Merciferus seems quite proud of Lauren, but it’s pretty obvious that even using my magic, Lauren is not in a good way. Whatever is needed of her, we definitely have to help because there’s no way she can handle it alone anymore. And if what we’ve just been through with this affront is any indication, we need to get to burning down a cult.
It feels great that she’s no longer at risk of dying, but she loved healing so much, and they’ve essentially taken that from her, and I can’t forgive that. Nudging Merciferus, I tell her to get to plucking scales so Lauren can get some armor. And as she begins, it becomes obvious that she was right, this is freakin’ painful. Each scale feels like it’s hooked into my flesh, and pulling it out does not involve removing the hook first.
With her ridiculous strength, at least she manages to do it in a smooth motion for every scale. As I groan in pain, she asks if I’m sure I want enough for Raya as well, and I am. I want my littlest friend to also be protected. Merciferus is quick to get to work again, leaving my shoulder bloody and pained.
As the goddess pulls the final scale, she pats the wound and it heals up, but to my dismay, the scales don’t recover, which means... I have to do that on my own. Dang it...
I can’t postpone it any longer, since I’ve just been accumulating more scars and wounds, so focusing my magic, I push it into my skin and scales, and the massive jolt of pain tells me that it’s working. The passing out tells me that it’s working well. The last thing I hear is my name being shouted, but that’s normal when someone suddenly passes out.
————————
By the time I wake up again, it’s a bit past noon, which is definitely not the nighttime I passed out at. The obvious first thing to do is figure out where I am, and by looking around, I do just that. I’m still outside of Tuiran, and the smell of blood still lingers. Those jerks just left me here, that’s so rude! I bet they’re gonna say something like ‘Oh Kira, we’re sorry, but you weigh too much for even draft animals to pull.’ Jerks.
Getting up and doing a stretch, the comfortable flexing of my muscles perks me right up and now I’m ready for the day! The rest of the day, that is. I have no time for time now, I need to figure out where the others went, and for that, I have a secret weapon.
“Lauren, where are you? I’m awake! And you guys just left me, which is quite rude.”
There’s a pull on my magic, and I’m pretty sure that’s the weird new way for Lauren to interact with it.
“Be quiet, you silly beast.”
“How dare you, you lousy first-aid kit!”
She lets go of my magic, and instead of words, I just feel comfort and amusement from our connection. It’s time to return to Tuiran and that’s exactly what I do, I’m not all that far away, so all I need is a small jump, a beat of my wings, and soar the distance. Another beat takes me above the walls and I’m well on my way to the town square. In retrospect, I think I could have saved myself a bunch of pain if I had passed out before Merciferus plucked my scales, but it’s too late for that now.
I hope the Kirarmor being made for Raya and Lauren ends up being awesome. They finally get beautiful black scales of their own.
Looking around the town square, there isn’t anything going on at all. I’m not seeing that many merchants either, and I have no idea whether that’s normal or not. I was never that into history, especially not historical economics, so who knows how traveling the roads as a merchant works.
With a quick landing by my den and a less quick entrance into the pit I call home, I wouldn’t want to break anything, after all, I prepare to regurgitate whatever I might have stowed away in my crop. I’m not sure how it works, but as far as I can tell, my stomach can somehow separate the valuable stuff from the edible stuff, resulting in delicious food and delicious metal both being okay to eat.
With a moment of quiet, it occurs to me that it’s been a while since I’ve felt dragony, and I’m starting to itch for a fight again. The fight with Lunch was okay, but it felt unsatisfactory since I didn’t kill him.
I wish I knew where to look for these cultists so I could eat them all. Thinking about eating folks, I wonder what Jarna and Kanen are up to. Focus, Kira. Add to the hoard, then explore the unknown whereabouts of the non-snack adventurers. Flexing a muscle in my chest, I feel a glop of goop ascend my throat and, with a plop, it falls to the ground, spilling glorious hoard material all over the place.
I have no idea whether I’m rich or not, but my hoard is growing and it feels very good. I’m gonna lie on it for a moment, I have time. Ooh, lying on a hoard is the best. Huh, the mural has changed- well, not changed, grown. It’s much bigger now and covers the fall of Plainshold and... They’ve embedded coins to depict my hoard, that’s clever.
“Kira? Are you in here?”
I have guests, well, a guest, it’s Lauren. Unleashing a small jet of flame toward the ceiling lights up the room, and she focuses her eyes on me. She approaches me and sits down on the clay for some reason. I’m not sure why she doesn’t just sit on me like she usually does, but she isn’t looking too happy.
“Kira, I’m not sure I have what it takes to be a champion, and now most of my magic is gone... I...”
Yeah, I know what I need to do here. Getting up, I grab her with my tongue to bring her over so we can coil up and snuggle a little. I’m gonna put her down at the nape of my neck and give her a little squeeze. She responds by pressing herself against me as the localized rain hits her, the weather is so unpredictable. With a nudge, I let her know how I feel on the matter.
“Lauren, I don’t care whether you’re a champion or not. You were my friend before I knew any of that, and you are important to me, not your status or abilities.”
She’s mine and that won’t change just because of some, well, I want to call it a minor change, but it’s important to her, so I don’t want to diminish her feelings by not acknowledging the impact it has on her. Instead, I suggest she takes some of my magic and practices holding it inside her as she grows more accustomed to it. It might not fix the issue, but it might help.
I don’t have anything to base it on, but sometimes we just have to try something, and judging by the pull on my magic, she does try, but only a little. She’s just pulling on it and not taking it, so I’ll have to tune out her thoughts to respect her privacy.
“Besides, I need you, Lauren. Joras is still a little scared of me, Raya is more likely to encourage my questionable behaviors, but you just walk up and yell at me. Seriously, who yells at a dragon? You might not have all of your magic anymore, but you never had all of your marbles, and you did just fine.”
As she leans into me, she drags her nails back and forth along my scales, and it feels quite nice. We’ll just have to think of some other way she can feel useful.
“I don’t have any marbles. I’m not sure what I would do with them, maybe use them for a trap to make my opponents trip, but other than that, they don’t seem very useful. Why are you laughing at me? Did you insult me, you brutish beast?”
Maybe a little, but she did most of it herself. Taking a moment to explain the idiom just earns me a smack and a glare before she settles in for another cozy rest.
“If it’s any consolation, I’m pretty sure Merciferus is nuts as well, so you’re a good match.”
“Kira, I’m confident that calling a God insane constitutes blasphemy.”
She chuckles, but she might be right, and if Merciferus finds out, she might start banking more punishment. Who knows what I’ll be asked to contribute next time. I’d rather not develop a bald spot on my beautiful scaly exterior.
Thinking more about how Lauren might find new purpose, the whole teaching me magic thing springs to mind again, and of course I bring that up. She seems skeptical at the prospect of teaching me, mumbling something or other about bad students who get distracted, but she seems to like the idea when goblins are brought into the picture. She could have her very own magical medical school!
Speaking of teaching magic, I’m curious how Raya is able to learn it with so little difficulty. It feels weird to me that she went from never being able to learn any meaningful magic to being kind of gifted and learning things super fast. Asking Lauren about it, she stares at me like I asked a really stupid question. A bit rude on her part.
“Sorry, it’s a reasonable question when you don’t know how magic works for us. Think of it like working clay; Joras and I have learned how to find clay, dig it up, prepare it, and then start working it to create what we want. It’s a lengthy process that Raya never learned. So she doesn’t care about the intricacies of shaping and weaving magic. Instead, she just takes a lump of yours, which is pure and purposeless, and throws it at whatever problem she has.”
Her explanation begins to take on a tone of envy and frustration as she gets into how Raya uses my magic. It seems they’ve been talking about it, and Raya mentioned that to use a fire bolt, she just takes some magic and thinks of it as fire while she holds it. And based on Lauren’s rant, that’s not how fire bolts work.
Good on Raya, she’s finding her own style! The obvious question now is why doesn’t Lauren do the same, and asking about that, she glares at me before taking a deep breath.
“I’ve tried, but it’s... Try imagining a color you’ve never seen before. And if you do manage that, explaining it to someone who hasn’t seen it becomes the next challenge.”
I’m pretty sure I see the problem here, she’s thinking too much and she needs to... Well, I’m not gonna say I don’t think at all, I’m very thoughtful, but she’s overthinking things. We’re gonna solve this problem, and to start with, I’m gonna pick her up and put her on the ground.
She wiggles a bit, but she’s no match for the might of my prehensile tongue. Okay! Instruction time! First things first, I have her jump in place, which she does after a little complaining, and my conclusion is that she isn’t very good at jumping. Second, we’re gonna get some magic going, and by that I mean I’m telling her to take some of my magic and push it toward her legs, focusing on it without thinking of shapes or weaves or any of that.
One thing is for sure, she is great at glaring and questioning my instructions.
Instead of lingering on her reluctance, I push some magic into my eyes to track her progress as we move on to instructing her to keep the magic there and focus on wanting to be stronger, to jump higher, and to land without getting injured.
She kinda does it, and some of the magic is used, but she loses focus whenever she jumps and most of the magic dissipates, which allows me to see another curious thing. My hoard takes in the ambient magic and returns the room’s magic levels to a more normalized level.
“I feel stupid jumping on the spot like this, Kira...”
“We can move to the square and have the children join you if you want. Then you wouldn’t be jumping alone, and you could make a game of it.”
Judging by the sudden wave of anxiety I feel from her, she isn’t too interested in learning about my magic in public. She doesn’t say anything about it, but she does get back to jumping, and slowly but surely, she increases her jump height.
“Is this it? You just move magic to the part of your body where you want it to do something, and then it does?”
That is pretty much it for me. I don’t know whether that’s because of my draconic nature or just a quirk of my magic, but it really is that easy for me to empower myself. She still seems to doubt me as I tell her, but it sounds like Raya is doing the same thing, so I’m gonna count that as me being right. It feels to me like my magic wants to do something, so it does when it gets the opportunity to.
I’m not sure why it’s so difficult for Lauren, though. She seems to really struggle with the idea of unshaped magic, and I think Raya may have been onto something with her weaving thing, as it could be a bridge between two schools of magic.
“Oh, I forgot to ask, but where did Merciferus go? I haven’t seen her around.”
“She left with your scales. Since she came to punish you and that goal had been accomplished, she had to go and attend to her divine duties.”
Sounds like those god rules kept her from staying. Maybe I should tease her a bunch next time we have a feast, so she can join us and claim that it’s to punish me for being naughty. I’m sure she’d like that.
“Kira, focus. It’s obvious that you’ve gotten distracted and started thinking about something questionable.”
“Not at all! I was thinking about holding another feast to celebrate your recovery!”
“Oh... Sorry, I’d like that.”
Point to Kira, but also job to Kira since I now have to arrange a feast. I should find something exciting to eat for that, maybe some herbs and exotic things. Maybe they’d like to try some frostclaw, or perhaps some sort of goat from a mountain, I’m sure Lauren hasn’t tried that all that often. Or I could even hunt something from the south and bring it back! Maybe some advent- No... She wouldn’t like that... but the other things are still viable ideas!
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She’s staring at me with a knowing smile, as if she suspects me of thinking something questionable this time...
“If I have to learn to use your magic, Kira, then you should learn how to use my magic, start weaving.”
Lauren is too bossy, and I don’t know how to weave.
“Just take hold of some of your magic, and stretch it. Repeat it until you’ve got thin strings of magic, you’ll know when you’ve done it sufficiently, and when you feel it, you can begin weaving the strands together.”
Well, that’s barely any instruction to go on, so let’s try it out. I wonder if it makes a difference whether I do this stretching stuff or if I try going for extruding. I’m gonna try the latter. Focusing my will on a chunk of magic, I squish it into a noodle and I start thinking about why I need to make the strings or strands or whatever so thin. She never did say, and I have enough magic to just make thick magic noodles.
As far as I can tell, it’s working and there aren’t any problems with it, which means I can think about how to weave them. I don’t know how to weave, or knit, or anything of the sort, so what’s a dragon to do? Braid, of course. With all these noodles, I start braiding them together into a thick rope, and it seems to be doing something, but I have no idea how this is supposed to become a spell.
Nudging Lauren, I feel nauseous... Geez, I’m starting to really not feel well...
“Lauren, I think your magic weaving is making me sick.”
I barely finish the thought before I expel my viscous fluid of grossness and, unfortunately for Lauren, she is right in the way of the outgoing stream on account of the recent nudge.
She’s both quite upset and worried, as she looks my way, covered in dragon gunk. I don’t think I like her magic style. I want to compliment her for being able to stay standing in the face of such a powerful wave of vomit, but I get the impression that she wouldn’t be receptive to such positivity right now. She can be like that sometimes.
At least I feel a little better now, so that’s a win in my book. Now we just need Lauren to feel better, and I have a plan for that. Leaving her behind as I head outside, I flag down a guard and ask him to fetch Joras, since the elven alchemist is into all sorts of weird stuff like bodily fluids, so who better to thoroughly clean Lauren of dragon vomit gunk?
I’m just gonna have a lie down while we wait. It turns out something like that wears a dragon out... Just gonna close my eyes for a minute...
————————
“What thoughts were occupying your mind as you did this?! You are aware that Kira needs clear instructions! You cannot teach her like you would a human!”
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I wanted-”
“Indeed, you were not thinking. The magic Kira possesses is Primordial, it is already concentrated. She does not need to weave and by telling her to do so, you had her... I cannot think of an apt comparison! Her magic is not like the magic we use. You are both lucky to be alive!”
“I’m sorry...”
“I am aware, but do not attempt to teach her magic again. My own intent to teach her was halted as she showed me the nature of her magic, but my explanation and knowledge at the time were inadequate. Just be mindful going forward, Kira has much wisdom, but she has an equal amount of foolish daring. She is not a material being, her reactions to magic are not like ours.
This is why snooze buttons were invented, if I had slept five more minutes, I wouldn’t have heard Lily insult me like that... She’s rude... Lauren doesn’t seem to have much to add anymore, which I get. I’m sure I didn’t wake up at the beginning of Lily’s tirade, and I doubt I’d have anything to chip in with in Lauren’s situation.
Opening my eyes, I take a look around and see that I’m just outside the entrance of my den, and it seems Lily’s shouting has brought out a bunch of people to listen to the spectacle. It’s not a huge amount of people, but it’s more than expected considering it’s past midnight. I’m still not feeling great, and I think I’d like to just rest some more. Although, perhaps I should go hunting, I am pretty hungry...
There’s an odd clinking of glass coming from my den, and a bit after I started hearing it, Joras emerges with a box and a far too happy expression on his face.
“Hello Kira and-”
“Shush, Joras... What’s that?”
“Oh, this is what I collected from Lauren, I’ll get some buckets for the remaining material on the floor. Do you have any idea what I can make with this?!”
He’s far too excited to be working with my vomit, but I have no idea what he can make with it, so that’s what I tell him.
“Neither do I! This is a first for me, isn’t that exciting?”
I knew that weirdo was into weird stuff, but he’s far too excited about this. I’m not gonna stop him, though. Instead, I wish him luck with his discoveries and tell him to be careful, earning me a mocking snort.
“How are you feeling, Kira? An expulsion like that would not do great things for me. The volume alone...”
He sounds worried, but his giant smile and glinting eyes betray him. I’m sure he is worried about me, but it’s obvious how much he wants to run off and start experimenting with that nasty stuff. I’ll just let him know that I’ll be fine, so he can run off. I also mention that he should clean my den first, so the gunk doesn’t dry and get crusty.
“You think it might take on different properties as it dries? An interesting thought, and we certainly have enough to try it. Very clever, Kira! And perhaps it will be influenced by the herbs around it. Oh, so many avenues of exploration.”
Yeah, that’s what I meant. Totally. I’m pretty sure he knows to dry things, so I suspect he’s just caught up in having a new material to work with and hasn't thought of it yet. And it’s pretty clear he’s too caught up to pay me much mind, considering he’s begun wandering off with his crate.
“Are you okay, Lauren?”
She doesn’t pull on my magic to respond, leaving me with only a sensation of regret and sadness. It’s understandable, but it’s also misplaced.
Merciferus, tell Lauren that it’s not her fault, I’m to blame as well.
“Lauren, you didn’t make me do anything, so you don’t have to feel sad. Besides, now we know that I probably shouldn’t face anyone when I get sick. That’s valuable information we couldn’t have gotten in any other way, right? So really, it was worth it to learn something new. And we learned that you can stay standing in the face of something like that, which is impressive, so we learned two things. That’s twice as much, making it so worth it!”
Point to Kira, I made Lauren laugh. Unfortunately, that also means I made Lily yell at her about how this is no laughing matter. At least Lauren knows I'm not mad at her, and that's all that matters.
I’m gonna stretch instead of lying here all night, and as I do, my body feels much stiffer than usual, and I don’t like that. Focusing on my magic, I use it to inspect my body, and from the looks of it, my fleshy bits are fine, but I have somehow managed to drain my body of magic, not all of it, but enough to make me sure it’s a bad thing.
I don’t like feeling hungry; it’s making my teeth itch, and I want to chomp things. Instead of lingering here until it overwhelms me, I’ll just go find something to hunt. That seems like a much better idea.
As I take to the skies toward the south, my thoughts wander to how I haven’t really felt hungry until now, as if magic itself has kept me sated, but this isn’t the first time I’ve used too much magic, so I don’t know what’s going on. It could be a maturity thing, but that’s guesswork.
The night sky is quite beautiful with gray clouds creating a lovely contrast to the starry blue background. Soaring over the forest, it becomes clear that winter is approaching as the trees have begun changing color. That’s something I need to think about and remember that I shouldn’t be eating all of Tuiran’s food.
I’m not seeing much in the way of prey, which is a bit annoying, so I’ll try further south. Using this trip to gather information could be a good idea as well. I should start preparing myself for when Lauren and Raya get their Kirarmor, so we can start fighting back against this cult instead of just having incidental encounters.
I hear the sound of combat from the west, with the occasional tingle of magic, who fights this early? Adventurers, that’s who, but what are they fighting? Flying toward the clang of metal impacting something very hard, I soar as quietly as I can, as I listen for any spoken words.
“Banyai, run behind it while I distract it. Turgai, aim for the eyes. Illya, focus on protecting Banyai!”
The commands flow in an easy stream and as they come into view, it becomes clear that this adventuring party is in trouble. They’re fighting a big rhino-looking thing, but it has tusks along with a horn, making it look quite intimidating. Turgai fires spells of some sort, they look like teal lightning. I’m not sure what they are, but the boar doesn’t seem to care all that much. And it cares even less about the commander as his blade fails to cut through the thick bristles covering its body. But it does look like prey to me.
The commander is the only one not obscuring their face with some sort of cowl, everyone else looks shadowy and mysterious as they fight together, following the commands of their leader.
“We should help them, Kira.”
What the hell?!
“When did you get here, Raya?”
“I’ve been sitting on you since yesterday. I heard you tell Joras to shush.”
Oh... That’s probably bad news for my senses, I couldn’t smell her at all.
“You didn’t notice me?”
“I did not, I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay, you overgrown lizard. A Dragon would have noticed me, though.”
Well, Raya is feeling sassy right now, but I'll deal with that later. It seems that my sense of touch and smell are both on the fritz, which means I should probably be wary of other senses not working properly. Refocusing on the boarhino, I’ve decided we will help the adventurers, but mostly because I want to eat that aggressive snack.
As we get closer, the beast begins to look more intimidating as it becomes obvious that the commander is a very large guy, being as tall as the dang giant boarhino, and his size screws with my sense of scale. If my estimate is right, the dang thing is three meters tall (9.8 ft) and four long (13.1 ft). It’s freakin’ huge and that horn on its face is half its height.
Getting a closer look, the Banyai person is thin and agile, Turgai is bulky and tall with a thick tail, while Illya is short and I’m pretty sure Illya is a dwarf. Enough inspecting people, that’s a distraction and I need to manage my distractions!
Focusing up, my choices here seem to be either to turn back because this magic depletion is no joke, or to attack and try to get a delicious meal to solve the problem. Well, I’m a problem solver with foolish daring to spare, so of course I’m gonna attack.
Aiming for the beast, I beat my wings to speed up and as we approach, Raya takes it upon herself to yell at the adventurers to stand back as I unleash my flames on the beast in a strafe attack. The boarhino roars at me, pain and rage obvious in its outburst as I catch its attention. It runs after me, the adventurers no longer interesting to it.
“Follow that thing! We need to kill it!”
Oh neat, we get back up. Instead of flying in a straight line, I circle around and prepare to swoop again.
“Kira, watch out for any spells, it has an affinity for earth magic, so it might do something.”
She wasted such a good opportunity to say it might do something dirty or that it might fight dirty...
Never mind that, Kira. You need to focus! And focus I shall! Going for another swoop, the boarhino prepares to meet my assault as it digs in its feet, ready to gore me. With its backside against the adventurers, the caster throws more spells at it, distracting it enough for me to continue my swoop.
“Get ready! The Dragon is coming in again, do not get caught in the flames, but we need to use the distraction! Banyai, rush to the beast’s left flank and strike with your venom!”
Just as I swoop, they throw a bunch of ranged attacks at the beast, drawing its attention away from me as I burn it again. Raya takes this opportunity to jump off me, landing in the flaming vegetation. I’m sure she has a plan, but I’m just gonna go ahead and worry.
The beast focuses on me again and I see Raya running toward the Banyai person. That makes me even more worried. Whatever they’re doing, Raya doesn’t seem to be getting attacked, so I’m gonna focus on the boarhino again.
“Kira! It’s using earth magic to protect itself! Flames won’t work!”
Oh, that’s clever, she got information from them. Well, I have experienced defensive earth magic before, so fire could cook it, but it might also be dissipating the heat somehow. Well, I do have bone-crushing jaws, flesh-rending claws, and a stone-shattering tail, so it’s not like I’m out of options here.
It has run past the adventurers to get at me again, so I’ll have to get it closer to them to use their abilities too. Stopping midair, I set course for just past the middle of their location where I intend to land. I just have to watch out for that absolutely massive horn. The tusks are bad, too.
As soon as I land, it starts really charging, so I’m gonna have to be ready here. With my side toward it, it becomes clear that the beast wants to impale me, but I’ve been impaled enough for one lifetime! Focusing some magic into my tail, I can tell that I won’t be able to do that too many times, and as It gets within reach, I whip my tail around with as much force as I can. The impact of my bladed tip sends a shockwave of pain through my spine, but the beast isn’t doing too hot either.
I managed to smack it right in the face, but it’s still standing, trying to recover. I have no idea how much damage I did, but I have better reach and now it knows that. It keeps its distance, giving me a moment to look at my tail, and I’ve shattered the left side of my blade. Well, that explains why it hurts!
I wouldn’t mind a handbook on how to hunt prey like this because I have no idea how I can get close without risking that horn. I’m pretty sure I need to knock it over, but if I swoop in, I’ll be vulnerable since it focuses on me, and my tail swipe wasn’t powerful enough to do anything other than stun it and mess up its face.
I’m gonna flip around so I’m ready to swipe at it with my intact tail blade, and then I’ll hope the adventurers have something to add.
“Banyai, right side bloody. Illya, protect me!”
As the commander calls out a few commands, I feel a magic tingle around him as he starts running toward me for some reason. And where is Raya in all of this? If they’ve hurt her without me noticing, I will eat them slowly. I’ll just have to trust that she’s able to take care of herself for now.
The Boarhino seems at a loss for what to do. I don’t think it wants another smack, but it needs to deal with me if it wants to win this. Banyai runs past me well within chomping distance, showing no regard for my presence. It seems like they’ve decided that I’m not the priority. This might be a proper positive experience with adventurers! They said it couldn’t be done!
As the commander reaches me, well my tail, he pulls out a potion and crushes it in his hand, throwing the liquid and glass at my wounded tail blade, and I’m not sure that’s how you’re supposed to use potions. Somehow it works, though. The potion he throws is more gelatinous than I’ve ever seen, and the glob of healing potion smacks against my tail, soaking into my wound.
It feels very nice and cool, and I want some for those warm summer days.
The boarhino seems offended by this as it begins charging again, and the Commander has already seen it, throwing himself to the ground as I swing my tail around with all my might, impacting the other side of the beast’s skull. This time, I break one of its tusks and my blade holds, so I guess the instability of my magic caused a loss in protection when I empowered my other swipe.
Banyai is quick to seize the opportunity to rush up to the boarhino and smear something into the wound. As they do, I feel my magic being drained a little as I spot Raya climb out from under Banyai’s cloak, thrusting a hand into the beast’s eye. Geez, when did Raya become so brutal?
The two are quick to retreat as the beast regains its senses.
“Grade four ancog venom, eye lost.”
Banyai calls out what Raya and she did to the beast, letting the Commander know what to plan for. With my tail swipe done, he gets up and starts barking orders again.
“Turgai, reposition to the right, go for damage. Banyai left. Illya, focus on shielding the Dragon.”
“Are you serious, boss? What if it attacks us?”
He responds with a whistle and I feel magic flow into me, replenishing my body. The spell is followed up with another, and I’m not sure they have any effect other than making me feel better.
“It’s not working, boss.”
“At will, then.”
I think these guys might be the kind of adventurers Wreyn warned me about. At least I’m bigger and more dangerous now than I was back then, so screw those fears.
Banyai, Raya, and Commander are now standing side by side, ready to launch an attack, and as Commander charges, Turgoi launches those weird lightning bolts at the beast’s face. As he reaches the beast, Commander’s blade digs into the wounded flesh left by my swipe as he struggles to hold the beast in place for Raya and Banyai to begin cutting at its vulnerable areas.
I don’t feel like being left out, so I join the charge. As soon as I reach the beast, I rear up and grab hold of the horn, pushing it to the left with all my weight. The sudden bulk forces the beast to the ground, and I hold it there as I bite into its thick neck. Its skin is impressive as my teeth struggle to penetrate it properly, but with a few more chomps and tears, I begin to make progress.
Blood flows as Raya and Banyai both begin to smear paste into the wounds, causing the blood to flow faster. I’ll have to ask Raya what sort of herbs she’s been gathering to create blood thinners. That seems dangerous, but it might also be something that people should know could be helpful.
The boarhino is losing strength fast, but at no point has it been afraid. It’s all just muscle and rage. I might not have gotten hurt outside of a shattered tail blade, but this is one scary beast.
The beast stops breathing, and the adventurers begin to breathe deeply as they get a moment to relax. They aren’t attacking or acting with any hostility, so it is a positive experience! I’m not getting attacked! Raya is getting paid, though, why is she getting paid? I wanna get paid too!
Commander is handing her a few coins, so I hold out my claw for some coins as well. He stares at my claw for a moment with a raised eyebrow. He gets the message and hands me two golden coins. I got paid for my work!