Elendria’s POV
“Ice Bastion!” I quickly cast my spell, forgoing the normal decorations in order to raise a massive ice wall. I was in time for me, but Metel’s breath blasted around my small defenses and coated the entire clearing. Within seconds, all the workers were turned to ice statues. The force of the breath was so much that each statue had horizontal icicles facing away from the dragon.
“Oh? You managed to survive? How lovely.” She chuckled. Not trusting anything she was about to do, I used a slanted ice pillar to launch myself to the side. Sure enough, a massive ice boulder smashed down and obliterated my former shelter.
“Ice spears.” I growled, sending several sharpened pieces of ice flying in her direction as soon as they finished forming.
“Hahaha! Oh keep it up, that tickles!” The dragon chuckled as my spears shattered against her scales. She even had the gall to raise her head and present her underside to my onslaught. Growling in frustration, I shot forward in the air hoping to get closer and come up with a plan.
“Ah ah, can’t have that.” She taunted, sending randomly shaped shards of ice in my direction. While I could twist and turn through most of them, a few still managed to give some insignificant cuts along my arms and shoulders. The tail that curled up from a blind spot and slammed into my side did a lot more damage, sending me crashing and tumbling. Recovering from my slide, I looked up as I heard a roaring sound.
“Sphere defense!” I screamed in horror as a wall of snow was heading straight towards me. Knowing I had absolutely zero chance of escaping the wide attack, I went with a desperate defense and summoned a block of ice around myself for protection with an inner core of water to try and mitigate the force when I inevitable slammed into something. Then everything went topsy-turvy as the tsunami of snow slammed into me, flinging me around inside my liquid salvation. The rapid changes in direction made me nauseous, but the water did its job and dissipated much of the force, though I knew I was going to be battered and bruised from the wild ride. Seconds later, or minutes, it was incredibly hard to tell just how long I was flung about, everything settled as I slammed into a tree thick enough that my ice shell cracked and the liquid swiftly ran out.
I dropped to my knees and coughed out some of the water I had inadvertently inhaled, arms shaking as my soaked hair formed a curtain around my head. “Now what are you gonna do?” I grumbled to myself as I took a moment to catch my breath and get my bearings. Distance attacks were out. About the only place on her that I had a chance to pierce was going to be her eyes, her scales were entirely too strong. As for her eyes, that was likely out as well. Not only was she just as strong as I was with ice magic, she was far too agile in the air. Anything I could summon would be out as well, the wolves didn’t have any way to take down an aerial enemy and the frostlings barely had metal weapons.
“Come out, come out little elf!” I heard her faint voice through the snow. “I know you’re hurting, but I promise I tried to hold back there so you would survive. See, I have a lovely little contract offer for you. Accept me as your master, and I’ll heal all your wounds. I can even make it so you can live forever! All it’ll take is you promising me your soul.”
There it was! That was the stench I had detected that led me here. She was obviously abusing soul contracts. Soul contracts were dangerous, but not necessarily illegal on their own. But using coercion to entrap people with them was blurring lines. How many had she forced on people over her life that I could detect it from miles away? I stumbled to my feet, manipulating what was left of the sphere to part the snow so I could climb out of my frosty cave. As I broke through the surface, I noticed that the air was devoid of moisture. She must have used it to create all that snow, but it could help me.
“There you are little elf! Are you ready for the contract?” She asked, but started glaring when I took to the sky. I didn’t see much else, as I was using wind to do two things at once. The first thing I did was block her view with a swirling tornado of loose snow. While that was going, I created a much smaller but far more intense figure 8 of wind in front of me. It wasn’t as good as that coil thing Sean had told me about, but an unexpected attack from nowhere could be just the distraction I needed. I left my little trap, and shot skyward, right to the top of my tornado.
“Fine! We can keep playing.” She growled, bursting through my tornado. “Gaaah!” She cried in pain as a small bolt of electricity shot into her nose, but the far more important part was how she involuntarily closed her eyes. Knowing that I had an incredibly small window, I dove down onto her back and swiftly made two rings of ice circling her and binding my feet to her back with me facing sideways.
“GET OFF ME YOU LITTLE PEST!” She roared in anger, bucking and twisting through impossible angles as she tried to get me off, but I had picked my placement well. I was just in front of her front set of claws. She was flexible, but not flexible enough to get her back claws or tail around to swipe me, and I was close enough to her head that she couldn’t see exactly where I was to target me.
“Now it’s my turn!” I snarled with a sadistic smile. I created the densest hammer of ice I could, and smashed it into her side hard enough to crack the head.
“Your hammer isn’t going to break my scales anytime soon little pest.” She growled, and I had to split my concentration a bit as I fought with her for control of my stabilizing ice rings.
“That’s fine, I’m not going for your scales.” I said, fixing my hammer and swinging away at as close to the same spot as I could. “If I can’t break your scales, I’ll pulverize the flesh beneath!”
“Aaah! Little bitch!” She finally cried out in pain after the fifth or sixth swing. I got one more swing in before everything lurched and I found myself upside down and rapidly heading toward the ground.
“Crap.” I groaned as I saw her plan. Smash me against the ground, or use her maneuverability to kill me if I took to the air. Well, I wasn’t about to let any of that happen. I created a small handle leading to one side, grabbing ahold of it before letting the ice around my feet go. When we were about ten feet above the ground, I extended the handle I was holding on to, sending myself shooting to the side before letting go.
“Oh that hurts.” I groaned after I came to a stop. There was no way to summon a protective ice sphere this time, and I had to take all of the punishment slamming into even lightly packed snow at high speed could cause. At least I wasn’t smashed between the ground and a couple of tons of pissed off dragon.
“WHY WON’T YOU JUST DIE ALREADY!” Said pissed off dragon roared as she charged at me again.
“Impaling bastion.” I groaned out, altering one of my favorite defensive spells. I didn’t create a crenelated wall this time, instead going for a plain wall with several thick ice spears aimed directly at her face. Unfortunately, I underestimated her agility, as she dodged while barely letting the ice tips scrape and shatter across her scales.
“That’s it. Slaves! Whoever slays her gets their body back! If you manage to capture her so I can make her sign a contract you will earn your freedom!” With that pronouncement, tortured forms started appearing. Most looked like humanoids that had been recreated in wax and left in the heat to partially melt. Some had lost all but the basic form. What each one did have in common was a set of red chains with cruel barbs cutting into their forms, leading back to the heart of the dragon.
“Have fun with my slaves dear! I think I’ll relax for a bit in my cave. Ta ta!” With that, she turned and headed off up the mountain. As she left, there was a collective groan from her slaves and they attacked in mass.
“Ice spear storm.” I didn’t have much hope for a purely physical attack, but I sent one out anyway as a test. Sure enough, the phantoms weren’t affected. Not wanting to see what happened when these things caught me, I took to the skies and flew a casual loop. It was quickly obvious that they were far slower than me, and the further away from their tormenter they got the slower they moved.
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“Bear with it for a while longer please. I’ll free you shortly.” I spoke to them, then took off following the red chains. I thought about trying to send my skill through the chains to reach the dragon, but didn’t want it to head the other way and lose the ability to use it for another two weeks.
After a few minutes of flying, I saw the chains entering a cave in the side of the mountain. Not wanting to outline myself and make a tempting target should the dragon be paying attention, I surrounded myself with a globe of swirling snow, then moved so that I was near the top right portion of it. It was a lot harder to control, but a snow screen wouldn’t be effective if I was in the exact center of it. Not wanting to give her any chance of escape, I shot into the cave at top speed and tried to ignore any distractions.
Luck was on my side, as there were no obstacles to flying in the cave like you would expect. There were a few things sticking up from the ground, but that didn’t matter to me as I saw the dragon lounging on a massive couch.
“Persistent bug!” She roared, sending a storm of ice shards towards the snow screen. I retaliated by sending a chunk of ice with a much smaller snow screen shooting off to the side, but kept myself moving straight at her even though I had taken a few direct hits from the shards. Not knowing which one was real, she sent a massive ice spear at each of the orbs of snow. The spears were traveling so fast that they blasted straight through, and the air pressure blew apart what wasn’t struck.
“Black karma taints your soul dragon. You coerce others into soul contracts, and abandon your duties as their master to torment them. For your sins, the Narakas send an Arbiter to bring justice to you. Lament your sins in the Hahava, and do better in your next life. Frozen Judgement.” I didn’t bother slowing down, slamming through the dragon’s body as it rose in the air and ripping out its soul. Once the body was free, the chains from the contracts whipped back through the cave and wrapped around the dragon, binding it and disappearing.
Panting with exhaustion, I stared at the now lifeless body. “Any chance that whatever was stopping me from cutting you was some magic barrier that has now disappeared?” I asked nobody in particular. Waltzing forward, I conjured a small ice blade and stabbed it into the body only to growl in frustration as it shattered on the scales. Scales that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t pry up and slip a blade inside.
Screaming in frustration, I stomped off towards the cavern that I had been ignoring. What I thought earlier was a few stalagmites that hadn’t been thoroughly smashed turned out to be bodies completely encased in ice. As I neared them, I saw a few of them had some spirits hovering nearby, though they were mostly in the back. Not wanting to deal with anyone yet, I walked up to the first body.
It was a warrior in his prime, though obviously from an era where tools were limited to stone. He had a simple loincloth, a necklace with teeth from several different predators, a stone tipped spear and a savage looking stone axe with a jagged, chipped blade. His long, black hair was tied behind his head with a leather strap that circled the tail of hair several times to keep it contained.
“Sublimate.” I muttered as I placed a hand on the ice. The temperature was cold enough and the air dry enough that it shouldn’t take too much work. What I hadn’t expected, though I should have, was that there was a spell embedded in the ice that unraveled as it went straight from solid to gas. As the ice disappeared, the body within crumbled as centuries passed within seconds. The flesh shrunk as the moisture went first, then it simply turned to dust and disappeared. Even the weapons crumbled, leaving the heads behind.
“Well fuck.” I grumbled. I knew my ice was at least as strong as stone, so there was zero chance that these primitive weapons would have helped, but it was still annoying. I slowly walked down the line of statues, not bothering to release any more bodies for the moment. I was more interested in watching the progression of the culture. For the longest time it seemed tribal means ruled, though their jewelry and clothing got far more intricate. From obviously chipped stone weapons to worked stone and bone and eventually metal it was like speed walking through time. The majority of the beginning statues were men with a few fierce warrior women spread out among them, but eventually non warriors started showing up.
Obviously well off, they were mostly women that were probably considered beauties. Their clothes were cut in a way to accentuate their hips and breasts. I thought it was odd that the majority of them only had simplistic jewelry.
“A true beauty shines without accents.” A ghostly voice whispered, and I turned to see one of the spirits hovering nearby. Being as she was a fuzzy image of the redheaded body next to me, I simply gave her a nod of thanks for answering my question. “What will become of us?”
“You’ll be freed to enter the cycle.” I answered, looking around to see that more and more of the ghosts were starting to drift towards us.
“Will it hurt?”
“I have no idea.” I shook my head. “I’m not a priest.”
“What will become of our bodies? Will they just stay here forever?” A distressed voice called out.
“Does it matter?” I asked, immediately regretting it as I felt a wave of anger surge through the cave.
“It does!”
“Yes!”
“Anchor……” The first several voices answered strongly in the affirmative, and I could barely catch the faintest hint of the last answer. Spinning around, I saw a spirit that was barely maintaining its shape.
“The bodies are anchoring you?” I asked.
“Yesssssss.” It hissed.
“Then I will release them.” I nodded. “Before I do, and I want you all to realize that your answer will in no way stop me from releasing your bodies, but do any of you have anything that can cut into the body of the dragon over there?”
“No. Never bring weapons for the sacrifice.” Came a cacophony of voices.
“That’s fine.” I said, holding a hand to placate their anger. Gathering a surge of magic in my hands, I let it burst out in a horizontal wave. “Sublimate.” As the wave moved through the ice, it started unravelling the enchantments and letting the bodies be destroyed by time. As it moved away from me, I could feel the joy as whatever was holding the spirits back was removed. Exhausted physically and mentally, I headed back to the body and plopped down on the ground, resting my back against its chest.
“I’m going to take a small rest, then I’ll call my friends and we can start dismantling you.” I muttered.
A few hours of recovery later, and I felt I could pull it off. “Frostlings, Arctos, Frigara, I summon you all.” I said, creating two portals. The frostlings started pouring through, but I felt a strange pull from the wolf’s portal. It felt like it was asking permission for something? Shrugging my shoulders, I had no sooner accepted than several furry forms the height of my hips shot through and slammed into me, yipping in joy.
“PUPS!” Arctos’ voice thundered in my head, and from the whimpers it hit the pups as well. “Apologies Elendria, they wanted to see you and some of your world.”
“I love having them.” I answered. “Just make sure you guys don’t harm my other friends.”
“Aye, we’d appreciate that.” Korii chuckled. He was standing between the wolves and his tribe, his axe held in a relaxed manner over his shoulder, but in a way that it would only take seconds to turn it into a striking pose. “Can we be assuming that the giant dead beastie over there is why you called all of us?”
“Don’t act stupid ya big lug.” Shaman Gekko said, poking him in the side. “Of course it was. What can we do for you?”
“Well, I need the heart, but it’s scales are too strong for me to break through. So I thought I would call in reinforcements. You guys all work together and get me the heart, and you can have the rest of the body.”
All the heads turned toward me, and for a brief and glorious second I saw one of the rarest sights in the universe. An entire tribe of frostlings standing still at the same time. That lasted all of a second before Korii bellowed, “Boys! Pry them scales off and make a hole!” As the tribe shot off to do his command, he turned to Arctos. “We’ll peel off the scales and keep the larger bones if that’s ok. You guys cut through the meat to the heart, and you can eat your fill and keep the smaller bones to gnaw on.”
“Perfect!” Arctos yipped with a massive doggy grin before turning to me. “This is entirely too much meat, even with the pups though.”
“I’ll need some guards as well if you can. After I eat the heart, I should be transforming.”
“That we can do.” Arctos said before turning to Gekko. “I don’t think we will be needing all of the dragon meat to ourselves, though I’m sure the pups will try and gorge themselves as much as possible. Feel free to take what you need for your tribe as well.”
Soon enough there was a massive hole in the creature’s chest, and I walked in to use some ice magic to cut the heart out. Pulling it free, I had to resist the urge to immediately bite into it. As I walked out, I didn’t even realize I had created an ice shell around me. Instead I was staring at the heart as I walked a small distance away, planning to use an ice knife to slice away slivers and eat it. That plan evaporated like ice in summer as the first slice hit my tongue. It seemed to nearly dissolve, and I felt massive amounts of mana flowing through my body. Any thought or semblance of decorum was gone after that bite, and I tore into it like a pack of ravenous wolves. For a long while, my entire world was simply tearing into the heart and consuming the meat and residual blood. As I popped the last bit into my mouth, I licked my fingers clean before dropping down and falling asleep.