- [Private Piddlewitz] -
The storm thrashes against the cliffside, rain pounding relentlessly, drenching everything as it floods over the sides of the mountain. The four remaining paratroopers move stealthily toward the dragons' nest, crouching hurriedly as they dart from one pile of rocks to the next, getting closer to the crater. Piddlewitz leans around their cover for a second, looking at the first egg. It’s huge, almost as big as he is. The shell has a thick, almost off-blue lacquer to it, and it gives him the impression that it is no less hard than any of the rocks here.
The captain hands him a charge, and he sticks it to the back of the egg, firmly pressing it against the porous side of the thing. A long, thin wire streaks out of the explosive. Piddlewitz unspools it, pulling it along with him as they continue to sneak around the edge of the nest, laying one charge after the other.
Captain Grael, right ahead of him, whispers to them. "Stay low; stay quiet. We're almost there." His voice cuts through the wind.
Beneath her breath, Nina mutters the incantation of a spell quietly to herself in preparation for whatever is going to inevitably go wrong.
Vinter, the elven marksman, scans the area as they duck over to the next stone. "No unusual movement yet, captain," she whispers as a heavy thudding comes from the other side of the stones as a pair of young dragons fight each other, shaking the mountain as they tussle. A third, older dragon gets caught up in the fray, bringing it to a quick end with a loud roar.
The four of them sit there in the rain at the edge of the cliff with their backs to the rocks, looking down at the drop for a second, before the situation calms down enough again for them to risk moving around to the next section of the nest.
“Shit…” mutters Grael.
“Captain?” asks Vinter quietly, following his gaze over the edge of the crater toward a cave, into which the nest extends inside.
The entrance to the nest looms ahead, a cavernous maw exhaling hot, sulfuric breath that mixes bizarrely with the cold storm air, creating an odd swirling illusion of super-heated air that seems to fight against the rain. Steam rises from the stones around the edge of the cave. Grael signals for them to halt again and gestures to Vinter to take a position high above and to the flank, where she can provide cover. The elf nods silently and begins to scale a nearby rock face by herself with inhuman agility, quickly slipping into a safe nook just before a dragon turns its long head her way. Piddlewitz and Grael kneel, unpacking the rest of the explosive charges.
"Piddlewitz, Nina, you two set the rest out here," Grael directs in a low voice, pointing to key points on the cavern's structure while Piddlewitz unravels wires, fumbling for a moment before steadying himself. “I’ll place a few inside the entrance. We’ll collapse it in,” instructs the captain, taking a few charges as he rises into a crouch.
"Got it," Piddlewitz whispers back, his voice barely audible over the storm.
Vinter whispers into her comm device from her sniper's perch. “Spotted two young dragons deeper in. They seem restless. Stay sharp.”
Piddlewitz looks over to Nina, who takes one of the charges from him. “Ladies first?” he asks, trying his luck a second time and nodding his head to the next egg, which is right behind a sleeping dragon’s tail.
“Private,” she remarks, narrowing her eyes.
Piddlewitz gets the hint, quickly skulking over to the egg and hiding behind it.
— He kicks a rock on the way. The small pebble rolls, rattling across the stone plateau directly toward the dragon’s resting head.
A large, round, glowing yellow eye shoots open. The lizard-slit black pupil stares directly his way.
But it doesn’t see anything.
The dragon closes its eyes again.
Piddlewitz, wincing with his back pressed against the egg, slowly opens an eye to see Nina gesturing his way to hurry up with an unimpressed expression. He plants the charge and hurries back into cover, unspooling the wire and connecting it to the last one. Then they move on to the next position.
Captain Grael sneaks forward toward the cave. The nest's interior is dark and daunting; shadows flicker wildly as sporadic bursts of dragon fire briefly light up the space fron the back, intermingling with the flashing of lightning that lights up the front. Guttural roars echo in deep rumbles, adding to the oppressive weight of the situation. Grael whispers into his headset. "Move faster; connect those charges," he orders. “Vinter?” The urgency in his voice adds a frantic tempo to their actions.
“You’re clear,” replies the elf, watching a young dragon walk past the cave toward the drop.
Captain Grael hurries out of cover, setting his charges at the mouth of the cave.
Nina glances around nervously, sensing the young dragons stirring just out of sight. “They’re waking up,” she whispers. “Why are they waking up?!” she hisses.
Suddenly, a growl so low that it’s nearly a vibration runs through the ground beneath them, sending shivers down their spines. Piddlewitz curses under his breath as he works faster to connect the wires from the next charge. “Almost done here,” he mutters tensely. Grael plants his charges and gets back. Vinter's calm voice crackles over their comms again: "We got one landing from above; it's moving toward us. Hurry up!”
This sends everyone’s pulse into overdrive.
“Charges planted,” confirms Nina. “Finishing the wires now.”
“Mine too,” replies Captain Grael, still unspooling the wires as he tries to sneak back toward the rocks from the cave.
“It’s coming! Get to cover!” hisses Vinter into the radio.
Nina’s hands grab the tarp from her bag, throwing it over herself and Piddlewitz just like before. “You think this will work twice?” he asks, the wet, burnt cloth weighing down over him as he connects the last wires together. The air above them vibrates with heavy pulses as massive, flapping wings press down currents of air onto the crater nest.
“Monsters can’t find you under the blankets, right?” asks Nina tensely as they set the last charge down and hide in the rocks. “We’re wired. Captain?” asks Nina.
— No response.
“Vinter?” asks Nina quietly.
The mountain shakes, the stones and rocks rattling as something massive crashes down from the sky.
Piddlewitz and Nina exchange a glance. He reaches into his belt, pulling out his knife, and holds it down low to the ground, angling it to look into the reflection on the polished, silvered metal.
“Fuck,” hisses a voice in his ear as the two of them look at the distorted reflection of the same black dragon they had encountered before — fairly standard in size, but it appears to be the king of this nest. It towers over the young dragons in size, many of them snapping toward it as it lands, only to be rebuked by powerful jaws snapping shut around their necks or wings, causing them to retreat as it lumbers straight toward the cave.
Piddlewitz lowers the angle of the knife, looking at the cave entrance, where he can sparsely make out a small piece of the captain’s uniform boot that is poking out of a hiding place there that is good enough for now, but certainly won’t suffice when the dragon walks straight next to him. It’s heading right toward him, and there’s no way out.
A crackle comes over the headset. “Go. Blow the charges,” orders the captain in a hushed whisper.
“Captain, you’re too close. You won’t m -” starts Vinter quietly, the ground shaking around them as the dragon lumbers in one heavy step after the other.
“- Do it!” he commands in a firm tone, cutting her off. “Hurry! Before it flies away!”
Nina and Piddlewitz exchange a nod and then begin crawling back together along the cliffside beneath their tarp. Rain soaks through it, the wax having been melted off of its surface. More water leaks in through the holes in the burned material. Crawling, their breaths come shallow, and hearts pound in sync with every muffled roar from the dragons just meters away from them. The environment feels like it’s alive with tension; each crack of thunder makes him twitch, thinking the charges have already detonated. Piddlewitz curses quietly, his hands fumbling with the charge wires as Grael keeps watch. “Keep quiet, Piddlewitz!” hisses Nina back at him as something starts to rumble over their heads from the other side of the rocks — a dragon.
"Piddlewitz, Nina," Grael snaps over the radio. “It’s almost here. You gotta blow those charges now! What are you waiting for?!”
Piddlewitz and Nina stare at each other and then over to the egg with the charge on its back, which they are just next to. She shimmies back a few inches to whisper into his ear. “Sooo, you know how we just talked about us both being massive cowards?” she asks. Piddlewitz nods feverishly. “Hasn’t changed for me yet. You?” asks the wizard, Nina. Piddlewitz shakes his head. She smiles a tense, almost cheerful smile that is only broken by the stiffness of her eyes as she clasps her palms together lightly while the captain shouts their names over the radio in a commanding, desperate whisper. “...Maybe we’ll wait until we’re far enough away to blow the charges so that we don’t get blown up too?” she asks with a childishly pouting face, closing one eye as if this were a simple, playful favor she was requesting from him. Both of them ignore the captain’s voice. Piddlewitz nods again, thinking he might just be falling in love.
A single, loud crack shatters the tension in the air. The thunder, the roaring, the stampeding of beasts — everything is cut through with a knife as a single undeniable gunshot rings out in the night.
Vinter's voice crackles over the comm, tense but calm. “Negative, Captain,” she replies, the bolting of her rifle audible over the radio headset. “We’re not leaving here without you!” barks the elf, firing a second armor-piercing shot straight into the guts of a young dragon, whose dense scales have yet to develop. It flops around, flailing, as a loud hiss fills the air as the flammable gases inside of its guts begin to streak out violently like smoke from a broken chimney. The nest spots her, a dozen drakes roaring at her as she reveals her hidden position to distract the monsters.
Piddlewitz and Nina look back at each other again, still laying there beneath the tarp, as the dragon that was hovering over them now focuses its attention elsewhere. Rain patters down on the two of them as anarchy erupts outside of their little shelter.
Nina raises an eyebrow.
Piddlewitz shrugs once and gives her a nod.
A good coward is dynamic and ever-changing, capable of adapting to any life situation, and gifted in making the most of his cowardice at every possible opportunity.
The two of them shake hands like seedy business partners as Piddlewitz grabs his headset with his other hand. “It’s all of us or none of us, Captain!” he calls into the radio, as if he and she hadn’t been on their way out just a second ago.
“Yeah!” calls the wizard into her receiver.
Vinter fires a quick shot, hitting one dragon but not enough to deter it fully as it begins to barrel up the edge of the crater toward her. It stumbles, its neck and face planting into the stones, causing a small avalanche to rain down behind it as it crawls up her way. A second later, a burst of gunfire causes the drake to spasm, its leaking body tumbling down into two others who were charging up. Captain Grael, holding his sub-machine gun, runs out of his cover, sliding down over loose rocks beneath the snapping jaws of the large dragon that spots him immediately. It snaps, barely missing, with fiery sparks casting out in all directions as its jaws clench shut with nothing in them. It snaps its head after him, lunging again.
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A third gunshot rings out, the marksman’s bullet hitting straight into its armored skull. The round bounces off but disorients the dragon long enough for the captain to start scrambling up the crater toward Vinter.
It starts to collect a fiery breath together in its guts, audible by the deep rumbling like an engine that shakes the air. The rain around its maw steams up and vanishes before ever hitting the ground.
Nina has cast: [Arcane Enchantment]
Piddlewitz aims down his carbine’s iron sights and pulls the trigger. A single magic-augmented-round flies out through the rain as a shiing azure streak, flying over a dragon’s carcass and straight into the black dragon’s massive, yellow eye on the right side of its head. A burst of slime launches out in all directions, the creature opening its mouth in anguish and spewing fire into the sky in surprised pain. It stampedes, stomping on several smaller drakes, crushing them as it lashes with its long neck, breathing fire all around the nest.
Nina yanks him by the arm, the two of them running out of cover through the mess as they climb up the crater together toward the two, who are firing down at the few drakes that still have them in focus.
The elder dragon stumbles to a halt, its exhalation running out as it refocuses, turning its one good eye back their way before then roaring loud enough to wake any gods that might still be here in the corrupted spirit world. Black, tepid slime leaks out of its gushing wound like pus. It’s like all of its blood has been replaced with corrupting blackwater, which might explain its size and aggression compared to the others.
Thunder crashes, and lightning illuminates their path briefly as they reach Vinter’s perch, the captain helping pull them up. Grael takes one last look at the nest before giving the signal to detonate.
The ground shakes as the elder dragon crashes toward them with an incomprehensible rage in its eyes.
“Fire in the hole!” shouts Piddlewitz, eyes wide with urgency as he hammers down onto the detonation mechanism, a simple signal cast down the coil wire that runs around the nest from bomb to bomb like a serpent’s body. Nobody has time to brace themselves; the blast happens imminently.
Explosions rock the cliffside, debris flying everywhere as the charges go off. The sound is deafening — a mix of thunder and blast that shakes everyone to their core as their own dragon’s fire consumes dozens of raging monsters. The last thing Piddlewitz sees of them is the yellow eye of the elder dragon moving their way, but never making it past the fire that fills the inside of the crater. The ground trembles, with loose rocks tumbling down the slopes. The captain dives for cover, shouting. "Everyone down!" he calls, as fragments of stone and dragon scale rain down all around them.
Flames launch toward the storm above like a firestorm, with the blast being much stronger than expected. It turns out that dragons, being filled with flammable gas, are extremely explosive.
Slop and rocks fall from the sky as everything starts to finally become quiet, apart from the rain.
Piddlewitz lifts his head from below his hands, keeping his eyes on the nest and watching for signs of collapse. "...Did we get them?" he asks.
It’s quiet, and the rain washes away the smoke and the smoldering rubble until, eventually, it is clear that nothing is left of the nest.
“Every last one of them,” replies the captain, after surveying the damage. “Hell of a good job, soldiers,” he praises, looking around at them with pride. “Piddlewitz, Nina, Vinter, you disobeyed my orders,” he starts, his tone becoming hard. The three of them tense up. But then the captain shrugs, lightly lifting his hands out as he does so, and drops his shoulder. “Thank you.”
“...Captain,” says Vinter, bolting her rifle again as she lifts her gaze to the sky. “Perhaps the thanks should wait a little longer,” she notes as the four of them look up at the storm. She looks down at her rifle, loading her last round into it.
— They didn’t get all the dragons.
A lot of them are still up in the air, but not for long, as they’re moving in toward the smoking crater.
“Fuck,” remarks the captain, pulling out his drum magazine and giving it a shake. The rattle inside isn’t worth mentioning. He’s just about empty, too. “This is it, soldiers,” he says, getting ready for a final stand. There are too many dragons left. They got the nest, but there’s no way they have enough manpower or ammunition left to deal with these new ones. “We’re doing this for everyone back home,” he says, already unhooking his knife from its clasp on his belt.
“But we’ll do it together,” affirms Vinter, standing next to him without a hint of fear in her voice.
Piddlewitz and Nina look at each other’s pale expressions, both taking a step back behind the captain and Vinter, who are getting ready to go down like war heroes. Piddlewitz and the wizard exchange a series of quick hand gestures, nods, and winks as they wordlessly come up with an on-the-fly escape plan behind the captain’s back so that they don’t have to die fighting.
Piddlewitz nods as they come to an agreement.
Nina gives him a thumbs-up and a proud smile, both of them getting ready to make a wild break for it while these two keep the dragons distracted. Their boots are already both taking a step back in unison.
— A shrill shriek fills the air, different from any other sounds they’ve heard tonight.
Suddenly, reinforcements appear — harpies swoop down through the storm, each carrying soldiers in their talons, dropping the men off on the cliffside.
Nina elbows him quickly, getting his attention.
“We’re with you!” gasps out Piddlewitz, suddenly standing up straight again, as if he hadn't been about to bolt.
“For the world tree,” adds Nina, planting both boots back onto the ground.
The other two notice the harpies, watching as the fresh soldiers all quickly scramble around the cliff, setting up a spot as another four harpies come in, carrying some sort of crate that crashes down to the ground, the wooden panels falling flat down by themselves from the impact. Their screeches cut through the chaos as they weave out of the way of a swooping dragon.
“Come on!” calls the captain, running with them in tow as they move toward the newcomers, who are jumping onto a mobile-quad anti-air turret that is really just an array of four machine guns melted together with one trigger. “About time you guys got here!” he calls out to a rifleman. “How’d you know we needed help?”
“You must have friends in high places, captain,” replies the rifleman, circling a finger through the air as the quad gun rotates its arc. “Cut ‘em down, Marzel!” he calls.
“Sir!” replies the gunner before pulling the trigger. The machine guns scream out, a stream of metal flying toward the sky, causing dragons to fall out of it as they’re torn to shreds by an inescapable barrage as man finally gives in to his hubris and screams back at the storm.
The captain puzzles, scratching his head. "Hell if I know anyone at H.Q.,” says Grael, clapping the man on the shoulder. “But I’m glad you made it!”
The tide of battle turns quickly with the added support. Harpies swoop down on anything that crashes into the mountain, tearing it apart from above, while reinforcements engage the dragons from the ground with their dedicated anti-air platform.
— A dragon swoops through the arc of gunfire.
Vinter fires her last shot, landing a critical shot right between the young dragon's eyes. It staggers, flames dying in its throat as it falls heavily down into the abyss, the anti-air quad streaking after it makes sure the monster is dead before it hits the ground.
Piddlewitz stands there, his hands resting on his slung carbine, as he watches the chaos unfold. “Hey, you know how I asked about a tank earlier and you made fun of me?” he asks, looking at Nina.
“Yeah?” she replies, turning her head.
The private gestures to the anti-air gun. "Well, why didn’t we just take one of these with us?” he asks.
“We did,” she replies. “It was on plane two,” explains the wizard, shrugging.
“Huh…” remarks Piddlewitz. “That was pretty inconvenient.”
“Sure was,” she replies matter of factly, the two of them standing there and watching as the last of their work is done for them.
The rain pours down around them.
Piddlewitz shakes his head. “I don’t think I’m going to be accepting paratrooper duty anymore,” he says, watching as a dragon explodes in mid-air, spewing guts in all directions. A smoldering leg lands down in front of the two of them, its claws still twitching.
“It’s too late for me,” replies Nina, the two of them watching the spasming gore. “But you can still make it out.”
The last dragon falls, its roar fading into a gurgle as it slumps to the ground, defeated. The harpies circle above, their screeches cutting through the storm as they keep watch. Reinforcements fan out, securing the area with practiced efficiency, not wasting a second to help the dedicated combat engineer begin planning out the first stages of an anti-air corridor here on the mountain cliffside. Grael stands, catching his breath, his eyes scanning the scene.
And then, for certain, the battle ends, and everything is quiet.
The captain lowers the borrowed rifle in his hands as the four of them recollect. “Don’t ask me what happened here, but the gods looked out for us today,” affirms the captain as they all gather around him. “But it was you who got your hands dirty and did the work,” he praises, looking them over. “I couldn’t be more proud to serve with soldiers like you three,” he says, saluting. “You’ll all receive commendations for your bravery. I’ll make it happen,” promises the captain, lowering his hand. “— And Piddlewitz,” he adds, his hand now landing firmly on the private’s shoulder. “I’m putting in a full transfer order for you to join us full-time first thing when we get back,” says the captain, a vivid confidence in his eyes that he’s made the right choice. “You’re a good man — brave. You’re exactly who I need to have my back,” finishes the captain, lightly clapping his back as he walks to help the reinforcements.
“Welcome to the squad, Private,” says Vinter, shouldering her rifle and nodding to him. “You did well.”
Piddlewitz’s mouth is open, and his finger is raised after the two of them as they walk away, but his voice is unable to voice any protest that isn’t a simple squeak of some kind. It eventually just sort of falls down by itself at his side.
He turns his head to the wizard, Nina. “So… how long have you been trying to survive this unit?” he asks, almost desperately in tone.
“This was my fifth jump,” she explains with a dull look that then brightens up after a moment. “But this is the first time anyone except us three made it out alive. You’re the first one, Piddlewitz.”
“...Huh?” he asks, blinking.
She shrugs, smiling. “Guess you’re with me now, Private,” says Nina. “Like the captain said, always need a good man around,” she says, walking off after the rest of the team, looking back over her shoulder after a moment at him, before she keeps going.
Piddlewitz watches her go for a moment and then down the ravine before he runs after her. “Hey, can you just maybe push me and make it look like an acci-”
“- No,” she replies before he can finish, sounding amused as they walk away together.
“You know I’m a horrific coward, right?” he asks. “I will leave you all for dead if it means saving myself,” explains Piddlewitz, sounding very serious.
“Sure, as long as you don’t leave me,” she remarks slyly. “The others are fine, though.”
His hand ruffles through his wet hair. “Are you making innuendos, or what’s happening here?” asks the confused soldier, listening to the wizard start laughing next to him. “Because I’m serious and also very confused.” She laughs more. “No, really,” he adds, not sure how he ended up here in life.
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- [Anneli] - Central Operational Logistics Command
Anneli’s fairy body vibrates, her boots shaking over the desk as she essentially floats from one end of it to the other. She lets out a long sniff, running her forearm over her nose as she looks at the map with twitchy eyes. “Everything is in motion. I can see the strings of the universe,” she mutters to herself, frantically, sweat pouring through her soaked clothes.
“Ma’am,” says the private, holding a folder in his hands. “There was a transfer mistake,” he explains, looking down at the papers. “We accidentally put a uh… Private Piddlewitz into the airborne,” he explains, looking back at her. Anneli doesn’t respond. “— Into the cliffside operation,” adds the private with a suggesting tone that something is wrong here.
“YOU CAN’T FIGHT THE POWER OF FATE!” screams the fairy at him, pointing up his way with a finger that is so unsteady, it looks like she’s trying to write a message in the air.
“Yes, ma’am,” says the private, taking a step back and gulping. He flips the papers. “Our next order of business is in regards to the naval supply chain for seven-fo-”
“Your next order is to refill my damn coffee!” she snaps at him, her palm slapping into the back of her hand. “Go!”
The boy grabs the empty mug, the inside marked with a fairy-sized boot print from when she sipped up the last rest like it was a puddle from the street she was standing in, and hurries to the wall of coffee machines.
Anneli, spasming and twitching, her eyes blinking separately from another, looks at him go and then stares over at the painted wall poster of Pilot that is hanging next to her station. His hawkish, sharp eyes gaze down toward her desk — toward her.
The poster winks. “Just another few shifts. I need you to do your best,” says the poster — at least in her mind. “...Anneli,” whispers the painted man, flexing his tree-crushing arm her way.
The sweaty fairy feels her heart violently palpating. “I’ll do it for you,” she replies, clutching her hands together, lines of sweat dripping down her forearms like secretions from a slime.
“...Ma’am, maybe you need to take a rest,” says the private nervously, setting down a fresh coffee next to her. Her cold glare and lizard-like blinking — as she fails to be able to stare anymore — says all that needs to be said. “Got it. Got it. Fate,” remarks the private, gently nudging the mug closer toward her.
She yanks it her way with both arms, coffee sloshing over the sides and onto an already long-since stained map.