Path of Dragons

“I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” said Kurik, his eyes downcast.

Elijah understood the dwarf’s emotions, largely because he had a complicated relationship with killing as well. He’d wrestled with the realities of his own actions often enough to know that he couldn’t really say much that Kurik probably hadn’t told himself a hundred times over. Still, he owed it to the dwarf to try. After all, they were companions, weren’t they? On the verge of becoming friends. That came with certain responsibilities.

“It’s necessary,” he said, gazing out over the fields. It was easy to see those crops as commodities – which they were – but Elijah saw them as more than that. They’d been grown with the purpose of being consumed, but that didn’t make them any less deserving of life than any other natural creature. It reminded him a bit of how livestock was treated before Earth had been touched by the World Tree, save that he knew those plants were incapable of feeling pain. If they had been, he might have found himself unable to go through with his plan of harvesting every last crop.

“We came here,” Kurik said. “Not the other way ‘round. We’re the aggressors. They was just sittin’ here mindin’ their own business until we came along.”

“I…I know.”

Elijah wanted to believe they were in the right, and in that desire, his mind kept playing tricks on him. There was a sliver of thought telling him that the yetis had made the first move, but that just wasn’t true, was it? He’d come barreling into their fortress, and they’d reacted. Would things have turned out differently if he’d approached in peace? Probably not. They didn’t seem like the welcoming types, and what’s more, the challenge assigned to them was very clear about the terms of completion.

You have reached the The Frozen Fortress. To conquer the Challenge of Pruina, destroy the betrayer. Reward: Trunk of the Frozen Oak

As he hadn’t gotten the notification until entering the fortress, Elijah was the only one to have seen that they were tasked with destroying the betrayer. That didn’t seem like a peaceful mission to him.

“I ain’t losin’ my nerve,” Kurik said. “But just ‘cause I know it’s necessary don’t mean I have to be happy ‘bout it.”

Elijah nodded, though he didn’t say anything. Instead, he remembered that when they’d first met, Kurik was fairly low-leveled. That wasn’t uncommon in Ironshore, which was home to a bunch of desperate castoffs who had, for various reasons, been denied opportunities elsewhere. But with Kurik’s skills, he should have had a comparatively easy time leveling. It would have been difficult getting started, but with the skills he had displayed since coming to the Trial, he could have engaged in mass slaughter. That he hadn’t said a lot about who he was.

“Do you regret taking that class?” Elijah asked.

Kurik shrugged his broad shoulders. “Dunno. Sometimes,” he acknowledged. “A lot of times, if I’m honest with myself. Killin’ shouldn’t be so easy.”

“I know.”

The dwarf let out a rumbling sigh. “I ain’t gonna dwell on it, though. I got a strong class. Ain’t everybody can say as much. And I can do some good, too. Me ‘n some of the crafters back in Ironshore are workin’ together to make sure nothin’ like the battle with the orcs ever happens again. I can save folks. That’s better’n most can say.”

“And I don’t think we’d have a chance here without you,” Elijah said.

“That ain’t true. You three are different. You’d have found a way,” Kurik responded with a shake of his head. “And ‘sides, who else gets to see stuff like this, eh? How much do ya think it’s all worth?”

Elijah glanced around. “I have no idea. My concept of prices is shaky at best,” he admitted. “But a lot. I’m not thinking about it like that, though. I want to create a cultivation cave here. Maybe I can take a few home, too. Nerthus can probably do some amazing things with these plants.”

“That’s probably true.”

After that, the two went silent. Presumably, Kurik was still wrestling with what was about to happen, while Elijah was focused on his plans for future cultivation. He still hadn’t figured out how to push his Mind to Jade, but he felt like he was getting closer. It was just a matter of trying different methods – like splitting his Mind into even more facets, which had predictably resulted in a blinding headache – before he came upon one with promise.

Idly, he found himself wondering if the people in other parts of the multi-verse had similar issues. Or was their cultivation guided every step of the way? A little information went a long way, and even a hint or two would have made all the difference for Elijah. However, because of the dearth of Librarians back on Earth – as well as their low level – information was at a premium.

Maybe it was a good thing, though. Finding his own way gave him a level of insight he never would have gotten if someone had just mapped it out for him. He felt that he knew his Mind better now than he had even a few weeks before, which he hoped would prove invaluable going forward.

“Know thyself,” he muttered under his breath.

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After a few more minutes, Dat jogged to their position at the center of the fields. They’d killed the handful of yeti farmers that had been tasked with tending to the crops – only after the creatures had proved too dangerous to simply restrain – and Dat had been sent to scout the locations of the inevitable yeti patrols.

“They’re coming,” he said, slowing to a stop. Despite being such a big guy, Dat was incredibly light on his feet, and he’d become even more so after taking the Seed of the Whistling Wind. The increase in Dexterity had definitely gone to good use. “A lot of them, too. I stopped counting after the tenth group.”

That meant there were more than sixty powerful yetis, each one armored in extremely durable plate, coming their way. If Kurik’s traps didn’t thin their numbers – or at least injure them – then they would be in big trouble.

Sadie, who’d been meditating nearby, suddenly rose and said, “For what it’s worth, I agree with Elijah. This is necessary. There is no evil in what we plan to do.”

“Don’t need nobody to tell me what’s evil and what ain’t,” Kurik said. “I’ve squared it with myself. Just a bit of complainin’ is all. Pay it no mind.”

That wasn’t necessarily true. It wasn’t as simple as Kurik claimed, and Elijah knew that the dwarf was in the middle of an existential criss. But Elijah had no intentions of arguing about someone else’s feelings. If Kurik wanted to minimize it, then that was his prerogative. Regardless, the others accepted the Sapper’s explanation at face value, and the group moved to the prepared position.

They didn’t have the numbers to guard every entrance to the cavern, so after building enough traps to kill an army, they’d prepared a location where they would make their last stand. If everything went well, then only a few yetis would ever make it there, but that didn’t mean they’d skimped on the preparations. As they’d done atop the Singing Cliffs, they’d built a series of earthen bulwarks. This time, though, they’d also created a raised position within that ring of piled dirt, all with the hopes of maintaining the high ground.

And given the size of the yetis, they’d had to build their defenses to match. The result was a thirty-foot-high pyramid standing in the middle of the fields. It was rough, and it certainly wouldn’t rival the pyramids of Giza, but they all hoped that the crude structure would provide the defense they needed to come out on top. Of course, Kurik had prepared traps all around, further fortifying the position.

After that, it was down to waiting.

In a perfect world, they would have had people positioned at each of the six entrances. From there, they could rain destruction upon their enemies even as the yetis had to deal with the traps, which were, once again, mostly comprised of a series of pit traps and ditches, each one lined with stakes bearing the power of Kurik’s skills. That would hopefully make them deadly, but even if none of the yetis died, the traps would at least weaken them.

Regardless, instead of an army – or even a full group – they only had four people. So, the plan had been made according to that weakness. Even as the enemy approached, that left Elijah and his companions with only one thing to do – wait.

If he’d been alone, Elijah would have spent the time engaging in hit-and-run tactics. He still thought that would have been better than just sitting and waiting. However, his previous clash with his own hubris told him that he was better off depending on his group. They’d gone to all the trouble of building their defenses, after all, and it would have been silly not to use them.

Still, the waiting definitely rubbed Elijah the wrong way.

“You get used to it,” Sadie said, standing tall, her armor gleaming. She didn’t look back at Elijah as she spoke. Instead, she kept her gaze in the direction of the enemy’s approach as she said, “The waiting, I mean. That’s what war is. Hours and hours of waiting just for a few minutes of horror.”

“It was like this when the orcs came,” Elijah said.

“Worse. And better,” Kurik added. “We all thought we were done for. Weren’t none of us prepared for that.”

With his crossbow out, Dat added, “My first battle was bad. I was on a first date. Drinks and everything, you know? It wasn’t going well, and –”

“That’s because you used to date nothing but Instagram models,” Sadie pointed out. “I’m sure some of them are perfectly good people, but there’s a reason they’re not doctors and lawyers.”

Dat rolled his eyes. “I told you, bro. That’s classist or something. I don’t know. It’s wrong to judge people like that. But anyway – she was a good person, just boring. We holed up in this restaurant because we didn’t know what else to do. A few days later, the undead came out. I thought it was a zombie apocalypse, you know? We put up a good fight. Barricaded the doors and windows. But they got through, and…”

Before Dat could continue his story, the sound of an explosion echoed through the cavern. It was loud enough that, for a moment, the only sound Elijah could hear was a ringing in his ears. Then, a moment later, his hearing returned courtesy of a quick cast of Healing Rain.

“What the hell was that?” he demanded.

“New trap,” Kurik said. “Called a Combustion Mine. Figured it’d be good against monsters with ice attunements. Killed three of ‘em by the way.”

“I didn’t see you lay those traps.”

“You don’t see everything.”

Elijah was about to respond when another explosion echoed through the cave. This one had come from a completely different entrance.

“Two more.”

“Did you put those at all the entrances?” asked Sadie, her voice much louder than it needed to be.

“I did,” Kurik said. “Figured they’d try ‘em all once they felt the first one. But there’s a few more right after the trenches. I want ‘em to think they got through it, only to step on another Combustion Mine when they think they’re safe.”

After that, a couple of long minutes passed before another series of explosions echoed through the cavern. Before Elijah and the others caught sight of the first group of armored yetis, fifteen more had died, giving them all some hints at the kind of power Kurik could bring to the table. He was only a passable scout, but when he was allowed to use his class the way it was meant to be used, he could be an absolute game changer.

But as dozens of yetis amassed before the pyramid, it became clear that Kurik’s time to shine had passed. The enemy had been weakened. Even the ones that hadn’t been killed bore plenty of injuries, and that was just what Elijah could see. Some of the effects of Kurik’s traps weren’t quite as overt as giant explosions, though. Instead, he also dealt with poisons that sapped an enemy’s strengths and restricted the flow of ethera within their bodies.

Still, even knowing that the yetis were weakened, Elijah couldn’t help but feel a tinge of nervousness when the creatures surged forward into a charge. The moment they came into range, Dat and Kurik let loose with their ranged attacks. The latter’s arrows clanged off the yetis’ durable armor, but Dat’s crossbow bolts pierced through. Meanwhile, Elijah cast Swarm, then Calamity, then leveraged his Quartz Mind to regenerate the spent ethera.

The spells were effective, with the confusion of Calamity slowing the creatures down and the delicate mosquito-like insects conjured by Swarm delivering their afflictions. At the same time, Dat and Kurik continued to fire as quickly as they could, while Sadie planted herself at the forefront, waiting for the monsters to mount the sloped sides of the pyramid.

Of course, Kurik’s traps continued to be an issue for the charging yetis. Instead of ditches lined with spikes, he’d opted for a series of small, foot-sized holes in the ground. When the yetis stepped in them, they were not only slowed by twisted joints, but they also were subjected to yet more spikes that would deliver whatever poisons Kurik’s skills could conjure.

In short, everything went according to plan.

But there were so many yetis that, eventually, they made it to the top of the slope. That was when Sadie met them with her gleaming blade.

And just like that, the battle had begun.

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