Chapter 9: On the Road Again. (2/2)
“Fuck.”
She should have asked.
She did not mean to misgender the poor thing.
And now the dragonette answered to Arthur already.
“Aaaaaah! You should have mentioned it! First I get called a dude’s name and now her too? Ugh.”
//This unit did not know that Arthur was a male name.
//Knowledge added to central database.
“Augh!”
The blunder did not deter her from training. The next spell she learned was a round shield thing that she could in theory pop out anywhere close to her, but that she could only deploy with her arms so far. It would stop all hostile spells as black was antithetic to other mana types by nature. Unfortunately, it would not do shit against physical attacks.
It occurred to her that so far she had been exclusively endangered by physical attacks. There was a recurring theme there.
It was fine, because magic made it all worth it.
No matter how many times she moved mana around, the wonders of being able to perform true magic never ceased to amaze her. She would probably grow jaded if she lived long enough, but for now the constant wonder motivated her through gruelling hours of practice. Solfis had already adapted to her incredible motivation by temporarily intensifying the program. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought that he had sounded proud and excited. Probably something to do with that genocidal maniac skill he had hinted at.
No, it was a joke. It had to be.
She cooked all of the dark dragon in one giant session and consumed the meat over the next few days. Sadly, there was no way to smoke it and turn it into jerky because of a lack of proper wood. She took solace in the fact that between the springs and the black mana, microbes were rare. At least, she thought that was the case. For all she knew, diseases here were evil spirits and all her gut microbiota had been replaced by magical goo or something.
God, that would be weird.
On the fourth day, Arthur ate from her hand. It was endearing.
Solfis found that really extremely disconcerting.
The old war machine explained that the entirety of the thinking population of Nyil had one major concern, and that it was monsters. Even in the heydays of the empire, attacks by creatures had been major threats to civilization, so much that a significant part of their military was dedicated to culling their numbers. There were normal animals that turned more magical the longer they lived until they became a real danger. Magical beasts like dragons, albeit rarer, came with a variety of dangerous abilities. Abominations born from curses or phenomena haunted the land and destroyed everything in their path. Tribes of semi-magical beings raided, pillaged, and killed, sometimes gathering in warbands that could fell cities. With magical bodies, life expectancy was higher and older people were generally quite strong, therefore the cause of death was mostly monsters. Dying in one’s own bed was a luxury that very few would ever achieve. Monsters were the calamity of this world, and they were feared as such.
Naturally, there were tamers in many cultures. It was a fully accepted path. No one, however, kept monsters for company only. It was just not done.
Viv did not care.
The dragonette would bond with her, or it would not. In the meanwhile, it was fun to watch the little hooligan trap her head in the bedroll and squeal in panic.
Solfis declared that they should leave after a week. By that time, she had mastered the cloak, the bolt, and the shield which had taken the name of ‘nope shield’ in her mind, to her dismay. They still had a large supply of meat with Viv eating some of the rations. It was starting to get tedious, however, and she was looking forward to adding fibers to her diet.
There were preparations to be made before she would leave.
First, looted amphoras gave her a way to save some of the pond water. The blessing would fade with time, but it would last long enough for her to escape the fallout zone with a relatively low level of mana poisoning.
Solfis begrudgingly admitted that the water could help Arthur as well, if she could coax the creature into leaving with her. The small dragon would eventually die here, with absolutely nothing to eat but mushrooms she could not digest. Dragons were extremely resistant to foreign mana intrusion, but the Heartlands were the highest and largest concentration of mana on the surface. She was quite young. The crossing would be difficult for her as well.
Viviane mentioned the protective stone next to her shelter, but there were major issues in recreating it, most of which she summarized with a modern term: she was a novice. Mystically speaking. It was through no fault of her own, but she just couldn’t recreate such a fine piece of mystical engineering.
She spent an hour packing her sled for maximal efficiency, balancing the bones around and behind Solfis while creating a small nest for her tentative pet. Eventually, they were ready.
She took one last look at her progress.
Physical
Mental
Power
11
Focus
28
Finesse
17
Acuity
28
Endurance
20
Willpower
28
General skills
Polymath
Beginner 3
Athletics
Intermediate 2
Survival
Intermediate 1
Householding
Novice 8
Hand to hand combat
Intermediate 6
Pain tolerance
Intermediate 7
Small blades
Beginner 7
Basic music
Beginner 5
Path skills
Meditative Trance
Intermediate 8
Mana manipulation
Beginner 5
Path:
That was pretty good. She would be able to upgrade her path in no time. Paths improved the efficiency of stats in specific tasks and helped acquire skills quicker. They were one of the main power multipliers for sentients.
She wondered if she would keep some of that if she returned home. When. When she returned home.
She hoped that Solfis would not take it too hard. The golem could be surprisingly single-minded in his desire to restore the empire, even if, well, there was no hope.
Before leaving, Viv dipped into the springs one last time and stood before the veiled mummy of Cassia the Unbroken. Even dead, the woman’s presence was a physical weight on her mind, one that did not crush but cow instead. It made her feel more humble, not that it was needed. The presence reminded her of the heights which one individual could attain, and how one could reach the gods through their deeds. Viv still lived today because of what Cassia had done centuries ago, one more soul grasped from the depths centuries after the fall of the Empire that she had defended.
“Thank you for saving me, wherever you are. And to Neriad too, I guess.”
There was no answer, only the comforting presence. That was fine.
She hitched the sled and walked out.
Viv walked exactly twenty paces, and then had to calm down a panicked Arthur. The creature was upset at the loss of its familiar habitat. She was letting out miserable squeals and peering everywhere with undisguised panic. Viv thought that the small creature would jump ship and, for a moment, it did, but a piece of meat was enough to lure it back on. Arthur then dove under the covers to devote her entire time inspecting her surroundings with obvious mistrust.
Like that, they traveled south.