Evening came before Joe could work up the energy to move. He was tapped out emotionally and stood up, looking around still in shock. It was Bixby that finally nudged him into action. Joe first looted the dragon and then placed its body in his inventory. He spent some time trying to figure out what to do with Gharaks body and finally decided to drag him into his cave and as carefully as he could, Joe laid Gharak to rest. He worked gently to fold Gharaks arms across his chest and laid one of Gharaks hands over the carving he wore as a necklace. There Joe and Bixby left him, his personal belongings untouched.
Outside, the camp was demolished. Joes’ hut had been crushed under the bodies of the enormous combatants and the ground was saturated with blood. Joe used his cloak to clean he and Bixby, but it felt insufficient and so the two bathed in the pool. Joe stood under the waterfall for a long time. Utilizing the cloak again to dry off, Joe went through the motions of cleaning up the camp. Darkness had come and it was deep into the night as Joe was sorting through the debris still when Bixby came up and gently took Joes’ forearm in his mouth and stopped Joe from continuing. The two curled up under the cloak and eventually they slept.
The next morning the sun rose as always, and Joe sat looking at the view of the distant forest from the side of the cliff. He wiped the sleep and tears from his eyes and made sure that the last of the embers from the camps constant fire were out. That alone felt like an end. He collected the last of the pelts and went into the cave and covered Gharak with the best of the hides, finally laying the pelt of the Forest Guardian over his head as a shroud. Joe then spent the better part of the day hauling large stones, some the size of a refrigerator up the side of the mountain and he sealed off the cave. It was not perfect, but he did not want any large predators to have access to Gharaks body. The entire time he said nothing, and Bixby let him deal with his grief in his own way. Once done, he bathed in the pool one last time and gathered as much Cleric’s Moss as he could.
The pair surveyed the camp once more then Joe nodded, Bixby licked his hand and they turned away and headed down the mountain side. Travel that day was quiet. The normal sounds of the forest and the river continued, but the duo passed the time without conversation. By the time they needed to make camp, they had come to the travel stone. The cleared area around the stone seemed as good a place as any and Joe built a meager fire and sat wrapped in his cloak. He pulled some smoked elk from his inventory and the two ate in silence. When they had finished, Bixby curled up next to Joe and laid his head in Joe’s lap. Joe idly petted Bixby’s head as he had done so many times before, taking comfort in the quiet strength and patience of his partner. As the night wore on, Joe decided to check his notifications and his inventory.
Notification! Your ability, Hard to Kill, has been activated.
Congratulations! Your skill, 1Handed Sword, has increased to Tier 2.
Congratulations! You have earned the Legendary ability, Fireproof. You survived a direct blast of Dragon’s Fire that did not kill you outright. What epic luck you must have. This Legendary ability makes you completely proof to any type of normal or magical fire.
Achievement Unlocked! First Legendary Ability! You are the first sapient being in over a thousand years to survive a direct blast of Dragon’s Fire while below a Heroic Grade class level. Rewards Unlocked! You and your companion gain, +5 Constitution, and +5 Willpower. Exp earned, 50,000 (Banked). Gold earned 20,000.
Achievement Unlocked! Worthy of Legends! You are the first sapient being in your realm to kill a level 100+ creature while below a Heroic Grade class level. Rewards Unlocked! You and your companion gain, +3 Constitution, +3 Willpower and +3 Luck. Exp earned, 100,000 (Banked). Gold earned 50,000.
Title Unlocked! Legendary Dragon Slayer! You have defeated a Crimson Drake of Level 100+ while below a Heroic Grade class level! Rewards Unlocked! You and your companion gain, +10 Strength, +10 Constitution, +10 Agility, +10 Perception, +10 Intelligence, +10 Willpower, +10 Charisma, +10 Luck. Additionally, you and your Soulbound companion gain +25% Damage vs Dragonkin. Exp earned, 100,000 (Banked). Gold earned 50,000.
Jesus! No wonder the dragon’s death dropped me! That was a huge statistic boost! Fireproof huh? Joe leaned forward and brought his hand close to the fire. He could feel its warmth, but there was no pain with it as he pressed his hand closer and closer. He marveled at the sensation as he placed his entire hand in the flames. There was no pain and even the hair on his hand did not burn. He wiggled his fingers and then grabbed a burning ember and plucked it out of the fire. He twirled it around in his hand for a moment before dropping it back into the fire. I wonder if this ability covers spicy food? Joe sat and stared at the flames a few minutes more. Fucking System. He then opened his inventory. He had gained an obscene amount of gold from the kill as well as six Flawless Onyx Rubies, whatever those were.
Spell Tome: Dragon’s Fire
The caster of this spell creates a 50-foot gout of Dragon’s Fire for five seconds. Creatures and structures caught in the blast take 1000 health damage per second. Casting this also lights anything in its path on fire. Mana cost 500.
Armor of the Crimson Drake
This Legendary armor is crafted from a slain Crimson Drake and affords the wearer 1000 points of armor. Additionally, the wearer of the armor gains 50% resistance to fire.
Joe read both descriptions several times and chuckled out loud, causing Bixby to stir. He patted Bixby’s head and the large hound settled back down. This is ridiculous. What kind of world is this? These two things are going to make me fucking unstoppable. Joe shook his head. Well, the fifty percent fire resistance is redundant now. He pulled the tome and read it, feeling the expected swirl of knowledge. A long yawn convinced him to get some sleep. He’d deal with the armor in the morning.
The night passed uneventfully and after breakfast, Joe put out the fire and told Bixby about their statistic gains and the items he received. He had been to the Renaissance Faire a few times and had seen the knights jousting and that is what he thought he would see when he pulled the armor from inventory and laid it all out on the ground. What he got was much different. Where he expected chainmail and silvery plates of armor, there were multiple pieces of overlapping near black, red scales in various sizes which made up the larger parts of the armor set. There was a breastplate of scales with larger ones on the chest and shoulders and much smaller ones around the stomach and ribs. They were fastened together in such a way as to give maximum mobility. The upper arms and forearms had their own scaled components as did the thighs and shins. There was a fitted cloth under suit dyed a blood red color and a pair of form fitting leather pants and a full sleeved leather jacket that was made up of the same pebbly skin texture that he had seen on the dragon covering its more flexible parts. There were even a set of dragon leather gloves and boots. The helmet was close fitting much like a motorcycle helmet that covered his entire head and face. There were slitted eye holes that gave him a surprising amount of vision. The helmet was styled to look like a dragon’s face. Very Power Rangers Joe thought.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
The entire process of putting on the armor was an exercise in frustration as there were hard to reach buckles and he had to keep tugging and moving the armor around to find the right fit. He got the thigh plates wrong and had to swap them, but eventually he managed to get the entire set on. The one thing he compromised on though was he kept his magic boots. Fortunately, the armor fit nicely over the boots. He stood in front of Bixby and spun in a circle, “So? What do you think? It’s like it was tailored to fit me.” Bixby snorted and let out a series of woofs and barks. “Pretentious? Of course, it’s pretentious, it’s fantasy dragon armor. And how do you even know the word pretentious let alone what it means?”
Bixby just snorted and walked away, his tail wagging. “Fine, keep your canine secrets.” Joe called out sarcastically. He kicked a bit more dirt over their now extinguished fire, pulled a spear from his inventory and trotted off after Bixby. They put on some speed and made quick time of their journey to the southern crossing. Joe was humming Gharaks song and lost in melancholy when a bark from Bixby brought his focus back to his surroundings. They had made it to the base of the stairs. “Huh. Well, I guess we go up.”
Bixby took the lead, his senses more keenly attuned to the world around them than Joe’s, even when Joe used Bixby’s ability, he had a hard time sorting through the input. They took their time going up the stairs. Every rest stop that they came across, Joe made them pause and look for danger. Joe’s first inclination was to assume that no other monsters would dare roam around a dragon’s territory, but then he had the scary thought that now that the dragon was dead, what other nasty beast would be likely to take over its area? So, caution was the word of the day, and they slowly snaked their way up the mountain. It also did not take him long before he decided to store the dragon helmet back in his inventory. While he was sure it would be useful in a fight, he also began sweating in it and found it uncomfortable to wear for a long period of time.
The stairs followed the terrain very closely and Joe felt sorry for the poor slob that had to carve these things. They seemed to go on forever. Just after they stopped for lunch, Bixby had ranged ahead, and the stairs wrapped around an outcropping causing Joe to lose sight of Bixby. The second Bixby went around the corner, Joe heard a yelp and a growl. He put on a burst of speed and rounded the bend, his spear at the ready. Bixby had his jaws clamped onto a leathery tentacle, one end had an oval shaped bit that was clamped onto Bixby’s side like a lamprey, the other end disappeared into a crack in the rock face.
Abyssal Rock Lurker (20)
HP: 1000
Status: Hungry
Weak to Fire damage
Great, another nightmare monster. Joe steadied his spear looking for a way to jab at the thing that wouldn’t also put Bixby in his cross hairs, when Bixby planted his feet, leaned back pulling the tentacle taut, then he whipped his head to the side. The entire monster was ripped out of its hiding spot in the rock. The body was flat, about three feet across and looked like it was made of pure muscle. It had two rows of about ten tiny crablike legs under it and a few small spikes jutting from the top of it that wiggled. Bixby whipped his head again which picked up the body of the thing and slapped it back onto the stairs directly in front of Joe. He heard a high-pitched keening sound as he stabbed his spear into the thing. His spear pierced the monster and broke on the stone stair underneath. The sucker like end fell from Bixby’s side as Joe felt the death tingle in the back of his mind. Joe looted the body for a measly two hundred gold and popped the body into his inventory. He poured some healing water onto Bixby, “You good?” The thing had barely done any damage to the dog. Bixby woofed and proceeded up the stairs.
It took the pair thirty minutes to go a hundred yards as every few feet another tentacle would whip out and try to attack them. By the time they were through the gauntlet of abyssal rock lurkers they had killed and collected nearly twenty of the things. The constant barrage of attacks left them wary, and they took more time than they needed to climb the rest of the way up the stairs. It was late afternoon by the time they reached the top. The mountain top was beginning to get dark, and the wind was howling and cold. “In and out Bix, I’m not really keen on staying up here if we can avoid it.” Bixby woofed an agreement.
As they crested the top of the stairs, Joe stopped and stared at the sight. There was a very large and obviously very old castle built into the side of the mountain. It was huge. The stairs let out onto a broad, flat plain of dirt and the occasional battered flagstone. The edge of the plain was lined in what was most likely the remnants of a wall, but now was only a few wind eroded stones. Nestled against the mountain was a castle that went up at least ten stories. Each level was built up and behind the first so that the castle levels stacked up and back towards the wall of the mountain. The outer wall of the entire second level was destroyed and there were large stones on the ground in front of the castle. Something exploded here, Joe thought.
Cautiously, the two crept up to the castle. Joe was on high alert and had a death grip on his spear. Bixby led the way and the two entered the wide bottom floor entrance. The interior was bare. There was no furniture or any ornamentation. Drifts of dirt had piled up along the walls and in the corners. The back wall that once held a set of stone stairs was collapsed. “No way up from inside. We’ll have to go back out.” They backed out of the first level and moved back a bit from the entrance and looked up to the second level. They could only see the broken wall and nothing beyond. “Hmm. It looks like we could blink up there.” Joe said, pointing to an area that looked more stable than the rest. “I’ve got the armor on, so let me go first, just in case.” Bixby woofed his assent. Joe cast his Mantle spell as a precaution and, adjusting his grip on his spear, he blinked up to the next level.
At the edge of the wall, looking into the second floor, Joe’s jaw dropped. He turned to look down at Bixby, “Dude, you need to see this.” Bixby appeared next to Joe in a heartbeat. The entire second floor must have once been a dining hall. It was a cavernous space. Big enough for a dragon, Joe guessed. The room was weathered just like everywhere else, with the piles of dirt and debris. There were bones piled in drifts all around the room. Joe could not even begin to guess at what kind of animals or monsters they once belonged to. Every corner of the room had piles of bones and in the center was a nest of bones and tree limbs and plant bits. The nest was huge. Joe figured that it would have fit the dragon if it curled up in it. However, none of that was what caught Joe’s eye. It was what dominated the center of the nest that was stunning.
The bottom of the nest sparkled with gold coins and gemstones. There was a pile roughly ten feet across and a couple of feet high. Joe could see goblets and trays of gold as well as gold frames that once held paintings, the tatters of which were still attached to some of the frames. There were weapons and pieces of armor as well as a golden shield. Not knowing how the gold currency system worked in this new world, Joe could only guess that this was a small fortune. Was this big for a dragon’s hoard or was it considered a tiny treasure? There was, as always, no way to know. The last of the daylight caught a few coins and gems and they sparkled in the light.