The Age of Myth truly held grandiose sights for its time, but those sights were doubtless exaggerated in the telling. For all the talk of floating cities and battles that lit up the sky, how many wonders could one planet hold, compared to the hundreds of worlds of the Coalition?
- Sage Galyn Orlis, Royal Historian
“BRACE!”
The heavily-armored knight slammed his massive shield into the ground, the impossibly-thick sheet of metal digging a divot into the stiff, frozen earth. The two more lightly-armored figures nearby dove behind the broad, enchanted shield as well, all three panting and gasping heavily from exertion.
Apexillos could not stop his attack. The gorge of raw Dragonfire that bubbled up from his throat was already on its way, and it could no more be stopped than the thrashing rains of an oncoming hurricane.
Mystical flame, burning white and blue in the intense heat, belched forth from the dragon’s maw. The river of destruction tore through the air, across the frost-gripped earth and grass, to crash into the tightly-woven threads of power binding the shield’s defenses, the enchantments struggling against the primal force.
“They’re breaking through!” the woman’s voice shouted. “We have to do it now! If they make it to the drydock, everything will be over!”
The shield was one of the most powerful defensive artifacts that Apexillos had ever seen… but he was a Great Dragon. The last Great Dragon, if he was correct. The pure fire behind his breath was the strongest destructive force known to mortal races, and beneath its assault, the alloyed barrier of the shield glowed red within moments. Those behind it were kept from harm, but even with the magical protection the ambient heat around them would cook them alive.
Dragonfire could not be avoided for long, it was just a question of what would break first. Either the shield’s magic would fail, or the heat enveloping the trio of warriors would roast them alive. The answer would be found within heartbeats.
Pain exploded in Apexillos’s jaw, sending the stream of flame upward and away, jetting the last few moments off into the sky harmlessly. Spots flashed across his vision from the impact, and even his phenomenal regeneration could not keep up with the injuries. His eye on that side – his left – was still a ruined wreck from an earlier attack, the only thing that had allowed the mage to pinpoint the bolt of force tightly enough to damage him without him spotting it in time.
“Quintessence tanks are still empty! Only tank #3 has anything in it at all!” Another voice shouted, this one male, despair in his voice.
The dragon yanked his head up, and in doing so felt the crackle of another strike – a lightning bolt this time – sizzle just beneath his chin. He twisted about, the agony in his broken and torn wings blazing anew as his motion tugged on the chains hooked into the ruined appendages, more than half still unbroken from his struggles. The chains were enchanted, enough that he would need to focus to break even one. Battling while doing so made it exponentially more difficult.
These ‘heroes’ had prepared well for him. All too well.
A high-pitched squeal rippled through the air. Shouts followed, and someone screamed, “START IT UP! START IT NOW!”
His serpentine neck managed to twist just enough that his right eye could get a view of the mage that had so wounded him. The battle had not been one-sided, for he was still a Great Dragon, and not a creature to be trifled with no matter the number of artifacts or the cunning traps that were laid. The mage was one he had thought dead, the elf’s slender body bloodied and torn, with one arm missing. Some small part of Apexillos had to admire the mage. The shock of losing a limb must have been intense for a mortal, and casting such powerful spells with one hand required astounding focus.
More impressive still was the elf’s quick response to the lethal and swift swipe of the tail aimed his way. Exhausted and with few options, the building fire blast in the mage’s hand changed its target, erupting downward in a concussive explosion that hurled the frail-looking body and its tattered robes upward and away. The spiked tail arced beneath, barely missing the man’s feet, dispersing the inferno left behind with its passage. Tongues of flame licked over the tail, the heat registering but not concentrated enough now to injure.
An impressive evasion, if dangerous in its own right.
“We’ve lost decks 3, 4, 7, 8, and 10! Our turrets are barely slowing them down!” The man’s voice was filled with panic as he shouted that, then a loud yet distant explosion echoed. “They’re almost through the bulkhead! The seal won’t last much longer!”
Movement flashed in the corner of his limited vision, almost obscured by the still-lingering spots brought on by pain. He jerked his front talon upward, swatting to the side an instant too late. Magic-honed steel bit through his scales, shearing into muscle and sending another line of impossible agony through him. These weapons were enchanted far beyond what he’d seen most bring with them. Few bothered to challenge him, or any of the others like him.
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Until now.
His claw was still moving, and he felt it connect with the woman in the air that had wounded him. Somehow, she had leapt over a half-dozen meters into the air to make that attack with her sword. He hit her with the back of his claw, sending her flying to the side. He was sure he felt a satisfying snap of something when he connected, but he didn’t have time to follow up on it. There were too many of the pests, and even pests could hurt when massed.
“Mana capacitors are charged! Release the clamps, I’ll start the sequence now!” The female voice sounded closer this time. “Hit the release and get inside! The others are done for!”
Pounding hooves reached his ears, and Apexillos saw the oncoming charge well before it reached him. The spectral steed was fast – too fast – so he had only moments to react. Even his scales could be breached, as his numerous wounds could show. A mounted knight in full armor with a charging, mystical horse behind the single tapered tip of a lance held immense force, enough to pierce his chest.
But that isn’t what happened… what did he do?
The thought came to Apexillos suddenly, as if from far away. It didn’t delay him, his body moved on its own. He felt the disconnect, the strange sensation of analyzing the battle even while fighting it, of second-guessing everything he did. He couldn’t change it, merely analyze it. He was going through the motions of the battle, the decision already made. Predetermined.
Scripted.
“So am I,” the male voice shouted. “They’re almost through. The clamps are disengaging. You go, I’ll slow them down.”
The claw slammed down while Apexillos drew from deep within, touching the core of his draconic Essence. The same source as his Dragonfire, yet more pure and primal, filtered only by his nature and desire. He was not simply a large, fire-breathing beast, but a being of magic. A true dragon, not the lesser beasts… a being of raw will and deep, foundational energies. Akin to a god amongst mortals.
Most mortals.
Even these veteran adventurers could not withstand a directed pulse from his power. The wave of mystical energy met the charging knight like a solid wall, the ghostly mount shattering into countless motes of light while the armored form hurtled backward, arching toward the ground to smash into it in a loud clatter and grunt. The padding inside the armor would absorb most of the landing, but the knight would be rattled, and the angle almost certainly snapped a limb.
But he never saw that happen.
Apexillos turned quickly, his claw swatting at the air while surrounded in the remnants of that last pulse of power. He had expected the mage to attack again, and he was right. His claw connected with the oncoming bolt of flame and harmlessly, swatted it out of the air, jetting up into the sky instead of connecting. He felt the power fade, each use delaying the next as his inner self drew from the endless source of his power, sipping carefully so as not to overwhelm his flesh.
He felt the power thrum through him. It ached, it ached like he’d never felt before. It was limitless, but his body could only handle so much at once. He’d never had to draw so much in so little a time before this. Was this what had happened to his brethren? Was this why the other Great Dragons went silent, one by one? Vanishing until he was the last?
“I can’t be the only one…” the woman breathed. “Thank you, Gareth. I’ll finish it for you.”
“He’s used it again! Do it now!” Another voice called out. Apexillos couldn’t place it exactly, in the confusion of battle. The team of adventurers had wisely not deployed everyone at once, swapping out members to refresh the exhausted or wounded when they were able, and bringing in replacements. He was not even sure how many there were, total, but he guessed about a dozen.
Senses blazed again with a sudden wave of magic washing over him. Mortal magic, yet tinged with something else. Something ancient touched him, body and soul. The subtle sense of wrongness crawled over his scales, tickling his mangled wings… and then he felt it.
The hook-tipped chains were not simple enchanted steel. They had something deeper within. Something beyond the ken of mortals. Something that dug into him, not just physically.
Spiritually.
He roared, and this time it was not simple fury and pain. Despite the crippling injuries, despite the slow loss he had suffered, Apexillos had not been afraid. He had not worried, for even if he were killed, he would simply join his brethren. He had lived long, and though he did not wish to die, neither did he fear it.
The sensation of that magic, that twisted otherness sinking into his core evoked something else. Something deep and primal, from long before even the dragons ruled and the lesser races were a twinkling in the eyes of the gods.
It touched him, deep in that core, that source of his Essence.
And it pulled.
Extracting his self, the very thing that made him a dragon.
This did not hurt, not exactly. The existential dread of having his very being drained was far more intense than any pain of actually drawing his power away. Yet that power had to flow somewhere, and the only way it could leave him was through him.
Apexillos roared and bucked hard against the chains, heedless of how the wings finally snapped and splintered. His bones cracked, his flesh tore. All of that meaningless in the moment of feeling his raw power ripped apart, forced out of his core in numerous directions.
His body burned from the inside. His bones crumbled. His scales flaked away as his vision dimmed and the agony blended with the horror of his very nature yanked from within.
Stolen.
“I… will… kill… you… all!”
He choked out those words, the first he had deigned to speak to these invaders that had lured him out here in the frozen tundra and chained him down. The cowardly beings that had given no reason, no motive to put such effort into bringing him down.
He made a promise, an oath tied to the very power they were stealing from his body.
They were the last words he spoke before he felt his core torn away, his body shredding itself into a gory mist from the release of such primal energies.
His vision went black.
Apexillos, the last Great Dragon of the Age of Myth, died.
