Vitale cast up his arm and pulled downward.
BOOM.
The view abruptly shifted again to the streets south of the Basilica, over to where the lightning road began its run.
And to a blur of motion that resolved, as the group followed the perspective behind the sixty-foot-long steel rod that Barriano’s men had loaded into its cradle for just this moment.
Yes! Chase’s heart soared with the spike as it flew through the sky... fast, so fast that only the strange magic of the cut scene let her follow it. Time slowed as the thing whirled... up close, it wasn’t as draconic as she’d thought, some strange cross between a reptile and a wolf—
—and then the spike struck home.
It fell from the sky, howling, and the perspective followed it down...
...to where it crashed among the ruins of its hatching ground.
Twisted figures fled, all hair and jaws and red eyes, and Chase gulped as she recognized a few familiar sets of clothing. The vigilantes had been corrupted all right. I’m sorry, she thought as the dragon-thing writhed on the ground, pawing at the spike in its chest.
For a few seconds, she dared to hope that would be the end of it. For a few seconds, she thought it really would be that easy.
But then the spike crashed to the ground, and the beast stood... and Chase realized that the massive wound in its chest was closing.
It lifted its scaly, jagged-tooth muzzle to the sky and howled fire.
And a single word flashed across her vision, in letters fifty feet high;
BEGIN!
Chase stumbled as her perspective landed solidly back in her head, and around her almost everyone else was staggering... all except the players.
“She’s still a werewolf! That’s Tabita, only she’s a dragon now,” Chase said, barely avoiding panic. “The spike wasn’t silver! It’ll take silver to really hurt her!”
“Chase,” Cagna said with dread. “When is the full moon up next?”
“Tomorrow—” Chase paused, staring in horror.
Tomorrow the full moon would rise.
Tomorrow was when Nebs had declared the world would end.
“If this thing is still alive when the full moon rises,” Chase said slowly, “then there’s no stopping it. It’ll rampage and that will be that.”
“And everyone it bites will become something like those things down there,” Renny said. “Or maybe not the bite, maybe the fire or whatever, I don’t know.”
“The dragon’s shadow,” Chase said. “This is bad.”
“It’s worse than you know,” Thomasi said, squatting down next to her. “The cut scene establishes a narrative. It sets up a story. In this case, I’m betting that the thing that damaged the dragon to begin with is going to have to be the thing to end it.”
“We’re going to have to spike it again?” Chase blinked. Then it sunk in. “Oh no. We ARE going to have to spike it again. With the weapon that we can’t turn, and that can only fire every few minutes.”
“And that’s if we’re lucky. We might have to spike it two or three times. And the last one will have to be silver. It’s probably better if they’re ALL silver.”
Chase grimaced. “Beautiful. Great. Just... great.”
WHUMP!
Across the way, tiles fell from rooftops as every building in Gnome shook. She looked up to find that the green dragon hadn’t been idle. He’d dropped from high above onto Dracolupus, and the two were fighting, crashing through the buildings of the old Piazza as if they were balsa wood.
“We need to get in there!” Dijornos bellowed. “Come on! Time to Do the Job! Forced March!”
Then it was down from the roof, and they were charging towards the bridge. Chase used the time running to organize her thoughts. “Cagna, whisper Vitale. Tell him we need to silver the spikes. Then tell Barriano his troops will need silver weapons. We’re up against werewolves, he has to hold them back until the troops are properly equipped.”
“And what should I be doing?” Carmina asked.
Chase did a double take. “You’re supposed to be back with Greta!” she yelled.
But no, here the catgirl was, easily keeping pace with her. Even under the effects of the Forced March, even with half her levels gone, Carmina was bounding with easy grace over cobblestones, occasional patches of rubble, and the occasional very surprised militia troop.
“I got bored,” Carmina replied.
Chase grimaced. “Follow along and try not to die,” Chase said.
“Oh! I’m good at that! I’ve been doing that my whole life!” Carmina said, relieved. “So, do you think the lady will be here?”
“No!” Chase yelled as their feet rattled on the bridge.
“Oh,” Carmina said as she ran along the warped and twisted railing with consummate grace. “That’s too bad.”
“Contact!” Dijornos shouted from ahead of the party.
“What?” Cagna barked back.
“Bad guys!” Thomasi clarified, unfurling his whip.
“Why not just say hey, we got enemies ahead?” The Muscle Wizaard asked.
And then the foes were upon them.
They wore torn and tattered clothing and bore jagged, broken weapons, and Chase wasn’t sure why because their fanged and scaled muzzles were miniature reflections of the thing that had been Tabita. Some of them had twisted, useless wings on their back... two, three, even four of the things.
“Renny! Set up the ring!” Thomasi called.
“Phantasm, Manipulate Air!” Renny cried...
...and instantly posts snapped out of the ground, and ropes materialized between them, as the section of street they were on turned into a wrestling ring.
“OOOOOOOOOHHHH YEAH!” The Muscle Wizaard roared, tearing his robe off. “Whatcha gonna do! This is my Squared Circle! Theme Song time!”
Chase caught the flash of silver on his knuckles as he bounced off the nearest set of ropes and swept toward the surprised weredrakes, with both arms outstretched.
“And in this corner, Direct Attention to the one, the only, MUSCLE WIZAARD!” Thomasi barked. “Spotlight, please!”
A beam of bright light shown out of the heavens and onto the Wrestler, as wolf-things howled and went sailing back out of the ring. They landed hard and didn’t get up.
But the seething horde pressed forward, scrabbling to get into the ring...
...and failing.
Ropes twisted, posts seemed like they’d been slicked down with oil, and of every five who tried, only one got in.
“I am the master here!” called The Muscle Wizaard, spreading his arms wide in a beefcake pose. “And you! Shall! Not! Pass!” His theme song swelled and rang out from the street itself, an invisible orchestra sending his challenge to all around.
Then he was too busy fighting to talk any more.
The others weren’t idle, Chase saw. Thomasi was using his whip to trip and tangle some of them, while Dijornos was content use his immense strength and a battle axe to hack them down. Renny was busy maintaining the illusion and solidified air constructs, and Madeline flew overhead, keeping an eye on it all. Cagna was running toward her, with a concerned look on her face, and Chase hustled to meet her halfway into the ring.
“What’s wrong?”
Cagna pointed. “Thomasi and Bastien have most of them focused on us, but eventually some of them will break away. If they get to the bridge before the troops are re-equipped with silver, it’ll be bad.”
Chase glanced around the lines. The bottleneck was slowing them, letting in only a few at the time, and the party was handling those, but already a few around the edges seemed to be breaking from Thomasi’s attention control.
Even more worrisome, some of them were hauling out crossbows and slings, even a few guns here and there.
“Got any silver bullets?” Chase asked.
“A few. I want to save them for bigger prey.”
As if on cue the street shook. Water jetted up in the distance, and a building crumbled
as a green clawed hand grabbed it, and Therasimalazyn hauled himself to an upright position. His scales were cracked, and he had raw gouges in his side that bled torrents of blood.
Then a black blur of fur and scales, and Chase nearly lost her footing as green and black behemoths fell and another building shattered, sending dust up against the setting sun.
“Right,” Chase said. “We need to tie them up more... ah...” wait a minute, she remembered. I have silver weapons, now don’t I?
Chase pulled out Enrico’s Last Hand and started looking for targets.
She found far, far too many of them. The weredrakes hadn’t been distracted by the warring titans. They’d started making their way around the ring, pushing through the broken and shattered remnants of walls, or climbing with unnatural agility.
Too many targets. Unless... “Thomasi!” she called. “Send in the Clowns!”
The Ringmaster paused, drew his whip back, and took in the situation in a heartbeat. “Send in the Clowns!” he ordered.
There was a chorus of sad honking noises, as brightly-clad forms leaped out of abandoned houses, through free-standing doorframes, and in one case, up from a ruptured sewer main.
Chase knew they were useless in a fight.
She knew they had the resiliency of a whipped cream pie against draconic talons.
And she knew that all things being equal, the twisted wolf-dragons would tear through them like Dijornos’ battleaxe through a rubber nose.
All things being equal, that was the phrase that Chase had no use for.
In her experience, there was no such thing as a fair fight, and anyone who wanted one of those had no business fighting anyway.
The only thing she needed the clowns to do was get in the way.
And that they did, as they died and gave Chase a few precious moments to work.
“Double Down, Demoralizing Shot,” Chase commanded over and over, casting card after card of Enrico’s last Hand at the weredrakes in the lead.
The wrestling ring filled most of the street. The way through was narrow enough, and the clowns took a few seconds to kill whenever a furry abomination got to them.
And as Chase rained down silvery fear the ones up front broke, trying to flee back, hampering the rest of them and forcing them back.
And then dragonfire burned, as Madeline dive-bombed the clustered masses.
Your Double Down skill is now level 2!
Your Demoralizing Shot skill is now level 7!
Your Double Down skill is now level 3!
Your Double Down skill is now level 4!
Your Demoralizing Shot skill is now level 8!
She lost track of the messages as she aimed and threw, over and over until they abandoned their attempts to bypass the party and focused again on taking the ring.
But it was too late by then. Though he was bleeding from half a dozen wounds, The Muscle Wizaard was the undisputed master of the squared circle. Unconscious and battered scaly-furred bodies lay twisted before him, and the ones Dijornos had chopped to bits weren’t doing too well either. Their unnatural regeneration seemed to be slowly mending those particular beasts, but judging by the rate they were going, they had a few months before they’d be an issue again.
The few remaining monsters fled, and Chase sighed with relief. Then she moved up to Bastien, a sudden concern tugging at her mind. “Diagnose.”
Muscle Wizaard (Bastien)
Debuffs: Bleeding
Conditions: Curse of Obscurity, Curse of LycanERROR 00:01:12
Chase sucked in her breath and pulled a worm out from her jar. This was the moment of truth... “Absorb Condition, Transfer Condition.”
You are now afflicted with Curse oferrORERROR 00:01:08
Skill failed!
“No, no, no... Transfer Condition!”
Skill failed!
“Chase?” Bastien’s eyes found her from behind his spectacles. “What’s wrong?”
“I... I need to...” she watched as the diagnose box ticked his warped curse down to fifty-eight seconds. “I need to think! I...”
No success without risk. Have to gamble here. “I have to chance it,” she said. “Double Down. Transfer Condition!”
And she breathed a sigh of relief, as new words appeared.
You are no longer afflicted with ERRORERROR 00:00:32
You have afflicted Worm #2.85e+17 with ERROR!
Your Double Down skill is now level 7!
Your Transfer Condition skill is now level 17!
The worm twisted under her hands, thrashing frantically. Chase crushed it beneath her heel, then sliced it with a silvery card. “Hold’em,” she commanded, and her card case filled once more. “Okay. You’re safe.”
“Kinda banged up still. Ooh yeah, a level!”
And he wasn’t alone.
You are now a level 10 Archer!
DEX+3
PER+3
STR+3
You have learned the Crippling Shot skill!
Your Crippling Shot skill is now level 1!
You have learned the Flame Arrow skill!
Your Flame Arrow skill is now level 1!
Chase smiled in relief, then started the slow process of healing The Muscle Wizaard up.
Renny let the ring fade away and sat on the ground. “Good work! This wasn’t too bad. Maybe this’ll be easy—”
A roar shook the streets.
Buildings fell.
Fire blazed to the north.
And then came an answering roar, and green light spilled into the world.
It wasn’t fire. It was warped numbers, glowing obscenely green, it was a wave of unreality that ripped away everything it struck, twisting it or unmaking it, crystallizing it into a frozen parody of itself.
It was the same thing Chase had seen when Tabita’s ritual had gone so very wrong, and she gasped to see it again... then slapped her hands over her mouth as she saw their green dragon take it on the chin.
He wasn’t frozen.
But he drained of color, and for a second his skin almost seemed to disappear, showing bones beneath. Then it faded back in, and he turned tail to run.
He didn’t get far. Tabita... or whatever she was now... lunged forward and caught his tail in her massive blackened jaws and pulled him to the ground.
Therasimalazyn did not rise again. The abomination pulled back for the killing blow—
BOOM!
The blur of metal.
The snap of another spike launching past them.
And past the Dracolupus, as it missed the black form by dozens of meters.
The abomination turned its eyes southward, registering the threat.
And slowly, it started crunching through the buildings, heading toward the bridge. Chase saw why after a moment. “Its wings are in tatters!”
“Our dragon did something right at least,” Cagna snapped. “Now what?”
Chase considered her options. She was running out of cards to play.
But she had one for just this sort of situation. “Whisper Corinthia. It’s time to wake the dead.”
CHAPTER 29: DRAGONFALL
For two millennia, the bones of Cymbal rested in silence beneath the growing city-state of Gnome.
The city-state became an Empire, and the bones were guarded day and night against those who would misuse them.
The Empire warred with dragons, and with peace came eggs to plant inside the city. And wisely, the Emperor had one placed with Cymbal’s bones.
Even after the Empire crumbled, the dungeon kept her remains safe from Necromancers and those who would misuse them. And when things settled down, the few Custodes left had a quiet word with the new rulership and convinced them to appoint a noble post to guard reliquaries and other problematic things... including the bones of a dead goddess.
Today, they failed.
Today, thanks to the nicest Necromancer that Chase had ever met, they rose again, pushing through the lower floors of the Basilica, reclaiming the ancient weapon
s she’d once born with fleshy hands and strolling out onto the streets of Gnome to slay a beast that should never have been born.
At least, that’s what Chase expected was going on, as the Basilica crumbled to the south and a huge form loomed, silhouetted against the giant dust clouds.
“You know, I’d wondered why you worked so hard to convince Lord Barriano to empty the Basilica,” Thomasi remarked as they ran.
“Yeah.” Chase grinned, as a white skull the size of a hut loomed out of the clouds, turning empty eye sockets until it caught sight of the black wyrm. “We... should probably leave town pretty quickly once this is done.”
“Agreed,” Thomasi said, and then they saved their breath for the marathon.
They were having to take the long way around to bypass the oncoming Dracolupus. Fortunately, Cagna had scouted the streets well, and knew all the shortcuts. They made the most of Dijornos’ Forced March ability and met no other serious opposition along the way. There were a few growling forms back in the shadows, but those that remained were more concerned with following their abominable master than fighting the interlopers.
They slowed a bit as Tabita led them around the frozen and warped spot where the creature had breathed, and Chase nearly shrieked as Carmina tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey! What are we doing now?”
The halven bit back harsh words. “We’re trying to get to Therasimalazyn. If he’s still alive I can maybe heal him up, so that he can trap the black dragon between him and the undead. That might distract it, so Vitale can get a clear shot.”
“Oh, sweet! How do I help?”
Chase glanced back. They were up on a bit of a hill, and she had a clear view of the bridge. The army was spilling out from behind its fortifications, doing their best to find new positions between the Dracolupus and the landmark. They’d pay a heavy price, she knew. But if it got across the bridge, it could easily reach and destroy the spike-launcher they’d rigged up on the lightning road.
And if Thomasi was right, that would be the end. If it took the spike launcher to kill it, then nothing could stop the beast from this point on.
Nebs’ prophecy would come true, and the world would be doomed.
A massive skeletal foot came down among the tide of soldiers as she watched, and they scattered, reacting to the new threat behind them. But the skeleton ignored them, eye sockets glowing red now as it raised two shining metal disks to the sky...
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