Path of Spirit (Disgardium Book #6): LitRPG Series by Dan Sugralinov (best free e reader .txt) 📗

with Ervigot the Ravager. If my information is correct, then you fought with Harnathea the Ravager too! Wow, dude, this is a cause for celebration! I just came to see what all the fuss was about, and this is what I find!”

She ran to the gryphon and pulled a bag from her saddle. After digging around in it, she pulled out a magic self-writing quill and a ragged fat notebook in a leather binding, then peppered me with questions:

“First: was it you who managed to banish Ervigot? But how? And Harnathea — are they the same, or different? I’ve never seen a Ravager up close…”

I watched her perplexed face with a grin as she anxiously blew a disobedient lock of hair from her face and adjusted her hat, whose edges were decorated with the impressive teeth and claws of various monsters. I didn’t answer her.

Kitty fell silent under my amused gaze:

“What..?”

“Listen, Kitty, I’m kind of in a hurry right now. And more importantly, I can’t be open with you. But if you want…”

“I do want!”

“You didn’t let me finish. Once I’m done with my business, we can meet. I’ve been meaning to pay your guild a visit for a while now. Hunter Garr Alt… I helped him in Tristad and…”

The gnome girl’s already huge eyes expanded to cover half her face.

“You know Garrison Alt?” she breathed, moving closer to me.

“Well… yeah, so what?”

“The legend knows the legend…” Kitty whispered and began to pour sand from hand to hand. “Do you know his daughter Tirri too? Or his friend, Jennifer the battle mage?”

“I’m afraid not. I forgot my train of thought. Listen and don’t interrupt! Garr invited me to the Dangerous Game Hunters once. I think I’ll visit the guild a little later. I have something to share: information about the monsters of Holdest, Terrastera and the Lakharian Desert…”

“Wooaaah!” Kitty interrupted. “You have to come with me right now! To the guild HQ in Darant!”

“Are you even listening to me? I’m busy! If I don’t get things done right now, then I’ll get killed, and won’t be able to see anyone. But I promise I’ll pay the guild a visit.”

“Alright,” the explorer said, her voice trembling. “But then, will you let me study your pets? They’re so cuuute! Please please please!”

She clasped her hands in pleading.

“Alright, you have five minutes.”

“Ten! And I’ll feed them! I have an UNBAAG-14!” She raised a bag over her head, dropped it and started digging through it.”

“I don’t know if they’ll eat your…”

“Universal Nutritive Blend for Accelerated Animal Growth, version fourteen. Sure they will!” Kitty nodded so energetically that her hat fell off. “All animals love it…”

They all ate the food. Monty, a permanently hungry animal, even asked for seconds. It was just a shame that the food’s buffs didn’t stack: +10% damage, +10% defense. I wouldn’t mind that buff myself, but it only worked on animals.

As a parting gift, Kitty gave me a Dangerous Animal Rider’s Bridle (+15% mounted movement speed). By then, a portal had opened in the temple ruins, and a building crew emerged from it — now mixed, not just dwarves. Among them was a troll in a bright red jacket and a pair of businesslike gnomes.

Once sure that nothing stood in the way of the work, I ordered Crash to defend them, then I flew south, to search for the village of Jiri. I hoped Grand Master of Unarmed Combat Oyama had recovered after his long journey through the astral plane, and would be ready to take on a new apprentice.

 

 

Chapter 15. There’s Always a Choice

I WENT OFF IN SEARCH mounted on Storm, who easily withstood the desert heat. I could have flown myself, but the bridle from Kitty the explorer gave a serious boost to movement speed, which mattered to me.

I crossed the whole desert. I saw a forest frozen as if petrified, which awakened and flourished with life just once per year, during the rare rain in this region. I saw strange huge geysers that shot out red-hot air like breaching whales, lava that seeped out of cracks in the earth and poured all across the land, smoke-wreathed valleys covered in volcanic ash.

My acquired immunity protected me from heatstroke, staving off the worst of the desert’s heat, but it still felt like an oven. Acrid sweat poured into my eyes, my mouth kept drying out, my skin itched beneath my armor and I was forced to resort to the only drink in my inventory — elvish wine, warm and sour. I had to force it down. The drunkenness debuff stacked up and my gaze dimmed. My coordination suffered and I wasn’t steering the dragon perfectly straight. Hell, I was all over the place — Storm was thrown from side to side. The alcohol didn’t quench my thirst, but made the heat worse.

At the southwestern edge of the Lakharian Desert, I found ruins all over: wind-battered skeletons of collapses houses, fangs of shattered columns, the remnants of temples, ziggurats, collapsed pyramids and other signs of fallen civilization. Enough to keep Infect busy digging for years! The structures teemed with desert monsters, but the bard had leveled up enough that they wouldn’t stop him.

Soon the first settlement appeared — twenty houses, if that, — surrounded by a crooked wall of stones gathered from nearby. Taking on the guise of a merchant, I landed behind a dune so as not to shock the locals, then walked to the gates where a bored sentry in leather armor stood eating berries and flicking away the seeds, trying to hit the lizards sunning themselves on a stone a yard away.

Seeing me, the guard put on a fearsome expression, grabbed his halberd and raised it before him.

“Who are you and what do you want?” He frowned and his helmet visor fell down