Chapter 7

Riakon was startled by the Priest General’s question,

“Uhh, I-I uhhh…” Sweat started to bead on the Dragonkin’s brow.

The priest waved it off, “nevermind, if it is that bad. I don’t want to know.”

He reached into a drawer, pulled out a rolled up scroll and spread it across his desk. He used various things on hand to hold the corners down as he started to draw circles on various locations.

The men moved closer and saw it was a map of Mir spread out and the man was circling various regions using a piece of charcoal. When he was finished he tossed his writing implement onto the desk and dusted off his hands.

“Look I don’t know what you did, but your connection to the divine is nearly non-existent. I’ve never seen anything like it before. When I called upon Erjorn to observe you there was a tremendous amount of feedback that prevented Erjorn himself from making a connection with you.”

At the man’s words Riakon hung his head, his last hope nearly extinguished.

The priest raised a meaty hand, “before you get all lost cause on me. Erjorn was able to grant you a boon. He has given me a divine mandate to send you on a quest of redemption. A divine mandate is some of the most powerful magic a god can exercise.”

Riakon’s mood changed from the depths of despair to pure joy.

“Yes, what is it?! Whatever it is, I will do it!”

The priest winced, “Yeah well in all my days I’ve never heard of a quest like this one.” The Priest General stood up tall and spoke in a clear commanding voice,

“To atone for your sins, by divine decree of Erjorn himself, you Riakon, must slay the four remaining dragon lieutenants of Tiamat. That is the will of the gods, fail this quest and face exclusion from the bliss of eternity in the light of the Gods.”

Riakon and Errrkkkk’s jaws dropped lower than ever before. Roden saw this and followed suit, albeit a bit slower.

Riakon struggled to speak through his shock. “W–what do you mean, slay dragon lieutenants?”

“Look I wasn’t given all of the details or Erjorn’s reasoning. All I know if that is the quest and…” He held up the map he was drawing circles on before. “Here are the locations of the lieutenants. I wish you the best of luck…You are going to need it.”

The men left the church of Erjorn in vastly different dispositions. Riakon was in shock and disbelief. Roden was resigned to the course Riakon’s quest had now guaranteed they would have to take. Errrkkkk was the least happy about the situation. He grumbled under his breath the entire way out of the church and the majority of the way back to the Silver Wind Inn.

Without any direction they all took a seat in the main sitting room for a team meeting.

Roden got right to the matter at hand, “So I guess we’re fighting dragons, huh?”

Errrkkkk continued to grumble to himself.

Riakon finally gathered himself enough to speak. “Yeah that’s what the man said…Can we even do it?”

“You mean can Roden and I even do it, cacaw.” Errrkkkk snapped.

Riakon recoiled slightly and raised his hands in surrender, “fair point, I imagine your guys’ contribution will be greater than my own until I get my powers back.”

Roden winced, “Errrkkkk has a point…but how cool will it be to be able to say we slayed a bunch of dragons?”

He eyed Errrkkkk appealing to his never ending urge to fight challenging opponents.

Errrkkkk tried to maintain his scowl, but the prospect was too tantalizing.

“Yeah, it will be pretty cool, cacaw…But we need to get you up to speed with your new abilities or this is going to be a shitshow, cacaw.”

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Roden nodded, “Agreed, and quite honestly I was thinking we might need to ‘advance’ a bit more before we head off to take on any dragons.”

Riakon looked at Roden with an eyebrow raised, “Why did you use air quotes when you said ‘advance’? We definitely should advance again before we attempt this quest. I did just get one, but…It was a little underwhelming...”

“Yeah, you probably didn’t receive anything because you’re no longer a paladin, cacaw…” Errrkkkk puffed up as he chastised Riakon.

He smoothed himself out before continuing. “I agree another advancement will go a long way for our overall power level, cacaw.”

Roden couldn’t help himself, “oh yeah? Is our power level over nine thousand?”

The two men looked at him puzzled, Riakon leaned over to Errrkkkk and spoke in a stage whisper,

“I am starting to think this guy’s training was severely lacking in advancement education.”

Errrkkkk shook his head, “Master Rolen would be so disappointed, cacaw.”

“Fuck you guys.” Roden said, rolling his eyes. “But seriously, what should we do about the advancement situation?”

The three sat in collective thought for a long moment, even Grok got in on it mimicking Riakon’s thinking pose with a fist to his temple.

Riakon was the first to make a suggestion, “should we just head to the arena and train there?”

Errrkkkk considered it then shook his head no, “nah, I don’t want to tarnish our good name by looking weaker than we were before, cacaw.”

Riakon hung his head as Errrkkkk shot down his idea.

Roden had a thought occur to him, “well I definitely need more practice with my new abilities and spells before I go out fighting anything too challenging.”

Errrkkkk cut him off with an abrupt, “cacaw.”

Roden glared at him, “hey I’m not that bad with my new stuff.”

“You are definitely worse than you were before. Not as bad as Riakon, but still worse, cacaw.”

Roden smirked, “still good enough to beat back your beam though.”

Errrkkkk glared at him, but couldn’t argue the point.

Riakon cut the brief competitive tension,

“So our plan is to get some practice in and just hope we get an advancement? Doesn’t seem like a very good plan.”

Roden gave it some thought, “we could check in with the Outpost from time to time and see if anything interesting comes up.”

Riakon nodded in approval, “now that is a good plan.”

Errrkkkk scoffed, “sounds like I won’t be getting much training, cacaw.”

Roden looked at Riakon and then at Errrkkkk, “oh no, with us a bit weaker than before, you get to train against both of us at the same time.”

A toothy grin spread on Riakon’s face at the idea. Errrkkkk tried to keep his stubborn expression, but couldn’t hold back his excitement at what he saw as a potentially good challenge.

“We are going to need somewhere to train, cacaw.”

Roden got a smug look on his face, “I’ve already got a plan for that.”

With their plan set the men enjoyed one final night of relaxation before their rigorous training began. In the morning Roden prepared their training room by casting his Adventurer’s Refuge. However, instead of creating a treehouse with bedrooms or anything they had been using before he generated the perfect training dojo.

The outside of the structure was that of a stone gray sphere that sat on four long pillars that secured it to the sea floor. The door opened like a drawbridge connecting it to the dock of their villa. Inside was a completely circular room that was four stories in height now that Roden could overcharge the spell thanks to his most recent advancement.

Each day the team would congregate in their dojo and train their various abilities. Errrkkkk used their coastal location to his advantage to train his various chi based attacks without worry of damaging anything important.

In the moments Roden was able to observe Errrkkkk training by himself, he noticed the birdman had an intense focus on his directing of his chi. Whether he was creating small blasts or his Soul Sphere. He was deliberate about his movements. When he would launch his more powerful beams out over the water his timing was impeccable.

Roden had come to realize that his spells had a ‘zone’ or perfect moment they should be cast within. He figured he might not have ever noticed it on his own if not for his Divine Gambit Spell that would prompt him during its activation.

Errrkkkk wasn’t using spells, but he was still abiding by the same principle of releasing his ability at just the right moment of conflux. Watching Errrkkkk was like poetry in motion. He didn’t have nearly as many weapons in his arsenal as Roden, but his tools were precision instruments in the hands of a master.

Roden did his best to mimic Errrkkkk’s precision given that his abilities were no longer geared toward wide area effects. His new spells were significantly more focused and required him to aim his spells and abilities just as precisely, if not more than the monk.

It was during their training that Roden got to try out his Luminary Lance for the first time. He stood inside the dojo and was prepared to cast his spell at one of the training dummies he had added after their first day at Riakon’s request.

He spoke the incantation, “Lux”. The spell’s incantation came preloaded of sorts. Other spells he was allowed to use his own words, but this one was different. When he cast it, a rod of golden energy materialized in his hand. Once fully formed Roden recognized it to be the spear he had imagined when the knowledge of the spell was granted to him.

He waved it about briefly, getting a feel for its weight and balance. He twirled it in his hand like a baton. The motion was effortless, the spear was his to command. However, this was not a stabbing weapon, it was intended to be thrown at a target.

With a final spin, he brought the weapon around into a throwing grip. He set his sights on the dummy and heaved. The spell had two major effects once thrown. First, the spell did not ‘fly’ through the air. Instead it arrived at its target almost instantly. The second effect was it pierced the target. The depth it sank was proportional to the power of the spell against the defense it encountered, but that added another dimension to how it would affect those hit by it.

Roden did notice the range of the spell was less than it had been as his beloved Ignition Bolt, but it did appear to do more damage to its victims, so he couldn’t complain too much. Once Roden started getting some practice with his new spells he felt more confident in his move over to being a Cleric of Zamira, even though the decision wasn’t entirely his own. He felt like he was well on his way to getting back to full strength.

Riakon was a different story. Without his magic, he was mostly left with just his hammer and his natural Dragonkin abilities like his hardened scales and his breath attacks. It took some coaxing and a bit of supervision, but eventually all three men agreed he should try using the breaths he received from Tiamat. Even though it had appeared those gifts were what allowed Tiamat to corrupt Riakon on that fateful night, Riakon didn’t have a lot of other options.

When it became clear the use of those breaths weren’t giving Tiamat any influence over him any more, Riakon spent much of his time incorporating them into his fighting style. After a few days of getting used to his new breaths Riakon mentioned he wanted to go pick up their commissioned items from Pa’teem. He wanted to be able to train with his ring on to get used to his new hammer and shield style.

It was around then that Roden realized he had made a grave error. His Opal steel earring was being enchanted for fire magic…

A magic he was no longer capable of…

He really hoped Pa’t wouldn’t be angry with him.