“They know we are here now!” Vreek complained as we were forced to retreat from the doorway as spells exploded in the doorway.

It had been a mistake, I realized, sticking my head out like that. I should have let Dirk jump across the room via a shadow and scout and come back before he was struck down. That would at least have prevented us from being pinned like this.

“What are your thought?!” I shouted over the noise as I glanced at Turk and the other two behind me in the hallway. “Rush out or?”

“What did you see when you did something stupid like Dirk would do?” Turk asked as he winked at me.

Groaning, I could not help but chuckle. I had pulled a ‘Dirk.’

“There are multiple rows of dwarfs in armor and shields stretching the entire width of the throne room. Behind them are archers, casters, and healers, it looks like. On the throne is the king wearing armor that appears to be crafted out of scales of Naydras.”

Turk nodded as he watched the doorway. The number of spells had decreased, but the occasional one still hit the wall inside the doorway, blowing out chunks of the stone and causing a bloody mess from the dwarf bodies from earlier.

“Dirk, how fast can you move right now and be the distraction we need on the other side of the throne room?” Turk asked.

Dirk laughed and shrugged.

“Right now, I can move anywhere a shadow is if I can see it. This power is insane. I feel like Goku or Satima right now!”

I found myself shaking my head and closing my eyes for the briefest moment as I imagined Dirk in the throne room doing poses and pretending to be Goku. I knew what he meant, as once the four of us were able to engage the enemy, we would probably cut through most of them with ease. The power and speed we all had right now felt like a cheat code.

“Fine,” Turk declared as he pointed to a pillar on the other side of the throne room we could see from our hallways. “You distract them. Once they are attacking you, we three will rush out, and Dad will take the front. I’ll hit the front line with a lightning spell before I drop some fire on the rest of them.”

Turk turned and pointed at Vreek.

“You think you can get up close and personal with those dwarves?”

Vreek grinned, and I could see power radiating off him. His skin had a sheen on it that none of ours did. Perhaps it was something from the seed that Bob had me give him.

“I hate that I am about to say this,” Vreek said with a laugh. “I’m ready to act like the three of you, rush out, and risk everything. I feel stronger than I ever have been and know that our god has blessed me! How can I stand back and let you take all the glory?”

Dirk snickered, and Vreek slapped him on the back of the head.

“If I die, at least I’ll know I did it with my god watching,” Vreek argued as he shook his finger at Dirk.

“I am not saying you are wrong, but it is funny, and you know it,” Dirk replied. “All those times we had to listen to you complain about how we rushed into stuff, and now you are going to do it. It’s ironic.”

Vreek’s face contorted in confusion, and I knew he had no clue what that word meant.

“Enough. Let’s do this,” I interrupted. “Turk, how long do you need?”

“I don’t need anytime right now. Vreek said it best. I’m at one hundred and ten percent power right now.”

I nodded and motioned for Vreek to come to me.

“Ok. Dirk, you get their attention. Once Turk says go, Vreek and I will rush out and trust Turk to cause some confusion. Do what you can but stay away from the King. I doubt he will be a pushover.”

All great plans formed in a hallway with dead dwarf bodies seem never to work the way one believed they would.

Dirk vanished with a smile, and I watched as he popped out of a shadow next to the pillar we had mentioned. I watched him drop his pants some and jump out and moon the dwarven guards in the throne room.

A few seconds before he took a plethora of spells and arrows up his backside, Dirk jumped back into the shadow he had emerged from and escaped a certain death. Shouting and yelling echoed from inside, and more spells and arrows rained down further in the hall, past where we could see.

“Now!” Turk shouted as he pushed me forward.

We charged into the room, and as I came through the doorway, I saw on my right the dwarves shouting and spells and arrows heading to the back of the room.

Time felt slower as the power of Naydras surged through us. Vreek and I ran toward the dwarven wall of warriors that stood thirty feet away from us, only to watch a bolt of lightning shoot past me and travel through two rows of defenders.

The room seemed to be in bullet time mode from one of our games. Dwarves were flung back in slow motion as I ran at them, their faces and expressions moving slowly as their eyes finally saw us and realized what was coming at them. I sensed Vreek was only a few steps behind me, keeping up with me much better than normal.

Blue fire erupted on the back line closest to the Dwarven King, and I watched as they flailed about. Turk was a beast in an enclosed environment like this.

Six strides were all it took to reach the first dwarven warrior before me, and when I swung Light Drinker at him, it sliced through his armor as if it was paper. His eyes went wide as it cut through the shield, plate mail, and his body in one smooth stroke. I felt like a blender, chopping up vegetables on a high speed as every swing of my sword cleaved bodies apart. Their shouts and yelling filled my ears, but I paid no attention as any that came near me died before they presented a threat.

Four more strides put me in the first row of archers, unprepared for a goblin with a sword. With their front lines broken through, they were the chewy center of a hard shell candy.

I felt myself grinning as I pretended to be the Tasmanian devil, a whirlwind of death that consumed everything within my arm's reach.

I heard a few spells land behind me as the dwarven mages or whatever they were called had loosed some magic near my old position. The speed at which I was moving only served as a tool to damage their own allies. As I carved a path through the archers, I noticed Dirk off to the side, laying waste to a line of dwarven healers. He had appeared behind them and cut down a dozen before they had even realized it.

Vreek was roaring as I saw him make it through the line of plate-wearing dwarves. Blood and gore covered him as his sword did not cut as easily through the defenses of the dwarves but the power he had now allowed him to hit them like a baseball with a bat, causing them to slam into their allies near them. Once he reached the archers, they started to fall as they panicked and tried to flee.

I could feel the heat from the flames Turk had summoned as he moved it through the rows of healers, and it pressed against row after row of dwarves like a trap. Thirty dwarves at a time would die to the flames as it moved over them, burning their bodies to a crisp.

Before I knew it, the room was silent except for the occasional cries of dwarves dying and the panting of myself and Vreek.

I looked at him and saw his eyes were wide, and he was laughing like a maniac. He had not ever experienced the kind of power he had now, and I prayed he did not do anything stupid like we usually did.

Turk fired off a few arrows that finished off any straggler along the edges of the room, and all four of us turned and focused on the dwarven king who stood next to his throne.

I knew he was older as his beard was four feet long and solid white. His armor caused the fire in my gut to burn as I saw the scales they had ripped off of Naydras stitched somehow across his armor. A massive two-handed hammer made of metals I had no idea of gleamed next to him, waiting to be grabbed. His face was unmoving, and it threw me off a little bit.

Wouldn’t a king whose entire guard was cut down before him with no real effort shows some fear? Was he not afraid of what came next, or was he that strong?

“Vreek and Turk, Watch the back of the room.”

As the two of them turned to watch who might come in, I strode over dead bodies and rested Light Drinker over my shoulder.

“Going to beg for your life or offer us some great treasure?” I asked.

The King betrayed his calm demeanor as words he could understand reached his ears.

“How is it filth like you know our language and possess the power you have?” the King asked as his voice seemed to somehow reverberate through the room.

I smiled and shrugged as i waved my right hand at the carnage around us.

“Naydras sends his regret he could not be here to witness this repayment for what you did to him. Consider us the tax collectors, coming to get paid for that which you took that was not yours.”

He blew a breath out of his mouth as his lips flapped against each other, and his white beard and mustache vibrated from his action.

“That blasted dragon! I would say he shall pay for this, but he has paid enough,” he laughed as he tapped the scales across his chest with a fist. “He got what he deserved.”

“He deserved to be chained up and harvested like a sheep? Having his scales ripped off his skin and his talons and other parts cut off for whatever foul things you must have used them for?!”

I was angry and seething. I could feel my breath getting hot. It was as if Naydras was somehow infecting my actions.

“That dragon terrorized us for a century! He forced us to pay tribute and took things without payment! His greed led to his downfall,” he shouted at me as I saw the anger in his eyes, “and I made sure he suffered for the actions he had taken against us!”

“Then what shall I extract from you and your people for what you have done to the goblins and orcs for thousands of years?” I replied as I started to walk closer to him, pointing my sword at him. “You have hunted our kind, almost wiped us out. And for what?”

The King grabbed his hammer with one hand and pointed it at me.

“Your kind are filth! You covered the land like cockroaches and bred like rabbits! You are as bad as the humans told us all those years ago! You should be thankful there is still any of you left!”

The King shouted and slammed his hammer into the ground, sending a ripple of shockwaves across the hall. I felt like I was on a wooden slat bridge, bouncing and trying to stay on my feet as the ground seemed to buck and shift.

“Dirk!” I shouted as I fought to stay standing.

I saw Dirk try and get close, but the shockwaves did not stop radiating from the hammer, and the King smiled as he saw us struggle.

A bolt of fire flew past me, hitting the King’s armor and vanished.

“Dad, this doesn’t look good!” I heard Turk shout. “We need a plan!”

I watched as the King kept his hand on the hammer and slid it along the ground as he started to walk toward me, wearing a smile that would scare Superman.

“Hit him with something else,” I yelled as I started to stumble backward away from the King.

I could not remember if Bob had told us this would be a bad idea, but right now, I suspected he would have.

“Vreek, tell me what to do!”