The detonation rockets past Drenar and MacKenzie and he sees the barrier over his body flare, temporarily blinding him. He feels the impact, but no immense burning pain. The detonation of the chemical storage sends all the remaining workers flying, and he’s disoriented by the roar of hot gasses past him. The flames enveloping him vanish, and now a good chunk of the laboratory is on fire! Bits and pieces of rock are dislodging from the ceiling, metal supports groan, and tension cables snap, sending the lighting crashing to the ground.
“Angie! Julia!” he shouts out in a panic.
“We’re alright!” Angela and Julia cough from the smoke after being protected by the heavy packing crates, Julia gives a weak thumbs up when he spots her. He searches for the adversaries, and all are on the ground or staggering to their feet, and golden sparks sputter from their uniforms. Maybe it had been a protective shield, similar to his own!
Mackenzie wheezes under him, and he coughs violently. “Dumbass, you almost killed us!”
“Says the moron who decided to start melting people!” Drenar snarls back–in hindsight, he’s forgotten to keep track of just where he is in this whole Awakening process, and the cracking and weird fluid sounds are likely more bits of his skull and body reaching out to his pending draconic form. He shakes his wings of debris, takes the wand, and throws it violently into the raging fire of the supply depot. “On your feet, we gotta move! Julia, Angie, parties over, it’s time to book it!”
“Are you just trying--gah--to kill us?!” Angela coughs angrily. Drenar hears a massive cracking sound, and he looks up–a massive slab of rock is starting to fissure and he hears a titanic shift of earth.
“MOVE IT NOW!” Drenar shouts between coughs. Julia grabs Angela and heaves her to her feet, just as a piece of the ceiling comes down and smashes down where they had been a second before–blocking their way out! “Down, now!” he motions for Julia to lower Angela down and he holds his breath against the acrid smoke, and the pinging of small bits of rocks on the armored scales of his wings. He catches her without effort, but she shoves Drenar back lightly.
“I coulda made that drop–”
“Then chastise me later, we gotta go!” Julia leaps with a perfect rolling landing and dashes ahead, and grabs Nigel, who’s dazed. Greg is lifting a chunk of debris off Karl, and the weak barrier over his body likely keeps him from being crushed.
“Egghead, which way out of here, if you value you and your guys lives!” she shouts to the man. He points weakly at the far tunnel–still not blocked, but debris is cracking and coming off the ceiling!
“Minecart–far end of the tunnel, it goes all the way to the far side of the mountain. This place is coming down, we gotta move! Greg, can you get Karl?!” Nigel shouts out between coughs.
“I’ve got him! Dragon kid, I’d appreciate it much if you didn’t leave that stupid ass to burn to death, call it a favor owed to you in the future,” Greg barks out to Drenar.
“Then let’s move!” Drenar is running on sheer adrenaline and helps MacKensie hobble along–a piece of glass from the detonation had sliced into his leg, and is still stuck there. Drenar feels some minor pains, but nothing indicating any serious injury.
“Greg, Nigel, what just happened?!” he hears someone shout on the radio. “Pick up, did someone accidentally set off a charge?” Drenar didn’t catch the response in between dodging falling debris, but he could imagine it wasn’t a pleasant response. “No, stand down, Val has crossed the line!”
“Val’s orders. This is now a torch and burn operation Robespierre, we don’t have a choice now, we already have infiltrators.” A new voice of dread personified came over the radio.
“No, damn it! You will stand down!” Drenar is still not sure what is going on, but he hastily grabs a firearm holster off one of the few intact crates and spare magazines–a Glock pistol, one of the newer variants.
“Julia, care package!” He tosses the firearm to her, and she checks the magazine before doing a press check on the chamber. All the other wands had been crushed or damaged by the blast. “Take point, I’ve got to make sure this jackass doesn’t get crushed!”
“Well, this was a fantastic plan Drenar, get blasted by mages, set off a chemical bomb, and start a cave-in! All because you had to be a greedy loot ninja and steal everything that wasn’t bolted down!” Angela snarls.
"Oh come on! It was one loose rock!"
"One loose rock from a critical failure dexterity check has led to fleeing for our lives from a cave-in!" It’s terrifying that as much danger as they are now in, she can still throw that much shade at him.
The fumes of the fire are wafting upwards through the tunnel, and debris keeps crashing down, leading to a few last-second swerves around deadly falling rocks. Julia keeps Nigel moving just ahead of him. “I’m gonna blame this moron here who decided to shoot first, aim a wand at my face, and compromise the safety glass of the arcanist lab storage!”
“Nigel…shut…it…” Mackenzie pants. Drenar should feel more furious at this man, but leaving him here to die is completely out of the question. “Val’s guys are here to kill us. She's going to tie up loose ends like us.”
“While I’m taking note of names, you vanilla level one wizard, who’s Val?” Julia demands while following Nigel’s directions through a series of forking passages–more debris comes down and blocks one, and almost obstructs the passageway where they're headed.
“Val? Just–hah–a walking nightmare of a woman who is bad news for the world, and she like, kills people. A lot. For funsies,” he adds dreadfully.
“And who’s Robespierre?” Angela interjects
“Uh…you kids ever go to mage school?” he asks hesitantly.
“Clearly not, egghead! We’re late on the scene for an obligatory trauma-inducing teenage mage academy, thanks!” Drenar spots a series of lights up ahead–another mine track, and a few carts are standing nearby–and another cart is coming in on an opposing track. This one was filled with three men in black armor with metal inserts, tactical munitions slinging, and a helmet that almost looked like the skull of a dragon, much to Drenar’s dread. “Ah crap, is that Val’s entourage?” Drenar’s insides roil, and he nearly drops MacKenzie. This is getting worse, and quickly.
"I vote for 'get help', to speed this process along," Julia proposes. The impact of a giant steel bolt just by her head changes her mind, and Nigel barely avoids getting skewered by the same shot, and she pulls him to an alcove. Drenar reaches out and feels that charge of energy surge across his body, and a bolt pings off by his shoulder–It feels like someone smashed a hammer into him, but he prefers that to having ten centimeters of steel bolt sticking through his body.
“You sure you want to–ow–play ‘get help’ now?!" He thunders back. These bolts hurt, and that is with his arcane barrier up! At least I know I can withstand a hit like that! Resistant against fire and kinetic impacts!
“Friendlies, blue on blue you hourly murderous meat sacks!” Greg screams out in an attempt to quell the fire, but these men have no compunction about shooting their own, while a rapidly spreading cave-in is destabilizing the entire mine system. Greg looks aghast as a bolt tears a chunk out of the wooden support he’s barely able to hide behind, and he holds Karl back from getting shot. “I swear, I think Val gave the kill order before you misfits stumbled in here. And you just torched all our weapons!”
“Minus one pistol and a crack-shot of a woman,” Julia says proudly, and Nigel warily holds back. She peeks out and snaps backward from the incoming fire. “Alright assholes, we tried to be nice, but you shot first!” she screams out.
“Yes, I’m sure words are going to stop them from shooting giant goddamn lawn darts at us!” Angela points to one embedded into the rock.
“Words? Nope.” Julia peeks out and braces on the corner before firing the pistol in a controlled rhythm. Drenar peeks out and sees one of them taking hits, and sees the blue flare of protective magic. The bastard’s spell shield is eating the rounds, and he’s merely staggered in a pain response. Four, five, six rapid-fire shots land on his chest and torso, and the barrier is still holding! Julia ducks away from the return fire, frustrated. “Damn it! Those shots were center mass, how’s that son of a bitch still standing!”
“I saw the shielding, they’ve got arcane barriers!” Drenar relays. She takes the partially empty magazine and stuffs in a new one. “Keep firing on the one on the right! Give me a count of how many rounds before his shields pop!”
“You’re assuming we even can pop their shields, and I only have a mag and a half! Start thinking of another plan!” Drenar draws fire for them and tries to heave a rock, but the bolts hammer in on his arm and chest, and he sees the barrier flicker dangerously. He whips back, breathing heavily. Julia had taken the distraction and focus fired into the one on the right, and his shields popped on the last one in a shower of gold sparks. He screams as the last round impacts his torso, but his body armor likely saved him from a lethal injury.
“How many hits?!”
“Another five!”
“Ten rounds of nine millimeter?! These guys are damage sponges with that spell barrier, we need better weapons!” By his count, they might be able to knock one more out of the fight.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“I have an idea!” Angela points to Drenar. “Toss me your bag!”
“What's the play?” He manages to get the bag off his back and over his wings and tosses it to her. She pulls out the small enclosed crystal inside the metal and glass casing.
“Julia, your plasma spark, I need something to compare against!”
“They’re advancing! You’re going to lose your window on whatever crazy idea you have, fast!” Drenar relays after peeking for a split second. A bolt whizzes dangerously by him, and the rock fragments from the impact of the projectile bounced off his spell barrier. Angela is looking back and forth at Julia’s plasma spark sitting on the tips of her fingers, then back at the crystal. “Nigel! How dangerous is this?!”
“That’s a small mana battery. You drop that, and you’ll wake up like you’ve got the worst hangover and muscle spasms for hours!”
“Julia, need a charge!” Angela barked out. Julia grimaces as she brought the spark to the casing, and the crystal glowed brightly in response from the increased energy. “Drenar, on three, get your dagger ready if any of them are still standing!”
“Improvised grenade?” This sounds like another really bad idea.
“Yeah. Once more, unto the breach!” She takes a deep breath, and counts off. Drenar grabs his dagger off his holster. “Uh, bad guy number three, hold MacKenzie, his legs completely shot until we can get out of here and triage it.”
“It’s Karl, thanks,” he replies gruffly. Angela focuses her will, and a shimmering light covers her hands–her telekinetics finally building in strength.
“One!”
“Two!”
“Three!”
Drenar speeds out and puts as much of his strength into his barrier as possible, drawing fire for her. She exposes herself for a split second before flinging the improvised weapon at incredible speed with a telekinetic blast, the crystal accelerating far faster than anything she could have flung by hand. It lands and detonates in an arcing cloud of blue energy that zaps two of the men. The third manages to keep his spell barrier up, but he’s shaking his head like there’s a swarm of bees surrounding him. Drenar wastes no time and sprints the distance, they’re staggered and in pain, unable to react in time. Drenar smashes into the man, grabs the weapon, and cuts through the fabric of the armor, and the man cries in pain. Drenar takes the strange weapon and smashes the buttstock into him a few times–he crumples to the ground, and is out of the fight.
“Alright kids, doors open, everyone into the cart before the whole mountain comes down on us!” He roars out.
“You cannot be serious, we are not riding with you!” Greg gasps. Angela grabs him by the collar, her face contorted in fury.
“Your teammates have no compunctions about friendly fire, so it's either you get pancaked by the collapsing mine head, get shot by your own guys, or we all run!” she screams in his face.
“You make a very convincing point.” Drenar is already throwing every available bit of gear and useless junk out of the minecart and disengages the brake. Julia sprints up, having taken the device that looked like a cross between a crossbow and an assault rifle, with a detachable box magazine on the underside. She checks the ammo before checking the tension in the bow portion. Angela follows with the hobbling mages, who all sit down roughly in the large cart while Julia keeps the autobow ready, and puts on a seatbelt.
“Alright, let’s hope we aren’t overloaded. The only speed is maximum on this cart ride from hell!” he pushes the motor to the maximum speed, and the cart takes off, just as more rocks smash and split on the way they just came through. Rocks continue to ping down, it’s like half the mountain is coming down over their heads!
He looks down and notices the claws now forming on his hands, and his body feels like it’s overheating. He slumps, the sharp claws tensed on the console, the minecart slowly whirring along the track.
“Hey, Drenar, don’t pass out!” Julia grabs him firmly by the arm, and he nods weakly. The feeling of immense fatigue is temporary, and he looks down at his hands. “You alright?”
“I’m good!” It’s about the best he can muster, because his whole body is getting wrecked by this process. He pushes the throttle lever to the maximum setting, but with seven passengers, the motor is struggling a little. He taps his new claws impatiently on the metal and plastic console. “Can this thing seriously go any slower?” he growls.
“Miss. Can you hand me that?” Greg asks over the flow of air rushing past them. Drenar follows his gaze to the small first aid kit mounted on the side of the cart paneling, and Angela nods before handing the package to him. Julia doesn’t take her eyes off him as he sits down next to MacKensie, and wraps bindings around the rapidly bleeding leg wound he’d suffered. “MacKensie, you stupid fool.” His co-worker grimaces against the pain and looks pale. He’s suffered some blood loss but is still conscious.
“While you’re doing triage, you can start answering questions.” Drenar puts his dagger back into his high holster, but never lets his hand leave it. “Who are you guys, the Onyx Talons? And what are you doing down here?”
“Yeah. We are. Though this might be hard to believe, the men doing the shooting and this moron here are not representative of the entire organization.” Greg ties down tight on the field dressing for MacKensie, and he grimaces in pain. “As for what we’re doing…hell with it, you’re already gonna be dead kids walking. We’re trying to fix a seven hundred year wound on the world. We’re trying to crack open the mystery of the Ascension that our boss started the ball rolling on a long, long time ago. He broke the world by accident. And he’s going to be the one to fix it.”
“Yeah Greg, the fiery pain in every fiber of my being would respectfully disagree with you.” He rubs at the newly emerged claws on his hands. Handshakes are going to be a risky venture, he figures unhappily, though they do retract a little if he relaxes. Learning steps. “First off, where’s this track lead? And can we expect more of your trigger happy buddies?”
“I’ve got no idea where Val got those guys from, they must have ported in on the ingress teleportal, one level down. We set up a backup because the leylines are kinda dicey, you sometimes get bad connections–" he’s interrupted by the crackle of his radio. He glances down and sighs.
"Nigel, Greg, pick up! Pick up right now, Val's men aren't responding to the radio." Robespierre is on the line, trying to sound calm when he’s clearly not. "Greg, if you're not a pincushion or puddle on the floor, please respond."
"Hand me the radio." Greg doesn't even try to protest, and hands it to Drenar. He closes his eyes, this is such a mess he had a helping hand in. And the bad timing from whatever else had been going on topside did not help make matters better. Angela and Julia shake their heads, like this is a bad idea. "Talking never killed anyone."
"Drenar, talking the monster down never works," Julia protests softly.
"Yeah. But I'll try anyway." He clicks the radio transmitter. "This is Robespierre, right? Your men are with me. There was a series of poor choices and the chemical storage got set on fire.”
There's a pause, along with an audible sigh. "Damn it, I can take one guess on which fool is responsible for that. So, who are you?"
"Someone who wants answers.” The cavern opens up to a gargantuan expanse of criss-crossing rail tracks at different heights. The rail cart is now slowly driving into the darkness, across hastily constructed trellis rails over a very deep pit deep into the earth. It’s unnerving that he can't see the bottom even with his enhanced eyesight. "Something… happened to our friends. We came looking for answers. Your device did something to us.”
"As predicted. You’ll forgive me if I’m short on formalities, you won the dragon genetics lottery, and you should consider yourself blessed," Robespierre growls. "So, who are you?"
"Are we giving out real names now?" Drenar asks heatedly. "Not sure that's a risk I'm willing to take just yet."
"Then let me offer mine as a gesture of faith. If you're a student of history, you'll know who I am and what I did, or at least the parts the Conclave is willing to put on paper.
"I'm Robespierre Crosomer, the usurped head of the Conclave. I'm the person most directly responsible for the Ascension events that nearly resulted in the extinction of the entire race of dragons in this world." Drenar looks around the cart, and Julia and Angela are both as shocked as him.
"Okay, this got worse. Somehow," Julia utters gravely.
"Isn't this the guy who ran the rebellion?" Angela snaps her fingers. "Also, don't tell him your–"
Robespierre is alive?! How?! He should be dead of old age ten times over! Drenar flinches at the outburst and holds a hand to his head. Alex has just come streaming through his consciousness in a way he didn't expect, and his voice is loud and clear. His vision is swimming, and he almost falls out of the cart, short of a quick grab by Angela.
"The hell happened?" She asked worriedly.
"Alex–he just popped up out of nowhere. Ugh. This migraine is a bad ride, and I wanna get rid of it now." He winces when he feels the sensitivity to light crop up again, and he hears a low ringing sound in his ears. Or ear crests? This just did not translate well. "The name is Drenar. You might get a last name later–"
"I don't need it. I already have it, Rashalda," he said with emphasis. A few choice words come to mind.
"Welp, it's my turn now. It got worse.” Drenar has no idea why he’s on Crosomer's radar in this explicit detail. He clicks the radio before Julia and Angela can stop him.
"Is there a particular reason you know my full name already, and could you explain why your hirelings are threatening to kill me and my foster parents if my brother doesn't play ball with your cult of a mercenary group?"
Stop talking to him NOW! This is a bad idea that will get you killed, Drenar! Alex clearly isn't happy about this, and he feels dizzy again, and that splintering pain is back. He wills the pain out of his mind and keeps listening.
Crosomer lets out a loud huff over the radio. "Let's just say that I don't always have direct control over the hired help, and that there are those within my organization who march to a slightly different mindset on how things get done, even if conforming to the spirit of why things get done. Whoever threatened that is…not going to be a problem for you. I think you and I need to talk. I presume you are not alone?"
"No, definitely not. But you didn't answer my question, how do you know me?"
"Long story, if you're interested. Listen, I hate to break up the moment, but some of the soldiers down there are busy tossing everything onto a bonfire in a boneheaded attempt to destroy my research in the name of tying up loose ends, and are in a somewhat murderous mood. So avoid them,” he adds with a hint of thinly veiled anger.
“Is this guy for real?” Julia asks. Greg shrugs softly.
“You spend seven hundred years locked in an obsidian sphere from hell, and try coming out the other side mostly sane.” Drenar looks over the chasm and sees another few sets of tracks–going to various locations above and below. And now, he can hear the whir of motors emanating from some of the tunnels. In multiple directions.
This day just refused to let up.