Dragon Witch ✔️

55 - Weapons

There was a whole rack of swords, from one of those skinny fencing swords to something that looked like it could chop a bear in half. Next to that, there were all types of daggers, staffs, maces, crossbows, longbows, axes, clubs, hammers, nunchucks, throwing stars, scyths, whips, and something with a lable saying "chain-blades."

The chain-blade was a blade on the end of a chain connected to a handle, something I hadn't seen that often in movies or books. It looked cool. I made a mental note of where it was and moved onto the next section, modern technology weapons.

"Modern" was a bit misleading. The first section included hand-held nuclear grenades ranging from the size of a pea to the size of a beach ball. They were probably modern on some planet, just not this one. Next were combustion grenades, pellet guns, tranq rifles, hand guns, laser guns, shrinkrays, grappling guns, rocket launchers, and an honest-to-goodness cannon.

Then there were the magic weapons. Some were a mix of old weapons and magic, and others were a mix of magic and technology, ranging from self-propelling spears to something called an "inside-out tube." Was the tube itself supposed to turn inside out? Or was the tube meant to turn other things inside out? Either way, I steered clear of it.

"Don't bother looking at those," Nissa said as she came back with two gray backpacks.

"Why not?"

She gestured at the inside out tube. "Look at the label. It's red, which means you have to have a class A or B license and a ton of training to use it. You can't steal them, either. They've got forcefields around them."

That sounded like she'd already tried to steal something. I couldn't blame her, though. This was a matter of life and death. I turned back to the weapons racks. Now that I was looking for red labels, I saw them all over the place. Almost all of the modern and mixed weapons were red. A few weapons in each category were yellow, including self-throwing knives, spears, and bows.

"What does that mean?" I asked, pointing at one of the yellow labels.

"Anyone can use them in the arena with supervision, but you need a class C license to take them out. I've got one, so if you want any of those, I can check it out for you.

"And the green labels?" I'd seen them on most of the old-fashioned weapons and the tranq weapons.

"Anyone can check them out if you have an employee walk you through how to use it and they decide you're not going to kill anyone by accident." She opened one of the backpacks and pulled out what looked like a supply list. Handing it to me, she asked, "Do you think this is enough?"

I scanned the list. Most of the items were strangely normal--rope, climbing harness, tent, blow-up mattress. The strange thing was how much stuff seemed to be shoved in one normal-sized backpack.

"It's magic, right?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Either that or I grabbed the bag of dwarf equipment. Is there anything you think I should add?"

I scanned the rest of the list. There were tons of things on it that I wouldn't have thought to pack, like a reusable toilet towel. Wait a second.

"What's a reusable toilet towel?"

"It's a soft towel with a self-cleaning spell on it."

I let that sink in for a minute. "And anyone can check out these kits?"

"Yeah. Do I need to pack anything else? Besides food, I mean. I'll get that at home."

"You're telling me that there's a towel in this bag that other people have used to wipe their butts, and I'm supposed to use it too?" I grimaced at the supply list.

"It has a self-cleaning spell on it. It's perfectly sanitary." When I grimaced again, she rolled her eyes. "Is it worse than the alternative?"

"I'm not sure." I handed the list back to her. "It looks like there's plenty of stuff."

"Good. Have you picked out a weapon? You'll want something small to keep on you at all times, plus something bigger for close-combat. If you're a good shot, you'll want something for long-distance combat, too. But I've got my staff if you're not good."

I was decent at throwing a ball, but the one time I'd tried archery, I nearly hit the instructor. The closest I'd come to throwing a spear was an almost straight stick in my backyard.

"You seem to know a lot about weapons."

Shadows licked at her cheeks. "My shade's been in a few wars."

"Oh." I swallowed. "What do you recommend I try?"

Setting the backpacks down, she scanned the racks of weapons and picked a few out--a bladestaff like hers, a metal club with a ball on the end, a dagger, and what looked like a metal belt.

"Try them out. I'll get us some armor." She set off down the aisle.

I picked up the staff. Supposedly, it was self-propelling, but there weren't any instructions on it. Raising it up like a javelin, I aimed it at the end of the aisle. I threw. The spear flew as straight as an arrow, but I'd been a little off on my aiming. It flew a good fourty feet before crashing into a shelf.

Cursing, I sprinted down the aisle.

Nissa stuck her head out as I ran by. "What was that?"

"I'll clean it all up," I promised.

When I got to the shelf, it was worse than I'd expected. A cardboard box of assorted jewelry had been skewered by the staff, which made the box shoot backward off the shelf and scatter its contents in the next aisle. The smell of magic, ranging from smoky to earthy to ice cool, drifted off the pieces. Bending over, I squeezed through between two shelves and into the next aisle.

I started gathering the jewelry. Most pieces had green tags hanging from them, and a couple had yellow ones. One of the green-tagged pieces caught my eye. It was a simple gold circlet labeled "revealer." The smell of sweet magic oozing from it nearly overwhelmed me. It had to be something extremely powerful, but it couldn't be too dangerous if it was a green item.

Then again, swords and longbows were marked as green, and they could kill someone just as easily as any bomb. Maybe I should just put it back and forget I'd seen it. I hesitated to put it back in the box. There was something about it that made me want to take it with me. It might be more useful than it looked. Nissa would know what it did.

I put up the box of jewelry except for the circlet, grabbed the spear, and went back to the pile of weapons Nissa had gathered. She wasn't back yet, so I set down the circlet and spear. What should I test next?

The metal club was next on my list. When I picked it up, it felt lighter than it looked. There was a button under my thumb. I pressed it. The ball on the end of the club fell to the floor, trailing a chain behind it. I pressed the button again. The chain recoiled, and the ball flew up to stick to the end of the club again.

Interesting. Possibly something I would drop on my foot by accident, but still interesting. I set it aside with the circlet. Now what? The dagger looked boring, and the metal belt didn't seem to be anything but a glorified whip. Still, Nissa had said I needed something small to keep on me. I picked up the dagger and slid it out of its sheath. 

There was a button on this one, too. I pressed it, and the dagger expanded into a metal fan of thin blades. That looked like it could be a small shield and a weapon at the same time. Useful and interesting. I put it aside.

Last but not least, I had the metal belt to mess with. Of course, it had a button on the handle as well. When I pressed it, the belt stiffened into a sword, and a sharpened pieces stuck out from the edges. If I ever wore that as a belt, I would end up stabbing myself by accident. No thank you. I pushed the button to make it floppy, and I put it with the bladestaff.

Nissa came back with two chainmail cloaks. "They won't stop dragon claws, but they'll stop just about anything else."

"Uh huh." That kind of seemed like a problem to me, but I guessed I shouldn't be the one worrying about that. I was off-limits to dragons. It was Nissa who really needed the armor. Then again, I had no real idea what the competition would be like. I might be really grateful for the chainmail soon enough.