There were two things that really concerned me immediately. First, Gregor’s weird reaction to the nanites. Cortana had Daddy’s notes, but he only speculated that something like this might potentially happen. He called it “Nanite Symbiosis”, and suggested that might would affect about one in five hundred thousand people injected with nanites. If he was right, there was little real danger. The nanites had simply become part of Gregor’s body.
The second was Terry’s hair. Whatever she’d used to bleach her hair had done serious damage. Her hair was beyond brittle and she had nothing but split ends. Thankfully, Cortana had an actual solution for that. I had the VI create a bottle of restorative shampoo and conditioner. Since we were in – well, under – a bath house, she could deal with it before bed.
Burin also had an issue with his hair, but his issue was a bit different. He’d used basic ink – squid ink, maybe? – to dye his hair and beard. And it was apparently not sweat proof. The poor dwarf’s hair and beard dripped black gunk. He wanted to keep the look as part of his disguise, but he needed something better. And again, Cortana had a solution. He could easily clean the ink out of his hair with magic then dye it with a proper hair dye.
After the others had dealt with their problems – even Gregor was looking like he had the nanites under control – we met to discuss the next step in our plan. Also, so I could formally introduce everyone to Greta. “Okay,” I said. “So… funny story. I apparently ran off and got married. Sort of. I think. I’m still not sure how official the whole thing is.”
“All that matters is how it feels in our hearts,” Greta said. I think she was just teasing me. Probably.
Terry seemed wary of the woman, but they seemed to come to an understanding to be cordial, if not necessarily friendly. Burin and Gregor said little, but genuinely seemed fine with her. And she seemed to like them well enough. So that hurdle had been comfortably passed.
Terry took time to tell me of the troubles they went through and was giving me a look like I had known how bad things would be for them and had left on purpose to avoid all trouble. I countered by telling her that we’d had to fight a White Witch and a couple trolls. In the end, we agreed to disagree and get to work.
The woman in charge of the Heralds of Summer’s Return had suggested to them that if we killed a dragon by the name of Logrivich that served Elvanna, we could use that as a symbol that the White Witches could be stood up to. That would apparently cause the remnants of the Iron Guard to revolt, which would distract the Winter Guard and pull enough of them away from the Market Square where the hut was located to let us get in.
The dragon was located at the top of a clock tower and had a group of trolls serving him. Burin suggested we have Cortana make us a ton of gunpowder and we just bring down the whole clock tower on his head. Terry was arguing for fighting the dragon directly, and was once more trying to get Gregor on her side.
Honestly, I was fine with either, as long as we were sure we could bring down the tower without hurting any innocents. My only quibble with the plan was that gunpowder wasn’t a terribly good option. Not when Cortana could make something much lighter and more efficient. After all, plastic explosives had worked for Daddy, so no reason I couldn’t use them here and there.
Solveig didn’t have time to talk with us that night, so we told one of her acolytes we’d meet with her in the morning and retired to our rooms – the place was designed to house escaped slaves until they could be smuggled out of the city – to get some rest.
I was awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of Burin crying out. I got up, leaving Greta in bed, and went to see what was going on. In the hallway, I bumped into Terry, who was standing outside his door with a pillow, looking like she was debating whether it was worth the risk that something bad might happen to her if she smothered him. Upon seeing me, she tried to hide the pillow. “Can we talk for a moment?” she asked.
“Sure. But let me check on Burin first.”
The poor dwarf was shaking in his sleep, tossing and turning in agony. I woke him and saw what was bothering him. He had numerous patches of white scales on the exposed parts of his skin. Not only that, but his breath was coming out in a cold mist. “What’s going on?” Terry asked from the doorway.
“Part of the curse of the Burin,” the dwarf replied. “I’ll be fine. Thanks for checking on me.”
“Cortana can give you something for the pain and swelling,” I told him.
“I may ask her about that, thanks.”
Back in the hallway, Terry gave me a dubious look. “What’s really wrong with him?”
“From the looks of it, he seems to have some dragon blood in his ancestry. It’s the same kind of thing you see in some sorcerers. At least, that’s what I learned from studying. Never seen it before, though. So, what did you want to talk to me about?”
“While you were gone, I came to a realization. What with everything that happened, and that strange one armed guy with the Harrow cards and everything… well, I’ve put too much pressure on you. No one needs to be the leader. But despite that, even if I have no right to demand that you lead us, we still need you with us. We can just all do our things and it’ll work out. As long as we’re all here.” She seemed sincere. “Well, maybe not Burin. Think we could trade him for a puppy?”
I laughed and tousled her hair, then went back to bed.
The next morning, I finally got to meet Solveig. After I introduced myself, she pulled me aside. “Please, if I may ask a question?”
“Sure.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I just cannot figure why little girl would ask if I was a goat in disguise.”
I tried desperately, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t contain the laughter. It took me nearly a minute to get under control again. “Sorry, she’s had some bad experiences with goats recently, and is a little wary at this point.”
“I… see. Thank you. I was worried I had caused offense.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’re not a forlarren, so it’ll be fine.” I still couldn’t believe that Burin of all people had executed the unconscious Mierul. Not all that surprised that Terry had strung her corpse from a tree, though.
I joined the others and we began discussing the topic at hand. “So, have you given thought to my suggestion?” Solveig asked us.
“Yes,” Burin said. “We’re pretty sure we can sneak in and plant explosives to bring down the clock tower easily.”
“That… wasn’t what I had in mind,” she objected.
“Safer than fighting a dragon.” He seemed nervous about doing that. “So we have to blow up the tower.”
“The tower currently houses a number of children who have been kidnapped.”
“Guys,” Burin said seriously. “We can’t blow up the tower.”
“But you’ll kill the dragon?”
“Absolutely!” Terry said, surprisingly excited.
Gregor flexed his fist, causing a silver liquid – actually nanites – to form over his hand. “Yes, a dragon sounds like fun.”
I shrugged. “If that’s what it’ll take to get us to the hut, then we pretty much have to. Glad we can save some kids along the way.”
“It’s… not just kids,” Solveig said.
“Oh?”
“They’ve also kidnapped a woman, an opera singer. Her name is Bella Belvorica.”
“Why would they kidnap this woman?” Gregor asked.
“I don’t think they plan to eat her, not like the kids.” It was an obvious dodge, but I didn’t feel like prying.
“They’re eating the kids?!” Terry gasped.
“Yes.” I blanched at her confirmation. I shouldn’t have been surprised, considering the whole thing with the witch’s corpse the previous day. But it still bothered me.
“How do we let you know when we’ve done it?” Terry asked.
“Take this,” Solveig replied, handing Burin some fireworks. “Shoot one into the sky when it’s dead.”
“It will take several hours for the Iron Guard to really get moving,” Greta said. “If you think you can handle the dragon, I’ll go get in touch with a few friends of mine who were with the Guard and see if I can get them prepared so we can get that down to an hour or so.”
Suddenly, Burin set off one of the fireworks. The screeching sound and pop hurt my ears. “Sorry!” he shouted. “I was trying see how it worked!”
“Sounds good,” I said, I said to my lover once the ringing in my ears had dulled. “On the way, do you think you could ask the Rangers to arrange a distraction for us? Just something to thin out the Winter Guard on this side of the city so we can get to the clock tower without attracting notice.”
“I’ll stop by there first. Be safe.” She kissed me goodbye. “I’ll come back here afterwards.”
“See you soon.”
We came up with a plan to deal with the dragon’s wings so it couldn’t escape, then put Cortana to work prepping what we needed. We then headed to the roof of the bathhouse to watch for signs that it was time to move.
It didn’t take long for a plume of smoke to appear on the far side of the city. It wasn’t an elegant solution, but given the time we had, it would do. I just hoped it wouldn’t do too much damage. It was the citizenry who would suffer if it did.
In the courtyard of the tower was a pair of statues of White Witches, the former queen Betyrina and her daughter Zivia. They were famous for their work on constructs and clockworks, so it was likely they were the ones who had built the tower.
Terry walked over and tried striking one of the statues with the butt of her gun. It bounced off harmlessly. “It looked at me funny,” she said in answer to our questioning looks.
Had she seen something I’d missed? I had been mentally working out a new magical formula while we were walking, so it was possible I hadn’t been paying attention. Well, better safe than sorry. I unleashed a volley of force bolts at the statue. They hit and were absorbed.
That wasn’t a good sign.
“Terry! Get away from there!” I hissed as I realized what they were. They were caryatid columns, magical constructs armed with real weapons. They’re like a golem’s cheaper, more expendable cousin. And I had nothing prepared that could hurt them.
Gregor jumped into action and destroyed the first statue before it could even move. He looked like he was unsure as to whether it was even animated. Meanwhile, Burin sauntered over to the other. It animated and attacked him. He retaliated, but his axe did little against the solid stone. Gregor finished it off before it could do much, though.
We made our way inside, carefully shutting the door behind us. Safely inside, the thick walls and the sound of the clock tower would mask any noise we made. Which meant Terry was safe to use her gun again.
She almost had an immediate chance when the door to the left opened. “Don’t move!” she shouted, pointing her gun at the man who walked out, carrying some kind of strange cage. In the cage was a pair of large, still beating hearts, suspended by chains in the center of fields of glowing spikes. I wasn’t sure, but I suspected they were troll hearts. I also suspected the spikes were there to keep the living hearts from regenerating entire trolls.
“A child with a gun?” the man asked, his voice was mild mannered and quite respectful. “Truly, this is a strange land.”
“No sudden movements!” she said.
“Of course. But I cannot tarry forever. I have work to continue.” The man was around Gregor’s height and appeared to be at least part Varisian, perhaps also part Chelish. I couldn’t see his hair due to the hood of his cloak, so I was basing my guess on the features of his face.
I also noticed something that really stuck out. Something that took me far longer to notice than it should have. “Are those tentacles coming out of your arm?” I asked.
“My, yes. As to how they came to be there, well that is an interesting story. One I do not have the time for…”
“Are you Geo?!” I asked.
“Do you know this guy?” Terry asked.
“Not personally. But my father told me about him.”
He set down the cage and approached me. He walked around me and examined me as he spoke. “Lenntu never told me he had a… no, that’s not it. Your features aren’t right for him. But you have the right height…” He reached out with a tentacle, stroking my jaw. Terry flinched at seeing that, but it didn’t really bother me. “Yes, and you have the right bone structure. The color of your skin, the size of your pores, the spacing of your eyes… Yes, yes! Your parents are Kyle and Aurora!”
I nodded. “Yes, excellent deduction.”
“Your eyes and hair. The color of them is fake. His work?”
“Tech from home,” I confirmed.
“There’s something more in your eyes. Like a dark, vast void.” Suddenly he twitched. His expression changed, as did even his eyes. There was something in them that hadn’t been there before, a dark fascination. “And you travel in such interesting company!” His voice had changed. He had become Jack, the alternate personality my parents had told me about.
Daddy had given him that name, after Jack the Ripper. If Daddy was to be believed, Jack once screwed a succubus to death. Which might tell you all you need to know about how insanely dangerous he could be.
“The dwarf holds something within, something dark that is trying to claw its way out, held in place only by wards…I don’t see them. Oh my, you had them carved on your organs! Oh, this fiend must be terrible! I would love to get a look at him. Alas, it would take too long to undo the wards and take a peek.”
Burin looked horrified. His hands gripped tight on the handle of his axe. I shook my head, telling him not to try anything. If Jack attacked us, we’d all die. No sense trying to provoke him.
Jack looked at Gregor. “Your veins keep flashing, just beneath the skin, with a silver-grey sheen. Just what is that, I wonder. Hrm…is that an injection mark? Yes! And the faint scent of – oh, what was the word he used?! – antiseptic! That’s it! This was HIS handiwork?” He asked the last while looking at me.
“An abnormal reaction to a medical device,” I said.
“Yes, yes! Oh my, each of you more fascinating than the last!” he chuckled, a terrible and sinister sound.
He then turned and approached Terry. She aimed the gun at his face. “If you even think about touching me with one of those things, I will blow your head clear off!”
He stopped and stared at her, then began laughing. “You, I like! I accept your challenge. No touching. Let us see what I can see from your eyes, then.” He peered into her eyes for a moment. “Oh my! And no one else has seen it?!” His laughter became uproarious. It sent a chill down my spine.
I understand now why Daddy sometimes still has nightmares about him. I mean, he seemed nice enough, but there was something sinister about him.
“For the entertainment you’ve given me, let me give you something as well,” he told Terry. He reached into his bag and drew out four vials of blue liquid and tossed them to her. “Be careful that you don’t poison yourself now. Well, I have much work to do, so no time to examine you all more thoroughly. A god’s mind won’t separate itself, after all,” he said, picking up his cage.
“You wouldn’t be interested in helping us slay a dragon, Mister Geo, would you?” Burin asked.
“What? You mean that little guy up there?” Jack pointed towards the ceiling. “No, not very interesting. Not very interesting at all! But you all have fun!” His face shifted again. “Give my regards to your parents,” Geo said to me as opened the door to the outside.
His skin – and his clothing, somehow – shifted colors like a chameleon as he stepped out into the lightly falling snow.
We decided to check out the room that Geo had come from. In hindsight, that may have been a mistake. The room – which looked like a barracks – was covered in blood. But the trolls’ remaining organs were piled neatly, organized in some fashion I didn’t care to try to decipher. Their bones were similarly piled, though it appeared those were organized by size.
The trolls’ skins were hanging from the ceiling. There wasn’t a single drop of blood on either, and they had both been removed so neatly that they looked like artificial troll costumes. Not just blood, but nothing clung to them aside from hair in the proper areas. All fat was gone, they were literally nothing more than skin.
So, of course, Gregor indicated that he was going to take them. But first, there was another door. It led to a room with a table and a couple of trolls inside who were eating, blissfully unaware of the carnage that was mere feet away from them.
Terry shot them both before they could react. Her aim was true and both trolls not only died, but exploded from the perfectly aimed bullets. When she was done, the room was as bloody as the room behind us. I think one of them had just long enough to spot the hung skins behind us before hot lead tore that thought from his mind.
We searched for anything useful while Gregor pulled down the skins. The usual stuff was there, but there was something very interesting in the bottom of one footlocker.
You see, someone had put together an entire book of raunchy art involving the White Witch nobility of Irrisen. And it was AMAZING. I’ve seen a lot of porn in my life, but I’ve never seen lewd drawings of this quality before.
I used my phone to scan the book while the others finished looting. I was putting this on the internet when I got home. And maybe we could print a bunch of copies of the book as a gift for the Heralds of Summer’s Return to spread around to tweak the noses of the White Witches.
Across the entry foyer from the door we’d entered was another door. We opened that and spotted a troll sharpening his battle axe. A troll hound – hideous creatures, those – was at his feet, gnawing at a bone whose origin I REALLY didn’t want to investigate.
“Are you friend or foe?” Burin asked. By God, that dwarf was an innocent. The troll’s dog was gnawing on what was probably a human femur, yet he still asks if the troll might be friendly.
The troll banged on the wall next to him. “Bonepick! Get out here! We’re under attack!”
Terry took aim and fired three rounds in an extremely tight grouping at lightning speed. Much faster than I thought was possible with a bolt-action rifle. I’d have to talk to Cortana to see if it’d be possible to alter the gun for use with a multi-round clip or whatever, because I was sure that there was a limit to how fast she could fire like that.
Still, all three bullets hit within about a second of each other. The effect was another spectacular explosion out of the troll’s back, carrying singed chunks of the troll’s heart with the bullets. “I AM A MACHINE OF DEATH!” Terry roared as the troll’s corpse fell to the ground.
Burin and Gregor intercepted the hound. Gregor stomped on its head and the hound died with a disgusting crunch, spraying blood and brains everywhere. He and Burin were particularly covered. Gregor looked at his kill and flexed.
“That was pretty okay,” Terry commented. “But mine was better.”
The door on the wall the troll had pounded flew open and a white-furred bugbear stormed out. “What are you yelling about now, Rorgurt?” he shouted.
It only took him about three seconds to realize how screwed he was. But it was two seconds too long. Before he could react, he was riddled with bullets, took a gaping axe wound and his skull was caved in by flurrying fists.
I’m not entirely sure who landed the killing blow, but I know it wasn’t me. I didn’t even bother wasting a spell on him. It would have been ridiculous overkill and I needed to save up for the dragon.
From his vantage point, Burin spotted something and wandered into the side room. “Hey there,” I heard him say. “Don’t worry, we’re not here to eat you or anything.”
Oh God. He’d found the kids. And he was inadvertently terrifying them.
I glanced at Terry and she was too busy doing a victory dance of some kind to notice, so I moved quickly to intervene. Gregor, still covered in blood and gore, also moved in. The sight of him didn’t help. One of the kids threw a bag of marbles at him, screaming for him to leave them alone.
I walked in, and the children panicked more. “WOLF!” they screamed, nine voices in unison. Oh, right.
“I’m not a wolf,” I said. “I’m just pretending to be one so I can sneak through the town without being bothered. We’re here to rescue you.”
“I don’t believe you. You look like a wolf in people form,” one of the children, the oldest looking boy, said.
I heard the crunch of someone biting into something, and turned to see Terry in the doorway, eating an apple. I gave her a look. “What? I killed a bunch of trolls, so I get an apple.” It’s hard to argue with that logic.
The children eyed the new arrival warily. They also looked like they were focusing intently on the fruit. They looked half-starved. “Burin,” I said softly.
“I was thinking the same thing,” he whispered back, nodding as he began searching through his pack for some food.
“You don’t have to worry about them,” Terry said, approaching the cages with a key in hand. She must have grabbed it off of one of the enemies we’d just killed. “They’re mostly okay. Now stand back and we’ll get you out of there. We’ll get you something to eat and then, after we’ve killed the dragon, we’ll find someone who can help you find either your parents or someone else who can take care of you.”
“You’re going to kill the dragon?!” one of the boys said. “How?”
“I’m a machine of death,” Terry said, patting the rifle slung over her shoulder.
The kids oohed and aahed over Terry as she let them out. It was adorable. Then Burin brought out some food. It was mostly meat and root vegetables from that stash in the cave by the portal that Cortana had turned into flavored food paste, but it would fill their bellies and was tastier than it looked. We did have to show them how to open and eat them, though.
Once the kids had calmed down – and our male companions were clean thanks to a bit of magic – Burin spoke up. “Excuse me, kids, but we’re also looking for an opera singer. Have you heard any singing while you’ve been here?”
“You must mean the princess,” one of the children said.
“The princess?” I asked.
“She’s beautiful,” another kid – Matthew, the eldest and apparent leader of the children – said. “She sings like an angel. When she’s not crying, that is.”
There was another door off the main room. While we were talking and Gregor was skinning, Terry opened it. She was immediately ambushed by a female troll. She reacted quickly and fired a shot as the troll swung her axe.
She missed, but the shot startled the troll enough that she also missed. Gregor and Burin rushed over while I put myself in the doorway between danger and the children. But it was only the one troll and once more our people made quick work of it.
“You really can kill the dragon!” one of the kids said, amazed at our terrible efficiency.
“You bet we can,” I said, giving her a grin and snapping my fingers, causing electricity to spark between them. The kids cheered. “We’re going to need to leave you here while we work.”
“We can block the door while you’re gone,” one of the boys said.
“You are very small,” Gregor said. “Will never be able to pile up enough to properly block door. Use this.” He produced several small, magical nails. Behind me, I heard Burin smash a mirror, though I paid it little mind. We knew that it was dangerous to leave the witches a way to spy on us unnecessarily.
“What are they?” Matthew asked, taking the nails.
“Magic,” the fighter said. “Push at an angle through door and into floor once we are gone. Only person who placed nail can remove easily. Will hold door against all but strongest attacks. If you have to open door, use different nail to re-close.”
“Just use one for now,” I said. “And only open the door for one of us or for the princess. If we send her down to you, she’ll sing to let you know it’s her.”
We went up the stairs and took the door to our right. Inside was what appeared to be a kitchen. A witch’s kitchen. Which is probably why the stove came to life and bit Burin. I identified it as a haunted stove and warned the others.
Terry wasn’t amused. “A moving stove? That’s stupid.”
“It’s got a ghost in it.”
“Ooh, ghost stove,” she said, rolling her eyes and taking a shot. “At least it bit Burin,” I heard her grumble. Gregor struck the stove with a mighty blow and I altered my fire ray spell to hit the stove with rays of freezing cold.
After several hits, it stopped moving and Burin tore himself away. “I fear that I’m starting to get used to this,” the dwarf said to me.
“We’ll have to look into a magic item to help prevent it,” I told him.
As I looked around, Terry and Gregor were arguing over who had done more damage to the stove. “You only dented it!” Terry said. “I put a hole through it.”
“Is tiny hole and very big dent!” Gregor protested.
I found a bunch of spices in the kitchen, which I took as a gift for Greta. When I’d finished gathering all the jars, I realized that the two had moved on to another topic of conversation. “You can have cauldron. Burin says is magic.”
“You just want me to carry it,” Terry argued. “You have a magic bag. Just put it in there.”
Gregor began pulling out skin after skin from his bag. It continued for a comical amount of time. When he was done, there was a pile of furs and skins as tall as Terry. “And where, do you think, I have room for such a thing?”
“It’s not very valuable to us,” Burin told me. “Can you set up the box so I can break it down so we can move on?”
“Yeah, it’ll take a few minutes.”
“I think we have at least that long before they finish arguing.”
After the cauldron was broken down for its magical value, we headed across the hallway and found ourselves in what can only be described as a “creepy grandma’s sitting room”. There were six dolls on shelves around the room. I know this because Terry counted them out loud and kept pointing her gun at them, certain that she’d see them move.
There were three doors in the room. Terry opened the one across the room first, carefully watching for troll ambush. Inside, she found a room with a bathing tub. Inside floated a wooden duck, which she tried to stealthily put in her case. I pretended not to notice.
The second door we tried was locked, so Burin knocked. “Hello!”
“Hello, dearie,” an elderly woman said from within.
“We’re here to kill the dragon. Are you a friend or foe?”
“I’m simply an old woman,” she said.
“We need to know if it’s safe to leave you here.”
They went on like this for over a minute before I decided to intervene. “Excuse me, ma’am, but do you eat children?”
“No, dear. I just cook them.”
“Oh,” Burin said. “Sorry, but we’re going to have to kill you.”
“You can try, dearie,” the woman said. The door swung open and she unleashed a spell. Supernatural fear washed over me.
Logically, I knew it was nothing but a magical effect. I knew that there was nothing that could harm me from it. But logic had nothing to do with it. I had to flee. I couldn’t stop myself, no matter how I tried.
As I hauled ass down the stairs, I heard a scream, even downstairs and even over the sound of the clock tower’s inner gears. But I kept running. I couldn’t stop. Not for almost half a minute of dead sprinting. I was back out in the outer courtyard before I managed to stop.
I made my way back up as quickly as I could. The first thing I saw was Terry. She was shaking, terrified, but there was a bunch of debris all around her. “What happened?” I asked her.
“…bit… me,” she said through heavy breathing, indicating the debris. “But… machine… of death.”
“Are you okay?”
“Tired. So very tired.”
“The nanites can probably fix that,” I pointed out.
“Right.”
I went to check on Gregor and Burin. The old witch was dead. “What happened?” I asked.
“Gregor just strolled over and hit her over the head,” Burin said. “It knocked her out in one blow!” She wasn’t the only thing that had gone down in one blow. It looked like Burin had smashed another mirror.
Gregor shrugged. “Maybe she is witch, but still is very old woman.” It sounded like the fight was pretty anti-climactic. If I was going to miss something, glad it was that. Though I’m sure it would have been funny to watch.
We used a key found on the old woman and opened the final door. Inside was a child, half-starved and shivering in fear. “Hey there,” I said. “Don’t worry. We’re here to help you.”
“Granny Nan will hurt you if she sees you here!” the child whispered.
“Old woman?” Gregor asked. “Is dead. Went down like ton of bricks.”
“What about her pet ghost?”
“Machine of death,” Terry said.
“What?” the girl asked.
“Terry means that she destroyed the ghost,” I clarified.
“So we’re really safe? I can go home?”
“Yes,” I said. “We still need to kill the dragon, but Matthew and the others are waiting downstairs. I’ll take you to them in a moment. Just give us a moment to rifle through the books here.” I handed her another food tube, one of the originals I’d brought from home. “Have a small snack while you wait. It’s pumpkin pie flavored.”
I grabbed another strange book – titled “The Mountains of Madness” – while Burin was looking at a book filled with illustrations of shadowy images. Suddenly he gasped. “What is it?” Terry asked.
“That’s my demon!” he said, pointing. Suddenly he grabbed his sides and screamed in pain. “It’s trying to come out! Oh gods!”
The dwarf’s shadow opened its eyes, glowing red orbs. It swelled and became three dimensional, standing in the center of the room. “I will be FREE!” it roared, unleashing a burst of magical energy that washed over Terry and Gregor. I saw the terror on Gregor’s face – reminiscent of my own previous magical fear – as he cowered in the corner.
Burin swung at it with his axe. “Your evil won’t taint this world!” Despite the defiance in his voice, he whiffed his strike.
Shaking, Terry steadied herself and fired. The bullet wasn’t terribly effective. “It’s a shadow demon!” I said. “Use cold iron!” I then unleashed force bolts against the incorporeal form.
Burin struck it with an icy touch. Normally cold wouldn’t have done anything, but I could see glowing wards on his skin as the demon cried out in pain. “This is merely a fraction of my power!” it roared as it retaliated against the dwarf with its claws and fangs.
Terry fired again, scoring direct hits. I hit it with more force bolts. Burin struck again and the demon attacked him. Then Terry and I fired again, finishing it off as it charged at Terry. “Machine of death!” Terry shouted again.
“Sorry about that,” Burin said. “I don’t know how he did that.”
“Residual magic in the book?” I suggested.
“Perhaps. Thanks for helping me fight it.”
“No problem for the machine of death,” Terry said. She looked like she was about to give Gregor crap for his contribution, but he looked incredibly frustrated, so she wisely kept her mouth shut. Instead, she turned back to Burin. “Your demon’s kind of a dick.”
“No, he’s more of a shadow.” Damn literal-minded dwarves.
I escorted the even more traumatized child downstairs and left her with the others, then we all headed further upstairs, into the beginning of the tower’s gear works. The sound of the moving gears was fairly annoying at this point.
We had two options to proceed: A door or a ladder. So we opened the door first, using a key from the old witch. It opened with a bit of a squeak, like someone really needed to come oil the hinges.
“W-Who’s there?” a voice asked from within.
We peered in and saw a woman in fine but dirty and worn clothing looking back at us. Her eyes were red from crying. “Bella?” Terry asked.
“Y-Yes. Who are you?”
“Solveig sent us to rescue you.”
She broke down and began crying in relief as she hugged Terry. “I was so scared Logrivich was going to eat me!”
“All he’s going to eat now is a bullet,” Terry assured her before mouthing “Machine of Death” at me.
“Thank you,” the woman said. “All of you.”
“On the first floor you’ll find a barred door,” Burin said. Not sure if he’d meant to rhyme. “There are children behind it. They’ll open it if you sing to them. Just stay with them and we’ll come down to get you when we’re done up here.”
“I will.”
“Good. Oh, one more thing, before you go.”
“Yes?”
“Are you particularly fond of this mirror?” He was indicating a mirror on the wall.
“Not really,” she said, confused.
“Good,” the dwarf replied before smashing the mirror with his axe. Once the bewildered woman was gone, he cleared his throat. “I guess it’s time for us to go kill a dragon. Unless you want to just evacuate the kids and blow the place up?”
“He’d probably just fly off,” I said. “Besides, we’re already here.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll go first.”
Burin went first and I followed right behind. “Have you come to sing to me, little dwarf?” the dragon asked as soon as Burin topped the ladder.
“I’ve come to cleave you in twain!” Burin roared, using his deeper combat voice. He almost sounded like he was trying to hide his fear. As he charged the dragon, I saw his blue eyes begin to glow and the color faded from his hair.
I reached the top of the ladder and was not impressed by what I saw. The dragon, which was standing on a platform of ice just outside of a hole in the tower, was no bigger than a horse. Well, unless you count its wings, which had been flared out in an intimidating gesture. I weaved my spell, carefully adjusting it so that it would surround Burin but not touch him.
The massive explosion of flame, nearly forty feet in diameter, engulfed the dragon. It roared in pain at me. Burin’s eyebrows were lightly singed, but he remained otherwise untouched.
Terry climbed up and fired. “Insufferable child!” the dragon growled. “You dare injure me?”
Finally, Gregor reached the top. In his hands was our secret weapon: a giant weighted net made of steel wire. He tossed it and it flew open in the air, entangling the dragon’s wings. “Take that, ya big lizard!” Burin roared in triumph.
The dragon unleashed a cone of frost, filling the room in impenetrable fog. It didn’t even hurt me, so I responded with another fireball. I just had to hope that Burin was in the same place he was before I stopped being able to see him.
He was. The fire cleared away the fog. Terry unleashed a volley of shots, making the entangled dragon take a step back. “This cannot be!” the dragon roared in disbelief.
“Heh,” Gregor said, running forward and leaping off of Burin’s shoulder into the air. He landed on the dragon with a powerful kick between the wyrm’s shoulder blades, then flipped backwards onto the ground next to the dwarf. “The ice is cracking!” he told our comrade.
“I see it!” Burin shouted, growing large. He gave the dragon a terrible grin before stomping the ice. “Enjoy your fall!”
The ice shattered and the dragon plummeted. It tried to raise its wings, but the net only entangled it more with the struggle. I rushed forward, making it to the edge just in time to see the dragon bounce off the side of the tower and land on a spire of ice below, impaling it through the chest. It twitched once, then was dead.
“Machines of death!” Terry yelled in triumph at the sight of the dead dragon.
“That is going to ruin the skin,” Gregor said with a sigh. He drank down a potion we’d found earlier and walked right down the side of the building to skin our foe.
Burin set off the remaining rocket – on purpose, this time – sending an explosion of color into the air with a loud report. By the time we finished looting the dragon’s hoard, collected Bella and the children and made it out of the building, we could already hear the sounds of fighting through the city.
The Iron Guard’s revolution had begun. We would need to hurry and get the kids to Solveig, hopefully find Greta and make our way to the witch’s hut before anyone realized what our true goal was.
0 Comments