Trouble With Horns

76: Threads intertwined

The next morning, we went on another adventure to make some money. Now that we both had wings, though, we decided to stick to our own realm and fly around. It also helped to teach Dawn how to fly, land, and get a bunch of practice in.

We took a break at midday on the top of a stray spire of rock, finding that other fliers had already set up a cute little campsite on the top. It was about eight meters in diameter and held two trees, each of which clung tenaciously to the sixty foot pillar of rock. Grass and low shrubs grew around the edges of the little camp site, while the center was mostly dust and a fire pit. At some point, someone had hung a clothesline between the two trees, but it had frayed to the point of uselessness.

“This is nice,” Dawn remarked as she touched down, having since thankfully gotten the hang of landing.

“Yeah,” I said, then caught my pony tail as it whipped me in the face. “A bit windy though.”

As if to emphasise the point, the wind picked up and stole my words away. Dawn didn’t say anything, since she hadn’t seen me speak, and sat down. Closing the distance, I sat down in the dirt next to her and placed an arm around her waist.

“Babe, we should figure out some sort of hand signal language,” I said, looking into her beautiful glowing orange eyes. “Not any known sign language though, but one between just me and you, like Taylor and I have. That way we could talk while we’re in the air.”

“Not a bad plan,” she said, leaning in to kiss my chapped lips. The wind was kind of brutal on the skin. Maybe we should get ourselves some masks. Another thing to think about.

Shifting to face her, I looked down at her hands, then back up again. “So how about we start now then? We should make the important gestures ones that can be done while flying and expanded to be a broad enough movement to see over some distance…”

****

We spent our lunch making up some very rudimentary gestures to help us with our current task, and promised we’d each think on some things. We also realised we could use our wings to signal each other too, so we added that to the mix too.

That afternoon, we continued our flight across the plains that were crammed between the shore and the high mountains. It was an interesting land, with lush green forests surrounding the rivers, while the grasslands between swayed with golden grass. A road cut through the swath of grassland, before driving through the forests and bridging the river.

It was a gorgeous view, and I watched as a large caravan wove its way along the road. It was one of those big ones, the ones that used enchanted horseshoes for the horses because the carts they pulled were too heavy. I could see that even with the help of the expensive magical assistance, the poor animals moved slowly.

Too slowly.

I squinted and signaled to Dawn with a lopsided flap of my wings and a broad gesture. Neutrals in danger. She dipped a wing in acknowledgement and veered off to get a better look, me trailing after her.

Something was moving in the tall grass, parts of it weren’t swaying with the wind, and instead, they moved with a far more sinister pattern. As we moved overhead, the reason for it became clear. Bandits were closing in on the wagons from all sides, and in a minute or two, their trap would be sprung. The caravan wouldn’t stand a chance, not outnumbered three to one like it appeared.

Dawn and I veered in towards each other and shared a look, one with a common sentiment. It was time to dive.

A second before we made our decision, the bandits attacked, and they weren’t just bandits. It was clear even from this height that they were players. No NPC bandits had that many mages in their ranks.

The air changed and sparks began to flicker along my body as I gathered my power. To my right, heat radiated, the effects of Dawn doing the same.

I dove, wings pulling in tight to my body and my gauntlet trailing behind me. My rockets fired, putting on even more speed and bumping me past my terminal velocity. Armoured plates along my fists locked in place to protect my wrist from the coming impact.

I streaked towards the ground, trailing ruptured air and the smell of ozone. I had a long way to fall, but I covered it in a few seconds. 

The sound was immense. Earth, rock, road, and plains, they all shattered under the combined impact of force and thunder. Lightning lashed out from the impact, shredding the wild grass and throwing it up to hang in the air, held by static electricity. In my peripheral vision, a rogue with a shock of fluffy golden hair stared at me with comically wide eyes, his stream chat hanging forgotten in midair.

A tank leapt at me, all clanking black armour and stubble, and I recognised the red glow on his sword as a pvp taunt. It promised a swift trip to May’s cuddly netflix room if I didn’t focus my efforts on him for the next five or so seconds. So that’s what I did.

The kinetic energy from my impact had been absorbed by the crash shield spell, and converted into lightning for me to throw around. Lifting a gauntlet, I caught his sword and yanked on it, pulling him off balance and right into my energy-charged left hook.

He stumbled backwards and brought his tower shield to bear between us, sword still glowing with that ominous red colour. Dawn fixed my problem by making his armour glow a similar shade with a searing torrent of flame. The tank screamed and spun, switching his attention and breaking the taunt, leaving me free to block a blast of arcane energy from a cute mage chick.

Wait. Cute? Her violet eyes were all full of fear, but she hit me with the attack anyway, brave girl. Rather than punch her into submission and reinforce that fear, I raised a hand above me and pulled lightning down out of the sky. It crashed into her, annihilating her shields and smashing her to her knees. Damn… she was tougher than she looked. With an apologetic smile, I locked my fist and surged forward, sending her to May and her body ragdolling into the grass.

“Elena!” the tank roared, turning from the battering Dawn was giving his shield to rush me. “You bitch!”

“That’s me!” I laughed, letting him into range and promptly dropping to one knee.

The maneuver confused him, and I surged upwards, right fist surging into his chin. I closed my fingers around his throat and mentally queued my slam ability, riding him into the air. The nearest healer was my target.

Explosive lightning burst out of the impact, disintegrating the squishy and badly damaging the tank. I hadn’t been expecting to one-shot the healer, so my fist ghosted through empty air. What level were these people? I was level thirty one now, and they were… oh, level twenty five on the tank. The healer had been twenty two, and that Elena girl was twenty six. Poor bastards were overleveled by the player equivalent of elite mobs. Still, they were engaging in banditry so I guess we needed to stop them.

The guards on the caravan jumped down to help in the fight, and the bandits could see they weren’t going to win this one. “Use the stones!” The tank was calling, demonstrating by pulling out a little glowing rock from his inventory.

I lunged to stop him, but I was too late. He vanished into thin air, as did all of his comrades that still lived. Nothing but the bodies of their fallen and the dust of the consumed stones remained.

With a sigh, I bent down to have a look at the bodies. Most of them were faceless now, evidently the players didn’t like the idea of a realistic corpse sitting there on the ground with their features. The healer was nothing but dust and charred bones, although a ring had dropped. The mage girl with the pretty eyes had left behind her focus, and I winced as I picked it up. It looked expensive. It went into my inventory.

“Ma’ams,” a male voice called. Turning to greet him, both Dawn and I gave him a suspicious look. Something about him seemed… off.

Weird, long, and limp, his mustache wiggled as he spoke. “I am the captain of this company. Thank you for the assistance in dealing with the bandits.”

“No problem, my dude,” I said, smiling despite the weird vibes I was getting. “You working for yourselves or…”

“This caravan is owned and operated by the great Baron Durham,” the man said, puffing his chest out.

“Right…” I grimaced. Of course it was him. “Well, tell him that Lady Tami and Lady Aurora helped defend his property.”

“Ah, yes,” he nodded, glancing between us as I told him we were nobility.

Before he could continue, I leapt into the air and popped a dash cooldown. There wasn’t any sort of mood I could be in that would let me willingly talk to that guy’s cronies.

Dawn joined me in the air, and after a brief little wing-waggle conversation, we agreed to fly back to town. Our inventories were full of loot to sell, so we’d done our job today.

The flight back to town was quick, and we flew down to the temple to get some free healing rather than wasting a potion. What we weren’t expecting to find when we landed, were the bandits we’d just fought.

They were gathered around the entrance, arguing and generally looking a little depressed. Beside me, Dawn threw me a look that said, Let’s just go.

Shaking my head, I approached them, and specifically the Elena chick. She saw me coming and her eyes went wide again with fear. Making a split second decision, I entered her personal space with a silent glare.

“Yo, you already fucked up our quest, now you’re going to—“ the tank began, but I clicked my fingers at him and made a zipping motion, all while maintaining eye contact on the mage. She was tipping off my gaydar, so I wanted to have a little fun.

I was right in her face now, within a few inches of outright kissing her, and then I grinned. “You dropped something back there.”

The little glowing orb dropped into my hand with a slap, and I stepped back to pass it to her. “So, Elena and friends. Care to tell us what that was all about? You’re clearly all a little low level to be raiding a noble’s merchandise.”

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