Scales Like Stars (Dragons...in...SPACE! Book 1) Page 9

  The Baron growled. “I care not!”

  His d10s rolled. Two of them came up as tens.

  “I go on initiative count...” the Baron paused. “Negative three, three and four.”

  “Wait, I thought rolling low was good,” Relix said, her brow furrowing. “but then the attacks required him to roll high. Now it’s good again?”

  “For skill checks and stat checks, yes. And for initiative checks – since the round goes tick 0, tick 1, tick 2, and so on,” Julia said – but before she could speak, Merton sprang to his feet, pointing at the Baron.

  “Thock! Thock! Thock! The sound fills your ears: Heavy crossbows! You barely have time to look away from the arm-lock you’ve put around the running Guard’s head to see that five others have arrived, and these have unslung their crossbows!”

  “Betrayal!” The Baron roared back, standing up. “They did not roll initiative.”

  “That’s because readied ranged weapons don’t roll for initiative. They go on their ROF tick – for heavy crossbows, that’s tick 1 on any round they’re readied on, then every other round after that!” He grinned, wickedly. “They-”

  “Wait!” The Baron grabbed at his sheets, turning pages over. “I roll catch arrow skill!” His d100 flew, clattering.

  “W-What!?” Relix asked. “But he’s a priest, isn’t he? How can he catch arrows!”

  “The Baron’s playing a class that follows the God Shona, meaning he can get access to...” Julia’s eyes widened. Then her grin became wicked. “Ah. Clever Miles, very clever...”

  Four of the crossbow bolts thudded not into the furious, bloody handed Zealot of Shona. Two were smacked from the air by his rapid moving palm, while another sailed into the water behind him. The third thudded into one of the ship-posts that he stood beside. But the fifth whistled out and smashed into his hip. It thudded home.

  “You take-” Merton picked up two d4s. He rolled. 4 and 2. He grinned wickedly, then rolled another d4. Another 4. He rolled again and sighed, getting only a 1. But still. He quickly added the damage, factoring in the fact penetration damage dice were reduced by 1, and that the critical hit he had rolled on the crit-table added more damage...he looked up at the Baron, his eyes glittering. “You take ten damage as the bolt buries itself into your leg.”

  “Woooo!” Julia called out and Trevor shook his head.

  “Fucking Hackmaster.”

  Down at the table, Reikstand had leaped the distance betwixt him and the crossbowmen. They were running in terror as his palm smashed in faces, his legs devastated genitalia. Then he swung – and his d20 came up with that most dreaded number. A natural 1. As he glowered at it, Relix looked at Julia.

  “That means he has made a misstep, does it not?”

  “Yup,” Julia said, cheerfully as Merton began to roll a 1d1000 – via the simple expedient of rolling three d10s and cobbling together a number in that order. He ended up looking at two hundred and sixty two, and grinned over his GM screen at the Baron.

  “Make a dexterity check, oh Baron,” he said.

  The Baron frowned and rolled. His dice rolled, tumbled, and came up a 19. On any other character, that would have been an utter failure. But thanks to his flaw-tastic origin, he still passed with flying colors. A good thing too, as Merton continued.

  “As you smite down yet another cowering guard...” Merton said. “Your fist lashes out and a guard manages to jerk aside at just the right moment. Your knuckles smash into a pillar and, as you had not readied yourself for the blow, a shock of pain shoots up your arm. Roll your own unarmed damage, halve it, then apply it to yourself.”

  The Baron growled angrily, but dutifully picked up his dice and started rolling. In the end, he took six damage – which brought his health to nearly 3/4ths. But his wounds were already starting to reknit as the guard started to try and rally. Merton rolled their morale check and they succeeded.

  Merton took a moment to pull out a piece of paper. He scribbled some notes on it, then looked up at the Baron. He rolled his shoulders and continued to speak: “And so, fifty guardsmen march towards the docks. Their faces are grim and determined. The front two rows bristle with pikes, while the rear are filled with crossbowmen and archers.”

  The Baron…

  Smiled.

  Reikstand didn’t simply stand there, to be impaled. Instead, he simply sprinted away from the enemy. They gave chase – and he led them into the most thickly built up parts of town. There, the Baron demonstrated how he had earned his wings, when he had been but a small hatchling in the Singularity Principalities. Reikstand would spring out and slay an entire party of guards in a single flurry of furious blows, then fade back into alleyways. Wagons that had been left parked beside houses were tipped over, their contents sent spilling down, creating confusion in carefully ordered ranks of guardsmen, opening up weaknesses for Reikstand to strike. The cleric used his levitation ability to reach rooftops without needing to climb or make noise, then drop down to slay with feet and head and hand. It was a total, one sided slaughter .

  Merton took all of this with a smile, a nod, and a pen scribbling on paper.

  On and on it went. The dice rolled – and they came up with nasty results more than once. A lucky pike stab there. A crossbow bolt there. But the intricacies of the Hackmaster system seemed to play all into the Baron’s hands: his absurdly high armor class meant each critical hit was reduced to almost total ineffectiveness, his regeneration allowed him to keep ticking far longer than one might have expected. And the Baron’s brutal, cunning tactics meant he always had ways to escape, to strike again.

  At last, the guard’s morale broke, shattered, and they fled, leaving thirty of their number dead or dying in the choked streets of Varneer. Which had been the name of the city, before Reikstand started rumbling about how he was going to rename it Dragontopia. As he spoke, Merton continued to make notes.

  “Now!” The Baron laughed, his voice exalting. “Tell me. How many experience points do I get ?”

  Merton grinned. “Why, my good Baron, you get... nothing !” He sprang to his feet, slamming his palms down onto the table. “You lose ! Good day sir!” He grinned. “Reikstand has been reduced to a commoner, with no skills to his name! He is found a day later and impaled on a pike for the world to see! His name is spat upon!” He laughed.

  The Baron gaped at him, then roared. “You cheating -”

  “And now he plays the trap card,” Julia whispered as Merton picked up and slammed down in the center of the table, for all to see, the piece of paper he had been writing on. It was a colorless print out, dominated by a large, granulated circle. Charted on it was a series of dots and lines, creating a line that went from Lawful Neutral – which was marked on the lower left hand side of the circle – almost directly across the circle to Chaotic Evil.

  “It’s all here, in black and white, clear as crystal!” Merton walked around the table, thrusting his finger at the paper. “You have changed your alignment, Baron. You are a zealot, which means you must remain exactly the same alignment as your god! Furthermore, you have acted completely dishonorably as a lawful neutral character. Fighting unfair, not giving quarter, looting ?” He shook his head. “Your honor is dropped to the dishonorable category automatically – along with an automatic level loss – when you change alignment. After computing your other honor losses, you hit negatives. Which means...” He grinned. “Your character suffers that most ignoble of fates...”

  The Baron’s nostrils had thinned to slits.

  “Becoming. An. En. Pee. Cee.” Merton said each letter with pure relish.

  The Baron’s nostrils flared and smoke poured into the air. “You lying ...”

  “Baron Bex,” Relix said, standing up. “Are you saying that you contest your loss on the field of honor today?”

  The Baron’s hands clenched. He was literally shaking . Merton stood his ground, as cool as a cucumber. Julia’s heart was in her throat as she watched. All she could see was Merton falling to the ground, sa
ns head. The Baron was right there. And he was so incredibly strong. But then the Baron stepped backwards. His voice was stiff as he growled. “I will send these rule books to the finest minds of the FTE dueling commissions and your evidence . This recording will be dissected from top to bottom. If they find a single irregularity, a single evidence of cheating, a single particle of something out of place, I will come and I will nukefuck your pitiful ship into cosmic dust and then rape your bitch of a wife to death in my largest form while she’s humanolocked! Do. You. Understand. Me.”

  “Get the hell of my ship,” Merton snarled. “And hand over your egg.”

  The Baron grabbed the table and flung it upwards. Papers scattered. Dice crashed. Minifigurines clattered across the arena floor. The table itself cartwheeled upwards and smashed into the protection field that surrounded the grand-stand. Metal fragments hazed through the air as the field cracked and sparked. Before the chunks had even struck the ground, the massive dragon turned and stormed out.

  As he left, Merton breathed slowly out. “And I thought Trevor got mad about what happened on Bespin.”

  “That’s cause it was bullshit !” Trevor shouted.

  “I-Is he allowed to threaten you like that?” Merton’s Mom asked, her voice horrified as she looked at Relix.

  Relix let out a long suffering sigh. “It’s a chromatic thing.”

  “ Racist ,” Julia hissed.

  ***

  Merton managed to remain standing until the doors to the arena opened and his wife, his girlfriend, his parents and his friends hurried in. Then he collapsed onto his ass, his face going sheeting white as his knees shuddered. His palms shook so hard that he was pretty sure that he was actually drumming on the deck. Relix and Julia knelt to either side of him, their eyes filled with concern. Julia, he wasn’t shocked by. But Relix actually took him aback. Then she slapped his head gently.

  “If you knew you were going to win , why didn’t you make your demands more extravagant? House Castrovel could have killed to have a few trade routes in this arm of the galaxy!”

  “Insert trite 1950s standup routine about married life joke number 39,821,” Julia muttered in Merton’s ear.

  “R-Right...” Merton shook his head as he started to stand up. Julia and Relix both helped him. Relix, actually, did most of the lifting. She mashed herself against his side, her arm sliding along the small of his back. Merton was deeply confused until he remembered her mentioning how exothermic humans were. Which was weird, considering how many dragons breathed fucking fire . As he considered that, Trevor shook his head slightly.

  “Seriously, Bespin was bullshit,” he said.

  “You were the one who made a freelance mercenary company on Cloud City three years after the destruction of the first fucking Death Star, dude. What did you expect would happen when the Empire showed up?” Merton groaned.

  Trevor smirked slightly. “You...are a fucking killer GM, dude.”

  “I know, he’s great, isn’t he?” Julia asked, giggling slightly.

  “No, I mean, he keeps killing us,” Trevor said, frowning.

  “So, what happens now?” Dad asked, butting in. His mustache was at full bristle and he looked at Relix intently. “Will House Thresh back off?”

  “Yes,” Relix said, sounding amused. “He only lost face and a minor cousin. With the loss of face, he’ll have no reason to continue bothering me.” She chortled quietly. “After all, if he tries again, then I can simply bring this event up at the next Galactic Gala and ruin his reputation and the reputation of his house before the other Great Houses. And as the Baron and his House rely on their reputation as asskickers to get merc contracts throughout the spinward reaches and the unsettled core...” She chuckled. “We have put paid to that .”

  ***

  Servants picked up the shining black egg. They were slave collared and had restraint implants in their foreheads, and they had been enchanted to only follow the orders of Baron Bex. But despite all of that, Bex and his half-sister, Gimtesh, kept their eyes on the four servants as they gingerly moved their egg onto the cart.

  “Well,” Gimtesh growled. “This is one serious fuckup.”

  Bex’s hand closed around her throat. He lifted her up and the half-elven girl made a loud gurgling, gagging noise, her feet kicking, her hands going to his wrist, trying to hold herself up. Her stunted half-wings spread and she tried to choke out a word. “S...So...Sorry.”

  “I know it was a fuckup, Gimtesh,” Bex snarled.

  “T-Then...keep?” Gimtesh looked at the egg.

  “I can’t ,” Bex hissed, jerking her forward. “That human bastard and that spoiled cunt of a royal princess are backwood bumpkins . We have at least a few weeks before they discover the secret. That’s time enough for...” He looked at the egg. A shimmering stasis field snapped around the shining black surface. He looked back at Gimtesh. “For the Ousters.”

  He dropped Gimtesh to the ground. She gasped, clutching at her neck. Coughed. Coughed again. She looked up. “B-But...”

  “We can breed a new egg for Xosh,” Bex said, looking down at the stasis field – shining like a chrome soap bubble, concealing what it held. A slave typed in a pass-key code to the side of the stasis emitter. Bex punched the pass-key pad. The buttons shattered and sparks flew from the side of the machine. He grinned slightly. “Add a few days to our estimation. Just in case.”

  Gimtesh watched as the egg was wheeled away by the servants.

  She didn’t fear the servants giving anything away.

  They, after all, had no tongues.

  ***

  The Talon-9 flipped, then burned hard away from Arcturus at almost 5Gs. And the fact that Merton could say or think a sentence like that almost made up for the fact that he had been kidnapped by a spoiled space dragon princess. Or was that spoiled dragon space princess? Either way, he felt like his whole body had turned into rubber. A few years of sheer terror had been compacted into the past two days. And now, at last, he was able to relax, lounging in a chair as he looked at the stasis bubble that contained the newest member of his increasingly bizarre family.

  Relix and Thuwit both sat at the other sides of the table. Relix’s tail kept bumping against his ankle, then jerking away. Then, a few moments later, it would creep back to bump against him again.

  “It’s a stasis bubble,” Thuwit said. “Simple divination spells have determined that it does contain a dragon egg. We believe that the key-input was destroyed intentionally, though.”

  “Of course it was,” Relix muttered.

  “Okay,” Merton said. “Three questions.”

  Thuwit looked at him. Rather than the withering looks he had sent Merton at the beginning of their relationships, Thuwit now looked at him with something close to actual fucking respect. It was almost heartwarming.

  “One,” Merton said. “How do stasis bubbles work?”

  “They’re rudimentary alterations to teleport spells,” Thuwit said. “But rather than choosing a destination, they simply choose no destination and rework the spatial warping elements into sustaining the teleport. Since teleportation is instant, this extends that instantaneous moment until the magical energy bleeds away. While that ‘moment’ exists, nothing can change within the sphere.”

  “Huh.” Merton blinked. “What teleport spell did they use as the basis?”

  “Intergalactic,” Relix snarled.

  “So, we have some time until this wears off.” Merton nodded. “Question two: how do dragons usually work? Egg wise?”

  Relix crossed her arms underneath her breasts, leaning back in her seat. She arched her back slightly and Merton found it hard to ignore the perkiness of her chest, which strained against her sheer robes. Her voice, though, was pure irritation. “An egg is laid. Between six to nine months later, a dragon comes out. It drinks in magic and information from the surrounding area, so they’re very knowledgeable. But dragon children lack any context for the information they know, and thus, are... extremely irritating.”
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br />   Merton nodded.

  “And they try to have sex with everything ,” Relix muttered.

  “Yeah. What?” Merton looked at her.

  “And your third question, m’lord?” Thuwit asked.

  “Uh…” Merton blinked and filed that away for later ‘what the fuckery.’ He looked at Thuwit. “What local pirates, thugs, low lifes, assassins and assorted riff-raff exist in the Orion Arm?”

  Relix and Thuwit’s brows furrowed.

  “You think this egg has some incriminating intelligence on House Thresh?” Thuwit asked – his fingers already tapping out a command code sequence on the table – his finger touches creating tiny flashes of lights under his long, thin hand.