Okay, first of all I was not supposed to do that, in meaning, showing you first chapter of my second fanfiction ever. The first piece to be published. But, for me, it's already 24th of December and so it means that today is Christmas Eve, like second most important church holiday in Poland, but I am not here to tell you about Polish traditions. Ekhem. But because of that I thought why not? And so we are here.
As I said this is the first chapter of what is going to be Dragon Queen AU story, based a little on game called Divinity 2 Ego Draconis (Larian Studios). Most probably OUaT characters which I will use are going to be OOC, very OOC, but it's different world so... Actually it's Enachnted Forest, but different. Regina-centric. Rating between T and M I'm not sure... yet. Other warrings? Mild (for me) decriptions of fights, dead bodies. There is blood, not much (for me) but better safe than sorry right? I guess that's all. Hope you will enjoy and I apologise for all mistakes I made (and I am sure I made a lot of them) but as you noticed English is not my first language. Still, I tried to catch as many mistakes as I could, no Beta so you know.
So enjoy and tell me what you think. I'll be thankful for all tips. (Is it even worth working on?)
CHAPTER 1
Her sword cuts through skeleton's body - 'How many of them is here?' - she asks herself -'if they will keep coming at that pace we won't hold long. Damn it!' - she keeps thinking. She blocks another skeleton's axe, pushes it to the side and uses created space to cut off its skull. Then, noticing movement behind her, she turns, dodges an attack and hits skeleton right in sternum. When she is ready to pierce another opponent it disintegrates to dust. After looking around quickly and making sure the same thing happened to all enemies, she sighs in relief and falls to ground. She now lays on her back.
"Hey! Regina! Are you alright!?" - Mirk Kieldon, fifth child of peasants, average man, tall, muscular thanks to his training, with brown hair tied in a short ponytail, short beard and hazel green eyes.
"I'll live, just admiring views" - she sighs -"I wonder why killing this necromancer took them so long."
He sits next to her and grins - "Maybe they are getting too old to get the job done? What do you think?"
Ahh he looks so seriously in his recruit armor, that she almost forgot about this child inside. - "Shhh stop it!" - She punches him playfully in the arm - "Unless you want to clean dishes for a month when we come back?"
"Oh no, thank you, one time is enough." - he chuckles, then adds - "I have no idea though, maybe we should go to them? I doubt that something happened to them but... we should go"
She sits and puts hand on his shoulder - "You're right, let's go." - with that they get up and head to tower on a hill. They walk pass dozens of skeleton's remains, piles of dust and sometimes few bones, but several minutes ago each pile was a deadly enemy. She, Regina Mills, is still unsure why they attacked lair of very powerful necromancer in just four people. In ordinary situation, when there are four Slayers, it's normal, but she and Mirk, even though trained since they were ten, and they are twenty four now, are still recurits.
After few minutes of walking they arrive at tower's door.
"It's made of glass?" - he wonders alound and holds his open palm above door - "Not even a scratch... amazing. That necromancer had to be really powerful if he survived so long and kept protecting spell in place."
"That's true..." - she puts hand on glass, which under her touch changes in mirror. She sees deep brown eyes looking back at her, it's possible to notice scar on right side of her upper lip. Dark brown, mid-shoulder hair worn in a braid are sticking out from under the helmet. She is in the same kind of armor as Mirk, or any other recruit. Chain mail with dark leather breastplate, epaulettes, gloves, elbow pads, kneeboards, greaves and leather boots. On her left shoulder is the Dragon Slayer's symbol - schematic golden dragon seen from it's left side, holding a sword in paws. They were trained to use different types of weapons but they can choose one, favorite kind to carry with them. Because of that to her left hip is fixed scabbard and sword in it (A.N. from my research I think it should be called bastard sword... not sure though, she can hold and fight with it using one or two hands, it might be important later, I don't know yet, but so you know).
She shakes her head and pushes the door so it opens. Inside of tower isn't in as good shape as the door. There are traces of fire, arrows and fight everywhere. Dead bodies lay on both sides of hallway.
"That's blood?"
She took a step closer to place where Mirk is standing and notices it too. One of the corpses was covered in blood, which was sipping from relatively fresh wound on it's stomach.
"Yes, yes it is. That has to mean some of necromancer servants were alive when we came." - she looks around and notices few more bodies in blood.
"I wonder if they were his slaves or they came here willingly..."
"I guess it doesn't matter, they are dead anyway." - she sighs - "We better find Commander Zidole and Master Biir, come on."
They follow path marked by fights and destruction. After climbing up the stairs and passing several dozens of corpses and piles of bones they were able to find a big hall. Door is completely burned down so they can look inside. It is in worse condition than any other place they've seen in tower, tables and bookshelves broken and scattered around the place. Here and there small fires still burn, floor is under a layer of water and there are cracks on walls. In the center of that mess is a person, their Commander, on her knees.
"Commander Zidole?" - Mirk speaks.
"You are alive?"
'She sounds a little surpirsed' - thinks Regina - "Yes"
"Good" - Commander gets up and turns toward them - "there are few things to do" - only now they notice how damaged her plate armour is. Actually it is covered in scratches and traces of fire. Zidole's helmet, or rather, what's left of it lays on the floor next to the body, it caused her blonde hair to fall freely on her shoulders. Her pupils are blue and glow but are dimmed by grey fog like thing that covers her eyes - Slayer's characteristic.
'Wait, body?' - Regina looks closely. Burned up corpse is on the floor, not far from where Commander is standing. Regina recognizes who it is thanks to necklace. It's sliver circle with obsidian in it. - 'No, it can't be!' - "Is it Master Biir?"
"Yes" - just one word, but even one of them can cause so much pain. By theory they know that every fight can result in deaths among them. It happened before, but Biir is, was... like father for Regina. She of course remebers her biological father - Sir Henry, good man, lord of lands far on south. He always read bednight stories to her, taught fishing or how to ride a horse, he bought her one stallion not long before Slayers came to their village. And took her. She haven't heard from her parents and sister since then, she didn't reach to them. She can't, it's forbidden. Slayers are supposed to concentrate on hunting and killing Dragons - it's in their name, but also many other creatures: goblins, necromancers and whatever they will summon, demons, even bandits. Anything that creates danger to local people. Slayers are an elite, they are stronger, faster, more durable and intelligent than most people, they can live longer. But in exchange, when they are recruited they have to leave their whole life behind. And she had to do it too, there was no other choice. The one who took care of her was Biir, he taught her everything a good Slayer should know. He was supposed to see her promotion one day. She feels like crying but knows it's not an option. Not now at least.
"Biir distracted the necromancer and his creatures so I could kill him. Even with that it wasn't easy as we thought, but I'm glad you survived." - Zidole pauses for a moment - "We have to burn Biir's body and that necromancer too, to make sure no one revives them. But first you are going to search the tower. Look for any survivors, I doubt there are any but do it anyway. Your second task is searching for dragon's blood. Previous owner of this tower collected and hide it in various places in tower. Each of you is supposed to find one flacon. Oh! And spread out. I will prepare everything here."
Mirk and Regina nodded and walked out of hall to complete their tasks. He went upstairs and she went down.
'Look for survivors... and dragon's blood. That would mean me and Mirk are going to be promoted. It all was a test? Still is. I have to find that flacon, but where?' - she reaches fork in the road (A.N. you really say it like that? I checked it out in several dictionaries and translators and they all said it should look like that) both corridors look the same, stone walls, floor and ceiling. There and here are unlit or lit torches fixed to walls. They give enought light to not walk into wall or trip over one's own feet, but nothing more.
'And where now?' - she looks around but there is nothing that could tell her which side she should choose. She takes one of most unused torches in her left hand and lights it using another torch. She tries to listen, with some luck she should be able to hear if there was someone somewhere but there are no other sounds than cracking of fire, her breathing and beating heart.
Regina sighs - 'Left it is.' - with that she walks into choosen direction. As she predicted it has no visible differences than any other corridor in this tower. She walks through this monotony environment for few minutes and to her relief she finds a door. Without thinking she pushes it open and comes inside.
She did not expect to find something like that. This room is big. It's actually impossible to see where it ends and in opposition to the corridor, it's lit perfectly. - 'Most probably with magic.' - Shelves are reaching celling and are full of various containers. - 'There must be thousands of them.' - She fixes her torch in the bracket next to door and steps forward, between shelves. She keeps walking for a few minutes untill she reaches spot where stands long, wooden table. She places her helmet on it, then takes one of smaller containers, puts it on avalible surface and opens it.
'Oh gods...' - it smells awful, but that shouldn't be suprising as IT is a human's hand and it's not in good shape. Regina can see some bones through decaying skin and muscles.
'All of this are body parts?' - she thinks and closes container - 'he was a necromancer but so many...' - sudennly a high-pitched shriek can be heard. Regina turns her head to left and sees an abomination which floats few meters above ground. It's legs looks like they once belonged to goat, it's arms and claws were goblin's, it has a man's face with closed and sewn eyes and mouth but on cow's skull and torso... its so decayed that she can't be sure what it was, most probably goblin's part, again. To that body are sewn chimera's wings. It shrieks again and it is a sound between human's angry scream and cry for help.
Regina draws her sword and prepares for beast's charge. She stands still, her muscles strained, ready to react to attack and then it happens. Abomination is fast, faster than she suspected while looking at that big body. In moment it closes the gap between them and prepares it's claws to bury in her. Luckily, Regina dodges beast's attack in last moment and turns around, ready for another charge. The thing doesn't make her wait for it too long and soon lunges forward. This time she knows what to do. As soon as monster is in the right place, few meters before her, she crouches and rises her sword above her head. This position causes tip of sword to be behind her, so beast's juices won't land on her head, and allows to cut open it's stomach. This is exactly what happens and dead, now... again, corpse lays on the floor.
"Well... that was... unexpected" - she murmurs and sheathes sword. - "I'd better get going."- with that she goes back to the table, puts helmet on and walks in between shelves. She wanders around for some time and reaches yet another door which she opens and walks through. It's another corridor and staircase, it only leads to lower levels of tower. Regina decides to go down even tough there is nothing that could serve as source of light. Luckily she can change that and so she uses magic to create small ball of light, Dragon Slayers and their recruits are trained to use it, in average situation it gives them a leverage over their opponent. In unusual situation too, it depends who they are fighting with.
Thanks to that ball she is able to see - "Yet another corridor, awesome" - Regina says sighing. This one is a little bit different than the rest. It is still unlit so her magic light comes in handy, but besides that, there is water everywhere. She actually stands in the water, it reaches to the middle of her calve. It seems it goes through the celling, down the walls to gather on the floor. - 'Probably this corridor wasn't used in a long time.' - then she hears coughing - 'Or was' - and moves into it's direction.
After short walk or rather, tearing through the water, she cames across iron cell door. She opens it and enters the cell. It's seated lower than corridor's floor, so there is more water. Two people that are here, to avoid getting wet, are sitting in the some kind of ground elevation. Regina slowly comes closer to them. The man looks up at her as soon as he notices her.
From what she can see in this light he is pale and thin, most probably not feed enough. His dark, almost black hair are sleek, face covered in dirt and maybe in blood. He has bright, almost pale, green-blue eyes and seems to be in his early thirties.
"Who are you?" - he asks and Regina can see him tightening his protective hold on the girl. Two things sure about her... she has a darker skin than her cellmate, almost the same tone as Regina. And her brown hair are in the same condition as man's.
"My name is Regina. I won't hurt you... either of you."
"Regina? The necromancer send you?" - he still eyes her suspiciously - 'He doesn't seem to be scared' - she thinks.
"No, he is dead actually."
"He is dead? How?"
'Isn't he full of questions?' - she wonders - "No, commander and" - she gulps - "my teacher... They killed him some time ago. Now we are searching tower to see if anyone is there and as I see there is. Who are you? And why you are here?"
"My name is Derek and this is Lily." - she casts a quick glance at the girl and nods. - "We were captured by necromancer some time ago, not sure how long though, it was hard to keep a track of time... He locked us in this cell, gave food from time to time. Sometimes, at the beginning he would come or send one of his servants to get me so he could torture me. But then it stopped and we were just trapped. I have no idea what he wanted from us." - he pauses - "You... you are a Dragon Slayer in training right?"
"Yes I am. And well... he is dead now, so whatever it was, it does not apply anymore. Which means you are free to go. Do you need an escort?"
"I guess you are right... No, no thank you. We will manage on our own, right Lily?" - the girl nods her head in agreement and Regina can see her brown eyes. She is also able to tell that Lily must be few years younger than her, maybe twenty.
"When you leave the cell turn left and walk till you reach staircase, be carefull it's dark there, go as high as you can, you will find yourself in corridor. Not far from stairs, on your right there will be door and big room with many containers. Look for door with lit torch next to it. You will find yourself in yet another corridor, go forward till you reach crossroad then turn right and walk, you will find staircase, bypass it. If you keep walking forward you will find an exit."
"Thank you."
"Are you really sure you don't want my help? I've already met one of necromancer's beasts. There might be more."
"No, really. You helped us enough. We will find a way out on our own. Thank you once again and good luck." - with that he bows his head and they both leave the cell.
'That was a little strange...' - thinks Regina but shrugs it off and continues her task to find a dragon's blood.
She goes back to the corridor and walks in the opposite direction than the pair. As she moves forward she notices that all other cells are empty.
After some time she reaches end of the corridor. There is nothing, just wall. - 'What the hell? - she thinks - 'There was no other path. Or did I miss something?' - Regina looks around, then moves closer to wall to examine it and puts hand on it's surface. - "Stone" - she murmurs.
At the first glance everything seems to be normal but Regina can feel that something is off. She trails her fingers on it till she reaches corner, strangely there is a gap between two walls and air is able to float from where she stands to whatever is on the other side of obstacle.
Deciding that she has to see what is in front of her, hidden by the wall of course, she again holds her palm in parallel to it and concentrates. Thanks to magic, she is able to quickly dismantle the obstacle.
To her wide-opened eyes is revealed treasury. It's full of piles of gold coins... gold in any form actually, but not only. She can see jewellery, paintings, armors, weapons and various artifacts magical or not laying around. Regina is stunned, she had never seen this kind of fortune before, it made her speechless.
After some time to get out of shock, Regina starts walking and looking around for her prize. She finds it in one corner of the room, between ancient script and few hundreds years old mantle, which radiates with powerful magic. But her focus is on the inconspicuous flacon. She carefully steps closer, after all traps might be there, the fact she had not encountered any is not enough to make her reckless. But there are none. Nor on the floor, nor the pillar the flacon is standing on so she slowly, with trembling hands takes it to lift it up and uncork it. She smells contents of the flacon and happily registers the smell of burnt flesh mixed with copper - because of that it's almost impossible to mistake dragon's blood with blood of some other creature. - "I've got you." - She says smiling, corks flacon again and hides it in belt bag with intention to go back to Commander Zidole.
Sooo that's it. Hopefully it was not THAT bad. Again I apologise for all mistakes. Tell me what you think. All tips appreciated.
Merry Christmas to all of you!
