Path of Dragons

Four vampire brides glided across the tiles, screeching with fury. Meanwhile, a fifth had fallen to the floor, where she screamed in agony as she raked her long nails across her beautiful, pale face. And finally, Lothgal looked on like a child who’d just gotten the Christmas gift he’d wanted all along.

Targeting one of the other vampire women, Elijah once again cast Nature’s Rebuke. However, when he did, he felt something slice through his mind, slamming the door shut on his ethera. Panicked, he was thrown off his intended casting sequence, and it was only due to the Haste from Sash of the Whirlwind that he managed to duck under a set of blood-red claws that would have ripped his throat out.

He dove forward in a roll, scrambling to understand what had just happened. At the same time, Lothgal let out a haughty laugh. He wagged his finger, saying, “Nuh-uh-uh. No more of that, now!”

Elijah had no idea how the vampire lord had managed to block his casting, but after only a moment, he sensed two things. First, the wall between his ethera and the ability to cast Nature’s Rebuke was gradually growing thinner, suggesting that it would only last for a handful of seconds. Maybe a minute. But that was still too long.

Second, he realized that it didn’t just block Nature’s Rebuke. Rather, it prevented him from casting Swarm, Calamity, and Storm’s Fury as well. It didn’t take a genius to understand that Lothgal had somehow silenced his ability to cast damage spells. However, a quick cast of Healing Rain told him that his other spells and abilities were available.

That meant he had a chance.

Because without the ability to shapeshift or heal, he would have been dead in the water and had no choice but to flee.

All of that flashed through Elijah’s mind in the space of a moment, but even that small delay very nearly got him killed when another of the brides closed on him. She launched herself at him, her claws glistening with that same red enamel. Meanwhile, her sister-brides followed close on her heels.

Elijah cast Soothe as he reared back and aimed a baseball style swing at the vampire’s face. She was mid-air, so she had no chance of dodging the blow, and she took it right in the mouth. However, two issues presented themselves after that.

First, Elijah heard the distinct sound of cracking wood. The staff hadn’t shattered – not completely – but he knew it wasn’t long for the world. Hopefully, it would still work as intended, but he had no guarantees. Whatever the case, he didn’t dare use it as a pummeling weapon again.

The second major problem was that, even though the leaping bride was knocked aside, his attack had done nothing for the others. And they were almost upon him. So, without further delay, Elijah initiated a shift into his guardian form. As Shape of the Guardian transformed his body, elongating his arms and adding hundreds of pounds of muscle, Elijah leaped backwards to give himself a little extra time.

His tactic worked, and by the time the three vampire women closed the gap, the change had completed. So, he met them with the fury of the lamellar ape, using his long arms to batter them aside. But to Elijah’s immense surprise, each attack did a lot more damage than he would have expected. Bones broke beneath his heavy blows, and the vampire women went flying backwards.

The last, he grabbed around the head like he was palming a basketball, then squeezed. She screamed in pain, but her skull proved unnaturally sturdy. She raked her claws against his scales, and even though he’d preemptively used Iron Scales, she left grooves in his flesh.

But Elijah could take that.

He lifted her from the ground, and though she kicked and struggled, she could do nothing to stop him from slamming her against the tiles hard enough that they shattered. Her body followed suit, but she didn’t die. So, he did it again.

That did the trick, and once he felt that trickle of experience enter his body, he picked the corpse up and threw it at Lothgal. The vampire lord nimbly danced to the side with a playful pirouette and a hearty laugh, filling Elijah with rage.

But he couldn’t spare any attention for Lothgal, because the other three vampire brides were bearing down on him. The fourth remained in agony as she writhed on the ground trying to rip her own skin off. Clearly, Nature’s Rebuke was not a painless curse, but seeing her reaction did beg the question of what, precisely, it felt like.

Elijah hoped he would never know.

Pushing that to its own facet of his Quartz Mind, Elijah threw himself at the other three vampire brides. They reacted in kind, attacking with the reckless ferocity of rabid beasts, and what followed was a knock-down, drag-out fight where those three women gave as good as they got. However, where each of their raking attacks were mitigated by the combination of Elijah’s thick hide, Iron Scales, and his uncommonly high Constitution, his own blows were met with almost no resistance.

And each time he hit one of them, he was once again astounded by how much damage he did. There were only two possible explanations. Either they were incredibly fragile, or the Weighted Gloves had a trait meant to increase his damage in some way. And given their construction, he expected the latter was the cause of the potency of his attacks.

In any case, Elijah put everything he had into the fight, and the vampire brides paid the price. At first, he only broke bones. But soon enough, those broken bones became much more serious injuries. And finally, they were slain, one by one until only the one Elijah had disabled with Nature’s Rebuke remained. Calmly, he walked toward the woman, and even though the curse had long since worn off, she still hadn’t moved.

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And it wasn’t difficult to see why.

The pale skin on her once beautiful face had been scraped clean from her skull. Most of it was under her nails, but there was a decent amount piled nearby. Green veins of something that felt like nature’s fury were visible even through her white dress.

She was still in agony.

Elijah raised his foot, then brought it down on her head. His heel thudded into her skull, crushing it like a melon. It burst.

And then, he turned his attention on Lothgal.

From the other vampire girl’s diary, he knew that none of the women had been willing. If he could have managed it, he would have spared them. However, the moment they gave into their hunger, they were lost. That much had been clear in the text, and it was the girl’s most fervent fear. So, as much as Elijah regretted the necessity of killing them, he knew that he’d had no choice.

It didn’t matter that they weren’t real.

He still felt it, deep in his heart. He was a killer, and many times over. But he wasn’t so hard-hearted that he could slaughter a group of victimized women and not feel some measure of guilt. Even if it was necessary, regret was inevitable.

Elijah fed that emotion into the bonfire of rage burning in his heart. And that ire was directed at one person. The still-amused Lord Lothgal who was now the focus of the entirety of Elijah’s attention.

“Very impressive. You truly are a savage beast. I could use –”

Elijah bounded forward, but not at the vampire. Instead, he targeted a seemingly empty pew. When he crashed into it, shattering the wood into splinters, he felt something much softer beneath him.

That something hissed and tried to bite him, but Elijah ignored the real Lothgal’s pitiful attempts at an attack and wrapped his hands around the creature. Then, he heaved the vampire lord across the cathedral. The pale-skinned creature hit one of the columns, which sent him cartwheeling across the room until he finally crashed into the mostly destroyed organ. The pipes that hadn’t already fallen clattered down atop Lothgal, burying him under a ton of brass.

The first time he’d tried to attack the vampire lord, Elijah had sensed that something was amiss. He had ignored it. This time, though, he paid attention to the alarm in his mind, and it wasn’t long before he recognized that it was One with Nature screaming at him that what it sensed didn’t match up to what he saw before him.

So, when he wanted to target Lothgal, he’d focused on One with Nature, and he’d found a curious absence sitting on the pew. He’d interpreted that as the creature’s true location.

From there, it was simple.

Which was why he was surprised when the illusion stabbed him in the back.

He felt it flicker into existence a second before the blade bit into his back, which allowed him to twist just enough to avoid having his spine severed. Still, the blade ripped through his Iron Scales and into his kidney. He reacted instantly, aiming a backhand at the vampire lord.

Lothgal danced backward, ending with a back handspring accompanied by a ringing laugh. That’s when Elijah caught sight of his foe’s state. The creature was more than a little worse for wear, with ripped and tattered clothing, a couple of bones jutting at all the wrong angles, and a jaw that looked as if it was hanging on by a thread.

But even as Elijah clutched the freely bleeding wound in his back, the vampire adjusted his shattered jaw, and before Elijah’s eyes, it healed. The same was true of his broken bones. Even his clothing reformed. Within a few seconds, Lothgal was whole and, once again, looking as if he was ready to attend a ball.

He raised a long dirk to his lips. His tongue snaked out, and he licked Elijah’s blood. Then, with a theatrical shiver, he said, “Oh, aren’t you delicious. A nice little appetizer before the main course.”

Elijah’s chest tightened in fear, and for the first time ever, he understood what his own foes must’ve felt when he’d used Guardian’. It was not a pleasant sensation.

With the vampire so far away, Elijah took a moment to shift back to his human form and cast Soothe on himself. As his back healed, he cast Healing Rain as well. Finally, he targeted the vampire and cast Nature’s Rebuke. Before he could complete the cast, though, the vampire gestured with his dagger, and Elijah’s spell slammed into another barrier.

This one, though, seemed like it was going to last much longer.

“Keep that nasty little curse of yours to yourself,” spat the vampire lord, showing anger for the very first time. It was gone a second later, replaced by the same flippant attitude he’d worn during the entire fight.

Elijah’s mind whirled.

He didn’t want to prolong the fight. The vampire was too tricky, and he knew he was up against his deadline. If he took much longer, the elves would die. Or be transformed. Or whatever it was that the curse’s effect turned out to be. And though he didn’t think he owed the elves anything – indeed, he had found the entire affair much easier without their interference – he didn’t want them to die.

Well, none of them but Badu.

But even that idiot didn’t deserve to perish.

So, Elijah leveraged every facet of his mind toward figuring out how to kill the vampire as quickly as possible.

And looking around the cathedral, he quickly came up with a plan. So, he slowly backed away – accompanied by the vampire lord’s insults – until he reached the pile of brass pipes that had once been the organ. Then, he reached down, picked one up, and threw it as hard as he could.

The vampire dodged easily, mocking Elijah’s technique.

“I did not expect you to be a coward!” he shouted with a laugh.

Elijah ignored him. Instead, he threw another of the brass pipes. Once again, the vampire lord easily dodged. The next one was similarly avoided.

“Honestly, you should –”

Elijah suddenly rushed the vampire lord. Once again, he’d used that illusion ability, but as he had before, Elijah saw right through it via One with Nature. So, he crashed into the invisible Lothgal. The vampire lord slithered away, stabbing Elijah three times in quick succession, then darting forward to bite him. Elijah took it.

Even as the creature’s fangs pierced his Iron Scales, he grabbed Lothgal around the waist and charged forward.

Because he’d never meant to hit the vampire with the brass pipes. Instead, he’d been aiming at something else. The stained glass had proven to be far more durable than he’d expected, but three heavy metal pipes thrown with all the force Elijah could muster had done the trick, shattering the window and allowing the morning sunlight to peak through.

Elijah didn’t know much about vampires. He’d never been into monster movies or tween romances with glittery heartthrobs. But everyone knew that vampires didn’t mix well with sunlight.

And that knowledge proved true when he thrust the vampire into the beam of light. It didn’t just blister him. Nor did it turn Lothgal into ash. Instead, it melted him. The heat did blister Elijah’s scales, but he’d endured worse.

Lothgal tried to squirm free, but the sunlight had robbed him of all power. So, he died only a few seconds later, and just like that, Elijah had conquered the final level of the Magister’s Estate.

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