The First Dragon of Marble

Chapter 23

            Lucy and I find a good vantage spot to scout the camp and as the week passes, we observe the movements of the monsters. Over the week we saw little discipline from the goblins and hobgoblins. A few times we saw around ten ogres at most coming and going from the camp. We never saw any signs of the camp being in disarray from finding the ogres we killed so they either do not care or simply do not expect them to be back yet. There was only one time where we saw something come out of the big tent in the middle of the camp come out and it looked nothing like a goblin, hobgoblin, or ogre. I couldn’t make out too many details of the monster, but it seemed to be the one in charge as it was giving orders and killing goblins at random. They lacked scouts aside from the ogres and teams of both goblins and hobgoblins going out and returning with game. I assume that they are hunting parties. Soon we had a detailed report of patterns and behaviors of the monsters so now it was time to plan our attack.

            Currently we are in a stone shelter away from the trail we followed. I camouflaged it with dirt and tree limbs to blend in with the surroundings. The middle of the shelter I made a table with the sketch of the camp on top as Lucy and I lean over it. “So how are we doing this Ladon?” I stand straight and put my hand to my chin and think. “I think I can take out most of them with my dragon form. We haven’t seen any anti-air weapons, right?” Lucy shakes her head and says, “No, I have only seen bow and arrows for their range attacks.” I nod. “Right so I should be relatively unopposed in the air then.” “What about the possible prisoners, Ladon?” I look at her seeing her serious expression. “Lucy…are you sure they wouldn’t be better off dead?” Lucy’s face turns into shock and exclaims, “What do you mean?! They are people, Ladon, and they need our help!” I give her a sympathetic look and say, “What do you think they have been through? My healing spell can heal scars and various wounds, but I can’t regrow a limb or fix the mind.” Lucy looks down at the ground with a defeated look, “But they need help.” She says softly with pain in her voice. I walk around the table lifting her head up to look at me. “What is this about bunny?” She steps back and hugs herself while staying quiet. “Lucy?” “They remind me of me when I was a slave. No one helped me when I pleaded for help. No one saved me for two years as I was whipped and abused in mines. No one did anything, until you.” “Lucy I cannot save everyone. I am not all powerful…the ogres proved that.” I say with shame in my voice.

            “I know, Ladon, and I know that there is logic in what you say, but I need to know if there is anyone we can save.” Lucy says as each word is said with conviction. I look into her eyes and think for a moment as I turn my back to her. “I want to save them too Lucy, but it would be too dangerous. Or would it? If I am laying down my flames from above that could distract the monsters leading them all away from the tent where there may be the supposed prisoners.” I look over my shoulder and see Lucy still with a look of conviction. “Ladon…do you not trust me?” I balk at her suggestion of me not trusting her. “Of course, I do. You are the only one I trust as an absolute.” “Then let me at least make sure there aren’t any prisoners in the tent.” I grind my teeth at her stubbornness. “I have conditions.” She smiles and nods at me. “I will create a distraction by burning the tents and monster away from the tent. I am sure that they are stupid enough to merge on my carnage to try to stop me even if it’s just bows and arrows. I’ll keep my aura suppressed so that they think they have a shot at cutting me down. While I’m doing so you sneak in and check if there are any prisoners.” Lucy nods in understanding. I take a deep breath and continue, “But I need you to promise me something.” “What?” “If none of them can walk or simply cannot move leave them.” Lucy makes a complicated face, so I push her a little. “How would you get them to safety in time? The goblins may be stupid, but they will soon realize they cannot kill me and try to run in which I will follow and burn them.”

            She thinks for a moment and then says, “What if they can walk?” I narrow my eyes and say, “Tell them the direction of the lake and tell them to run. I will need you to be picking off any monsters with considerable strength with your stealth abilities to further confuse their ranks. For this to work we need to seem more numerous than them to keep them in confusion.” Lucy looks at me for the longest time and then says, “Okay.” I nod and say one last thing, “Do not go after the chief until we can corner him. We need to face him together. If even the ogres follow its orders, then he will be incredibly powerful.” She nods in confirmation. “Okay let’s rest and wait for nightfall.” “Okay ole mighty dragon.” Lucy says as she teasingly sticks her tongue out at me.

            Night came and we stood at the edge of the cliff. I transformed into my dragon form and am surprised by my size now. I am now the size of a large horse and now I have three horns. “Wow, love the last time I saw you in your dragon form you were much smaller.” I look at my body and agree with her, “Yes, I think my level has something to do with my size, but I am not sure my mother was rather vague.” Lucy pats my fur and says, “I’ll miss having you in my lap though.” I look down at her and see a slight sadden expression. I chuckle and say, “Perhaps I can find or make a spell to reduce my size, but I think soon you will be the first dragon rider.” Lucy smiles at that comment and nods her head in excitement. I smile showing my menacing teeth before becoming serious, “Do not move until I have gathered most of the monsters away from your entry point…And promise me to be safe.” Lucy nods and says, “I promise to not to do anything that is not my within power to do so.” I narrow my eyes and then sigh licking her cheeks lightly.

            I start to beat my wings which Lucy has to cover her face due to debris being kicked up. I start to float in the air and then I gain altitude and fly close to the canopy of the trees to avoid being sighted. I fly around the camp to the furthest side away from where Lucy will be infiltrating. Then I fly high into the sky and take the deepest breath I have ever taken and then let out a fierce and earthshaking roar that may very well be heard as far as Melcox. “ROOOOAAAARRRR!!!” I then set out to cause chaos and mayhem in the camp with my purple flames. I see goblins shaking their weapons at me along with arrows being shot at me only to bounce off my scales. I make circles with my flames to suffocate the monsters inside the circles as I control the heat of my flames to make their own vortexes to consume all of the oxygen inside the circle of flames. While causing havoc with my flames I would at times dive down and pick up an ogre or hobgoblin and crush them with my fangs then spitting them out due to how bad they tasted. “I figured as a dragon I would like to eat prey like this. Maybe their blood and meat are just disgusting to begin with.” I think to myself as I continue my slaughter of goblins and hobgoblins.

            [Lucy’s POV]

            I have to cover my rabbit ears when Ladon lets out his roar letting his presence become known. “Gods, Ladon, how much stronger are you going to become.” I think to myself as I watch him breathing fire onto the camp incinerating everything in his path. I shake myself from staring at the awesome display of power before me and begin to climb down the cliff to conduct the selfish mission I asked of Ladon. Once I reach the bottom, I look around to make sure there are no monsters still around as press I forward to the log wall. I climb carefully using the broken limbs still attached to the logs as support and peek over. The stench hit me first as a smell of body odor and decaying meat hits my nose. “Disgusting monsters. I can only imagine how this smell must be affecting Ladon in his dragon form, though he may smell nothing but burnt meat at this point.” I look around and see no sentries or any monsters for that matter. I lift myself over the wall and drop down on the ground. I look into a tent that is closes to me to see if any goblins are inside which there are none. “Good it seems they are as stupid as Ladon said.” I mutter to myself as I quickly make my way to the prisoner tent.

            The tent is close to the middle of the camp and the Chief’s tent so as I get closer, I become more vigilant for any monsters protecting the chief. Once I reach the tent, I cast my Shroud spell that I haven’t used yet to conserve mana and use my dagger to cut a slit in the side of the tent. I carefully slide myself inside and look around stopping dead in my tracks at the sight that I have only read about. There are multiple wooden poles in the ground with vine ropes attached to them. Numerous races mainly humans, dwarves, and minks of both men and women are tied with the vine ropes around their necks since every limb along with eyes have been cut off and gouged out. I lose my composure and lose focus of my spell as I hurl at the sight and smell, which is one hundred times worse than outside. My eyes tear up with empathy towards these victims and know that there is no way for any of them to recover. “I’m so sorry. May the gods grant you a better life in the next.” I whisper to them.

            I then hear a scream inside the tent and carefully advance towards the scream. I hide behind a tarp stained with blood and try hard not to think about what it is covering. I peek around and see a hobgoblin struggling with human girl. I look around to see that this monster is the only one inside, so I quickly sneak up to it and drive my dagger into his skull with my new strength. The hobgoblin goes still and falls onto the human. I roll it off and see a teenaged girl with green eyes and brown hair. She is startled and tries to back away from me, so I try to calm her down before she brings more monsters here. “Shh, shh, I’m an adventurer. I’m here to help anyone held captive.” The girl breathes hard but soon chokes out, “You’re an adventurer?” I nod and smile. “Do you know if there are any other tents like these or if anyone else is alive?” She looks around and tears up saying, “I do not know.” After saying that she begins to cry even more and begins wailing. “Hey, hey, I know it is hard, but you need to be strong right now. If you want to stay alive you need to get up and move.”     As I finish whispering, I hear the tent flap flutter, and I turn around to see three hobgoblins standing at the entrance.

            They seem surprised by my presence but then smile lewdly as they speak in their garbled language. I stand up to put the girl behind me out of sight but then the girl seems to have lost all sense as she starts screaming, “NO, NO, NO, TAKE HER NOT ME! LET ME GO!” This seems to excite the hobgoblins as they laugh and come closer. I grip my daggers harder, and sprint forward faster than I ever have surprising myself but not enough to quickly slice each hobgoblins’ throat leaving them to bleed out as they collapse. I look back at the girl to see her tearing at the wall of the tent and finally falling through. “Wait it is too dangerous! Wait!” I whisper shout at her as I try to follow but I hear more monsters come into the tent. “Shit!” I turn around and begin to defend myself from multiple goblins and hobgoblins. I look around at the other prisoners tied to posts and say, “I’m sorry.” I dash to the left wall tearing it with my daggers and cast Shroud.

            I look around the tent to try and find the girl and I eventually do but she is already dead. I see an ogre holding her sever head up drinking the dripping blood. Anger fills me but I focus on killing the ogre quickly and quietly. I dash forward still cloaked in my shroud making my way to his back. I am surprised that he does not notice me since the other ogres I have fought at least noticed me when I got this close. I jump onto his back and drag my daggers along his artery and then stab multiple times into his thick chest. After it collapses and I see that it is dead and then quickly look at the dead girl. “Why did you run? I could have saved you, you idiot girl.” After saying this tears form, and I quickly wipe them away. “Stop Lucy. Ladon needs you now and there is nothing I can do with the others. I need to start taking out the problematic monsters now.” I take a deep breath then weave through the tents picking off lingering monsters that seem to be either running away from Ladon or gathering others to fight against him.

            [Ladon’s POV]

            I continue to burn the camp wondering if Lucy is okay. “I need to find a way for us to communicate when we are not together.” I make my way closer to the middle of the camp reducing the number of monsters. “GARRARROOOARR” Suddenly I hear a screeching roar close to the chief’s tent. As I look towards it, I am almost hit with the same spell as the ogre leader cast at me. I barrel roll to avoid it and look at the source. “I…KILL…YOU…BEAST!!!” I flap in midair and roar back. “I AM NO BEAST, MONSTER!!!” I land in front of the monster and transform into my half dragon form. I now have a better look at the monster and see that it is reptilian like, with black scales, tail, and webbed hands and feet. Its head is the head of a crocodile. “How can it even speak?” I think to myself as I notice the remaining goblins, hobgoblins and few ogres surround me and the reptile monster.

            Its yellow eyes widen and says with anger, “You…race…Weak Gods! What…you? No…race…I…saw.” I smirk and proudly proclaim, “Yes, I am a dragon. What are you?” The monster snarls at me and says, “I…drake wyvern.” When the sound of his species reaches my ears, my eyes narrow and I snarl at him myself releasing my aura. “A wyvern! Why would a wyvern be ordering a horde of goblins around!” The wyvern draws its weapons and goes into a stance before saying, “No…reason…tell…vile…race…Weak Gods!” I bring out my axes, shield, and spear going into my own stance. “Fine by me, you, disgusting, being! I have killed your species before and one much stronger than you!” I start the battle by stomping the ground sending stone shards at the other monsters surrounding us. Then I dashed at the drake wyvern thrust my spear at his chest which he dodges. He is using simitars and slashes down onto the spear trying to knock it of my hand, which he succeeds. The spear drops to the ground, and I push the monster away with Hurricane Push, a wind spell that I used on the ogres, causing goblins to be flung into the air and landing with a crunch. I quickly pick up my spear and suddenly have to defend against the drake wyvern wild slashes from his simitars. I have to put my spear away and draw one of my axes as we continue to exchange blows at close range careful to avoid his magic.

            [Lucy’s POV]

            I am weaving through tents as I stealthily cut down any monster in my way. Suddenly I hear a screeching roar, “GARRARROOOARR.” I stop in my tracks as I finish off another ogre. “What the hell was that?” I then hear broken common being spoken, “I…KILL…YOU…BEAST!!!” and then the ground shakes and then I hear Ladon’s low dragon voice, “I AM NO BEAST, MONSTER!!!” I start to hear rustling from the tents as I hide behind some crates. I peek out to see some goblins and hobgoblins running towards the roar. “Shit, that must have been the scaled monster that Ladon spoke about. It must be the chief calling the monsters to rendezvous with him at the center of the camp.” I wait for the monsters to pass and then follow behind.

            I quickly come upon Ladon and the reptilian like monster standing in the middle of around a hundred goblins, hobgoblins and ogres who are standing close to the reptilian monster. When I arrive, I hear Ladon declare his race, “Yes, I am a dragon. What are you?”, as the monster responds back with, “I…drake wyvern.” When the monster says his species, I see Ladon’s face distort in anger and disgust. Then I feel Ladon’s aura hit me like a horse ramming into me causing me to lose my breath. I can hear them speaking again but I am to focused on consuming oxygen along with all of the other monsters aside from the reptilian monster. Suddenly I have to dive to the ground as Ladon releases stone fragments into the crowd of monsters and then dashes at the drake wyvern.

            I get to my feet and go around killing monsters that escaped the stone fragments. I catch glimpses of Ladon fighting with the drake wyvern holding his own, though they seem to be on equal footing. “Seems I need to double my efforts to keep the others off of him.” I decide to speed up my assassinations and prioritize going after the ogres. I take out the ogres quickly since they were all wounded by Ladon’s spell. Now there are only a few stragglers left of the goblins and hobgoblins who try to intervene with the fight. I use the spell I showed Ladon when we were fighting the first hobgoblins we came across and spewed red flames at the monsters burning them to death. I continue to do this finishing off the rest of the monsters and now the only one left is the drake wyvern. I am now tired from using so much mana but ignore my exhaustion to help Ladon. I leap above the flames and land by his side when they broke apart. The drake wyvern looked around him and noticed all of his underlings dead or wounded. “GARROOARR! You…dare…destroy…army…I…raised!”

            Ladon takes a deep breath puffing out his cheeks staring at the drake wyvern and unleashes purple flames towards the monster. It dashes around the area avoiding the flames. “Grr.” Ladon growls in annoyance as he closes his mouth and watches the monster closely. “Watch out for his magic. He uses the same as the ogre that we encountered in the forest.” I nod and watch the monster. Ladon holsters his axe and brings out his spear again before saying, “I’ll keep him busy and a good distance. Stay behind me and use your bow and arrows to pin him down.” I side glance at Ladon and just nod. He goes forward and thrusts his spear as I bring out my bow and quiver of arrows.

            [Ladon’s POV]

            Once I tell Lucy to attack with arrows, I dash at the drake wyvern thrusting quickly with multiple thrusts to make it retreat. I grazed it a couple time only peeling its scales off with the side tips of my spear when I draw it back. I feel the wind of an arrow pass by my head as I see it stick into the drake wyvern’s palm. The arrow was shot when the monster’s arm was raised to counter with its simitar. The drake wyvern screamed in pain, “GARGH!”, dropping the weapon and pulling out the arrow. It stared daggers at Lucy who soon disappears with one of her spells. I use the distraction to pull water from the air making a long whip made of water. I do not hold it but control it with my body movements using it to strip it’s scales off its body in droves.

            The monster becomes frustrated and takes in a deep breath puffing it cheeks. My eyes widen as déjà vu occurs making me yell, “Lucy! Jump as high as you can!” As soon as I finish my shout, the drake wyvern spews out black sludge at me coating the front of my legs and shield. Then it sweeps the area spreading the sludge on the ground behind me. I can feel the pain of the sludge dissolving my scales and quickly eating through my shield. “Fuck!” I throw the shield away and pull out an axe from my belt. I don’t take my eyes away from the monster as I say, “Brace yourself Lucy!” I pull water from the air again and only a tiny bit comes forth. “Fuck the flames and my last spell must have dried the air considerably!” Before I could finish gathering anymore water the monster dashes towards me with an expression of gloating. I am now the one being pressed backward and I step into puddles of sludge that quickly dissolve my sandals and eat into my skin on the bottoms of my feet.

            The monster laughs in my face and says, “HAHAHAHA…die…DRAGON!!!” The drake wyvern knocks my spear out of my hand spinning aiming his simitar at my neck. The whole thing becomes slowed down as I watch the reaper of death coming towards my neck. “Shit!” I mutter and then Lucy appears between us parrying the simitar away enough for it to only graze my cheek. “Ugrh” Lucy makes a pained sound as her feet are now in the acidic sludge and since she doesn’t like to wear shoes her takes the full damage from the corrosive nature of the sludge. The monster is surprised and confused by how quick Lucy was so I used this to thrust as fast and hard as I can into its chest piercing all the way through. “Gargh” it spat out blood looking down at the spear. “You…will…pay!” It says as it tries to swing it weapon but too weak to even lift its arm as it collapses to its knees. I squeeze my eyes to endure my own pain from the sludge and pick up Lucy so that she was no longer standing in the sludge. I walk to the monster and say, “No I don’t think I will.” I then used my axe to split its skull. I left the axe inside its skull and quickly move away from the sludge covered ground.

            I soon collapse from the pain and grunt. Lucy falls to the ground as well whimpering from the pain. I quickly get some water skins out and wash her feet of the sludge eating away at her fur and skin. Once done I quickly did the same to myself. I gave her a healing potion and down one myself before using a healing spell on her first and then me. Once the pain was bearable, I say, “I need to make sure that at least most of the monsters are dead.” I quickly transformed into my dragon body and ascend while I use my Dragon Eyes to search for any stragglers. I see none left in the camp and decide to search through the trees surrounding the camp. I find some fleeing and decide to sweep down and kill them with my claws and fangs so as not to cause a forest fire. Once I am satisfied with the number, I kill which were mostly goblins I flew back to the camp and see the flames starting to spread. I flew to the middle of the camp in the sky and draw water from the surrounding clouds and then make it rain on the camp putting the flames out.

            I return to Lucy who is still recovering from the pain of the sludge. I land and rush to her and use my healing spell again. I am starting to feel mana overheat from the use of my flame breaths, spells in the fight, healing both of us, and causing the rain shower. Soon Lucy breathes out a sigh of relief from the pain. “Thank you for saving me again, bunny.” I say as I continue healing her. “Anytime my mighty dragon.” She strokes my cheeks with a loving touch. “You can stop now I can tell the spell is taking an effort. We need to gather proof and take care of destroying the rest of the camp.” Lucy says to me making me stop the spell. My head is starting to hurt along with the rest of my body, so I just nod and decide not to argue since there is only a little left for me to do for her healing. “And?” I ask not emphasizing my question. Lucy looks down and shakes her head slowly, “No, there was only one capable of moving and before I could get her to safety she panicked and was caught by an ogre.” I look at her in sympathy and say, “I see…I’m sorry, Lucy.” She wipes the tears away while continuing, “The rest will never recover. It would be a better mercy to end the suffering.” “I understand. I will take care of it then. In the meantime, do you think you can look for any weapons or armor that is not goblin made. We can at least take them to the guild.” She nods and gets up to look in the tents nearby.

            I hurry to the tent where the prisoners are held and look inside and see the gruesome sight of people used as playthings. “Jesus Christ.” I mutter as I look around to see if any were in a stable enough condition. “Is there anyone who can speak?” Silence only responded back at me as I sighed. “Very well, may the gods guide you to a better life in the next.” I take a deep breath and then hear a yell, “WAIT! PLEASE HELP!” I cough as smoke seep through my nostrils as I cancel my flame breath. “Where *cough* are you?” “OVER HERE, PLEASE!” I walk over to some crates with a fur tarp covering them shifting from my half dragon form to my more human form aside from my horns. I pull it off and move the heavy crates aside and finally reveal a small cage. I take the cage out and set it down so that I could a better look inside.

            What I see is a miniature woman with tiny bird wings with green feathers on her back. She is naked and rather dirty with stains covering her starving body. I’m sure she would look stunning if she didn’t look like a skeleton. Her matted hair is a light green the same color as green apples contrasting with her emerald, colored skin. I narrow my eyes and say, “Are you the one who called for help?” She falls to her knees and says, “Yes! Please get me out of here! I beg you!” I hold my hand up and say, “I have questions, and my partner will verify what you say, but before that are you a monster? Is this a ploy?” Her eyes widen as she shakes her head in denial, “No, no, no, I am not a vile monster. I am part of the fae race.” I raise an eyebrow and say, “Really? I always imagined fairies having insect wings not feathered wings.” “I’m a…nymph. You must be thinking of pixies.” I stand up straight and say with indifference, “Sure.” Then I look around and ask, “Do you know if there are any others?” The nymph just shakes her head and says, “There was a human girl in here that was resisting but there was a commotion soon after and then I heard sounds of battle going on outside.” “I see…that is unfortunate. My mate was the one who tried to save that girl, but she ran in a panic and was killed by an ogre.” The nymph hangs her head and silently cries. I look for something to cover the cage so that she does not see me breathe fire. “Why are you covering the cage!” I ignore her and walk to each person putting them out of their misery after thinking that burning them alive would be rather heartless. I then walk out of the entrance and then burn the tent down to ashes until there was nothing left.

            I head back to the chief’s tent and see Lucy bring weapons from further in camp and piling them up. I motion to her to come to me, and she walks over with a sadden mood. I put the cage on a crate and hug her tight. “Is something wrong?” She asks through a sore throat I know is from crying as she returns the hug. “No, bunny, just needed my mate to comfort me and to show you something. I need you verify if it is a monster or not.” She looks at up at me in confusion. I break the hug and pull her by the hand to the cage and lift the cloth covering the cage. There was the nymph sitting with her arms hugging her knees. Lucy exclaims, “A FAE!” Startled by Lucy’s shout the nymph backs away in the cage hitting the back with her wings. “So, she is not a monster?” I ask and Lucy turns to me with a slightly exasperated expression but quickly remembers that I am not very well educated with the new world’s species. “No, Ladon, she seems to be a nymph. A nature nymph at that, going by her wings.” Lucy bends down to talk to the fae but I quickly say, “I see…then you were the one who saved her then.” She stands up straight again and looks at my eyes, “What do you mean?” “I found her in the tent before sending the rest to their next life.” Lucy’s eyes welled up with tears and hugs me. “Thank you, thank you so much, love.” I smile and say, “I did nothing Lucy. You were the one who saved her.” Lucy gets on her tippy toes and kisses me. “You were the one who gave me the chance.” She then goes to the cage and says, “My name is Lucy, and this is my mate Ladon. I’m so glad we could save someone from these vile monsters.”

            Lucy then opens the cage while the nymph hesitantly walks out while looking at me with weariness. “There is no reason to be weary. Lucy has confirmed that you are what you said you were. Just know that if you are planning any kind of deceit then I will be the one to kill you.” “Ladon!” “Lucy, I know it’s harsh, but I am just trying too pro…” “I know Ladon! But she has been through a lot so please show some restraint.” I flinch at Lucy’s reprimand and just sigh and nod. I turn around and say, “Just be careful bunny. I’ll go look for more weapons and see if the tags of the past adventurer’s are anywhere.” I walk off and leave Lucy with the weakened nymph to search for anything that can be any value to us.