The four members of Nico’s party stood atop the highest plateau in the Bloodlands, with the tall natural spire of the Tower of Dust glowing crimson in the light of the setting sun and casting long, deep shadows across the ground.
The dragon seemed to simply appear—one moment it wasn’t there and the next, it was. It was more snakelike than Nico would’ve pictured a dragon, with a skinny body, no visible legs, and huge bat-like wings. Jet black scales glittered in a wash of sunset that dripped like blood.
It must have flown in from the other side of the tower.
The alternative was that it had somehow emerged from the tower’s interior, but Nico couldn’t imagine how a creature of that size would nest inside the needle-thin stone structure.
Thankfully, the dragon circled the Tower of Dust at too great a height to immediately notice the puny humans on the ground, because all Nico could do was stand and gape stupidly up at it. Jenae, just at Nico’s elbow, appeared similarly paralyzed with awe.
Adan hissed a warning. “Out of sight, fools!” Meaty fingers encircled Nico’s arm, and Adan dragged him and Jenae both backward, into the same shadow Esperanza had just emerged from.
Esperanza herself remained at the shadow’s edge, head tipped back and unmoving. If the dragon set her heart thumping in panic the way Nico’s now did, she didn’t show it. So still did she remain that she and her mist-colored robes once more all but vanished in the dim light.
Safely back in the shadows, Nico shook off Adan’s grasp and craned his head to keep watching the black dragon. It circled the spire, long body undulating as its wings flapped. Then it coiled up on itself. Its wings faded to tatters of night-dark that glimmered as if with muted stars. Its body turned equally immaterial in appearance.
In a swirl of dust or smoke, it streamed toward the tower and disappeared, answering the question of where it had come from and how the relatively small tower could hold it.
“Wow.” Nico’s heart continued to thump, even though the dragon was gone.
“Dragons do not rely on vision.” Esperanza lowered her head from watching the sky, but she didn’t turn to face the rest of them. “Hiding is pointless. If she had wanted to notice you, she would have.”
“’She’? You know something about this dragon?” Nico carefully kept his voice low, just in case the dragon had very good hearing.
Esperanza didn’t immediately answer. Nico waited with as much patience as he could summon.
Why does she need to be so odd?
“Saqra the Veil. Or, rather, her current dragon-form avatar—the gods can take more than one form, of course. There are those who believe dragons are immortal, but immortality is a myth. Dragons are merely beasts, even if they are long-lived ones. A dragon-god might inhabit her avatar’s body, but it is not always the same body. Saqra may be older than time, but she wears a different dragon each time she appears physically in the world.”
Esperanza stopped talking. The rest of them stared at her back for a few awkward moments.
“Even if it’s not an actual dragon-god, it is still a dragon.” Jenae’s brows drew down between her golden-brown eyes. “That is not information we were provided for this assignment.”
“We were told to gather information about the cult that’s out here and what kind of trouble they might be brewing for the City.” Nico motioned skyward. “I’d say a black dragon is a lot of information.”
Adan nodded. “The object of the cult’s worship, do you think?”
“Or part of whatever bigger plot they’re brewing.” Nico shrugged.
Still without turning around, Esperanza said, “Or perhaps this cult is part of whatever bigger plan she has.”
They stood there a moment longer, three of them looking at each other and Esperanza’s back, while Esperanza ignored everyone.
“Nothing has changed. We’re being paid—or were assigned,” Adan paused to motion toward Nico and Jenae before continuing, “to get into the tower, find out what kind of trouble is brewing here, and put a stop to anything that seems like a threat.”
The Tower of Dust perched deep enough in the Bloodlands to be inconvenient to reach from the City of the Dawn but still close enough to be a potential threat if occupied by a dangerous enough foe.
“If they have a dragon, I’d say they’re a threat.” Nico directed his opinion at Jenae. Technically, she was calling the shots.
Jenae frowned thoughtfully at the upper part of the spire, where the dragon had appeared and disappeared, for a moment longer. Then her expression cleared, and she nodded brusquely.
For a split second, Nico wanted to change his mind and talk Jenae out of everything. Immortal or not, what they’d seen was an honest-to-god dragon. No way could a level four party take on anything more powerful than maybe a newborn dragon.
And that thing was no baby.
All his life, Nico’s father had regularly declared Nico a coward. Hiding in your room instead of facing the world. What kind of man will you ever be? You need to toughen up.
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His father wasn’t here. His father wasn’t anywhere—for all his big talk and assertions of great strength, even he hadn’t been able to escape when the end of the world arrived. The only thing that had saved Nico was one of the games his father had so despised.
If there’s a dragon, then maybe the quest will reward even more XP than usual.
More XP meant faster leveling meant getting more powerful more quickly.
So we do this. It might be dangerous, but it’ll be worth it.
Getting from the cliff’s edge where they currently stood to the base of the actual tower was nothing more than a matter of walking. It turned out to be a daunting trek, just the same. Full night fell, casting them into darkness. Mist rose from the canyon floor, glowing a dull gray and so thick it looked like you could just step off the rock and onto the mist and it would support you.
It wouldn’t, of course, but how easy it would be to make that mistake terrified Nico.
Scattered stone spikes and boulders and natural steps forced them to move carefully, four more shadows moving through the weighty indigo night. They crossed a narrow natural bridge. Nico held his breath until they were all safely across.
At one point during the walk, as Jenae ranged ahead and Esperanza lagged behind, Nico finally asked Adan, “What is it about Esperanza? How have you put up with her?”
Adan didn’t answer right away. He and Esperanza had traveled together before joining up with Nico and Jenae, but Nico wasn’t sure for how long. Maybe the question was more difficult than Nico had realized.
“Espy has so much promise,” Adan eventually replied. “She could become something, if she’s just guided in the right direction.”
Nico wasn’t sure he agreed. Something about Esperanza simply felt off. But he’d asked and Adan had answered, so Nico let it go.
And then they were there, lost in the inky shadow of the tower, right at its base. Eddies of warmer, scorch-scented air mingled with cooler, danker air that seemed to emanate straight out of the tower’s stony pores.
The Tower of Dust was a mostly-natural upcropping of stone, large enough where it grew from the more level ground surrounding it to house a large castle and then tapering in rough-edged layers to a needle-like proportion at the very top.
Up close, evidence of mortal hands on the tower revealed themselves. Massive stone doors had been set into the tower, by some engineering feat that left no hinges or door handles visible. Carved designs of writhing winged wyrms formed an arch surrounding the doors.
After a moment of thought, Adan laid his palm flat against one door and leaned. With no greater effort than that, both doors swung silently open.
A long entry hall stretched before them. At the distant end, flames leaped in stone braziers beneath tattered, faded tapestries featuring some dark, sinuous shape.
Kind of a theme emerging. Nico didn’t say that aloud, though. He didn’t say anything, because all manner of shadowed alcoves lurked along either side of the hall leading into the tower. The doors had opened quietly enough, but that didn’t mean their opening had gone unnoticed.
“Everyone keep your eyes open.” Jenae barely breathed the words and then stepped gently across the threshold. Nico took a steadying breath of his own and followed her.
Come on, dice. Don’t make me look like an idiot again.
The satisfying clatter of unseen dice rose around Nico. Two text lines appeared briefly at the top edge of his vision before fading out again.
[You rolled an 11 for Awareness.]
[You rolled a 14 for Stealth.]
Not great rolls, but maybe not entirely catastrophic. Nico glanced around, but nothing caught his attention. Rolls would be happening for the others, as well. Maybe one of them would have better luck.
With Jenae still a foot or so in the lead, they crept past carved columns flanked by dark alcoves toward the firelight splashing from the lit braziers at the entry hall’s end.
Just past the final column, two statues stood sentry. One held a short sword, the other a spear. Both were caught in the action of drawing their weapons. Their faces contorted in highly realistic expressions of surprise and fear. A sense of recognition crept through Nico.
Basilisk, or maybe some Medusa-like creature. He recalled how the black dragon had turned itself into a cloud of dust. Was there a connection?
“We should be careful,” Nico whispered. Immediately, he felt stupid, because that was pretty obvious and because that was what everyone said in every story or game at this point. Saying it never prevented someone from falling prey to the same fate, anyhow.
While Nico and Jenae stood looking at the two petrification victims, Esperanza wandered a step to one side and peered into the darkness of an alcove.
“Espy?” Adan murmured. “What is it?”
Her hooded head wavered side to side as she backpedaled to rejoin the others. “Nothing.”
Even when Esperanza said it was nothing, Nico couldn’t help but feeling like there was something.
Jenae led the party toward the wide stone steps and up.
As they climbed, sound from somewhere above began, faint at first but growing stronger even as it remained intermittent. It wasn’t music, exactly, but it was closer to that than to anything else Nico could call it. It reminded him of his previous life, of sci-fi movies that used electronic tones and discordant notes to create tension in their soundtrack.
Except I don’t think there are any spaceships or aliens in this world.
Jenae must have heard it, too, because she paused, glanced back, and lifted one eyebrow. Nico merely shook his head and shrugged.
Her guess is as good as mine. Better, probably.
The steps ended at another set of stone doors, but these were already open. Shadows clung close to the door, which was in this case probably a good thing. The other side opened into a hollow central chamber, so tall that the top was lost in darkness. Window-like slits arrayed in varying sizes and heights allowed glimpses of starry night beyond.
A brilliant golden glow filled the chamber, although it took Nico a moment to work out the light’s source. Sculptures and rough mosaics of bleached bones hung from tent peaks and plastered the chamber’s walls. Maybe human, more likely animal, the bones had been manipulated into the same shape in each instance—a long sinuous curve and the semblance of wings.
Dozens of figures moved between tents which had been pitched across the wide, rocky floor. Like the petrified sentries below, they carried short swords and spears and sometimes clutched bundles of javelins. Aside from the usual local garb of tunics and sandals and leg wrappings, they each wore something in black—cloaks, headbands, robes.
“Guess we found the dragon cult,” Nico started to whisper.
Jenae cut him short with a sharp motion of her hand. Then she jabbed that same hand forward, extending her finger toward something in the camp.
Nico followed Jenae’s point to the bonfire roaring at the center of the tents. Comprehension flooded through him.
That’s no fire.
Golden light so thick it was nearly solid shined steadily from a vaguely human-shaped figure that was far, far larger than any of the actual humans surrounding it. Nico squinted against the brilliance and made out geometric shapes flickering across the being’s form—lines, crosses, semi-circles.
Something resembling wings unfurled from the being’s back, neither bat-like nor feathered but more like extensions made of the same shifting geometric patterns. It tipped back its head, and that same tone they’d started hearing further down the stairs repeated, deafening in volume.
A Radiant? Shit.
Of all the deadly creatures this game’s world contained, two were more legendary—more dangerous—than anything else. Dragons were one of those things.
Radiants were the other.