Spear of Destiny James Baldwin (free romance novels .TXT) đ
- Author: James Baldwin
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âFuuuckinâ hell. What on Earth was that thing?â Suri let out a tense breath, walking over to lay a gentle hand on Karaltiâs wing edge. The dragon had already dropped into an exhausted doze.
âThe voidwyrm? Sheâs just about the last thing we need, is what.â I pulled my helmet off and swiped my arm across my face. âThat overgrown piece-of-shit caterpillar is Level 120. One two zero. What a load of ass.â
âCouldâve been a lot worse. We didnât end up as worm food.â Suri shook her head in disbelief. âWhat the hell are we gonna do? The Warsingerâs a wreck and that voidwyrm thing... Christ. I dunno.â
âWeâll figure something out. We always do.â I reached out and squeezed her shoulder.
âI sure as hell hope so.â Suri frowned and rubbed the back of her neck, then stopped to look past me, over my shoulder. I focused on my peripheral vision: it was Istvan and Rin, sprinting across the yard toward us from the direction of the stables.
âYour Grace! My Lady!â Istvan called. âWhat happened? Is Karalti alright?â
âA whole lot of bullshit is what happened.â Fuming, I opened Karaltiâs inventory and placed the saddle in there, but didnât equip it. âWe need to talk with you two and Vash over some dinner. Thereâs a situation with the Warsinger.â
Chapter 16
âI canât believe it.â Rin balled her fists on top of the table in front of her. âThe Warsinger... he destroyed her?â
The five of us were seated in the dining hall: me, Vash and Suri on one side of the table, Rin and Istvan on the other. We had plates of torkany in front of us, the characteristic Vlachian stew of tender Europasaurus meat, vegetables, dried peppers, sour cream, and potato dumplings. It was delicious, but only Vash had cleared his plate: everyone else had forgotten their food, listening anxiously as I recounted the battle with Ororgael, what heâd done to Withering Rose, and the heap of shit we now found ourselves in.
âI think âwreckedâ is probably more accurate,â I said. ââDestroyedâ implies it no longer exists. Itâs still there. Itâs just FUBAR.â
âHow could one man destroy such a thing?â Istvan asked, almost as horrified as Rin. âWasnât it made to withstand battle with the Drachan?â
âIn theory,â Suri drawled. âWhat I want to know is, how the fuck did he blow the damn thing up? Because if we retrieve it and rebuild it, I want to know what enhancements we need to make to avoid me getting one-shotted by this cheating bastard.â
âWell, firstly, the Warsinger was... is... old and weakened from millennia of immobile storage.â Rin ticked off on her fingers. âSecondly, it didnât have any mana to power its defenses. None of its magical protections could be active if it doesnât have an energy source. And after it fell over? Anyone can wreck a defenseless machine.â
âHuh.â Suriâs brows furrowed. âGood points.â
âBut still, it must have taken an incredible force. And thus we return to Istvanâs question.â Vash had his feet up on the table and his heavy fall of braids draped around his chest like a scarf, smoking furiously. âHow does one man wield such terrible power? How does anyone, even an Architect, cause such devastation? Stranging the land for miles in every direction? Corrupting and empowering a sandworm, turning a legendary war machine into junk?â
âI donât know,â I said. âAnd thatâs a problem. Before Ororgael, when Baldr was just Baldr, I know he had a unique Advanced Path. âSpirit Knightâ. But I donât know anything about it.â
Suri sucked on a tooth, looking up toward the ceiling. âYeah. No info on it in the wiki.â
âWeâd have to find a Path tutor to tell us, or another Spirit Knight. There might actually be a Spirit Knight trainer in Taltos,â Rin said, her blue-on-blue eyes flicking between the four of us. âAs for how he got so strong... Well, I knew MichaelâOrorgaelâwhen he was alive. Not well, but I knew him. Iâm sure that in addition to setting up ways to possess and take over players, he squirreled away some experience caches for himself when he still had access to the Admin tools. Items, level up bonuses, things like that.â
âWould the system permit him to?â I asked.
âSure. Archemiâs still in beta, so thereâs all kinds of bugs and exceptions and unfinished places. Rin replied. âI mean, imagine like, a room that can only be opened after certain preconditions are met, like a dungeon area only Michael could access. Itâs filled with small, harmless mobs, but if you kill them, you get ten thousand EXP per head. Thatâs the kind of stuff Devs do to test environment-avatar interactions, to make sure OUROS is spawning mobs correctly. NPC enemies are supposed to be challenging, but proportionate, right? So a test environment might allow a Dev to rapidly level to see if the dungeon began spawning the correct level enemies. Michaelâs team, the Neuromorphic R&D Division, had access to those kinds of sandbox tools. Spawners, 1-hit weapons, special potions, special magic...â
âLike Void-element stuff?â I linked my fingers together, leaning forward on my elbows.
âMaybe? But that stuff wasnât ever supposed to be for players,â Rin said. âAt least, thatâs what I heard around the office.â
âYou were an artist among the Architects, were you not?â Vash pointed the stem of his pipe at her.
Rin bobbed her head. âYes: I worked in environmental modeling. Mostly architecture... I helped design Taltos and a few other cities. But, like, all this stuff with the Drachan and the Void monsters and everything is just unreal to me. They were just meant to be like any other NPC enemy. I donât understand why Michaelâs so obsessed with them.â
âHe really likes to rant about the Drachan and viruses,â I said, stirring my spoon through my stew and
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