Skye is the Limit by Phenomenal Pen (best time to read books txt) 📕

Zacharie Michel a.k.a. Ranger was feeling like the main character in the classic French novel Le Comte de Monte-Cristo. Not Edmond Dantès of the revenge execution or even the swashbuckling part but Edmond Dantès of the prison part.

Ranger was swinging a sword like some medieval reenactor, and not just a fencing foil but a full-on Grete sword or épée de Guerre. All forty inches of it. It was a curious sword, made of the same semi-transparent golden matter from his Anima bracelet. It looked like a digital wireframe sculpture yet weighed at least four pounds. Oh, and he was fighting a dragon with it. From the little Ranger could recall of Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, there were no dragons. 

Before his imprisonment, Edmond Dantès, the protagonist, was an expert sailor and was accustomed to seeing the open sea and the infinite horizon. After his imprisonment, he also became a pirate and no doubt regained his familiarity with a ship. Ranger had a theory going that sailors and pirates had such agility aboard their boats because they spent most of their lives on it. They knew every inch, from top to bottom, deck to bilge. If a stowaway ever came on board, be it a child or a rat, they would know.

As a prisoner, Dantès became king of his own domain too. He was kept in a cell for seven years. In fact, in the 2002 Hollywood adaptation, Edmond Dantès would go on to say there were 72, 519 stones in the walls of his cell. He had counted them plenty enough times.

Ranger felt the same familiarity with every frame of their invisible prison: Sky-Earth. Or at least up to the point where they were stuck: the battle with the Nidhoggr. The sight of the monster, their insurmountable challenge, was enough to make his Grete sword fizzle and droop like water from a garden hose after the faucet had been turned off. 

“C’est vraiment des c—” Ranger said, employing a mild cuss in his mother tongue. “It died again!” he elaborated, directing his grievance to Rip Lee a.k.a. Blacksmith.

Blacksmith was wearing the helmet and full bunker gear of a twenty-first century firefighter, all in the same glowy immaterial gold. His earlier fire truck had been erratic and was reduced to a hydrant. Blacksmith was training a fire hose with a fog nozzle straight into the mouth of the Nidhoggr, who was gurgling at the gold-colored water and had the surprised look of a pug in a meme. A fifteen-foot-tall pug, that is.

“What?” Blacksmith shouted as he flipped his visor up and wiped the profuse sweat off his face.

The dragon retaliated with a solid burst of flames that would’ve engulfed Blacksmith if he hadn’t materialized a beach umbrella made of water with a wave of his hand. The flames diverged in all directions and didn’t touch him. The biggest inconvenience they caused was a steady roar that impaired his hearing.

“My sword!” Ranger explained. “It died again!”

“Concentrate!” Blacksmith shouted back. “Stop thinking of other things! Get. Your. Mind. In. The. Game.”

Blacksmith flipped down his visor and went back to work.

Yeah, right, Ranger thought to himself. My head, heart and soul are in this game. I sold them all when I signed that contract with Atom the Sandm—

(Omni Systems)

Wait. What?

Ranger’s train of thought was interrupted by the crackle of his Anima bracelet, which had radio function. The wiry lion transformed into the facial outline of Lu Costa e Silva a.k.a. Warrior. Not even the Anima’s rough mimicry could hide the distress in Warrior’s face.

“Er, guys. This isn’t working. My energy balls and Elf’s arrows have no effect on the creature.”

Ranger raised his Anima bracelet close to his mouth and spoke directly to it. The bracelets seemed to be able to pick up anything they said but none of them knew exactly how they worked.

“Warrior, Elf, we’ve talked about this. That dragon’s hide is too thick for any of your weapons to pierce.” 

“Nidhoggr,” Mage inserted, promoting the Orcish word for the domesticated beasts. “Ranger has spoken the truth. The fire-specie Nidhoggr has an epidermal layer that is fire, bullet and shock-resistant. Its sole point of vulnerability is a spot under its crown of short pointed scales, which many outsiders mistake for horns. This spot is visible from a riding position, which is why all of us voted to execute Maneuver No. 3.”

“No. 3?” Elf echoed on their Anima radios. “How many spawnings have there been?”

“We are presently on the sixth spawning,” Mage answered matter-of-factly.

“Great,” Ellie Eze a.k.a. Elf said. She blew a stray curly lock of hair out of her face. “What’s Maneuver No. 3 again?”

“Maneuver No. 3,” Mage announced and played back a voice recording of Elf.

<Raid instance whatever. There are no trees or humps in that place that I can use to boost myself up…>      

“Ugh,” current-spawn Elf said. “Is that what I sound like?”

Ranger thought that that should be the least of her concerns. The fact that they were hearing an actual recording that they could barely remember deeply bothered him.