Well Done

by Andrew Seiple

  ...and then brought them together with unthinkable force.

  Even from this distance, the wall of sound hurt Chase’s ears.

  She expected to see the army flattened... but all they did was drop their weapons and cover their ears.

  Then the building across from the bridge exploded.

  The one behind it followed suit.

  Then the two nearest it behind that.

  The three behind that only wobbled a bit, a few shingles blowing away as the massive, directed burst of sound finally lost a bit of its force.

  The skeleton considered its weapons almost sadly, Chase thought. Then it seemed to shrug, and its red, red eye sockets found the Dracolupus.

  “Now’s our chance, move!” Chase said, and the party pulled itself away from the spectacle and ran.

  They found the green dragon lying in a crater of wreckage, writhing, trying to snap at the loose cordon of weredrakes around him.

  They seemed to be keeping him at bay, leaping in to cut at his torn hide when opportunity arose, then dancing back before he could strike. A few shattered corpses spoke to the inefficiency of this strategy, and Chase wondered at it until she saw their leader. It was a hunched and elderly white-maned weredrake painstakingly tracing symbols with glittery dust in a large ring around him.

  “Dolce’s Mom!” Renny said. “Oh that’s bad, she’s making a ward around him!”

  “None of that, then!” Chase said. “Attack!”

  It took precious minutes, but they had the jump on the beasts, and they managed to scatter them before anyone got bitten.

  Therasimalazyn considered them from where he lay. “YOU ARE TOO LATE.”

  “I refuse to accept that!” Chase snapped. “Diagnose!” Then she slapped her hand over her mouth.

  “YOU SEE NOW.”

  “Yes,” Chase said. “Well. I can help with at least one of those.” She moved down into the crater, not taking her eyes off the dragon. She took a deep breath as she passed through the line of weredrake corpses, but Therasimalazyn didn’t seem inclined to kill her.

  Feet crunched and she looked up to find Thomasi and Cagna next to her, with Renny behind them, hands poised in his air manipulating stance. They’re ready to save me if this goes bad, she knew. And her heart warmed to see it. Come what may, she had her friends. There were no finer people to see the end of the world with.

  Of course, it would be better to save it. So, she knelt by the great dragon’s head and placed her hand on his bloody scales, digging into her apron for her worm jar.

  “Absorb Condition, Transfer Condition,” she spoke, and the dragon’s spine mended, letting it move its lower body once more. She spoke again, and its wings mended. And on the third use, his bleeding stopped.

  “THANK YOU. BUT YOU KNOW THAT THIS MATTERS NOT.”

  “Yes, it does!” She said, dropping a suddenly bloody and panicked worm onto the ground. “We need you to go attack it from the back while Cymbal fights it head on!”

  “I AM TOO WEAK. AND IT MATTERS NOT. THE CORRUPTION HAS TAKEN HOLD. I MUST DIE.”

  “Yes,” she said, for she had seen the truth with her diagnosis. Just like the werewolves she had examined, his very being was different now. The curse had taken hold of him.

  But the full moon was tomorrow night. “But you don’t have to die NOW. You’re going to help fix this, then you can die!”

  He snorted, and hot air washed over her. She hurried back, worried that he’d incinerate her. But there was no fire in his breath. Only self-pity. “WHY SHOULD I? I WILL DIE. WHAT DOES ANYTHING MATTER NOW?”

  Chase put her foot wrong, slipped, fell backward...

  ...and a gloved hand caught her, as Thomasi stepped forward. She could just hear him muttering under his breath; “Silver Tongue, Stage Voice.” Then he spoke, more loudly. “You know, that was one of the things that Zenobia always threw in our faces.”

  “WHAT?”

  “That we were selfish, unfeeling, uncaring fools. Short-sighted spoiled princes who had the world handed to us on a platter and didn’t think we had any responsibilities to it.”

  “THIS IS NOTHING LIKE THAT—”

  “Selfish, greedy bastards, who thought that the world ended and began with us!” Thomasi shouted, and Chase gasped as the dragon fell silent.

  “But it doesn’t! And if you don’t care about us, fine, whatever! But there are other dragons, and they’ll end up corrupted if you don’t act, here and now! And you know what they’ll do then?”

  The dragon’s eyes were narrowing, and Chase could almost feel the hate rolling off it it. This was dangerous...

  “They’ll laugh at you! The runt who couldn’t stop their master! They’ll hunt you down and piss on your grave, you sorry excuse for a dragon!” Thomasi’s voice turned sing-song, and he made little flappy motions with his hands. “Oooh, I got beat up! Ooooh, I didn’t have the scales to stop her! I guess I’d better mope until they come and kill me! Wah!”

  “YOU!” The dragon rose up, pulling itself to its full height...

  And Chase whispered “Foresight!”

  She watched her words fall on deaf ears and tried again. “Foresight!”

  Again, the Ringmaster died, and this time she did, too. Time resumed and the Dragon’s mouth stretched wide as his head lowered.

  “Foresight!”

  And the third time was the charm.

  Your Foresight skill is now level 48!

  “If he annoys you, think how much he’ll vex her!” Chase shrieked as the dragon’s jaws reached Thomasi’s hat.

  The great wyrm paused, ready to swallow him in a bite.

  A chuckle loud as thunder washed over them. “VERY WELL, LITTLE SACRIFICE. GET ON MY BACK.”

  “Er...” Thomasi paused. “What?”

  “IF YOU WANT ME TO FIGHT SO BADLY, YOU’RE COMING WITH ME. MOUNT UP OR GET IN MY BELLY, IT’S ALL THE SAME.”

  Thomasi blanched. Then he held very, very still as the dragon scooped him up and placed him on its neck.

  Another wall of sound.

  Another blast that blew up buildings.

  This time met by a reverberating roar and a breath of that crystalline black wrongness.

  “The skelly won’t last long,” Madeline whispered in her ears. “It’s doing damage but taking too much back!”

  “Damage... Hang on, we need to heal you up,” she said, running over to the green dragon’s leg. “Lesser Healing! Ah... wait, what’s this?”

  In among the clotted wounds and ripped scales were green-feathered bolts. They glowed with sickly light, and the flesh around them looked melted.

  “THE ABOMINATION’S SPAWN FIRED CROSSBOWS AT ME. IT HURT.”

  “Those are the dragon-slaying bolts that we found!” Cagna gasped. “This thing changed them.”

  “Like it changed the people who were here.”

  “A FEW OF THE SPAWN HIT THEIR MASTER BY ACCIDENT. SHE KILLED THEM FOR THEIR AFFRONT.”

  “The bolts will hurt her!” Chase realized. “Cagna, how many did we have? Do you think there are any left?”

  “I’m not sure,” the dog-woman said, pulling the bolts free one by one. “Keep healing him up, I’ll do a count.”

  Precious moments slipped by. Chase burned through two of the sanity restoring potions that Lord Barriano had given her. Dragons had a lot of HP. But finally, he nodded. “THIS IS ENOUGH. FOLLOW ME AND DIE WELL.”

  “We will,” Chase said and looked toward Cagna. “How many?”

  “I think there’s at least a box left,” the dog-woman said. Then she looked around at the ruined and blasted rubble. “I have no idea where they might be, though.”

  “Oooh! Ooh! Let me!” Carmina said, and Chase suppressed a shriek as the catgirl popped up behind her. “I’m good at finding stuff! I’ll go get them! And... why do you want them again?”

  “Bring them to us!” Chase yelled over the dragon’s wingbeats as it took off. “We’ll be with him!”

  “And bring crossbows too!” Cagna y
elled.

  And then Therasimalazyn and Thomasi were gone, the former one roaring a challenge and the latter screaming and hanging on for dear life.

  “He’s got a few Tamer levels, he’ll be fine,” Chase said, mostly to reassure herself. “Let’s go!”

  This time it was easy to find a path.

  Between the wreckage left in the trail of the Dracolupus and the exploded buildings, the way was mostly clear.

  They arrived to see a battle of titans.

  A broken and stumbling skeleton hammered at the jaws of the wolf-headed Dracolupus, as it tore through its ribcage two bones at a time, darting in and snapping loose marrow with every hit.

  Behind it, Therasimalazyn fought with care. He’d called up vines around the battlefield, and they grasped and hindered the abomination’s step. But his foe was fast, and he couldn’t capitalize on her disadvantages.

  Ahead of them, on the near side of the bridge, Barriano’s troops fought against the remaining weredrakes. They had numbers, but the weredrakes were strong, and only a few of the Lord’s army seemed to have silver weapons. Spells crackled and hissed from the rear ranks, keeping them from being overwhelmed, but that was all.

  Something was off, though. The Dracolupus was fighting far more cautiously than she had before. Why? Was it because the green dragon was corrupted? Was she hoping to keep a powerful minion alive until the moon rose and she gained his servitude?

  She watched as the abomination avoided an easy shot at Therasimalazyn, and something about it made her wonder... Then the abomination’s tail lashed his side, and he staggered back, a red ’264’ rising to the sky. No, no she wasn’t trying to avoid killing him. What was going on here?

  Again, Therasimalazyn snapped at her, and again she didn’t retaliate...

  ...and Chase’s eyes found the red-coated figure on the green dragon’s back.

  “Oh my gods! She’s still a player!” Chase gasped. “She can’t go for his neck because Thomasi’s there! She can’t attack that part unless he activates his PVP switch or attacks her!”

  WIS+1

  “That’s awesome!” Renny cheered. “Wait. How can we use this?”

  “That’s... I don’t know.” Her eyes went wide. “Cagna! Whisper Thomasi, tell him that he can’t hurt her! Under no circumstances should he attack—”

  But she had been seconds too late.

  Thomasi’s voice echoed through the air, and Chase groaned as she saw a yellow ‘12’ rise from the abomination’s head.

  She lashed out, lightning fast, clamping her wide jaws around the green dragon’s neck, barely missing the red-coated form as Thomasi leaped for dear life.

  “Control Air!” Renny shouted and stopped his fall, pulling the Ringmaster away and out of the fight.

  Therasimalazyn screamed and fought back, claws scrabbling to get her loose, but she dug in, lashing the skeleton with her tail. Cymbal gave one last scream as her battered ribcage collapsed and the undead crumbled to the ground.

  BOOM.

  The silver light arced upward.

  Faster still, Tabita scrambled back, releasing Therasimalazyn...

  ...and failing.

  The greenwyrm curled itself around her head, held her to him with the last of his strength.

  The silvery bolt spike slammed into them both.

  Chase didn’t catch the red numbers that flew overhead, but when the dust cleared, the great green wyrm lay on the ground in an ocean of blood. He didn’t stir, and Chase knew he never would again.

  And next to him, Tabita’s black bulk lay motionless.

  For a second, for a hot moment, for the briefest of moments Chase dared to hope.

  And then the abomination twitched.

  Then it shuddered, and with a mighty heave tore the silver spike from its chest, screaming as a red ‘757’ rose into the air.

  The weredrakes below gave a mighty howl, and the defenders cried in despair, as the minions redoubled their efforts. They were forced back onto the bridge, and armored bodies fell into the water as Chase watched in horror.

  “Oh no,” Bastien whispered.

  “Are we immune to her? Tell me we’re immune, we still have that PVP protection thing going on,” Cagna said, her voice dour.

  “Nope,” Dijornos said. “I got flagged when Thomasi attacked her. This party ain’t safe no more.”

  “We wahn’t in the fahst place,” Madeline said, flapping to the ground.

  The Dracolupus reeled as it stood, looming over the bridge. It gathered its breath...

  ...and blood spurted, as it choked and sputtered.

  “Sucking chest wound,” Cagna said. “I don’t think it can breathe... whatever that stuff is, anymore.”

  “Yah, but she’s still like twenty tons of supah-annoyed dragon,” Madeline said. “Don’t think that bridge’ll stahp her fah long.”

  “I’m sorry,” Thomasi said, landing neatly as Renny pulled him in. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t think of anything to do to help.”

  “No, it’s fine,” Chase said. “We knew it’d come to this anyway.” She walked forward, pulling her cards as she went. “Everything comes in threes,” she spoke, not knowing how she knew this, only knowing it was true. “Three dragons. Three shots. If we can hold her here, then that third shot will end this. It’s down to us now. We’re all that’s left.”

  Silence around her.

  Silence rudely broken, as Dijornos swore. “...hell, what’ve I got to lose at this point?”

  “Still got a respawn?” Thomasi asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Let me fix that.”

  The big man stopped and stared. “Dude. I don’t... you’d do that?”

  Thomasi smiled. “You’ve come a long way from that foul-mouthed murderer I met over a decade ago.”

  For a second it looked like that craggy, scarred face was going to cry.

  Then the abomination roared again, and Dijornos scowled instead. “Getting tired of her. Let’s go shut her damn mouth. Fight the Battles!” he roared, and Chase smiled as one final buff washed over her.

  “Fight the battles,” she agreed, nodding in satisfaction as Dijornos took the gold tokens from Thomasi. Real tokens this time, not the false ones he’d given Pwner.

  But it was Renny who broke the moment. “Guys? She noticed that!”

  And Chase looked up to see it was true. The massive creature had caught the flash of gold, and she was dragging her twisted, heavily-wounded form towards the group.

  “She’s getting out of the line of fire!” Cagna warned.

  “Cazza!” Chase swore, then pointed to the crumbled remnants of a warehouse. “There! We’ll make our stand there!”

  Even with forced march up, even with Tabita’s many injuries and hindrances, they still barely got to cover before she reached them. Heavy talons slammed down just behind Madeline’s tail, and the little wooden dragon swore as she rolled through an empty doorway.

  Concrete exploded as Tabita’s tail lashed the wall, opening a large gouge.

  “Get her!” Chase shouted, and Dijornos roared, leaping through one of the windows to slam his axe into Tabita’s leg.

  In the dimming light she saw The Muscle Wizaard working his way around her. She didn’t know what he planned, but she threw a quick “Influence Fate,” his way, paying no heed as the skill rose.

  Cagna’s pistol cracked, and Tabita roared in surprise. She’d used a silver bullet. How many more did she have? Hard to say.

  Leather wings beat the sky and Madeline rained down fire from above. Lightning churned next to Chase as Renny found holes in the wall and threw blasts willy-nilly. The time for illusions was over.

  And Chase gasped as Dijornos took hundreds of points of damage in the space of seconds. “Lesser Healing, Lesser Healing, Lesser Healing!” she chanted, feeling her sanity drain with each invocation. She breathed easier once he was out of the danger zone...

  Then with a roar and a screech of jaws on metal, he was right back there again. Grimly, C
hase set her back to the wall and healed for all she was worth.

  And after a few moments, she knew it wouldn’t be enough.

  He was keeping Tabita’s attention pretty well, and he and the others were laying in damage, but at some point, she’d straight-out kill someone with a single hit, or run Chase out of sanity. And then...

  Leather boots slapped the stone as Thomasi skidded to a stop in front of her. “We can’t do this forever!”

  “I know!”

  “I’m keeping her attention on Dijornos, but she’s got obscene willpower! And sooner or later this building will finish collapsing. We need another plan!”

  Chase gnawed her lip... “We need to shift it up!” She healed Dijornos a few more times. “Renny, find Cagna! Get her to tell Dijornos to back off when she goes after Madeline. Then message Madeline and tell her to get to a safe distance and harass her. Tease her, lead her around a bit.”

  “If she goes too far, the railgun won’t be able to hit her,” Thomasi warned.

  “We can drag her back. Vitale probably needs a few more minutes to load a new one anyway. We need a breather! Thomasi, go with Renny, when Cagna finishes messaging then shift Tabita’s attention to Madeline.”

  “This’ll get us minutes at most,” he warned.

  “I’ll take it. Go!”

  Then it was more frantic healing, and Chase downed one of her sanity potions. It brought her back to half sanity, and she winced.

  “Ovah heah, doggy!” Madeline shouted during a brief bit of silence, and then Dijornos crashed through a window frame, taking the broken wood and weakened stone with him.

  Claws the size of carts pounded the ground as Tabita shifted, moving off into the distance. It wouldn’t last, but for now it was working.

  “God DAMN,” Dijornos said, raising himself to his elbows. “Did you see that Dee pee ess? Champion stats, man. And I’m the tank.”

  “That’s nice, but we need to change the game,” Chase said. “We’re dead if we keep this up.” While she talked, she dug out the jar of worms and got the abomination’s curse lifted off him.

  Dijornos shrugged. “We got a plan, Wiz and me. Just need to get her back here. It’ll hold her still so they can shoot her.”