“… And, the two armies clashed, spilling blood in the valley separating their worlds. Men, women, children of all races on both sides, conscripted and forced to do battle for their own survival.
Never did they know they were being hunted; conveniently corralled for a terrifying being’s leisurely feast.
One man refused. One man stood face to face against the horrifying monster known as the Holgamoor, fearless and unafraid. As the monster slaughtered all of the others, the man fought back. And, with a single, deadly blow, the man struck down the horrifying monster, even as it tried to collapse the mountains around him.
Never did he falter.
What man could stand in the face of the fiercest of monsters and defeat it?
Truly, only a knight of the Holy Order.
Sir Murtoa of Lakia, slayer of monsters and warrior of the north!”
A human warrior wearing improvised armor and carrying two swords on his hip walks calmly past the storyteller entertaining a small crowd with exaggerated tales of a brave knight. The warrior knows many of the tales, or versions at least. Princesses dream of meeting the knight of legend. Warriors and soldiers aspire to be him. Imposters impersonate him. For the longest time, civilization formed around avoiding the predatory colossi roaming the world. The legendary human knight proved that, not only can colossi be killed, one man alone can do so.
The stories have no effect on the human warrior walking through a village in the far north of the desert, having just returned the sand bike he borrowed for his errand. The tales give others hope and give him work when he finds his way to places where his job needs done.
The warrior may not resemble the legends in the slightest, and he has no interest in the benefits that come from the hero’s name.
Murtoa is the name he was born with, and Lakia is where he hails from, but his focus has been, since that fateful day, to hunt and kill colossi.
With that said, Murtoa has found himself as member to a party interested in aiding him in his mission, for reasons he doesn’t quite understand. And, although they know a fraction of what he’s had to learn through grueling experiences, his companions have quickly fallen into place as being valuable assets to his daunting task.
As he’s making his way towards the bailiff, the young blacksmith’s apprentice jogs up, “Sir Murtoa.”
Mury turns to face him, and the young man says, “If you’re looking for the others, they headed west. Someone came to ask them to help.”
“Help? With what?” Though, he is somewhat surprised, the warrior’s voice is calm and rather emotionless.
“I… think I overheard them say about finding some girl. His girlfriend maybe? Sister? He didn’t seem like he was from… you know, the desert.”
“What makes you say that?”
“How he was dressed, sir. His outfit was… strange. And he talked weird, too. Not sure how to explain it.”
“He was from the city.” The new speaker is the bailiff as the aging gentleman approaches. “The one that passed by recently.”
Mury sighs. City’s aren’t ideal for his party. Fairies aren’t welcome by the Holy Order, even if they aren’t explicitly forbidden. Coco’s ancestors make her… complicated. “Thank you for letting me know. Can I book passage to the city?”
The bailiff nods, “We would be honored to aid the noble…” Before the man can finish, a young woman jogs out of the bailiff’s station, calling out, “Bailiff! Bailiff!”
The group turns to face her, and she says quickly, “Bailiff, we just received a message!”
The aging man grumbles, “Don’t delay, then. What is it?”
“The city of Almunaicho just put out an urgent request for mercenaries. A-Apparently, they’re under attack… by a monster.”
The three villagers look towards the legendary professional monster slayer.
Murtoa states firmly, “Colossi don’t attack the Great Snails. Lernaetodes are handled by the cities themselves.”
The young woman replies nervously, “But… The message said… it’s airborne.”
The human warrior stares at her silently. His helmet hides his expression, and his posture is calm and collected. However, he connects dots that he otherwise wouldn’t.
“Wait, WHO did my group go to find?” He looks to the young man, but he shakes his head unsure.
The bailiff answers, “The boy’s sister. He claimed to be a Premier son, or something like that. Whatever that means.”
Mury is silent again. He doesn’t show what he’s thinking outwardly, but he does come to a decision quickly. “I accept. I’ll need passage immediately.”
The young man asks, “Wait,... Why would the person matter?”
Mury states as he heads back to the vehicle station, “She doesn’t. She’s just a person.”
To everyone but the Holy Order…
Murtoa of Lakia doesn’t say his last thought out loud. Global politics are not his concern.
The monsters are.
***********************************
The heat is suffocating, filling the air with a heavy weight that bears down on all who are present. Screams fill the world with terror and agony. Rumbles quake the ground with danger and destruction.
Smoke is billowing from the fires burning all around the city and the hellish glow stains the sky a deep orange and crimson color, with flickers of light from where new fires are being started.
Those fires are not born of lightning or flint.
They are born of a mythical creature.
Colossi roam the world, and in fact, the biggest cities of the world are built on the shells of colossal snails.
The creature laying waste to the city known as Almunaicho has the great snail carrying Almunaicho cowering within its shell. Nothing attacks the great snails and survives.
Except this one creature.
Wings of leathery and scaly armor, sharp black teeth, burning gems for eyes, wavy horns receding towards the back of its head, sharp talons and powerful hind- and forelegs, and silvery tan armor plating of nature. Fearless anger and raw power.
And, a breath of fire.
Perhaps, as in many worlds, such legendary and mythical creatures are known as dragons.
In this world, however, they are supposed to be extinct.
Lykha the fairy can’t hide from what she can hear, even through her hands. The roar. The screams. The smell of smoke and burning metal and stone. The tremors in the ground as Coco, the teenage techromancer holds Lykha.
The five present -the two aforementioned girls as well as Gyrryth the drakyk spellshot, Maerin the voluptuous fairy chemist, and the son of the Premier, Prince Tomoba,- are all sheltering in an alleyway as the city that was lethargically tranquil just prior is now reduced to an absolute state of chaotic panic. An airborne monster is laying waste to ancient structures with a hellish breath of fire that cuts through even metals and stone like a bullet through a blade of grass.
“MARIBEL!” cries out Tomoba, the Prince looking for his adopted sister. The girl is believed to have been in the nature park where the creature’s arrival first began.
The air roars as wind swirls; the monster just passed by at lightning-like velocity. Explosions quake and drown out all other noise as the buildings across the main lane vanish in smoke and fire.
Magic spells race by as well. The Holy Order mages are attempting to fight back, since city defenses proved completely ineffectual against the monster. However, the mages aren’t faring much better than the city defenses. The few attacks that seem to hit have not noticeably slowed the rampage of the overwhelmingly powerful creature.
Maerin calls over the noise, “It can’t actually be a dragon, can it!?”
Gyrryth, the current most experienced monster hunter of the party, replies, “I am uncertain! I have never witnessed a dragon before!”
Tomoba, still singularly focused on his sister, tries to scramble out into the main lane, “WE HAVE TO SAVE MARIBEL!”
Gyrryth’s reptilian grip halts the young man by his ankle. The mature fairy sips from her flask, draining it empty to her obvious disappointment. She grumbles loudly, “Yep. ‘Bout right.”
Lykha whimpers, “P-P-Please… W-We have to e-e-escape…”
Gyrryth replies, “I have to agree with the Gentle One. We do not have the necessary preparations for such a being, whatever it truly is.”
“I’M NOT LEAVING WITHOUT MARIBEL!” roars Tomoba as he tries to kick free of Gyrryth’s grip. The lizardman is far stronger than any human, but Tomoba is understandably distraught.
Gyrryth instructs, “We shall await the next pass and evacuate towards the trolley. Once we can better establish-...” Gyrryth’s instructions are cut off when the dragon rockets over top of them, roaring loudly.
Gyrryth flinches, which provides enough of an opening for Tomoba to squirm free and bolt out into the main lane. “NO!” barks the spellshot, but he’s dead-set on running.
Maerin shouts, “Don’t just lie there! Af’er him!”
Coco, oddly quiet for a while now, asks just audibly over the noise, “What about her?” She gestures at the younger fairy crying as she tries to squirm free.
Maerin replies, “Fear’s makin’ her thoughtless. Keep hold, ‘er she’ll get herself squished.”
Gyrryth shouts, “Let’s go!” He jumps to his feet, with Maerin riding in his shoulder-bag and Coco running right behind him. Maerin digs in Gyrryth’s bag as he pursues the young premier’s son.
Gyrryth suddenly slides to a halt, having glanced up only briefly, and his broad forearm nearly clotheslines Coco as he halts her as well.
An object slams the ground in front of them, spraying red liquid everywhere with a squishy thud.
It’s a human body.
The dragon’s roar bellows from above the peak of the city, and more humanoid shapes appear.
Gyrryth forcefully pulls the teen into cover under a building, continuing his pursuit out of the way of the demonic shower.
Coco cries out, “What is tha’!?”
Gyrryth deflects, ordering sternly, “Focus on the mission! We have to recover the Prince and ensure our mission agent is unharmed!”
Coco learned her lesson the first and only time, returning her mind to the task. She asks, “Can we sto’ it?”
Lykha cries out, “No! No! It’s a dragon! It can’t… It can’t…”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The building rumbles, and the girls scream, Coco and Gyrryth stumbling to keep their footing. Gyrryth shouts, “Keep moving! If it collapses, we’re done for!”
They resume running, ducking through collapsing doorways, collapsed walls, and windows as they dart from building to building. The terrible sounds around them continue, but they press forward, dodging crowds of civilians fleeing as they pass through alley ways and across streets. Smoke clouds the entire city, making sight of the horrors occurring around them nearly impossible. The scope of the attack seems much smaller without being able to see it, but it’s still a vastly terrifying time.
Most colossi in the world are large enough or powerful enough to cause destruction, but they have many things within their nature that makes them easy to predict, easy to outsmart, and easy to fight. They are much like animals looking for food. They destroy, but typically only to reach their prey.
This creature, this dragon, is destroying the entire city in mere moments, and seems to be doing so for no other reason than to do so.
Just as the four are crossing out of a building to catch up to Tomoba, a bright beam crosses in front of the prince; the entrance to the nature park.
The stone path and decorative walls vaporize in an explosive blast, and Tomoba is knocked to the ground. Gyrryth quickly shields the group with his body, and heat and wind blast across them.
Coco, Maerin, and Lykha cough on smoke and dust, and Gyrryth groans a deep growling groan in his throat.
Still, he rises and he carries Coco -and by extension, Lykha- to Tomoba, kneeling to check on the prince. “Come, Noble Brother! Rise.”
“M-Maribel…” The prince continues to reach towards the park, as if he intends to crawl through the molten metal and stone to reach the park.
With that said, the hazardous terrain doesn’t stop the Holy Order agents…
… from fleeing.
Heavily armored paladins, clerics, and mages run past the group, screaming as some burn, others shed their armor, and all clearly fear the same thing.
A couple of agents near the park entrance try to call out with shaky voices, “Hold Brothers! We must defeat the creature!”
However, their own fear wins out as the dragon’s roar echoes through the sky from far off, as if it’s lining up for another strafe. One drops to his backside, unable to move beyond shaking, while others abandon the brave facade and join the others in fleeing.
Those that tried to hold the line were already too late. The aerial whoosh and the blindingly-bright beam zip by in an opposite direction as the last strafe, and Gyrryth has only a second to shield them again.
The blast knocks them down, and the brave Holy Order warriors that held back are but memories in an instant.
Nothing remains of them.
Not their armor nor their banners nor their bodies.
In a flash, the bravest and strongest of warriors in the world can vanish without a trace.
Coco looks to Gyrryth as he shakes the daze clear of his head. She notices a flame on his duster, and she quickly pats it out. He’s confused at first, but nods in appreciation.
The lizardman spellshot draws two of his pistols, saying, “We likely will not survive if we cannot deter the beast.”
Maerin replies, “Agreed! Lykha! Enchant this!”
The chemist presents a vial of bubbling liquid that she seems to have mixed in Gyrryth’s bag, but the younger fairy is still in a panic, crying into Coco’s shirt.
The techromancer replies, “Methink’n’ her booboo-buster was her las’ trick.”
Maerin counters, “Wrong, she’s still alive. And she obviously has enough energy to cry! Lykha, pull yourself together!”
Gyrryth rises, “It comes! Brace yourselves!”
A Holy Order paladin runs past them, but the spellshot holds his ground, firing both pistols into the obscure smoke of the distance.
A roar shrieks out, and a shadow swoops over them without a destructive blast.
Coco cries out excitedly, “You di’ it!”
The lizardman isn’t so triumphant, though. He listens to the sounds of the creature racing away from them. He murmurs, “I fear that may not be the case.”
“Wha’ you mean? Ye scare’ it!”
“I do not think I hit it.”
Maerin asks the obvious question that all of them are pondering, “Why did it swoop off then?”
“Perhaps it was preparing for a different attack target.”
Lykha whimpers, “I-It’s hunting… D-Dragons…”
Maerin shouts, “They were extinct to you an hour ago! How can you be so afraid!?”
Coco warns off the more mature fairy, “Bae…”
Maerin frowns, and Gyrryth prepares another pair of pistols; his void magic ones. He states, “We must move.”
The fairy sighs, offering the potion to Gyrryth. “Can you enchant? It’s already mixed. It’ll be a-...”
“I’m afraid not. My magic is offensive in nature.”
The mature fairy sighs again, “You Holy Order stooges… Fine.” She hands it to him, saying, “Throw it, then, as hard as you can if it’s about to get us.”
The lizardman nods and takes the vial.
Maerin turns to Coco, “Coco; Flasher. If we can-...”
“Alrea’y on it!” states the teen, withdrawing a prepared device from her bag. “Juiced an’ ready!”
Just as Maerin is about to respond again, the ground thunders from a massive impact behind them. Screams surge in volume, and the crowd herds towards them once more. The group closes in together, trying to avoid the panicking people storming around them.
Armored paladins are in the crowd, shoving their way through desperately as everyone fleeing is trying to escape the monster. Its menacing and terrifying roar can be heard shaking the air and buildings around them.
Maerin shouts, “It’s going to fire on us!”
Gyrryth rises to his full height. Fortunately, he towers over almost all humans, and he aims his pistols into the smoke where a large shadow looms. He’s also holding the vial, ready to throw it when he can holster one of his pistols.
The dragon doesn’t annihilate them just yet, stepping forward with a powerful step and a deep, foreboding growl.
For the first time so far, the lizardman spellshot gets his first solid look at the creature. His glimpses formed an image, but even that pales to what the creature actually looks like. Its craggy, scaly skin glows faintly, quite possibly from trapped embers or raw magic between its scales. Smoke rolls across its body and head like water, swirling from the massive creature’s movements. It’s actually not much larger than the larger silveryourd the group faced, but its presence carries far more subtle horror through an almost palpable aura of power and anger.
The dragon’s burning eyes scan the crowd briefly as it stalks forward, but it halts when it makes eye contact with the group of five.
Gyrryth is a big being on his own -tiny compared to most monsters in the world, but bigger than most other people-. But, he is still a living being who desires to live, and the sudden grip of terror imposed by those burning eyes breaks his composure for the briefest of moments, and his pistol fires from his uncontrollable and small flinch.
The weapon firing is comparably terrifying, just as the evil aura that swirled around Lykha as she cast her own void magic spell under the influence of spirits. Darkness seems to spit from the barrel, momentarily darkening the world around it, and a channel of emptiness connects the weapon to the dragon for the briefest of moments.
And, then nothing else.
The dragon’s mouth curls, baring its razor-sharp opalescent teeth, and it lets out a low growl of displeasure.
Maerin shouts, “Did that even hurt it!?”
Gyrryth is silent in stunned disbelief. To his knowledge, nothing is immune to void magic, which is partially why it is so heavily regulated by the Holy Order. No armor exists to protect against it, and it’s a horrifying death for people ending in nothing; no heaven, no hell, no spiritual afterlife. Nothing.
The silveryourd suffered because all living things have an ethereal energy, even if their connection isn’t as strong as a soul.
And this creature -this dragon- just shrugged it off completely.
A magic spell fires off somewhere in the distance, as evidenced by a green flash, and the dragon looks, roaring angrily. It’s unlikely anyone actually attempted to attack it following everything, and it was likely a mage trying to clear a path for escape.
The dragon inhales deeply through its nose, looking back to the group of five. It roars a powerful roar that actually shakes them to their bones, and Gyrryth sinks to his knees as he tries to cover his ears.
The creature lifts into the sky with several mighty sweeps of its wings, and powerful gusts of wind blast away the smoke in the main lane with violent swirls. The dragon rises into the air, effortlessly resuming its flight with a long, comparatively lower volume roar.
Maerin states bluntly, “Well, that was lucky.”
“We no’ safe yet,” counters Coco with some urgency. “Why di’n’e it attack? Ye boom-twig di’n’e hur’ ih’?”
Gyrryth thinks a moment, listening as he still tries to process his last-resort weapon having no obvious effect. He murmurs quietly, “Neither have any of the other weapons…”
“C-Can it be stopped?” The person posing this question is Tomoba, fairly more in control of himself as it dawns on him that, with this dragon in the sky, chances of finding his sister and surviving more than five minutes are equally daunting tasks with a low chance of success.
Gyrryth glances at him briefly, still trying to dig deep into his pool of knowledge. Gyrryth is not a specialist in colossal monsters the way Murtoa is. Like most monster hunters in this world, he focuses on smaller, simpler monsters, with smaller silveryourds being among the largest creatures they’ll typically take on.
And even Murtoa has said that he’s never faced a dragon.
Gyrryth replies honestly, “I do not know. And our-...” They all flinch when the dragon roars nearby. The speed with which it changes positions is breathtakingly quick, ensuring even the most attentive ears can’t tell where it’s coming from in spite of how noisy it is. The spellshot finishes, “Our resident colossus slayer is indisposed.”
Lykha whimpers, “I want to go home… I don’t want to adventure anymore. I want to… to.... I want Mury!” She cries again, and a solemn silence falls over the group for a moment.
Maerin moves forward, saying coldly, “I know I’m the last person that should ask this, but… i-... is a wish an option?”
Again, silence, and thunder booms as an explosion topples a building a few blocks away. The heat is making all of them sweat, and soot and smoke are staining their faces and outfits with dark marks that hide their ashen expressions as the list of options dwindles quickly. Maerin is right in two senses; it truly is an unthinkable option for this group specifically, but more importantly, may be the only one they have in order to survive. Assuming Lykha cooperates.
And, Coco, apparently. “Ye daf’, Bae!? Tricksie spittin’ her fines’ on a bag’o’scales and hot coughs?” The dragon swoops by with a sonic boom, causing the group to flinch. Any strafe could be their last, and anywhere they go could be the next path of destruction just as easily as staying put. Still, Coco stays defiant, hugging Lykha more firmly to her chest. “We ain’ sleepin’ the deep, yet. Wha’ kind o’ monsty slayas we be if we jus’ throw away tha’!?”
This has the young fairy stunned, staring deeply into the teens eyes. Coco is focused on Maerin, defiantly and angrily confronting the mature fairy who knows better than anyone exactly the cost of a fairy granting a wish.
Maerin looks down. She was never proud of the suggestion, of course, but she doesn’t know what else to do. It’s understandable, but all of them are friends. Such a sacrifice should never be the answer. Certainly not something someone else can ask of the young fairy with a lot of life left to live.
Indecision, however, is the enemy of unpreparedness. The group was never ready to face a dragon, and never is that more apparent than when Tomoba murmurs the solemn words, “It’s too late anyways.” He points, where a shadow is growing in size and a pinpoint of light appears near it.
There’s not much that can be done at this point. The dragon is aligned and set on destroying the area they’re in. They might be able to run, but the destruction they’ve seen so far suggests none of them are fast enough, not when Tomoba and Coco are partially seated where they fell.
The grim realization dawns on them all at the same time, and a calm resignation falls over them. Any regrets they have will go unchanged. Any promises they made will go unkept. The world’s population will shrink by five more.
All there is now is to await the end.
The journey was short-lived as the team of wandering souls bound together by fate or chance, following a quiet and semi-eccentric knight of unorthodox fashion. Their bond will likely be the only thing that survives the fire upon them, a spiritual echo in the world heard by only a few.
But then, these are the musings of a fatalist, a realist, or a pessimist. Reality accounts for the probable, not always the possible.
A dragon destroying the five people of various walks of life resting still and resigned in the street is probable.
A dragon falling from the sky before it can finish its attack is possible.
As the group watches their impending doom approach, a sudden flash ignites to the dragon’s left, momentarily brightening the smoke for the briefest of moments just a few yards from the dragon.
The mighty beast flinches, banking to its right towards the buildings as the surprise flash -brighter than anything else since it appeared- sparks again, lower this time and behind the dragon now. Then again, even lower and further, as if it is some sort of object.
That luminous and surprising flash nearly distracts all eyes from the real event, however, coming from the roof of a building near the down-slope of the snail’s shell, and immediately to the right of the dragon as it slams into the very same building in its flinched uncontrolled bank to the right.
This event is the most breathtaking thing the four monster hunters and one premier’s son have ever seen in their lives.
Legends tell of the glory of moments like these, exaggerated beyond all practicality to elevate the heroes to an inhuman level of bravery and ability.
But then, such legends are told by those who survived to tell about them.
A human warrior armored in improvised armor plating and wearing a second sword as his first is drawn launches himself from the roof of the building at a full sprint, trusting his own timing and strength and ultimately little more than luck to carry him through.
And with a heart-stoppingly long moment, he seemingly drifts through the air, the center of all attention for the friends of his who know the legends to be real.
The blade jams into the wing of the avian reptile, slashing with as much strength as the human warrior can muster, utilizing his own momentum to take hold of the wing using some kind of hooked tool as he spins all the way around, reaching back to latch onto the wing so he stays with the dragon.
The wounded wing flinches down, and the dragon shrieks, losing its aerial balance and plummeting to the main lane with a calamitous crash. The heavy reptilian body casts stone and rubble as it slides, and the five shield themselves from a rain of debris, stunned in all senses that the dragon was so suddenly halted from its assault. Its squirming body comes to a stop a few yards away from the five, and it barks and yelps almost pitifully as it struggles to regain footing to climb up to its feet.
And then, the human warrior tumbles to a sliding stop on his hands and knees. The armor-breaker sword clangs to rest next to him, his back to the five. He grips the sword without hesitation, taking it up once more to re-engage the monster.
Lykha’s voice is the first to speak, full of sudden hope, surprise, fear, and all sorts of other emotions. “M-Mury!?”
Coco calls out, “‘BANDO!”
He glances at them briefly, nodding once. It seems Coco meant to say something else, but his nod is enough to reassure all of them, including her.
No matter how this battle had started and seemed to have been going, it has now only just begun.
*****************************************