The Adventurer's Guide to Dragons (and Why They Keep Biting Me) Read online

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Wade Albert White

  Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Mariano Epelbaum

  Cover art copyright © 2017 by Mariano Epelbaum. Cover design by Karina Granda. Cover copyright © 2017 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First Edition: September 2017

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: White, Wade Albert, author. | Epelbaum, Mariano, 1975– illustrator.

  Title: The adventurer’s guide to dragons (and why they keep biting me) / Wade Albert White ; illustrations by Mariano Epelbaum.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2017. | Sequel to: The adventurer’s guide to successful escapes. | Summary: Anne and her best friends Penelope and Hiro are tasked with an unwanted quest that could start a war between the Hierarchy and the dragon clan, and so to avoid disaster and save the world, the three friends must face dragon trials, defeat robots, and circumvent bureaucracy.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016051848| ISBN 9780316305310 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316305297 (ebook) | ISBN 9780316311526 (library edition ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Dragons—Fiction. | Robots—Fiction. | Magic—Fiction. | Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. | Humorous stories. | Fantasy.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.W448 Add 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016051848

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-30531-0 (hardcover), 978-0-316-30529-7 (ebook)

  E3-20170727-JV-PC

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  DEFINITELY A PROLOGUE

  1: The Sapphire Palace

  2: The Quest Academy Awards

  3: Battle in the Royal Library

  4: The Copper Medallion

  5: Flight from the Capital

  6: The Blacksmith and the Bladesmith

  7: The Abbot of Swords

  8: Statue vs. Lava Beetle

  9: The Blade of Fifteen Fingers

  POSSIBLY A MIDDLELOGUE

  10: Prisoners of the Clan

  11: The Dragon Trials

  12: The Never-Ending Maze

  13: A True Heir’s Final Breath

  14: The Sign of Zarala

  15: The Forge

  16: The Knights of Saint Lupin’s

  17: The Queen of Dragons on Her Throne

  18: Failing Grade

  19: The Harbinger of Death

  20: Dragon Slayer

  MOST CERTAINLY AN EPILOGUE

  SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST FOR WOULD BE ADVENTURERS

  Acknowledgments

  This book is dedicated to the third person on your left. Please let them know.

  Definitely a Prologue

  At Saint Lupin’s Quest Academy for Consistently Dangerous and Absolutely Terrifying Adventures, every student is treated with the same amount of care and consideration. They are each provided with eight brand-new sets of pants and tunic (one for each day of the week plus a formal set for special occasions), two pairs of well-made shoes, and a yellow cloak with CAUTION: STUDENT ADVENTURER printed in large letters on the back. Each is fed a well-balanced diet and required to bathe every day—always just before heading off to bed for a good night’s sleep. This treatment, incidentally, is consistent with the advice given in the popular do-it-yourself guide How to Train Students for Adventure (and Their Inevitable Untimely Deaths).

  Understandably, potential recruits count the days until they can apply. And in that spirit, it is widely recognized that there are three ways to enroll at Saint Lupin’s:

  1. Submit an application form, filled out in triplicate and certified by a squirrel.

  2. Sneak in by swimming the moat. (Tip: Beware the zombie sharks.)

  3. Obtain an official questing gauntlet and become a Keeper of the Sparrow, illegally activate a Rightful Heir quest, get chased by iron knights and fireballed by a dragon, destroy your quest academy, cause widespread mayhem and destruction, successfully complete the quest, become heir to your very own kingdom, and offer the academy use of the aforementioned kingdom as its new campus. (Please note: Thus far only one student has gained admittance using this method, and she doesn’t recommend it.)

  Once accepted, of course, there are only two ways to leave:

  Pass or fail.

  The Sapphire Palace

  Anne was leaving Saint Lupin’s.

  The annual Quest Academy Awards were being held that evening in the Hierarchy’s capital, and Anne and the other members of her adventuring group had learned they were nominated in the category of Best Illegal Quest That Nearly Destroyed the Entire World. The category wasn’t as prestigious as Longest Duel with a Rabid Pumpernickel, but it was certainly preferable to Most Spectacular Protagonist Death, since you actually had to die in order to be eligible—meaning they buried the award with you (or whatever was left of you). Award nominees enjoyed a fancy lunch at the royal palace, got front-row seats to the awards ceremony, and were invited to a host of after-parties where people sat around on uncomfortable chairs, held drinks decorated with little umbrellas, and pretended to like one another. It was quite an honor.

  There was only one problem: Anne didn’t want to go.

  Or more accurately, she didn’t want to go if it meant wearing her new formal academy dress uniform.

  Anne winced as a needle jabbed into her thumb.

  “My apologies, dear,” said the woman standing next to her. Her name was Jocelyn, and she was for all intents and purposes the headmistress of Saint Lupin’s Quest Academy (if you overlooked the fact that, according to the official paperwork, the actual headmistress was an orange-and-white cat named Her Royal Highness Princess Fluffington Whiskers of the Mousetrapper Clan, who was currently sleeping atop a cushion on the desk next to them). Jocelyn had dark brown skin, a head of voluminous, meticulously styled black hair, and twinkling brown eyes.

  Anne always noticed people’s eyes, mostly in hopes of someday finding others with yellow eyes just like her own.

  They were in the academy’s main office, an octagonal room lined with wall-to-wall shelves and three large stained-glass windows. Anne was standing on a stool, trying to remain as still as possible, while Jocelyn fussed and fidgeted with her new formal uniform, which had only arrived that morning. Anne watched as a tiny bead of red formed on her dark brown skin where Jocelyn had poked her. She pressed a finge
r over it to stop the bleeding. Apparently, a quest academy could be a dangerous place even if you were just getting dressed.

  Jocelyn regathered the loose material of Anne’s cloak and continued jabbing at it with her needle. “I cannot believe they got your size wrong,” Jocelyn said for the umpteenth time. “I sent them everyone’s exact measurements. All the others fit just fine.”

  Given that the uniforms had arrived in a box marked HORRIBLE HENRY’S TERRIBLE UNIFORM SHOP: THE PLACE TO BUY YOUR UNIFORM WHEN YOUR BIG DAY HAS ARRIVED AND ALL OTHER OPTIONS HAVE RUN OUT, Anne was surprised anyone’s had fit properly. But they had, and so her best friends, Penelope Shatterblade and Hiro Darkflame—who were the only other students at the academy besides Anne—had gone ahead to the capital while she remained behind getting hers altered.

  After a few more swipes of the needle, Jocelyn tied off a final knot and stood back. She smoothed out the wrinkles of her own bright yellow jacket, which had pearl buttons down the front and coordinated well with her light brown pants and dark red leather riding boots. As always, Jocelyn looked every bit the professional adventurer, albeit one who spent more time in the library doing research or in a well-padded gymnasium practicing her sword fighting than going on actual adventures where one might come into contact with dirt or grime or unpleasantness of any kind.

  Jocelyn studied her handiwork. “I never claimed to be much of a seamstress, so hopefully that will suffice.”

  Anne looked down. The cloak was a sickly green and featured a wide, floppy collar and three oversized pockets. It was also several inches too long. The material bunched at her sides, and multiple threads crisscrossed one another in a haphazard pattern. The rest of the uniform consisted of a pair of stark white pants that attracted dirt like a magnet, a blinding orange tunic, and a pair of stiff leather boots that were already causing Anne’s feet to blister. In addition, she also wore her most prized possession: a single brown leather glove covered in strips of overlapping metal, with a circular inset on the underside of the wide extended cuff. This was her questing gauntlet.

  “So,” said Jocelyn, “what do you think?”

  “Er,” said Anne.

  “Still too loose?”

  “No, that’s not the problem.”

  Jocelyn picked up a wide-brimmed hat that featured a black veil and a large peacock feather sticking out of the top. “Shall we try the headpiece?”

  Anne grimaced.

  Jocelyn caught her expression. “Did I forget one of the pins?”

  “No,” said Anne. “It’s just…”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “It’s just… the uniform… it’s…”

  Jocelyn nodded encouragingly. “Yes?”

  Anne sighed. “It’s ugly.”

  At first Anne thought Jocelyn would scold her for being ungrateful. Instead, Jocelyn burst into laughter. “Oh, my dear, you’re absolutely right. The whole thing is a disaster, in every way possible. The design is an affront to fashion, and the colors are giving me a headache. And even Dog would do a better job with the alterations.” At the mention of his name, Dog, the small black fire lizard napping in a basket in the corner of the room, briefly raised his head. Seeing nothing of interest, he dropped immediately back to sleep.

  Jocelyn tossed the hat back on the desk. “Headgear is optional. Unfortunately, there’s nothing to be done about the rest. And anyway, this ridiculous outfit is not what’s important. It’s you, the newly minted Rightful Heir of Saint Lupin’s. That’s who people will be eager to meet.”

  “Does that mean I can wear one of my regular outfits instead?” asked Anne.

  “No,” said Jocelyn.

  “But you just said—”

  “Dress uniforms are required at such functions. Anything else would go against proper etiquette.”

  “Do we always have to follow proper etiquette?”

  Jocelyn raised an eyebrow, and Anne sighed inwardly. Jocelyn would give up breathing air before she would give up proper etiquette.

  A distant chime sounded from elsewhere in the building, and Jocelyn looked out the window. “My goodness, is it noon already?” she said. “We need to be on our way.” Jocelyn belted a rapier around her waist.

  Anne walked over to an eight-foot-tall suit of armor near the door—an iron knight, one of three that belonged to the academy, or rather to Anne, since she had inherited them along with the rest of Saint Lupin’s upon the completion of her first quest. They obeyed her commands, provided she was wearing the gauntlet. Curiously, they each also had a small white stone in the middle of their helmets that glowed red whenever they grew agitated. The knight by the door held a plain wooden box.

  Anne paused.

  “Is something wrong?” asked Jocelyn.

  “Are we sure it’s safe?” asked Anne. “For me to travel around wearing the gauntlet, I mean.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  Anne shifted uncomfortably. “Because the last time I put it on, it activated a Level Thirteen quest that nearly killed me and my friends and the entire world along with it.”

  “Hence your award nomination,” said Jocelyn with a note of pride. She placed an arm around Anne and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “That gauntlet marks you for what you are, my dear: You’re Anvil of Saint Lupin’s, Keeper of the Sparrow.”

  Anne cringed at the mention of her real name. She’d been an orphan from birth, and she had always assumed whoever had named her hadn’t given it much thought. All of that had changed two months ago when she discovered that beneath the academy grounds were the remains of an Old World laboratory, and inside that lab were the remains of a chamber that was inscribed with the phrase PROJECT A.N.V.I.L. Exactly what the project was and what it had to do with Anne was still a mystery, not the least because the lab had been completely destroyed in a fire, leaving no clues. In fact, pretty much everything about Anne was a mystery.

  “Besides,” Jocelyn continued, “it will be in its box most of the time, and in any case you’ve been wearing it here for the past hour surrounded by all of these.” She gestured to the thousands of medallions lining the shelves of the office. Each medallion sat on a piece of padded felt underneath its own glass dome, and each contained within it a quest that could be activated by inserting the medallion into the slot of a questing gauntlet. Anne remembered only too well what had happened two months previous, when she had put on that gauntlet in this very office, only to have a tiny silver medallion fly through the air and attach itself to the slot—an unheard-of occurrence, according to Jocelyn. Typically, medallions did not insert themselves.

  Anne smiled. “Thanks. I definitely want to wear it. It’s just…”

  Jocelyn smiled back. “Perfectly understandable, dear.”

  Anne gestured to the iron knight, and it followed her and Jocelyn down the long hallway, through the main lobby, and out the front doors. The grounds were empty. Although anyone could go on a quest, the academy typically accepted only students aged thirteen or older. Any orphans younger than that who had lived there while it was still an orphanage (which aside from Anne and Penelope were all of them) had been found suitable homes. The trio proceeded over the drawbridge (which spanned the moat filled with zombie sharks) and up the hill to a small observatory.

  As they walked along, Anne spotted several massive islands floating in the distant sky. These were known as tiers, and the entire world, including Saint Lupin’s, was made up of them. The tiers orbited a giant sphere known as the Big Glowing Field of Magick, or BGFM, and together they formed what was known as the Hierarchy.

  Next to the observatory was a circle of flat stones, and lying in the grass next to the circle was a twenty-foot-long dragon with black scales, tiny wings, and a spiked tail. At the sound of approaching footsteps, the dragon opened a single emerald-green eye.

  “Hi, Nana,” said Anne.

  “Took you long enough,” Nana replied in her low, rumbling growl.

  “Anne’s uniform required a few last-minute adjustments,�
� Jocelyn explained.

  Nana studied the cloak. “Are you sure it doesn’t require a few more?”

  “Now, now. That’ll be quite enough of that,” said Jocelyn. “Just transport us to the capital, if you please. We’re late enough as it is. And make sure you follow along immediately. Showing up without a dragon would make us the laughingstock of the entire ceremony.”

  “Am I getting paid overtime for this?” asked Nana.

  “The honor of being nominated is payment enough.”

  Nana snorted. “That’s what I figured.”

  Anne removed her gauntlet and placed it in the box being carried by the iron knight. She tucked the box under her arm, and then she and Jocelyn walked to the center of the stone circle.

  Nana reared back. “Two fireballs to the capital city, coming right up—from one highly intelligent, constantly overworked, and severely underpaid dragon.”

  Jocelyn opened her mouth, presumably to scold Nana again, but the dragon was faster and spewed out a ball of green flame.

  While fireballs might strike some people as a rather unusual form of travel—especially if those people are standing inside a designated fireball landing zone when one arrives—it was the most common form of transportation in the Hierarchy. It was also the most terrifying. Anne had traveled by fireball a few times, but she wasn’t sure if she would ever get used to it. A standard fireball took eight hours to reach its destination no matter how far away that destination was from the starting point. Because this was a special occasion, however, Nana had used premium fireballs (typically a very expensive form of travel), which were nearly instantaneous.

  In a cloud of smoke and ash, the fireball deposited Anne onto a different circular stone platform. Knowing Jocelyn would be close behind, Anne moved quickly from the landing zone. She had barely stepped aside, however, when a large redheaded girl enveloped her in a bone-crushing hug.

  “Hi, Pen,” said Anne with a big grin. She and Penelope had grown up together at the orphanage, and for Anne, the only thing more exciting than winning an award was the prospect of sharing it with her best friend.