The scarlet dragoness proceeded down the cold musty steps, her footsteps echoing along long dark corridor. She felt the air getting colder as she descended deeper into the darkness. A faint bluish-purple glow lit the stairs as the passage opened into a large underground chamber.
“Do you know what happened in these halls Dragoness?”, he said in a raspy voice stood in a glowing rune, “Only a few of these sorts of places in this world. Do you know what they are?”
Scalah snorted, her face scowled, “I’m not here to play this game with you Din”.
The black dragon leaned his head back with a grin, “That’s too bad, it’s an awfully interesting story. These Aether Nexuses, oh they’re something else, a place of tremendous pure Aetheric energy”. Scalah eyed him as he paced before the giant crystal.
“Do you know why I’m here?”, he smiled smugly.
“Do I even care?”, she snorted back.
“Oh, I would if I were you, you see it’s quite the tale of intrigue and-“
A fireball hit the ground near him sending a cloud of dust into the air and prompting Din to pounce out of the way. He flashed his purple eyes up at Scalah with a grin, “Aren’t we antsy? Not in the mood to talk after I gored your little pet up there?”
“Hardly, listening to you monologue literally makes me sick”, she snorted.[BK1]
“Well, that’s just too bad. You do-gooders always demand answers, reasons. Must admit, this is quite a refreshing take on the age-old trope-”, he had hardly finished his sentence when a second fireball flashed hitting him in the face, sending him hurling back into the crystal spire with a loud crash. He hit the ground, surrounded by razor sharp shards of broken crystal impaling the dirt around him.
He turned to the scarlet dragoness with a maniacal look, snorting, blood dripping from his maw where a crystal had grazed his scales. He grits his teeth with a crunching noise: “Oh ho no no no, you are not, taking this moment away from me irritant. I’ve waited 20 years of my life for this.”
Scalah snorted, calmly pulling the leather paw guards on her fore paws tighter with her gilded claws: “All I see is a little rat that kills for pleasure. I don’t consider dispatching you a thrill. I consider it an act of justice.”
He snorted, “You don’t even know why I’m here, and yet you judge my motives? My presence here, although unwanted, is for your so-called greater good. So, per chance you could do me a favour and piss off”.
A loud flash of purple light and the crack of magical energy echoed through the chamber as the black dragon lunged at Scalah. The scarlet dragoness easily side stepping his attack before hitting him on the back with a sweep of her tail as he passed sending him hard into the dirt and sliding a short distance.
He pushed himself with a grunt before lunging again, this time trying to anticipate Scalah’s sidestep, only to be grabbed and slammed to the ground with a powerful paw thrust to the neck. She leaned her weight down on his throat, “I expected more from a powerful necromancer like you”, she snorted.
He smirked, choking out a few words before releasing a bright flash of purple light that pushed the dragoness up into the air. She flipped forward effortlessly and landed nearby in an attack pose as he pushed himself up from the dirt.
He widened his stance, gritting his teeth as his eyes glowed brightly, “You know, if you let me finish, I’ll bring your little kobold friend right back. Death is just a temporary set-back. Nothing personal.” The ground began to shake violently as the crystal glowed brightly. Scalah growled, “If you’re trying to bring this place down upon the both of us, you’re even more stupid than I had thought”. She roared; her eyes glowing bright yellow as she fired a pyre of blue-hot flames at the caster.
The caster’s voice broke off as a flare of energy deflected the fire harmlessly away from him. The bioluminescent lines on his body began to glow brightly as his muscles began to expand, “Oh no, I have plans for this place. I’d never let something are useful as an infinite source of Aether go to waste like this. I need this place. Now, again, if you would be so kind and FUCK OFF.”, he smirked.
He let out a loud shrieking laugh as he let out a bolt of purple lightning sending the scarlet dragoness backwards into the crystal spire.
He stared her down with his glowing bloodshot eyes, his grin growing ever bigger, panting lightly “Now be a nice dragoness and stay the fuck down so that I can do what I came here for”, he gestured sending her flying towards the right wall, “Where was I, right, this place is a nexus, a gathering point for aether flows, deep beneath the earth.”
He gestured again, sending her flying onto the other wall, “Some dragons, like me, know how to make use of that infinite energy. For various reasons.”
Scalah groaned as she pushed herself up from the dirt, “Right, mister genius. You intend to be powerful deity in a small underground cave? Then what? Become king of the rats?”, she laughed, spitting some blood from her mouth.
He laughed, raising her to the roof with a hard slam before letting her fall back down to the ground, “No, I don’t intend to become king of the rats. I’m aiming for something arguably more noble, necromancy and all that…”. He gestured to the dusty bodies, which began to rattle and raise themselves from the dirt. Their bones creaked as they stood up, black slime oozing from their decayed flesh. He smirked, “Take care of things upstairs while I work, would you.”
Scalah shuddered, then began to laugh as she raised herself from the ground. Her limbs quivering as she stood, she eyed the crystal down to the floor before turning to Din, “Very impressive, really, but what’s the point of all this? You made some slimy skeletons, and for what?”, she smiled slyly, wiping the trickle of blood from her maw.
Din sighed, “So, now you’re interested in my sob story? Very well, I want to make every one of those cultist fuckers pay in blood.”
“Excuse me?”, her smile faded, “You mean the Dark Sacrament? The very same cult you’re a member of?”
Din paced closer to her, “Member? You think that I chose this?”, he broke out in a maniacal laugh, “I chose to be disfigured, tortured and brainwashed, let so many others in this little shitshow they call a brotherhood?”, his laugh faded before he grit his teeth with a cracking noise, “I’m a literally fucking monster, heartless, mindless even, all for a group of brothers. How touching?”
Scalah snorted, “you intend to get back that them for that? How pray tell?”, she kicked dust over something she had hastily scribbled in the dirt with her claw as he approached, he snorted, “Me? Oh, I’m going to do nothing. You see, I know my limits, I can’t defeat the cult”, he laughed, “I’ll be, making some help”.
A scream was heard from up the stairway. Scalah turned, grit her teeth, and turned back to him. He smirked, “Oh don’t worry, she’ll be fine. Just can’t have any loose ends. You understand.”
She looked up at his eyes, “You harm a single scale on her body there won’t be a hole in the world you can hide in”. He sighed turning back to the crystal, “I have work to do”.
She snorted, “Never turn your back on your enemy!”. As her words rang out, a thousand razor sharp crystal slinters impaled the black dragon from all directions, sending him staggering back, coughing out a spray of blood.
Scalah stood up tall, “You can’t control the forces in this place, you never could.”, she flung a fireball at each of the corpse warriors causing them to explode into a spray of black ooze and dry bones, “Your pathetic stringy little body can’t handle that sort of power, it destroys you from the inside out”
He wheezed, “No, too soon, I can still finish this”, he staggered towards the still glowing rune before the crystal as two corpse warriors dragged Khi’nai into the room down the stairs, “MOM?”. He smirked, blood dripping from his maw, “It would seem my perfect plan is already in motion. Pity, I would’ve wanted a bit more time, but my plan doesn’t require this pitiful body to see it finished”.
He threw himself at the crystal shouting, “LUNOS KIRIN N’SEPTINIEL DOMAS ILLUMINIA”. Scalah dived to shield Khi’nah from the bright purple flash of light as the black dragon’s body turned into goo-like form, dissolving with a loud roar in the brilliant glow.
As the light faded, the corpses had turned back to dusty piles. As fine black ash filled the air and stench of charred flesh. A pile of charred bones remained at the foot of the crystal pyre.
Scalah held Khi’nai closed, staring blankly as the crystal, “What, was the point of all this? A life wasted on pointless vengeance” Khi’nai pressed herself into her mother’s belly whimpering, “it’s okay my little one, you’re safe now. I hope.”
Limping slightly, she carried her daughter on her back up the stairs. The headmaster stood in the room above with a group of kobold custodians. He turned to her “Mistress A’halumia, I came as soon as- “, she gestured to him, “No, I don’t want to hear it. Your lax approach to safety caused this to happen, under your nose no less”. “With all due respect- “, she growled, “I mean no respect headmaster, by who’s authority were the magical safeguards lowered when there was a credible threat to the lives of your students?”
“I have no excuses mistress, I was not aware of the failure of our safeguards, if I had been- “, he looked over at a bloody spot where I’lain’s body once was, “this tragedy could have been avoided.” Scalah snorted, “We will discuss in the morning, for now I must tend my daughter. See that this mess is cleaned up”. “Yes, mistress, again, please accept my most humble apologies and condolences”.
He turned to the Shi’na as Scalah went up the stairs, “You heard the mistress, this place must be cleaned, spotless, nothing happened here. Understood?”
The Shi’na nodded, one raising their paw, “Headmaster, what of the ornament?”
The headmaster snorted, “What ornament?”
The Shi’na pointed to the roof, which was now devoid of skeletal remains. The headmaster stared at dangling chains, “most likely destroyed in the fight” his eyes looking down the wall to a rather large hole on the far side, he shrugged, “remove the chains and fix that hole in the wall, off to work”. He headed up the stairs, leaving the Shi’na to work, muttering to himself.
The Shi’na shrugged and returned to work, “What’s with all this goo everywhere?”. The other kobold snorted, “Oh shush, we have work to do”.
“Do you think it was real?”
“What?”
“The big snake skeleton.”
“How should I know, I’m a cleaner not a biologist. What does it matter, it got blown up.”
“There’s nothing left of it though, no bone fragments, nothing, just goop.”
“It was a hell of fight, would you just shut up and get to work.”
The kobold snorted and started removing the rubble, muttering under his breath.
[BK1] ORIGINAL VERSION:
The ancient sandstone walls were ragged and weathered, the room strewn with what appeared to be decayed bodies covered in a thick layer of dust and debris. The black dragon stood at the far end of the room; his eyes fixated on an enormous glowing crystal that towered from the floor to the ceiling. A rune had been hastily drawn in the dirt before the crystal, he sighed deeply as Scalah approached.
“So the mother hen decided to come disturb my nest”, he said in a raspy voice, “To what do I owe this unpleasant surprise?”
Scalah snorted, her face scowled, “I’m not here to play twenty questions with you Din”.
The black dragon leaned with an evil grin, “That’s too bad, it would’ve been an awfully interesting story.”. Scalah eyed him as he paced before the giant crystal.
“Do you know why I’m here?”, he grinned smugly.
“Do I even care?”, she snorted back.
“Oh, I would if I were you, you see it’s quite the tale of intrigue and-“, a fireball hit the ground near him sending up a cloud of dust and prompting him to pounce out of the way. He flashed his purple eyes up at Scalah with a grin, “Well aren’t we spicy today. In no mood to talk after I gored your little pet?”
“Hardly, keep your internal monologue, internal”, she snorted, “or play narrator while I beat you to death”