Dragon Seed: A LitRPG Dragonrider Adventure (The Archemi Online Chronicles Book 1)

by James Osiris Baldwin

  Tymos walked me back to my room, but he didn’t go inside with me. Instead, he clapped me on the shoulder and stepped away. “Now, you are traditionally given time to meditate before you take your vows. Go in and rest – the ceremony will be held at dawn tomorrow. The eggs are expected to hatch in two days’ time.”

  Great. According to the clock, I had less than eight hours to think of a way to not become a literal slave. I nodded curtly. “Thanks.”

  He was sweating profusely now, his skin greyish. For a moment, I thought he was about to say something, but his lips sealed back up. He gave me an odd look, and then turned and marched stiffly away.

  I sighed and rubbed my eyes as the weight of impending defeat settled heavily over my shoulders. All that work, all that fighting, all the backstabbing and betrayal and… what? What backstabbing and betrayal?

  I finally felt the ghost of a memory slip in. It was still coming together when I opened the door to my room and walked into a wall of swords.

  The knight-commander was dressed in full combat gear, seated in a wooden chair with a sword in his lap. He faced the door like a king seated on his throne. Flanking him to either side were Baldr and Lucien. The rest of the room was taken up by soldiers in dark uniforms and sleek green-black armor, and every single one of them had their weapons trained on me. Most had swords, but there were several crossbows. The bolt heads gleamed red and sticky with poison.

  Both Baldr and Lucien were alive, and while sickly, they both looked smug in their own unique ways. The sight of them bought back fragments… enough fragments for me to put together what had happened.

  “You murdering pieces of shit,” I said, fighting the urge to reach back for my spear.

  “The same could be said of you, barbarian.” The knight-commander regarded me steadily. “Because not only did you attack your fellow aspirants-”

  “Baldr attacked me!” Baring my teeth, I took a step forward, and that was as far as I got before the soldiers moved in. The points of the swords pressed against me from all angles. Glancing to either side, I noticed that these hard-faced, crew-cut, leather clad people all had violet titles – [Mysterious Soldier] – with small glowing violet skulls next to them. Their challenge rating was far, far above my ability.

  Lucien looked haunted and shell-shocked, staring at nothing. He had passed the Trial, but he seemed to have aged ten years. His blond hair was streaked with patches of white, and his red irises had turned bright orange, as intense as an eagle’s. Baldr was now a true albino, a ghostly giant of a man with stark white hair and pink eyes. But something else about him had changed. His gaze now bore down like a crushing weight, but the most obvious difference was the glossy pearl imbedded in his forehead, like a third eye. The Pearl of Glorious Dawn… had merged with him?

  Arnaud continued calmly. “Not only do we have two witnesses to this attempted murder, but we have a further two witnesses who were able to verify that you, Hector, aided and abetted rebels against the rightful government of Ilia.”

  “Bullshit.” I clenched my fists. My chest was tight, and hot. “When?”

  “Lyrensgrove,” he replied crisply. “And these men and women – faith-militant of the Mata Argis – have extracted eye-witness testimony from villagers who say you waded into battle on the side of the rebels the soldiers were sent to kill. Lyrensgrove happens to be situated in a strategic position, and it was being used by the Kingsmen to ferry supplies back and forth across the river. Grain, tools, medicines.”

  “It wasn’t a battle. It was a massacre by rapers, pillagers, and murderers.” Something very dark and very angry was brewing inside me now. It was anger, but it was more than anger. It made me feel… cold. Wolfish. Like I could tear Arnaud and Baldr apart with nothing more than my teeth. My dream of flying dragonback was dwindling into nothingness, but something else was taking its place. Good old-fashioned vengeful loathing. “You aren’t a commander. You’re a jackbooted thug. You’ve enslaved the dragons with some fucking magic bullshit.”

  The knight-commander’s face was impassive and eerily lifeless. “The Order is and never will be any of your business. And for the first time in many years, we are going to have to execute someone who passed the Trials. I warned you not to come here, Hector. There is no room here for people like you.”

  The Mata Argis soldiers moved in. I spat on the floor at his feet… but I didn’t lash out. Not yet. Not here. I’d be creamed… and even if I respawned, I’d be ganked, at best.

  “You’re wrong,” I said, as my arms were wrenched behind me. “You’re wrong about the Matriarch, and you’re wrong about me.”

  “Cool story, bro.” Baldr finally spoke. Smug asshole.

  The commander rose, bristling with impatience. “Take him.”

  “You won’t be able to do this forever.” I stared at Arnaud over my shoulder as the Mata Argis agents shoved me around toward the door. “And one day, I’ll be back, and I’ll be bringing the dragons. I’ll find a way to tell them, and we’ll come for you.”

  Chapter 42

  My wrists hurt, again. Everything hurt. The cell was filthy and dark, and unlike the slave hold of the Arabella, it was wet. The tightly locked stones in the walls grew glowing moss in the seams. Fungi grew in here, too, mushrooms that rose out of the pile of damp straw that was to serve as my bed.

  Despite the plant life, the place was unfortunately secure. The wind howled somewhere behind me, and a hidden breeze caused the oily light of the torch outside the bars to flicker and dance. The orange glow wasn't enough to illuminate the back of the cell or much of the hallway beyond the bars, not for normal eyes, anyway. I could see in the dark now, for all the good it was going to do me.

  I paced the cell like a tiger, too angry to sit still. My manacles didn't weigh as much as they should have post-Trial, but they might as well have been chained to floor. My ears whined, crackling with every tiny sound in the jail. Boots stomping around, guards breathing, the click of someone clearing their throat, the rustling of mice and rats moving around in my cell and in the cells to either side. I needed to take action, to do something, but the only thing stronger than the cell was the crushing, numbing weight of failure.

  In all the years of stupid shit I’d done, the drag races and bar fights and speeding, I’d never been to jail, but I had been purposeless. I’d been lonely and without direction. Seeing the effort Steve had made to stay alive and rope me into this, I’d come to Archemi wanting to become something – someone – better than what I had been. To find freedom. But after everything I’d done, after the Trials, after the stupid betrayal, it was happening again. My life had been taken from me by some government, again. And not just my life: the Matriarch’s, the dragons’, and even the knights here were slaves, bound by a conspiracy I’d only begun to scratch the surface of… and even if I had succeeded, I’d have ended up like Tymos. I was screwed at every turn. I’d been a pawn all my life, and was always going to be a pawn unless I somehow unfucked myself.

  The loneliness I’d been fighting ever since the start of the War came crashing over me in that little cell. I’d lost everyone and everything. No family, no friends IRL or within the game. Steve hadn’t made it. I was a ghost trapped with other ghosts in some kind of weird virtual purgatory.

  And speaking of that, why the fuck wasn’t Baldr dead?

  The events in Cham Garai were coming back in bits and pieces. Something had happened down there, with the Aesari… but I didn’t know what. Just the thought of Baldr’s smug handsome face swung me from the deepening apathy back to rage. There were no good guys here. Everyone here was complicit in the Matriarch’s enslavement. She needed someone to stand up for her. She needed me to do something.

  And in the total darkness of that despair, a plan suddenly germinated and came to life… like a seed.

  I ground my teeth together, gathering my resolve. I finally spent my skill points. Manacles couldn’t stop me from doing that. I had enough to upgrade three of my Dark Lancer abilities to Rank 2,
but new abilities didn’t open until I reached Level 8. I decided on Shadow Dance, Whirlwind Butcher, and Life for Life. All three abilities had saved my ass multiple times already, and taking them to second rank vastly boosted damage and recharge time at the expense of AP. As I confirmed the levels, my skills and stats swelled. There was the usual surge of knowledge, accompanied by a feeling of greater strength and dexterity. Not just physical, this time. When I checked my sheet, I noticed my Wisdom had boosted by three points. Yeah! Enlightenment, bitches!

  I was about to casually stroll over to the bars when a door slammed somewhere deeper in the prison. I heard voices: two - no, three – two lower tones, one higher. A woman. I froze, waiting, as another door opened and the voices became clearer.

  “-as well as I do that the word of a traitor is worth nothing more than a sack of triceratops dung! So consider this your last chance before we make your sow of a daughter here start squealing. Where is the Prince’s camp?”

  “I swear on the gods I don’t know!” A hoarse, older man’s voice. A familiar voice.

  “The gods care little for treasonous old men. Take this girl to the strappado, string her up. I’ll need a sharp poker... and go get fresh coals for this thing, they’re cold”

  “Kira! You bastards, leave her alone!”

  My pulse jumped. You’re fucking kidding me.

  “Pa! Pa! No! Don’t-” The woman’s cries reached a frantic pitch, replaced by gasps from a blow to the gut. Owen bellowed in rage.

  I rushed to the front of the cell, trying to see what was happening, but Kira and Owen weren’t within view: they were down the hall and around a corner of the dungeon.

  “You’d be better off dealing with us than with the Mata Argis, scum.” I didn’t recognize the interrogator’s voice. “Do you want to know what they do to your kind? To those condemned for treason? Do you know what they’ll do to your daughter?”

  “I’m not a sack of meat, asshole!” Kira cried.

  “No! Leave my daughter alone! She’s got no part in this, she’s a healer-”

  “She’s a traitor’s bitch!” The interrogator lifted his voice in anger. “Now start talking! Where is the camp? Who is commanding the force? How many? Do they have the Prince?”

  “Pa, no! Don’t tell them anyth-AAAAHHH!”

  “Where is the camp!?”

  Breathing quickly, I started shaking the manacles, searching for a way out of them. They were snug, but not tight, and they were bolted on with screws that used a tool with a hexagonal head. There was no slipping them, not even if I degloved my wrists and ankles. But they could be used as a weapon.

  I gripped the bars on the front of my cell and shook them until they rattled. “Hey! Shitcunts! You want to know where the Prince is? He’s screwing Captain Arnaud’s mouth while his dragon fucks him in the ass and your mom watches!”

  “Who the in the hells is spewing that filth?” I heard the interrogator ask someone else. They were waiting on the coals.

  “You heard me! And I’ve got your fucking Prince right here!” I yelled back. “By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be spending the rest of your life in diapers! Don’t tell him anything, Kira! It’s me, Hector!”

  “It’s that outlander rebel,” the other man - a guardsman, I assumed - replied. He dropped his voice, but my ears were supernaturally sharp now. I could hear every word. “Should I go shut him up?”

  “He wants us to kill him. He’s Starborn - he’ll return to life and come back for us. The imperator warned me.”

  Whoever was out there, I could probably take them in a fight… unless they were violet-ranked bad guys. I rattled the door, banging it back and forth in the frame. “I can hear every stupid word you’re saying down there! Stay strong, Kira! Owen, don’t tell them a damn thing! I’ve got your back as soon as I’m out of here!”

  “Fine! Go shut him up!” The interrogator hissed. “Dammit... I forgot he’d passed the Trials. He has a dragonman’s hearing.”

  I almost laughed. Hysterical laughter, but laughter none the less. “Hell yeah, I do! And I’m coming for you, nancy-boy!”

  The guards rumbled up the hall in a wave of hobnailed boots and clanking armor, metal scraping on metal. I rolled my shoulders and cracked my knuckles. It sounded like the sweet chorus of freedom.

  I closed my eyes, and pictured the Matriarch in my mind. I remembered the dragon’s orange peel and warm bread smell, the sound of her wings, the way light reflected off the opalescent curves of her muzzle. “Ma’am, if you can hear me, you should know that I’m in prison. I’m about to bust out, but I just want you to know... one day, I’m coming back for you. I’m coming to help you. I’m going to take you away from these people.”

  The guards stopped in front of my cell, crossbows leveled through the bars. There were four of them, all higher levels than me. Two had crossbows, and two had short, forked spears in their hands. They were wearing Ilian colors, the white seagull on a purple field. They were drawn from the Ilian soldiers who were stationed at the fort. Blackwin’s soldiers, not Mata Argis super-troopers.

  “Get back!” The guard in the lead snarled at me. “Get back, or we’ll pin you to the wall like a cockroach! These bolts have poison on them!”

  “Oh no, not poison!” I held my hands up and backed away, almost rolling my eyes. “It’s not like I just took a bunch of poison and survived a series of hideous mutations to be here!”

  “You won’t want to have survived anything once we’re done with you, dog. Shoot him in the knee!” The captain snapped.

  The guard lowered the crossbow and fired, and I triggered Shadow Dance, dashing to the side. The ability didn’t allow me to pass through walls, but the bolt flew through the black haze. I dodged the second by rolling back, and got skimmed by the third.

  [You are poisoned!]

  It was just plain old widowberry sap - 1 hp a second for 50 seconds - but I went to one knee with a dramatic cry, clutching the bleeding cut. “Arrrgh! My life of adventuring is over! You guys! Why are you so mean to me?!”

  The guard took the chance to unlock and open the door. The first man came in, club raised. I didn’t have a spear yet, so I activated Blood Sprint on my fist instead. “Attack!”

  My adrenaline points dropped as I rose up with an uppercut, unnaturally fast, and punched him right in the dick.

  [Critical hit! 300 non-fatal damage!]

  The guard’s eyes bulged. His face turned cherry red as he fell to hands and knees beside me and vomited with pain.

  “Help! Man down, man down!”

  “No! Attaaaack!” I rolled under the guard as bolts rained down on us, using him as a human shield until the repeater ran out and the others charged in. When the arrows stopped, I rolled up and pulled the man’s weapon off his back – an [Iron Spontoon] - then activated Piercing Lance again. I lunged forward at my quickened speed, plowed through the guards blocking the cell door, and blew my way into the hallway. “Yeeeeeeeeeaaaahhh!”

  From somewhere deeper in the prison, Kira screamed: a pitiful, agonized shriek of pain.

  The guards scattered like pins, shouting in surprise. I threw the spontoon at the back of the man running for reinforcements as the captain closed in on me. The spear nailed the runner with enough force that he lost his balance and fell to the floor, but I didn’t have time to see whether he was hurt before steel flashed in my face. I caught the captain’s sword with the chain linking my wrists, trapping it in links of rough iron. I twisted the weapon to the side, jerking it from his hands, and pulled him into a headbutt. Nose met forehead, but he was tougher than the other men and it barely hurt him.

  I avoided one gauntleted fist, but the follow-up jab caught me across the cheek and sent me stumbling back against the wall. Desperate and dizzy, I pivoted to the side as his other fist slammed into the rock where my head had been. The captain jumped in to pin me bodily to the stone, and that was when I revealed what I had been palming in my left hand all this time: one of the poisoned crossbow bolts. I p
ulled the captain’s head down by the strap of his helmet with one hand, and rammed the sharp bolt into his eye with the other.

  The man screamed, stumbling back with a hand over his face. I shoved him into his regrouping men and threw myself to the floor in a diving roll. I scooped up the captain’s fallen sword, and turned with a downward blow. The captain fended off the first strike, but not the second - which took his head off his shoulders. The arterial spray soaked the other two remaining guards.

  “Tarn takhrah, motherfuckers!” I bellowed, and charged in like the barbarian I was.

  Chapter 43

  Steel clashed, and even though the soldiers were my level or higher, they weren’t prepared for this: a pissed off post-Trial Starborn with nothing to lose and everything to gain from kicking their asses. I Jumped through them and stabbed the first guard, ramming the sword up under the edge of his helmet and through the side of his neck. Blood gushed as quickly as his HP ring drained, and then I was on to the next one. The Mark of Matir burned coldly on my skin as we parried, locked swords, and spun around in a circle. He kneed me in the groin, barely missing the family jewels, and wrenched the chain linking my cuffs to trap my sword hand. I struggled, got my guard up, and the guard responded by shoving my hands - and the chain - against my throat.

  The commotion was drawing reinforcements, and I couldn’t breathe. Wheezing, straining for room to move, I brought both my legs up and got them between us, shoving the burly man away. He growled, but I got back control of my hands just long enough to jab him in both eyes with my thumbs. The man howled. I grabbed his knife from his belt and stabbed: face, neck, under the arms. He dropped to his knees. I grabbed him, and triggered Life for Life II.