Path of Dragons

Anger coursed through Elijah’s entire body, gripping his mind with implacable fury as he laid waste to the monsters clambering across his scaley body. They bit, and they clawed, and despite his high Constitution and the durable nature of his Shape of the Guardian, they left him in ruins.

Yet, Elijah was no stranger to pain.

He could endure whatever the ghouls dished out. Not so for his companions. Fortunately, with every passing moment, they drew closer to safety. He hoped. They’d passed out of his detection range, so he couldn’t be sure.

Elijah had lost track of how long it had been since that idiot Badu had ruined everything with his misguided attempt at heroics. But it had been at least an hour. Maybe much longer. In any case, he didn’t have much opportunity to focus on anything else, because the horde of ghouls just kept coming.

At first, he’d expected to finish the alpha off – which he had with no difficulty – and rejoin his party members. However, by the time he’d broken free, even more ghouls had arrived, and they stood between him and wherever the elves had taken shelter. He didn’t know if they were alive or dead.

In fact, all Elijah really knew was that he was furious.

With the ghouls. With the tower. With the system that had created it. But most of all, his fury was directed at Badu, who’d started the cascade of misfortune that had seen Elijah surrounded by hellish ghouls.

He channeled that anger into his attacks. In the lamellar ape form, he didn’t bother with fancy maneuvers. Most of the time, he simply bashed his enemies with his superior Strength and the leverage of his long arms. Sometimes, he ripped them to pieces. Other times, he used an unlucky ghoul as a temporary weapon, battering its fellows to death with a green-skinned cudgel.

But there was no grace to it.

Still, he took plenty of damage. The monsters’ claws were sharp, and what’s more, they had some sort of ability that made them even more lethal. And finally, there was an unidentifiable affliction buried in each attack, and as it built up, Elijah found himself growing weaker.

He had Strength to spare, though. So, he continued his massacre. Even when alpha ghouls showed up, he barely slowed. They couldn’t stand up to his might.

Elijah knew he was on a timer, though. The affliction continuously built, sapping his Strength. Eventually, it would push past the point of no return and weaken him enough that the endless tide of ghouls overcame even his vaunted Constitution.

So, he slowly followed the path of his companions, hoping that they’d found somewhere to hole up. And to his surprise, Elijah found just that an hour or so later when he spied a mausoleum. It was made all of black marble decorated with sharp points that reminded Elijah of Gothic architecture. But it had a sturdy door protected by a shield of shimmering ethera. More importantly, when he drew closer, he could sense his companions inside. The elves were all prone, clearly injured, and surrounded by other people who seemed to be tending them.

By the time he reached the door, Elijah was on his last legs. The insidious affliction had sapped his Strength to almost nothing, and his hide hung from his body in tatters. He shouted, “Let me in!”

He heard Badu weakly mumble something about leaving him out there, but he was overruled by K’hana, who begged the other people to let him inside. They complied, and the shield of ethera flickered, then disappeared. After that, a group of people – humans, by the look – poured out, burying the ghouls in a series of spells.

They weren’t powerful, but each spell had an added effect of repelling the monsters. Elijah dashed past them, stumbling through the door. A moment later, the mausoleum’s defenders collapsed back through the entrance, restoring the shield. Then, they slammed the door, sealing the ghoulish horde outside.

Elijah dropped to his knees, his scales in tatters. Pain and weakness coursed through his entire body, drowning his mind in confusion. His vision began to darken, and he verged on losing consciousness. However, one facet of his Quartz Mind managed to maintain enough focus for him to use Guardian’s Renewal.

As the ability took hold, his body mended. But the weakness persisted. The ethera that drove the ability fought against it, going back and forth until, at last, it came through. The weakness disappeared and, as Elijah’s body finished its healing, he let out a sigh of relief. Then, he shifted back to his human form.

For a long moment, he remained on his hands and knees. His crook remained on the floor of the mausoleum as he tried to catch his breath. But he wasn’t focused on any of that. Instead, the whole of his attention was on the fact that Guardian’s Renewal had, for the very first time, struggled to heal him.

And that wasn’t supposed to happen.

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Instantly and completely regenerate, the description said. There were no caveats. No addendums to its power. And Elijah had assumed it was entirely unlimited. Clearly, though, there were some things that could challenge it. And presumably, there were afflictions or levels of damage that would defeat it, as well. The struggle between the ghouls’ afflictions had stretched its limits, and if it had been any worse, Guardian’s Renewal would have failed.

Which did not bode well for his companions.

He looked up to see the elves lying nearby. Their clothes were bloody, and they had clearly suffered plenty of wounds. Due to his efforts in healing, many of those injuries had mended. However, it was clear that they suffered from the same afflictions that his Guardian’s Renewal had struggled to banish.

Elijah pushed himself to his feet and immediately summoned Healing Rain. Then, he cast Soothe on each elf. As he moved to K’hana’s side, he said, “Tell me what’s wrong.”

With some effort, she managed to say, “Weakness. My stomach is twisted in cramps. My mind is…foggy.”

“Heal us!” rasped Badu. “Show you’re not worthless!”

Elijah wanted to lash out and silence the elf. But he restrained himself. Instead, he said, “You’re the one who went off-script. If you wouldn’t have ruined my spell…you know what? I don’t need to prove myself to you. You’re a moron, and as far as I’m concerned, you can die.”

K’hana said, “Please, Elijah…”

He sighed, preparing to respond. However, before he could speak, one of the tower’s natives said, “You will not be able to heal them. You are no Priest.”

“What?” Elijah asked, looking up. The people were all human, though with slightly exaggerated features. But they wore tall hats with short brims, pants that only came down to their knees, and buckled shoes. Each one wore a long coat, held closed by silver toggles.

“You may heal the wounds, but the curse will remain. If it is not banished within a day, your friends will join the Magister. We will slay them before we allow that.”

Elijah’s fingers tightened around his Crook of the Serpent Healer. He took a step forward and said, “Don’t threaten my allies.”

“It is no threat,” said the man. “It is a kindness. The curse will change them, and in ways they will not want to endure. They will become monsters.”

Elijah wasn’t going to take the man’s word for it. So, he knelt next to K’hana, laid his hand on her shoulder, then flooded her with Touch of Nature. For nearly five minutes, he continuously cast the spell. All the while, he kept Soothe and Healing Rain going as well. But despite all that, she did not recover. In fact, she grew worse.

Finally, when his core was empty, Elijah pulled away.

As he did, he turned on the tower native and demanded, “How do I fix it?”

“You must find the source and slay it.”

“Where is it? What is it?”

“In the manor,” the native said. “Lord Lothgal is the source of the curse. He must be destroyed, and the curse will be lifted.”

That reminded him of his task. Discover the source and take the first step in destroying it, the notification said. It didn’t take a leap of logic for Elijah to see how it all tied together. The first step was likely to gain access to the manor, which meant crossing the ghoul-infested grounds. Perhaps if he was a true healer, he would have some means of removing the curse, but as it stood, none of his spells did any good.

That meant he had only one option. He needed to conquer the tower in order to save the elves, and he would have to do so alone. More, he didn’t have the leeway to tarry as he had in his first run through the Keledge Tower. He’d taken his time in the Reaver’s Citadel as well.

Now, though, he couldn’t do that.

Sighing, he rolled his shoulders and asked, “Is that door the only way out?”

The native said, “No. There is a back door that exits slightly closer to the manor. But that area is infested with servitors.”

“That’s fine,” Elijah said. Then, he knelt next to K’hana and, in as soothing a voice as he could manage, said, “I’ll fix this. Just hang on.”

He gripped her shoulder again, but she didn’t give any signs that she’d heard him. None of the others were conscious, either. So, after ensuring that the natives would care for his companions, Elijah followed the leader to the back exit, which required traversing a series of catacombs until they reached a ramp that led to a hatch.

Elijah said, “I’ll be back when I’m done dealing with Lord Lothgal.”

“I wish you luck, friend.”

Elijah just shook his head, then shifted into his draconid form. In the shape’s growly voice, he said, “Turn around. I need to stealth.”

To his credit, after telling Elijah the appropriate direction, the man didn’t ask any questions. Nor did he display any real degree of alarm. Instead, he just did as he was asked, and once Elijah was cloaked in Guise of the Unseen, he opened the hatch. Under the influence of Essence of the Wolf, Elijah dashed through.

At first, he didn’t see any ghouls – or servitors, as the man had called them – but as soon as the hatch clanged shut, the creatures made their presence known. They rushed toward the closed hatch, scratching and clawing at an ethereal shield. Meanwhile, Elijah stalked away, weaving between the twisted trees as he made his way in the direction of the manor.

As he went, he was astounded by the sheer number of servitors. At rest, they barely moved, and without One with Nature, he might not have noticed them at all. Yet, with his spell, he could feel just how unnatural they were. Elijah’s instincts screamed at him to kill as many as he could, but he knew that was a path to ruin.

After all, Guardian’s Renewal wouldn’t be available for more than six days, so he had no way of removing the curse. So, he couldn’t simply fight his way into the manor – not so long as the servitors were around, at least. Instead, he needed to sneak through the forest, enter the manor, and kill Lord Lothgal, whoever that was.

After a little more than an hour, he finally caught sight of the manor, and as the tower’s ambience might suggest, the building was an exaggerated caricature of gothic architecture that looked like it would have been at home in a video game. Dark spires jutted toward the sky, and detailed statues depicting agonized figures were the most obvious characteristics, but the other hallmarks of gothic architecture were there as well. Flying buttresses, pointed arches, and grotesque gargoyles abounded, and the entire thing was built out of dark stone. With the everpresent fog and silvery moonlight, it made for an incredibly imposing structure.

Elijah only took a few minutes to study it before he set off to find a way inside. The moment he reached the entrance, he found himself rebuffed by a dense horde of servitors, each one an alpha, that was so thick that it made sneaking inside an impossibility. There simply wasn’t room.

And even if there had been, when Elijah looked at the doors, he saw a blood red shimmer that reminded him of the shields erected by the natives, though in a different color.

Abandoning that entrance, Elijah circled the manor, looking for other possibilities. He found a few, but each one was guarded by that same red shield. He was just getting ready to test his mettle against the manor’s defenses when he stumbled upon a battle in progress.

There were a dozen of the tall-hatted natives fighting against a small group of servitor alphas. And they were losing.

Elijah would have left them to die, but he was brought up short by two factors. First, the natives clearly knew more about the manor than he could discover in the short time allotted. So, perhaps they could direct him to an unguarded entrance. Or failing that, maybe they could at least tell him what the defenses entailed. Otherwise, he’d have to test them himself, and he didn’t think that would end well.

The second reason was rooted in the fact that they – or at least their allies – had already helped him and his party members. But would they continue to do so if the ones back in the mausoleum discovered that he chose not to help their fellows? Probably not. So, with a draconic sigh, he prepared himself for battle.

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