Two days passed and then we met up with our new allies; we took the car, of course, and followed them at horse speed around the city; it occurred to me right then and there that we could have driven at horse speed and been able to take our own horses with us that way. Next time. They were of course surprised to see the Cadillac, and asked if it was a magical tool and, well, actually it kind of was now, wasn't it? So during our ride banter we learned some things about the other two members of The White Wolves.
Guy Leonhart was a young gray-eyed man with short blond hair and classically handsome features plus a pointy mustache that extended beyond his cheekbones; his armor was an impressive full suit of plate with a great helm, and he also had a warhammer on his belt as a backup to his arming sword. Not to mention that heavy shield of his, it had the livery of his household thereupon: a silver roaring lion's head in profile against a sable field. I gathered that he was of noble birth, but decided to be an adventurer not so much for excitement as for a sense of duty. Guy seemed like a very proactive, er, guy; now that I think about it, wasn't Guy a name in my world before it became another word for "dude"? Well this Guy had been born and raised in Hylaria and had even spent some time part-timing with the city guard. As for his height, he was about the same as me which was typical of Hylarian men.
"Tis better, I say, to take the fight to evil," he said, speaking with a noble affect. "Indeed, rather than wait for the foe to come to one's own door, one must needs strike the heart of darkness and end it rightly ere it can threaten one's home!"
The other one, Selafyn Blade, was more of a fortune and glory type, someone who wanted to make a name for himself as the greatest swordsman ever Selafyn had been wandering around for a while, travelling the continent searching for his fortune, then he stumbled upon the White Wolves and joined their ranks. Those ears that came to a more subtle point than an elf's were, of course, a telltale sign that he was half-elf. He wore his bright golden hair down to his shoulders, neatly combed for now. He wore lighter armor than either of his companions, but heavier than mine. The top layer was something like splint or banded armor and the mail layer was a mithril chain.
Selafyn wielded two arming swords at the same time and he explained how he would strike, pirouette away, and strike again. It was a fighting technique that was good against monsters and large groups. Ah-ha! I knew I’d recognized the name “twin-vipers style” when I’d heard it from Rayna, and once our new ally explained how it worked I realized where I knew it from - Val had kicked my ass with it during our little sparring session!
Astride his horse, Selafyn preened in the mirror, "The more messed up my hair is after I'm done, the more fun I had. Dungeons or bedchambers, I like to look as good as possible before I dive in!" He laughed heartily.
The princesses and Nenewyn groaned, but I thought it was pretty damn funny and it even got a snicker outta Mal! Guy and Rayna remained taciturn about it. If they thought that was bad, they should hear some of Val's sayings from whenever we went drinking; wait, they probably had already, nevermind. Despite receiving a group-wide casting of Comprehension, Rayna didn't speak much once we left. She seemed to prefer to give orders with quick gestures and a blow of the ram horn she carried on her belt.
I wouldn't call the horses slow by any means, but it did take us a fair bit longer than driving to circle around to the northwest gate. The entire city was surrounded by a high wall, thick and sturdy, and still largely intact despite being abandoned for centuries - sure it had large cracks and some breaches but the parts that weren't deliberately broken were still relatively untouched. Well actually with one exception; Mal pointed out that it used to be painted with vibrant colors, which had all been obliterated over time. So let's see, if it took us that many hours to ride at this speed, I estimated the section of wall we drove around to be approximately sixteen miles long; I'd compared Gaian architecture to Greco/Roman architecture but it seemed to me that the Gaian capital was bigger than ancient Rome had been. It seemed that both our errands required us to enter through the same gate, but the White Wolves' slain member was in the district to the south of the one we needed to explore. Each gate was massive and bracketed by elaborate stone pillars.
As soon as we were parked outside of the gate, I said, "So, where did your friend fall?"
Rayna seemed surprised, "You wish to do our errand first?"
"Call it my good turn for the day if you like," I said, scout saluting, "Ours is more dangerous, I think, and I'd like to make sure you're all taken care of."
Guy drew his sword and raised it on high, "You, good sir, are truly a man after my own heart! Very well, let us forge ahead forthwith!"
While we were at the adventurer's guild, Rayna had worked with us to figure out a marching order - which everyone agreed to. Guy walked front-and-center, while the princess walked behind him with Sylfaena on her right and Nenewyn on her left. I would walk ahead of Nenewyn and to her left, while Selafyn would walk ahead of Sylfaena and to her right. Mal would stand behind the princess, and Rayna would be our rearguard. As a result of this configuration, us mixed attackers could quickly come to defend our mages on the flanks, or maneuver to flank what Guy was fighting. Likewise, Rayna could defend us from the rear, or move to attack flanking enemies with her significant reach.
Mal would provide attacks with thrown weapons, knives plus special playing card shaped ones I had made in Daz Grund, and of course his illusions and soundburst spells where applicable. Nenewyn made sure that all three magic-users were protected with magic armor, while Sylfaena could focus on attacking enemies with raw power. Ah, incidentally, Nenewyn helped Mal develop a new sound spell - Group Muffler - which would protect our alliance's eardrums from loud noises, for obvious gunfire related reasons.
With long term enhancement magics applied, we ventured inside the waste and holy cow the difference was night and day. Ever got off an air conditioned plane in a really hot place like Phoenix in the middle of summer, or walked into a sauna after taking a cold plunge? Yeah, it was kind of like that, and it was unnaturally dessicating. Even with the princess' wind magic it was intense, and we had to drink the water she created really fast or it just evaporated. The whole city was covered in a gloomy cloud at all times and it was deathly, eerily quiet; not that the cloudcover helped the heat at all. The city's color palette was muted, even on the rest of us - it was like the ruins had a gloom filter on at all times that was even visible on the bodies of outsiders. There was almost certainly some sort of aura of uncertainty and fear beyond the natural - it was just a creepy place, where it felt like you were being watched at all times. I didn't count steps or leagues as we followed Guy's lead towards the place where their mage had fallen. We got a pretty good description of what killed him, Nenewyn was even able to identify it and knew its weakness.
It started in a flash as a warband of hideous two-legged creatures with gruesome tusk-like lower canines, blood-red eyes, unkempt black hair, and sickly sallow skin mottled with black veins suddenly appeared; but we knew they were coming, the White Wolves had forewarned us that this was their territory so we were actually luring them out. These were my first orcs, and no depiction I'd ever seen of them did justice to just how horrid they were; like goblins, they weren't true humanoids but twisted evil given fleshy form. But unlike goblins these guys had weapons and armor that seemed to be worth a damn; sharp scimitars, chainmail armor, and bows of yew. They weren't as tall as a man, but they were taller than goblins and they appeared far stronger. I didn't have time to count their full number, as the fight was on.
I spotted one on one of the roofs swinging around a skull-capped staff glowing with green energy, and indicated him as a priority target. At that point, Sylfaena gathered magical energy in her fingertips and unleashed a ray of fire, which struck true; the obvious warlock stumbled and fell to the ground twenty feet below. Orcs came upon my side, so I moved to defend Nenewyn's position. Mal did a spinning jump and launched four daggers, one from each hand, two in each direction. I heard the squelching of metal into flesh and saw one dagger find purchase in the neck of an orc that was heading towards me.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
"Got three," Mal called.
I caught one orc in a bind, which gave Rayna an opening to bring down the other one that was moving to flank me, after which I finished off my orc. Archers revealed themselves on top of another building to the right, but the princess put up a windscreen between us and them. Selafyn was hard at work assisting Guy in the front; whenever Guy would engage some orcs, and there were quite a few, Selafyn would pirouette about and do a spinning slash maneuver to bring them down, then return to his original position to make sure none of the monsters reached Sylfaena or the princess. More of them came, a decent sized group was exiting a broken building ahead of us and to the left - the elves' ears all twitched.
"Twenty, or more, inside!", cried Nenewyn.
Sylfaena began to gather mana. "On it!" The mana took on a crimson hue and she performed an incantation. We collapsed our formation, prioritizing protecting Sylfaena. Two, three more orcs fell, both myself and Rayna sustained minor injuries, which the princess was quick to mend with an area heal. There was a close call as an orcish longspear nearly struck Sylfaena, but Selafyn parried it in time, giving Mal the opportunity to take the orc out with a thrown dagger. When the incantation was done, Sylfaena had but to call out the name of the spell in order to finish casting it: Fireball.
A bright streak of hot flame issued from her outstretched fingers, past the heads of the orcs who were still coming out of the old building - and then there was a tremendous explosion, then a hideous shriek like a chorus of boiling lobster. No more orcs came out of there, and even the three orcs closest to the doorframe had been caught in the blast and didn't get back up. Sylfaena stumbled, but the princess stabilized her; she'd put a lot of mana into increasing its power and width, so it took a fair bit out of her. That was a good aim, too.
Arrows fell at our feet; the archers had moved to another building and were now resuming their barrage. Luckily, Guy and I were able to deflect some of them and keep them off - but we had to do something.
"Rayna, Selafyn, to me," Nenewyn called.
They took her hands and then they vanished, only to reappear adjacent to the archers; they made short work of the orcs topside, giving us more leeway in dealing with the orcish ground forces. Gah! When they returned, Nenewyn was wavering; it turned out that teleporting in this waste was a bad idea, and she'd gone and done it anyway just to give us an advantage. Sylfaena gave her a good scolding as well as a glass of freshly conjured cold water.
After we'd finished off all of the remaining orcs, more than a dozen I think, we took a few more turns through a maze of ruined streets deeper into the broken city; orc-make equipment, while formidable, wasn't exactly popular on the open market (due to often bearing evil enchants), so we left it all.
Then it came, heralded by a gout of flame; but we were prepared. Nenewyn held up her hand and a dome of flame rose up to catch the breath of the three-headed monster as it bore down upon us. Ain't no two-ways about it: this was a chimaera. It had the heads of a lion, a red-scaled dragon, and a razor-toothed goat, plus wicked claws and a pair of bat-like wings. Guy was pushed back two whole yards as the creature slammed into him. Selafyn and I both moved to attack it from the side; we managed to draw blood before it buffeted us backwards with its wings. The monster attacked Guy with its claws, but thankfully it couldn't quite get past his armor; that said, even Guy couldn't keep that defense up forever, and if we didn't do something the force of the blows was going to concuss him to death.
Rayna attacked from the side I'd attacked on and got bit by the dragon head for her trouble; but she didn't flinch, no, there was something…something strange going on with her; were her muscles this bulky before? When she disengaged after making her first swing, I saw that her eyes had gone completely feral, and she was roaring like some possessed beast. Then, ignoring the fact that she was bleeding from dragonbite, she dove right back in like she'd gone berserk or som--oh. That's exactly what was going on here, wasn't it? This was no time to marvel. I didn't have a clear shot for my rifle or bow, so instead I opted to help Selafyn with a flanking maneuver.
Sylfaena called forth ice spikes to launch at the creature's wings; she managed to tear their webbing pretty bad. The princess focused her attention on keeping Guy and Rayna alive. Every time the goat head tried to lash out, Guy shield bashed it. The Lion head was the biggest threat to Guy since he was squared up to it. But that damn dragon head kept trying to roast us, and it fell to Nenewyn to anticipate those bursts and raise a quick flame shield; protection magic ain't one of her specialties for nothing.
Eventually I got fed up with the dragon head snapping and breathing fire, so I tried something risky. Juking from side to side I got the dragon head's attention by brandishing my bowie knife, which I threw into the air; as planned, it instinctively followed the blade as it went up, and in that instant I drew my Colt out, took a half-step forward, and blasted it in the jaw at point blank range. The death of one of its heads caused the creature to stagger, which gave everyone the opportunity to unleash a devastating barrage of attacks and finish the beast off.
Guy knelt, stuck his sword to the ground, and began to mutter a prayer with a bowed head. Everyone had it a bit rough that fight, with only Mal and the mages coming out unscathed. The princess went straight to work healing everyone up, while Selafyn started cutting off monster parts. Rayna was soaked in the blood of the monster and of herself; she was also panting heavily, sweat and blood turning the thin layer of dust on the ground into mud.
"I've avenged you, old friend," she said.
Nenewyn said, "I believe his body must be in the Chimaera's nest, which ought to be nearby. They're solitary creatures, especially a male such as this one; thus, I think that we need not fear others biting at our heels."
"Understood," I said. I had to know so I asked, "what was that thing you did back there, Rayna?"
"My people have a blessing, but, also a curse," said Rayna. "Legend has it that during the last apocalypse our people were empowered by the blood of an ancient dragon lord. His true name long forgotten, he is remembered as the Dragon King of Rage - for he was fiercely tempered and nigh unstoppable when roused. My ancestors drank of his blood, offered freely, and it gave them the power to destroy the invaders from the Fields of Despair, what you call the Devilwaste. But this great power had a price; the warriors lost themselves fully to rage, became incapable of rational thought and tactics. Some wound up slaying their own kin, and others went into self-exile to prevent just that."
She paused and took a long breath. "As the blood of these steel-gods has thinned throughout the aeons, the curse has diminished - but there are those of us even now who choose to harness the power of the dragon flame that lies latent inside each of us. I am one of them. When I reach a peak of anger and frustration, my heart calls his name though my mind knows it not, and well, you saw the results for yourself. Fear not, I remain in control of myself when I go into that state - it is a desperation move, and to do it again I'd need a full night's sleep."
"That's pretty damn epic," I said.
Rayna laughed, "Most recoil in fear upon hearing that tale. You truly are a brave man. Boys! You can play with that thing later! We've a fallen comrade to attend to."
Mal had joined in on the collection effort, I see - Guy was checking his armor for damage and accepting a heal. We moved forward and I did my best to try and figure out where the chimaera's nest could be - Nenewyn and Mal were helpful here, too actually; they were both fairly knowledgeable about these monsters, which were more common across the Narrow Sea where they lived among the mountains. It didn't take long for us to find the nest, damn it reeked like hell - there was indeed the corpse of a human male, half-eaten, wearing a beige robe. I suggested that we take his body back to town and rest, but Rayna rebuked me.
"No," she said, and fished around in her pack for a…friggin handkerchief? Huh? "I have this, we can carry him."
She spread that so-called handkerchief out to an impressive ten-foot diameter circle which she then laid on the ground. Gotta be kidding me. She picked up the mage's body and gently lowered it into the ground itself. I had no choice but to look: sure enough, there it was, a five-foot deep cylindrical pit.
The princess said, "A portable hole! I've never seen one but I'd heard of them. They're an expensive and highly sought after item. So much so that you would need to have it commissioned!"
"This one was a keepsake," said Rayna, "It was passed down from my great-grandfather who took it from the treasure of Smaragor the Green-Eyed Dragon along with this sword of mine. When we've time I'll tell you the tale."
I stuck a thumb way up, "Great. After we're done here, we should field-dress that monster - I'll grill up a feast!"
Seeing the reactions from my own party, the White Wolves interest was piqued. First errand down, one to go.
The technocracy will fall. And one woman starts it all.
Dr. Ryst Nova survived an assassination attempt. Then she met a man in her dreams, and their wedding set the 9 Galaxies ablaze.
Peydran Madrano’s cybernetic augmentation felt like the end of the world, but Ren Crieve loved him anyway. Together, they’re telling the Known Cosmos the truth about the technocracy.
Something is wrong with reality, and these couples will set it right.
Seven Books. One Truth: Ryst’s story changes everything.
? No harem. ? Found family. ? Telepathy. ? Psychics.
What to Expect:
- Straight & queer romances. (NSFW.)
- Neurodifferent and nonverbal characters.
- Seven book series. Comedy Space Operas: .
- WLW Psychological Thrillers: .