“Frank, can you tackle the one in the spore cloud? I’ll get the other one out here!” Stan yelled to his ally. Frank just roared in response and charged across the cavern straight through the green cloud into the stem of the mushroom zombie, releasing them. They both crashed to the ground hard, with Frank on top hammering his fists into the creature.
“God, that kid is a force of nature.” Stan thought as he slashed his sword across the one nearing him. Several slashes later and the zombie fungus was in pieces on the ground in front of him.
A booming crashing sound came from the far side of the cavern, obscured by darkness and the spore cloud. Before Stan could call to Frank, it was followed by a line of bright green liquid shooting across the cavern as though it had been sprayed by a fire hose. “What the hell was that Excalibur? Any idea?” Stan asked.
“An impossibility, but a reality nonetheless. Luckily, it seems smaller than it should be, so perhaps we won’t just die.” The sword answered.
“Dammit, spit it out already, what is about to kill us?” Stan yelled his anger with the sword returning full force.
“Some sort of dragon. I may have to revisit the theory that I attract them at some point.” Excalibur answered.
“You what? Dammit, no, don’t start explaining. We can talk about this later. Frank, we have a dragon incoming, and I’m guessing it’s shooting acid at us. I’ll go in low, see if you can get on its back.” Stan yelled.
This time, the roar didn’t come from Frank, but he did his best to return it. “Frank will pummel any monster, dragon or not,” Frank said this as he charged into the direction the acid had come from, plunging into the darkness.
“Any chance you can help with the lack of light? I’m going to need to be able to see to fight this.” Stan asked, hoping the sword had enough energy stored to brighten the room they were fighting in. The idea of fighting a dragon blind wasn’t something he remotely wanted to do.
In answer a small ball glowing ball shot from the tip of the sword towards the top of the chamber and then burst into light. Stan could clearly see the dragon now. That did nothing to help his trepidation at the upcoming fight. On the other hand, the sight of Frank holding out one of its wings with one hand and bashing his head into the things back did fill him with some hope they could win this.
“I’m coming, Frank!” Stan yelled as he charged over to help. At the last moment, before colliding with the beast, he turned his charge into a slide ending directly under its stomach as he had hoped. Now that he was this close, he could tell just how horrible the thing smelled. Was it rotting? Was it even alive? What the hell was going on down here? These thoughts all quickly entered his mind as his arms worked to stab his sword upwards with as much force as he could muster.
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The creatures screamed in response and started buckling wildly. “Yeah, Stan! Whatever you did, it’s pissed now. Keep going. I want to tell Mom we slayed a dragon in real life!” Frank screamed out, a strange sound of joy easily noticeable in his voice.
“Just try not to die kid!” Stan yelled back as he forced the sword down it’s stomach. The decayed insides started pouring out onto him. He did his best to ignore the ichor and just keep pushing the sword, but to his misfortune, the dragon’s leg managed to sweep across him. Stan was flung backward from under the dragon into a nearby rocky outcropping. Luckily, he had managed to take Excalibur with him, and while his back might hurt like hell, he didn’t think anything had broken.
He stood back up just in time to see Frank rip off one of the wings and the dragon throw itself onto its back in a desperate attempt to dislodge the tree man. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, Stan forced himself to leap onto the dragon’s stomach and begin once more stabbing away, carving even more holes into whatever abomination this thing had become.
“Will you just die already!” Stan screamed as he stabbed Excalibur deep into the thing’s chest yet again. He had lost count of just how many times he had done this. He could hear Frank still pounding away from below the creature.
“Stan, try to get me into its neck. I used a lot of energy purifying the others, but I should have enough to finally end this thing with the damage you had already inflicted if you can get me close enough to the brain stem.” The sword said in his head.
“I’ll try,” Stan answered aloud through gritted teeth. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the tail come sweeping in for him, and he quickly rolled to the side and pushed himself to his feet. He launched himself forward as best he could off the gore-coated scales and was able to wrap one of his arms around the floundering dragon’s neck. With his other arm, he plunged Excalibur into the neck as deep as he could, eliciting a high-pitched scream from the head. He pulled the blade to the side, trying to sever anything it could reach. The hilt felt warm. He guessed the sword was working whatever magic it could.
There was a loud snap from inside the wound and the dragon’s desperate struggling finally stopped as it collapsed completely lifeless to the ground. Stan fell off the side, Excalibur clattering to the ground next to him. He was breathing harder than he had in longer than he could remember. “Frank, you okay?”
Frank was pulling himself out from below the corpse as he answered, “Yep, Frank is victorious again; nothing can stand against his might!”
“Sure can’t, kid, but I think we both need a shower,” Stan replied.
“Huh, yeah, we’re pretty filthy, aren’t we?” Frank examined his body as he said this.
“Yep, but holy shit, we just killed a dragon.” Stan smiled.