Chapter 3
The air in the volcanic tunnel tasted of tal and acrid sulfur. It nailed Alex in the face like the snoot of a sprinting greyhound the mont they dropped below the rim of stone. The heat rolled off various exposed seams of magma. His senses were assaulted along with the heat by the hiss of steam and the consistent drip of condensed aether from the walls.
Lamps hung at set intervals of the tunnels. Each was a small cage containing crystal globes pulsing pale light. Down below, the mountain felt like it was breathing in a deep slumber. Or like a massive, patient beast that tolerated them at its waiting opened throat.
Alex led the group forward, because that was what he did now: lead. He put the weight of everyone’s survival on his shoulders, whether he liked it or not. They looked up to him, and he couldn’t let them down.
Obby’s ntal presence hovered in his head like an itchy pebble in the back of his skull. The small enchanted item was mapping and annotating everything.
“Pack of six, concentrated heat signatures moving deeper,” he reported. “One larger signature at the tail. Solid-stage threshold on that last one, too. Definitely dangerous, with a high aether output.”
Alex answered with a dry sound that was close to a laugh, but not quite. Lovely. A beast family reunion. At least they are in one place and we don’t have to go hunting down stragglers.
They slipped through the tunnels in tight formation. Garret and Henry took the front with Alex with. They were a living wall of muscles and tal between Henry’s sheer size, and Garret’s new shield. Ghrukk and Doran moved on the flanks, ready to rip anything that tried to sneak up on them into two polite pieces. Holly floated a half-step above the floor near the middle of the formation. Wind aether moved in glittering ribbons around her ankles to keep her aloft.
Also in the middle were Kate and Zach, both of whom watched the shadows while Devon kept his arcane rifle up and ready to sight far ahead of them. Myrae carried a spool of light-thread and healing potions at her hip, prepared for whatever might co.
Surprisingly to Alex, Symon and Aburi had chosen to co with them. Symon lingered near the rear. His appearance was all lavish robes and a dangerous smile. While Aburi was the opposite. His presence was a hulking, calm thing that made the tunnels feel safer by his sheer mass.
They traversed the tunnels under the mountain carefully, searching their quarry. They were closing fast thanks to Alex’s [Aether Sight] and Obby’s processing power filtering all in the incoming aether strands. Along with Devon’s scope letting them see far ahead through aether-thick steam and ash.
Then a pair of two-legged heads ducked out from a side fissure, their bright, reptilian eyes set in armored skulls. Their tongues flickered in and out, tasting at the charged air. These were fire-drakes, which were lean, quick reptilians bred in volcanic environnts. Smaller cousins to old world Draconic Wyrms.
“Contacts at the bend,” Alex said. “Ghrukk, Doran, push left. Garret, Henry, hold center. Dev, cover right. Holly, keep overhead. Everyone else is on containnt. Rember to take them alive. The mission is to capture, not set up barbecues.”
He drew the plan in the space of a single breath, laying out a crisp choreography.
The first exchanges with the arcane beasts were ssy and chaotic. Garret planted his tower-shield and ate the first drake’s charge with a collision so loud it punched its echo into the surrounding stone. While the shield-tank was holding it busy, Henry’s vines erupted from the cracked floor, and began to snake themselves around the drake like living shackles. They wrapped around a hind leg as the drake tried to spin of Garret’s guard, but Henry held it fast.
Ghrukk slamd into another of the beasts from the flank. His halberd was sweeping in a brutal angle that cracked at the drake’s scales with a sound like crunching bread crust. Doran’s hamr blows ca down at its head right after in attempt knock it clean unconscious.
Alex, anwhile, moved through the lee like a trono. He’d learned long ago to make his strikes count with his limited aether pool. Small casts of [Aether Burst], compressed into heavy waves, accompanied his punches. He set one on a drake’s jaw and felt the shock rattle through his bones in a way that was oh so satisfying. When it lashed out in retaliation, Alex rolled with the motion into another [Aether Burst] that knocked a smaller nearby drake off balance.
Devon’s rifle barked as he targeted a fourth drake that tried to fly up and away. His attack left a neat, searing hole through the wing mbrane that made the beast’s flight erratic and unsteady, which bought Holly ti to catch up and drag the thing down back to the ground with a huge burst of downward windforce.
Myrae moved like a bright storm of light, nets of radiant filants sewing around fleeing muzzles and catching legs, sticky with an alchemical resin she’d whipped together with Allie, one that chilled and hardened on contact. Tom-Tom’s earthcraft gave them the last advantage as a series of quick, sturdy pillars sprung from the floor to trip runners and slam them facefirst into a wall.
Peter’s augntor spell bolstered the tanks, slathering extra vitality onto Garret and Henry so they could hold out longer against the many drake’s angry assault.
Alex could here Symon laughing sowhere behind him as various beads of hyper condensed fire shot through various drake limbs, burning tiny holes in them. While the beasts were highly resistance to heat and fire, Symon’s spells seed to ignore this sohow, leaving nasty puncture wounds.
By the ti the bloodlust and battle fog cleared, five drakes lay bound by the team. Each was roaring, and venting angry plus through the enchanted cloth and vinerope. They were rather formidable beasts, but after so much ti fighting against primal chiras, the drakes weren’t horribly difficult. They could have killed them all in a minute or so, if they didn’t need to capture them instead.
“Bring them in alive,” Alex yelled out to the team.
That was the mission they were on. To collect the beasts and bring them back to the empire officials that were in the forward outpost position in the volcano tunnels. The empire wanted beasts to study, train, or otherwise harvest for various reasons. So a mission was posted, offering so paynt in coin, as well as rit points.
rit; This was the currency of trust.
They bundled the bound drakes into material that was almost tarpaulin-like, only aether enchanted and shaped into binding slings. From there, they would start the process to drag them back toward the sunlit mouth of the long, long tunnel.
But they only had five of the drakes, out of six. The last one did not follow the rest of its pack to join the assault. Instead, this one watched Alex and the others subdue its brethren and waited patiently. Alex didn’t mind this, in fact, he sohow understood what it was doing, and what it wanted.
He wasn’t certain 100%, but sothing told him the final drake, the strongest of the pack, was waiting for him.
Alex waved the others to stand down and back away, leaving him alone as he walked out across the stone ground and stopped a few dozen yards from the beast. He stared at it, and it looked at him in return. It was like a small conversation was happening between them, Alex knowing its intention, the beast knowing his.
The drake waited a while longer, just looking at him.
When it chose to move, it did so like a leviathan churning in the ocean as it roused from its slumber. The tunnel seed to contract around its presence. The beast’s scales rippled in an inner light, magma veins flaring under its thick protection. Where the others had been narrow and wiry, this drake was a slab of molten muscle, a Solid Stage aether signature stamped on rippling power. Its head was broader too, with saw-toothed and backward horns jutting from its brow, with a crest of steaming flesh down its front.
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When it opened its mouth the sound was a rolling avalanche. The air in Alex’s chest tightened. Sowhere there was a reaction inside him to the Drake’s challenge. Sothing tickling his mind far in the back, a reaction he didn’t fully understand.
Obby spoke up. “Again, Adept tier in the Solid stage. Dragon-kin lineage waaay confird. Coral-spined Fire-Drake, a rare variant. Its heat output is off the charts.”
Despite Alex’s confidence, it was the wrong fight for a tired body like his, for a shoulder that still ached when he moved the wrong way. He felt his scarred ribs whisper protests through the entire previous battle. All left over injuries from the Primal Queen and the [Dual Descending Demon Fist].
He thought he hid them really well, but that wasn’t true. Holly’s eyes glittered like a blade when she saw him wincing on occasion.
“We can help,” Peter said from behind him.
Damn. Looked like Alex wasn’t as good at hiding things as he thought. If Holly knew, and Peter knew, he doubted the rest hadn’t noticed. Even garret wasn’t that oblivious.
Alex looked at his teammates, at the tight cords of fear in their faces. They were worried about him. It made him feel like they had his back, that they might see him as leader, but wouldn’t try to use him like a shield. He didn’t want them to be worried, but it felt nice that they were.
That was misplaced though. Alex wasn’t going to lose this fight, there was no doubt in his mind ab out that.
He attention went back to the drake, the beast’s eyes still locked directly on to him and him alone. Alex’s eyes locked on the drake’s in turn, the two of them staring eachother down, sizing each other up as their aetheric auras slowly built up in preparation to clash.
Then Alex felt it.
It was a pulse. A subtle tug in his chest, no, deeper than that. It was in his soul. His soulspace stirred, like sothing within had woken up from slumber. He shuddered, his heart suddenly racing, and turned his attention inward.
The Wyrm-Heart floated there above his shattered core, its normally slow beating now a fast paced patter. Normally it hung in silence, a steady ember in the depths of his core. But now it burned brightly in his vision, fissures of purple aether light cracking across its surface, almost like it was agitated. It pulsed in rhythm with the drake’s roars, answering its fury with a fury of its own.
“What the hell…?” Alex whispered under his breath.
Obby slithered into his thoughts. “It feels the drake.”
Alex frowned at that. Feels it? Why now? We’ve fought dragon-kin before—
“Not like this,” Obby cut him off. “The others were weaklings in comparison. Gaseous stage. Or with tbe Basilisk mother, Liquid at best. Nothing that could truly threaten you. This one’s Solid Stage. Its cultivation level and presence competes against yours. That heart inside you… Its…territorial.”
Territorial. Alex understood that. It was like a dragon staking its claim. He glanced at the beast again, at the way its molten eyes seed to fix on him specifically, ignoring the others entirely. But did his Wyrm-Heart want him to kill the drake? Did it want to eat it?
So that ans what, exactly? he pressed.
Obby hesitated, an unusual crack in the construct’s surety. “I don’t know the full truth. Too many locks are still in place on . The System’s sealed knowledge behind your Wisdom. But... Dragons and their nature isn’t a total mystery. What I can tell you is simple. The Wyrm-Heart sees this beast as competition.”
Alex’s pulse hamred yet again, the Wyrm-Heart seemingly answers in confirmation to Obby’s statent. The System never gave more than it wanted to, so of course Obby couldn’t access the information he needed. But if this thing inside him wanted to fight…maybe he should let it.
He could lean into his constitution more. Trust the instinct. Trust the dragon-blood burning in his veins.
“Fine,” Alex muttered. “Let’s see what you can do.”
He reached inward, not just at the mana in his body, past that and through his soulgate, deeper, into the Wyrm-Heart itself. He coaxed it awake even further, asking if it wanted to help him.
It answered.
Heat suddenly rolled through his veins, a resonance unlike any spell or skill. Draconic energy bled out of him in rolling waves. His skin prickled as scales wanted to force themselves through, so even forming around his neck and arms. His eyes burned, his vision sharpening into sothing predatory as his pupils elongated into slits. His voice, when he shouted, was not entirely his own and contained a layered sound. Added to with sothing primal.
The drake roared back, shaking the walls around them. It then began running forward, its powerful body breaking through any rocks that dared stand in its way. It was faster than he expected, but not at all outside the limits of his own stats.
But as it ca, Alex heard sothing else. A voice inside his head that was not Obby’s and not his own. Only one other ti had he heard the Wyrm-heart speak to him, all the way back when they fought the Runed Wolf that had attacked the Kobold village.
Now it finally spoke again.
We… will… conquer!
The purple draconic energy in his body stopped flaring about, and instead condensed inside him, saturating every bit of tissue in his body before rushing toward his chest all at once. The rush of energy created a pressure that Alex could barely stand. He knew he needed to release it, and he simply followed his instincts again. He opened his mouth and scread.
“DOWN!”
The fire-drake froze mid-lunge. Its claws screeched against the stone as it skidded to a halt. For a mont it looked like it resisted. Its magma light burning in its chest in a bright glow. But then its body trembled and its wings sagged, head bowing down in front of him. Its molten eyes flickered, confused.
And then it submitted.
The squad stared in stunned silence. Holly’s mouth hung open. Even Garret, never one to hold his tongue, kept quiet.
Alex exhaled as his chest heaved. The pressure was gone, but the heat in his body was still there, causing sweat to drip down his face. But the fire-drake remained where it was. The beast was beaten not by blade, but by so other primal understanding between itself and Alex’s Wyrm-heart. He couldn’t put into words how exactly he knew, but Alex understood that the drake wouldn’t attack now. It would follow his commands.
It didn’t view him as prey or as so enemy. Through that energy his constitution contained, it saw him as a dragon.
Working quickly, the squad bound the subdued beast in the sa enchanted cloth and chains. The rest of the pack had already been dragged back down the tunnel, their roars muffled under bindings. Together, with grunts and curses, they hauled the lot of them back toward the surface, where the Empire’s scribes waited.
“What the hell was that?” Garret finally asked once the creatures were fully contained.
“I, don’t know…” Alex said.
Kate scoffed at that, clearly not believing him. “You just flexed on a Solid Stage beast, and you don’t know what happened?”
“I an… my Wyrm-Heart activated, and filled with its energy like normal. But it was different this ti. I just followed my instinct, and I guess the drake saw as stronger and submitted.”
“Well you are a true beast,” Holly said with a wink.
“Ah man, they are at it again already,” Peter muttered, loudly.
Ghrukk snorted and shook his head. “Human mating rituals are weird. Why not just rip off your clothes after a battle when the bloodlust is highest?”
“That’s only a thing Ork’s do, Ghrukk,” Myrea added in, eyeing the large man pointedly.
“Inefficient.”
That got a laugh from everyone as they continued to haul the beasts down the tunnel.
At the opening to the tunnel system was a large table outside a building where the Empire assessors waited. The scribes didn’t cheer upon their arrival. But they also didn’t look surprised. Blank faced as always, they scratched notes on tablets, their cold eyes flicking from drake to fighter and back again. It was a slow process, the Empire looking over and inspecting the captured drakes as if assessing livestock.
When they were done, the drakes were taken away and more notes were made. None of them were given congratulations and words of respect the entire ti.
Alex stood tall anyway.
“Thirty rit to each individual. Five per beasts,” one of the scribes eventually said.
That wasn’t a lot. A dungeon clear was one hundred, plus bonus based on loot, dungeon points, and information (which was gathered in very, very roundabout ways to get around the System’s limits).
“One of those is a Solid Stage beast,” Garret said when the total was announced.
“Yes, but the others were all injured, so there was a deduction added.”
“Injured. Their adept beasts, we had to fight to subdue them, of course there will be so minor injuries.” Kate stepped up to argue that ti.
“The Solid stage beast wasn’t injured,” the scribe raised a brow before showing a sneer. “rit is not negotiable. Place your talismans on the circle.
“Co on everyone, we are just wasting ti here.” Alex set his talisman, the personal item that was used as ledger and bank account for his rit points in the Empire, on the small aether circle at the center of the table. It pulsed once, adding the thirty points, and Alex removed it right away.
Thirty points really wasn’t a small amount all things considered. Dungeons paid more, but they also took longer and were more dangerous. Other basic jobs, like crafting and research jobs usually only paid between five to ten rit.
So could be cranked out quickly, making them more efficient. But that wasn’t always the case. Capture jobs, like what they had just done, were fast and usually paid well. Alex liked them, as it also let him see other parts of Athrastas and the surrounding areas of the mountain.
But still, he needed to find a way to speed up their rit gain.
He checked the talisman in his hand which projected a small screen similar to the System’s.
Urhara rit Talisman
Na: Alexander Pierce
Faction: N/A
rit Points: 382
Only almost four hundred points over the last week. It was too slow. Far too slow. Alex didn’t know how many other mages who held Inheritance Tokens got, but he had no doubt that many were scions of huge sects of kingdoms and got massive help.
Alex needed to figure out a new strategy, and fast.
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