Dragon Sorcerer 1- Chapter 25 (Patreon)

Chapter 25- Call it a Draw.

The were-tiger moved first as he launched himself at me with claws extended. Before I would have tried to dodge, maybe counter with a punch, but now I drew in a breath and let the instincts crammed into me by the magic of the system and my transformation take over.

I pivoted but into him, cutting short his momentum short with an elbow as I latched onto his wrist and then flowed with him. His remaining momentum went to work for me and he was flipped over. My foot came up and stomped down, but he was fast enough to avoid getting his head caved in, just barely.

He still yelped when the heel of my foot was driven down into his ear. As he rolled away he lost a piece of that ear and now had blood freely running down the size of his face and matting his fur. He growled at me, but some twisted kitty cat wasn’t going to intimidate me.

Taunting was part of any good battle and I couldn’t help myself, but then again was it really snark if you were a dragon. “What’s the matter pussy cat. Feeling too slow.”

“I don’t know how you’re doing this. Even with buffs a human shouldn’t be faster than me.”

I laughed deeply. “Who said anything about me being human.”

Then I went on the offensive. I launched forward firing off a flurry of blows, but it was only meant to distract him. He blocked and I felt his claws slice into my skin more than once. Such petty concerns were beneath my notice. He was losing and I was pushing him right to where I wanted him.

A second later his feet bumped up against the corpse of his friend and he lost his balance. It’s only natural to slightly flail your arms when that happens. A master fight might not have done so, but I got the feeling he was more of a kill you in your sleep kinda fighter than a hand to hand expert.

As his arms went wide. I fired off a side kick with all of my weight behind it. The force drove into his midsection and crushed the spot on him where the xiphoid process would be on a human. Since I assumed they were at least partially human I hoped it would have the same affect. Sure enough I felt something break beneath my foot as all the air was driven from his lungs.

Hopefully, he now had a chunk of cartilage bouncing around inside him, lacerating his organs. He deserved the pain after what his friend did to Cami. No one touches my serv… No. No one touches my friends. It was another odd admission but I drew power from it. I could feel that she was still alive but was fading. I needed to end this quickly.

I capitalized on the fact he couldn’t breath and landed a blow to the side of his head. The magical knuckled cause the damage to result in a shattered jaw. Then I laced my fingers behind the back of his head and yanked downward introducing his face to my knee- repeatedly. Since his jaw was broken and he couldn’t bit down I felt safe doing so.

Within seconds his face looked like raw meat. I wanted to make him suffer for his sins but couldn’t waste the time. I drove a foot up into his grown and felt his body crumple as I drove that particular piece of anatomy back up inside him. Then I drove foot down hard on the top of his crushing the bones there.

His body reflexively jerked back but he was in pain everywhere. It resulted in his throat being exposed. I drove my fist into it and once again the knuckles did their job as his windpipe was completely crushed. For good measure I hit it twice more. I wanted to make sure the damage was so severe he wouldn’t be able to regenerate before he suffocated.

When he hit the ground I spared two seconds to quickly slam my foot down into his rib cage. With my dragon empowered and magically buffed strength I twisted that foot and broke loose the ribs I had just broken until they punctures his lungs. I could see that he was trying to cough up blood but his throat was so completely crushed that nothing could get though. Now it was only a question of whether he’d suffocate or drown in his own blood first.

Then I turned my back on him like the trash that he was and raced over to Cami. I wished I had magic which would heal her. I cursed the world for making me care about someone only to have to watch them slowly fade in my arms. I did wrap her wounds to slow the bleeding.

“I’ve got you, Cami. Just hold on. Lisella will be back soon.”

She tried to say something back to me but I placed a finger against her lips. “No, save your strength. I’ve been stupid. We have a lot to talk about. I can’t be controlled by the past. The dragon dream is meant to give me knowledge not to set my path. I’m sorry it took you getting hurt like this to make me realize that.”

I saw hope in her eyes but also felt her fading. Dammit, what was taking the adventures so long. Serius had made it seem like they had things all in hand. I even contemplated calling out to Miseria. Maybe the goddess of healing would amend our deal and save Cami. I shuddered at what she might demand for such a boon, but knew I was ready to pay most any price.

Before I could even call out though someone stepped through the portal in the air. Or something. He was a good seven feet tall and slender in light robes of white and silver which were torn and covered in blood, only some of which seemed to be his own. He was panting and leaning heavily on a staff which had the head of a wyvern across its top.

Wyvern weren’t dragons but they were distant cousins. I didn’t feel any particular fury about his staff but more curiosity about what he was. His features were humanoid but also something like an ogre, if an ogre was skinny and emaciated. Atop his forehead he had a single curved horn that extended up six inches.

When he saw the scene before him his eyes darted from us to the dead and dying were-tigers. “Ah, so they had proteges they were protecting. This makes more sense now.”

Then I felt a buildup of magic from the other side of the portal. He must have felt the same thing because one second he was just barely on our side of the doorway and the next instant his body flashed behind us in a blinking motion. I moved to react to him, but holding Cami made me far too slow. A supernatural chill started to fill the air around me and I felt an aura of ice magic which would quickly kill Cami and might very well do me in. Whoever or whatever this was, he wasn’t to be underestimated. My memory was tickled by his appearance but I couldn’t place it for sure.

Then fire exploded through the portal. A second later Galbrecht rushed through. His sword was up but his shield arm hung limply at his side. Modessa and then Serius followed behind the paladin.

Serius said, “Let them go. You’re troll is nothing but ash now. You are finished.”

A blade of ice grew from the creatures hand which I now noticed ended in clawed fingertips. It went straight to Cami’s throat and only stopped after indenting the flesh. His other hand wagged a finger at the wizard.

“I admit I wasn’t prepared for the five of you today, but I don’t think you expected us either. We’ll just have to call today a draw. Hopefully your archer can learn to shoot a bow with only one arm and one eye.” The creature laughed in glee at the last of its words.

“This isn’t a draw. You can’t stop us. My magic will fry you where you stand and these two are eager to draw your blood. Face it, you’re out classed but we at least will show mercy and give you a quick death.”

The creature gestured with its head to the were-tiger who was thrashing about weakly in the final throes of its death. “Mercy like that? But no I don’t think so. You don’t realize the spell I cast. I created a twenty-foot ice spear. Sure it seems to only be a couple feet long now, but that’s because I’m holding it back by willpower. If that is broken in the slightest or I simply let go, her head will be freed from her body by a spear of ice and then I’ll kill this other child. Are you willing to lose the two of them just to keep me from leaving?”

Modessa started to make a threat but Serius cut her off. “Fine, we’ll call it a draw. Cast whatever emergency evacuation spell you have but if your hand slips and either of the children die, there is no where you can go that is far enough. I swear upon my name as a grand magus of the Imperial University that we will find you and your death with be something for the legends as we allow students to slowly dissect you in inform them about the processes of pain and healing.”

The creature growled at the threat but then I felt him shift back. His body dematerialized into wind and ice and was soon ripping away faster than even a dragon could fly. A fireball launched from Serius’ fingers and exploded in the midst of the creatures blizzard form but wasn’t enough to stop it. It coalesced again and then was off with a howling scream.

Galbrecht said, “You told him he could leave but then attacked him.”

Serius simply muttered, “Grow up.”

Modessa had already rushed to Cami and was kneeling next to where I cradled her. Her eyes were darting over the wounds and my crude attempts at bandages. She looked back, “Get Lisella. Now!”

She needn’t have worried as a moment later the priestess came through the portal. Liam, the half-elven ranger was leaning on her for support. His injuries were much as described by the creature, but I didn’t care. The only sympathy I had in the world was all reserved for Cami.

Galbrecht took over supporting their ranger while Lisella ran to Cami. A part of me expected her to demand that I accept her as my mentor in order to heal Cami. I would have agreed, and then killed her the first chance I got, but to her credit she didn’t even so much as glance at me. All her attention was on Cami.

“Oh, you poor girl, you really are tougher than you look.”

Then her hands glowed golden and the wounds I could still see beyond the bandages began to visibly close before my eyes. I tried to pay attention to the magic, but the twists and swirls of the spell pattern were far too complex for me to understand. The spell must be at a tier beyond my capability.

Cami let out a sigh. The pain on her face faded and our connection told me she was no longer in danger of dying. Her wounds were not entirely healed. I unwrapped the bandages and saw that the deeper wound in her neck was still there although it wasn’t bleeding and had at least partially closed up.

“Can you heal her more.”

Lisella looked tired. “I’m pretty drained and some of the other still need more healing just as badly as she does.”

“Yes, but they’re adventurers. They knew the risks. She is a student and to be protected.”

The priestess’ face grew flush but she didn’t move or cast another spell. I knew I was getting to her though and wasn’t above manipulating her a bit further. “If you want to be my mentor you’re just going to have to trust me. Use another healing spell on her but nothing above Tier 3. Preferably Tier 1 or 2.”

Her eyebrow arched. “Does this mean that you’ll accept me as your mentor and learn divine magic?”

“Not yet, but you’ll have to give me some trust and show that I can trust you.” What I didn’t say was that I couldn’t see how I’d ever be able to fully trust her after her role in killing my sister.

“Okay, I don’t know why it’s that important right now. She is resting easy, but as a gesture of good faith. I’ll cast one more spell on her. Then I have to check on Liam and Galbrecht some more.”

“Can you tell me the name of the spell you’re going to cast. Oh and what Tier is it.”

“Fine, you are a student or will be. Teaching is never a bad thing. For this situation she doesn’t need a quick heal like I just used. Heal of time spells are like regeneration. They are more mana efficient in that they provide a greater amount of healing for less mana but the healing occurs over a longer period of time. That could be anything from a few second to a few days depending on the caster’s specializations, what god they follow, and the tier of the spell.

“In this case, I’ll just cast Lesser Regeneration. It will cause her to regenerate as much health every minute as she normally would in an hour. Thus it works better on those with higher Durability but also is very mana efficient. Oh and it’s Tier 2.”

With that she set her hands on Cami’s face and shoulder and I saw the golden glow. It was much more subdued this time but I could also follow the flow of the mana. The pattern made sense to me. I committed it to memory and sure enough a second later got the notification, I was hoping for.

You may choose to add the spell Identification to you Tier 2 Innate Spells. Do you wish to do so? Note you may only ever know six Tier 2 Innate Spells and while it is possible to change them out later it will cost you DKP to do so.”

Given that as I aged my durability would become fairly impressive, I knew this was a perfect spell for a dragon. More than that it was the first healing spell I’d gained access to. The fact that I could learn it confirmed that I did have an aptitude for divine magic. I didn’t know if that was because of the interaction I’d had with Miseria before or if it was something I was born with. My memories indicated that the number of dragons in my lineage which had healing abilities were very limited and mostly it had been from a rare variant of our breath weapon.

Lesser Regeneration- Tier 2 spell. This spell causes the target to regenerate as much health as they would naturally heal in an hour ever minute. Limbs and other things which cannot be regenerated naturally by the creature (unless it has such an ability) will not be healed as a result of this spell. The spell may be stacked up to five times. The spell is automatically successful against any target which will not be harmed by the effect and will thus bypass any magic resistance. This spell comes from the domain of Miseria.  Mana: 12.  Cast Time: 6 seconds. Cool-Down: 30 seconds. Range: touch. Duration: 5 minutes per caster level.

Even with casting Force Darts and Identification three times each in a short period of time, I still had half my mana. The regeneration rate for mana was a bit worrisome because I don’t think I had gained more than a single point during the entire conflict, but I’d search the dragon dream for more information about that.

I smiled at Lisella who had smiled at me after casting the spell. Then I set my hands on Cami and began casting Lesser Regeneration.

“What? I thought it was just a fluke before. There is no way your mother could have taught you this spell unless she was a follower of Miseria.”

I ignored her or perhaps took a measure of enjoyment in her confusion. But I took even more satisfaction in watching as my copy of the spell stacked onto Lisella’s. Now she was receiving two hours of healing every minute and I knew once the cool-down was over I’d stack it again.