Towering trouble a litrp.., p.123
Towering Trouble: A LitRPG Isekai, page 123
How old must Oronchulon be, if he’d been alive in Sarthea’s time? She had no idea how long dragons usually lived, but they weren’t immortal. Only the eternals had been granted that mixed blessing. And maybe her own kind, although she was a little fuzzy about that.
Greatmother never came back, Oronchulon’s accusatory eyes seemed to say, though she heard no audible words. She died because of you, and now you come to me inside her hollow shell.
“I’m sorry,” said Saskia. “I didn’t know she was your mother. It was cruel of us to bring her here. But I wasn’t the one who got her killed. I’m not Sarthea.”
You do as she did. You seek to steal one of my mates away.
“No, you misunderstand! I’m not stealing anyone. I invite all of you to become my vassals. Yourself included.”
He let out a low rumble of discontent. Why would I agree to this? Why would a dracken serve a lowly creature such as you?
“You wouldn’t be serving me,” she said. “It would be a partnership. A mutually beneficial arrangement. You would gain power. I’d get your help, if you are willing.”
Power? What kind of power?
“A huge supply of essence, basically. As my vassals, your people could do as much stormy stuff as you want.”
And what do you ask in exchange for this power?
“Not eating me would be a great start. But also, the fire dragons are attacking my friends, and only you can stop them.”
Oronchulon snarled at the mention of the fire dragons.
“There’s one other thing I can offer you,” she said. She’d be stepping on some toes by doing this, but what the hell. “Once this is over, you can return to Ciendil if you wish. Although, I must warn you, it has…changed since the time when you were there.”
You offer our home to us? How? The tyrant will just drive us out again.
“That’s just it. I seek to slay the tyrant. Once he is gone, you, and I, and everyone will be free to go where we please.”
Oronchulon stood regarding her for a long moment. Then he threw back his head and roared up at the heavens.
I require proof that you can do as you say. Make a vassal out of Linitheleske, our weakest runt. If she can produce a spark, I will agree to become your…vassal, and help you devour the tyrant. And all who wish to follow will do likewise.
“That sounds reasonable,” she said. It was more than reasonable, actually.
If she cannot produce a spark, I will devour you.
“Okay, that’s…less reasonable. What’s with you and devouring? But I’d be happy to test the vassal bond on one of your smaller kin.”
Saskia awoke to the feel of an enormous sandpaper-like tongue smothering her face. She rolled away, spluttering, soaked from head to foot in dragon saliva.
“Now don’t get excited,” Ithanius was saying. “Trows aren’t very tasty, I assure you.”
Rover Dog looked as if he’d been about to gouge out the dragon’s eyes. Upon seeing Saskia was safe, he backed away, lowering his claws.
The one doing the licking had not been Oronchulon, the Great Scale. This dragon was less than a quarter his size, and had a distinctly feminine vibe.
“Oh,” she said, looking up at the runty dragon. “You must be Linitheleske.”
The dragon gave a happy chirruping sound, and a huge gobbet of drool splashed across Saskia’s face. She wiped it away with a sigh. Who would’ve thought dragons could be the slobbering puppies of this world?
“Okay, Zarie, could you bring Iscaragraithe down?” she said. “Slowly. We don’t want to alarm them. But I need to make this dragon my vassal, and for that, I’ll need the keystone.”
Linitheleske’s head drew close, and Saskia patted her lightly, drawing a crooning sound from the dragon. Then her hand halted mid-pat.
Something shone behind the dragon’s ear. She circled around, and let out a surprised, “Huh,” as she looked at a tiny bead of crystallised arlium.
“Maybe I won’t need the keystone, after all,” she murmured.
Could it be this easy? Was this a kind of natural focus, or did the dragons have arlium all throughout their bodies? If she extracted it, would it do to them what it had done to the creatures of Fireflower Isle?
Inspecting Linitheleske with her medical interface, she came to the conclusion that the arlium extended only a short distance under the dragon’s skin, and there was no trace of the stuff anywhere else in her body. Definitely looked like a focus…
Inspecting Oronchulon and other nearby dragons, she realised that many of them had visible foci as well—in different parts of their bodies. Some had more than one. Oronchulon had five hidden under his scales.
“Well, here goes nothing,” she said. She pressed her fingers against the bead of arlium behind Linitheleske’s ear.
A jolt of pleasure shot through her. And then a jolt of…ow. Electricity surged across Linitheleske’s body. Letting out a squawk of alarm, the runty dragon rolled about in the scree, as if trying to rub the lightning away.
“Don’t think it works that way, Linitheleske,” said Saskia. She throttled back the amount of essence flowing into her new vassal. Then she looked up at Oronchulon. “See? Lots of power. I actually had to limit it a little, to give her a chance to adapt.”
Even as she spoke, Oronchulon raised his head, and roared loud enough to set scree tumbling down the slope around them. Dragons swooped in from every direction. Some landed atop nearby rocks. Others hovered in the sky.
Iscaragraithe also came in to land at Saskia’s back. The dragons regarded the bones of their ancestor with curiosity, but they didn’t seem offended or unnerved by her presence.
“Anyone who becomes my vassal will regain the full magic of the seed of storms,” announced Saskia. “In return you’ll help me drive back some fire dragons. Step up if you accept these terms. I won’t take anyone against their will.” After a long pause, she added, “Unless you try to eat me.”
All of the storm dragons had foci inside in their bodies, although the younger generations had much smaller—and fewer—foci than Oronchulon. Maybe this was part of the reason why their magic was stunted. The arlium must have formed naturally as they grew, but those who had been raised away from Ciendil had absorbed less arlium from their environment. It was a simple matter to remotely extract the arlium from any storm dragons who consented, and bam! Instant vassal.
In short order, more than two thirds of them did consent to be her vassals. She hoped they would be enough.
Soon afterward, a thunder of storm dragons was soaring across Tarthaxis, led by Iscaragraithe and Oronchulon. It was really happening. She might just be able to save the trolls after all.
Checking in with her frostling vassals on Grongarg, her hope faltered and died. All of the major towns and cities were smouldering ruins. Though the wildlands had been left largely unscathed, anything even remotely resembling civilisation had been razed. It wasn’t an apocalypse on quite the same scale as Ciendil’s, but it would take the trolls many years to rebuild.
And there was worse to come. With the trolls and mer driven underground, or hiding in the wilds, the fire dragons were turning to a new target: the icy wasteland containing the seed of frost. All too soon, they had the place surrounded.
A solitary figure made his way toward the worldseed, where none but Saskia and Ruhildi and the frostlings had trod for untold thousands of years. Heat and blazing light radiated outward from his body, shrouded behind a moving column of steam.
Given that Okael was long dead, there was no question as to who this was. Xonroth the Primordial had come for frostling queen. Frostlings swarmed toward him from both within and without the heart of frost. Those outside found themselves driven back by dragonfire. Those already within the circle desperately flung their magic and their bodies at the advancing Primordial. With barely a glance, he slaughtered them all.
She watched with growing despair as he drew close to the frozen spire, and the enormous frostling trapped in its core. He reached for her…
Saskia reeled in her seat. She felt as if she’d suddenly been struck blind and deaf. There was a gaping void in her soul; an emptiness she couldn’t fill. She’d made the frostling queen her vassal, and with the queen’s loss, her connection to all of them had been severed.
The frostlings in the cabin were acting even more perturbed than she felt. They ran in circles, and crashed into walls, and lay on their backs, twitching and screeching.
A terrible dread settled over her as she contemplated what might happen, now that the nexus of their hive mind had been killed. Could they survive as individuals? Could she make them her vassals again? Even if that was possible, she’d have to come to them in person to do that. In a single instant, she’d lost her network of spies.
Saskia could no longer see what was happening on Grongarg, but she didn’t need to. She knew full well what would happen next. Their task completed, the fire dragons would swarm back up the trunk to their next target. There wasn’t much left for them to destroy on the surface of Ciendil, so they wouldn’t go there. No, they’d be heading straight for Lumium.
And they would get there before she did.
Book 4, Chapter 14: Stand
Garrain stroked the egg reverently. Such a tiny thing compared to the vast form of her mother, whose serpentine neck coiled about them both.
What strange fate awaited their nestling? Would she be alvesse or dracken, or an altogether different creature? Whatever she became, she would be theirs, and he couldn’t wait to welcome her into this world.
“It’s good timing, I suppose, that you brought her forth this morn,” he spoke into Nuille’s ear. “Now you won’t be restricted to dracken form. Although I’m certain this form will be of great use in the battle to come.”
At his mention of the word ‘battle,’ Nuille raised her head, and bared her teeth, and a small wisp of smoke emerged from her nostrils. Yes, she would be a formidable weapon indeed. He didn’t like to think of his lifemate as a weapon, but when it came to this battle, they needed every advantage they could get.
Her form shimmered, and drew inward. Wings became arms. Red-gold scales became dappled green-gold skin. Then he was looking into achingly familiar amber-coloured eyes.
Nuille stood shakily, blinking in the morning light. “That was…” Her words came out as a growl. She coughed, and tried again. “That was an experience. I can’t say laying an egg was ever high on the list of things I thought I’d be doing this mildsummer. Although I’m certain it was less painful than the usual birthing.”
He drew her close, enjoying the touch of her skin against him.
She gently pushed him away. “Not now, ardonis. We need to get our nestling underground. And then I’m taking a quick bath. I’m disgusting right now.”
“You have never looked more resplendent,” he countered. “Though you are quite right that we should see to her safety above all else.”
Safety was a relative concept on a branch that was about to be put to the flame by drackens and Chosen. The best they could do was to leave her in the safekeeping of someone who would be taking shelter beneath the surface of the arbor, beyond the reach of any drackens. Throughout the hills and plains of northern Lumium, and beneath Ambiellar, there were a plethora of crevices and caves and tunnels they could hide in. Here, as on Ciendil, there were larger caverns and immense hollows further beneath the surface. But those were not readily accessible this far north. There wasn’t time to push further south into contested territory. Without Saskia or Ruhildi here to aid them, it would be a battle of attrition, and they’d more than likely find themselves caught between the high alvari loyalists and the drackens. So these smaller, shallower tunnels would have to do.
Such tunnels were only a partial protection, because although the drackens couldn’t enter them, their riders could. There really was no guaranteed safe haven. All they could do was choose wisely, and hope for the best.
The walls of Ambiellar would be no defence against drackens, and the city was a huge, obvious target. Some of Ambiellar’s inhabitants had already fled into the hills, but many were remaining behind to defend their homes, aided by Illiur’s legions. Garrain wasn’t about to entrust the safety of his progeny to those gallant, desperate dunderbirds.
No, the site they’d selected was beneath an unassuming hill as far from the city as they could reasonably go. There were no major landmarks nearby. Nothing that might tempt anyone to search there. He could only hope it would be enough.
“I will take good care of her,” the oracle, Wuishe, assured them as she gingerly took hold of the egg, swaddled in a nest of blankets. She’d keep the egg warm, and provide a final defence in the unlikely event the enemy came this way.
“Thank you ever so much for doing this,” said Nuille.
“No problemo,” said the oracle, speaking the words from Saskia’s world as if they were her own. “It’s not as if I would be much use up there on the surface. At least here, I can do something worthwhile.”
Bidding Wuishe farewell, they took a quick dip in a stream, then Nuille shifted into dracken form once more, and bore him into the northern hills, where ‘delay teams,’ as Baldreg called them, were waiting.
There were hundreds of these teams scattered across northern Lumium, ready to strike at their foes from the shadows, and run or hide when they came under attack. They couldn’t hope to defeat such an overwhelming force in a direct confrontation, but they were hoping to be enough of a nuisance to slow their enemy’s advance and divert them away from Ambiellar, buying Saskia the time she needed to come to their rescue.
Some of their most powerful defenders had gathered in these hills. To the far east, Vask’s squadron of trow roptir riders circled a rocky hilltop. If they were fast enough, they might be able to lead their foes on a chase away from the city and surrounding settlements, and perhaps bring down a dracken or two along the way.
Somewhere down on the ground lurked teams of high alvari shadowmasters and quickdraws, hidden under their powerful concealment magic.
Hanging in the air over a steep, rocky gorge was the airship, Hindenburger, flown by none other than Dallim. No-one expected the Hindenburger to survive the battle—though if all went to plan, Dallim would no longer be inside the airship when it went down. It was there simply to provide a tempting target for the drackens, luring them into the ravine, where a trap awaited them. Kveld and the other stoneshapers and engineers were hard at work fortifying the cliffs and tunnels for the coming battle. Small windows had been carved into the sides of the cliffs. Inside, they’d placed some of the trow net-flingers, as well as a few of the new weapons. Cannons, they were called, and they were as deadly as they were noisy.
Standing atop the lip of the ravine, Baldreg looked up at them as they flew past. “Your child-to-be is safe?” he asked, speaking clearly into Garrain’s ears, despite the distance separating them.
“As safe as one can be, given the circumstances,” said Garrain. He looked out across the gorge. “I hope this works.”
“You ken as well as I do that nothing ever goes quite according to plan,” said Baldreg. “I’ll consider it a success if we can just slay a fistful of them afore…”
“I plan to do better than that,” said Garrain. “And remember, our goal is to delay them until Saskia can get here. Don’t cast aside your lives in a futile last stand. If the battle turns, take your dwarrows and flee into the tunnels.”
“You forget you’re speaking to one of the Vindicals,” said Baldreg. “We invented such tactics.”
Garrain inclined his head down at the dwarrow. Though he never spoke it aloud, Garrain often wondered how much of the old Baldreg had been stripped away during his brief time as a Chosen. He had most definitely changed, but was he still Baldreg?
They flew onward to a grove of tall trees, above which swarmed cruel-beaked birds and buzzing thorasps, with their gossamer wings and long, coiled stingers. These had answered the call of the beastmasters, Vannach and Cargard. Only with the vast bounty of Saskia’s essence to draw on, could the brothers command a swarm so large, and across such a great distance. Garrain ached a little at the realisation that most of these innocent creatures would be seared from the sky in the coming battle.
Inside the grove, Sionne and Yasmithe, their fellow greenhands, were reshaping trees into weapons of war. The trees of Lumium were smaller and sparser than Ciendil’s forests had been, before the Great Winter, but they had their own kind of majesty. The song of life was vibrant as ever here. It was a shame to disturb the natural balance of the grove, but if they did not, then many other trees would surely burn.
Landing just outside the grove, Garrain and Nuille stepped through the trees to prepare their own contribution to the battle. Roots splayed wide, gripping tightly to the soil. Trunks stretched, elongated, and flexed, lowering their crowns all the way down to the ground. The branches of their crowns fused together into huge bowls, within which coalesced pools of murky green liquid. That liquid was a form of life, but a dark, malevolent kind. It would bring death upon any creature of flesh and blood who came into contact with it.
These were similar to the catapults his people had used in sieges for many a span. But Garrain had added a small, but vicious tweak to the spell.
Vannach came near, his four eyes blinking. “I’m not sure I want to know. Can they hit a dracken?”
“If the drackens fly low enough,” said Garrain.
“We’ll make sure they do.”
Garrain and Nuille weren’t finished yet. There were other, more radical spells he’d invented in the days since their flight from the Crown of the World. If he’d had these spells at the time, how different might that battle have turned out? The trows wouldn’t have won, but they might have exacted a greater toll on their enemy before they fell.
Half a bell later, a voice sounded in his ear. And from the way Nuille stiffened beside him, he could tell she heard the same voice. Saskia’s voice.
