Adult-FanFiction.org : Games

Dynasty of Dovak	By : JohnDoe Category: +A through F > Exalted RPG Views: 4983 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: White Wolf, Exalted and Exalted 3rd Edition are all trademarks of White Wolf Publishing AB, and official characters, names, places and text are copyrighted by White Wolf. I do not own Exalted and I'm not making money from this fiction.

Chapter List
- 71
- 72
- 73
Session 66 – Under the Rose – Reya (210XP 168DX, 203/143 spent; 9GP 36SP), Melody (210XP 168DX, 208/146 spent), and Ganan (210XP 168DX, 187/153 spent; 8WhP 59GP 74SP)

Ylva Wataru, Sidereal; Ragara, Son of the Empress; and Riven Dusk, Berit’s right-hand woman disappear from the Imperial Throne Room in a flash of light. The dead body of Cathak Cainan lies on the ground, the life stolen from him by Ragara’s cursed sword – Blood Zenith.

Aharon Saber Edge retrieves his fallen halberd and Cynis Ganan picks up Cainan’s broken daiklaves.

Mnemon Nula addresses the others (Mnemon Danireya, Mnemon Melody, Kingfisher Swift, Righteous River, Sesus Eshuvar, V’neef Bijar, and Amon Mora), “Did we win?”

Amon Mora, Keeper of the First Imperial Seal, answers grimly, “Not yet.” He casts a weather eye over the assembled Dynasts. His gaze seems to linger on the Outcastes – Melody, Aharon, Swift – as if he is judging them.

Reya clasps her sister-in-law by the forearm in greeting, “It was a lure. The Cathak legions are camped to the South.”

Melody nods at her, “We worked that out – they left Myion undefended as well.” She motions for Aharon to sit down, and approaches him, getting out her Satchel of Resplendent Healing. She turns her attention to Mora, “If you’ve got something to say, old man, now is the time to say it.”

Amon Mora holds himself tall. His face is pinched as if he were about to perform a distasteful chore. “Ragara and his Sidereal allies are making for the heart of the Imperial Manse. Its magic makes it impossible to teleport inside.” He holds up the First Imperial Seal, “And even I cannot penetrate the manse’s inner defenses. But Cathak Cainan spent the winter drilling: digging down past the defenses. That is no-doubt where Ragara and his allies have gone. We can go through the palace. We’ll need a rope.”

****

Amon Mora uses the Imperial Seal to mark those assembled with his authority to travel through the Imperial Palace, and he leads them to the manse at the heart of the Imperial Palace. On the way, they stop at storehouses and wheel out great wheels of rope, pitons, and climbing gear – none of the Dynasts are surprised that the Imperial Palace should contain such oddities. A great drill-shaft is dug outside the manse. Amon approaches the entrance to the manse, Imperial Seal outstretched, but the great doors refuse him admittance to the Empress’s inner mysteries.

“The shaft extends for miles.” He offers Reya the Imperial Seal, “You’ll have to rappel down, meaning Ragara has a significant head-start on you.”

“So we rappel down, and smash through the side of the manse?” Ganan asks, “Sounds easy enough.” He immediately sets to work making a crude climbing rig from the rope and the tools they’ve assembled. It doesn’t really fall inside his area of expertise, but he puts together a serviceable system of counterweights (-10SP: 6GP, 3SP).

V’neef Bijar shakes her head as Ganan works, “The walls of the Imperial Manse itself are indestructible. It is built to withstand the ending of Creation itself. Believe me, I know.”

“And who are you?” Ganan asks, grumpily refusing to even look up from his work.

“V’neef Bijar.” It’s a name Ganan recognizes as one of the foremost geomancers of the Realm.

“Oh.” Ganan pauses for a brief round of introductions, “How are Ragara and Ylva getting inside?”

“That’s your fault.” A new voice calls out.

The heroes turn and see an old man approach.

“Chejop Kejak.” Reya grimaces as Ganan and Aharon take up arms.

“Don’t embarrass yourselves.” Chejop chides. He snaps his fingers at Bijar, “Book.” He commands simply, drawing out an audient brush. Reluctantly, Bijar hands over a large, leather-bound book, which Chejop lays open on the ground. He waves a hand and the brush dances over the pages, adding notes and correcting illustrations.

“What do you mean, it’s my fault?” Ganan asks, not lowering his weapon.

“Ylva was one of my most devoted disciples.” Chejop begins, “That House Ragara would try to plunder the Valley of the Ancients was not suspicious, nor was it odd that Ylva would lead the Heptagram in the first response. Odd, perhaps, that Ragara would be there.”

“The disrupted geomancy.” Reya says, “The Imperial Manse was at risk of exploding, but we changed the geomancy.”

Chejop nods, “With two giant dragon statues, and by dragging a temple manse into the wrong position.” He walks over to Melody, the only one of the Hearth not with a weapon raised against him, and places a ball of golden string in her hands, “Combined with Cainan’s efforts, and the dark sorceries of House Ragara, it has left the outer wall of the manse vulnerable. In fact…”

Beyond the walls of the Imperial Palace, flames leap high into the sky as the Imperial City is rocked by coordinated strikes against the city’s geomancy. Explosions and collapsing buildings devastate the capital. At the same time, far beneath them, there is a mighty explosion. Two giant plumes of essence fire streak into the sky from the sides of the manse.

“That should be Ragara’s henchmen overloading the manse’s defenses now.” He wanders over to the mine-shaft and looks down into the pitch darkness “Their breach is half-a-mile down. With the geomantic disruption, the manse’s most powerful defenses should be compromised.”

“And you’re helping us… why?” Ganan asks, shifting his grip on his tetsubo, ready to knock Chejop into the pit.

“I favored Cainan for Emperor. I… manipulated events to support his ascension. A strong, military commander – dedicated to fighting the Anathema instead of her own political aggrandizement – is what Creation needs. I do not favor Ragara. He is a bureaucrat, ruined by years of introspection. Do not imagine that his sons will yield power to him easily. Ragara’s ascension will only prolong this civil war, and it will be all the more devastating if he commands the Realm Defense Grid. The Grid takes a terrible toll on the Blessed Isle – Ragara cannot use it to simply wipe his threshold enemies from the map. And worst of all, even with Cainan’s stolen life-force coursing through him, Ragara has no more than a century left to live – likely not even a third of that. A new civil war in three decades?” He gestures at Reya, “Even if Ragara names a successor, do you think the Great Houses will simply accept his decrees? No, Mnemon is a poor choice for the throne, but she is the only choice left to me.”

Ganan leans into Reya, “Actually that does make sense.”

Reya sets her lips in a hard line, “Unfortunately, yes it does.”

Chejop’s brush reaches the end of Bijar’s book, and he crosses over to it, scoops it up, and returns it to her.

“So, you’re going to help us stop Ragara?” Melody asks.

Chejop snorts, waves a hand, and walks back towards the palace.

“I don’t like that guy,” Aharon says.

Ganan shoulders his tetsubo and pats Aharon on the back, “I know, big guy. I know.”

Reya turns the others, “That makes ten of us. Two fangs. Melody, Ganan, Aharon, and V’neef Bijar – with me. Nula, you take Swift, River, Eshuvar, and Mora.”

Ganan and Melody begin fastening ropes, with Swift and Nula following their lead.

Amon Mora looks down the mine-shaft, “I’m not going down there.” He says definitively, leaning on his cane, “That’s why I gave you the seal.”

“Mora, I don’t know what your problem is with me, but you wouldn’t have handed this over if you didn’t realize what is at stake. Ragara will plunge the Realm into chaos. The Blessed Isle will be carved up by dozens of different warlords, and Ragara will ravage our shores with a weapon he does not comprehend. With every passing second, Ragara gains on us. We need every hero the Realm can muster.” Reya ministers, and looks into Amon Mora’s face for a reaction.

Mora shakes his head in the way only an old man can, “And there are a hundred Dragon-Blooded pouring over the walls of the city right now. Pick one of them. Call Berit.”

Reya approaches him and takes his hand, “Can you trust that any one of them, even Berit, would not try to seize the Realm Defense Grid? That they wouldn’t be worse than Ragara? Even if they could get here on time?” She searches his eyes, “We may not see eye-to-eye, but I trust you not to destroy the Realm, and I need your help to save it.”

The others don’t wait for Reya’s speech to end: as soon as the first lines are secure they begin rappelling down. Only Aharon waits for Reya and Mora so he can help them, Mora seems surprisingly capable as he swings his legs over into the darkness.

Melody leads the descent, creating vine ropes with her arrows when needed, twisting the wood-essence to drop them in twenty-yard lengths, supplementing the palace ropes. They uproot the rope as they go, letting out line to drop lower and lower. The Dragon-Blooded’s animas are still blazing and glowing from the fight in the throne room, which provides light for the entire descent. It takes them half-an-hour to make the climb, but which time some of their animas have dimmed. At the bottom of the mine-shaft, a great hole has been blown in the indestructible marble of the Imperial Manse. Already the hole is starting to close – regenerating itself like coral – but the self-repair looks like it will be a matter of hours, not seconds. Ganan snaps off a piece of the regenerating marble, but it does not continue to “heal” once separated from the manse.

“We all need to stick together.” Bijar warns, “The manse is used as a prison for the Anathema, and for good reason, it is a labyrinth – enchanted. The corridors are treacherous, they shift and change, once we go in, we might never find our way out.”

Melody ties one end of the golden ball of string to the regenerating marble and sets the ball on the ground. Though there is no perceptible angle to the floor, the ball immediately starts rolling forward. “I say we follow that.” She says, pointing.

The Dragons enter the manse, sticking together in a large group and following the ball of string. The marble walls are easily a yard thick, but once they’ve jostled their way inside, they find themselves in a huge corridor – easily wide enough to ride Clapper through, and tall enough that the Cathedral of Annihilation could walk the halls unbowed. Melody summons her phantom steed and mounts up. Seeing the wisdom in this, Ganan orders his agata to materialize and rides his mount as well. The hallway seems to be made, not of marble, but of jade-steel. Great chandeliers of phosphorescent crystals give off a constant golden light. Everything shines. Great murals of gold and precious gemstones adorn the walls, and as the Dragons follow the vast hallway they pass reliquaries displaying inhuman skeletons encased in glass, vases of eternally blooming flowers, and various other strange and wonderful treasures, which cause even the jaded Dynasts to gape.

The ball of string rolls over out of sight, turning corners just a moment before the Dynasts can catch up to them. Ganan and Melody resist the urge to race ahead, heading Bijar’s warning to stay together. After a few minutes, they reach the sight of a great battle. The heroes recognize one of Ragara’s Hearth surrounded by a dozen dead demons. Ganan quickly recognizes a few of the more common demons of the First Circle, but their leader appears to be of a more potent breed. Set into the wall is a vast beast, large enough to dwarf Octavian, encased in amethyst. It is hard to make out the figure’s form beneath the shifting facets of the purple crystal. Ragara’s Hearthmate has been stripped of her artifacts and laid in gentle repose.

The Dragon-Blooded pick their way past the corpses. Some fifty yards later the grand décor of the hallway turns dour – plain black stone, neither lit nor adorned for some thirty yards before the majestic decoration resumes. Reya looks to Bijar for answers, but she just shakes her head mutely and thumbs through her journal, looking for any annotations made by Chejop that might help.

“Proceed with caution,” Reya commands.

Ganan dismounts, and gestures for Amon and Nula to ride on his agata. Carefully he and Melody edge forward onto the black stretch of corridor.

Immediately lighting arcs of essence run through the walls. The coalesce in midair, some twenty feet off the ground, across the entire length of the corridor. At first, it looks like a pipe made of lightning, but it is seconds before it takes on a draconic shape. A lesser elemental dragon of air forming and rearing back to attack the intruders.

Ganan grips his tetsubo and prepares to fight a mindless beast, but the elemental hesitates for a moment. It studies them carefully. When it speaks, it is with the voice of a levinbolt. The words are less heard as seared into the Dragon-Blooded’s eyes.

ACCESS DENIED, TERRESTRIALS

“Well, it’s not attacking us, at least,” Melody says to Reya, her bow drawn.

Reya nods mutely back at her, then clears her throat and presents the Imperial Seal, “We need to go on, to stop Ragara and Ylva… the unauthorized intruders who were here ahead of us.”

LEVEL THREE ACCESS ACKNOWLEDGED. LEVEL TWO ACCESS REQUIRED. ACCESS DENIED.

The elemental shifts into a fighting position, drawing down to the ground to block their passage. Its bulk makes the ground tremble as it sets down.

Bijar closes her journal, “It’s a trick.” She says confidently, “An illusion projection. That’s how Ragara and his entourage passed. Look.”

She walks out as if to pass the elemental. It lets her approach, watching her with eyes that crackle with lightning. Bijar reaches the dragon’s head, turns, and waves to the others, “See nothing to be afraid of.” She turns back and makes to move past the dragon. She travels two steps before the dragon’s claw swipes through the air and cuts her in two.

Ganan rushes forward with his tetsubo and smashes into the beast. The dragon roars and rears up under the assault.

The elemental looks down on the Dragon-Blooded and exhales a great gout of lighting that arcs between them. Mora, Nula, and Eshuvar are blasted back and fall prone from the onslaught. Ganan, standing at the forefront of the blast is badly dazed.

Aharon leaps across the gap to hammer the dragon, slashing out with his halberd. The elemental batters him with its claws but despite the size difference between them, Aharon manages to gain the upper hand, like a mouse confronting an elephant.

Melody drives her phantom warhorse round and peppers the elemental with arrows. Though her attack is mighty, the vast size of the elemental stops her from gaining a definitive advantage.

The other Dragon-Blooded rain attacks on the elemental, but their blows have little effect.

Aharon slashes again, burning with fire essence. His halberd slips between the elemental’s scales and draws forth godly ichor, setting the beast at a distinct disadvantage.

The elemental coils around Aharon, twisting its long, serpentine body around him. Despite Aharon’s height, he is like a child to the vast dragon who easily constricts him.

Melody fires another volley of arrows into the beast, and it twists its scales to shield itself from her attacks.

Ganan recovers his wits and rushes to help Aharon, smashing the dragon’s coils with his tetsubo, buying Aharon some breathing room.

The other Dragon-Blooded continue their onslaught against the elemental – but now their blows are more effective, cracking scales and driving the beat back as they open new wounds.

Melody exhales as she looses, aiming right for one of the elemental’s eyes. The arrow strikes true and the elemental bellows with rage.

Aharon balls a flaming fist and drives it straight into the elemental’s body, smashing its mighty blue scales.

Ganan barrels into the elemental striking it with his tetsubo, in punishing, bone-crunching blows. The dragon drops Aharon. The other Dragon-Blooded capitalize on the downed elemental to slash, burn, stab and bludgeon it until it stops moving.

Sesus Eshuvar brushes the hair from his eyes, “Well, that was bracing!”

Reya stops over Bijar’s body and takes her journal. She lays the fallen Dragon-Blooded in a state of graceful repose (at least so far as such things are possible when you’re sliced in half) and says a few words in prayer.

Ganan cuts out the elemental’s teeth and pockets them.

“We need to move before the manse generates another one,” Melody warns, and the party continues on following the ball of golden thread.

****

The ball of thread finally comes into view, having stopped in an innocuous section of the corridor. The remaining Dragon-Blooded approach cautiously. Nula and Mora swoop in on the back of Tisi, who descend from the air to examine the ball. As they draw closer, Nula spots something… a ripple in the air in front of her – like a heat mirage, or a stone cast into the surface of a pond. She banks Tisi hard. The demon’s legs whip into the air, contacting the shimmering patch of twisted reality and the demon gives a screech of pain and alien horror. Nula throws herself backward off the demon planting her feet on the ground as Tisi and Amon Mora continue into the rippling unreality field. The results are horrific. The Beauteous Wasp is twisted inside out, brightly colored scales piercing its own body and demonic viscera spilling out. It falls to the floor, twitching for several seconds before mercifully dying. Amon Mora is not so lucky. He collapses into a gelatinous mass of burbling flesh, unable to move or even scream. The flesh wobbles obscenely for nearly two minutes as the Dragon-Blooded watch on in horror, unable to help. The golden ball of string has stopped just before where the manse’s hideous trap is set. Where Mora carrying anything of use before, it is gone now.

Ganan examines the features of the wall by the trap. There are seven alcoves that look like they might have one contained rare treasures, as befitting the rest of the manse. Unlike the rest of the manse, dust has been allowed to gather in these empty alcoves. Ganan examines them carefully but can see no mechanism within that might disable the traps.

A patrol of demons appears at the end of the corridor: two blood apes, each wearing living armor, and each riding on an agata. The Dragon-Blooded rank up and prepare for combat. The manse’s bound demons give a war-cry as they rush towards the Dragon-Blooded… and then they stop, hanging in mid-air stupidly. The apes give a panicked shout of fear and turn their agata and spur them to race away in the opposite direction.

“Yeah, you’d better run!” Melody shouts after them.

“I don’t think they’re running from us!" Reya shouts.

A chittering, mechanical buzzing starts to drone ever louder.

“What is that?” Melody asks, dismounting from her horse.

A cloud of tiny, mechanical grasshoppers swoops around the corridor. The trailing Blood Ape was too slow to avoid them. The swarm of thousands passes over him, devouring the ape, demon armor, and wasp, stripping them in seconds and not even leaving behind bones. The grasshoppers eat every mote of them, not leaving behind a single speck or drop of blood. Ganan looks to the dusty alcoves:

“Get in the alcoves!” He shouts, “Get out of the corridor!”

The other seven Dragon-Blooded each squash into the alcoves, pressing themselves hard against the walls. Ganan stands in the entryway of Reya’s, blocking it off with his body. He takes his tetsubo in hand, focusing his power into the weapon which starts to hum with power.

The scourswarm swoops past, ignoring the alcoves and the Dragon-Blooded inside. They swarm over Melody’s steed, devouring the essence construct as surely as they swept up the demons. When they reach Reya’s alcove with Ganan standing outside, he smiles apologetically at her:

“Sorry love, brace yourself.”

Drawing on his immaculate training and the mystic power in his weapon, Ganan hammers his tetsubo into the ground, creating a massive, rippling shock-wave. A hundred tiny mouths bite into his Invulnerable Skin before being blasted away by the massive wave of power. The swarm passes over them without causing any harm. The reality distortion wave drops to allow the scourswarm to pass – and they eat the remains of Tisi and Amon Mora. The golden ball of string starts to roll once more, and Ganan bellows:

“Quick, after the string!”

Without hesitating, Ganan runs into the deactivated trap, and when he isn’t turned inside out, the others follow him. The scourswarm pursues their route unintelligently, without turning back to clean up the Dynasts, and once they are clear there is a slight mechanical hum from behind the Dragon-Blooded as the trap reactivates.

The string continues through more lavish corridors, and the Dragon-Blooded find more demon bodies left by Ragara’s wake – there’s no evidence of Second Circle demons or dead Dragon-Blooded among the remains, and no more amethyst constructs.

Ganan reaches out with his senses, straining for any more traps. The golden ball of string has rolled straight through a room with a high vaulted ceiling, but Ganan senses four invisible pillars in the room and calls a halt to the party before they proceed.

“Does the string look all… messed up to you?” Melody asks. The golden string, a perfectly straight line elsewhere in the manse, does look like it’s been messed up. Ganan points out the invisible pillars.

“Be ready,” Ganan warns. Melody nocks and draws an arrow. Ganan carefully edges into the room. As soon as he is inside, the gravity in the room inverts – just like in the House of Blackwaters. And just as before Melody is ready – she fires a vine arrow and Ganan catches hold as Aharon and Swift braces her. Ganan clutches at the vine with one hand, suspended twenty feet above the floor, and eighty feet from the ceiling. The golden string has also been affected by the room’s strange gravity, pulled into the air. Painstakingly, the other Dragon-Blooded haul Ganan up until he’s only four feet from the floor. Ganan releases his tetsubo which falls the remaining distance to hit the ceiling with a resounding crash. The gravity in the room flips again, and Ganan lands neatly on his feet, before stepping to the side to avoid his falling weapon. The golden string also falls to the ground, becoming even more messed up than before. The Dragon-Blooded quickly hurry across the room.

Feeling like they’re not making any ground on Ragara, the Dragon-Blooded notice the designs of the manse starting to change. There’s less art on the walls now, and mechanical devices start to show through: finely wrought, gilded metal pipes, exposed crystal clockworks, and grinding gears, mechanical vents that look like intricate spider webs spun in wire that extrude sweet-smelling smoke.

Again the Dragon-Blooded see the evidence of Ragara’s passing: four, four-armed golems sheared in half, their glass face-plates shattered. The outer skin of the constructs is made of white jade, and intricate interlocking clockworks are visible in their shattered insides. The faces of the constructs are masks made of some kind of ivory. The creature’s upper pair of arms look like tools – vice, like clamps with a finger-like array of screwdrivers and other tools built into the claws. The lower arms also look like vice-like clamps, but these house flamethrowers – not unlike the Barrel Golems of The Zianosen. Once more Ganan takes samples, prying up the broken halves of the construct’s masks.

“Do you have to do that?” Melody hisses.

Ganan looks back at her and shrugs, “When are we going to be in here again?”

“Haven’t enough of us died?! We need to catch up with Ragara!” Melody shoots back.

“Gan, no more samples. Melody is right.” Reya says decisively, waving the party forward, “Come on, we need to pick up the pace.”

*****

The corridors in the Imperial Manse get steadily less decorative. The vents are no longer stylized as spider-webs, and the smoke no longer smells sweet – stinging and burning the eyes as the Dragon-Blooded hurry past. The pipes are more common, larger and bundled together, and eventually they pass from being gilded, to merely polished, to raw, burnished iron.

Suddenly the golden string makes a sharp right angle, falling through a concealed door: human-sized, unlike the enormous proportions of the hallways and rooms they have moved through so far. (Aharon has to duck to pass through this door.) The Dragon-Blooded follow the string as it leads into a darkened room. The stench of acid fills the air. The walls of this room are scaled to human proportions – the corridor not more than two yards wide, the ceiling no more than three yards high. With no windows and dim lighting, it seems very claustrophobic compared to the Warstrider scaled hallways they have been passing through thus far. The walls of this room are shrouded in darkness, but the Dragon-Blooded suspect they aren’t made of jade-steel. The ball of string has rolled up a narrow flight of stairs and across a metal walkway (just wide enough for the Dragon-Blooded to cross one at a time).

“I’ll go first.” Ganan offers as he heads up.

“River, bring up the rear,” Nula orders as they cross the walkway in single file.

The walkway has no railing. It is suspended some ten feet about a vast vat of bubbling green liquid. The stench from the liquid is vile.

Nula fixes her gaze dead ahead and whispers over to herself, “Just don’t look down.”

Reya looks down. She immediately regrets it and whips her head back up. The walkway is only thirty feet long, they can cross it no problem.

When they are half-way across a sudden blast of super-heated steam spurts out from the left-hand wall. The steam hits River full-on and smashes her over the side of the walkway. Her immaculate trained instincts cause to her reach out and she grabs the walkway as she falls – dangling precariously over the bubbling green liquid as she holds on with one hand.

“I’ve got you.” Says Swift as she takes a knee. She grabs River’s other hand and hauls her back up onto the walkway and they scurry out of the way of the vent in case it should go off again.

River’s body is covered in burns. Shakily Swift stands back up and hauls River up, carrying her on her back. The others shuffle across the walkway as fast as they dare. Ganan has cleared the other side when the second blast of steam hits Sesus Eshuvar head-on. He is blasted clear of the walkway. He twists elegantly in the air – he seems suspended in midair for a moment, a look of perfect surprise on his face. A fraction of a second later, the heat of the steam becomes evident – his body erupting into red boiled blisters. Cooling wind whips around the Air Aspect, and for a moment it seems it might carry him back to the walkway and cool his burns. And then his eyes explode. And his body drops like a stone into the vat of acid below, dissolving away to nothingness. The splash of his body hitting splatters those still on the walkway, melting shoes and weakening the metal. The whole bridge lurches. Swift staggers under River’s weight. Aharon picks Reya up by the waist and runs, clearing the walkway. They both kick off their boots as the green acid eats its way through the souls and burns the bottoms of the feet. Nula clears the distance. Then Melody. Then the bridge gives way and Swift and River fall. Swift jumps forward. Melody’s hand darts out… and she pulls Swift and River clear.

The others remove their shoes as Melody examines River. She is burned over most of her body from the steam. A mortal would be gone for.

Melody pumps her full of analgesics, “I need some time here!” She calls out.

Ganan looks to the golden ball of string rolling on and turns to Reya, “It’s your call.”

Reya looks at Melody, “You’ve got about thirty seconds. We need to keep moving.”

“Damn you!” Melody spits at Reya without looking up, “This is going to hurt like hell.” She warns River. She passes Fire Essence over her scolded flesh, purifying the damage into a form the Dragon-Blooded body might recognize better. River writhes in agony. Melody looks up at Swift, “She’ll live, but you’re going to have to carry her.”

Swift nods and the party moves on.

They pass out of the narrow rooms and into the wide-open, Warstrider-sized corridors once more. The walls are now bare steel, with no decorations. Vents spew a constant miasma of foul-smelling smoke. At last, the golden ball stops in front of a room filled with thick green smoke. Despite there not being any obvious containment, the smoke stays in the room, just ahead of the golden ball. Aharon looks surprised for a moment then pushes his way forward.

“I know this one. It’s a disintegration chamber.”

“A what?” Melody hisses.

Aharon unhooks a water bottle from his belt and tosses it into the fog. The metal bottle dissolves as soon as it touches the fog, and the water boils away to nothing before it can touch the floor.

“It’s a disintegration chamber.” Aharon repeats.

“There’s one in Paragon.” Ganan confirms, pointing to the back of the room, “You see the crystals? It’s a control panel – it gets rid of the gas.”

“The gas,” Aharon goes on, “Is not why it’s called a disintegration chamber.” He points to another crystal array in the ceiling, “The panel activates a cleansing light that will burn everything in the room away to nothing. Including the gas. But also including the unfortunate working the control panel… unless you know the trick to it.” He turns to Ganan, “Do you know the trick to it?”

Ganan shakes his head.

“Then watch and learn, little man.” He hands Ganan his halberd and his powerbow, “Hold these for me. There will only be a short window between the gas being destroyed and the room-filling up again.”

Without explaining further, Aharon wades into the room. The gas sizzles at him, burning away hair and the fur on his armor. He shows no sign of discomfort as he reaches the control panel and the other end. The crystals light up expertly under his fingers. And then a shimmering energy field appears at the entrance of the room.

“Wait…” Ganan says, running forward. He hammers a fist on the unyielding, impenetrable wall of energy.

The crystals in the ceiling start to glow. Aharon turns and gives the part a salute.

“AHARON!” Ganan screams futility at the energy field.

Purifying golden light bathes the room. The gas is completely burned away. Aharon sags under the rays for a moment… and then his body is reduced to dust, and the dust burned away to nothing. His empty jade armor lasts a moment longer but then is burned away also.

And then the light and force-field deactivate. Ganan practically falls into the room as the energy wall disappears, and the other Dragon-Blooded rush in behind him. No sooner are the Dragon-Blooded and the golden string in the room, that it starts to move – forwards and down and an incomprehensible speed. The chamber falls as if on a slide, then comes to a smooth halt.

The Dragon-Blooded swiftly leave the room, except Ganan who just stares numbly at where his Hearthmate used to stand. The golden ball of string continues to roll on.

“Gan, we gotta go.” Melody calls practically pulling him from the room.

Ganan staggers after them as the room fills with green gas again.

Reya gently lays a hand on Ganan’s arm, “He died so we could stop Ragara. We have to stop Ragara. Are you good?”

Ganan shakes his head to clear it, “I will be, once we kill Ragara.”

****

Melody spends 8XP to train Seven-Year Swarm Volley.
- 71
- 72
- 73
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Dynasty of Dovak