Before I can make further progress towards the life-saving organ, I’m accosted by a powerful gust as of the landing flap of massive wings breaking the fall of an immense beast. Turning my gaze towards the new arrival, she’s got a coat of forest-green scales that clue me in to her being a poison dragon. The expanse of her wings is nothing short of breathtaking, like Olashax and Astridus, her wingspan is dozens of meters across in each direction out from her enormous, well-toned shoulder blades. The wingspan stretches out like a verdant canopy, awe-inspiring, and reminiscent of my time in the Fae’s wilds. I find myself holding my breath as I take in the sight of the majestic creature landing before me.
The earth trembles beneath and around her as she impacts the ground with an impeccably smooth landing. Her grace is surprising, compared to the tremor of her impact. I can imagine her massive collision is due to the impressive musculature that ripples beneath her scales, and the unknowable tremendous weight born upon her frame. Her muscles, like bands of steel cables, are a testament to her formidable strength, as they flex and shift her green-hued coat of scales beneath the constant flash of lightning in Rayileklia’s ever-darkened skies.
The new dragon announces herself, “What morsels dare attack an underling of my allied faction? It is only appropriate that I, Ka’thuul, wrest this dragonforce and deliver it to Kinzul to keep the peace between our Orders.”
Ka’thuul’s eyes gleam with cunning, and by her might alone, I can certainly believe that she commands an Order of a faction that is allied with Kinzul. However, I don’t believe for an instant that she would hand over the dragonforce of the archmage underling. We know that Yisstendahl was a traitor to the cause, but this Ka’thuul may not have known, or if she did, she’s making a play to benefit from our actions despite that. Her tail, a whip-like appendage, lashes back and forth, cat-like in its mesmerizing display of agility and control. Her tail’s lashing is also a display of the ferocity and power beneath every inch of her muscular frame, as it cracks loudly like a whip at each end of its flick to one side or the other.
The sharp horns that adorn Ka’thuul’s head frame her face, and gleam with a sort of frightening, ferocious, nearly living intent. Her eyes shine in a reptilian beauty as she sizes me up, with a keen intellect evident beneath her stern gaze. She knows we’re not to be trifled with, as we just slew an archmage, a dragon archmage, but her nostrils flare as she sniffs the air, taking in my scent to assess me with her acute sense of smell. Her breath carries hints of rancid gore, a reminder that she could exhale a cloud of poison vapor at any instant. Her gaze, piercing in its intensity, locks with mine. I can tell for certain, that she will be a foe in the coming battles, someone I cannot turn my back on. Her fangs, sharp and deadly, long as pikes, are bared as she grins my way, seemingly having come to a conclusion, now that my Steely Body spell has worn off in an untimely manner.
I telepathically urge Teuila, “Te, flee, poison gas incoming! She saw my skin go from metal to normal flesh, she knows I’m not a golem, so she thinks she’s got me. I’m safe but you’re not!”
Teuila, reluctantly vanishes in a heartbeat, withdrawing a safe distance as Ka’thuul belches forth a roiling cloud of green mist. I work to calm and still my heart, knowing that the neckchain of the ever breathing can handle this. I’ve got external and internal poison resistance from Can’Z’aas, because of Adom and his pranks, but the filter provided by the unassuming magical adornment about my neck is my true trump-card here.
I have to play this right. Carefully Reggie, calculate your words to piss her off just enough that she thinks twice about attacking. Size her up. Take a deep breath, make a show of it. Flex your muscles, loosen them from the tension that the Steely Body spell, and the combat, and lightning had built up. Crack your neck and back, consider everything that you can.
I brazenly call out, “Are you done posturing? I, Reggie Shellcracker, lay rightful claim to the dragonforce of Yisstendahl, elder ice, and archmage of the highest rung. Further, I shall speak with your ally, this Kinzul, to perhaps make amends. Then I shall decide whether I deign any of your Orders worthy of my joining. I travel here only to seek long lost family, and in my own draconic nature, I have dominated and slain one that lashed out to attack me without provocation. Need I slay another!?”
Crap, crap, I hinted at knowing Lil, and I gave away my last name. I don’t want to screw up any treaties that Kinzul has, but it would come to light eventually, and it would look worse later. If we hid it, when it later came out, it would look as if Kinzul had knowingly sent one of her own agents to slay Yisstendahl, while attempting to remain duplicitous, in secret. That is, if Terrorzin found out that our bond was hidden until after the fact. I assume no one is foolish enough to let on that we met with Kinzul already, or that even if we did enter her domain, that it was for anything other than meeting up with Lil.
As is, we are unaligned agents, and the story is believable. We’ve been observed arriving in the foothills, and Yisstendahl did agress me, if not outright attack me. We are here looking for our long lost family, and I do actually have a draconic nature. Speaking of, just in case dragons are able to sense the dragonforce of others, I’d better get to absorbing Yisstendahl’s quickly, so that the sliver of Kinzul’s dragonforce can be disguised, or washed out and replaced.
Ka’thuul, irritated, leans down to sniff me up close. She’s wise enough to be concerned that I am not at all concerned by her breath attack. She might assume I’m a green dragon in human form, with my scales hidden by my clothing and hair. My heart thumps and skips beats at the closeness of the impressive jaws of the predatory beast whose eyes glisten with true hunger.
Ka’thuul’s voice sounds out as a melodic rumble that reverberates through the air. Her words are measured more carefully than mine, each syllable weighed with authority and command. Each sound, each word is enunciated and emphasized with a pause as she asserts, “So be it.” My bones vibrate as she speaks.
She does me the favor of slicing open Yisstendahl’s chest, and I levitate myself into the gap therein, to lay my hands upon his slowly shriveling all-important muscle. I draw on Yisstendahl’s dragonforce, pulling it within my inner changeling self, to flex it, and expand it from within. It pushes back on the strangulation by the corrupted mana residue, and becomes an aegis between the malady, and my true inner self. I allow myself a sigh of relief, that I hope comes across as a sigh of contentment, or even annoyance. I continue siphoning every last drop of Yisstendahl’s essence, and, though it sickens me to do so, as uncharacteristic as it might be, I begin physically devouring the shrinking organ that once beat within his chest to keep up the charade of being a heartless dragonslayer. Snrk. Accidental mental puns aside, I think Ka’thuul is buying it.
I’m so very grateful for my Can’Z’aasian digital critterfolk-adjacent biology. I’m beyond grateful that the tissue of the heart simply disappears, after each bite, as it’s absorbed into whatever system makes up my insides. I feel a surge of energy coursing through my veins, and my muscles involuntarily tense, and flex. My back spasms into a ramrod straight position, and the beating of my heart pounds throughout my system, loud enough that I almost wish I could scream to drown it out. I can’t even scream however, as my esophagus, like all my other muscles, is involuntarily flexed to the tightest extreme, and my lungs are frozen in the middle of a breath.
For the briefest of moments, corrupted mana residue, mere fractions of that which coats my inner self, violently ejects from me, through my cored out nerve tunnels, resulting in an explosion of light, and life. It leaves me bleeding from every pore, but also frees me from the involuntary muscle contractions, and leaves me one step closer to being cured of my mana residue sickness. I hear a ‘tch’ from Ka’thuul, and I work to disguise my ragged breathing as I turn towards her with an evil grin. The expression on my face is crazed, demented, daring her to respond in a way that challenges me, and for the briefest of moments, she balks, perhaps thinking I may just decide I want another dragonforce after all.
She’s allied with Kinzul, at least for the time being, so I won’t make a move, but she doesn’t know that I value her life more than her dragonforce at this moment. Ka’thuul takes wing, and begins to return to whichever cavern of whichever mountain makes up her domain. As always, she must remain low to the ground, unable to truly pick up speed or ride wind currents, due to Rayileklia’s stormy skies. Still, each flap of her mighty wings is a mini hurricane in its own right, propelling her immense mass forward, and knocking back anything behind her.
I sigh a long-bated breath, as I crumple to my knees, quivering. Within Yisstendahl’s chest cavity. Holy crap. That was close. I pant from the exhaustion of maintaining the facade, and I’m grateful for the obscurement provided by the thick green fog that had billowed, but not entirely cleared out when Ka’thuul took off. I don’t think I’ve been that on-edge since Day One—. Crap.
My pulse rushes into my ears, chasing my tinnitus that screams its way to the fore of my senses. My vision tunnels to a pinprick, and my focus shifts from infinitesimally narrow, to an almost acceptable tunnel, and back, several times, before it decides to land on the worst, narrowest view. My mind paints the images of the terrors of Day One, in vivid detail, and I’m left fleeing in terror in my own mind, with tears streaming down my cheeks. I’m shivering and spasming as I curl into a fetal position, hidden inside Yisstendahl, like that first mini dugout I’d created, my tiny hideaway covered by a giant leathery leaf. I was beset upon by nightmares of every surface opening to reveal gaping maws, and the terror strikes me as if it were fresh, new, every time. Each object that enters my periphery is a new looming threat, more frightening than the last. Every tree and stone could reveal that their seemingly ordinary surfaces are actually faces with horrendous jaws capable of rending and tearing.
I slowly come to, whimpering, sniffling, and aching. Tears are frozen to my face, due to Rayileklia’s chilly northern clime. My breathing is wracked with sobs, and my head throbs with pain pulsing near my mandibular joints. I must have been clenching my jaw in fear, the entire panic episode. I notice a presence nearby that wraps its arms around me. Teuila of course. She had to wait for the poison fog to disperse, and then likely gave me breathing room as I spasmed in fear, knowing which type of panic attack this was, knowing that I needed the space. The instant she could tell I’d roused from it, she was ready to comfort me. I couldn’t ask for a partner more kind, because such would be impossible.
Teuila coos comfortingly, “Shh, it’s okay Air, my Air. We did it. We did it, and I’m so proud of you. You’re going to live, we’re going to make it. There’s a whole war of dragons to fight up in these mountains, entire armies, between the dragons and their underlings. I’m so, so proud of you. I’m so grateful too. You hung on, you did it. You survived. It means everything to me. Will this one give you months too? Maybe more? He was more powerful than Kozzurth, right?”
After a few more sobs, my last sob turns into a chuckle, which ends with a contented sigh. I shrug helplessly, “Maybe Te, maybe. I literally could not have got this far without you. You’re everything to me, dragonforces be damned. You and the rest of our inner circle, our Shellcracker Adventuring Party. The Triple L squad are here. We found them Te, My Wings, we found them. Lu, and Lucky, and Lil, are here, we really finally found them, and as soon as we get back, we’ll drag their butts into our thinkspace. Right babe?”
Teuila wets her lips, and nods with a grin plastered across her face as she assents, “Right babe.”