Dragon Goddess’s chosen

Draconic to common translation:

 

We served you in life and prepared after death to serve again when you call upon us.

 

I read over an inscription I spotted on a sarcophagus in a small chamber we just cleared in one of the halls while Kat and Eris worked on trying to pick a lock on a metal door at the back of the room. The next line was haphazardly scratched on the stone surface in the same language.

 

Why have you abandoned us, Goddess? You have not called upon us, yet you have a new champion.

 

‘Why is it in Draconic? None of them look part dragon…’ I thought as I studied the plain sarcophagus. ‘Rissaeth only said she was the Goddess of dragons… surely it can't be her, right?’

“Everything ok, Alex? You've been staring at that for a bit…” Max asked as I felt him gently touch my arm.

“Yeah… just looking at the inscriptions, they're weird, the bottom one is new like the draugr are writing or something” I shrugged ‘It'll be weird if I admitted I can read it’ 

“Haha, told you, I'd get it” Eris laughed loudly and I glanced back to the two girls to see her opening the door they were working on. Surprisingly, there was actually light in there unlike the maze of a crypt we were just going through. Unfortunately, though, an armored draugr charged through and both girls quickly scrambled away from the door as it brought its ax down at the fighter. 

‘Dammit, Eris’ I growled and rushed the undead. It gave a raspy groan as it brought its weapon back to its shoulder, its glowing eyes snapping to me.

 

Draugr Vikingr

D Rank Undead Warrior 

Strength and Dexterity increased compared to Draugr, all other stats consistent.

 

It raised its ax as I approached and I quickly grabbed the bottom of the handle, pushing it up with one hand as I shoved my sword into its stomach. To my surprise, as I drove it back into the room it came from, ice started to spread from its wound and slowly put out the fire I had placed on it. I immediately pulled back and kicked it away before the ice could creep to the hilt of my weapon. The undead recovered quicker than the previous ones we had been fighting, swinging the ax at my side and forcing me to jump back to avoid it. I quickly brought my sword down on top of it to force it to the ground. 

“Alex, move right!” Kat directed As soon as I followed her orders, a pair of arrows struck my opponent in the eyes and it gave an angry roar. I quickly took advantage of it being blinded by stepping down on the ax and freeing my sword again to separate its head from its neck.

“God, just announce our entrance to all of them.” I groaned as I tried to shake the black blood off my sword and looked at Eris. 

“What? I was just happy to get it open” she shrugged and smiled innocently.

“Mhmm… just remember to tally that one as mine. It counts as more” 

“Says who?”

“You wanted the competition and I just saved your ass~” I stretched and finally took the time to look around. It was a much larger room than the others we had found so far, at least 60 ft across with many open, empty sarcophagi up against the walls and a large set of double doors at the back of the room blocked off by iron bars. ‘Where are all of them?”

“Max is still winning anyways.” Kat giggled as she walked into the room.

“Huh? I am?” Our mage yipped softly in surprise. 

“Your sacred flame has been really helpful” I said, smiling at him. A blush spread across his face and he looked away like normal, but his tail showed his happiness over my praise. ‘So cute…’

“I thought there'd be more. There's definitely spots for them…” Eris said as she walked past and further into the room toward the empty sarcophagi.

“Yeah, it has been weirdly empty” I sighed as I looked around. “All the chests we found were empty too, unless you and Kat found something when you guys split off on your own?”

“Nope, nothing. Everything we found was cleared out already” Kat answered. “It's like a bunch just… moved out and took their things with them.”

“So much for finding stuff in here” I bent down and picked up the draugr's ax. “Their weapons are all old and worn so I doubt they'll be worth much … to use or selling them”

“We shouldn't be trying to loot this place… it's a crypt” Max mumbled softly as he came up next to me.

“Not like there's anything to loot” I shrugged and rested the ax on my shoulder. “But you might be right, I don't want to be haunted.” 

“Alex, come here, I need your help opening this” Eris's voice suddenly interrupted our conversation and I looked over to see her at the Iron bars at the back of the room. I sighed and excused myself from Kat and Max to walk over to her. “This thing can open” she knocked her knuckles against the iron bars in front of the double doors. “It went up a little when I tried to lift it but it's too heavy to get it up all the way.”

“Maybe there's a puzzle or something somewhere that we need to do?” I suggested and she just gave me a confused look. 

“Why would they add a puzzle to a grave site?”

“I don't know, to keep people they don't want,” I motioned to the both of us “out of important places.” She shrugged and smiled at me.

“Well this might be an important place then and the end of this dusty place, just help me open it please.”

“Fine” I sighed and set the ax down to grab the base of the bars with her. “Lift on three. One, two three” We pulled up on the bars and they started sliding up slowly like a castle portcullis up to the halfway point then it seemed to be taken from our hands and opened the rest of the way on its own. Eris nearly cheered again in our victory but I stopped her with a look before I tested the doors, slowly opening them so I could do my duty as the party tank and enter the room first.

The room ahead immediately beat the previous one: it went back at least 100 feet with four large pillars that lined a path up stairs to an ornate sarcophagus at the end of the room with its lid laying on the set of stairs closer to it. Behind the sarcophagus was an obsidian black wall with papers pinned up across it. 

‘Well someone special was buried here’ I thought as I stepped through the doorway and immediately regretted it. The portcullis we just opened slammed down behind me, followed by the heavy doors closing and lighting up from my magic detection ability. I quickly turned and tried to pry the doors back open to no avail. “Kat?! Max?!” 

“Your followers cannot hear you, o’ champion of our Goddess,” a raspy voice echoed through the room, dripping with venom. “Do not try calling for Rissaeth either, she does not heed calls from this place.”

“I thought there was only draugr here” I called back and adjusted my grip on my borrowed ax.

“There were, they are gone now: slain by you or taken in by the merciful Drathys and her chosen.” 

‘Drathys… one of the gods…’ I thought, trying to remember what they were from what I read. ‘... shit… was it undeath?’

“Has Rissaeth sent you to remove us? Are we such a blight on her name?” A draugr larger than the others we had faced and armored in chainmail and a breastplate stepped out from behind one of the pillars, holding a weapon across both shoulders that had a head that looked like a spear, warhammer, and ax all together. Just as worryingly, this draugr had a skeletonized set of wings and tail spanning behind it. “You fought well in the forest with your allies, how are you on your own? Are you worthy as a champion of the Conquest Goddess?”

“I don't know what you're talking about” I yelled as I frantically used threat analysis on it.

 

Comparison analysis of Draugr Dreki to Alex Steele.

 

Strength: Significantly Higher 

Dexterity: Slightly lower

Durability: Slightly Higher

Arcane Magic: Equivalent 

Divine Magic: Slightly lower 

Nature Magic: Slightly lower

 

Conclusion: Barring undetected abilities, is of Major threat to User.

 

Use of Rage will allow User to become equal threat to target.

 

Warning! Emotional and/or damage thresholds have not been met for Rage.

 

“Do not lie to me, whelp! I can sense her meddling with your form!” It growled and moved its weapon to a ready position. My tail flicked nervously behind me as I watched it approach, quickly realizing that it is even larger than my rage form.

“I'm a chosen for the Mother of Dragons, not a Goddess of Conquest” I responded and glanced back at the doors.

“Is the former champion of your Goddess of Dragons too daunting of a foe to you? Afraid that she will abandon you like she did us? For millennia? Waiting for her call?”

“I still don't know what you're talking about, she might have been quiet for a while but she helped me.” I responded, starting to feel my fire breath pool a bit in my mouth.

“It appears she may have abandoned you already.”

“I doubt that… “ I sighed and shifted the ax in my hands and started approaching the undead. “She needs me”

“Gods always make their followers believe that!” It roared “We gave our lives in conquest for her name and pledged ourselves to serve in death and yet she let us rot!” Its gaze flicked to the doors behind me. “Your companions are attempting to enter. Pity, I wished to help you prove yourself to Rissaeth.”

“What?” 

“Prove yourself worthy to be a champion of a god and free me from my bond to her. Fail, and I'll send you… and your companions to explain to the gods of that failure yourselves” I immediately felt my rage flare up at the threat to my party, specifically Max and Kat. 

“If you want me to kill you, just kneel and I'll make it quick” I growled back. 

“That is a laughable suggestion, whelp. I will not submit to an execution. Give me an honorable death.”

“I-if that's what you want” I took a breath to calm myself. ‘Don't take long guys…’ I quickly rushed at the undead and aimed to bury the ax head into its neck but it responded a lot faster than I expected for a corpse. It batted my strike away then immediately slammed the hammer head into my left side and I swore I heard something crack as I was tossed away. I wheezed a bit as I tried to catch my breath from the blunt pain that knocked the wind out of me.

“Get up, champion! Did the ‘Great’ Goddess make a mistake with you?” The undead taunted, somehow inciting my rage further. I growled and immediately released my flames at it in response. The creature was driven back for a moment when I adjusted the flame to a cone that engulfed it. Unfortunately this success was short lived as my fire started to be driven back by a blast of icy wind and cryogenic fluid that made ice form across my body when it overwhelmed my fire.

 

Draugr Dreki updated with Arctic dragon breath.

 

I scrambled to my feet but I found myself slowed by the ice that felt like it was burning me with the cold. While I was slowed, the draugr stormed over and grabbed my neck before slamming me against one of the pillars. Pain shot out from the base of one of my wings as another cracking noise rang out. 

“Disappointing for you to be my successor.” It growled and more pain shot up me as it stabbed through my armor and into the right side of my abdomen with the spear point. I roared and swung at its face with my fist, trying to recall one of Max's spells to try to use it as a desperate attempt to escape.

“Fulgur tactus!” I yelled as I struck it with little result. The draugr just growled and pressed the weapon end into me more and I started to feel a burning cold creep out from it and across my stomach. 

 

User does not have Shocking Grasp. Arcane Magic stat sufficient to acquire two additional spells.

Acquire Shocking Grasp? 

 

‘Yes!’ I answered in a panic as my vision started to tunnel. 

 

Shocking Grasp acquired, spell now may be used.

 

I immediately shoved my hand over its face and repeated the spell, electricity crackling as arcs jumped from me to my target. The undead recoiled and withdrew its weapon.

“Using spells too?” It roared and while it was distracted, I wrapped my tail around the arm it was using to choke me and pulled myself up to lock it into an arm bar with my entire body and tail. Unlike the times in martial arts, I didn't slowly add pressure for the submission hold, I ignored the pain in my stomach and used my body to wrench the draugr's elbow backwards until I heard it break and its hand released my neck. I let myself drop to the ground and scrambled back to my feet as I clutched my stomach over the fresh wound with one hand and drew my sword with the other, having dropped the ax when it grabbed me. 

“Fucking hell…” I groaned, shakily keeping my weapon at the ready. The undead looked at its arm then at me and adjusted its grip on its own weapon to make the hammer head face forward.

“Interesting trick, spells and maiming” it mused and glared at me. “I am capable of the same trick. Causa Timoris” A familiar inky darkness bubbled at its feet before bursting out suddenly. I tried to scramble away but it quickly enveloped me in its darkness. Everything felt like it was fading away but I got one last notification before I lost sight of the room.

 

Damage and Emotional Threshold Exceeded, Rage conditions met, Activating skill.

 

I felt a pit in my stomach at what I found in front of me. I was back home, back on Earth. Even worse, I was in the last place I remembered before meeting Rissaeth, on the sidewalk by a curved portion of the road at the bottom of a hill at night. My heart pounded when I turned around to look up the hill and found Kat right behind me, smiling and not an elf anymore and back in the t-shirt and jeans I last remembered her wearing.

“Are you ready for your game tomorrow night?” She teased.

“H-huh?” I asked, my old male voice jarring me a bit.

“... your D&D game…? We're playing tomorrow, right?” She gave me a confused look.

‘That couldn't have been a daydream… I was there for a month! She's here… where's Max?? There's no way I could completely make up a guy and fall for him…’ I looked down at myself, confirming that I was back to my old, small self. “U-um…”

“Are you ok?” 

“I-i don't know… I have to be going crazy…” I sighed then my heart started pounding practically out of my chest when I heard the screech of tires approaching us. “It's happening again. It can't happen again…” I quickly tried to grab her arm but I found my own left arm not responding. I looked down at myself again and found myself back to being part dragon but my left arm was broken and bent in a sickly angle in the middle of my forearm. My armor was gone and blood was staining my shirt around the spearhead wound. There was a thunderous boom that made my head snap back up and I was blinded by the headlights of an old pickup truck. I quickly reached out to Kat with my good hand and froze when I saw that she was back to white-haired elf and much smaller than me.

“Alex! Calm down! I-its over!” She cupped my cheeks and forced me to look her in the eyes. I then realized I was panting as if I was just running for miles and I looked around to find that the room was destroyed. One of the pillars was gone, there were burn marks everywhere, and the draugr was slumped against a wall, headless and with the blade of my sword broken off in its chest along what looked like a lever handle.

“... what happened…?” I mumbled, a nauseous dizziness washing over me. I tried to focus on my girlfriend again but my vision was quickly fading.

Stamina and Mana depleted. Blood loss detected.