The Blackwyrm Chronicles #1: A Misadventure like no other...

Chapter 24

The next day, Luna and I had another lesson in Imagery magic. It was nothing special: just a crash course on casting more resilient defensive wards. Luna passed it with flying colors while I had a bit of trouble casting the stronger wards. I ran into Stanford after the lesson was over with, and he told us that my team and I would be taken directly to the mountain city via carriage . I was silently grateful for that fact: "At least we won't be rained on," I thought to myself.

At dinner, I discussed the plan for how we were going to get to Volhime.

"We leave two days from now, so have your belongings packed up and ready to go," I began, "Thankfully, we'll be traveling by carriage, so we'll be able to rest a little on the ride there."

Everyone nodded in confirmation.

Nova was idly tinkering on a strange contraption that looked badass and downright terrifying.

"What's that?" I asked her.

"Hmm? Oh," She began, holding up her project, "I call it a hand cannon."

She held it by a grip, her index finger hovering close to a trigger. This 'hand cannon', as Nova had called it, was quite a weapon: it was around the length of Nova's forearm (This is merely a rough estimate) and its color palette consisted of grays, blacks, and purple. The tip of this weapon emitted a faint stream of purple vapor, and several ports on the side of the invention also issued forth faint streams of metallic-smelling smoke. Moving on, I could tell that Nova had poured her heart into creating this deadly work of art: the dark gray and black metal that made up the hand cannon was covered by intricate engravings, which glowed a faint purple.

"Powered by ethridium?" I guessed.

"Yep," She answered with a grin.

"How dangerous is it?" Ben asked.

"Extremely. This could disintegrate someone with a single shot," She continued, looking at her weapon fondly, "Isn't it a beauty?"

"Wow," I replied simply.

Nova chuckled, "I've been working on this bad boy for a while. For the last few prototypes I've created, the chunk of ethridium I used for the power source for those models was...impure."

"What happened?" Dorrian asked.

"The impurity caused the weapon to be unstable and, well, blow up in my hand."

"Oh shit," Dorrian hissed, "How do you still have your bloody hand then?"

"I was wearing protective gear," Nova responded.

"But still...your hand..." Dorrian began slowly.

Nova laughed, "Trust me, I've had more than my fair share of prototypes fail spectacularly and blow up in my face. You get used to it after the first few explosions."

Ben chuckled, "I now see why you recruited Nova, Helix. She's an inventor."

"Well, thanks I guess," She replied, "I specialize in weaponry and robotics. That's what I've been taught anyway since I was a little kid."

Pip was sitting on her shoulder, and he waved at Ben. "Hello!"

Ben looked at him cautiously, then poked him.

"Ack! What was that for?" Pip demanded.

"Just curious," Ben muttered. He took out an arrow and grabbed his bow, "Do you know if he can take an arrow?"

Nova sighed, "Please stop. I'd really appreciate it if you didn't use my creation as a bloody target. The poor guy's scared enough as it is."

Ben shrugged, "Fair enough."

I grinned, "You're almost as bad as Dorrian."

"What do you mean by that?" Ben demanded.

An innocent grin appeared on my face. "I mean you both love to shoot at anything that moves, breathes, or exists in general. You're both extremely trigger happy."

Ben started to say something, then decided not to, "You got me."

"Yeah," Dorrian mumbled, "You make a fine argument."

"Isn't that what your teachers taught you? To shoot at anything that qualifies as an enemy?" I asked them.

"Pretty much, yeah," They both replied.

Ana shook her head in disbelief, "Wow, just...wow."

Dorrian smiled, "That's not the worst thing," He looked at me, "Remember when we had to escape that dungeon we were thrown into?"

I sighed, "I still don't understand why those bastards took our clothing."

Long story short: we broke out of a dungeon butt-naked because we were captured by the people we were trying to arrest. Thankfully, we were able to get our gear and clothing back, but it's not every day that such a mission happens. It certainly makes for one hell of a story to tell.

Luna and Analise looked at each other in horror. Nova also seemed equally as horrified, "Wait, what?"

I shared an evil grin with Dorrian, "Yep, we had to break out of a dungeon and kick ass butt-naked. I don't know why our captors thought it necessary to strip us of everything-even our briefs, but hey, we broke out, and we're not impotent due to a stray arrow. Yeah!"

Dorrian shared in my enthusiasm while Luna, Analise, and Nova all looked green in the face.

"I can't believe I'm going to ask this question." Nova murmured. "Why did they find it necessary to take your clothing from you?"

I shrugged. "Beats me. Dorrian and I tried to break into a fortress that had been taken over by a group of bandits. We thought it was a good idea to scale the wall of the fort as opposed to going through the main door."

"Good gods..." Luna breathed. "You both were apprehended on the wall, weren't you?"

"...Maybe."

She groaned and facepalmed. "I'm so glad you're not that foolish anymore..."

The rest of the night was like that: sharing a drink and a handful of screwed up stories from the past. Honestly, we'd need all the laughs we could find in the coming days.