THE PATH OF POWER AND THE PATH OF ALACRITY

Dragons mature slowly, and like humans, they can only take an Advanced Path when they are experienced adults. A dragon reaches adulthood at Level 30. From hatching to maturity, your Queen dragon can invest points into one of two basic Paths: The Path of Power and the Path of Alacrity.

Path of Power: This Path focuses on your dragon’s strength and offensive abilities, improving their ability to take and deal damage, and the strength of their breath weapon.

Path of Alacrity: This Path focuses on your dragon’s mobility and defensive abilities, improving their speed, agility, and tactical movement at high altitude.

At first, I’d been disappointed in the Path ‘gap’ between Level 2 and Level 5, but that gap had a purpose. It was there so you had time to think about what Path you were going to take your mount along. It was impossible to tell what kind of personality or native talent your dragon had at Level 1 or 2, but I knew I’d have a good idea by Level 5. Not only that, but at Level 5, I was pretty sure she’d be big enough to start flying – which meant we’d be able to experiment as a team before we committed to one of the two paths: Power or Alacrity.

My dragon had two unspent skill points. I decided to put another point into her existing Acrobatics skill, bringing it to Acrobatics 4, and one into a new skill, Stealth. Stealth covered both sneaking and hiding. At her size and level – and given that we were headed for an urban environment – it made sense to make sure she was able to fly nimbly and successfully hide if she had to.

"Morning, sleepyhead," I said, closing the HUD menu. "Time to get up. We've got training.”

Karalti snored on.

"Come on, kiddo." I gave her a couple of shakes.

"Uugooo..." Karalti balled up like a cat, tucking her head under her wing.

"Yep. Training. You’re gonna be the best flier in the world, remember?" I pushed off her and made my way around her tail to sit on the edge of the bed. "Come on, chop-chop."

"Nuu. Karalti sleep." Her telepathic voice was blurry.

"Nope. Karalti gets out of bed and embraces the suck." I was beginning to sound like my old NCO. "Up and at 'em, sunshine."

"Nuuuuuu. Sun can go die." But she untucked her head and peered at me blearily. Her eyes were even more stunning than her skin: a tight bicolor core of black and pure amethyst purple, shot through with silver. "Karalti hate the sun."

"Me too, but we need to get stronger. We're doing hoops and beams today."

While my dragon groaned and rustled around under the covers, I dropped and started doing push-ups. There were no Stat Points to assign in Archemi – you got what you trained for. If you wanted to raise Strength, you lifted weights, overloaded your pack and marched around, or worked a forge and hammer. If you wanted to improve your Dexterity, you ran laps, learned gymnastics, or practiced knife throwing, parkour, or similar activities. Same with all the others. You wanted more INT? You read books and learned stuff. Wisdom? I’d found that thinking about strategy and tactics, playing games, and getting to know NPCs reliably improved Wisdom. The difference between Archemi and IRL, the thing that made this process fun, was that you got immediate, tangible benefits for training. Your muscles pumped when you gained a point. Your mind got keener, your vision improved. You saw the improvements training made to your body, your mind, and your Attack, Defense, Evasion, and other abilities.

It reminded me a lot of the training program I’d used to get fit when I’d really started to get into motorcycle stunt work. Being an enormous dork, I used augmented reality apps that added an RPG element to my training, and had worked on becoming a ‘Level 15 Barbarian’ by checking off workouts over weeks and months. Karalti leveled her stats exactly the same way, and so did Cutthroat. Thus, training.

I'd finished two sets of 50 push-ups by the time Karalti slithered out of bed. She yawned, revealing twin rows of razor-sharp teeth, and smacked her jaws together couple of times. "Karalti hates hoops."

"It's time you started using first-person pronouns, Tidbit." I cracked my knuckles and then turned back to my exercises. Clap push-ups, then burpees. "You're a big fire-breathing girl now. No more baby talk."

Karalti regarded me pensively, her in eyelids half closed. "So I can say stuff like… ‘If you make me fly hoops, I’ll set you on fire?’"

"As long as you say it in first person."

"What about… I hate hoops, and I hate you for making me fly through them? And I want five chickens, aaand..."

"You're a Queen Dragon, not a dragon princess. You’ll eat what you’re given.”

The little dragon finally hopped to the floor, stretching her wings and curling her back feet up against her ribs one at a time, like a bird. "I’m so hungry though. Bleh. Well, I guess hoops are okay, but do I have to wear the…?"

Her pupils contracted to points, and then she turned her head away from me, studying the ceiling intently.

I stood up, and arched an eyebrow. “The what?”

“Nope! Nuthin!” Karalti made a show of preening underneath her wing. “Wow, I sure got really big after I levelled, huh?”

I rolled my eyes, and went to get the source of her dread. My backpack.

Karalti whined aloud, flattening her wings against her body. "Nuuuu! No backpack!"

"Yes, backpack." Everything we owned was loaded in my pack, which weighed about sixty pounds. Karalti was still too little to carry all of it while flying, so I sorted about half of the weapons, junk, and tools onto the floor while she griped and stamped her feet.

“Don’t wanna!”

"Of course you don’t wanna. But you're already twice as big as you were at Level 1. Think how strong you’ll be by your next level after some resistance training.”

“I don’t care! It’s heavy!”

I sighed, standing up with it over one shoulder. “You want to carry me some day, don’t you?”

Her wings drooped. “Yeah.”

“I weigh a hundred and eighty pounds. This weighs less than a quarter of Hector. Do you remember why we use the backpack for training?"

She looked sidelong. “Because you’re a fatass?”

I mock-scowled, and reached back to grab my butt. “I’ll have you know that my ass is a supple, perky marvel of nature, young lady.”

Karalti play-bowed to me, tail lashing with mirth. “Yeah! Because it’s fat!”

I narrowed my eyes. “If you want to make your stand on that hill, be prepared to die on it, because I will twerk on you.”

Dragons were intensely visual creatures, and the rant made Karalti squeal with laughter and cover her eyes. How she knew what twerking was, I’ll never know. “Aaaaghhh, whyyy??!”

“Me and my perfect ass have no shame whatsoever, and you will regret ever questioning the mass and might of my posterior. Now, unless you want to see Uncle Hector crack walnuts with his buttcheeks, try again,” I said.

Karalti's eyes and nostrils scrunched up in a draconic pout. "Because resistance training with balanced weight makes it easier to fly?”

“That’s right.”

“You better wear it too!"

“I will. I’ll even go first.” I walked over and booped her on the snout with my finger. “I don’t expect you to do anything I wouldn’t do myself.”

Once we actually got outside and got moving, Karalti's surliness was replaced by giggling enthusiasm. She bounded across the rolling deck and practically threw herself over the railing, chirping with delight as she swooped up into the cold, choppy wind. This time, her exuberant morning flight was accompanied by gouts of white fire.

I watched her for a few minutes, admiring the way she cut the air. That one skill point had made a noticeable difference in her agility. While she warmed up, I did two sets of ten while wearing the pack where she could see me. I hadn’t told her it didn’t actually weigh thirty pounds – it weighed forty. That was for my benefit, as well as hers. When I was done, I’d gained another point to Strength and Stamina. "Okay, Tidbit. Time to work."

"Oki!" Karalti swung around and backwinged to land on the banister of the ship, flapping to keep her balance, and turned to present her back to me.

"That’s the spirit." I buckled the straps back around her wings and arms, then around her chest. “Soon we’ll be able to do this together.”

“Yeah!” She looked around inquisitively. “Where should I train?”

I pointed up at the ship’s masts and overhead, horizontal sails. “I want you to cut figure eights through the rigging. That’ll force you to keep with the ship, too.”

"Oof. That's hard." She looked up at the rigging with trepidation. “How heavy is this pack?”

“Thirty pounds,” I lied.

Karalti groaned under her breath. “Thirty! I can’t fly with thirty!”

"Of course you can. You can do it, muscles.” I clapped her on the shoulder. “Embrace the suck, enjoy the pain – it means you’re growing.”

She wibbled for a couple of seconds, but then looked back at me with determination in her eyes. “Okay… I’m gonna do it! I’m gonna be the strongest! Watch me!”

When I stepped back, my dragon stood on her back legs and stretched her wings out to their full ten-foot span. She had long, streamlined wings, like a sea bird. Karalti dove off the railing and dropped like a stone for a good twenty feet before she caught a thermal and rose, puffing with effort, and headed for the rigging. While she did that, I tied myself into an improvised rope harness, and knotted that to the railing before leaping up to balance on the edge. It was, in a word, terrifying. The ship was bucking up and down on the currents of air. To my left, there was nothing but sky and an eight thousand foot drop onto land. It was exactly what I needed.

My dragon had to build her strength to be able to carry me, and I had to build my mental strength to being able to fly on her – and fight on her back. Even though I was immune to vertigo and had no fear of heights, that didn't mean that I was immune to the very rational fear of falling off. I could look over the edge of a skyship like this and not feel sick or dizzy, but my inner monkey still screamed in horror whenever I wobbled on the railing. If I was going to be a good dragon rider, I had to be completely unafraid of falling. Even though Karalti was nowhere near being able to carry me yet, she wasn't going to be a gawky little hatchling for very long - and riding a dragon wasn't as simple as sitting on it while it flapped around. Archemi’s physics were very real, and you didn't just magically stay on something diving at two hundred miles per hour without the proper skills and gear to hold on.

There was something else I had to master, too: using my HUD while suspended over extreme heights. I found stable footing on the railing and called it up, holding my spear out for balance while I glanced over my own character sheet:

DRAGOZIN HECTOR - DAUNTAN (TUUN)

LEVEL 9 DARK LANCER

==STATS==

Strength: 20

Dexterity: 24

Stamina: 22

Will: 21

Wisdom: 22

Intelligence: 19

HP: 482

XP: 2038 (576 to Next Level)

Adrenaline: 55

Renown: Notable adventurer (General); Wanted Outlaw (Ilia), Heretic (Hercynia)

==ABILITIES==

=RACIAL=

Blessing of Burna: +10% bonus to resist disease; +5% Stamina bonus to recover from illnesses. Immune to Pox and Lockjaw. +10% cold resistance. All physical needs accrue 2% slower.

Plateau Native: No Stamina penalties in thin air, -2 Stamina penalty at sea level.

Saddle Born: All Riding skills increase 5% faster.

Sun-sight: No vision penalties in bright or very bright light, -5% penalty in dark environments.

Blessing of Tarn: +15% movement speed.

Blessing of Hrrun: No airsickness, reduced inertia, no vertigo.

=DRAGONFORGED ABILITIES=

Mana Tolerance: You have great resistance to Stranging and Mana Sickness, and may consume magical potions without permanent ill effects. Your toxicity threshold is now equal to your HP. See the Mana Tolerance ability entry for details and related skill and ability trees. Exceeding your Mana Threshold brings on symptoms of Mana Sickness and drains HP.

Eagle Eyes: 20/5 eyesight with enhanced spectrum, 340-degree visual field.

G-force resistance 1: You can remain conscious at up to 5 g of horizontal or vertical pressure.

Stone Bones 1: +10 resistance to crushing damage, 5 damage reduction.

Deep Breather: 1.5x lung capacity.

Iron Body 1: You are practically immune to extremes of heat and cold. You can safely weather extremes between -20 and 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

Gyroscopic orientation: You cannot be disabled by extremes of motion. You are immune to disorientation and vertigo, and suffer no penalty to vision or concentration while spinning, falling, or while upside down.

Blood Pact: By undergoing the Rite of Marantha, you have become dependent on dragon blood to sustain your metabolism. Every week, you must consume at least one Dragon Blood Elixir to maintain your abilities. Failure to consume the potion will trigger the Starvation and Withdrawal statuses. All abilities gained through the Rite will become unavailable, and AP will regenerate 50% slower.

Stranged: The Rite has resulted in permanent mutations to your body which are visible and identifiable by some creatures. In places (or with people) where Stranged or magical beings have pariah status, you suffer a Severe penalty to all social interactions.

=TRAITS=

Curiosity: You are an open-minded and engaged person, willing to question your modes of thinking and doing and readily accept new ideas. Combat, craft, and class skills gain 5% more quickly.

Introvert: With a preference for your own company or small groups of loyal friends, you gain a 5% bonus to accumulate skills in solitude, provided you are not disturbed. Fatigue accumulates 10% faster in large groups and crowds outside of combat situations.

Dyslexic: The written word is something of a mystery to you. Books take longer to read, and all language-related skills gain -5% slower.

Natural Leader: You have a natural inclination to take charge. Social skills increase 2% faster when engaged in leadership activities.

Endurance: You are becoming accustomed to pushing yourself, even when you are exhausted. You may spend adrenaline to offset starvation, fatigue, or bleeding for +1 minutes x your Stamina.

Mark of Matir: This may convey special abilities at higher levels. When the Mark is activated, it will drain health from enemies on a critical hit. HP regained is equal to remaining AP + Will bonus. 300 second cooldown. You are immune to undead fear effects. – 500 Infamy in places hostile to worship of Matir.

=PATH ABILITIES=

Doubletap I

Jump II

Bluster II

Shadow Dance II

Whirlwind Butcher I

Blood Sprint II

Chain: Blood Storm I

(New!) Umbra Burst I

=GIFTS OF MATIR=

Fury Drain: When your HP falls below 20%, you can drain 10 HP per good hit from a single enemy (Cost: 5 AP. Cooldown: 10 sec).

Blessing of the Raven: You call on your power and gain increased insight into knowledge and skills. +10% Skill EXP for 45 min.

Life for Life: Channel a blast of damaging dark energy into your enemy and drain their lifeforce to replenish your own. Inflicts Corruption debuff.

=GENERAL SKILLS=

Riding 15

Riding Specialization (Dragon) 1

Navigation 9

Stealth 9

Negotiation 6

Intimidate 10

Survival 16

Acrobatics 12

Acrobatics Specialization: Freerunning 8

=CRAFTING SKILLS (COMMON)=

Foraging 15

Improvise Shelter 13

Alchemy 7

Herbalism 10

=CRAFTING SKILLS (ADVANCED)=

Potion Creation 4

[You have 3 unspent Ability Points!]

[You have 3 unspent Skill Points!]

[You can select 1 Gift of Matir!]

[New Knowledge!: Gifts of Matir B!]

Since we were on the ship and not having encounters, I’d hung onto my Skill Points to think about how I wanted to invest them. I’d already maxed out Herbalism and Alchemy without an instructor, so I couldn’t spend them on my favorite skills. I planned to hold onto my points until I reached Taltos and could find someone to teach me Intermediate Potion Creation. I’d actually forgotten about the Ability Points. I couldn’t take any new combat abilities at Level 9 – probably why I’d forgotten – so I quickly assigned them to three of my combat abilities: Blood Storm, Whirlwind Butcher, and Shadow Dance.

Gifts of Matir were related to him having chosen me as his champion. Being Matir’s champion was kind of annoying, because it meant that I got shoehorned into some quests - like the Myszno one - but it came with perks in the form of bonus powers. I got a small selection every four levels. Fury Drain was an ability I’d gotten when I first met Matir; at Level 5, I’d gotten to pick two powers. At Level 9, I was allowed to pick one.

Swallowing against the nauseating fear, I pushed the HUD to the side, then stepped forward and rolled into a beam handstand on the ship’s railing. The ship bounced just as I got vertical, and for a crazy moment, I thought I was about to topple off the side… but I bent my arms, and held the position. Sweet, sweet adrenaline washed through my body, and I grinned madly as I swiped my HUD back in. Upside down.

I checked out my new knowledge first. It was a short update to my previous Gifts of Matir Archemipedia entry. It upgraded my knowledge from C-grade knowledge to B-grade:

GIFTS OF MATIR (B-GRADE KNOWLEDGE)

Gifts of Matir are powers bestowed upon you by the draconic god of Darkness, Matir. His dual nature gives you access to two branches of Gifts: The Gifts of Life and the Gifts of Entropy. Gifts of Life enhance your abilities, heal disease, and combat the undead. Gifts of Entropy ravage and destroy your enemies, but may physically corrupt you and those on whom you use the abilities. Choose carefully, and use your powers wisely! Gifts of Matir are permanent and cannot be changed.

“Hmm.” Curious, I had a look at my current Gift abilities with this new information in mind. Fury Drain and Life for Life, which both sapped vitality from enemies, were Gifts of Entropy. Raven’s Blessing, which gave me +10 Skill EXP for 45 minutes, was a Gift of Life.

“Probably best to keep this shit balanced.” As the ship bucked, I folded down from the handstand and back to the deck, then had a look at what was offered for Level 9:

CLOSE THE WOUND (LIFE)

You draw on your own raw lifeforce to heal another’s injuries.

Heal other player/NPC 50 HP per sec while ability is active.

Cost: -30HP and -10AP per sec.

SUPPURATE (ENTROPY)

You channel dark power into a person’s wounds, destroying the body’s ability to heal and causing their injuries to fester.

Cost: 20 AP + 10 HP.

Damage: 120% + 5% max HP per hour until enemy receives treatment for infection.

+1% chance to cause Blood Poisoning per 5 Levels.

Inflicts Corruption debuff 15m (Target).

BURY THE DEAD (ENTROPY)

You can strike incorporeal targets with a normal, non-magical weapon.

Duration: 30 seconds.

Cost: 25 AP.

SPIDER CLIMB I (LIFE)

You gain the ability to climb and travel vertical surfaces, crawl across ceilings, and hang on walls. Level this ability to extend duration.

Duration: 20 seconds.

Cost: 30 AP.

“Spider Climb.” I selected it without hesitation. Didn’t even have to think about that one. It was a great ability for someone who was destined to fly – an ability that could one day mean the difference between life and death.

The Mark burned cold on my skin for a moment, sending shooting thrills of ice through my veins, and with it came the knowledge of how to do the Spider Climb maneuver. I reached out and grasped the ship’s railing. I felt shards of dark energy gather on my palms and the pads of my fingers. They dug into the wood like a glove of tiny claws, and when I flexed my hands, the tendons in my arms, wrists, and shoulders contracted like steel cables. Awesome: I was a tarantula now. Or perhaps… a Hecturantula.

“Hector! I did it! And I caught a seagull!” Karalti’s voice broke through my focus. I turned as she swooped down, panting around the twitching carcass of the unfortunate bird. “And I saw land! Did you see me fly?”

“Of course I did.” I rubbed the top of her head, which now came up to my navel when she stood on her back legs. “How far away from land are we?”

“I ‘unno. Maybe five miles? It’s on the other side of the ship.”

I checked my mini-map, and saw that she was correct: we were only ten minutes or so from making landfall. I nodded, then crouched down and smiled at her. “So… want to know a secret?”

Karalti cocked her head. “What?”

“I didn’t tell you the truth about something,” I said, pointing at the backpack. “That pack? It doesn’t weigh thirty pounds. It weighs forty pounds… and look what you did. You did your exercise and caught a seagull. You did it with ten more pounds than you thought you could handle. How amazing is that?”

Karalti dropped the dead bird on the deck, and blinked several times. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“You already thought you weren’t going to be able to train with thirty. But that struggle? It’s all up here.” I tapped the side of her head. “Any time you think you’ve maxed yourself out, you’ve only really given fifty percent of what you’re capable of. I hated the Army, but I learned that bit of wisdom there… and as much as I hate to say it, they were right.”

“Whoa.” Karalti looked down. “That’s deep.”

“Yep. Anyway, we better go pack up. Also, it’s potion day today. Are you okay with me doing a blood draw?”

“Sure!” Karalti happily trotted ahead of me. We both knew that my health and our bond required me to drink a potion made from her blood, but I always asked her permission anyway. “My strength went up! And so did my flying, and my stamina, and…”

The recipe for the Dragon’s Blood Elixir that my mutated body required to keep running had fortunately just appeared in my Recipes after I’d imprinted Karalti. The unfortunate part was that the ingredients were expensive to buy, and the potion itself was moderately complicated to make. I didn’t mind that much - Alchemy was fun, and I’d been able to gather small amounts of the herbs I needed in Ilia. I could only hope the plants also grew in Vlachia.

FIrst up was the [Saturated Aqua Regia] I needed for the potion base. This was a mix of three parts hydrochloric acid to one part nitric acid, which made aqua regia, and then - wincing the entire time - I added a single gold coin to it. That turned the mixture bright orange, which meant I could add the other ingredients: [Serpent Lily x 2] and [King’s Grass x 1].

I assembled the acid and herbal ingredients into a flask, corked it, then took it over to Karalti while she preened and primped. Once I had the blood drawing tools ready, she paused, offering her wrist to give me access to the vein we used for this vampiric ritual.

“Little pinch.” I warned her, just before I slid the curved needle in.

Karalti barely flinched as her highly pressurized, vivid blue blood sprayed into the collection bottle. She hummed under her breath, tail flicking. When I drew it out and put pressure on the small wound, she gazed stoically out the window. When her chest swelled with a gasp, I jumped. “What?”

“Outside! Look!” She lifted her head on her long neck and weaved her head, a motion she made when she was focusing her eyes on something in the distance.

I capped the bottle and made sure the bleeding had stopped before I stood up and followed her gaze. And then I smiled. A great city was on the horizon, its glittering gothic spires rising into the sky. Behind it the city loomed an enormous volcano: the cone was clearly visible, wreathed with clouds, and the slopes were heavily forested.

“Yep. That’s a city. It’s where we’re headed.” I sat back down, and swirled the potion base until the reagent had completely digested the rest of the ingredients, turning the liquid a rich golden yellow. I poured the blood into that mixture. The liquid frothed as it mingled, turning green, then brown, then colorless as the acid was neutralized and transmuted by the dragon’s blood. The result was a clear, thick potion with an eerie blue glow.

DRAGON’S BLOOD ELIXIR

Magical Item

+5 Adrenaline Points for 1 week.

Sleep restores Fatigue at an accelerated rate for 1 week.

Relieves the Blood Pact debuff for 1 week.

Value: Cannot be sold in stores.

Special: Must be consumed immediately after brewing; no storage possible.

Karalti bustled over to the window. “What’s the city like? Is it like Bryos? Are there things to hunt?”

I uncorked the potion and sniffed the contents. It smelled vaguely herbal and sharp, like bottled lightning. I was vaguely disturbed by just how much I wanted it, because my hands shook a bit as I put it to my lips and threw it back. It hit my stomach with a rush of heat and color and pure, unadulterated relief. The weekly timer reset, and the tension that had been building in my body suddenly released. I sat back on the bed with a sigh. “There’s plenty to do there, Tidbit. We’re going there to find a murderer.”

“Do you think I can get strong enough to eat him?”

I snorted. “We’ll see.”