Paths of the Chosen

Zurai

Not a very Christmas-y chapter, but what can you do?

Aidan
The Realms
Secondday, 1st week of the 12th month, Age of the Chosen 1
Mid-Afternoon
Karsarrym's Lair

Karsarrym's breath shattered the air with light and thunder, but it didn't kill either Aidan or Eldrid. Instead, the bolt twisted in mid-air to strike a figure flying with stony wings. Electricity crackled around Iossif's granite body to no visible effect.

"You shall not," the gargoyle's stentorian voice boomed out. "Not so long as I remain."

"Easily solved," Karsarrym rebutted. Its head snapped forward, snatching Iossif out of the air. The dragon shook its head from side to side like with Ysbail only a few moments earlier, but its current prey was made of sterner stuff.

Seeing an opportunity, Aidan raised his hands and swept them towards Karsarrym. His two remaining Blades of Burning Wrath followed his motions, plunging into the exposed patch of skin along the dragon's broken leg.

Both Blades carved through unprotected flesh. It seemed Karsarrym's fire resistance was only scale-deep. The wyrm, unable to finish Iossif quickly, spat him out onto the ground and stepped over him, its attention now back on Aidan. "Chosen," the cavern rumbled with Karsarrym's anger, "perhaps I was mistaken to let thee linger. I will rectify this error."

A blur from the dragon's side was met by a lash of its tail, sending Ritva crashing into a nearby stalagmite. Karsarrym strode across the darkness between it and Aidan. Each step covered dozens of feet, even with a broken leg.

Conor's unkillable dakhols continued to ravage the dragon's flanks, pulling scales free. Stamatia and Aija continued to work in tandem, landing hits that made even Karsarrym flinch. Icicles sprayed out from behind Aidan, shattering against their target but proving that Eldrid still lived.

Aidan dug into his haversack and pulled out a potion. He pulled out the cork with his teeth and slammed it down like a cheap beer, then tossed the vial aside as his Health refilled. Meanwhile, he directed his remaining Blades with his free hand. Again and again they swerved, humming, through the air and draconic flesh. The pale mist clinging to the cavern floor seemed to turn reddish-black with the dragon's blood.

Despite receiving thousands of damage in a few short seconds, Karsarrym advanced undeterred. Even if Aidan wasn't still fighting off the effects of Fulminating Destruction, he would have no chance of escaping. His death was coming.

No, Aidan told himself, I can't think that way. I have to win here. There's no other option, no other outcome I can accept. He focused through the lingering pain until silver flames emerged from his skin, Aura made manifest. I will stop this attack. I will win. For myself, for the others, for everyone back home.

Karsarrym's left foreleg rose into the air, then swept sideways toward Aidan. He stretched out his hands, fingers splayed, and his Aura surged to meet the attack. Shadow-covered scales and talons met a curved shield of silver flames—and stopped mid-strike.

Karsarrym let out a wrathful growl, its fetid breath washing over Aidan in a rush, and leaned into its attack, muscles bulging along its leg. Aidan, too, strained, pitting his willpower against his foe's. More and more Aura poured out of him, draining his Stamina at a frightening pace to reinforce the shield.

After what seemed like hours to Aidan but couldn't have been more than a couple of seconds, Karsarrym staggered and fell to the side. The whole cavern shook as well over a hundred tons slammed into the ground. Silver fire surged up onto the dragon's left leg, seeping between its scales and scouring its flesh beneath.

Aidan gasped for breath and would have fallen to his knees if not for Eldrid catching him as he sagged. Karsarrym's attack would've killed him from full Health with a hundred damage to spare. How were the others surviving?

They aren't, a dark thought flitted through his mind. The image of Alkelda's smoking corpse accompanied it. Aidan didn't let himself linger, however. He couldn't. There was too much at stake.

Karsarrym heaved itself back onto its feet, but Aidan's companions preyed on the wyrm's momentary weakness. Iossif and Stamatia flew at the dragon's head from opposite sides. Both impacted at high speed with a pair of resounding cracks. Less than a heartbeat later, Aija followed up, leaping from underneath Karsarrym and flipping over mid-air to strike its lower jaw near its throat with both bare feet.

The flesh along its mandible rippled out from the point of impact. Aija pushed off a split second later with another, louder crack. Karsarrym threw its head back and screamed in deafening agony as thick, red-black blood sprayed from its mouth, its jaw dangling open at an unnatural angle.

The dragon thrashed its head from side to side as the pain overwhelmed its thoughts. Stalactites shattered apart into hundreds of pieces of oversized shrapnel as Karsarrym's head smashed into them. A watery bubble swirled into existence around Aidan and Eldrid, then hardened into a solid ice shell.

Rocks clattered off the defensive spell like the worst hailstorm Aidan ever heard. Cracks formed and sealed along the icy barrier's interior in a hypnotic display. Aidan could hear Karsarrym's continued screaming and thrashing even through the cacophony. Just when he thought it was over, something blasted through the right side of Eldrid's shield. It crashed into the ground behind them then slammed into the rear wall with almost enough force to break through again.

Aidan shuddered. If they'd been standing two feet closer to the cave entrance, that would've hit both him and Eldrid. He risked a quick glance over his shoulder to see what it was, then gasped. Stamatia lay in a crumpled pile of stone. She resembled rubble more than her previous statuesque state, and one of her wings was missing entirely.

There were no signs of movement to show Stamatia's survival, but a stubborn sliver of red clung to her Health bar in Aidan's party interface. Her life-saving charm must have kicked in and saved her, though she might never fly again.

Even worse, Eldrid hadn't escaped as unscathed as Aidan did. Her ice shell dissolved around them as she slumped down to the ground, blood pouring from dozens of shallow cuts across her body. She was still alive, but her Health looked critically low. Glancing around, Aidan realized that his Aura must have shielded him from shards of ice and rock kicked up by Stamatia's impact. Eldrid hadn't been so lucky.

Still, she was alive and conscious and already fumbling at her belt for a healing potion. Aidan considered centering a Phoenixfire Conflagration over the three of them, but before he could start casting, a shining golden light distracted him.

Somehow, Ysbail was not only still alive, but she was also charging toward Karsarrym engulfed in her Aura. A glowing mass of energy replaced her left arm and shoulder, allowing her to wield her oversized sword in two 'hands'. As she approached the distracted dragon, her light shone even brighter until she seemed like a miniature sun on a collision course with a black hole.

She ran under Karsarrym's belly, turned hard so she was parallel to its body, and swung her sword. A blinding arc of Aura-filled energy followed her motion. When she'd used this attack earlier in the fight, she'd cracked some scales and drawn first blood, though it was only a bare dribble.

This time, the effects were far more dramatic. The radiant blade beam sliced deep into Karsarrym's flesh, cutting the wyrm open from its sternum to the base of its tail. Red mist surged up to meet the waterfall of blackened blood pouring out of the mortal wound. Sanguine strands of phantasmal fog wrapped around the dragon's body, growing denser and more vivid by the moment.

Something about the scarlet mist triggered a warning in Aidan's mind, but he had no time to chase down what it meant. Karsarrym, now in dire straits and almost certainly nearing death, turned its head toward Aidan. Faceted orange eyes blazed with hatred, and once more, the immense monster stalked toward him.

Aidan launched attack after attack with his Burning Blades as another watery shield interposed itself between him and the dragon. Iossif darted around Karsarrym's head and neck, raining down blows with his hammer. The dakhols crawled all over Karsarrym, ripping and tearing at its decaying scales and flesh. None of it mattered. Karsarrym, perhaps realizing its end was near, marched forward with implacable fury.

A flame-scorched hand the size of a car raised into the air over Aidan's head. He pushed out with his hands and Aura again to meet the incoming blow. Silver flames curved out before him, meeting the dragon's downward strike. For a second, his Aura held, then another, but Aidan's Stamina was too depleted.

With a gurgling roar, Karsarrym leaned all its weight into the attack. Aidan's Aura shield shattered, sending him staggering to the ground, and then pain exploded through his body.

It was Aidan's turn to scream in agony. He looked down his body to see Karsarrym's black-scaled hand spattered with bright red blood, grinding what remained of Aidan's legs into the rough stone floor. He clung to the barest shred of life, though with the rapid spread of the crimson pool around him, he didn't know how much longer he had.

A hand cupped his chin and forced Aidan's mouth open. He looked up to see Eldrid's sweat-streaked face, a potion vial in her hand. Looming above them both, lightning gathered between Karsarrym's gaping jaws. Aidan tried to warn Eldrid, to push her away, but the pain was too much.

Aidan watched, agony flooding through him as Karsarrym's head rose. At least we won. I'll die, but he's already dead. He swallowed the sweet liquid Eldrid poured down his throat and waited for the dragon's lethal attack to come.

Then a blur of gleaming metal and satiny fur streaked down from above, striking Karsarrym's snout. Ritva's jumping attack forced the wyrm's head down, down, until it crashed into the ground with an eight-foot-long heavy lance impaled through the roof of its mouth.

Karsarrym's lightning followed the path of least resistance. Instead of lancing through the air to smite Aidan, it surged through the metallic spike embedded in the dragon's mouth, then blasted out the top of its head. Ritva, wearing heavy steel armor and holding onto her lance, stood no chance of evading it.

The harefolk woman screamed in agony as the electricity sent her flying through the air, blue-white energy arcing and seething across her body. Her voice cut off a moment later as she hit the ground and skidded twenty feet to crash into a stalagmite stump. Heavy smoke rose from the joints in her unmoving armor.

Despite a broken jaw, broken and seared legs, a gaping wound across its belly, and now-obvious necrotic sores opening all across its hide, Karsarrym still lived. Madness consumed the orange eye staring at Aidan from a mere handful of feet away. Crimson tendrils, eerily solid-looking now, wrapped around both of them. Aidan's pain faded, bringing much-needed clarity.

This fight needed to end, here and now. Aidan gathered the remnants of his Concentration, stretched out his hand, and Spoke.

"<Burn.>"

Silver-gold flames erupted all around Aidan with the shriek of a hunting raptor. They washed over him, Eldrid, and Ysbail, healing their Health and Wounds. For Karsarrym, they had a far less benevolent effect.

Notification windows burst like fireworks across Aidan's sight, but he ignored them. The fight was over, the dragon slain, but Aidan felt anger raging inside him. "Help me up," he said. Demanded. Eldrid frowned and opened her mouth, but another voice cut her off.

"I have him," Ysbail said. She knelt beside Aidan and wrapped her arm around his waist, then stood, cradling him against her chest. Without needing any prompting from him, she turned away from Karsarrym's smoldering corpse, walked past Stamatia's unconscious form, stepped over Enys's lifeless body. She bore him back to the cavern entrance, where Conor stood in the center of a swirling circle of blood, a dozen dead women lined up around its edges.

Zurai

Pronunciation Guide (infinitesimal spoiler warning, names only without any details)

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