Trial by Fire: A LitRPG Dragonrider Adventure (Archemi Online Chronicles Book 2) Read online

  Trial by Fire

  Archemi Online: Volume Two

  By James Osiris Baldwin

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Author's Note

  Join the GameLit Society for more GameLit and LitRPG!

  Join the LitRPG Group on Facebook!

  Sneak Peek: Ghosts of the Past

  List of James’ Books

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  This book would not have been possible without the support of the following people:

  My editors – Canth, Stacy, and Bryan. You guys rock.

  The ArchOn Crew on Royal Road, inclusive of Ekmo, Dave, Krushah, Anto1440 and many others. Their comments and contributions are a huge help!

  My awesome Patreon patrons: Jed M, Moonspike, Charlotte Pease, Brenden, James, Lolz, and everyone else who has helped support me and my family during the creation of this work.

  To the GameLit Society for support, information and companionship.

  I am super grateful to all of you – and also to you, the Reader. We literally couldn’t do it without you.

  Enjoy the story!

  James Osiris Baldwin.

  Chapter 1

  Riding an angry, hungry dinosaur is hard at the best of times. Riding an angry, hungry dinosaur through a crowded city port with a stuffy nose and a baby dragon kicking you in the kidney? Welcome to the glamorous life of a virtual reality video game adventurer.

  “Karalti! Can you not!?” I hissed down toward the struggling bundle that wriggled inside my cloak, struggling to control my mount as she snapped and lunged at passersby.

  “Karalti see!” The hatchling scrabbled with her feet again, thrusting her gleaming black opal nose out from underneath the cloak. “Ahh! Smells good!”

  “Karalti!” Fighting not to sneeze, I reined in Cutthroat with one hand, and shoved Karalti’s snout back under the cloth. She squawked with indignation.

  “Nuuuu! Hector!” Her telepathic voice whined inside my head. “Karalti see!”

  “Karalti keeps her snoot out of sight before the bad men come and take her away.” I thought back, trying to sniff back the mucus that was threatening to run out my itching nose. It was the Common Cold debuff, which I’d picked up from sleeping out in the woods on a cold night. The debuff wasn’t serious – a 5% reduction in my Perception skill – but it had me on edge. About a week ago, before I’d been uploaded to Archemi, I’d died from the flu in real life. I hated being sick.

  “The bad men aren’t here,” Karalti grumped back.

  “You don’t know that, and neither do I. Please stay hidden.”

  “Bleeh. Oki.”

  She managed to contain herself for all of five seconds before her snout poked out again, nostrils working. “Smells sooo good-!”

  “Stop it!” I immediately regretted growling aloud, because the itch in my nose built to a sudden sneeze – and Cutthroat lost her goddamned mind.

  The hookwing roared and spun her body to the right, and rammed us into a stand loaded with ice and teetering piles of freshwater fish.

  “What the- ARRGH! MY FISH!” The vendor sprung up as the stand collapsed. “My godsforsaken FISH!”

  My irritable Allosaurus-sized war machine bellowed down at him. Swearing as only an ex-soldier could, I hauled on her reins and got her back under control. Only for a moment. The fishmonger ran out in front of Cutthroat, screaming: "My family will starve! Starve! My fish are ruined!”

  Cutthroat was a hookwing: a feathered raptorine dinosaur who was eight feet tall at the shoulder, about twenty feet long from nose to tail, with tattered plumage as black as pitch, blazing golden eyes, and a temperament that could only be described as ‘nuclear’. Each one of the hooks her species was named for - the fused digits of her hands - were wickedly sharp scythe-like claws as long as a bastard’s sword blade. I barely even had time to wince before she lowered her head like an angry bull and charged the man down.

  The vendor screamed. I screamed. Karalti screamed because it was funny. Cutthroat roared as she knocked the man to the side and darted her head towards his gut, and the only thing that saved his life was the iron muzzle that encased her head like a cage..

  Instead of eviscerating him, Cutthroat nipped his shirt through her face-cage, picked him up, and threw him. I didn’t even see where he landed – Cutthroat was off down the road, boiling with saurian road rage, and I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop her.

  “Sorry! I’m really sorry!” I called back over my shoulder.

  “Funny spinning! Karalti see!” Karalti’s entire head popped out through the gap in my cloak this time.

  My HUD flashed an alert. [You have lost -250 Reputation in Bryos. Current Reputation -125: Troublemaker. Law enforcement has been alerted.]

  It was enough to make a man cry.

  Cutthroat charged all the way down the main boulevard beside the docks, scattering people out of the way. I hauled on her reins, but it wasn’t until the rings were about to tear out of her nostrils that she finally stopped, sneezing with irritation. Karalti giggled the entire time, and she kept trying to stick her fucking head out.

  I took several deep breaths, fighting down the twin urges to yell at her and plead with her, and marched Cutthroat down the dirty road. “Karalti - I know it smells great here, but you need to stay under the cloak. We now have T-minus ten minutes before the Mata Argis arrive.”

  “Oopsie.” Karalti said soberly.

  “Yeah. Big oopsie.”

  The city of Bryos was the largest in Ilia, bigger even than the capital, Liren. It was, however, by no means the prettiest. The Bryos Skyport was a filthy sprawl of markets, docks, taverns, inns, whorehouses and warehouses. Sailors, beggars, and merchants vied for space. The magitech engines of flying ships from all around the world hummed, roared, and surged at the ends of the wharfs. The air was full of the smells of fish, frying food, dung, magic, and machine grease. Behind the racket, the thunderous sound of Archemi’s harsh oceans could be heard below us, the sound of waves the size of mountains washing up against even taller cliffs. If it weren’t for the HUD - my Head’s Up Display - the HP rings that flashed into view when I focused on people, and the way that certain objects were framed by rings of different colored light and labels, I’d have completely forgotten t
hat Archemi was actually a videogame.

  My hope was that Bryos had enough ships coming and going that we could vanish before the Mata Argis showed up. They were the reason that I had a cold, and why I was still only Level 8 – barely – and Karalti was only Level 1. We were currently marked with the Fugitive status. Every time I’d attempted a sidequest, visited a merchant, tried to stay at an inn or made any trouble after escaping the Eyrie of Saint Grigori, Ilia’s finest appeared out of thin air and began to hunt us. Each time we’d fought them, they’d gotten harder. The last group, in some podunk Ilian village I couldn’t even remember the name of, had been ten levels higher level than me. There had been no fight: we’d had to run.

  “Not even little peek?” Karalti asked, as we cut down an alley toward the docks.

  “Not even little peek.”

  “Ooookaaayyy.” Karalti wheezed a long-suffering sigh, and withdrew back into the cloak, leaving only the tip of her nose and her nostrils outside. “Karalti smell?”

  “Karalti can smell. But keep your head covered.”

  “Eeep!” She made a happy chirp, nose working overtime. “Smells good! Like fishies!”

  I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t help but smile.

  Since fleeing the Skyrdon of St. Grigori with Karalti four days ago, we been relentlessly hounded by the Mata Argis, the secret police who enforced the Warden’s rule in Ilia. They wanted to kill me and drag Karalti back to the Skyrdon, the dragon knights who would force her to breed the next generation of enslaved dragons for their order. As a result, we had been making do by hunting and brewing potions, killing monsters, and dispatching mercenaries and bandits. The EXP had been pathetic, but the potions I’d been able to sell for a silver here, a silver there. Still, without the ability to do much in the way of quests, levelling had all but ground to a halt. Entering Bryos was a huge risk, and the only reason we were in the city at all was because it was the only way to escape the reach of Ilia for good. I intended to get on a skyship for my fictional homeland, Tuungant, and leave this stinking shitheap of a country behind.

  Gold rolled and clinked inside my pack as we turned a corner and lit on the inn I was supposed to be looking for.

  The Whistling Clam - yes, really - was a large ramshackle inn with three stories and two balconies, the kind that was sure to be smashed during dramatic player-vs-NPC bar fights. The entire building was painted sky blue, the color flaking off in patches from the damp filthy wood beneath. Anxiously, I walked Cutthroat over to a noticeboard highlighted by my HUD. A blinking blue arrow hung over the flight schedule for Tungaant.

  Glancing back down the street, I reached out to it and ripped a copy into my Inventory, turned Cutthroat around, and nudged her to walk back down the alley beside the inn as I had my HUD read it to me telepathically.

  “Let’s see…” I muttered aloud, reining Cutthroat to a stop. “Oh man, we are so frickin’ lucky.”

  “Huh?” Karalti’s nose lifted up the edge of my cloak.

  “There’s a flight boarding in thirty minutes. Long trip with about ten port stops… but still.” I said, folding the timetable back into my Quest Items. “And the fee listed on the Archemipedia checks out. All we have to do is stay down and stay cool, and we’re out of this pigpen.”

  “I’m hungry,” Karalti said, her tone dreamy with longing.

  “You’re always hungry, little Tidbit.”

  “Can we find something to eat?” Karalti pressed in against my back, shivering and hot.

  Ever since hatching, Karalti had been ravenous. She hadn’t grown much in size since she’d hatched, but I’d noticed that the closer she got to Level 2, the flakier and duller her scales had looked and the more she’d wanted to eat. And damn, the kid could eat.

  “There should be a stable around here somewhere,” I replied. “I can smell it. Come on, Cutthroat. Move your butt.”

  Cutthroat stopped trying to scratch her muzzle off and began to pad forward, tail lashing.

  Most riding animals in Archemi were meat-eaters, so public stables provided them with offal, spoiled hides, rodents and probably the odd murdered pickpocket in ‘hospitality troughs’ outside inns and taverns. The troughs and stalls reeked terribly, but hookwings were scavengers capable of stomaching even the rottenest meat. I’d learned this when Cutthroat returned to camp one night chewing on a human body she’d dug out of a bog. She’d been fine. I, on the other hand, would never be okay ever again.

  I basically let Cutthroat guide us to the nearest stable, which was on the other side of The Whistling Clam in a small courtyard facing Hell’s Walk, the street dividing the buildings from the docks. She surged eagerly toward the stalls and the trough of sun-ripened, fly-blown pig guts inside. Surprisingly, there were no other hookwings in there already. No stable hand, either.

  I kept an eye out behind us, and finally opened my cloak up. “Okay, Karalti. Go grab something to eat.”

  “Yay! Food’s the best! Yay!” Karalti kicked off my leg, flapping like a bat. One wing hit me in the jaw, snapping my head back. Once the stars faded, I dropped down to the ground with a sigh, catching Cutthroat by the reins. While she foamed at the mouth, I unequipped her [Iron Muzzle] and folded it into my inventory. “Don’t eat too much, Tidbit. You have to be ready to fly.”

  “Oki!” The little queen dragon landed gracefully on the edge of the trough and began to chow down like her life depended on it.

  I was worried that I was doing something wrong with her. According to her character menu, dragons grew and matured by levelling. Karalti was still the size of a small dog, with feet and hands too big for her scrawny neck and wedge-shaped head. When she’d hatched, her gleaming black skin had rippled under light with colored fire, like opal. Flashes of blue, orange, green, gold and red glowed between every dark scale. Now, her skin was dull and flaky.

  While my saurian buddies pigged out, I went to the outside of the stable and kept watch over the strangely empty yard. From here, I could see out the gate and onto the street with perfect clarity. I kept an ear out for strange noises or conversations, and restlessly brought up Karalti’s Path information.

  Dragon Character Information

  Leveling Your Mount

  Your NPC mount has her own EXP pool that is independent from your own. Like you, she levels by gaining experience from combat, training, and practicing her skills. Unlike you, your dragon only gains three kinds of EXP: Combat EXP, Skill EXP, and a special type of EXP called Lexica.

  Combat EXP is gained by going on adventures, fighting enemies, and completing quests. When your dragon completes a quest with you, the two of you each receive 100% Combat EXP from the quest. Any EXP you gain from winning combat is split. If you fight and kill a monster but your dragon doesn’t help, only you gain that EXP. If the two of you kill it together, you each earn 50% of the total EXP from that monster.

  Lexica

  Lexica is a form of EXP unique to dragons that allows them to comprehend the Words of Power written into their bloodstream. As your dragon gains more Lexica, they can learn spells and unique abilities in addition to their Path and Advanced Path. All dragons are born with the ability Gift of the Blood, which allows them to begin interpreting and manifesting Words of Power without needing to use any special tools or extra mana. At Level 2, they have enough Lexica to manifest their most important Word: their breath weapon.

  Lexica EXP is gained as your dragon matures. Between Level 2 and Level 31 (when she is fully mature), she will gain a total of 60 Lexica points that can be spent on spells or unique abilities. This is enough to select 10-20 possible spells/abilities. You cannot change these abilities, so choose wisely!

  Most spells require 3 Lexica points to acquire, but some spells/abilities require as many as 6 points.

  Dragons are immune to mana toxicity and do not need any tools to control or contain mana when performing magic. However, the tradeoff is that the dragon’s abilities have a long cooldown period, and casting too many spells in a row while airborne may cause
the dragon to faint while flying, as each spell depletes their bloodstream. They are also restricted to the spells and abilities determined by their type. Your dragon’s character menu lists their type and sub-type (if applicable).

  Your dragon is a Queen dragon, which means that the Words of Power in her blood are unique to her, and the combination of abilities and spells available to her are not shared by any other dragon in Archemi. Her skill trees and the advanced paths available to her reflect this.

  My dyslexic ass was still no good at reading, so I had the HUD telepathically narrate the page to me for the millionth time while the noise of the street filtered in. Even with the mental chatter, I could hear and distinguish every conversation going on outside and on the balconies of The Whistling Clam. That was because I was now literally a mutant. I had passed the Trial of Marantha, the test given to aspiring dragon knights so that they could withstand all of the challenges that riding and fighting on a dragon presented. G-forces, extreme temperatures, vertigo, and perhaps most importantly, mana poisoning.

  “...What do you mean you saw him with Kella?!”

  “...Clams and cockles! Fresh clams, six for six!”

  “...I don’t know. That hulk looks like it couldn’t make it crosst me gods’ damn bathtub, let alone the Sea of Blades...”

  “... girls at THAT place got the pox. Last time I went there, woke up three days latah with blistahs down there...makin noise no blistahs ought to make.”

  And a different voice: more cultured, out of place. “...Yes, foreign. He’s quite distinctive, with long hair like in the drawing... yes, he has it tied back, like a savage. You saw him? Where did he... is that so?”

  My eyes snapped open.

  “Karalti,” I said aloud, turning to stalk back inside the stable. “Go hide in the rafters.”

  The little dragon chirped and cocked her crested head, a fillet of meat still dangling from her jaws. She regarded me with innocent violet-white eyes, radiating confusion.

  I pulled the Spear of Nine Spheres off Cutthroat’s saddle and spun it around until the long, glaive-like blade pointed down. “Go. The Mata Argis are here.”