Dragon Sorcerer 1- Chapter 16 (Patreon)

Chapter 16- Claws Out

The seconds were ticking by and I knew I had to act. The horror's body was a mix of burns and pustulent blisters, with streaks of shredded flesh that made it look like an abstract painting done in grisly detail. It was a sight that defied description, one that could not be easily forgotten once seen.

Galbrecht's spell or whatever that had been did a number on the creature. Even divine fire wasn't enough to completely scour it away.

This truly lived up to its name. It was a horror, an eldritch being which the mortal mind was poorly prepared to understand. Even in the dragon dream I had never seen something like this before. It was a creature that seemed to exist beyond the boundaries of reality in a way that terrorized the mind of any who beheld it.

Now was the time to act. This boon from the goddess would only last for a short time. I couldn't get stuck either in wonder at the raw power my body now contained or at the sheer wrongness of the thing in front of me.

I breathed in deeply sucking in all the air around me before I triggered my breath weapon. The magic at the top of my mouth ignited with my intent and a ten foot wide bolt of lightning blasted out of my mouth. I unleashed it at the horror.

It roared in pain, and I felt power coursing through me. It couldn't stand before me, nothing could in this moment. I kept pushing, forcing the horror back, moving it away from Galbrecht's body.

Unlike my normal limited self, my breath kept pouring out of me with deadly current. The bolt blasted a hole cleanly through the horror turning it into a donut shaped pile of mush. Blue and white arcs of lightning danced along its surface continuing to sear it with a power to rival the golden light of a goddess which had been unleashed on it earlier.

It refused to die though and lashed out at me. Seared tentacles tried to latch onto me in a final desperate attempt. I could see it trying to reach out to me, to touch me with its tentacles, but even at this massive size I was too fast. I was a blur of wings and claws and lightning as I swung my tail batting the monstrosity away from me.

The monster would strike at me in a rippling mass of flesh. My scales protected me some even though I felt the draining effect of its unnatural touch. I leapt up into the air and hovered there with great beats of my wings, but as much as dragons are creatures of the air, I couldn't fly away. This had to end now, so back to the ground I went.

Each step of my clawed feet ripped the ground up beneath me. Dirt or rock it didn't matter, both were the soft clay which my claws tore through. My wings beat giving me room to move and producing gusts of wind which ripped the leaves off trees hundreds of feet away.

The only thing I refused to do was bite down on it. It's touch sapped my strength in tiny bits and I grew to appreciate the buffs which Galbrecht had cast before being overcome. The protective aura especially lessened the draining attacks of the horror.

It thrust out at me again and the tendrils somehow hardened into spears which even managed to pierce the scales of a wyrm. The wounds weren't deep but I roared in pain. How dare this thing damage me. I was power incarnate, a dragon elder, the rightful ruler of this world. Nothing could be allowed to take that from me.

Part of me knew that was who I might become but I wasn't there yet. Another part felt the power of this body and got lost in it. I lashed out with claws which ripped the horror open again. I shredded its flesh and cut it into piles. Sometimes those piles moved back together.

The very air around me reeked of ozone as my body gave off a natural current. The horror was not the only one who's simple touch was deadly. The power of a wyrm was not to be underestimated.

I continued to fight, the power I felt growing greater and greater. I could feel something within me, something that was waiting to be unlocked. I was going to have to figure out how to do it. My claws ripped through the creature again and again, but it kept coming back, stronger than before.

It's strength was one of desperation though. Our battle leveled the area around us and somehow through it all, I kept shifting my body, taking the blows which would have killed the unconscious paladin. His body served as the eye of the storm. Everything around him was raw destruction, but he was untouched.

As the fight moved faster and became more frantic, it was increasingly difficult to protect the body of the fallen paladin. I couldn't hear his heart beating over the gut wrenching screams of the horror but his goddess had said I needed to save him, so I would.

My time in this form was winding down but claw, tail, and electricity had ripped the horror apart so completely that the various mounds of flesh shuddered before one by one they seemed to wink out dissipating into a puff of black smoke.

The battle was won and I could feel my gifted strength fading. My body was already beginning to shrink. While I still had it I made sure to use the power to cleaned the ground around me.

I reared back and blew out a plume of dancing ball lightning. It almost looked like blue, liquid flames. The heat was so intense that it melted the very dirt and rocks. Only then was I satisfied that the horror was no more.

Shrunk to somewhere between my normal size and that of the wyrm I had been blessed to become, I stood over Galbrecht. The heat seemed to have seared his skin causing blisters, but I could hear his heart now and saw the slow rising of his chest.

His eye lids fluttered, revealing his normal eyes. The white orbs which had been there while he was possessed of the power of the goddess were gone. For a brief instant I thought I saw recognition in his eyes but then they rolled up into his head and he passed out again.

I felt weaker and weaker by the moment as I transformed back to my normal self. No, that wouldn't do. I had to resume the human shape if I was going to maintain my charade.

A large part of me wanted to simply step upon the paladin. He'd been one of those who drove my from my home even if he didn't realize I was that same young dragon. He had helped to slay my sister and deserved death. But I was confused by the words he had said earlier and needed to know what he'd meant. Well that and I'd made a deal with his goddess for the power to destroy the horror.

His reckoning would come in the future, but now I needed to learn more. My form continued to shrink until I ended up back in human shape lying a few feet from Galbrecht. The strain fully hit me then and I lost consciousness. Only as I faded out did I feel a faint surge of magic. What it meant; I didn't know.

Once my mind was freed from the body and tunneled deep into my subconscious, I heard that voice again. “Well done, wyrm. See, we aren’t all bad. You have much growing to do, but your strength will be needed in the future. Now rest. There is time, and this battle is for another day.”

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While I was unconscious I didn’t see what happened around me. A party of three adventurers appeared in a flash of teleportation magic. If I’d been awake, I would have recognized them. They were the last three from the attack on my layer. The old wizard held out a staff. The crystal atop it blazed while the man next to him had a bow out and arrow nocked. The beautiful woman on his other side held up hands covered in a golden light which bore a great resemblance to what had surrounded Galbrecht before.

She gasped, “By Miseria, what happened here.” Then she saw Galbrecht and ran to him crying out, “No, no, it can’t be.”

She fell to her knees and draped herself over him. It wasn’t that she loved him, at least not romantically. He was simply a hero of the church, a chosen of the goddess. He was the only one alive who still possessed even a limited avatar ability. To be blessed so richly was a dream of hers but now she only worried for Galbrecht.

Hearing his heart beating within his chest made her relax a bit. The burns along his skin worried her. They seemed to indicate he had been exposed to a great deal of heat. In fact, looking at the ground, she could see where rock  had been boiled but then cooled just as rapidly. Trees all around them for at least three hundred feet were knocked down but despite obvious scorch marks the forest was not a wild blaze. She smiled. The goddess was good. This had to be a lingering remnant of her power.

Lisella looked down at Galbrecht again and sent out a pulse of her power into him. The divine magic of the goddess of healing coursed from her hands into him. He didn’t move. Every little bruise, scrap, the burns and blisters and even pulled muscles all disappeared before that healing touch, but he remained unconscious.

She cast another spell meant to determine what was wrong with him and realized he wasn’t hurt. He was simply exhausted by having channeled a power beyond the scope of what any human was meant to experience. She looked up and realized the wizard was looking down at her.

Liam, their ranger, was ever vigilant. There were no threats that she could see or feel, but he continued to stalk around the flattened forest looking for any sign of danger. His bow was still at the read even though he had relaxed the tension on his draw.

“You can tell Liam to relax. Galbrecht used his divine avatar ability. Nothing could have survived that.”

“I’m not so sure, but I do agree that the danger is gone. I sense a great deal of arcane energy here not just divine magic. And…” The wizard’s words trailed off as he stuck his tongue out like he was tasting the air. “Hmm… there was something else, but it is entirely gone now. I can’t quite place it. A wrongness which has been set right, perhaps.”

Lisella smiled. She didn’t expect Serius to have the same faith she did. He was a wizard after all. He needed to measure things, control them or at least he needed to feel in control.

The wizard said, “I take it our companion is well.”

She nodded.

“Then perhaps you should tend your other patient.”

Confusion went across her face until she followed the wizard’s eyes. There not more than a dozen feet away was a completely naked young man. Even from here she could see his chest rising and falling. She rose and walked over to him. His flesh seemed smooth like only the young can enjoy. He cut a decent figure of a man and Lisella was glad the goddess of healing wasn’t some prude who denied her followers basic enjoyments.

She had no desire for the young man, she was likely closer to his mother’s age than his age, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t admire him for a second. Then she sighed and knelt down once again. Her spell sought out what was wrong with the young man and once again she sensed a deep exhaustion that went beyond what anyone could bear.

It made sense with Galbrecht. His ability to channel a sliver of the goddess’ own power was impressive but it came with a price. Such things always did. But why then would this mere boy seem to have been touched by that same power. It was confusing but she could find nothing that needed healing in him.

“He’s not hurt, just exhausted, like Galbrecht.”

The wizard smiled at her. “So we have a mystery to solve.”