Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (little bear else holmelund minarik .TXT) 📕

and silver heavy plate of the Order of St. Grigori. Now, she was dressed in a set of armor fit for a Valkyrie. By the sword, shield, and Teutonic designs on her surcoat, I was willing to bet that’s exactly what she was.

“Hector.” Nethres had a husky, hollow voice, which warmed with real pleasure as I closed on her and offered a hand. She clapped her palm into mine, meeting my gaze as we shook. “Always knew you’d go a long way. Never imagined how far, though. Look at all this.”

“Thanks.” I was glad to see her, but still wary. “What a fucking adventure it’s been since dragon school, hey?”

“Guess you could call it that.” Nethres hadn’t ever smiled during the Trials, and she was just as serious now.

“What are you doing here, on the other side of Artana?” I asked, glancing back at the others. They’d stopped talking, watching us curiously. “I figured you’d stayed in Ilia.”

Nethres’ lips tightened. “The only people who stayed in Ilia are the ones into Baldr and Lucien’s Hitler fantasy. I left the country and traveled west to Gilheim. Picked up my Advanced Path, and bonded with a quazi.”

“Jeez. Well, what about Casper? We saw him in Dakhdir not long ago.”

At the mention of the archer’s name, Nethres’ face rippled with an irritated tic. “Fuck Casper. I thought he was my friend. Turns out he’s a piece of shit. I’ll be happy to tell you how it went down, in private.”

“Sure. Let me handle these guys, and we can go catch up.” I nodded, and turned to the rest of the group, beckoning them over.

The five of them were clearly split into two different parties, because the first group, three almost-identical Meewfolk with calico-patterned fur, moved together like synchronized swimmers. The other pair was only slightly less surreal. The Meewfolk woman was some kind of bard class, judging by her eccentric clothes and the strange looking instrument slung over her back—a set of double-layered pan-pipes about as long as a baseball bat. Her human companion was a one-hundred-percent walking fanfiction toon of Conan the Barbarian, complete with sword, shield, and bulging muscles. He wore nothing except a manly scowl, a loincloth, a rough fur cloak and steel pauldrons.

“Hey everyone, sorry to keep you waiting.” I put on my best veneer of confidence as they joined the conversation. “I’m Hector. I’m guessing that we have The Meews Brothers, plus Kylirra and Konan?”

Kylirra’s brilliant blue eyes hooded, and she trilled as she extended her hand to me, fingers out. “Oh, darling, I didn’t expect you’d even remember us! It’s so wonderful to be able to finally put a face to the name! We did that quest to recover all those little lordlings for you, remember? Kon, say hello.”

“Uhhn.” ‘Kon’ grunted.

The three brothers stepped forward to shake hands: all of them, at the same time. I started from the left and worked to the right, trying not to cross my eyes as I looked at them. The only visual difference between the three Meewfolk men was the color of their calico patches. The ginger, brown and white spots were swapped around.

“Nice to finally put a face to the Count of Myszno.” It was the middle one who spoke. “I’m... uhh... we’re pleased to meet you. My name was Hayden, but here we go by Makmaai. Or Max, if that’s easier.”

“Just... Makmaai? Singular?” I looked between them, confused.

Kylirra let out a tinkling laugh, flapping her hand. “‘Makmaai’ means ‘Legion’ in our language, in case you didn’t know.”

“Hah, yeah. We kind of shift focus from body to body, and the other two just roll with whatever the one in charge is doing. If we’re in character, we just go with White Max, Ginger Max, and Brown Max. Like a damn Dr. Seuss book.” The one to the left—the gingeriest—spoke up. “There was a glitch when I... we... uploaded. One set of brain data, three different avatars. If anyone was alive back at the company, we’re sure they’d have a goddamn field day trying to figure out how this happened.”

“We’re used to it, now, though,” Brown Max continued. “It’d be great if we actually got full EXP for all three toons, but we don’t. It’s split between us, so we make the best out of it.”

“Oh my god, you guys should totally make an acapella group!” Kylirra trilled, before looking back to me. “Anyway, Hector, me and Kon here want to sign up with your clan. I mean, I know there’s no official clans on Archemi or anything, but we’ve been all over Artana and the only other Starborn worth anything is that Baldr Hyland guy in Ilia. And to be frank with you, he seems like kind of a douche.”

“Hunh.” Kon nodded his assent.

“You don’t even know the half of it,” Nethres said dourly.

“Believe me, we’ve heard stories.” Kylirra let out a tittering, nervous laugh. “But yes, I don’t know about y’all, but after two back-to-back world wars and a mass extinction event, I’m a little sick of assholes trying to conquer the world for no good reason.”

“Same,” Brown Max said. “We want to sign up with your group and help out as we can. The talk in taverns is that Vlachia is gearing up to fight Ilia.”

“We’re trying to deter Ilia before it comes to full blown war, but yeah. Baldr and friends might leave us with no choice,” I said. “Anyway, I’ll tell you what: Myszno always has quests that need doing. All of you are welcome to take up rooms in the castle, or you can find your own places to live in Karhad, Boros, Litvy or Solonovka. I’ll preference you for Kingdom Quests for say, the next month or so. You get the EXP, money, whatever loot the quest entails, unless that loot belongs to the Volod and-or my province. Once