Chapter 53: The deal.

Chapter 53: Chapter 53: The deal.

Flashback

Allan stood at the mouth of the passage beneath Hollow Root, a lamp in one hand, the other pressed flat against his side. He’d changed the bandage that morning, but already he could feel it going damp.

Cold air drifted up the staircase, and he thought again of the note. Some earlier player had left it behind, and the warning was written in plain English.

Never free the dragon.

He’d read it maybe forty times. It didn’t say be careful. It didn’t say why. Whoever wrote it hadn’t wanted an argument.

He hadn’t told Lira, Seris, or Amelia he was coming. They would have followed him down, and he didn’t want any of them in this dungeon again. They’d been through enough. The dungeon had been a thrill for him, he could admit that, but for them it had been trauma, plain and simple. They’d have told him he had no business being here, least of all with the key in his coat. They’d have been right.

But the cult had done enough damage. He needed answers, something he could use to wipe them out for good, and the dragon was the only one who might have them. She was the one who’d told him other players had come to Yggdrasil before him.

He went down.

The passage sloped for thirty paces and opened into the chamber, where the cold hit harder and his breath fogged in the lamplight. Frost clung to the stone where the chains met the floor. The chains were thicker than his arm, each link cut with runes that still glowed faintly.

The silver dragon lay in the center of the room just as he remembered, wings folded tight, scales dull under the crystal lamps. But she wasn’t alone. A shadow stood at her side, and he could hear someone speaking, too softly to catch the words.

Allan stopped. That hair, that face. The last time he’d seen the girl, she’d been chained in a cave, bleeding and barely conscious. He’d pulled her out as it collapsed, and when he tried to take her to a healer, she was gone.

Now she stood upright and clean, in dark robes that fit her well. A silver clasp at her collar carried a crest he didn’t recognize. She’d tied her hair back, and without the blood and grime he could finally see that it was blonde.

"You," he called.

She turned, her gaze sharp at first, then softening as she placed him. "Oh. It’s you."

"How did you get in here?" he asked, stepping further into the chamber.

"Just visiting a friend. Though I could ask you the same thing." She glanced at the dragon. "This is him. The one I told you about, the one who pulled me out."

The dragon’s eyes opened. They were deep blue, the pupils thin vertical slits, and when she spoke her voice was low and slow.

"The player arrives..."

The girl’s smile faded. She moved closer to the dragon’s flank, and Allan got the feeling those words had changed something for her, though he couldn’t tell what.

"Do not fear him," the dragon told her. "He is new. He does not understand this world yet."

Yet. That single word told him he’d been right to come. She had answers. He edged closer, but not too close.

"Well, it’s been a while," he said. "Figured I’d stop by. You know, say hello."

"Ha. Funny man." The dragon’s eyes narrowed. "I had lost hope that you would ever release me. Now I know my time will come as well."

Allan took a step back, his grip tightening on the key inside his coat. "What do you mean by that?"

The dragon’s gaze slid to the girl and back again. "You freed her. Another disaster, like me. Of course I would be next. My only sorrow is that I am still kept waiting."

The girl slapped a hand against the dragon’s scales. "That was centuries ago. I’ve obviously changed."

Centuries. Allan had a dozen questions about that, but no time to ask them. The Viscount was still waiting on him, and he needed to hurry.

"I came here because a cult attacked my house a week ago," he said. "So many men died. My family got hurt. I need to know what they want."

The dragon regarded him, her eyes glittering. "You already know the price for that question."

"You never change, do you?"

"No. I do not."

Something like dry amusement crossed the dragon’s face. "I see. You want to protect your girls. A hero wearing the title of Scoundrel and refusing to act like one."

The girl turned to him. "Wait. You’re a player with a title?"

Allan hadn’t wanted to give that away, but the dragon had done it for him. He nodded.

"Scoundrel, huh. That’s a rare one. But be warned. If you don’t use the title," the girl said quietly, "it’ll use you."

The System had given him that title the day he arrived. He wanted to ask what she meant, but not with the dragon listening.

The dragon wasn’t going to talk first. So he did the thing he’d told himself on the stairs he wouldn’t do. He took the key out of his coat.

"Okay, then. Maybe this will get you talking."

The key was cold and heavy, shaped like a claw. He’d meant to hold it back until she gave him something.

The dragon’s eyes went wide, and her whole body reacted. The chains snapped taut. Her claws raked the floor hard enough to leave white lines in the stone, and the runes flared, frost cracking outward from the links. Allan stumbled back, and his side tore open. The bandage went warm under his shirt.

"Give it to me!" the dragon shouted.

Allan shook his head, the key still clenched in his fist. "You told me yourself. Everything has a price."

"Ha! Here you go," the dragon said, and her claw tore through the space between them.

Then something cold pressed in behind his eyes. Stone against a cheek. A thought that wasn’t his, small and practical: pay is due Thursday. Then a breath going out through a cut throat, and the start of a word that never got finished. My...

It was gone before he got his feet under him.

[Scoundrel Title: Activated Permanently]

The dragon had stopped pulling at her chains. Her nostrils flared once. "There you go. That will settle in a few days, and then you will have your answers. But I will say it again. The cult always belonged to the players. In other words, it always belonged to you. You just have to find your way."

Allan said nothing. He kept the key well out of her reach.

"Now give it to me. Complete the promise."

The nausea from the notification hadn’t let up. It felt like his mind was still adjusting to new things, things that were him and also weren’t.

"Answers first," he said. "The cult, why they’re after me, how to destroy them. Then we’ll talk about the key."

Silence.

Her claw reached across and settled on the back of his hand. Nothing hurt.

"You forced my hand, player," the dragon said. Her eyes went to the girl, and she gave the smallest nod.

The girl plainly didn’t like it, but her feet were already moving, as though something were compelling them. Before he knew it, she was at his back.

"Sorry," she said, almost under her breath, and slashed at the back of his neck. Just like that, his whole body gave out.

She leaned in close as he went down. "I wanted to ask you why," she said. "Why did you save me?"

At the edge of consciousness, Allan answered. "Because you looked like you wanted to be saved."

Then darkness.

***

At the Capital, present day.

Allan sat at a narrow desk in a rented room, still hemmed in by the restrictions on his movements. He changed the bandage twice a day, and it pulled every time he shifted his weight.

Outside the window, the city made its usual noise: cart wheels, market calls, the temple bells marking the hour.

He started a letter to Amelia, choosing every word with care. He’d kept her at a distance since the manor attack, citing safety, and this letter was meant to explain the delay without mentioning the chamber. It touched on their eventual marriage, too. Halfway through the second paragraph, the pressure behind his ribs tightened.

[Title: Scoundrel of Yggdrasil. Active]

He still didn’t know what the dragon had done to him. Activated his title, or whatever you’d call it. The notification bothered him either way.

He kept writing. Somewhere along the way he settled on canceling the engagement. He didn’t want her in harm’s way. The careful paragraphs stopped explaining anything, and the sentences got shorter.

[Title: Scoundrel of Yggdrasil. Active]

He stopped.

He pushed back from the desk and stared at the page. Something burned inside him, and for a moment he took it for rage. But no, it wasn’t rage. It was something else, like the throb of some sense he’d never had before.

He snatched up the letter and crushed it into a tight paper ball.

Then he pulled a fresh sheet toward him. "You will come to the Capital. Do not tell the household why," he wrote to Amelia, and then the same to Lira on a second sheet, and to Seris on a third. Each letter gave a time, a place, and a line saying her presence was required. He signed each one, folded it, and pressed his seal into the wax. The whole thing took about four minutes, and he never once hesitated.

When the last seal was set, he sat looking at the three letters. Then he picked them up and held their corners over the candle.

At last the throbbing stopped, and his mind felt clearer.

"I need them," he said quietly. "I need my assets."

***

High above the street, on a balcony of a lesser noble house, the blonde girl from the dungeon watched the courier go. She was in formal dress now, and the silver clasp at her collar matched the crest carved over the door behind her. Down below, people went about their business, and none of them looked up.

A servant waited by the door, holding out a pen and a folded sheet. She took them and wrote standing.

"He could be what we’ve been waiting for. A player who actually cares."