Mel got to the lecture room in the dragon forge later than usual, thanks to her two new guards. They’d been stalling the entire morning for reasons unknown to Mel. It just felt like these two wanted to make her late for her class with Master Foss. Recently her guards had switched out to new ones and the one who’d used to grab her by her shoulder, Mel hadn’t seen in days. She wondered if he’d gotten into trouble or if it was just that no soldiers wanted to stay at this particular job.
Master Foss didn’t look angry at her arrival, and her classmates didn’t even seem to care that she was late. They were talking amongst themselves about smithing and fire imbues. Mel sat down at her desk in front of Will and gave him a tentative smile. He smiled back, and the classroom quieted as Master Foss took his place in front of them.
His hands were clasped behind his back, and he had a smile on his face. Mel thought that was strange. Master Foss rarely smiled. He was more known for looking like he was pondering life's big questions. Always tugging at his beard and having a faraway look in his eyes.
“Good morning, students. Today, I have some good news.” Master Foss brought out his hands from behind his back and the crude dagger blade rested in his hands. “This is a double imbue. The first one created here at the dragon forge in decades. It’s not much to look at, but it shows it’s possible.”
Meredith’s mouth hung open, and she stared at the small object in Master Foss’ hands. Dean held a similar pose and Mel glanced behind her at Will, whose brows were furrowed.
“We made great progress here last night, and it was Melissa who smithed this piece of magical imbue. She made the stones connect with each other and mix in the air. A beautiful orange energy that seeped into the blade. With this kind of magic, we should be able to create stronger weapons and perhaps even kill the dragon.”
His eyebrows wiggled at the class, and Mel’s smile broadened. She was proud of her accomplishment. She had done it, created a weapon thought to be impossible. It felt good.
“Why didn’t we get to be there?” Dean asked.
“Because we need to be cautious with this new magic. All of us in this room represent the only people in the world that know the song and know how to theoretically create a double imbue. We’ve made some excellent discoveries and documented them, but in case Melissa had blown up the forge, I just couldn’t risk it.”
“But didn’t you say that the safety precaution Headmaster Lorken is taking isn’t for us? We are already too few.”
“Yes,” Master Foss said. “I did say that. And I believe it to be true. But this experiment that me and Melissa performed yesterday was premature at best and we were lucky nothing bad happened. So even though I think we should all be working at the same time as much as possible, some risks are just too great.”
The other students didn’t seem satisfied with this explanation. Mel felt it in the air. It was crackling with tension, but Master Foss continued as if he hadn’t noticed. “Today, we’ll examine this object and we’ll brainstorm ideas about how to make a double imbue into a weapon to kill the dragon. That is the next logical step forward, and we need to figure out how to use the magic we’ve created.”
Will cleared his throat. “Shouldn’t we focus on teaching the rest of us how to make a double imbue? Like you said, in case you two die.”
“Perhaps. But we can’t. I need to receive approval from Lorken before we can make another experiment. He is still in charge of the dragon forge, and his new weapon is prioritized above our double imbue. Which means I’ll need to ask him and we’ll probably have to do the next test during the night again. The mother knows he won’t give us a good time slot.”
Master Foss murmured something else under his breath, but Mel didn’t catch it. She looked around at her fellow students, feeling their annoyance with herself and Master Foss. Mel swallowed hard and hoped they’d still help them, even though it was clear this wasn’t what they’d expected.
“Why do we need to brainstorm what kind of magical item to create?” Meredith asked. “Shouldn’t we just create a strong double imbue and then hand it over to the Tavecks? They can kill that thing.”
Master Foss walked up to Meredith and handed her the unsharpened blade. It looked silvery in the glow from the forge, but it didn’t look like anything special or significant. It wasn’t even polished yet, and the silvery hue was more dusty than anything.
“We don’t know what it can do yet. The only one who's used a fire and earth double imbue here is Melissa, and I’m not even sure she knows any spells for it.”
His face turned to her, and he watched her with a cocked eyebrow. Mel’s heart sped up, and she knew what a double imbue could do. She knew it could make the ground melt below your feet and swallow up entire creatures. But how did that help when fighting something that was soaring through the sky?
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“I’ve used it,” Mel said. “My dagger when fighting a beast out in the wasteland.”
The entire room turned to her, even her bored-out-of-their-minds guards looked at her with surprise.
“It can make things burn and make the earth shake.”
Master Foss dragged a hand through his beard. “Strange. I would have thought it could do something different from just fire or earth magic separately.”
Mel swallowed, mustering up the courage to tell them. “It can melt the ground where you stand. Swallow you up and create lasting effects on a landscape. It makes lava.”
It was quiet for a beat, the room's tension rising again and Mel thought for a second she would crumble underneath the pressure of their weighted gazes.
“That does make sense,” Master Foss finally said. “Lava. I wonder how we could use this.”
“We can’t,” Will said, hopelessness dripping into his voice. “You can’t kill a dragon on the ground. We need to have something that can kill it in the sky. All this work for nothing. Just so we could make a weapon that’s completely useless to kill the dragon with.”
“Don’t dismiss it that fast,” Master Foss said. “The same, I guess, could have been thought of the other elements. Not exactly what they needed at the moment, but if one looks at it from a different perspective, maybe something more useful than originally thought.”
“What? That makes no sense,” Will said, throwing his arms in the air.
“What if we somehow drag the dragon down to the ground with like hooks and lines and then create a simmering pot of lava that we sink it into?” Dean asked.
“Perhaps.”
Meredith frowned at the blade in her hands. “Or we could stab it with lots of small daggers, then when it’s full of them, each elemental warrior activates theirs and melts it from the inside.”
Meredith’s eyes flew up to Master Foss, and they stared at each other. Mel regarded her with a tight knot in her stomach. Somehow, it all felt wrong. Like she wasn’t supposed to kill the dragon. Her insides felt like they wanted to twist themselves at the thought of melting something into lava from the inside. That was just sinister.
Did the black dragon really deserve to die that way?
Mel quickly realized her line of thinking. She was thinking about the black dragon in terms of a person or an animal, something that deserved better. What was she doing? If she had said any of that aloud, they would have thought she was a void worshiper. They would have thrown her back into the dungeon or killed her.
She pushed her emotions and thoughts down, creating an ever tighter knot in the pit of her belly. Nausea overwhelmed her, and Mel swallowed hard to keep her breakfast down.
“Arrows,” Mel said through gritted teeth.
The room’s gazes landed on her and their eyes were wide, looking at her like she had two heads. Mel ignored them and herself.
“We create arrowheads imbued with the magic. Then each elemental warrior sinks one into the dragon. When they’re all under its skin, the elemental warriors activate the magic, turning the thing into…”
Mel couldn’t complete the sentence. Turn it into what?
Her mind went completely blank and she just couldn’t make herself go there. To think of the dragon like it was just a cockroach who needed to be crushed. The dragons had spoken to her. The dragons had given her a destiny. Sure, she’d never cared about that. She hated the black dragon for all it had done and the people it’d killed. But didn’t it deserve to die in a better way?
“That’s an excellent idea. Melissa and Meredith, you solved it. This is exactly the type of teamwork I expect from my students. You really helped me out, too. Now I have something concrete that we think could work to go to Lorken with. We can ask him to experiment with double imbue arrowheads, not some big clunky hammer or bomb. I think this is really smart and innovative. Killing the dragon with many small weapons. Wow, you really blew my mind just now.”
Master Foss’ smile was ear to ear. His beard had raised almost a decimeter from its usual position against his chest, and he genuinely seemed impressed. Meredith looked over at Mel, a proud smile covering her entire face as well. She looked like she’d just won first place in a blacksmith competition.
Mel tried to match their smiles. Her cheeks ached with effort as she dragged the corners of her lips apart. But it was fake, entirely made up, and at this moment she hated herself for it. But she couldn’t tell them that she thought it was wrong. That her own idea was making her nauseous and lightheaded. What would they think?
“Can you make it glow, then?”
Mel looked up from her daze, catching Dean’s eyes. He had walked over to Meredith’s desk and Will was standing over there, too. She must have zoned out.
“What?”
“Yeah. Can you use it, make it glow?” Dean asked.
Mel looked over at Master Foss, and he gave her a small nod. “I think it’s safe. The imbue isn’t unstable, I kept watch over it last night. No explosions.”
Mel sucked in a deep breath, feeling it expand in her lungs. They wanted a demonstration. Fine.
She focused on the item in Meredith’s hands and filtered out the other magic items ringing around the forge and the dragon stones, too. She watched the crude blade she’d made yesterday when this had still felt good to her. Felt like the right thing to do.
The note rang in her mind and Mel matched it, letting it vibrate out from her body and toward the item. The blade glowed bright orange in Meredith’s hands and Dean let out a breathless, “Wooow.”
A voice entered Mel’s mind, making her lose focus, and the blade flickered out, going back to its dull silver color once more.
“Kill me,” the dragon said. “It’s time.”
A frown descended over Mel’s forehead, and Meredith watched her with disappointed eyes. “Why did you stop?”
“I…” Mel didn’t know what to say. She just sat there staring at the double imbue in Meredith’s hands, feeling the room’s eyes on her again. The dragon wanted to die? What the hell did that mean?