Selara was by his side, when she had made it over he wasn’t aware, but for once her presence didn’t set the butterflies off. He was too focused to be worried about what he felt about her or what she felt about him. He kept his eyes on Gloomfire, the dragon beginning to circle them in the air like a vulture, and said, “He’ll go for the children first. You and Egan need to focus on getting them to safety,” it was a selfish, unfeeling thought, but he wished they had simply perished in the explosion. Having to watch over them as well would only complicate things, force him to expose openings that he otherwise would not need to. It was fine, though. He was used to carrying dead weight in PvP games.

“Egan can handle them, I’ll-”

“No,” he said firmly, his tone brooking no argument. “You need to listen to me here. I wasn’t lying when I said I know how to defeat his kind,” he was grossly simplifying things, but he felt confident, strangely. It was simple in theory. Just observe and dodge, understand the mechanics of the boss fight, then engage and test the waters, see what he could get away with. Progress the fight phase by phase. That’s what he knew how to do, and as long as he stuck to that, he was fine. It was a dragon. They breathed fire in a frontal cone and had a tail swipe.

Blessedly, she didn’t argue, though her response was curt, “Fine. Be careful,” she said, and dashed off towards Egan and the children. That was taken care of. Somewhat. The dragon would focus his efforts on them anytime now, he just had to wait. The gray smoke clouds leftover from the explosion continued to float by, the smell acrid like fire, but also sickly sweet. That was weird. Gloomfire made no move, he only kept circling. Why? It would be child’s play to force Zach’s hand if he focused on the children. There was something he wasn’t understanding. Something he wasn’t seeing. His mind knew what it was, the answer scratching behind a veil at him. The clouds. They couldn’t be...?

“Selara,” he yelled, starting to run, waving his arms and pointing at the gray pillows of death, “Shoot the clouds! Any that come close, any that block your path. Now!”

She didn’t hesitate, firing a stream of fire towards one that floated especially close to the train of people. It exploded in a puff that was ominously purple, the universal sign for “Hey, I’m super deadly!”. Gloomfire. That was the clue. Could he detonate them manually, or were they timed explosions? God, he would kill for some Weakauras right about now.

“So, the Hero has brains as well as bravado. You continue to amaze, Dragonslayer. However, how shall you handle this next challenge?” he yelled from above, breaking his circle to rise high into the sky. That only meant one thing. So that’s how it was. He scanned the battlefield around him quickly. Gaps, openings between the clouds. That’s what he wanted. The clouds were likely limited by their radius, their toxicity diminished by the open wind. Wait, wind?

The dragon reached the apex of his climb, then tucked in his wings and dove straight down towards the ground, perfectly vertical. He had perhaps ten, fifteen seconds. Wind. This was the critical moment. He didn’t have much experience with this world’s magic system, nor had he the foresight to inquire as to the rules, but he assumed you could only use one element, just based on his very limited experience with it. Like before, he looked inside, seizing hold of the magic and envisioning what he wanted. A massive gust of wind. He stretched his arms out on their respective sides and opened his palms and strained.

Nothing.

That answered that. Luckily, he had been expecting as much. He was already near one of the gaps, though it was tight. The approach of the dragon had caused a disturbance in the air, the clouds drifting more aggressively. He ran, diving for the safe spot, getting low just as the dragon crashed into the earth. The explosions were staggered, which he hadn’t expected, but he adjusted quickly, eyes recognizing the pattern, then identifying which one of the two he was in between would explode first. He covered his mouth, holding his breath as he stood almost in the middle of one of the clouds, waiting for the one opposite to explode, then jumping through it soon after, burying his face into the ground.

The last cloud went off, and he rose shakily, the air around him now obscured by a heavy smokescreen of dust. This was an interesting intermission. Low visibility. Gloomfire could definitely track him in this. He kept his body prepared, tensed and poised to move in whatever direction he needed to. He still needed more information. The dragon had not unveiled the worst it could do—it just wanted him to think it had.

A stream of red-black energy lasered towards him, and he narrowly ducked out of the way, sliding to his knees. As he did so, he envisioned a seed, slapping the ground as he skated by. The dragon’s snout poked through the cloud, lunging towards him. He cursed, opening his palms and imagining two jets of flame blasting out of them like Selara. Narrowly he escaped the maw of the beast, but he wasn’t used to the force of the jets, skipping along the ground and rolling painfully to a stop. He groaned but rose to his feet, the pain just a momentary distraction. The air had cleared fully, but his seed hadn’t gone off as planned. He hadn’t been able to figure out how to do more advanced alterations to his spells other than “Go boom” or “Bang”, so he had just sent it hoping it would work. No matter. It wasn’t something that he had counted on working, and he was still just gathering information.

The children managed to get far enough away that it wouldn’t be worth Gloomfire’s effort to hurt them. There was no realistic chance of Zach making it to them, so they would be safe. If the dragon decided to kill them anyways...well, it would weigh heavy on his conscience, but there was simply nothing for it. His objective was to survive, for now. A stray glimmer in the distance caught his eye, and he saw Pevarin behind the beast, drawing his bow back. He drew his attention away, watching the dragon, making sure he wouldn’t see it coming.

“Where is that same bravado, Hero? You scurry about like a rat. Have you no honor? Stand and FIGHT.” it roared, rearing up and slamming the ground, the earth heaving as a shockwave emanated forth towards him. He aimed his palms towards the ground and shot himself skyward, just barely clearing the earth as it rolled towards him, Gloomfire opening his mouth, his throat glowing red as he prepared to spit flame towards Zach. He smirked. This was just too easy.

He drew his sword with one hand, aiming the other skyward and angling his body. The jet he shot forth would make even a volcano stare in awe, the fire white-hot as he zipped by the dragon’s throat, holding his blade out. Their streams crossed, and his blade shattered upon contact, the creature’s great scales easily rebuffing the attempt. That was too much to hope for, but he knew for certain now. A whistle of the wind and a solid thunk sounded off above him, and Gloomfire squealed in pain, turning hatefully towards Pevarin. Selara and Egan were on their way, running hard towards them. He preferred to be on his own so he could control the boss’s behavior, but he was in need of fire-power. Gloomfire turned towards him, mouth forming that eerie smile again. Zach felt a chill sweep through him.

They had just entered the last phase.

Just as he had expected, the clouds had not fully dissipated, purple splotches remaining on the ground to mark where they had exploded. This was the final fail-safe. Total obliteration. The splotches began to bubble and froth as the dragon’s magic activated, glowing with a fiendish black tinge. His friends were caught among a veritable field of the soon-to-be-woken clouds, and there was little he could do to help them. Gloomfire seemed to read his mind, his smile never flickering. No, that wasn’t it. He stared into the molten eyes of the creature whose kind he knew so well and noticed something. The eyes did not see him though they sat transfixed on him. They saw beyond, into the realm of the arcane. Was he...channeling the spell? A long channel that dealt almost assuredly lethal damage. That made sense. There was counterplay to that. He just needed to kick it—interrupt, silence, whatever.

But what about Counter-spell?

Wasn’t that kind of what the dragon had done in rat-man form? It wasn’t quite the same, of course. Zach had not yet actually formed the spells, but laid the foundation. The spell the dragon was casting was already in motion, but maybe...

Closing his eyes, he felt his way through the plane of magic, the mighty wyrm a radiant font of power. His mind’s eye traveled closer without thought, instinctually. The spell itself was linked by hundreds of lines to the dormant clouds, tethered to the dragon like a volleyball net gone mad. The obvious solution was to cut all of the threads, but that would take far too much time, time he didn’t have. What could he do? He could try slamming a giant dome around the dragon. Would that work? He had no idea. Maybe it would, or maybe the threads would still be able to feed their power into the spell, and it would do nothing. What if...what if he reversed the spell? Was that possible? Could he tap into someone else’s magic and control it, if he tried?

Letting the magic fill him, he grasped the complicated weave and linked himself to it, the weight of the spell and the power behind it incomprehensible. It was immense, relentless, like a tide. But that which flooded would recede. He injected his own magic into the weave, pouring every last drop into it, panting hard as he did so.

“Again you do what should not be possible,” said Gloomfire, his voice strained, “but it is too late, Hero. It is too late!”

No. It wasn’t too late. He wasn’t going to give up. He promised he would follow through, no matter what it took. More. Just keep pushing. The thread heaved and tossed in his grasp as if alive, struggling to free itself, and for a brief moment he could almost direct it, then it flickered again, then again, and then it was his. A wealth of awareness slammed into him, and he staggered to his knees, the dragon roaring in agony. Clawing his way back to his feet, struggling to breathe as the combined weight of his power and Gloomfire’s filled him, he screamed as his magic flooded untethered into the web of the arcane, and with everything he had left, he tugged on it.

The web twinkled, then darkened as if the breaker to the crater had tripped, and all was silent. “You fool!” the dragon screamed in rage, in terror, “You tamper with forces beyond your understanding. You’ve do-”

The feedback was catastrophic. There was no other way to put it. It defied reasoning and comprehension as the world went white, his senses overwhelmed as an infinite host of possibilities were revealed to him. There was a distinct sense of motion, of travel, and he was certain his body was being catapulted through space, though where his destination was, he knew not. Direction was undefined, perception itself a lie, the rules of reality shattered.

And then suddenly everything was solid, his senses returned, and with that came a surge of pain before the white was overwritten with black.