I sighed. Sometimes genius goes to waste. Willing the egg containing my friend out of the collar around my neck, I did my best to set it on the ground gently.
“What is this?!” Ampharia was suddenly next to me. “James?”
She touched the egg with her hand, then pulled it back with a deep hiss of pain. “This is dark sorcery, Druid,” her intense gaze fell on me, “and you say your friend—the monk—is inside?”
I nodded, keeping my words to myself. Had James resorted to dark magic to get the strength he felt he needed? It sure seemed that way.
“You will tell us what it was that he did before this happened,” Dinnia’s voice came from my left shoulder. Her hand hovered over the eggshell and pulled away.
I did. I told them about the items he had pulled out. The scales, teeth, blood, and what I had to believe had been the breath glands. All of it.
“We must get him out,” Dinnia stared fiercely, “and find out what tome he was using.”
“But he’s in a damned egg.” I pointed at it for the effect it deserved.
“So we break it.” Ampharia closed her eyes and scented the item before her. “He has matured greatly already.”
“Then why don’t we just wait until he comes out in his own?” The thought of forcibly breaking him out bothered me. Especially since I had already done so once for a loved one.
“You do not understand, Druid—what comes out of that egg may very well not be your friend.” Ampharia grasped the egg with one clawed hand and shifted into her true form, her draconic body taking up the whole of the square. “Take the egg and follow me. Druid Dinnia, come.”
She lifted off, the turbulence from her sudden, rapid motion almost knocking me from my feet. I tapped the egg and willed it into my collar before calling to the others through our earrings.
All call, James is possibly in trouble. I’m going with Dinnia and Ampharia to sort it out. I growled as the others were leaving me behind. Fuck. I’m going with them toward the east. Catch up when you can!
I didn’t have time to get Maebe as well. I just hoped that maybe someone would grab her. I hopped into the air and shifted to follow them.
After flying for a solid fifteen minutes, we landed in a flat area of the woods. I summoned the egg, and we thought for a moment on how to do it.
I gave the others a more detailed path to get here, and they said they were coming.
For shits and out of curiosity, I cast a fire spell on it. The flames engulf the egg, then seeped into it.
“Magic resistant. Great,” I muttered.
“Truly.” Ampharia’s huge teeth flashed, and she reached her clawed forepaw down to grasp the egg. “Both of you, gather your strongest healing abilities. I will crack this.”
A rush of fear and adrenaline burned through my veins, and suddenly, I had to speak, had to say something—anything—to break the tension.
“Man, if an idiot makes a joke about an omelet in the middle of the woods with a Dragon, a Druid, and a gigantic egg—is there anyone who would understand how hurt I am right now that no one could hear that?”
The others stared at me, and I grunted for them to carry on.
Ampharia hissed as her flesh came in contact with the egg, and after a sickening crack and the release of the putrid-smelling contents, it started to come apart.
I moved closer to start sending heals into my friend when a large shard of egg smacked me in the chest and knocked me down. I’d lost a negligible amount of health, but I was surprised to see that the egg had burst apart like a grenade.
“Why have you disturbed my work,” James growled. He eyed me, then Dinnia, and finally Ampharia. “You should have left me alone.”
“Are you playing with matches, asshole?!” I fired back. He looked to me, and I continued, “Where the fuck did you get that book, and what the hell were you trying to do becoming an egg?!”
Now that the light was hitting him, I realized that he was larger now—more than six feet, muscular, and covered in scales the color of midnight.
“Taking what is my right.” James smiled, his sharp incisors flashing. “He wouldn’t give me his strength, so I’m taking it. And that book was in the library. So don’t worry about it.”
“Researcher or not, you aren’t fucking invincible, man.” I stood up and began advancing on him. “Show us the book.”
“You aren’t the boss of me!” His eyes took on a blackened hue and wings shifted from his back. He blasted forward and had me by the throat immediately. “You think because the elementals favor you that the rest of us can’t touch you?”
I saw the manic look in his eyes reach a peak, and I noted a darkness that hadn’t been there before. I put both hands on his arm and began to charge Purify. After the ten seconds of him holding me by my throat, my vision began to blur as he gripped tighter. I released the pent up spell, spending the 600 MP for the spell to hit him.
He blinked once; his grip loosened enough for me to extricate myself and flop to the ground, sucking in air greedily. My head felt fuzzy and light, but I didn’t have time to dwell.
“That’s—gah—the Dragon talking,” I gasped as I stood unsteadily. He brought his hands to his head and groaned. I pulled the flask out of my inventory, and he was back to being a foe. Luckily, a large vine burst from the ground below him and wrapped around an ankle, then slithered up to his hips. He tried to cut himself free of it and made it through some of the grasping vines before a clawed hand swatted him down on to the ground with a sickening crunch.
“Fuck!” He groaned, and I lumbered over to pour some of the contents of the flask into his mouth.
He tried to bite at me, his teeth appearing sharper than normal. Larger as well. I took that opportunity to do the deed and clamped my hands down around his mouth to force him to swallow his medicine.
I felt the water hit my hand as if he were trying to spit it out, so I socked him in the stomach as hard as I could with my left hand. He gasped and in his pain, swallowing the water. I backed away, but Ampharia kept two of her claws on his lower body as he thrashed.
Wracking coughs and retching made me almost turn away and vomit from watching James heave bursts of black ooze and blood. His health was falling slowly, but I cast Purify on him once more, and he seemed to get whatever it was in him out a little easier.
I summoned the shadows around us and had them eat away the ooze as it gathered. It was done in seconds, and James seemed to be feeling better.
“Give me the book, James,” Ampharia ordered. Her claws dug into the ground on either side of the fallen monk.
He opened his inventory with his pinned arms and summoned the item. The book, a small tome, slightly larger than a comic with maybe a hundred pages inside, fell to the ground.
Ampharia relinquished her crushing hold on James, and he stood slowly.
He came over like he wanted to say something, but I waved it away. No apology necessary. Seemed to be a common thing with our group lately.
The Dragon shifted into her Dragon-kin form and took the book in her hands. Opening it, she hissed vehemently.
“Dark magics like this—abyssal.” She regarded James coldly. “Where did you find this?”
“It was on the shelves in the Djurn Forge library. It was the first book I found there when I went to start researching things.” He shrugged and pointed at the book as he moved closer to her and it both. “It taught me a lot and always let me read it perfectly.”
“That’s the sorcery behind an object like this. It’s an ancient artifact that brings the reader under its influence slowly.” She looked him in the eyes, hard. “It needs to be destroyed.”
“No!” James lunged forward, but a large bear reached out and grasped him as he struggled. “Let me go! That book has helped us so much! I can keep it under control! Please!”
“You finding and killing the Dragon and needing power was likely the perfect catalyst it needed to take control.” Ampharia began to tear the pages from the item as James scr
eamed, fighting against Dinnia in her bear form ferociously.
The pages began to flutter in her clenched fist as if they were trying to fight back as well.
“Stop!” James bellowed, his wings thrashing a little. I stepped in and put a hand on his chest to keep him away. “It can be saved! It can be useful.”
Ampharia then held the pages out before her, and a green flame enveloped her hand, eating the pages greedily. An otherworldly screech pierced the air making all of us but the Dragon groan in anguish.
The screech stopped, and a demon-like shadow dissipated in the air above the Dragon, her smile cruel and triumphant. “It is done.”
James felt to the ground on his knees at a loss for words. “That book helped us. Made me stronger.”
“It did. I can see it obviously worked. Right?” I tapped his arm, and he smiled. “But you’re better off. What kind of stat boosts did you get?”
“Oh yeah. I’m stronger, faster, and my defense is way higher now. Let’s see,” he opened his status screen and started figuring slowly, “I’m five points stronger, two more dexterous, and my natural defenses have gone up to plus thirty! But it says here that the transformation was incomplete. So I could’ve gotten more.”
“You would likely have been fully changed and taken over,” Dinnia added quietly. The rest of us looked at her, and she pointed to the shell.
What was left of it was beginning to decay rapidly and slough on to the ground in liquid and gelatin-like chunks of sludge.
I motioned toward the disgusting item, and the shadows went to work happily, devouring it all whole and leaving no trace of evidence.
“That’s fair. Thanks for helping me out of there. And that water helped a lot. But that was all, I think.”
After thinking about it, James likely had coughed the majority of the water out as he got whatever was infecting him out, but I didn’t want to risk it, and even trying to summon the Water Primordial seemed stupid. We would just have to be satisfied.
“I’m gonna recenter my Ki, then walk back to the village on my own.” He must have seen the worry in my features because he added, “Just go, man.”
He sat on the ground where he stood, then closed his eyes, tuning the rest of us out.
“I’m going to collect Sharo. Then I will return to the village. It should take no longer than an hour or so.” Dinnia shifted into her own bird form and flew off swiftly.
Ampharia just looked bored but laid down, “I will watch over him. There is much he needs to learn of what it means to be a Dragon. I should have offered him knowledge despite his scales when first we met. Go, Druid.”
She closed her eyes, snorting softly and began breathing steadily.
I shook my head and gave James a last glance. He looked to be doing fine, so I took off.
Things are fine. He’s okay but wants to be alone with his thoughts, I called to the others telepathically. You guys can head home.
Fuck! Muu shouted. I flinched. You took me away from my nap for that? I’ll get mine!
Shut the hell up, fool, Yohsuke growled. You sure you guys are cool? We’re like, two minutes out.
I grimaced. Yeah, buddy, it’s kosher. He needs to deal with some stuff. Ampharia is with him so he’ll be okay.
I lifted into the sky on warm thermals and headed toward the village.
As I circled the place, I noted something going on in a large clearing to the east of the village, just outside the wall that had a fence attached to it. There were dozens of children of all ages sitting enraptured as shadows moved and fought each other.
As I closed the distance, the figures became the black Dragon Riktolth and my friends and I fighting him. It was wild to see from a different perspective, but now that I could—I realized even more how badass my friends were, how far they had come, and how crucial they were to all of this.
“Then Master Erebos chopped into his tail, and with Master Yohsuke’s assistance—helped carve far enough through it that Master Muu could help sever it completely.”
As she spoke, the shadow marionettes reenacted the battle almost perfectly. The only thing missing was the actual danger. She made it look as though we were invincible. Untouchable. She made it look as if getting kicked by that Dragon hadn’t almost killed me or that getting back up hadn’t been excruciating.
At the time? Nah. Being in a life or death fight—especially against a Dragon—had the ability to slightly dull pain for a bit. It’s not really needed in the moment.
But seeing my friends getting smacked around—battered, crushed—was painful in a different way but also cathartic. We had made it through—together—and that was awesome.
I landed on a large limb where I shifted from owl to fox, then to panther so I could lay comfortably to observe Maebe moving through the children and narrating events.
Their cries of amazement and anxiety over what was going on before them reminded me of watching my boy enjoy a movie. The pain of losing him—of maybe never seeing him again—hit me hard. I didn’t know it was possible to cry as a panther, but I was.
I sighed as I finished my wallowing. I would always worry, but there was nothing I could do now other than do what we came to do.
I came back into events as Maebe was finishing, “And so, the party vanquished the horrific Dragon and saved the island and oceans around it!”
The children stood and clapped loudly. Some of the elder ones whistled and all of them crowded closer to the narrator to ask questions. The smallest among them, a tiny human boy of maybe six or so, grasped at Maebe’s hand.
The Queen of Ice and Shadow bent toward the little boy who asked, “What was your favorite part? And how did they win?”
Maebe thought for a moment before smiling at him. “My favorite part was sharing the story with all of you, and I think they won because they work together a lot. They may not be perfect, but they work hard. And I think if you wait, one of them may be here to tell you something about that himself.”
I felt the cool embrace of the shadows behind me nipping at my tail. A purr rumbled in my chest as I slunk down on to the ground from my spot.
Several children gasped at the sight of me in my panther form, so I shifted into my fox-man form, and they relaxed immediately—the little boy especially. His face lit up with wonder.
“Hello, everyone.” They waved as I did, and the little boy, still clutching Maebe’s hand, stared wide-eyed.
“You had a question for him?” Maebe prompted him.
He stepped forward and kicked the ground nervously.
“It’s okay. I think I heard it.” I motioned for everyone to sit down, and I sat in front of him. “You wanted to know what her favorite part was and how we won, right?”
He nodded and sat down in front of me as I spoke, “Well, my friends are all really strong. And Auntie Maebe is right—it’s because we work together a lot, but do you know why that’s so important?”
Some of the older kids may have known where I was going with this, but they stayed quiet. I was grateful for that.
“Because when we work together, things are easier. See, I’m only as strong as all of my friends are, and it’s the same for them with me. Think of it like a chain, right?” The kids nodded. “One link alone isn’t all that strong, but if you have a whole bunch of links working together—they can hold really heavy things!”
“That means you have to be strong too, right?” a voice in the crowd called.
“Yeah, but it’s not about me.” I rubbed my chin for a second, then snapped my fingers. “I’m really good at healing and shapeshifting, I’m kinda strong and kinda fast, and I have decent magic,” they nodded along as I listed my strengths, “but Yohsuke is so much faster than me, and he can hit someone with a spell so hard that they get dizzy.”
I rolled my eyes and spun my head wildly; the children giggled at the display. “And Jaken is so good at healing and being a shield for us that we stay healthy for a long time. And Muu? He can jump reeeeeally high! Like a bird,
but he’s all scales. And he’s really strong. You saw how he threw his spear at that Dragon, right?
“Bokaj can fire lots and lots of arrows in a matter of seconds because he’s so fast! Not to mention, he’s a really good singer, right?” They nodded; one little girl mimicked an air guitar, and it was the cutest thing. “James is so fast, and he punches really hard. I should know. We spar together to stay strong. And our other friend Balmur is so sneaky that he can move through shadows.”
“Like a kitty cat?” the little boy in front of me asked.
I chuckled. “Like a kitty cat.”
He puffed his chest out proudly, then his head quirked to the side. “So, if everyone else is so good at one thing, then how do you win? Don’t you have to be good at everything?”
I grinned at him. “Nope!” He frowned, so I continued, “It’s because we all work together and know when to let our friends do what they know best that we win. Remember—together, you’re stronger. Like, if you have a friend who is good at playing the drum, you know how to sing, and that guy over there can play a string instrument well. Individually—alone—you might sound okay, but together? Oh man, together, you can make some really sweet music.”
More than a dozen children nodded slowly; the boy before me was awestruck.
“That’s enough for today children,” I heard a voice call. An Elvish woman I didn’t recognize right away ushered the children toward the village.
“She’s one of the guards I brought through. She is here specifically to shepherd and care for the young ones,” Maebe explained as she laced her fingers through my own.
“How did you know I was here?” I watched the children leave, romping and flitting about.
“Who didn’t know?” She eyed me teasingly. “I heard you sniffling. Even as a panther, you were an audible mess. Are you unwell?”
“We can talk about that later. For now, drink some of this—it’s a reward from the Water Primordial.” I handed her the flask of water.
She sniffed the liquid, then looked me in the eyes as she tipped it past her lips. Her eyes closed as she drank deeply. At last, she stopped, and the temperature around us dropped so steeply I could see my breath and hers.
Into the Hells Page 27