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

by James Osiris Baldwin

  “Your Majesty. Please pardon the intrusion, but I have a message from your brother.” I kept Cutthroat on a tight rein so that she didn’t dart her head and snap.

  A gasp went up around the throne room. Andrik’s eyes narrowed. Then, quite abruptly, he laughed.

  “So the Tuun can speak to spirits now?” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the murmur of his assembly. “Tell us: does the Maker’s furnace keep him warm in the afterlife?”

  A murmur of uncomfortable laughter went up behind me.

  “Actually, he just challenged you to a duel. Catch.” I threw him the stone.

  Ur Garen moved in front of him and snatched the ruby out of the air. The knight examined it, frowned me, and then offered it to Andrik.

  I could watch the sea of shocked faces in my peripheral vision while I stared down the Volod. “Your brother, Ignas Corvinus, accuses you of conspiring to strip him of his rightful title and family name to attain the throne of Vlachia. He demands satisfaction at the time and place of his choosing. The location and time are on the ruby.”

  “You don’t really believe this man, do you?” Andrik snapped. “Garen! Strike him down! I will not put up with this nonsense!”

  Garen slowly drew his sword, but stopped when I pulled out my trump card: the dagger. “Ignas also told me to tell you that the Maker’s furnace isn’t as hot as you thought it was.”

  “The Ravenstar.” Ur Garen took the dagger from my hand and pushed the visor of his helmet up, revealing weathered, troubled features. “This was thought to have been lost. So it’s true… Ignas lives.”

  Andrik came forward and snatched the knife away. He drew the glowing blade and regarded it impassively.

  “There is only one legitimate Corvinus in Vlachia,” he said quietly. “Me. Even if Ignas lives, he was disowned and exiled, and if he is here, in my city, in my country, then he is an outlaw who has committed vice and banditry and who has murdered scores of innocent people.”

  Garen grimaced. “Your Majesty… if he has issued a formal challenge to your honor-”

  “Contain yourself, Ur Garen. I will indeed face him in the field, and prove myself against this perverted bastard. As I told you, Hector – it does not become a monarch to hide in his castle while a battle rages on.”

  There was a light in Andrik’s pale eyes that I didn’t like at all. He was planning something. “Where’s Karalti?”

  “Downstairs, in the dungeon, being prepared for transport,” Andrik replied. “I suppose you fulfilled the terms of our agreement, and I am a man of my word. Garen, go escort our dragonrider back to his mount.”

  “Me, Your Majesty?” The big knight frowned. “But I am oath-bound to remain-”

  “Did I stammer? Go with Hector to the dungeons and unlock the bindings on his dragon, now.” Andrik said, waving us off. He held onto the dagger, clutching it as he swept past us. “Lords and Ladies of the court, my Hand will take over your concerns. I must attend to this crisis immediately. Please excuse me.”

  Garen was clearly torn about what to do, and his confusion only made me warier. Bodyguards weren’t ordered to abandon their primaries like this.

  “Tomaz: you are in charge until I return.” Garen nodded sharply to his second-in-command, then motioned me with his head. “Come, Tuun. And bring that dinosaur with you before she soils the Great Hall.”

  Cutthroat was slowly stalking one of Andrik’s dogs. She hissed when I caught her reins, giving the animal one last hungry, glowering look before padding off after us.

  “So, be straight with me. Is Karalti in the dungeon, or are you about to try and jump me?” I asked to Garen as we cleared the door.

  “Jump you? No. She truly is in the dungeons. My honor would not permit you to come to harm, now that you have satisfied His Majesty’s orders.”

  We went down to the caves that housed the stables first, where I hitched Cutthroat, and then into the dungeon area where we’d been unloaded from the prison wagons. Rage simmered deep inside my chest, rising for my throat as we ventured underground. This place was too much like the bowels of the Eyrie for my comfort.

  “Andrik’s been weird lately,” I remarked.

  “I must admit, Tuun... you are correct.” Garen nodded. “His Majesty has been acting strangely.”

  “How so?”

  The Captain of the Kingsguard narrowed his eyes. “Well... his general conduct, I suppose. The unfortunate incident with the Mercurion, your draak, and Ur Kirov. He has also been sleepless, consumed by a strange fixation on the Dakhari woman, and he spends a lot of time in his laboratory as of late. He is typically an enthusiastic hunter, but-”

  Suri. Where the hell is she? “His... laboratory?”

  “Oh, yes. His Majesty is a keen student of the magical arts. I have never seen the inside of it.”

  “Seems legit,” I replied. “Where’s Suri? The Dakhari?”

  “Last time I saw her, she was restrained in a cell down here, awaiting the Volod’s judgement.” Garen sounded - and looked - increasingly uncomfortable. “She is safe, though not comfortable. It seems... out of character for His Majesty to imprison a woman this way, especially one who has been so instrumental in the investigation into the Slayer...”

  I fought the urge to hit him over the back of the head and run off to find her - and rescue her. But I couldn’t. We had to play the long game. “The problem is, it’s not out of character. Andrik’s been acting strangely, probably because he believes Ignas is alive.”

  “Believes? No, he knows. You bought the Ravenstar back to Vulkan Keep. There is only one person you could have received it from.”

  “You knew Ignas, right?”

  The Captain’s mustache drooped with his expression. “Of course. I served their father and watched over both princes. Their mother died giving birth to Andrik. His Majesty Ignas the Second - the Nine guard his soul - never quite bonded with his younger son properly, and Ignas the Third was much loved by the court. I think it is normal and natural to wonder what might have prompted such a breach of character in a man.”

  I heard Karalti before I saw her: the heavy breathing, the rustle of leathery wings against scales. My heart began to pound, and - hanging back behind Garen - I took my spear in hand. “So what will you do when Andrik meets Ignas?”

  “I will adhere to the letters of my vows. I do not serve the Volod - I serve the office of the Volod,” The older man said stiffly, unlocking a heavy door. “If you hope to seed discord between myself and the throne, you will fail.”

  “If you consider ‘the truth’ to be ‘seeding disapproval’, sure. Between me and you, I’m pretty sure disrupting bullshit is part of my job description as the Herald of Matir.”

  Garen grimaced with disapproval as he swung the door open.

  Karalti was curled in a ball on a hard stone floor and a smattering of straw, contained by a magic circle that blazed with sick violet light. Her eyes were closed, and she was shivering and twitching in her sleep. The corners of her mouth were turned down. Her eyes rolled underneath their lids. She didn’t rouse as we entered. That was not normal for her - she was a light sleeper, instantly alert at the slightest sound. The air that came from the doorway was bone-chillingly cold, and the Mark of Matir burned on my hand when the icy breeze touched it.

  “Karalti? Karalti!” I turned on Garen. “What is this? What have you done to her?!”

  “I don’t know what this is. Please, stay back.” The Kingsguard clanked his way into the cell, his hand on his sword. “This circle reeks of foul magic. This wasn’t what was used to pacify her earlier today...”

  The Mark snapped with a flash of pain, like the burn of a hot wire touching skin - and at the same time, I saw a pair of shadows peel from the walls. “No! Stop!”

  Before Garen had even completely turned around, the shadows cross-cut the room, and the Level 25 knight lurched on his feet as his body crawled with thick frost. He half-turned, half-fell toward me. When his knees hit the ground, his entire body shat
tered.

  Karalti whimpered. It was the last thing I heard before the shadows darted at me. I’d barely gotten the Alpha Rod in front of me when they locked their eyes on me.

  [Void Wraith uses Abyssal Gaze.]

  I looked at them before I could stop myself. My skin crackled, and there was an awful, painless sucking sensation through my body. This wasn’t Darkness element. It wasn’t anything. Before I had even really realized what I’d seen, I fell to my knees.

  [You take 1030 Freezing damage!]

  [You take 1031 Freezing damage!]

  [You have been killed by Void Wraith!]

  [You are dead.]

  Chapter 42

  I woke up to darkness, and the smell of old dust and dried flowers. It was cold, the air stale and dry. And I was buck-ass naked.

  Fear spiked through my chest as I struggled up to my hands, feeling around in the pitch blackness of where the hell I was. My hands felt strange - like they weren't really attached to me. Like they weren’t really my hands. Intellectually, I knew that was ridiculous. They were attached to the arms that were attached to… well… me. But as I fumbled around on the floor, I couldn’t make the instinctual connection between those hands and the rest of my body. It was like trying to move things around with a pair of rubber chickens.

  What the fuck is wrong with me? I sat back, rubbing my eyes with my wrists. My vision was frizzing at the corners, spitting with random colors. I can’t sit here. I need to get my shit together… I have to go rescue… umm…

  Fuck. I had to help… Tidbit. No, that wasn’t her real name. It was K… K… K-something. I froze with it on the tip of my tongue, but where there should have been an instant draw from my memory, there was nothing. I could picture her in my mind: a gawky little hatchling with an adorable puppy grin. Tidbit… my goddamn dragon. She was… what? Level 3 now?

  A small breeze kicked up, rattling dirt and small stones across the floor, and I suddenly remembered one thing - the Void Wraiths. Panic squeezed my heart in a tight fist as I groped around for anything that might help me, and was surprised to lay a hand down on something long and metallic. My HUD highlighted it in the darkness. It was the Spear of Nine Spheres.

  “Oh. So you’ve decided to be soul-bonded after all, have you?” I focused on my hands, trying to reconnect with them. It was the strangest sensation, because they weren’t numb. They just felt like… ‘not me’. “Still at 17% durability, I see.”

  Wonderful. Sudden onset Alzheimer's Disease, no clothes, no fucking idea where I was, and a weapon with 15 base damage at Level 13. I could probably kill some rats with it, provided they were normal sized rats. Then I could employ my mastery of Leatherworking to make myself a rat-skin thong and wreak vengeance on the world. It would serve Whats-His-Face the Bad King right if that was the last thing he ever saw. I couldn’t remember his name, either.

  I used the Spear like a cane, sweeping it ahead of myself as I began to cautiously explore the room I was in. I froze when the spear clunked against a large, rectangular block of stone - a coffin-sized block of stone.

  “Shit.” I jerked away in case some unseen animated corpse came lurching out. “Dear God of Darkness - if I’m supposed to be your Herald, why the fuck didn’t you give me darkvision?”

  A ghostly light kindled to life behind me, throbbing like a slow heartbeat. I felt a bead of sweat run down my temple - or at least, I hoped it was sweat. Slowly, I turned around.

  The glow emanated from a nine-pointed chaos star-like symbol: the symbol of Matir. It was about half a foot long, glowing brightly enough that it illuminated the mummified flowers I’d smelled before, along with an offering of coins and jewelry on the remains of a small, hexagonal altar set above the sarcophagus. Curious, I gingerly touched the rune, and was rewarded with... nothing. No darkvision, no sudden magic power. The only thing that happened was that the dim light steadied out.

  “Weird. But okay.” I frowned, flexing my fingers. Now that I could see them, they felt more connected. They looked normal, and as the seconds passed, I found myself syncing back up. Once I was sure my hands weren’t about to fall off, I searched the altar for any clues, and glanced up when I noticed a trio of inscriptions in different languages.

  One of the engravings looked like it was made of funny squiggles and shapes, almost like a magical script. One was more like Sumerian or Babylonian Cuneiform, with lots of triangles and straight lines. And the last one – a flowing vertical script similar to Mongolian – was my language, Tuun. And even weirder… I could read it.

  In darkness you were conceived;

  To the darkness you were sworn.

  In the darkness you have found your peace,

  And through darkness shall you be reborn -

  Here lie the fallen of Kalla Kulesi, who joined us in our battle against the Trauvin.

  Matir’s Blessing be upon these Honored Dead in their nest of loving earth.

  I slowly recited the passage, stumbling over the translation at points. I had no idea what a ‘Trauvin’ was… but I could read. And that was strange.

  Heart hammering, I turned to look at the rest of the crypt where I’d somehow respawned. It was small, barely ten by ten feet, with only two tombs. One was missing its lid, the other was not. There was a rusted iron gate at the end of the room I hadn’t yet searched, leading out into the inky blackness beyond. There was no corpse in the open sarcophagus, but there was in the closed one. I only got a glimpse of the skeletal face and empty eye sockets before my naked skin crawled and I slid the lid back into place.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “There’s nothing here.”

  The room did not reply.

  Frustrated, I searched around, using the dim light to try and spot anything I’d missed in my first minutes of terror. The gate wasn’t locked, but the outside area beyond this tiny room was so dark as to be impenetrable. A cool wind moaned from somewhere outside. The place would be crawling with monsters. I wasn’t walking out there naked, with a shitty spear and no light.

  Panic began to set in. I felt disconnected and floaty as I paced back and forth, at a loss for what to do. My dragon... she’s trapped in that circle, and she’s helpless. One of your friends is in a cell, and she has to be terrified. The others are going to meet the bad guy, and he’s going to bring those fucking murder-ghosts as backup. They’re expecting treachery, but not an undead that can kill the head of the Kingsguard in a single hit. King What’s-His-Face going to wipe the floor with them.

  I looked back out into the darkness, mouth dry with fear. What do I know about Matir? Fuck. He... he hates the undead. I remember that.

  The rune’s light was starting to fade. I walked back to it, searching the altar for anything that might help. None of the jewelry was magical, but I found myself looking back to the sarcophagus - the one with the body. The thought of raiding the coffin squicked me the hell out. In some games I’d played, it had only been mildly disturbing. In a full sensory immersion scenario, it was as creepy as it would have been IRL.

  “He hates the undead, so that prayer and the sigil... they’re probably a protective spell for the dead to keep them from being animated or to guard against ghosts or something? I edged toward the coffin. “He’s the god of the normally-dead. So the ‘death is a natural part of life’ thing, and the dead don’t take their belongings with them, so…”

  I pushed the lid open properly this time, exposing the ancient corpse.

  It was wizened, dry, but recognizable as male. He was fully dressed. I couldn’t really make out much detail, but his heavily-armored hands were resting on his sternum, the knuckles touching. There was something dignified about him… even serene.

  My HUD - super bright against the near-blackness - immediately began to highlight things of interest.

  [Belt of Tiger’s Spirit]

  [Barrier Shirt]

  [Blindfighter’s Fold]

  [Sanctified Cold Iron Gauntlets]

  [Ancient Kamanocha]

  [Boots of t
he Winding Path]

  Kamanocha. That was a Tuun word. A Kamanocha was a very special kind of dagger from Tungaant... but I couldn’t bring the specifics to mind. Fuck. I am even still in Taltos?

  Agitated, I bought up the summary descriptions for each item and had the system read them to me:

  Belt of Tiger’s Spirit

  Magical Item

  5 Armor

  Slot: Belt

  +5 bonus against fear

  +5 bonus to intimidate checks

  An ancient Vlachian shaman bound the spirit of a tiger to this leather belt, which was made from its skin.

  Barrier Shirt

  Magical Armor

  125 Armor

  25% chance that backstabs, critical hits and sneak attacks will be treated as normal attacks, with no bonus damage.

  Light armor

  Body slot

  82% durability

  Armor to protect against those who would fight dishonorably.

  Sanctified Cold Iron Gauntlets

  Magical Armor/Weapon

  50 Armor

  Item Class: Relic

  Item Quality: Exceptional

  Damage: 65 x 2 Bludgeoning

  Durability: 55% (-2 damage)

  Weight: 10 lb x 2

  Special: Darkness element. x3 damage against the Undead. x2 damage against monsters weak to cold iron. +20 bonus Adrenaline Points.

  These skillfully forged, heavy but flexible full-arm gauntlets are the traditional weapons and armor of the Baru, warrior-monks in service to Burna. They appear to be completely made of pitted cold iron, yet they have no rust.