Chapter 9

  The Sound Of Beating Wings

  “It’s so cute. I’ve never seen any kind of hatchling before,” Nik said in the most gentle voice that he could muster, out of fear for startling it. Golden eyes that were huge for the little face that held them looked up into his. This creature seemed entirely unlike the great blue dragon that had burned a swath of the Emberwoods.

  I think I prefer you to the other guy, by a lot, he thought. Looking into the tiny creature’s saucer eyes, he spoke softly, “So you’re a fae-dragon, eh? You know, you’re the second dragon I’ve seen. You are much, much cuter, though.”

  Pearl let her voice rise higher than she meant for it to with surprise clear in her voice.

  “Hold a moment. Second dragon? When did you see your ‘first’ dragon?” Its large eyes grew wider at the sudden outburst and it sunk itself back into Nik’s fingers.

  “Black Tower, be softer with your voice,” Nik reprimanded her, his voice still calm. “I’m pretty sure it was the source of the forest fire. I saw it after the river. I was going to tell you about it once we stopped. Same as the candlelight ability.”

  She responded this time in a quieted tone, “Right, that all makes sense, but we need to stop putting important conversations off. Next time we will walk and talk more. Well, you’ll walk, I’ll be on your shoulder.”

  “Changing back to the topic at hand,” Nik said. “What do you know about fae-dragons?”

  “They are incredibly rare, I know that much. They hatch from plants or flowers depending on the type, and it would seem mushrooms are an option as well. They do not grow to the size of other dragons, but then again, they are as much fae as they are dragon. That is about all that I have for you,” she said, smiling brightly at the hatchling.

  It still seemed to be trying to keep its distance from her staying to the far side of Nik’s cupped hands. His eyes squinted as he focused his thoughts on one very important aspect of the current situation in which they had found themselves.

  He contemplated, No, that won’t do. Maybe, no. No, not that either. Wait! Got it!

  “You know I’ve never named something before. I’m going to call you Ryan!” he said with a proud smile.

  The sides of Pearl’s mouth turned down, “You’re going to name him Ryan? That is a terrible name for any kind of dragon.”

  Ryan’s eyes narrowed, and the smallest puff of green smoke shot itself halfway to her before losing momentum and dissipating. The now angry little faebeast was no longer keeping back to Nik’s upcurled fingers. In his need to rail against Pearl’s statement he nearly went over the edge of the palm that held him.

  Okay, so he is intelligent, and strong willed. Two things we didn’t know before, and he’s a good judge of names, thought Nik. “Maybe leave Ryan’s name alone,” he chuckled.

  Pearl’s hands went up, “Okay, okay. Ryan it is. It is fine enough for the fae-dragon, it is fine enough for me.”

  “That’s good,” Nik said, “Because I don’t think we could change it now.”

  She returned his smile, how could she not. They had just witnessed something that she didn’t know if anyone else alive on their tier of the tower had ever seen. It was then that a thought entered her mind at the same time it was spoken aloud by Nik.

  “What do fae-dragons eat by the way?”

  Her hand went to her face as she realized that despite the incredible event they just witnessed, they now had a literal hatchling in their possession. They would have to care for a newborn while also trying to stay alive. It was nice to know that it had some sort of poison breath, but that would not be helpful until it grew, if not dangerous for the overall group until then.

  “I honestly do not know, we will have to try offering it a few things,” was all she responded with. She tried keeping too much of her worry from showing. Based on the gift that was given by the flutter-fox, it seemed to have the belief that Nik had a very dangerous road ahead of him.

  It was visible from the aghast look on his face that Nik was mortified by something that had just occurred, but she had been so caught up in thought that she had missed it. She looked down from his horrified expression to see little orange claws being pulled away from Nik’s pouch. His eyes, gripped by panic, made contact with hers.

  “Ryan ate my coin!” he cried out.

  Unable to help herself, Pearl fell to the ground, rolling onto her side as she was overcome with unstoppable laughter. Speech broken through bouts of laughter, she said “Well... It would seem,” she chortled. “We know at least… one thing… that he eats now.”

  Nik said, “At least he didn’t get my button.”

  Still rolling on the ground, Pearl had to fight even harder to regain control of herself.

  There in the center of a faery ring, in the depths of the Emberwood Forest, Pearl laughed, Nik pouted, and Ryan licked his lips.

  “I’m not sure where we are supposed to get more coins or metal from, so I hope he likes something we can pluck from a stump or vine, too,” Nik said with a frown still dominating his features. I’m gonna have to find a way to hide my button just in case, he thought.

  Peeling Ryan’s tiny little fingers off of his pouch, again, Nik set Ryan on his shoulder opposite the one Pearl favored. This positioning lasted all of about a half dozen breaths before the tiny dragon crawled his way into the warm hood of Nik’s cloak. Pearl, once again found herself laughing at the sight of the little kobold struggling to reach his arms back over his shoulders to collect their new charge. Something about the way a faery ring feels like home really seems to lift all trouble from the world, but that trouble is not gone. It is still out there, she reminded herself.

  She let her smile fade and she cleared her throat, saying,

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Come on, it is time to get the day started. When Ryan next decides to come back out, we can test some different food. For now we should move our feet. Grab your new gear.”

  To his credit, Nik simply did as she had directed without complaint. He felt emotion behind her somber expression aching in his own chest. Gathering his few belongings, he turned to her, and in a moment of surprising insight said,

  “I miss home, too. There was nobody there with me, though. I was almost always alone in mine, but you weren’t. You have people who miss you. So, thank you for being by my side.”

  She didn’t offer him any words in response. She gave him nothing other than a deep breath followed by an acknowledging nod. Before any other words could be spoken Pearl was above the canopy and Nik was taking his first steps out of the mushroom lined circle.

  * * *

  Soot covered the straw thatched roof of each building in Graywater. Ironically making it look more like the color that it was named for than it ever had before. The sticky powder had lined the streets like snow a few days ago, and the substance was determined to make a permanent fixture of itself. Sir BlackDagger’s party had respawned there the same day that the ash had fallen like a dry mist over the town.

  Everyone except GreenWarden, she had appeared in the party chat having been freed from capture and imprisonment. That was a frightening new little feature of the game. Subdued players lost access to any chat functionality

  “Next time log out and text your brother, Warden. We could have at least attempted to find you instead of waiting for days to meet back up with you here. Now you’re gonna have to play catch up because we all had to train without you,” he said to her voice dripping with frustration and a bit of condescension.

  She had been freed by a little kobold that sounded familiar, and it unnerved him. When he had gone back to the castle there were no signs of the little lizard, or his stupid little crappy starter shield. Then this other one had used an element to free both itself and Warden.

  He had never heard of a kobold using anything other than simple weapons or claws to fight. He paused, thinking, the recent updates to Errant Realms have really been throwing me off my game.

  “I’m sorry for being messed up in the head by being held freakin’ prisoner, BD,” she responded, tearing him from his thoughts.

  “It’s fine, we just need you to play catch up while we train. No more joint multi-party questing until we get stronger as a unit.”

  He looked around their table, making eye contact with each member of his party

  “We let ourselves get split up and taken down. We were surprised and outnumbered, but based on some of the damage we did, it could have been a closer fight. That is, if we had more experience. We lost one of our members, two if we count Doggy, to capture, and we lost a lot of our momentum. Looking at the silver linings of the situation, though, this gave us some insight into our own weaknesses. I will admit that we still fought hard. We need to fight smarter though, too. This way when we strike back, and I do plan to strike back, they won’t know what hit them.”

  His vicious smile was wide and arrogant, but he knew that it was what he needed to show them to boost morale. He was going to work them to the bone, if necessary, to get the results that he wanted.

  * * *

  He could feel soft vibrating purrs tickling his upper back through the cloth of his hood. It seemed as though Ryan had needed to sleep off his meal of Nik’s only coin. On the topic of coins, if Nik was an adventurer, then he was sure that he could give his new companion a coin every day for the rest of his life, but he wasn’t one.

  He had no towns filled with people to trade mushrooms for the shiny round things. Am I gonna have to loot an adventurer just to feed him? he thought to himself as he stopped to pluck a couple of mushrooms on his way past a large severed tree branch. He’d offer some to Ryan later in addition to some berries if they happen across any bushes.

  A soft buzzing sound made its way to him from between trees in the distance. It sounded almost like the beating of his teacher’s wings, only it was a disjointed and fractured echo of the sound hers made. The familiar buzzing of wings erupted from above.

  Pearl shot towards them shouting,

  “Bramblestag beetles, at least three of them. They must have caught your scent, because they are flying in a straight line for us.”

  Nik launched his mind into combat mode, “If they are coming for me, then I will face them. You attack from above when I make my first move, hit the same target if I don’t take it down.” She disappeared skyward as he readied his spear for a throw.

  A breath, the sound of beating wings. Two, they drew closer. His shaky hand went still, the spear leveled evenly towards the approaching enemies. Three breaths, he leaned forward, steeling his resolve and preparing his mind for the steps that would follow. Four, a glint of bluish-black glinted through the foliage. Nik took two steps toward the flash of color, threw his arm forward and loosed his weapon.

  Nik’s spear sailed through the air, and as the first of the beetles broke through the vegetation, it struck true. The creature was a hideous mass of hard spikes and long legs. Nik’s spear had flown between its antler-like horns, and struck it just behind the head. The wide toothy mouth, half hidden behind mandibles, crashed to the ground.

  He stepped to the side. As the chitin covered corpse slid past him, he held out a hand and caught the shaft of his spear. The beetle lurched to a stop against the tug as the weapon pulled loose.

  A familiar crescent of condensed and sharpened air came from above the emberwood leaves, and sliced through the wings, into the back of the second bug to arrive. The third bounced in the air maneuvering over its grounded ally. Nik launched his spear again at the newest arrival. The bramblestag beetle tilted to the side causing the spearhead to glance off of its armor. It was charging at him now. He ran to meet it. Mandibles and teeth were lunging at him for a killing bite.

  His feet hammered the ground, claws digging into the earth as he slid himself down and under the bulbous creature. He slashed upward as it dropped in an attempt to crush him. Three parallel blades of air slashed from his Wind Claw ability, cutting through chitin and flesh alike.

  Three segments of beetle smashed into him, splattering gore from his knees to his feathers. He heard more loud crashing and the sound of a Wind Slice digging into wood. Rolling to his feet, Nik followed another condensed blade of air with his eyes as Pearl sent it into the already injured beetle he’d never gotten a strike against..

  Its six legs shook beneath it for only a moment before it collapsed, leaving the area silent save for Nik and Pearl’s panting breaths. Nik ran his hand over his blood-wetted face and through his feathers, which only served to make them stick to his head. With a bit of a start, he braced himself just in time before the growingly familiar bell rang out in his head.

  You have defeated 2 Bramblestag Beetles!

  Experience gained 120!

  I’m impressed you managed to kill not only one bug, but two whole bugs!

  “It looks like your beetle didn’t count for me, and the system is still rude,” he shouted over to Pearl.

  Congratulations!

  Level Up!

  You are now a LEVEL 3 KOBOLD TRICKSTER!

  All Stats gain +1!

  Strength: 5

  Agility: 7

  Fortitude: 6

  Intelligence: 7

  Perception: 5

  Charisma: 5

  Luck: 23

  Bonus Stat Available +1

  Mana 30 of 30

  XP 20 of 400 to Level 4

  Adventurer Class Options Available!

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