“Hey Robespierre, just why are your men not all on the same page?” he asks nervously.

“Like I said, I don’t run this outfit myself, and when I take my eye off the ball to attend to fixing the world, certain individuals see it as their mission that the ends justify the means.” Two carts rolled into view from the tunnels, and they were filled with armored soldiers who spotted the lone cart and they shouted out and pointed at Drenar and the crew. “I know enough about you that you’re unusually adept, you and your friends. Don’t die down there. Make your way to the surface, I’ll try to keep more unpleasant company from filtering down there on my end.”

“Man you are like, the complete opposite of trustworthy. And if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go get shot at by fully automatic crossbow bolts.” Drenar clicks the radio off and tosses it to Angela. “Julia, what have we got for armaments?”

“Fully automatic crossbow. How the hell does this thing even work, there’s no way this thing should return the bow portion to the primed state–” she furrows her brow as she examines the weapon. “There’s about fifteen rounds left in the box magazine. And judging by what it did to cavern walls, it’s decidedly deadly. Oh wait, I got this thing, too!” Julia beams as she pulls the arcane rod she’d grabbed earlier from the loop of her jeans, and the tip ignited with a crackle of plasma energy, just like she did when she snapped her fingers. Except this one glows even brighter. “Hey wizard guys, is this a wand of lightning? Is it!? Does it bounce off walls and combo-wombo bad guys too close in proximity?”

“Um, the technical term would be it has a miniaturized mana crystal core. It's attuned to elemental plasma with a pre-set spell of a ray of focused energy–” Angela promptly cuts Nigel off.

“Wand of lightning, Tsundere. Have at it with them–whoa!” Angela ducked as a flurry of autobow bolts fly by, and the soldiers in the minecart on the opposite parallel track are increasing speed–their cart isn’t loaded with seven passengers, Drenar realizes worriedly.

“Julia, wand. Any idea how to activate it–” the second she tosses it to him, he feels a charge run up his spine, and the wand glows brightly for a split second. “Okay then. Wand apparently reacted to me. Do I just…flick it–”

“Don’t!” Greg screams and steadies Drenar’s hand–but not to grab the wand, just his arm. “You’re part azure, which means there’s a good chance you can channel energy to your scales, and amplify the spell effect. We don’t need to be fried through carelessness.” More bolts ping off the side of the cart, and Julia ducks while Drenar crouches down, trying his best to keep his wings from catching the wind.

Or a stray round. “Vulcanus Rakashrid. It’s the ancient draconic phrase to activate it, most artifacts are attuned to the tongue of dragons. This only primes it–you’ll have to release the charge through your control of your mana, so aim first.”

“Drenar, tutorial’s over, these bolts are starting to punch through the cart wall, and they just loaded glowing red bolts!” Julia warns before she returns fire. Her bolts hit home, and several ping off the soldiers in a tight grouping–the first one took three hits to his shimmering spell shield before the barrier burst in a flash of golden sparks, and the next round struck him in the shoulder, past the body armor, and he recoiled in pain. “Drenar, now!”

Okay. Sure. Baby dragon’s first spell, no problem Julia. Not like I have any idea what I’m doing! “Alright. I’ve got this. Vulkanus Rakashrid.” Greg and Karl nervously watch the wand tip ignite with energy, and Drenar can feel a surge of energy go through the scales on his arm, and it feels like all it would take would be to release the tension–if such a word even worked to describe this feeling–and aims at the soldier, who gives a hefty tug as he reloads his weapon, and brought it up.

Now!

The wand recoils in his hand and a bolt of shimmering, white-blue energy surges forward at incredible speed–it hits the standing soldier, shatters his spell shield, and leaves a smoking impact on his body, and he yells in pain. His weapon clatters over the side of the cart, and down into the chasm below. Drenar nearly loses his balance from the recoil of the spell, and for the first time, his wings proved to be immensely useful as a counterbalance. “Julia, they’re down, when the carts get close, I’m grabbing whatever I can out of their cart, because we’re going to need every bit of ordinance we can find!”

“Is he serious? When did Drenar, the by-the-numbers kid, start becoming an action hero?!” Julia exclaims with a grin. The two speeding carts slowly close the gap and the carts are now on a parallel path, and Drenar times the jump to knock down the still struggling Talons operative, who feebly tried to block his rapid strikes. He went down for the count after getting his head jarred on the side of the cart. “Drenar, grab the autobow, and anything else of use, and make sure you smash the speed control before you get out!” Julia barks out. He wastes no time grabbing the autobow and tossing it to Angela, who stared mystified at the device, and Karl and MacKenzie stared nervously as Julia walked her through it.

Drenar grabs the extra ammo and stuffs it in a fabric loop on his vest, and then he spots something in a crate of hastily collected lab equipment, small weapons, and presumably dangerous magical paraphernalia. Drenar grabs the medieval looking broadsword sitting on the side, and tests the weight in his now increasingly non-human hand. It has the right balance–it’s incredibly light, but yet is the same size as a period weapon would have been. It seems to shine with a dim light.

“I’ll take this plus-one sword as well. Oh wait, gotta test it first.” His first test is to use his superhuman strength to plunge it into the speed controls of the cart. He’s rewarded for his efforts with a plume of sparks and acrid smoke and he quickly sheaths it on a belt loop. The cart immediately starts to slow, and he leaps back into the cart with incredible grace and a burst of speed from his wings, just as the cart sputters out and simply coasts along. The one with a bolt sticking through his shoulder finally rips out the projectile and gives them a murderous look as the cart quickly fades into the distance.

“How the hell far does this track go?” Angela asks the extra occupants of the cart.

“Short version, the entirety of this mountain was plumbed out. These caverns go down deep,” Nigel finally answers after a pause. “The mining company was in on the secret, for a big chunk of money, and the ability to sell some deeper rooted mana crystals for a massive profit to the mage world. We were here, embedded with the team, digging…until we found Robespierre down here. Just like her and King predicted. After they dug him up…Val, she–” he holds his head low, as if saying the words bring him great regret.

“...She burned ‘em alive,” Greg finishes quietly. “You kids want a fine lesson the mage underworld, here’s a good one. If you thought human history was bad, there’s people in our world that are unequivocally evil. Vals’ got the right idea about the Conclave, but…when you sign up on the dotted line, thinking you’ll make a positive influence, sometimes there comes a day when someone else with the same end goal takes the wrong road to get to that goal.”

“You could have just quit,” Julia glowers. “There’s always a choice.”

“No girl, sometimes there isn’t. Sometimes there’s nothing left but bad choices and choices you don’t understand, and can’t see beyond them. Take your moralist perspective and get rid of it quickly, because this world will eat you alive if you don’t,” Greg warns her. Drenar feels that isn’t a threat. Not this time.

“Drenar, magazine! Second group of tin men is closing!” Angela points out the cart that is closing right behind them on their track. An errant bolt whistles close by enough that he dives below a sturdy loading crate.

These soldiers still just won't give up. It’s the same team of three that Drenar had thought were shocked to oblivion, and one is still bleeding where he smacked the weapon butt stock into his temple. Clearly that had not been enough, and they were screaming very unpleasant death threats, including an errant accusation of having Oedipus complex.

It’s very unflattering.

Drenar hands Angela another magazine of tightly packed bolts, and after tossing the other magazine to Julia, he crouches in a readied position with the wand in hand. He’s certain his spell barrier can take a couple hits, but beyond that, it gets dicey. How much damage could these barriers take?

All he did know is that these bastards definitely could not withstand a direct hit from this wand or his magical abilities. “Vulcanus Rakashrid,” he utters grimly before aiming at the cart, and feels the familiar recoil of the powerful plasma energy in his arm. This time he misses due to a heroic grab by one of the Talons soldiers. The projectile impacts into the cavern wall in a blaze of light and crackling sounds. After that, the wand tip sparks and burns and he gasps as it turns hot in his hand.

“Crap, the mana core was too low!” Nigel yells. “Get down!”

The return fire hit him multiple times, and the barrier held through the multiple impacts until he was sent reeling. The final bolt shattered his barrier in a burst of golden sparks, and he screams in pain–the bolt had just lodged in the limb of his wing, and it feels like molten lava in his flesh. The bolt is almost red-hot, and he instinctively grabs the bolt with his hand, and tugs sharply–burning his hand in the same process as jarring the bolt out and causing him severe pain. He flings the bolt to the bottom of the cart where it rapidly dims in light, and cools. Julia and Angela don’t hesitate to return fire in the meantime, and the soldiers duck just as their spell protection gives out. They’re unshielded but unharmed.

“Drenar’s hit!” Angela shouts out while firing at the closing cart. Drenar feebly tosses her the last magazine of bolts when her bow clicks empty, and checks his wound and wraps his hand on the injury. “Julia, get that wound sealed, dragons have massive amounts of blood flow through their wings!”

Indeed, he had covered the gruesome wound best he could–his scales had saved him the worst of the injury, and the bolt had only narrowly penetrated through a gap in the scales. He’s still bleeding though, and grimaces. Being shot with an incendiary bolt hurts. Julia grabs a scrap cloth and the rest of the medical kit. Nigel surprisingly kneels down, helping her wrap the binding tight, and he lets out a cry of pain.

“Julia, right?” he asks her. “He just took a hit from an incendiary round. Wrap the wound tight, like this,” he instructs her while keeping pressure on the wound. “Kid, how’s the hand?”

“Not as bad as it could be,” Drenar groans while examining his hand–luckily his off-hand, in this case. The scales are slightly darkened, and he felt some residual pain, but there didn’t seem to be permanent damage or signs of a significant burn or blistered flesh. “Angela, arch your spine, you’ll feel some kind of electrical impulse, it’s like muscle memory–”

“Busy trying to make human pincushions, stay down!” she screams back. She ducks behind the siding of the cart and another bolt stuck through the crate still in the back of the cart. Drenar suddenly has a bad idea. A *really* bad idea. He takes his bloodied hand and crouches low, with Nigel ducking for what cover there is.

“Julia, help me lift this crate! Angela, keep them suppressed!” he screams out. He folds his wings tight and wheezes from the pain–the wound cover held for now. He feels something slightly different when he arches his body to heft the crate, and a tingling feeling snakes down his arms. A slight silvery light envelopes his claws, and it feels like the crate decreases in weight by half at least. Julia almost loses her balance, and Angela is still firing.

“Almost out! Make this count!” she says before firing her last volley of bolts at the pursuers. They duck, and Drenar nods to Julia.

“Heave!” he screams out, and he lets go of that charge in his hands at the same time Julia throws with all her might. The crate hurtled through the air at incredible speed, and the soldier who had popped up to fire did not expect to get a face full of pain coming his way. He goes down hard, and the debris also impacts the two others, disrupting their fire. Another bolt catches the back of the cart on fire, and Angela scrambles back away from the flames.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Drenar reacts on instinct when he sees the man drop the magazine out of his bow. He has three seconds before he reloads, and he leaps forward with the sword in hand, unfurling his wings to act as an air brake to control his landing. This immediately causes his wing to flare into untold agony. Adrenaline and fury allow him to power through the pain, and give him the will to focus on his pitch perfect landing.

He cleaves down and slices through the outstretched weapon the man brought up to block the strike in desperation. Drenar shreds the weapon and renders it useless, and he dodges just as the man reaches for a backup pistol and fires from the hip and misses, and he grabs his arm and twists the deadly firearm away from his body. The man is no match for Drenar’s strength, but he still fires anyway–the gunshot leaves Drenar’s head ringing, going off far too closely by his ear. The man kicks him backwards, but not before the weapon goes flying and bounces across the track, coming to a stop somewhere out of the cart.

Drenar’s still got a bigger problem, because his sword also lands in the bottom of the cart, and he grapples with the man who tries to bulldoze him. He digs in and doesn’t allow him to maneuver him, and the second man is trying to line up a shot with his autobow. This man smells like tobacco, and hatred and he tries to force Drenar’s face over the cart. He doesn’t let him, and lands a brutal skull bash on the man's nose, breaking it and causing him to stagger. Drenar takes the moment to grab his dagger again, cuts through the man's leg with a deeply incapacitating wound and he screams in pain.

The second man fires preemptively, and hits his squadmate in the back. His spell barrier pops, and there’s the gruesome spectacle of a bolt planted in his shoulder like some ghastly flag. Drenar flings the soldier into his squadmate, and when he’s on the ground, grabs the autobow and cuts the priming string with a single swipe of his dagger. The metal strand snaps instantly and the weapon is inoperable. The second man is getting up and pulling a pistol, but Drenar smashes a fist into his face, then stomps on his sprawled hand and breaks a few fingers. He turns his body to see the cart is almost lined up with theirs, and he stomps on the flames that were threatening to engulf the cart–a heavy moving blanket proves to smother the flames effectively after a few seconds, but it still smolders with smoke that roils past them in the wake of the minecarts going at top speed down an increasing slope.

“Up above!” Julia warns him. A mine cart filled with two more soldiers is on a track above them and gaining. He looks down at the sword, and another really bad idea comes to mind. These rails are supported by a really weak metal and riveted trellis. The cart's occupants are aiming for a clear shot.

No. Not enough force. I’ll snap my arm in half if I try to slice through it. He does however, have another opportunity, just as one of the men peers over the side, trying to aim at Julia and the others, and there isn’t anywhere for them to hide. But he’s not looking at Drenar.

He times the leap and uses his wings to launch himself at the cart, and the man screams when he sees a furious dragon too close to avoid, and smashes him into the wall of the cart with a well timed flap of his wings acting as a brake. The second man pulls a dagger and swipes viciously, and Drenar nimbly dodges. He’s got the weapon of reach, but this one dodges his swings as well. There is no room for maneuvering in the cart, and the man's skills are poor. One well timed slash cuts his hand, and he drops the dagger. Drenar closes, and smashes his face. He groans, staggers, and Drenar smacks his head into the siding. Hard. He's handing out concussions and battered bodies like it's a fire sale today, and he's not even bothered by it for once.

The second guy is getting up and trying to get a bead, and gets one wild shot off that breezes by him before he grabs the weapon out of the man's hands. He’s absolutely terrified. Drenar tosses the weapon to the cavern floor, and the man stumbles backwards. He grabs a grenade, and Drenar hits his hand with the flat of the blade–breaking fingers, and luckily, before the fool can kill everyone.

“Gimmie that you nameless mook!” Drenar snarls. The man is in a panic, and struggling to pull a pistol, but it snags on the holster. Drenar grabs his outstretched hand and bends the arm in ways it’s not meant to bend, and he hears a wet snap. The man’s anguish almost makes him feel bad for breaking his arm.

“Minus four penalty to attack roll, dumbass!” Drenar lands one more sweeping blow on the man's face, and he keels over. Drenar looks around, feeling twitchy, and fury coursing through him. Are there more enemies, are they willing to die–

Clarity floods back into his mind in an instant. He looks at the damage he's done, these men are badly hurt, and he’d done it effortlessly. “Drenar, c’mon!” Julia shouts to him and motions for him to jump into the cart below. The cavern narrows and the rails will split off in mere seconds. He grabs the pistol and the magazines, tosses them to Julia, and then powers down the cart before slicing through the console and hops down.

The landing hurts, even with him using his wings as a brake, and his injured wing is in agony. He’s clutching onto the side precariously–he’d mistimed the jump and almost fallen to the uncomforting ground. “Angie, get him in now!” Julia screams out. With a burst of strength, they both haul him into the cart, just as the tunnel narrows. He’s happy that his wings don’t get proverbially, and literally clipped. He lands unceremoniously on top of Julia, who lets out a sound of surprise.

“Hah…oh this action hero stuff is just…I’m not making a habit of this,” he rasps when his adrenaline gives out. "Uh...this is a little awkward."

He realizes he's sprawled out over Julia, who gives him a pat on the wing.

“Aw, I didn’t think you had feelings for me in this way, Drenar. Weird moment to bring it up,” she utters with a nervous laugh. He rolls on his back, and gives a weak thumbs up before grabbing his injured wing. It shouldn’t hurt this much to be out of breath. The wing still hurts, but the bandage has held, even if it’s a little bloodstained.

At least his blood is still red. It’s a mildly comforting reassurance.

“Um…okay. That was kinda badass,” Greg finally utters in a mild expression of respect. “Karl, MacKensie, you guys alright?” he asks his two coworkers, who have been spending a very uncomfortable amount of time on the floor, avoiding deadly high speed lawn darts and fiery rays.

“Just peachy. Can we go home now?” MacKensie moans. He's looking extremely weak and pale, and Drenar notices his leg wound is bleeding.

"Julia, he's bleeding out, we need to get this wound taken care of now!" Drenar points out and grabs the last of the medical kit, and holds the wound tight as he can. "Find anything we can do to slow this bleeding, if he goes into shock, he's done for!" Blood is still soaking through the compress, albeit slower, and Angela props him up so his leg is higher than his body, with Drenar's assistance.

"Hang on, check the crate, there's a few vials in there that might help!” Nigel dashes to the mess of equipment, tossing things aside frantically. "Where is it…Julia, look for a four inch vial, blue liquid, capped with an opening you can attach a syringe to!" Julia wastes no time and starts tossing contents before coming up to a cloth pack of three vials, with a viscous blue liquid sloshing inside.

"What is this?" Nigel carefully takes one from the pack, and hands it to Drenar's free hand.

"Regen potion, general purpose emergency healing with limited side-effects, but dangerous if used in high doses or frequent applications. Drenar, I need to apply this half and half. Put the liquid on the cloth and apply it to the wound. As tight as you can," Nigel instructs. Drenar grabs the last gauze bundle in the pack and puts half the potion on before quickly covering the deep wound. Mackenzie moans in pain before the liquid starts to glow slightly.

Nigel wastes no time getting MacKensie to drink the other half of the vial, and he scrunches his face like it's the most awful tasting thing imaginable. “Keep pressure on the wound, until I tell you. The regen potion should get to work and repair critical tissue damage. It’s a life saver–up to a certain point.” Nigel takes a look at MacKenzie, checking his pulse and breathing rate. “Damn it. I should have been paying attention, he lost more blood from that injury than I thought. Lift the bandage off the wound, Drenar. Slowly.”

Drenar thought he couldn’t be more surprised when he peels the bloodstained dressing away, and sees the wound sealed–and is no longer bleeding. But it still had a ways to go, and MacKensie isn’t exactly in any shape to move anywhere. “Got any of that left for my wing?” he grunts and points over his shoulder.

“Nigel, if you waste that potion on him–” Karl starts to interject.

“Objection noted. Give him the damn potion.” Greg grabs a scrap of cloth from the crate, and tears a few strips that he uses to dabble the second vial that Julia hands him gently. “I think that we bought ourselves a few minutes. Val’s murderous thugs aren’t breathing down our neck, which means I think they only sent a small force. Once these guys don’t radio in, all bets are off.”

Drenar is not prepared for the level of pain when Greg put the potion soaked dressings on his wings, and it felt like acid on his scales and he involuntarily dug a few deep gouges into the seat of the cart. All he could do was grit his teeth and fight through the inflammation while Angela holds his hand out of assurance.

"How far back to the surface?" he manages to ask once he is able to get out more than an involuntary gasp of pain.

"Just about there." The cart is slowing down. Julia still has her autobow held, but not aimed, and she looks uneasy. She doesn't know what to make of this strange situation, either. Greg leans back and runs his fingers through messy, unkempt hair and sighs. "This is such a mess. I have no idea what Robespierre is going to say to any of this."

"He can start by answering some questions," Julia states quietly. “You know you guys disrupted our lives in a pretty profound way, with the way you’re describing it? Take a long good look at my friend here, have you seen what your experiments did?”

“Short version, the burning pain that’s slowly becoming my waking existence is kind of unpleasant,” Drenar shudders. He could make out light up ahead–the end of the track, perhaps? He is in no shape for another round facing off against men firing off automatic lawn dart launchers. The theoretical kinetic energy he’d been able to shrug off with his arcane barrier–it was impressive.

And likely only just the start, if he could learn to further hone the ability. At least he had an effective defense, Angela as well. Greg taps the brakes on the cart, and the loading bay comes into focus. Drenar had lost track of the ups, downs, twists and turns they’d taken while navigating the mine. He gets out of the cart, sword in hand and scanning for threats. It’s eerily quiet, and he can hear a heavy rainfall nearby. A large bay door is partially open, and daylight, albeit dim, is filtering in. The creaking loading cranes and the wind do little to calm his mood.

“Drenar, what do we do with them?” Julia asks with a tap on his shoulder. He almost smacks her with his wings when he turns, and she’s looking weary. He glances at them, and just nods for everyone to get out of the cart.

“I can’t move MacKenzie, he needs rest and no stress. He still needs medical care,” Nigel cautions. “Greg, go with them?”

“And do what?” he shot back.

“Well, we’re in the south loading area, I think Robespierre is right around here somewhere. I think he’s by that little storage warehouse, the one we converted for a slightly more cozy place to retreat to rather than sitting in the mine?” Nigel points out, past the bay doors.

Great. More walking. Drenar motions to Angela and Julia, and Greg begrudgingly joins them. Drenar can’t see a lever for the door, so he ducks underneath it. There’s still drizzle coming down. It’s chilly, and he shudders his wings before pressing them tight against his body. This is becoming unbearable, and he can feel that itching, cracking feeling extending up his arms now, towards his chest. His boots felt stretched, his limbs uncomfortable.

He looks around, and notes they’re on the other side of the mining facility–he’d only briefly viewed it with the drone, so he isn’t sure of the layout of the area, but he sees the warehouse. There’s lights inside. But, he doesn’t get far, because he peers up at the building, and someone is coming out. A tall figure draped in a large cloak, with gloved hands, and a distinct coat that covers most of his body. Or a hoodie?

“Wanna take a guess who that is?” Angela asks beside him as she points him out.

“Yeah. The man with the answers,” Drenar responds grimly. There’s something about the figure's stance, the way he walks, that suggests there’s something off about his body structure. Like the limbs don’t move in the right way. Whatever the case, Drenar has a reasonable conclusion.

This visitor is not human.

Julia clicks the headset beside him, presumably to reach out to James, Evan and Nick. “Hey guys, we had a little bit of a situation…and it might get even worse than it already was, so, an estimated time of arrival would be nice.” She is answered with the uncaring sound of static. The figure beckons them inside the storage warehouse, and leaves the large hangar door open. There’s a crackle of static on the smaller radio.

“Greg. Attend to the others. Activate the emergency one-time-use teleportals and lock down our secondary site. I’ve made it explicitly clear to our ‘partner’ that this is my show to run, and that she is not running interference again.” Julia clicks the radio, and holds it to Greg.

“Robespierre, the research–we got it all out. Some minor losses on some supplies. What about these kids–”

“I’ll handle this. Were Val's men…dissuaded from following?” the person on the radio asks hesitantly. Julia clicks the radio again, and gives him an irked look.

“Let’s just say they’ll all be taking a thorough trip to the infirmary. As far as I know, zero body count. Tell that murder lizard–” he starts to say something unpleasant and Robespirre interrupts him.

“Priorities, Gregory. Adhere to them. Rashalda, please let my researcher go. They will not trouble you further. Consider it a gesture of good faith.” Julia hands Drenar the radio, and he sighs before answering. This day is just getting weirder beyond even his pending Awakening.

“I don’t trust you much. But I’ll do you a favor this once, since we aren’t surrounded by dozens of men with oversized nail guns,” he answers reluctantly. Greg takes that as his cue, and is already pulling a folded up pack of metal plating from a satchel. The plates have strange contours and whirls on the panels. He heads back to the loading bay, and ducks down under the stuck doorway before disappearing inside.

They're on their own for now. Drenar approaches the hanger door, and Angela and Julia slowly nod.

It’s time to get some answers.