She falls to her knees, clutching her throat. I can hear the sickening gurgles of her drowning in her own blood. Meredith. A woman I would have found beautiful before my death. A poisoned rose that has always had a spark of defiance, but not in the stubborn way, more in the righteous fury way. I admired her for glaring at us ever since father burnt half her face. For never letting that anger die down. For never letting it cloud her judgement and attack us.
She’s dead. Right there. Not to an overwhelming, amoral beast like mother, but to a human that’s laughing in a way that makes my stomach turn. My eyes close and when they open again I can see the mana that usually clings to the plants float down towards Yvonne, and then it rushes to the men. One of them, armored in metal, but not fully, thrusts a spear towards her, but it seems to slide out of his grasp and only graze her as it fights against him.
All of this is happening in mere moments, they are struggling, Edith picked up Alek and is running back… back towards me… “At least him!” she cries. I can hear her, because it’s a plea directed to me. No, It’s not her I’m hearing. “At. Least! Him~!” whispers whatever trace of chaos mana I have in me… Wrong again, am I making more chaos mana? I suddenly feel a bit more of it than a second ago.
I let out a laugh as a rune takes form in front of me. Earth, overreaching, air. Before any of the other attackers can do anything, they are assaulted by a localized dust storm. It rushes at them, blocking their vision, causing a dagger to fly out and hit one of the sun lamps, shattering the crystal and causing an unstable flame to spread out, engulfing the plants. I run forward… I can’t see Meredith, she’s in the cloud. I can see the others however, so I stop in front of Edith, letting her jump on. Yvonne is behind… Slow, so slow. The spearman from before rushes forward, lightning dancing over his body as he thrusts and sends a lightning at her, just barely missing her as she luckily trips.
Earth, overpower, air, direction. Another rune forms, this one taking whatever’s left of my air and earth mana, but it doesn’t matter. A chunk of the brickwork under our feet crushes itself into a dense, head-sized projectile, then moves straight at the man at impossible speeds. The path it follows is devoid of air, after all, so it only accelerates the further it moves, at least until the rune collapses, half a second later, and it reaches its target.
I shout out towards Yvonne, plant mana collapsing on her and lifting her up. I am lucky there’s so much of it around here, forcing the plants to be evergreen despite being so unnatural. As she reaches me, I dash away, using my tails to hold everyone on my back. I don’t know what my attack did, I don’t know if I killed a man again, all I know is that I run, for the second time today, with all my might. I hear sobs on my back, frightened whispers, but I can’t focus on them, not now. I need to keep them alive, I failed Meredith, but at least I can protect them.
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It takes a few minutes to make it back to the temple. Ayrah and my siblings perk up, the woman especially having shark eyes and a vicious snarl. She guessed it in one. My siblings cry out in distress when they see me fall from exhaustion, proper exhaustion. My body is breaking from being overexerted. Mana is being made in my stomach, but I still don’t know how to properly heal, just overcharge a living thing, and that’s not going to help me much. Plus, the current state of my mana is a joke, with all these types being slapped together, no proper plan, no preparation… I am no longer a hunter, I am just a beast that tries to survive hunters.
I shout out at Spots, speaking of messed up terrain, barriers, even spikes from the ceiling that might fall at any loud sound. He gets what I mean and gets to work using his much larger pool to make it all a reality. I also ask him to make a particularly shaped hole in the wall. We don’t have time to do a lot, but at least this should raise our chances.
Next I ask Crown to take the humans and go to the vault. She cries out that the thing is still locked, but it doesn’t matter. I have seen mother open it many times, I can get it done, but I need to stay here a bit longer. Spots and RT are hardly enough to handle all five of those bastards. I hear footsteps approaching. This place sucks for a defensive spot…
I tell RT to go into the indent Spots made, then tell the latter to hide behind the wooden benches, turn them into a pile of splinters if it helps, just make sure they can’t see him from the get go. Ayrah is still around, she didn’t follow Crown… I wish I could have her fight with me, but she’s wearing poorly knitted together grass and fur, with no weapon to speak off aside from her claws. I shake my head and point with one tail towards the vault. She clicks her tongue, then rushes away.
Finally, it’s just me, in the center of the temple, below the images of dragons far greater than I could ever hope to be, faint mana of all kinds flowing downwards, towards me. I am not sure what spell I can even use to handle adventurers, but I will make sure they can’t follow us. Hopefully. Far in front of me, I finally see them. They’re still far away, but I growl at them, crouching low. I am not alright, physically, and they know, but they are still cautious. I use the bit of earth mana that I recovered to throw a brick their way, but it falls short. The man that killed Meredith smiles as he says something to his group, it becomes unintelligible by the time it reaches my ears.
They stop before the bad terrain starts, frowning. I use magic to throw another brick at them, but the spearman easily breaks it out of the air with his weapon. One of them that’s wearing some weird cloth with gold accents instead of any armor takes out a bow and a strange looking arrow, then aims my way and shoots. I simply step to the side, clearly seeing the trajectory of the thing, but once it gets close I notice the mana dancing over the arrow. I am engulfed in flames that make me burn quite a bit of mana in order to defend myself.
Magic archer. Spearmen with lightning. A decent swordsman. A man wearing a long robe that’s clutching a strange amulet, he has yet to do anything… My blood runs cold. Where’s the fifth? My answer comes as the ground splits open, a scream and a clanking thud being my only notice that something happened. Invisibility? Now that’s just messed up… shouldn’t dragons have true sight?
I let out a nervous laughter, then see as the man wearing the robe whispers something to the amulet, then a green light spreads from him, going over all the rough terrain that Spots made, and wood just spontaneously appears there, rendering all that work useless. The remaining four slowly walk forward, aiming to rescue the guy that fell, but the second they make it past the entryway, their entire attention being focused on me, I stomp the ground, making them flinch, but it was their mistake to only think of me.
From the invisible indent, RT pokes his head out, letting loose scorching flames. I’ll be the first to admit, he’s already better than me in fire. He simply runs hotter and for longer. Bigger stream, bigger flames, better fire, everything about this is his domain, just like how Spots can carve all of this terrain and still have the mana to drop the spikes from above and even throw some of his own.
This should kill them. Flames and projectiles, guaranteed death to any squishy, murderous human. Or at least it should have been. The cleric looking man rips his necklace and points it at RT, while the spearman stabs the ground towards Spots. They both shout “Twin sisters, guard your servants!” and a strange energy envelops them. The flames part around them, finding something more fun to burn elsewhere, while the rocks explode as lightning snakes around the bubble of light, targeting them. It vanishes a moment later and they make it to the hole, quickly extracting their knight-looking companion who points a hammer towards Spots, before my siblings’ second volley, which is similarly worthless.
What? What now? What do I do? They invalidated everything I had. The spearman also looks perfectly fine, my attack before likely did nothing to him. A cold despair fills my heart and I realize that they are strategizing. They’re not even being subtle about it.
“Brown one’s messing with the ground, we can’t rely on Rirshka’s grace to continue being our foothold. Handle that one first, I will keep the fire one busy. Ingo, guard me.” Says the cleric as the sadistic swordsman stands by his side, looking mildly bored.
“Yeah, yeah, keeping the priest alive, most important job and all that. Why aren’t you more like… what was your name? Mikri? Mirko?” The man laughs and throws a knife at RT right after he stops his third flame breath.
The spearman seemingly dashes forward and swings in an arc laced with electricity, causing Spots to breathe out a cloud of dust as he retreats. “It’s Adalwin, you horse-sniffing, skull dented, kinless bastard.” He thrusts and lightning hits my brother’s wing, but doesn’t seem to harm him through his defense.
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“Less talking, more dragon slaying. Kids or not, a heart from these beasts would be enough to secure my spot as a veteran wizard!” I see a bit of mana flow from his fingertips to the arrow before he lets it loose, said projectile exploding into a flashbang as it reaches spots. “and make you into barons or viscounts, I don’t much care for the rewards of lower nobility.”
The knight simply grunts as he takes a heavy step and swings a mace downward on Spots. Why are they ignoring me… Ah, because I’m genuinely being useless. My purpose was to be the bait and they aren’t biting… My siblings will die at this rate, but I don’t have a strong spell, especially one that would break through that strange shield that keeps flashing in and out of existence. Mana isn’t cooperating either… I can’t tell how that magic is being made. It’s nature and lighting, but it doesn’t behave properly. It doesn’t even smell right…
Think. I don’t have time on my side, but I must think. What can I do… They have some weird magic protecting them, they aren’t able to land a decisive blow on any of us, but they are tiring out my siblings. The archer is using consumables like they’re going out of style, the knight and the swordsman don’t seem to have anything special going for them, the spearman has weird lightning going around and the priest is the one securing the shield, completely invalidating RT.
My flaming brother is pissed, no longer playing it safe. He rushes forward, mouth open. The swordsman takes a buckler from his hip, raising it to match the mouth, while coming down with his sword. My sibling knows what he’s doing though, redirecting his head to bite the man’s sword hand, causing him to shout in pain as he punches my sibling away, retreating next to the priest, who raises a physical shield of wood…
Why raise a physical barrier when the magical thing worked so well until now? Physical… He’s blocking RT from heading straight at them. The shield won’t help much against a body, huh. The cleric recites what sounds like a prayer towards a certain Rirshka, but I don’t care.I found the weakness. The archer twitches towards me as I run forward, but it is too late. Even when he draws his string, I am moving forward. I am going to crush the cleric’s head and get rid of their protection. That should let my siblings finish the-
The knight appears in front of me… no, he is just that fast suddenly. He has a shield as large as his torso and he easily blocks my tails with it, following up with a strike of his hammer that explodes me away. I’m under a tenth of my mana reserves and I don’t have a relevant volume of a single particular type. I need to run. We need to run. I throw together whatever earth, air, chaos and nature mana I have, causing a storm of debris. around me. This one isn’t so refined and it will break down quickly, but it will make them hunker down for a bit, at least enough to let me run.
I shout out the retreat and my siblings obey, though RT throws down some flames that quickly overtake the shattered benches flying through the localized tornado. We run as quickly as we can and it isn’t quick enough. Lightning strikes my back, making my muscles feel numb despite my defense activating. Spots lets out a pained scream, but keeps running and I can’t see what happened to make him yelp like that.
It takes us minutes to reach Crown and the humans, who look weary and worried. The vault is still closed, of course. This isn’t a trick you can understand if you’re not looking for it. Spots and RT can still fight, but they’re tired… actually, scratch the fighting part, Spots has an arrow in his thigh. No magic on this one… actually, there is magic, since it pierced his defense. It has that weird aura, like the cuffs from before. It pushes magic away, and thus it pushed the protection away. Fuck, I need to worry about anti-magic weapons now?
I shake my head and focus. I ask Crown to just make it hard for the attacks to come after us and she responds by materializing a beam of water the second she sees someone. In the meantime, I move the magic in the door around. The trick is simple, really. You need to push some of your mana in, then manipulate it to hit five particular spots, after which you push it towards the center of the door. It takes me two tries as a mundane arrow bounces off my back, breaking my concentration, but Spots quickly protects me with floating stones to stop a second arrow. The doors open and I rush in, pushing everyone too. I push as much mana as I can into the door to force it back closed, ruining its pattern, but it is not quick enough. Vines block it open and the invaders manage to squeeze in.
My humans are panicking, but my siblings aren’t. They know why we’re here. The mana here is far more abundant, the half eaten pillars are right there, spreading mana every which way. There’s magic tools and who knows how valuable of information just spread about. But I only care about one thing. The cleric screams his prayer, the knight lifts his shield and blood spills.
“Fuck! That’s the duke’s!” screams the archer while the knight grasps his stump and falls back in pain. The cleric focuses on him, speaking a prayer as quickly as he can and a lightning infused spear hits my body. My siblings use their breaths, the mana around joining in and becoming a painful, tangible thing, at least to the invaders.
“Horseshit! Do something wiza-” the swordsman spits out black blood, and falls to his knees, coughing continuously. “P-poi..sn..” He doesn’t die, but he’s out. I didn’t do that, my siblings didn’t do that, but that helps us.
The archer clicks his tongue and then throws multiple ornate parchments our way, the mana in the air being drawn to them. Chains of energy try to wrap around my body, but I cut them. A beam of water hits some of the armor sitting to the side. A chunk of ice is aimed at Crown, but it suddenly turns to the side. Alek is enveloped in mana and crying. Edith looks between heartbroken and enraged as she weaves flames with an incantation I never heard from her… no, it’s barely an incantation. She begs the flames to eat her foes and lets them decide if they feel like it. Still, it’s more fire, more harm on the enemies. I try to slash again at the downed knight, but the spearman catches me a third time, this time stabbing through. I still have the mana to defend myself, but this sickening electricity forced its way through.
I cry out, slashing violently and retreating. Spots looks bad. very, very bad. He’s actively bleeding from the arrow, and it seems a few other things hit him in the meantime. RT is exhausted and Crown simply can’t compete in firepower. The spearman takes a step forward, only to be smacked away by Ayrah who is holding some fancy mace that was lying around. We can do this. Only three of them are operational, one melee, a ranger and a cleric. Their frontline should crumble if we rush- men are flooding in. Soldiers, nothing as fancy as these guys. They were elites, and these are simple footmen, but now they have a frontline. Now the cleric can safely heal his downed companions. Now we’re being pushed back, now we’re in danger.
We can’t run. We’re cornered. More soldiers come in, one by one… Everything’s gone. We’ll die. We’ll die while mother is fighting who knows how many people. There’s so much magic here, but no way…. out?
I shout out to fly into the river. Or rather, the magical beam of water that becomes a river. It’s big, big enough that it should fit us. My siblings don’t argue. They also don’t need me to tell them to grab a human as they fly. Another arrow stabs into Spot, as he flies up with Yvonne, but it doesn’t stop him. I do my best to cover for him, weaving the mana around into runes to consume as little of my pitiful reserves as possible, hoping to recover even a bit more before we’re out. After my siblings are finally gone, taken by the gravity defying current, it’s just me, Ayrah and the invaders. They’re angry. I can’t think enough to translate their ramblings, but they seem keen to kill me.
I smile as I feel the mana around bending to both mine and their will. Fleeting thing, this mana. But I don’t feel bad. No, I feel so bad that I don’t feel bad anymore. The lightning spearman… fuck that, he’s not even using lightning. It strikes me, but I know it isn’t lightning. I can see it move. I can see it dance and have the same shape each and every time. That’s not lightning. That’s what people think lightning might be. I wish I could’ve shown the bastard the real power of a lightning bolt, but alas, I will have to feel satisfied with just showing him what happens when you mix elemental magic and half-sentient pillars of mana.
A rune, more complex than I am usually able to make forms in front of me. Ayrah shouts something. An arrow pierces my left shoulder. Dust and wind rushes forward, spreading throughout the room. Ayrah grabs me and lifts me up. Ah, I can’t walk anymore, I am using too much focus. Thanks. People shout as tiny bits of metal rip through flesh and bone. I think finally I killed a few people with just that. It doesn’t matter. I needed to do this.
People scream, but a glow seems to appear, protecting them. I smile at their hubris. To think they could defend against this… Water is taking me, I am floating up, losing sight of what is happening. It’s too late anyways, too late for them at least. A simple fire rune forms at the very edge of my control. It’s very close to the pillar of fire mana crystal, and when I am taken and away from it, it feeds off of the crystal. A flame. A spark. an explosion that feels the room. I just about managed to make it… a dust explosion. My body ripples and I think something inside me breaks or gets squished, either way, I spit out blood, as I am taken by the rushing water.
I think I passed out, as I just wake up on solid ground, everyone’s here… wounded, tired, but everyone’s alive. I spit out some water and look on from the top of mother’s little mountain. Strangely enough, I never bothered coming here before. But now? This is the best place to see mother as she flies and screams and seems to ignore the battle she was in to come to us… A flock of small fliers following her, impressive magics exploding around her to no effect…
And then I see her fall.
The wings on her left side are absolutely destroyed by something too fast for me to see. It takes a few seconds between seeing it and hearing the thunk of a loosened arrow, followed by the mother’s scream, followed by the loud bang of her body collapsing into the ground from so high up.
Mother, the monster that could weave the world to her will, that destroyed an entire landscape without having a single scratch on her…
That mother of mine might actually die.