The Cube 2 (Scene - Completed)

[Karl Jak]

The cube lay slightly above the water's surface as the fleet drew closer.

The Bonds felt a strange feeling wash over them, and then they were in a nightmare realm.

***​

Characters Involved: Karakul (@Eszter) and Smaug (@Shallan Davar)

Enemies: The cube, much larger on the inside than it may have seemed from the outside, is a twisted and degraded hellscape, filled with barbed wire, impossibly angled structures and landmasses that only a German expression filmmaker could love. The realm seems to be devoid of all life, except for its master, the fearsome Size 7 Hellzilla, who wields all the powers of normal Godzilla and the cenobites.

Length of Scene: This Scene will last for 96
Post Count/Size: 3 posts / 3000 words ballpark (for each participant) -- yea, I used a different term here. if you go a little above or below the number, it's cool.
Other Stuff: Others MAY join this scene if they move along this path.

 

[Shallan Davar]

Smaug’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. The world that surrounded the pair of dragons was a vast expanse of hazy mist. Orange and purple light pulsed in slow turns, as though two great distant stars were alternately lighting the blanket of clouds. The fog-clad void was torn in places by rock and ash. The twisting spires seemed to jut out from the mists above as well as the unseen depths below. They sliced the changing hues of light into stark shadows that splayed across the clouds behind them like stacked lines.

The great dragon Smaug took a tenuous step forwards, scenting the strange new environment. How had he appeared here? They had not even drawn close to the cube that had been sighted on the horizon. Had it stretched forth a hand to them instead?

To his left, Karakul growled a warning. A challenge to any would-be ambushers that lurked in the clouds. It echoed into the depths unanswered, swallowed by the blanket of mists.

“Are your senses dulled?” Smaug sneered at the pair of former dragons, “We are quite alone in this place.”

His neck snaked back towards the horizon, his unease slightly comforted to note that he better mastered himself than the former pieces of Yucatan.

It was a visual feast to be sure, perhaps overstimulating even. But in all things save sight it remained timeless and unchanged. No rocks cracked in the distance, no thunder rolled. There was not the scent of prey nor the stench of the land’s deep vapors. Neither wind nor heat nor chill nor damp. An unreal place, that stretched to unseen horizons. It felt as though the place did not exist. There was nothing here. They were nowhere. And yet, something had drawn them here. Plucked them from their ships within the blink of a dragon’s eye.

Smaug focused, bending his full purpose to the task. His senses honed into the slightest disturbance, refined to a sharpness that a razor could only envy.

A hum.

The faintest ripple in the air. It was all but imperceivable, even to one with a dragon’s senses, so minute was the shifting in the air. Now that he had the trail, he could feel the air’s movement, he turned towards it, peering through the haze and the fog, his dragon eyes gleaming like searchlights. There was a light. Tiny and blue, a mere footnote against the distant lamps of purple and orange. A shape of something, glowing at a grand distance through the fog. As though the cube contained itself hundreds of times in scale.

No…

…it was right behind them!

With a senses-shattering bellowing roar, the mountain-sized being opened its maw, a crackling energy already rocketing forth. Smaug and Karakul took flight like startled songbirds, desperately weaving out of the way as a beam of raw destruction snapped the silence of the space with thundershock power. Smaug glanced behind him, struggling to steady himself as the air rushed in to fill the newly opened space with a second thunderclap. The rocky terrace they had stood upon was utterly vaporized, not even smoking rubble remained. This creature’s ire was unmaking in the truest sense of the word.

And yet it had eluded Smaug’s senses! Where? Smaug paused his frantic flight, twisting in the air to try to catch a glimpse of the creature that dwarfed his own great size. It was gone again. Even these clouds could not obscure such a truly massive creature, surely. Yet as Smaug’s gaze scoured the surroundings he could see nothing but Karakul. The larger dragon seemed similarly unsure where their attacker had vanished to. Smaug snarled, casting his angry eye upon the again emptied surroundings.

“You would toy with me?” He demanded of the void, his outrage swallowed by the uncaring clouds without even an echo.

Karakul’s cry drew Smaug’s attention. Massive chained hooks stretched forth from the clouds around them, catching fast on the metal plates that had been welded to her form by Syntech’s science. With hardly a pause, she vanished into the haze, leaving only a swirling mist to show that she had ever been there. Smaug did not particularly care for the larger dragon’s presence, but at this precise moment, the loss of perhaps the only sane reminder of the worlds he knew was more than a little unnerving. He hovered in the silence for a moment, wholly alone in an endless void.

Smaug’s wings beat swiftly, and he arched out of the way as more chains seemed to emerge at random from the surrounding clouds, he dove and weaved, evading the webs of chains and the spires of rock as they appeared out of the mists in front of him. All sense of direction disappeared, if had even existed to begin with. He roared in mounting panic and fury.

The reappearance of his foe was hardly a source of relief either. The truly massive shape manifested out of the fog ahead of him. It stared down at him with a silent menace, the surrounding clouds still crackling with lightning. Smaug swerved, arching over a titanic swiping spiky talon. With a draconic roar he heaved forth a blast of fire. If the towering monster felt anything from the attack, it showed no sign. Smaug ducked under another bespiked limb, then slashed at the creature’s arm with his uninjured forelimb.

He may as well have been trying to carve his way through a mountain.

One of the massive limbs caught hold of Smaug’s tail. He had only a half-second’s warning before his wings started to flail uselessly, eyes rolling as he was yanked through the air at incredible speeds. The massive being turned in a ponderous circle, pulling a hapless Smaug in an arc, heedless of any rock spires that opposed its motion. Rock smacked against Smaug’s form as he was pulled along, fully incapable of freeing himself, indeed barely capable of keeping track of his surroundings. He wailed a draconic cry as he crashed through multiple pillars of stone fully unable to stop his movement. Like a kite dragged along in a hurricane’s wind, Smaug was pulled tail first in a circle around the creature.

With an almost piteous wail, his trajectory was released. The great dragon Smaug was launched hurtling through the clouds like a slingstone, wings unable to halt his motion. He could have kept falling for eternity here. It seemed like the place was large enough, and he’d certainly been flung with enough strength. He streaked through the sky like a comet, totally bereft of senses.

Out of the fog emerged an unyielding stone surface. Whether it was wall or floor or ceiling, Smaug did not know, but he crashed into it with enough force to hear something snap and to create a crater hear twice his own size in the black stone. He was dimly aware that he was in the air again, falling this time, or perhaps he’d simply skipped off the surface from his earlier impact.

More chains materialized and this time Smaug could not even begin to consider evasion. He twisted as they caught him one after another coiling around and around him until movement stopped entirely. He hung there in a web of chains, a disoriented and frightened fly.

1210 words thus far

 

[Eszter]

Thrashing, roaring, screaming, Karakul struggled against the titanic chains that dug into her armour. The hooks were reeling her further and further into the fog, farther and farther from Smaug. The pair had no fondness for the whelp, but there was still a sense of duty there. They were his queen, they should be protecting him.

Whipping her head over, the reforged dragon snapped her jaws shut over the chains. Impressively, the bite wasn’t enough to snap them, forcing her to wrench her head back and forth like a predator tearing meat from a carcass. Soon enough, the torture implements gave way, snapping into metal fragments and disappearing into the fog.

Hovering in place for a few moments, the now-freed dragon glanced around, trying to get her bearings. Within her molten cocoon, Eszter felt violently ill for reasons she couldn’t quite place. She was baring her teeth instinctively, hackles raised and fists clenched as the duo scanned for any sign of their opponent.

“Where are you?!” Karakul bellowed into the darkness, punctuating her demands with a blast of flame. “Stop hiding in your fog! Face me, coward!”

In response, a bassy bellow rumbled out immediately behind her. The dragon whirled around, lashing out with her tail, inexplicably missing the target who was a few mere metres behind her. The sensation of watching the wild strike simply fail to reach the opponent that was right there made Eszter’s head hurt, like when she looked at those ‘magic eye’ pictures as a kid.

The beast before her was gargantuan, towering above even the massive Karakul, but more so than that it was a nightmare made manifest. The reincarnations of Yucatan couldn’t tell if she was looking at leathery black hide or some kind of kaiju gimp suit. Nor could she decide which she would prefer, as the outer layer was clearly not connected to the flesh beneath, instead kept in place by countless pins the size of telephone poles.

The beast rumbled again as it regarded her with cold indifference, and the ache in Eszter’s skull rose to a crescendo. The dragonkin choked back a scream as she clutched her skull as if her were trying to hold it together, all the while a strange voice boomed in the shared mind of herself and Karakul.

“You have already been touched. You have experienced some small shade pain.” the voice rang in her skull, even as the forest of needles began to light up with a radioactive blue. “Such sloppy work, though. We have much to do.”

As if a switch was flipped, the monster turned from cold observation to white-hot violence, opening its mae and unleashing another stream of blue energy. Pushing through the pain, Karakul wheeled to the side in an attempt to escape. She only got a few metres before she held herself snap back like a dog on a leash, three more hooks finding purchase in the gaps between her scales.

Lashing out with her tail once more, the dragon queen managed to snap the chains and get a little further away right before the energy hit her like a truck. Fire breath and similar breath weapons were familiar to Karakul. She had used them, she had been hit by them, but nothing in her scattered memories compared to the stream of energy projected by this creature.

It’s destructive power was undeniable, but as it glanced off her scales, it became clear that this was not the intent behind it. Rather, the beam was agonizing. Even just receiving a glancing blow, Karakul felt as if her scales had been pried off and the tender skin beneath had been sandblasted.

Overwhelmed with fear, pain, and fury, the berserk dragon struck around wildly around her with jaws, tails and claws. Her opponent seemed unphased by her tantrum, and by the draconic roar of pain that rang out from the fog. The dragon queen couldn’t help but pause as she heard Smaug’s wail. Their foe was right in front of her, so what was happening to him?

Before she could investigate, or even consider the possibilities, more hooks shot out of the mist. Karakul attempted to corkscrew through the air to avoid the chains, but they seemed to possess a malign, predatory intelligence as they pursued her. The reforged dragon could only delay the inevitable, darting this was and that before a dozen chains struck home and pulled taut.

Eszter’s stomach dropped as she felt her bond get yanked into the nothingness, shooting into the fog like a titanic, scaly bullet. Desperately trying to free herself, Karakul bellowed furiously, starfire blasting haphazardly into the mist. Moments later, the pair emerged from the fog into… something.

The sights before her were incomprehensible at the best of times, all hard edges meeting at corners they shouldn’t be able to. To that end, it was almost a mercy that the draconic duo were rocketing across the landscape too quick to get a good look at anything in particular.

Dragged from the sky by the monstrous hooks, Karakul slammed hard against the ground, but her impact didn’t give her the mercy of stopping. The chains, extending endlessly towards the horizon, continued to drag her across the ground at breakneck speed. As if the road rash wasn’t bad enough, the area before the dragons was hardly an empty plane. Barbed wire tangled around her limbs, worsening her condition in her chains, while the brutalist architecture provided plenty of surfaces for her to get slammed against and promptly dragged over.

One such surface provided either a desperate escape from the situation or a death sentence for the pair. The reincarnations of Yucatan were racing towards a large, flat wall, featureless barring a large square hole, about three metres across. The hole would have been innocuous had the chains not led straight through it to the other side, threatening to make dragon pate of the two.

Flying into a frenzy, Karakul began tearing manically at the chains binding her, trying to shatter as many as possible before she reached the hole. She worked quick, but every second mattered, and each tense moment that a chain held a little better than expected and refused to break was one moment they came closer to a horrific parody of an industrial accident.

By the time she had snapped about half of her bindings, the dragon queen realised that time was up. Changing tack, she did her best to swivel around in midair, facing her underbelly towards the wall and bracing for impact, all the while flapping her wings desperately to slow herself even just a little.

The crash was savage, alabaster concrete shattering beneath her bulk as she slammed into the wall. Karakul’s legs buckled but did not break, defiantly holding her up against the surface even as the chains struggled desperately to pull her through. To a distant observer, the scene may have looked deceptively peaceful, the great beast simply clinging to the wall. In reality, it was anything but.

Karakul’s vision swam, her breathing short and fast. Within her cocoon, Eszter could hear her past self’s heart jackhammering away from the mix of adrenaline and exertion she was experiencing. The dragon fought desperately just to stay in place, the idea of gaining ground seemed impossible.

But ‘impossible’ was no excuse to lay down and die. There was no chance, in this world or the next, that she would let the bastard controlling the chains get the better of her.

Starting as a low, almost gurgling rumble in her chest, Karakul’s voice quickly rose to a defiant roar. Drawing on all the strength she had in her body, she continued to fight with strength and stamina beyond what should have been possible. It was torture, painful beyond belief, but she had survived worse. It was nothing compared to the state that Syntech had both found and then put her in.

Against all odds, one by one, the chains began to snap. Buckling under the unbelievable strength of their victim and their own inexorable tug, the torture implements proved to be the weaker link.

Bellowing triumphantly, Karakul pushed off from the wall, tearing the last hook free with the final shove. In spite of it all, the pair had survived, they had won! Using her push-off to take flight, Karakul shot upwards to get some height and try to find Smaug. No doubt the lesser dragon would be struggling against their foe and needed her to go help him.

Rising up, the dragon queen continued past several more flat faces, flying at strange, unnatural angles to get to the top of the bizarre mess of a structure she found herself fighting by. Then, as she created the top and came to a colossal plateau, one that should have been utterly impossible on the geometry of the cube, and she realised her arrogance. She had not won, and she was no safer than Smaug.

Eszter’s heart froze as she drank in the sight before the pair. At the centre of the plateau, hovering silently a few dozen metres in the air, was… something. It was gigantic, larger than even their monstrous opponent, a diamond-shaped prison that sat motionless in the air.

And it was fucking looking at her.

It was an absurd thought to have. The thing not only didn’t have eyes, but it didn’t have a face, or any other body part to speak of. It was just a big shape just kind of floating there. But there was no amount of logic or reasoning that could convince her that the thing wasn’t looking at her!

It wasn’t just a sensation of being watched, it wasn’t even the feeling that it was looking at Karakul. The geometrical abomination was looking at her hidden within her bond’s chest.

Evidently feeling a similar sensation, the reforged dragon wheeled around and tried to run, only for several more chains to strike like serpents from nowhere. The hooks dug in tight from all angles and pulled taut, forcing her to splay out spread-eagle, or perhaps spread-dragon, before the thing.

Karakul glanced around for any sign of her enemy, the pin-cushioned freak that had started all of this, but saw nothing. A dozen explanations ran through her mind in an instant.

Was it invisible? Were there more? Did it’s influence just extend this far?

Ultimately, though, it didn’t matter. As if in response to the paranoia of the dragons before it, the prism stirred ever so slightly. It did not move, but black energy coursed down its edges to reach the corner facing towards its victims. The substance moved strangely, switching chaotically between gas-like floating and arcing like lightning, but it raced towards the dragons all the same.

Eszter’s vision snapped into sharp focus that she hadn’t realised she was missing as she lost contact with Karakul, staring helplessly towards the jaws keeping her safe in her bond. Even through the intense light of her cocoon, she saw the strange un-light shining through the teeth of the contraption.

Then, it all went black.

1862 words

 

[Eszter]

“PLEASE!” Eszter shrieked at the top of her lungs, her voice hoarse from screaming. “LET ME OUUUUUUUT!”

The young girl hurled herself full force at her bedroom door, feeling it give a little but not buckle. It held strong against her charge, but not as well as it should have. No thirteen year old girl should have been able to even budge a door held shut by as many bars and locks as that one.

Panting with exhaustion, she slumped against the door for a moment, hearing quiet murmuring and shuffling outside. They were out there, she fucking knew they were. So why wouldn’t they just let her out?!

The elf let out another hysterical scream as another wave of itchiness and pain rocked her body, toppling to the floor and clawing madly at her scalp. On either side of her head, just above her temples, she felt as if her skull was splitting. She couldn’t fathom why, but every inch of her body demanded that she itch and scratch and tear until the pain went away. At first she had tried to resist the urge, but after she had drawn blood and felt smooth, undamaged skin where a cut had been just moments before, she become significantly more reckless.

Stumbling unsteadily across the room, tearing at her head with one hand, she moved to her salvation as quickly as she could manage. Eszter’s saving grace was her bedside table, a full-metal thing with sharp corners that were, in retrospect, probably a safety hazard, but she was not about to complain about it.

Her favoured corner, the one furthest from her bed, was stained red with the odd chunk of skin or a clump of red hair stuck in it. She didn’t really care anymore, though. Lowering her head to the corner and starting to scratch, the pain and relief were simultaneous. It hurt, it hurt like you wouldn’t believe, but it hurt less than when she wasn’t scratching, and that was all she cared about.

The elf allowed herself to scratch at the right side of her scalp for a few minutes before switching sides, only satisfied once she had shredded each spot to pieces. Once she was done, at least for the next few minutes before the spots healed over, she resumed her campaign against her bedroom door.

Eszter slammed herself against her door relentlessly, screaming at the top of her lungs all the while. She was certain that her parents were on the other side, listening to every moment. She had stopped begging a few days ago, and had now resorted to demanding in her more coherent moments and simply screaming the rest.

The girl didn’t know what was happening to her, but even worse, she didn’t know why she wasn’t getting any help. Her parents wouldn’t talk to her, wouldn’t even look at her, and one morning she had simply woken up to find that her door was locked shut from the outside. The most interaction she got was food slipped under her door.

Eszter had been rioting against the agony she was subjected to for about a week, and would do anything to get out, even if it meant breaking down her door. And her parents, if they got in her way…

~~~~~~~~​

Karakul let out a quiet breath as she caught a nice thermal to glide on. The wind beneath her wings, the sun on her scales. It would have been a perfect day if not for one blight on the landscape: the band of dragonslayers beneath her.

Wyrmfall was an unconventional group, even for the likes of dragonslayers. Simultaneously nomadic and refusing to leave their home base, the group built their headquarters onto a massive set of wheels and turned it into a moving fortress. Equal parts weapon, transport and fortification, the Wyrmfall base, also named Wyrmfall, was practically unassailable, even to a dragon.

Any other dragon, that is.

Tucking her wings, Karakul tilted into a dive, heading straight for the fortress. The cries of vermin rang out, followed by the clarion call of an emergency alarm in the base. Before the guns brimming the parapets could train on the dragon queen, she had already bathed the outer layer in a stream of cleansing starfire.

Slipping by unharmed, Karakul turned to continue her strafing run, preparing to unleash another salvo of draconic fire. The Wyrmfall had halted after the first pass-by, seemingly crippled in the assault. The dragon scoffed to herself once. Hardly even a challenge.

What followed happened so quickly that Karakul could hardly register it.

As she approached, Wyrmfall suddenly sprang back to life, bringing what very well might have been the largest arsenal in the Hinterlands to bear on their target. So convinced of her own ability, Karakul hadn’t even considered that the band may have simply been playing dead.

Desperately, the dragon queen unleashed another inferno upon the fire-proofed armour of Wyrmfall, but it was too little too late. With the force of the sky falling on her, Karakul was laid into by lead slugs, plasma rounds, and explosive charges alike.

Reeling, the reincarnation of Yucatan veered upwards, making for a tactical retreat and exposing her vulnerable underbelly in her haste. A mistake which would prove fatal.

As she ascended, Wyrmfall’s main hall, an almost cathedral-like structure opened like a flower, revealing its main weapon: Dracocide. A colossal harpoon battery, loaded with a dozen projectiles each twice the size of a man in a three by four pattern, was trained on the dragon queen.

With the sound of a volcano erupted, each harpoon was fired one after the other, striking into Karakul’s chest in lightning quick succession. Agony speared through the living calamity, threatening to knock her from the sky through shock alone. Defiant to the end, though, she continued to flap, struggling to escape from her pursuers.

Then, in the same order they had been fired, the harpoons detonated.

A string of explosions rushed up Karakul’s underside, destroying her underside from the base of her tail to her jaw. The dragon’s last roar died in her throat as she plummeted from the sky, dropping like a stone. Even as her lifeless body smashed against the ground, the essence leaving her body, a furious spark refused to move on.

How dare they?! How dare they strike her down?! She wasn’t done with this fight! Even if it took her a lifetime, she would find the people who did this to her, and she would make sure their world crumbled around them.

Post 2
1095 words
2957 total

 

[Eszter]

Snapping back to life, Eszter - or maybe Karakul - found herself in a claustrophobe’s nightmare. Tendrils wrapped around her arms, her whole body bound in some strange glowing substance, and before her: doors. The base of her horns ached, and she swore she could feel blood dripping down her face. She was still trapped! Thrashing wildly, she screamed her heart out and tried to tear free. She had to get to the door, she had to get out!

On the outside, Karakul - or maybe Eszter - snapped back to awareness with sharp pains all over her body, particularly around her chest. The harpoons! They were still in there! She had to tear them out! In a frenzy, she tore at the weapons digging into her flesh, gouging her own scales in the process.

Inconsolable, the duo plummeted from the sky as they broke the chains supporting them, disappearing over the lip of the plateau and out of sight of the long-forgotten thing hovering there. They had no idea where they were. They had no idea how long they had been hanging there. They had no idea who they were. Eszter? Karakul? Yucatan? Some mix of these names? They couldn’t say.

All they knew is that their parents… no, Wyrmfall… both? Both. They were out there. Maddened by pain, physical and mental, real and imaginary, the reincarnation of Yucatan hurtled, screaming, into the fog. They would tear their foe to pieces, no matter who they were. They couldn’t hide anymore.

Post 3/3
247 words
3204 total. We’re going +/- 10% like University.

 

[Shallan Davar]

Shallan could feel cracks forming in Smaug’s will. Traces of sensory information and emotion were slipping through their bond to her and she greedily took them in, despite the rather dire situation they were painting. Something had Smaug positively terrified. He was hanging amidst a mass of chains, suspended in the clouds of an alien sky. He hurt, but what stunned Shallan the most was that he seemed to have stopped struggling. He hung limply, listening to the slight jingle of the chains as they held him suspended. The metal links scraped slightly against his armored scales as he swayed.

Shallan waited for him to do something, but Smaug’s plans were still closed to her. Was he waiting for some opening to move? Why would he simply hang here? He was hurt, yes, but not so hurt that he could not break free of these chains surely?

She almost spoke up, but Shallan’s mental voice stuck in her throat. Was this really the correct choice of action? Revealing herself might draw Smaug’s attention back to silencing her. She would be closed back into the darkness she had been trapped in. Judging from the emotional information that Smaug was leaking to her, their situation was dire, yes, but was it so urgent she make herself known? It would see her locked away again if she angered Smaug, couldn’t Shallan just watch for a little while longer?

Shallan refused to jeopardize her one chance at understanding her situation, and stubbornly refused to speak up, no matter how much she felt it needed to happen. Veil found the whole situation so far gone from her control that she wouldn’t even know where to begin, and similarly refused to question the hanging dragon. And so it fell to Radiant, who regarded the other two with a mixture of disappointment and pity. She did not fear the dragon’s ire, and she refused to be a mere passenger while their erstwhile bond floundered their best chance to strike against the unmaking. She would speak, Damnation take Smaug if he chose to rage against her still for her efforts to help.

What has happened, O’ Smaug the shining? Radiant ventured the question tentatively, the Shallan inside of her bracing for the wave of anger that she expected for daring to question. Smaug’s only response was a snort of curling smoke.

Returned so soon, Face-dancer? Smaug’s voice drawled with indifference, We are dying, little scribbler.

Radiant frowned, Smaug’s response held no particular disdain, nor did the bond between them lessen again. If anything she could better perceive the situation now, though what she saw did little to answer her questions.

I sense no mortal wound, great golden one. Have we been poisoned somehow?

Smaug growled in irritation, and Shallan flinched, though Radiant remained steadfast and unafraid.

Your questions are as inane as your fears. We are doomed by the very foe we face. Your people thought to conquer this land, unknowing or uncaring that it held such terrible monstrosities as the being that controls this place. I had thought them to be crafty, wise enough to seek the power needed to accomplish their objective. Now I see the truth. The fleets of your kind were as expendable as our own lives, sacrificed readily for any scrap of progress or glimmlet of information. As though the life of one of the last great dragons was a log to be thrown onto a fire without heed or concern.

There was a bitterness to Smaug’s words, his neck hanging low, staring at the nothingness.

And you intend to let them? Radiant questioned, slightly incredulous.

I have not the strength to best this foe! Smaug snarled, If Karl Jak truly knew what creatures lurked in this place he sought to conquer, then may the unmaking rot him too! I know the measure of power that I hold. It is mighty to be hold, as you have seen. I tell you now that I have no fraction of the strength needed to lay low the foe we face. I am beaten, thoroughly and completely. This fetid nightmare will be the end of Smaug the destroyer.

So you accept defeat?

I accept nothing but the truth, scribbler. My death in this place is an affront to all that is right in these worlds. I shall see my vengeance come to Karl Jak for his arrogance in condemning me to this end. But I see nothing to be gained from continuing to struggle futilely against a foe we hold no chance of defeating, so I shall retain my dignity and accept my death.

I won’t accept it! Radiant grit her teeth. The Shallan part of her panicked now. Mere sentences and she was already back to challenging the dragon’s decisions? This was sure to end poorly, but Radiant refused to accept defeat laying down. Life before death.

Let me aid you, O’ Smaug the great. I am weaker than you by far, and unversed in the ways of warfare, but I have sworn oaths. My calling compels me to combat a foe we can scarcely comprehend, let alone match in strengths. The people of Roshar hang in the balance of that mission. This foe may have you outmatched, but if it is not infallible it can be outwitted yet. In legends even gods can die.

Another curl of smoke unfurled from Smaug’s nostrils, and for a time he said nothing in response.

Your insistent bleating is tiring, face-dancer. If you have not the pride to accept that we are beaten, then I will let you rail against our coming end how you so choose. Though I state this plainly. We have no means to face a foe such as this one. It is beyond our power.

Then I cannot fail worse than we already would. Radiant responded, doing her best to maintain confidence. Smaug merely snorted in response.

That you imagine so is the truest proof of your ignorance scribbler.

995 words. 2205 overall so far

 

[Shallan Davar]

As Smaug allowed Radiant a measure of control in their actions, a flood of sensation swept over her. She floundered momentarily, trying to process, immensely grateful that their surroundings were so barren of sensory information. She steeled herself, adamant in her resolve not to accept this defeat.

The chains held them tight, no amount of wriggling would free them from this enmeshed state. But they seemed merely to be metal, and dragonfire would see their way to freedom. Red-green flames washed over the chains. Links began to melt and run, and with their bonds weakened, Smaug Radiant was able to free first one wing than the other. Their wings beat the air with a fervor, straining against the remaining restraints, snapping free one after another.

Before their freedom was achieved however, the architect of their prison reappeared. Radiant’s resolve quailed before the sheer size of the creature they sought to face. It stared down at them with a terror so primordial that she wanted to curl into a ball like Shallan was doing. Smaug Radiant continued to strain against the final restraints, fully knowing that this being would smite them in an instant if it chose to. She could see it gathering some sort of energy from the environment around them, lightning seeming to collect on the massive spikes that covered the massive creature. The power leapt from spike to spike along its surface, coalescing along the spines of its back until they glowed blue with enough strength to light the entirety of their surroundings.

Radiant knew that Smaug would not be able to withstand such power if it was turned against them. They needed some way to misdirect their foe, something to keep it from utterly eradicating them.

“What do you prove?” She challenged, though the voice was in fact Smaug’s that spoke the words.

Her gamble at the creature possessing some measure of intellect proved true, as it regarded her with a more focused stare. The energy on its back did not dissipate, but it ceased to collect more. It stared down at them, a primordial sort of understanding taking hold of their bonded mind.

They were to experience pain. They were to know it fully!

The remaining chains that still held them yanked suddenly downwards, pulling Smaug Radiant towards a scarred and torn surface. They crashed to the ground amidst craters and unyielding angles. Smaug Radiant struggled to their feet as quickly as they were able, but not so swiftly to avoid the promised pain. Barbed wire, slithering in tendrils like snakes came from every angle, wrapping around them, weaving between the gemstones that armored Smaug’s underbelly and sliding into the gaps between his scales. They constricted ever tighter. Pain like a thousand needles sliding along sensitive skin. Instinctively they started to writhe, but movement brought only further pain, and Smaug Radiant forced themselves to stillness, mustering their willpower to resist.

Shallan clung to Radiant desperately, images of the Davar household flashing unbidden to her mind. Smaug had been right, they should have simply accepted their defeat. Should have laid down and died before had opened themselves to this great hurt. The being that ruled here was an avatar of pain, and they would be its testament for the thought of challenging it. Smaug Radiant squeezed their eyes shut, flinching as the barbed wire pried one scale fully off of their carapace, then another.

Accept the pain. But don’t accept that you deserved it.

Shallan started. The words were Wit’s, though now repeated by Veil of all people. Her gaze trailed up to the massive creature. It stood still, staring down at the pinned and bleeding dragon. It watched her with a focused intensity, scarcely moving, even breathing. She screamed a roar of draconic defiance up at it.

The roar was taken up by another voice as Karakul broke free of the clouds, roaring with a murderous frenzy. The monster’s focus on Smaug Radiant wavered, and the pain lessened as the newcomer approached. In desperation, Radiant squirmed, several more scales snapping free from the effort. Smaug whined in pain, and the monster’s attention was drawn fully back to its ensnared foe. It truly did care about nothing more than pain.

“The spines on its back!” It was Smaug’s voice that wailed out in the Draconic tongue, but the words, the manner, they came from Radiant as she beseeched the raging daughters of Yucatan to listen,

“We will keep its focus, you must…” They gasped out a breath in agony, “It stores the lightning! Between the spines. Bend them together!”

They could force out no more words, as the pain seemed to find ever sharper intensities. All they could do now was endure, and hope that Karakul, that Eszter would understand. Pain was inflicted externally to stave off the pain kept inside. This was a lesson she had learned at too young an age. This creature inflicted pain to a measure she had not imagined possible. They had no hope of matching it with their own. Pain was its strength, and they needed to turn that strength upon itself.

851 words. 3056 overall.

 

[Karl Jak]

Update:

One of you owes me a resolution post where you'll defeat the monster and abruptly be back in the ocean, being retrieved by the ships.

You'll both acquire Minor Injuries

You both receive +5 Points

 

[Eszter]

The mental blur that was once Karakul and Eszter howled as one, venting their rage to anyone who would listen. A small part of their fractured mind could tell foe from slightly-less-pressing foe, vaguely comprehending the advice being shouted at them. The living fortress that towered over her, some new incarnation of Wyrmfall no doubt, crackled with lighting that centred on its many harpoons jutting from its hide.

Turning them against the dragonslayers would only be fitting.

The dragon queen hurled herself against its bulk, but with a touch more care than normal, even in her berserk state. This was not out of any sense of restraint or attempt at precision, her instincts simply warned her away from the iron stakes that had caused her demise in the past. Her claws dug into blackened flesh that had a consistency somewhere between leather and rubber, driving them deep to keep her grip.

Unphased by her assault, the monster did not even look as it conjured a number of chains from nowhere, lashing towards the unwanted passenger with the same cold cruelty as always. The dragon clung tight as hooks slipped between and beneath scales, attempting to yank her free. Fury gave her strength, strength enough to hold fast when she would otherwise be torn away, but she had her limits. It took all her might just to stay in place, giving up a limb or two to bend the spines was unthinkable.

As if sensing her struggle, Smaug came barreling towards the mad dragon. The mighty firedrake dipped and dodged between hooks that careened towards him, foiling their attempts to rip him back into the abyss that surrounded them. With flame and claw, the smaller dragon severed the bonds holding his larger companion, even as their monstrous foe turned its attention onto him.

Blue, radioactive lightning built in the beast’s spines, a low hum rising in the air as the energy ros up its body. The creature’s eyes locked onto Smaug as its maw opened wider and wider, far wider than should have been realistically possible for its anatomy. Even as tendons tore and muscles stretched, concentrated pain visibly build in the back of its throat.

“Now!” Radiant called with Smaug’s voice. Karakul and Eszter did not need her call, but were already moving to carry out the plan. They reached out with one great claw, closing it around a glowing spine and holding tight. No true damage was done to the dragon, but touching the spike was enough to feel like she was grabbing agony itself. Pain ripped through the pair, making their muddled, combined head swim. Still, though, they did not yield.

Sucking in air, the reincarnation of Yucatan reached out with her free front limb, grabbing at another spine. Her whole body spasmed at the feeling, as if she was being torn apart scale by scale. Gritting her fangs, the dragon queen brought their spines together, bending them into a completed circuit and melting them together with a quick burst of flame.

The result was instantaneous as the mad dragon allowed herself to finally fall free. Pain surged out from the monster’s spines and back into its body, sending blue energy arcing chaotically out from the fused spines. The beast did not seem overly perturbed by the sensation of its power being driven back into its body. On the contrary, it hesitated for a moment, tilting its head back with its eyes half-closed in a state of euphoric bliss.

Leaping from one pair of spines to the next, the dragons continued to weld them together, sending more energy cycling back into the beast with each pair. Soon enough, the monster’s entire body was crackling with power, its skin glowing with the intensity of the contained power. Snapping back to life, the creature seemed to realise that it needed to vent the energy.

Now.

It slowly, deliberately, turned its head to its victims, prepared to unleash a pain unlike no other upon them. Then, before it had the chance, a pair of horns crashed into its chin, slamming its jaws closed. Moving quickly, Karakul curled herself around the monster's mouth, holding it closed even as it tried to unleash its radioactive breath. Smaug hesitated a moment, much preferring to stay far from the beast if he could, but decided that the risk of not helping was greater than the risk of getting close.

The two dragons bound around the jaws together, holding the creature’s mouth shut with all of their might. Power rushed up Hellzilla’s throat, exploding into its mouth and attempting to continue out into the world beyond, but the drakes would not let it. The pressure was unbelievable, the pair felt as though their muscles would snap like overstretched rubber brands at any moment. But still, they held. No matter how mighty this thing may have been, there was no creature in this world or the next mightier than a pair of dragons.

Glowing stretch-marks began to form in the leathery skin of the monster’s face, its overly taut skin battling the unfathomable force pushing inexorably against it. Flesh distended, blue light growing more and more intense, as hooks scraped haphazardly against the scales of its foes, failing to find purchase. Then, all at once, glow built until it was all that the dragons could see. Their ears were filled with the sound of latex flesh tearing and the death rattle of a sadistic behemoth, and then…

They were floating gently on the surface of the ocean.

Suddenly lucid, Eszter gawked as she glanced around, looking for any sign of their foe. She could see Smaug and Shallan floating next to her. She could see their fleet making its way towards them in the near distance. She could see an island in the distance, upon which snow seemed to be falling. But that was it.

As if waking from a dream, the dragonkin groggily rubbed her eyes, wondering if any of it had been real. As she gingerly touched the base of her horns and memories of untold agony shot through her, though, she wondered if that really mattered.