Chapter 21

Errrkkkk had lost consciousness after delivering his finishing blow, and was swiftly revived by Roden’s Never the Time and the Place ability. When Errrkkkk regained consciousness and rose to his feet in the center of the arena, the crowd exploded into a frenzy like never seen before.

Spectators threw whatever they had in their hands from hats to coins to towels. Roden was pretty sure he even saw undergarments, but was too tired to investigate any further. Roden and Riakon propped Errrkkkk up under their shoulders and together they held their fists in the air in triumph. They stayed in the arena taking in the boisterous crowd whose cheers never seemed to end. Eventually, the clean up crew entered and they were ushered back through their tunnel.

They made it back to their room to find Grok scratching at the door. If the garg could look horrified it did at the sight of Riakon covered in scratches and dried blood. Grok immediately set about licking Riakon’s wounds even before they could deposit Errrkkkk in a chair. When they were all finally seated and resting Grok would retrieve a potion from the table and deliver them to each man starting with Riakon.

“So Errrkkkk, wh...”

“I have no idea, cacaw.”

“Do you think you could do it again brother?"

“Maybe, but not today, cacaw.”

“Ha, I don’t think I’m doing anything else today.”

“Gentlemen, we have to celebrate this victory!” Riakon was clearly pushing through the pain as he spoke. The men hemmed and hawed until there was a knock at the door.

“Come in” Riakon’s deep voice boomed.

When the door opened a stout dwarf with a short beard in a sharp black suit strolled into their room pushing a small chest. Roden noticed there were two guards outside the room as well who must have escorted the dwarf.

“Hey boys, great fight out der.” his accent sounded like he grew up in Brooklyn, which amplified his mobster motif.

“I has, a bit of a surprise for ya. You see, the fight you put on exceeded our expectations and per the contract. Yall are due ten percent of the overall profit made off lost bets placed against you. In this case, your cut exceeded your participation fee. Congratulations, you have broken the record for the largest payout. Keep putting on fights like that and you’ll be as rich as the king of Vairhon.”

His spiel over, the dwarf departed the room and closed the door. Riakon immediately rushed over to the chest and lifted the lid. Inside the chest was a pile of obsidian black coins. The coins simmered in the light as it danced across the raised surface of the coin markings.

“Myrtium” Roden said in awe.

“Caaa…Caaaaw.”

Riakon began counting the coins when Roden stopped him.

“Just shove them all in your dimensional bag.”

“But, I want to know how many…”

“I know, watch.” Roden shoved all of the coins in Riakon’s bag, then proceeded to produce the coins in piles of fifty at a time. They all knew there should be at least one pile. The second pile was a shock and led to goofy grins among the party.

The third pile produced slack jaws. A fourth pile didn’t materialize until Roden reduced his request to twenty. There were a few stragglers he emptied back into the chest, but by then the others were transfixed on the piles of coins that amounted to a six figure gold payout.

“We are rich!!!!” Riakon shouted with glee.

After receiving their winnings, everyone was in the mood to celebrate.

The three burst into the Golden Dew, all three singing,

“We______ are the cham-pions, We______ are the cham-pions, no______ time for los-ers, cause We______ are the cham-pions.”

They spared no expense as they ordered an expansive lavish feast for themselves and Grok, who Riakon sat on the back of the booth seat between Him and Errrkkkk. When one of the elven hosts came over to address the situation Riakon flipped him a myrtium and said,

“He’s our mascot, he stays.”

The host bowed deeply and extricated himself from Riakon’s glare.

After their meal, that same host approached their table meekly,

“Hello gentlemen, I wanted to apologize for my intrusion earlier and offer you the chance to purchase a bottle of one of our finest wines. There are not many in circulation at any given time, so we only sell them on special occasions. Am I correct in assuming you are celebrating something special.”

“You’z are correct, hic, cacaw” Errrkkkk’s drunkenness barely masked by his words, but exposed nonetheless by his comical hiccup.

“Well then I offer you our Dragonblood Fallow, a truly magnificent red, with notes of…”

“We’ll take it, caaa…caaw.”

Roden could tell the elf was put off by the interruption and displeased with their decorum, but set the bottle on their table and bowed in leaving. The wine was indeed ruby red in the glass and much thicker than a typical wine.

Roden had to work himself up to drinking it as he knew how it was made and didn’t love the idea of drinking dragon blood even if it had gone through a proprietary process. However, he knew it came with certain benefits that he couldn’t pass up. This wasn’t just any wine. It had magical properties that infused a person with a pinch of dragon vitality. As he finished his glass, he could feel his body absorbing the magic and becoming hardier. He felt great, still drunk, but great.

“Guys, this stuff is amazing!”

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“Amazing enough to sing a song about, cacaw?” he wagged what passed for his eyebrow feathers,

They had ribbed him about playing something tonight on their way to the Golden Dew and Roden had dismissed it as they were celebrating, but now he had a few drinks in him and his previous objections were a distant memory.

“You know what, I think I will play something.” with that Roden stood and went to his room to grab his instrument. When Roden returned he stopped at the table, “Wish me luck.”

“You-z got this man, cacaw.”

“Yes, do good things.”

Roden nodded then headed to the stage manager.

“You’re just in time, we have a scheduled break here. Are you only doing one song again?”

“Yep, unless you want a repeat?”

“One would be just right I think.”

“Deal.”

When the band of bards on stage finished, the space was rearranged for Roden’s set up. His solo crystal mic was prepared and the spotlights came down as he found his place in the middle of the stage. He let the silence hang for a moment. He took a deep breath to steady himself and let his fingers do their thing. He strummed once, and began to sing,

“She packed my bags last night, pre-flight__

Ze-ro ho-ur, nine A.M___

And I’m gon__na be high___________ as a kite by then.”

His fingers calmly moved along the neck of his instrument crafting a calm easy melody. He knew this song well, he would belt this out in the car by himself all the time. The cords were a mystery to him even as he played them, courtesy of his newly found musical inclination. But, it was the next part of the song that made him choose it.

“I miss’the Earth. So much I miss’my wife.__ It’s lone—ly out_in space.____”

It was moments like this shut away from the crazy world of Mir that his thoughts would drift to his wife, Joy. He missed her dearly and this was the longest they had ever been apart since they had met all those years ago.

Tears welled up in his eyes and poured over. The mix of alcohol and sadness was too much for him to hold back. He did his best to hold the song together. He repeated a section without vocals to buy time so he could collect himself. When he was finally able to swallow the lump in his throat he sang the chorus with his whole heart.

“And I think it’s gon–na be a long_long time.____ ‘Til touch-down brings me’round a–gain to find.__”

His song was full of undeniable emotion, the crowd was taken aback by his tears, but slowly fell into the wholesome back and forth swaying of couples wrapped in each other's embrace. It brought him happiness to see each pairing for what they were. Some clearly had been together for some time and moved with practiced ease, their love a steady and solid rock built up over years.

Then there were the new couples, whose infatuation burned hot, even as they danced slow. Each movement teased at a whirlwind to come. When Roden had a moment he glanced back at his friends and could’ve swore he saw both men wiping their eyes, but staring into the spotlights was ill advised for anyone who ever found themselves on stage.

He wrapped up the song with a slow trill letting his audience know he had finished. The applause wasn’t raucous or thunderous, it was a steady heartfelt clapping. Many of his listeners were still gripped in the embrace of their lover. The sight of so much love was all the applause he needed. As Roden left the stage, he was stopped by the stage manager.

“Great work as usual. I wanted to speak with you about your donations.”

“Donations?”

“Yes, from the last time you played and presumably you will accrue some more from tonight.”

“I’m sorry, I have no idea what you mean.”

“When you play, patrons will give donations as thanks.”

“Like drinks?”

The woman rolled her eyes “Perhaps you would get that in a lesser establishment, but here at the Golden Dew, performers are given donations in the form of credit.”

“Oh, right on. Can I use it to cover some of my tab for tonight?”

“Some?! I imagine you will still have some left over after those performances. Our patrons are quite generous. Check with one of the Bartenders, they keep the ledger.”

“Thank you, I will.”

Roden figured he would wait until the morning to check in. They settled their tab at breakfast the last time they celebrated this hard anyway. His friends congratulated him when he made it back to the table.

It wasn’t long after, that their weariness was too much and they all found themselves nodding off at the table. After Roden caught himself snoring with his head down. He shook himself and called it a night. The others followed his lead up the stairs before pouring themselves into their respective beds.

When Roden woke the next afternoon, his whole body was tingling. At first he felt completely numb as if everything had fallen asleep. Once he opened his eyes he recognized the glow to be from another level up. This one felt much stronger than the previous ones. His hangover and grogginess was unruly. Roden closed his eyes hoping his level up would rid him of his current afflictions.

Roden arrived in his budding divine grove. However, things had changed since his last visit. He found a large tree had grown on one end of the clearing. In the center of the clearing was a campfire that burned strong and bright without any sign of something to burn. The naked flame danced of its own accord. When he peered into the flame he saw the holy symbol of Era.

In that moment, he realized he’d acquired a new domain spell. He nearly threw himself into the flames as he reached out for the spell. The pure unadulterated delight that coursed through him with the spell’s knowledge was uncontainable. The spell was called Conflagration, but in Roden’s mind, it was fireball. From what he could tell this was an unforgiving version of the old Adventure and Antics spell.

This one did not care if you only needed to cover a small room. This spell did what it did and if something was in its way it was getting burned. The spell itself had two parts to it. The first part was the formation of the spell. It manifested as a bright, white orange, flame in the palm of his hand. While in his hand, it was no different than a torch that didn’t require any fuel as it sucked in ambient magic and oxygen. From there was the delivery method.

For the duration of the spell he could either cast the spell away with a hand motion sending it flying toward his target or he could reach out and touch a target. Both options resulted in a fiery explosion, the only difference between the two was shape. The thrown spell erupted into a sphere that completely filled a set volume, in most cases this meant the spell would create a large hemisphere of fire as the ground would prevent the formation of a sphere. The touch version blasted out from his palm in a cylindrical form from point of contact.

Roden imagined it in the sense that if an enemy was hiding behind cover the sphere would wrap around the cover and do the trick. If he had an enemy in his face a Conflagration at close range should handle his target and anything behind them. When Roden pulled his hand out of the flames, his excitement was radiating off of him. He could see the usual path of spell selection was behind him that held his new Adventure Domain spell, but there was something about the tree on the other side that drew him to touch it. He placed his hand on the bark of the tree and was absorbed into a memory.

He was once again leaping through the trees, clad in Grove Armor. His host appeared to be the leader of this group of Grove Guardians, they held up a fist in a halting gesture and to Roden’s amazement they all began sinking into the trees they stood upon. Just like before when he had these visions with Mu’tumbo, he instinctively knew how to accomplish the same feat.

He remained in his host for a few more moments. His vision was blocked, but he could hear the world outside of his hiding place. It was as if he had become one with the tree. When his host focused, he could feel everything the tree touched. He could feel the branches of the canopy swaying in the wind. He could feel the cool embrace of the soil against the tree’s roots. He rapidly was pulled out of the vision and found himself once again in his grove. He now knew this tree was a representation of his Elven magic and his connection to the forests of Mir.

Roden gave himself a shake, the visions of previous Grove Guardians always left him a bit dazed as if he had just woken from a vivid dream that felt all too real. When he had gathered himself, he approached the path on the far end of the clearing. His holy symbol hung in the air in a small floating ball of light that reminded him of old street lamps. He reached his hand up into the light, the spell that flooded his mind took him a bit off guard. It was called Adventurer’s Refuge.

The strange part of the spell was that it came with little information other than it produced a safe comfortable place for an adventurer to lay their head while on the road. He had grown used to his Adventure Domain having the more finicky of his abilities. They also seemed so straight forward, yet had incredibly practical applications when applied creatively.

His first Adventure Domain spell Resting Ward seemed at first to be a simple magical trip wire that could be placed on a door or window. However, Roden quickly figured out he could place them end to end to create a space in the center completely surrounded by wards. This new spell felt very similar in that regard.

He tucked his new found spells away and continued down the path. It was comforting to see the wisps that represented his spells; he double checked his Trainee and Initiate tier spells and found them to his liking. It was when he came to the Apprentice tier wisps that his excitement grew. He went from wisp to wisp to gain a basic understanding of each spell. He knew whatever he chose would be subjected to his domains. There were many great options, but his recent experience in the arena drove him to choose a spell that could pull an individual back from death’s door.

When he began absorbing the spell, he felt it being pulled in four directions instead of just two as his spells had before. He realized the pull for each was not equal. His domains pulled the strongest, they made up the vast majority of his magical acumen. He could feel his Elven magic tugging at the spell ever so slightly, attempting to assert its influence. The fourth was less of a tug and more of a vacuum.

Roden recalled this feeling from when he had chosen his Sight of the Magi spell. It had remained unchanged by his domains. Not all of his spell selections came with that option and Roden wasn’t quite sure why that was, but figured magic is magic and wasn’t about to question it. The spell at hand eventually nestled itself within the space of his Elven magic. At first it felt unnatural to have his Clerical magic pulled away from his domains, but once the change was made it became a more natural feeling, like when receiving a gift that has sentimental value to the person giving the gift.

The spell became Blooming Recovery, it maintained its original feature of pulling its target from recent death, but it could do it from a distance. It gave them a surge of healing over time to help get them back on their feet too. Roden was blown away at how much the spell was improved by his Elven magic until he saw the cost. The original spell required a sacrifice of an expensive gem as an offering to the gods.

His new spell did away with that and required a seed from a plant blessed by elven magic or a deity. He didn’t relish this revelation, but when he gave it some thought, he knew of a few places he could get his hands on such a seed. He had a sinking suspicion that whatever was controlling this world was taking advantage of his prior knowledge, which amounted to a level of metagaming that made Roden’s head hurt both figuratively and literally.