“Lies.”
“She knows the star-man Paladin you have been seeking. Guy, was it? Rachael here, as you can see, also has hair like a star-fae and carries their technology. She is from the stars, I assure you.”
Xanthe untied Rachael’s pinned-back hair. Long, soft, and red, her star-fae hair draped over her shoulders.
Leafblade lowered his axe and winced. “Come to think of it,” he said, then leaned closer, grabbing and yanking Rachael’s frowning face toward his, “I recognize her from Muruai.” His ogling shifted to Xanthe. “You. We met in Holt, did we not?”
“And you asked me for help,” Xanthe said. “I am giving it to you.”
“Why did you not leave her at the main gate?”
“I was hoping she would speak more about the resistance when she learned of Averyl’s capture.”
“By bringing this star-woman here?”
“And earning her trust.” She made a sly grin and hoped her charisma was working. “Alas, she has revealed nothing useful.”
“Yet,” Leafblade finished and turned to his men. “Take her away.”
“Xanthe!” Rachael screamed, as Xanthe kicked her to the imperials. “You son of a bitch!”
Two imperials grabbed Rachael’s arms, one on each side, forcing her to drop the Oak Staff. Rachael squirmed, cursed, and kicked, trying and failing to get free, keeping her hateful gaze focused on Xanthe. The three soldiers dragged Rachael out of sight and into the halls, echoing with her repeated cursing.
Xanthe was alone with Leafblade now. He closed the gap between the two, giving her cleavage and olive flesh a look, her legs especially. Leafblade paused for a moment, and Xanthe wondered if what she did was right.
“I like you,” Leafblade said, breaking the silence. “You are useful.”
That did it. Xanthe was earning his trust.
“I am a shadow angel. I can corrupt anyone I want with my presence.”
A soldier poked his head into the room and looked toward Leafblade. “Sir, shall we take her to the prison?”
Leafblade nodded, keeping his eyes on Xanthe. “Yes.”
“May I suggest a sentinel ship?” Xanthe offered. “She is a star-dweller, and our prisons are no match for their machina, should they mount a rescue operation.”
“That is true,” Leafblade said. “The prisons of a sentinel ship are far more advanced than ours. No star-dweller could rescue her there.”
“To a sentinel ship, then?” asked the soldier.
Another nod. “Yes,” Leafblade said. “With Wylume’s permission, of course.”
The rage in Rachael’s voice reverberated against the hallway’s walls. Xanthe would wink at Rachael if she could see her.
“Now, shadow angel,” Leafblade said and walked to the exit, “tell me everything you know about the star-dweller Paladin and how we might defeat him and take his sword.”
A Voyage to the Autumnfall Empire – Quest Failed
Xanthe winced. Had she made a mistake?
Kill Slather’s Superior – Quest Updated
Objective: Discover the identity of the imperial general Slather took orders from during the crusades.
- Discover the identity of the second slaver who worked with Slather. [Completed!]
- Find a way to get close to Leafblade [Completed!]
- Kill Leafblade when the time is right.
No, she most certainly did not.
Chapter Forty
Guy Sutherland
Class: Paladin LVL 13
Subclass: None
HP: 758/758
MP: 188/188
AP: 0/100
LP: 10/10
EXP: 979/3138
Guy finished reviewing his stats and adjusting his loadout. He had gained more experience points. The Seraphim idled at the beach, and Guy and his party had to make long treks across the valley to get to it. The monsters that harassed them during the walks yielded experience and loot. Guy, Zuran, and Kam made back-and-forth trips to the Seraphim and to the city of Coldhorn. Zuran was catching up, having reached level 12, and Kam hit level 10 the previous night. The monsters they were fighting also left valuable loot, such as the vitality asteriarite in his gear and the new armor under his trench coat.
Iron Breastplate [Plate Armor]
Rank: D
Defense: 18
Vitality +2
Sigil Space: 4
Requires: 66 Vitality
The Iron Breastplate lacked sleeves or gloves, so Guy put his sigils on his left and right hands and arms—Guardian, Safety, Voice, and Wrath to be exact. Those four sigils allowed him to use Provoke, Stand Your Ground, Fortification, On Your Feet, and of course, Storm Slash. Finally, he merged his two builds together. The Light and Blade sigils in his inventory might have use too, now that he had extra space for sigils, but those new skills would come at a sacrifice. He’d have to give up all his skills except Storm Slash to use them, and he really liked his current setup.
Ulysses and Arn had not gotten afflicted from eating the food since they crafted it. He figured catching the affliction was random, unless you touched tainted weapons, which caused it instantly. Or did it have to do with Guy having a recruit quest active, given to him by the White Dragon?
The White Dragon—he never forgot seeing its ghostly form appear over the river, summoned there by Dianna’s ocarina. Guy wanted answers, and if movies taught him anything, they were always found in old libraries. Hell, the book Henrietta had lent him gave him a better insight into the situation that changed his life than anything else had. Guy returned to the city and waltzed into the silent atmosphere of Henrietta’s library.
He spotted her standing and holding an aged book in one hand, the other adjusting her square-shaped glasses. Henrietta turned excitedly around when she heard Guy approach, shooting him the biggest smile he had ever seen on her dark red lips.
“Oh! Guy, you have returned!”
Henrietta leaped up and down, shaking her breasts with each hop. They bounced more when she trotted over past a table full of books and burning candles. She tossed her book down, jumped into Guy’s arms, and wrapped her own around him, hugging him hard. He flushed as he felt Henrietta’s chest against his. She was bustier than he thought.
She never broke the hug, causing further worry.
What would Rachael think of this? Dianna was interested in him, and Henrietta was still hugging and pressing her rack against him. Then there was that encounter with Xanthe. It looked like he was building a harem. It’s not a harem! If Guy wanted to prevent Rachael from slicing his dick off, then he’d need to keep things that way.
It’s not a harem.
Henrietta stepped back, head tilted slightly to the left. “Guy?”
Not a harem. Not a harem. Not a harem. Not a harem. Not a harem.
“Guy? What’s wrong?”
“It’s not a harem!”
“What’s not a harem?”
“Oh.” He snapped out of it and got his hormones under control. “Uh, ignore that! Hey, listen, did you find any more books about that RPG?”
“A couple!” Henrietta trotted away while signaling him to follow. “They are such wonderful stories! I’m so glad you introduced me to them.”
She brought him into the maze of library bookshelves, made a left, then a right, and faced the shelf to the right, waving her hand before the books on it.
“So many to read,” Henrietta said in a dreamy tone of voice. “So many worlds to get lost in.”
Guy stood with her, looking at the books with crossed arms. “Have you found any more books that talked about a white dragon sending an adventurer on a quest?”
“Why, yes!” Henrietta reached forward, paused, then angled her hand to a book one shelf up. She pulled it from the rest, turned to Guy, and flipped through the pages. “I was just reading this, in fact. It’s a story about a human who was saved by a savage empire that invaded his home. The White Dragon came from the heavens to save the man from the war, instructing him to
wield a magical sword.”
He touched Asteria’s Sword strapped to the back of his trench coat. “Did the sword give him powers?”
“As a matter of fact, it did. Turned him into a Paladin.”
“It sounds like the story my mother read to me as a kid. And creepily similar to my situation.”
Henrietta looked up from the book, eyeing Guy through her glasses with an inquisitive stare. “Your situation?”
Well, I guess it’s time I showed her. Guy opened his main menu screen and pulled up his stats.
She leaned closer, mouth wide open. “Ah, so Asteria has blessed you. I am so jealous! Asteria has yet to share any of that with me.”
“It’s not all that great, trust me.”
“Well, I suppose I should not complain, as I have my library here.” Henrietta looked at the bookshelves surrounding them and got all dreamy again. Her cheeks turned slightly red. Reading made her moist.
“You said there were more books?” Guy asked.
“Indeed.” Putting the book back, Henrietta moved down, curved to the left, bent over, and plucked another book. Guy failed to not look down her white V-neck blouse. “These are rule books to an RPG.”
He was still looking down her top. It wasn’t until she stood and offered the book to him that Guy shifted his head up, shaking himself out of the trance. “I’m sorry, what?”
“RPG rule books.”
“And that is?”
“A long, complex list of rules, abilities, classes, and other things. I have not had the chance to read it all. From what I understand, though, RPGs were quite popular back on our homeworld.”
“The birthplace of humanity.”
“Yes. I know many people believe Earth to be a fairytale.”
“That’s because it is.”
“But what if it isn’t? These stories and rules originated from somewhere, and it was not Mennaze. This planet is not where the human race came from.”
Guy held the book she had found, wincing at the dust smothering his fingertips. “Looks like it was printed a few years ago.”
“Yes, a reprint of the original—the original being one that existed on our homeworld then made its way to the stars and was reprinted repeatedly as years went by. And now, it has made it to Mennaze, to my library!”
The blurb on the back of the book’s cover sounded interesting but mentioned nothing about an affliction changing physics and adding game rules to everything—
Game rules. Guy eyed the book longer—its title, Sword of Asteria Rulebook. Is this where the affliction is getting the game rules from? If so, that would prove my theory, the White Dragon’s an AI. It read these books and used the rules in it as a basis to change the galaxy. The question is, how did it gain the power to do that? And why? Maybe reading it and the hundreds on the shelf will explain why, but there’s no time to read them all. “Thanks, Henrietta.” Guy spun to leave with the RPG rulebook in his hands. “You’ve given me something to think about.”
“You’re going to find out why the blessings and the contents of the rulebook are similar, aren’t you?”
“I’d like to know that, yeah, and why my mom had ancient novels like this to start with. Nobody in the fleet has these books. This is the only library I’ve ever seen that has them.” Then there’s the empire and sentinels. How do they fit into all this?—
“Take me with you then.”
Guy froze. He twisted back to see Henrietta had bowed, and this time he kept his eyes forward.
“Please,” Henrietta added. “Take me to your world.”
Guy chuckled. “You won’t last a day without this library!”
“But, but!” She trotted ahead, hands behind her back. “These books had to have come from somewhere. I just inherited this library from my grandparents. And to my knowledge, star-dwellers like you brought half the books here, over the years. Somewhere out there in the stars are more books, and possibly the true explanation of why the blessings, or afflictions, whatever you wish to call them, are happening.”
“It’s a dangerous place where I come from, Henrietta. Now more than ever with the sentinels.”
“But the books!” She got all bouncy again, and his face flushed. “I must read them all!”
Let Henrietta come with us? Then what? Build a harem on Ulysses’s ship? What would Rachael say?
I’ll cut your dick off for making that harem!—
“It’s not a harem!”
“Harem?” Henrietta looked up, one finger scratching the side of her rosy cheek. “Hmm, I have books on that too. Reverse harems are my favorite. Sometimes at night, when nobody is around, I like to read a reverse harem book while I—”
He put his hands out. “I really shouldn’t know what comes next.”
Guy and Dianna returned to the river, sat next to it while the stars twinkled above. She played her ocarina, blowing into the instrument to create the same soothing song, the one that had flared ribbons of white energy around and summoned the White Dragon’s likeness over the river.
It happened again.
The dragon’s form flickered like a ghost as the water reflected its great white feathers. When the song ended, the dragon disappeared, and neither had a clue why that was so.
“It’s got to be the song,” Guy said. “Where did you learn it?”
“It was a tune my mother always sang to herself when she was cleaning,” Dianna said, looking down at the ocarina she held. “I cannot remember the exact lyrics to the song, however.”
“Why not ask her?”
“She passed away when I was younger.”
“Damn, sorry about that. My mom passed when I was young too. I’d give anything to hear her voice read books aloud again. She was quite the narrator.”
“You and I are kind of the same then.” She smiled. “Talented mothers who left us far too early. In my spare time, I try to think about my mother’s songs, now that Asteria has blessed me with a singing voice and musical instrument knowledge.”
She put the instrument away and accessed one of her screens used for note taking. Guy leaned over, reading the contents of it. It was an incomplete song lyric.
“That’s part of the song,” she said. “Thank you for it, by the way.”
“For that?”
“For everything you gave our city. I can sing now, and it has given me a new purpose. I want to write my mother’s song, then travel to the southern lands to sing it.”
“Aw, you shouldn't . . .” thank me; I didn’t bring this, my uncle did. Damn, I forgot to ask her father about him too. I’ll get to that tonight.
She playfully punched his shoulder. “Don’t be modest! Everything changed the day you came. The people in the city smile now that they have a purpose. Like me, the blessing has given them their powers. Some packed up and left to offer their talents around the world. Others have a reason to do more in life other than reliving the same boring routine over and over. Hey, what is that?”
“This?” He held the book Henrietta had lent him, stuffed in his coat’s left pocket. “A gift from Henrietta.”
“Henrietta . . . she talks a lot about you.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Are you two . . . ?”
“What? Oh, no, no.” He laughed.
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
“Henrietta’s a lonely woman. Men typically run away from her when she opens her mouth. So, she never tried to?”
“I’m still a virgin, sadly.”
“You are a virgin?”
“Yes . . .” He groaned as the embarrassment hit. Twenty years old and never put it in the holiest of all holes. “Don’t laugh at me.”
“I won’t since I’m one too.” They both flushed. “But how are you one, Guy? You’re the talk of all the women here, Henrietta especially. Even on the other worlds you’ve visited, the women there must want you.”
“Maybe, but I’d rather be going to town on you.” Fuck yeah, that was slick! I’m g
etting laid tonight!
“Oh my.” That grin on her face was something he’d never forget, same with the way she suddenly moved her thighs about. Something between them got excited.
She ended up looking into his eyes, so he returned the gesture. Eye fucking. Girls like that, right? It’s not a harem I’m building. But it looks like it, with Henrietta being thirsty for me. Damn it! Okay, I need to stick with Dianna only. Rachael won’t get mad at me for that. It’s not a harem!
“Well, we’re alone now,” she said, her tone growing lower and more charming. “Do you, uh, well . . .”
The two fidgeted with their fingers.
Do it with her? Or wait until later?
With everything that’s been going on, he could be dead in a day or so. Or even tonight. Might as well get it done and over with and go out knowing he experienced it once.
It didn’t look like she gave Guy a choice. By the time he decided, Dianna had kissed him, then gently pulled her lips away. He kissed her back, then lay her on the grass. Dianna took off her dress and tugged on the ends of her panties to unveil her own patch of grass. While she messed with that, Guy dropped his sword and coat to the wilderness below and yanked down his pants. Out flopped his stiff prick. He lowered himself to Dianna, aiming the head of his hard dick for the darkness between her spread legs.
“Wait,” Dianna said. “What is that?”
“My cock, and relax, it’s not as big as people make it out to be.”
“I mean that noise.”
“What noise?”
Dianna sat up suddenly, her perky chest with its pink nipples swayed about as she glanced aside into the forest. Her brother, Dave, appeared from thin air. Right, he was an Assassin, and it looked like he was in stealth. Guy got up quickly to put his pants on before someone else commented on his length.
He rushed over to Dave.
“Were you fucking watching?”
Dianna stood up and gathered her clothes to cover her naked, shaking breasts.
Dave laughed while rubbing the side of his head. “Well, yeah, I was.” He thumbed backward, pointing out a large rock. “I tripped over that, and it broke my stealth—”
Star Paladin: A LitRPG Space Fantasy (Sword of Asteria Book 1) Page 31
