After walking along the decimated battlefield with the Dryad for a few minutes, we ended up coming across Erani, who was sitting up on a tall rock looking around for us, too. Apparently she was in contact with the Draconiad as we searched, so it didn’t take long for us to find each other with her help.
She slid down the smooth face of the rock, landing on her feet in front of us. She wobbled a bit upon landing, acting a bit similarly to how she did when I’d first started casting Expedite on her. Strange, considering she was used to the Spell by now, and she didn’t even have it active anyway.
“Hey.” I walked up to her and brought her into a tight embrace. I hadn’t realized that we hadn’t really been separated before, ever since the Demons first invaded. It was a bit of a wake-up call just how much I missed her after such a short ti apart. It felt totally unnatural to not have her by my side – like missing an arm. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she nodded and we separated. “Just trying to get used to this Bond thing. You have it too?”
“Right, I do,” I frowned. “It isn’t that bad though, just a couple extra physical Stats. Or, I guess since you aren’t used to getting extra Stats other than Dexterity, the Strength is ssing with you, or sothing?”
“Well, yeah, of course,” she said. “I’d think just about anyone would feel weird after getting an extra 22 in all of their Stats.”
I blinked, not processing what she’d just said for a mont. Had she said twenty-two? My Bond had already been ‘deepened’ once, and it was only at 4 additional Stats!
Erani seed to notice my shocked expression. “Did you get sothing different?”
Still trying to process what she’d just said, I read out my version of the Status window. It seed like I could access it just by focusing, the sa way I could access all of the other general information about my Status.
You have a Bond with Level 29 Draconiad.
For as long as you are within 1000 paces of Level 29 Draconiad, you gain the following effects:
-Your Strength, Endurance, and Dexterity are each increased by 4.
-Whenever Draconiad gains XP, you also gain 2% of that XP.
-You gain 11.6% Resistance to all heat-based damage.
My mind raced at what she’d said. Twenty-two in each physical Stat?! Even after accounting for my boost, my totals were 22 in Strength, 41 in Endurance, and 23 in Dexterity. She’d have a 32 in each now, accounting for the base 10 she’d start with. What in the fucking hells caused her to get such an insane buff from this?
“Wow,” her eyes widened, “that’s way less than what I got. I was a bit taken aback when I got it – fell flat on my face the mont the extra Strength kicked in – and it’s honestly taken this long for to calm down after seeing it. I assud you’d gotten the sa thing, but I guess my case is special, sohow?”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said. “What are your exact benefits?”
“Well, like I said before, the Stat gain is 22, and then the XP gain is 11%, and the Resistance to heat is at 49.4%.”
“Huh. So I guess the XP percentage is always equal to half the Stats, then I’m not sure how the heat Resistance works specifically, but we can probably figure it out later. But, okay, more importantly, did your benefits start out that high? Or did they start at where mine were, and then grow to be where they are now over ti or sothing?”
“What do you an did they grow? They started out where they are. Is it possible for the Bond to change?”
“Yeah,” I said. “When I first got mine, it started out at 2 Stats, 1% XP, and 6% Resistance. But then, after saving her and talking with her for a bit, it said sothing about the Bond being deepened, and the benefits increased to where they’re at now.”
“Huh,” Erani brought a hand to her chin, thinking. “Maybe she knows how this works better than we do.”
Erani and I glanced over at the Draconiad. Standing next to her, I still wasn’t totally used to her new appearance. Going from a Nymph to a Dryad, the changes were noticeable, sure, but not too severe. She mainly just got a bit bigger and her hair grew longer. This ti, though, I could barely even see who she was before her new look. Her burning eyes, even taller height, even her hair color seed to have changed from dirt-brown to a deep red. And, of course, the vines wrapping her body were constantly set aglow, embers blazing like a hearth as the wind blew onto them.
It seed like she could sohow choose whether they were actually hot to the touch, though. When I found her getting captured by those Infernals, their hands were smoldering by the heat coming from her body. But later, when I touched her, it just felt warm. Uncomfortably warm, sure, but nothing that would actually burn .
But I supposed all of those changes made sense, considering the being she’d just gotten a Tribute from. I was surprised she’d managed to pull sothing like that off, considering how proud Dragons tended to be. Hells, I knew Astintash by now, and I knew it’d never tolerate soone asking sothing like that of it. Or, at least, I thought I knew so. Seed like the Draconiad had figured sothing out I hadn’t.
Anyway, we needed to figure out what was going on with this. If there was a possibility for to bring my Bond up to where Erani’s was at, it’d an an absolutely massive boost in power. Or if we could get Erani’s even higher than it was already at. Good gods, bringing her Bond to an even more ridiculous level… The thought of that filled with anticipation.
Off in the distance, I could still hear Astintash wreaking havoc among the fleeing army, but I was willing to bet it’d co back soon. And once that happened, I’d at least like to have figured out how these changes would affect .
“Hey, so does your Status say anything about a ‘Bond’?” I ssaged her.
“Hm,” she sent back, “I will look. When got Tribute, lots of things entered mind. Hard to rember all.”
I waited patiently for her as she took a few monts to look through what would clearly have been quite the backlog of System notifications. With the Tribute alongside plenty of kill notifications, she probably had a good bit to look through.
“Yes, see sothing saying Bond,” she said. “Bond established with you and with mother.”
“Right, we got notifications about that, too. It said what the Bond does, but not why they were ford or how they might work in the future. Do you have any information about that on your end?”
“Yes. Bond with you is Rank 2, Bond with mother is Rank 11. Bond with you started at Rank 1 but increase to 2. Does not say why, though. Or if close to new Rank. What do Bonds do?”
“It doesn’t say anything about that? For us, it increases our Stats, copies so of the XP you get and gives it to us, and reduces any heat-based damage that would be dealt to us. Do you not get anything for them?”
“No. But Tribute gave Stats, XP, and heat Resistance, so seems like you get portion of that, too.”
“Hm, interesting.”
I was still a bit frustrated that neither of us got any confirmation on what made the Bond deepen, but the information we got was still valuable. Besides, I had a few ideas on how it actually worked. Logically, I felt like they made sense – at least, the evidence seed to suggest I was right – but it was just such a ridiculous thought that the System would do sothing like that that part of refused to believe it without further proof.
Part of wanted to sit around and do so experints to figure out how this all worked, but we still had more things to discuss.
“So,” I said, “How did you get the Dragon to give you a Tribute? What did you even discuss?”
“Discuss how filthy Humans are. And how Humans are lowly beings that deserve to be crushed under foot.”
Well. I supposed that would be one way to build so rapport with Astintash. “...Right. And I guess you just promised to help with the army and the wall?”
“Yes. In return for help, Dragon says will keep us safe and make sure we pass through after wall has been destroyed.”
“Huh. Yeah, that works just fine. Wait, does the Dragon even know about us? If you talked about how much you hated Humans, how did you then go and say you were negotiating on behalf of a couple Humans that wanted to help?”
“Oh,” she smiled, obviously proud of herself, “said you were my prisoners. Told Dragon that I attack and destroy Human settlents, then collect strongest Humans from them and keep them in possession to fight for . Dragon was so proud! Said it could even learn from .”
I just sighed. I had no idea how I’d keep this kid under control when we got to actual civilization. “So I guess you made good friends with it, then? That’s good, at least. Don’t have to worry about being stabbed in the back or anything.”
“Yes, good friends. Dragon even gave na!”
“Wait, what?”
“Yes. My na is…” she paused, clearly going through so effort to try and transmit an actual na through the connection between us. I knew how hard it was – I still couldn’t do it, actually. “My na is Humanslayer Ainash.”
“Um.” …Humanslayer? Looking at her face, she seed so proud of the title. “Uh, yeah, the na itself seems really good! But, um, maybe ‘Humanslayer’ isn’t–”
“Humanslayer is best part!” She said. “I slay Humans! Bad guys will fear my na!”
“Right… but not all Humans are bad guys, rember? So Humans are good guys. The Demons are the ones that are mostly bad guys, maybe you could change it to be Demonslayer instead?”
“But that is why it is Humanslayer,” she pouted. “One day, I will kill all Demons. Then there will be no reason to make Demons scared with my na. But since so Humans are good guys, so Humans will always be alive. And with my na scaring all of the Humans, none of them will beco bad guys! They will all be too scared of to beco bad! It is perfect!”
“Er…” Yeah, I didn’t think I’d be able to change her mind on this. “Right. Well, anyway, I like the Ainash part. It’s a pretty na, and I think it suits you.”
“Thank you,” she smiled.
At least her na wasn’t sothing like Astintash’s with a dozen titles all describing what a terror she was to Humanity before the na itself. A na which was obviously formatted similarly to the way Dragons formatted their own – with the titles followed by the actual na.
And the na also sounded like a Dragon’s in the way it was pronounced. I wasn’t an expert on the species, or anything, but I’d heard a few Dragon nas in my life and it lined up well enough. Which made sense, considering a Dragon was the one to co up with it. Still, I was sure it’d seem pretty weird for a Dryad to walk around with a Dragon’s na – well, Draconiad, anyway.
I imagined that anyone who heard say it would instantly think she was a bloodthirsty, fire-breathing scaled beast, especially if they heard the “Humanslayer” part that ca in front. But maybe that was for the best, considering she was getting to the point of being about as dangerous to the Human species as any other Dragon would be. At least the na would work as a deterrent to anyone who wanted to try ssing with her.
“So… Humanslayer, huh?” Erani said. She’d apparently had a similar conversation with our newly-nad companion that I had.
“Yeah,” I sighed and shook my head. “Whatever, I guess. It’s her na, she can do what she wants with it. I’ll probably just stick with the ‘Ainash’ part minus the title, though.”
“Yeah, that’d be the best,” Erani nodded. “Does your little Index thing know anything about the new abilities Ainash got? Maybe it knows sothing she wasn’t told.”
“Maybe. Index, can you tell anything about that?”
“Hm,” the voice spoke into my ear and I barely masked my being startled. It never quite stopped unsettling to hear a voice so obviously close to my face but that I could never see. “The System really wants you guys to get a bit more familiar with them before giving you any more info, but I can tell you so of the basic stuff. So, basically– wait. Oh, uh, you may wanna talk to about this later.”
“Why?”
“Company.”
Before I could ask Index what it ant by that, I heard a sound. A Dragon’s wings flapping through the air, coming up the mountain.
“Back up,” I said, anticipating Astintash’s heavy landing.
I watched as it ca into view, massive body blotting out a significant portion of the sky and covering us in shade as usual, and slowly lowered itself to the ground.
“Hm, there you are,” it bood. I suspected it wasn’t trying to be imposing with its speech, but that was pretty much impossible for sothing its size. “I have chased those pathetic ddlers back to their hideout. You two Humans, you were the ones to help free myself from those chains they bound with?”
“Uh, yes,” I said. “We would also like to help you destroy their base and wipe them out.”
“Yes, yes, your owner said sothing like that,” it said. “Let us depart, then.”
Astintash readied its wings to fly back up into the air and head down to the wall, but I stepped forward, holding out my hands to stop it. “Woah, uh, let’s hold on a second.”
It glared at . “What?”
I paused, feeling the weight of a Dragon’s ire in full force. “Um, would it be okay if we rested for a bit? We need to recover our Health and stuff. Maybe we could attack tomorrow?”
While it would be nice to recover our Health, my main worry was, of course, getting back my uses of Ti Loop before the assault. Sure, Astintash would be doing most of the heavy-lifting here, but I wasn’t keen on moving forward with this plan while having absolutely no protection.
Astintash didn’t say anything for a while, just staring at . At first, I thought it was just taking an abnormally long ti to think about what I’d asked, but then I realized it was talking with Ainash, my “owner.”
“Dragon says okay to rest for little while,” she said. “Maybe one hour.”
“Any chance you could talk it up a bit more?”
“Do not think so. Wants to hurry and kill bad guys.”
Damn. Yeah, seed like that wouldn’t be happening, then. It’d be much riskier to push Astintash on the subject and take the gamble of maybe killing us for the disrespect, than to just go in and try to stay safe during the fight.
“Okay, fine. Let’s rest then.”
So the three of us sat down in front of an inpatient Dragon, heat from its breaths warming my bones. Honestly, I felt like if anyone saw us in this position, they’d be wondering why we weren’t all screaming in fear. Having sothing that could so easily kill us sitting around just a few paces away, I could see where they’d be coming from. Really, a couple weeks ago, I’d have thought the sa thing.
But at this point, I’d had so many close calls with death – a good number of which ended in actually dying – that I just couldn’t bring myself to care. We’d rest for now, then get ready for the fight.
The fight to finally allow us out of this gods-forsaken kingdom.
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