Trial by Fire: A LitRPG Dragonrider Adventure (Archemi Online Chronicles Book 2)

by James Osiris Baldwin

  “When you reach Leatherworking 5, we have some Skill Tomes to allow you to keep going until you hit Apprentice 1,” Rin said, pointing a small bookshelf close to where Karalti was sleeping. “It’s the one with the red cover.”

  “Aren’t those one-time use only?” I asked.

  “Sort of. Kanzo is a Master Artificer, so he can inscribe and recharge each of the Tomes. He only keeps the ones here that he can easily replace.”

  Puzzled, I went to collect the one I needed. “Why are you giving me this stuff? I mean, I appreciate it, but...”

  Rin shrugged. Her back was to me as she worked on Hopper. The automata was now moving, waving its legs. “Nearly all the NPCs of Taltos think we Mercurions keep to ourselves so that we can hoard our jewels and gold and look down on everyone else. The reality is, if we’re on the mainland, then we’re all refugees running from a terrible war, and we work jobs that most other races can’t, so of course we stick together. Some Mercurions can be cold to strangers, and I guess I just want to show you that we’re not like that. You know, before you go back to the Volod.”

  I walked back to the smelter. At no point had I generalized anything about the Mercurions, but I knew that if I was a serial killer and I needed cover, becoming a kindly, respected craftsman in a law-abiding community was a pretty good disguise.

  The first fruit of my labor was a leather sock. I had intended to Craft an Archer’s Bracer, but it didn’t end up that way. I got a sock. A leather one. About the only thing it was going to be good for was jerking off into. Needless to say, it was a [Junk] category item.

  Things got better on from there as I got the hang of the crafting minigame. Similar to what happened when I was scraping hides, I got lines and circles highlighted on the materials I was working with, showing me where to cut, trim, fold, and stitch. The ghostly instructions would appear in a sequence, showing you what to do, then fade. If you matched the sequence, you got the item you wanted. If you screwed up, you either got a lesser item – like my sock – or a lower-quality item of the same type you were trying to craft. The minigame pattern-sequence thing was the same each time you attempted the item, so there were no surprises if you failed once and tried again.

  I stopped at Leatherworking 5, then switched to melting down scrap and pouring ingots to build my Blacksmithing skill. Soon I had plenty of iron, steel, and bronze ingots. I checked my crafting recipes to see what I could make, bursting with creative anticipation:

  Chest Armor

 

  Trousers

 

  Boots

 

  Gloves

  Archer’s Brace

  Weapons

  Steel Militia Spear

  Other

  Leather sock (Junk)

  I reached up and tugged at my braids, staring at the nearly-blank menu. “Rin? Do you happen to have any beginner crafting recipes?”

  Chapter 13

  I hit the wall at about three in the morning. Fortunately, Rin had been able to furnish me with some recipes: Raider’s Breeches, Heavy Boots, Lancer’s Gauntlets, and Steel Vambrace. I made the leather items first, and then tackled the metal one.

  Working with metal was far more complicated than leather. Sweating, I carefully banged the curve in the vambrace in time with the colored minigame prompts – red, blue and yellow – that told me how hard to hit, where, and with what tool. When it was done, the vambrace flashed, a three second timer counted down. I quickly lifted the hot steel and plunged it into the bucket of hot water at the end of the anvil.

  [Crafting Success! You made Steel Vambrace (Regular Quality)!]

  “Hell yeah!” Grinning, I pulled the wet vambrace down and patted it with a towel. Despite the prompt, it wasn’t quite finished. I riveted some leather straps on it, and eagerly tried it on. The vambrace protected my entire forearm and tapered out above the elbow. Perfect fit. “Look, girl! I did it!”

  “Hector needs to sleep,” Karalti grumbled, burying her snout under her wing. She had moved as close to the furnace as she was able to. Rin had gone to bed hours ago.

  “Party pooper.” I flexed my fingers, turning my arm to look at it from all angles. My old Light Vambrace gave me 15 Armor; this piece gave 30, plus +7% resistance to slashing, bludgeoning and piercing damage.

  All of the new pieces together increased my total Armor from 95 to 140. My main chest piece was still the old Jack of Plates I’d worn since my visit to Dinant Palace in Ilia, but I’d been able to repair and improve it. I’d also made myself a Militia Spear for the hell of it. It had stats that were nearly identical to the broken Spear of Nine Spheres, but none of the special perks: no Dex bonus or anything like that.

  A bittersweet smile played over my lips as I equipped it all and swung my arms to test the weight and quality of the new gear. “You know… I think this is the first time I’ve ever made anything useful.”

  Karalti shifted her wing so that she could peer at me with a brilliant violet eye.

  “I just never had the chance to make anything before,” I said. “The Army taught me how to shoot shit and dig foxholes. I improvised some stuff… but I never created it like this. I’m too dumb.”

  “Hector’s dumb sometimes because he thinks he’s dumb,” Karalti replied, yawning. “And because he’s awake late banging metal things together.”

  I yawned too. “You say that now. Wait until I have to make you a saddle. You’ll be grateful I spent all this time on Crafting.”

  “Saddle is for later. Sleep is for now.” Karalti rolled onto her side and partly unfurled her wing, revealing up a length of cloak for me to lie on. “We have to find bad man in the morning.”

  She had a point there. The little ‘Zzz’ icon in my HUD was warning me that I had the Exhaustion debuff: penalties to carry weight, movement speed, and reflexes. I needed to sleep.

  Archemi required that you take care of your basic needs, but fortunately, it didn’t grind your face in it too hard. With the Dragon’s Blood Potion buff at work, four hours of sleep was enough. We woke with the sun, moderately refreshed and ready to start the day.

  We left Rin’s shop at about 8 a.m. She saw us off at the door with a wave, and I rode out with some nice new gear, her master’s pendant in my pocket, and a deep sense of satisfaction mixed with odd longing. The talk with Rin about Ororgael and Rutha played back like a recording.

  “You thinking about white elf lady?” Karalti asked me. She was perched behind me, holding onto one shoulder with a foreclaw, her head beside mine. “I never met her. What was she like?”

  “She was pretty great.” I urged Cutthroat to a high-stepping trot, keeping her on a short rein. The hookwing was irritable, as always, but she’d had a meal at a nearby public stall and was about as mellow as she could ever be. “Smart as a whip, really kind. She was fierce when she wanted to be, gentle when she needed to be. And she was gorgeous. Big eyes, long ears, beautiful long white hair…”

  “You think she’s as nice as grumpy lady?”

  “They’re not really comparable. Rutha was nicer, for sure. But ‘nice’ isn’t always what you want in a friend. I’ll take hostile honesty over nicey-nice liars any day.”

  “Did Rutha lie to you?”

  “Yeah.” I felt a pang in my chest. “I don’t know if she meant to lie to me or not, but she did.”

  Karalti ‘hmm’d’ aloud, nibbling the stubble on the side of my head. “I don’t lie to you ever. You think Suri is honest like me?”

  “You know, weirdly enough, I do think she’s honest.” We pulled up at an intersection to let traffic pass. I swept our surroundings, taking in cover, potential threats, passersby, and ambush points in a single glance, then moved on. “Suri could be a Pacific Alliance Party fanatic who’ll hate my guts forever on principle, but at least she’s the kind of person who’d tell me to my face. I knew a lot of bikers and soldiers like her. Tough, hard, but real. If we earn her respect, we’ll never have a better friend.”

  “You d
on’t NEED another better friend, ‘cause she’ll never be a better friend than ME,” Karalti said grumpily. “And if she does, then I’ll fight her. See how tough she is then.” And then, as if to soothe herself, she began to mimic the sounds of the streets around her under her breath.

  We soon broke out onto the main market street, which went through the center of the Market District and up towards the University District. The food stands were setting up for breakfast: vendors were basting kebabs, uncovering trays of bread and pastries full of fruit, cheese, or ground meat, and brewing coffee. My stomach rumbled.

  “Hey, Hector?” My dragon plopped her head on my shoulder. I reached up to scratch around her horns. “You gonna make a saddle for me?”

  “Yeah, I guess I’m going to have to try that out, soon. But we probably need to find a blueprint for a dragon saddle before I can make it.”

  “Maybe rubber lady can help?”

  That was a possibility. Rin had spent the early morning cooing over Karalti, petting her and feeding her pieces of beef jerky and small cakes they kept for human guests. This had vastly improved Karalti’s opinion of her, and smoothed over the fact that she’d ambushed us and plugged me full of crossbow bolts. Still - Rin was probably the one to go to with design ideas.

  I found a place to hitch Cutthroat, and left her to find something to eat. I got a frothy cup of coffee whisked with butter, cream and a lot of sugar, and a spiral wheel of fried bread stuffed with beef and garlic. This divine foodstuff was called burek. It was hot, flaky, and soft on the outside and savory in the middle, and it was enough to convince me that yes, heaven did exist, but instead of choirs of angels, there was nothing but fields of cheerful street food vendors selling burek and coffee for five copper coins a piece. Forever.

  We had to run through a gauntlet of food stands, and Karalti watched with increasing trepidation as I succumbed to basically all of them. I had chicken burek, beef burek, some kind of sour cherry danish, and then another kind of delicious stuffed-bread thing called katchapuri, which had a well of melted cheese and an egg in the middle. I put away every last crumb.

  “Are you about to level up?” My dragon squeaked. Dragons eat a lot when they’re about to level up.”

  “Nope. No leveling. Just obesity.” I replied, as I waddled toward the Armorsmith’s shop.

  A bell tinkled overhead when we opened the door and entered, barely audible through the bang bang bang of a hammer striking steel. Beautiful suits of armor were on display: hanging on stands, mounted on the walls. Most were full plate, fluted and embossed with delicate designs. Most of it was too heavy for me, but one suit of leather and chainmail armor caught my eye straight away.

  The armor looked like it was intended for rogue-type classes. The main piece of the set was a bodysuit not unlike a motorcycle racing suit. Over that was a plate-reinforced leather vest. The dark steel segments tapered in such a way that you could bend at the waist, from side to side, and backwards. Soft, thick leather flaps formed a V-shaped kirtle over hip armor, also flexible.

  Small metal plates were sewn into the leather bodysuit on strategic points: knees, shoulders. The hard leather pieces were carved with intricate Middle Eastern designs. I had a look at the Body piece stats:

  Nizari Leather Armor Cuirass

  105 armor

  +30% resistance to slashing damage

  +15% resistance to bludgeoning damage

  +5 Attack power

  +20% Elemental resistance

  Light armor

  Body Slot

  100% durability

  Required Level: 10

  Price: 1200 silver Rubles

  Light, tough, maneuverable armor worn by the assassins of the Cult of Malek in Dakhdir.

  “That Nizari set comes with a helm that’s not on the stand. The whole set gives two-hundred and fifty armor, and it don’t weigh more than thirty pounds.” The gravelly voice of the smith - my HUD highlighted his name as Fyodor - rang out from behind me as the rhythm of hammer blows paused. “The helm has a hood that ties on. We make the whole set dyed any color you want.”

  Two-fifty Armor was way better than my current total of 180, and this gear weighed about half of my Jack of Plates set. It also had twice as much resistance to slashing damage, and perhaps most importantly, +20% elemental resistance. Against magic, that was a huge advantage. My inner twelve-year-old wanted black with red trim. Or even better: purple trim. Purple trim with tribal dragon tattoos. Then I could get at least one pair of mirror shades, an e-cig and a katana, and lurk in tavern corners. Edgelord Hector Bloodzin: Dragon Assassin.

  “Do I save any money if I get a less-fancy version?” I asked him, turning to face the counter. “Because I get hit a lot. I mean, like, a LOT. I need the armor equivalent of dad jeans. I want the bonuses, but don’t need any embossing or tooling or anything.”

  The smith was an older man with stringy hair and a twisted mouth. He scowled, and was about to say something rude about barbarians when he saw Karalti. She gaped her jaws at him, imitating a smile.

  “That’s... that’s...” He sputtered.

  I sighed. “Yes. A dragon. We’re holy representatives of the church here to... bless your forge, good smith. You know, Khors being the god of the forge and everything.”

  [You have learned a new Skill: Bluff. Sometimes, the only way forward is to lie your ass off.]

  Fyodor the Smith swallowed. “I see. Well…. Please, allow me to discount this armor set for you. And what about for her? Does she require armor? I will give you an excellent price.”

  ‘Discount’ was one of my favorite words in the English language. I regarded Karalti for several moments. Armor for Karalti? I hadn’t thought of that. She responded by posing prettily.

  “Karalti doesn’t really need armor yet, but I’m looking for saddle blueprints. If you have one, or think you could work with me to design one, the, uhh, Brotherhood of Awesome Dragon Guys would be eternally in your debt.”

  “A saddle? You... you would ride this sacred creature?” The smith looked affronted.

  “It’s my sacred duty as one of said Awesome Dragon Guys,” I replied. “Plus, she actually wants me to ride her. Or else I wouldn’t do it.”

  “Yeah!” Karalti squeaked.

  The smith jumped, visibly shaken by what he was seeing. “I only do barding, not saddles. But I can recommend a good craftsman for them. He’s a silverskin, but he makes saddles for quazi.”

  “Kazi?” I asked.

  “Quazi,” he replied, blinking at me in confusion.

  “Give me a sec.” I surreptitiously swiped in my HUD, and telepathically queried it. “What the fuck is ‘quazi’?”

  Quazi

  A flying saurian creature related to hookwings, these griffon-like creatures are the preferred aerial mount of Vlachian light cavalry. They are used as war mounts, beasts of burden and in sports, but are expensive to keep and difficult to train. Unlike hookwings, they are not pack animals and must be specially socialized by experienced handlers. Quazi are rarely found in the West of Artana (Ilia, Gilheim, or any other realm in Hercynia) but are common in the East and South of Artana (Magyar, Vlachia, Dakhdir and The Shalid).

  The picture that accompanied the short generic knowledge was of a splendid, proud creature that looked like a cross between a wyvern and a gryphon. It was fully feathered, but had a toothy muzzle, a wedge-shaped tail with a long central plume, and walked on its wing hands and hind feet.

  “Right. That guy probably knows what he’s talking about,” I replied, pushing the HUD aside. “What’s his name and location?”

  “His name is Mik... Mixa... Ugh. We call him Mikhael. I can’t speak their damn click-clack language.” Fyodor made a sound of disgust. “You’ll find him in the Tanner’s District. Here, I’ll mark it on your map.”

  A marker appeared on my mini-map: a location not too far from Rin’s shop.

  “In exchange for your blessing, I will give you this Nizari set for seven hundred rubles,” he said, once
the map was put away.

  Ouch. Seven hundred rubles still translated to about a thousand Ilian Florins, which was basically all the money we had. But I could trade in my newly improved Jack of Plates and the gear I’d forged, and this armor would last me until early mid-game, especially if I could enhance it. If I kept training my Leatherworking skills, I’d be able to bump its stats up. It was worth the price. “Done.”

  He opened the Shop Inventory, and we got to training. I offloaded my old gear on him, and spent the majority of my money on the new armor. Armor in Archemi was ‘one-size-fits-all’, so when I equipped it, it was a perfect fit. I immediately felt better. Faster. Stronger. Hotter, too, in a ‘LARPing a Drow Rogue in the park’ kind of way.

  “Now, about that forge blessing?” Holding his hammer in both hands, Fyodor glanced hopefully at Karalti. “Business has been slow of late, what with the Volod cracking down on demi-humans and travelers.”

  “Sure thing. Go, Karalti! Bless this man’s forge with fortune and fire!” I made some half-assed pope gesture as Karalti toddled off toward him. Fortunately, Fyodor was so taken by presence of a Real Live Dragon that he didn’t even notice how lame I sounded.

  We left Fyodor worshipping at the white fire now burning a hole in his forge, collected Cutthroat, and started the long journey toward Vulkan Keep: the Volod’s castle, which loomed gracefully over the city from the top of the old volcano at the center. Karalti and I had just settled into the saddle when my HUD chirped, alerting me to a message. Curious, I pulled it over and blinked when I saw the name. It was Suri.

  “Hector. I already heard about what happened at the hospital.” Suri’s voice poured through the comm link like warm toffee. “Body’s been recovered, and we found evidence of a fight. SITREP?”