Brixaby

With one final ringing blow of the hammer, Brixaby finished the kite shield he was working on.

Lifting it in his claws, he bent his head close to look it over. He tried to take it in objectively, like a master of the craft would.

It was too small for him, much too small for any dragon to use. There were a few extra dents he could not fully manage to knock out, and it still needed to be fitted with a strap suitable for human arms. The metal was well forged, though it lacked any fancy designs that would have made it more pleasing to look at.

All in all, it was good apprentice work.

Brixaby set it down, rumbling in discontentment. Then he checked for new notifications from his rider’s Master of Skills card and found none.

That rumble became a growl.

“Why have I not received a skill, or at least a level, for this?” he demanded to his rider’s annoying card.

Of course, it gave no answer.

“Bah!”

Brixaby knocked the shield aside, and it clattered up against a pile of other discarded weapons that had failed to gain him any levels. His pile was beginning to grow large.

Another source of his discontentment.

With irritation, he swung his head around to see what everyone else was up to. With the Dark Heart opening soon, all would be busy bettering themselves.

That was when he realized the barn was clear of others. He was completely alone.

How in the world did Sams manage to squeeze himself out without Brixaby noticing? Though, after a moment’s thought, Brixaby concluded that he had been so focused on his own crafting—specifically, seeking a suitable class so he could continue to advance—that he had taken no notice of what else was going on. And why should he? It was beneath him.

With a long sigh, he turned back to the shield and picked it up again for another examination. He had to understand where he was going wrong.

At least tossing it away hadn’t caused another dent. Brixaby’s Metallurgy skill was up to 15, so he knew how to mix metals for the greatest effect.

There were no other flaws in the shield he could see, other than it was very plain. In fact, he was simply not enamored with making it. He’d only done so because actually creating weapons was by far the best path to weapon smithing.

But his pile of discards said otherwise.

Tossing the shield back on top of the pile, he wandered out of the barn through the back door.

The moment he was outside, his attention was caught by the sound of crunching bone. He came around the corner to see Joy sitting in the bright afternoon sun and gnawing on a bison femur. The bulge in her stomach spoke of where the stripped meat had gone.

Upon seeing him, she dropped the bone. “Brixaby! There you are!”

“I have not gone anywhere,” he grumbled, “though it seems others have.”

“Yeah, I just came back. Cressida is off at that library thing. Don’t tell her I said this, but researching sounds so boring. Hey, Brix,” she suddenly added. “Look what I got!”

And Brixaby’s mind stuttered to a halt as she swished her tail at him in a very fetching manner.

Then he saw the mark a few scales shy from the tip of her tail. It could almost be considered a spot or a blemish, but aside from her green forearm and the veins on that side of her body, Joy was almost eye-blindingly pink.

Brixaby bent to look at it. “One of Dannill’s language tattoos. He was able to apply the ink directly to the scale? What happens when you shed it?”

“Then I’ll have to get a new one, but tails don’t shed very often, or get hurt a lot in battles. That’s why I chose that spot. It hurts less than putting a needle in a toe, too. I think it’s pretty. Don’t you?” She went on before Brixaby could answer. “Cressida wasn’t happy about getting a tattoo, so she had hers put on the back of her shoulder where people wouldn’t see it very often. And now I can talk to everyone!” Joy finished happily.

“Yes, but that does not mean anyone here will have anything worthwhile to say to you.”

Something in his tone must have caught her attention. She squinted at him. “Are you all right?”

Part of Brixaby was obscurely annoyed, and he almost asked if she had been swishing her tail that way around Sams. Then he remembered that Sams was quite old, and not a Legendary dragon like Brixaby. Besides, it did not matter.

So he moved to another subject that was annoying him. “No, I am not all right. I have . . .” He grimaced. “Failed to obtain a Smithing Class.”

She cocked her head. “Why do you need that? Remind me.”

“Because I have a weaponsmith card, and Arthur has another in weapon improvisation—they’re linked, you see. I could create things for him, and I am certain they would become twice as strong. We need every bit of strength we can get for the Dark Heart. Yet with all these advantages and my constant practice, I am unable to gain any sort of official class in smithing.” He snorted in disgust.

“Oh!” she said brightly, nodding. “I’d be happy to help!”

“Excellent.” He rocked back on his haunches, and they stared at each other for a beat.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Annoyed, Brixaby narrowed his yes. “Well? Will you not give me a quest to solve this?”

“Oh, silly, you know I can only kinda guide a quest, but only when the quest agrees. Most of the time it’s random, even for me.” She paused for a moment, scrunching her face in concentration. A moment later she opened her eyes and shook her head. “Sorry. I didn’t get one right now. Did you?”

“No.”

He knew that had been the case before Joy and Sams had left on their journey, but he had hoped she had some sort of growth or breakthrough on the way here.

Casually, Joy reached over and grabbed the bison femur bone, cracking it with her jaws and licking out the marrow.

Brixaby watched with mild distaste. Raw meat was fine for some occasions, and he would still like to know the thrill of hunting and eating his own meat, but on balance he preferred his meals cooked. “You know, bone jelly is better for you.”

She spoke slightly slurred, as her tongue was busy trying to get out the rest of the marrow. “That would take hours.”

“Why are you so hungry? You just ate that entire leg.”

“Ugh.” She threw the now fully stripped bone away in disgust. “It was so terrible. Horatio has his Second Helpings card that doubles things, right? We thought that would stretch the supplies. But it turns out that the food it creates doesn’t actually do anything for you. He couldn’t figure out why—our riders kept saying something about material and not vitamins. Do you know how terrible it is to eat and eat and still be hungry because your body doesn’t get anything from it?”

Brixaby blinked. “I suppose . . . not,” he acknowledged. Joy would have had it slightly worse than Sams, too, as she was going through what Arthur called a growth spurt. Then, remembering something, he pulled out a roasted mutton that had been marinated with spices. “This was one of Arthur’s previous experiments. It does not have the healing powers of his chicken soup, but it should at least be filling.”

Joy squealed in happiness and immediately tore into the roast. Between bites, she asked, “So if you still need a class on weapons and stuff, why don’t you just find a teacher?”

“Bah, I have already approached many of this city’s so-called ‘best’ blacksmiths. No one will take me as an apprentice. They do not know what to think of dragons, and see us as curiosities.” He hated to admit the next part, but it came out anyway. “Perhaps . . . I should have been more general and not worked only on chainmail when I had the opportunity to learn in the free hive.”

She shrugged. “Okay, but why do you want a weapon smithing class? I know you have the card, but you don’t need the class for the card, do you?”

“No,” he admitted. Embarrassment warred with the need to be truthful with his friend. More important, Joy was someone who had a quest card, and therefore possibly some meta insight.

“I do enjoy blacksmithing, and especially creating chainmail pieces. It is . . . pleasant to make myself and others look good as well as protect my rider.”

“Sure,” Joy said, then paused to swallow a large chunk of meat. “That’s what dragons and riders do—we protect each other. That’s what makes us good partners. But, Brix, have you ever made anything for yourself? Not for combat,” she said when he opened his mouth to point out he’d just mentioned the chainmail. “Not for any kind of fighting or to level up or to grow stronger . . . but just for yourself?”

“Of course I have—” he started to say, then stopped.

Had he? Without the secret intent of leveling up a skill? He couldn’t remember anything off the top of his mind.

“What does it matter?” he asked instead.

She didn’t answer right away, peering off into the distance. Brixaby turned his head to follow her gaze but saw nothing except the backside of the barn. Annoyed, he was about to ask again when she spoke.

“You know, when we came here, we flew over a lot of cities. All were dead and forgotten—it was very sad. But sometimes we’d stop in them and look at some of the weirder stuff. There was one place . . . Cressida said it looked like a park for people to gather. Except that it was filled with metal art. Very twisty. It looked like . . .” She couldn’t quite find the words and instead swayed her head back and forth in a wavy pattern. “Only there were dozens of them, and when the sun was angled just perfectly, their long shadows created pictures. It was trees and humans playing and throwing balls to one another in grassy fields. Even though the metal didn’t look like any of that.”

“Trees and grassy fields.” Brixaby snorted. “What a boring thing to spend your time on.”

That seemed to snap Joy out of it. She looked at Brixaby. “Well, if you could create something like that, what would you create?”

Brixaby knew immediately. He would create the best thing ever, which of course would be a dragon in flight. He could imagine it now.

In fact . . . it was easy to imagine Joy that way, fully grown and majestic, as any dragon in his retinue should be. Her wings would be curved to catch an oncoming breeze, and there would be a particular flirt to her tail . . .

Brixaby’s eyes narrowed. “I will return,” he said shortly and went back into the barn, and his forge.

* * *

He assumed that Joy would understand his need for privacy and requirement to work, but less than two hours later, she popped up at his forge, asking what he was doing.

Brixaby looked down at the lumpy thing he was trying to twist into shape using tongs. “I am creating a sculpture of a dragon.” Though right now it was extremely rough and didn’t have nearly the graceful form he could see in his mind’s eye.

In fact, it looked a bit like the real Joy, who was a little awkward and ungainly in dragon adolescence.

She blinked. “Which is the head and which is the tail?”

“This one, of course!” he said, and then on second thought admitted that she may have a point. “I will put some teeth on it.”

He went to do just that. Then, after using a mallet to pound in some sharp metal, he had to admit that the overall form looked much more like a proper dragon.

For extra inspiration, he put in sharp claws. Those were much like Joy’s own, too.

Joy murmured in appreciation and flexed her own claws.

“There,” he said, and was somewhat satisfied with his own first effort.

New skill gained: Metal Art (Artist Class, Blacksmith Class)

Due to your linked card’s bonus traits and class, you automatically start this skill at level 5.