Hiccup snorts. “Fick me, Marbles, you make it too easy.”
Still cradling the baby dragon, Zaena turns it to Ryuk. “It’s simple. Just reach your finger out to him. You’ll know if he decides to bond with you or not pretty quickly.”
“And he can’t just bond with you?”
“I’m not the guild’s leader.”
Ryuk lifts his hand to the dragon’s muzzle. The creature’s eyes narrow for a moment as he suspiciously sniffs at Ryuk’s finger. He opens his mouth, and exhales a soft cloud of blue icicles.
New skill learned!
Skilclass="underline" Bonding Trust
Level One: Bonding trust creates an everlasting connection between you and another creature. Higher levels allow for direct communication between you and other animals as you instantly understand their languages and demeanors.
Requirements: There are no requirements for bonding trust. This skill is tied directly to your D-NAS, digital neuronal autoconstruct system, and based on your interaction with others up until the point at which you met the creature.
“Wonderful!” Jim claps his hands together. “You’ve bonded with it!”
Ryuk turns to see FeeTwix come in closer, his eyes black as ever as his viewers take the moment in.
A bell rings in the other room, signaling that food is ready.
“Fick yeah! Later, haters.” The goblin exits leaving the three of them with the hostelier.
“What am I supposed to do with him?” Ryuk asks as he cradles the dragon.
“Well, he’ll need a name,” Jim says. “Everyone needs a name.”
“Yangukuchipatchi,” Ryuk says almost instinctively. “Yangu for short.”
“What’s it mean?” FeeTwix asks.
“It’s the name of a famous Tamagotchi.” Ryuk pets the dragon on the head. It smiles, closes its eyes, and relaxes.
“Tamagotchi?” FeeTwix’s eyes flash. “That’s a clever name!”
“Yangu, huh? I like it,” Zaena say. “Once he can fly, he’ll come to you when you call him. Until then, we’ll have to look after him. Jim, do you have a backpack of sorts?”
“No worries, babe, I have one.” A custom Voodoo Tactical Level III assault backpack with a water reservoir and the phrase #FeeTwixRox embroidered across the front in big white letters appears in the Swede’s hands. He opens it and Zaena carefully sets the dragon inside. She zips up a portion of the backpack, allowing Yangu to peek its head out the other side.
The Thulean assassin coos some more as she helps him put the backpack on. Yangu naturally rests his neck on Ryuk’s shoulder.
“You ready?” Zaena asks him.
“Sure.” Ryuk nods as a soft smile forms on his face. “Let’s grab the goblin and get to Polynya.”
Chapter 6: Chalupa vs. Churro
The four Mitherfickers quickly make their way to the south side of Aramis and its sprawling port, which is situated between a string of tributaries, the water from which flows over the continental shelf.
The ships docked in the Aramis port range in size from small fishing vessels to cruise ships, the rotating oars of which keep the ships floating in the air. A container ship with the name Maersk Alabama is currently floating into the port, the crew busy pulling up the ropes that will hold it down. Regardless of how far down the Endless Sea is, the smell of ocean is heavy in the air, the squawk of seagulls cantankerous.
Yangu makes a barking noise, briefly interrupting the seagulls above. “Shhh,” Ryuk tells the dragon as he reaches back to pet its head. The dragon’s skin is ice cold, the scales on his head smooth to the touch.
Zaena and Hiccup walk ahead of Ryuk, arguing in Thulean. The odd couple to end all odd couples, Zaena is twice Hiccup’s height, slender, and moves with the grace of a runway model. Hiccup is vertically challenged, robust, and slightly bowlegged, his walk more of a waddle.
FeeTwix, between Ryuk and the other two, busies himself by speaking to a few of his most loyal fans.
He really does care for them, Ryuk thinks, which reminds him of the reason the Swede came to Tritania in the first place – to find out what happened to Tomas, one of his earliest fans. We’ll figure this out, Ryuk thinks, and he wants to verbalize this to the Swede but, as they have before, silence and shyness get the best of him.
“Stop her!”
A female elf shoulders through the Mitherfickers, tossing Hiccup into a stand outside of a souvenir shop.
“Fick!”
A machete-wielding hairball with a distended belly turns the corner, his eyes angry and bloodshot. He raises his weapon into their air, stomps his foot and bellows, “STOP THAT THIEF!”
Before she can get any further, the elf lifts into the air like a marionette. Ryuk looks to Zaena, and she nods.
“I have her,” Zaena says as the female thief struggles to free herself.
High Elf Level 15
HP: 411/435
MANA: 251/268
ATK: 63
MATK: 78
DEF: 55
MDF: 106
LUCK: 19
A high elf? Ryuk slowly brings his marble gun out and trains it on her. FeeTwix has done the same with his SPAS-12 shotgun.
A Player Character too, Ryuk thinks, referring to the icon above her head.
The elven female’s hands begin to charge with blistering white energy.
With a pumping action, FeeTwix loads a round into his shotgun. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
A crowd has begun to form, but it isn’t as large as one would expect. This area is accustomed to street brawls, thinks Ryuk as he takes a few steps back, just to give himself some range. Proximity is important, and he quickly pops the molten black mag out of his Marble Gun and goes for his mag of sword marbles instead.
The high elf and Zaena share similar dancer bodies with thin torsos, larger hips and muscled calves. Where they differ is skin tone. Zaena’s green color is a far cry from the elf’s pallid skin tone. Her orange hair and slitted orange eyes are at odds too with the elf’s blonde locks pulled into a single large braid and the elf’s soft blue eyes.
“You’ll be coming with me, missy, and I can’t wait for my boys to have their way with you.” The hairy, machete-wielding man produces a pair of handcuffs and licks his lips. “But daddy gets to go first.”
As if on cue, Machete Man’s three sons slide to a halt behind him. The family shares the ugly gene, and it appears to get worse as they age.
The oldest brother has a braided mullet and a beard peppered with bits of dried food. The middlest brother, sporting a Captain Kangaroo hairdo, is missing an eyebrow due to a scar that runs from his forehead to his pockmarked cheeks. The youngest has yet to grow facial hair, but what he lacks in beard he makes up in missing teeth, pus-filled zits, and a harelip. All three of them have primitive swords, wooden shields, and old leather armor.
Ryuk has been around Zaena long enough now to know when her konoshlo are retracting into her back. There’s a subtle change in the way she holds her shoulders, akin to the way a person with two arms looks when they lower their arms to their sides.
She’s letting her go … Ryuk slowly aims his weapon from the female elf to the machete-wielding father and his butt fugly sons.
“Who the fick tossed me into the souvenir stand?” Hiccup pushes his way past the family of miscreants and growls when he sees the elf. “Some thief you are!” he tells the elven female, oblivious to the man directly behind him holding a machete. “Next time you run through a crowd, remember not to plow through them, rather roll off them.”