Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (room on the broom read aloud txt) 📗

almost as long as Karalti’s entire torso, dwarfing her as smoke coiled around her long, narrow wings, her graceful neck and elegant, wedge-shaped head. “Trust in the song written into your flesh and blood. Listen to it, grow in wisdom... and you will discover all you must know. You are the Black Opal Queen. Stand tall, knowing that a thousand mothers watch you from the place of stillness beyond the living world. We will always be there for you, and if it is your fate to pass over, we will receive you with open arms and warm wings.”

Karalti let out a mournful cry as Lahati’s wraith blew apart and faded. The hairs on my arms rose as her presence left the room, leaving it echoing and empty. The crystal floor hummed, turning a milky gray as the body in front of us began to dissolve. As we watched, her body disintegrated into the substance, which hardened once more and set like glass. All the jewelry Lahati had been wearing lay on the surface, glittering on the dragon-shaped shadow her body had left behind.

As Karalti’s tail and wings drooped, I sat down at the very front of the saddle and wrapped my arms and legs around the base of her neck, hugging her tight. She shivered and jerked, at first... but as the minutes passed, her muscles relaxed.

“What an incredible will,” Karalti whispered. “To have waited here for so long, and yet kept so much of herself.”

Karalti’s voice startled me a little. She sounded so... mature.

A HUD alert shook me out of my reverie. I called it over, and as Navigail read out the notifications, my eyebrows climbed up toward my hairline.

[You have made progress on a Main Quest: Darkness Shines on Light Places (1/4) complete!]

[You have a new Quest: Darkness Shines on Light Places (2/4).]

[You gain 1000 EXP!]

[You are Level 26!]

“Yeah. And wow.” I pulled my helmet off and rubbed my head. “When did I even get this quest? It must have been back at the Eyrie.”

“Huh?” Karalti shook herself out of her reverie. “Which quest?”

“Darkness Shines on Light Places. I’ll have the HUD read it out to us,” I said. “It’s an important one.” Quest Update: Darkness Shines on Light Places (2/4)

During your time at the Eyrie, the bastion of the dragon knights of St. Grigori, you discovered a dark secret at the heart of the Order. The dragons and knights are bound by some kind of magical enslavement, a geas stretching back hundreds, or maybe even thousands of years. It binds the dragons and their bonded riders to the will of the current Knight-Commander.

 

The Solonkratsu, Archemi’s native dragons, are a hive species. It is this hive-forming impulse that the Geas on the Order perverts. Instead of allowing the dragons to form families, communities, and centers of art and culture, the magic compels them to be docile mounts in service to human agendas, with no room for argument or independence.

 

Your Queen dragon, Karalti, has gained access to the Path of Royalty—but to free the dragons of Ilia, Karalti’s status as a queen is not enough. You must get to the root of the problem, the Geas itself. The answers lay in the fallen Aesari city of Cham Garai. Now that you possess Lahati’s blessing and the Pearl of Glorious Dawn, the way will be open to you—but are you strong enough to face what lies within?

 

This is a special quest (Mark of Matir).

This is a sequential quest (2 of 4)

Difficulty: Level 40-45

Rewards: 6500 EXP, Fame/Infamy, Unknown unique rewards.

[Do you wish to continue this quest?]

I squeezed Karalti with my legs, and nodded. “Yes.”

[Quest accepted!]

The quest marker turned green, and then joined the queue of active quests waiting in the holographic window. I closed it down, and sighed.

“Yeesh. Level 40 is a lot closer than it was back then, but it’s still pretty far away.” I said. “We’ll need a shit ton of EXP to take on the Eyrie.”

“How much?”

I brought up the Archemipedia. The reference wiki was a brain-to- virtual interface database, like the rest of the menu software. All I had to do was think ‘Dark Dragoon Experience Table’, and I was able to see how much EXP I needed to get from Level 26 to Level 40. I could do the same for Karalti. She needed a lot more EXP than I did to reach the same level, meaning she was typically ten levels behind me. “Yeesh. We’ll have to nearly double what we have now. I need a bit over thirty-eight thousand to hit Level 40. You need about thirty-nine thousand points to reach Level 20.”

“We can do it,” Karalti said firmly. “We have lots of quests, and there’s heaps of monsters in the Endlar. All we have to do is fight and train together, like we always have.”

“You bet your fine ass we will.” I clapped her neck and stood on the saddle. “Let’s work out a training regime at home: I’ll delegate everything I can, and we can skill up.”

“Yeah!” Karalti tossed her head up and down, huffing a cloud of steam toward the ceiling. “We should pick up the treasure here and go. Suri, Vash, Istvan... they’re all worried about us.”

“Don’t rush yourself if you like... need to stay here a while longer.” I said. “We’ve been gone from Karhad for nearly four days. Another half an hour to say goodbye to Lahati isn’t gonna make a difference.”

“It’s fine. I feel okay.” Karalti rumbled, squatting down to paw at the scattered jewelry on the surface of the crystal lake. “Can you help me pick this up? Between your inventory and mine, we should be able to take a lot of what we found here home. Istvan’ll be happy to see gold in the treasury.”

“He sure will.” I