Two Brothers

by Phoenix Grey

  The half-imp opened his eyes, but he still looked tired. “I don't think you understand how much energy it takes being me.”

  "I don't want to know." Azure shook his head and laughed.

  They spent the rest of their time eating in silence. The stairs did not provide a comfortable place for them to rest, and Azure was eventually able to convince them to ascend the rest of the way so that they'd at least have flat ground to lie on. But sleep would not come to his companions no matter where they were...because the demon was always watching.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE REALM – Day 31

  Since he was the most well-rested, Azure offered to take the loathed split shift. While he didn't encounter anything while he was on watch, Uden said that a large bat had appeared when he was guarding. Lonnell had immediately risen to help defeat it, having not really been asleep, just lying there.

  The evidence of the melee lay in a stinking heap about four yards away from where Azure had been sleeping. It was merely just the toothless carcass since Uden had taken the time to loot everything else. Thankfully, both brothers were uninjured, and since they had teamed up to fight the creature, hadn't had to use much stamina to defeat it.

  "We should probably solidify the plan before we go back down there," Azure suggested as they ate breakfast together. It was strange how he'd almost gotten used to eating the same thing for every meal. Back in his world, eating had been something he'd often done for pleasure. Here, it was just what he did to stay alive. With little flavor in most of the foods they ate, consuming was more of a chore than anything else"something he wanted to be over quickly so that they could get on with whatever task they happened to be attending to.

  "The first thing we need to do is Stealth ourselves before we reach the bottom of the stairs. We barreled in like a stampede last time without even thinking. We're lucky that didn't cost us our lives," Uden said. "I think that Lonnell and I should skirt around the room, taking cover behind the stalagmites. We'll both attack from the side, drawing the dawnflayer's attention away. Then Azure can come in from the other side, hopefully make it past the dawnflayer's defenses, and land the killing blow."

  He made it sound so easy. But most of their plans sounded easy until they actually put them into action.

  Nervousness swirled in the pit of Azure's stomach. One wrong move and he could end up dead. Considering the level of the dawnflayer, it had the potential to kill him in a single hit. He felt like he only had one chance to do this, and he had to get it right.

  "Give me your halberd, and I'll stick it in my bag," Lonnell offered, gesturing for the weapon. "Also, I'll need your bow."

  Worry flooded Azure as he handed over the quiver of imbued arrows. “Use them sparingly. We should save some to face the demon.”

  "I will only use what I need to keep the dawnflayer off of you and Uden. I plan to aim only for its eyes."

  "I wouldn't go for the eyes," Uden told him.

  "We need to get its attention, brother. With the rest of its body well-armored, the only thing worth going for is its eyes."

  The half-imp exhaled slowly, seeming concerned. “If that's your plan, then you'll need to be careful. Even its face is armored. A deflected arrow could hit Azure.”

  Azure drew his hand up to his chest in mock surprise. “Aw, are you actually worried about me?”

  "Shove it," Uden bit back, his expression all seriousness. "This isn't a game. Your life will be on the line. More than ours. If you fail, I doubt we'll be able to kill it."

  The amusement left Azure's face. It was strange to see the half-imp so troubled. It certainly didn't help to give him confidence going into battle.

  "Here." Lonnell pulled a few of the red health potions out of his Bag of Holding and handed them to Azure. "Just in case I can't get to you in time."

  You have received the following items:

  Potion of Minor Healing

  Quantity: 3/3

  Item Class: Common

  Quality: Average

  Weight: 0 kg

  Uses: Heals 30 HP

  "Well, that's comforting," Azure muttered, grateful for the gift, but unsettled nonetheless. If nothing else was a clear sign of how dangerous this fight was about to be, Lonnell voluntarily relinquishing the potions to him did the job.

  "Are we ready?" Uden asked.

  "As ready as we're probably going to be," Lonnell responded, staring at the floor.

  Azure blew out a breath, trying to steal himself. “We've come this far. There's no going back.”

  "Then activate your Stealth and let's go. We should proceed down the stairs as carefully as possible. No little slip-ups like yesterday." The half-imp glared at Azure. "The dawnflayer will hear us long before it sees us coming. One wrong move will be enough to alert it."

  It didn't move very quickly yesterday, Azure thought, but he didn't bother to point that out. They were all stressed. The last thing they needed was an otiose argument, so he just nodded in agreement.

  Azure began to proceed down the stairs, but the half-imp stopped him by placing a hand on the center of Azure's chest. “There are a few things I need to make abundantly clear to you before we get down there.” The way he was looking at Azure demanded his full attention. “You will succumb to deafness at some point. You will feel panicked and want to run away, but don't. Never before has it been more important for you to trust us. We will do everything in our power to keep the dawnflayer distracted, up to risking our lives. You being able to get close enough to kill it is the most important part of our plan.”

  "I've got it," he acknowledged, feeling confident in his comrades' abilities to do what they said they would.

  "All right." Uden hesitantly turned away from him, as if he had something else to say but then changed his mind, and continued down the stairs.

  Without issue, they made it to the bottom of the stairs. The dawnflayer sat in the middle of the room, cocooned in its wings, an impenetrable barrier to protect it against potential sneak attacks. Uden and Lonnell broke off to one side, staying close to the wall as they made their way around the room. Almost as soon as they did, the creature began to stir.

  Azure held his breath as he took cover behind a stalagmite, wondering how well Stealth actually worked against a beast that saw through sound. For all he knew, it may be useless. He peered around the side of the stone structure, curious about what the open wings would reveal. They unfolded slowly, a low rumble coming from the creature's throat. A massive head bent forward, at first just looking like a large flat piece of armored skin. When the head was finally fully exposed, Azure noted the angular shape of it. Like a box with ears. The neck that supported it was equally as thick and bent at a weird angle as if the head was designed to hang in front of the body to protect it. Two beady yellow eyes about the size of dimes peered out aimlessly, so deep set that the only way you could even tell that they were eyes was because of their placement and how they glowed. Now Azure could see why shooting at them would be pointless. The creature opened its jaw and let out a screech that had him immediately covering his ears.

  Holy shit, that was loud. So loud that some of the bricks in the wall crumbled from the sound of it. So loud that all Azure could hear afterward was a horrible ringing. He expected to see a notice that he had been rendered deaf, but within a few seconds, his hearing returned. He didn't even want to imagine how painful that sound would be at close range.

  The ground shook slightly as the dawnflayer continued to unfold, jutting its wings back and revealing massive clawed paws where a regular bat's thumbs would be. They were easily large enough to crush a man beneath them. With a center of gravity low to the ground, the creature's legs were stubby. Azure could see its soft body beneath its head, but barely. Proportionately, the dawnflayer was about thirty percent head, forty percent wings, ten percent legs, and ten percent body. From what he could tell, it didn't have a tail.

  He waited for his friends to get into position. Due to them being Stealthed, he couldn't
see them, but he knew the signal for him to move would be Uden coming out of hiding. While the half-imp would also be attacking from a distance, he would still need to get close enough for his attacks to connect. His range with his throwing knives wasn't anywhere near as long as Lonnell's would be with Azure's bow.

  The dawnflayer seemed to notice the activity around it that was imperceptible to the naked eye. Very slowly, as if moving was intense labor, it began to turn away from where Azure was standing. Again it screeched, and again the horrible ringing followed. Azure quickly decided that he loathed the creature for its deafening ability and that the sooner he killed it, the better it would be for all of them. Uden, with his genetically heightened hearing, was probably suffering most of all. He wondered if the mere sound that the dawnflayer made from a distance was enough to cause the deafening effect to the half-imp. If so, then he now understood why Uden had been so fearful of the creature.

  Minutes ticked by like hours as Azure waited, holding his breath and praying that the dawnflayer would keep quiet. He admittedly knew little about bats and how echolocation worked, but if he remembered correctly from biology class, the sound that they made was too high-pitched for the human ear to perceive. That didn't seem to be the case with the dawnflayer. Or maybe he had it all wrong. Perhaps it had been making sounds all this time, and this particular screech wasn't designed for it to see, but for it to startle its foes.

  After what seemed like a short lifetime, Azure heard the distinct sound of a bowstring snapping followed by an enormous half-croak/half-screech that made the two sounds that the dawnflayer had made previously seem like a soft lullaby in comparison. Several bricks crumbled in the wall, and a massive stalactite fell from the ceiling, hitting the ground like a dagger and splintering into stone shards some twenty yards away from where Azure was standing.

  Fucks sake, I have to kill this thing as quickly as possible, Azure thought in misery only a moment before he saw Uden emerge from the far side of the room, daggers in hand.

  The creature continued to turn, seemingly unafraid to face its attacker head-on. Azure waited until the dawnflayer's eye was out of sight of him before charging forward. As soon as he left the shadows, Uden started taunting the beast, cursing at it and making all sorts of noise to try to keep its attention. It screeched at him again and began crawling towards him. This forward movement seemed to be a lot faster than its turning had been. With unexpected swiftness, it leaped from the ground, spreading its wings in a fruitless effort to fly, though it did manage to cover a few yards before it fell again. The impact shook the ground enough to knock Uden off of his feet. Stalactites rained down all around them, making Azure turn his attention to the ceiling and have to divert from his beeline path to avoid being hit.

  Lonnell cried out from his hiding spot, trying to drag the dawnflayer's attention away from the easy prey now right below its massive jaw. The creature wasn't that stupid, though. While its foes seemed thoroughly distracted by the small earthquake it had caused, it opened its mouth and went in for the kill. Seeing Uden in the path of death, their plan went out the window. Giving up the element of surprise that had been insisted was needed to defeat the beast, Azure used what momentum he had to jump on its back, trying in vain to plunge his blade into the dawnflayer's wing and praying that the pain would be enough to distract it from Uden just in the nick of time for him to escape being devoured.

  The effort was wasted. Not only did the creature's skin look like armor, but it worked just as well as a shield, deflecting Azure's blade entirely. In fact, the dawnflayer didn't even seem to perceive him as a threat, continuing the downward sweep of its jaw that Azure was certain would spell the half-imp's demise. His heart clenched in his chest as his eyes shot to Uden's health bar in his peripheral vision while he slid down the beast's body. Somehow, the small red bar didn't diminish or disappear.

  Feeling a newfound rage and desperation, Azure threw caution to the wind, ducking beneath the creature's wing to get closer to its body. The scent of its breath was like being in the dungeon with the large bats times ten.

  You have been infected with sickness. You will now move 5% slower and will lose one health point per second for the next 10 seconds.

  Nausea roiled through Azure's stomach, but he knew better than to pay attention to it. He heard the bowstring snap again and barely had time to see Uden scurrying away before the creature jutted its head forward and screamed in anger, the force of which was so intense that it created a mirage effect like heat haze on a car's hood. For a moment, the dawnflayer's head had a distorted shimmer to it, as if not made up of solid matter.

  Level 9 Dawnflayer delivers 20 damage. You are now deaf. This effect will last for 10 seconds.

  In an environment that had previously been so loud, to hear nothing was unsettling. Azure took half a second to piece together what had just happened before refocusing on his task. Judging by the direction that Uden had run from, he must have managed to roll out of the way before the dawnflayer's jaws clamped down. Relief might have flowed through Azure if he wasn't the one now in the beast's attack radius.

  Not wasting another second―because he probably didn't have another one to waste―Azure grabbed the hilt of his blade with both hands and used all of his strength to plunge it up into the dawnflayer's side. Taking the time to search for a vital organ might have been smarter, but a mix of fear and adrenaline were now all that was driving Azure. He assumed that the creature screamed again when he stuck it, and apparently it had because he was met with another notice.

  Level 9 Dawnflayer delivers 20 damage. You are now deaf. This effect will last for 10 seconds.

  As soon as his sense of smell returned, it seemed to immediately flee again with a sharp acrid odor and another notice.

  You have been infected with sickness. You will now move 5% slower and will lose one health point per second for the next 10 seconds.

  The creature moved, its rock-like body practically dragging him along. He tried to plant his feet, but it was no use. If the blade had hit a vital spot, the dawnflayer was showing no signs. It bent its head towards Azure, but there was no reaching him where he was tucked under its wing. Some safe spot he'd been lucky enough to find. Attacking the beast directly from the front would not have been smart, Azure realized as the neck began to swing around. In an attempt to fend him off, the dawnflayer began folding its wings. Azure struggled to pull his blade free. Everything was closing in around him, and panic started to set in as he realized what the dawnflayer's next move would be. It would crush him to death within its egg cocoon to protect itself since it couldn't reach him with its fangs or claws.

  Azure fell to his knees to avoid the dawnflayer's head bearing down on him. He struck at the beast again, driving his blade up into its stomach and then, while clutching onto the pommel of his sword, rotated his body and tugged toward its other side to keep away from its inwardly folding wings. This seemed to have a much greater effect than the first stab. The dawnflayer shook with pain. Just as Azure's hearing returned, it screeched again. Before being rendered deaf, he heard the desperation in its cry.

  Level 9 Dawnflayer delivers 20 damage. You are now deaf. This effect will last for 10 seconds.

  Sickness seemed to follow in tandem.

  You have been infected with sickness. You will now move 5% slower and will lose one health point per second for the next 10 seconds.

  Despite the thickness of the beast's skin, fat entrails began to push through, spilling out toward Azure with a gush of red-black blood. Its wings flared, the force of which threw Azure to the ground. More of its intestines fell from the gash. Azure went to retrieve his sword, feeling that the job of killing the dawnflayer should be nearly done. Again, he found himself having a hard time pulling the blade out. The creature whipped its head back and forth, screaming through the pain. A blow to the side of Azure's skull sent him reeling to the floor again.

  Level 9 Dawnflayer delivers 45 damage.

  His sword clattered to the ground,
followed by even more of the creature's innards. It stomped its feet, moving way too much, Azure thought, for a monster on death's door.

  "Leave it," he heard Uden call to him.

  Ignoring his friend, Azure dove for the weapon, narrowly avoiding being hit by the dawnflayer's massive head again. It beat its wings, making it hard for him to keep his balance. Now that he'd retrieved his sword, Azure's only goal was to get away. Leaving the same way he had come from wasn't an option. Dipping beneath the beast's wing exposed him to the possibility of being hit by it, and he was pretty sure it would deliver just as much damage as the side headbutt had. His health was almost seventy-five percent depleted, and the dawnflayer hadn't even managed to get a direct hit on him.

  Mustering all of his strength, Azure made a beeline directly in front of the dawnflayer, hoping to avoid the frantic flapping of its wings. He didn't even look back, which he realized had been a big mistake when he felt a hard blow to his back. His body flew forward, his health bar dropping another forty-five points. The next scream he heard wasn't the dawnflayer's, but his own. Pain shot up his legs like nothing he had ever felt before. As he laid on the floor, all Azure could see was red, and that wasn't his health bar blinking rapidly in the corner of his vision as it fell until he only had twenty health points remaining.

  While he had plenty of stamina left to move, it was not physically possible. For several moments, Azure just laid there in shock.

  "I told you to leave it, you moron," Uden chastised him as he rushed to Azure's side.

  The dawnflayer made a pitiful groan behind him, and pain raked through Azure's body again. His vision was fading in and out as was his ability to feel anything. It was a blessing and a curse at the same time. Azure had seen the white lights in his vision before when he had been a preteen in band class and almost passed out from nervousness when he had his first drum solo.