Author's rant

This story is an experiment from my side, so I'd like to request feedback - What was good, what was bad, what was boring? Too much description or... too little? Are my characters bad or "flat"? Actually... Are the paragraphs too long at times it looks like they could be? What did you generally think of the story? Tell me in the comments!

This chapter is pretty short, I'll try to make the next one longer, sorry!

Oh, and... I'll try to keep OP and power-creep in check, so don't expect any excessive training chapters or anything like that.

Actual story:

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The morning dew was hanging in the air, and the sun barely reached above the horizon. That particular smell of dew in the forest clung to the fresh yet chilly air. Mavros slowly trotted through the grass. Small specks of water clung to his boots for every step, as if their only salvation from the green grass is the brown leather boots that were wrapping Mavros' feet.

“What a tranquil morning. It’s hard to believe we fought that bloody battle with the empire just three months ago.”

Poenica slowly nodded. “I find it harder to believe what we are going to do today. I never thought I’d have to draw my sword this soon after we finally had peace.”

“Alright you two love birds, we should be focusing on the task at hand.” Viridis broke in. He briefly eyed Poenica up and down. She looked stunning in her battle garments - a full set of bronze armour with small figures and symbols carved into the shiny metal. Adding the red padding underneath the armour, her long red hair and slim, yet powerful figure, she looked like a real battle-princess should. For a brief moment, he felt warmth in his cheeks, he quickly shook his head.

“I trust you both remember the details from the scouts?”

Mavros nodded. “Several headed lizard creature, frost breath. Kill it. Where are you going with this, my old friend?”

“I’m just going over it again. We can’t mess this up. How would the freedom federation fare without the founder and her fiancé, the hero? Oh, and remember now, it’s not just this lizard spews. Frost we can handle, but this is permafrost.”

“Right. Freezes you forever and all that. We get it. We’ve been over this a hundred times already. Poenica will distract it, together with you and the guards. Meanwhile I’ll deal the killing blow. It’s really not that complicated.”

“Don’t be like that, It’s a monster. Who knows what monsters can do? For all we know it may have other tricks up its sleeve... Or more heads-” Viridis said.

“Up its bum!” Mavros interrupted. “Yes, yes. It will be a simple matter to deal with the lizard. You don’t have to go over this hundred times.”

Poenica snickered briefly. “Yes, that’s why it’s the three of us. We could handle a hundred thousand imperii magus soldiers, why wouldn’t we be able to handle a single monster?”

“Well, we did have an army of forty thousand with us that time, remember?” Viridis retorted.

The dew was slowly vanishing, as the sun broke through the leaves in the moist forest. The air was fresh and chilly. In the distance a roar could be heard.

“Ye royal highness, don’t ye think it’s better if ye let thou guards do the fighting, and stand back on a safe distance with our heroes, giving us orders? Our nation could not bear losing the three of ye this day, after all ye three have done for us. This is the least we can do.” The commander of the guard unit said.

“No, no it’s quite alright. We will deal with this threat together. It’s why we are here, after all.” Mavros broke in.

“Ah, here it is. Today's foe.” Poenica said, with a slightly distant look in her eyes, as she took in the sight of the beast.

A large three headed creature, resembling three snakes joined together on an over-sized lizard body, towered over the trees of the forest. Baring the fangs of all three heads at the same time, the muscular jaws with razor sharp teeth were exposed in honor of the adventurers that had come. The creature let out a hiss.

Upon noticing Poenica’s party not even flinching, the serpent monster let out an ear-splitting roar worthy of a large dinosaur. The sun reflected on the matte green scales of the creature, as the towering beast blocked the sun from the smaller trees around it.

“By the dragon god, what manner of creature is this?!” The commander whispered while slowly taking several steps backwards.

“It may just be that. Dragon god.” Mavros quietly whispered.

“How are we supposed to defeat that?!” the commander's voice was already shaky.

“Hmm. We should follow the plan. First, we will distract it with three different groups, seeing as it’s just one per head. Then…” Mavros glanced at his flanged mace. The large slim spike at the top of it glistened in the sun. “And then, I’ll drill this into the chest of the beast. half a foot should still reach the heart of such mighty beast.”

“I’ll take the middle. Viridis, take the left. Guardsmen, try to distract the right head. Just toss rocks, or shoot arrows or do whatever will grab the attention of it.” Poenica ordered.

As the three groups rushed forward to engage the monster, it swung its mighty heads. Each head plummeted towards the ground, with the razor sharp teeth exposed, as if it meant to consume the very ground upon which they stood. Every time a head plummeted, the remaining two would be keeping a keen eye on the surroundings.

The middle head finally dove in an attempt to simply consume the lone Poenica. she leapt sideways and slashed her sword over the eye of the monster, leaving a deep yellow trail of serpent blood on the eyelid of the monster. Heavy drops of yellow blood dropped onto the ground from the wound inflicted.

“HSSSSSSS!”

The monster hissed, as it sent all three heads diving towards Poenica.

Viridis took advantage of the moment, and dove his sword into the neck of the monster's leftmost head. This abruptly stopped the attack, not only of one head, but all of the heads. The monster winced in pain, hesitating a moment.

Finally the beast took two small steps backwards, pulling all three of the heads completely upright and then arcing them a bit backwards.

Mavros rapidly darted forwards, mace held high with both hands. The tip was pointing at the chest of the beast. This was his moment to strike.

A cool icy blue color formed on the chest of the beast, glowing through the thick scales.

“I’ve got ye now!” Mavros yelled, as he forcefully collided with the chest of the beast, striking the spike from his mace directly into the ice-blue area.

“I missed the heart! Darn! Dodge P-”

Poof!

Like drifting snow, a massive cloud of shining blue snowflakes covered the entire area, forming a massive encapsulation around Mavros. Frozen in a human-sized iceberg, Mavros stood motionless behind the semi-transparent ice.

“NO!” Poenica Screamed frantically as she dashed over to the heavily wounded monster, finishing it off by chopping off all three heads in one fell swoop.

“MAVROS! MAVROS! PLEASE RESPOND TO ME!” She yelled at the nine feet tall mountain of ice, encasing Mavros. Tears started streaming down her cheeks, running over her red lips.

Viridis and the commander rushed over to help.

“Maybe we can chop him out of there?” the commander suggested. He fiercely started slashing and hacking at the frozen mountain, but to no avail.

“It’s ice, we can surely melt it!” Viridis ordered the guards to find dry leaves, twigs and wood, while he himself started chopping at the ice.

While the guardsmen built a large pyre, Poenica sat quietly to herself, sobbing. Finally she grabbed her sword and shield. She started a merciless and unrelenting pummeling of the ice encasing Mavros. “LET HIM GO!! RIGHT THIS INSTANT!!”

SMONG, TING, TWANG.

The sound of metal on ice was so loud, one would think it could be heard from one end of the freedom federation to the other - right from Lake Torpedo to the nearby capital Vltimum.

“Move him to the pyre!” Viridis commanded. All twenty guardsmen and the commander all put in their combined powers, and yet barely managed to move Mavros to the pyre. Viridis grabbed Poenica’s arm, stopping her from striking at the ice as it was moved to the pyre. Poenica turned to Viridis and placed her head on his chest, weeping.

Finally the pyre was lit. A fire that could be seen all the way in Vltimum burned brightly, as the six feet tall flames licked and danced across the permafrost. As if they had a pact, the frost never budged, and the flames were never touched by the ice.

Poenica fell to her knees and started sobbing ceaselessly.

“Don’t just stand there! Go to Vltimum. Find someone to undo this. Get the entire army, every man and every magician, every god, every man and every priest you can find! Get the darn beggars if if there’s a chance they can help! The Tenebroshi hero has fallen in our defence!” Viridis howled a the guards, as he gently put his hand on Poenica’s back.

Poenica once more stood up.

She glared at the ice. Before raising her two swords high.

Viridis backed off a few steps, slowly while staring at Poenica’s face with a concerned look.

kling-klang-kling-kling-shing. Twong!

Poenica’s swords danced across the ice, slashing it in-numerous times.

The blade of one of her swords was flung several meters away behind her as it shattered. She Grabbed her remaining sword with both hands, so tightly her knuckles turned white.

TWONG!

This too broke under the punishment.

She dropped the shattered sword and started beating the ice, this time with her bare hands.

The guards finally left for Vltimum.

As the guards returned days later, with a huge following, Viridis stood up and put his hand on Poenicas back. “I’m sorry too. But we can’t let them see their queen like this.” Poenica continued to sloppily hit the ice with shaking and bruised hands.

“Poenica, that’s enough. We will get him out. But hitting the ice won’t help.”

Weeks later, after thousands of failed attempts at freeing Mavros, by masterless mages, powers of the gods used by priests, knights and everything in between was made, to no avail. The decision to move him to Vltimum as a monument had been made. The forest was renamed “Mavros forest” and declared sacred ground, in honor of the fallen hero. Yet despite this, attempts at freeing Mavros remained a daily occurrence for decades to come.

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Shout-out to a senpai.

I'll take this opportunity to make a shout-out to Potato of Darkness and his story The Feline Faction It's a great read, I highly recommend it. A fair warning though, His novel is flexing that mature tag a lot more than mine at this time.

He and a handful of readers have encouraged me to add my own fiction. I have learnt a lot from interacting with them, especially in the later chapters of his fiction - knowledge that will be put to use a little later in my own fiction.