Draconic Sphere Ω

Chapter 3: Well.

"Your minds are too small to even begin to fathom how pathetic and insignificant you are," said Andromalius, as if to himself, as he led Brunhild, Kaergat and Dandelion up a set of stairs.

"Oh, my mind's been plenty expanded," grinned Dandelion, taking another puff at her pipe.

A low rumble sounded from the bottom of Andromalius' throat.

"So! What do you do for a living, Dandelion?" asked Brunhild quickly.

"Steal stuff," said Dandelion with an air of casual self-satisfaction.

No one said anything for a few paces.

"Oh shit! You're not a cop are you?" cried Dandelion. Then she visibly relaxed. "Nahhh. If you were a cop you woulda said something about my Blue Nemesis here." She hugged her pipe lovingly, getting ash over her shirt.

"Here's your room. Have a nice rest," said Andromalius, dripping sarcasm. He turned and left without another word.

"So," said Brunhild, gazing at the door.

"I suppose we need a plan," said Kaergat thoughtfully. "What do I know about pyroputresence... I suppose it's a level three manifestation of the more subtle forms of..."

The door clicked at the turn of a key. Dandelion pushed it open. "Sorry, was getting bored."

Inside were three plain-looking orange blobs of jelly, ovoid and about the height of Dandelion. As they watched, the blobs started to slither towards them.

Brunhild drew her sword.

"Wait!" shouted Kaergat.

"BLOOD AND GLORY!" yelled Brunhild, and charged. With three mighty swings, she sliced each jelly in half. She lowered her sword, panting.

"Huh," said Dandelion. "That was easy."

"Watch out!" yelled Kaergat. Brunhild screamed in pain. One of the half-jellies had lunged at her leg, dissolved away her breeches and gone red from her blood.

"Iron only makes them stronger!" cried Kaergat. "Don't use your sword!"

With an effort, Brunhild kicked the jelly off her leg and dodged the attacks of the others.

"Are they getting bigger?" asked Dandelion with trepidation.

"Yes! It's the iron!" Hissed Kaergat. He started to cast a spell.

Brunhild lept back; the jellies followed, slowly but persistently.

Dandelion shot one of the jellies with a crossbow. It started to swell up even faster.

"Oh, iron arrowheads, gotcha," said Dandelion, and grabbed a chair.

"I'm getting hemmed in, guys," yelled Brunhild from the far corner of the room.

"Leave my friend alone!" yelled Dandelion, charging with the chair raised above her head.

In that moment, a couple of things happened in quick succession.

Kaergat's spell completed, and a little fireball went flying into the swarm of jellies and burst in a small explosion.

There was a sucking sound as the fire seemed to get drawn out and into the jellies, which made a collective sound of pleasure.

The jellies grew and multiplied at a terrifying speed. Suddenly, half the room was chock full of orange blobs.

Dandelion fell back in shock.

"I thought you were an expert on pyroputties or whatever?" shouted Dandelion to Kaergat.

"I never said that!" said Kaergat. "Though now that I think of it, it does make sense that they would have an affinity for avipyrostenic evocations..."

Brunhild roared and swung her sword, cutting one jelly after the other.

"No, stop!" shouted Kaergat.

"Give them hell, Brun!" screamed Dandelion, clubbing jellies with her chair. They made squealing noises and shed smaller blobs of jelly, which also tried to lunge at Dandelion.

"For the Mountain!" screamed Brunhild, cutting a swathe through the mountain of jellies, which expanded and multiplied in her wake. Kaergat swore and started another spell.

Brunhild joined Dandelion on the other side of the throng of jellies, who was currently swiping at them with a chair leg in each hand.

By now, the jellies had filled three quarters of the room to the brim. Kaergat backed away as he cast his spell, though there wasn't much more space to do so.

"Maybe," grunted Brunhild, swinging her sword, "They will," she growled, "run out of," she spat, "energy to," (the top of a jelly went flying spectacularly in Dandelion's direction, who was forced to duck), "keep – multiplying!"

"It doesn't look like they're running out, Brun," said Dandelion, looking worried. Brunhild's sword went deep into a jelly, which engulfed it. Brunhild had to leave it in and jump back.

Dandelion passed Brunhild a chair leg. The two of them backed away, fending the jellies off. The one with Brunhild's sword inside was expanding at a terrifying rate, swallowing up other jellies as it went.

"It'd be great if you could finish your spell right about now, Kaergat," said Dandelion. The wall bumped against her and Brunhild's backs. There was nowhere else to go.

Kaergat said a last magic word with emphasis and a bolt of lightning sprang from his hands, jumping from one jelly to the other. A horrible squealing noise went up, and suddenly the jellies collapsed into a thick ooze and flooded the whole room, covering Dandelion and Brunhild from head to toe and washing past Kaergat's ankles into the corridor.

There was a shocked silence for a long minute.

"Well," said Kaergat. That about summed it up.