‘HIC SUNT DRACONES’

The chanting of the crowd died as a new threat presented itself. As one, everyone turned to the disturbance. As one, we all grew fearful at once.

I could see the Gnomes in abject terror all begin to prostrate themselves as if confronting their God. I turned to follow all the eyes and heard a manic sound stretch out and around which seemed to emanate from the depths of hell and reverberate within the confines of the arena. It was a roar that made the earth shake and by some strange coincidence my knees shook too. No, I wasn’t scared. That was just a rumour.

Beside me the Scalar all fell to their faces as if Allah himself was before us. I was not so easily cowed. I only went so far as my knees but I retained an upright posture. Perhaps being more curious, or perhaps more cautious and wanting to identify the threat with my eyes.

At the crater center, amidst the swirling vapours, which now seemed to twirl in an even more agitated way, a bird appeared. Well I say ‘bird’ loosely. It was bird shaped if you consider a bird the size of a house a normal thing, and as it drew closer, it also grew in size and from regular house size it went to Jumbo 747 sized. It was at this point that I saw it. I truly saw it, and it made me flinch with uncontrolled terror. It was a freaking dragon!

Not just any dragon mind you.

On one side it was a brilliant unblemished golden color. Sparkling and reflecting light in fantastical brilliance and in contrast, the other half of its body separated almost exactly down the middle was a deathly rotten color, like a desiccated corpse.

Hues of sickly green mixed with pale grey and shadow black. How the leathery wilted wing on the one side could keep up with the magnificent golden appendage on the other was beyond me.

As it circled up and around in the air, the Gnomes all intoned a low keening. A kind of sycophantic exaltation that rose in pitch and volume to goad the beast hither. Its enormous proportions casting a blanketing shadow as it swooped over us, the wind of its passing lifting sand and a swirl of dust.

After circling a few times it came to rest right between our little cohort on the edge of the moat and Artoo’s throne of importance at the wall’s edge. The creature still towered over him, despite his height in the box seating. I still hadn’t figured out what was going on, but my Identify skill was glitching.

“Golden Dragon Level ?”

then a second later it changed:

“Undead Dragon Level ?”

and a second later it changed again to “Golden Dragon”. It was as if the skill couldn't decide which of the two creatures it was. To me it was pretty clear that this was a combination of the two and that the terror I felt in my legs was a good indication of what a bad place I was in. Why had it come off its island refuge?

It turned then, a massive head the size of a bus. The one eye alive with possibility that seemed to reflect galaxies within its depths, while the other eye was as dead as the desiccated flesh surrounding it.

I gulped.

“Why do you not bow in servitude?” came a reasonable voice. “Do you know what happens to those who disrespect me?” It was a female voice. Perhaps a slight lisp at the edges, but pleasant enough. Nothing like what you would expect from such a mighty beast, although let it be said, the voice wasn’t a whisper. In fact it was rather demanding and I doubt a single person in that whole crater missed what she said.

I gathered my will to reply. Because almost every part of me had already gone to jelly just because she was talking to me. My mind, hardly able to produce coherent thought.

Abruptly a screech emanated from its maw that took on words.

“Bow down you wretch! Grovel before your betters” and the malevolent presence I had felt throughout the proceedings pressed down on me like the World on Atlas’s shoulders. That the two discordant voices had emanated from the same creature, in fact from the very same throat, was a marvel and then again not so surprising. BURT threw some warning notifications in my direction but I was already heeding their advice.

“Down! Get down now!”

“Way ahead of you buddy!” was my succinct internal reply.

I prostrated amidst my fellows and the creature's gaze swept over us. Once the creature had looked around, it gave a mighty inhale, then huffed as it breathed out. It settled its penetrating glare back on Artoo.

“There is Dark upon the air. I smell it. I feel it, but like the shadow, it is gone the moment I caste my thoughts upon it. What have you done bringing the forbidden magics to my hallowed halls?” The screeching halted, stilted, and then the pleasant voice rang out more reasonable and more bearable. “Lord Artoo, you made a pact, would you break it now?”

Artoo’s voice replied, tremulous but still confident. He was small, but the dude had huge cojones! “I have done no such thing, my Queen. I have no such thought in mind. Everything I do is as you command.”

“Then why have the Darks been sensed?” A screech again, but slightly more modified and less accusatory. Almost puzzled.

“I have no idea, my Queen. But I will get to the bottom of it. Perhaps one of the new beasts we acquired have some latent Dark energies we didn’t detect, but I assure you we absolutely forbid both Dark and Metal energies from entering the arena. It is strictly controlled. As you commanded all those years ago. I would never disrespect you, we owe everything to you.” His needling voice had taken on a note of fervour, almost fanaticism.

Even though not much was being said, I had picked up quite a lot from this little exchange. If I lived through this I would have a lot to ponder. I ventured a glance up to see Sebastina and Master both prostrate on their platforms, right below the jawline of the towering creature. The dragon’s head still obscured any clear view I had of the diminutive Artoo.

I wondered what I could find out about this pact between the Gnomes and the half-golden dragon, half-undead monstrosity. I looked down again quickly as the Dragon’s head whipped around, perhaps sensing my thoughts. I kept my head faced down as I felt the earth tremble with padding feet and a snuffling sensation overhead. I so badly wanted to look up, but didn’t think I would survive the experience. Instead I squeezed my eyes shut waiting for the guillotine to fall.

The crushing weight of a psychic assault washed over me and I heard gasps as my teammates felt the same feeling sweep over them. She was definitely curious about our little group and her mention of the Dark magic got me thinking about the ring on my hand.

I prayed then.

I prayed that Avihs had made the ring impervious to her scrutiny because of one thing I was certain now, was that the ring was what she had sensed.

Then the weighty regard of her scrutiny vanished and everything seemed to be on pause as she looked around. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her huge tongue sweep out as if lapping milk. It licked up the carcasses of the Drillbeasts, sand and all. The ones we had so painstakingly ….staked?

What about my loot! was my internal child-like bleat. You always got loot if you examined the creatures you killed.

Even the pack leader with my half spear still embedded was swept up in the lapping. Then a terrible crunching sound could be heard as the gritty remains were ground up between her teeth.

A sharp “patoot!” noise soon followed as what I assumed was the spear tip, spat from her gigantic mouth out into the distance. She sure seemed to dislike metals. It could be heard distantly as a discordant clang where it embedded into the rock face of the steepled walls some way up the volcano chimney.

Then I heard a wet noise, a gurgle and a gulp as the pasty bloody mush was swallowed. The final sigh of contentment had me imagining her looking around for what was next on the menu.

Just before she decided one of us live specimens lying before her would be an even tastier meal, a sudden cry and rush of feet pounding the sand caught her attention and I felt the swoosh of her wings as she took flight, a gleeful cackle emanating as she passed overhead.

I looked up to see a Scalar flee from one of the other cohorts further around the arena. Obviously this was all a little too much for the fellow as he wilted from the terror and rushed towards the doors of his house.

The Queen Dragon moved with frightening speed. She landed before he had gone a dozen steps and snapped him up in her maw, her evil Harvey Dent head swooping down like a striking snake, literally swallowing him whole. His cries echoed from down her convulsing throat as she decided not to chew her food this time. I noticed he didn’t have his spear with him. Not that it would have done much good.

She was very careful to snip off the arms with the bucklers on, as he passed slip-sliding his way down the corridor of her throat. She simply threw back her head in delighted appreciation and roared such that gravel and stones began to tumble loosely down the crater chimney walls to startle the crowds, or perhaps it was a coincidence and the tumbling stones were actually from the spearhead she had spat in that direction earlier.

Shaman Bab had some serious spitting competition I thought offhandedly.

Queen Dragon Two-Face meanwhile swooped up into the air again, made two passes over the fawning crowd and disappeared into the swirling fog bank upon the island at the center of the arena crater once more.

As she left my immediate vicinity, so too did the terror and feeling of hopelessness that had assaulted my mind. A feeling I had had before, a feeling I had not so long ago, in fact.

A feeling I had when faced with a Reaper Officer.

Yea Gads!, but things were getting complicated.

Things were kind of subdued after that. The crowd murmured like a swarm of droning insects. Lord Artoo gesticulated agitatedly with his fawning toadies and we were basically forgotten. I took the chance to turn to my team. They were all ashen with shocked expressions and feelings of terror leaked out of them.

Anil was the worst and even appeared stricken, and then Selvin told me that the one who had been eaten was Anil’s brother, his own cousin. The one who I had knocked out cold when we had all gathered those few days before, I felt numb. This wasn’t going to help things.

Selvin didn’t give me any accusatory stare but I knew it would just be a matter of brooding before Anil found some way to blame this on me, and perhaps he would be right. They would all have been together if things had not turned out the way they did.

Even so, I was tired of taking other people's problems onto my shoulders. If he wanted to blame me, so be it. I reached out and consoled him.

“Sorry for your loss Anil, that was no way for a warrior to die.”

The venom filled look he threw at me told me he had reached the blame game a lot sooner than I anticipated, but before he could back it up with some words, Selvin took him into a hug and said “We will avenge him. That monster! She did it. We will avenge him.”

Anil just collapsed as the grief thrummed through him anew and suddenly we were surrounded by silent dwarves, who using their spears, prompted us to exit the arena.

The games must go on I thought, looking up at Lord Artoo. He had regained his composure and stood watching us as we were herded out.

On a whim I raised my fist in a bras d’honneur salute or more commonly known as the Italian Salute, and shouted “Yippi Kai Yay Muthafucker!” It was aggressive, forceful even, but purely spontaneous and the loud shout in English, if that can even be called English, echoed out and around the crater. It seemed to take hold, and some of the Gnomes, not knowing what it meant, liked its cadence perhaps and began repeating it. Slowly at first, then the catchy rhythm built, and the chant went out loud and strong. With each exaltation to Bruce Willis and his immortal ‘Die Hard’ words, I jeered and gesticulated even more enthusiastically.

I saw Artoo frown before I passed under the parapet and into the catacombs, my Dwarven guards hurrying us along. The chant continued behind me until we were out of earshot.

I smiled every step of the way.

I was definitely going to get my audience with Lord Artoo now.