The Dragonborn Comes: Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen:  Skeletal Dragons

*Play:  Death or Sovngarde (Skyrim OST)*

The fearsome undead beast that Hornet and Sofia encountered let out an ear-piercing roar.  Sofia attempted to communicate with the creature with no avail.

“I don’t get it,” she said, “Why isn’t my amulet allowing me to talk to the dragon?”

Hornet’s face lit up with confusion.

“Wait, your amulet is enchanted?” Hornet asked.

Sofia nodded, “It allows…”

But she wasn’t able to finish, as the skeletal dragon blasted a large fireball in her direction.

“Look out!” Hornet shouted, stepping in front of Sofia in an attempt to save her life.

Upon the fireball’s collision against the blade of Hornet’s weapon, it let out a vigorous explosion, exerting a great amount of expelling force and pushing Hornet and Sofia back several meters.  Sofia escaped unharmed, whilst Hornet managed to absorb several scorch marks on his armor.

“Never mind about that the amulet right now, first we take care of this dragon.”

Sofia simply agreed, the amulet’s secret would have to wait.

*Play:  Venus Fire (Thunder Force III OST)*

The undead dragon charged forward at the two individuals, but Hornet evaded the attack by shifting to his left, while Sofia dove forward to evade.  The creature slammed into an ice-coated wall, its horns stuck in the thick covering of icy rock.

“Now’s our chance,” Hornet told Sofia, “Go for the wings, that should disable it from freeing itself from the wall.”

But despite their luck, the distraction was short-lived.  The skeletal dragon managed to free itself from the wall immediately after Hornet finished speaking, cracking one of its horns in the process.

“Never mind that,” Sofia said in fear.

The beast then fired a strange breath weapon at the two heroes.  Striking them off guard.

“Ack!” Sofia coughed violently, “What is this stuff?”

“I don’t know,” Hornet replied, coughing from the breath emission as well, “But it seems to be hindering our health condition.”

Suddenly, the undead dragon stood at full stature and began to blast a series of fireballs at the young princess and the Dragonborn.  They responded by hiding behind a large chunk of thick ice. 

The dragon realized the obstacle that the two individuals were hiding behind and crushed it with the cranium of its skull, shattering the chunk of ice into pieces Hornet attempted to lunge at the undead beast with a devastating blow from his sword, but he was caught off guard when the dragon blasted another fireball immediately after its previous attack.  The blast managed to knock the Dragonborn unconscious. 

Seeing the recent turn of events flash before her eyes.  Sofia watched in fear as the dragon prepared to obliterate the hero by biting him in the chest.  She decided to prevent Hornet’s untimely demise by rushing to his fallen weapon and countered the dragon’s would be finishing blow by shoving the blade of the sword into the dragon’s lower jaw, and bursting it out of the its skull.  The undead beast roared in agony from the mortal blow, before falling inanimate, killed from Sofia’s counter attack.

Sofia’s sigh of relief turned into a gasp of concern when she realized that her friend was still wounded from the dragon attack.  She ran over to Hornet, who was still unconscious, and spotted that is armor on his torso was broken away and the exposed skin that was originally covered from it was scorched from the fireball’s blast.  But to make things worse, there was also a deep gash on his heart, possibly caused by the dragon’s sharp teeth.  Seeing the mortal injury, Sofia’s eyes began to water.

“I’m sorry Hornet, I should’ve done something to prevent you from meeting this unfortunate fate.” she lamented.

She placed her hand onto the deep wound on Hornet’s heart.  Suddenly, she saw a purple glow illuminate below her; she looked down and saw that the glow was coming from her amulet.  She then remembered the inscription about her amulet in Cedric’s spell book.

“With each deed performed, for better or worse, a power is granted, a blessing or curse.”

Suddenly, Sofia spotted her hand began to glow a golden yellow from the corner of her eye.  When she continued to watch this, she noticed Hornet’s wound began to close and his armor reconstruct from the damage in the recent battle.  She then realized, she had committed a noble deed, from saving Hornet’s life from this certain death, the amulet granted her the power to heal and revived her fallen friend.

Suddenly, Hornet let out a loud gasp as he awoke from the coma he was in.  When he opened his eyes, the first thing he gazed upon was Sofia’s face.

“So-fia?” Hornet spoke, obviously groggy from the recent battle, “Are we......in Sovngrade?”

Sofia laughed softly, “No silly, I just saved your life, all thanks to by amulet.”

Hornet’s eyes suddenly lit up, “Oh right, your amulet, so what was it that makes it special?”

“Alright,” she spoke, “I might as well reveal its secret to you.  Hornet, my amulet was given to me by my father, the King of Enchancia as a welcoming gift to the joining of his family.  I learned from the court wizard, Mr. Cedric that its can grant me blessings or curses depending on the actions I preform.”

“Is that so?” Hornet asked.

“It is, and I think from saving your life, the amulet blessed me with the power to heal.”

Hornet looked down, and noticed that his armor appeared almost like new.  “Whoa, I guess you aren’t kidding, the scorch marks on my armor look as though they just disappeared.

Sofia smiled and helped the Dragonborn to his feet, then handed him his sword.

“I guess we should get a move on then, I see a passage out of here on the opposite side from where we entered,” Hornet replied.

“I agree,” Sofia added, “Hopefully, we’ll join up with our friends soon.”

They then continued forward into the cavern, but soon, Sofia learned that something else was now bothering her.

“Hey Hornet, I was wondering, why do you go by the strange name of yours?”

“It’s a long story, but I’ll just make it short, it’s actually a nickname that sort of acts like a title in my kingdom.  My real name is Morja*, which means ‘Wasp’.  I decided that I would go by a name relating to the meaning of my name, but with more vigor, which later grew into ‘Hornet’.”

Sofia pondered to Hornet’s (or rather Morja’s) explanation.

“Well, why don’t you go by your original name?”

“Hmm, I never thought about that,” the Dragonborn wondered, “We’ll see, but for now, there’s a crisis to deal with at the moment, so we better put my real name aside for now.”

Sofia sighed in defeat.

“Alright.”

*Play:  Truth (Thunder Force III OST)*

Meanwhile, Anna and Elsa were dealing with a similar problem of their own.

“Anna, I suggest you take cover, I’ll try my best to fend off this fiend,” Elsa instructed her younger sister.

Anna rolled her eyes, and hid behind a pile of rubble.  Elsa then turned back to the dragon and blasted it with her cryokinetic power.

The blast managed to slow down the undead dragon’s movement by coating its bones slightly, but the dragon ultimately endured the attack and lunged at the Snow Queen, knocking her back.  It then blasted the queen with a virulent breath.

“What…is this stuff?”  The Snow Queen wheezed.

The dragon suddenly attacked once more, this time in an attempt to bite her head off.  Elsa narrowly escaped this, but the grip managed to nip her cape, ripping it from her dress in the process.

Elsa fended off the beast by spraying a wall of ice spikes in the direction of the dragon.  The dragon tried evading the attack, but the wall moved to fast that it caused the dragon to fall on its back.

“Now that should settle this conflict,” she smirked, before turning back towards Anna, “Let’s make our…”

Suddenly, the dragon whipped Snow Queen from her feet, and knocked her hard against one of the stone columns, causing her hair to unbraid from the force as well as the column to fracture and then collapse.

“Elsa!”  Anna yelled, before turning her attention to the skeletal dragon, “Leave my sister alone you monster!”

Anna then charged at the beast, pulling out her torch and then jamming it into one of the dragon’s teeth, the dragon roared angrily as the princess yanked the tooth straight out of the dragon’s jaw with the sconce.   She then scorched the dragon’s skeletal face with a potent swing of her torch.  With the dragon distracted, she decided to finish off the dragon by jumping on its back and jabbing its vertebrate with the handle of her torch shattering one of the segments entirely, and separating the dragon’s skull, neck, ribcage, and arms from the rest of it’s skeleton.  The dragon let out a moaning of defeat, before falling limp, dead from the fatal blow by Anna’s torch.

Anna began to hyperventilate from the extreme action, but she gave more concern to Elsa’s condition than her own.  She quickly scurried over to her sister with the energy she had left.

“Elsa, are you alright?”

“Ack, I’m okay,” she replied to Anna’s relief, “But…oh god, my back hurts.”

Anna assisted her older sister up from the fallen column, but when began to walk, Elsa had groaned painfully after only a few steps.

“Maybe I should assist you for now, just until the pain in your back stops,” Anna told her sister.

“Indeed,” Elsa replied, “I think that would be best.”

Anna assisted Elsa by lending her hand on Elsa’s back as the two of them continued deeper into the cavern

*Play:  The Grubby Dark Blue (Thunder Force OST)*

In another part of the crypt, third group consisting of Amber, James, Calla, and the spirit of her sword Aphrodite were all facing the same problem.

“Amber, James, I need you two to take cover behind something, that way you won’t get harmed.

“Oh come on, I want to fight the dragon,” James whined.

“Do what they said James,” Amber commanded”

James grunted angrily and the twins hid behind a large column of ice.  Aphrodite and Calla on the other hand stood their ground and prepared to brace themselves in the brutal battle with the undead dragon, which began to fire ice spikes at the two ladies.

“Whoa,” Calla responded, “That was close.”

Suddenly, the dragon blasted the two of them with its toxic breath while they were communicating.

“Ah!  By the Gods!  What is this stuff?!” The Goddess of Love coughed out.

“I don’t know,” Calla wheezed, “But it seems harmful.”

The dragon then rushed at the two girls and slashed at them with its skeletal claws tearing both of their dress slightly and knocking them back.

“This sure is a doozy,” Calla commented.

She then prepared to strike the dragon with a dropkick, but the dragon countered this my grabbing her les with its mouth.  Aphrodite attempted to free Calla from the grasp, whilst distracting the dragon with naturakinetic bolts of energy.  It proved susceptible to the dragon, but after several attacks the dragon threw Calla at the goddess, knocking them both to the ground.

“Man this battle is tougher than usual.” Calla moaned.

“Wait, I have an idea that, like, just might work.” Aphrodite spoke up.

She then turned towards the twins’ hiding place, catching their attention of their faces.

“Amber, James sweetie, I want you to cause a distraction on the dragon while Calla and I bring an end to this battle, kay?”

James’ face lit up with excitement, while Amber rolled her eyes.  They then ran out from the cover they were hiding behind and began to catch the dragon’s attention.  The dragon began to spin in confusion with the direction of the twins’ movements as Aphrodite reverted to the form of Life Bringer, and Calla took hold of it before proceeding to sneak up onto the dragon. 

James managed to attract the dragon more successfully than his twin sister, causing it to follow and exterminate him instead of Amber, Calla, or Aphrodite.  He managed to evade the dragon’s fireballs and toxic shouts like breeze, until he became cornered against the wall, leaving him out of ideas.

“Umm, Calla, can you hurry up?  I need some help here, or else I’m going to end up as dragon meat.”

Just before the dragon was going to finish off James with a massive fireball.  Calla caught the undead reptile off guard, before raising her sword, which began to glow a bright green, and then throwing it directly at the dragon, causing it to lodge into its back.  James quickly escaped the dragon’s clutches as the sword began to vibrate vigorously, before expelling a large blast of ice and naturakinetic essence, and blinding everyone in the chamber momentarily.  Upon the glare fading away they saw the dragon encased inside a think block of ice, but with its dark purple flesh now visible, appearing as though it was alive.  Amber became disgusted at one visible feature:  the compound eyes in its sockets.

“Oh, god, I can’t look” Amber complained, becoming nauseous from the sight.

Suddenly, Life Bringer, which was lodged on top of the block of ice, began to glow once more and transform back into Aphrodite again.

“Get back everyone,” Aphrodite instructed the group, motioning them away from the frozen dragon.

Aphrodite’s warning became clear soon enough, for a moment later, the frozen block containing the dead dragon burst into millions of smaller icy shards that flung out in all directions.  Everyone took cover behind an icy column, which sustained several impacts from the shards.

“That…was amazing!” James shouted.

“Really, we almost got killed by that fiend,” Amber scolded her brother.

“Enough arguing, we still need to find that prophecy we came to search for, so lets find a way out of here,” Calla instructed the twins.

James pointed over to an open passage at the side of the chamber, and then the four of them continued to wonder deeper into the cavern once more.  Hoping to find the aforementioned prophecy to defeating the World-Eater soon enough.

*”Morja” originates from the Latin meaning for “Wasp”