Chapter 16

The hero is asked to make a critical choice

"Heal!" shouted Clarissa excitedly. Magical energy sparkled around her and any minor wounds she had sustained in the past two hours healed themselves. "I did it," she announced proudly, still clearly not believing her own eyes. "I can do magic!"

This was the successful culmination of a small experiment on my part begun when I took her out of the castle. We had traveled north east to where more powerful monsters seemed to reside and worked as a team. I would weaken them, she would finish them off. My thinking was that she would then receive the bulk of the magical energy given up by the dying creature as she landed the finishing blow. (I had no means to test this of course, at least not at present, but that wasn't the focus of the experiment) Also as they were more powerful, it shouldn't take as long for her to raise her 'levels' as it had taken me killing slimes and the like around the castle. This proved correct, in more than one way. She hadn't needed any time at all once we arrived to absorb enough magic to cast her first spell, but more importantly it vindicated the tool shop owner. Don't get me wrong, I didn't doubt the man, but don't people say trust but verify? I'm sure I've heard that somewhere. This proves that anyone can come out here and gain levels just like I did. On the one hand it means I'm not all that special after all, but on the other, this is maybe what the soldiers from before lacked. Levels. Magic. No wonder they were swept aside in the initial attack. But now the Dragonlord has given us the means of his defeat! "You sure can," I told her, feeling a bit of pride at my part in all this. Reading that journal did teach me a few things. I wanted to know if Clarissa could use magic after killing monsters like I did, and I assumed the answer was yes. I came up with an experiment to prove that one way or the other, (have her kill monsters) ran that experiment in the field, (she killed monsters) and got a result that verified what I believed would happen. Without all of Loto's "this makes no sense" and "why did this happen the way it did" I never would have considered it. She could not use magic before, now she can. What other conclusion can I draw?

"Heal!" she said again, touching me this time. I felt my wounds close as well, and she wasted no time in saying "heal!" again. This time nothing happened. "Wait, what happened?" she asked, clearly panicked. "Did I do something wrong?"

"It's okay, this is normal," I assured her. "You've only absorbed enough magical energy from monsters to cast the spell twice in succession. It was the same for me. As you gain more 'levels' you'll gain more magical power capacity, and can cast more spells before it runs out. As for it running out, after you rest for a bit it'll replenish itself, or you can go talk to a man in the castle. He can say a sort of prayer over you and replenish your magical energies. I can introduce you when we get back."

"That old guy that sits behind the desk, but doesn't seem to sell anything?"

"That's the one! You know him?"

"I've seen him around, we all wondered what he was doing there. He didn't seem to be hurting anybody so we never asked him to clear out, but we did wonder what he was up to."

"Clearly he's there to replenish people's magical power."

"Of which there are exactly zero people in the castle that applies to."

"Well, there's two now."

"There will be two once we return to the castle. How did he earn a living before you came along?"

I mean if you want to be specific about it, sure, when we get back there will be two. "I have no idea, but to be fair I still don't. He doesn't charge me anything." I am the hero, I should get some perks without having to flash the token in everyone's face. I was just glad someone took my word on faith.

"He doesn't- he does this for free?"

"It's just a quick prayer. Doesn't cost him anything."

"It's a service. It doesn't cost the chef at the castle anything to prepare the meals, but he still expects to be paid." Her eyes narrowed. "Have you heard it enough to have learned the prayer?"

It would be painful admitting I had not, despite the many times I had visited the man while raising my 'levels' but it was the truth. I have to tell her the truth. "I didn't really bother paying attention to it." But I could salvage it a little, and quickly went on. "He said it wouldn't work trying to restore your own magical power, that's why I didn't bother." And now I look like a short sighted fool. Wonderful.

"Too bad, but we can head back. If he taught it to both of us, I could restore yours and you could restore mine while we're out here."

I put up a finger but considered and put it down again. "You're not wrong." At least, unless it's something to do with the location or the man, and not the prayer itself. Makes me wonder why that works in the first place. Are the gods really listening to that one guy, and his one prayer to restore magical power when almost everyone lacks such a thing? It does seem an odd thing to do, and only exists because I'm around to need it, just like Loto said. I was troubled at the implications of this, but couldn't really do anything about it.

She smirked. "Of course I'm not. Shall we head back, meet this Kethrinax of yours before the sun goes down?"

I looked and she was right. The sun was getting lower in the sky. With reading the journal, traveling all the way out here, fighting monsters, and now the walk back I wouldn't have a lot of time to practice fighting dragons today. "This is originally why we came out here, it's true. Let's go, good thing it's on the way."

We continued the procedure on the way back, letting me take the first shot on anything she thought she couldn't take in one blow. But soon it was just slimes and minor ghosts again which she also quickly got tired of encountering every forth step. "What is with all these things anyway?" she asked me, frustrated.

"You've got me," I told her. "But I've asked myself that many times."

Clarissa now stood with her mouth hanging open, staring up at the large green dragon in the middle of a charred circle of earth in the middle of the forest. Her hands gripped her daggers as she looked the creature up and down. "We can't fight that," she said quietly, a note of panic in her voice.

"We're not here to fight her," I told her, continuing to walk forward. "Come on, she won't hurt you."

"Won't hurt me?" Her voice went up an octave. "That's a dragon!"

"A dragon?" Kethrinax said, clearly feigning alarm and whipping her head back and forth. "Where?"

Her expression hardened, changing from fear of being eaten to fear of being the butt of a joke somehow. "Wait, they can talk? What's going on here?"

Kethrinax started laughing, and I rolled my eyes.

"Clarissa, may I introduce Kethrinax the green dragon? Kethrinax… I'll wait." I waited until she stopped laughing at Clarissa's expression of dismay. "Thank you. This is my ma- my new friend Clarissa, who I would like to learn more about the Dragonlord. Can you tell her what you told me?"

"Sorry about that," Kethrinax told her. "It was a mean trick, but clearly someone was saving me for a surprise, so if you're going to be mad at someone, please be mad at them. I mean he could have told you."

"Oh, I will be," she promised, letting go of her daggers and turning to face me. "So your source of information is a real dragon? But you said that same person helped you rescue the princess- oh."

"How is the princess, by the way?" Kethrinax asked.

I sighed. "Still unconscious, at least she was when we left. But still alive, so that's something."

"It's not nothing, I suppose," she agreed. "Are you sure she's getting the best care? I don't know much about human medicine but is this normal?"

"After what she went through? I have no idea," I admitted. "But if she can get better care, I don't know where that would be or how to take her there. You know how hard it was getting her back here, you think I could have done it alone?"

"Assuredly not!"

"There you are. Unless you're willing to help out again she's stuck where she is."

"True. But yes, Clarissa, was it? I was the one tasked with guarding the princess. Little did I know she would nearly die in there until our hero here came along and convinced me to check on her. And no, to answer your next question I have no idea why he put here where he did, leaving her to die. We can't figure out his motive."

"I see," she replied slowly. "He told me there was some reason the maid's plan of learning to fight and stabbing him in his sleep wouldn't work, but that I should hear that reason from you. So here I am, what's the reason?"

"Do what? Stab the Dragonlord in his sleep? I should say- what's a maid?"

"We clean the castle, and serve food, and do odd jobs."

"Oh, a servant. I've heard of that, yes, we dragons wouldn't put up with such things but you're telling me a bunch of servants got together and came up with a plan to enter the Dragonlord's service, get him to lower his guard, and then stab him in the back?"

"That's right," she answered proudly.

"Huh. Maybe I have underestimated you humans after all. Still, like the hero here said, it wouldn't work."

"Why not?"

"Because the Dragonlord is a dragon, that's why. An old one. And old dragons are big dragons. He's twice the size of me. Why do you think we listen to him, gave him the title of Dragonlord? That's not his name, you know."

"Oh," she said softly. "I did not consider that. We really would have gone to our deaths, wouldn't we? He just looks like a man. One of us tried to stab him he would just change back into his true form and roast or eat us or both."

She nodded. "More likely both. Even we like our meat cooked, especially as we have the biological means to do so. It's a good thing you didn't get the opportunity, it would have been a disaster!"

"Clearly. But hang on, how do you intend to fight him then, if he's so huge and scary?" she asked me.

I shrugged. "At the moment, I have no idea. That's why I wanted to practice fighting a dragon, to see if it was even remotely possible. We might have to use some indirect means, like poisoning him or somehow collapsing his castle so he's buried under it."

"You would have to feed a creature of that size barrels of poison," Clarissa decided. "Not really practical."

"I agree," Kethrinax said. "It's a tricky business."

"But what about the maids?" she went on excitedly. "We've proven it works, we can all head out and 'raise our levels' like you said. If we all got magic, enough of it to really hurt the Dragonlord, we could win right?"

"Except I have to face the Dragonlord alone," I told her reluctantly.

"Exactly, it's the best chance we have to- wait what?"

"I have to face him alone."

"No you don't. Are you crazy? You've seen I can take care of myself, and we maids all have similar training. We could all come into the field and really run the monsters out of here and raise our levels at the same time. You need us, hero. You're not still thinking of me as just a maid, are you? Fight the Dragonlord alone, preposterous. Is this some male bravado thing or what?"

"No, no, no," I told her quickly, waving my hands. "It's just, look." I got out the journal, not even pausing to wonder where I had pulled it from. "Right in the beginning of the journal here." I read her Loto's words. "... you must journey alone! On this my friend was very clear, to do otherwise will invite disaster upon you and the world. So while you read of my journey and the friends that accompanied me, be aware no others can journey with you. Is what it says."

"Give me that!" She snatched the book away from me.

"Is this some sort of human courtship ritual? It's all very fascinating," Kethrinax told me, looking between the two of us.

"No!" we both shouted, then glared at each other. She went back to reading. Her gaze softened as her eyes traveled down the page, starting from the beginning where Loto had written to me (Or I suppose anyone who bothered to find the journal) about what I was to do now. "It does say that," she breathed, coming to the end. "What in the world?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "Everything points to Loto's mission ending in failure without the help of his friends. Time and again they saved each other on his journey. But I must travel alone? It can mean only one thing."

"What's that?" She looked up at me, closing the book.

"That the spell showed me traveling with someone, maybe someone I came to care about, and that got them killed. In that instant I go berserk, making me easy prey for the Dragonlord, and he crushes me easily in my unthinking rage."

"Someone you care about, huh?"

I colored and looked away. "Maybe."

"Well!" She handed the book back and I put it away. Somewhere. "Far be it from me to question ancient prophecies written hundreds of years ago created using magic which may or may not be reliable. But I can tell you one thing."

"What's that?"

"Loto also talks about using some kind of staff, but in his journal entries he says nothing about using a staff to defeat Baramos. He uses that ball of light or whatever it was that came out of nowhere against Zoma, but there's nothing about a staff used to defeat Baramos. So how reliable is anything he wrote, really? If he can't even keep his own facts straight?"

"The light orb, right, but that can't be..." I got the book out again and flipped to the back, skimming as I went along. "The only staff he mentions is the change staff and the staff of rain. That he turns into the rainbow drop to make the bridge, using it, the stone of sunlight and the crest. You're right, he doesn't use any kind of staff on Baramos directly!"

"So who are you going to trust? Loto? Let's review what he's done; not leave you any of his top tier equipment despite managing to leave his ratty old journal laying around for hundreds of years. Entrusting the location of his token to a princess who is lying in a coma perhaps never to awaken instead of just writing it down. Tell you to do the opposite of what he has done, and travel alone. Get his magical items mixed up in his own account of events he supposedly lived through. Take, in some situations, the most roundabout way of doing things that is possible to do. Need I go on?"

"I'm enjoying it," Kethrinax told her. "Sounds like a story worthy of a dragon's telling. We love telling stories you know."

"Stories?" I asked, a bad feeling overcoming me. "You don't think..."

"What?" both asked me.

I got the journal out again. "What if this journal is actually a trap? Could the Dragonlord have gotten the original, changed it in subtle ways, and put it back for someone to find? What if the whole thing is a fabrication, a story, like Kethrinax says? How could I prove it otherwise? You said this Zoma character is unknown yourself, where did they come from?" I'll have to talk to the tool shop owner, make sure they frame it correctly if they start selling it. This all may not have happened at all.

"It's not out of the realm of possibility," Clarissa told me, sounding smug. She had crossed her arms over her chest and one finger was tapping on her arm. "It's that journal or me, who are you going to put your trust in?"

"Wait, wait, let me think about this a second," I protested, waving the journal at her. "The journal makes good points. The way he thinks about things, the questions he asks about the world. Like why is that guy in the castle that can restore magical power there when I'm the only one (in the beginning) who would have used that service? How did that door in the castle get locked at the exact moment it did, forcing me to get a key to save the people on the other side, leading me to the princess? I wouldn't even have asked those questions without reading the journal, I just would have accepted them."

"And that's reason enough to simply trust all of it despite the warning signs?"

"I don't know!" I mean how do I know you aren't the Dragonlord, in a female form, there to keep an eye on me and persuade me against Loto's advice?

"Look," she said quietly, putting both hands on the book and pushing it down. She looked into my eyes. "You have to do what you feel is right. Take the lessons of the journal, that's fine, but realize it might not be all that it seems."

No, she must be who she says she is. If I start thinking otherwise, I can never trust anyone. "If… If something were to happen to you, because of me..."

"I made my choices too, hero. We're in this together. More likely you'll die and I'll have to carry on where you left off."

She's not wrong. "Fine. For now," I hastened to add. "But if we learn more, or find some way of proving the journal hasn't been tampered with, I will act to keep you safe."

"I suppose you wouldn't be a hero worth admiring if you didn't..."

"Admiring?"

"Now kiss!" Kethrinax exclaimed excitedly. We both came back to ourselves and Clarissa stepped back. We had been getting a little close together.

"You want us to what?" she asked her.

"Oh, uh, it's a dragon word. Nowkis. It means 'I'm in complete agreement!' I didn't want you to do anything."

"Does it?" she asked. "I'll have to remember that one."

"Uh, it's pretty regional, I don't know if dragons, you know, around here would know it all that well. I'm from pretty far away, actually."

"Uh huh. Anyway, back to the task at hand. The Dragonlord is an actual dragon, neither of you knows how we're going to beat him, and we have training to do. Does that sound about right?"

"It does to me," I told her, putting the journal away again and grasping the hilt of my blade. "Kethrinax, if you're still willing?"

"What, did you think I knocked all those trees down and moved them for my own enjoyment? Come at me little one, I'll show you just how outclassed you are trying to fight a dragon."

I charged.