Path of Dragons

“We should retreat and regroup!” shouted Sadie, holding off the small army of armor. She used her greatsword more like a club than a blade, but with how large and heavy it was, it did a passable impression of a blunt weapon. However, it was obviously less effective than normal, and it wasn’t difficult to see why. Spells – like the one that Sadie used to enhance her attacks – were useless against the things.

“Not yet!” Elijah growled, his transformation into the form of the lamellar ape completing. Under the effects of that spell, he was more than a match – at least in terms of size – for the creatures. Even as Elijah shoulder tackled the nearest suit of armor, an explosion erupted among their ranks. Via One with Nature, Elijah felt Kurik lighting what seemed like a stick of dynamite and tossing it into the mass of metal. Another explosion sent them tumbling away, the metal of their armor twisted out of place.

The one Elijah had tackled went to the ground without issue, though when he brought his fists down, he found that the thing was incredibly durable.

Fortunately, he was also incredibly strong.

Scaly fists rained down on the thing, sending the sound of ringing metal out to join the cacophony of Kurik’s ongoing explosions and Sadie’s attempts to batter one of the suits of armor into submission.

“Go for their cores!” Kurik yelled.

“And where are those?” Elijah roared in response.

“In their chests, ya idjit!”

That made sense, especially considering that that was where the creatures’ armor was the thickest. Elijah battered the thing, and after the fourth blow, the damage was enough that he could hook his claws under one of the seams. He did just that, and once his grip was firm enough, he ripped the breastplate away, revealing a rotating sphere of solid ethera.

Elijah didn’t waste any time before reaching into the chest cavity of the flailing suit of armor, wrap his claws around the ball of ethera, and yank it free.

He regretted it immediately.

The second he touched the roiling sphere of energy, his scales blistered, melting through his Constitution instantly. Thankfully, a heal hit him just as he pulled the core free.

“Toss it!” shouted Kurik.

Elijah trusted the dwarf enough not to hesitate. He heaved it away, but it only got about six feet before it exploded. Everything on the street felt the shockwave. The suits of armor went sprawling, but Sadie managed to maintain her feet – that had to be a skill. Dat, Kurik, and Ron were the furthest away from the explosion, but even they were thrown aside by the shockwave.

As for Elijah, he went flying backward. More distressingly, he couldn’t feel anything on the entire front of his body – a sure sign of severe burns if there ever was one. He hit the ground, then tumbled into one of the buildings. It survived the impact unscathed, which was something that Elijah couldn’t say for himself.

A wave of dizziness and nausea swept through him as he tried to stand. He stumbled back into the wall, and he didn’t recover until a few seconds later when another of Ron’s heals suffused him with vitality. His mind cleared, and the burns covering most of his body began to mend.

“Ow,” he muttered to himself.

“You idjit!” Kurik shouted. “You don’t just go and grab an ethereal core with your bare hands!”

Elijah just looked at the dwarf, then shrugged. How in the world was he supposed to have known that? Sure, a roiling ball of magical energy probably didn’t scream that it wanted to be touched, but he never could have expected it to be quite so volatile. In truth, he hadn’t stopped to think at all.

Perhaps that was the problem.

Before he could give that issue the attention it deserved, he saw that the armor monsters had already recovered to swarm Sadie’s position. Her sword whirled as she defended herself, but with how many foes she faced, she could do little more than keep herself from being overwhelmed.

She battered the creatures away, but each one she attacked was soon replaced by another. What’s more, she was quickly becoming surrounded.

“Retreat!” Dat yelled, thinking the same thing Elijah was. They’d discovered what they could about the creatures. Now, they needed to regroup and plan.

Sadie glanced backward, which was a mistake. That brief instant of inattention was all the creatures needed to overwhelm her defenses. They piled onto her, pummeling her with their swords. She disappeared beneath a pile of armor.

Elijah activated Savage Might as he shot forward, covering the ground between them in barely a second before he rammed into the pile. A few went flying before the force of his momentum, and he lashed out with a backhand that took another out of the equation. Then, he latched onto a fifth and heaved.

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After that, the fight descended into a primal melee. He couldn’t concern himself with fancy techniques or plans. Instead, the whole of his attention was occupied by two things, both in an effort to rescue Sadie. First, trying his best to avoid taking a blow head-on. With Iron Scales being useless, that was likely the only reason the armor creatures’ swords hadn’t already hacked him to pieces, and if he let it drop for even a second, that would change.

Second, he focused on pushing himself as hard as possible. Lately, he’d discovered that his spells and skills represented a range rather than a precise outcome. That, as well as how he’d felt when his core had completely drained, suggested that he wasn’t getting the most out of his attributes. If the strength of his abilities was variable, then could he push his body further as well?

The real question wasn’t whether or not he was living up to his potential. He knew he wasn’t. Rather, the thing that he needed to discover was just how far he could go. So, he flooded his Soul with ethera – but not to fuel a specific spell. Rather, he held it there, hoping the saturation would translate to more power.

And briefly, it did.

In that time, he threw the armored creatures aside like they were lighter than feathers. But his increased power was short-lived, and after only a dozen seconds, the ethera in his body went crazy. His blood vessels burst from the strain, and his muscles went slack as energy gushed from his every pore.

Fortunately, Ron hadn’t remained idle, and one of his healing spells slammed into Elijah only a moment later. That was probably the only reason he didn’t immediately black out. Even then, he couldn’t stop himself from collapsing.

Again, one of his teammates came to the rescue. It was only when he was being dragged away that he realized what was happening.

“Heavy,” grunted Kurik.

Elijah let Shape of the Guardian fall away, and he returned to his human form. That eased the dwarf’s burden, but it only exacerbated Elijah’s condition. Without the increased Constitution of his lamellar ape form, his body couldn’t hold up to the damage he’d done to himself. He got a brief look at his arms, and he saw that they were already swollen and badly bruised.

He was barely conscious, but he did see that Dat was dragging Sadie away as well.

After only a few seconds, they crossed the invisible line of the challenge. The pursuing suits of armor stopped and stared. Then, after a few more moments, they turned around and retreated the way they’d come.

Finally, Elijah relaxed.

And realized just how much damage he’d done. It wasn’t catastrophic. He could already feel Ron’s healing spells working to fix what he’d broken. But it certainly wasn’t pleasant, either, and what’s more, he knew just how close he’d come to making things much worse.

Perhaps there was a reason he hadn’t heard anything about anyone trying to use ethera to push themselves harder.

“What the hell happened?” demanded Kurik.

Elijah coughed up a little blood, then haltingly explained his actions. He ended it by saying, “I wasn’t strong enough to get to her without help. Not before…how is she?”

“I’m fine,” came Sadie’s voice. “Mostly.”

Elijah glanced in her direction, and he once again saw that her armor was damaged seemingly beyond repair. This time, it might just be true, too, because as far as he knew, she didn’t have any more of her magical putty. Beyond that, she looked almost as bruised as he did.

And that was saying something, considering that his skin was almost entirely purple.

“Bro. You need to be more careful.”

“And less stupid,” Kurik added.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Elijah responded haltingly.

“I ain’t worried ‘bout you. I’m worried about my home. And about what your sister-in-law would do to me if I let you die.”

“Aww. So sweet,” Elijah muttered through bloody lips. “Give me, like, five minutes. I think I need a bit of a rest. In the meantime, figure out how to beat those things without blowing up. Oh, and also – were you using freaking dynamite? When did you get dynamite?”

“I ain’t got a clue what that is,” Kurik said.

“Those bombs, bro,” Dat said. “They looked a lot like dynamite.”

“You keep sayin’ that word like I should know what it means. Last time we was in Nexus, I got with an alchemist and we worked together to make some boomsticks. They’re made of – wait. Why’re you laughin’? These things ain’t nothin’ to –”

“Boomsticks,” Elijah wheezed between chuckles. “God. Please don’t make me laugh like that when my body’s just one huge bruise.”

“What in all the hell’s the matter with you?” Kurik demanded.

“That’s the best name you could come up with?” Elijah asked.

“Bro. You know what that’s from, right?”

“Uh…”

“Shop smart. Shop S-Mart, bro.”

“Come on, Elijah. Even I know this one,” Sadie said.

“I’m drawing a complete blank,” he admitted.

“No class at all,” Sadie stated primly. Then, she promptly coughed up a little more blood. “I think I punctured both lungs.”

“Can you all stop treating this all like it’s a joke? Elijah nearly killed himself back there, and Sadie…well, those things are dangerous,” Ron chided.

Elijah couldn’t have agreed more, but a few jokes went a long way toward relieving the tension of a near-death experience. What’s more, there would never be a situation where he would pass up an opportunity to rile Kurik up. The dwarf clearly had no idea what they were talking about, which was precisely the point of it all.

Of course, he didn’t understand the reference either. He just thought boomstick was a silly name.

“Well, are you going to keep me in suspense?” Elijah asked.

“I thought you were cool, bro.”

“Clearly not,” Sadie muttered. “How could he be if he’s never seen Army of Darkness?”

“Is that a move? Or a –”

“Bro!”

“Seriously, Elijah. It’s a classic,” Sadie said.

“Couldn’t be that much of a classic if I haven’t even heard of it,” he maintained. “What’s it about?”

Dat grinned, then excitedly explained how it was a sequel to Evil Dead – which Elijah had heard of, but never seen – where the protagonist was transported through time to the middle ages. Apparently, it was a horror comedy.

“I don’t really do scary movies,” Elijah admitted. “My sister made me watch Creature of the Black Lagoon when I was really young, and I’ve had an aversion to horror movies ever since. I didn’t sleep right for a week.”

“That one’s not even scary, bro.”

“It was to a six-year-old,” Elijah said. “Anyway, I’m going to rest my eyes a little. Then, once you all figure out how to kill those suits of armor –”

“Sentry golems,” Dat said. “That’s what they’re called.”

“Oh. Right. That makes sense,” Elijah responded, though by that point, his eyelids had begun to droop. He gave one last chuckle before he said, “Boomstick.”

After that, he descended into blessed unconsciousness while his companions presumably made a plan.

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