The first thing Charlie noticed when he put the pacifier in his mouth was a sort of calm that washed over him. The stress from the battle didn’t disappear completely, as there was a lot at stake, but he had a sense of peace about it. He sucked on it and looked back up at his opponent. Themis was in bad shape. Geby looked ready to fight some more. Of course, he also had the rest of his friends to think about.
But everything faded from his mind when a surge of power washed over him. The feeling wasn’t coming from the pacifier itself. It almost seemed like the power already inside of him was resonating with the pacifier. There was something different there that he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Something with his dungeon.
He suddenly had the urge to fight and test it out. But he resisted for a moment. “Everyone get back. I’m going to end this,” Charlie told them.
“Charlie, it’s already got back up once. Are you sure about this? If you exhaust all your energy, that’s it,” Merlin said.
“Merlin’s right, for once. We should try to come up with a plan,” Vetica said.
Charlie turned around and smiled at his friends. “I’m gonna win.” Behind them portions of the wall moved outward and a protective barrier formed. “I have to focus on the fight now.” The ground under his friends shifted and pulled them towards the barrier. Merlin, Vetica, Themis, Canano, Bleedy, Mousifer and even the knight Dalys. Geby protested when she realized she wasn’t being included in the next part of the battle, either. The ground under her started dragging her away as well.
Her metallic roar of displeasure made him well aware of just how unhappy she was.
“Sorry Geby. We’ll fight together again another time,” Charlie said. He turned to face the creature again. Its transformation was complete now, and it looked angry. Charlie took note of Talmot, who still hadn’t moved from his spot. He wondered if he should try to move the hex knight to safety, but if he did, Talmot might see it as an attack. The last thing he needed was for the knights to get in his way. For now, he’d try to make sure the serpent stayed focused on him, so Talmot wasn’t targeted.
“Dungeon Manipulation,” he thought. He didn’t need to think it to activate it here. Not in a dungeon he was so familiar with, but thinking it was cooler. A giant hand formed under him. It pressed straight upward from the ground, taking Charlie into its palm. In front of him, two additional hands clawed free of the earth. One on both sides.
His eyes widened when he saw something he didn’t expect.
Merlin called out. “Charlie, when did you learn how to make that?”
There were long and jagged black rocks embedded all along the hands he had made. Charlie recognized them from Sange. The rocks were kierstone. A highly flammable rock popularly used in weapons outside of Aysela, from what he had learned.
The little gemstone pacifier in his mouth on had to be the cause. But how had something so tiny had such an effect?
The serpent roared.
Charlie realized this probably wasn’t the best time to dwell on the new turn of events. It was fighting time.
He punched the palm of his left hand with the fist of the right.
The giant stone hands in front of him copied the gesture. Sparks flew as the kierstone collided with rock.
Charlie grinned. Highly flammable indeed.
The wyrm whipped into action. It slithered forward, quickly closing the distance between them. It wasn’t lunging like before. Charlie wasn’t sure what it was up to, but he wasn’t going to give it time to make a move.
He projected his thoughts toward the creature. “This is really gonna hurt, just so you know.” The creature ignored him, its shielded face getting closer and closer. A few more moments and it would probably attempt to swallow Charlie whole, the stone palm he was sitting on included. But he hadn’t created a pair of flaming fist for nothing.
The right hook came first. Charlie had sealed the material that made up the arm, so it was tougher than usual. It cracked against the bone plating on the serpent’s face and sent the creature recoiling to the side. Charlie sat on his butt, punching the air. Each of his weak baby punches translating to powerful tremors that smashed the serpent further into the wall. The fists moved through the ground to get a better angle, and then blow by blow, they pummeled the enormous serpent. A cloud of dust filled the air. Each punch scattered shards of bone and rock. Burst of fire created silhouettes of the hands and the writhing serpent. Normally, Charlie might feel bad about beating something up to this extent. But this creature had already died once, so really this was nothing comparatively.
He threw one final powerful swing and then the arms pulled back. They were worn down, and the stone covering their knuckles was barely there. He’d all but destroyed the hands, smashing them over and over into his enemy.
Charlie watched the smoke. He’d seen this creature get up once already. But could it really have endured an attack like that?
The answer to his question came in the form of a roar. Charlie crossed the battered arms, ready to guard against an attack if the serpent lunged from the smoke.
The serpent did lunge. But not from where Charlie was expecting. The ground beneath him cracked, and he realized the creature had buried into the ground. The hands were too far away to react in time, so Charlie released his hold on them and tried to make new ones. But there wasn’t time. He had the hand he was sitting inside close its fingers to form a cage around him for protection.
The serpent’s head shot up past Charlie and stared down at him, hiding inside the finger cage. Its skeletal wings closed and wrapped around the arm. The wings squeezed together. The segment of the creature’s body in front of Charlie opened up. He realized in horror that the creature was trying to pull him into its stomach.
He sealed the hand completely, sacrificing the ability to make it move in favor of more durability. But he could hear the rock crunching under the pressure of the gigantic creature’s bone. The wings were making slow progress, but they were progressing.
“Charlie!” Themis called out.
Charlie closed his eyes, trying to think of a solution. The creature was trying to eat him! If it pulled him inside, then it was over.
A thought struck him. He looked up at the creature’s face and his eyes widened. There. There was the answer. If only he could—
The base of the stone arm collapsed, and the wings seized on the opportunity. The wyrm pulled the severed arm into its body with Charlie was still in its hand.
Merlin
He leapt and scrambled over the protective barrier and ran forward as fast as he could. This was a nightmare. The fight wasn’t supposed to go like this. After everything they had been through, Charlie couldn’t go out like this. The wings pressed the stone into its body. He glimpsed Charlie for a just a moment. For just a moment, he thought that Charlie might have some plan. That he’d save himself at the last second. But the segmented bone closed as soon as the arm holding Charlie was pulled inside.
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Merlin came to a stop. His legs gave out. What could he do? With no power? No strength? How could he help?
The answer slapped him in the face.
He couldn’t.
He heard footsteps. Vetica and Geby were running now. They were strong. They’d help him, wouldn’t they? Of course, they would save him. At least, he wanted to believe that. But deep down, he felt otherwise. Charlie was the strongest of them all. If he couldn’t beat this creature, then who could?
Bleedy and Mousifer scurried past him. Orb and Boop flew by. Canano supported Themis, and they moved as fast as Themis’ injured state would allow.
Charlie had so many friends around. So many people willing to fight and protect him. But of all of them, Merlin was the weakest. He wasn’t a fighter. He’d always known that, but after playing resistance leader and pretending to be some powerful magician somewhere along the line, he’d convinced himself he was someone he wasn’t. It was bound to happen. When you always pretend to be something you aren’t, eventually you’ll fall for it too.
He looked up at the serpent. Despite the skeletal armor covering its eyes, it looked bad. The armor was flaking off even now. Pieces of bone tumbled through the air and shattered against the ground. Its face wasn’t healing. It wasn’t repairing the damage for some reason.
Charlie had hurt it in a way he hadn’t before. He’d proven he could beat this creature. If only he hadn’t been…no. Merlin shot back to his feet. The day he’d helped Charlie seek sycamara root, he’d been changed by something simple. He’d been convinced that even he could be a good man. All because Charlie thought he could be.
Charlie had believed in him.
That’s all it had taken to change Merlin’s life. The least he could do was return the favor.
“Charlie!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “Charlie! You have to fight!”
Vetica and the others turned to look back at him.
He cupped his hands. “I know you can win, Charlie! Don’t you dare give up!”
The wyrm looked down and stared at Merlin. His shouting had gotten its attention. Its head pulled back, and Merlin realized the creature was about to lunge.
He stared it down. “I won’t run from you. I won’t cower. That boy inside you is about to make you regret eating him. I know this isn’t much, but it’s all I can do right now.”
The serpent shot forward. It seemed unusually fixated on Merlin for some strange reason.
He heard Themis and Canano behind him calling out a warning. Vetica and the others ahead were forced to leap to either side of the creature’s path.
Merlin cupped his hands again. The moment the creature’s mouth opened he yelled one last time. “Charlie! It’s time to end this fight!” he roared over the sound of the serpent bulldozing along the dungeon’s ground.
The wyrm’s head suddenly jerked. It righted itself and continued charging toward him.
It jerked again.
Merlin cracked a smile.
The serpent pulled up suddenly and lifted its head high into the air. Its jaw set apart in a silent scream.
Fire erupted, pouring out of its throat. Two giant hands of stone shot out of the earth and jammed fingers inside the creature’s body. Each of the hands pried the bone apart, one of them then removed a baby sized ball of kierstone from inside it. The skeletal creature retreated, pulling away to the far side of the room. The ball split open, and Charlie emerged. He looked around until he saw Merlin and then smiled. “I heard you!” Charlie said. “But it was in my head somehow! Like how I talk!”
Merlin shook his head. “Really?”
Charlie held up a hand. “Hold up, gotta finish this fight real quick.”
Merlin nodded.
The hand that wasn’t holding the remaining half of Charlie’s kierstone ball picked him up by the back of his onesie and repositioned him in its palm instead. The kierstone fell to the ground. Charlie rose high into the air as the arm grew longer and longer. Merlin watched as sizeable chunks of rock climbed up the other arm and surrounded it. It grew thicker and more powerful looking. A layer of kierstone rocks formed along it its exterior. They were more concentrated than before.
“Is he getting more control of it?” Merlin wondered aloud.
The monster’s broken bone body closed, fixing the wound Charlie had opened with his stone hands. But fire still lingered in the creature’s body. Smoke poured out of the holes in its skull. Charlie had done a number on it from inside. An explosive kierstone blast.
Torq had made an amazing weapon. And Charlie really was shaping up to be quite the hero.
Charlie
He floated there on the tall hand, staring at the still recovering creature. There wasn’t any time to let up. He needed to finish this. One powerful attack that would end the fight for good.
Luckily, he understood this new power a little more now. A moment ago, he’d sent pillars covered in kierstone rocketing throughout the skeleton’s body from the inside. The flame had hurt it pretty bad. But he needed to hit the outside, too. For this part, he planned to draw inspiration from one of the few people he’d seen use a kierstone weapon.
Brel had used a kierstone hammer back in Sange. Charlie thought he’d emulate his technique.
His eyes turned a deep shade of brown and he focused every ounce of his remaining magical power on one last attack.
The hand brushed against the ground as it moved. Sparks kicked up behind it. Flame exploded, clinging to the edges of the stone fist. The wyrm stretched its mouth wide and roared in anger. Its tail shot forward to deflect the arm away from its face.
The hand collided with it, bringing even more fire to its surface. Charlie shrieked at the top of his lungs. The fist drove the tail forward with it and crashed into the serpent’s face, smashing both ends of it together. An explosion filled the room.
Charlie covered his face with his hands. For the third time, the smoke cleared. But this time, the creature didn’t get back up.
Crack.
Charlie looked up. The blast had certainly caused even more damage to the room’s stability. Large rocks fell, crushing the wyrm further. A quick glance behind him revealed his friends were alright. Merlin stood there, giving him a thumbs up. Vetica let out a big sigh of relief. The instability hadn’t quite spread to the area of the room his friends were in, which was good considering they didn’t have anywhere to run if this room collapsed, too.
A man shouted somewhere to his right. Charlie realized it was Talmot. He’d kept an eye on him during the fight, but the knight was so far on the side of the room that he hadn’t been in danger so far.
Unfortunately for Talmot, the impact of the attack did seem to have spread to the ceiling directly above him. Talmot stared up at the falling rock. “Redrick!” he cried out for help, scrambling to his feet. Charlie realized he wouldn’t make it in time. If he didn’t do something, Talmot was dead.
The world seemed to move in slow motion.
Charlie threw a hand forward to create a cover for the knight. But he’d used all his power to defeat the skeleton. He couldn’t create a new arm from scratch, or even a simple covering, for that matter. The only one he had left was the tall one he was currently sitting on. He tensed its fingers, quickly testing the connection. They moved.
He could do it. He had just enough power to reuse it.
Charlie wasn’t sure what went through his mind at that moment. He moved on pure instinct. He flicked his own hand forward and the giant stone hand holding him up crumbled. Its pieces shot forward, reforming in the air to form a protective slab. Charlie sent it scrambling to protect Talmot and cover him before the rocks crushed him to death.
The problem was that action led Charlie with nothing to hold him up. One moment he was comfortably sitting some forty feet in the air. The next he was in a state of free fall.
With very little dungeon integrity, and because of that, his rock skin passive was certainly weakened as well.
But Charlie didn’t focus on the fact he was currently falling through the air toward what could likely be his end. The entire time, his eyes were trained on the slab. It slammed into the wall above Talmot, embedding itself within. The debris collapsed against it and fell on either side of it.
Talmot looked up in surprise.
Charlie smiled.
He’s okay! Charlie thought, only a few feet away from smashing into the ground.