Path of Dragons

With the light of a gibbous moon shining down on him, Elijah landed in a clearing near the grove. When he hit the ground, it still sent a shock through his legs and up his spine, but the impact was far less severe than it had been even six weeks before. All of his practice, it seemed, had come in handy. Still, he knew he had a long way to go before he could approach the natural grace of a true avian predator like the birds who inhabited the storm to the west of his island. But where they had reached the peak, Elijah had only begun to glimpse what was possible with Shape of the Sky, so he hoped to one day surpass them.

For now, though, he had other things on his mind. Without hesitation, he resumed his human shape, then used Soothe to mend any damage he might have incurred before setting off toward the coast where he knew he’d find Miguel.

When the young man had returned to the island, he hadn’t gone straight back to the grove. Instead, he’d meandered through the island’s forest, ending up on the very same promontory where Elijah had first encountered the Voxx. The sight of that rock jutting out over a deep and protected fishing hole brought back quite a few memories. Some of them – like catching fish which were then confiscated by the panther – were good. Others, like the aforementioned encounter with the Voxxian monster that had nearly killed him and the island’s guardian, were decidedly less so.

With a sigh, he leaped over a fallen tree, then climbed the angled rock to the flat peak. There, he found Miguel sitting with his legs dangling over the edge. The young man tossed a loose stone into the water.

“You know,” Elijah said, sitting beside his nephew. “I almost died here once.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You know about the Voxx, right?” Elijah asked. Miguel nodded, and he went on, “Well, this was my favorite fishing spot for the first six months after the world transformed. There are some huge steelhead trout down there. A lot bigger than they were before everything changed. More dangerous, too. I almost lost a fingers on more than one occasion.

“But there I was, just minding my own business with this huge Voxxian monster – it was bigger than my lamellar ape form – burst out of the water,” Elijah explained. “I was only level two at the time, so I knew there was no chance I could take it.”

“Only level two? Six months in? How?”

Elijah shrugged. “When I first washed ashore, I was barely alive,” he said. “Cancer, you know? And chemotherapy. I think my Strength attribute was only at three points. And my Constitution was a one. So, it was all I could do to just survive. Even then, I probably wouldn’t have made it with my buddy.”

“The guardian.”

“Yep. He was a mist panther. Or I think that’s what he was called. Either way, I think he took pity on me. So, I gave him some of my food, and he looked out for me,” Elijah said. “That’s how I survived the Voxx attack. I managed to delay it for a few seconds, which gave me a chance to run away. Just as it caught up, the panther found me. They fought, going back and forth until, at last, the panther won. I’ll never forget that. No matter what else happens, I’ll always remember that day because it was then that I fully realized how much the world had changed. There’s no room for weakness in this world. Maybe if we’d been born someplace that was touched by the World Tree centuries ago, we could afford a little weakness. I don’t know. But Earth? Right now, it’s a battlefield out there. I think you understand that better than most, after everything you’ve been through.

“But that panther saved me. He gave me a chance to survive, and I took it. I’ve been fighting – off and on – ever since then,” Elijiah stated.

“Why are you telling me this?” asked Miguel.

Elijah shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe to give you context,” he said. “I almost died a few days ago. I was strutting around like I was Earth’s top dog, and I almost got killed by someone thirty levels lower than me.”

“How?”

“Doesn’t matter. I don’t think it’s unique,” Elijah answered. “His class was rare, I’m sure. But something I’ve come to realize is that we’re all vulnerable. Even when we’re stronger than everyone else, we can’t stop. We can’t hold back. If we do, we’ll end up in the ground.”

“I know,” Miguel said.

Elijah didn’t doubt it. The young man had been through so much that there was no way he wasn’t just as aware of the world’s dangers as Elijah was. Still, it bore mentioning, if only because returning to the scene of his first brush with the Voxx had brought it to mind.

“Have you had a chance to look through the nature-attuned classes?” Elijah asked. He’d been gone for a while, which should have given Miguel plenty of opportunity to study the guide.

“Yeah. A bunch of times,” Miguel answered.

“And?”

“There are a lot of them that sound good,” he hedged. “Colt says the class doesn’t matter. It’s the man behind the class that makes the difference.”

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Elijah nodded. “That’s true enough,” he agreed. “But let me tell you another story.”

Then, he recounted his encounter with Thor. Elijah knew that the other high-ranker hadn’t approached his cultivation level – which had been confirmed by Isaiah, who’d scanned him when he passed through Seattle – but due to his high-grade, combat-focused class, he was able to stand toe-to-toe with Elijah.

“Our classes matter,” he said. “So does cultivation. Our abilities. Our cores. It’s all part of it. If you want to fight, then you need to pick a class meant for it.”

“I don’t think my mom wants that.”

“Probably not,” Elijah allowed. “But it’s not her life. It’s yours. So, I’ll ask you this – who are you? Are you the type of man who can sit in the back and craft? Are you the sort who can spend his life tending to a garden? Can you spend your days running a shop? If so, that’s great. Be the best damned shopkeeper you can be. Or crafter. Or gardener. We will support your choices no matter what.”

“I…I don’t want that,” Miguel said. “I want to fight.”

“There you have it, then. This is about you. Not me. Not your mom. Not Colt. You. Going through life making your choices based on whether or not you’ll please everyone else is a good way to end up with a lot of regrets,” Elijah advised. “Next question – how do you want to fight? With magic, maybe? Do you want to –”

“No,” Miguel answered. “I…I’m going to be a Warrior like mom. Or a Ranger.”

“Explain why.”

Without hesitation, Miguel said, “I feel like Sorcerers are too limited. They can do a lot of damage, but the second somebody breaks through their shields, they’re vulnerable.”

“That’s mostly true. But you remember Isaak, right? You met him in Argos,” Elijah said. Miguel nodded. “He has this skill where he basically gets a second life. It has a cooldown, and he’s vulnerable while it’s active. But it’ll let him survive a fatal wound.”

“Are you supposed to be telling people that?”

Most people liked to keep the details of their abilities secret, so it was a bit of a faux pas to reveal Isaak’s secrets. That was unimportant next to guiding Miguel forward, though. Elijah shrugged. “Probably not. You won’t tell on me, will you?”

“No,” Miguel said quickly. Then, he went on, “But it’s more than survivability. I just…I like fighting with weapons. They’re more solid. They’re dependable. And I want to be able to take a hit if everything goes wrong.”

“You’re not just saying that because your mom was a Warrior, right?”

“I’m not,” he insisted. “I doubt I’d get her class anyway. I asked Nerthus about it, and he’d never even heard of a Dragon Lancer. I think it was pretty rare.”

“Maybe. But Nerthus isn’t much older than you, relatively speaking. He doesn’t know everything.”

“Really?”

“That’s what he said. When I first met him, he was barely more than a foot tall,” Eliijah said, glancing at his nephew. The young man had continued to grow, and he expected that it wouldn’t be that long before Miguel was taller than him. Not that that was a huge accomplishment. Elijah was a lot of things, but he’d never been blessed with great height. “If you took Warrior, what kind of class would you hope for?”

“Some kind of hybrid,” Miguel answered, again without hesitation. “I don’t want to be a protector. I want to have options.”

“You know that versatility comes at a cost, right? If you go that route, you’ll never be as good at a particular task as someone who specialized,” Elijah explained.

“I know. Like I said, I want options. And I want something that will take advantage of my attunement.”

“What if it isn’t nature?”

“It is.”

“You seem sure.”

“I am,” Miguel said. “I feel it sometimes. It took a while before I recognized what it was, but now that Nerthus told me what to look for, I can feel it. Especially when I’m around animals like Trevor and his family.”

“And if you become a Ranger?”

“I don’t know. Same thoughts, I guess. Is that wrong?”

Elijah shook his head. “It’s fine. But now that we’re sure you want to be a fighter of some sort, we need to start taking your training seriously,” he said. “What I have in mind is more geared toward after you get your archetype, but it’ll be fine to get started before.”

Then, he explained what he’d planned. At first, Miguel seemed eager, but as Elijah went on, detailing every minute of every day, his enthusiasm waned a little. Still, by the time Elijah finished, Miguel maintained the same steely-eyed determination he’d worn like a cloak since the beginning.

The next morning, they began his training. For the most part, Elijah accompanied him, but he also enlisted Colt’s help, especially for the weapons training. Finally, he’d asked Nerthus to do everything he could to prepare Miguel to step into the world of cultivation as soon as he obtained an archetype.

The training itself was nothing groundbreaking. Lots of running, swimming, and lifting heavy things. The difference was that, with Elijah there, Miguel’s recovery time was cut down to almost nothing. He could train longer and harder before exhaustion finally pushed him over the edge. That was where Nerthus came in, guiding Miguel through hours of meditation that seemed far more effective than Elijah’s attempts at teaching his nephew to connect with nature.

Finally, at the end of each day, Elijah gave Miguel a quarter of one of his grove berries. According to Nerthus, they were pseudo natural treasures, and as such, they were capable of – over time – creating a build-up of ethera that would help in Body cultivation. Elijah was counting on the berries helping when the time came to push himself to the next stage, and he hoped that their addition to his nephew’s diet would work toward preparing Miguel for what came next.

It was an absolutely brutal regimen, and one that Miguel had no chance of maintaining without Elijah’s help. However, he got quite a surprise when Nerthus revealed that he had limited healing capabilities within the grove. Those abilities manifested similarly to Elijah’s Healing Rain, though Nerthus insisted, “The rain itself is not capable of healing. It is just rain. The interaction between it and the high density of ethera within the grove creates a rejuvenating effect that is approximately a quarter as powerful as your unenhanced spell.”

That meant that Elijah could afford to leave the island without completely derailing Miguel’s training. That was a definitely a relief, because after a week, he’d begun to grow restless. His natural wanderlust was part of it, but Elijah also had a host of tasks begging for his attention.

With one of those tasks, he’d already begun to work toward completion. Though it would be some time before those efforts reached fruition. The rest would require some travel. Still, he put it off, watching as Miguel benefited from the copious training. He’d gained two months’ worth of benefits in only ten days, and they were just getting started.

But finally, with the clock steadily ticking down until the Trial of Primacy, Elijah knew he could delay no longer. So, even as he watched Miguel meditate with Nerthus, he decided that the time had come for him to leave.

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