The royal capital castle, rock slabs cut and cobbled together made a mountain in the middle of the town. No moat, no drawbridge, the royal capital castle of Marscione. The lordmaster and ruler of that castle, who took the name of his town as tradition dictates, is busy drinking and laughing with a certain girl who is effortlessly resisting his advances. Marscione the lordmaster is away from his castle.
D walked along the stone tiles in the belly of the stone beast, hearing the echoes of his steps in the dark. Little torches in the distance with their accompanying guards showed D the way to the next torch. D went through hallways, long and dark tripping over furniture and into doors left open or ajar. Garments and pieces of paper lied scattered around the castle's inner grounds. The high ceilings covered in shadows, D felt as if he was walking through a cave rather than a physical building. Drips of unexplained fluid and the smell of wine didn’t help the feeling. A basement, a cave, and a castle all in one, D wandered directed by one fat sleepy eyed guard near a torch to another skinny narrow eyed guard. Without a word, the skinny guard pulled his guardian torch above his head from it’s sconce. He carried it above and to the right of his head, not even motioning for D to follow. D did, out of a sense of loss for what to do next, he stared into the guard’s back as the torch’s light dawned upon a heavy ornate door. The skinny guard looked D in the eye for a moment, dead eyes, and pulled the door open. D glanced at him, foregoing manners D walked in.
A grand hall and a throne. In the reaches of the ceiling sunlight cracked in towards the vast stone grounds. Small windows there, carved through the stone, allowed just enough light to illuminate. D continued walking in a trance, his eyes tracking down from the light above to the throne far away from him. Black and twisted like an obese poisoned tree root, it’s form highlighted by the light above it composed both the end of the room and it’s only furniture. Red curtains framed it, hung on the wall behind. Steps lead up to the throne, draped with a red and gold carpet.
D stopped in front of the throne, and snapped out of his trance. The room’s empty, excuses and anxiety littered his mind as his hand reached for his bulletblade.
Then, he felt his body jerk. He pulled the bulletblade out from it’s sheath and his head went down, staring at the icicle that grew through his chest. Blood traveled along channels edged into the ice spear’s ornate design. Cold and crushing weight. That was all he could notice in that instant as the force from the blow from behind carried him forward. D stumbled, his limbs under him trembled like a fawn but he staggered around upright painting red around the stone below. His breath caught, lungs wouldn’t move, his body numb. If only he could yell out, activate Saten’s treasure from his Dragon Hoard, he could survive. Is there another way! Another ability?
D pulled the bulletblade to his chest under the spear through his body. His consciousness fading, unable to summon the ability he needed most to survive, his fingers on his other hand scrambled numb on the bulletblade unable to open the latch. Drive 2, Limit Breaker, maybe if he could activate that! D shouted in his mind, his heart pierced through by the ice spear. Blood traveled along an inlet on the spear through a wayward channel in it’s design.
That blood drop fell from the ice spear onto the bulletblade. The blood spread and absorbed, the bulletblade split open, revealing green insides through cracks in the black metal and Drive 2 powered on. A red aura pulsed over D’s shaking body. Through the blood, D’s will got through. The bulletblade woke up. D’s mind and body connected with it, his nerves coming alive and muscles firing, his whole body clenched at once as his heart itself snapped the ice spear in him into shards. Pumping blood filled his lungs, but they convulsed with a new energy. D blew out of all the blood like flame, shouting out:
“Dragon’s Hoard - ‘Thighhigh Sky’!”
Looking into the dark room D faced four figures D saw for the first time, his eyes focused, his hand pulled the bulletblade up to guard as he saw it’s new form. Red aura around him, his body still in weak shape D gasped for air. Then, the world above him, a stone ceiling and cracks letting in minute beams of light transformed.
It became a radiant sun and blue sky filled with… white thighhighs. They floated as if they were clouds, curling in the air like streams. The whole room drowned in sunlight, and D’s wounds healed themselves, white energy pulsing down from the thighhighs drifting above.
In front of him, four seasoned warriors all lost their sense of reason unable to ignore the sudden appearance of the sun and women’s clothing. A troll, two dwiffs, and a small girl admired the brand new sky.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Juro said, the Troll Hero-King hefted his shield. Juro threw had thrown his ice spear straight into D’s heart from behind. A planned ambush in the vast dark throne room. Juro watched as the chimera’s body stumbled forward and activated strange magic, snapping the spear in half with it’s chest muscles alone and produced a grand illusion. Juro checked the chimera’s chest for the wound but he only saw white energy there with the chimera primed for battle. Juro summoned another ice spear from the air, grinning and he leaped towards the chimera checking out the weapon he held. What is that? Juro couldn’t let up his attack, or he might not like what he finds out. Juro slammed D with his shield, following up with a stab of his ice spear into D’s unprotected leg as Juro got a good look at the chimera’s growling face. D swiped at the spear snapping it off from Juro’s grip. Juro gained distance sensing the massive amount of wind pressure and speed that D’s hand showed him. Don’t challenge him in strength, that was the lesson Juro learned from that one attack. To Juro’s surprise, white energy surrounded the broken spear still stuck in D’s thigh and the surrounding muscle crushed the spear into slivers of ice.
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D aimed the bulletblade at the retreating troll and fired, Juro knocked it away with his massive ice shield. The heavy brown troll with superior speed pierced his leg with his spear, but ‘Thighhigh Sky’ healed it beyond D’s expectations. The spear snapped in place, his leg healed with white light. D realized then staring at the spear shattered that he almost died. It was so close. His heart pounded, and D being grateful looked to the troll. If it’s a fight they want-
D rocketed forward with his healed leg, his momentary respite after being pierced twice allowed him that much. His superior dragon toughness from a well tested dragon adaptation, Limit Breaker, and ‘Thighhigh Sky’ from his Dragon Hoard allowed him to survive. Now, to counter the people he believes are Lords out for his life. He’d make them pay.
D pounced at Juro flinging his body’s weight into the shield head on, but Juro from long years of battle saw that coming. Like leading on a bull, he timed and shifted his weight at the last second before D’s body impacted him. Juro dodged to D’s side and pushing into the speeding chimera with his shield changing D’s trajectory towards Juro’s dwiff friend. A present.
D’s body flew towards a dwiff, red hair and a red beard, a massive slab of iron as a sword. The dwiff stood, angled his thick blade and slammed the oncoming D into the ground. D felt the force spread through his body, snapping his bones and cracking the floor. Above him, a dwiff forced down the slab of metal and D in a panic pushed himself off to the side with all his strength. D caught a sight as his body flew away of the stone ground erupting shards into the air like a volcano exploding.
D skidded against the ground, knocking lightly into a wall feeling white energy healing his new injuries already. Would he have survived that if he didn’t have ‘Thighhigh Sky’ activated? D trembled, trying to gather his shaken wits and body while the group in front of him had a quick casual conversation.
“Silva, the barrier. Shadowkin Hippos too,” requested the dwiff with the blade. Dwiffking wielded the slab of metal grumbling as he started after the chimera, D, near the wall..
A small girl nodded to her pointed staff floating nearby, and as if it understood a blue glow spread out from it in an expanding circle. A thin aura, ‘Penance’, protection to keep the castle together. The throne room became clad in blue. The blue sky above from ‘Thighhigh Sky’ and the blue glow below matched and complemented each other. Near Silva another dwiff whose entire face was a beard with only a nose poking out sniffed and waved at the girl with his hand, signaling no to her. Nosebeard wasn’t going to let this chance go to waste, such a perfect training target for Dwiffking.
“Silva, don’t bother. Juro, you too. Let the Dwiffking take him alone.”
Juro looked disappointed as he formed another ice spear with his magic and leaned it against his shoulder.
“Dwiffking, can you handle it?” Juro jeered.
D struggled to his feet as Dwiffking swung in with a heavy strike. D caught the blade head on dropping his bulletblade. Unable to escape Dwiffking’s speed D pushed back with all of his enhanced strength against the slab sword. Dwiffking took a step back as he gauged that his opponent was stronger than him in an instant from how hard D pushed back. Dwiffking swung again and again, overwhelming D with the speed of his attacks despite his small stature and reach. Frustrated by a rain of heavy blows, D charged forward grabbing for the Dwiffking’s body with his bare hands. Dwiffking nimbly dodged him with simple prediction of D movement.
The difference was experience. D only had trouble fighting against Saten while training. Dwiffking saw real combat, and faced enemies where it was a given that they were physically stronger than him. A wide variety of experience and enemies with enhancement, magic weapons and armor, mages, Saints, and the weapons spread by the warlock-
D took Dwiffking’s slab of metal straight to his side, cutting in deep and knocking him into a distant throne room wall. D slammed into the blue aura, taking more heavy damage which healed as his body dropped limp to the floor below.
Dwiffking shouted to Nosebeard, ticked off that he got no support and fully understanding the reason why, training.
“Where’s my hippo shadowkin? Juro? Anyone?” Dwiffking mocked them and swung his blade around. “Nosebeard, you see that?” Dwiffking pointed with his blade at the blue sky filled with thighhighs floating like clouds. “That white light? What, you want to see how long it lasts? Don’t be so sadistic. Let me end this right now.”
Nosebeard knew Dwiffking was asking for permission to use the full release of the Busterbreak Blade, Dwiffking’s country-class magic weapon. However, something about the spell that D used to turn the throne room ceiling into a lewd sky bothered him. Nosebeard worried about the chimera’s possible abilities: ‘Maybe he’s right. I’m play-’
D stood, breathing in heavily, and imagined the whole room consumed in flame. A dark flame burst forth from his mouth like volcanic ash blanketing the throne room. Nosebeard didn’t budge. Flame smoothly curled around him. Silva and her staff next to her covered themselves in a thin blue shield. A personal effect of the staff’s ‘Penance’ ability.
Juro and Dwiffking panicked at the sight of the oncoming dark flame and ran. Straight through the door out of the room, slamming the door shut behind them. They continued to run as the shut door melted behind them.
Dwiffking gathered his wits, accepting that he would have to use the Busterbreak Blade or get engulfed by the flame. Without Nosebeard’s permission, using the blade’s powers is against his rules. It’s training It’s also against Nosebeard’s rules for Dwiffking to take unnecessary damage. It’s training. The choice had to be made.
To the skinny guard down the hall, to the halls outside of the throne room, the shadowflame D spewed out charred the dark grey stone black. Dwiffking activated his Busterbreak Blade and Juro skidded next to him, hugging the dwiff as his ice weapons melted. The Busterbreak Blade snapped and extended, cracks opened in it and orange parts inside beat like a heart, absorbing D’s incoming waves of shadowflame that chased both of them to their limits. The black flames buffeted around Dwiffking as he shielded Juro
Juro let go of Dwiffking and stood, adjusting his cape and surveying the damage to the castle’s halls outside of the throne room.
“Even my regeneration may not have been able to handle that!” Juro laughed as he put his hairy brown troll foot experimentally onto the charred stone, satisfied that it wasn’t hot. Juro slapped Dwiffking on the back, urging him to return to the fight and Dwiffking grumbled as they returned to the throne room. Nosebeard and Silva welcomed them, and a brief respite in the arduous fight opened up for D.