Cleansing Fire

by D. L. Harrison

  After dinner, we did the usual thing and split up for couple time, and we had a celebration of a different kind.

  Chapter Ten

  The crater where the ship had been was ugly, the valley itself lifeless. Scoured clean of animals, trees, and all other life. It was a bit disturbing, but on balance better than the harm the aliens would have caused anyway.

  Outside of no corpses for Steve to put to work, the gathering of metals pretty much went to plan. Although, our elementals had to roam farther for the pieces than I’d expected. I hadn’t really thought it through, a lot of the ship was sent miles in different directions.

  Still, the ship had been several million tons of processed metals, it didn’t take all that long to just find four thousand ingots worth of scrap metal. The three elementals, mine, Cassie’s, and Dan’s, were able to keep up with Dan’s ability to process it into ingots via earth magic.

  Unintended consequences. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and other such clichés came to mind when we were almost done loading the ship.

  Lara pointed, “Are those birds?” she asked in a strangely tense voice.

  We all looked that way. Against the blue sky we saw eight bright red dots, they looked to be circling the area. They didn’t look like any birds I’d ever seen before, the red was far too bright and looked almost reflective in the sun, but it was hard to make out what they were.

  Gwen replied, “I have no idea, let’s finish this up? They look really far away though.”

  I had my water elemental loading the ingots, we’d found plenty of metal by then, we’d be leaving a pile of it behind in fact. It’d been the first time I summoned an elemental in a long time. The thing was huge now, and far more intelligent. Enough that I wondered if I should’ve in the past, and should in the future, use them more in a fight.

  I looked back up in the sky, and it looked like the red dots were getting closer. They’d moved directly overhead, and they seemed to be slowly spiraling down toward the ground. It wasn’t just the color, the bodies looked too long for them to be birds, at least in relation to the wing size, but they were still too far away to really make out.

  Dan said, “That’s all of them.”

  I nodded, “Let’s cloak before we leave the ground, and go take a look before we head back.”

  We finished loading the ship, and then piled in. As soon as Lara had us cloaked, I lifted up, and kept going straight up. They’d been even higher than we’d suspected, a few miles high in fact. So high that no bird could possibly even be seen.

  It wasn’t until we were about halfway there, that we started to make out details. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The large red wings were leathery and were attached to a body as big as our ship was then. The red scales glinted in the sunlight, and the long-ridged tails and huge red head attached to the body kind of gave it away.

  “Dragons?” Cassie said in disbelief.

  Steve said, “Damn, get us closer.”

  I did get us closer, close enough to feel their life force, and assess that life. The dragon’s bodies were the size of a large bus, not counting the head and tail. My assess life skill told me they were young red dragons. They had fifty thousand hit points, about that in mana, as well as the ability to cast mana shields. Their intelligence was as high as mine, and their strength and agility were even higher. Their levels were in the high thirties, so I guessed that made them expert dragons? They were sixty percent resistant to every sphere, except water and fire. They were immune to fire and had no protection against water at all. I wondered if they breathed fire or were somehow aligned to it, that would explain their immunity and their vulnerability to the inimical element. Their armor was also ridiculously good, the scales I guess, it was better than full plate armor. Young was also relative, those dragon young were thousands of years old.

  “If that’s dragon young, I’d hate to see an adult, or an ancient.”

  Of course, I had to open my mouth and say that. Idiot.

  Gwen pointed, “Look out!”

  I turned my head and saw a red dragon the size of a seven-forty-seven bearing down on us. Probably that adult or ancient I’d been talking about. It wasn’t quite in range yet, but I had to assume it had the power and knowledge at least equal to a grandmaster, if it could detect us that meant it felt the magic field, and the big hole we were making in it. Not just felt us, but it felt us flying around its young.

  Which all added up to the ability to swat us like a bug. Letting it get within my range to assess it seemed like a singularly bad idea.

  “Shit.”

  I hit the proverbial gas, with my mind, and we flew away at about ten gravities of acceleration. Thanks to Dan’s upgraded enchantment we didn’t even feel it at all. Inertial damping was cool, but I missed the feeling of acceleration. My mind knew we were moving, but my body insisted we were standing still. We were going ridiculously fast in just a few seconds, and we left the dragons far behind. We flew for about a minute, and then I turned toward Lerus as I slowed to a more reasonable speed, like the speed of sound.

  “I don’t think it can follow us, not at this speed and from such a distance. Why haven’t we heard about dragons?”

  Gwen shrugged, “I don’t know. Let’s talk to the Captain about it when we get back, or maybe just the gate guard?”

  I nodded, and I was getting the strange feeling that it was somehow our fault. Clearly the huge explosion and intense heat of a fifty million mana plus crystal was the reason the dragons were in the area. It would have been like a beacon for a race aligned with fire. That rated pretty high in unintended consequences. Of course, I was assuming they were an evil race, perhaps they weren’t? I could hope, but knowing Gaia and this world, I kind of doubted that hope.

  It didn’t take us long to get back, and we put the ship down about a quarter mile out.

  “Let’s find out where he wants it delivered. Hopefully he takes all of it, our little joke doesn’t seem quite so funny anymore for some reason.”

  Cassie smiled, “He’ll take it. It’s a lot, but at a gold an ingot it’s a steal. They’ll be set for generations of war.”

  We exited the ship, and Dan sunk it into the ground. It was three times the size now, but that wasn’t a big obstacle for him. Then we headed for the city.

  Cassie grinned at the guard as we approached.

  “Hey Dennis. We have some ingots for the Captain, any idea where we should bring it?”

  Dennis replied, “You’ll have to ask him. I’d guess by the forges behind the castle, but I’m not sure.”

  Cassie nodded, and tilted her head in question, “Umm, what do you know about dragons?”

  Dennis laughed, “I know we’re all lucky to be born at this time. Those bastards won’t be back for at least four hundred years.”

  Gwen asked, “Why four hundred?”

  Dennis shrugged, “I forget you undying don’t know nothing.”

  I cringed internally at the double negative, but let it go.

  He continued, “They call it the cleansing fire. Every thousand years or so the dragons wake up, sack a bunch of towns and cities. Loot for their hoards, and food for their stomachs. After two hundred years or so of humans fighting desperately, they fall into another torpor for about eight hundred years. The young ones are bad, and there’s lots of them, but the ancient dragons are the worst. Nothing can face those. Every thousand years, kingdoms rise and fall, and it’s a roll of the dice to see if our kingdom will be spared. The dragons could destroy us all, but they don’t, maybe so us humans can gather more riches for them to steel when they wake up again. Kind of like managing a herd?”

  I asked, “Nothing can kill them? What about grandmasters?”

  He snorted, “Yeah, but level fifty-one and level four hundred is all grandmaster, if you take my meaning. The difference in power and ability is staggering, if not in knowledge. Dragons are virtually immortal, or so long lived they may as well be, anyway. Adults are around level sixty to a hundred, so
still killable if enough grandmasters fight together, but taking down an ancient dragon is nigh impossible. Sure, some humans get up above level sixty, quite a ways too, but we’re too short lived to come close to an ancient dragon’s power.”

  I’d never really considered that. At that level they’d have hit points and mana in the millions. The only way I could think of to beat that would be a ballistae bolt in its eye. I assumed mortal wounds from head or heart still applied, no matter how many hit points they had. The undying weren’t short-lived, but it might take a thousand years for us to catch up in power.

  I’d also come to an inescapable conclusion. The explosive fire of the city ship hadn’t drawn the dragons, they were supposed to be in hibernation. It was far more likely that there’d been a red dragon lair in one of those mountains somewhere. The explosion had just woken them out of their torpor early. They’d probably had to dig themselves out, which would explain why they hadn’t shown up right away.

  “How many are there?”

  Dennis shrugged, “No way to know for sure. There are four different kinds, one for each elemental sphere. Red, brown, green, and blue. There’s usually an adult or ancient accompanied by five to ten young dragons, called a flight.”

  Well, that was good news, sort of. Maybe we only woke up one flight of dragons, only disturbed one of their lairs and hoards. Perhaps those nine dragons had lived in one of the mountains the explosions had blown the tops off. The rest of them might stay asleep another four hundred years. Still, just one flight was bad enough, especially because I was guessing a dragon of that size had to be an ancient. Nine or ninety dragons, I wasn’t sure how we could stop them.

  But we’d have to try, wouldn’t we? I exchanged glances with the others, and saw they were thinking in the same direction. It was our fault they were awake. Good intentions indeed. Only results counted…

  We all walked away sixty-six platinum, six gold, and six silver richer. I was glad they gave us platinum, one of which was worth ten gold. Otherwise it would have been very heavy. We also got four hundred thousand experience points for our efforts in gathering the ingots. That told me the job wasn’t being pushed by any gods, the captain had just been trying to get rid of us. Clearly, the dragons were the next challenge, and a direct result of how we took out the aliens.

  Still, the experience wasn’t terrible, and we were even richer. Four thousand gold was a king’s ransom. Of course, given all the crystals we knew were worth a whole lot more, we didn’t really need it. That was okay, not everything we did needed to have great rewards, and we still got XP for it. Doing it also led to the discovery of the dragons, which put us back on a course of big rewards. At least, I was pretty sure.

  We sat in the inn’s common room, and were enjoying the evening meal, as we all considered what we were facing.

  Gwen said, “The dragon young shouldn’t be that bad. A tough fight, but no worse than the aliens I’d think. Sure, stronger, but our ship should be able to fly circles around them. We’re faster, and with the new inertial dampers we should be far more maneuverable. They have strong fire, claws and a bite. Other magic maybe too? I’m not sure.”

  Steve said, “The big problem is the ancient dragon. It’ll have a huge amount of hit points and mana. Large enough that even our hardest hit would be brushed off. I imagine their regen rate is huge. Even one percent of a million is far larger a number than we could inflict in one hit, which means a second later it would be completely healed.”

  “Which means we need to plan for an instant kill. Shoot something through the eye. Which I’m guessing is much easier said than done. Even cloaked it would feel us coming a long way away. I’m assuming a heart shot would be even harder, too much flesh to get through, if we could even get through its scales.”

  Gwen said, “That will take a clever plan. They’re as smart or smarter than we are, so we have to assume it knows where it’s most vulnerable and will be wary of that kind of attack.”

  Dan smirked, “Or we could find another continent with playmates more our speed.”

  Everyone snickered, but no one seriously considered it, not even Dan.

  I said, “They’re vulnerable to water, and our fire blast enchantment on the ship is absolutely worthless.”

  Gwen nodded, “We have two options, I think. We could remove the canopy, and then use an air spell to stop the wind at those speeds. Go after them and use our own attacks from inside the ship. The second option, or really just a general plan, is to figure out where they’re going to attack, and joining the town or city’s defense.”

  Lara said, “Maybe we don’t need to kill the ancient one at all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Lara frowned, “If we kill the rest of its flight, maybe the ancient will return to its lair and sleep, so it can join the rest of the flights in four hundred years and find another mate to rebuild the flight.”

  Steve replied, “Or it could go crazy if we kill all its children, and then go on a city destroying bender.”

  Lara shook her head, “I doubt it, the cities are its resources. If it destroys them all, there will be nothing left to raid and loot for next time. It would be like a human slaughtering all the pigs, instead of only some of them and leaving the rest to breed. We have to assume during the cleansing fires of the past they lost a lot of the younger and even nascent dragons. They’ve never done that before.”

  Lara frowned, “The dragons are still part of the natural habitat, even if they are a race and not animals. I’m guessing both dragon and human kind of act like population control on both races. It’s an ugly concept, but if there wasn’t a balance there’d be no humans left here on this continent.”

  Cassie said, “I like her plan, but we have to assume the ancient will watch over the young. That will complicate things.”

  “Alright, so we go after the young, and then only try to kill the ancient in some desperate all or nothing plan if it doesn’t go take a four-hundred-year nap. What about the part Gwen mentioned, do we go after them, or defend from a city they attack? I had a feeling the latter would be easier, but I also feel uneasy about using a human city as a distraction.”

  Dan said, “Attack would be better for our conscience. We’ll lose the canopy and cast from the ship. Except, we don’t have a mana shield for the ship. I imagine even the youngest dragon could completely destroy the ship if they hit, even if we survived the attack with our mana shields, we’d be screwed at that point. I’m not sure how realistic that plan is, even if we all would prefer it. We’re more maneuverable, but if all we can do is run and dodge, we’ll never get a solid shot at one of them.”

  There was a pause while we all absorbed that. It made my stomach twist a bit, but he was right.

  “It’s an ugly thought, but we can’t deny reality just because we don’t like it.”

  Cassie blew out a breath, “Seriously? We can build one for the ship, we were just waiting because we didn’t need it yet.”

  I nodded, “Except, with thirty gems we could build one that was twenty-four thousand mana strong. At that strength we’d be lucky to take one hit from the young ones, before we took damage that destroyed the ship from a second. The ancient dragon would just rip through it and destroy us and the ship with one attack, easily. Doesn’t seem much better than just depending on our speed and maneuverability to avoid their attacks. Plus, it would take several days to make one even that strong, which means they’ll probably be attacking cities while we prepare anyway. I don’t like it. I hate it. I’m sorry Cassie, but like I said, we can’t deny reality because we don’t want any collateral damage.”

  Cassie glared at me, but I knew it was more about being helpless to prevent more deaths, and the truth I spoke, than it was about her being mad at me. It was our fault after all, that the dragons were awakened. Still better than an alien invasion, but by a lot less than we’d thought and hoped.

  Dan added, “Dodging would be hard if not impossible. Magic hits whatever the caster sees, which m
eans we’d have to literally run from them every time they attack us, and completely get out of visual range somehow while doing so. Sure, our maneuverability would help avoid claws and bite just fine, but their fire magic not so much.”

  Gwen sighed, and said grudgingly, “City. Let’s go see what they’re up to, and start following them.”

  I nodded, “The sooner we go the better. If we have to use a city to distract them, just be six more bodies among many, then let’s make sure it’s the first city they attack. I’d hate to get a good night’s sleep, only to find out one of the kingdom’s got raided and there were a lot of deaths.”

  If it wasn’t too late already.

  Everyone agreed, although none of us were happy about it. It was what it was, and wishes wouldn’t change it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Our plans didn’t last very long. We’d barely stood up to leave and go to the ship, when we heard the roars outside, quickly followed by explosions of fire. My stomach twisted again, so much for our plan not to allow innocents to be hurt anymore. That would be just as bad, if not worse than the war we’d faced. Not as many enemies, but perhaps even more innocent deaths, if not as many soldier deaths.

  It made me angry, but there was nothing I could do about it. Except blame Gaia and stew in impotent anger, which didn’t really get us anywhere. I pushed it all down, anger wasn’t going to help, I could wrestle with it later.

  Gwen said, “How did they follow us?”

  Dan grunted, “No idea, and it doesn’t matter. Let’s get out there.”

  My two fire blast spells that I had set up as a continual thing would be worthless against the dragons, they were immune to fire. I stopped feeding them mana and ended the spells, and then cast two similar spells for the sphere of water. An ice spike spell, and an exploding ice spike spell. They were vulnerable to that element, I just hoped ice was hard enough to get through their natural armor. The water magic saturating the ice spikes should help with that penetration, once we beat down their mana shields that is. For the young that shouldn’t take long actually, their mana shields weren’t much stronger than mine, and I could take it down in one hit. Unfortunately, I was sure my mana shield could be taken down by just one of theirs as well.