by CK Dawn
“He wants Al’ahmar, to hear our praise. It’s unwise to attempt to sneak up on a dragon. Not unlike the way you would make noise in the forest to avoid startling a predator.”
He nodded. That, he understood. As a boy, he’d hiked in the Washington-Jefferson national forest. Black bears and wolves had little interest in attacking or eating humans. However, coming between a mama bear and her cubs, or splitting a wolf pack by accident still ended in angry predators, even if they wouldn’t have otherwise bothered a person. He could only imagine that instinct in something the size of a dragon.
The stairs went down and down, and Agathon bragged about Al’ahmar the mighty with each step. Wash glanced behind them as the top of the stairs shrank until he could no longer see the entrance. Sweat broke out on across his body as they descended. Puerto Rico wasn’t a very tall island, and their elevation had been pretty low to begin with. By this point, they were probably below sea-level.
“You okay?” Caitlin asked him after he lingered back a few steps.
“We’re awful far down, and this staircase is a kill box,” Wash said. “If anyone followed us here…”
Caitlin reached up and squeezed his hand. Assurance flooded through Wash, bringing a smile to his lips and a warmth that spread from his neck to his toes.
“If worse comes to worse, we can always let Agathon lead the charge,” she said with a coy smile.
Almost as if he could tell they were looking at him he turned he said, “We’re almost there, keep moving.”
Caitlin squeezed his hand one more time and resumed her descent. He reached for her as she pulled her hand away letting her fingers brush across his palm. The warmth of her contact vanished. He stifled the sigh building up in him and started down the stairs again.
A few minutes later, the stairs came to an abrupt halt turning into a short hallway only a dozen feet long. A strong looking door, made of the same rock that the walls were, barred the entrance. Elaborate carvings covered the door. He’d seen a few documentaries in his life, and the carvings reminded him of the stone tablets from ancient Mesopotamia.
There was something hauntingly familiar about the way the symbols swirled around a central image. A mighty bull with vicious horns dominated the center of the door.
“I thought he was a dragon?” Wash nodded to the central figure.
“He is,” Agathon replied. The elf ran his hands over the icons as if he were looking for a button to push.
Caitlin pointed at the script above the bull. “Al’ahmar is old. Even elves are just a flash in a pan compared to dragons, and Al’ahmar is one of the oldest. Possibly the oldest. Al’ahmar is the name he’s gone by for the last thousand years, but before that, he had many names. This door tells his story. I hadn’t realized he made his primary lair here…”
Agathon growled at the door. “I can’t find the switch to open it.” He stepped back, hands on hips, looking for another way.
“Maybe just knock?” Wash asked.
Agathon chuckled. “He’s a dragon, I think it’ll be slightly more complex than that.”
“So, he doesn’t want to talk to anyone. Why are we doing this, then?”
“He just doesn’t want to talk to anyone stupid,” Agathon countered. “Just knocking would—what are you doing, Caitlin?”
Caitlin strode forward and rapped her knuckles on the center of the door three times. Each blow struck with a loud, clear tone like a bell ringing.
She turned and smiled at Wash as the door slowly slid open with the sound of scraping rock. Wash followed Caitlin through the door, past a satisfyingly irritated Agathon.
The door led to a hallway, which ended in a foyer with three entrances, each cordoned off by large, thick red velvet curtains.
Agathon strode toward the second one, pulling in a breath to announce their presence. He pulled the curtain aside and gagged on the smell that wafted out from the immense cave on the other side.
The curtain’s thickness shielded them from the odor and the sounds. Once pulled aside they were assaulted by the acrid scent of old sweat and stale air.
“Poseidon,” Agathon cursed.
Caitlin covered her nose and mouth stifling a cough.
It wasn’t a pleasant smell, but Wash spent half his life on a ship. He’d smelled worse.
Along with the odor came music. The band wailed on their instruments creating a cacophony of crashing drums and electric guitars. It wasn’t loud, more ambient background. Then the shouting started.
“Bitch!” A loud, deep voice roared from inside. “I will flay you alive. I will burn your home to the ground and wash in the ashes of your dead family.”
The ferocity of the deep voice sent shivers down Wash’s spine. He could feel the blood draining from his face as he broke out in hot sweats.
“I WILL POWN YOU!”
“Al’ahmar?” Agathon asked as he cautiously stepped inside the cave. He held his hand out as if ready to summon his sword.
“You rat bastard. Show yourself, and I shall destroy you,” the voice raged.
Caitlin followed behind Agathon, pulling Wash along with her. Her hand tightened on his as insult after insult rang through the cave.
“Poseidon, Agathon. I thought you said he owed you a favor?”
“He owes my family, not me personally. Still, I didn’t think he would be this angry just for showing up.”
Wash very much wanted to go back up the stairs now. The unending roar of the dragon echoed through the cave.
Oddly, the music was familiar, and there were muted sounds of battle… along with an unmistakable sound of a pressurized can opening. For a brief moment, the insults ceased. Instead, he could hear the gulping of a drink before the can met its ultimate fate—crushed and thrown into a pile.
“You hacking bastard, if I find out where you are I will unleash Hades on upon your entire city.”
“Better luck next time, loser,” a new voice replied.
They came around the corner, and into an immense cave. The walls were far enough apart that Wash could park a destroyer in here and not touch anything.
In the center of the cave, all the way against the far wall was a massive screen glowing from the smooth rock walls. The display had to be thirty feet high and sixty across.
At the foot of the screen was a large leather chair with its back to them. A holographic display spread around the chair in a semi-circle. A pile of crushed aluminum cans towered next to a hunched over figure like a hoard of treasure. Old pizza boxes, instant meals, and a variety of other food containers were discarded about the cave, calf-deep.
The cacophony of colors across the display were suddenly overlaid with golden, glowing letters spelling ‘DEFEAT’.
The figure in the chair slammed his hands down on the armrests and swiveled around.
Had Wash not been so surprised, he might have laughed.
The figure who sat in the chair was not at all what he had envisioned. Al’ahmar, in his human form, was in boxer shorts. His massively fat frame spilled over them in rolls. Wash would need a pen and paper to calculate the number of chins the man had. Three days-worth of scraggly red hair covered his face, but his head was smooth and shiny.
Al’ahmar squinted at them, his eyes adjusting as he looked away from the brightly glowing screen.
“Agathon Parthune? What are you doing here? And why didn’t you call ahead—you caught me in the middle of a match, dammit. I don’t have time to talk. Just sit and watch as I own these idiots.” Al’ahmar stretched, then turned back around, not bothering to wait for a reply from them.
‘READY’, flashed across the screen followed by, ‘BEGIN’
Whatever Wash had imagined, based on Agathon’s description, this was definitely not it.
Wash knew the game. It was in the top ten of most widely played games across the globe. The characters were created to mimic real beings from mythology. Wash played it himself, he wasn’t very good, but it passed the time.
Here was Al’ahmar
, the dragon, playing League of Dragons.
“The last time I saw him he was… let’s just say fit,” Caitlin whispered to him.
“Poseidon almighty what has happened to this world,” Agathon muttered.
Caitlin stood looking around the room as Wash and Agathon looked for a place to sit down. The cave was a mess, piled food containers, cans of every kind from alcohol to energy drinks, and then there was the smell.
Poseidon.
The smell was horrendous. She regretted not being able to change before having to dash out of the hotel. She didn’t even have a collar to pull up over her nose.
She couldn’t wait here. This was unendurable. Marching back to the still-open door, she placed her hand on her astéri to channel her power.
“Spirits of the air, cleanse this place.” She felt her link to Atlantis open in her mind, and the spirits gobbled up as much mana as they needed to fulfill her request. Wind rushed past her, flinging her hair wildly about in the sudden gale. If the dragon noticed, she couldn’t tell. A nuclear bomb could go off, and as long as his internet connection wasn’t affected, he probably wouldn’t care.
Wash had found a bench to sit on, after clearing off an incredible pile of trash that very well might have been older than him.
She cringed as she sat on the bench. This whole trip was one big disaster for her, and despite her nap in the car, she was still so tired.
“Cait,” Wash whispered to her. She jerked awake. When had she fallen asleep? And against Wash, at that.
She pulled away, feeling guilty. He’d been so kind to her, and even after all the talk about friends, she was taking advantage of his nearness.
“What’s going on?” she asked around a huge yawn.
Wash nodded toward the screens. The previous game replayed on them but, Al’ahmar wasn’t watching. He was speaking with Agathon. Dammit, she had fallen asleep. She ran her fingers through her hair as she stood up and went to join the other two.
“Once I had him in position, it was just a matter of timing my ultimate right.” He snapped his meaty fingers together with a crack.
Agathon glanced her way with a smile.
“Al’ahmar, you remember my betrothed, Caitlin Vnois…”
“Cut the ‘Al’ahmar crap, I go by Zer0C00l these days. See I use zeroes instead of oh’s, that way I always get my handle.” He rubbed his fat hands together as he explained.
For once, she didn’t mind Agathon throwing in the bit about being betrothed. Caitlin could not imagine the discomfort of having this thing hitting on her.
“It is a… honor to see you again, uh, ZeroCool.” She held out her hand which he immediately took, leaned over and kissed the top of it.
“My, my you have grown. I see the child I knew in the woman before me.”
Despite his appearance, he was as smooth as ever. He locked his gaze on her and for a moment Caitlin could see past his exterior to the dragon coiled within.
His human appearance might have said something different, but this was a creature not to be trifled with. She needed to remember that.
“I’m honored you remember me. That was some time ago. Last I heard you were living in the Saudi Exclusion Zone, what happened?”
“This,” he waved at the screen, “The Internet sucks in Saudi. League of Dragons is my life now. All I need is to win three more matches and I shall be the number one player in the world.” He rubbed his hands together with glee. “Imagine that! Do you know how many millions of people are playing this game? Of course you do, what am I saying? It’s huge.” He grinned. “And I’ll be number one.
Caitlin looked at the screen then back to him.
“That is impressive. Number one in the whole world…” She glanced at Agathon, tipping her head to the side with wide-eyes in the universal gesture of move this the hell along.
“Well, uh Al’—I mean ZeroCool, I was hoping to enlist your aid in an endeavor my future wife and I are in. You see there is…”
“No.” He said without waiting, turning back to the screen and punching a few keys.
“No? Need I remind you the service my grandfather performed for you? You owe my family…”
The dragon swiveled his bulk around to face Agathon. His dark brown eyes narrowed to a point. Heat poured off him, raising the room’s temperature dramatically. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Wash grab a trash can. What he intended to do with that against a dragon she had no idea, but it was… actually kind of adorable.
“Listen, child, I was there when your people first took possession of Atlantis. You do not dictate anything to me. I am done with all of that.” He waved his pudgy fingers in the air dismissively. “For the first time in ten thousand years, I’m actually having a good time. No one expects anything of me, no one is trying to kill me to prove how mighty they are. This cave doesn’t even have an entrance I could fly out of. No. No more flying, no more breathing fire, no more typical dragon crap.” He snickered. “Well, I mean… figuratively, anyway.”
For a moment, Agathon didn’t speak, and Caitlin knew him well enough to recognize his complete bewilderment.
It was the strangest thing she’d ever heard from a dragon. Although… to be honest, if she didn’t have family obligations…
The idea of that was overwhelmingly blissful. She might not turn into a gamer, but… she could actually live her life in a way she could never hope for, as things stood. Life how she wanted… love who she wanted.
She shoved the thought away. That was not a possibility. It had never been, and never would. Thinking about it would only torture her.
“Now just a minute,” Agathon began, finally managing to speak past his shock.
“Ag, no,” Caitlin gripped his arm. “He’s made it very clear that he won’t help. Let’s not waste any more of his time.” She turned to… Zero—she couldn’t make herself think of him by his gamer handle. “I’m sorry for our interruption. I apologi—”
“Do you always play Katarina?” Wash asked, rolling right over Caitlin. “I’ve never had much luck with her. The guides always say she’s the highest skilled dragon to play.”
Then, to her absolute horror, Wash walked up and touched the holographic interface, making a few motions with his hand.
Apparently, Zero didn’t have the interface keyed so only he could use it. Why would he? There was no one else here.
They were dead. They were so dead. Al’ahmar would either burn them and then eat them, or just burn them. She took a step back holding her hand behind her to hide the arcane energy she was summoning to pour into a shield.
For whatever good it would do her.
Whatever Wash did brought up the image of a ridiculously buxom, dragon-human hybrid woman, wielding some very impressive weapons.
“Ooh, you have the Sword of Demosthena,” Wash said appreciatively. “That’s incredible.”
“You play?” Zero turned to Wash, his demeanor changing in a heartbeat.
“A little, I’ve been… under employed for the last three years. I’ve tried Kat a bunch of times, can’t quite get the hang of her. Do you have a guide you follow?”
The dragon clapped his hands together. All his overwhelming presence vanished, replaced by an enthusiasm she had only ever seen in children at play.
“Follow? Dude, I wrote the guide on her. Let me show you.” He moved his hand over the controls.
A website she didn’t recognize, decorated with scantily clad human-dragon hybrid men and woman popped up. He scrolled past a few pages, settling on one featuring the buxom woman she’d seen before.
“This is my pièce de résistance. I’ve been working on this guide for six years. You can even go back through previous patches and see the changes as they were made. See here?”
“I hated that patch, it took me a week to figure out how to play again,” Wash said. Zero nodded in agreement.
“I wrote them a strongly worded email about it. At least they undid the nerf to Kat. I couldn’t let that stand.”
“Do you have any idea what they are talking about?” Agathon whispered to her. “What in Hades is DPS?”
Caitlin shook her head. She had no clue. What she did know was Wash, a mere human, was standing there, just having a chat with a dragon. And not just any dragon. Al’ahmar himself.
What kind of magic was this?
“…and then you just use her special,” Zero was saying, “and you bam—” he slammed his hands together. “Five kills and you win.”
Wash nodded appreciatively. “Wow, that’s incredible. I would have never thought of using it that way. Thanks, man.”
Zero waved his hand in the air. “Always glad to meet a fan.”
Caitlin cleared her voice. Wash held up his hand with a single finger out and flashed her a smile.
“You really should stream,” he continued, speaking to Zero. “People would go crazy for this. A dragon like you? Playing League of Dragons? And not only playing… you’re the best in the world, and you’ll have the leaderboards to prove it.”
Zero shook his head. “Eh, I don’t think anyone wants to see me play.”
“You’re joking right?” Wash said. “You realize the guy above you has a million followers, right? Money can’t possibly be a concern for you, but there isn’t a player alive that wouldn’t jump at the chance to see you play, hear your strategies? You’ve got game the rest of us could only dream about.”
The dragon started to nod slowly and then turned to Caitlin and Agathon. “Clearly, you’re keeping much better company these days.” He clapped a hand on Wash’s shoulder. “Okay, tell me what you guys need. I don’t promise I’ll do it, but I might as well see what you have to say—and Wash, shoot me a profile request when you get home. You’ve got real potential, my friend.”
Agathon looked too stunned to speak. Caitlin jumped in front of him before he had the chance to recover.
“My sister, Daphne, has been kidnapped. The people who took her tried to kill us, rather than let us pay a ransom, and we thought maybe you could smell her out.” Then, on sudden, wild inspiration, she shot him a knowing look. “I’m dead if my parents find out,” she added, as though she were speaking to a BFF. “Dead, dead. You know?”
