After a few seconds, there was a crackling sound. Hawke put the egg down as a fracture line began to run across its surface.
“Here we go,” he said. “Get ready to grab one of them, and make sure you have your gloves on, in case they come out biting.”
Just in case, he had buffed himself and cast Gift of the Martyr on Tava; the spell transferred any damage she suffered to him. Tava had her town defensive auras up as well: Aegis of the Slayer offered nearly the same level of protection as his own Shield of Light, and Vigor of Nature was a heal-over-time aura that worked only on her. If their new furry or scaly babies wanted to play rough, they were ready to handle it.
The cracks on the golden shell widened, releasing a whiff of musk that didn’t exactly stink, but was strong enough to make him wrinkle his nose. The scent was accompanied with a rush of steamy air, hot enough to blister bare skin. Hawke hadn’t felt the heat inside the egg while holding it, so the shell must have been one hell of an insulator; he reminded himself to gather the shell pieces in case they could be used as crafting components.
Two small forms stirred inside the cracked egg, pushing their way out. Hawke reached out and gently picked up one of them while Tava did the same for the other. He was surprised at the weight of the tiny beastie; it was the size of a kitten, but felt much denser, like grabbing a teddy bear filled with lead. Even through his gloves, he could feel heat radiating from the little critter. A normal animal would have been cooked medium-well at that temperature, but the fuzzy thing just twisted weakly in his hands and began to purr and mewl. His fur was red with black markings, but the skin underneath was covered in fine scales, light green in color, that occasionally showed through the fur as bizarre highlights; his tail was fluffy and long. A pair of bat-like wings briefly unfurled from its back before wrapping themselves around the tiny four-legged body, and his huge magenta eyes opened wide and looked at him as the pair of foxy pointy ears perked up.
“A winged fox?”
Hawke held the baby furball closer; the puppy – no, baby foxes were kits – yipped softly and sniffed him. A moment later, he almost dropped the cub as his mind and the Drakofox’s connected. It was dizzying, a more intense experience than forging his soul link to Saturnyx. The process went both ways; his mind was being imprinted with the little monster’s thought patterns even as his memories and even bits of his personality and way of thinking, his sense of morality, and his worldview, were all passed on to his new ally.
His life flashed before his eyes. Not because he was dying; the dragon-kit was ruffling through his memories, seeing Hawke – Ben Velasco, as he had been then – growing up, roughhousing with his brothers, going to school. He saw himself on graduation day and hugging his parents. Went back to the day his older brother came to visit with his wife and newborn baby. Ben’s nephew. He remembered watching the grinning baby and feeling a protective urge run through him. He had known at that moment that he would kill or die to protect his nephew. That was what family meant. You stood together, through thick or thin. Hawke found himself reliving his time with the family pet, an awesome Labrador named Fredo. He and the cub shared every great moment he had with Fredo and he felt slightly misty-eyed as he gently hugged the Drakofox.
The little furry’s huge eyes watched it all, absorbing the lessons Hawke had learned through his life, from his time on Earth, and from his more recent experiences in the Realms. His oath to the Triune Goddesses passed from him to the baby fox-dragon. So did his connection to Saturnyx, as well as the different but equally intimate connection to Tava and Nadia. The kit looked at him with innocent, untainted love, and it got him right in the heart. The Drakofox had imprinted on Hawke, and vice versa.
The psychic message was in English, but it included a lot of non-verbal stuff, too. The Drakofox was male, he was intelligent, and he and Hawke were as closely linked together as he was to Saturnyx. They were family now. He briefly wondered what would have happened if the little critters had bonded with some high Fae, as they were clearly intended to. Nothing good, he suspected. He was no angel, but he had some level of compassion and sympathy for others, and now, so did his ‘kid.’ Pure-blooded Fae were naturally cruel, and many if not most of them were outright sadists. He shuddered at the thought of the wide-eyed dragon-kit imprinting on one of them.
Tava had lifted her Drakofox up to her face, where she – it was a female – nuzzled her cheek. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears of joy. “She is wonderful!”
“They both are,” he agreed. “But I think we should cancel the Dungeon raid. I don’t want to bring two baby fuzzies there, and I don’t think we can leave them behind.”
“Have you thought of a name yet?” Hawke asked Tava as he opened the notifications that had popped up as soon as the dragon-kits were born.
Exposure to the rays of the Purple Moon has granted the Drakofoxes a Perk: Increased Vitality (+15% Health).
You have bonded with: Drakofox.
Do you wish to forge a Greater Bond with the Drakofox? Y/N
Hawke decided to keep that option open. According to the Monster Trainer readout, a Greater Bond required the consent of both parties, and he figured that could wait until the baby kit grew up a little. It probably would not take long until he thought the little beast could give his informed consent to a Greater Bond. That probably wouldn’t take very long. The newborn seemed to already have the language skills of a five- or six-year old; who knew how fast he would grow?
“I think breastfeeding is out of the question,” Hawke joked as he produced a cured ham from his inventory. “I can cut it up into smaller pieces…”
Before he could finish the sentence, the two beasties leaped onto the twenty-pound hunk of meat and tore into it like so many piranha. Make that two schools of piranha. Hawke let go off the ham before his hand could become part of the menu. The dragon-kits held on to the chunk of meat and bone, chewing furiously as they made short work of their meal.
“… or I can let them have it while I still have all my fingers,” he finished.
“They are both precious,” Tava said. “I will name her Luna, for she was born in moonlight.”
The dragon-kit squeaked in delight.
The male Drakofox leaped into the air, spreading the wings on his back and beating them slowly. The wings were as long as his body was, but they shouldn’t have been powerful enough to keep his body aloft. Magic did the job, of course. The newborn flew around his ‘father.’
“Blaze,” he said.
The two kits took to the air and chased each other, darting back and forth as quickly and deftly as dragonflies. They d
idn’t stray very far, thankfully. Hawke watched their names appear over their status boxes:
Blaze (Drakofox)
Level 1 Draconid (Epic Elite)
Health 143 Mana 121 Endurance 120
“A hundred-plus Health at level one,” Hawke said as the siblings came back and finished off the last few pounds of ham and then proceeded to crunch into the bone in the center, going for the marrow. “That’s crazy.”
“I’m beginning to realize why you keep talking about dragons like they are a big deal.”
Blaze burped after making the last piece of bone disappear into his maw. His belly was a little distended, but he must have a dimensional pocket somewhere, because there wasn’t enough room in tiny body body for his share of the cured ham. Keeping the little monster fed was going to take some work. Got to buy food in bulk, Hawke decided.
“This was truly a wondrous gift,” Tava said.
Luna fluttered over to the snoozing Rabbit, who opened an eye and snorted at the dragon-kit. Luna settled down on the Dire Bear’s back and promptly fell asleep. Blaze curled over Hawke’s shoulder armor and did the same.
“I should be thanking you,” Hawke told her. “I don’t think I could have handled both of those little monsters by myself.”
She grinned. “You will never have to do such things by yourself, Hawke. Not for as long as I live.”
Nine
“I think it’s time to put our cards on the table, Lord Hawke,” Girl-Has No-Name said as soon as they were alone in his meeting room.
“When someone tells me it’s time to be honest, first thing I do is put one hand on my wallet and the other over my groin,” he replied.
His Advanced Mana Sight was on, and he didn’t like what he was seeing. Girl was weird in ways he didn’t really understand. Emotionally detached, for one; he couldn’t pick up any strong feelings coming from her, even though she knew that at least some of her secrets were out in the open. No fear or anger; the Mana ‘colors’ that revealed someone’s emotions were dialed down to a dull gray. And that was despite the fact that his Pauldrons of Thanatos had identified her as an enemy and had used their fear effect on her. Girl had resisted it without even noticing she’d been under attack. But there was something lurking under the gray surface. Girl was capable of strong feelings, but they were buried deep inside her, constantly repressed.
Saturnyx said.
Girl grinned at him, turning on the charm. Without his magical senses, he would have found himself sympathizing with her. Her body language suggested that she might have done bad things, but could be redeemed, if she only found the right person – the right guy – to help her out. In reality, her emotional state did not change at all. Her demeanor was an act.
“All right, Hawke,” she said. “You got me. Not sure how, but I guess that whatever secret class a ‘Paladin Ninja’ is let you see who I was.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have used that phrase out in public.
Thanks, honey, he thought as he spoke: “You’re a Nerf Herder. Kaiser sent you here.”
“Well, he sent me looking for you. He doesn’t know where ‘here’ is. Not yet.”
“And if I kill you, you’ll just be able to make your report faster.”
“I figured that was why I was still alive.”
“Why are you still here?” Hawke asked. “You could be on your way to Akila. If you’d left after you found me, you’d already be there.”
“Well, I made an oath to obey the Guild President’s orders, but I can use some discretion while following them. You could say I’m hanging around to learn more about you. Your special abilities. As long as that’s a reasonable course of action, I’m not breaking my word.”
Kaiser Wrecker had made it clear that when you joined the Herders, you had to take some pretty serious vows of service. The kind that would kill you if you violated their letter, if not their spirit. Which was what Girl was doing.
“You want to find a way out,” Hawke guessed. “A way to get rid of those oaths.”
She shrugged. “I would like to keep my options open. I didn’t realize what a crazy control freak Kaiser was, not until it was too late. Freedom would be nice.”
According to his Mana Sight, she wasn’t lying, although he suspected that her idea of freedom wasn’t anything he would call ‘nice.’
Can an oath be broken? Hawke asked Saturnyx.
I’m all about the secret magicks with a k. And divine intervention, too. Bet you I can do it.
“What gave it away?” he asked Girl. “That we suspected you?”
“You told too many people. Your Captain has a good poker face, but your girlfriends don’t.”
“What is your mission, exactly?”
“To find you and bring you to Kaiser.”
“Any deadlines?”
“Not for the mission, but I have to report to the Nerf Herders in a month. Twenty-seven days, to be exact. Even if I have to kill myself to respawn at the compound to make it back in time.”
“Harsh.”
“I have to follow all of Kaiser’s orders – I’m an Officer of the Guild, and I only answer to him – and I can’t change my Reincarnation Site without his express permission. Proving Grounds don’t count, of course, but other than that, I have to respawn back at the compound.”
“How about betraying Guild secrets?”
She gave him a slightly less fake smile this time. “Only the secrets I’ve been specifically ordered to keep.”
“Well, I can kick you out of the Domain and you can make it back to Akila in a week or so, unless you want to commit suicide to speed things up. Or I could look into your magical contract with the Herders and find a way to break it without killing you.”
“You’ve managed to break or at least bend the rules more than once. If anyone can, I’m betting it’s you.”
“I might. I can think of two possibilities off the top of my head. Risky, for both of us.”
Her grin widened. “I don’t scare easily. No point in it. The monsters get you anyway.”
“Thing is, if I do that, I’ll have conditions of my own. If I help you, I’m going to be responsible for anything you do afterward. You’d have to trade one oath for another. And good luck finding someone to break the new one.”
He picked up a brief surge of anger. Girl didn’t like it when she didn’t get her way. The emotion disappeared as quickly as it showed up, however, and she looked at him steadily, as if trying to look into his mind. If she knew Hawke could actually do that sort of thing, she’d be even much unhappier.
“What would the terms be?” she finally asked in a flat tone. When she was herself rather than playing a part, she acted like someone who didn’t know how to be human very well.
“Same as the ones I accepted when I swore myself into the service of the Triune Goddesses:
“Protect the innocent, punish the guilty, and learn the wisdom to tell them apart.
“Be merciful to
those who do no harm and enact retribution on those who do.
“Seek and value peace while preparing for war, for war is inevitable and peace only possible through victory.”
There was another burst of anger inside the assassin, but her poker face was perfect; her expression didn’t change at all. “Who decides who is innocent and guilty? I could make the case that nobody is innocent, either on Earth or the Realms.”
“You have to decide, and hope you don’t get it wrong. If you screw up, you’ll answer to the goddesses and the Arbiters. Screw up badly enough, or too many times, and they’ll kill you.”
“So, I would have to be a do-gooder. No murdering widows and orphans just to watch them die.”
“Can you live with that?”
“Probably. My line of work is like being in the Mafia on Earth. They mostly killed other people in the life, not regular citizens. And those with wealth and power are invariably not innocent.”
That would have to do, Hawke guessed. “One more question.”
“As long as it doesn’t involve a secret I’m obliged to keep, I’ll be happy to answer it.”
“You picked up Shadow Assassin as your starter class. Didn’t know Elite Classes were an option during character creation. At least, it wasn’t for me.”
“When I started the game – about a week after launch; people still hadn’t connected the dots about the disappearances – I got a notification. ‘Congratulations! You are one of the select few who can choose an Elite Class.’ I haven’t met anybody else who got that message.”
“Lucky you. Anyway, people pick assassin types all the time. Fun stuff, when it’s a game and you’re killing pixelated cartoons. But you stuck with it. Re-upped the Class at level ten and became a Shadow Mistress. You like being an assassin in real life. How many people have you killed?”
Labyrinth to Tartarus: A LitRPG Saga (The Eternal Journey Book 3) Page 6
