Destiny's Call: The tales of a foreigner in a familiar land

by Zenith Starwalker

Chapter 5: There’s Snow Dragons here!

Stepping out of the Krystal Kingdom’s acclimatized boundaries was a lot like stepping into the refrigerated fresh produce section of your average local Costco, nippy but not terribly cold; albeit a good deal windier. Taking my mind off the vastly different temperature conditions, I turned my attention to Silver Sword.

“This Blizzard Beast is a Dragon?” I ruefully asked to which Silver nodded.

“How do we plan to kill it? Last time I checked dragons were kind of resilient to damage, what with them being covered in thick scales and all” I voiced my skepticism.

Ardent Bastion gruffly retorted, “Same thing you do to kill anything else. You keep going at it till it finally falls” He returned to checking his enchanted compass before changing our course slightly.

‘Not much of a game plan’ I acerbically thought, ‘Although they did tell me that they were trained fighters, not trained tacticians’ I further mused.

I decided to question Silver once more, “This Blizzard Beast isn’t one of those intelligent dragons right?”

He shook his head in response, “No, it’s completely feral. If it ever was intelligent at one point, it has completely reverted to its baser nature”

Pierce; as I’ve decided to call him, intruded into our conversation. “If you ask me, we’re doing this loathsome overgrown lizard a favor by killin’ it. And if we get paid for doing so, all the better I say” He perniciously stated as he patted his wooden recurve bow with a confidant smirk.

“Plus, we have you along for air support. I feel like our chances are decent now” He added in a genuinely honest tone.

‘This is coming from the guy who criticized my choice of weapon, ambivalent much?’

“Your confidence in my aerial abilities is flattering” I couldn’t quite keep the sarcasm out of my voice. He just smirked at me before snarking back.

“Well, at the very worst… you’ll make great dragon bait” The other two chuckled as we trudged along in the snow.

It wasn’t terribly scenic, the snow was up to our shins and visibility conditions were obscured by continuously falling snow bits. The only landmarks distinguishing the horizon were snowcapped mountains. The skies were rather dark and grey too. To be honest, it was as dreary as what I imagine Siberia would be like on a Tuesday.

‘Seems like I’ve gone from a crystal motif to a snowy one… wonderful’ I humorlessly thought. I felt the need to free my feet from the snow since it was starting to melt and saturate my sneakers with water. I turned to Silver Sword and spoke, “I’m going stretch my intangible wings” to which he nodded his consent, “Don’t fly so far as to lose track of us” He warned me to which I assured him I wouldn’t and took off. I ascended to about thirty meters above the ground before looking downward to see the three brown dots contrasting against the white snow that made up my present company. The flying conditions were a little rougher than back in the Kingdom, the turbulent winds gave me a difficult time hovering in the same spot above the three bounty hunters below me. But I took it in stride, I figured I needed more practice flying in less than ideal conditions if I was going to be worth my wings. Although I was starting to regret not bringing along some kind of flight goggles to keep the wind and ice out of my eyes, I made a mental note to correct that later.

Not terribly much happened over the next three or so hours, I kept to the skies and battled it out with tempestuous gusts of air while Ardent made small adjustments to our course. It was getting dark by the time Silver bade me back to the Earth with a wide wave of his arms. By then, ice laced winds on the ground had died down a bit and the blanket of snow beneath us was almost completely level. Silver took an appreciative glance at the surroundings before unslinging a very large bag he had been carrying onto the ground.

“We’ll make camp here for the night before resuming the hunt for our quarry come the morn”

He stooped down and opened the bag, revealing its contents of a bundled up tent and camping supplies not limited to but including; sleeping bags, and oil lanterns, bituminous coal, strips of jerky and other consumables. I helped the others with setting up the circular four person sized tent and anchoring it to the frosted ground beneath the snow with those railroad like tent stakes. I noticed that the tent had a covered opening at the top, probably to let out smoke from the fire that would be placed in the middle of the tent. The fire itself was contained in a metallic vessel filled with the bituminous coal and filled the surrounding air in the tent with welcomed warmth. We set up our sleeping bags around the toasty flames and prepared to settle in for the night. Before we did so however, we spent some time polishing and maintaining our weapons; or at least the other three did since my Tantō was both pristine and immaculate. So I simply sat there and watched Silver buffing out his namesake sword, Pierce examining his arrows to making sure the tips were razor sharp, and Ardent honing the edges of his double bladed battle-axe against a whetstone. The three of them reminded me of Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli from Lord of the Rings; and not just for their choice of weapons. Silver was a forward thinking and forbearing unofficial leader of the three; his voice even sounded a lot like Viggo Mortensen’s. Pierce was the tenacious (and hopefully just as skilled) archer, even if he was more of a wise cracker. And Ardent was the headstrong no-nonsense axe wielding berserker. I silently chuckled to myself at the similarities, what did that make me? A Meriadoc Brandybuck with the dagger?

Silver decided to strike up a conversation while he and the other two tended to their blades.

“So tell us more about yourself Zenith” He said in a sincerely curious tone, “I wish to know more about our forward scout”

“I’ll share if you do so first” I said, to which Silver sheathed his argent blade with a loud ‘Shiink!’ and replied with a smile.

“Very well, I’ve lived in the Krystal Kingdom my whole life; I fought alongside these two” He gestured to the others, “Against Sombra when he usurped control away from our people. Though despite our best efforts, we we’re subdued by his dark magic and were held captive while he enslaved all of our friends and family” He paused momentarily as though the memory was still painfully fresh, before continuing. “Then after he was defeated and cast out by the victorious Princesses, our Kingdom was lost to the world for a millennium; a last spiteful act by a craven coward. We’ve only returned to the world for a few months now, and so much has changed in our absence. Still… we’ve adjusted fairly well in my opinion; we have even had our fair city chosen to host the next Arcanian Athletic Events!” He enthusiastically concluded. Pierce resolved to tell his story at this point.

“Yeah I served with these two in the defense of our homes” ‘Much good it did us’ He muttered, to which he received a slug in the shoulder and a reprimanding glare from Ardent. Pierce rubbed his sore shoulder in an unapologetic manner before resuming, “Anyway, once our Kingdom returned to the world and our collective amnesia was lifted by the actions of the bearers of Harmonious Virtues, ‘So that’s what the element bearers are called here’ along with Sombra being soundly defeated, I toured the lands south of the Kingdom and participated in a few archery tournaments here and there. Even won a majority of em” He grinned and looked upwards as he relieved what were probably cherished memories of accomplishment.

I looked at Ardent in anticipation for his tale and he shook his head in response, causing his short bushy beard to sway. “Not much to say, I’ve never ventured out of the Kingdom beyond the mountains. And from what Piercy here has told me of the lands to the South, there’s not much special enough to warrant my time. No, I’m content to merely stay with my Uncle’s family and manage his livestock for him” He furrowed his brow and scowled. “A job that has been disrupted by this damned Blizzard Beast assaulting our Kingdom and wreaking havoc. I cannot wait to make my displeasure known to that cursed wyrm” He let out a dark chuckle as he narrowed the edge of his axe, which I noticed, had intricate lines engraved into the cheek of the blade. One half of the blade had lines that made me think of a pair of shears with a banana peel interposed within it, and I couldn’t really think what the other half reminded me of.

“What’s with the lines on your axe?” I inquired.

“Those are arcane runic patterns meant to augment my axe, makes killing things easier” He explained as he further tapered its edge.

I turned my attention to the other two who looked at me expectantly, I signed and thought about what I was going to say for a moment before speaking in a detached tone.

“Before I came to these lands I was what you’d consider a fairly average person, I studied in school for a bachelor’s degree that I’d presumably use to earn my daily bread. From there I’d then enter a school of even higher knowledge to further myself; perhaps a school of medicine”

“Can you mend wounds?” Silver interjected.

“Uhm… no, I apologize if I won’t be able to act as team medic” I stated apologetically.

“It’s quite alright, we had some training in first aid in the militia” He said placating me.

“Boring course that was” Pierce said stodgily, before being shushed by Ardent who rolled his hand in a gesture that told me to continue my little story.

“Right where was I? I had a select few friends or ‘good acquaintances’ (I mentally chuckled) as I called them. And I lived where the weather was almost consistently near perfection and palm trees grew in abundance”

“What made you come to our humble slice of the world then?” Ardent asked me as he finished grinding his axe against the whetstone.

“All this snow and ice is a far cry from the home you described, why indeed?” Pierce spoke incredulously, as if he couldn’t imagine any soft folk used to dry conditions venturing anywhere where the water was locked in solid form.

I had a thoughtful look on my face as I pondered my unusual circumstances. Why was I brought to this strange variation of a show I enjoyed watching anyway? Who or what even brought me here to begin with? A mental image of Mister Bean saying magic and then snorting popped up and made me mentally roll my eyes.

‘That’s probably the long and short of it I suppose. Way to go brain, helpful as always’ I looked back at the awaiting men before answering hesitantly.

“I’m tempted to say fate… but that would sound a bit cliché, let’s just say unique and unforeseeable factors delivered me here” I concluded my ambiguously truthful backstory.

Wanting to change the subject I spoke deliberately.

“Now that we’ve gotten formally introduced to each other, let us talk about tactics”

“Was my earlier battle plan not adequate enough for you?” Ardent asked in a somewhat offended tone.

“Not quite” I responded as I pulled out the stun grenade I carried earlier from my pocket.

“This” I tapped the casing with my index finger, “Is a little something from back home called a flashbang; specifically an M84 stun grenade” The three of them eyed it warily, obviously unfamiliar with such a device.

“It does exactly as it’s named; upon detonation it creates a bright flash and a deafening bang which completely disorients anyone in its blast radius, which is about five feet. We can use this to stupefy our target, and since dragons tend to have sensitive sight and hearing it will be even more effective!” They had a skeptical look on their faces and Pierce gave voice to his doubts.

“How do we know it will work? It doesn’t sit right with me relying on some fancy doohickey to incapacitate a fully grown snow dragon”

“It’ll work” I assured them, “This ‘fancy doohickey’ will maximize the effectiveness of a surprise attack; make our bounty that much easier to claim”

Silver seemed to like my idea after giving it some thought and backed me, “I concur, every advantage we can obtain will tip the odds ever more in our favor”

Ardent gave his opinion in the form of a noncommittal grunt, “Whatever helps me to sink my axe in that damned lizard’s skull” he shrugged.

Pierce still had a doubtful disposition but spoke no more of it since his comrades approved of my plan to blitz the dragon.

“We should turn in for the night and get some rest” Ardent stated as he stowed his axe away “We’ll need all of our
strength tomorrow. We’re getting close to our quarry, I can feel it!” He boldly emphasized.

I sure wasn’t going to complain, all that flying against those gale force like winds really took it out of me. With a yawn, I got comfy in my sleeping bag and was swiftly carried off to dreamland. The crackling of the nearby fire luring me to sleep.

⁂

I was awoken the next morning by Silver who lightly shook me awake. I blinked away the weariness and look around the tent, the other two sleeping bags were bereft of their inhabitants. Silver saw the inquiry form in my eyes and anticipated my unasked question.

“Ardent and Pierce are already outside and getting ready to move out, we get to pack everything up”

“Goody” I groaned before sitting up and shaking off the sleep.

‘I was dreaming about a monkey punching kittens, issat supposed to mean something?’ I asked myself.

‘You’re secretly a sadistic and animal cruelty oriented person?’ My morning brain snidely remarked at me.

‘That or you just have a hard on for violence in general’

‘Okay brain that’s enough outta you’

‘I WILL NOT BE SILEN-’ *Powering down*

Internal dialogue aside, I proceeded to assist Silver in putting everything away. Rolling up the sleeping bags, snuffing out the fire, and unhitching the tent and packing it away. It was arduous and boring but I participated accordingly, I wanted to come off as a credit to this team after all. Once all that was finished, we resumed on our quest to slay the blizzard beast. It’s a shame the journey itself wasn’t as epic as it sounded, Ardent’s enchanted tracking compass leading us closer to one of the snow topped mountains. ‘The Dragon probably has a cave den up there, what is it with Dragons and caves?’ Deciding that now was a good time I took to the air, silently grateful that it wasn’t as windy as yesterday. As we drew ever closer to the mountains, I noticed faint but rather noticeable streaks of crimson against the alabaster snow about a fifteen minute walk ahead of our position. I decided to check it out personally before reporting my findings back to the group. The first thing I noticed as I set down on the ground was that snow had been recently trudged through by something big. The tracks that were raked through the snow were spaced apart by at least five meters, indicating a beast of considerable size had recently passed by here. Small bits and pieces of wool scattered here and there were accompanied by the blood streaks I spotted earlier. The bloody trails led up the mountain a short distance before cutting off around a small bend. Satisfied with what I found I made my way back to my companions via the air. Landing just next to Silver I gave him the results of my scouting, reporting the bloody trail that would point us toward our serpentine objective.

“We are indeed drawing close to the Beast then, nicely done” Silver complimented me and motioned to the group’s navigator.

“You can put away that compass Ardent, we’ve found our bounty” He directed to the man, who took out his axe and wore an anticipative look of vengeance against the beast that dared devour the sheep he was charged with protecting.

“This thing won’t be able to detect us through scent right?” I asked.

Pierce answered me, “In these frigid conditions? Unlikely, frozen food isn’t exactly odiferous” He punctuated with a shiver.

“Nonetheless, we must approach with caution lest we give away ourselves prematurely” Silver forewarned us and turned to me.

“That device you told us about last night, what is its fuse time?” He asked.

“A couple seconds so once you pull it, you have to toss it immediately” I answered, pulling up my rudimentary knowledge of the M84.

“Then we will have to begin our assault almost at once. I and the others will handle this part; provide whatever assistance you think you can give” He told me as we approached the bend in the path. Turning the corner we came across the frosted mouth of a cave, with our blizzard beast presumably within its confines.

‘Called it’ I smirked to myself.

We heard a cacophony of growling and crunching noises coming from inside the cave, verifying that our bounty was indeed at home and unwittingly feeding upon livestock whose collars happened to be traceable. I felt my heart rate climb as we drew ever closer to our unsuspecting prey, ‘Wow, does hunting always feel this exhilarating?’ I saw the others slowly draw their weapons and uncloak, Pierce had an outfit that reminded me of the elven light armor from Skyrim and was nocking his bow with razor sharp arrows, Ardent wasn’t wearing any abdominal armor at all and was rolling the axe in his hands impatiently, and Silver wore a metal chest piece with segmented shoulder pauldrons and leggings and was holding the handle of his sword close to his side, having left the camping provisions bag aside. I subconsciously felt for the scabbard of my Tantō to make sure it was still there and felt relief when my hand brushed the smooth wood of its surface. I was beginning to feel vulnerable without any kind of armor before remembering that I was simply this group’s scout and that I wasn’t supposed to be heavily armored, only mobile. With a shallow breath, I followed my armed companions into the cave’s entrance.

The cave was actually decently lit from the opening, along with large crevices that offered a spectacular view of the adjacent mountains. By this point we were close enough that I was able to see the large and slightly spiky profile of the lepidote lizard. It had a long neck that was covered in small spines and what looked like curved horns protruding out of the sides of its head. The beast itself was facing away from us and seemed to be gnawing at the remnants of what were probably the eviscerated remains of some poor sheep. The rancid stench of death hung in the air and I had to use most of my willpower not to gag loudly and give us away.

Witnessing some conveniently placed rocks flanking the beast, Silver directed us behind them. Pierce and Ardent took positions behind the beast’s left and me and Silver behind its right. Silver gave me a look that told me to enact our surprise attack to which I nodded and pulled out my little contrivance. My fingers gripped its porous casing and curled around the pulling pins. I mentally went over what I had to do. ‘Okay, so I just have to pull the circular and triangular pins in succession then retract the safety lever and toss it. I should get it as close to its face as I can to get the most out of this. No pressure…’

I peeked around the corner to see the soon to be bushwhacked dragon still oblivious to our presence as it greedily munched down on its meal. ‘Time to fix that’ I gave a shrill and terse whistle to grab its attention before I pulled the pins and handle on the grenade and tossed it, the beast briskly brought its hefty head around before looking down at the curious object I threw its way. I didn’t get to see its reaction since I shut my eyes tightly and covered my ears with both hands, an action the others emulated all too eagerly. Even with my hands wrapped around my ears the ensuing detonation was loud as hell, but thankfully not dazing. The beast that got a face full of a million candelas and one hundred and seventy decibels was not so fortunate, it roared in pain as the onslaught of both light and noise struck its acute senses, rendering its vision blurred and its ears ringing; leaving it temporarily incapacitated. The other three took this opportunity to attack the beast as they bellowed a mighty battle cry. Silver and Ardent charged at the disoriented dragon while Pierce let loose a deluge of arrows upon it; he seemed to be aiming for its eyes but since the beast was shaking its head violently to clear its faculties, he only managed to land most of them in its main body and tail. Silver and Ardent started hacking and slashing as its limbs since the beast’s head and neck were elevated too high off the ground for them to reach. Thanks to what must have been the enchantments on their weapons they were able to draw blood despite the beast’s tough scaled body.

The Dragon must have finally realized what was happening and hissed in both anger and pain as it blindly swung its claws at the fast moving blurs attacking it. Even in its bewildered state, Ardent and Silver were only just dodging most of its swipes. I stood a safe distance away trying to flank around the beast while looking for an opening. We were managing a good ambush on the beast before it finally regained control of its senses and pressed its counterattack, knocking Silver against the wall of the cave with a tremendous swing of its tail and putting him out of the fight before turning its attention to Ardent, who defiantly kept slashing at any spot he could reach. It opened its maw, revealing its sharp and blood stained teeth and attempted to bite at him. He dodged swiftly around its chomping jaws and swung his axe at its face, sinking it deep into its cheek and causing it to yelp in agony. Pierce kept a relatively safe distance away and continued with his onslaught of arrows, turning the Blizzard Beast’s side into a bloody collage of blood and light green scales. It bore a sickening resemblance to one of those modern abstract compositions that I once saw in an art museum. The pain detracted enough of the dragon’s focus that it was only able to make a maladroit lash out at Pierce with its lumbering tail. Something he dodged by diving out of the way and coming out of the roll with an arrow nocked, which he let loose into the Dragon’s exposed nether regions. The beast let loose the loudest roar yet which seemed to shake the very ground. ‘Probably scored a critical hit in a sensitive region’ I humorously thought as I ducked and weaved closer to the Dragon’s blind spot. Ardent resumed pressing his advantage against the weakening opponent and it in turn focused solely on him in a blind animalistic fury only a cornered creature fought with.

While this was happening, I saw my opportunity to end the fight. By making its head level with the ground while it ferociously fought Ardent with both tooth and nail, I saw that I could land on its back and make my way for the top of its skull. I did just that, I leaped onto its back with the aid of my wings and crawled my way to its cranium using the spines on it back as handholds. The beast must have noticed its unwanted passenger because it flailed and shook violently, almost throwing me off several times. ‘So this is what Wander had to deal with when scaling the Colossi’ I bitterly thought as I hung onto the beast’s spines for dear life. Eventually the beast had to return its attention to the bellicose man with the battle axe who was getting increasingly audacious in his attack.

The spines along its neck made for good handles and I reached ever closer to what I hoped was a weak spot. Thankfully Pierce wasn’t aiming at its head anymore or I’d quickly become a human pincushion. I finally reached atop its head when the beast knocked away Ardent’s axe with a swipe from it claws and caused him to fall with his back to the ground completely unarmed and vulnerable. It loomed over him and raised a jagged claw with the intention of goring him. Acting quickly I unsheathed my Tantō and drove it repeatedly into the base of its skull, the incredibly sharp blade puncturing through scale and bone as if it were thick pie crust before perforating its brain. The blood spattered beast yowled poignantly as it entered its death throes before finally collapsing and letting out a drawn out death gurgle as its life expended.

There was absolute silence afterwards, save for the howling of the winds outside which had picked up since then. I pulled out my blade and shook it free of blood and brain matter before hopping off of the now dead Blizzard Beast. I walked up to Ardent who was still on the ground with an astounded expression on his face and offered him a hand up, which he accepted after a few moments. I saw Pierce nearby with his jaw on the floor and I couldn’t help but call him out on his earlier comment.

“How’s that for a toothpick?” I said with a smarmy grin.

A bruised and battered Silver picked himself off of the floor and groaned in pain before hobbling over to us, a large dent in his once unblemished chest piece.

“Never knew you had it in you Zenith, very well done” He slapped a hand on my shoulder in approbation. I simply shrugged and answered.

“I saw an opening and I exploited it, but that wouldn’t have been possible without you guys monopolizing its attention” I looked at them appreciatively.

Pierce finally got over his astonishment before turning his head away and wisecracking dismissively to me.

“You got lucky” to which he received a slap in the back of the head from Ardent.

“Give credit to where its due Pierce! Zenith here just secured our bounty and eliminated a menace to our kingdom” Ardent reprimanded the acrimonious archer.

“Speaking of which, how are we gonna bring back evidence? We can’t exactly just drag that things corpulent corpse back to the kingdom” I raised my concerns to the group.

“We’ll declaw the dead beast and saw off its horns” Silver stated, “Should be enough to appease the authorities” So we got to doing just that, using serrated bone saws that were kept in Silver’s bag. They certainly planned ahead for all of this.

Thirty or so minutes of squicky amputation later, we were headed down the mountain and back to the kingdom with convincing evidence of our kill. Leaving behind a large corpse to slowly rot and decay in the wintery wasteland. The guys were in high spirits owing to their victory over the beast, each with a large and satisfied smile on their face and wearing garments soaked in the blood of their kill.

‘Wait until I tell Crystal about this’ I thought with premonition as we marched back to the kingdom, each man about to be a thousand bits richer and a good deal more renowned.

Comments

[Maeroon]

Well, this is getting more interesting...

[Hirovard]

Picture isn't showing for me

[Toobert]

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[Fireeaters]

I refreshed a few times, pictures are broken here as well.