The Last Experience Point

Chapter 100: Zachys Calador vs. Ziragoth the Awoken

Delena squeezed her husband’s hand as tightly as she could as she knelt with him on the carpeted, living-room floor just inches in front of their viewing screen in their home in Giant’s Fall. Never in her thirty-eight years of life had she been so happy to hear the voice of a reporter. For the first time in five minutes, Domanik and Mallory, reporters from Galterra News Today, had resumed speaking. The moment their voices came through the screen, Delena was hit by such a rush of emotion that she both coughed and sobbed at the same time. Letting go of her husband, she buried her face in her hands and wept while he held her tightly to comfort her.

“Mommy?” came a voice from the stairwell behind her.

Drawing upon every ounce of bravery she could muster, she managed to speak with a level tone, if only for a moment. “You’re supposed to be getting ready for school now, bunny,” she called to her youngest child.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I’ll come help you pack your backpack soon, okay?”

“Oh…okay.”

Delena held her breath a moment, hoping it would stop her sobbing, but it failed to do so. As soon as her son was out of earshot, she broke down yet again. Those five minutes. Gods, those five minutes had been so awful. For the entire stretch, she and her husband had watched, the both of them trembling, as one raid member after the next—their heroes!—were butchered in such horrific acts of violence that she knew she would never be able to forget the sight of it. Yet through it all, no one in the media had told them what was going on. No one had told them if everything was going to be okay or if they should all expect to die. The only sound to come through the viewing screen had been a dull, ever-present buzz. It was five minutes of pure torture.

And though Delena could not possibly have known this at the time, historians would forever dub the prolonged, terrible stretch of quiet as “the five minutes of silence.” From then on, the term “five minutes of silence” would be used to denote the period of time before Zach Calador brought an end to the awful, panic-inducing silence that had begun shortly after it started to look like the raid would fall apart. It was a moniker that would be ad-libbed by a reporter three days from then, and it would catch on and become a universally known phrase. It would also spark a humanity-wide debate about the responsibilities of news networks.

In the coming days and weeks, popular figures would argue live on the air about the inappropriateness of it all. Some would argue that the reporters were merely rendering their honest, speechless reactions, while a great many more would vent their anger at GNT’s failure to reassure the public during a time of continental crisis. Both Domanik and Mallory would somehow skirt the blame, passing it along to the network producers, who would be fired for the resulting catastrophe, which would be said to have caused devastating mental-health consequences for millions of people. By the following week, it would come to light that, during those five minutes of silence, over eighty people in North Bastia had committed suicide, many of them entire families, fearful that the dragon might come to them next.

But for now…for now, Delena could only sit in front of the viewing screen with her husband and pray to their Gods. “Please, Raurum,” she begged, her eyes red from crying. “Please save us. Please! My kids deserve a chance to experience life. Please don’t let this happen to them.” She sobbed into her husband’s shoulder. “At least protect the children.”

The broadcast had not been censored. True to their word, the guilds had allowed an honest, transparent stream of the raid to be shown to the world. Those poor men and women: so many of them had been butchered. The moment she’d witnessed that first group of them begin to retreat, she herself had seriously considered having the difficult conversation with her husband: about what they would do to spare their children from having to endure such pain and terror if it came down to it. Certainly, it was a conversation that families all across North Bastia were either having or were thinking of having.

But finally, after the worst five minutes of her life, the reporters started talking to them again. That Gods-cursed silence was broken.

“…it looks…” were the two words that Domanik spoke. It was obvious he was attempting to disguise his fear. But as he continued to speak, there was a gradually growing optimism in his tone, one that gave just the tiniest flicker of hope to Delena—and hundreds of millions of people—that this wasn’t going to be the end of the world after all.

“…it uhh…it looks like the…wait is that…? Yes. It looks like Zachys Calador is running towards the dragon and—OH MY GODS DID HE ACTUALLY JUST DO THAT?”

Delena shot up straight, her spine flat like the pointed end of a dagger. “Honey!” she shouted. “Did you see? Did you see what he just—”

“I saw,” he said, his eyes wide and his breathing heavy. “He hurt it. He hurt the dragon. It’s bleeding!” her husband yelled at the screen, likely loudly enough to startle the kids. “Gods, it’s bleeding. It’s actually bleeding!”

*****

Milona had never wondered what it would look—or sound like—to see thousands of people all experience a terror-driven, emotional breakdown at the same time. But as she continued to stand where she’d been for the past half hour and watch the events play out on the middle skyscraper here in Diamond Paradise, she had ended up finding out anyway. Right here, in Tomb of Fire’s most lucrative tourist attraction, she was treated to a collective feeling of helplessness and desperation the likes of which she’d never before encountered.

Five minutes of total silence: that was how long they’d all been subjected to such pure terror. Although the live feed had continued to run, the reporters had eventually stopped talking alongside of it. Thus, without anyone to contextualize what they were actually seeing, they had been left to assume the worst. And it certainly did look like the worst.

People had screamed. Prayers were chanted. One man had to be stopped from trying to hang himself, and another looked like he was trying to jump out of the 57th floor window. There was no shortage of crying and tears. Many shouted that this couldn’t be real. And there were so, so many questions. Perfect strangers were pleading to others for reassurance. They wanted to know that what they were seeing didn’t actually mean the raid was wiping: that the guilds had failed and it was all over for them. They wanted to be told that this was all part of some carefully orchestrated plan. On and on, the questions were shouted, and the level of horror only continued to rise.

But then that boy, Zach, who’d been off doing something just outside the live feed’s field of view, had come charging in with what looked like Queen Vayra, King Peter Brayspark—the Gods bless his name—and the rotten, despicable leader of the Royal Roses, Vim Alazar, who had unjustly declared war on the Guild of Gentlemen. Yet amid her fright, not even a loyal citizen of Tomb of Fire like Milona could spare the emotion right now to hate that short, foul-mouthed bastard who was always siding with the other races over human beings, and who was planning on launching a conventional military operation against their brothers and sisters in Shadowfall Coast. She, like everyone else around here, was far more concerned about the dragon destroying civilization itself.

Together, the four of them raced into battle, with Zach leading the charge. And then the mood changed: radically. After five minutes that felt like having the soul sucked right out of her body, Milona dared to once more feel just a glimmer of hope. Upon his arrival, people tugged on one another’s sleeves, pointing to the skyscraper.

“…it looks…” muttered the voice of star-reporter Domanik Falcon from GNT.

Milona didn’t hear whatever he had to say next. Because a roar greater than that of the dragon came from the thousands-large crowd, who cheered so loudly that it completely drowned out the sound of his voice.

“He hurt it!” someone shouted excitedly. Then, with less certainty, he asked, “…right? That’s what happened, right?”

“Y-yeah!” someone else cheered, sounding both upbeat and renewed, but only somewhat.

Color returned to the faces of all those Milona could see around her. But even still, the fear was very much alive in the air: that much could be sensed by just about anyone, Milona imagined. But something had now changed. A sense of something…something from the depths of hope that resided within everyone. In that moment, Milona knew she had to entrust her life to that boy. Whether she would die days from now in dragon’s fire or instead live long enough to be promoted to manager at the toy shop, her life really was in his hands.

But did Zach Calador understand this? Did he understand that even though she was just a random cashier at a toy shop who most people would never know existed—that she too wanted to live just as badly as everyone else in this world? That she too still had hopes and dreams that she could do more with her life than she’d done so far?

Someone like Zach would never know who someone like Milona was, and he would probably never care, either. She was an insect to someone famous, special, and powerful like him. Milona knew that celebrities like Zach rarely cared what happened to the little people. Hell, even if Milona sold him a toy at her shop, he’d likely forget she existed within fifteen minutes. But nevertheless, her life and her future still mattered to her, even if they mattered to no one else. And now they depended on his actions. The same was true of every single person watching this. Gods, she hoped that the seventeen-year-old kid could understand the importance of that. She hoped he could appreciate everyone’s fear and desperation and fight with those stakes in mind. They were scared. They were all scared. Milona didn’t want to die. No one did.

******

Last night, Donovan Iseldar had told Zach something that had mostly gone in one ear and out the other. It wasn’t that Zach had been ignoring him, but rather there had been so much else going on that he hadn’t really given much thought to the man’s words. At the time, Zach had expressed to Donovan his fear and reluctance to fight the dragon. He’d told him outright that he was too afraid to encounter the fire wyvern a second time. In response, Donovan had said this: “And you’ll continue to be. Up until the moment you hit it, you’re gonna feel like shitting your pants. But as soon as you slash that fucker one time, that fear will change into anger real quick.”

Gods, he was right.

Having cracked the wyvern so hard over the top of its skull that its head bounced off the ground, the shift took place within Zach near instantly thereafter. It was like turning over a coin from one face to the other. With that single, powerful strike, he developed something that wasn’t far removed from lust. He wanted to hurt it more. He wanted the dragon to experience a level of suffering beyond comprehension for all that it had done to him and so many other people. That was why, even as he raised his blade defensively and shifted his stance to avoid tripping over the remains of an officer from The People of Virtue, whose body had been cut into four separate chunks and was still leaking blood, he had to work extra hard not to let his thunderous rage lead him to do something reckless.

I just have to get through this, he thought, his adrenaline spiking. This one last thing. Then I can heal. Then I can spend my summer with Kal. If I can just kill this Gods-be-damned wyvern, this will all finally be over!

If one thing was beyond clear, it was that this was not a battle that would be settled in one or two strikes. Zach was going to need to fight the best he’d ever fought, and he was going to need to do it for a prolonged period of time without a single screwup. The dragon had a whole lot of HP, which meant a whole lot of opportunities to kill Zach. Even with five Cursed Defenders of Ziragoth and nine Valkyries surrounding it and attacking from every side, it was going to take a great deal to bring down this hellish creature once and for all.

At the moment, his card-summoned minions were positioned in front of the dragon alongside Zach, lashing out at it with claws and teeth. In just the time it took the dragon to pick itself back up, each one of the hyper-aggressive mobs had struck multiple times, hitting for over a thousand damage with each attack. The Valkyries, on the other hand, performed a bit more slowly but hit for significantly more damage, with some of the level-150 NPCs capable of putting out almost 5,000 damage with their assortment of weapons.

The other members of his battlegroup were also contributing—or trying to, at least. The moment the dragon’s head had slammed into the ground, Peter had run forward and jabbed it with his rapier, but like the raid members of BG1 and BG2, he only seemed capable of delivering a single point of damage. The same was sort of true of Queen Vayra, who was able to hurt the dragon, but with strikes that only landed for about four- to six-hundred per hit with her gladius; she even attempted to utilize a variety of powerful-looking magic, such as calling down reddish, star-shaped bombs that exploded into a crackling mist upon contact with the dragon. Yet nothing she did managed to inflict more than a thousand. This meant that Zach had to rely on his cards and the Valkyries to help him chip away at Ziragoth. All in all, they combined together to create an important, indispensable output of damage—but not one that was particularly large relative to the boss’s HP.

HP

24,206,912/25,000,000

Name

(T10) Ziragoth the Awoken

Level

70

The dragon lifted its head, and Zach did not allow himself to buckle as it stared directly at him. Having hit Ziragoth for more than seven-hundred-thousand damage, Zach had successfully drawn the fire wyvern’s aggro. He could tell from the way its eyes regarded him with an eager rage that this was what the dragon had been hoping for. That was just fine, though, because it was also what Zach wanted now, too. In a way, he supposed they both had a score to settle: an unresolved conflict that would come to an end today one way or another. And Zach was prepared. He had plenty of time left remaining on his Unleashed Phase, and the hatred burning within him kept away any thoughts of backing down or retreating. His moment of panic from earlier was now well behind him, too.

Unleashed Phase Duration

18:47 Remaining

Wave Slash

1:15

Boundless

0:10

Phase Blink

0:20

Phase Shield (READY) (25 seconds)

0:45

Phase Rescue

0:35 / 2:15 (if used with Boundless)

Phase Slash

1:10 / 6:10 (if used with ??)

Card Capture

0:00

Card Summon

0:00

Card Dismiss

0:00-X:XX

Gacha Get’cha

0:00

“Be careful,” Peter said from where he was standing to the right and slightly behind Zach. He had his rapier at the ready for all the good it would do. His legs were close together, and he held the blade in a low grip, barely above his waist.

“Believe me, I know,” Zach said.

He bent his knees slightly and lifted his guard, waiting for Ziragoth to make its next move. But the dragon reacted in a way that was odd and even a little intimidating. For the moment, it seemed content to simply stare directly at Zach, unmoving and unblinking. Even while more of its HP was chipped away—albeit very slowly—by the Valkyries and card minions surrounding and attacking it, it continued to do nothing. This was as unsettling as it was confusing. Why was it just standing there? Why wasn’t it coming after him?

After a short moment, Ziragoth finally made at least some form of movement. It slightly opened its mouth, though it was not to attack but to either breathe or perform what Zach took to be a convincing imitation of breathing. Upon each exhale, a mixture of smoke and flame escaped in place of breath; its forked tongue was now visible as well. It swished it around from left to right in an incredibly lifelike way that gave Zach the impression the dragon was thinking. Yet through it all, its eyes never once blinked or looked away from him. It was as though the dragon was trying to stare into his very soul.

“What the hell is it doing?” he asked, frowning.

“Staring at you, it would seem,” Fylwen said, her tone coming across as uneasy. Unlike Peter, she had backed away somewhat and sheathed her gladius as though understanding the futility of actually trying to hurt the dragon.

“Okay, but why?” Zach asked. Even to his own ears, the sound of his words came across as urgent, aggressive, and demanding—though that hadn’t even been his intent. Nevertheless, Vim Alazar reacted to it.

“Gee, Zach, what a great question,” he said between heavy breaths. The man was panting. He held his staff in his left hand while he clutched his chest with his right. “A shame none of us majored in sentient dragon boss psychology or we would tell you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Zach rolled his eyes. Then he tightened his grip on his blade. “Well, if it’s not going to attack me, I’ll attack it. Give me those buffs again, guys: and hurry!”

“I can’t,” Vim said with an audible exhalation. “I need a second to catch my breath.”

If not for Zach needing to keep his eyes trained on the dragon, he would’ve spun his head around to look at Vim with disbelief—or at least that had been his first impulse. But then, as he thought about it, he supposed he didn’t really have all that much room to talk. Vim’s Zone of Enfeeblement had a high exertion cost, which was something that Zach himself could not handle without briefly losing consciousness. Though, on the other hand, Vim had been at this for way, way longer than Zach had, so there was also less excuse in his case. He opened his mouth to say as much but then shut it immediately as Ziragoth released a loud, hate-filled roar.

“GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Zach had no idea why the dragon had paused in the first place, but whatever its intentions, it looked as though it had at last decided to go on the offensive. Doing his best to tune out everything else around him, Zach concentrated, studying the wyvern carefully. He had to be ready to react to the slightest movement.

And then the dragon did something—and Zach saw it. The others around him didn’t, but he sure did, and he noticed it right away, too. The dragon shifted its weight ever so slightly, causing its body to tilt over to its right side while simultaneously lifting its large, barbed tail. By just those two motions alone, he knew exactly what the Gods-be-damned wyvern was intending.

“Get back!” Zach shouted to his companions in warning. “Now!”

Lacking any time to explain himself, he was relieved to see that Vim, Fylwen, and Peter all obeyed without question. Along with Zach, they dashed backwards and away as Ziragoth whipped its body around so fast it was almost instantaneous then swung its mighty tail down on top of the spot where Zach had been standing, smashing it right through the ground and creating a tremendous, wide crater nearly eight feet deep; it was as though a bomb had been dropped from the sky. At the same time, Zach had to raise his arms and twist his body to avoid being blinded by the storm-like blast of dirt and dust, the particles of which threatened to get into his eyes.

Although he, Fylwen, Vim, and Peter had gotten out of the way unharmed, one of his Cursed Defender of Ziragoth cards had the misfortune of standing directly in the path of its tail. A moment before a cloud of dust obscured his vision, he had just enough time to see the card-summoned mob flattened like a pancake for 2,231,453 damage, killing it for good.

He also had a brief glimpse of the Valkyries, who were also caught up in the attack, although in their case, it was due to the dragon’s wings as it spun itself around. Four of the nine Valkyries backed away, two of them flew up and evaded in the air, but the remaining three were struck head on by the dragon’s deadly, serrated wings, each suffering over a million damage.

Unlike Grundor, these mobs did not have anything visible that indicated their HP, which meant they either didn’t have HP or, as was more likely the case, it was hidden and visible only to Peter. Therefore, Zach could not be sure the extent of the damage they had suffered. But from looks alone, it was quite a bit.

The spear-wielding Valkyrie had lost her arm and now wielded her weapon in just a single hand while blood dripped from the socket of her shoulder. The other two sustained somewhat less damage, but the front of their armor had been badly damaged, and both were bleeding from their chests. Thankfully, however, they were genuinely not sentient, and so they displayed no signs of distress or discomfort whatsoever.

“Are you guys okay?” Zach called out, not willing to risk turning around to look; he needed to keep his eyes pointed ahead of him.

“We are fine,” Peter said with a slight growl. “Curse that oversized rat!”

Having gotten all four of them out of the way, Zach looked ahead and tried to anticipate whatever the dragon would throw at them next. But then he filled with unease and worry as realized he couldn’t even see the damned thing as a result of the dirt and dust that’d been kicked up and had not yet settled. This, he realized, created a very, very dangerous situation—one he did not like at all. Scanning the area before him, he did his best to search for any sign of the dragon. Unable to do so, he tried instead to listen for the wyvern, but that too proved useless as the sound of all the other battlegroups fighting the adds, along with the chatter over the Comm, made relying on his ears impossible.

“Fuck!” Zach shouted, darting his head around frantically. Where is it? Where did it g—”

Zach felt a jolt of alarm strike his heart. With every ounce of strength in his body, he launched himself to the side and jumped out of the way as the sight of a gigantic, opened mouth appeared from out of the screen of dust and dirt just a few feet in front of him, followed soon after by the rest of Ziragoth the Awoken, who was rushing forward at him. Then, even as he was still midair, there came a thwack, and the creature’s jaws slammed shut, biting the air only inches from Zach’s body.

With a grunt, Zach landed onto the grass on his side, and Ziragoth snapped its body and torso in his direction with a surprising quickness; it was so, so much faster than it had been when they’d dueled in the Den of Ziragoth. Grunting, Zach was forced to roll backwards as a massive, clawed foot twice the size of his body was brought down on top of him. It came so close to crushing him that he could feel the wind it generated as it stomped down on grass and dirt where he’d been lying. The ground beneath trembled in response to the power of it.

Rushing back up to his feet, Zach didn’t even have time to ready his blade as the creature tried to split him into two pieces with an intensely fast swipe of its right wing. Zach had no choice but to drop to his knees—and then stay there. The creature’s wing was so large it took almost a full second just for it to pass fully overhead.

For the second time, Zach attempted to get back up to his feet and raise his weapon—and for the second time, he was unable to regain his posture. Ziragoth was coming at him in a way that was relentless and frenzied. He roared at Zach, now close enough to make a ringing form in his eardrums as it struck out at him with its opposite wing, this time twisted somewhat into more of a chopping motion so that it came at Zach almost like a knife coming down on a cutting board.

Zach activated Phase Blink, targeting the dragon. He was carried to safety so fast that he did not even process the motion, and now he was a few-dozen feet away and facing the back of the wyvern, who was already whirling around towards him even as the sonic boom caused a series of—likely unintentional—gasps from many of those fighting the adds to come through on the Comm.

“What in the Gods was that?” someone shouted fearfully.

“That’s just Zach’s thing,” someone from the GSG replied. “Trust me, you’ll get used to it. Now heal me.”

With its head pointing in his direction, Ziragoth spun the rest of its body then charged at him yet again, crossing the distance between the two of them fast enough that Zach did not even have a moment to catch his breath. Then, once more, it tried to slice him in half with one of its wings. This time, Zach had to turn his whole body almost completely around in order to get out of the way—only to have to perform the same movement in the opposite direction as it came in at him a second time.

Then the dragon began to wildly swing at him one time after the next, alternating between horizontal motions and chopping motions. It was a level of aggression and speed that the dragon had yet to show and that Zach had not even known it was capable of. He found himself ducking, side-stepping, spinning, and in some cases jumping so fast that it was actually starting to drain him. It was a miracle he hadn’t been hit yet.

Somehow, in the middle of it all, he managed to unleash two powerful slashes with his sword, the first of which cut Ziragoth across the chin for 1,451 damage, and the second, downward, follow-up slash which landed on almost the exact same spot for 2004. It also proc’d the stamina restoration effect on his sword.

Zach, having lost his breath in the mad scramble that he’d just endured, was glad to see the green aura surrounding his body. Immediately, all the energy he’d spent on evading Ziragoth’s attacks came back to him in a flood, making him feel refreshed and reinvigorated. It also added more time to his current duration of Unleashed Phase, but only around a minute given that much of it had gone towards revitalizing him and replacing the physical energy he’d burned evading wing strike after wing strike.

While all this was going on, Zach had just enough situational awareness to realize that the Valkyries and the four remaining card summons were continuing to peck away at the dragon’s HP. All thirteen were now directly behind the wyvern, likely as a result of having to chase after it to keep up with the frantic battle between Ziragoth and Zach. They were starting to make a bit of a dent, too.

At the same time, a bit behind them, Fluffles, in his much larger, panther-like form, along with Grundor and Chumpkenwiffles, were fast at work carrying corpses—or pieces of them—back to Olivir for resurrection.

This was good. This was really good!

HP

23,881,412/25,000,000

Name

(T10) Ziragoth the Awoken

Level

70

If Zach could keep the dragon occupied for a while, they might actually succeed in killing this thing after all. Even without Vim, who was still regaining his stamina, the NPCs and his cards could get the job done given Zach survive long enough. Or at least…that was what he had the audacity to let himself think. But then, as he was throwing himself out of the way of the dragon’s salivating, opened mouth, desperate to avoid being eaten alive by its vicious, sharp teeth, the wyvern did something totally unexpected: it lifted its tail then smashed it back down, catching several of the NPCs behind it seemingly off guard.

What the hell? Zach screamed in his mind. I have aggro! How is it doing that?

Even Fylwen and Peter looked stunned, as though they were unable to understand how it was possible for a mob to launch a direct physical attack on something that was not its aggro target. That was not how the world worked, right? That went against the laws of reality or something. So it couldn’t do that, and yet, it did do that. This much was made clear as three of the already wounded Valkyries—including the one with the missing arm—stopped what they were doing, got down on one knee, and then turned into literal white cones of light that seemingly beamed themselves up into the sky and out of existence; this, while two more of his cards vanished into nothingness, significantly reducing the overall damage output.

The sight of this sent Zach into an absolute rage. “You…you fucking cheater!” he screamed at the dragon. “You’re…you’re not allowed to do that!”

“GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

So close to the dragon, each roar caused a blast of rancid-smelling air to rush into him, which made his gear ruffle. The hood of his cloak nearly became undone, and his cheeks actually flapped. He had to plant his feet just to avoid being knocked off them, as the pressure of its breath was so intense. Even still, he didn’t care. Gods, he was furious.

“No, fuck you!” he retorted, getting even closer to its face. He’d officially lost his cool. “You’re not supposed to be able to do that!”

“GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“I hate you way more than you hate me. Do you hear me, you son of a bitch!”

“GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“Gods-damned lizard!”

Zach, enraged, extended his arms, pivoted his hips, and ripped his blade across the face of Ziragoth with every last drop of his strength, slicing the dragon out of pure bitterness. Immediately after his blade made contact, the dragon released not a roar, but an actual hiss of pain as the rarest ability that Zach had at last proc’d.

Now, surrounding the dragon completely, a huge pillar of dark blue flame erupted into existence with a loud whoosh that was music to his ears. At first, Zach worried he might’ve just accidentally healed the wyvern, but then he recalled that the ability was not actually fire, but dark. For this reason, he grinned as he saw the flames absolutely consume the dragon, who began slamming its tail up and down over and over again as if in the form of a temper tantrum as it was consumed by an inferno of blue flame that was so dark it was almost black.

In clear pain, the dragon unleashed its misery without any noticeable target at all, randomly striking its tail into the ground so many times so fast that even with Zach’s elevated stats, he had trouble keeping his balance as the world continued to shake unevenly and with constantly varying levels of intensity. Even still, his morale skyrocketed as he saw the damage that he’d inflicted to Ziragoth.

441,322

“Very well done!” Peter exclaimed.

“Thanks. But you three need to give me some space. I can’t handle this thing properly with you guys nearby.”

“Space?” Peter asked, sounding exasperated. “Do you mean flee? Boy, I would dare not disgrace the name of my father and flee like some cowardly, wretched—”

“Peter, stop! Just stop! You do one fucking damage, man. I’m sorry if that’s rude or whatever. But you’re not going to be of any—”

Zach actually had to jump, tuck his knees into his chest, and roll his body midair to avoid a dual strike of the dragon’s wings, which both came at him from completely different angles and gave him only a tiny pocket of space with which to pass through. Clearly, the dragon was pissed. But so was he. The moment Zach landed, he unleashed three strikes of his sword one after the next, and to his utter surprise, they seemed to be really hurting the dragon, because despite each strike doing slightly less than two-thousand damage, there were three subsequent hisses of pain. No, not three. Four. Then five. Then…then ten!

Confused, Zach tried to understand what was going on. The dragon was now losing health far, far more quickly than it had earlier. And that was when he saw it. Immediately, fear caused his chest to tighten, and he shook his head wildly, as did Fylwen.

“Kal!” he shouted. “Get out of here! What do you think you’re doing? Are…are you out of your Gods-damned mind?”

At some point during the past few moments, Kalana, the lunatic, had climbed on top of the dragon’s back and had begun ruthlessly stabbing it over and over with her daggers with a look of vicious, unforgiving rage on her face that was rare from her. Hate was not an emotion she showed often, but right now, she wore it openly. One time after the next, she alternated between ripping one dagger free and plunging her other in, dealing roughly 22,000 damage each time she shanked the scale-covered fiend. Zach couldn’t believe his eyes. It was a number so high relative to her level that it didn’t make sense—at least not until Zach realized she was stabbing it directly in the weak point that Mr. Oren had identified and had been mocked ruthlessly for: the dragon’s rear. This did not go unnoticed by the adventurers.

Even as they fought for their very lives and the lives of this world, their collective morale seemed to reach its highest point. Laughter and cheers came over the Comm. “Dragon ass!” they shouted. “Alex was right!”

Mr. Oren’s only reply was to make a barely audible grunt, one that, if Zach had to guess, came across as self-satisfied.

“Don’t cheer this on,” Zach growled into the Comm. “Kal, get down from there. What do you think you’re doing?”

Rather than reply, Kalana held on tightly as the dragon shimmied and twisted in an attempt to knock her off. Then she continued to ruthlessly stab it over and over and over, resulting in one pained hiss after the next. And now, Ziragoth, as though confused, reacted in a way that actually seemed impromptu and panicked. It rolled over onto its side like a dog, causing Zach to have to scramble to get out of the way of its massive form while Kalana simply leapt off the top of it, flipped forward, and then landed in a crouch right next to him. “Why are you here?” he asked her.

“It’s ‘cause I’m gonna fight it with you.”

“No, no you are not!” Fylwen snapped. “Kalana, leave at once and return to BG4.”

“That’s right,” Zach said, nodding. “Listen to your mom. I can’t handle the idea of you—”

She scowled at him. “I’m not going. I’m staying by your side no matter what. There’s nothing you’re gonna be able to do to stop me.”

“Kal, please,” he begged. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I don’t wanna see you get hurt, either. This is my choice. Last time, I had to watch everything you did on the news, and I suffered so much ‘cause I couldn’t do anything at all. Not this time!”

Zach pursed his lips angrily, but only for a moment. Then he sighed. “I just love you so much.”

“Then let me fight with you. I’m gonna either way, so you might as well work with me.”

Zach wanted to protest, and so too did Fylwen, from the look of outrage on her face, but anything they wanted to say would have to wait, because the dragon was now back on its feet, and it was coming right at them. Zach swore. Why did Kalana have to get involved? If she died, he would lose his will to go on. But knowing Kalana, she wasn’t going to change her mind no matter how much he yelled at her.

Thus, he reluctantly nodded and then braced himself. It looked like they’d be doing this together. “Vim, how long until—”

“I’m ready,” he said. “Give the word, and the three of us will cast.”

“All right.”