Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 88010 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88010 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
“You are worrying too much. I am sending warriors to deal with the humans. They will be eradicated.”
“Right. You’ll send them to Ireforge. They’ll clash outside the city gates, and the humans will prevail. They’ll push into the city, find places to sell the materials and loot and gear they don’t need, and they’ll upgrade and enchant their weapons and armor.”
“You don’t know everything before it happens.”
“Except I do.”
Sometimes I wonder if a Y chromosome makes it impossible for a male to listen to a female. I’ve done all this dozens of times. I’ve run alts through Ireforge. I could probably go there myself and find the fucking tailor shop and…
I’m going to have to handle this myself. He’s not going to listen. He’s not going to be able to fight these people.
So it’s down to me.
PvP.
CHAPTER 19
Melissa
I’m running away again.
This time, I don’t steal a horse or fuck around wearing clothes that don’t fit or make sense. This time, I have the royal tailors create armor for me. It’s cloth, because I intend to run a magic/enchanted build. It will make me squishy to damage, but I don’t intend to be in melee range anyway.
“Ornix wanted this to be enchanted with mage armor?”
“Do you want me to get him and have him explain it to you himself?”
I am taking a gamble here, hoping that acting regal will make these people not ask questions.
I have everything ready in under a day. It’s hard to be this patient, because I know how fast you can level when there’s nothing else to do. Every hour I spend here is an hour they’re making their way up the gulch.
He’s slightly concerned, but Ornix still isn’t taking the threat seriously. He doesn’t understand how dangerous a group of humans with endless spare time and nothing to do but destroy things really are.
I can’t keep trying to tell him and having him not listen to me. He thinks it’s all over because Nox is stuck in the human world, but I don’t trust that either. I think this is all part of Nox’s plan. I think Ornix is being cornered and he doesn’t even know it. The keep he considers to be a bastion of safety will turn into a trap before he knows it.
I’ve got to save him. And I want to save the people, too. I don’t want to see any more death. Ever. I’ve seen more than enough to last a lifetime.
I choose to sneak out just before dawn, when they day is the coldest and the darkest. There’s not much happening in the keep around that time. Dragons are stimulated by light and do not like to be cold. So it is under dark that I take off from the highest point on the keep.
A moment after I have done this, I realize I might have made a mistake. Should have taken off from the ground, but I wanted the momentum, I wanted to sweep and soar and be far away in moments, not bumbling around near the ground for ages.
I am, however, falling.
I try to extend my wings, but the wind is pushing them back rather than letting them open. I’m in a nosedive. Directly to the moat, which will not be deep enough to make a comfortable landing in.
So this is how it ends. Huh.
I thought I’d feel more.
The tips of my wings twitch. The span opens up, and suddenly I am skyward bound, grazing the moat enough to get my toes wet, but flapping and rising and heading into the distance while still very much alive.
For the first time in my life, I use my wings. I fly. It’s harder than it looks, moving the front edge so I can keep elevation is effort. I bet birds do it without thinking, but I am doing this on manual, and it’s as hard as trying to think your way through walking would be.
I’m fucking scared that I’ll be spotted by someone and Ornix will come for me before I have the chance to save him.
Fortunately, that doesn’t happen. I turn toward the gulch, the narrow mountain pass that sits where the forest ends and leads through to the mouth of Ireforge. The gulch is full of vicious beasts, and they should slow the party down somewhat, though I’m not sure about that because the fact that they wiped out every living thing in the forest means they’re probably strong enough to deal with them.
As I fly over the gray rocky gulch, I smell the stench first. Bodies left on the ground, not despawning like they would in a game world, but rotting and being fed on by the few aerial scavengers that were not also killed on the way through.
I see rock hounds, lava brethren, some mountain cows, a lot of goats, all killed like so many digitally unimportant beasts. These people don’t care about what they’re doing, what horrors they leave behind. They are single-mindedly focused on leveling. Nothing else matters.