Dragon Royale 2: An Urban Fantasy Adventure Read online

  “Jo!” I screamed. “It’s now or never!”

  She was in the air and heading my way, but the purple water seemed angry at Echo for not letting it escape. Black shapes churned in the leading edge as if a thin sheet of cling wrap was preventing them from breaking free. The yellow stream seemed to tear into the purple water, and that split was also getting closer to the garage door.

  “Matt,” Echo fell to her knees as she continued to hold the magical water barrier, but something was wrong with her. A text message popped up behind my open drawing application and vibrated my phone at the same time. I had a good idea what it would say.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” I belted out. “Not now! You have to hold it, Echo.”

  I glanced back and forth to the witch and the water nymph, deciding which one needed my help more.

  “Something is wrong,” Echo said as she bent over forward. She held her water whip in front of her as a talisman against the encroaching waters, but its spark was uneven, now.

  “You are leveling up,” I said in a calm voice. “Try to prevent the feeling for another few seconds. Jo is almost back.”

  “Hooo!” she exhaled. “I’ll—I’ll try.”

  Echo panted like a dog against the water as Jo flew toward us. The witch came across the forty yards of chaos just ahead of the merging streams. As they touched, fights erupted between the inhabitants of each color, and occasionally they reached up for my witch.

  “Look out!” Jo yelled.

  She jumped off her ride at the very last second. A nearby wolf took a running leap at her, but his snapping teeth met the bottom of Jo’s boot.

  The athletic woman dropped from her broom on the fly and slid baseball-style underneath the partially-opened door. She came out on the concrete of the loading dock with her broom at her side.

  Echo screamed as the full weight of both rivers hit her shield, but I tapped my phone at the same instant.

  The garage door slammed shut like a ten-ton hammer onto the pavement.

  “Oh, Matt! I feel you! I feel—" Echo began to sing passionately in a language I’d never heard before. Her climax turned her yellow lasso into a brilliant white, and she fell over and curled up on the loading dock in front of me.

  The song was beautiful and mesmerizing, and did a good job blotting out the sounds of battle inside, but I swear the last thing I heard was Anton’s boisterous laugh and voice.

  “I envy you, sir knight!” the old general yelled from inside the chaos.

  TISSY

  We all collapsed outside the door after it shut. Jo was spent because she’d fallen off her broom, and Tex and I were tired from holding off Merkur, but Echo’s flush cheeks and slumped posture were for totally different reasons. She breathed in and out with gusto and sang as best she could, but when her song ebbed for a moment, I tried to speak to her.

  “I figured you’d weaken with your stomach exposed, but I think it might have helped you.” I admired her heaving chest and the zebra-like stripes now revealed on her side, but became concerned when she didn’t slow down.

  What’s happening to me?” Echo asked in a hushed voice before singing aloud some more. Her song went on for many seconds at the same level as before and didn’t seem to subside as I would expect.

  Echo said she didn’t sweat, but water droplets covered her exposed skin like she’d just stepped out of the shower. Her melody was stunning, and I was impressed with how long she could extend her climactic sexual peak, but the water loss and vocalizing were alarming at the same time, because we needed to get moving.

  I remembered the yes/no gate I’d installed. It was supposed to prevent this exact scenario.

  “I need to check something.” The gate was supposed to stop her from leveling up, so I clicked into my phone since I already had it out.

  ‘Would you like to allow level up to complete at this time? Yes/No.’

  I tapped yes and Echo’s tense muscles instantly released.

  “Oh, by the gods, I’m going insane!” Echo practically screamed in pleasure, then seemed to collapse like a dying star.

  After a quick glance at her to be sure she didn’t orgasm herself to death, I went back to my screen.

  “It says would you like it to complete?” I noted with disappointment. “She couldn’t level up until I approved it. Fuck. That’s not right.”

  I hurriedly tapped around to get back into the screen I needed. I deleted that programming gate and added the correct one.

  ‘Would you like to allow level up to start at this time? Yes/No.’

  “Fixed it,” I muttered. Next time, the level up orgasm shouldn’t start until I gave the OK. That could be very interesting…

  I expected Echo to complain, but she was anything but disappointed.

  “You mean I could have kept going?” Echo beamed as she slowly sat up. “I would like that. It was even better than when I coaxed out your seed back at the stream, Matt.”

  Jo chuckled. “You must have leveled up.”

  “Is that what it’s called?” Echo replied.

  “No, it’s called having an orgasm, Echo. Matt’s magic helped you reach—Wait. Are you saying this was your first time?” Jo appeared shocked.

  Echo sprawled on her back, but she looked over to Jo while catching her breath. “I felt a little like this when Matt let me join his team, but this was something totally different. I sang.”

  “You never made yourself sing back home?” Jo asked seriously.

  “You didn’t wear clothes,” Tex interjected. “How have you never reached down and played with yourself?”

  “You mean play games?” the elf-eared woman answered with charming innocence.

  Tex looked frustrated and humored at the same time. “No, silly. I mean when you stick your finger in your—” She pointed to her tight-ass jeans right at her midsection. “And twirl it until the alarms go off. Until you sing.”

  “Hmm, I’ve watched the other sirens use men in this way, but I guess I never thought of doing that on my own.” She brightened. “If THAT can be done myself, I’m going to try it again as soon as we are safe.”

  Jo laughed this time. “I’ll warn you, it is only half as good as what you just got from Matt. His magic doubles, or maybe triples, the pleasure. Now it looks like he can make it go on as long as he wants.” The witch tilted the brim of her hat so I could barely see her smoldering eyes, but I knew by the tone of her voice she wouldn’t forget the option.

  I was a little embarrassed to be spoken about like that, so I tried to be sensible.

  “At some point we can all compare notes about this stuff, but right now we should move.”

  Almost as if it was on command, a little squirt of purple water trickled through the side of the garage door.

  Banger nosed at the closed door. I figured he was sad about Raven, and might have been contemplating a way to get back in, but he jumped sideways when the water almost touched his paw.

  “I can’t believe Anton did that,” I said in a sober voice.

  “He made his choice to help us out,” Jo replied. “I argued with him about it, but he was convinced it was his destiny to fight against Merkur and the others.”

  “I saw strange monsters in the water,” Echo added.

  “The rivers don’t seem to like each other, Echo,” I said. “Do you know why?”

  “No, Sir Matt. I have heard my sisters speak of other rivers, but they were very proud of what they’d built in the red waters. They never had an interest in leaving it, so naturally I didn’t, either. It wasn’t until I met you I realized there was more to my life than where I was.”

  “Where were you before you came to this existence?” I wondered.

  “How do you mean?” the water woman replied.

  “The red stream hasn’t always been where it is. Do you know where you were before it flowed through my lands?” I thought it was self-evident she couldn’t have always been living in a river that flowed uphill on Earth.

  She shook her h
ead. “I admit, all land looks the same to me. I do not know if my river has moved.”

  I opened my mouth to reply but she cut me off.

  “I know what you mean, Sir Matt. I believe you, but I cannot say where my river was before we met.”

  “Maybe the raging rivers will flood the whole building and drown them all,” Tex added.

  Jo shook her head. “Not unless Merkur blocks the giant hole I’ve been flying over. Otherwise, all the water is going to go right back down the drain in the middle.”

  “We have to go,” I suggested again, “while there is still time. If those river things get out, this place will be overrun.” I hopped off the loading dock, but I halted when I saw what was left of the purple river.

  “Would you look at that!” I cried out.

  The falling garage doors choked off the flow of water, but the stream didn’t act naturally. Instead of petering out from lack of input, the back of the river slithered away like a lizard had ditched its tail to allow the rest of it to escape.

  “I bet all four rivers are now cut, which means we can safely move around.” I had no idea where we would need to go next but crossing a bunch of magic rivers was one less thing we’d have to worry about.

  I motioned for Echo to jump into my arms as she hopped down. Tex sat next to her, scooped up Banger, and dropped easily to the ground. Jo remained standing and jumped without any thought of assistance.

  “Keep your eyes peeled, Matt. The other team made it out of the warehouse before the water got to them. I saw them go out their door just before I left Anton.

  Tex instantly used Blend to provide some camouflage for us. It helped that the sky was now pinks and purples with the sunset, but it was still plenty to give us away when crossing an empty parking lot. There were numerous lights affixed to the buildings and atop tall poles around the warehouse grounds, but almost all of them were off.

  The sounds of battle rose every moment we remained by the doors, like more and more magical creatures poured out of the colored waters and got into the scrum. We really were leaving Anton and Raven inside that house of insanity.

  “Come on,” I said glumly. “The general has his fight. We have ours. The red push pin is right inside that smaller building.” I pointed to a flat hangar-looking structure that would fit better next to an airport. A long row of windows wrapped around the whole thing, and one giant sliding door went across the front. The massive door was mostly sealed, save for a ten foot gap on the leftmost side.

  Despite our magical advantages, I felt like a spotlight shined on us as we crossed the open pavement for fifty or seventy-five yards. There were two small abandoned cars parked in our path, so I used them as minimal cover, but I didn’t let go of my hyper stress until we made it to the edge of the giant door.

  My phone beeped the second we arrived.

  A quick glance confirmed we’d reached the Wellspring Encampment.

  “This is it,” I said to them.

  I stayed close to the entrance and prepared my rifle. Lined up as we were, my group probably looked like a fantasy SWAT team about to take down a building. Echo stood behind me with her whip. Tex was in the middle of the girls, with the red-apple staff. Jo hung out in the back, with her broom and shotgun slung over her shoulders. She held the large handgun that came out of her thigh-holster.

  “You girls ready?” I said over the link. Briefly, I noted the smell of a wood-burning fire wafting out from the opening.

  “Master, I hear distant footfalls. More than four people but fewer than ten. Various directions.”

  “Fuck,” I said to myself.

  The three tattoos remained hot and active, as if to remind me to put them to use.

  I decided there were lots of ways I could research the inside of the new building without going in, but every second we stood up against the giant door was one more chance to get spotted. Even Tex’s Blend couldn’t hide us all against the uniform silver color.

  “Just follow me in. We’ll wing this next part.”

  ***

  I stepped around the door and held my rifle at low-ready while the three women pushed in after me. My cat trotted in last.

  “Banger, are we alone?” There were no electric lights in the large open space, but some light filtered in through the dirty windows lining the upper half of the structure. There were three untended fires scattered on the floor near the front, along with sleeping bags, bottles of water, and other bits of gear, as if campers had recently abandoned them. The fires didn’t throw much light deeper into the building.

  “Master. I don’t detect any living beings within this structure, but there are some on the outside. Foot patterns suggest they are leaving.”

  Tex spoke quietly. “Jo did order Chris to get all his people to the other warehouse. Maybe he actually did it.”

  “OK, Banger, wait here at the door and keep watch. We’ll be in and out in a flash.” I tapped my foot where I wanted the cat to sit. I wanted him out of the doorway so he couldn’t be spotted from afar, but close enough to the opening to peek around from time to time.

  I turned back to the girls.

  “Fuck. Let’s get this over with. See if you can find where we stick the staff.” I wasn’t thrilled to risk the potential for being surrounded, but this was the moment where we needed to fulfill our first mission, and I was willing to push our luck to make that happen.

  “Do I have to go by those fires?” Echo asked. “I don’t like them.”

  “Stick with me,” I replied a little distractedly. “I’ll get you around them.”

  The back half of the large, square building was stuffed floor to ceiling with wooden and metal boxes, reminding me of the final warehouse scene in that Indiana Jones movie. Smaller boxes were high in the rafters, while large shipping containers sat on the pavement to the sides of the giant pile.

  “Let’s go.” I ushered Echo between two of the fires. At the same time, I thought of how I could use magic to search the boxes for the one I wanted because it was a huge area.

  “Jo, can you get airborne?” I asked her quietly.

  “I’ll scan for long boxes,” she replied. Tex’s staff was almost as tall as her, so the box had to be every bit of six feet long.

  A deep boom shook the whole place, rattling boxes and stirring sparks from the fires. It made Echo grab my arm, despite already being well away from the flames.

  “It’s OK,” I said to her.

  I set my phone on top of the first box I found that looked like it could have been long enough. The place didn’t appear to have a crowbar handy for us to use, so I drew a picture showing the box with rubber nails, rather than metal ones. I saved the image and saw blue dots appear along the edges of the box.

  The rubber nails made it easy to break in. “Voila!” I said as I pulled the box lid up.

  The container was filled with hay, but I cleared a top layer away and found something metal underneath. I expected military guns to be honest, but the contents looked like something out of one of my role-playing sessions.

  I pulled up a piece of paper that had been placed over the weapon. “It says this a MIL-U10 Universal Mace.” The wooden handle appeared fresh and new as if the mace had been constructed recently. A heavy chain linked the wooden handle with a round metal ball with deadly-looking spikes all over it.

  “This is a cleric’s weapon,” I said aloud like I knew what I was talking about.

  “Could I use it?” Echo asked with interest. “My whip did nothing to that giant slug.”

  I didn’t know the first thing about using a mace. All I remembered about it was that holy men in my role-playing games often used them.

  “Maybe,” I said, “but let’s see what else is here.” It was the kind of odd weapon that seemed like it would swing back in your face every time you used it. I would feel better if we could get her something else.

  When we got to the next long box I used the same image from my last metal-to-rubber conversion. All I had to do was look at the n
ew box and then hit save on my phone again. The lid popped off as easily as the first one.

  “Nice,” I said to myself. “When the target is the same, I can re-use spells without re-editing them.”

  My mind always sought the competitive edge to game features like that, so I began to wonder if I could cue up spells in advance of ever getting to a situation where we might need them. What about ten fireballs in a row? Would it be possible to assemble a wooden bridge if I needed to cross one of those rivers again? Could I work up a healing spell, or, if I wanted to go big, a resurrection spell? If I were to die, could I run a program on my phone that would heal and revive me automatically? It was the kind of shit I needed to work on when I got another chance to rest.

  I was so excited thinking about my magic I didn’t care that the unsealed box was full of more fantasy role-playing weapons: unassembled halberds. The long wooden poles sat to one side, and the axe-like heads sat on the other.

  “Nothing up top,” Jo relayed down. “The boxes are too small. I’m going to check the big shipping containers.”

  “This is all gear for an army, isn’t it?” I replied. “We could make a mess if we blew it all up.”

  “Maybe one of the general’s fireball weapons are in here. That would be a big bad boom.” Jo laughed on the link.

  “Maybe later,” I finished.

  I tapped on my phone and drew a picture of a flashlight and then assigned a certain swipe gesture to it, so I could whip out a light without needing to see any buttons. I hit save and shined the light all around me.

  “Fuck yeah! Look at this thing.” The flashlight came from the camera part of the back side like it always did, but now it was as bright as a car’s headlight.

  “Wow!” Jo said as she came in for a landing. “Where did that come from?”

  The battery life was at about 75% when I started, but it clicked down to 74 about ten seconds later. When I reached the nearest shipping container, it dropped to 73, and I swiped it off to save the juice.