Dragon Rider Chronicles 2: A Progression Fantasy by DB King & Trent Bloom

Author:DB King & Trent Bloom [King, DB & Bloom, Trent]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-10-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

“You met the first Ur-Mage?” Gwen exclaimed, shoving past the others as Basch recounted what had happened. Audric, Marnus, and his friends all stood around him, listening intently. Martha, on the other hand, was concerned with documenting every word from Basch’s mouth, sitting with her book and quill ready.

“I think I met… a phantasm of him,” Basch answered, unsure. “He said he stored a chunk of his soul in the sword.” He shrugged. “I guess, in a way, I did meet him.” Basch put a hand on his pounding head. “Honestly, it’s all a bit hazy. I feel like I’ve been kicked in the head by a horse and—”

“Like you downed a barrel of ale?” Gwen added.

Basch raised an eyebrow. “Precisely.”

“Tiana gave you some of my wit-breaker mushrooms, right?” Gwen asked nervously. “I saw you munching on them earlier…”

Basch paused. “Y-,Yes. What do they—”

“Oh, n-nothing at all,” Gwen said. “They’re perfectly ordinary mushrooms with exactly zero hallucinogenic and/or fatal side effects.” Her eyes flitted about.

“Relax, Gwen,” Audric said. “I doubt your mushrooms stirred this.” He gave her a stern, serious look. “The more pressing concern is why you gave them to Tiana—who is, need I remind you, a student.”

Gwen shrugged. “She needed to loosen up.”

“So you tried to drug me?” Tiana exclaimed.

“It’s just a little dose,” Gwen said. “Barely stronger than a cup of stiff whisky. Ragon had quite a few and he’s…” Gwen gestured off to one side of the workshop, where Ragon lay slumped over onto Terence’s shoulder, snoring softly. Gwen turned back to the group and smiled.

Tiana gave her a flat look.

Marnus guffawed, plucking one of the mushrooms from Tiana’s hands. He sniffed them. “Yeah, these wouldn’t affect someone like Tiana very much. They’re very weak, and the drug within them is mundane.” Marnus stuck his tongue out and licked it. He scrunched his nose. “And it’s, uh, not very well constructed—horticulturally and magically speaking.”

“Hey, I worked hard on those,” Gwen said, snatching the mushroom back.

“All I’m saying is,” Marnus continued, “Tiana is an elf of the Great Forest. Of the Ik’ai. She’s been training her body to tolerate all manner of poisons and venoms since she was a babe.” The elf nodded at Basch. “And he’s the Ur-Mage.”

“And I only had one or two, I think,” Basch said. “How many did Ragon have?”

“Twenty-six,” Jedry answered. “No, twenty-seven.”

“So, it wasn’t the mushrooms,” Audric said. “You did meet with the Ur-Mage. With Alderon himself.” His mentor was shocked, Basch could tell, but the ice mage’s stern, unreadable face hid it well. “What did he tell you?”

“He… talked about the founding of Valhadria,” Basch said, flashes of the event becoming clearer in his memory as he spoke. “He said that I had an ability.”

Everyone leaned in a little closer.

“What kinda ability?” Drex asked, excitedly. “Can you fly? Lift things with your mind?”

“Not quite,” Basch said. “Alderon said I can inscribe magic into objects.” Basch pursed his lips. “I’m… still trying to wrap my head around it. He said I can invest a sliver of my soul into something to give it special properties.

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