"We... can just bypass this village right? Through your shadow ability?" Anvi asked, terrified of the skeletal dragon flying above them
"Sure, I can do that. But this will spread and may eventually even cover the whole Almera and beyond. Everyone will be effected" Aslan said
"Then what are you doing?" Aimee asked
"Determining if this is a Dracolich or merely a Bone Dragon" Aslan said
"Is there a difference?" Aimee asked again
"Yes. The difficulty involved. A Dracolich is a Dragon who have become a Lich, while a Bone Dragon is a dead dragon that has been reanimated by necromancy to become a skeleton warrior, but with the the dragon's capabilities. The difference will be like facing a skeleton warrior or a lich, but the dragon version of it" Aslan said, remembering details from Balthazar's notes
"So which one is it?" Aria asked
"I can't tell the difference. The only way is to check if it has it's own personality, or is merely acting on someone else's will" Aslan said
"You.. you mean you're going to face it just to find out which it is? Either way, it will still have the power of a dragon, as you said!" Anvi asked in panic
"We'll see" Aslan said as he walked out of the shadows
The 3 girls followed him nervously. They were scared, but if he died, they would be stuck in the shadows forever
Aslan stood and waited for the dragon to notice, and it immediately saw him and charged at him
It opened it's mouth to shoot a breath attack of some sort, but Aslan froze it's shadow
It stopped moving and even dropped out of the sky as it could no longer fly because it's wings were immobile
"Bone dragon" Aslan said
"How.. how do you know?" Anvi asked
"I think real dragons can resist by ability, like the dragon during our mid-year exam that captured Aria. This one is helpless before me" Aslan said
Aria remembered and shivered in fear
"Hmm, must have died of old age. It's mana core is still intact" Aslan said as he controlled the dragon's own shadow to cut it's skull open, retrieving it's mana core
Then, using the shadows, he disassembled the dragon into it's individual parts and kept them in his shadow dimension. He was always regretful that he didn't harvest the black dragon that he burnt with his silent flame. Every part of a dragon is valuable. Perhaps he could have made an armor or something with the dragon scale
Like a skeleton undead, the dragon might very well move again if it was reassembled. But he didn't care as the dragon was in parts and was in a shadow dimension, which was literally all shadow. It would become inanimate again once he kills the necromancer or lich that has taken control of this town anyway
"Lets go to town" Aslan said and started running towards the town
The girls hesitated, but followed him from behind
Aria fired arrows from behind Aslan, Aimee covered attacks from the left with her sword while Anvi covered attacks from the right with her hammer. They began to be attacked by undead former residents of the torn
"Going to attract some attention" Aslan said, firing a large fireball that caused a large, loud explosion in the middle of the town square, with the sole purpose to attract attention, with the hope of the necromancer revealing himself
While running past, Aslan sliced off the necks of the shadows of the undead zombies that he passed, and their physical heads dropped off ,but their bodies continued chasing after them, letting Anvi or Aimee cut them down
"This is more disturbing, to be honest" Aimee said behind him
Indeed they were getting even more surrounded, by bodies that were already beheaded and even mangled, but kept coming
"Shit! We're getting surrounded. They are not stopping!" Anvi said, smacking a dead woman with her hammer
She was smashed away, her upper body splattering on a wall. But her bottom half continued chasing after them
They stopped running after reaching the town square, and got surrounded by more and more zombies
"What are we going to do now?" Anvi panicked
"Don't worry, we can still travel through the shadows. I just..... ha gotcha!" Aslan said as a shadow moved from the wall and pierced the shoulder of a person hiding in one of the houses by the square!
The man was dragged out by his own shadow as he grunted in pain as he was dumped at Aslan's feet
"Who are you, maggot?" Aslan asked
"You kids ruined my plans. What did you do to my bone dragon? This town was to be my first step! Curse you! Curse you to hell!" the necromancer cursed
"No, curse you!" Aslan said as he used his mithril staff Cursed like a bat and just whacked the man in the head, splattering his brains and half his head all over
All the zombies in town collapsed. It looked like the whole town was affected and was turned into zombies
"Ew!" Aimee said, looking at the shattered head on the necromancer's body
"To think, a mere necromancer has caused so much damage. And for what?" Aria said as Aslan burned the remnant remains off his staff
Aslan wondered if conquering the town and spreading his power was the necromancer's only goal. Surely there was something more than that? But it didn't seem like he was going to tell them anything more, thus he executed him.
"Onward towards the next town then" Aria said
The rest nodded, looking around at the deserted town, littered with dead bodies of the residences
"I don't even know the name of this place. What a shame" Aslan thought, having bypassed this village somehow when he was forced to go to Elfheim on the way to the Academy originally
--
For two days, they ran towards the next sign of civilization. They could have done so faster, but they had to wait for Anvi, whose short legs could not catch up with Aslan, Aria or Aimee
The 3 could run faster than horses, and this leg of the journey would have taken a day and a half by carriage.
They arrived at the next city and apparently they had taken another path, but Aslan could recognize certain landmark that were unique to this city. Aria recognized it too. She glanced at Aslan and he nodded. It was Evermore! Aria and the other Elven Guard were enslaved here!
"Evermore! The merchant city! I had such a good time here before!" Aimee said
"Me too!" Anvi said excitedly
Aslan looked at Aria, who nodded back that she's ok
"Ok girls. We didn't stay long because we had a... detour. Maybe you girls can show us around tonight?" Aslan said trying to lighten the mood
They were a bit bummed on the way here about the previous town, so perhaps having fun, no matter what a bad time Aria had before, would be best
Aslan told them that they could stay in his shadow tonight, so they didn't bother with a room. Aria and Aslan didn't trust the hotels here anyway
They had a dinner at one of the pubs that Aimee recommended and Aslan and Anvi had their first taste of ale. Aria abstained and only watched as Aimee got both Aslan and Anvi drunk
While watching them embarrass themselves, Aria was eavesdropping on other conversations in the pub
Apparently, there was going to be an auction tonight, and Evermore was the city of trade and was renowned for their auctions, that sold weird and rare artifacts
"Great! Let's go! I'll buy all of you anything you fancy!" Aslan said, completely drunk
--
Aslan awoke with a splitting headache. This was his first hangover and he felt so sick.
He looked around him. He was in the shadows with the girls, so at there was that!
Aria was to his side, but was sleeping facing the other way. He wanted to hug her but couldn't
The reason was that Aimee and Anvi was sleeping on the other side of him, Aimee sleeping while hugging his left leg, her face inches from his groin, and Anvi sleeping upside down with her butt facing his face!
He counted his blessings and was relieved that they weren't naked, and nobody was suckling on his cock or something like that
They were in a dark alley way, safe in the shadows as a drunk man stumbled as he walked to Aslan and pissed on his face, even though he was safely in his shadow dimension!
But Aslan was not covered in pee, nor did the pee reach him, but from the shadows, he could see everything outside! In the shadows, he was in the shadow realm and simultaneously in the physical realm
The man stumbled away, and Aslan thought it was probably a good idea to move within the shadows and exit somewhere else
Aria stretched as she woke up, looking as beautiful as ever, and Aimee also slowly got up and let go of Aslan's leg. Anvi moved and her butt bumped into Aslan's face
Aslan spanked her butt. waking her up
"Ow! Aslan! Why did you hit me?"
"Your butt was on my face! It was time to wake up anyway!" he said
It was then that Aslan noticed a few strange things with them in the shadow dimension
"What,, what are these?" Aslan asked
"Those are the things you bought in the auction!" Aria explained
"You bought me a ring, see?" Anvi said
"She wanted a telepathic ring like mine and Aimee's" Aria explained
"Only mine is not limited by line of sight. Mine can work anywhere within a 500 meter radius" Anvi said telepathically and said so proudly
"What.. what else did I buy at the auction?" Aslan asked
"You bought me a weapon similar to yours. It's an early invention by the famous weapons smith Tolkien and Rawlings. Look" Aria said, quite proud of it
It was a beautifully staff, made from ironwood making it as hard capable of crossing swords with a proper sword, yet light as mithril. It could also become a bow that didn't require a bowstring or any arrows, which worked by infusing mana, which became the string and the arrows
"It really is like my weapon, or my original weapon made from oak! I thought it was original, but I guess someone else invented it first" Aslan said
"My grandfather!" Anvi suddenly said
"Your grandfather? Which side? I thought Elves and Dwarves didn't normally get along" Aslan asked
"No, silly. My grandfather was the gnome inventor Angus Rawlings!" Anvi said
"I thought you were a half-dwarf? I never knew you were half-gnome" Aimee said
"I'm both! My father is a dwarf, but my mother was a half-gnome" Anvi explained
Aria and Aslan nodded, finally understanding her lineage
"And.... what the hell is this?" Aslan asked, looking at a mannequinlike figure
"You.. don't remember anything? Man, you must have been drunk out of your mind" Aimee said
"We had to carry him out of the auction house, remember?" Aria said
"Anyway, you wanted to bid for a sword for me, the early sword once wielded by the hero Acturus. But someone outbid you" Aimee said
"So out of spite, you bid for this next object that the bidder of the sword wanted, and the price kept rising, So at the end, you won the bid with a ridiculous price" Aria said
"So... how much did I bid that this thing is worth?" Aslan asked, examining what looked like a real human female, but without her skin. It was complete with organs. But somehow the flesh remained firm and looked lifelike even though the girl was clearly dead. It was a cadaver preserved by magic
"You insisted... and paid 2,000,000 gold pieces for her" Aria said
"Two million? I don't think I'll ever drink again" Aslan said in shock
"You were pretty wasted" Anvi said
"Anvi could hold her alcohol better than you. Must be from her dwarven side" Aimee said
"So who and what is this?" Aslan asked
"According to the description yesterday, this was a human test subject by the rogue mage Balthazar! He used it... her... as a model to understand the human body better and compare it with other creatures and hybrids with other races" Aria said
Aslan looked at her. He wanted to throw her away, but she was an expensive acquisition. Two million gold? He only won 10,000 gold from the King for his finals exam!
Luckily he had plenty of gold from the dragon hoard in his shadow dimension. Even so, spending that much gold made his heart ache
He sighed and decided to continue their journey. Maybe the fresh air on their journey will help him overcome this hangover
"We... can just bypass this village right? Through your shadow ability?" Anvi asked, terrified of the skeletal dragon flying above them
"Sure, I can do that. But this will spread and may eventually even cover the whole Almera and beyond. Everyone will be effected" Aslan said
"Then what are you doing?" Aimee asked
"Determining if this is a Dracolich or merely a Bone Dragon" Aslan said
"Is there a difference?" Aimee asked again
"Yes. The difficulty involved. A Dracolich is a Dragon who have become a Lich, while a Bone Dragon is a dead dragon that has been reanimated by necromancy to become a skeleton warrior, but with the the dragon's capabilities. The difference will be like facing a skeleton warrior or a lich, but the dragon version of it" Aslan said, remembering details from Balthazar's notes
"So which one is it?" Aria asked
"I can't tell the difference. The only way is to check if it has it's own personality, or is merely acting on someone else's will" Aslan said
"You.. you mean you're going to face it just to find out which it is? Either way, it will still have the power of a dragon, as you said!" Anvi asked in panic
"We'll see" Aslan said as he walked out of the shadows
The 3 girls followed him nervously. They were scared, but if he died, they would be stuck in the shadows forever
Aslan stood and waited for the dragon to notice, and it immediately saw him and charged at him
It opened it's mouth to shoot a breath attack of some sort, but Aslan froze it's shadow
It stopped moving and even dropped out of the sky as it could no longer fly because it's wings were immobile
"Bone dragon" Aslan said
"How.. how do you know?" Anvi asked
"I think real dragons can resist by ability, like the dragon during our mid-year exam that captured Aria. This one is helpless before me" Aslan said
Aria remembered and shivered in fear
"Hmm, must have died of old age. It's mana core is still intact" Aslan said as he controlled the dragon's own shadow to cut it's skull open, retrieving it's mana core
Then, using the shadows, he disassembled the dragon into it's individual parts and kept them in his shadow dimension. He was always regretful that he didn't harvest the black dragon that he burnt with his silent flame. Every part of a dragon is valuable. Perhaps he could have made an armor or something with the dragon scale
Like a skeleton undead, the dragon might very well move again if it was reassembled. But he didn't care as the dragon was in parts and was in a shadow dimension, which was literally all shadow. It would become inanimate again once he kills the necromancer or lich that has taken control of this town anyway
"Lets go to town" Aslan said and started running towards the town
The girls hesitated, but followed him from behind
Aria fired arrows from behind Aslan, Aimee covered attacks from the left with her sword while Anvi covered attacks from the right with her hammer. They began to be attacked by undead former residents of the torn
"Going to attract some attention" Aslan said, firing a large fireball that caused a large, loud explosion in the middle of the town square, with the sole purpose to attract attention, with the hope of the necromancer revealing himself
While running past, Aslan sliced off the necks of the shadows of the undead zombies that he passed, and their physical heads dropped off ,but their bodies continued chasing after them, letting Anvi or Aimee cut them down
"This is more disturbing, to be honest" Aimee said behind him
Indeed they were getting even more surrounded, by bodies that were already beheaded and even mangled, but kept coming
"Shit! We're getting surrounded. They are not stopping!" Anvi said, smacking a dead woman with her hammer
She was smashed away, her upper body splattering on a wall. But her bottom half continued chasing after them
They stopped running after reaching the town square, and got surrounded by more and more zombies
"What are we going to do now?" Anvi panicked
"Don't worry, we can still travel through the shadows. I just..... ha gotcha!" Aslan said as a shadow moved from the wall and pierced the shoulder of a person hiding in one of the houses by the square!
The man was dragged out by his own shadow as he grunted in pain as he was dumped at Aslan's feet
"Who are you, maggot?" Aslan asked
"You kids ruined my plans. What did you do to my bone dragon? This town was to be my first step! Curse you! Curse you to hell!" the necromancer cursed
"No, curse you!" Aslan said as he used his mithril staff Cursed like a bat and just whacked the man in the head, splattering his brains and half his head all over
All the zombies in town collapsed. It looked like the whole town was affected and was turned into zombies
"Ew!" Aimee said, looking at the shattered head on the necromancer's body
"To think, a mere necromancer has caused so much damage. And for what?" Aria said as Aslan burned the remnant remains off his staff
Aslan wondered if conquering the town and spreading his power was the necromancer's only goal. Surely there was something more than that? But it didn't seem like he was going to tell them anything more, thus he executed him.
"Onward towards the next town then" Aria said
The rest nodded, looking around at the deserted town, littered with dead bodies of the residences
"I don't even know the name of this place. What a shame" Aslan thought, having bypassed this village somehow when he was forced to go to Elfheim on the way to the Academy originally
--
For two days, they ran towards the next sign of civilization. They could have done so faster, but they had to wait for Anvi, whose short legs could not catch up with Aslan, Aria or Aimee
The 3 could run faster than horses, and this leg of the journey would have taken a day and a half by carriage.
They arrived at the next city and apparently they had taken another path, but Aslan could recognize certain landmark that were unique to this city. Aria recognized it too. She glanced at Aslan and he nodded. It was Evermore! Aria and the other Elven Guard were enslaved here!
"Evermore! The merchant city! I had such a good time here before!" Aimee said
"Me too!" Anvi said excitedly
Aslan looked at Aria, who nodded back that she's ok
"Ok girls. We didn't stay long because we had a... detour. Maybe you girls can show us around tonight?" Aslan said trying to lighten the mood
They were a bit bummed on the way here about the previous town, so perhaps having fun, no matter what a bad time Aria had before, would be best
Aslan told them that they could stay in his shadow tonight, so they didn't bother with a room. Aria and Aslan didn't trust the hotels here anyway
They had a dinner at one of the pubs that Aimee recommended and Aslan and Anvi had their first taste of ale. Aria abstained and only watched as Aimee got both Aslan and Anvi drunk
While watching them embarrass themselves, Aria was eavesdropping on other conversations in the pub
Apparently, there was going to be an auction tonight, and Evermore was the city of trade and was renowned for their auctions, that sold weird and rare artifacts
"Great! Let's go! I'll buy all of you anything you fancy!" Aslan said, completely drunk
--
Aslan awoke with a splitting headache. This was his first hangover and he felt so sick.
He looked around him. He was in the shadows with the girls, so at there was that!
Aria was to his side, but was sleeping facing the other way. He wanted to hug her but couldn't
The reason was that Aimee and Anvi was sleeping on the other side of him, Aimee sleeping while hugging his left leg, her face inches from his groin, and Anvi sleeping upside down with her butt facing his face!
He counted his blessings and was relieved that they weren't naked, and nobody was suckling on his cock or something like that
They were in a dark alley way, safe in the shadows as a drunk man stumbled as he walked to Aslan and pissed on his face, even though he was safely in his shadow dimension!
But Aslan was not covered in pee, nor did the pee reach him, but from the shadows, he could see everything outside! In the shadows, he was in the shadow realm and simultaneously in the physical realm
The man stumbled away, and Aslan thought it was probably a good idea to move within the shadows and exit somewhere else
Aria stretched as she woke up, looking as beautiful as ever, and Aimee also slowly got up and let go of Aslan's leg. Anvi moved and her butt bumped into Aslan's face
Aslan spanked her butt. waking her up
"Ow! Aslan! Why did you hit me?"
"Your butt was on my face! It was time to wake up anyway!" he said
It was then that Aslan noticed a few strange things with them in the shadow dimension
"What,, what are these?" Aslan asked
"Those are the things you bought in the auction!" Aria explained
"You bought me a ring, see?" Anvi said
"She wanted a telepathic ring like mine and Aimee's" Aria explained
"Only mine is not limited by line of sight. Mine can work anywhere within a 500 meter radius" Anvi said telepathically and said so proudly
"What.. what else did I buy at the auction?" Aslan asked
"You bought me a weapon similar to yours. It's an early invention by the famous weapons smith Tolkien and Rawlings. Look" Aria said, quite proud of it
It was a beautifully staff, made from ironwood making it as hard capable of crossing swords with a proper sword, yet light as mithril. It could also become a bow that didn't require a bowstring or any arrows, which worked by infusing mana, which became the string and the arrows
"It really is like my weapon, or my original weapon made from oak! I thought it was original, but I guess someone else invented it first" Aslan said
"My grandfather!" Anvi suddenly said
"Your grandfather? Which side? I thought Elves and Dwarves didn't normally get along" Aslan asked
"No, silly. My grandfather was the gnome inventor Angus Rawlings!" Anvi said
"I thought you were a half-dwarf? I never knew you were half-gnome" Aimee said
"I'm both! My father is a dwarf, but my mother was a half-gnome" Anvi explained
Aria and Aslan nodded, finally understanding her lineage
"And.... what the hell is this?" Aslan asked, looking at a mannequinlike figure
"You.. don't remember anything? Man, you must have been drunk out of your mind" Aimee said
"We had to carry him out of the auction house, remember?" Aria said
"Anyway, you wanted to bid for a sword for me, the early sword once wielded by the hero Acturus. But someone outbid you" Aimee said
"So out of spite, you bid for this next object that the bidder of the sword wanted, and the price kept rising, So at the end, you won the bid with a ridiculous price" Aria said
"So... how much did I bid that this thing is worth?" Aslan asked, examining what looked like a real human female, but without her skin. It was complete with organs. But somehow the flesh remained firm and looked lifelike even though the girl was clearly dead. It was a cadaver preserved by magic
"You insisted... and paid 2,000,000 gold pieces for her" Aria said
"Two million? I don't think I'll ever drink again" Aslan said in shock
"You were pretty wasted" Anvi said
"Anvi could hold her alcohol better than you. Must be from her dwarven side" Aimee said
"So who and what is this?" Aslan asked
"According to the description yesterday, this was a human test subject by the rogue mage Balthazar! He used it... her... as a model to understand the human body better and compare it with other creatures and hybrids with other races" Aria said
Aslan looked at her. He wanted to throw her away, but she was an expensive acquisition. Two million gold? He only won 10,000 gold from the King for his finals exam!
Luckily he had plenty of gold from the dragon hoard in his shadow dimension. Even so, spending that much gold made his heart ache
He sighed and decided to continue their journey. Maybe the fresh air on their journey will help him overcome this hangover
