Date: July 3rd, year 1286 (not too long after midnight) Location: Streets, Crystal Rose
Beatrice was hiding in a dark alley, back to the wall, her heart pounding in her chest and struggling to breathe steadily.
- "*Huff* What were Julian and Angelica doing out here, that late?..." She quietly whispers, letting down her lightning staff on the ground and sitting next to it. A brown cloth was wrapped around its large blue gem to make it less eye-catching. "I need to thank Oliver for that black cloak he gave me, or I'd be done for!"
She springs back on her feet, grabs her staff with two hands and jogs through the streets towards her destination. She eventually stops in front of a small house, in the western side of the city not too far from the center. She knocks eight times in quick succession, pressing her forehead against the door.
- "Night Star to Burning Tree." She says. "Any jobs for me?"
- "Burning tree?..." A male voice replies from the other side of the door. "Wait, Beatrice is that you?"
Oliver opens the door, and Beatrice falls through it. Inside, there was an empty living room featuring weary couches and a wooden dining table with two chairs.
- "Aaah! I'm not Beatrice! Night! Star!" Beatrice yells.
- "Shut up dammit!" A neighbor yells. "I'm trying to sleep!"
- "Sorry!" Beatrice shouts back as she enters the house, and Oliver closes the door after her.
- "I forgot you're using a pseudonym. Why Night Star anyways? Night Owl or something would make more sense…" Oliver comments.
- "I just… like stars! Also can you make something to eat? I slept all day yesterday after our dungeon dive, so I skipped lunch."
- "That happens a little too often…" He removes her hood, revealing the white bandage on her forehead. "You really shouldn't be doing this."
- "But we need to collect money for your brother's hospital fees!"
- "Yeah, I just wish he didn't also get really sick on top of the starvation issue… Lack of food can really do you in, in more ways than one."
- "Don't worry, I'm sure tonight's the night we get enough stuff to sell!"
Oliver sighs as he walks to his kitchen. Beatrice sits at the dining table, impatiently waiting as her stomach growls. She looks around the living room, and her eyes stop on a picture on a drum table. It was Oliver and his brother in front of the Dungeon, with a tall gray haired man with green eyes wielding a giant axe made entirely of wood with one hand behind them, and smiling mischievously through his beard shadow. Oliver and his brother both looked much younger, and next to them was an angry-looking woman with fiery red hair and crimson red eyes, pulling on the ear of Oliver's brother. Very small black horns were protruding from the top of her head.
- "Oliver, your mom has red eyes?" Beatrice asks.
- "Yeah, we've got a little bit of demonic blood in the family." Oliver jokingly replies from the kitchen. "But don't worry, she was the sweetest person in the neighborhood! Well, as long as you didn't piss her off, or else she'd show everyone that no matter how much human blood she had, she's still got that demon in her."
- "...I think she looks pretty."
- "My father used to say that all the time! Something about the blood red eyes apparently."
- "Your dad's a nice person. Like Nyx, Julian and Agnes. And Angelica, kind of , even if she's scary."
- "How can you tell? You've never met him!"
- "Hmh." Beatrice flatly replies, staring at her reflection in the far wall.
Oliver comes out of the kitchen holding a white plate with a large omelette on it, small flames dancing around his fingertips and meticulously heating the food. He places the steaming dish on the table, along with a fork and a butter knife.
- "Dig in!" He says.
- "Thanks!" Beatrice immediately starts devouring the omelette. "You're a really good cook."
- "Appreciate the compliment, Alexis says that's what kept us alive in the dungeon. He's a real picky eater."
- "Alexis?"
- "My brother. Guess I never introduced him to you huh? He's real smart, and gifted at picking locks among other things. Good thing we're making money from the dungeon, or I'm sure he would've become some evil crime overlord."
- "...Say, where are your parents?" She asks, looking at the picture.
- "In the Rose." Oliver also gazes at the picture, a shadow going over his eyes. "They were really prominent dungeon divers, with years of experience under their belt. In fact, they were so strong when working together that they could afford to bring me and Alexis into the dungeon when we were still learning magic, to teach us the ropes. But they disappeared in the Second Petal of the Rose, a decade ago while trying to map it out. Since they never told us where their treasury was, we basically lost everything but the house that day. Ever since that day, we've been delving into the Dungeon regularly to make money out of selling monster parts and magic items we found. I know Alexis still hasn't gotten over the grief, and he's still trying way too hard to become strong enough to reach the floor where our parents disappeared. I can't blame him to be honest, a part of me also wants to go confirm what happened there."
- "Oooh. I'm sorry for asking…"
- "No problem there! Now eat up, I do in fact have a potential job for you."
Beatrice quickly finishes her meal and they both get ready. Oliver equips his leather armor and gets his backpack, while Beatrice puts her hood back on and retrieves her staff. About an hour later, they are inside a tavern named "The Diver's Decompression", a few minutes away from the Rose. It was very lively, with adventurers in varied gear laughing and drinking while talking about their experiences in the Dungeon or trading goods. The interior was full of paintings of experienced-looking adventurers, sometimes moving their eyes to look at anyone passing by them. Beatrice leaves Oliver's side and walks up to one of them, looking up at a painting of a blonde man with strangely long eyelashes and a disdainful expression on his face.
- "Hello? Are you alive?" She asks.
- "..." The painting looks down at her. "You dare challenge the count of Triges to a duel? I may be a gentleman, but my blade is all but gentle! Have at thee!" It swings a longsword sideways before returning to its original position.
- "Eek!" Beatrice jumps back.
- "Those are Memory Paintings." Oliver comments as he joins her. "They're native to the dungeon, but people have found a way to cheaply replicate them. The ones here are inoffensive, mostly just repeating cheesy one liners to anyone that maintains eye contact for too long."
- "Oh, I think they're cool! Is there a memory painting of you?"
- "Nah, I'm not that famous. Granted, there's one of my father and one of my mother, but hearing them talk feels like getting run over by a carriage. I asked the owner to take them down but he won't budge…"
- "Oh…"
- "Anyways! Look over there."
He points to a table where an elf with short brown hair was sitting by himself, furiously writing something on a piece of paper next to a map of something resembling a ruined city reclaimed by nature that Beatrice quickly recognizes as a map of the first Thorn.
- "I heard he lost his entire group to a trap in the first Thorn. They all got pulled into a hole that suddenly opened in the ground, and he only escaped because he was their scout." Oliver continues.
- "Oh, I get it!" Beatrice exclaims. She runs over to the elf. "Hi!"
- "Get lost, human." The elf grumbles. "I'm busy."
- "I'm the Night Star, and I specialize in rescue! I'll help you, for a price!"
- "Huh?..."
- "She's legit." Oliver. "Child of a noble, I'm pretty sure. She's an Irregular that helped save my brother a few weeks ago, and she's been rescuing other people here and there over the past few days."
- "An Irregular?..." The elf repeats. "I'll try anything at this point. Let's go."
Less than an hour later, they are back in the first Thorn of the Rose. The cloudy sky was stretching infinitely above their heads, and they were standing in a circle of grass surrounded by four crumbled stone towers that most likely used to belong to a castle.
- "This is where they disappeared." The elf says, looking down at the grass.
- "I could try digging." Oliver says, before a cacophony of clanging sound resonates around them. "But I think we have company."
- "Living armor!" Beatrice exclaims.
Ten sets of armor climb the destroyed towers and begin descending towards them, various types of swords in hand. The elf raises his hands in front of him, and the ground lifts to form small pillars of earth.
- "Leave it to me!" Beatrice says, tapping the elf on the hip. "We don't want to damage the weapons!"
- "Are you serious?... Living armors are dangerous." The elf replies, hesitantly lowering his hand.
- "Uh huh! Watch me!" Beatrice turns towards the armors surrounding them, and extends her right hand towards one of them. "Unlock!"
The armor's hand opens for half a second, causing it to drop the short sword it was carrying. As it bends down to pick it up, Beatrice removes her hood and pulls off the cloth covering her staff, revealing its blue gem. It starts crackling with electricity as she points it at the armor.
- "Bolt!" She shouts.
The staff responds by firing a lightning bolt at the armor, which falls to the ground, smoking from all its holes.
- "That's one!" Beatrice continues, running around the ruins and gathering the attention of all the living armors.
They weren't very fast, so she easily outpaced them. She repeats that song and dance for each and every armor, until they are all lying on the floor with their intact weapons next to them. After being done, she was standing on top of one of the inanimate armors, her staff pointed at its head. Oliver then walks around the ruins, gathering all the weapons in a pile.
- "How much do you think this is gonna go for?" Beatrice asks.
- "Probably ten silver roses, I'd guess. It helps that most respectable smiths would take them, unlike the half melted ones I usually bring back." Oliver replies.
- "You mastered formulas at this young of an age?..." The elf asks, joining them.
- "Formulas?" Beatrice tilts her head to the side.
- "He means magic formulas." Oliver comments. "You don't sound like you know about them."
- "Kinda ? The teachers at the orphanage just told us they exist."
- "Basically, every living creature's body has emergency reserves of magical energy that they can use in life or death situations. It works just like the strength people get when their life is in danger. Using a magical formula lets you use these reserves temporarily for a more powerful spell. Whenever you say 'Unlock' as you use your magic, you're probably doubling your magic's output. But that takes a whole lot of training to do, since you need to associate a word with the release of your emergency reserves of energy." He glances at the elf. "That's usually what can keep us humans competitive in a magic duel against an elf, since they can't really use formulas. Their reserves are basically unusable, because they're constantly being used for their other abilities like magic perception."
- "Oh, I didn't know I was doing that!"
- "You're even doing it with the staff. Whoever made it associated the word 'bolt' with a spell embedded within it, so you can cast it even if you don't know how to use Lightning magic as long as you're holding it to feed it your magical energy."
- "I was just yelling random things while swinging the staff one day, and it fired a lightning bolt!" She replies, and the staff crackles with electricity. "Oops! Good thing I wasn't giving it energy right now."
- "She might be a genius." The elf comments. "Guess that's what you'd expect from nobility."
- "Nah, I wouldn't go that far." Oliver smirks. "Most humans figure out things like that eventually. You elves are content using the magic you were born with, since you're already so gifted. But we need to do that kind of thing to survive in this world. You could say it's in everyone's genes! Granted Bea-"
- "Night star!" Beatrice cuts.
- "Yeah, uh, Night Star over there might be a little more gifted than the rest."
- "By the way, I noticed I can do more stuff with my magic now. Before I'd pass out before I could open that big magic lock, but I managed to do it yesterday when we looted that castle! Do you know what's happening to me?"
- "Your magical energy's just growing really quickly. Normally, you do it by practicing for months or years, but life or death situations tend to force your body to adapt and expand your energy reserves. That's why dungeon divers usually get noticeably stronger after a few dives. But if I'm being real, your energy is growing way too quickly for a kid your age."
- "Is that weird?"
- "Yeah. I guess another way to get more energy is to be in areas of high magical energy density, or near entities possessing that much like higher grade spirits for extended periods of time. It puts a big strain on your body, and so your magic vessels expand in response. I guess since you're a noble you're just getting boosted by your parents being around the house, if they have insane amounts of energy."
- "Ah. I think I know what's going on… Am I supposed to be tired when that happens?"
- "Yeah. Constantly even, it's like forcing yourself to live somewhere where gravity is twice as strong. Pretty intense magical workout. But it'll stop eventually, when your vessels are large enough to withstand the pressure. You probably noticed that your skin is getting more resistant too, and that's just due to your body naturally creating a barrier of magical energy around you using some of your emergency reserves since you're putting yourself in so much danger all the time. It's pretty common for fighters like dungeon divers to become durable enough to be able to take spells like fireballs head on without getting too injured. In my case, most standard swords deal about as much damage to me as kitchen knives would to a normal person."
- "I see, thanks Oliver! You don't look like it, but you're really knowledgeable about magic."
- "Hey, I'm still a pretty decent dungeon diver! Gotta know my stuff."
- "Ahem." The elf clears his throat. "Could you guys focus on doing what I'm paying you for, if that's not too much to ask? Every second might matter for my group."
- "Right, sorry!" Beatrice replies, runs back to the center of the grass circle.
She kneels, places her hand on the grass and closes her eyes. Her magic could feel that something was locked somewhere in the area ever since she entered it, and given the elf's testimony she suspected it was hidden in the ground. She slowly infuses some of her magical energy into the earth, searching for anything that would elicit a response. For a few seconds, she gets nothing, until she feels a strong resistance.
- "One, two, three…" She slowly counts.
- "You know, I've been wanting to ask. What's with the counting? You did that yesterday too when you unlocked that magically sealed door." Oliver asks.
- "It's like… the number of locks I need to open? Some locks have more locks in them than other locks."
- "So, something like layers of protection?"
- "Yeah something like that! Now let me focus!"
- "You got it."
- "...seven, eight, nine… ten locks… I have it!" She suddenly exclaims. "Unlock!"
- "Wait a second, don't open it this is supposed to be a tra-"
He doesn't have time to finish his sentence before the circle of grass is suddenly swapped with a massive ring of darkness that immediately swallows the three of them. They fall for a few seconds, before landing on a pile of dirt in an almost pitch black room.
- "We fell into an artificial sub-dimension, from the look of things…" Oliver comments as he reaches into his backpack and pulls out a wooden torch. He snaps his fingers and a spark lights it, shedding light on their surroundings.
The remains of the castle that the towers on the outside most likely came from were lying around them, mostly broken down into piles of blackened bricks covered by ashes. The walls of the space they were in were forming a dome, and were seemingly made of an aggregate of pure darkness.
- "Can you see any of your group members?" Oliver asks the elf.
- "..." The elf silently slides down the pile of dirt, at the bottom of which a charred skeleton is lying on the stone floor of the room. A few of its teeth were missing, replaced with small streaks of melted gold flowing into its skull. "These golden teeth… Dammit, Titus. I told you I had a bad feeling about this area… If only you listened, instead of letting your greed get the best of you…"
- "Was that one of your companions? I'm sorry." Oliver looks around the space they were confined in. "But what put him in that state?..."
- "How would I know?" The elf's gaze sweeps the area, and his expression gets more somber for every charred skeleton he finds. "Let's just get out of here. I'll come back with a team to retrieve their remains."
- "You… really shouldn't do that. That's not worth it."
- "You humans don't get it." The elf walks up to Oliver, with rage deforming his traits. "These people were my friends. I'd never let their bodies be lost inside some interdimensional dungeon trap. They at least deserve to return to nature, on the surface. No matter the cost."
- "We get it better than you think. When you assemble a team, you can always call on me if you feel like it."
- "You?..." The elf looks him up and down, as Oliver stares at him with an unwavering seriousness. "...I'll think about it."
- "Great." Oliver glances in Beatrice's direction. "Night Star, could you get us out of here, or are we just trapped for the foreseeable future?"
- "I can!" Beatrice replies, looking up at the top of the dome of darkness surrounding the area. "I just…" Her words die in her throat as she looks up at something above Oliver. "Charge!" She suddenly yells, and a large orb of lightning forms above her staff's gem.
- "What?" He also looks up, only to be met with a sphere of bricks the size of an elephant, mere centimeters away from crushing him.
- "Discharge!" Beatrice continues, pointing her staff at the boulder, and the orb of electricity flies from her staff faster than Oliver can see.
The boulder explodes into a firework of bricks as the lightning tears through it, showering Oliver with dust.
- "*Cough* What was that?!" He shouts.
- "We have a few caster living armors!" Beatrice points her staff at a set of chainmail armor standing close to the wall of darkness. It was wearing ample black robes covered with a thick layer of dust, with accents of gold trimming the edges of its sleeves. "Bolt!"
A bolt of lighting fires from the staff's gem, but before it can hit the robed armor set a wall of earth erupts from the ground and blocks the spell. The wall of earth then shifts, forming into a bulky humanoid figure with arms and legs.
- "They can create golems?..." The elf whispers. "This is bad news, let's regroup!"
The three of them climb up the dirt pile again, and they notice a few other sets of chainmail armor with similar robes emerging from the piles of bricks, and as they waved their hands the bricks and earth around them came to life, forming golems of various sizes. The largest one, standing at about five meters tall, starts slowly walking towards them, shaking the ground with each step.
- "What do we do?!" Beatrice panics. "I can't use Discharge too much, it damages my staff!" She shows them a small, new crack having formed on the blue gem mounted on said staff. Several other cracks were visible alongside it, as if the gem was going to shatter at any moment.
- "I'm not much of a fighter, and these mages are intentionally disrupting the flow of Earth magic in the room…" The elf comments, attempting to raise a pillar of dirt from the pile they were standing on. The pillar comes out bent at about 45 degrees, struggling to maintain its shape and swiftly crumbling.
- "And there's no vegetation to work with except the few emergency seeds I brought…" Oliver adds. "I'm down to using pure Fire magic. Guess I'll have to make it work."
The moment he says that, their footing starts slowly rising in the air, as if lifted by something under it. Oliver looks down and loudly swears, while Beatrice starts to recognize the thirty meter tall white skeleton that was steadily rising from the ground under them, its wide bony wings slowly stretching on its sides. Two intense flame-like glows were lighting up the skull's hollow eyes in place of irises, and they looked up to stare at the group.
- "A… dragon…" Beatrice whispers as she locks eyes with it.
- "And an undead one to boot!" Oliver yells. "Now I can't make THAT work!"
- "By Lord Solomon…" The elf's ears suddenly perk up. "We need to jump off. Now!"
Oliver immediately grabs Beatrice under his arm and takes out a small seed from his pocket before throwing it down to the ground down under. It immediately erupts into a tall oak tree with a dense foliage. He then grabs the elf under his other arm and jumps down, landing in the tree. The branches slow down their descent, and he absorbs the brunt of the impact as they land on the ground next to the dragon. The latter's bones burst into flames, illuminating the entire room like a ginormous bonfire.
- "That's a sight straight from hell…" Oliver comments, running away from the tree as it catches on fire and is reduced to cinders in a matter of seconds.
- "I understand what killed my companions now." The elf looks up at the burning dragon. "Nothing short of overwhelming power like that would've done them in."
- "There's no way we're killing that, we need to find the necromancer!" Oliver puts Beatrice and the elf down as the skeletal dragon slowly turns towards them. Beatrice sits on the floor, her hands trembling with fear.
- "You know as well as I do that whatever's animating that thing is not in there with us right now." The elf says. "Any creature using necromancy in the Rose usually just hides away and leaves their undeads with simple orders."
- "...Nyx, I… I need your help right now." Beatrice quietly prays. She gets no response, and exhales. "Well, I tried… I figured you wouldn't actually hear my prayers but still… I'll just have to try to do it myself then, just like you do!"
Beatrice gets up and dusts herself off, before pointing her staff at the dragon, with steady hands. The blue gem crackles with electricity, temporarily lighting up her face. Fear was gone from her crimson eyes, replaced with a hesitant determination, as though she was forcing herself to have the necessary courage to face the undead towering above them.
- "Charge." She commands, and a new orb of lightning forms. The gem cracks again, its blue glow slightly flickering. She doesn't budge, as the golems around them start closing in on their location. Her black cloak flies back as she focuses as much magical energy as she could into her spell.
- "Beatrice?..." Oliver asks. "What are you doing?... We can't beat this thing! You basically need to kill undeads in one hit or they'll regenerate, and none of us has the firepower to do that!"
- "It's Night Star, and I have to do this if I want to go home. Plus the elf's friends are gonna stay buried here if we die, and we can't let that happen."
- "...You know what? You're right. Alexis still needs me to pay for the hospital fees." Oliver drops his backpack on the floor, and his entire body lights on fire. His fists are cloaked in orbs of flames, and his clothes slowly start burning. "I can't control my Fire magic that well, but as I said: I'll make it work!"
- "I'll do my best to support you." The elf adds, tapping his foot on the floor. A jagged blade of stone erupts from it, and he grabs it with one hand. "Let's target the casters controlling the golems first."
- "Leave the dragon to me!" Beatrice declares.
- "Are you insane? You're coming with us!"
- "Someone needs to keep its attention, and I don't think your fire can damage it since it's already burning and all! And the elf is too weak to do anything right now, so…"
- "The elf's name is Flavius." The elf comments. "And while you're right, you didn't have to say it."
- "Sorry Flavius, I just noticed I never asked your name!" Beatrice replies. "I think I'm taking on Nyx's habits…"
- "Alright Flavius, Beatrice, let's get to work!" Oliver clenches his fists, and the intensity of his flames rises.
Both him and Flavius rush towards the mages, taking down the smaller golems on their path. Oliver would overwhelm them with his fire, creating bursts of flames powerful enough to melt the golems and the floor under them. As he keeps pushing his magic further and further, his beard catches on fire and so does his hair. Flavius was closely following behind him, warning him when the living armors would attempt to cast spells in his direction so that he could react in time. Beatrice focuses her attention back to the dragon after seeing that, and notices it was looking at Oliver and slowly beginning to walk towards him.
- "Hey, I'm right here!" Beatrice yells, but the dragon ignores her. "...Okay then. Bolt!"
The lightning bolt fired from the staff hits the dragon's ribcage, shattering a small fraction of bones. The chunks of bones that were blown off quickly fly back to the dragon's ribcage, fully repairing it. The creature turns to stare at Beatrice, and changes course.
- "Oh, I got your attention." She freezes for a second, realizing the dragon was taking longer and longer strides, as if it was beginning to gallop. "... I think I'm dead."
The dragon chases her through the room, destroying the ruins and trampling the golems in its path. Beatrice charges her staff and pivots to face the undead.
- "Lock target!" She orders, and the staff leaves her hands. It starts floating in front of her, cloaked in sparks and rapidly spinning horizontally while the gem leaves a trail of electricity in its wake, creating a ring of lightning directed at the dragon. "Smite!" She yells.
A deafening, high pitched sound resonates through the room as the ring of lightning converges into a single point and fires towards the creature in a thin beam of plasma. When it makes contact with the dragon, it violently explodes, engulfing its head in a vortex of lightning and halting its advance. She grabs her staff with her left hand after the sparks fizzle out and the object returns to normal, before it falls to the ground. When the spell dissipates, she sees that part of the dragon's head was shattered by the force of the spell, but was quickly regenerating. While the bone fragments come back together, she feels a familiar tingling sensation in her hands.
- "(There's something locked inside its head…)" She thinks as she instinctively reaches up, her right hand extended towards the dragon's skull. "Unlock."
In response, she feels an incredible pressure weigh down on her body, as if she had just attempted to pull against a horse.
- "That's a lot of locks…" She mutters. "I'll have to touch it if I want to do it." She looks up and down at the burning skeletal dragon, who was slowly resuming its advance towards her. "But I can't touch this thing, and it's head is too high… Maybe it's not worth it. But I can't win in a fight, so that's my best chance!"
She turns around, looking for the living armors that ambushed them. She sees Oliver engaged in a fight with two of them while four golems obstructed his path, blocking his flames. Then she spots what she was looking for: a lone armor, with a metal staff in hand and working on creating a new golem. She runs towards it, closely followed by the dragon.
- "Unlock!" She taps the armor's gauntlet, and it drops its staff. Now that she looked closely at it, its headpiece was a hexagon with three white rocks floating in the middle and emitting a slight golden glow. She drops her lightning staff and picks it up before pointing it at the ground. "Golem!"
She is met with nothing but silence, and she starts panicking again as the dragon gets closer.
- "Uh, rise! Fight! Help! Rock golem! Create!" The staff faintly vibrates when she says those last two words, and her face lights up. "Create and golem?... Create golem!"
The earth she pointed at starts rising, assuming the shape of a large humanoid, until it forms a three meter tall golem. It slowly turns towards her.
- "Uh, attack!" She points the staff at the dragon.
The golem immediately shifts gears and runs towards the dragon, throwing itself at its front legs. It is also immediately melted into a puddle of magma by the intense heat of the flames covering the undead's bones.
- "I… uh… need a stronger one." She comments as she steps to the side to avoid the living armor next to her, which was chasing her while attempting to take the staff back. She glances at it, concerned. "(I can't take it down without my lightning staff… I'll just need to make sure it doesn't catch me. Wait, my lightning staff…)" She thinks as she points the staff at the floor again. "Create golem!"
Another golem emerges from the ground, awaiting orders.
- "Get bigger!" She commands, pointing the staff at it, and the golem quickly absorbs earth from its feet to triple in size. "Whoa, that worked on the first try." She notices the dragon behind the golem raising its claw to strike her down. "Golem, defend!"
The golem turns towards the dragon and raises its arms, catching the claw as it strikes down. The flames slowly start turning its arms into magma, but it still manages to hold back the attack. Meanwhile, Beatrice runs to her lightning staff to pick it back up, dodging the living armor still following her on the way. She then awkwardly runs back next to the dragon, wielding both staves to the best of her ability.
- "Create golem! Get bigger!" She points the metal staff at the ground. When the golem emerges and begins growing in size, she quickly climbs on its back before pointing towards the dragon with the staff. "Climb up to its head!"
The golem instantly runs towards the dragon and begins ascending, slowly melting as it grabbed whatever bones it could reach to gain height. The dragon seems to notice that, and loses interest in the remains of the first golem. It unhinges its jaws, a powerful orange glow beginning to emanate from its throat as it stares at Beatrice and her golem climbing up its side.
- "It's about to use its breath!" Oliver yells from a distance somewhere behind her. "Take cover!"
Beatrice, seeing the flames already exiting the undead's jaws, knew there was nothing she could do before the attack reached her. She closes her eyes, bracing for impact, but instead of flames she is only hit by a searing wave of heat. When she reopens her eyes, the stream of fire cascading from the dragon's jaws was clashing with a large ray of flames, originating from Oliver who was about thirty meters away, engulfed in a large orb of fire with both his arms outstretched towards the dragon. The light produced by the clash lights up the entire realm for a few seconds, before the flames die down and the dragon gnashes its teeth. Oliver falls to his knees, and Flavius, who had stepped away for safety, returns next to him to try to fend off the golems created by the living armors.
- "Thank you Oliver!" Beatrice shouts as her golem manages to reach the dragon's head, its limbs already almost completely melted and slowly losing height. She brandishes her lightning staff towards the dragon's head, and its fiery eyes look down at her. "Charge! Lock target, undead dragon!"
The staff leaves her hand and starts spinning like earlier, the gem's cracks emitting a cloud of sparks as the cracks spread down to its base and a high pitched sound swells around the realm.
- "This is our only chance!" She pumps her fist towards the dragon. "Discharge, maximum power!"
The staff shifts orientation, spinning vertically instead of horizontally to face the dragon. The orb floating above it and creating the ring of lightning is launched towards the dragon with so much force that Beatrice is sent flying off her golem by the shockwave. The dragon's head violently explodes, the chunks of bone being dispersed everywhere across the realm. As Beatrice begins falling, she doesn't look at the ground tens of meters under, but at the destroyed dragon's head. She couldn't see it, but she could feel its presence: an invisible lock, somewhere around the base of its neck. She reaches towards it.
- "Even if I'm not touching it… I just have to try anyway! Unlock!" She screams with all she had left.
The pressure she felt earlier returns, but she perseveres. Her hand is coated in a layer of magical energy resembling a crimson flame, as she pours every bit of remaining energy she had at her spell. Then, she feels something else, on the other side of whatever she was trying to pry open. It was also fighting as hard as it could to open the lock.
- "Who is?..." She starts asking, but she shakes her head, refusing to get distracted. "It doesn't matter, I'll free you!... Unlock- No, I need more than that! Break... Seal!"
The flame-like aura around her hand flares around her entire body, and she feels the lock finally open. The dragon immediately freezes in place, and the fire on its bones is put out.
- "I hope that worked…" Beatrice exhales, before looking down at the fast approaching ground under her. She orients her metal staff down with the last of her strength. "Create golem… please catch me…"
A golem rises from the ground and its body is immediately ground to dust, creating a pile of sand for her to land on. She painfully manages to raise her neck to look at the dragon.
- "(Did I do it?...)" She thinks, but the dragon begins walking towards her again. "Oh. I tried my best. What could I do now?..."
She is interrupted in her reflection by the dragon completely ignoring her, passing by her mound of sand to crush a certain staff-less living armor that was approaching her with its claw. It then proceeds to run around the realm, effortlessly flattening all the other living armors with an almost primal rage, along with their golems. When the last armor is turned to a half buried chunk of metal in the floor, it returns to stand in front of Beatrice and bows its head to her.
- "You helped me?..." She asks, struggling to stay conscious.
- "You actually did it…" Oliver comments as he drags himself towards her with Flavius closely following. She notices that Oliver's fingers had turned a purple-ish black.
- "Oliver, your hands!"
- "Oh that? Nothing too bad. I can still get that healed, I don't usually push my magic that far." He manages a tired smile. "But your magic can do a lot more than I thought. You just broke the spell that the necromancer was using to control the dragon, so it regained its agency."
The skeletal dragon vigorously nods in response, and Flavius flinches.
- "How terrifying." He comments.
- "Hey, dragon, you think you could help me reach the top of the realm's dome?" Beatrice asks.
The dragon immediately uses its jaws to grab her by the back of her cloak and throw her on its head. It then extends its neck up, and Beatrice places her hand on the wall of pure darkness. After a few seconds, a ray of light pierces through, as a large circular hole is opened in the ceiling. They could see the four ruined towers outside, and the gray sky above them.
- "Thank you." Beatrice pats the skull of the skeleton. "Could you also get Oliver and Flavius?"
The dragon agrees, albeit visibly begrudgingly. It unceremoniously tosses the two of them out, before it climbs out of the portal with Beatrice. Said portal slowly closes after them.
- "Let's find an exit already, I'm really tired…" Beatrice says as she lays down on the dragon's skull.
- "Yeah let's do that…" Oliver replies. "Think I could get a ride too? It's got nothing to do with the fact I always wanted to ride a dragon."
- "Sure… Ask the dragon…" Beatrice absent-mindedly replies, staring down the almost fully closed portal. She was looking at her lightning staff, the once glowing blue gem completely shattered in pieces and lying on the rocks below as darkness returned to the realm.
- "Oh I'm sorry about your old staff… But don't worry, you can always get another one. I've seen other living armor with the same model."
- "It won't be the same though…"
- "You get weirdly attached to your magic items huh? We could always have it repaired, but we'd have to come back later when we're not on the brink of death. We just gotta collect all the pieces and find a good mage artisan."
- "Sure then, I really wanna get it back…"
The dragon impatiently picks Oliver up in its jaws like a lion cub, and starts walking away followed by a bewildered Flavius. After a few minutes searching, they stopped in front of a white oval obelisk that resembled a five meter tall egg.
- "There's the exit…" Beatrice whispers as the dragon puts her down. "Thank you, uh… I should give you a name… What about Rattles?"
- "Uh, Beatrice dragons are really prideful. Even if that one respects you, that might be a bit mu-" He stops, noticing the dragon was staring at him, the flames in its eye sockets growing in intensity. "Forget it. I don't think it'll tolerate me commenting on your naming sense."
- "Well thank you Rattles! I can't bring you back to the tower, Agnes would probably notice… But don't worry I'm in the dungeon almost every day!"
Rattles gives her an understanding nod, gently pushing her towards the obelisk. When she, Oliver and Flavius go through its liquid-like surface, they find themselves on the stairs going around the dungeon.
- "Phew, I didn't think I'd fight my first real dragon today." Oliver sighs. "I'm surprised we got away with just a little necrosis on my part."
- "I thank you for your help. I mean it." Flavius solemnly says. "Earlier, I thought about never associating with humans again because of their greed, but I'll make an exception for you two. If you want to recover your staff, I can do that for you when I return for my comrade's remains."
- "That'd be really nice, thank you Flavius…" Beatrice replies, before deeply yawning and rubbing her eyes.
- "You're dangerously low on magical energy, get some rest." Flavius says as he starts climbing down the stairs. "I'll go start assembling a team already."
Oliver painfully walks with Beatrice through the dimly lit streets, and she notices the sun slowly rising in the horizon.
- "Oh. I need to go before everyone wakes up!" She panics. "Oliver, are you gonna be okay?!"
- "Don't worry about me, I'm still your senior in adventuring! I'll be okay." Oliver smirks.
- "Alright thanks! See you in a few days, after you recover!"
She dashes off, and as she passes through the main hall and removes her black cloak, folding it to avoid people asking her about it, a firm hand grabs the back of her dress.
- "Eek!" Beatrice screams. "This isn't what you think, I was-"
- "You smell of a dragon!" Angelica laughs, letting go of her. "I see I was right to not stand in your way."
- "Angelica?... Oh, you saw me earlier… Please don't tell anyone…"
- "I did not plan on doing that! You remind me of my youngest cousin, and even of myself at times. I would not want to hinder your growth! But I will be watching over you here and there. It would be bothersome if you met your end, as Julian would grieve for decades on end and Nyx would… Well, let us not speak of what Nyx would do."
- "Thank you!..." Beatrice yawns again. "But I really need to go to sleep right now…"
- "Then go! And may Almighty Serafim's blessing be with you."
Beatrice plops down in her bed when she reaches her dorm, after hiding her new staff in her closet.
- "Phew. I really thought I was done for… multiple times today. But it's weirdly kind of fun! Helping people even if I put my life in danger… but I need to be careful not to die still. Maybe I should ask Oliver for advice on how to be better at dungeon diving…"
Her thoughts stop as her mind drifts into unconsciousness, and she falls into a deep sleep. She will only wake up the next day, after a roughly twenty hour long nap, more sore than she had ever been.