The Quests of Fable

Ch. 14: The Bone Drake

Bleached bones were starting to gather around the necromancer. They glowed with an eerie purple light, connected to each other by ancient magic. Odd white shapes linked together to create the towering figure of a drake, with four long spiky legs, multiple sets of horns, and a whip-thin spiked tail with a blunted end that reminded Fable of a mace. Its head was lumpy and misshapen, formed out of the fused bones of other various creatures, but the blobby eye sockets were filled with the same unnatural light that radiates off of the rest of the creature.

Ick. 

Fable didn't like this one bit, but she wasn't about to act like a scared little girl in front of the rest of her party. She was an adventurer, and she had to act like it. Steeling her nerve, she stood shoulder to shoulder with Kieran and Barley. Jin was the best in proper combat, so she stood in front of them, ready to fight. 

The half-elf knight charged at the skeletal creature, catching its left front leg with her longsword. It cracked the bone, making the beast roar in anger. It didn't seem to be able to feel pain, but suspended within its ribcage Fable could see the necromancer wince and clutch his left arm with a grimace. It looked as though any damage they dealt to the drake would carry over to him. She quietly relayed this to Kieran and Barley, who both nodded. The two boys started forwards, leaving Fable where she stood so she could prepare a spell.

Barley had the bolas-looking contraption out again, and this time Fable noticed that wherever it struck seemed to crack much more than it should've. If she had to guess, she would say that it had been enchanted to deliver much more force than normal, although it was possible it held more magic than that. She would have to ask later.

Kieran, of course, had pulled out his thin blades and was hacking away at the monster's back legs, hopping just out of range whenever it tried to attack. So far Fable could only see a few small tears in his sleeves, so she assumed his strategy was working fairly well.

She herself, on the other hand, needs to cast a spell, and quick. The vines were her first thought and fire was her second, but neither of those would be effective what with that glyph etched into its forehead. The glyph... 

Fable had an idea, but she wasn't sure that it would work. Then again, it wasn't as though she would gain anything from standing around and being indecisive. With that decided, she started to cast her spell.

"Korsiy." With one word, she sent a bolt of ice flying at the drake's forehead. She missed her target, but somehow managed to land it right in the drake's eye socket. Both puppet and puppeteer roared in agony, and the necromancer doubled over in pain with his hand on his right eye. The drake couldn't really do the same because of anatomy reasons, so it settled for tucking its head into its armpit (legpit?) and growling in pain and fury. Definitely not Fable's intention, but it had certainly worked out well.

She prepared to cast again, but the familiar sensation of building heat made her groan. Wild magic was the last thing she needed right now. With any luck it would do something useful, but chances were high that it would simply skew the whole battle. Fabulous.

As the drake pulled its head out from under its front leg, it got hit in the face with a barrage of snakes. Not exactly useful, but at least it didn't mess anything up too much. One of the conjured serpents fell to the ground in front of Kieran, who yelled and skewered it with his sword. As soon as he realized that it was, in fact, still on his blade, he yelled some more and swung his blade wildly, flinging the limp reptile into the wall. Apparently, the rogue really didn't like snakes. Fable had never really minded them herself, but she supposed that if they were falling from the sky she probably wouldn't like them nearly as much. 

For the third time, Fable cast her spell to conjure ice. She willed it into a bolt instead of a simple frozen patch, and then she let it fly.

It struck true, connecting right in the center of the glyph. The ice had materialized in the form of a spike and chipped away some of the bone around the glyph. With those pieces gone and the sigil broken, that mauve miasma was gone, and so were the strange feelings. Fable no longer felt sick to her stomach, but she also stopped feeling that nagging voice in the back of her head, telling her to refrain from using fire.