Dragon Royale 2: An Urban Fantasy Adventure Page 3

  Enemy teams. Magical creatures, some of whom apparently were not pleased with the company I kept. And a dragon at the end of it all.

  “Those pants look nice on him, don’t you think?” Tex said to Jo as they fell in behind me.

  “Yes,” my witch replied, “but they are a little too loose for his buns.”

  Fuck, I thought. I had to do all the challenges while also managing two women who conspired to make me as uncomfortable around them as possible.

  “Keep it quiet, or I’m going to walk behind you,” I said as a friendly threat.

  “Ooh, please! Me first!” Tex stomped her cowgirl boots in the dirt as if to demand I allow it.

  “No, bitch. I’m going in front. My pants are tighter than yours.”

  “But mine are smaller,” Tex said with a laugh.

  As usual, I couldn’t tell if they were yanking my chain or serious, but neither ran in front of me.

  “I should tell you, Jo, that I was a virgin before Matt took me last night.”

  “Bullshit,” the witch replied without even considering it.

  “Yeah, it is,” Tex agreed, “but remind me to tell you about when I convinced our cute wizard it was true.”

  Both women laughed for a moment and then got quiet as if they’d come to some kind of agreement.

  I could handle them having some fun by teaming up on me. It was everyone else in the game I wanted to avoid.

  Suddenly, the forest didn’t seem so pleasant.

  THE GENERAL

  “Watch for poison ivy,” I said.

  Living in farm country had given me a healthy respect for the stuff. I seemed to be the unlucky guy that found it no matter where we were.

  I led from the front for a few hundred yards, but I halted when I needed to look at my phone.

  “I got another text,” I said.

  This one came from the DRG app, but it was personal, like the game talked to me. I read it aloud.

  “Reminder: Sir Matt, you have unallocated skill points. Please click here to distribute.”

  “What the heck are skill points?” Tex asked as we grouped together under a tall pine.

  “If it’s like the computer game,” Jo replied, “it means he can upgrade his skills. And ours, I assume.”

  That seemed to ruffle Tex. “I don’t want to sound like a feminist, but why can’t we upgrade ourselves?”

  Jo looked at me like I had the answer.

  “Well,” I began, “in the game, anyway, it is the knight that gets to allocate points. His squires are there mainly to support him.”

  Also, in the digital game, there was no magic involved, besides when you fought the dragon. It was all about bows and arrows, swords, and armor. The designers never envisioned a knight would have magic, therefore all the upgrades had to do with weapon skills, dexterity, and the like.

  “Can we at least watch?” Tex went on.

  “Sure. I don’t mind. You can help me pick.” I hadn’t seen the characteristics, but I figured it would be something close to Dungeons and Dragons.

  It only took a second to find my character page inside the app. My avatar was as outrageous as the others. It was my face, but my body was decked out in heavy medieval armor, like an actual knight, and I held a glowing broadsword with both hands. I appeared much larger than I was in reality, and I seemed super ripped. All in all, I was quite impressed with the depiction.

  “So,” Jo said in a serious voice. “This is how the great Matt Radogain sees himself.”

  She and Tex giggled together.

  I ignored the two while I looked at the square icon below my avatar. The small blue box was for core magic, and mine had the letters TIA written on it. When I clicked it, I got a short description.

  “TIA: Ability allows wielder to give and receive magic.”

  I clicked into my abilities pane, where TIA was again listed as my level 0 base spell, level 1 spell, and level 2 spell. Next to level 2 it said, TIA 3rd degree. I guessed that’s what passed as the third level of my core ability.

  “Not much of a description. What does TIA stand for? Is this all the info I get?”

  I tapped and swiped to different screens to see if it was hidden somewhere, but the girls seemed anxious.

  “That’s a great ability. We know all about it. Now whip out yer’ skill points, master knight, so we can see under the hood!” Tex added with more laughter.

  “I hope there’s a ‘be quieter’ skill,” I mumbled.

  By the time I clicked over to the upgrade icon and got into the skill screen, the two settled down.

  “Well, this is nothing like the game we played back home.” I showed Jo.

  The digital version had a list of stats in a nice column, each with a number next to it. Strength: 10. Dexterity: 15. That sort of thing. But here, there was only an outline of a square with a word next to each corner.

  ‘Mind’ sat at the top left. ‘Speed’ on the top right. ‘Sorcery’ was on the bottom right. ‘Strength’ hovered at the bottom left corner.

  The inside of the square was divided into nine equal parts, like a tic-tac-toe playing field. The boxes were empty except for the outline of a blue circle that almost filled the entire middle one.

  The number two blinked in the top right corner of the screen. At the very bottom of the screen, a green ‘reset’ button was paired with a red one with ‘apply’ on it.

  “I have two points to distribute,” I said after a moment of studying the layout.

  “How do you know that?” Tex asked.

  A lifetime of gaming told me. I tapped the word sorcery to prove my theory. It flashed when I touched it, and the perfect circle in the middle now had a bulge toward sorcery. I touched sorcery again, using up my second point, and the bulge on the circle grew larger, like it stretched a balloon toward that corner.

  I hit the reset button, praying it would work.

  “Yeah, see, back to zero.” The circle was perfect once more.

  I tested another distribution by tapping strength and then speed. The circle stretched itself to opposite corners, so it was kind of shaped like a diamond.

  After another hit of reset, I looked around the forest. “Jo, can you have Banger scout for us? I think we should get this done before we go any further.”

  “I want to see,” Jo replied.

  “You will. Just keep us safe for a bit, alright?”

  She let Banger out of her arms and gave him a nudge. “Tell mom if you see anything out there.”

  Banger meowed and I reminded myself to create a translation routine so I could understand what our reconnaissance kitty said. At the moment, I could only see through his eyes. That was useful, but without smell, hearing, and verbal feedback, it was less than a complete drone.

  Satisfied we weren’t going to be jumped, I stared at the circle inside the box.

  Increasing my speed or strength could be advantageous from a combat perspective, but I quickly thought through the implications. The other competitors I’d faced, including those back at Fawn Forest, were burly-looking ex-military dudes. Getting myself bulked up to their level would take a lot of points, for sure. I might never reach there before I bought the farm.

  “What are you going to do?” Jo seemed anxious.

  My biggest advantage came with my magic, so increasing sorcery was probably my best bet. However, ‘mind’ could be useful, too. The problem was the lack of description as to what ‘mind’ entailed. The only clue I had was that Nora’s base ability was called ‘Mind Fuck.’

  I chuckled to myself thinking how the name bothered her.

  Her ability was very powerful in action. She managed to get into the mind of some of our pursuers and send them in a different direction. Having that kind of power of suggestion could come in handy. ‘Mind’ could also mean smarts, which would help me as well, since my school years left a lot to be desired.

  In video games, I sometimes held onto these points for as long as I could, because I hated to commit them without fully u
nderstanding the game world. In the dragon’s royale, I had even less information, but holding them seemed foolish.

  “Matt,” Jo said again while softly touching my elbow. “Would you like some advice?”

  I glanced at Jo like I’d forgotten about her. “Oh. Yeah, sure.”

  “Go all-in on sorcery. That’s what you’re good at.”

  I squinted at her but also smiled a little. “This isn’t because of our sexual connection, is it?”

  “Would it make that better?” Tex teased. “I can’t believe it.”

  I shrugged to deflect her playful sarcasm because I had to keep from letting my dick do the thinking for a bit. “I don’t know. Maybe it makes it easier for me to transfer magic to you, so you level up faster. I think it would benefit us all. If it means better sex, then I’ll accept the burden.”

  Tex snickered, and I did a little, too, but Jo seemed to accept my logic. “Magic is the thing that defines you. I think any improvement will affect our whole mission for the better.”

  “Works for me,” Tex added in a more serious tone. She leaned in to look at my screen. “You seem pretty fast and not too bad on strength. I’d stay away from mind, so I can keep razzing you about how gullible you are.”

  When I pushed ‘sorcery’ twice I felt OK with my selection. The circle skewed a little out of the middle box, so its irregular side formed a crude point in the direction of sorcery. I didn’t know how many levels were ahead of me, but it would take a lot of skewing to get the circle to touch the bottom right corner. Each level would, I was sure, be a lot harder to reach.

  I hit apply to finish the transaction. The moment I touched it, the circle flashed as if magic had been used on it. The ‘reset’ button was now gray, too. I hoped that wouldn’t happen, but it made sense. Otherwise, I would be tempted to change my stats at every encounter. All magic when I needed it, or all speed when I needed to get somewhere in a hurry.

  I stared at my handiwork for a few moments, and intended to look at the girls’ skill pages, but Banger screeched from somewhere close by.

  “What is it?” I said aloud. Jo and I both focused on Banger to see through his eyes.

  “Awe, fuck. I knew it couldn’t last.” The warning kitty had found some bodies.

  ***

  I put my phone away and held my weapon with both hands. Jo’s was out, as well. Tex held Bart’s staff with both of her hands, but she stood behind us.

  “Banger, do you see whoever did this?” I asked him.

  My nerves seemed to curl up in my legs and arms as I became instantly tense. The feeling of safety I experienced back in our makeshift bedroom was now a distant memory. Every tree had the potential to hide untold numbers of enemies.

  Banger meowed in return, but I didn’t understand it.

  “He says there’s no one else around.” Jo translated on our mental link.

  “We’re coming over,” I said to the cat.

  Banger hadn’t gone far. As I fiddled with my skills, he’d gone down a slight slope filled with vines and sticker bushes and walked a short distance along a more open creek bed.

  Dread redlined as I approached the bodies, but no matter how many times I looked left and right and forward and back, there were no enemies to be found.

  “Holy shit, y’all,” Tex said when she came upon the pair of women lying in the mud. “Someone cut off their heads.”

  The cowgirl was right. Their heads had been severed clean off, and there was a mess of congealed blood where they should have been. They were nowhere to be found on the flat expanse of mud and dirt.

  I knew right away the dead women were part of the Dragon Royale. I’d become accustomed to seeing the dragon skin outfits that everyone got except me and my girls. This pair of squires had black dragon skin uniforms with a thick purple stripe on each side of their legs.

  “Thank god this isn’t Nora and Lucy,” Jo said from behind her hand. She covered her mouth and nose because the place swarmed with flies.

  There were no weapons, or loot as it was called in the digital game, to be found by the dead.

  “Let’s keep moving. Banger, get back out there.” I pointed down the creek because that’s where I wanted to go. It would be a bit more exposed than creeping through the brambles, but we had to get as far away as we could. And do it fast.

  Jo sent him more specific orders as he trotted away, because she was Banger’s keeper again. I was suddenly reminded how happy it made me to have her back by my side. She brought all sorts of valuable experience to our team, including the military stuff she’d been gifted as a witch. If we wanted to avoid losing our heads, or dying any other way out here, we needed the best recon money could buy.

  “He’ll do a good job,” Jo reassured us.

  “Stay alert, guys. Follow me.” I took the lead with my gun ready to rock. It hung off my shoulder with its strap, giving me the ability to keep it at the ready without fatiguing my arms trying to hold it upright.

  I wanted to move fast, but Banger stopped himself after a few minutes and sat upon a large rock next to the creek.

  “Hold up,” I said quietly.

  Jo was on the link with Banger, but I stayed off so I could keep watch with my rifle. The creek trickled down a narrow valley formed between two wooded hillsides. The undergrowth wasn’t too thick, so I saw about fifty yards up each hill, but there was no movement in my field of view.

  “What do you see?” I asked Jo.

  “He’s, uh, busy,” she replied. “Give him a second.”

  “The fuck?” I shot back. I chanced a look at what Banger saw and quickly regretted the decision.

  I experienced the emotion of Jo’s mirth on our magical connection.

  “You could have warned me,” I said.

  The black cat sat on the rock cleaning its junk.

  “The good news is he knows nothing threatening is around. There’s no way he’d do that if threats were present.” Jo tried to sound confident, but I didn’t think she believed it entirely.

  “Let’s keep moving,” I said. I somewhat regretted how my magic made Banger a little too real.

  We walked for a few more minutes before I recognized the rock where Banger had paused, but the cat was gone again. The creek flowed very close to the rock, and a large pool of water swirled just below. Several schools of tiny fish darted about in there, leading me to believe his stop might have been prompted by those tempting fish.

  “He’s found something,” Jo hissed. “More bodies.”

  I crouched. “Are the killers up there?”

  She blinked her eyes like she was working the link with Banger. “No. He says everything is clear, except he smells death everywhere.”

  There was no reason to doubt that.

  “Let’s get up there. Maybe we can tell if the killers are going the same way we are, or if they passed through a long time ago.” I hoped it was the latter. It seemed like a royale team we wanted to avoid.

  “I’m behind you,” Tex whispered, “And I’m carrying a huge stick.”

  “Be ready to use it, but stay close,” I advised them both.

  I saw the first body right away. Like the other two, this one had fallen near the creek and was right out in the open. The man wore the same purple stripe as the other two.

  When we reached the headless man, Banger took off ahead again, like a good scout.

  “He was their knight,” I said with a mixture of sadness and relief. The game was uber-shitty in that we had to kill each other to reach the true enemy in the dragon’s aerie, but no player in the royale deserved to die by having their head removed.

  I hated to think of the word loot in such a serious situation, but there was nothing to be found on the mud-encrusted body.

  “No evidence of a struggle,” Jo suggested. “Besides the lack of a head.”

  I laughed a little to keep myself from thinking about all the possibilities for that. “Yeah, just one cut was all it took. Those players must have found a pretty awesome weapon to t
ake out this team so easily.”

  Banger screeched again, but he was hardly a stone’s throw down the creek. The cat had his back arched and tail straight up, like he’d found a rattlesnake or something.

  “That’s a fucking wolf,” Jo said with fear in her voice.

  Sure as shit, a giant gray wolf sat upright on the far side of a tree. Banger could see it perfectly, but it was out of my view.

  An injured man sat next to him.

  He wasn’t a player.

  ***

  The three of us crept toward the lurking man but kept the big tree trunk between us and him. Before we got halfway there, I whispered to Jo. “I want you to go back up the creek and cross to the other side. Only come out if this guy is a threat. Stay on the link and you’ll know if we need you.”

  She hesitated for a moment and looked at Banger, but then spun on her heels and trotted away.

  “You want me as your right hand?” Tex seemed surprised. “This staff isn’t much.”

  “Said the woman who saved Jo from that other witch.” I smiled at her. “You’ll be fine. Use Blend to help us sneak up on the guy, OK?”

  “I’ll try,” she said while starting to focus her magic.

  I got a better look at the man when I used Banger’s vision. The cat held his position near the creek, but kept his eyes trained on the gray-haired man and his similarly gray-furred partner up the slope. The wolf remained close to the man, but I wasn’t able to figure out their relationship. Were the headless bodies killed by the wolf?

  “Nice and slow,” I said to Tex.

  We made it to the far side of the broad tree trunk when the man spoke.

  “You guys aren’t what I’d expect this day. What do you call that perfume? No need to sneak, because I am downwind from you.” The old man chuckled noisily.

  I stood up straight and slapped the bark like I’d blown the mission. “Fuck. We have to get rid of this soap smell.” I liked the way it smelled on the women, but there was no doubt it was a liability in actual combat.