Victor of Tucson

When he emerged from the underground, it was only an hour or so after noon, and Victor found Lesh more than eager to get some sparring done. They made their way to the area Lesh had dubbed Dar’s sparring ground, only for Victor to question the designation; to him, it felt more like a fancy courtyard meant for entertaining. Stone columns lined the space, and off to one side was a covered area that looked like an outdoor kitchen. Still, Victor couldn’t argue that the sandy center of the space made for a perfect place to do some fighting, especially considering how everything about Dar’s home was giant-sized.

They worked out like usual, falling into old routines. Victor used Inspiration of the Quinametzin, giving them both a little more insight into their training, and neither of the two used any Energy abilities, at least not at first. Victor wore his armor, wanting to see how Belagog, Lesh’s cudgel, fared against the set pieces and their lava king materials. A few glancing blows got past his guard now and then, and the leather held up fine, though it wasn’t adept at stopping bludgeoning damage. The helmet and heavy gauntlet were another matter; the dense material easily rebuffed the blows.

About an hour into their practice, after a particularly violent exchange, Victor backed off and said, “I want to try my new weapon.”

“A new weapon?” Lesh eyed Lifedrinker resting on Victor’s shoulder.

“Yeah. I enchanted this gauntlet with the, um, magma attunement gem that I won from the conquest chest.”

“Ah! What will it do? Punch with fire damage?” Lesh readied Belagog, holding the great metallic cudgel in a two-handed grip before himself.

“Actually,” Victor said, channeling some Energy into the gauntlet, “it’s supposed to be a whip.” As the Energy fed the hungry runes along the back of the gauntlet where the metal wrapped around his wrist, hot, dripping, liquid fire began to drizzle from his palm into the sand, cooling with sizzling pops into beads of porous stone. Victor pushed more Energy into the gauntlet, increasing the steady flow from his Core. The trickle of liquid fire turned into a stream that partially solidified into a flaming, smoking coil of magical magma that hung down from his gauntleted hand into the sand, where it sizzled and smoked.

“You wish to strike me with that?” Lesh backed up, eyes narrow, shaking his head. “I’ve the blood of dragons in my veins, but fire can still harm me!”

“Yeah, I, uh, guess I need some practice with it before I can promise not to do any real damage. Can you hold Belagog out? Let me see how hard it is to control.”

“Aye. Some fire won’t hurt this lad,” Lesh chuckled, his voice deep and rumbling, as he extended the long, metal cudgel before him. Victor nodded and jerked his left hand back over his shoulder and then forward, whipping out his “magma lash” a little awkwardly. His much-improved dexterity and agility made him more adept than he had any right to be on his first attempt at such a feat, but the whip of smoking, glowing lava still missed the cudgel. It snaked out and snapped in the air beneath it, cracking like a gunshot, spraying sizzling magma onto the sandy ground.

“Oho!” Lesh crowed, enjoying the show. “That would sting!”

Victor grinned, pleased by the savage crack and spray of magma. He pulled his wrist back, swinging the lash of magma around behind him with a whoosh. He tried again, adjusting his wrist movement slightly, and this time, the lash snapped around the cudgel, coiling with a splash of magma and billowing black smoke as it fought to transfer its fiery heat to Lesh’s weapon. The cudgel was made of nigh-indestructible stuff, though, and Lesh laughed as he pulled against the lash, trying to unbalance Victor. Victor grinned, jerking his fist against Lesh’s pull, and the two came to a stalemate.

“Not bad!” Victor panted as he and Lesh continued to strain. “The lash is durable; we’re putting a lot of strain on it!”

“Aye! It’s made of your Energy. I bet you can learn to guide and control it more than any physical whip; use your will!” Lesh grunted as he spoke, still straining to pull Victor off balance. What he said made sense, and Victor reached out with his will, urging the lash of magma to uncoil so he could pull it back. To his amazement, it worked.

“That is badass!” he howled as the lash snapped in the air beside him, moving as much with the force of his will as the motion of his wrist. He turned and jogged to the far end of the sandy ground and then, still targeting Lesh’s cudgel, some thirty yards distant, whipped the magma lash forward, guiding the fiery tendril with his will. He howled with delight when it stretched out and struck home, snapping its distant, smoldering end around the weapon. “You’re a genius, Lesh!”

After that, Victor spent another hour with Lesh as a willing participant, learning the ins and outs of his new weapon. He quickly realized that his first somewhat ranged attack was near the extent of the whip’s reach—something close to thirty or thirty-five yards. He learned that he could nudge the whip with his will, making minute targeting adjustments, and direct it to either coil around a target or lash it with devastating results based on how he flicked his wrist.

Belagog was a good test subject, but Victor wanted to see how something less durable would hold up, so he destroyed several pieces of furniture he’d stored in one of his dimensional rings. The whip blasted them to fiery splinters in just a few strokes. By the time they called it a day, he felt good about the new weapon but knew it would require a lot of training to use effectively in conjunction with Lifedrinker in an actual combat situation.

As they walked along the path leading back to the house, Lesh said, “I will use my racial advancement elixir now, so I will likely be out for a while.”

Victor nodded. “This is a good time. Valla’s still out, and I’m gonna be training with Dar. When you wake up, I’ll hopefully have something to share with you about breath Cores. I know you’re eager to improve yours.”

“I am, though I always thought it was dependent upon improving my bloodline. I hope there’s something more—”

Victor looked at him with raised eyebrows and interrupted, “I mean, you know how to cultivate Energy into it, right?”

“Into my breath Core? When I cultivate Energy, it enters my pathways, which lead to my Energy Core—”

“Holy shit! Seriously, Lesh? But, like, you come from a world full of dragonkin!” The truth of the matter was that Victor had only recently learned to cultivate with his breath Core, and that had been out of necessity, trapped in the caldera of a volcano by Hector. Still, once he’d made the breakthrough, he thought it must have been something obvious to people born with one.

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Lesh stopped in his tracks and looked at Victor with a scowl, though whether he was angry at Victor or irritated in general wasn’t clear. “Not all of us have a breath Core. We sometimes gain one when advancing our race, but it’s not a guarantee, and my people are . . . combative. Having scales,” he held out one of his arms, clenching his fist so the faintly glossy, black scales along his forearm flexed, “is a mark of power and dominance—a breath Core even more so. I was rising quickly in the esteem of my people, but those above me, those with the ability to send forth plumes of destructive breath,” he narrowed his eyes at Victor, reaching out to tap a long, thick claw into his chest, “like you, don’t share their knowledge. It’s something that must be discovered.”

Victor stared at him, sudden comprehension dawning on him, all of his conversations with Lesh taking on a new light. “I’m such a self-centered dumbass.”

“Self-centered?” Lesh let his claw slide off Victor’s scaled vest, his hand falling to his side.

“Yeah, Lesh. I listened to you ask to follow me. I listened to you say you turned against the damned System when you saw me breathe my ancestor’s fire, but I never fucking sat down with you and asked what that meant. I thought you were . . . I don’t know, weird! God! I’m so sorry, man. Listen, when you get done with your racial advancement, we’re going to sit down, and I’ll teach you how to cultivate your breath Core. I need to find a source for mine, and while I’m at it, I’ll find one for yours. I’ll go shopping tomorrow after Dar gives me my cultivation lesson. Deal?”

“A source?”

“I need something that gives off magma-attuned Energy. I can use fire, but it’s not as effective—turns out magma has the rage of a volcano mixed into it. Your breath affinity is acid, yeah?”

“Yes!” Lesh leaned forward, speaking forcefully, and Victor could see the excitement in his eyes.

“All right, hermano! When you wake up, we’re going to get to work. Promise.” He held out a fist, and Lesh smashed his rough knuckles into it, nodding with a wide grin, exposing the many pointy teeth along his short, snout-like mouth.

“Yes, brother!”

With that, the two continued walking toward the house, but Victor felt a certain warmth of camaraderie that hadn’t been there before. He had been preoccupied with all of his own problems and had been taking Lesh for granted. It was good that he’d acknowledged it, and he meant to make things up to the man before he left Sojourn. They parted ways in the hallway, Lesh turning to enter the bedroom Dar’s staff had assigned him.

When Victor returned to his room, Valla was still out, but the cloud of Energy-filled steam that had gathered around her was much thinner, and he didn’t see any new vapors rising from her body. He leaned close, studying her face, and he was relieved to see the scar above and below her bandage was much fainter, just a thin, dark silver line in her pale flesh, almost more like a tattoo than a scar.

He was tempted to peel the bandage aside and look at her eye but knew it would irritate her if she were awake, and doing it while she slept felt wrong. Her skin felt cool, and she breathed peacefully, almost like she was simply sleeping. He leaned down and kissed her forehead before going into the bathroom to clean up. Part of him hoped the gesture would wake her, but another part was pleased to see her resting so deeply.

The bathrooms in Dar’s house were marvels of magical ingenuity, especially the showers. The one in Victor’s room was a sunken, tiled enclosure with a row of windows high in the wall, beneath which half a dozen lush ferns grew in a planter. When he stepped into the basin, some enchantment he couldn’t see caused miniature storm clouds to form near the ceiling, and then, accompanied by the rumble of distant-sounding thunder, they began to shed gentle, warm rain.

It was difficult not to overindulge; Victor lost himself as he stood in the refreshing rain, occasionally breaking from his reverie to soap off a body part, scrub his hair, or carefully scrape a razor-sharp blade over his soapy stubble. There didn’t seem to be any sort of time or Energy limitation on the shower, at least not one he’d yet run into. By the time he got out and the storm cloud dissipated, he was pretty sure he’d spent nearly two hours in there.

He donned his wyrm-scale vest and new armor in its clothing form, first holding it up to his nose to ensure everything was still smelling fresh. “It’s damn nice never having to do laundry,” he chuckled, stepping out of the bathroom.

“Finally!” Valla said, sleepily stretching on the bed.

“Hey! You were out cold when I went in there.”

She smiled, and Victor’s gaze was drawn to her eye, devoid of its previous bandage. He stepped close and grinned when he saw her tracking him with both eyes. When he leaned close, the only sign of her earlier injury was a very faint line of silver in her teal iris. “Looks all better!”

“I haven’t looked in a mirror but can see fine.” She pulled him close, squeezing him in a tight hug. “I was more worried than I let on. It was the worst injury I’ve ever had. Before Lesh poured a healing potion over the wound . . .” She trailed off, and Victor hugged her again.

“Hey, it’s all right. How many ranks did you get?”

“Just one. My bloodline is advanced-six now.”

“Well, that’s pretty great that your eye basically regrew with just one racial rank.”

“How did—Did you look?” She pushed him back, narrowing her eyebrows.

“No, I was just assuming, Valla. I mean, you wouldn’t let me see it, so I figured it was bad.” He chuckled and backed away from her. “You never said anything about my new clothes. Check this out.” He trickled some Energy into the runes on his armor, and suddenly, he was clad in his dark crimson and black wyrm-scale vest, his glowering lava king helm, deep red, metallic gauntlet, and the rest of his thick, red leather armor.

“Ancestors!” Valla said, leaning back and clapping. “Fierce! Is that helmet supposed to look like a dragon?”

“Nah, I think it’s what a lava king looks like.” He shrugged. “Maybe they’re related—you know, like wyrms.” Victor made a slow turn, giving her a view of every angle, then sent Energy into the disguise runes, swapping the armor out for his clothing again. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“Lava king? Isn’t that the hide you won for the campaign?” She reached out to feel his shirt. “But what about your armor? How are you changing it so quickly?”

He chuckled, then spent a few minutes explaining the set pieces and how he’d added his treasures from the Free Marches. When he told her about the matching enchantment he’d gotten on his wyrm-scale vest, she interrupted with a gasp, “Victor! That’s so helpful! I want it, too!”

“No problem! I’ll introduce you to Tria.” Victor sat beside her and held her hand. “Hey, you remember how Dar wanted to talk to me before you drank that elixir?”

“Yes. Was it bad?”

“Depends on how you look at it.” Victor inhaled deeply. “I guess there’s not an easy way to say this.”

“Just tell me, Victor.” She squeezed his hand. “Are you going away?”

He looked at her for a long minute, shifting sideways to stare into her eyes. “You’re pretty damn smart, you know that?” When she didn’t reply, he sighed and told her, haltingly at first, then in a rush of words, about Dar’s distant granddaughter and the plight of her kingdom. She tried to interject mid-way through, saying she’d come with him, but she slowly began to nod when he got to the part about fighting duels and not actual wars.

“You want me to stay here.”

“I don’t want you to. I think it’ll be smarter, though. You can continue to dungeon delve and train with Lesh. There are other things in the city, too—non-lethal tournaments, even some weird sports, according to Mr. Qwor.”

“Sports?”

“Yeah, games for prizes. They have rules about Energy usage, I guess, and they vary in terms of physical conflict, but I think they might be worth looking into. The point I’m getting at is that there’s a lot for you to do here. There’s a shitload of ways you can advance. If you came with me, the best thing you could hope for would be sparring with me or other people in the granddaughter’s household. The world will be at war, and the only open part of it will be the champion duels. Everything else is going to be fucking cloak and dagger bullshit—kidnappings, assassinations, sabotage, you name it.”

Valla frowned, thinking things over for a few moments before replying, “You’ll have dozens of duels, maybe more? Against people who are all likely at a higher level than you. You’ll make huge gains, maybe not early on, but when you face the stronger champions. You’re afraid I’ll fall further behind if I come along with nothing much to do but watch your duels? Does that about sum it up?”

“I’m going to earn hearts, Valla—hearts and tribute for my victories. I’ll make gains in many ways, not just Energy from my kills. Don’t you think it would be better if you and Lesh were here, earning treasure, gaining levels, and improving your bloodlines?”

“Of course, logically.” She chuckled and stood up, summoning some clothes from her storage ring. She began to change out of her pajamas as she continued speaking. “I suppose things will be easier for me if I’m not there to watch you fight champions who are beyond level one hundred. I understood that correctly, yes? Dar says many of the champions are steel seekers?”

“Yeah.” Victor looked at the floor as he answered, his voice low and resigned, expecting Valla to start another argument.

“Well, I’d rather not witness that. Fine, I’ll stay here with Lesh, but you must promise to write to me daily in the Farscribe book. You have to promise you'll visit me if you earn lots of tribute and have some time between duels.” She’d pulled on a knee-length, pale gray skirt and a breezy white blouse, tying its tails in a knot at her waist. “For now, though, let’s go see this lake you were going on about to Lesh in the coach. I went straight to bed when we arrived, and I’d like to get a little sun before it sets.”

Victor looked at her, perhaps a little hungrily. “I do, Valla. I promise. Have I told you I love you lately?”

“Not enough.” She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him quickly before darting toward the door, her wings rustling with faint metallic tinkles. Victor gave chase, and soon, she was giggling in near hysterics as the two exploded through the open door and onto the deck. Victor was right on her heels when she spread her wings and, with a crack, snapped them down, launching herself over the rail and into the air. She soared out over the lake, and Victor laughed, too amazed by her grace to be bothered by her cheating escape.