The Dragon

I left Darb on the third morning after the attack. I bid everyone adieu, and they in turn tearfully sent me on my way. I thanked Francis for the use of his forge, and the barkeep for letting me stay in a room for free. They all said it was the least they could do since I pretty much saved their town and all. I couldn’t find it within myself to disagree with them.

The road out of Darb was much dryer than when I was headed in. There were no rain or clouds to darken the sunny skies. There was sunlight on my cheeks and butterflies flying through the breeze. All in all, it was a warm and pleasant day all around. In retrospect, that should have warned me that something stupid was about to happen.

I was on the road cresting a hill when in the distance I spotted six figures on horseback rushing towards me. Their intent was obvious so I stopped where I was. I dropped my pack and waited for them to get to me.

At about a fifty yards they slowed down their horses and spread out, encircling me. The riders were a strange-looking bunch, but we were in Hell so I guess looks really didn’t matter for much. I was a prime example of that.

The lead rider was a lanky man in black who wore his blond hair in the same style as the Mohawk. He had a large sword strapped to his back and numerous knives in bandoliers on his chest. He stopped his horse while the rest of his men continued to circle me.

The rest of his men wore similar bland-colored tunics and breeches but sported different weaponry. One had a long, spiky lance. Another had a whip, and the next one had a loaded crossbow. The last rider had no weapons visible, which meant he didn’t need one. Possibly a magic user.

The final horse didn’t have a rider, per se. Instead, there was a man draped over the saddle with hands and feet tied behind him. Whether he was unconscious or dead I could not say. I suppose it was nice to see that I wasn’t the only one having a bad day today.

The riders remained silent, probably trying their best to intimidate me. It wasn’t working. All it was serving to do was to annoy me.

“You besht have a good reason for waylaying me here, friend,” I told the leader.

The blond with the Mohawk simply laughed. “Well, well, they was right. It talks.” The rest of his men laughed.

I placed one hand on my sword, the other on my pistol.

“Easy now, you don’t wanna do anything stupid,” said the leader as he noticed my movements. “You’re worth more to us alive than dead, so why don’t you just come along quiet-like and there won’t be no blood spilled today.”

I eyed the crossbowman and the wizard. They would be the first ones I take out, owing to their ranged attacks.

“I’m guessing you work for Garret,” I said. “He still pissed that I killed hish stupid kid?”

That got a laugh out of everyone.

“Yeah, that he is,” the leader chuckled.

I grunted. Then I pointed at the horse with the dead/unconscious man on it. “What’s hish story?”

“Don’t mind him, now. You best mind us instead, lizard.”

“Oh, I am.” I looked up and my eyes met his. “What’s your name?”

The man smirked and said, “Nicholai. Nicholai Gress. Why you wanna know?”

I gave him my own smirk. “So I know what to put on your grave shtone.”

He and the others laughed. I let them. It gave me the half-second I needed to draw my gun and shoot the man with the crossbow. I hit him dead center mass and he flopped off his horse. The gun’s loud discharge scared all of the horses, and they reared up in fright. Each rider tried desperately to regain control by pulling on the reigns, which gave me time to pick them off, one by one.

I aimed my gun at the magician while he was busy trying to reign in his horse. I sent a second shot straight through his heart, the impact of the .50 caliber bullet sending him flying off his mount.

I sent my third shot into the man with the whip, then the fourth at the one with the lance who had just gotten control of his horse and was starting to rush towards me. Both were thrown off their horses, and the animals rushed off in fright.

Nicholai had managed to turn his horse around and was running for it. That would not do at all. He was about sixty, seventy yards away when I raised the gun, holding it steady with both hands, and aimed. I cocked the hammer back, then pulled the trigger. I sent a bullet straight into his back. He fell off the horse while it continued on running.

I took my time striding over to him, watching him panting and trying to crawl away. When I finally got to him, I kicked him in the side turning him over onto his back. He had his hands held up, sweat plastered on his face. A look of absolute fear was on his face, a look I had seen many times before.

“I lied,” I told him.

“W-what?”

“I lied,” I said again. “Nobody’s gonna bury you in a grave.” With that, I pulled my pistol’s hammer back and pulled the trigger, sending the last bullet in the cylinder directly into his head. The impact made a mess of his face, as pieces of it scattered all over the grass.

I looked around, finding nothing but silence and corpses. Three of the horses had managed to stay where they were, one of them belonging to the guy who was tied up and hung over the saddle.

I raised my new gun up and smirked. I had not been idle while I was in Darb.

Magic Creation System

Congratulations!

You have created the percussion revolver!

I waved away the blue box and admired my weapon. The design was much more familiar to me than a flintlock was so it took less time to create than my first gun did. I think that my higher blacksmithing numbers also contributed to the relative ease of creating the gun. I had to ultimately cannibalize the flintlock for parts, but that was okay. It had served its primary purpose of keeping me alive this far.

The hardest part of the project was making the percussion caps. They would act as primers to ignite the powder inside the cylinders. Thankfully, Darb had plenty of brass around, and after searching the alchemy shop thoroughly we found some mercury fulminate that would serve as the caps’ main explosive.

The gun looked like a mashed-together Colt Walker with its round barrel and built-in loading lever, though it was much larger and a lot less pretty. It was definitely an ugly gun, but it did its job and that was what was important.

The tanner in Darb even managed to make me a holster for it, which I was mighty grateful for. I reholstered the weapon and decided to check on the corpses, to see if they had anything valuable on them. I had just started to dig through Nicholai’s pockets when I heard a voice.

“Hello?” it said. “A little help, please?”

I looked around and found that the voice belonged to the man who was trussed up and lain across the saddle of the sixth horse. I guess he wasn’t as dead as I had first thought. I grabbed a knife from Nicholai’s bandolier and walked towards him.

I stopped at the horse and looked down at the man, whose head was upside down as he lay sideways on the saddle. He lifted up his head and gave me a wide grin. “Hello, so nice to meet you.”

The man was dressed in brown leathers and looked to be in his early 30’s. He had thinning brown hair and bright blue eyes; that added with his wide smile made him seem thoroughly trustworthy.

I knew he was a charlatan the second I saw him.

“What’s your story?” I asked him.

The man laughed. “Well, you see, I may have just a tiny little bounty on my head. I may, or may not, have stolen some things and may or may not have angered the local powers that be. So they hired those jokers to bring me in. Can you believe it?”

I shrugged. “I shuppose I can.”

“Great!” The man’s smile never faded. “Now that we’re both acquainted and since both of us are known outlaws, we should be friends!”

I frowned. “You heard all that, huh?

“My friend, everyone’s heard of the Dragon by now. The ominous black-clad lizardman who has powers over flame and earth!”

I rolled my eyes. You can always leave it to the members of the public to come up with the stupidest names for you.

“So, whatta you say?” the man asked me, his smile never wavering. “You gonna cut me loose or am I going to join ol’ Nicholai and his gang?”

I saw no reason to kill him, so in the end, I decided to let him go. Using Nicholai’s knife, I cut him loose from his bonds.

“Oh, thank you, good sir! That’s such a relief,” he said while hopping off the horse and shaking his limbs.

“Don’t sweat it,” With that taken care of, I went to continue my previous activity, which was to strip these corpses of anything valuable. I decided to keep Nicholai’s knife, as it could come in handy.

“By the way, I completely forgot to introduce myself,” The man bowed theatrically, smile still stuck on his face. “The name is Lee Andrew Bosworth. But everyone just calls me Grin Lee. Prolly on account of I smile so much.”

I looked back at him and yup, he was still grinning.

“Now, may I know the name of my savior?”

“Nero,” I said absently as I dug through the mage’s pockets. Nothing but lint and bronze coins.

“Nero. Nero the Dragon.” Lee chuckled. “Has a nice ring to it.”

“If you say sho,” I pocketed the coins and went over to search the lancer.

“Oh, indeed I do, Mr. Nero. Indeed I do! I do believe we will be the best of friends from now on.” Lee’s grin was wide and sharp, like a knife wound across one’s neck. “The best of friends.”