The first two shots cracked across the river like a door slamming in an empty church.
Both rounds struck the nearer drake square in the chest, sparks spraying as the crystal crust shrugged them off. The drake flinched, swinging its head from bank to bank in search of whatever invisible thing just bit it.
Ray backed through the shallows without a word, his face unchanged while he counted fifty-nine rounds left between both guns.
[ ARMOR SCAN ]
[Armor: Siphon Crystal]
[Plain Rounds: Deflected]
[Soft Points: Eyes, Throat, Belly]
He sidestepped until the sun sat behind his shoulders, putting the glare in the drake’s eyes instead of his own.
"Your back is armored, though I very much doubt your face is," he said quietly, as if apologising in advance.
The drake found him by sound, surging through the water with jaws wide enough to swallow a barrel.
On the far bank a heron lifted away without a sound, wanting no part of what came next.
’Shooting that crust is like throwing coins down a well, so this one gets done by hand.’
He holstered the right pistol and drew the Breaker Dagger in one motion, keeping the left gun low.
He stepped off the line late, letting the jaws pass his hip before clamping his left arm over the snout. His knee drove under the lower jaw, slamming the mouth shut while his weight pinned the head to his ribs.
The drake thrashed hard enough to lift him off his feet, its tail whipping white spray across the bend.
"You are one strong lizard, but I promise this part is painless if you hold still for me," he said quietly, riding the next buck.
The dagger punched up through the soft hide under its chin, stapling both jaws together.
He rolled his left wrist until the muzzle sat in the eye socket, then fired once through the skull. The drake shuddered against his chest for a single heartbeat before sagging into the shallows like a dropped sack.
He wrenched the blade free, already turning toward the shelf before the body finished settling in the mud.
"Ray, the Veil is cracking!" Yuzu shouted from the shelf.
The second drake was battering the dome with its skull, each blow spidering cracks through the gold light around her. Its crusted back faced the river while the belly stayed pressed against the rock where no straight shot could reach.
Inside the glow Yuzu braced her rapier with both hands, her feet planted as the dome shuddered.
"It keeps hitting the same seam like it knows exactly where my ward is weakest!"
He splashed toward the shelf, "Give me five more seconds of that dome, Doc, then get down flat when I say your name."
"That’s four seconds now," she snapped, sweat running down her temple into her collar.
A slab of slate jutted from the waterline below the shelf, flat and wet, angled like a tilted mirror.
[ RICOCHET SOLUTION ]
[Surface: Slate Face]
[Bank Angle: 31 Degrees]
[Impact: Belly]
’Banking a round off wet slate is a terrible idea, though that is exactly why nobody will ever see it coming.’
"Yuzu."
She dropped flat as he fired into the slate from fourteen paces, low and left of any sane aim.
The round skipped off the slate with a whine, climbing to punch through the belly into the chest. The beast reared off the dome shrieking, staggered two steps along the shelf, then toppled into the river.
The splash rolled across the bend, soaking Ray to the collar as the Veil faded into sparks.
"Did you just shoot a rock on purpose, or did your thunder wand miss and get lucky?" she demanded, lowering the rapier.
The grin came back all at once, lighting up his face like a lantern flipped open.
"That was completely on purpose... though the rock gets partial credit while I take the rest plus a bonus for style."
"That was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever watched a grown man do."
"It was also the most beautiful thing you’ve ever watched a grown man do," he said, blowing smoke off the muzzle like a gunslinger on a poster.
[ FEAT RECOGNISED ]
[Contractor: Ray K]
[Recognised Feat: Drake Slayer]
[STR +1]
[AGI +2]
[Title Earned: Drake Slayer]
[Blueprint Points: +5]
Heat poured down through his thighs like a swallow of good whiskey, settling into muscles that suddenly felt rebuilt. The current that tugged at his knees all morning now slid past him like it was afraid to push.
’Ten Blueprint Points in the bank with a faster pair of legs beats every tip a client ever left me.’
"Hahaha, I think the river just started respecting me!"
"The river is full of dead fish, so its opinion is worth very little."
Splashing footsteps came up the bank as two guildsmen in E-Rank tags shoved through the reeds, weapons out.
"The clerk sent us to drag your body back for the burial fee, F-Rank," the lanky spearman wheezed, then stopped dead at the sight of the river.
"Those are crystal drakes, D-Rank work for a full party, but where’s the rest of yours?" the bearded axeman asked, gaping at the carcasses.
"You’re looking at the whole party, with her holding the line while I handled the easy part."
The spearman waded to the first carcass, prodding the neat hole in its eye socket with his spear butt. There was no arrow shaft or scorch mark, nothing any hunter in Kelford could ever put a name to.
"What did you even hit it with, a crossbow bolt the size of a pea?"
"I hit it with professionalism, though I guess they stop teaching that after F-Rank, considering how late you two showed up."
"An F-Rank can’t kill a drake, never mind two of them," the axeman growled, glaring between them, "and somebody had better explain what I’m looking at."
"Don’t look at me, I was inside my Veil the whole fight," Yuzu said, flicking river water off her sleeve.
’Let them argue about it all the way back to town, given that confused people make terrible witnesses.’
She caught his sleeve before he could wander off, "Arm out, before you bleed on my samples."
"It’s only a scratch, though I’d save the good salve for somebody who actually deserves it."
"That crust carries channel toxicity, which festers inside a day without sunleaf."
She uncapped a jar of sunleaf salve, scooping a thumb of green paste straight into the cut without warning.
"Aghhh, hell, that stings worse than the actual drake did!" he yelped, hopping on one foot.
The salve burned like a wasp sting as she packed it into the cut, her palm glowing against his forearm. Behind them the guildsmen kept circling the carcasses, muttering about sorcery and luck while staying well out of arm’s reach.
"Stop whining, this is the cheap batch."
"Can I at least get a closer look at whatever that thing in your—" the spearman asked, inching closer.
"Nope, it bites strangers, though on a good day it barely tolerates me."
The axeman leaned on his haft, staring at Ray like a man pricing a horse that just learned to talk.
"Y-you really killed both of them yourself, with your healer hiding in a bubble the entire time?"
"She wasn’t hiding, she was holding the lane, the hardest job on any crew if you ask me."
He knelt by the first carcass, prying a violet core loose from the crust with one easy wrench.
"Those cores fetch good silver at the guild, where you declare them at the counter," Yuzu said.
"I’ll declare them right after I finish studying them, which could honestly take me years... maybe even decades."
He pried the second core free, tucking both into his coat where they sat warm against his ribs.
He snapped a palm-sized shard of drake crust off the nearest carcass, pocketing it for later testing.
The spike still stood in the bend, humming like a beehive with violet runes crawling up its shaft.
"Cover your ears, gentlemen, while I turn this faucet off for good."
He waded out until the water reached his thighs, sighting on the brightest rune near the crown of the spike.
The shot cracked off the crown as the rune burst, the others stuttering dark one after another down the shaft. The hum died away as the river began to move again, the oily violet sheen slowly thinning around his knees.
Somewhere downstream a frog croaked once, testing the silence like a nervous customer at the door.
"Is it dead, or only sleeping the way those drakes were?" she called from the bank.
"It’s deader than my social life... and you can all start calling me a genius whenever you—"
A violet pulse crawled up the spike from below, swallowing the rest of his sentence in a fresh hum.
The runes flickered back on one at a time, weaker than before but stubborn, like embers somebody kept blowing on. Under the riverbed a thin line of light ran downstream toward Kelford, feeding the spike from somewhere much farther away.
[ SIPHON SPIKE ]
[Status: Reactivated]
[Feed: Trunk Line]
[Direction: Kelford]
[ AMMUNITION ]
[Rounds Remaining: 56]
’This spike is only a faucet, while the plumbing runs straight back to town.’
"Oh, you have got to be shitting me, the damn thing has a backup line, and who in their right mind builds a backup line for a spike?"
"Where does that line run?" she asked, the color draining from her face.
"Straight toward Kelford and right under your town wells, which makes this a whole lot worse than dead fish."
The guildsmen traded a look that promised this tale would be told at every tavern for a month.
"Guildmaster Tenon hears about this before noon, F-Rank, so you’d better have your account straight," the axeman grunted, already backing toward the reeds.
"My account is that you two bravely arrived right after it ended, which is the version I’d tell if I were you."
The pair turned and ran for town at a sprint, the spearman’s tag bouncing against his chest with every stride. Ray watched them go before turning back to the spike, still pulsing out in the river like a stubborn heartbeat.
"Somebody under Kelford is drinking this river through a straw, Doc," he said, holstering the pistol, "and we’re going to find out who’s holding the cup."