“Did your brother tell you I had a bonded companion?” I looked over at my towering jet-black plate mail wearing minder.
His voice was like grating glass. “Yes.”
I shivered involuntarily. “Gotcha, let me call her.” I mentally pulled up my [Status] and tapped on Raiju’s name. “She should be on the way, we can start walking now. She’ll catch up in a minute.”
“Understood.”
He started walking and I had to jog to keep up. “You’re a man of few words. I had a mentor like that growing up. The strong silent type.”
A grunt was his only response.
Ugh, it’s like trying to get water from a damn stone. If Albert hadn’t introduced this guy as his twin, there’s no way I’d believe it. The only things they have in common are their breadth and their last name as far as I can tell.
We walked like that for a few minutes until I felt Raiju come into range. She raced through the sky toward us at her full size with her tail wagging like mad. “Artie!”
She crashed into me and we bowled over in a fit of giggles. I ruffled the fur around her ears. “Raiju, I missed you too.” Despite how little time we’d known each other, forced separation from my bonded companion wasn’t something I ever thought I’d get used to.
She looked over at my newfound traveling companion and let out a deep throated growl. “Who is this?”
Disentangling myself from her large furry form, I sprang to my feet. “Raiju, this is Khor Valkoni, the brother of Cliffhaven’s lord.” I did a flourishing bow as I gestured to my lupine companion. “Khor, this is Raiju, my most precious bonded companion.” Her ears fluttered at my words and she used a paw to rub at one of them in embarrassment.
Khor nodded. “Good companion. Strong.” His armor never seemed to clank, regardless of what he did. I chalked it up to traveling with his brother the [Assassin] in his youth.
Raiju’s tongue lolled out. “So, where are we going?”
“The capital and we need to get there in less than a week.” I ruffled her fur. “Ready to run?”
“I do love to run.”
She got up and started to shrink before I raised a hand to stop her. I ran my other hand through my hair. “Would it be OK for me to ride on your back?” I hurried to finish before she could respond. “If so, Khor would be able to ride on my [Cloud Carpet] with a rope tied between us.”
“OK.” She bumped her massive head against my chest. “I won’t allow anyone else to ride on my back, but you can do it whenever you want.”
“That went… much better than I expected, if I’m being honest. I was worried you wouldn’t agree to it.”
She cocked her head. “Why not? I love running and you’re my bonded one.”
“You know what? You’re right.” I gave her a hug before grabbing hold of her fur and pulling myself up to her back.
She shifted me around a bit until she nodded happily. “As long as you don’t move around too much, we should be good now.”
“Excellent,” I pulled my [Cloud Carpet] from my spatial ring and unfurled it. “Khor, hop on and I’ll get a rope…”
Khor finished unspooling a black length of rope from a pouch at his waist before tossing me one end of it. Without a word he hopped on the floating carpet like he’d done it a thousand times before.
After tying the rope around my waist, I leaned down and whispered in Raiju’s ear. “Let’s run.”
She sprang into the air like a falcon in a dive, but in reverse. The pair of us let out whoops of excitement as we climbed ever higher. Around a mile up, we leveled off and I looked back to check on Khor. He sat on the forward edge of the carpet with his hands out behind him for balance.
Damn, he’s cold. Anyone else would either be excited or freaked out, but he’s cool as a cucumber.
“Raiju, speed up, little by little, until I tell you to stop. OK?” I scratched around the base of her ear. “We need to see how much Khor and the carpet can handle.”
With a happy growl, she started accelerating. Faster and faster she ran and I saw Khor’s demeanor start to shift. He leaned into the wind and I saw a glint in his eye through the eyeslit in his helmet.
There we go, now we’re having a good time!
“Faster, Raiju. We can take it.”
“You asked for it!” She howled.
The next half hour was absolutely fantastic. We figured out that Khor was going to be able to take whatever speed Raiju could go, but the [Cloud Carpet] was another story. It started to get a bit squirrely around 150 mph, at least according to the System. I had her dial it back to 130, just to be safe, and we continued from there.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
After four hours at that speed, Raiju got a bit tired, so we landed on a hillock along the path for some dinner. I threw together a quick stew and set the pot to cook as Raiju napped.
Khor, on the other hand, was a completely new man. He took off his full faced helm and set it aside to reveal a face nearly identical to his brother. It was like a weathered map, sun-baked creases crinkled around warm brown eyes that still held a mischievous glint. Laughter lines bracketed his mouth, hinting at a life filled with both hardship and hearty enjoyment.
He took a long pull from a wineskin at his side before holding it out to me. I took it with a nod of thanks and was surprised to find it wasn’t full of wine at all, but instead honeyed tea. I pulled out a mug and filled it before handing back the skin.
“This has been a good day.” His deep voice still had a hint of rasp to it, but it was a far cry from the previous glass on glass it had. “Thank you for getting me out of Cliffhaven, at least for a few days.”
I leaned back against Raiju with a sigh. “Not a fan of Cliffhaven? I can see why that might be.”
“Not a fan of staying anywhere too long.” He took off his gauntlets and set them aside as he lounged back. “Been stuck in Cliffhaven going on twenty years now.”
“How did–” Raiju’s snore drowned out the rest of my response. I turned back to look at her with a smirk before continuing, “How did that happen?”
“If you’d believe it, dumb luck.” He sipped from his tea skin. “My brother and I were in a dungeon to the east of Grenwood. We’d cleared it a few times before, but this time it was about to burst, so it was different. We entered the room the boss was usually in and found a young man in ornamental armor fighting for his life with dead bodies all around him.”
He smiled as he shook his head. “Even with how awful the past twenty years have been, I’d still save him. My brother and I made quick work of the [Goblin Warchief] and his adds before addressing the young man.” He snorted. “It turns out he was Prince Gregor Evergreen, the System damned crown prince of Verdant. We saved his life and in return, his father, the king, made my brother the lord of Cliffhaven. There’s nothing high leveled enough nearby for us to level up, so I’ve been stuck at level fifteen for ten fucking years.” He rubbed his face. “No good deed goes unpunished.”
“Why not just leave? You’re obviously miserable.”
“I’m a [Knightguard]. All my [Skills] are keyed to my brother, without him around I’m borderline useless.”
“Can’t you just get some new [Skills] or re-tool the ones you have?”
He burst out laughing. “What am I, made of gold?!” Tears streamed down his face as he rested his hands on his knees. When I didn’t respond, he looked up at me with a curious expression. “Do you know how much it would cost to kit myself out in new [Skills] let alone trying to find someone or something who could change the target of my current [Skills]?”
“I have to be honest, I don’t.” I shrugged. “I’m new to the whole adventuring life.”
“If that’s the case, let me ask you, do you know the average pay for an Iron Quest at the Adventurers Guild?” He wiped tears from his eyes.
I looked away. “I didn’t get a chance to check before everything happened this morning.”
“Guess.”
“Fifty gold?”
“How about ten silver, if you’re lucky.” He deadpanned. “If it’s a monster elimination mission, you might get up to twenty, plus whatever you can harvest from the monsters.”
“How does that relate to what we were talking about?” He was really starting to annoy me with all his impertinent questions.
“A single [Skill Scroll] of even the most basic combat related [Skill], like [Power Slash] costs five hundred gold.”
“Really?” My jaw hung open. “That seems excessive.”
Khor nodded. “Honestly, you’re probably right, but that’s how it is. Making a [Skill Scroll] requires fifty percent mastery and a bunch of time to learn how to do it. It’s how the few old adventurers who survive make their money.”
I knew what he meant with that. Mom and Dad told me about how many of their friends and other people they knew back in their early days of adventuring had died young. Adventuring was a dangerous job, but if you lived long enough, it was definitely worth the effort.
“I’ve got a decent stockpile from working the last twenty years with no need to upgrade my gear, but it only adds up to enough to buy three or four [Skills] I would actually use. That’s not even talking about if I’d be able to get someone to re-tool my older, Class-exclusive [Skills] I’ve spent over thirty years honing.”
When I have a higher mastery level over [Skill Dominance] I’m willing to bet I’ll be able to do what he’s talking about, but I’m not there yet. I’ll have to remember to spin by Cliffhaven to assist if I get to that point before my visit home next year. No one deserves to be as unhappy as Khor obviously is.
I reached over to check the stew and found it was ready. As I ladled out bowls of stew, I gently prodded Raiju. “Food’s ready.”
“Greeeeeaaatttt.” She yawned before shrinking down to her usual large dog size. When I blinked at her in confusion, she yipped happily. “Makes the tasty food last longer.”
“Ah, that makes sense.” I put a large bowl down in front of her before handing a similar portion to Khor. “Enjoy.”
He took one bite before blinking rapidly. “Damn, this is better than I expected. I think it’s better than most meals I had in the capital. What’s it seasoned with?”
“Salt, pepper, garlic, ginger…” I ticked them off on my fingers before snapping, “Oh, and some [Moonsilver Powder].”
Khor almost spit out his food before slapping his chest and swallowing. “You cook stew with [Moonsilver Powder]? How rich are you?” He stared at me before looking longingly at his bowl of food.
“It’s something from my dad’s family, a gift for my System day that showed up a few weeks early.” I shrugged. “Dad said it really punched up his stews when he and Mom were traveling, so I figured I’d do the same.”
He waved his spoon at me. “You know what? I don’t want to know anymore. Thanks for the meal.” He dug into it with gusto. “Maybe it’ll give me a point or two in [Might] if I’m lucky.” He mumbled.
“Is that why they gave it to me?” I dragged my spoon through the stew and took a huge bite. “That actually makes a lot more sense, if I’m being honest. I just thought it was a spice from Ironhold they wanted me to try.”
“I’m not even surprised at this point.” He shook his head. “Don’t show it off to just anyone, [Moonsilver Powder] goes for hundreds of gold an ounce. It’s one of the more effective ways to grow your [Might] stat outside of leveling up, and it doesn’t require anything but eating. It’s more effective the lower your [Might] is to begin with, but it can be effective all the way up into the low two hundreds.”
A window appeared in the corner of my vision as I finished my bowl of stew.
[Might Increased: 13→17]
Damn, the Ironwind Clan didn’t fuck around with their gift, did they? I’ll need to visit them and say thank you sometime this year.
From behind me I heard a loud slurp and then a burp. Moments later Raiju padded over with her bowl in her teeth before setting it in front of me with big eyes. “Seconds?”