by David Burke
“I need you to slow down a bit so we can stay closer together if you want my cloaking ability to cover everyone,” Amelia sent telepathically.
Jay realized that she was correct. He had started to walk faster, likely in his excitement. He simply nodded and slowed down. Meikiyo and Trina matched him.
As they got closer to the caldera at the top of the volcano, the tunnels were no longer smooth crafted passageways made by A’snkarnt science. Now they were just roughhewn tunnels cut out of basalt.
Most bizarre was that they heard a deep breathing sound, but it was more like a giant bellows than an actual snoring. Jay could only wonder if the guardian was asleep. If this were a game, he would be thrilled to find a new monster. The challenge of figuring out its weaknesses, and adapting the best strategies for fighting it.
The thing was though, this wasn’t a game. There was no respawning and if any of his companions died because he was less than perfect, he would end up hating himself. So he signaled them to slow down.
“Do you mind scouting up ahead, Amelia? I would do it. In fact that is my inclination, but I acknowledge you are better suited to it than I am,” Jay asked.
Amelia opened her eyes in fake shock. “Oh my, the great Jay is willing to admit that someone else might be able to do something better.”
Then Jessie piled on. “But whatever will we fragile womenfolk do if Jay doesn’t do everything for us.”
Apparently this had hit a sore spot because Huong added, “Well except for research, cleaning, taking care of babies, oh and lying on our backs. That’s women’s work after all.”
“I… never said anything like that,” Jay protested.
“Yes, we know. You also like us in other positions, not just on our backs,” Amelia said.
For whatever reason, Madison had crept around behind Meikiyo and Trina. They were frowning at Jay but not jumping in on this conversation. Maybe at least they had his back. So he said, “Meikiyo, Trina, Maddy, one of you… say something. You know I’m not like that.”
Madison only shrunk back further then. Trina shook her head and said, “I’m not your wife as I have been reminded, so I’m not getting between you and your wives.”
“You know that I treasure the memory of you saving me more than any other in my life, but you tend to cut us out of anything you deem too dangerous. You also keep important decisions to yourself far too often. You are the leader and all your wives are sworn to obey you, so we will. We do trust you. We just need you to trust us more,” Meikiyo said.
“I actually don’t think it is a matter of trust. We all know why he is so overprotective of women. It is sweet and given his history makes sense. I believe that you trust us. You just take too long to make decisions. I know this is a new position for you and you have shown at times that you can be decisive but you keep falling back into old patterns.
“You have our loyalty. Even the slut and the bitch have proven themselves to be loyal. Now you need to move faster. We are out of time. The enemy is coming for us. You have to make decisions faster,” Amelia said.
Before Jay could answer, Huong said to Amelia, “Wait, I’m slut, but I thought you were bitch.”
The blonde laughed as she said, “Well I can be bitchy, but I’m not the bitch. She is.” As she spoke she gestured with her thumb at Trina.
“Oh, yeah that makes sense,” Huong laughed.
Trina started to speak but Jay finally took charge. He created a sphere-shaped construct around all of them and began shrinking it so that they were all pulled in to within a few feet of him. There were a few shrieks. “Enough. Your point has been made. I do need to make decisions faster. But I also need to depend on you despite my concerns for your wellbeing. That was what I was trying to do by asking Amelia to scout for me.”
“We know. Sorry, but I needed to get that off my chest,” Amelia said.
“I’m always happy for you to get stuff off your chest,” Jay said. “But now we need to get moving.”
With that Amelia disappeared from sight. He still knew where she was through the fusion but she was completely invisible to any of his senses. Jay looked over at Jessie to ask if her heightened senses could detect him and she just shook her head no. Now came the hard part, waiting for Amelia while he worried about her safety.
The time passed and he kept sending out his scans but whatever the life form up in the caldera was hadn’t moved at all. For all he could tell it was asleep or in some form of stasis. He only knew that it was large and he could detect a great deal of energy in it even if it was dormant.
After about fifteen minutes, Amelia returned. “Well, I found the doorway to the sixth floor. If we went one at a time, we could try to sneak past the guardian and go through. But pretty sure that it can’t be that simple.”
Trina said, “It never is.” A moment of silence followed as the two women glared at each other, obviously upset with one another even at the fact that they would agree on something.
“As I was saying, the door is behind the guardian and the caldera is large. This tunnel leads sharply upwards in a few hundred feet. Nothing that any of us will have trouble climbing but also not something you can navigate at Mach two. Once up there, if you keep to the edges you could likely sneak around without waking the beast.
“I also listened to all the times you have been talking about dungeon dives, Jay, and I checked for traps as best I could. If there are any, I wasn’t able to find or spring them. So I think we will be safe to fight the creature in the caldera, I just don’t know if it will stay there or if this is gonna end up being a very long fight.”
“And what does it look like? Any idea about its abilities? Does it compare to any type of animal from Earth?” Jay asked.
She was grinning from ear to ear. “This is really bad, but I just love the fact that I know the nerd in you is gonna be geeking out about this, husband,” Amelia answered.
“Well don’t keep me waiting,” he pleaded.
Amelia ran her finger under his chin and said, “Sometimes turnabout is fair play, but...” She then held a dramatic pause before spitting out, “It’s a dragon.”
Everyone was quiet but for the sucking in of air. No creature from mythology conjured so much fear. A vampire might be deadly, a slime hard to kill and gross, and a demon diabolical, but a dragon was might incarnate, and the biggest fantasy dream of people the world over.
When he couldn’t hold it in any longer Jay said, “So cool. Is it a four-legged dragon or a two and wings or winged serpent? Red? Metallic colored? How long was it? Wide?” The questions just poured out of him.
“Um four legs with big wings but they were folded against its body. Red, how did you know that? Were you reading my mind? I’d say it was forty feet long but its tail was curled up. And it was probably ten or twelve feet wide,” Amelia answered.
“I wasn’t trying to read your mind but, sometimes it is hard now. The images in your head speak out so powerfully. As for red, that is just a common color in mythology and books for fire dragons, which is what I would expect this to be, given where it lives.
“I’ve noticed if none of the rest of you have that the A’snkarnt seemed to have factors in our mythology with the monsters that they have put before us. I don’t know if they brought these creatures from other places or made them especially for this experiment. Maybe some combination of the two,” Jay replied.
“We know that the Bel’gi were brought from somewhere else,” Huong said.
“How do we know that?” Jay asked.
“D’varn explained it while you and Trina were unconscious. Apparently they were another race that they experimented on. The race developed a certain type of power which seems to be ice related. It empowered all their people, making the warriors hardier and the women that survived were able to channel the ice into attacks like Kenzie can,” Huong answered.
“Yeah we saw that. But why did they stop the experiment? Did he say? That might give us some insight into what we can expect,” Trin
a asked.
“Apparently they became more and more corrupt and prone to inflicting pain. They began to thrive on the suffering of others, even the portion of their own people who were not able to adapt until all that was left was the empowered Bal’gi.
“The turning point came with what they called the apexes. Those were like their king. They learned how to draw power out of the females and were the only males who were able to wield their ice powers and more than that. The crown was a piece of technology that they developed.
“Something about the metal and the carvings in it helped to channel their powers and made it easier for the apexes to draw in more power from their bonded females. The females became empowered but as you saw he was able to suck that power out of them and that left them as inert husks on the ground,” Huong said.
Jay couldn’t help but draw the comparison between what they were talking about and the fusions that he had. Except he didn’t see how the fusions would allow him to draw power from the women and it was very much a two-way street. Even to the point that they got powers from each other. Or always had until Trina.
As he looked around at the other faces, Jay could see that they were also thinking the same thing. “You don’t have to worry about that. I’m not going to be trying to suck the life out of you all.”
Jessie laughed and said, “No that is what we do to you.”
Huong mumbled, “Hey that was my line.”
Amelia got more serious then and said, “D’varn told us that this was why they were very worried when you and Mia first fused. He has been wanting to make contact with us for a while but wanted to make sure that the fusions were not corrupting any of us. Ultimately he decided that you really do care about us. Although the way that he said it was so clinical.”
“Okay, I guess that makes sense. We won’t fall into those same pitfalls. Now, I feel better about taking it a bit slower,” Jay said but as he noticed the glares he got with that statement, he quickly added, “But that is in the past. Now, we're going to move forward with more fusions and accelerated time training.”
Maddy perked up at that. “Oh, more fusions. What are the requirements?”
Jessie growled, “Back off. Wives first then you can get in line.”
Maddy said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that.”
Amelia smiled at Maddy. “Oh don’t worry you are on the best pod. I will get some of you fused as soon as there are openings. I’ve got dibs after all.”
“Dibs are all well and good, but once Jay fuses Meikiyo and Jessie, who admittedly add interesting powers to his, we will have to select the people that he fuses with based upon what powers they can grant to Jay and secondarily to the other fused if that is still a thing,” Trina said.
“Now that is a logical way to think about this. Jay would be lost without us. Maybe I will like you after all, Trina,” Huong said.
“Um, you all know that I’m standing right here. And, besides, yes we will do more fusions, but we still have to work out what went wrong with Trina’s fusion before we do any more fusions. We talked about this,” Jay said.
Huong patted his arm and said, “Oh don’t worry. We will look out for you. Remember I’m your Madame.”
Meikiyo was apparently uncomfortable with the conversation because she asked, “So are we going to talk about how to fight the dragon or just go running in weapons blazing?”
“Good point, lover,” Jay said, using her term of endearment for him. “So we can’t assume that it is exactly like a dragon from a story. This isn’t a book or a game after all. But, based on how other creatures have had parallels to those kinds of things we can use that as a starting point.
“Amelia’s point before was valid. We don’t want it flying up and making it impossible for us to melee with it. That will weaken me and take Jessie out of the equation mostly. So that gives Maddy one of the most important jobs.”
He looked at the slender brunette as he said, “It will be up to you to try to keep it grounded.”
“Okay and what about the rest of us?” Trina asked.
Jay knew that she was used to leading so he turned the question on her. “Well I have some ideas but I am not the only one who is used to leading here. At least four of you regularly lead teams in here and Huong leads the tech division, so I am open to your input too.”
The answer seemed to please the girls. Trina spoke again and said, “It would seem logical that we try to damage its wings as quickly as possible. That will also depend on Madison but if it works will free her up from trying to immobilize it. I can take that as my mission first.”
“I agree that is a good strategy, but let me suggest that Jessie be the one to focus on attacking the wings,” Jay said. “Wait, hear me out. We have to assume that it is going to be immune to fire, so Meikiyo may not be able to hurt it very well, but she also should be immune to any flames that it would breathe. That means that she is our distraction.”
“I had assumed that Meikiyo and I would hit it with shadow fireballs and blow it up from the inside,” Amelia said.
“The concussive force of the explosions would still probably tear it up inside, but the heat component of the attack would be entirely lost on it. So, I was really hoping to create a new power combo,” Jay said.
“What then?” she asked.
“Don’t shoot me, but necrotic shadow bolts,” Jay said. He didn’t pause to give either Amelia or Trina a chance to object. “Look it makes sense. The dragon is probably going to have very sturdy and durable scales. So if you combine your powers you can bypass the armor and have Trina’s power go off inside of it where it can do the most harm.”
The two girls both glared at each other before mumbling, “Fine.”
“I also know that neither of you are fragile, but we need to assume that this dragon is able to deal a tremendous amount of damage. So, leave the melee to me and Jessie,” Jay said.
“Okay, what about me?” Huong asked.
“Stay back by Maddy and focus on healing. If all goes well we will clip its wings and blow it apart from inside. Maybe you won’t even need me. But one last thing. If I should happen to fall in battle, then I want you all to listen to Meikiyo. She will decide if you stay and fight or if you flee back. When you get back, the decision is up to you all about leadership but please respect my wishes in this. Meikiyo is second in command,” Jay said.
He had expected to get some argument from the other girls but apparently even they realized that the tension between Trina and Amelia meant that neither of them could be second in command. Huong might have been the second wife, but she was not used to leading in battle. Both Meikiyo and Trina regularly lead their pods into the fourth floor, but Meikiyo was number three and honestly, Jay needed some brownie points with her.
“If this starts to go south at all, I may call for you all to fall back. If that happens, I am gonna go all out on it, but so far everything has been so weak compared to us that I doubt that will be necessary. Only the Forlorn have pushed me to that level,” Jay added and then led the way up the tunnel.
This was gonna be fun. It was only a dragon. What could go wrong?
Chapter 16- Into the Den
As Jay cleared the top of the tunnel he took in the sight before him. It was surely a dragon. It looked majestic even sleeping. The long neck was thicker than a man. Its shoulders were horned as was the top of its head. The wings were clawed on their corners. The thick scales covered it over its entire body and the underbelly didn’t look any softer than the back although the back did have extra ridges and spikes.
Jay couldn’t help but admire it but when its lips parted in a snore, the eighteen-inch-long teeth got his immediate attention. He reminded himself that this wasn’t a game and he needed to treat it as a matter of life and death. There was no room for being lax here. The urge to lock the girls away behind a barrier crossed his mind again.
He struck it down though. They were right. Chivalry was great and it would never be entirely de
ad as long as he was alive, but he needed to treat them as equals. This was a monster to be slain and they stood a better chance together.
As they all exited the tunnel into the caldera, each in turn sucked in their breath but then moved to the spots that Jay designated. In his mind this fight would take place in three stages. He hoped that the monster would turn out to be as easy as the others had been and would fall with just the first stage.
If that didn’t happen though he was prepared to bring it. Heaven help him though if he had to truly cut loose. Jay just couldn’t get rid of the sinking feeling that truly cutting loose was a bad thing. Even if he couldn’t place his finger on exactly why he felt that way.
The girls looked at him as they were spreading out. His form flickered so quickly that they couldn’t be sure but it was like there was static on a screen and they witnessed his form flipping back and forth from there to not there. Jay had no control of it and only an uneasy awareness that something was happening to him, but then the moment passed and he moved on with the plan.
