“I wonder how wild of a story I could get you to believe.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I won’t, but I still wonder. For someone as well trained as you are, you can be startlingly naive.”

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

"—fair, I've been doing this for my entire life. How can you..." Raina trailed off as Jair staggered dizzily. "Are you okay?"

Jair started laughing and he couldn't stop, an oddly hysterical sound, gleeful and incredulous all at once.

He ignored the instinctive adrenaline that accompanied any reversion, the readiness to jump into whatever he was doing full force. He recognized their apartment. There shouldn’t be any danger here.

What had they been doing?

He stared down at a half-finished drawing, a wiggly smudge across its center where he’d lost control in the instant of reorientation. Ah yes. Art.

Day three. Evening. Roughly a day ago. Nice! The less tedium he needed to repeat the better.

"What is it?" Note of concern.

Jair shook his head, pressing two fingers to his forehead to manifest Maelstrom in front of him. He held it out, shaking his head, still laughing uncontrollably.

"Maelstrom? Yes, what about it?"

He only laughed harder. He couldn't catch his breath. The sheer absurdity of how strong his sword was took him fully off guard. It hadn’t been able to break through Yalenin Veshin’s illusions, so he’d assumed dragonscales would be a flat rejection.

Nope! Dragon stabbing was trivial. A matriarch was trivial to stab. Sure, the neck was too well protected, but it would be just as helpless if he carved off all its limbs. Stab its heart, eviscerate its lungs.

Its manabody could keep puppeting the physical for a few minutes, but the more pieces that body was in the harder it would be and the shorter that grace period became.

“I’d been thinking I would need to start recruiting again,” he said between gasps, catching his breath. “Try everyone now. But this…”

And this at ten percent integrity! He could only imagine what it’d be like once he was able to find Eythron and get it repaired properly.

“I don’t understand.”

“I didn’t either until now.” He held up Maelstrom, its silver pulse a rapid flicker. “You said kingdoms would go to war for something like this. I didn’t quite realize the truth of that. This changes everything. Oh, and I need a spark gauntlet. Don’t let me forget.”

“Spark gauntlet,” Raina said, confused. “Okay.”

Being able to ignite the entire pouch should cause an explosion big enough to distract the dragon at least a little. Could disable one claw and wing too.

He laughed.

This was ridiculous. Maelstrom was ridiculous.

He hugged the sword to his chest, whispering a thanks to Dovak, just in case. This was perfect. Beyond perfect. Beyond his wildest expectations. With this, he very well might be able to do the impossible.

No one killed a dragon solo. He never expected to either, only ran this loop to test the armor and sword. But now, he had no lack of attack power and damage output. It would be a matter of positioning.

All he needed was enough people to distract and reroute the dragon, and perhaps help evacuate Raina.

He was laughing again. Couldn’t help it.

“Do I need to get Healer Notek?”

“I’m fine.” Jair waved away her concern and doodled a quick sketch of the dragon. He blackened in the parts where the scales were thicker and darker. Neck, ankles, and the ridge along its back and tail.

He was fortunate to have struck the tail at a sideways angle, or Maelstrom might have bounced off that too. The tail swinging sideways and the weapon coming at an opposite angle had perfectly coincided to give him that handhold.

“See? This is what I’m talking about! I’ve taken art lessons since I was three, and you’re just casually turning out stuff like this?” Her eyes flicked up to his, narrowing as though to check for a soulspell glow.

“Yes, you’ve figured it out. My soulspell makes me a genius artist.”

“And have random bouts of insanity, it seems.”

“That too. Don’t forget, we need to head over to the oasis to pick up your new armor.”

“I still don’t know how you made that happen. I’ve seen the kind of names on that waitlist. It’s not something you just jump the line on.”

“Maelstrom opens many doors.”

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

Jair finished carving the last set of oversized air pressure symbols on the walls mid-morning on the last day. In theory, he could spend the next few hours recruiting help from the teachers and informing his allies what to do when, but he was too excited to really test out Maelstrom’s capabilities. The last thing he wanted to do was ruin the day with hours of begging for help from people who should be already doing their best, yet who would instead ignore, dismiss, insult, or outright antagonize him for no better reason than who he was.

It might become necessary to undertake at some point, but not today. Today, he had a dragon to slice up and some new timing to verify.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

He headed out to Parein to find a spark gauntlet, then picked up his order of frostvine nets from the weaver guild in Astralla City. He still hadn’t settled on a good spot to set those up, but it would never be a problem to have them on hand.

After finishing his shopping, it was barely past noon and he was still in a good mood. He walked into Raina’s class to ask where the best black market material trader could be found. He’d gotten into the habit of trading everything through Meldi and Tyros, the Astralla City underworld bosses, but in this case he’d prefer to cut out the middlemen.

A quick argument later, and he sat down beside her to wait out the class’s final few minutes. He scribbled notes on the minutes she’d missed during their conversation, since he knew every class by heart. Hearing even part of it brought the whole back fully to mind in all its tedious glory.

Raina ran to keep up with him as he danced his way to the transit platform. “What’s the rush?”

“You know, dragons to slay, profits to make. It’s a beautiful day to be alive, don’t you think?”

“Yeah… I’m thinking we should stop at a healer on the way back, be sure you—”

“No,” Jair cut her off. “I’ve already consulted a variety of specialists. There’s nothing wrong with me. The unusual circumstances of Maelstrom’s ascension did not cause any damage.” He grinned. “I’m not wholly irresponsible.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to be irresponsible, but you certainly can be stubborn.”

“Thanks for noticing.”

“Though, given you just came to me for a ghostmoon alchemist, maybe I should reconsider your responsibility levels.”

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Dragon materials were valuable.

Poison dragons, due to a complicated series of events based around them being smaller and more aggressive than other dragon types, were actually among the rarest and most valuable of planetary dragons. Lunar dragons were significantly rarer due to the inhospitable terrain and logistical difficulties in slaying them, but they were also unknown enough that the materials weren’t particularly valuable.

Poison dragons had once been the most commonly slain dragon type, their materials became well known and heavily used in particular stages of precision construct manufacturing in particular, and then the slayable ones ran out.

This left an interesting market, which made the prospects of an entire matriarch’s worth of scales, blood, fangs, and talons an almost implausible windfall. So much so that a single alchemist would never be able to afford more than a fraction of it.

But he could act as an independent agent for a more reasonable fee than what Meldi and Tyros would have demanded. Jair spent some time negotiating with the man, who seemed passingly familiar, while Raina perused the shelves and glass cases. She alternated between curiosity about the unfamiliar ingredients and poorly-concealed unease about the blatantly illegal ones, which made Jair smile.

So very law-abiding so much of the time, but she had that hidden edge that wanted to know more than was permitted or advised. What waited outside the standard rules and beneath the facades of polite society?

The answer was quite a lot that she didn’t actually want to know. But there was plenty he could show her safely that she’d never find on her own as long as she let her life be controlled by cultural expectation.

“But if you think you’re going to be coming back loaded with valuable materials,” said the shopkeeper, “I hate to say it, you’re probably not going to come back at all.”

Jair chuckled. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in betting on that?”

“I don’t see how I’d collect my winnings if you get yourself eaten.”

“Raina? Care to vouch for me?”

“Really?”

“What, I’m responsible! You know that.”

“After a week like this?”

“Hey, I’ve won every bet I made.”

“What do you expect me to say? Sure, I’ll cover your bet if you get yourself killed, because you’ve survived this long?”

The alchemist looked between them. “Are you two—”

“No!” they answered in unison, before resuming the argument.

In the end, he did get a promise of a better percentage, though Raina insisted she get half of the extra profits if she was covering his debt in the event of his death.

It felt good to allow himself to relax a bit, fall back into old childhood patterns of companionable bickering. He could permit it, now and then, especially when he was coming so close to true success.

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

“You’re sure it’s a dragon?”

They stood atop the wall, evening sun doing nothing to conceal the tiny distant speck flying at them.

“Absolutely.”

“And we can’t hide, wait for it to go away?”

“How many times have you heard of someone escaping a dragon by hiding?”

“Well…” Raina looked down with a grimace. “They usually result in being the sole survivor of a complete massacre. But your armor isn’t going to do enough to protect you.”

“Sure it will. It’ll prevent it roasting me in the first pass.” He flexed the spark gauntlet on his left hand. “Hard to slay a dragon when I’m a pile of ash.”

“It can still crush you.”

“I’m willing to bet it’ll be more focused on you.”

Raina shivered. “I still want to know how you found out about this whole vendetta thing. Have you seen my mom?”

“Once we survive, I’ll explain everything. But, no. I haven’t found your mother.” Tamma Serin had told Lord Ajriol Serin she was a danger and had to leave, ignored his protests, and proceeded to leave. Young Raina had barely known her before she disappeared. Where she went, what she’d done, and how she’d managed to incense a dragon to such drastic ends… he still didn’t know.

Some things remained hidden, even to a time traveler.

The dragon-shaped dot came nearer, clarifying.

“Dovak…” Raina cursed softly. “It’s really a dragon.”

“Yep.”

Raina looked between the distant dragon and Jair. “If my mother owes this dragon a life, maybe it’s best to let her take it.”

“Never.”

“Don’t get yourself killed,” Raina pleaded. “Save yourself, even if you can’t protect me. It’s not worth throwing your life away over.”

“Of course it is. My life. I get to choose what to throw it at.”

“H-hey. I still have to live with myself if you die, you know.”

“No you won’t. I’ll make sure of that.”

The dragon came nearer.

“How can you be so calm?”

“Practice.”

“How can you practice something like this?” The edge of hysteria crept into her voice by now. Whatever he tried, it seemed she would always come apart here. For all the pressures her expensive education and private tutoring had prepared her for, ‘being eaten by a dragon’ wasn’t one of them.

Jair laughed. “It does seem hard to practice, doesn’t it?”

“Now is no time for fooling around.”

“No? Then when is?” He waved a hand at the sky. “After the dragon tries to eat us? Nah. Forget that. Live now. Live later. Don’t put it off.”

“I’m not—that’s not what I’m—” Flustered and confused, she gestured helplessly.

“Fooling around is always a valid option. Especially when you’re me.” He grinned.

“If I weren’t wearing obscenely expensive armor, I’d smack you.”

“I’m wearing armor too,” he pointed out. But he couldn’t help smiling. If she were thinking about how much of an idiot her friend was being, she wasn’t thinking about her potential demise. He’d take that trade any day.

She poked his shoulder, very gently. Their armor barely clinked.

“You call that a smack? I’ve seen you do better with a pillow!”

“My armor is made of ceramic!”

“Enhanced ceramic with years worth of exposure to your mana oasis. You could drop a dragon on that stuff and it’d barely crack.”

“Then why does it break so often?”

“Dragons don’t stay dropped, and a crack is a crack. You’ll probably need it repaired, or even replaced, by the end of the day. But as long as it does its job of keeping you alive, it’s worth it.”

The dragon closed in. Neither of them was watching it.

“I guess I just don’t feel like hitting you today.”

“There’s a first. Write it in the history books. Raina Serin finally gave up her violent nature!”

She kicked him.

He fell over, laughing.

“I didn’t kick you that hard!” She frantically tried to help him up.

He dodged her hand and stayed where he lay, grinning up at her. “You look good with a dragon in the background. Like a warrior queen.”

“Eep!” Raina spun around, then froze at the sight of the dragon so close.

Jair jumped to his feet. “You’ve got another half minute. Go to the tower, be ready to run. Once it goes past, get down to the tunnel. I’ll do the stabbing.”

“Jair… I…”

“Now.” He gave her a little shove, breaking her paralysis.

She ran.

He stood, Maelstrom in one hand, waiting.

Three, two, one…

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