On a rectangular plateau behind the upper keep, someone had decided to build a mansion. Rather, they probably had it built. A mason or a gardener couldn’t afford this prime real estate hidden in the mountains. Rooms upon rooms opened with double winged redwood doors, unshattered vases standing beneath once polished candelabras. Not even half of the portraits were moldy. There was not a single soul around which was the only thing more surprising than finding a place untouched by the all-encompassing wet slickness so prevalent down below.
Elia didn’t let that stop her paranoia from growing and folding in on itself until she was a coiled spring of nerves. She did feel a little bit ridiculous after barging into the fifteenth room, razor-sharp cleaver in one hand, annoyed child emperor in the other, but only a little.
“I told you, they all left.” Pim muttered.
“Shush now. There could be stragglers.” She formed up against the next door, ears pressed to make out any sign of an ambush. “Or worse. Squatters.”
The birds were watching. If they had a shit-list, she was definitely at the top after skipping so much of the wall.
Another door flung open. The mirror showed Elia’s face, shattered along the many edges between its broken frame. The bathroom held no surprises besides a corpse, and those were in ready supply even this far up. This unfortunate fellow appeared to have died mid defecation. At least it wasn’t a dutch toilet or the smell might have dissuaded her from looting the otherwise pristine mummy-like cadaver.
You have gained: Bone shard [Common] x1
You have gained: Wyckwax x1
“I’ll take what I can get,” she said, pocketing the shard before readjusting the bekki boy’s position.
“Ew.” Pim crumpled his nose and bopped her hand with his fan. “Mop.”
Elia squawked as the feeling like a particularly rough cat’s tongue passed over the front and back of her hand. Within seconds, it was sparkly clean. The more she twisted and turned her hand, the more word magic just didn’t make any sense. First the smiling knight ordered her to fly, then Pim’s words realigned her bones, fusing them better than before, now this?
“So, little magic man, why is it that your word magic does nice things, as opposed to the smiling knight?” she asked.
“That’s because I’m the best, and he’s the worst,” he replied, smugly raising his chin. “Only a fool would use divine words to control others where mundane ones would be enough.”
Or someone as charming as the mold between her toes. “Not everyone can be an emperor.”
“Perhaps.” After Elia breached the nearest hallway, empty of all signs of people yet again, he cared to add some more. “Every adulation appears differently from person to person, word to word. The principles of adulation are the same and one is that it is the hardest magic to learn of all.”
“’s that what they’re called?” Best to confirm her vocabulary considering she had to figure everything out with nicknames in the maze before, even if she was at risk of coming across as uncultured, stupid.
“You are truly uncultured, perhaps even stupid.” Elia squinted at the boy, trying to figure out if he could read minds by fixing him with a stare. He did not seem to mind as he was busy looking around the room. “Everyone knows how the divine song brings order to all things.”
“Order magic, hm?” Mind-control was therefore only an application of this power. “Your sister said short words are stronger. That true?”
He shook his head. “Short words are much easier to learn, to speak and to practice. A true master such as I masters not the single syllable words alone, but crafts two, three and more together.”
“Any other weaknesses?”
He was silent for a while again while Elia failed to find anything edible in a fancy kitchen and less fancy pantry. Maybe he was figuring out that every bit he told was a weapon she could use against him, should he say the wrong word. Maybe he thought she wouldn’t trust him if he revealed he could blow her head off with a single clip of the tongue. He’d be right, of course, but it wasn’t the impression she was trying to give him. Rye would have probably done better.
Regardless, he was on his own without her. The need for establishing trust would soon outweigh his unnecessary fear of betrayal. She would never leave a cat person behind, they always had one get-out-of-jail-for-free ticket to her heart by default.
“It strains the voice and spirit to speak but a single note,” Pim started after a remarkably short time. “It affects all that can hear the word and for every person affected the price grows twofold, from strain to dizziness all the way to unconsciousness and death. Words are not weaker, but more difficult to learn the longer they are, much more than saying ‘ah’, or ‘oh’. Tutor Emmanuel taught them to me syllable by syl-la-ble. ‘First, you must learn to sing before you can dare to talk’ he always said. He must be dead now. I shan’t miss him, for he always gave the hardest paddlings.”
They moved on in yet more silence. Elia found the way out, a road snaking along the mountainside it was hewn into, with fancy stone railings and little roofed decorations for putting lanterns under in the rain. The path crept on for long, but no unfortunate rockslide caught her eye until it disappeared around a distant overhang.
“I don’t get why anyone would do that to a kid,” she said as she turned back before her oath interpreted her yearning as an interest in running away.
“It is true, isn’t it? Who is even allowed to hit an emperor?”
The emperor’s father, for one. Gods’ know Marcus’ monthly quota was four times mine and even that did not balance the scales. But we are getting off track. I only hope Lim is alright.
“Eh, Lim’s fine. Otherwise, Pim’s oath here would become unfulfillable and thereby null. Then again, maybe it counts dregs as people as well. Or corpses. Or–”
Don’t say that in front of him. He’s putting on a brave front, but I’m sure he is scared.
Pim lightly digging his claws into her sleeve convinced her more thoroughly than Rye ever could. Their sharpness helped spur her on.
“Well, for one thing, I bet we’ll find her on a mountain of dead knights and when she sees us she’ll say: ‘Stinky Elia, meow. Poo meow. Meow-meow.’”
Pim giggled, albeit quietly and nervously. A lightness in her chest lent her steps additional fervor and soon enough, she found a bowl of respite at the end of the main corridor facing inwards to the castle again. “Alright, we might meet her halfway if we keep making this kind of time.”
The bowl was situated in a foyer as overly large as everything in this mansion. Two staircases curved from the floor above to her level and the way ahead was closed with a large metal door perhaps even more ostentatiously decorated in images of classic heroism than the one leading into the cathedral at the very bottom. Dogs or wolves mixed with lions, dragons, birds that were rocs and not birds, snakes and other animalistic critters coiled into a mass just before the gates.
The defenders were stabbing the coil of beasts quite heroically, with their ranged weapons and lances that reached from the top of the wall to the bottom. Evidentially, someone was exaggerating their length or didn’t do their homework. Evidentally, they hadn’t compensated enough with their walls as tall as the Eiffel tower.
Now it was Elia who was exaggerating, but not by much.
“Rye, what does this say?”
‘Here within lies the domain of the dogged defenders of castle Glenrock, the Twinpeaks, and the northern road. Lord Commander Hall, steward of the north, half-blooded and divine, forewent service in the eternal legion to watch our home and swore an oath, for which we scorn him forevermore.’
“People really are swearing oaths like it's going out of fashion.” She chewed her lip. Behind the bravest soldiers she even found a few comically weird depictions of people and knights with heads of rabbits, dogs, cats, goats and fish, underlined with a short word whose letters she thought she might understand, but just amounted to gibberish in her head. “Those are bekki, right? What does that word beneath them mean?”
Auxilia.
“… which means?”
Helpers, in a military sense.
“So, they’re like extra topping. Neat. Also, what does the yellow X someone slathered onto the door from hinge-to-hinge mean?”
That is a sign of the pox.
“Neat.” She noted the letters in her mind for later reference, especially the sign for the pox. “Becoming more cultured step by step.”
She was just about to turn towards the bowl of respite when she caught something unusual at the corner of her eye. Etchings ran out away from the door, crude letters she had taken for medieval graffiti of some kind up until she looked closer. She could read them.
“Ray… was… here?”
… wait, you can read?
“I… yes, I mean, of course I can. This is English.” And some French and maybe Russian too. Did Rhuna write it? No, the language and style was too scattered, like a school’s bathroom stall if all everyone had was hammer, chisel and a broadhead horsehair brush. “Danger, goal…? Gold ahead. Jerry’s ass smells like wyckwax. Looking for tank, experienced, body ensouled, m. If you read this you are… hey!”
Of course, the barbarians vandalize this perfectly good door.
Elia stared at another line of text among the many that didn’t make any sense to her.
Danger, but hole ahead…
An unnecessarily ornate finger pointed at the rear side of one of the door’s figures.
Aww man.
“Graphitti and buttjokes, two things that transcend cultures.” The presence of writing did not fill her with confidence in the least. Whoever wrote these didn’t seem to be taking whatever they were doing seriously. What if this really was a game? What if she really was an NPC, one with the most unnecessarily elaborate backstory ever? Could someone just delete her save file from existence if they got bored?
She didn’t realize how much heavier she was breathing in before she reached the bowl and dunked her head into it to cool down.
*Gong*
Right, all the evidence so far was circumstantial or, lacking that, inconclusive. Rhuna herself had said that she was whisked away midday into another world. Though, the woman with the maned lion’s helm seemed to think of the world as a game because with her strength, it might as well have been. Now that was a frightening prospect, one that she decided to drown in the taste of refreshing wetness.
The water tasted like fresh apple pie. Even Pim, with some apprehension and a hefty helping of peer pressure, lowered himself and drank lots. Somehow, he looked refined even while sucking up water like a thirsty camel.
‘Kinda disappointed he doesn’t drink like a cat’ Elia thought as she wiped her mouth dry. “If you’re like a fennec-fox and Lim’s a bobcat, how exactly are you two related?”
The kid stopped drinking so he could stare into Elia’s soul with big yellow eyes. “What?”
Rye took over for a moment to rectify the embarrassing faux pas. “Sorry. Elia isn’t exactly from here. Can you believe that where she comes from, they don’t even know of bekki?”
“She must live in quite the desolate place then.” He huffed, before a line of words lit up under his hand. They looked crooked and misaligned, barely carved surface deep into the floor.
If you are reading this, please, please, PLEASE don’t run away…
“Magic bomb!” Elia wrenched the young bekki behind the bowl, bracing for the explosion.
There was no explosion. Only an incensed little emperor.
“Y-you tossed me! No one has ever tossed an emperor before. Off with your tail!”
“I don’t have a tail?” Not anymore at least.
And thank the gods for that.
“Everyone has a tail! It’s meta, meta… metaphorical. Off with your hand then.”
A hand popped out of the bowl of respite.
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AAAH!
“OH MY FUCK IT’S RHUNA!” This time, she picked the bekki boy up with even less regard to his safety as she prepared to escape whatever escapade the insane woman thought friends got up to in this world.
There was no Rhuna. A man pulled himself out, spear in hand and brown hair greased up to eleven. He must have been using it to treat his leather vest and armor because the first thing he did was comb it back with his hands and smear the result all over it.
“That is possibly the most I have ever been insulted, thank you very much,” he said. He had a sharp kind of square face, with a chiseled chin you’d expect on someone who would try and sell you a rusty car as ‘retro’. When he smiled, he flashed her with teeth stained red like rubies, maybe because they were. Elia stared, still in flight-or-flight mode, as he raised a single finger and pointed at her chest. “Is that a cheese grater?”
“…yes?” Elia answered as she watched a young woman pull herself out of the bowl after him. She had growing, but already distinguished sharp features, friendly doe-eyes taking the edge off it all with a hazel color. Elia’s gaze fell immediately on the girl’s plate armor, a beautifully engraved late gothic type with the kind of wasp-like waistline that had to cut uncomfortably into her hip. It was also quite a lot of armor, though in Elia’s opinion there wasn’t such a thing as too much plate, only too little.
The girl pulled herself upright, struggling slightly under the unfamiliar procedure, yet endeavoring nonetheless to keep up a regal appearence. As it was, she barely managed ‘skittish’, though the magic or whatever she had to completely hide any blemish of undeath made up for most of her performance.
Oh, is she the daughter of some noble lord? She has a rather pleasant complexion. Now, I fancy my blonde hair, but I wouldn’t mind wearing coal-black hair in short curls like hers.
The girl glanced up nervously at her, then at Pim, the surrounding area, then her again. Elia only had eyes for her beautiful armor where a blood-red jewel was fitted at the sternum, and those bone-white vambraces. They were a work of art, fine filigree woven up and down form-fitting metal that initially seemed at odds with her much darker armor, but after a second look gave it a certain je ne sais quoi.
“Nice armor. Love the finish on the arms.” Elia said.
The girl perked up with a wan smile.
“R-really? Look here, these are genuine Ferrini’s, fitted, fashioned, engraved and enchanted with sigils of protection from strikes, dirt and bad smells all while being lighter than steel. Every one of his works is signed with a simple ‘F. P.’ and it is said no one has ever laid eyes upon the humble legend Ferrini, for to do so would mean he is bound to hear out your one desire and–” The girl caught herself, immediately shrinking back into her armor like a sun-tanned turtle. “… and I see you’re looking at me all weird. A-apologies. Or, rather, sorry? Can I say sorry? I can, can’t I. Yes, hello. I am Karla and this is my fellow and protector, Sir Simon. In the name of our lords, I greet you warmly.”
“’Sup.” Elia sup-ed. “I’m Elia, the ‘s’ is silent.”
Karla stared in a jumble of politeness and confusion. Only Simon laughed, snickered rather. Off to a great start.
He doesn’t look like a sir, nor a knight. More like a snake oiler or a swashbuckler. I wouldn’t dare a flirt even if he were whole and hale. As it stands, his bones look like old news, and not the good kind.
Well, they had no sign of tarry goop on them which was the minimum prerequisite for having a chance to get Elia to listen instead of bolt. Simon was very undead, though he completely owned the way half his face was exposed bone. Rye was right that his red bandana which he wore loosely over a missing eye gave him an air of recklessness and adventure, but it all looked fairly slapdash, looted and cobbled together. The only thing he had that looked to be of any value was a fanciful white spear.
Together, they looked like a ragtag group of adventurers, one fresh from the adventurer spawning pools while the other had just been exhumed decades after his demise. If the fading script on the ground worked like an alarm and sent a signal over great distances, then she didn’t have to guess why it was positioned next to the bowl or how Rhuna knew where she was last time.
“I think you guys should just go back where you came from.” Elia said.
“N-no!” Karla near burst from her armor. “I mean, please, please, PLEASE don’t send me back. I haven’t been out in... well, some time.”
“Why do you want to go through here so badly?” Elia thumbed at the graffitied door. “The sign reads ‘pox’ and that’s the understatement of the century. It’s infected, bursting with stuff you don’t want anywhere near you all the way down. Lemme tell you, Glenrock isn’t the place to be.”
The pair gave each other a confused look.
Karla piped up first.
“You have been to the far side? Truly?” she said, looking very squished in between her heavy protection. “Tell me, is it the same there as in our domain, our Loften?”
“I mean, there are undead, mostly unfriendly ones.” She thought back to where she came from. “Also, the world kinda just… ends in a cliff after a mile or two in that direction. Are we on top of some giant world tree or something?”
“Not that I am aware, no.” Karla looked a bit puzzled. “But, regardless, we come in the name of, ah… well, it should not rightly matter, but we come to offer assistance against the ‘boss’ for a share of the, well yes, the ‘loot’. Apologies, if my diction offends you, we know few outsiders where we come from.”
“Outsiders?” Elia asked.
“Yeah, you sound like someone’s pulling the empyrean out your nose.” Simon sniffed, gave her a scrutinizing look. “Considering the gates are still closed, you did not defeat the lord already.”
“The lord being?”
“Why, the old commander, of course.” Simon sauntered a few steps forward, placing himself between her and Karla. Elia did the same with Pim. “Can’t rightly get good souls a-churning without proper risk, no? Though since you aren’t exactly flying any colors I must ask: who does your allegiance belong to? Frei’s Rebels? Lunatics? The old faithful?”
“It should not rightly matter,” she parroted, answering his smile with a smile of her own.
There was too much weirdness mixed in with the obvious. Yes, other undead like her existed, of course they hunted for souls and sundry and no, they weren’t all from earth. Still, the Idea of defeating any creature obviously masquerading as a videogame boss for loot was an earth-thing. If ‘lord’ was also a shorthand for ‘boss’, then everything checked out. She could say for certain that at one point, people like her had been here and had in essence done what people did in video games.
She really hoped killing everything in sight was considered socially acceptable. Now the question was, where were all the other earthlings?
Oh, right, she was supposed to be having a conversation. Karla did not seem at all satisfied with her deflection, even though she started it first.
“Well, I sure as heck am not part of whatever the ‘old faithful’ are.” That raised some eyebrows, hopefully in the positive sense. “Rhuna dribbled me like basketball, which for the record I didn’t like.”
“Oh, she got you too?” Simon laughed, stretching the bony side of his face. “That whore is somewhat of a menace, runs her group of hopeless and dreadfully hopeful with an iron grip. Knows how to kill undead too, how to make it stick, but I assume she prefers maiming to send a message.”
“May she bleed from her pores until dead,” Karla muttered like she was staking someone through the heart, grasping a protective amulet hanging from her neck. She nearly had a dozen of the things and tapped a number of them in an order that no one but her knew the significance of. “We will get along, oh, you’ll see. Ooh, I’m so excited. The traitor lord is strong but we should handle it with three. That is, if you can trust us.”
“Uh-huh.” Somehow, the sudden influx of two allies did not make her feel at ease. If anything, them not daring to fight him with just the two of them was a good indication of his threat. They were well armed, Karla carrying a tower shield and a steel mace whereas Simon had his spear and a whole lot of swagger. Also, a wide brimmed hat. Elia would kill for a hat like that.
I don’t like the way that man grins. Reminds me of a beastie we once found in our field. Little dog like thing, terribly sharp teeth. It maimed one of our helpers and nearly killed a second one.
Simon misinterpreted her silence as fear. “No worries, he was quite the dreg last time we scouted him out. Probably worse now. That being said, you’ve got some mighty fine boons there, isn’t that right Karla?”
She nodded. “Conjuration and something for your cutlery. Am I correct?”
“Yeah...” Now, did she have a boon for that or was she just good at guessing? “And the loot?”
“I say we split it evenly in thirds, souls and shards. Of course, assuming the bekki kid doesn’t pitch in.”
That sounds fair. Elia, while I’d like for us to find an alternative way, I also want to leave as fast as possible. I honestly don’t wish for a repeat of the giant, or the Fane-Eater. Let us accept their offer.
Elia mulled it over, or gave the impression to at least. They knew decidedly more than she was comfortable with, for strangers. But in a few deaths – three or four maybe – she’d be forced to gamble away another of her boons. She didn’t want to lose a single one and wasn’t that a luxury she had long since forgotten the taste of.
With three people – non dregs, thinking, on-their-toes people – a victory was all but assured, assuming they were at least half as competent as her. She hadn’t fought with numerical advantage in a long time, but then again she would be paying with thirds of the loot. Was it better than risking the loss of her [Cutting Cutlery], [Perfect parry] or even her [Psychometry]?
“Alright, you’re all in. Let’s go beat this boss. Pim, you can stay here and wait. I’ll go turn this yellow watchdog from a symbol into a statistic,” she said, sitting the kid down next to the bowl before turning to the two. “If you hear me talking to myself, just ignore me. Got a boon for that.”
Simon gave a red rimmed smile and a thumbs up. “Can do.”
Karla shined like a sunflower before putting on a great helm. “’It is adventuring time’ as the outsiders say. Huzzahs and tally-a-ho.”
Rye gave a relieved sigh.
I assume this changes your plan, whatever it may have been?
“I mean, hard to make a plan without knowing what we’re up against.” Elia said while trashing her plan of live, die, repeat. “Considering your friend can just see my boons, mind sharing yours?”
“Well, my biggest boon is my charm and handsome face.” Simon gave her a wink. Elia answered with a look that was the equivalent of strangulation. “But besides that, my boons are largely useless in a fight. I know a spell though and I am more than decent with my spear. A beauty, isn’t she?”
Hey, Elia. Let me talk.
“Well, your partner sure is,” Rye said, giving a knowing look to Karla, who smiled abashedly. “It wouldn’t be too much to assume you’re undead as well. What is your secret?”
“It’s just an illusion. It doesn’t help with the symptoms, sadly.” She sighed, wistfully. “I was hoping to find something against those outside of the quarters I know.”
“Oh. I see.” Rye sounded dejected, but soon livened up again. “And your boon?”
“I have one. Do not be surprised if I cast a spell or two, I had strict and demanding tutors.” She waved with one hand and what blood remained on Elia’s plate fell off in flakes. “Before you mock me, that wasn’t a cleaning spell. I control blood, to an extent.”
Elia watched as the flakes of blood liquified, twisting and swirling through the air in a small dance. The girl evidently mistook her silence for something else than fascination, as she quickly tucked the glob into a large camel bladder.
“I-If you are to judge me harshly, do it now and in silence.” She closed her eyes, expecting a verbal lash.
Rye relinquished control as Elia thought about whether the sludge of the tar knights counted as blood or not. “Why would I? Blood magic is awesome.”
I will have you know, it is also highly illegal, punishable by divine irony. Which in her case would mean exsanguination on the wheel.
“Freaky.” She cracked her shoulders and neck until every joint had given a satisfying pop. “Alright, let’s pop this sucker open.”
With a deep groan like a growl, the heavy twin doors opened to a boulevard carved for giants. A road wide enough for four lane traffic ran ahead, smooth cobblestones dimpling wherever softer ground gave away. To each side overgrown fields of grass and weeds reached above her waist and there too stood trees, the same spiky-leaved trees as upon the gardens on the wall below. Unlike them, they stood in full autumn bloom, yellows, reds, and browns blowing in the wind to herald a winter that Elia knew would never come. And yet they threw their coats off like they were expecting to wake up after their slumber, as unaware as trees could be of the world around it, of all the death and undeath and of the tar seeping up their trunks.
They came across one body after the other, all armed and armored to an extent well beyond the peasants below, yet carved up, slain and left to dry just the same in the absent sun. Most of them looked old beyond measure. Some of them were much too young.
This place reminds me of Arvale, after the, the well… you know. Rye sniffed. Elia did not know why. Go on. Please. Let us leave and never come back.
And wasn’t that a motto to live by.
Elia walked past statue after statue that reminded her of those guardian lion things one could find around Buddhist temples, surprised that such a detail stuck with her where others didn’t, such as the taste of mayonnaise, most of her learned algebra or the names of her parents.
That last one stung. But the past was gone and not worth a second regret. She walked past statues facing outward, past more facing inward until she found herself in a field of dead leaves, upturned road and shattered memorabilia. The walls of the mountain to each side never felt closer, their peaks never towered higher. An air of quiet hung low and deafened all thought.
“So? Where is he?” Elia asked in a hush-hush whisper.
“Close by. Hiding, possibly. Or dead already.” Simon replied, overturning a lump in the field. “Not him. One of his knights. We’re on the right track.”
I really hope he can be reasoned with, even if our fellows seem to think otherwise. But they say he is a dreg and the dregs we have seen are no longer sane nor human. No thought, no sense, nothing but gnawing hunger and the intense fear of being apart from the living.
A voice had the three of them tense up, wispy mutterings so distant they might have missed it entirely were they not so close by. “Stand up. Order the troops. Sally out. Take the fort in the name of, of…”
She followed Karla’s gaze as her companions readied their weapons. What she at first glance thought a boulder was actually a man kneeling in the tall grass, hanging his head beneath a multi-tiered fountain. He was clad in massive plate armor from head to toe, more like large misshapen scales than metal plate. The fountain bowl was dry.
“No, no, no. Convene my knights. Close the gates. Sally out. Order the troops – is that a sign? Oh, no, just a furuncle. Where was I? Ah, pox on it all.“
Elia did not dare to move, not just because the man would hit his head on most ceilings and shoulders on double-winged door frames, but because a faint alarm prevented her from taking another step. He had his back turned. He was completely unaware of them. She had her best boons in years, she was stronger than ever. Why then was her breath coming short and heavy?
Initiative was key. Initiative was king. A quick shared look and she knew they knew. They let him ramble on as they fanned out and only when they were sure he truly was jabbering to himself, they approached one soft step at a time along the cobbled path.
Elia, he’s talking! He’s talking, he’s not a dreg, he is still sane and can be saved. Is he… sick?
No reply. Karla spoke silently as blood flowed out of her camel bladder to cover her shield, copper lining emitting a low red glow. A shield that was also a magic focus. Neat. Elia lifted her staff in turn, the universal signal for Rye to start pulling her weight.
Wait, you aren’t seriously trying to make me backstab a sick old man, are you? Well, I refuse! I–
“An odor of treason…” The man turned with all the emphasis of a rockslide. He wore a thin silvery headband but all Elia could focus on was his lack of eyes. They were black orbless pits nestled into a face flayed of all skin and humanity beneath the eyes. He wept golden liquid, so much it was showing spillage around his falling buffe around the neck. Undeath aside, he looked to all like a normal man, though when placed in his oversized iron armor he seemed to be piloting more than wearing it. “No. Merely more Forlorn. Have thee not had thy fill of slaughter? Oh, Distant Lady, is this thy punishment, for our faithful duty?”
He stood up, but neither his slowness nor his frail face made Elia feel at ease. In one hand rattled a great chain flail with an iron hound’s head grasping an iron ball. In the other, he hefted a round chunk of blackened metal, a shield in all its ridiculous proportions. It was wider than Elia, taller than Elia and probably weighed more by a factor of three.
Now was probably a poor time to notice the dragon corpse draped around and skewered on the largest tree. It was a small dragon, as bony and thin as the branches, just as dead as the rest of his challengers. The scenery seemed to shrink as the man’s armor limbered up to its full height.
“Then so it shall be. Thou faces the bastion of the north, undead. Prepare thy blades.”
She prepared it alright, legs bent, cleaver in one hand, staff in the other. A single blink and the canine flail head exploded forward as he nearly took her head off.
You have challenged: Lord Commander Hall