Since the stanzas told us that we needed to go during the evening, we stuck around Sandpoint until late afternoon. That isn’t to say we loafed about. There was plenty of studying, training and crafting while we waited.
For myself, I focused on finishing Paulie’s suit of power armor. It wasn’t the same magitech marvel I had crafted for myself. He didn’t want anything too fancy. It was a simple animated suit of “Living Steel” enchanted to be capable of flight and projecting beams of energy at fairly short range.
A note on Living Steel: It’s a type of metal leeched from the ground by a type of tree that incorporates it into the system. When harvested and forged into a piece of gear, it retains living properties, capable of repairing itself, for instance.
I’ve also been unable to craft it from magicite or using blood magic. Which meant I had to buy all of it. That was painful. At least it’s not as expensive as adamantine and mithral.
Overall, the armor was pretty great. Paulie’s ability to use it to fly, however, needed work. Aurora and I played some air tag with him for about an hour, and he was terrible at changing direction. Given time, I’m sure he’ll get it.
My research uncovered some interesting tidbits about the Runeforge. Apparently it was warded so that no Runelord or their top agents could enter. Maybe it would make a good fallback position if things turned bad.
It was the place where research was most concentrated during the days of the Runelords. And it was filled with enchantments that would reduce the pace of aging and remove the need for food and sleep. If we were lucky, the researchers might still be there. We could pick their brains about their latest projects.
And that was of real importance. Apparently they had been researching ways for the Runelords to survive a coming apocalypse that promised to destroy the empire. And that meant it might hold the key to preventing Karzoug’s return.
The apocalypse they were referencing was the Starfall, when a large asteroid hit the planet and plunged it into darkness for some time. Somehow, they had learned it was coming and had tried to prepare. Based on what I knew of the Runelords, I get the feeling it never occurred to them to just teleport to Castrovel with a number of their retainers and return after a dozen or so years. It also seems to not have occurred to them to make their own Runeforges to chill in during the apocalypse. Because why go with the simple solution when you could overcomplicate things massively?
It’s like these people have never read the Evil Overlord List.
I also spent a little time researching the lake. Apparently it was at the base of the Rimeskull mountain, which was a mountain carved like a skull. Or so it seemed nowadays. In truth, it had been carved with the visage of the former emperor Xin, but the Runelords had been too lazy to imbue it with magical protections against the effects of time they had put on monuments with their own faces. Vanity, thy name is Runelord.
<Says the man who spends more time on his hair each day than anyone he knows.>
<Hush, you.>
At the back of my mind, there was a nagging suspicion that I had heard more about Rimeskull before, but I just couldn’t recall what it was. I pushed the thought aside. How important could it really be if I couldn’t recall it?
<Dead man walking.>
<Yeah, it was like I’d triggered a flag just by thinking that one.>
When the time came, I prepared magic for as many situations as possible, scryed on the lake and teleported us out there. The weather was chilly, but the heat radiating from the hot springs helped a bit. Well, I say that, but with my amulet, it’s not like I felt any of it. But Aurora assures me that was what it was like.
It wasn’t hard to find the monuments. They were ten foot tall stone heads and were staring at each other. I recognized a couple of the Runelords from sketches and monuments I had seen before. Paulie filled in the rest. It was definitely the place.
The stone head of Sorshen, Runelord of Lust, looked like it had been damaged. Kira had some horribly lewd ideas as to what caused the damage, but I’ve decided not to repeat them here.
<You’re no fun.>
Activating the first statue was easy – so were the others, I didn’t need more than a cantrip or minor spell for each of them – a quick cast and the head screamed. Yeah, screamed. No, I don’t know why either. Then a key appeared in its mouth, which I grabbed before moving on to the next one.
After the second head, I began getting this nagging feeling that we were being watched, but I couldn’t spot anyone nearby. After a few moments, I shrugged it off and moved to the next head. And the next. And the next. I managed to get the last key in my pocket just before the dragon attacked.
Oh, right. That’s what I had been forgetting.
Shoanti legends tell of a dark time, several hundred years ago, when a massive white dragon known as Arkrhyst would swoop down from its home on Rimeskull. It was said to kidnap people, sheep and even adult cows to devour. It would also raid Shoanti settlements to steal valuable things for its hoard.
Then one day, roughly two hundred years ago, it suddenly stopped coming. It was thought that someone had killed it and had died before being able to return and claim credit. Others posited that the dragon was simply in a long hibernation. Occam’s Razor suggests that since you have to suppose less, the latter was more likely.
Well, it was apparently true. We had woken up the dragon and it was really cranky.
The dragon did a sweep at us with its breath. We dodged, but the statues didn’t. I could hear the stone creaking at the sudden cold. Terrified by the possibility of feedback if the spell foci were destroyed, I called for everyone to get away from the small plateau and make for a nearby stand of trees.
Paulie fired a salvo of special arrows containing small flasks of alchemist’s fire while Aurora and I unleashed barrages from our firearms. Geo and Lenntu also fired a couple shots, though their weapons lacked the penetrating power of guns and the bevy of enchantments present on Paulie’s bow. Lenn just waited until the dragon got close enough to hit.
“It’s just going to run away,” I warned the others. “We have to find a way to bring it down here or we’ll have to keep an eye out behind us for its next attack.”
“What if we hit it like those girls hit the Nevermore?” Aurora asked.
She was already coming up with ideas based on episodes of RWBY? God, I was so turned on at that moment. “Think you can finish it in one hit?”
“Not me,” she said, indicating Lenn with a nod of her head.
Oh, this could work. It was completely insane. But it could work. “Keep firing. I’ll make the cord we’ll need.” I cut my palm and unleashed the magic, fabricating a thick elastic cord in my hand. “Those two trees! Double up on it!” I said, indicating some nearby trees.
“On it!” Aurora said. She took Geo and the two Lenns with her. I instructed Paulie to keep firing, to try to slow down the dragon. Meanwhile, I cast a number of enchantments on myself. There was only a limited field where the slingshot could fire. It would be my job to get the dragon where we needed it. And I knew exactly how to do it.
You could say that the idea came to me in a dream.
Now, I’m not an expert on dragons, but I’ve studied them. They’re strong, fast and highly resistant to magic. They’re also generally vain and prideful. Specifically, this told me two sets of things. First of all, it would be faster than me. I couldn’t rely on my ability to outfly it on the straight. I had to use my size and lesser inertia to my advantage. I could turn much faster than it could. I could weave through smaller openings. If I failed to use that, I would die. With my combination of spells, it would be a bit more than twice my speed. That was the stakes there. Time would not be on my side.
Now, I’m not a great flyer. But I’m good enough and I had some technological advantages I could call on. But again, it would only be a matter of time before he caught me. I had to out think a creature whose species was known for being highly intelligent.
The second thing I could count on was being able to use my knowledge to piss it off. The Shoanti tell a tale of the one time they managed to chase Arkrhyst off. It was a trap by an ancient hero whose name I hadn’t learned. But that wasn’t important. The fact that the dragon had run would be enough.
I loaded my gun with a special magazine. The first bullet in it was highly enchanted and would buy me the head start I would need. It would also really tick the dragon off.
“VI,” I said. “Play the instrumental version of ‘Ragnar the Red’ over speakers.”
“Acknowledged.” It was time to sing.
“Theeerrrreee once was a dragon named Arkrhyst the White,
With a face like a cow turd and a huge overbiiiitteee!
A coward in battle, he fled to be sure,
When a fair fight erupted at a place now obscure!
So laugh at this dragon, once more forced to flee,
When it becomes apparent he’ll never catch me!”
The dragon roared and wheeled about, flying straight at me. I took aim, prepared to fire as soon as I could be sure I’d hit. The bullet I was using was extremely expensive and I only had one of them. If I missed, I was pretty much screwed.
But I didn’t miss. The horrible little bullet buried itself into the flesh of the dragon’s chest, just above where a human would have a collarbone. And that’s when the real horror of the thing began.
You see, the bullet was enchanted to burrow around in the flesh of its target, like a steel worm eating through a corpse. The damage it does is surprisingly minimal, but the pain is intense. It makes it hard to concentrate on what you’re doing. In my estimation, this is a very good thing if what you’re doing is trying to kill me.
I would have anywhere from eighteen to thirty six seconds where I would be faster than the dragon. After that, the bullet would go inert and the dragon would regain its focus, which I’m sure would be on nothing so much as killing me.
Of course, I was generally against that sort of thing, so I bolted off into the sky.
The dragon chased me as I darted through obstacles, getting face fulls of tree branches in the process. It was really ticking him off. Which was good, in my perspective. The bullet running its course in roughly twenty seconds, on the other hand, was bad.
“VI, activate maneuvering jets!” I had installed jump jets in my power armor, which were also designed to be used as stabilizing thrusters for flight. ‘Jets’ isn’t quite the right word. They’re more like gravitic repulsors. Yep, artificial gravity. But ‘Jump Jets’ is a phrase that has meaning to me, and this means that’s what I’ll call them.
The sudden activation threw off my movement pretty heavily. It didn’t help that the VI didn’t compensate for current motion by unevenly activating the left and right side jets. I was getting really tired of its inability to anticipate new needs. I flipped the jets over to manual operation and corrected my spin.
I glanced at the progress the others had made. They needed at least another minute. I wasn’t sure I had a minute, but I resolved to do what I could. Angling right, I sped towards a rocky outcropping. From my belt pouch, I drew a sticky grenade. Yes, sticky grenade. They worked for Gribbletoo during the battle of Valor’s Triumph, and they’d work for me.
I tossed the grenade onto the narrowest point of the outcropping. The dragon, only a few seconds behind me, was treated to a blast of debris, which slowed it down and bought me more time. I then made straight for the side of the mountain.
Without removing it from my belt, I activated another grenade. Thick smoke poured out behind me, making it hard for the dragon to judge the distance to the stone wall. I’m sure the dragon realized what I was doing and had already taken measures to avoid full on collision. But I wasn’t really trying to get it to slam into the wall. I mean, it would have been hilarious if it had happened, but it wasn’t my primary goal, at least.
I pulled another sticky grenade from my belt as I neared the wall. I armed it and then just dropped it, letting the momentum carry it forward before veering right. I had cut it close, actually having to run along the wall before kicking off in the opposite direction. Meanwhile, Arkrhyst had slowed enough to only lightly tap the wall. He was also right there when the incendiary grenade exploded.
Let me tell you something about white dragons. They really, REALLY don’t like fire.
Arkrhyst roared in anger and I answered with a hearty, mocking laugh and another salvo from my gun before putting all the juice possible to my jump jets and shooting off in the other direction. I was desperately hoping the others would be ready when I got there.
I sped through the dissipating smoke cloud. When I came out the other side, I could see that they were almost ready. I just needed to stay ahead of the dragon and lure him to the target zone. Aurora and Starbrite would have Lenn loaded up and ready to go when it was time.
This, of course, was easier said than done. Newton’s laws gave me some edges, but even when dealing with acceleration equaling force divided by mass, a sufficient force will override a mass advantage in relation to acceleration. And strong with the force, dragons are.
I was less than ten feet ahead of the dragon when I heard him begin taking a deep breath. Managing not to panic – if only just – I popped my parachute and immediately hit the release. The next few seconds were a blur.
The first thing that happened was that the dragon inhaled my parachute and began coughing. The second thing that happened was that Arkhryst, continuing on his flight forward, crossed the point where Aurora would need to launch Lenn. Third, Aurora cut the rope, launching Lenn. Fourth, the dragon lost altitude. Not much, but enough.
Lenn sailed through the air, his axe biting into the dragon’s wing instead of its side. It wasn’t a clean blow, and the axe got stuck. The damage caused the dragon to spiral out of control, dragging Lenn with him.
In all the time I’ve known Lenn, I’ve never heard him curse. Oh, he uses crude language, but always in a jovial manner. And he sputters in rage all the time, but somehow never curses then, favoring simple, declarative statements like “I’ll kill you!” and “That makes me angry!”.
That’s why, in spite of everything, I was surprised when I heard Lenn utter a simple, unadorned curse. “Shit.”
I spun back, and watched in horror as Lenn and the dragon spiraled down towards the plateau containing the statues. The damaged statues. The statues I was afraid might explode if they were damaged further. The statues I was sure would go up in a chain reaction if even one of them went off.
They crashed into the statue of Sorshen.
“Stars and stripes forever,” I said, in the most PG curse I’ve ever uttered. I don’t even remember saying it, but the VI must have heard me say it, because suddenly it started playing. So it was that it was playing when this whole farce reached its conclusion.
Sorshen exploded. Blue lightning cascaded through the plateau. Next was Zutha, who exploded in orange lightning. Then Belimarius in green and Xanderghul in violet. Krune erupted teal and Alaznist red. Finally Karzoug exploded in yellow. And again, this was all to the tune of “Stars and Stripes Forever”, because my life is apparently a farce.
Arkrhyst died instantly. I say that because there was no more dragon anywhere on the plateau. We did find bits and pieces of him embedded in nearby rocks, dirt and trees. We even heard later that there was a shepherd tending his flock on a hillside halfway to Riddleport who lost a sheep to a flying bit of dragon bone.
We expected Lenn to be in the same situation. After all, it effectively vaporized the dragon. There was no way Lenn could have survived that. We were going to have to find a small piece of his corpse and pay for a full resurrection. Those don’t come cheap.
However, Lenn is… sort of like the Orks from Warhammer. Things happen if he believes in them. And if he doesn’t, they either don’t touch him or at the least have a reduced effect. So, to our not quite complete surprise, when the dust settled, there stood Lenn. He was certainly injured. His body was covered in char marks and Lichtenburg figures. But he was still standing, looking more annoyed than in pain.
His clothing and gear, however, don’t seem to have the same property. His clothes were just gone. There was nothing left. His armor was a charred wreck. I could repair it magically, but it would take at least an hour, even with my strongest spells. Only his axe was still serviceable, likely protected to some degree by its heavy enchantments. It would still require some repair, but I could do that in a matter of minutes.
I had the time. It would take Geo a few minutes to get him to believe that healing potions would fix him up and another couple minutes for him to put on some new clothes, which he would have to borrow from Lenntu.
Speaking of Lenntu, he wasn’t surprised at all. In fact, he was focused on something else. “Hey, Geo, buddy. I think you may have made a mistake when you cloned me.”
“Oh, how so?”
“It’s just…there seem to be some anatomical inconsistencies, is all. A few things are not quite to the same scale as the original.” For the next couple hours, this sent my wife into bouts of snickering any time she thought no one was looking.
Lenn insisted we press on, even without his armor, so we headed up a set of giant carved stairs that led up to where the dragon had come from. Either it was where we needed to go, or the dragon had its hoard there. Either way, worth the trip.
On the way up, we encountered a pair of elder earth elementals. They hadn’t reckoned on fighting people who could fly and use guns, so they had almost as bad a day as Arkrhyst. And no one had to blow up to kill them, so that was a bonus.
Whoever had created this path was a stickler for the old, tired clichés that unimaginative wizards think impress everyone. We had to make our way across an invisible walkway – that I could easily see thanks to my magic sight – and up an invisible ramp – which I could also see.
I mean, maybe the whole idea was new ten thousand years ago. But nowadays, it’s like shag carpeting. Yeah, everyone thought it was the cool thing to have once, but now we all just look back and shake our heads at those people’s lack of taste.
At least it amused Lenn. “Heh. The floor’s invisible.” Whatever it took for him to believe it was there. I didn’t want to have to carry him because he didn’t believe in a floor.
At the top of the ramp was the entrance to a cave. Following the tunnel inside, we came to a chamber with seven exits and seven pillars covered in ice. In the center was a sigil of a sihedron. Houston, we’ve found the entrance to the Runeforge.
There was more thing in the chamber. Well, it was many things, but it was one collection. A hoard, really. A dragon’s hoard, most likely. And it was massive. Tens of thousands of coins and various artifacts. “It’ll take me a couple hours to break this down into magicite,” I told the others. “Shall we take a rest so I can work on that?” I covertly pointed at Lenn while looking at Aurora and Geo.
“That’s a good idea,” Aurora agreed.
“Yes,” Geo said. “I have something I want to work on, too.”
“Okay,” Lenn acceded. “Not enough fights today, though.”
“It’s okay,” Aurora said. “We can do some sparring while the others work.”
He brightened up at that. “Okay.”
“So, where do we set up the tents?” Geo asked. “Main chamber, or a side tunnel?”
I gave him a sly grin. “Tents? What do you take me for? Some kind of pleb?”
“What’s a pleb?”
Sigh. “Ignore that. The important part is that we’re going to be sleeping in beds tonight.” I struck a dramatic pose and cast a spell. A portal opened before me. “BEHOLD THE WIZARD! BEWARE HIS POWERS! UNSPEAKABLE POWERS!”
Aurora slapped my ass. “You’re such a dork,” she said lovingly.
“That’s LORD DORK, MOST POWERFUL to you!” I quipped. “Come, minions! Carry our filthy lucre into the mansion!” To show I was just playing, I slid the portable hole under the largest pile of loot and carried it in myself.
On the other side of the portal was a mansion that looked like it belonged in some kind of science fiction game. The floors were polished concrete, the walls were made of metal and there were tasteful art objects interspersed throughout in a minimalist style. The building itself was massive, with more than enough space for over a hundred and fifty guests. Elevators, escalators and stairs offered paths between the floors. Soft music played in all the common areas from hidden speakers.
More than two dozen nearly transparent human and asari servants dressed in black and violet Federation style uniforms – late DS9, of course – stood ready to assist us.
“My companions are bringing treasure through the portal. Aid them in carrying it to my workshop. Then show them to VIP quarters on the third level so they may shower and have their clothing cleaned. Instruct them on usage of all the facilities. We shall sup in two hours.”
The servants gave a small bow and got to work.
About half an hour later, thanks to the use of shovels and the portable hole, all the loot was in the building. Geo reported that the other tunnels were all empty. It made sense, since not much would want to live near a cranky dragon.
I took Aurora up to our penthouse suite and we took a quick shower and a long, luxurious bath in the hot tub, looking up at the starry skies – an illusion – through the ‘skylight’ above. The stars looked as they would from Earth, specifically from my memories of the skies during a camping trip I went on when I was nine. She enjoyed learning about the constellations.
For dinner, we were served a veritable banquet of fast food and ridiculous restaurant fare by a magical servant that looked vaguely like Gordon Ramsay. Geo dined on some ridiculously spicy vindaloo. Lenntu had one of those seventy two ounce steak challenges, topped with shrimp and grits. Paulie ate some fish and chips. Lenn was served a German sampler platter and a Happy Meal on the side.
Hand to God, he still has the toy somehow. I didn’t think anything could be taken out of the temporary mansion except for what you brought in and food you had eaten, but somehow Lenn still has his wind up race car.
Even though we didn’t need to eat, Aurora and I joined in. I had three delicious Doritos Locos tacos and a side of those cinnamon thingies. Aurora ate a triple Baconator, a baked potato, a plate of nachos and a chicken nuggets Happy Meal. She also has her toy, a My Little Pony figure of Shining Armor, which she kept because he reminds her of Starbrite. Apparently my magic hands out Happy Meal toys based on gender just like back home. Oh, I almost forgot, we all had some ice cream. Red White and Bluebell for me, because ‘Murica.
I decided not to comment on Aurora’s sudden incredible hunger. I may have grinned like an idiot as soon as no one was looking at this new confirmation on suspicions, though.
Cast from inside the extraplanar space, my workshop spell didn’t create a new space so much as convert the existing one and populate it with workers. I set them to work breaking down the loot to magicite while I set to the task of repairing Lenn’s armor.
A while later, Aurora came by the workshop. She put her finger to her lips and motioned for me to follow. Intrigued, I did so. I don’t think I’ll ever forget what I saw.
Lenn was playing on the escalator. Seeing the big man just letting go with child-like abandon did me some good. It’s the simple things in life, really. And he wasn’t the only one. Paulie was trying to plank between the two escalators and Geo was intently trying to figure out how they worked through observation.
I got a horrible idea. I grabbed a bit of magicite, did a little math in my head and fabricated something. I took the elevator up and motioned Geo over. Then I set the Slinky – the exact right size and composition for the task – off down the up escalator. That would keep Geo busy for a while.
Aurora took Lenn to go spar and I returned to the workshop to begin work on something important. It was something that had been needed for a while, but that I had finally decided to do something about after failures today.
Simply put, the VIs were no longer good enough. I had to make something better. I had the computing power. I had the knowledge. I just needed to do it.
Typing was too slow, so I created a telepathic interface, once more using magitech as a shortcut due to my limited time. That would allow me to program and compile at the speed of thought. And I could think rather quickly. I could even use my ability to multitask to program multiple sections at once.
Nonetheless, it took hours. Seven, in fact. I’m vaguely aware of Aurora coming by and rubbing my shoulders, but at no point did I stop working. Programming for qbits is an interesting experience. Programming multiple segments of said code simultaneously with nothing but your mind is nothing less than trippy.
I had lost such track of time that I have no idea how long Aurora had been there when she finally said something. “Kyle, you’ve worked enough. Come to bed,” she chided.
I smiled. “Okay. I just finished.”
“What is it you’ve made?”
I gave her a mysterious look. “Watch.” I plugged the quantum computer into my powered armor and activated it.
The suit stood at attention and a feminine voice spoke. “Booting. All processors…nominal. Data inputs…nominal. All systems appear to be running within ninety-seven percent of peak efficiency. Creator, please state your request.”
Aurora let out a whistle, clearly impressed. “What is that?”
“Something glorious,” I said. “Juiz. I want you to review all documentation related to your hardware as well as go over all fictional programming stored within your core to study ways I may use the suit’s systems. Additionally, begin running simulations and tests to properly familiarize yourself with all current capabilities. You have two and a half hours to work while I get some rest.”
The suit looked at me for a moment. “Understood. Noblesse Oblige. I pray for your continued services as a savior.”
As I stood and listened to the very first true AI created by an Earthling, I couldn’t help but grin.
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