Mana: 60

  Cast Time: 3 seconds

  Cooldown: 1 hour

  AoE: 100’ radius per Valkyrie class level

  Duration: 3 minutes per Valkyrie class level

  Shori’s Hand - Tier 3 spell. This spell animates a weapon of the caster. It can only work upon bonded weapons. The weapon will now act as though it were wielded by a warrior with a Strength equal to the caster’s Strength + Mind stats and Agility equal to the caster’s Agility + Durability stats. The weapon may trigger any special abilities it has and will fight with a high degree of proficiency. The weapon may fly through the air at a speed based upon those stats. At the end of the spell, the weapon is automatically returned to the caster. This spell is limited to Valkyrie and priests or paladins of Shorishisen.

  Mana: 50

  Cast Time: Instant.

  Cooldown: 15 minutes

  Duration: 3 minutes

  Cami wanted to learn all three spells. She certainly had the open spell slots. But, she felt like she should talk to Nico and probably Modessa first, before accepting a gift from a god or a god’s servant. There were likely strings attached.

  Even as she was thinking about speaking with her mentor, Modessa walked into her workshop. Well, it was really an expansion of the previous workshop, built by Daggin and Rubin. They were both so excited by their enhancements, which had only increased when Nico had become a Mature Adult, that they had splurged to buy the lot next-door, and had built an even bigger building.

  It had gone up pretty quickly, and they both had a number of apprentices. Both men acted like they were suddenly half their age and had far more vitality. It was almost cute to watch their excitement.

  When Modessa walked in, Cami looked up. “You look tired.”

  Modessa didn’t say anything, but her shoulders slumped.

  “I didn’t mean that in a bad way,” Cami quickly added. “I’m concerned for you.”

  “Thank you,” her mentor said with a smile, “but aren’t I supposed to be the one who is concerned for you? If I can’t overcome this… uh… disability, then you will need to seek a new mentor.”

  Cami started to protest, but Modessa cut her off. “I’m serious. I know you’ve come a long way, and am honest enough with myself to admit you have done much of it without me, but a mentor will still be of value to you. I’d rather you studied with Serius than you went without a proper mentor. Remember that while Nico won’t ever try to hurt you, what works for him may not always work for you.”

  Cami shook her head. “That wasn’t what I meant. I simply was going to say that we will find a way to overcome this.”

  Modessa hung her head. “The gods can’t do it. Miseria will only tell Galbrecht that the damage to my soul can’t be healed, it can only be patched. Even then, it can only be handled by a being of this realm.”

  Cami’s mind raced. That wording had to mean something. She thought about what she had learned from Nico about the Pact. She had only understood part of the information that Nico got, but he had shared images from the Dragon Dream on the subject.

  “You know what that means, right?” Cami gently offered.

  “Yes,” Modessa sighed, “I likely need the help of a dragon.”

  “I doubt it’s quite as simple as becoming a minion. That would boost your abilities and extend your life, but it wouldn’t patch your soul—at least nothing like that happened with Daggin or Rubin. I think there is a higher tier of minions, but we don’t have access to that tier… yet.”

  Modessa nodded, then sighed and settled into a chair against the wall.

  When she didn’t say anything, Cami continued. “From what I’ve discovered so far, I can only infuse a piece of my soul into an object, not another person. I may also be able to work with other souls, but my level hasn’t progressed very far in my crafting class. Daggin tells me I’m going to need to set aside years to train it.

  “It might be possible to create an object that would patch your soul, but we don’t yet know what other effects that would have on you. I agree that it seems likely that it will require a dragon, though. If you can give me time, I might be able to get Nico to help… though I will probably have to give him some time to adjust to the idea.”

  Modessa hung her head.

  “I know you and Nico have a rocky past,” Cami said, “but don’t worry. Cassandra is helping research the issue, along with Daggin and Ruben. They are all looking for any suggestions of possible magic or magical items which might undo what has happened to you.”

  They sat there in silence long enough that Cami got up and checked on the armored plate. She performed a bit of touch up on it and then set it aside again. She’d start testing it tomorrow but wanted to give it time to properly temper first.

  “You don’t have to worry about asking, Nico. I just came from asking him.”

  Cami’s eyes went wide. “How did that go?”

  “Not as bad as I feared, but he refused to give me an answer.” The rogue pinched the bridge of her nose. “Now, he’s with Lisella.”

  Cami sighed then and sat in the chair next to Modessa. She shouldn’t care. Lisella was his mentor, but somehow it still bothered Cami.

  Chapter 25 - A New Minion

  After Modessa’s shocking question, I ended up spending the rest of the evening with Lisella. I had resisted the urge to reject Modessa out of hand. A part of me realized that if Modessa became my minion, I would be able to inflict my revenge upon her in a thousand little ways. But my time with Lisella took some of my glee away, as she wanted to talk about my responsibilities as a student and what I needed to study next.

  My taste for revenge on Modessa had waned but wasn’t entirely gone. The way she had treated me when we’d first met was completely unacceptable. Unfortunately, killing her now would only waste a—the word was bitter—‘valuable’ resource. The way she had handled the followers of Nilarue when both my violence and Sir Latham’s appeal had failed proved that.

  Besides, seeing how humanity had kept dragons in bondage, it seemed like making her my minion might be a better response than simply killing her. I had even considered if I’d be able to get the other adventurers to become minions, too.

  Galbrecht was probably out, because he was the chosen of a goddess. The same might apply to Lisella. For a moment, I considered if I might be able to get her to agree if I hinted at a possible willingness to fulfill her fantasies about me in the future. Of course, I never would, so I decided it wasn’t worth lowering myself to that level.

  Serius was out of the picture, as it seemed he was going to take over running the university. As for Liam, I didn’t know the man well enough. He was the most reserved of the adventurer party who had ousted me from my home.

  Lisella insisted that I had to stay with her for a while, but she also promised to get me more spells to learn. Unfortunately, when she performed one of her divine spells in front of me, I was no longer able to copy it. That part of my mind evolution constituted a definite loss, but I still hoped it would end up helping me come out ahead.

  I slept in the suite of rooms she’d set aside for me after checking in with Cami. My bonded wasn’t happy that I would be staying with Lisella while she would be staying with Modessa, but she seemed to relax once I told her that I had a separate wing of the apartment.

  I couldn’t fathom why my staying with my mentor would upset her. Wasn’t she doing the same with her mentor? Human insecurities were more apparent to me after my evolution, but remained just as inscrutable all the same.

  The next morning, I went to the building my minions had rented. Apparently, business was booming. As a good dragon overlord should, I needed to check on them. When I walked into their building, though, some of the clerks up front were new and told me that I couldn’t walk straight to the back.

  It was amusing to see Rubin come running out. He moved far more spryly than he had before he’d become a minion. I don’t know if I would even have noticed such a thing before, but I did now. It made me proud to think that he’d gained such obvious benefits from serving me. How much easier life would be if all humans simply became minions.

  Though if that were they case, how would I remember all their names? I supposed I could just call them all ‘Bob’… or perhaps ‘Kevin’… or even ‘Stuart’. Yes, Kevin, Stuart, and Bob were fitting names for minions.

  No, I shook my head at that thought. The bondage of dragons shouldn’t be dealt with by putting all humans into bondage. Besides, most humans weren’t actually worthy of becoming a minion.

  Ruben shouted at the clerk, “You silly girl. This is Nico. We’ve told you that he is welcome anytime as the owner of this building.”

  The girl blushed and she curtsied while apologizing profusely. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. Please don’t fire me. My family really needs me to earn some extra coin.”

  I could appreciate her desire for gold, so I waved her apologies aside and said, “Just pay closer attention.”

  She nodded and then moved back to the front.

  Ruben said, “I’m so glad you came. We have a few things we’ve been working on that we’d like to show you.”

  I followed the enchanter back to the workshop. When I got there, I saw a few apprentices being instructed by Daggin who gave them all some quick instructions before coming over to us. Cami and Modessa were there, as well, looking at a piece of armor which was set up on one of the workbenches.

  Cami immediately smiled at me and set the metal down. I was warmed by the flow of affection I felt from her. We had been through a great deal together, and both of us knew that our journey had only begun.

  Modessa, on the other hand looked at me briefly and then hung her head. A part of me felt sympathy for her. She was a proud human, and it had to have been difficult to humble herself before someone she had once considered an enemy when we first met.

  I knew it would be difficult for me, at least. Luckily, I was a dragon and never made such grievous errors in assaulting the innocent—certainly not those who were stronger than me. Something about that thought felt off, but I had experienced far too much introspection of late.

  I decided to take a break from introspection—for at least an hour or two.

  The one person I hadn’t expected to find here was Cassandra, my prospective Alchemy instructor. I was definitely leaning towards getting a crafting class. This was another one of those areas I felt dragons had missed out on. I could certainly get minions to do most of the crafting I needed done, but Cami had demonstrated the power of a crafting class, and I didn’t want to limit myself based upon the past experiences of other dragons.

  Cassandra didn’t seem to be doing much of anything, other than walking around and inspecting the workshop. She didn’t say anything but looked at me when I arrived. I expect that, having seen my true form; she was likely disappointed by this squishy human body.

  I pushed that all aside, though, as Ruben led me to a workbench on the other side of the room. Daggin and Cami joined us.

  My Companion smiled at me. “You’re going to like this, I think.”

  Daggin coughed into his hand. “Please understand that these are only proto-types. We still have a bunch o’ refining yet to do, but they’ve been useful so far.”

  Ruben nodded and said, “After discussing things and seeking counsel with Cami, we believe that we have thought of four ways we can best apply our crafts to empower you. The most obvious of these is for us to create gear for you and Cami to use. We want you to be protected, so defensive items were at the top of our list. After all, if you die, we will lose all the benefits of being your minions.”

  I smiled. I could respect such pragmatism. I was still getting used to the idea of having minions, but it seemed that if they saw value in the relationship, they would work harder. When I had explored the Dragon Dream for prior experiences with minions, I saw that my ancestors had been woefully ignorant about how best to motivate their minions. Some seemed to think that the sheer honor of being a minion should be enough, while others tried to rule through fear.

  While it was true that fear was a powerful motivator, it ate away at the object of the fear, eventually producing diminishing returns. No. I felt that while respect was essential, along with a bit of healthy fear, it was still shared interests and mutual benefits which produced the best outcomes. My experiences living as a human had given me what I felt was a unique perspective on what they would consider ‘shared interests’.

  I simply nodded and said, “Very good.”

  Ruben scratched his cheek and continued, “Still, as much as we want to keep you alive, we haven’t put all of our focus into that area. Some guidance would help us know how best to streamline our projects.”

  Daggin showed me a couple of prototypes.

  “We thought about regeneration rings,” he admitted, “but the problem with them is that most of ‘em operate on a fixed amount of regeneration per minute. Cami doesn’t think that would be beneficial, given what she called your massive pool of HP. So, our strategy is to come up with an item that will regenerate your health based on a percentage of your health which you have lost.

  “Thus, the more damage you take, the faster you would regenerate. Before you get too excited, though, we are still a good ways from being able to create such an item. Many enchanters have tried such a thing in the past, but we believe that by combining our crafts with Cami’s soul forging, we will be able to overcome the problems that defeated previous attempts.”

  We talked about that, as well as a few ideas they had for protective gear to shore up my elemental resistances, specifically to fire and cold. Cami told me that she was close to a breakthrough on that front, but wanted to wait until she had done some more testing before showing me what she had.

  Ruben said, “You expressed to us that you would like to have more ranged offensive options, as well as ways to bypass magical protections. On that front, we have two working proto-types for you to examine.”

  The first item he handed to me was about the size of a pineapple. It wasn’t exactly heavy, but it was either magically enhanced to be heavier than one might expect it to be, or it was made of solid metal. Surprisingly, it vibrated in my hands.

  I cast Identify.

  Cluster Bomb - Prototype

  This bomb is meant to be dropped upon the heads of your enemies. It features a fragmenting casing of steel which is two inches thick. The casing is designed to shred apart and then blast outwards when the core of the item explodes. The core is an empty crystal which is enchanted to absorb electrical energy.

  The damage potential for this item is, as of yet, unknown.

  Daggin said, “We tried usin’ crystalized mana inside o’ the weapon, but it lost its potency in a matter o’ days. The enchantments necessary to preserve long term magical items were too large and take away from the explosive potential of the weapon since they are designed to promote stability.

  “But, we thought that if you carried some of these cluster bombs on your person while you had Call the Charge or your Shocking Aura active, then they would be passively charged.”

  “Okay, but how do I use them?” I asked, quickly adding, “It’s fairly heavy for what it is, though I suppose if I dropped it on a human from high enough it would kill them. But even that wouldn’t be enough to stop a baloth or other such monsters.”

  “Yes, M’lord, but once charged, you can drop dozens of these bombs. They will explode on contact, sending shards of metal in every direction. The effect is quite potent and because of the high conductivity of the metal used, they will also deliver a residual electric charge for extra damage.”

  I smiled as I began envisioning me dropping entire bags of these upon landed monsters. “Definitely continue developing this. We will need to do some testing.”

  “Yes, M’lord. Now, if I may show you the other item?”

  I nodded.

  “We could create various projectiles for you to use if you wanted to develop the requisite skills or we could create basic items to boost your mana pool allowing you to cast more spells. But Cami explained how you fight, with both your body and magic at the same time. No matter how powerful a mage is, they are limited in how many different magics they can work at the same time and how quickly they can work those magics.

  “Thus, rather than focusing on more spells, I wanted to come up with an item which would boost the effectiveness of the best ranged attacks you already have. Storing massive amounts of energy is a problem, though, as you saw with the cluster bombs. Otherwise, we might have tried to make more items like your bracers.”