Manascript translation for [Enchantment – Draconic Bite (Weapon / Class B / Stage-two)]
Why should I,
Carry such vitriol and violence for this vagrant who leaned into the maw,
Leaned into forge-fresh filigree, golden from my macabre flames,
Leaned into supplication to a false forge,
unashamed of their petulance,
I am the forge.
– Pendulum didactic, Enchantments of Galactic Renown
Chapter 2 – Tyndall Effect
The cavern's air trembled as Dutch Eternal's gaze slid towards Toki. Hungry eyes bore into her with an unsettling blend of wonder and greed. Toki stood still, solitary in the dim light streaking from cavern openings above. Her heart pounded staccato.
"Are you the last morsel, then?"
The dragon's nostrils flared. Toki imagined Dutch Eternal tasting the scent of fear that hung from her. Toki doubled back. The secret exit she had entered through loomed behind—a sliver of hope.
The dragon stomped, and the narrow secret exit closed in with fallen rubble. Her hope, gone.
“Now, now, what’s the rush, we still h—”
Dutch Eternal's eyes widened. The dragon’s predatory gleam gave way to confusion. She reared back, a choked gurgle escaping her throat. Toki watched, transfixed, as the mighty beast writhed, scales rustling in disarray, muscles contracting in a futile attempt to expel a foreign object. Dutch Eternal's roars turned to rasps. Green sputum came out in sputters. Toxic. The poison, Toki realized. Susie Q's parting gift.
With the dragon distracted, she ran once more. Toki dashed for the true entrance. Much larger and harder to collapse.
"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck," she chanted to herself, eyes fixed on the narrowing path to freedom.
With a shudder that shook the earth, the dragon's will manifested and the ambient mana surged. The gate ahead, leading out of the cavern, now sealed shut. Toki turned to see the massive form of Dutch Eternal heave. The dragon’s breathing was ragged, but she was a predator first.
"Shit. Shit. Shit.”
Toki saw the glow of fire from Dutch Eternal’s mouth, an attempt to cleanse her palate. She froze. The flames sputtered, now reduced to stray embers. The dragon's body writhed, each contortion a testament to Susie Q's enchantment.
“Perhaps Susie Q DID deserve to win the Forgeworks… No… Focus. Fight or flight.”
Toki stood, watching the indomitable force before her shudder. For a moment, time seemed to stand still, granting her a glimpse of opportunity in the midst of despair. She clasped her copper dragonfly blade. Toki drew upon the Aether and the ambient mana agreed to her will. She funneled it into the enchantment.
The blade buzzed. The sound of metal on scale echoed in the chamber—an insect against a mountain. No breach. Again and again, Toki struck, each hit a burst of effort that yielded nothing but sparks against Dutch Eternal's glistening scales.
The dragon's sides heaved, her breaths still labored. But Toki saw the dragon’s eyes—those pools of ancient knowledge—holding her in an unspoken challenge. Dutch Eternal would not yield so easily. Not to poison. Not to a copper bauble. Not to an ant.
With the grace of an experienced duelist, Toki retreated to her earlier hiding spot. She searched for her hammer. The dragonfly blade meanwhile arced through the air, targeting Dutch Eternal's eyes. Those hungry eyes.
Why is she eating people? We’re supposed to learn from her! She's supposed to take us to the floating isles!
The memory of her last conversation with Elara flashed into her mind, trying to glean any meaning from this macabre ritual. With a wisp of recollection, she drew mana again in a bid for survival, this time focusing on the blade within the beast. The blade her grandmother carried.
She summoned life to the blade, now within the dragon, and directed it towards its heart with lethal precision. Dutch Eternal's roar shattered the air. It also shattered the small dragonfly blade fluttering towards her eye. Toki shivered. With that sound of defiance, the dragon summoned its own magic. Mana, much thicker than what Toki drew, streamed towards the beast’s colossal form, seeking to mend poisoned flesh.
Symbols circled around Dutch Eternal, acting as magical capacitors and resistors for the complex ritual. It was an intricate binding of mana, guideweave, and intent. The dragon was vulnerable now, but the internal blade was stuck between healing flesh.
“Now or never.”
Her hammer felt right in her grip. She squared her shoulders and flexed her fingers around the worn leather of the handle. No shimmering scales would deflect this blow—stronger metals had caved before it.
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Toki’s hair danced as she moved into position and her eyes locked onto Dutch Eternal for signs of movement. She readied herself, every muscle coiled tight. The hammer's weight was not a burden but a promise. Once from her brother to her, and now, as realization struck, so too, from her to Obie. Fear shifted to fury as she understood what Obie’s “apprenticeship” entailed. Like Susie Q, Oberon Twice was food for this monster.
Toki's arm swung in a wide arc, the hammer tracing its path through the charged air. It connected precisely with Dutch Eternal's side—a thunderous collision of metal and scale. The dragon's massive body shuddered. A tremor ran through her wings and into the cavern around them.
The ritual faltered—she had timed it so. Enchanting taught you many things. Timing was one of them. The symbols that once glowed on the ground, flickered, and a surge of raw magic recoiled, seeking somewhere to go, anything to consume. Toki felt the force of it whip past her, tugging at her hair and pulling at her own monochrome silk robes. Mana erupted where the backlash struck stone, leaving scorch marks like celestial graffiti. The air itself seemed to scream, torn by the chaos of the disrupted ritual.
"Come on," she urged.
Her eyes narrowed, focusing on the dragon—the source, the center of the backlash. An arm, hanging onto a chalice flew out of Dutch Eternal’s mouth, decayed from the poison.
Her moment was now. Backlash alone would not kill the beast. Chaos ruled as the ritual guideweave unspooled in wild arcs around the cavern.
Toki moved carefully toward the heaving chest of Dutch Eternal, where scales were the toughest and a heart thundered like war drums. Dutch Eternal moved her claws in an attempt to capture her now that the dragon’s earlier vulnerability from the broken ritual had started to fade. But it was too late.
Toki rolled into position and gathered momentum. The first hammer strike had nailed the dragonfly blade inward – guided to the heart with the help of her mana.
“Wai—"
This second strike would pierce. Her hammer quivered in her grip as she delivered a powerful blow. Internal resistance gave way. The tip sank into the vulnerable heart.
A roar shattered the tumultuous silence that followed the strike and Toki moved away in fear, uncertain of whether it was enough. The dragon's pain echoed off the walls. It was a sound of reluctance, of unwillingness—a keening lament from the depths of Dutch Eternal's being.
It was enough.
Dutch Eternal's vast shadow receded as the dragon's colossal frame buckled. The ground trembled, receiving the weight of centuries in a single, monumental collapse. Toki stood alone, a slender silhouette against the backdrop of the fallen beast. Dutch Eternal’s head now rested at her feet.
Sweat traced clean lines down her face. Her chest rose and fell with the rhythm of a battle-tested heart, adrenaline now fading. Toki dropped to her knees and wept. For her grandmother, for her brother, and even for fucking Susie Q.
System messages appeared one after the other.
[Level up: Level 40]
[Level up: Level 41]
[Level up: Level 42]
[Defeated a stage-two beast as a mortal - title upgraded, Mortal Combat]
[Mortal Combat: 2% -> +10% all stats]
[The 211 Luck bounty [Dead or Alive] placed on Dutch Eternal [Draconic Manasmith] has been claimed]
[Achieve 100 base luck while still a mortal – system title awarded, Challenger of Luck]
[Challenger of Luck: +7% Luck]
[As user has slain a protected beast species, Investigation protocol JE-892 has been initiated by the Falkori Dragons]
[Hidden Quest: Take revenge on Dutch Eternal (1/1) - complete]
[Hidden Quest rewards will be held in system escrow, pending the results of Investigation protocol JE-892]
[As user Tokyo Twice is under investigation and the value of Hidden Quest reward exceeds the threshold for public representation, user is given a choice of suitable candidates for private representation]
[User Tokyo Twice is given 1 hour to choose a candidate for representation. Failure to choose a candidate will result in appointment of appropriate public representation – choose now?]
[Timer: 1 hour remaining]
She pushed the messages away and collapsed next to the dead dragon. Her tears continued to pool as she stared up at the particulates floating across streams of light above. Soon the exertion and grief gave way to remembrance.
--
“Tokyo! Oberon! You better not be playin’ with the aeso again! I’ll smack your bottoms so hard that your teacher’ll com’an’find me tomorrow for lessons!”
They heard the threat from their mother but immediately forgot about it. Such is childhood.
“Obie, what’s this one called?”
“This one’s my favorite.” Obie replied while distributing the black glitter-like substance across the symbols. “It’s a story about freedom, Toki. How a chillbird wants to be free… how a boy wants to see the worlds.”
“That’s lame.” Toki responded, eyes peeking over the tabletop only with the support of her tippy-toes. “If it’s a bird, isn’t it already free to fly away?”
“He-he-he. That’s the trick, isn’t it? Dummy. The bird’s in a cage.”
“Who would cage a chillbird. That’s what’s dumb.”
“I don’t know, it’s a metaphor.”
“What’s a metaphor?”
“Shut up and watch. You’ll learn it when you start enchanting.”
“Boring. What does it do!”
“It makes things float! Watch!”
Obie grabbed his hammer, comically large against his small frame.
The hammer set ablaze, bright white from his flames. Toki stared into them, wide-eyed. Enamored.
“The first hit’s important.” Obie cast [Charge Sphere] and brought the hammer down.
The sphere protected a model boat from the momentum of the hammer, but the flame passed through and catalyzed the enchantment reaction with aeso.
As the enchantment used its fill, all the excess aeso went everywhere but the symbols. In their hair, their faces, even their toes.
“OBERON! TOKYO!”
Obie gave the boat to Toki, smiling, “Pull some mana.”
Toki stared at it eagerly as she pulled mana from her surroundings into it.
It floated in the black glitter particulates, free from worry. Free from the cage. The aeso glittered, and Toki giggled as she floated the boat through the stream of sunlight entering from the window.
She looked towards Obie, but he was gone. In his place was a very angry mother.
--
Toki turned her head and stared into the open maw of Dutch Eternal. The teeth were still glowing gold from the heat of sputtered flames.
This victory was hollow. The woman that raised her was dead. Her brother was dead.
She brought up the system messages and opened the list of system attorneys.
[Timer: 10 minutes remaining]