“Yes, Turin. I was falling all over myself to try to soothe some noblewoman so she didn’t raise a fuss while you’re carrying an unconscious man in a sack, you damned fool.” He jogs along beside me in this forgotten alley and looks up at me defiantly. No respect whatsoever.
“Arright, maybe ya’ve a point. Was a looker, though. Little flat all over for my tastes — not a lick of muscle. Much more fittin’ for little folk like you.” I shift around my cargo. People are always awkward to carry. Even when they’re knocked out. The weight just never quite distributes itself right. He’s been unmoving, though. Vari really gave it to him, it seems.
“Maybe I won’t beat that mean streak out of him. He’s good at what he does. I can put up with some lip, and with losing the twins, I need someone to share all of my troubles with.” I think idly with a smile. Little bunny could serve a good few purposes with the other two gone.
“You’re disgusting, you know that, right?” When he tosses his head around to look up at me, he wears a little grin for once. Actually sniping back with good humor. A rare occasion.
“So, you get anything off this guy?” Looking down the alley I spot our destination. Off in a remote corner of this podunk dead-end town, and one of the few buildings with a basement and space enough to store some of our stock, the “hideout” rests. A run-down once house-now-warehouse with a front that’s falling off and a back that sits in contact with the outer wall of the town.
He gives me an annoyed shrug. “Not a thing. Either he’s got some sort of enchanted item protecting his thoughts or some natural affinity to Puritas or something similar. Clearly nothing he uses for fighting at least.” The little rabbit lets out a deep sigh. Melodramatic as always. “Mind locked tight like a vice as soon as he blacked out. Had some weird surface thoughts during your “fight”, though. Thought about protecting his family — presumably the dragon and that noble girl — but was immediately flummoxed by the thought like it had come unbidden or intrusively.”
“I hate it when you use big words like that Vari.”
“And I know full well that that’s an act. You’re better educated than me, you’ve made that abundantly clear.” Finally, some humility. I reward him with a smile.
“Fine, fine. Jus’ thinking is all and fillin’ the air with noise. You ever run into anyone who shut up like that before? Shouldn’t it be the case that his natural defenses weaken when he’s out cold?”
Vari bounds ahead a few steps and shoves the large double doors open into the building around the same time I feel my new friend rousing. “Usually, but he was shaping essence when you knocked him out. Could be that whatever he uses has some protection aspects. Would explain why he was so hard to read to begin with. Long duration secondary benefits giving passive defenses against what I do.”
I resist the urge to needle him. It would be mighty fun, but won’t serve any purpose. Gotta do a bit of people management and make him feel appreciated. I duck low as we step into the room and Vari closes the two doors, throwing the series of locks and bars with a series of rattles and clacks. “Nothin’ you coulda done then. Maybe we’ll have some time to get to the bottom of ‘im here ‘fore his friend shows up.” I make it to the oversized stairs and sidle my way down them. This building wasn’t meant for us mountainfolk, and it’s always an annoyance to do anything in it.
“Was that a compliment? Or at least some understanding? How very unlike you. It’s appreciated.” I grit my teeth. Abrasive rabbit just can’t take a bit of positivity and run with it. Bryce and Brynn were so much easier to deal with. I sigh and tap a rune on the wall entering into the basement, bringing luxlamps up to their full brightness.
The room isn’t much to write home about. Wall-to-wall crates, each a simple spatial storage with an elaborate exterior to give the impression of being full with mundane goods. Each one full to the brim of this town's main export. Essence rich pearls that those scaly little’uns gather.
The walls are scrawled with runework to dampen sounds and limit essence leakage out and into the air. With the countless pearls in the room, the air in here is essence charged in a way that is energizing just to stand in. My tattoos seem to spark off at random, giving pleasant little kicks of power every now and again as they fill and then discharge with whatever basal essence is currently winning the war for diffusion into the space.
Around the back of some of the boxes there’s a small sitting area, a couple beds for us big folk, and one smaller one for our newly acquired brain-tickler rabbit. “Get him set up in that chair.” I toss the little man onto the ground in front of the chair with a solid thump against the stone floor and a small grunt from inside the sack. “I’m starvin’. You want somethin’?”
“I’d appreciate your help in putting him in the chair. He easily weighs half again as much as me, Turin.” He gives me an exasperated look as he works to pull the woozy human out of the sack.
“Maybe I wanted ya to figure it out yourself? Diversity grows character.” I set up some bait as I walk over and grab the man by the collar and heft him into the chair like a ragdoll, his head lolling off to one side and his eyes fluttering all over the place behind his eyelids. Looks almost like a seizure, but entirely localized to his head.
“Adversity. Turin. It’s adversity.” The tawny rabbit sets to tying up his hands and feet and securing them to the chair. Lippy, but professional. Deadly serious when he’s actually doing something other than mouthin' off. Gonna need to find out what he actually did before all this. Thinkin’ he might be some assassin or some such, mindmagi being what they are.
“How long till you think he’s gonna wake up?” I’d love to have a conversation with him ‘fore things get interesting.” He’s been moaning every now and again, whispering unintelligibly. Kinda offputting if I’m being honest. Something about this guy makes me feel uncomfortable. Gonna be doing the world a favor once he’s monster food.
“I can make him wake up now if you want. That’s not much of an issue, he’s halfway there anyways.” I give Vari a rolling gesture with my hands, and he starts to call his essence.
I’m a little jealous of people like him. Being born with a compound essence affinity is a hell of an advantage. Especially one as versatile as thought essence. But who needs to have it yourself when you can have people for that kind of thing. Much easier that way. Losing out on Bryce’s Vulcanus is a big blow, but he was hard to use for anything other than muscle. Sister wasn’t any better. This little rabbit’ll serve way better. “Go for it. Somethin’ about him is weird and if I visit his grave without knowin’ my life’ll be incomplete.”
The rabbit leans in and presses a hand to the man’s forehead and there’s a flash of that almost colorless essence passing between the two of them, leaving behind a rune on his forehead. The man convulses a couple times before opening his eyes and looking around wildly, breathing hard. “Threw in something to discourage lying, figured it might help you sate yourself. Honestly, I barely even have to try — feels like his body wants the essence intrusion. No passive defenses, the more I feel around…” Vari trails off, going deep into thought. It’s definitely an oddity worth exploring if it has someone as experienced as him unsure.
“How thoughtful. Remind me to give you a raise.” I make a dismissive wave and step in, kneeling to get close to the little man’s viewpoint. “Mornin’ sleepy. Ya took a bad fall and my friend and I brought ya here to recover. Had some questions for ya.” He looks at me with a fire in his eyes. Something that was missing when I pummeled him. He does, however, make a mistake. He spits in my eye while' saying something in a tongue I don’t recognize.
I haul back and slug him across the jaw, knocking the chair spinning before it falls over. “Probably shouldn’t hit him in the head if you want information, Turin. You’ll give him brain damage or kill him like that. Won’t be any use to you then.”
I stand the chair back up and spin the guy to face me again. “Look, I keep trying to be polite to ya and ya keep being rude.” He looks at me with the same sort of defiance I see on Vari for a couple seconds before lowering his head and shaking it pretty hard like he’s trying to clear a hangover.
“Fine. Ask away. Already told you I don’t know much, and haven’t seen my friend all day. So not sure what I can really do for you.” He shuffles a little bit, maybe settling in to get as comfortable as one can be in such a situation.
“See? That’s much better. How’d you come to be traveling with a dragon? Far as I know none of them have been seen in decades.” I cast a look over at Vari, who nods, his eyes flaring with a bit of essence as the nearly invisible stuff floods the space around us.
“It’s not a terribly interesting story. I was drowning in a river, and she saved me and took care of me. She’s helping me get to Kharbon.” Another glance back at Vari, another nod.
“There any other of ‘em around?”
He looks up at me coldly and states, “No.” Another Vari confirmation. Gods above it’s nice having a personal lie detector in this line of work.
I pull over a big stool and sit down on it, changing topics abruptly. “What’s with the sleeve?”
He looks down and to his right and then looks back at me, blanching. “That’s…complicated…” he pauses for a while, nearly thirty seconds. I don’t haul off and hit him, though. He looks like he’s thinking, and I figure a show of kindness couldn’t hurt. Besides, he might be useful. “But, I guess the simplest way to say it is that I’ve got a dangerous type of what, I think, is essence poisoning.” His words come out slowly, like he’s picking each one carefully. Probably to avoid telling a lie, but to avoid giving anything away if he can. Smart.
I reach over and make to tug it down, and the absolutely thrashes around abruptly. Knocking himself over. I look down at him and over to Vari, actually a bit shocked at the violence of the reaction. He looks confused as well, but shrugs.
“Was the truth. At least as near to it as he knows. Lots of uncertainty.”
“It is the truth. I don’t know anything about it, but I know it’s dangerous. I don’t really care what you do to me, just don’t touch my arm.” I look at Vari who gives me a wide-eyed response.
“Total truth, including the “don’t care what happens to me” bit.”
I shrug and lift him back to being upright. “Right, well, even if I’m curious, I don’t see a reason to not believe you.” I give him a bit of a warmer smile. “Tell ya what. What’s your name, kid? You seem interesting.”
He gives me a cautious eye, looking around the room before settling back on me. “Olly.”
An idea is forming in my mind. A way to possibly salvage this situation. “Well, Olly. I’m Turin, and that, there, is Vari. D’ya think that we might be able ta’ work together? I don’t really enjoy killin’ anyone, and I didn’t really like those two goons who got put on ice in the streets. Maybe you and I could convince your dragon friend to join up willingly? You and she both get to live, and get made rich in the process. Much better than a bloody fight, I think.” I lay it on, gently pulsing essence into my body. Simple Aero imbuements to speed my thought to hold the advantage in the conversation. And to shield my thoughts from my braintickler friend back there. Not fool enough to leave someone like that unchecked.
He makes a show of looking thoughtful, his posture overall shifting to something more confident than he’s worn so far. It gives off the impression of someone putting on a new mask or jacket as he settles. “Sure, just untie me and when Ayre shows up we’ll have that discussion. I can’t speak for her. She really doesn’t like that. But if she shows up and sees me tied up, she’s not going to open up a conversation.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“Hah! You’re a smart one. Not much a fighter, but more of a brainy one like bunny boy over there.”
“Careful, Turin. Getting a lot of cloudy thoughts that’s making it hard to pick out any details. It’s…noisy.”
I turn and look at him with put-on surprise. ”'Noisy'? What does that mean? Can’t you just un-noisy it with more essence or something?”
“It’s like he’s got more than one voice rolling around in his surface thoughts. It’s severely limiting my ability to read him, but I know I’m starting to spool out at this point. Need to drop off the spell for a bit. Use your intuition.” He hops up onto a box and I see the light disappear behind his eyes. “Traveller’s Boots, something in his head is giving me a migraine.”
I roll my eyes in response as he starts to nurse his temples. “Right. Getting beaten out by someone tied up in a chair.” Spinning on my heels I return to sitting in front of the man. His eyes are colder, and I see little flects of amethyst floating around in them. “You know, without him to act as my little filter, I have to handle this the way I normally would. A bit more directly.” I sit up straighter. No cracking knuckles, no overt threats. That's for amateurs. “What are you doing to mess with my friend here?”
He shrugs as best he can. “Can’t really say. These things just kind of happen.” I stand up slowly, looking over at Vari, whose hiding a small smile at this guy’s resistance. I shrug at him before spinning in place and throwing a low punch into the guy's stomach about as hard as I can. Something gives as he sputters and wheezes afterwards. I’m tired of these little folk acting smug.
“Think your dragon friend will stay willingly if I let you go in exchange?”
Between wheezing breaths, he sputters out, “Can’t really say. I think she’ll probably just set this place on fire with me in it if she’s mad enough or thinks I’m dead. Which, if I’m being honest, would be pretty funny even if it would hurt. Those flames are something el-”
Another punch, but no crack of a rib. It feels like I hit a wall, even. It does make him sputter up a bit of blood, though.
“You’ll probably kill him with internal damage if you keep that up.” Vari adds to the room, wasting just a little bit of air that could have gone to someone else.
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. I’m getting worked up. And for what? Something about this guy is just making my blood boil and I can’t really place why. He’s smugly smiling at me with probably five broken ribs and internal bleeding. Far tougher than before. What’s changed? My teeth hurt. That’s it. But why?
I stare at him, ignoring Vari’s comment. His skin is taking on a metallic sheen. “You’re a metal sorcerer?”
“Nope.” A smug smile again. One that is really starting to make me mad.
“I didn’t see or feel you calling or compounding anything, let alone use any incantations or gestures. How’d you do it?” I demand. I seriously dislike feeling like I’m losing control of a situation, and that’s happened a lot today. Maybe I should just end this and wait for his scaly little girlfriend.
“Magic.” He responds, which makes Vari laugh briefly before veering it off into a cough.
I ignore him. He can be dealt with him later. Instead, I slug the smug freak again, this time in the face. Gaining something be damned. His head snaps back with the hit, but it hurts me. Knuckles crack in the impact, even.
“What is that Godsforaken noise? It’s driving me up a wall.” Vari says, a little too loudly. Like he’s trying to speak over something. I try to focus and hear a very slight keening whine on the air. I think it’s been there a while, actually, now that I think about it. It just came on so slowly I didn’t notice. The noise almost coincides perfectly with the pain in my teeth.
“Sonos? Mineralis? Without any visible casting? What are you?” The sound is worsening, and it sets me further on edge.
He laughs at the question. “I’ll be honest. I really don’t know.” The smile he gives afterwards literally sparkles. Whatever metal essence is suffusing him is steadily turning his whole body metallic. Some potent imbuement?
“Hey, Turin, think I heard something upstairs.” Great. Another thing on this growing pile of drek. I turn and see Vari draw a short knife from somewhere and slink towards the stairway — standing just off to the side of it to get the drop on anyone who might come down. “Gods above, that noise is awful, can you shut him up?” Those sensitive lapin ears must be making this ten times worse for him than me.
I turn to the still smug looking captive who seems to have forgotten he’s a captive and grab him around the throat to lift him up. I am neither able to lift him, nor do I feel his neck give at all. I get the chair a foot or two off the ground before the apparent weight forces me to drop him to the ground, causing the legs of the chair to shatter.
That noise. That damned noise. I feel it in my tattoos and teeth. It’s like a spike being driven into my brain. No matter. I can pummel him on the ground just as well. I kneel, putting a knee on his sternum to lever all of my weight onto his broken ribs and start to hammer down punches, mixing in essence strikes with every third or so. Those seem to do something, at least. After a few of those, he stops smiling. Essence works. Good.
“Agh! What is that!?” I hear a very startled Vari shout, followed by a crash. I turn to see him falling backwards into a crate away from a flying golden orb that pressures at him for a second before darting back up the stairs.
“What was that little golden orb?” I cock my hand back, calling as much essence into my tattoos as possibly on that arm. I’ll smear this freak's head across the floor if I don’t like this answer.
He just smiles at me. Like he’s about to tell the funniest joke in the world.
“What else? A fairy princess.”
That’s it.
I’m done.
I’m not capturing this dragon. I’m skinning the both of them.
Right as I’m about to paste him, I hear a rush of air followed by a wave of heat. I turn just in time to see the ceiling starting to glow a radiant red for the briefest moment before the wood explodes, firing smoldering shrapnel across the basement and setting alight some of the Ignia bearing pearls in the crates.
I cover my face, avoiding the worst of it. But when I look back I see two figures drop into the now open hole in the ceiling. That drekking noblewoman from earlier and that damned winged monster. The woman is just wearing the same dress with nothing else of note, but the dragon is wearing a full set of Oathkeeper armor and the accompanying glaive. Three weapons adorn the end of its long haft. One speartip, one axe head, and one punching lug. Dangerous across the board.
The Noblewoman steps forward first among the cinders and shouts, “Olly!” She raises a hand and mutters an incantation that I can't make out. The words sound almost like language, but not quite — like someone singing a song you can only barely hear across a tavern but powerful. I can feel essence manifesting on the air from her voice alone. How?
I see two of each of them appear, stepping out of themselves like body doubles. She recoils like she’s been struck, but the illusions rush forward.
I swing at the noblewomans’ double first, uncertain if they’re essence constructs or not, and my fist goes through open air, as if nothing were there, dispelling the illusion. Seeing that, I turn back to remove the thorn in my side. That terrible Godsdamned noise. But when I turn to throw the punch at my captive, I feel something cold pierce my side.
I look down and see that the glaive is sticking out of my ribs. When I turn, I see the dragon who didn’t rush me dissipates on the air, demonstrating that only one of the two was an illusion. The glaive is sapping my essence away, so I grab it before she drives it further or withdraws. With a firm grip on it, I rip it out. I jerk the lighter dragon offer her feet and swing with all of my might to lift her by the weapon and throw her sideways into one of the crates. She lands with a heavy crunching thud and will take a bit of time to extract herself from the crate. Time to deal with the other one.
When I turn back, I’m met with a siege ram colliding with my jaw. I hear something crack and pop as I rock backwards off the man. Stars burst across my vision as I try to recover. But before I can do so, I see a twisting kick coming right for me. I can’t really manage a block in time, and it collides dead on into my ribs right where the glaive had punctured. I feel a handful of bones break in the impact and am sent spinning away from the now-rising man. Still wearing a smug smile. No…not smug. Predatory. His eyes feel like any of the monsters I’ve culled. Empty, hungry, and full of malice.
“You okay in there, Ayre?”
I kip up with a burst of Aero beneath my back and start to call more. He seemed susceptible to essence-based attacks, so that’s something to use. As he stalks forward, I shape my spell and release it with a swipe of my arm, directing it through my focusing tattoos, and sending a blade of Aero at him.
[Airblade]
[Projectile | Slash | Aero]
My essence narrows down to a fine point and ripples off of my arm with a loud crack. It tears through the air with a keening whine to challenge whatever is coming off of that freak, but the spell dissipates nearly instantly as the dragon steps before him with a sweep of that damned glaive, sapping the essence right out of the air and empowering it with the stolen energy. Only the barest few motes get past her and rips some cuts into his face and clothes.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just really mad. Really, really mad.” As she speaks, stepping ahead of him, I see licks of flame and ash carried on her words. Her eyes are like his, but not cold. They’re hot. Focused.
I hear a handful of rapid clangs behind me and hazard a look. The noblewoman produced a rapier at some point and is holding Vari at bay with slaps, jabs, and stabs that greatly out-range his knife with a finesse that’s clearly well beyond the borderline noncombatant lapin. I double-take, taking in a detail that I’d missed. She has wings. Golden wings almost like a dragonfly’s or a cricket’s, and her face shows an air of imperiousness that actually stuns me for a second as I watch golden essence dust accompany her every movement.
The man's words come to mind. What was surely a joke to throw me off
What else? A fairy princess.
I turn back and refocus just in time to see the glaive swinging in from a high angle. It’s a predictable move, at least. So I step in to her guard — the downside of polearms against people who fight close up and have good reach. Which, being taller than her by more than three feet gives me quite the advantage in that regard.
I grab the haft just beneath the swinging axehead and pull her forward into a punch in the stomach imbued with Aero. It lands with considerable force and knocks her up a few inches, landing a little ways back with a wheeze. The armor absorbed the essence of the attack, but the impact still lands, allowing me an opening to close for a followup as she reels.
Midswing with a wide haymaker I see a shimmer for a brief moment, having forgotten the damned freak. My mistake is punished, and it is punished hard. A punch connects with my own gut, a mirror of my own strike against the dragon, but with considerably more force behind it. The pain is blinding and sends me backwards ripping my feet out from under me and landing me on my stomach.
I lay there, calling as much Aero as I can alongside a few bits of Ignia, which seems super prevalent with the dragon nearby. I rapidly work to compress it, staying grounded to lure in that monster, feigning an inability to get up while holding my stomach with one hand. It’s only half of an act, admittedly.
[Dual Essence Compound]
[Aero + Ignia]
[Fulmina - The essence of electricity, lightning, and thunder]
[Pacifying Grasp]
[Touch | Sustain | Fulmina]
I stick to a simple spell, having had to spend so much focus on the compound essence, and prepare. In the back of my mind I hear the ongoing swordfight, but can’t afford to lose focus.
When I see his feet in reach, I burst forward, grabbing his ankles with both hands. The action gives me about as much pain as I give him as I feel my floating ribs moving around, but the discharge rocks through his body via my tattoos on my palms.
He lets out of a pained scream and staggers backwards, convulsing a few steps before he falls over, landing with stone shattering force on the basement floor. He stays there while the essence works its way through his body in waves, continuing to shake wildly as my essence rocks back and forth.
I start to rise, eyes on the freak, but something metal collides with my chin, The haft of the damned glaive, I realize. I fall backwards with the blow, landing flat on my back a few feet away as she stalks forward, beating her wings and flicking her thick tail around with the glaive held in a low guard.
Ignia ignites behind her eyes after she glances at her limp companion. All of that power from the Gate in her vessel showing itself for the first time. Her eyes defocus for a moment as she draws in a breath, which gives me an idea of what’s about to happen.
I call what Aero I can, feeling the middling stages of its poisoning settling into me. But it’s this or die, so I choose the risk.
[Wind Tunnel]
[Barrier | Burst | Aero]
The barrier starts to swirl around in front of me with incredible force. Aero is bad at physically blocking things, but very good at redirecting less solid spells. Like a breath attack.
She widens her mouth and there’s a snap of air pressure in the room changing as the first gouts of flames erupt outwards from her mouth. It’s like staring into the mouth of an active volcano. The first waves strike my barrier and joins the Aero essence, consuming it rapidly for fuel.
That shouldn’t happen. Ignia can’t burn other essences.
The next burst strikes with more force as a rising roar of fire presses against the dwindling barrier. I see flames licking around the edges as I try to scramble backwards, but every movement is agonizing.
Too late. The fire loudens, being matched with a draconic roar that fills me with the most raw, primal, fear I’ve ever felt. Something in the back of my brain recognizes the roar as something terrible at the same moment the barrier fails.
There’s a spare moment of warning as the barrier of swirling white succumbs to the fire, turning from shield to fuel, and I am washed over by what seems to be living fire. I feel it crawl over my skin, burning around my existing wounds first, making them infinitely worse. But when I open my mouth to scream out in pain, my breath is robbed from me as the living fire leaps into the opening to consume the air as it escapes. I feel my core starting to burn before all sensation stops.