[Quest] Enter the Dragon

[Vanessa Quill]

When she caught her first look at the beasts, it had been out of the corner of her eye. In the time her head swiveled and she beheld them clearly, her feet were already pounding across the deck in a crashing sprint. For that precious time, there were no thoughts that filled her mind. Her body simply saw and reacted to a threat while her thought-cage still tried to make sense of it all. Luckily for her though, Vanessa was a deeply incurious woman, and so the sputtered, choking thoughts only lasted until she could decide how best to put the unnatural aberrations back in the ground.

Vanessa threw out her arm, trying to snag Anton as she passed him and bring him along with her towards the fore of the ship. "With me. Now." She said, the words coming out in a half-snarl. She would let him play hero. She would let him dictate where she flew her ship and for what purpose. She would not let him get in the way of his own protection. This whole damned expedition would mean nothing if he was not hale and hearty enough to take credit.

Digging into her coat pocket, she retrieved a handful of beeswax earplugs, and secured her own before offering the second to her charge. Skilled though she was, Vanessa did not want to risk herself a life spent guarding a man both blind and deaf. She did think to warn the others, tossing earplugs to both Iselya and Imogen and shouting. "Put them in if you value your hearing!" Though unlike with Anton, she did leave it up to them on whether they actually did value it.

Once at one the foremost cannon, Vanessa dug into her great pouch of ammunition and swung the barrel of the cannon upward so she could safely heave two handfuls of minor caster shells down the barrel and use a ramrod to pack them down tightly. She moved at her breakneck pace with mechanical confidence, these actions having been burned into her brain as a matter of survival. Just as well, since those befouling shrieks made thinking about anything a losing proposition. Even still, she felt that burdensome weight on her, but nevertheless brought the cannon level towards the center of the flock of pit-spawn.

Then Vanessa struck a match and let the her cannon roar in unfettered defiance. Countless caster shells howled death as they fanned out in all directions in a manner similar to a blunderbuss.

No sooner had arcane smoke cleared from the cannon's bore, and Vanessa was already reloading.

[Imogen]

The Ork woman did value her hearing; but, alas, her values did not quite control her movements. As Captain Quill tossed a set of wax plugs at Imogen, she reached out with her free hand... and fumbled the catch entirely. One earplug bounced off her open palm, delinquent fingers closing on nothing, and the other sailed serenely past her grasping hand, just an inch to the side.

"Aw, fuck." the Sunsinger snarled quietly, and not for the first time that evening.

She had only moments before the wraiths would be upon her, the Every Waking Moment's cannons would begin to boom with volleys, and the sonic attacks would rattle her skull to mush. First the weird gas-kittens down on northern bridge above the Talacara, now these dragonwraiths screaming... why was it that every monster she ran into seemed to have some means of attack which rendered her trusty shield worthless? She had half a mind to file a complaint with Thultu.

(That was a joke, of course.)

Anyway, it was insufficient time to scrabble on the deck for the fallen plugs (assuming they hadn't rolled overboard or through the flooring), but it was enough time for a single use of the rune of Animus. Imogen had accumulated a small stable of helpful totems now, which she primarily accessed by way of mimicry or therianthropy to enhance her natural prowess. That was the canonical use of the rune in the Ecithian fables- to give a warrior the strength of a lion, or the speed of a stallion, or the eyes of an eagle. She had not yet had cause to do the reverse... but nothing at all seemed to prevent it.

A theory and course of action now well-established in her mind, Imogen stopped thinking and surrendered to her decades of training with her militant coven. She began by jamming her staff into a grate behind her, wedging it so that it would remain affixed and upright even if the ship shook or rolled. She might have fixed it in place by will alone, but will and aether were both at a premium in battle. The fewer things to think about, the better.

As her body moved to secure her staff, her mind took a moment to connect to the sunstone atop it. She fell back into the meditative device she'd practiced during those first days of this damnable eclipse, keeping the stone lit without sleep or focus. She imagined the staff as a spire, with a light atop it and herself at the foot of the spire, imagining the spire as a tree with a flame atop it and herself at the foot of the spire, imagining the tree as a lighthouse- and so on, endlessly self-referential. Once she had established her power over the stone, she increased the output significantly, conjuring a wider nimbus of sunlight over the whole of the airship's deck.

As this happened, the pain in her skull was only growing greater; darkness was moving in across the sides of her vision. Now properly bathed in sunlight, the witch invoked the power of Animus to reshape... her own senses. The totem of the housefly she'd battled in Uncle Lewis' abandoned safehouse, just a month after the fall of Zaichaer, swelled within her, and her eyes ballooned accordingly, segmenting into many separate eyes. Her vision grew fragmented and less distinct, but the world also seemed to slow down; though a fly's vision is primitive compared even to an Ork's eyes, they can process stimuli seven times more quickly.

Key to her whole plan, her ears also melted away. Certain parasitic flies have auditory organs- this one, however, was deaf as a post. Antennae formed on her head, but they were strictly organs of taste and smell. Bereft of earplugs, Imogen instead did away with her ears.

Thus protected from the auditory assault, the Ork screamed:

"..."

...well, anyway, she thought she was shouting "You take the left, I'll take the right!", but obviously she couldn't actually hear herself in the moment. She'd wanted to use the fascinating nautical terms she'd been learning, but she couldn't recall which were appropriate. Something about... larboard? Athwartships??? Poop... deck...?

No time for that, left and right would have to serve. She dashed for the starboard--was that it, she thought it might be--and cast both arms to her sides, manifesting two of her pact weapons. A line of silver fire formed beneath her left hand, the flame clearing to reveal a brass-colored shaft as her fingers closed around it. The flames burgeoned out from her right hand, swelling to describe an enormous circle before resolving into the shape of a floating targe of considerable size, polished to a mirror-sheen. She did not grab the shield, but instead left it hanging in the air, awaiting the opportunity to intercept an attack.

Instead, as Imogen reached the side of the Every Waking Moment, she called up a duplicate of her pact spear in her empty right hand. This was the technique which Master Gerhard had used against her exclusively in her own initiation- instead of casting his own spear, awaiting its return, etc., etc., he had simply begun throwing copy after copy. Aiming downward at the approaching wraiths, the attack was even easier. Gravity would do most of the hard work for her.

Though the spears were merely duplicates, and not fated to last, they still bore a touch of the spellbreaker flame, trailing mystic fire as they streaked downward in the night.

[Anton]

While hoarfrost and horrors descended upon the Every Waking Moment, Anton obeyed Jac's first suggestion. He prayed. Or at least, he tried to. He was not supposed to pray, his entire upbringing and society making the very notion of beseeching something so petty as a god to be anathema. And yet, he knew one god to revere, and he prayed to him fervently. He did not know many prayers, and the few he had learned since being truly inducted into the hidden faith of his fathers were inadequate for the occassion. So, forced to make do with what he had, he thought long and crafted his words meticulously, maintaining an island of serenity as chaos overtook the quarterdeck.

He was jostled, manhandled, dragged, and guarded, not one word of protest slipping from his lips as he permitted Vanessa to drag him where she thought best. Absentmindedly he placed in his earplugs, working through the rote motions of shipboard life with all the diligence that she had drilled into him while training for this. He did not flinch as the great barrage was fired off, his focus far too intent to be bothered by the mundane.

For at last, he prayed.

O Aileor, God of my fathers, master of divination, granter of foresight, bringer of peace, hear my prayer. Though I am unworthy of your blessings, for I have been remiss in my duties to you, I ask you your aid. Grant I whose eyes are free of the burden of sight the true vision to see the path through this trial, and in so doing make me a vessel of your peace. So as it was, so shall it be, unto the ending of the world.

Anton's eyes opened with a flash of light as he drank deep through his Rune, all his art coming together in this one moment. The act of prayer itself had steadied him, regardless of the answer of the god, and he knew what he must do. Were this a mundane foe, he would've gladly manned the guns himself alongside Vanessa, but his was a sight truer than sight, and their enemy was not of flesh and blood.

Semblance surged through his very being, suffusing him as he extended his senses out to the wraiths. The grim dirge that was the truth of their existence suffused him, and he perceived the heart of the things. Gently, he extended a hand to rest upon Vanessa's back, shifting and tweaking the tones of their auras until they had aligned - so that she saw as he did. The swirling music that comprised the base layers of existence, building up to grand and mighty themes, Exathun the greatest of them all - but his focus was upon the wraiths, and the ethereal cords that bound them together. He spoke no words, for he knew she would not hear them, but bound by the tonal architecture she could hear his very soul, the Augur directing the next volley to strike well and true.

[Laveriel]

When the howls started, her skull exploded in pain and her vision went black for the briefest of moments. The elf placed a hand on one of the cannons to steady herself as she took a deep breath, calling upon her training to focus and center herself.

Iselya barely heard what Captain Quill said but fortunately, she caught the earplugs and hastily stuffed them in her ears. As the shrieks were muffled, the pain inside her head receded and the siltori quickly took note of the scene. While Captain Quill was shooting the cannons, Imogen - who now had the head of a fly - was swiftly throwing spears out into the direction of the wraiths. Anton was holding onto the captain, but she did not have the time to figure what he was doing exactly.

She took note of the largest creature, how it hovered away while its companion flew for their airship - trying to protect itself perhaps. Its mannerism reminded her of the monsters that controlled the undead during the graveplague. If they were lucky, the wraiths worked the same way and taking down its leader would mean destroying the rest. All they could hope for was while they dealt with the wraiths, the dragon would stay focused on destroying whatever it was on the ground.

“We need to go after that one!” Iselya yelled out as she pointed at the ice wraith, hoping that her companions might hear between the screams and the earplugs.

Unlike a Sunsinger’s fire, her dawnfire can only be sustained for a limited amount of time. She would need to summon it over and over again to use it for a long battle. She needed to figure out quickly if the flame would be effective against the wraiths or not. Her right hand threw Iratallin out of the airship, still burning with Arcas’s flame and steered it to the closest wraith. Her left hand summoned Dawnstrife and the sword duplicated, fanning out around her.

Here we go.

[Paragon]

P A R A G O N

Wraiths darted out of the way of some of the cannon fire. The trails of ghostly darkness that they left in their wake like dark clouds gathering in the skies which only compounded the already blackened skies. Others were ripped to pieces as the arcane infused shells tore through the fabric of their essence causing them to emit the wailing shrieks that so pierced the skulls of those affected. The stations of the Every Waking Moment were rapidly manned as sailors jumped into survival mode, relying on rote memory to perform their functions as the ship fell under siege. Trained and disciplined under the guidance of Captain Quill, the sailors quickly took note of the wraith that lingered back. Several took aim. Caster shells were loaded. The canons fired at what appeared to be the lead wraith. Immediately, the creature let out a shriek that sent a rippling wave of ice outward from its form. The caster shells were hit with a wall of ice that halted them in their tracks seeing a ripple of explosions across the icy surface of the bubble that formed.

It was then that the spears and sword of Imogen and Iselya took flight. Imogen’s spears crashed against the bubble of ice, melting the surface and cracking it open sending it exploding outward. The creature wailed again, sending a wave of darkness and ice outward only for that wave to be peppered with yet more canon fire. Iselya’s sword flew through the air. A sword that was covered in holy and divine fire that burned through darkness by its very nature. On the peripheral of her senses, it would feel to both Imogen and Iselya that a hand gently squeezed their shoulders sending a wave of confidence and reassurance to them both. As Iselya’s blade crashed through the barrier of ice and darkness, the Dawnfire flared brighter sending a wave of silver-white fire exploding outward as it crashed into the lead wraith.

The wraith screamed. The rattling shriek ripped through the air and was quickly followed by other wails as immediately the other wraiths exploded into silver-white fire. The silence that followed was deafening.

Until it wasn’t.

The heavy weight of massive wingbeats thudded in the air. A rumbling growl sounded in the skies.

Exathun. The Horror Who Dreams, was flying directly toward the ship.

Jac, who had not engaged in the battle with the wraiths, was kneeling in the center of the deck. All around him had been drawn a circle of arcane script in the black sands that he had displayed thus far. He was quickly drawing symbols in the sands that shockingly did not blow away in the winds. In one hand he held a black candle. Once he had finished drawing his circle he touched the wick of the candle and it ignited into a green flame. He touched the fire to the circle and it immediately burst into green-black fire that rapidly began spread over the arcane circle, following the patterns of his pictography. Further and further the fire spread until it covered the structure of the ship. The arcane symbols spread along the surface of the ship’s wood burning into it with a hissing whisper. No sooner had Jac done this than Exathun opened his mouth. The icy glow of dark power swirled in the dragon’s mouth. Dragonbreath blasted out from the ancient’s open maw. Jac raised the candle above his head and a burst of the black-green fire blasted outward from every surface of the ensorcelled ship. The wall of flames hit the dragon breath and there was a groaning shudder as the two forces met with one another before the flames won out and surged forward, forcing Exathun to dive out of the way.

Jac fell to one knee, panting heavily. The black candle had melted halfway. He looked over at Anton.

“You! Catch!” He tossed the candle to Anton. “You’ve got one last good use out of it! Wait for the right moment.”

Jac stepped forward and with his hands outstretched to his sides. One of the skulls at his hips began to emit a black-green glow followed by a shadowy smoke. The smoke drifted over to his hands where it began to take the shape of a shield made of a black material and reinforced with bones and a sword fashioned in the same manner. Exathun was flying back toward the ship. Hate and rage clear in his eyes. Jac was staring at the dragon steadily. As the beast opened its maw to emit another blast of cold and dark, the dragon hunter sprinted forward and leapt from the railing of the ship. He sailed through the air before angling his body so that he plummeted toward the dragon. Exathun released another blast of his breath toward the ship, narrowly missing Jac. The man descended upon the dragon, plunging his sword into what looked to be its shoulder as a pulse of green-black flames emit from his blade. The dragon jerked and rolled away with a screech.

Its destructive breath continued to hurdle toward the Every Waking Moment.

[Vanessa Quill]

Vanessa was still unused to the power Anton held, and the way it so easily transferred to her. The channeled aether subsumed her, and for the briefest second there was an unmatched serenity to the battle as shouts and cannon fire melted away into a symphony of sensations that left the pirate motionless with a blank expression. And though she might have seemed shocked to inaction, the truth was far grander, for she saw the world the way her charge did, unfettered by her own eyes. Reality pulled and pooled around her as Anton shifted his focus, the captain managing to endure despite the disorientation.

She no longer needed to look overboard to know Exathun was making its approach, and too did she know of its great baleful breath before the sailors could even begin to warn her. Just perceiving the beast flooded Vanessa's senses with the scent of death; a sick-sweet rot mixed with the coppery taste of blood in the back of her throat. If she saw it, she was certain Anton did as well, and hoped they were in agreement. Anton's shared senses were invaluable, and paired with Vanessa's skill at the helm it might just be enough to dodge the oncoming assault without disengaging entirely. To try and flee from a beast like this seemed even more foolish than trying to fell it, and so the captain's mind was made.

She advanced back towards the helm, bellowing orders with unmatched intensity. Her voice carried, and the sailors rushed to obey, drawing in and readjusting sails under her command. Even the crew tending the engine could hear her over the defiant roar of the Every Waking Moment's engine, and it drank ever more greedily of the limitless aether that gathered in the wake of mages working their craft.

Until Vanessa reached the quarter deck and slammed a lever forward, sending the ship hurtling forward through the air via entirely mundane means. For a few seconds, it shot like a comet, but second by second, the momentum died away to nothing. In that same moment, Vanessa reactivated the engine, and it woke with a mechanical snarl. She threw the front of the ship downward at a painful pitch, and sent the ship surging forward, directly towards the fleeing beast.

By utilizing Anton's expanded sensorium, Vanessa hoped to just narrowly dodge the dragonbreath and mount a counterattack. With the dragon having pulled away, this might be their one opening. She plunged the vessel forward, no heed given to safety or restraint save for one. With one hand clutching the wheel with white-knuckled fervor, Vanessa shrugged off her cloak of flying, now woven into a House Michaelis jacket, and tossed it over Anton's shoulders. She said nothing, but even without Semblance the meaning was clear. If this assault went poorly, she would lay her life down for Anton's and send him away to safety.

No, Vanessa was no gallant knight with her lance held high against a fearsome foe, but a sense of duty, an airship and an aeronautical ram did a good impression.

[Imogen]

Burning through the shadow wraith felt good, but her encounters with the eclipse beasts had taught Imogen that it wasn't often a productive use of one's time or power. The nova-fire, or the storied dawnfire of Iselya's blade, were quite capable of tearing apart a legion of umbral horrors... but the darkness contained not just a legion of such wraiths, but the potentiality for them, ad nauseum, ad infinitium. No, one had to deal with the source directly, and quickly, because light could best shadow in every single battle and still lose by sheer force of attrition.

To that end, she took some inspiration from Jac as he leapt from the ship and struck Exathun's shoulder. Her travels in the jungles of Ecith had taught her not to engage titanic foes, but that was no option here. If she wanted to prevent Exathun from rampage, from demolishing the refugee-swollen towns throughout the region, they would have to go on the offensive.

It was tempting to follow Jac's lead and simply jump down after the dragon, but the first idea which presented itself was seldom the best. If they were going to... well, disable Exathun (given the dragon's great size, she had some doubts about Anton's suggested purification, but that was a concern for future Imogen) they ought to bring as much force to bear against the dragon as possible, and quickly. Give it no opportunity to compose a proper defense, or counterattack.

In a matter of seconds, Imogen pondered all of these exigencies and angles, and determined her next move.

"Lord Raxen," Imogen's quiet voice returned to her ears as the fly-head defense melted away, her Runes focused to new purposes, "I don't ask you for a lot, but it would be really great if this worked."

Seemed like a decent prayer. As she spoke, Imogen materialized her first Pact weapon; a zweihander, as long as she was tall. The weapon blinked into being without fanfare, a utilitarian sword with no decoration save the short Ecitharese prayer engraved on the hilt: "Do noe confuo'uv eh'uvn vonaieh di'uvan."

"Oh damnsh," Imogen realized, speech slurring slightly as her mouth began to melt and re-form beneath the light of Animus, "That'sh actually relevanch. First time ever."

A pointless observation, but it did make her feel a little bit better about the whole situation, somehow.

The mage grimaced as she felt her coat start to strain as her flesh expanded and distorted, and she spent a second to frantically push herself out of as much clothing as possible. The eternal bane of Animus, it seemed, was the constant need to transform quickly, and the total refusal of modern apparel to adapt to a range of body shapes between a marmoset and a horse. She got most of the outer layers off, but she refused to slow the pace of transformation to save her second-best shirt. It was her birthday soon, she could get Carina to buy another one.

The Ork dropped to the deck, leaning heavily against the side railing as her center of gravity shifted dramatically. New extremities sprouted from her back, which arched upwards, tearing her own flesh in a painful act of Chrysalistry. It didn't bother her. Putting up with pain while doing magic was something like half of what her training prior to acquiring the Rune of Reaving had been for, after all.

Imogen stumbled towards the other side of the bow, towards the Stiltori Dawnmartyr. By the time she reached it, she had essentially meshed the totems as well as she could, and her stride was much steadier. If there was a shake in the chimeric form's gait, it was mostly due to her own uncertainty that the form would work.

She'd spent some time in the past month devising chimerae from her totems, and this had been one of the ones she'd been most keen to actually get right. There were a lot of stories about winged steeds in myth and legend, enough that she'd initially assumed that the shape had to work surprisingly well. This mistake had caused her to run directly into trees and gullies several times, and she now suspected that most stories of "pegasi" were actually some bullshit involving summoned spirits and not really material horses with actual wings.

...but the advantages of the chimera were too obvious to pass on, so she'd continued trying until she had fashioned a mix of totems which gave her the basic combination she was looking for: a horse which could fly. Her horse totem was something of a mess; a chestnut stallion, patchy with Orkish scales, and bearing the wings of a great sea-bird. For the purpose of lifting an entire horse (and, theoretically, rider), the wingspan had to be enormous, and the ordinary horse's tail swapped out for equally ungainly tailfeathers.

It cost a lot of power, to transform like that, but the Ork-turned-horse wasn't finished. "Iselya," she croaked, talking being quite difficult no matter how she juggled the manifestations of her totems here, "Get on, I'm gonna charge him."

Stealth wasn't easy, in the air, but Exathun's deadly blasts of shadow and frost were enormous. Her sword rose into the air in front of Horseagen as she prepared to charge directly into the blast. She would cut through it... directly into the dragon's stupid fucking face.

[Laveriel]

As her fiery blade shattered the wraith, Iselya felt hope swell inside her chest. It seemed like dawnfire was exactly what they needed to fight against Exathun’s magic. She supposed it shouldn’t be surprising, considering it was fire and light against ice and shadow. Her blade immediately flew back to her hand and she snuffed out the dawnfire.

Unfortunately, that feeling was short-lived when Exathun finally turned his full attention to them and nearly obliterated them in a single attack if it wasn’t for Jac’s fiery shield. Before any of them could truly process what was happening, the white-haired man had already launched himself off the ship and landed on the ancient dragon.

A mere moment later, Imogen had morphed into a winged horse. The creature was certainly both terrifying and majestic. To make it even more disconcerting was how the animus mage tried to speak. “Get on, I’m gonna charge him.”

Iselya blinked for a moment, wondering if that would be the best of ideas, but then they didn’t have much choice. A flying dragon would no doubt take down their airship sooner or later. The least they could do to gain an advantage was trap it on the ground. Still, she felt the need to say the words aloud as she climbed upon Imogen’s horse form in a swift move, “This is a terrible idea.”

She positioned Dawnstrife and its duplicates around Imogen’s sword, circling it slowly. Currently, only her original pact weapon was enveloped in dawnfire. The elven woman’s idea was to use their swords to create a vortex of flames to meet the dragonsbreath. “We’ll need more fire,” she murmured, both to herself and Imogen. At the height of her career, lighting up all of the blades would not be a difficult task. But it had been decades since Iselya used such power and if they failed… well, there might not be a second time to try it.

Then she thought of the gentle, reassuring squeeze of her shoulder. Sometimes, it was all too easy to forget that he had returned to this world. “Arcas, lend me your light.”

[Anton]

"Well," Anton murmured to himself after finishing his prayers, the sonorous score of titanic battle filling his mind as witchfire dueled with dragonbreath, "I suppose that I'll have to see about getting to a real temple." While it was impossible to tell if the unnatural symphony playing before him was in any way influenced by Aileor, the lordling had come to the conclusion that it was better to give thanks on accident than refrain and be churlish to the divine.

The weaving of aether by any being, be it mage or magical beast or dragon, could be noticed by one suitably practiced in the art of Semblance. For an entity as mighty as Exathun, and a Sembler as skilled as Anton, the great wyrm's every wing beat and breath were titanic strains of grand majesty and power. Death rode with him, in all of its pomp and grandeur, and sharing his sensations with Vanessa they sought to delay it.

Catching the candle was, in comparison, an almost reflexive maneuver. Such a small thing was the soloist, or rather the instrument, at the heart of a refined symphony Jac had carved upon the Every Waking Moment, and Anton made ready to play its second and final song. Knowing that he had to make it count, he simply trusted in Vanessa to get through the first storm, focusing his senses on the rapidly approaching ice-death. Maintaining such a focus was taxing in the extreme, especially as he primed his aether to activate the witch candle when an opening presented itself, the twin priorities of immediate survival and the hope of eventual victory taking up every ounce of his will.

And then Imogen turned herself into a horse and everyone jumped off of a perfectly good airship to stab a dragon.

"Try," Anton shouted, struggling to be heard through the whipping winds, "not to shoot them." Then, in a much quieter voice, he added to himself, "Please tell me they have a plan," to no one in particular.

[Paragon]

P A R A G O N

Exathun was sent veering off his initial course as Jac’s greatsword plunged into his shoulder. Both the dragon and dragon hunter plummeted downward as the black-green fire from the sword began to spread. The rumbling wall of black flames and icy power continued to barrel toward the Every Waking Moment. The very air in front of Iselya and Imogen seemed to writhe and recoil from the dark power amassed against them. Beneath the darkness of the Eclipse however, Imogen and Iselya had perhaps made the correct choice in reaching out to demi-divines that were yet able to hear their prayers. Imogen’s zwiehander pulsed. The Ecitharese prayer etched upon the hilt glowed a fiery red that began to radiate in an aura that cut away at the growing chill that clawing its way into their very lungs. The fear inching its way into their spirits was replaced with a growing courage. It might still have been a stupid gambit but they would not be daunted by fear.

Iselya’s Emblem began to pulse and grow warm. That warmth soon became a surge of heat as silver-white first flared to life and spread outward to cover her form. Brighter and brighter she began to burn. The silver-white fire sparked into being along her pact blade. It spread to the duplicates that formed beside it. The silver flames extended to Imogen’s zweihander, mixing with the furious red glow there to create a volcanic flame limned with silver light. The Dawnfire spread until it created a veritable wall to match the rumbling dragonbreath that was barreling toward them.

Perhaps it was a trick of the light. Perhaps it was simply the silhouette of the shadow breath headed in their direction but to those paying attention, there within the silver-white flames, it seemed almost as though there was a humanoid form spreading their wings.

Together, Animus flying horse and Siltori Knight charged headfirst into the wall of shadow and frost that was coming to meet them. There was a veritable storm of explosive force as the power infused into Imogen and Iselya’s blades cut through the dragonbreath. The strain on both of them was palpable but as they charged forth through the wall of shadow and frost, the volcanic fires of Courage combined with the silver-white flames of Dawnfire, overcame the two fighters though not without cost…

Clearing through to the other side, dizziness and fatigue would overcome both Imogen and Iselya. They had succeeded. They had cut through the wall of darkness and frost barreling toward the Every Waking Moment, effectively nullifying it. Anton still had the black candle in his possession, with a single use still open to him. Imogen would find it difficult to maintain her form aloft. Between both of them, staying in the air would be a challenge.

Looking below, the mighty bulk of Exathun had landed upon the ground and was still. Black and green fire burned still in some places upon the dragon’s form. There the dragon remained. Unmoving…for the time being.