Chapter 10: Deal with the Devil Phoenix

-Leon, Lacour Castle laboratory

Leon was examining a piece of steel from one of the local smiths. It was strong, but heavy. Would it withstand the energy of his vacuum weapon? "Would you make it into a circular pipe with one safety valve?" he asked. "I've got a draft print here." He handed the paper over.

"What's a kid like you want a pipe like this for?" the smith asked. "I'm busy with tournament preparations."

"We lead the castle scientific research laboratory," Leon's mother said. "This is needed for work into Lacour's war defense plans."

"That doesn't look like any weapon I know of," the smith muttered.

"That's because it isn't," Leon said, annoyed at the delay.

"I'll work on it, since it's from the castle. I'll get it to you in two days."

"Okay," Florence said.

After they left the smithy, Leon frowned. "Two days? I'd like to have that information sooner."

"You need to be patient with them." She patted his shoulder. "Not everyone does things at your speed."

They're not as good as me, he thought. There were other things to work on his design so he could pass two days worth of wait. Provided that smith kept the deadline. There was the targeting system. Right now, the release was always in a wild scattering of energy. But that would hurt anyone near the weapon, even the weapon operator. If he could find a way to shoot the energy bundle in a line for a certain distance… could he decide on an aiming range before the energy split apart? He certainly could, once he knew how it would behave in use.

"Do you want to take a walk around town?" his mother asked.

"Not really," he said. Along with targeting, there was also the operator's panel to think of. So far, they had used three or more wizards to start the vacuum points, but they could set those basic spells up with just one. But to sort out the spells to arrive at the right points to form the most efficient use of energy… he'd need to check references. It had been done before with a high degree of accuracy.

"Do you want some ice cream? We can stop by one of the restaurants on our way back. There's no hurry."

"Not right now," he replied. Some spellcasters used a staff to send their spells longer distances. They said that focusing the energy along the weapon encouraged the spell to continue to move in a straight line to the target. This allowed little energy loss with greater distance. Could that work with this weapon? He himself used books to cast, but the staff users did have a good idea.

"Are you really paying attention?" Florence asked.

He blinked, then looked up at her. "Of course I am, Momma. It's just that I've got other things to do right now."

"But you've been so busy the past few days. You need to give your mind a rest every now and then."

Although it annoyed him some, he put up with it because it was her. "I'm trying to get this plan going, but there's a lot of parts to figure out. I've got the idea all in my head; it's just taking time to get all the parts of it down and out somewhere."

"I understand that, sweetie, but I worry about you. You spend so much time in the lab. Sometimes I think your father pushes you too much; you ought to go out and make friends your own age."

"I'm fine, Momma. I want to be doing this."

"All right, if you feel that way."

Sometimes, he did think about being a normal kid. He even daydreamed about going out to play every now and then. But what were those kids doing? Just pretending to be heroes and adults. He had adults counting on him. He was going to build a weapon that would save Lacour from the Elurian demons, which would make him a real hero to everyone. In the end, Leon always decided that pretending was a waste of time. He was actually going to do things.

Even if it wasn't always fun.

-Ashe, 4D

Sitting in his dining room, Ashe scrolled through a pet adoption site. Maybe it was a good idea. He had been used to his family, including his noisy younger sister. And then there were the college dorms, which managed to be even noisier and busier. Now that he had his own place, all to himself, it was just a bit too quiet.

But considering a pet brought up a lot of decisions. Did he want a real pet or a robotic one? Real pets were more work and some might chew on his models. Robotic pets were almost realistic, but were they realistic enough? He wasn't sure. The only pets he had had as a kid were fish. While they were pretty, they weren't all that interesting. Once he'd decided on that, what kind of animal did he want? Maybe not fish, but a cat, dog, lizard, dragon, what? He would also need to doublecheck his housing district's rules on such things. No point in getting a dragon if it was against the housing rules.

He dropped that search for now and went back to his game room. There, he found a message from Bonita asking him to another party. He declined that; he was too busy with Eternal Sphere events right now. Ashton had a dragon slaying quest to complete.

On thinking of it, Ashe was a bit worried. Nothing particularly bad had happened after Ashton had fallen off XINE's nesting area. He hadn't aggravated the snakes in the berry patch and his hotel room only had moderate annoyances. Was something bad about to happen? Or was the challenge making him paranoid? One never knew when luck decided to be a major factor in the Sphere.

At any rate, Ashton seemed upbeat. It was a definite improvement after the mess in Eluria. Ashe decided to just accept the lull period and carry on.

-Ashton, Salva Drift entrance

The sun was high in the sky, showing a lovely blue sky without a hint of clouds. Salva was always a busy little town, but today there was anxiety and fear in the villagers. Given that there was a live dragon in the mine, none of the men were working. But there were even more than usual, as the town now held adventurers like himself who came to slay the dragon.

Looking back, Ashton could see that many had already been defeated. They were gathered to try finding a way to defeat it. He'd listened to their stories over the morning, hoping to learn new tips, like how this dragon behaved. As none had succeeded, he had a chance.

Now as he looked into the tunnels of Salva Drift, he felt confident that he could do something. The other fighting men had gone for just brute strength, but Ashton had the advantage of heraldry. He clutched at the small silver cross that he had brought out for this mission. While this would be difficult, he would face down this dragon. He was a knight of Eluria; he could do this.

A local man was serving as a guard to the mine entrance. "Are you here to slay the dragon?"

"Yes I am," he replied.

"There's many that have been defeated before you. Are you sure?"

He nodded. "It's fine. I can handle this."

"All right. The miners have made red cross-outs on signs leading to the dragon's area. There's an active vein of Energy Stone in the area, so be careful not to touch it."

"Thank you." He headed into the mine. He would take care of XINE's price, Eleanor would be fine, and everything would turn out right for once. Ashton made a mental note to give thanks to the gods after this was over.

-Celine, town of Salva

"You know, I've never had one shopping trip turn out to be so eventful," Celine said as they walked away from the stable holding onto the wagon and royal horses.

"It has been quite adventurous," Kevin said. "Still, we'd better not waste time here."

"Right. What're you two going to do?"

"I'm going to check in on a friend," Rena said. She looked to Claude. "Want to come to Alen's house with me?"

"Sure," he replied.

Although Salva was known for mining many gemstones, there was basically only one shop to buy jewelry at. But they always had local stones, never from any other mine. If they were alchemy stones, they were always local craftsmen, at furthest made in Mars. So it was more appropriate for a royal wedding ring. That still amazed her; she would be the bride in a royal wedding.

Celine went into the store, but there seemed to be no one at the counter. A small gargoyle watched from atop the register, making sure no thieves tried to make off with the jewelry. The whole time, it kept its jewel eyes on them.

"That set is magnificent," Celine said, pointing out a pair. "Whoever crafted those rainbow diamonds did a masterful job. And that gold band is high quality too."

"The Prince trusted you with this decision," Kevin said. "They are nice."

"I think he'd like them. But where's the shopkeeper?" She looked into the doorway in back.

The gargoyle stretched its wings, but did not speak. It probably couldn't. So, there was no answer until one of the doors to the shop opened. A man in a fez popular with merchants came in. "Oh, good afternoon. I run the weapons counter; is there anything I can help you with?"

"We're looking for the jewelry clerk," Celine said.

"She's not back yet? Ah great…" he looked down in a mix of anger and worry. "I told her… she went into the mine this morning to hunt out some stones, but there's a really good reason the mine is closed. There's a dragon hanging about the tunnels."

"A dragon?"

He flipped up the counter on his side of the store and stepped into place. "She said she wouldn't go near the dragon's nest, but still. It was reckless."

Celine thought. "We could go look for her. We'd just have to be careful not to disturb this dragon."

"Are you sure about that?" Kevin asked.

"I'm sure. Dragons emit a specific magic signal, so I'll know where it is if we get too close."

"It's a demon dragon, though," the weapons clerk pointed out.

She smiled. "Well that makes it even easier. It'll be as hard to miss as a lighthouse beacon. Sir, do you know if she carries any specific jewels, so that I might be able to track her that way?"

"She usually wears a sapphire necklace, but not always."

"It's a hint. Thank you." She looked to Kevin. "Do you have a problem with this?"

He shook his head. "No, I am simply concerned about returning you to Cross Castle unharmed. If we avoid the dragon, it's fine. Let's go check out the mine."

As the major mine entrance was just north of town, they walked through the streets of Salva again to reach the Drift. They encountered Claude and Rena on the way. "I thought you were going to visit a friend," Celine said.

"Well he wasn't at home," Rena said in a worried voice. "The butler said he might have gone into the mines, which is not good for him."

"Because of the dragon? The jewelry store clerk went in there too, so we can't do anything until we find her."

"We asked around, but it's been mostly the fighting men who've encountered the dragon," Claude said. "But they didn't see anyone else. The two of them must have figured that they could avoid the dragon."

Since they were searching for people, the group decided to split into pairs. Claude and Rena went down one of the marked passages while Celine and Kevin went down another. Eventually they came upon unmarked passages as well. In the coal dust on the floor, there were fresh tracks down some tunnels. They could avoid any that didn't seem to be recently traveled.

Then they heard voices. "Alen, you don't have to do this."

"It won't leave my mind! I'm just going to fall prey to something else. I'm no good."

"You're still recovering. You're not that bad."

"It would all be better if I was gone!"

When they came around the corner, there was a green haired woman in a dark green dress talking to a young man in a violet cloak. It was a dead end. Alen had his hand on the wall; he seemed to be disoriented and crying, his clothes and skin covered in coal dust. The woman, who was dressed more sensibly with gloves, tall boots, and even a miner's hat, tried to take his hand, but he swatted her away. When they came closer, the woman turned to them. "What are you doing here?"

"We came looking for you both," Celine said. Even if their primary goal was getting the clerk back to the store, it was obviously a bad idea to ignore this Alen.

The clerk nodded and looked back to him. "See? I told you that others are worried. Come on, let's go back into town."

"I don't know if I can overcome this," Alen said, refusing to look at them.

"I'm sorry for his behavior," she said softly. "But he's recovering from an illness."

"Why don't you just say a madness?" he interrupted sharply.

"From an unprocessed Energy Stone," she finished.

"I see," Celine said, coming closer. "Well you need to come out of the mine then. It's more dangerous for you here."

"Are people really looking for me?" Alen asked after a moment of hesitation.

"Yes." At least Rena and Claude were. Probably the servants of his house too.

"Don't know why they'd care," he muttered. But he gave up and let them take him out of Salva Drift.

-Ashton, deep Salva Drift

The tunnels were lit by crystal lamps, which cast out bright light without posing a fire hazard. Dust from mining still hung in the air, giving it an earthy coal scent. Although Ashton tried to go quietly, the small rocks scattered in the path crunched under his feet. He could hear other sounds ahead, like monsters breathing, claw scrapes, and rustles of rocks. He was close, that was certain.

He came around a turn and there it was. Its violet body was a slithering mass, like an impossibly thick snake that was making a loose knot of its own body. As it seemed to have no legs or arms, it took up the entire tunnel with its long mass. About seven feet from the heads, the body split into two necks. One changed over to bright red scales while the other changed to pale lavender. The two massive heads looked much alike, save for the frills. On the red one, the neck frills were curving and swaying, like a growing flame. On the lavender one, the neck frills were sharp and straight, like icicles.

Noticing a new challenger, the dragon heads snorted and rose up to the nine-foot roof. They roared in unison, creating such a racket that Ashton felt it in his bones. Pushing aside any intimidation this caused in his heart, the young swordsman brought out his twin blades. He brought one in defensively, but held the other one out as a challenge reply. "Dragon! I have come here on the word of XINE and I will be the one to defeat you! You shall pay for making the people of this village suffer."

The two heads both reacted on hearing XINE's name, drawing back quickly as if startled. Then all four eyes narrowed and it hissed with hatred. Somehow, this mine-dwelling dragon knew of the mountain phoenix and did not like him at all. The red head lunged forward and blasted a stream of fire at Ashton, putting the battle into motion.

Sidestepping the fire stream, Ashton ran at the dragon, bringing up a special heraldry move. If he could pull this off, it would knock the dragon's endurance down quickly. He brought both blades up, then swung them across the dragon's skin, pulled one back, slashed across with the other, then whirled around to hit with the second, then the first again…

The Sword Dance is a sign of an honorable Elurian knight and is never taught to those disloyal to the king.

Dang it. He always got hung up at that part. At any rate, the aborted attempt had left deep wounds on the dragon, near its neck split. The lavender ice head attempted to bite him, but he blocked with his left blade and stabbed the red fire head in the neck. Ashton then backed off to plan his next move.

In this part of the mine, there was enough space for two miners to work in the same area. With the dragon, there was hardly any room to maneuver. He couldn't side step around the writhing mass to get at it from behind. He would have to deal with the heads at the front. When the fire head came back down to breath a stream of fire, Ashton twin stabbed it right there, giving it a bleeding wound on the snout. That head jerked back with a yelp. Then the ice head froze its own jaw and came in to attack. This time, it managed to bite Ashton's right hand. His nerves all went numb after sending a shriek of pain to his mind.

Grimacing but not crying out, he attempted to take out its eyes with his left blade. It didn't quite work, but a cut imbued with lightning gave it a badly bleeding wound on its jaw. When it released him, he had spatters of dragon blood on him. That could be dealt with later.

He knew for certain that he could deal with the ice head easily, so he moved to the left and worked on defeating the fire head. Crossing his blades over his body, he hit it with Lightning Strike which came out to be as messy as the last strike. But while he was finishing off that move, the fire head managed to bite his left hand. It didn't hold on like the other, but that wound seemed to burn. This wasn't a low intelligence dragon that dealt only in brute strength.

The two heads cried out in union as a gathering of magic came to them. They were going to combine their powers for a single strike now. Shoot. Moving quickly, Ashton got to the dragon's body as its heads moved down. A blast of both fire and ice shot down the tunnels. Nothing combusted, but the air was left decidedly smoky when the power cleared. While he was there, Ashton attempted to attack the main body. The scales were harder here, though, deflecting his blades with bright sparks. Then it seemed that he had to cut off both heads in order to defeat this dragon.

Moving back and to the left to draw single attacks, Ashton got in another Lightning Strike against the fire head. It roared, but was starting to sound winded. Good. Then the ice head tried a bite again, this time at Ashton's head. He moved aside before getting decapitated, but the dragon managed to catch hold of the cord holding onto his protective cross and snap it. The silver charm dropped onto the floor.

The fight was back to being against him now. Without that holy protection, it could now use its more demonic attacks against him. Those would be more deadly than the straight fire and ice skills it had been using so far. Time was of the essence. He used Lightning Strike against the fire head; as he was having trouble pulling off Sword Dance, it was his strongest skill that wasn't a grass move (which would do little against a fire enemy). Once the fire head was exhausted, he could take down the ice head, then cut both necks to finish off the dragon.

Ashton went in for a simple strike against the fire head. For a moment, he thought he heard a voice behind him shouting. He couldn't quite tell, not with his focus on the dragon. Both heads then went in for a simple double bash move, which he narrowly dodged. He went in to strike again and the voice came back. Clearer this time. And then another. "You need to lower your stance."

Huh? Ashton managed to block another bash move from the heads, then glanced back. There were two people back there. Great. He wouldn't mind the help, actually, but it might tick off XINE. Not to mention the lack of space here. "Would you keep quiet back there?" he called. "It's too dangerous around…"

"Look out!"

He braced himself for another bash; they hadn't cried out a union attack again. But when he looked back to the dragon, there was a bright flash of silver light. It overtook his vision. What now? He kept in a defensive position.

Without warning, the heraldic tattoos on his body began glowing. They lifted off his skin somehow, shining green and yellow against the silver brightness. A heraldic crest appeared beyond that, a giant circle diagram with a large bird surrounded by symbols of fire, life, and demons. Past that, two more crests appeared. Both were dragon crests, one of fire and one of ice.

There was a massive exchange of power that sapped all of Ashton's energy. For a moment, he felt like he was going to faint. Then his crests shattered completely. The dragon crests passed through the bird crest, then fused themselves to replace Ashton's tattoos. In a weird way, that reenergized him but with a different power.

XINE's voice broke through to him. "By the blood that ye three have mixed, thy powers shall combine and become one. No longer separate, you shall be one. Ashton, knight of Eluria, this is the price you will pay for Eleanor's life. You will take care of these two from now until the time when the girl would have perished no matter how much she struggled. That will be one year."

What the **** is this about XINE? What's on your ****** **** **** bastard **** mind? If you weren't such a ******* coward, we'd ******** maul you into a billion ******** pieces!

Huh? We didn't do this…

"I did it," XINE said smugly. "You two loonies need to get out of that stupid mine anyhow. That is the price you must pay for my assistance earlier." The phoenix laughed cruelly. As it faded, so did the silver brightness.

**** you, XINE.

What's going on? Ashton wasn't sure, but he felt strange. As his eyes adjusted back to the darkness of the mine, he couldn't see the dragon anymore. But he did see the two people from before. They were closer now, so he could see that it was a young man in brown and yellow clothes and a teenaged girl in a blue jumper and short red cape. "Are you all right?" the girl called, apparently not seeing him.

He started to walk over to them, but nearly tripped on some loose rocks. He felt off-kilter, but wasn't sure why. Maybe whatever that spell XINE had cast had knocked him harder than he thought. "Yes, but where's the dragon? Did it escape?"

After a second, the two of them looked startled. They backed off, uncertain of what was going on. Checking back, he still didn't see the dragon. He normally kept his patience well, but after that battle, this was irritating.

"I was asking you, did you see the dragon escape?" He came forward, but then had to put his hand on the wall to keep himself upright.

"Um," the girl said. "On your back."

That just didn't make sense. That dragon had taken up the whole tunnel. There was no way that it could be behind him. Back there, there was just the wall, and…

And a smaller red dragon head came into his vision. Boo.

Wait, they were the voices he was now hearing in his head? So XINE had forced a demonic dragon possession on him. That would mean the dragons were going to be with him all the time now! Freaking out, Ashton slipped and hit his head against the mine wall. "Ow."

Ooch, careful there, the other voice said. The lavender head came up front and shook itself. We're still hurt from that battle too, you know.

"Careful," the girl said, coming over. Her friend came over too. "I'm sorry. We thought we would try to support you from in back, but it seems we distracted you too much. We didn't mean it." She drew a crest in the air.

Unexpectedly, all the pains from the battle went away. Even the bites on his hands stopped hurting like fire and ice. He looked at them and saw that the vision was true. He had lost his lightning and grass tattoos to gain dragon crests of ice and fire. What the… that was going to mess up all of his heraldic moves. But then, he was healed. "You have healing powers?" Ashton asked the girl, puzzled.

"Oh, yes," she said, a bit embarrassed. "I can't do anything about a possession, though."

"We're sorry about that," the young man said. "I thought about coming over to help, but there wasn't much space."

But it had been XINE who had set this up. Ashton waved it away. "No, you don't have to apologize. That was a bit distracting, but it seems it would have happened either way. Aw man, what am I going to do now?"

"Maybe you can find a priest who can perform an exorcism?" the girl suggested, trying to be helpful.

There came cries from the two dragons, not quite as intimidating as they were smaller. Oh, please don't do that to us!

I will ******* eat you if you do.

He shook his head. "No, that won't work." Part of his mind thought he shouldn't have made that deal with XINE now No kidding, but then if he hadn't, Eleanor would have died. That was worth a year of this awkwardness. Wasn't it? He got up. "Well, thanks for healing me. I'm getting out of here."

Ashton went over to pick up his silver cross, but then it burned him when the charm touched his hand. He ended up giving it to the girl in exchange for being healed. "Thanks," she said. "I'm Rena Lanford, and this is Claude Kenni."

"Nice to meet you," he said politely, although there was barely anything nice about this incident. "I'm Ashton Anchors."

"Scriiiiii!" A pair of monsters appeared in the tunnel with them. They were strange creatures with the head of a fae woman and the lower body of a spider. Although they looked strange, they also had those razor sharp claws and teleporting powers.

All right, time to see how much he could still do. Ashton brought out his swords again and twin stabbed the one nearest to him. In the meantime, Claude took his sword in his left hand and attacked the other spider woman. "Careful Claude," Rena called, and backed up to prepare a spell.

"I'm fine," he said. He managed to finish off his monster at the same time Ashton did. Although, Ashton had to deal with rebalancing his moves now with these dragons hanging onto his back.

"You're pretty good," Ashton told Claude. "But why do you hang your shield from your shoulder?"

"Oh, this?" He tapped the large knight's shield that was hanging a little high. "I nearly got my arm broke in a battle yesterday. I'm still getting used to using my left hand fighting."

Then how good was he with his dominant hand whole? Ashton felt humbled. "Ah, I see."

They trekked back to the entrance of the mine and met with the guard. There were four others with him now. "Oh, there you are darlings," a sorceress said. Then she saw him. Her eyes widened. "Ah…"

When the others saw him, they all were shocked too, either with disgust, distrust, or curiosity. Ashton looked down as he felt his face get warm. This was going to happen everywhere now, he realized. Maybe he should just hide out in the woods for the next year.

This story's back? ha ha. Something got me interested in it again, and then I started playing SO2 again (trying for a no-Rena party with Opera, no Earnest, as I haven't done any of that before). I mean, I have four other new (to me) games that I'm working through or have yet to start, and I go back to this one. I really just love it that much.

As I've mentioned, I'm trying to avoid backtracking as much as possible for this story, which means altering PAs (the lost jam store owner becoming the jewelry clerk) and side-quest events. Plus, I'm trying to work the story a bit better, such as mixing up Eleanor's sickness and Ashton's possession. In the game, Ashton gets into your party by demanding that you take responsibility for his possession. And then you can go on a side-quest to attempt an exorcism ceremony. To see what happens here, wait until the next chapter.

Hopefully I'll get that up soon, and not months from now...