Aidan

The Realms

Secondday, 1st week of the 12th month, Age of the Chosen 1

Late Morning

Near Karsarrym's Lair, Mist Stalker Territory, Mistvale Highlands

"Not very well-hidden, is it?" Aidan asked, looking at the huge stone gates embedded in the valley wall.

"Dragons have little need for subtlety," Ritva opined, "even ones this young."

"Wait, Karsarrym is young for a dragon?" If that was true, Aidan wanted nothing to do with anything older.

"An adult, but not an old one," Iossif responded. "Dragons never stop growing as they age. Tales tell of great wyrms the size of mountains, although I have never seen evidence of such."

"The same tales say they grow less and less active over time, thank all the Gods and Powers," Stamatia added, her stony face twisted into a grimace. "Some traditions hold the world itself to be eons of detritus layered upon the back of a slumbering dragon."

Aidan shook his head. It might even be true, for all he knew, but it didn't matter. "Either way, we're here for a purpose, and it's not getting done standing around. Are the marines ready?"

Captain Dyfri and Captain Price's first mate—Price declined to make the journey because of his bad leg—nodded. "Aye, Lord Aidan," the latter said.

"How long do your summons last?" Aidan asked Conor, wishing he could tell the detestable man to get lost instead.

Despite Aidan's misgivings, Conor was cool and professional now on the eve of battle. "The Terror withers away when there isn't fresh blood to sustain it. The dakhols last for up to two hours."

Meaning they couldn't summon either ahead of time. Two hours might be enough, but Aidan couldn't count on it. They'd have to take those poor women into the lair with them. Ugh. Through gritted teeth, he said, "Then bring your slaves. They'll stay in the back with us until we reach the end." Nobody was happy about it, but those summons represented far too strong a weapon for Aidan to refuse to use.

Will I wind up like Lady Macbeth? Will this blood stain my hands forever? He'd already memorized the womens' names, another monument to failure looming in his mind. Aidan loathed the position Chief Searlas put him in. He felt like a powerless pawn.

A splash of cool water against his cheek interrupted Aidan's brooding. He looked to his left. Eldrid gave him a sympathetic look atop an unapologetic grimace.

"Right," he said, "let's get going, then. Everyone knows the plan. Marines first, taking both entrances in parallel. The strike team will follow Captain Price's company at a distance, preserving our strength unless there are no other options. Once we reach the bottom, the marines withdraw, Conor summons, and we do what we came for." The remaining troops—Aidan's bodyguards, a handful of Eldrid's marines, the harpy scouts, and Conor's military escort—would wait aboveground to guard the wagons and seal the dungeon exits.

"Alright, boys and girls," Dyfri's voice carried across the valley's entrance, "it is time to earn our pay. Remember, this is a military operation, not a dungeon dive. Stay in formation, ignore loot, and follow orders. We will get our share at the end. May Divine Nefrys bless us all."

"Lady guide us," came the response from the gathered otterkin troops.

One could be forgiven for assuming storming a dungeon with sixty trained marines would prove smooth sailing. After all, the traditional approach was with a party of five or less. If ever Aidan entertained such a faulty assumption, stepping into the first chamber after the marines cleared it would've disabused him.

Dozens of squat, scaled humanoids lay in piles where the otterkin cut them down. They wore no clothes or armor and wielded crude weapons crafted from wood, stone, and bone, but quantity had its own quality. A slain marine lay among the corpse piles and the pools of drying blood. Two more Snow-Water Riders reclined against carved stone pillars with broken limbs.

Ten percent casualties in the first room, against, presumably, the weakest enemies. Not a good sign. Aidan gave strong consideration to healing the pair of walking wounded. Reducing the marines' attrition might tip the balance. On the other hand, so might wearying himself casting expensive magic like Phoenixfire Conflagration, his only spell capable of fixing serious injuries.

While most of the Concentration used to cast a spell got refunded once the effects ended, there was still a small, steady degradation involved. The fatigue was proportional to the base cost of each spell cast, and the math wasn't linear. Aidan could use cheap magic like Flame Jet for hours before feeling any significant effects.

Phoenixfire Conflagration's 300 Concentration cost, on the other hand, had a noticeable impact on him with each use. As soon as he finished casting it, he would feel a wave of exhaustion, like coming down from an adrenaline surge. The weariness didn't linger long, a few seconds at most, but it built up over repeated uses. If he healed the marines after every fight, he'd be in poor mental shape by the end.

I can't risk it, Aidan decided. The fight against Karsarrym would be difficult enough with him at full capacity. And, when it came down to brass tacks, Dyfri and his men were mercenaries. They signed up for this knowing the dangers. More blood on my hands, his mind nonetheless whispered.

Then he had an idea. "Conor," Aidan asked, "you said your summoning spells need the lifeblood of sapients, correct?"

"The ones useful here, yes." The man's tone reminded Aidan of a cat playing with its food.

"These monsters, whatever they are, use tools. Would they work instead?" The thought of sacrificing prisoners still turned his stomach, but at least they weren't innocent civilians.

"Hmm." Conor tapped one thin, clawed finger against his chin. "Yes, although there are other factors in play. I would require more of these drachen than those with purer blood, and the casting will be more complex. But, yes, if it would soothe your sensibilities, I can make due."

"How many do you need?"

"Ten at least, fifteen to be certain. They need to be alive, but so long as they are not bleeding out until I perform the ritual, there is no need to be gentle."

With a sharp nod, Aidan turned to one of his messengers. "Go to Captain Dyfri. Tell him to try and capture some of these... drachen? No need to go easy on them. We need them alive and stable but nothing further. He needn't take crazy risks, but I would appreciate it if he could get us at least a dozen."

"Yes, m'Lord!" the marine said with a salute, then hurried forward to the next room.

The dungeon Karsarrym took over for its lair would have been a work of art in any other context. The entrance chamber led into a long gallery supported by massive, square pillars of carved stone. The rooms on either side of the grand corridor had masterful murals engraved into the walls depicting what looked like hundreds of years of history.

Further in, the path split three ways. One led through a series of narrow hallways connecting utility rooms, storehouses, and living quarters. These weren't as impressive as the earlier sections, lacking the ornate decorations and awe-inspiring architecture. Still, all the craftsmanship on display was of the highest quality.

The second route diverged into a temple complex. Another long, pillared corridor fed into an immense chamber with an arched ceiling and row upon row of stone benches. The ruined remnants of three statues rested near a cracked altar at the far end.

The final wing was the shortest, most impressive, and most dangerous. It began with a hallway overlooked by fortified balconies, crenelated like castle walls. Two doors opened into obvious guardrooms at the end of the hall, each housing a stairway with access to the terraces. Past those was an antechamber the size of a small house. Cushioned benches lined the edges of the room.

The only other exit from the antechamber led into a throne room. It was at least fifty feet wide and several hundred long. More carved stone pillars lined the sides of the room, each bearing a spiral staircase and several tiers of box seating. There was a subtle slope to the floor leading up to a dais, the front-facing edge of each tiered stair bearing gilded etchings.

Atop the dais, a steeper stairway rose to an imposing throne. It was carved from a single solid basalt cube five feet to a side. Sapphires, rubies, emeralds, jade, and other precious gems embedded in its sides formed elaborate dioramas. Spikes of gleaming dark metal radiated from the throne's back like a sinister sun.

The original plan called for Dyfri's marines to clear out all three wings before proceeding deeper. Nobody wanted to risk attacks from behind while the strike team fought Karsarrym. However, with the losses they'd already taken, Aidan altered the plan. Calling over another messenger, he said, "We're going to skip the throne room and temple. Those are more likely to house elite troops, and they're wide-open spaces. Tell Dyfri to clear the back corridors. We'll try to barricade the other exits when we reach the other side."

Once through the abattoir the mercenaries made of the servants' wing, the entire character of the dungeon changed. Ornate hallways and engraved passages halted, opening up onto the view of a deep chasm lined with twisting, switchbacked trails leading down into darkness. Steel rails inlaid into the paths and narrow openings pockmarking the chasm walls spoke to their original purpose as a mine.

Now, however, they were exposed paths leading down into a dragon's lair. Somewhere at the bottom, Karsarrym waited for them. Aidan labored under no illusions about taking the wyrm by surprise. Its minions would have warned it long before now. And, unfortunately, they would have to make their way down in single file. The traces leading down into the gorge were only three or four feet wide at their widest.

Dyfri's remaining troops, now reduced to less than half their starting number, led the way downward. Every time they passed a mine shaft, the Captain himself shaped it closed with low-level Earth magic. His alterations wouldn't hold forever, but with luck, anything lurking in the tunnels would be delayed until after Karsarrym was dead.

The strike team followed around a hundred feet behind the marines. Stamatia, Alkelda, and Iossif took to the air while Eldrid surrounded the rest in a swirling bubble of clear water. This position was exposed enough that none of the party opposed using some resources before the final fight.

Twice, the marines had to stop as swarms of drachen poured out of a mine tunnel ahead of them. They managed to fight off the monsters the first time without taking another casualty. However, the second skirmish ended with a taller brute drachen charging through the column of marines. Captain Dyfri cut it to pieces with his heavy blade, but not before three otterfolk went screaming over the edge.

Once at the bottom, they reunited with Captain Price's troops. They'd fought their way through the other half of the dungeon and were just as battered and depleted as Dyfri's squad. Still, they had about twenty-five healthy, if tired, soldiers between the two groups. It would have to do.

There was one final chamber to clear before facing their true foe. A yawning cavern, lined with dripping stalactites and stalagmites like immense teeth, led deeper into the earth.

Within waited the biggest drachen Aidan had seen so far. It was also the only one wearing armor, and the jagged metal sword it wielded was a far more sophisticated weapon than any others wielded. Two obvious spellcasters flanked the drachen boss, each bearing a wooden staff covered in dangling bone charms. Twenty or so of the big brutes and at least twice as many smaller warriors filled out the monsters' ranks.

"You, invaders!" the armored monster called out to them. "The Great Master decrees your death. Raaargh!" Without waiting for any response, it roared and charged the marines.

The fight was short and brutal and might have ended in a loss for the otterfolk mercenaries if not for the strike team's intervention. The boss singled out Dyfri for a duel. The two traded savage blows and tight parries, neither seeming to have an advantage until one of the brutes bull-rushed the Captain. He saw the attack coming, and it only knocked him off-balance for a second, but a second was all the boss needed to slash him from shoulder to hip.

Seeing the Captain go down, possibly even slain, shattered Aidan's resolve to hold out. Before Dyfri even hit the floor, the motes of burning light revolving above his ethereal crown shot out. Each impacted in the middle of a cluster of drachen, and Aidan directed three to strike the boss and his two shamans. Needle-sharp frozen spikes raked through the unarmored massed monsters like grapeshot while arrows rained down on the spellcasters from above.

The two gargoyles remained in front of Aidan, interposing their granite bodies between him and any adventurous drachen. Enys and Conor also had little to contribute. The former's magic would be wasted on hordes of weak enemies, and the latter needed too much time to impact this fight. Ysbail had her sword out and ready, the glow of her Aura limning her powerful frame, but declined to wade into the melee.

With Aidan, Eldrid, and Alkelda's intervention, the tides of battle turned sharply in the Snow-Water Riders' favor. The two enemy spellcasters died in mere seconds, along with more than half of the grunts and brutes. The boss lasted another half-minute, taking out two more mercenaries, before one of Alkelda's arrows sprouted from his right eye. After seeing their collapse, the remaining drachen surrendered or fled.

Aidan rushed to where Dyfri fell, Eldrid a half-step behind him. The muscular Captain was still alive, thank the Gods, although blood soaked through the front of his tunic. "It is not as bad as it looks," he told Aidan through clenched teeth. "My clothes are enchanted. They absorbed part of the strike."

"Here, drink this." Aidan retrieved a healing potion from his haversack and handed it to Dyfri.

"Blech, I loathe the taste of potions," the Captain complained, but he popped the cork and swallowed the bubbling red liquid within. "Go on, Lord Aidan. I will survive so long as you win."

Aidan nodded, then turned to his team. "This is it, everyone. Karsarrym waits for us in the cavern beyond. Prepare as you need to. We'll go once Conor's finished summoning. Dakhols, Conor. I want to give the dragon as many expendable targets as possible."

"Whatever you say, boss," the catfolk mage said with sneering insubordination. "You, you, you, drag those ugly fuckers into position." The drafted marines looked to Aidan for confirmation, then followed orders, wrestling captive drachen into the spots the summoner indicated. Conor retrieved a piece of glittering chalk from his robes and drew circular glyphs on the cavern floor.

Once the intricate pattern met his satisfaction, Conor put the chalk back and pulled out a curved dagger. Chanting words holding no meaning to any but himself, he walked around the inscribed circle and slashed the throat of each helpless prisoner in turn. Instead of spraying out, their thick red blood formed tendrils, rising into the air and coiling around each other. After a few seconds, the writhing mass of blood split into two, then both divided again.

As everyone watched, horrified, the four blobs twisted into humanoid shapes with hunched backs and long arms. Bones shimmered into existence within, spines forming first, then ribs, arms, legs, and skulls. Strands of muscle fiber stretched over the skeletons, wrapping around them like macabre swaddling clothes. Layers of sickly white fat and pink flesh appeared interwoven with the tendons and ligaments. At last, mercifully, skin and fur covered the summoned creatures' bodies, and the dakhols dropped to the floor.

"There," Conor said. "You have your distractions. I hope you are happy with this much. I could have made five, and each of them stronger, using better materials." He waved a careless hand at the huddled, terrified women, brought along in case the drachen sacrifice plan didn't work out.

"They'll do," Aidan said and put the summoner out of his mind. He needed all of his focus for the fight ahead. "Iossif, Stamatia, lead the way. The dakhols will follow you in, then me, Eldrid, and Ysbail. We all know the plan by now. Let's kill ourselves a dragon." Five swords of searing bright flame floated in the air around him.