The wyvern howled with an outrageous hate, and as the trembling of the ground subsided, I leapt to my feet. I pulled my shield up.
“Defensive positions!” I shouted, and my party shook itself out of their shock. “Otter, get out of here!” I shouted, and my beast scampered away.
This is bad. Very, very bad. We were already fatigued from our attempts to beat this thing underground, and it was barely injured at all. Any advantages we had from fighting within a restricted cavern were gone. The corrupted wyvern flapped its large wings as it hovered in the air above us, leaving its powerful back legs free to slash and grab at us if it dove.
With an aerial opponent, the battle structure would be entirely different. There was no “frontline” when the enemy was above us, which would make defending my party properly next to impossible.
I saw Estorra uncork a vial and chug an MP potion, and I pulled one from my inventory to do the same, hoping that we lived long enough to even worry about whether anyone had noticed.
Realizing I had not heard Markas speak since the break, I glanced over at him to try and gauge what our party leader was thinking. Maybe he would have an idea that could lead us out of this mess.
His face was white, a mask of fear and panic. Shit.
I felt the air shift as the wyvern flapped its wings once, then tuck them.
“It’s diving! Split up! Scatter!”
My party burst into motion, running away in different directions. Behind me, I heard and felt the corrupted beast slam into the ground, kicking up sand as it cried out in rage.
With the wyvern temporarily grounded, I spun in place, clanging my sword against my shield. Hopefully the rest of my party would follow suit.
“Come on, you dumb beast!” I shouted, trying to pull focus so my party members could land some attacks, but the corrupted wyvern’s head snaked around, ignoring me. It let out another angry cry and flapped its wings, taking off again and headed away from me. “Shit!”
I chased after the beast as it flew in the opposite direction after one of my other party members, and from the corner of my eye saw Markas in pursuit alongside me, legs pounding against the sand, sweat already pouring off his face from the exertion.
Ahead of us, the wyvern tucked into another dive, and hit the sand with another deadly impact. I hoped it had not just crushed one of my party to death in doing so. We need to keep it grounded.
Something finally clicked into place in my head. We were not in the dungeon anymore, which meant the environment was susceptible to magic. Sand was not as helpful as stone would be, but I could bind the desert into sandstone. It might not be enough to hold the wyvern, but it could slow it down.
If I needed to answer for it later, so be it. Questioning would mean my party members were still alive. Using the larger 4-point magic circle tucked into my armor, I took hold of the sand surrounding the wyvern’s feet and grabbed hold of the creature.
The wyvern sensed it, and cried out, squirming. I immediately felt the strain on my will, and knew this would not hold it for long.
Well, I’m already using magic…
I shifted my focus to my 6-point magic circle, and poured my MP into a purification spell.
The wyvern reacted violently, shrieking and swinging its head back and forth, slapping its wings at the sand to break free. It was a chance to land some actual damage, and I was not the only one who sensed the opportunity. Estorra had grabbed hold of the water on Tug’s sled and launched a massive icicle at the squirming beast, and Tug was racing across the desert to hammer into the beast, while arrows rained down on it and Markas moved to slash at it with his sword.
Dropping my shield, I grabbed my greatsword with two hands and moved in as well. We were attacking from different sides, and control of the battle was thoroughly out the window. All we could do was try to take it down.
I raced forward, leapt, and smashed my sword down into the wyvern’s neck, hoping I could pierce the wyvern’s defenses. As I fell, I tore back with the huge Konda, hoping to rip up some of the scales, maybe give us a point of entry to do more damage.
The next thing I knew, I was flying through the air away from the wyvern and crashing into the desert. The air blew out of my lungs as I slammed into the ground, and I felt a burning in my stomach. The wyvern must have caught me with its tail, or something. I glanced down, and saw my midriff torn open, probably from the tail spines.
Grunting, I pushed a bit of magic into a healing spell and sealed up the wound, shaking my head out to clear my vision and figure out which direction to run and get back to my party. I barely had enough MP left to stitch up my injury, after the sand entrapment spell and the purification attempt, so I chugged another potion as I ran.
The wyvern was airborne again by the time I got back, my sandstone having fallen apart without me present to reinforce it, but as I looked around I saw that my party, which had regrouped, was all still alive. I breathed a sigh of relief as I scooped up my shield and rejoined them.
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“Thank goodness,” Markas said, panting hard. “We thought we lost you.”
“My armor took the brunt of it,” I lied. “I’m still intact, at least.”
“What do we do?” Sidel whimpered. “We’re going to die out here if this keeps up. Why doesn’t it just leave?”
“I guess it’s mad at us,” I muttered, glaring at Rashir, who still cradled the dungeon core.
“It’s coming!” Markas snapped. “Scatter, then regroup and attack! And watch for the tail!”
We avoided another aerial onslaught, then did our best to damage the beast while it was within range of our attacks. Then it took off again, and the pattern repeated. With the wyvern focused exclusively on us, and with the simplistic, rage-fuelled mind that came with corruption, it was not very creative in its attacks, which was a small relief, but our ability to do damage was also so minimal that the battle quickly became protracted.
At one point, it did attempt to spew more miasma at us, but between my barriers and Estorra using the outdoor wind to blow it away, we avoided taking another hit from that, which was another relief.
We were all breathing hard as the wyvern hovered above us, having done a lot of running back and forth to avoid its dive-bombing and then attempting to land hits on its body when grounded. I looked at my party members in the low, morning light—at some point during the battle, the day had broken—and realized we did not have much more in us. While we had done some damage to the nightmare creature, it was not nearly enough.
“It’s coming again,” Markas panted.
“I’m not sure I can run anymore,” Estorra groaned, sucking air.
“You will if you want to live. Now!”
My party members scattered, but I stayed in place. We were too far gone, and I was going to have to reveal myself if we were to survive. Even with all my abilities, I was not confident I could take the wyvern, given how much of a challenge it had been so far. Another purification might give me an edge, and I could still stomach another potion, maybe two, before the toxicity became a real problem. I had some other stuff in my inventory I could use, which could help, like my stockpiles of stone, crystal, and metal. Its scales were resistant to our swords, but maybe with magic I could carve into it with rust, or liquid metal might penetrate the gaps between the scales better than blades. Worst case, I supposed that I could try to get eaten, heal myself in the beast’s stomach, and then kill it and cut my way out from inside of it.
Yet, because I was not running, I noticed that the wyvern was not diving towards me. Something about this was off.
Markas looked back at me as he ran, a look of confusion on his face. “Deklan! Move!”
I ignored him, and watched the wyvern as it descended. I was not the one it was looking at. While it could not redirect its dive fully, once it had committed, it was not exactly aiming for me. I tracked it, now that I was paying more attention, and saw that it was clearly following a target.
Rashir.
“It’s after Rashir!” I shouted. “Markas, Estorra, Sidel, stop running! Prepare to attack!”
“What?!” I heard Rashir cry out as he continued to run. The wyvern crashed into the ground behind him. It was not just angry and trying to kill us. It had a target. A purpose.
“It must want the core back!”
The rest of us were already running towards the wyvern to attack it, and draw its attention from Rashir, who continued to run now that he knew he was the target.
“I’m running low on water for ice,” Estorra called out as she hammered the beast with another icicle.
“Tug’s exhausted,” Sidel added.
I glanced at Markas, and he held up his sword. It was bent and battered.
We were running out of options.
It wants the core. What if… the core was gone?
“Rashir, give me the core!” I shouted, as I ran towards him.
He stopped running, turning towards me, confused. I could see his face pale as I approached. “But… the reward…”
“Hurry!”
With a groan, he tossed me the dungeon core, and I dropped the red crystal into my inventory.
The change was immediate. The wyvern, formerly furious, began to panic. Its head whipped around in alarm as it tried to find its charge. This might give us the edge we need, I thought, but then I saw the wyvern’s focus shift.
With no dungeon core around to attract it, the wyvern’s gaze locked on the only source of red crystal around. It looked to the sky, and to the ring around the gas giant that lit up our world.
The wyvern let out a demonic screech, and powerfully flapped its wings. I stared in shock as sand whipped past us, dispersed by the powerful force of the wyvern's flight. With a second flap, it lifted high off the ground, climbing into the sky with an intent it had not had since it had been trapped in the dungeon an unknown length of time ago.
As it left us behind, our battle already a fading memory, it let out another horrific cry, and then with a speed that seemed more magical than aerodynamic, the draconic beast shot towards the sky, blasting us with a gale of dusty wind.
I coughed and rubbed my eyes, turning to watch the wyvern recede from us as it headed towards the source of magic.
It… it can’t actually fly to space, right?
A moment passed as we all collected ourselves, and I saw Rashir and the others turn to me.
“What did you do with the core, Deklan?”
“I just… hid it. An illusion,” I said, pulling the core back out of my inventory and hoping the wyvern was far enough that it would not sense its return to local space.
“I did not realize you were so good at magic. That is quite the spell,” Estorra said.
“Well, it saved our lives,” Markas said. “Better keep it hidden, if you can.”
I nodded, and headed over to the remains of our camp where the sled was parked. Otter ran over to me, having hidden himself under a collapsed tent, and rubbed against my leg, cooing in concern. While my front was turned from the others, I quickly pulled out some stone and reshaped it to be the same approximate size as the core, returning the red crystal to my inventory and placing the fake core on top of my shield and turning it invisible before tossing a tarp over it.
We were alive, but I wondered at what cost. What would the corrupted wyvern do, unleashed from the confines of the dungeon?
I was certain I would find out. I needed to return to the capital as soon as I could.