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Chapter 35: Dragon
🕑 Added 2024-07-08 08:05:40 +0000 UTCChapter 35: Dragon
“Zeto is that you.” The Fire Dragon I had created and bound a dragon’s soul to, asked. I froze still and turned.
“How do you know that name?” I returned, a chill running down my spine.
“No, you are not him. You wear his skin.” The Dragon hissed after taking in a big sniff of me and sucking up half the remaining dust into her inferno.
“You cannot know him.” I stated resolutely. Dragons rarely interacted with mortals, and although I had befriended one, our relationship was singular and built on a joint love for knowledge.
“He would have said.” I added, losing some confidence.
The beast examined me with its emerald eyes. “You knew him?” She took another sniff, “He trained you.” Then another; this time she hopped back, wings out stretch and tail poised to strike. “Lich!” She hissed.
“What of it?” I asked, “Please, you must tell me what you knew of my master.” I urged.
Still ready, she answered, “ I fought with Zeto in the undead wars. Thousands of mortals were lost in that never ending fight. It was only thanks to his spell, using my life force, that the Lich’s soul was finally destroyed. No more phalactory’s no more possessions.”
There was so much information in those few words. So much I didn’t know and so many questions raised that my curious spirit forced its way to the fore.
“Zeto stopped the war?” I let out, unable to hold back the question. My master had only ever said he fought in the war, he never told me this.
The Dragon laughed despite herself, the bellowed breaths drying out my already arid bones. “He was never one to boast.” She said, the slightest smile tugging the corner of her muzzle but it was wiped away moments. “The destruction that self proclaimed overlord created was so great that it was agreed between all living creatures that if another natural lich should rise they would be destroyed immediately. Since your master was clearly too soft it appears I shall have to correct his mistake.”
“He’s dead.” I replied, not wanting her to think less of the man. This however was the wrong thing to say.
“You killed him!” She bellowed, her flames growing hotter. I was about to correct the woman when my words were cut off as I was engulfed with a breath of flame. Not ready for the attack I was swallowed entirely. When the smoke cleared I was left, to my surprise, unharmed. Again my robes had withstood the attack, if barely, smoke began to rise from the outfit.
“What on Cosmo-Osto are these made of?” I wondered.
The Dragon was enraged by her attack’s ineffectiveness. I had begun testing the fabric with a variety of different mana types, seeing if this world's magic system might reveal more of its secrets when I noticed what the creature was doing. Having taken the majority of my mana during the summoning she was still not satisfied. Sucking in all the ambient mana from the surroundings she would shorten the duration of the summoning but that attack would surely hurt.
Using as little mana as possible to get a satisfactory effect I activated Bone Armour. A black inky portal appeared beneath me, its depth amplified by the growing light of the dragon. Her scales about her chest and throat had amplified from orange to white hot and still they grew. Yellowed bone plates, adorned with sinister black runes, clamped themselves around; my feet, the dragon reared back, my legs, she raised up her head, my wrist, she rolled her head behind her, my chest and head, the air began to vibrate from the concentration of unspent mana, my right arm, her head snapped forward and the attack was launched.
Where before her fire breath had emitted a cone of destruction now a beam of white hot annihilation was realised. Unable to move from the grip of the incomplete spell I launched a Wind Breath at myself. Just in time, the right arm piece was disintegrated in the blink of a non-existent eye and I was thrown clear. I didn’t believe that even my Magically Reinforced Bones could have withstood the silent attack. Curious about how such a concentration of fire mana, given form by this world, might react with the earth around us. I looked back to see a head sized hole caved into the underground. It exposed the multiple layers of closely pact tunnels that lay one behind another, much to my surprise. Taking the time in the middle of a fight however proved to be a mistake.
When I had looked away the Dragon had cooled to a dull red, smoke pouring off her, when I looked back a white claw was a foot from my head and closing fast. Using Shocking Aura I momentarily disrupted the spell shape that was the Dragon, causing the attack to pass harmlessly through me as unwilled mana. Now I could see the rest of her as she sped past, turning an entire section of that wall to dust and revealing a sewer tunnel running parallel (full of cooked rats), I realised something. That big attack she had used, although it was powered by ambient mana (a trick of dragons) it had also used up ten percent of the mana I had embodied her with.
“That wouldn’t do at all!” I thought, “There was still plenty of testing that needed to be done.” Clearly she had thought the same as her last claw attack had been far more reserved. The main of her body was still a cooler red but she had empowered her right claw with the white hot fire and was able to maintain most of the gathered mana after the miss.
She spun at the end of the recently box filled room, hind claws sizzling into the stone floor to halt her momentum. As soon as she stopped, if not before, she leapt back at me, right claw presented.
I had already proven my theory that lightning mana could be used to break the bonds of mana and disrupt a spell. Time to see What wind mana might do. I meet her upcoming fiery attack with a Wind Blade. As perhaps could be expected the reaction was violent. Her claw expanded three times its size in under a second causing an explosion. Unfortunately I was rather too close. I was reminded of home as I bounced away, ping ponging down an exposed sewer tunnel. The stone chipped on impact and my armour cracked.
“Time to try my next Idea!” I thought, exuberant. I hadn’t had a proper experiment like this in years. She did not sit idle, flapping her wings to catch up. The walls of this mysterious space turned to lava at her passing, though it did seem to require some effort. Angered by the slowness the woman increased her heat and thus her pace. Flames shot out from her at regular intervals, shooting down the nearby tunnels and passages.
A tail, enhanced in the manor her tail had been, shot for my ribs. I had since gotten to my feet and continued to propel myself away from the beast with successive Wind Breaths. It was time to test the extent of my control over the Wind Domain spell.
Extending it a foot about my person, I commanded all the air to depart with haste, creating a vacuum. I realised my mistakes nearly too late. First, the Wind Breath which I had been using to escape seemed to function. Second, although the fire could no longer burn when it drew close the heat had not been diminished. As a matter of fact, the lack of burning seemed to intensify it.
To my great fortune the first mistake nullified the second. Instead of shooting down the sewer tunnel in a straight line, as the lady Dragon had expected, my trajectory became a parabola. The tail skewered the air above me as I fell into the steaming effluent. My earlier assumption proved correct as the unprotected right arm of my black robe evaporated from the closeness of the enhanced attack.
I saw, briefly, the snarl of frustration on the beast's face. I had fallen between her tail’s end and her body but the confinement of the tunnel she had to melt herself into prevented her from striking immediately.
“What should I try next?” I thought. Releasing Wind Domain and holding my proverbial stomach. I used another overpowered Wind Breath to shoot me back out into the tunnel, water dripping from me, just in time. The mistress, in her frustration, had intended to destroy me by simply running me over. She screeched in fury as I again evaded her clutches.
The tunnel opened up into a much larger culmination of tributaries just ahead however, its height and width large enough for the woman so she would not be so slowed again. She bellowed out her relief as I shot out into the cavanus tunnel followed by a flame breath. I noticed just before it landed that the red hugh that had taken over her flame had disappeared and the orange returned as her body no longer had to expend energy in melting the stone.
As this coming attack wasn’t glowing white I took the opportunity to test Necrotizing Bolt against my creation’s breath.
I had expected no result, as it was (to my mind) meant more for organic material. I should have learned from the spell’s effect on stone, it could turn it to dust as their withering effect had some component of time to it. The flames sputtered and sparked, burning their mana fuel in no time at all, but only in the cone affected by the spell.
Crash. I had slammed, with the sound of crumpling bone, against the far wall on the wide open tunnel. Too intrigued by the results of my test I had failed to notice the dead end. I looked to the left and right where two streams of filth continued on a circular course. I was unable to follow either path however as the fierce lady had drawn in, one white glowing wing covering each direction.
Having hemmed in her unfortunate prey she took to gloating:
“I have learned much in the land of my ancestors, I should have no trouble extinguishing the spark of your soul with a single attack.” She proceeded to rear bach her white glowing jaws, attacking a target with no escape.
