Icarus Awakens

To Lograve, everything around him was at the periphery of his mind. The Arcanist was entirely focused on pulling what moisture remained in the air together to form the network of ice crystals. Aquakinesis was a strong power, the kind made supreme by experience to exploit its versatility. Its weakness was running out of water to work with. Every fire breath issued by the dragon scorched the air as much as his targets. Once that was gone, Lograve was out of mana and options, and this battle would not last to dawn at the current pace. Even one mana potion might have made a difference, but the few that remained were stored in Hagain. Murdon had wanted everything saved for when it was time to break out of the region.

If only he’d known. Despite, or rather, in line with himself, Lograve smiled. The irony of this attack was not lost on him. Weeks spent preparing for the wrong dragon. They’d even had a better chance here with the ballista, but most who could fight well were elsewhere.

As for the garrison, the slaughter from before was turning into a total cull. The initial wave of fear had almost been their undoing if not for Lyrok, though the Bard was now ash in the wind. A shame. What a perfect name for a Bard. Gadriel’s gambit had failed, his fate unknown. Kob was perhaps the biggest tragedy. The gestalt was meant to be the trump card against the dragon of the pass. From their performance here, Lograve could see that was a false hope.

Kob could protect themselves and others around them fine. They even encircled some of the stronger warriors in hopes of preserving them for when the dragon was grounded. What they couldn’t do was strike out meaningfully. The gestalt was simply too slow and awkward in their movements. They’d leveled too quickly and taken too much level disparity. The dragon, the impossible creature with a name and a soul, was exploiting this to great effect. Kob was now its focus and when the gestalt fell, so too would the rest of those alive.

Is this all because of Daniel? Lograve wondered as the field of ice became stable enough to passively maintain. Only he was certain, without a shadow of a doubt, that the Artificer’s companion could speak. Did it have a soul as well? If he is truly from beyond the Crest, is there a chance Murdon’s first instincts were correct? Lograve’s gaze turned towards the Artificer and witnessed both the shot that took out the dragon’s right eye, and the looks the rest of the archers were giving him. No. If nothing else, that isn’t the same man I met in a healer’s tent.

Lograve tracked the dragon’s retreat and hoped for just a moment it would flee before it turned around. Heading again towards Kob, unless this was a feint. There was something in that approach that was different, the dragon was favoring its left side. The Arcanist was well aware the loss of a single eye wouldn’t drastically alter the fight. Even if both were destroyed, the dragon’s hearing was just as sharp and far harder to obstruct.

He spared a glance towards Evalyn. No sonic attacks or deafening abilities that he knew of, neither from before this doomed training mission nor after. Several of his contemporaries, including Lyrok, had abilities that could have been combined to weaken the dragon’s hearing, but they were dead.

Of the options available to him, few features could assist. There was Aquakinesis, Telepathy, Enhance Magical Projectile, Evasion, and a handful of other utility features that were useless in the current fight. What could he do, lambast the dragon to distract it? Telepathic communication couldn’t be as easily ignored. But Lograve couldn’t, both out of fear and the surety that he had to survive to warn the world what was coming.

The dragon tore another stone section loose from Kob as a volley from behind him aimed for the head. Rorshawd was wise to this now and shielded himself both through his angle of approach and use of his rapidly-healing wings. Dammit, Lograve cursed, seeing the gashes that did tear into the membranes quickly close. He was sure, now, that Daniel knew something he didn’t. Taking the dragon’s sight was important, though they weren’t being given a chance. Someone would have to make one.

“I need a disruptive assault timed to its next attack! Knock it off its balance and show the archers its eye!” Lograve shouted to the remaining mages. There were six including Evalyn. Telsor and his transmutation abilities were gone, though the gestalt Arcanist and avianoid with a psionic power remained as particularly useful candidates. A combined attack on the dragon’s body, mind, and soul would be needed to drop its guard. They should have been coordinating like this since the beginning of the fight and had tried to, but there had been no time!

Evalyn was the closest to him, the position earned from her time spent fighting alongside Lograve. We need you to use an inflictive song. Can you do that? This question to the Bard was only mental. He was aware of her preferences, and could not risk that she would delay her answer from fear of others overhearing the conversation.

I can’t. She replied as there was a momentary pause in her playing. Valor Song had colored the entirety of the fight thus far, lost as it was in the devastation inflicted by the dragon.

Can’t, or won’t?

I can’t, she repeated as almost a plea, face falling as she watched Lograve grimace. I don’t-

You don’t need to explain. Run to Alost and explain the plan. Now!

Evalyn started to stride forward, stopped, and asked. Who?

Gods, Daniel then. Go!

…

Evalyn swung her instrument around to her back and made for the keep. It was a motion made easy through repetition. The Bard had very few powers that could be used against enemies and little means to defend herself. It was something her former mentor had almost literally harped on, and others continued to bring up once she was on her own. When you couldn’t defend yourself, running away was a valid strategy to avoid dying. Her style of fighting amounted to finding an entrenched position, or at least an area somewhat obscured, and assisting her allies however she could. People who kept on with her for more than one hunt would come to appreciate her approach to the Bard class.

In truth, she wasn’t sure if it was her personality that shaped which powers she received or if she had received inflictive songs only to evolve them into something more to her liking. For someone of her means, there was no way to tell. In the end, that left Evalyn with nothing to use against the dragon. Even Valor Song, an ability common knowledge of Bard powers told her she shouldn’t have been able to awaken at level one, did nothing against all-consuming fire.

And now I’m reduced to a messenger! Despair was seeping into her spirit. The careful persona she’d maintained after the Upswell was slipping, just like it had that night with Daniel. Negative emotions. It was the double-edged sword of their class. Bards couldn’t influence others without harnessing the relevant emotions themselves first. Normally, they were able to manage these feelings better than their targets and maintain control. Bards lived in emotion, in their songs, performance, and in their souls.

Attacking a creature through their song meant taking in fear, or something just as suitable, and crafting it into their song. But Evalyn, after hearing of this when explained the tenets of her class, felt the principle conflicted with her basic will. Sure, she could loath monsters and hate evil. She’d been a dedicated hunter for about as long as she’d had a class, having only made infrequent use of the other ways Bards advanced. But internalizing every hateful emotion and feeding them? It was a path she didn’t want to take, even if it meant she had nothing to help with now.

“Evalyn!” Thomas called out to her. All of those still in the keep had watched her approach, though the Cleric was at the front of the pack. “What are you doing?”

None stopped her as she rushed inside. Several no doubt thought it was cowardice that brought her here. Wasn’t it? I could have fought coming here. I just went along with it because- He’s staring, smile dammit! Evalyn forced a smile, having no effect on the Cleric. She couldn’t muster a shred of confidence. Still, she had her voice. “Lograve. He’s going to disrupt the dragon when it attacks again to give you an opening for the other eye.” She looked around. “Where’s Daniel?”

“Reloading!” his voice called out from the back of the group. The Artificer was by a loose stack of bolts. Something stirred within her as she saw him.

It wasn’t love or even interest. Gods no. That’s the last thing I need right now. It was a sense of the room, how he was separated from the others by both space and social cues. Bards could read those well, at least when they didn’t neglect their wisdom. Whatever had alienated Daniel wasn’t that he had made the shot that took out the dragon’s eye. Something else had happened.

“When?” A man with a bow, Alost Evalyn presumed, asked.

“When it next attacks,” was all she could say.

“Crest, this hunt is a mess.” He quickly pulled an arrow from the dwindling supply in his quiver and knocked it. Enchanted, Evalyn realized with a surprise. Not the bow itself, but the arrow. They were noticeably different from the ones the others were using. Hadn’t the Commander told everyone to- “Form up! We’re taking this thing down. Left eye, Focus Fire!”

“I don’t know what Guy’s thinking,” Thomas whispered to Evalyn, slightly jerking his head towards Daniel while tracking the dragon. She’d gotten here just in time, it would fall on Kob again soon. “Incredible shot though. I mean, your song helped.” His genuine smile hardened a little when he registered the stowed instrument. “Out of mana?”

“Not yet.” Evalyn quickly pulled her accordion back into her hands and prepared to use Valor Song again. In truth, she struggled to use all of her mana on hunts because of how little her powers consumed. It was one of the tradeoffs that balanced all the negatives of how her musical powers worked, one of which she struggled with now. The gripping fear and lingering grief tried to smother her as she called upon Valor Song, but as she breathed evenly and let the music play, the darkness that had come upon her during the run lifted.

“What’s Lograve going to do?” Daniel asked as he passed by them both to take a kneeling position in the front.

“The surviving mages are going to concentrate an attack to give you an opening.” Evalyn watched Daniel nod as each archer moved their aim together.

Even when Daniel took his eyes off of the dragon, the point of the bolt remained on it. He looked at her, no trace of the original awe and lust that had accompanied the gape from their first meeting. Nor was there resentment, a relief considering all that had happened. Evalyn had rejected a fair number, all Bards had. Daniel hadn’t exactly taken the events gracefully, but she was grateful he’d eventually understood. And it wasn’t even his fault in the end. I just didn’t want to get into anything complicated after losing-

“Here it comes! Wait for the mages!” Alost called out, firmly in control of the group again. There was a moment of consideration from the archer before he pulled another arrow out and knocked it together with the first. It had to be some form of power since the two merged. “Bowmen first, then crossbows when you see the arrows fly. I want them to hit this bastard all at once.”

The dragon latched onto the last large clump of stone Kob had left. Vines were digging into the square to try and recover the shield, assisted by someone on the inside shaping the rock into usable pieces, but not fast enough. The majority of Kob would be left unprotected by flames, though Rorshawd did not use his breath attack. Not yet.

…

Daniel had nothing but the belief that Rorshawd hadn’t seen it yet, and they needed to destroy the other eye before that happened. The dragon’s hearing didn’t matter, he wasn’t doing this to fully blind Rorshawd and knew blasting his music would impair the archers more than him at this point, while also drawing its ire towards them. It had seemed like Rorshawd was going to go for them for a moment, but a last twist in the air redirected him back towards Kob.

He wants to take them out before we blind him, Daniel decided. If Rorshawd didn’t need to fear being grabbed by Kob then his sight wouldn’t matter, at least as far as the dragon knew. Daniel took stock of his mana as the time drew closer. Dwindling, so much that he decided against Moment of Clarity.

Then, their opening arrived. A smaller gestalt in the mage group tunneled vines into the earth, which rose near Rorshawd to pin his right wing. Telekinetic force must have struck at the same time, as the dragon’s head began to slowly turn. One from the melee group, a Beastmaster whose meager creature lay in wait for the dragon’s fall, reached out a hand to lash out in conjunction with the others. A few even threw javelins or throwing knives, using what limited ranged abilities they had.

No one but Daniel had seen the auras of the faint hope growing closer, but everyone knew the original plan had failed. Blinding the dragon was now the first step to victory. More so, those with swords, axes, and shields had watched their comrades die and had been denied any chance at vengeance. It was time.

Only Lograve was absent in intervention, bringing his field of crystalline ice up as a shield between the spread out mages and the dragon’s head. That proved life-saving as Rorshawd ignited the air when his head was forced to point toward the mages. This claimed a section of Kob’s upper mass from convection alone, though where it met the crystals the flames recoiled like rushing water meeting a wall. Motes and streams would break through, seriously wounding an avianoid but claiming no life.

While this happened, the two gestalt pinning the dragon struggled against his attempts to free himself. Daniel’s heart barely beat as he wondered what would happen first, their target appearing or the dragon freeing itself. Time seemed to pass so slowly that Daniel briefly wondered if he had accidentally used his ability. Yet time flowed unabated, and the moment came.

“Fire!” Alost cried, releasing his combined arrows. Daniel waited for just one second before firing his crossbow, sinking mana into Snap Shot. He’d pour it all in if it meant a guaranteed hit, but-

But he’d fired too quickly. That wasn’t as bad as it seemed. Alost’s plan to have each shot hit the eye at once would have doomed them. Rorshawd was no fool, he must have expected this was the end goal of the trap he was actively breaking out of. The staggered shots left the dragon with an impossible choice.

Did he try to dodge the crossbow bolts or the arrows? The archers had all released at once, but each crossbowman had interpreted Alost’s additional command differently. The imperfection of Focus Fire turned into a strength as Daniel realized that no matter what Rorshawd did, something was going to hit his eye. Whether it was a crossbow bolt or several arrows, there was no escape.

For a normal dragon. Even without Moment of Clarity, most would not have been fast enough to have a chance to dodge that first bolt, remote interference aside. But for Rorshawd, there was another option. One Daniel hadn’t even considered the dragon capable of using. Rorshawd’s mighty lungs continued expelling air, although the magic propelled along with it stopped as something else took shape. A word.

“Bulwark.” The voice had the resonant quality of all incantations, but this was matched with an intensity befitting one whose normal means of speech was a throaty growl. There was a rasp curling at the edges of the voice like the flames which came from the same source. It was confident, imperial, and cruel. It was the voice of a dragon.

The stone clutched in the dragon’s claws was separated enough from Kob to no longer be considered part of the gestalt, and thus was a valid target. In the span of a second, a large disk-like shield was torn from the rock and raised in front of Rorshawd’s eye. It caught every single arrow and bolt without breaking.

Most of the mortals were stunned. Not from any power or wound but from the voice alone. They’d heard Lograve say this was a unique dragon, but this was beyond belief. Monsters did not have souls, they did not think in any real way, and they did not speak. This was the doctrine all native to the Octyrrum held, that which Rorshawd now tore away with but a word.

The disk shot towards Lograve after blocking the volley. The attempt on his life was foiled only by his previous experience with Hunter. That had inoculated him from the initial shock, preserving his senses enough to dodge the attack. It didn’t matter, it wouldn’t change what was about to happen. Gazes fixed in horror on the dragon, and every mortal heard Rorshawd’s second word.

“Burn.” It was no incantation, yet it echoed through the streets of Roost’s Peak. Kob was left with no shields in place to save them from the stream of fire that followed the word as Rorshawd flew out of reach. This was the dragon’s endgame. Burning Kob would remove the final barrier to a complete annihilation of the garrison.

The vines of Kob’s form contracted in response, growing tighter to present less surface area to the heat enveloping it, and to protect those inside. It was Daniel who realized that, seeing the auras of five held within the mass. Then fire wreathed the vines, and those auras, including Kob’s, began to wither.

Alost fired three arrows in rapid succession, not using any skill but desperation alone. The dragon’s eye was pointed away again, and not his nor the other arrows that followed would stave off the dragon. Few even penetrated the hide. An ice spike from Lograve could have done something, but the air was empty of moisture. They were out of cards to play.

Perhaps they had been doomed from the start. None of the garrison had fully grasped the danger represented by the dragon or what distinguished it from any other of its kind. Not until it spoke, as it did now. “Burn and die.”

Kob had barely survived the first breath, reduced to a third of their mass. They would not survive the second. If they had waited to level, then perhaps they would have been nimble enough to act as more than a stationary bunker. In the end, they were too slow. The trap that felled Kob was not of Rorshawd’s design but one inherent in the Octyrrum. The price of greed, of leveling too quickly.

There was space only for one decision, one final act of Kob, the titan of the Thormundz. Fate had denied them the purpose they had leveled for, and any chance of reaching the heights of mortal kind. Not all sought level nine, but Kob had dreamed…

A mass was flung back into the keep, impacting Daniel, throwing him back, and cracking the stone of Parduc’s armor just before the second wave of fire overtook the center of the courtyard. “Kob?” he asked the mass of vines in his arms, although he knew who it was he held.

“Khare.” Despite the biological impossibility, the voice was heartbroken. Kob had guarded their lesser kin to the last, ejecting the partially recovered Martialist at the last possible second. Had they meant to trust Khare to Daniel, or was he just the first friendly face the gestalt saw inside the keep? Daniel would never get a chance to ask.

…

Rorshawd finished the last exhalation and exalted in what he had done. All that trouble for only five lives. All that mana! Between the flame breaths and powers he’d used, Rorshawd was down to less than 5%. Another breath attack was out of the picture unless it was very short, and even then it would only kill at close range. But no, he didn’t need mana anymore. There were none left to challenge him.

His eye! Pain flared briefly to distract Rorshawd as he again set his sights on Daniel. The archers had been allowed to live in safety for too long. Without Kob, he no longer feared blindness and could approach them. The dragon turned away from the empty spot where five lives once stood. He knew their names automatically, even if he didn’t care. Kob, Yedra, Alekios, Joran, and Parduc. Now dust in the wind. As would be the rest, then those that had fled, and even that wyvern high above if it dared…

Rorshawd finally registered the mortals as they struck. The one falling faster uttered an incantation with the tone of an executioner. “FALTER!”