Dragon Apocalypse (The Berserker and the Pedant Book 2)

by Josh Powell

  The elven woman walked up behind Arthur and put an arm over his shoulder. “Hello, Pel,” she said. It was Melody, Pellonia’s older sister.

  Pellonia’s eyes grew wide. “I thought you left on the elven ship, with one of the other Pellonias.”

  Melody smiled, a self-satisfied malignant smile, nothing like the light hearted grin Pellonia remembered. Then Pellonia saw it. Between Melody’s teeth, a tentacle flicked back and forth where a tongue should have been. She’d been taken over by one of the Phage, her mind controlled and turned to their evil purpose. The Melody she knew was no more.

  Gurken’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve taken her sister? I’ll kill you.”

  “Now, now, Gurken. I really don’t see how you’re capable of that in your current state. No rage, no ‘dwarfen’ runes, no nothing. It’s rather sad, really,” Arthur said. He pointed at Gurken and said in a bored voice, “Fulgur.” A bolt of lightning shot from an orb, striking Gurken and knocking him back. Gurken shook upon the ground, trembling as the lightning coursed through him. “Your ‘dwarfen’ runes can’t protect you anymore, can they?” Arthur laughed, using his fingers to put air quotes around the word ‘dwarfen.’

  “Let it go, Arthur. You do hold a grudge overly long,” said Pellonia.

  Maximina fired a crossbow bolt at Arthur’s head, handed the crossbow to a servant, took the second crossbow and fired it as well. The orb of ice circling Arthur’s head, shot a beam intercepting the bolts, freezing them solid, and knocking them to the ground as quickly as Maximina could fire them. Maximina stopped and glared at Arthur, who did not even acknowledge her presence. Ohm continued strumming his lute, the tune taking on a character of apprehension and foreboding.

  “I do like your bard,” Arthur said. “Quite a catchy tune. Good fellow, are you in need of a patron?”

  “It’s her!” Pellonia heard another voice coming out of the hole. A girl looking exactly like Pellonia poked her head up. “It is!” followed by another Pellonia. “I can’t believe it!” A third Pellonia’s head popped up. They scurried out of the hole at the same time, getting in each other’s way as often as not.

  The three Pellonia’s walked over to Arthur, smiling at Pellonia.

  “We’re all reunited at last.” “One big happy family.” “It’s good to see me, again,” the Pellonias said.

  Pellonia curled her lip. “They got you too?”

  Maximina’s jaw dropped as she looked from Pellonia to Pellonia to Pellonia to Pellonia. “Four Pellonias!” she exclaimed.

  “Five, actually” Arthur said. “One made it onto the elven ship. My mistake, I’d meant to make one copy, that way one could stay here and one could go there, but since I had four orbs with me there was a bit of a feedback loop and poof. Five Pellonias.”

  “Don’t worry, Pellonia,” said Melody to Pellonia. “The other Pellonia is helping us as well. She created the portal that took me from the elven ship to here. Arthur, dearest, do you think we can do anything with a portal that extends such great distances?”

  “I do,” Arthur said. “I do believe we can, oh, I don’t know, say, open a portal to the Phage homeworld and let them through?”

  Melody looked at Pellonia. “We’ll get you first, Pell. You can take your rightful place alongside us.”

  “Never!” Pellonia yelled.

  Arthur, Melody, and the other Pellonia’s laughed and laughed.

  The crowd, noticing the destruction of the tree beast, and the dissipation of the green mist, began to reform. They began to clap and cheer and whistle. “Huzzah! The Lightning Brigade has returned! They did it! We’re saved!” They pushed past The Ice Capaders, knocking them over in a rush to get to Arthur.

  They surrounded Arthur. “How did you do it? How did you survive down there so long? What did you use to kill the plant beast?” The crowd peppered him with questions before a nobleman stepped out.

  “Fellow Arendalians,” he began. “Our fair heroes, The Lightning Brigade, have returned triumphantly, quite triumphantly, from their quest. Unlike some,” he said, staring at Lord FitzClarence who had come to stand next to Pellonia, “unlike some, they completed this quest at great risk to life and limb. Some foolishly thought them dead and defeated, but those people, at no small humiliation and injury to their personal pride, have been proven wrong. Come, let us carry our saviors and return them to the great hall for a great feast.”

  Arthur, Melody, Rufus, the three Pellonias, and the hooded one were hoisted into the air, onto the shoulders of the crowd. Someone tried to lift Pellonia into the air, but the other Pellonias hissed, “No, not her!” and they dropped her to the ground and ran over to help carry The Lightning Brigade.

  The other nobleman leaned towards Lord FitzClarence and said, “I do apologize, your lordship, but I believe the feasting hall is full. You’re welcome to come, of course, but your adventuring troupe simply must remain behind.” With a wicked grin, the nobleman turned and left, following the crowd to the great hall.

  Pellonia, Gurken, Maximina, Ohm, and Lord FitzClarence stood in stunned silence.

  “What just happened?” Lord FitzClarence asked.

  Walking back to the estate of Lord FitzClarence, along with the rest of The Ice Capaders and the Lord himself, Maximina asked, “What now?”

  “Now, we must find another quest for you,” Lord FitzClarence explained. “This quest may have been stolen right from under our noses, but there’s always another quest.”

  “We’ve got to do something about them,” Pellonia said. “They’re plan is to bring about the destruction of the world.”

  “I do believe we’ve found our quest,” Gurken said.

  “Not at all,” said Lord FitzClarence. Pellonia looked at him, furrowing her brow. Lord FitzClarence continued, “A quest must have a more precise goal than ‘do something about them’.”

  “How about we kill them?” Maximina asked. Gurken growled in appreciation of the idea.

  Lord FitzClarence shook his head. “That’s not a quest, that’s an assassination. Strictly against the law. Now, if, while on a quest, you happen to encounter The Lightning Brigade and they happen to die, that’s perfectly acceptable.”

  “Well,” said Pellonia. “What shall we quest for then?”

  Lord FitzClarence smiled. “I’ve got just the thing. There exists an item that is not of this world, it absorbs all magic cast in its direction. That will aide you in any encounters with Arthur. It also happens to destroy any physical object which comes in contact with it, or at least it transports it to another dimension. No one knows for certain. It’s called… The Sphere of Annihilation.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Berserker and the Sphere

  “AND YOU’RE SURE it’s round?” Gurken asked.

  “Of course it’s round,” Lord FitzClarence said. “It’s a sphere.”

  “We’ve learned to be careful about such things,” Pellonia replied. “Might you have a picture of it?”

  “It’s a sphere of darkest night, no light escapes its pull.”

  “That’s very poetic,” Maximina said. “Nevertheless, a picture would go a long way in helping us to identify it once it was found.”

  “It’s just a black circle,” Lord FitzClarence said. “It’s not that difficult to identify. Also, if you throw something at it, it’s annihilated, hence the name. Sphere of Annihilation.”

  “A portable hole looks like a black circle; stick it on a wall and throw things at it, and they transport to another dimension,” Maximina said. “That can look a lot like being annihilated, but you can reach through and pull it back.”

  “That sounds more useful,” Pellonia said.

  “No,” said Lord FitzClarence. “The quest is for the Sphere of Annihilation.”

  “Sounds like they look the same. How will we know the difference?” Gurken asked.

  “Well, the portable hole is a circle, so if you walk around it, it looks flat,” Maximina said. “Whereas the Sphere of Annihilation is spherical, so it will
look like a circle from every side.”

  “Circles don’t have sides,” said Pellonia.

  “From every angle then,” Maximina amended.

  “But if we happen to find a portable hole, we can we keep it?” Pellonia asked.

  “Yes! If you find one, feel free to keep it,” said Lord FitzClarence. “In the meantime, however, you’ll be questing to find the Sphere.”

  Some time later, deep in the tunnels under the city of Arendal, a bearlike creature lunged at Pellonia. The creature’s head had somehow been replaced with that of an owl. A bear was intimidating enough on its own, but replacing the creature’s head with one that rotated 360 degrees was beyond horrifying.

  It shrieked and came at her. “Hoo hoo hooooooooooo!”

  Maximina walked along the ceiling, mystical boots clamping her upside down. She pulled an anvil from her magic sack and dropped it on the bearlike creature. The anvil struck the creature’s feathered head, knocking it to the ground. Gurken’s axe cleaved the owl’s head from the bear body with his axe. Blood pooled around it.

  “Owlbear?” Pellonia asked.

  “I believe it’s called a Bearowl,” Gurken corrected. “It’s mostly bear, so that part of the name comes first.”

  “Pellonia’s correct,” Ohm said, bringing his song to a close. “It’s known as an Owlbear. Creatures don’t get their names based upon the surface area of the various part of their body.

  “What about the Floating Eye?” Maximina asked, dropping from the ceiling, doing a flip and landing on her feet. “It’s basically an eye that floats.”

  “One example doesn—”

  “The Crawling Hand is just a hand that crawls,” Gurken said. “Stick to your musicking, bard; let real adventurers handle the adventuring.”

  Ohm scowled at Gurken. “I’ll have you know that bards are quite knowledgeable abou—”

  “A Gelatinous Cube,” Maximina suggested.

  “A cube is not a body part,” Gurken countered.

  “But its body is a cube.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Bardic knowledge is legendary!” Ohm objected.

  “A Shadow!” suggested Pellonia.

  “Oh, good one,” Gurken said. “That’s also basically what is sounds like, a shadow.”

  “Fine,” said Ohm, sighing. “It’s a Bearowl.”

  Gurken nodded. “Well, that’s that, then. If Pellonia’s correct, the Sphere of Annihilation should be in the chest the Bearowl was guarding.”

  “That’s what it says on the map. Lord FitzClarence even had his artist draw a picture of the Sphere on it,” Pellonia said, pointing at a solid black circle next to an illustration of the Owlbear.

  Pellonia pointed at the chests. “But there are two chests here. The map only shows the one.”

  “Maybe one has a portable hole in it,” Maximina suggested, walking towards one of the chests.

  “Wait!” Ohm exclaimed. “I know this one! One of the chests may be… A Mimic!”

  “You think one of the treasure chests is a monster?” Gurken asked.

  “I do,” Ohm agreed.

  “Then shouldn’t it be called a Chest Monster?”

  Maximina snickered. “Or a Cleavage Beast?”

  “It’s called a Mimic,” Ohm said. “Because it can mimic inanimate objects. It does so in order to lure in its prey.”

  “Who named these things, anyway? The names are ridiculous,” Pellonia said.

  “If the person that named those monsters had named dragons, they’d have been called Fire Lizards,” said a woman’s voice behind The Ice Capaders.

  They all turned and looked. It was Melody. Arthur, the Pellonias, Rufus, and the mysterious cloaked figure stood next to her.

  “I believe Harold named them,” Melody said. “He hasn’t much of a penchant for creativity. Though, to be honest, using the word ’dwarf’ to describe a species of short people isn’t exactly the height of ingenuity, and that was Durstin’s idea.”

  Gurken turned and raised his axe. Pellonia pulled out her knives. Maximina shuffled over to the wall. Ohm strummed a tune. Apocalypse sat on Ohm’s shoulder and licked himself.

  “Now, now,” said Arthur. “We’re not here to fight. We did come for the Sphere of Annihilation, however, same as you. There must be a way that we, as gentlemen and ladies, can handle this without resorting to violence.”

  Pellonia looked at Arthur, her face contorted in skepticism. She said hesitantly, “Without… violence?”

  “Look, just because I’m Phage doesn’t mean I’m a bad guy. I want what’s best for my species. Our planet is overpopulated and we’re looking for some room to expand. We’re perfectly happy to share this planet with you. Let’s talk about it. In the end I’m sure you’ll see that the best thing to do is hand over the Sphere to us.”

  Two of the Pellonias on Arthur’s side leaned an elbow on the shoulders of the third Pellonia. “Look, Pell,” the three said in unison, “you should come and join us.” The third Pellonia finished, “There will be plenty of room for us once the Phage come back. We’ll be treated as queens.”

  “Heroes of exploration!” said the second Pellonia.

  “Ambassadors to the rest of the world,” said the first Pellonia.

  Rufus and the mysterious cloaked figure stood behind Arthur and the Pellonias and remained silent.

  Pellonia and Gurken looked at each other, Gurken nodded, and Pellonia said, “Very well, what do you propose? We can’t let you have the Sphere of Annihilation, and yet you insist that you must have it. It seems to me that we are at an impasse. How can this not end in violence?”

  “If it comes to that,” Arthur said, “you’ll lose. I outclass each of you on my own, and with the Pellonias, Rufus, and the man in the silken cloak, we’ll destroy you. What I’m proposing is far more fair. A game of luck!”

  “Go on,” Maximina said.

  “Well, here we are now at the chest containing the Sphere of Annihilation. You valiantly fought your way here through the dungeon, and even defeated the — what did you call it? — ah, yes, the Bearowl. We conveniently followed you through the dungeon, not needing to expend our resources as you used yours to defeat the underground denizens.”

  “Clever,” Maximina said, nodding appreciatively.

  “Now we find ourselves, unexpectedly, before two chests. One of them likely a Mimic, as Maximina pointed out. The other containing the Sphere of Annihilation. Let us each choose a chest, open it, and contend with what comes. What say you?”

  Pellonia squinted at Arthur and pursed her lips. Maximina walked over to Gurken and Pellonia and whispered, “We can succeed in this!”

  Pellonia whispered back, “I don’t trust him.”

  Gurken said, “He probably has magics that tell him which chest is the Mimic. He wouldn’t propose a contest if he knew he might lose.”

  Maximina said, “I’ve got a plan. It will work if we get to choose first.”

  “If Arthur does know which chest the Sphere is in, he’ll never agree to us going first.”

  Maximina smiled. “I’ve got a plan for that as well.”

  Pellonia looked at Gurken. Gurken shrugged. Pellonia sighed. “Let’s do it,” she said.

  They turned back towards Arthur and Maximina said, “Okay, we agree to your contest, on one condition.”

  “Yes?”

  “We get to pick the chest.”

  Arthur laughed. “I don’t think so. We get to pick.”

  Maximina smiled. I’ve got you now, she thought. “Fine, we’ll flip a coin for it.”

  Arthur considered a moment. “Very well, then, but we use my coin.”

  “We use your coin, but I do the flipping.”

  “You do the flipping, but I call it in the air,” said Arthur.

  “Fine.”

  “Fine. We’re agreed,” said Arthur, pulling out a golden coin and handing it to Maximina.

  Maximina flipped the coin high into the air, and stared at the coin with an intense l
ook of concentration. Arthur called out, “Heads!”

  The coin tumbled back to the floor, bounced off the hard stone surface and spun on its side, coming to a rest sticking straight up. Maximina concentrated for a moment and the coin fell over. Tails.

  Arthur stroked his chin. “Very well.”

  Maximina walked back over to Gurken and Pellonia, tapped herself on the side of the head, grinned widely, and whispered, “It pays to have a telekinetic on the team.”

  “You cheated!” Pellonia growled in a low voice.

  “Hush,” Maximina said. “I did nothing of the sort. No one said we couldn’t use any abilities during the flip. Let’s just say I thought outside the box.”

  “Do you normally do your thinking sitting inside of a box?” Gurken asked. “Seems strange.”

  Maximina gave Gurken an exasperated look. “Yes, I do all my best thinking sitting inside of boxes.”

  “Never mind that now,” Pellonia said. “What’s the rest of your plan?”

  “Shall we fetch you a box, so that you might better consider our next move?”

  Maximina ignored him. “The Mimic will hide its true form until someone touches it. We simply have someone stand next to each chest and simultaneously touch them. The one that doesn’t try to bite us holds the Sphere!”

  Pellonia smacked herself in the head. “That’s your plan? That’s what I get for listening to you. We should have just attacked them. I think we could have taken them.”

  “Don’t kid yourself, Pellonia. They’re much stronger,” Maximina said.

  “We’ve got a dragon on our side!” Gurken said.

  “He’s just a hatchling.”

  “I meant the other dragon.”

  “Ohm? She identifies as a bard now.”

  “She’s not much good as a bard. She should dragon out and help us.”

  “I heard that!” Ohm said, without interrupting the song.

  “Good!” Gurken bellowed, loud enough for Ohm to hear.

  “Alright,” Maximina said. “Here’s the plan.”

  Maximina stood on the ceiling between the chests, holding an anvil. Gurken stood on the ground between the chests with his axe raised, his eyes drawn toward Isa, the dwarfen rune of challenge and frustration, but which also, from time to time, meant treachery, illusion, and deceit. Ohm stood in front of one chest, and Pellonia stood in front of the other. Armageddon flapped his wings, hovering between the two, alert for any sign of movement from the chests. Arthur stroked his chin while the rest of The Lightning Brigade observed from a respectful distance.