The Dragon Within

by SlyOkami

  “I apologise…I’ve always been…” Makaela began to say with an awkward smile.

  “No, I’m not telling you to take control of your thirst.” Erik cut her off, “Instead, I want you to make use of it.”

  “Make use of it? How?” Makaela asked, unsure of what he was speaking of.

  “Over the millennia, the xilfir have only focused on their connection with me and the basic element of Darkness that you are highly attributed with, to gain strength. This is foolish.” Erik reprimanded, “Makaela, using my strength for your own will get you nowhere, your connection with me is unlike Thea’s. You are highly limiting yourself. Also, your race’s high attribution to Darkness is a side product. Not your core strength.”

  “Then what is? If not our blood and not the shadows which we delve in, what are we truly capable of?” Makaela asked, not following his line of thought.

  “Darkness, Xilfir, Dark Elves. I did not name you after your attribution with the element of dark that lies within mana. Makaela, see past the element of darkness, you will find the power not through combining it with other elements but by understanding darkness at its very core.” Erik explained, “Makaela, the xilfir are named not after the resource that is dark mana, but instead after the school of Dark magic.”

  With that, Makaela caught on. “But Dark magic is divided into many other sub-schools like…hemomancy, necromancy and death magic?”

  Erik smiled, “Yes, you are thinking along the correct lines now. Your people have focused on the sub-school of Shadow magic which is sourced by dark mana, where instead you are capable of so much more. It has all been there for you to figure out, yet only one ever has. Makaela, other than the source which is dark mana, what else is there in common between the schools of Dark magic?”

  Makaela shook her head, she only knew four of them and had only ever mastered one.

  “Unholy, Psychic, Shadow, Necrotic, Blood and Death. Those are the subschools of Dark Magic.” Erik listed, “What is there in common with each? Other than the resource that is dark mana which each of these kinds of magic use, what else is required to successfully cast these spells from?”

  “Cast from?…” Makaela mumbled out, repeating what she singled out as the key phrase in his question. “Dark Magic cannot be cast by…minions and golems? You can enhance a golem with Unholy but it cannot cast the magic itself…Just how a Lich still needs their…soul…to cast necromancy.” realisation struck her, “Soul. Head of the Pact’s Soul body, Etheria…She was the first true born, the most powerful…”

  Erik nodded, “Only one ever realised this before you, and Etheria was that one. Soul Magic, a power the Gods themselves fear. So much so that, during the first age they pushed every race capable of such power into extinction. But, they missed those with dormant capability. The Elven race being one of them. This is the power I awakened within your people, the Dark Elves, the power over souls.”

  Erik suddenly snapped his fingers, “Within each spectre is a maddened soul crying to be fed, listen and you might hear their cries.” he said as hundreds of spectres suddenly formed all around them.

  Makaela blinked, and Erik was suddenly gone.

  His voice echoing out of each spectre that now surrounded her, “Do not drown in bloodlust, let the river take you. Do not fight it, but instead flow with it. You’ll swim faster if you go with the current, let the hunger lead you.” he said in elven.

  Promptly after, the spectres then lunged at her.

  “Because I won’t be stopping the spectres this time.” He warned.

  -

  * * *

  -

  A few minutes earlier

  Nerick walked through the gravel road, a city of ruins laying all around him. He kept his distance from the buildings, spinning about, watching every corner, every shadow. Ivara lay over his head, the baby wyvern also watching, glancing from roof to roof.

  He sensed nothing, untrained in the detection of magic. He also though heard and saw nothing out of the ordinary. But he knew something was out there, through intuition and experience alone, Nerick knew.

  And he was right, as suddenly the ground beneath him began to quake.

  Nerick was thrown off his feet as the very ground rose, the road expanding upwards as the buildings shattered and collapsed around him. He leapt away, finding himself soaring further than he anticipated he would. Higher than he thought he could ever jump.

  And as he soared through the air he saw, It rising from below. The road, the buildings and everything else below, it all rose with legs and arms. A massive golem of earth and stone. Its body cracked and flowed, the earth within it ever moving, the stone forming plates of armour around it.

  Nerick landed facing the giant, an ant before its size. He stared up at it, as it fully rose to its feet. “No fucking way.” He said with disbelief clear in his tone, never in his lifetime had he seen a golem. Magic so ancient, it was only told of in fiction.

  Yet fiction now stood before him, a goliath, raising its joined fists over him.

  And as those same massive fists descended upon him, all Nerick could think of, was run.

  And run he did, turning tail and dashing away. He ran, faster than he ever had Nerick ran. Feeling the raw magic surging through his muscles, without chanting a word, without even casting a spell Nerick was infused.

  Ivara had to hold on tightly as to not be thrown off by his sudden speed, then leap off just in time too, since he ran straight into a wall.

  Nerick crashed through the brick wall, tumbling over from the impact to then find himself buried in rubble. Yet he did not feel squashed, nor injured. No instead he rose out of the stone rubble with ease, surprised at his new strength he gazed at the large stones that just lay over him.

  Only brought back from his daze by Ivara’s whining, just then remembering as he looked up.

  He hadn’t escaped the golem yet, and its fists were still descending upon him.

  Nerick grabbed hold of the wyvern and turned to run once again, but as he glanced behind himself he saw that it was too late. The golem sped up its arms’ descent, and Nerick’s thoughts flashed before him as seemingly a mountain fell upon them.

  He was going to die, and even if he shielded Ivara with his body, she too would die. Nerick now understood the burden he had accepted; his own life wasn’t the only thing he had to protect now.

  He had gained power, but he was still a burden.

  He understood that, he just didn’t accept it as reality.

  Nerick rested Ivara around his neck, then faced the golem’s fists, now inches away from his face. His mind raced faster than ever before, it was like time had slowed down for him. He felt it, the heat that lay around the golems fists, the sheer pressure that they created in their descent.

  He needed to equal it, he wanted to equal it. He raised his arms up and lowered his stance, closing his eyes too. Nerick told himself, as sure as death itself, that he would equal it.

  The ground quaked, the very air shook.

  He felt both, he felt, he was still alive.

  Nerick opened his eyes, finding a large shield of dark green scales attached to his right arm. He felt it, he felt the golem pushing down upon him. But what should’ve been the weight of a castle, beneath this shield Nerick barely felt any of it.

  He pushed the golem’s fists off him, unbalancing the giant and sending it back and stumbling away.

  Grinning with glee as the shield suddenly morphed into a wyvern, Ivara climbing up his arm and taking perch around his neck.

  “So that’s what Erik meant.” He mused, glancing at Ivara as it licked his cheek. “That’s bloody amazing.” He said with disbelief.

  Ivara then glanced up, leapt off him, and sprinted away.

  Nerick watched after her in confusion, not having the time to realise his mistake, not before the golem’s foot crushed him down into the ground he stood on.

  Ivara watched painfully as the golem raised its foot up, revealing Nerick halfway into the ground an
d reaching out towards her.

  She covered her eyes with her paws as the golem’s foot stomped on Nerick once more. Peeking through one eye, she saw it raise its foot again, now only Nerick’s head being visible as his body lay nailed into the ground.

  Erik sighed, appearing before the buried Nerick. He stared down at the man with raised brows, expectation all but lost from his expression, replaced with the disbelief he now wore. “How have you survived so far?” Erik asked, his tone dead serious.

  Nerick coughed out some dirt he had almost swallowed, “Uhh…Lucky I guess?” he offered, struggling to pull himself out of the ground.

  Erik took a deep breath, (“This is going to be a long two months.”) he thought to himself. Waving his hand forward, Nerick suddenly rose out of the ground, left hovering before him. “You’re distracted, focus on the task at hand. Really, I told you that you could change Ivara into anything you wanted, yet you were still surprised after doing so by your own will?” he asked as the golem above them took a step back.

  Nerick opened his mouth to respond, “No…actually, don’t answer that.” but Erik denied him from doing so. He then lowered his hand and released his hold over Nerick, who’s feet then touched the ground. “You are not human anymore, Nerick, your body has been forcefully altered into something much stronger. But that doesn’t mean you’re indestructible, you can very much still die. You can just take a couple more stomps from a golem than your general human could.” Erik warned.

  “Oh, wait if I’m not human then what I am?” Nerick asked, glancing down at his own hands, studying the strange characters that painted them.

  “You are a Djinn,” Erik answered simply.

  “Djinn?” Nerick repeated, grabbing a lock of his now long black and silver hair to examine it.

  “Raw magic floods your veins, imbues your muscles, bones, flesh and skin. Your tolerance to mana is a thousand times that of a human, if even one-tenth of the maximum amount of mana that can run through you, ran through a normal human body? They’d burn alive.” Erik explained, “As for casting magic, please tell me you at least know the basics?”

  “Yeah, I had to start somewhere to learn that I bloody couldn’t!” Nerick claimed, feeling insulted.

  “Well, show me.” Erik insisted, “Cast the simplest projectile spell you know.”

  “Fine,” Nerick shrugged and turned to face the nearest wall, raising his hands open before himself.

  But before he could start to chant, “Oh and, anything you might’ve been told about limiting the mana you flow into your spell? Forget all about it.” Erik then told him.

  “Is that…safe?” Nerick tentatively asked.

  “Trust me.” Erik said.

  Nerick shrugged and returned to facing the wall, right palm over left as he focused. He willed his mana to flow, feeling the energy run through his shoulders then arms, finally converging at his palms. He willed it out of his body, feeling the mana resist from being pushed out. Right then as it resisted, “Fire bolt!” he chanted.

  And instead of cutting off the supply of mana that the spell took to be cast, instead of locking out the words of power from using more than he infused them with. Nerick did as the drake told him, and let it take every drop that lay within his arms…

  Nerick’s vision filled with crimson, what was supposed to be a fist-sized bolt of fire was replaced with a world of flame. The fire grew and grew before him, spewing out seemingly without end out of his palms. The heat thought wasn’t normal either, the blaze burning through even the stone wall and every building behind and around it.

  Everything turned to ash before him, and what was already ash got disintegrated into nothing. For several moments the flames gushed out, then slowly died down.

  Nerick suddenly collapsed backwards, his body going limp from the over exertion of mana.

  Erik, on the other hand, was left smouldering. His face dirtied with ash, his front hair and eyebrows burned. “Well, we don’t have the years it’ll take to get control of that. I can promise you this much.” he warned.

  “Hah…I-I can’t feel my arms!” Nerick said, panic in his voice as he lay on the ground.

  Erik chuckled, “Be grateful it’s just your arms!”

  “You said it was safe!” Nerick argued as Ivara ran up to him. The little wyvern climbing up onto his chest and coiling up, declaring this cushion her property.

  “I never said such a thing.” Erik disputed.

  Nerick was going to respond but, Ivara’s tail now rested on his mouth. He glanced at the wyvern, and it shook its little head at him. “W-What?” Nerick asked.

  “Oh, right I forgot to mention-” Erik began.

  (“You no win argument with dragon.”) Ivara said.

  Nerick’s eyes widened to their limit.

  Ch 29 - Determination

  Thea immediately knew what she was up against.

  The sound of something scraping along the ground and stone, the thought-disruptive hissing and the ever-present feeling that something was watching her.

  Thea was on full alert, standing in the middle of the ruined city’s road. She stood still, awaiting their attack. Not watching, no her eyes were useless in this fight. Thea listened closely for the sound of something dragging along the dirt, for the hissing which changed direction every so often.

  She listened, until the creature finally struck.

  The attack came from behind her, the ruined building exploding into rubble as the serpent rushed through it.

  Thea immediately leapt out of the way, holding her large gunblade ahead of her as the creature’s hard skin expanded, using her blade as a shield from the rush of spikes that passed before her. She caught only a brief glimpse of the large creature before it slithered back into hiding across the road.

  A large serpent, comparable to a fully-grown wyvern in size. Its body was made of rock-like plates which expanded into thousands of stone blades as it spun on itself while lunging, although it was seemingly made of stone, the reality was that the Basilisk’s hide was on par with iron.

  Expertly it slithered about the ruined city, shrinking its own body width to pass through alleyways and doorways, finding her blind spot before suddenly…striking once again.

  A rush of expanding blades charged towards Thea as she turned to meet them, again leaping out of the creature’s path before using her weapon to protect herself from the long spinning blade-like plates. She landed several feet away, facing the creature as this time instead of rushing back into hiding…it turned to face her as well.

  Thea closed her eyes, a tale it was but one that everyone had heard one or twice before.

  A tale it was, but the basilisk’s magical eyes were also an undeniable fact of nature.

  An abyss of dark green light spiralling within the serpent’s eye sockets, awaiting to be unleashed into its prey’s eyes. The creature itself was blind due to this power, but even then, nothing escaped its senses. Listening for her every move, smelling her fear and anxiety. Its tongue tasting the air, feeling her exact position through her body heat.

  The basilisk was a keen and deadly hunter, known to prey upon even wyverns and other powerful beasts.

  It loomed over her, snarling its massive jaw open. Its neck lined with black hair that hung down like a beard and trailing back along its head like a lion’s mane. Its fangs differed, from two main fangs on both jaws, long like blades and made to slit armoured throats. To the rest, smaller but many jagged teeth, like a shark’s.

  Its body expanded to its full size. The plates of stone that acted like both armour and weapons lay open, vibrating with excitement whilst revealing the dark green snakeskin beneath.

  It hissed, the sound penetrating into Thea’s mind, disrupting her thoughts and senses.

  She knew she had nowhere to run.

  Thea knew she couldn’t escape, she didn’t even know which side of the road was closest. Opening her eyes was suicide, turning away and running would prove just as pointless. She only knew that the creat
ure stood before her, a cautious beast, awaiting her next move.

  And if she waited much longer…

  Basilisks were not known for their patience.

  Thea’s mind rushed to a single conclusion, she couldn’t run else it would strike at her back. She couldn’t charge it, or its body would tear her’s apart. And she couldn’t wait any longer either.

  So instead, she switched the hold on her weapon.

  Sensing the movement, hearing her hands and weapon, the basilisk spun its body defensively. A whirlwind of blades and dust suddenly appearing before her, blocking Thea from rushing in to attack, and quickly advancing on her to shred her apart.

  But Thea didn’t need to get close, gripping her weapon as she leapt aside.

  “Flame Burst!” she chanted.

  Her gunblade’s crystal core shone crimson as flames formed at the tips of each barrel, the flames spiralling around one another before suddenly bursting forwards.

  Two projectiles of fire shot forth from her weapon, each colliding with the spinning serpent. The flames though were deflected away from the basilisk’s revealed skin, they exploded and spun with the creature, expanding and rising up its body with the movement.

  The basilisk’s whirlwind of bladed-plates was lit ablaze, and turned against her.

  Thea had evaded the first lunge but unable to open her eyes she stumbled on her landing, falling back as the serpent turned to adjust to her new position. It ended its spin, dissipating the flames that surrounded it, then lunged down at the fallen Thea.

  Thea prepared herself for the crushing jaws that were sure to come down upon her, but never did.

  “You may open your eyes.” Erik said, as he appeared before her.

  She did, finding the basilisk frozen mid-lunge behind him, jaws wide open to devour her. Thea shivered at the monstrous sight.

  “You were the first to fall, Thea. Nerick lasted longer than you, both he and Makaela are still going.” He said with raised brows, disappointment clear in his expression. “And you cannot say that either of you have been given a stronger foe, each I chose specifically for you and is of equal difficulty. Nerick…just failed, his mistake was not paying attention. Yours? You were too cautious.”