Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

Chapter 320: Major Interlude - Iona - They Meet in a Tavern I

Chapter 320: Major Interlude - Iona - They Meet in a Tavern I

Iona was sick. She didn’t have the fancy words the healers all had to describe the various types of sickness. She had a more practical take on it. Burning-vomiting-oozing pus sick. Useless for any sort of medical diagnosis, great for describing what was happening.

Iona had been utterly shredded by the adult frost wyvern, barely managing to cling onto life with her absurd vitality. It kept her alive, but infection had set in. Acid had eaten away at her innards, melting the edges of some of her organs, and she only had one of her limbs left, using Mallium as crude prosthetics to keep moving.

Staying in the frozen wastes of Modu with Fenrir was a slow death sentence. The only question was if she would feel cold or hot as the end came, and if Fenrir would wait until she was dead to start taking a nibble. Their bond, their relationship, was still new and Fenrir was willing to follow Iona while she remained a source of food.

“Lunaris. Selene. I need help.” Iona begged her patrons.

A distant laugh, and an arrow appeared in Iona’s vision, pointing in a direction. The goddesses had their own sense of humor, providing aid in unexpected ways.

Iona had hoped that becoming their [Paladin] would mean slightly better miracles, but no.

Iona’s injuries were devastating. Her high vitality helped her heal faster, but there was no healing an amputated arm. Bodies didn’t naturally grow back areas scoured with acid, and Iona’s constant movement kept breaking open injuries that were trying to scab over. Her crude Mallium prosthetics kept digging into the stumps of her legs, forcing them open, having blood trickle down her metal leg - when it didn’t freeze over before hitting the ground. That didn’t even touch on how many broken bones, sprained joints, internal tears, and battered, half-ruptured organs she had. The fact that Iona could even stand, let alone walk, was both a miracle, and a testament to her determination and grit.

She followed the direction the goddesses had provided, fever clouding her mind, narrowing her focus to a few small points. Fenrir came along, occasionally lapping Iona’s blood from her crimson footprints, trying to fight by her side as they encountered various creatures that called Modu their home. The ones they didn’t run from got turned into food that Iona gladly shared with Fenrir, making sure the baby always had his fill before she took a bite.

Iona never stopped moving, not even when a blizzard howled through. She did have to pick up poor Fenrir and bring him along with her, or else the baby would get lost. She also shielded him from the storm with her body, which was unnecessary - but Fenrir remembered. He saw what she was doing. The clouded vision didn’t matter, the goddess’s divine arrow pointed the path through the blinding, driving snow.

At last, nearly delirious with fever, Iona left Modu behind, entering the Tuvan tribes. Land of the yetis and snow women.

The first tribe of yetis Iona encountered wanted nothing to do with her, keeping a wide berth around the crazed, blood-coated warrior with a wyvern trailing along behind her. The risk of her being some fresh new horror from Modu was too high, and besides. The little apex predator seemed to have dibs on her otherwise.

Iona didn’t press it, simply picking up Fenrir and stagger-running north with all her might on her crude prosthesis. Under ideal conditions - no armor, perfectly healthy, a ton of food, and her [Vow] kicking in the entire time - Iona could cover over 2,000 miles in a day. Of course, such a situation to allow her [Vow] to be permanently active was unlikely to persist as she covered the distance, and Iona wasn’t close to ideal conditions. The best she could do, hobbling along on her prosthetics, carrying Fenrir, was only a few hundred miles.

The second tribe was more willing to hear her out. Iona’s gift of languages and tongue was partially sabotaged by her inability to clearly think and articulate what she needed, but the combination of speaking their own language, and clearly heavily injured had the yetis giving her a hand. However, their [Shaman] couldn’t do much for her. His class only had minor healing, and it was entirely focused on healing members of his own tribe. The paste they gave Iona helped stem the bleeding, and Iona was back on her way north.

The bleeding was stopped until she ripped half of it out the next time a monster ambushed the two of them. The divine arrow that had been guiding Iona so far faded the next day, and she found herself looking at one of the sects of The Great Tang.

Getting closer to home.

Iona couldn’t remember her sects all that well. Some were friendly to the Valkyries, others were hostile, a natural result of Castle Valkyrie being near the border of The Great Tang. It frustrated Iona, how they should all be working together, and instead constantly found cause for bitter, petty conflicts, but those were thoughts for another day.

End of the day, there was an even chance that any sect she found would happily “disappear” her and loot her body, as they would help her. Iona was in no condition to fight people, her fever growing stronger, clouding her mind and thoughts.

She bonded with Fenrir after a particularly difficult fight. Iona would’ve struggled to figure out the right skill to remove if she hadn’t spent more than half her life targeting a skill slot in the first place.

[Dinosaur Husbandry] made way for [Companion Bond Between Iona and Fenrir]. The skill gave her a sense of the wind and the weather. Linked her awareness to Fenrir when she rode him - an event that was going to be far, far in the future, given his small size and slow growth speed. It gave her a supernaturally powerful bite, able to rip and tear with her teeth like she had a Dark skill dedicated to it. Lastly, it made her more savage, and even in the head-in-clouds fever state Iona was in, she recognized the danger of such a line, even though it wasn’t fully explained.

Her blessing let her peek at Fenrir, seeing that he’d eventually be able to speak somewhat normally. That he was smarter - a low bar for the wyvern to clear, to be sure, but a welcome one - and that he’d be unnaturally smooth for Iona to ride. Lastly, in a line that had Iona pucker her lips, he was going to be more of a workaholic.

“I am not a workaholic!” Iona screamed at the clouds, getting some strange looks from the other travelers who were already not getting close to her on the road. Something about being coated in metal and blood tended to turn off other people.

The goddesses just laughed in her ears.

However, she did keep her wits somewhat about her. The Great Tang represented the return of roads and travelers, and she kept glancing at various people she crossed - in spite of them keeping far away from the blood-coated fevered [Warrior] - seeing if any of them was a healer. Even the smallest and most meager of healers could give her a hand. She just needed to find one that had ventured out and was on the road, as opposed to trying to search through a town for one, who might not even heal Iona with her utter lack of money.

The Valkyrie name wasn’t as potent as it used to be, and The Great Tang. Rivalries. Sects disappearing her.

Finally she saw one on the road, and felt her blood run hot, coursing through her.

Want. The thought went, and Iona practically pounced on the poor man.

“HEAL.” She snarled at him, grabbing his shirt.

She didn’t even see the punch that laid her out, the man’s bodyguard stepping in, but she did hear the poor healer running screaming, and felt ashamed of herself.

She was better than that.

She’d let the bond get in the way.

Concussed and feverish, Iona could only keep three thoughts in her head.

Survive.

Protect Fenrir.

And last, her last mission, a place where she knew[Oathbound Healers] congregated, a place where she could be fixed up.

Get to Lyon.

Iona blitzed down the roads, stopped when she or Fenrir needed to. One of the stops was much like any other, an inn near a small village that recognized Iona as a Valkyrie, and had a strong impression of them. One of them had saved the inn owner’s life decades ago, and his doors were always open to one of their Order, marked by their winged helmets.

Iona collapsed into one of their beds after nearly clearing out the pantry with Fenrir’s help.

She woke up the next morning feeling amazing. Her arm was back! Her legs were healed! Sure, her bed was an unholy mess of blood, but that was a usual morning sight for Iona.

“Food?” Fenrir growled at her, Iona only understanding him because of her blessing. His language hadn’t progressed that far yet.

“Soon.” She found herself growling back. It was still weird thinking a word in one language, and her throat making an entirely different sound than the one she expected.

She stretched, marveling at her hand, at her ability to jump and move without pain. Her head was like clear ice, and there was a distinct lack of strange pulls and funny smells coming from her body.

Iona took a moment to pray.

Selene. Lunaris. I got healed! Don’t know if you had a hand in it, but I’m all better. Hope they’re still around so I can say hi and thanks!

Iona’s stomach rumbled, the sort of ravenous, all-encompassing hunger that came from a fever or illness breaking.

She made herself a bit more presentable, manipulating her Mallium to slide the blood off, then had it flow behind her back, effectively packing it away.

The Valkyrie frowned as dozens of frost wyvern scales fell out of the armor, remembering that she’d woven them into her armor to better bulk up and protect herself. With some [Telekinesis], she picked up all the pieces, delighting in how easy it was. No need to manually pick them all up from the floor one at a time!

Mages had it so nice sometimes, and now Iona could dabble in their cool stuff!

Iona walked down the hall, and had to resist snatching away a loaf of bread off of one of the [Barmaid’s] trays. It wasn’t hers, but she felt the impulse to just snatch what she wanted.

It was wrong. It would be dishonorable.

She made her way down the stairs, and took a quick look around the tavern, seeing if she could spot who it was who’d helped her out.

There was a cultivator from the Wandering Wind sect. A trader and his guards, along with his daughter. A few laborers from the village, grabbing a quick drink in the morning before heading off to a day’s work. A party of adventurers, likely employed by the local lord to carefully dismantle an old ruin or wizard’s lair and see what there was to find. A pair from the Hunter’s Guild.

Lastly, five people sitting at a table together. A couple, in their late thirties and early forties, subtly showing each other affection in their own private language of love. Iona glanced through their status, half-raising an eyebrow at the mage’s level.

Both had multiple classes and skills related to being Rangers, an organization Iona wasn’t familiar with. However, it was clear that they weren’t some sort of rogue bandits, even if they were far away from home. Iona made a mental note to check with them to see if they knew what the local [Lords] and [Knights] wanted for documentation, otherwise they’d suffer no end of hassle.

The girl was where it started to get weird. Who had a blank for a name slot?! That just didn’t happen. Well, possibly she had entirely disavowed her name, like some members of the Eventide Establishment or one of the gangs were rumored to do. Even then, the one time Iona had encountered one, their name had been “No one”, not a blank. People found it difficult to dissociate themselves from any identity.

However, a mercantile class combined with a healer class, and a number of truly benign skills, had Iona thinking that she was simply some oddity, and not a ninja.

And that was before her third class was flat-out missing. Iona played with her interface a bit, checking a few more people before confirming that, yes, she didn’t have a third class registered. There were some other oddities going on with her status, words with accents, some skills meandering around instead of being in straight, readable lines.

Iona had a brief moment of doubt. She didn’t quite trust what she was seeing, not even the Race: Human line.

She mentally slapped herself. Her ability to see statuses was a divine blessing from Lunaris and Selene themselves. There was no way it could be displaying something wrong.

Iona disabled [Chilled Mind] and pinched herself on the next status she read, checking that she was actually awake and aware, and hadn’t gone deeper into her fever. A real concern with what was displayed in front of her.

It would be like the goddesses to pull a massive prank on Iona as she died…

Sitting on a random table in a small tavern in a mortal country, staggering around with a belly overfilled with juice, was a bright, colorful phoenix.

A phoenix.

A phoenix. A creature that was supposedly just a legend, over-indulging on juice.

Plus, the legends always had phoenixes as gigantic birds of flame, not a tiny hummingbird. Then again, her age was 1. Brand new, just hatched, and already capped at 128 and 32. Clearly waiting on additional class ups, and already had over 2000 stat points in each of the magic stats.

Her skills were as stupid as her stats, and Iona felt a distinct sense of jealousy as she read over them. She’d had to work her ass off for a decade to get skills that were a fraction as potent as what the little phoenix had gotten, and she seriously doubted the bird had gone through trials of - well, not fire - to get those skills.

Life…

Well, life was sometimes just unfair. Iona reminded herself of all the advantages she’d gotten, all the ways life had been bent unfairly for her, and was about to move on when one last line caught her eye.

[Companion Bond Between Auri and Healer].

She was companion bonded to… healer? What? The abstract idea of what [Analyze] showed other people? Someone with the healer class?

Or had some pair of lunatic parents literally named their kid “Healer”?

She moved onto the last person in the party, and goddesses she was pretty. Delicate features led to a bright smile and sparkling eyes, her skin was clear and unblemished, she was lovely, striking, beautiful, stunning.

Pretty.

Iona had seen plenty of attractive men and women in her time. Shared a bed with a bunch of them. This lady wasn’t the most attractive woman Iona had ever seen, but she was pressing her buttons just right.

Iona felt the urge to throw her over one shoulder, climb back up the stairs, and throw her back into her bed.

She bit the urge back, remembering how the companion bond was screwing with her mind and desires, and how she’d scared off the healer she’d met on the road.

The urge was further quelled as she noticed the feathers braided into her hair.

Angel feathers. Iona felt herself go cold at the blasphemer. Someone who’d use the feathers of the god’s sacred servants as mere ornamentation, likely from a fallen angel.

She paused a moment, waiting for one of her patrons to whisper in her ear. To give her guidance on what to do. Iona was their [Paladin] after all. Solving these sorts of issues was part of what she was now.

Ancient. Selene whispered to her. Angels fallen so long ago as to be gone from history.

Angels… sent to help her? Her friends? It’s unclear. Lunaris breathed into Iona’s other ear.

Not something to handle right now, but Iona still had an initial dislike of the woman because of the feathers.

She peeked at her status, feeling her mood lift at the great joke that was her name. She quietly chuckled to herself as she read the first line.

Name: Healer

The poor girl. Her parents had indeed named her healer, and nothing else. That was a rough way to start life. Usually when professions were in a name, they were appended after the name. So it was easy to tell in a village that you were talking about John the Smith, and not John the Tailor. Nobody would just name their kid Smith though - they needed a name outside the identity.

As Iona started looking over the rest of her classes and skills, she felt like the phoenix wasn’t the craziest thing at the table.

At 22 - the same age as Iona - she also had her third class unlocked, but not yet taken. Still, it was the mark of an utterly absurd life that had gotten her so far already. The first class mentioned Sentinel, and it had Iona wondering about the Exterreri Empire vampire Sentinels. Maybe she had been selected - probably by politics or her parents, given her age - to be one of the next generation of Sentinels, and power leveled hard. It made sense with how vampires worked. Once they were turned, their leveling rate slowed to a crawl. It was much easier to get a high level as a human, or something else, then be turned into a vampire.

That would explain her [The Dawn Sentinel] class name.

Except…

Except glancing quickly at her capped skills, [The Dawn Sentinel] was a healer class.

The healer had gone for a healer class. It was as absurd as someone getting called “mage” and deciding to become a mage, or someone named “potter” at birth and picking up a pottery class. She never had a chance.

But more distractingly, the healer class was way over 256.

Just wandering around mortal lands.

What was she doing?! What were the people with her playing at!?

Why wasn’t anyone else in the tavern freaking out!? Had she bribed them all or something!? Iona carefully read the room.

No, there were no covetous or fearful looks shot the way of the strange healer called Healer. She wasn’t the focus of the room, just a few lecherous looks shot her way. Iona felt an irrational surge of protectiveness and envy, but stamped it down.

Dislike. She reminded herself. An over-leveled healer wearing angel feathers?

There had to be some high level deception measures going on. Likely an artifact some [Enchanter] had made. It was the only thing that made sense, and it dropped her respect for the group by a few notches.

Truth was important. Paramount. It was woven into her very [Vow]. Skulking about, hiding who and what they were meant they were likely up to no good.

Iona deliberately ignored the uncomfortable truth that maybe they just didn’t want to get murdered in their sleep.

She continued looking through the first class’s skills.

[Affinity] wasn’t capped, suggesting a massive number of levels recently without extensive skill use behind it, lending evidence to Iona’s power level theory. That, or she somehow did major Dawn Sentinel things without tons of skill use.

[Cosmic Presence] suggested lots of time with a large number of wounded people around her. Iona was practically certain that she’d been power leveled at this point, people being deliberately injured to help increase her level. Healers could get dramatic amounts of experience that way, although Iona admitted that it was possible that Healer followed Exterreri Empire armies around, and got a number of levels that way.

[The Stars Never Fade].

Iona read the skill, on one hand not believing what it said, on the other knowing that it was exactly what it said. Her hand reflexively twitched towards her weapon, a lifetime of training ingrained in her to remove the threat. Kill one person, so tens if not hundreds of thousands would live.

She didn’t entirely lose her head, remembering that she was in a safe, civilized location, and murdering people outright was terrible form, especially after they just saved her life.

After all. Iona didn’t see any other healers here. As much as she didn’t like to admit it, healer Healer had saved her and Fenrir.

The twitch didn’t go unnoticed though, and the older woman sitting at the table snapped her head towards Iona; her partner and the healer following suit just a moment later as the air crackled with the smell that air had right before a lightning strike.

That was a twitchy mage.

Iona threw out her “healer got power leveled” idea entirely. The reflexes she’d just displayed were born of great experience in fights and battles, not honed on a drill ground. In retrospect, she hadn’t properly thought about the stats displayed for the levels she was seeing. That math had always made her head hurt.

It was only polite to go over and say hi, and Iona was nothing if not [Adaptable] with a hefty dose of [Magnetic Charm]. Immortal healer hanging out with a phoenix? Sure, let’s roll with it, and be polite. Be honorable. There were more ways of handling an immortality-granting healer than killing her. She started walking over, drinking in the sight of the healer with her eyes. By Selene, she was just so damn unfairly pretty. And, for some reason, vaguely familiar.

“Hi hi HI! Come sit!” The little phoenix brrrpted at her, making her feel welcome.

“Hello. My name’s Iona. Thank you for saving my life.” She said, her tongue twisting in strange ways to speak Healer’s - Elaine’s - native language. It was her name, she should think of it in the word it was, not the meaning it had.