Dragon Heart Chapter 5 (original chapter Chapter 120)
Two Days Later
Office, Mother Chapterhouse of the Order of the Huntress, City of Calvin, Panadol Province
"Those…animals of the Crusaders have arrived." One woman clad in light armour said distastefully. She had a sword sheathed at her hip, with her long brown hair tied into a simple plait that hung down her back. Upon her breastplate, the symbol of the Order of the Huntress, a notched bow and arrow over a pair of crossed spears, was prominent.
"Yes." The other occupant of the room, an older woman wearing much the same outfit as her companion, sat behind a desk and frowned. She was best described as a handsome woman, with a pair of dainty pince-nez perched atop her aquiline nose. Her hair was streaked with grey strands and she had lines etched into her face that spoke of grief and pain. "Sadly, it would seem that Captain Bruce was not incorrect in his information."
"Grand Mistress, what are we to do about them. If they poke around…" the younger woman said worriedly.
"Then they shall find an orderly city, with no monsters in it, nothing more, Sister-Knight Angelica." The Grand Mistress snapped. "While our animosity with the brutes of the Crusade Knights is well documented, we do not go looking for trouble. I have assigned several of our more stealthy members to spy on them to ensure that they do not go anywhere that we do not want them to go. The rest of us shall carry on as usual."
"As you command, Grand Mistress Ariana." Angelica nodded. "For Our Lady."
"For Our Lady." Ariana echoed softly and watched as the younger woman swept from the room and barely restrained a sigh. So young, so headstrong, so impetuous. Angelica was only eighteen and a prodigy with the arts martial, but that skill and fame with it made her hard to control when combined with her youth and idealism.
To be a religious order in worship of a Saint who had risen to become a goddess was not easy in a monotheistic empire that disallowed the worship or even the mere acknowledgement of the existence of other gods. Only the strong national loyalty that the Order of the Huntress had possessed at the time had allowed them to escape destruction at the time and even now, centuries later, they had to be careful to not upset the Church of the One God or else they would be put to the sword.
Since the Saint's ascension to godhood, every Grand Mistress had been magically sworn to three tenants upon ascension to the position. First, to protect and serve the Empire of Trusk so long as the Empire did not unfairly raise its hand to the Order of the Huntress. Second, to never allow the worship of the Saintess of the Hunt to be extinguished within the Order. Third, to work towards securing a way for the Order of the Huntress to escape to its patron Goddess' embrace and protection.
The last tenant troubled Ariana, as it implied that at some point, the Empire would fall under the sway of the more ossified branch of the Church and start purging sects and Orders Militant that did not adhere to their definition of 'orthodoxy'. The Grand Mistress at the time of the Saintess' ascension had been gifted with the power of prophecy and future sight, so it wasn't totally out of the question that the first and last tenants had been added due to her visions of what was to come.
Rising to her feet, the older woman moved to the bookcase and pulled at one book, and then another. With a click, the entire thing sunk into the ground, revealing a small recess in the wall just barely large enough to hide a bookstand. Sitting open on it was a single heavy book, its pages yellowed with age.
The Book of the Order had been written by the third Grand Mistress, the one who had taken the helm of the Order of the Huntress just a handful of years before the Saintess had arisen to become a goddess. All of her wisdom was written into it, all of the visions that she saw, all of the potential troubles that would plague her sisters for centuries to come after her death. All entries had either specific dates that they had to be read on or specific incidents that they were to read upon their happening.
Opening the book carefully, Ariana turned it to the page that she had been looking at for months without knowing what to do. Even as her eyes scanned it, she muttered the words aloud, already knowing them by heart.
'There shall come a time of strife, when monsters with the minds of humans stalk the land. Great shall be the suffering and many shall perish in the chaos.
All who try to go against the coming storm shall be swept away. Only by surrendering to the inevitable shall the Order survive.
One among the monsters, both gloried and hated by their actions past, shall rise above all others and ally with Our Lady. Find this monster. Protect them. Serve them. Should this monster fall, so too shall the Order and Our Lady.
Three hints I shall give to guide your path. First, look where no one wishes to look. Second, look to the skies, for hope shall burn bright. Third and finally, the skittering monster shall weave its web and be known by the name of Khepri.
Fear it not and speak with pride and honour. That shall be your path to victory.'
- Written in my own hand, thirty years after the ascension of Our Lady the Saintess, Grand Mistress Arabella Tyne.
"Why must you constantly speak in riddles and vague hints, Elder One?" Ariana sighed in frustration. Parts of it were easy to decipher, of course. The monster referred to in the prophecy was obviously the reincarnated god slayer, and the time of this prophecy was now. Other parts were murky. There were lots of places in the empire where no one wanted to look. And what on Amaryllis did the last line even mean?
Shaking her head, Ariana closed up the hidden alcove again and sat down behind her desk again. She would just have to think on it more. She had deciphered even more obtuse and obscure prophecies before now, so surely she'd be able to solve this one.
The fate of the Order depended on it.
With Taylor
Streets of the Abandoned Imperial Seat Malvin
Well I had been right, sort of, when I had assumed that the place was divided into districts. Thing is, they weren't explicitly divided into clean, straight district lines. The divides meandered all over the place like the flight paths of a bunch of drunken flies. This, as you might imagine, made things ever so slightly hard for me to claim any district, not to mention that the undead would wander around in a limited fashion, unlike how the ones out in the slums and on the wall had, sometimes even crossing district lines.
The main exceptions, I had found, were the military and mage districts, as well as the large wall dividing the poor part of the city from the more upscale parts. In the case of the mage and military, they had token walls that were about a foot thick and had large wooden gates that barred access…or they had before they'd rotted away into uselessness.
Still, enough of them remained that the military and mage districts were essentially isolated from the rest of the city. That made them, in theory, the first places I should look at to take over. In reality, the military district was teeming with soldier skeletons, from the ones I was familiar with that wore rotting leather armour, to one big bastard that looked like a walking wall of steel, one only marred by the large rent in the armour over its heart. As for the mage district…well, I could see a dozen or so wandering around the place.
Now, a dozen or so might not sound like much, but given that most of them carried fancy-looking staves and had jewelled golden amulets and the like on their carcasses, I was willing to bet that the bloody things were all powerful mages. I was not willing to try and take them on until I was in my juvenile form at the very least.
So I had turned my attention to the military district as the lesser of two evils. For the last couple of days, I had been scouting the area from atop the walls and rooftops, noting the patrol patterns and numbers of the undead. It wasn't actually that much different to what I'd done as Skitter and Weaver regarding the gangs in Brockton and Philly. Except, y'know, they were freaking undead and didn't change their patterns. At all.
I had gathered enough information, so I was sitting atop the wall with a bunch of stones so I could use my [Tail Catapult] skill to smash some skeletons. According to my research, a patrol of about six shambled up this way around this time of day, although all I could tell about this particular time of day was that it was somewhere around about midday. I really missed clocks.
Right on que, there they are. Five skeletons wearing rotting leather armour and carrying swords, with one wearing rusted and pitted chainmail and carrying a spear. How the wood of the spear hadn't rotted into uselessness was beyond me, but there you go.
Taking careful aim, I tossed a rock into the air and whirled around, bringing my tail into contact with the falling debris just in time and at just the right angle to send it flying straight through the skull of the spear wielding skeleton, which shattered like cheap china.
As the bones dropped to the ground, the other skeletons reacted, fanning out in search of the one who had shot down their leader. Evidently, looking up hadn't occurred to them, as I managed to nail three more before they found me. Thing with skeletons in general was that they moved slowly and they had little to no imagination or ability to adapt, so all they did was walk towards where I sat, waving their rusted and pitted swords in vain and looking pathetic in general as I picked them off easily.
As soon as the last member of the patrol fell, that annoying little noise appeared in my ear again.
[DING!]
You have defeated a patrol of [Skeleton Soldiers]! You gain experience!
Skill: [Tail Catapult] has levelled up! LV1-LV2!
For a series of successive actions, you gain the [Sniper] skill!
[Sniper] (Passive) [LV1, 0%]
Some people throw a lot of mud at a brick wall in hopes that some of it will stick. Not you. You vastly prefer precision over massive rates of fire. To reflect this, you gain the benefits of this skill when at not moving.
- Only applies when stationary.
- While stationary, you are granted an additional +5% to chances to crit while using non-magical projectile weapons.
OK, that was new. Moving on…
Moving around the wall of the military district, I began picking off the patrols which wandered near to the wall and far from other patrols. The undead were generally speaking like cockroaches; where there was one, there were usually a couple of dozen more waiting in the wings. Fortunately enough for me, there were mostly only a token number in the military district. At a guess, the soldiers had been pulled back to defend the palace and the noble district when the outer curtain wall was breached, leaving just these few poor men to fight and die against the invaders.
Once the outer patrols were all dead (again), I moved inwards, leapfrogging and gliding across the rooftops in order to get to the next point of my plan to defeat the soldier skeletons in detail. There had been six patrols of six soldiers roaming the outer limits of the military district near the wall. Closer in the district proper, there were fifteen patrols of five, all of which were a hell of a lot closer to one another than the outer patrols, so it upped the chance that I was going to be jumped by multiple patrols at once. Even with that fact working against me, I still managed to take down three patrols in a row without trouble.
Then five patrols jumped me at once. My luck is just as screwed up as it ever was back on Earth Bet, I see.
I had just finished using [Tail Catapult] to pick off the leader of one patrol when the sound of lots of moving bone on stone made my head snap up and I was confronted by an onrush of armed skeletons, about ten of them. Evidently skeletons were smart enough to figure out how to use stairs.
Of course, I didn't sit on my scaly ass and gape like an idiot; I leapt to my taloned feet, activated [Skull Bash] and then used [Charge] to run straight at the oncoming horde of skeletons. One live, rare and determined baby dragon versus a small horde of dead, mindless and common skeletons soldiers…it was a slaughter. I ploughed right through them like a scythe through wheat, smashing brittle bone legs like cheap balsa wood, to the point I had to apply the brakes quickly to avoid flying off the edge of the roof. Then I remembered that I had wings. Duh.
Leaving my derp moment aside, I lashed out with my tail as I turned around, smashing one skeleton's legs and sending another one careening to the street below. As the skeleton without legs landed on its back and with its head near me, I had an idea and stomped down on its head with my foreleg, smashing the skull like an egg.
As it worked, I used it on the other skeletons with broken legs. A quick headbutt after applying [Skull Bash], to send the things sprawling. If that didn't kill them, a good stomp afterwards did.
Then the other three squads of skeletons showed up. My life, ladies and gentlemen.
After kicking bony butt and smashing skeletal heads for a solid ten minutes, I stood victorious amid a small forest of broken bone. And, right on que, that irritating noise showed up again.
[DING!]
You have defeated five squads of [Average Skeleton Soldiers]! Experience gained!
You have gained a level! LV2-LV3!
You gain STR +4!
You gain DUR +5
You gain AGI +3!
You gain WIS +4!
You gain INT +3!
Skill: [Tail Smack] has levelled up! LV9-10!
Skill: [Scaly Skin] has levelled up! LV11-LV12!
Skill: [Rough Scales] has levelled up! LV8-LV9!
Skill: [Tail Catapult] has levelled up! LV3-LV4!
Skill: [Sniper] has levelled up! LV2-LV3!
Skill: [Skull Bash] has levelled up! LV5-LV6!
Skill: [Charge] has levelled up! LV5-LV6!
As a result of a series of actions taken, you gain the [Headbutt] skill!
[Headbutt] (Instant) [LV1, 0%]
Used by many races, both humanoid and not, the headbutt is a very basic combat technique involving smashing the user's forehead into their opponent's head, preferably the face. Basic, yes, but it can be very disorientating to be head-butted and thus this is a frequently seen technique in brawling. The basic technique can be augmented by the natural features of the user, such as horns, rough scales spikes, poisoned sweat, etcetera.
- Deals non-elemental damage equal to the user's STR to a single enemy.
- If used against the face of an enemy, has a +5% chance to crit. and cause [Stun]. (Undead and golems immune)
- Due to the user having [Rough Scales], the damage is increased by the amount listed in the [Rough Scales] entry.
As a result of a series of actions taken, you gain the [Stomp] skill!
[Stomp] (Instant) [LV1, 0%]
A basic combat technique, the user simply slams the heel of their foot onto the enemy. While basic, it is useful as a distraction, so is a frequent sight in brawling. A grislier and darker use of this technique is to crush the head of a fallen enemy.
- Deals non-elemental damage to a single enemy equal to the user's STR.
- If used against the foot of an enemy, has a 5% chance of inflicting [Distracting Pain] on the enemy.
- If used on a prone enemy's head, the damage calculation is revised to STR+20 and with a 10% to crit.
So I had finally gotten my hands on [Headbutt]. Kinda ironic considering [Charge] was basically a moving, powered -up version. Well, whatever. Every skill that I had was another weapon.
What my mind was drawn to was the question of exactly why I had been ZERG-rushed by these skeleton soldiers. Before now, the undead had simply reacted to my actions, possessing all the free will of a scarecrow stuck in the ground. The only time they should act like this is in the presence of a necromancer or a higher-level undead.
Oh. Shit.
Fuck me running. There just had to be a high-level undead here. Presuming that the fortress at the distant valley mouth was indeed successfully keeping anyone out of my little home here, thus precluding the possibility of a necromancer, then the only explanation was that one of the undead around here was a step up from a regular skeleton. This meant…a death knight, I think, or at least something similar. Perhaps a wight?
This complicated things a bit. My entire plan had been made under the assumption that there were only low-level cannon fodder undead in the city, but this incident had proven that key assumption to be wrong. No plan survives contact with the enemy indeed.
Still, even if I had been swamped by the skeleton soldiers, I hadn't lost more than a handful of HP because of them, most of which had regenerated in the time since the end of combat. Unless I came across a large sea of the undead, or one monumentally powerful one, I was in no danger of being killed.
Acting more cautiously, I chose my next sniper point more carefully, choosing one without any steps leading up to the roof. This was actually harder than it sounded, as the vast majority of houses, shops and other buildings in this city had two, sometimes three stories, with steps and ladders leading up and down them.
After dragging the one ladder up to remove the possibility of another rush of undead, I gathered stones and bricks and settled in to wait for my targets. The inner patrols were down to seven squads, and as I had taken down five at once, I wasn't too worried about dealing with them, but I wasn't going to take them lightly nonetheless.
Fortunately or unfortunately for me, my precautions were very much warranted. The last thirty-five skeletons of the inner patrols soon marched down the street in a single large block. Yep, my luck was definitely back in full swing again. I didn't have nearly enough rocks to snipe all of them, so I decided to just eliminate as many of the spear-wielding skeletons as I could before either retreating or moving into close quarters.
The first part of my plan went well. Five rocks shot, five spear-wielding skeletons taken out via shattered skulls. Then that irritating noise chimed in a gain.
[DING!]
Warning! The defeat of so many of its subordinates has spurred the Area Boss of the [Malvin City Military District] into taking to the field personally! ETA at your location: 3:00!
Seriously? Fuck. My. Whole. Life.
OK, no need to panic just yet. I just had to eliminate the fodder skeletons before whatever the hell the boss was arrived. No biggie.
Why not retreat? Because at no time since I had first ventured out of my cave had I ever seen any skeleton I'd destroyed be restored. When I destroyed them, they stayed gone. This meant that no matter what I did, I was going to have to deal with a wandering Area Boss at some point. May as well get it out of the way here and now.
Leaping into the air, I angled down and activated [Skull Bash] and [Charge] at once, smashing through three skeletons as I came in to land. Whipping my tail around to destroy legs and then smashing heads with stomps of my feet, I quite easily took care of most of the remaining soldier skeletons. The one remaining was the one I had spotted in plate armour. Carrying a large bastard sword in a loose two-handed grip, I eyed it carefully, as I had no desire to see how well-armoured my [Scaly Skin] made me against a large sword like that.
The only saving grace was that the armoured skeleton was without a proper helmet, just a rusted coif of some description. Given the dagger sticking out of the side of it, I could guess how the poor man had died; he had fought until dealt that large wound and rent in his armour and then someone had ripped his helmet off and stabbed him in the head, killing him. Poor bastard.
Well, I guess I'd better get around to killing him.
Warily, I started to circle the armoured skeleton as it clumsily raised its large weapon. Nope, I wasn't going to be hit by that if I can help it, thank you very much.
After a moment, the skeleton lunged forwards, much faster than I had expected, but still very slowly for a combatant. I dodged the slice of the sword and swung my tail around, striking the armour with the same sound as I would hear on a bell…and no effect on the skeleton. Leaping back with tucked in wings to avoid the back-slice of the sword, I landed and charged forwards, deciding to see if my trusty combination of [Skull Bash] and [Charge] would at least knock the sonofabitch over.
CLANG!
Nope. Barely staggered him, in fact. And whoa, I think I actually feel a bit dizzy.
Leaping over another sword slash, I thought furiously about what to do and decided to try what I could. Leaping over another double-handed cut, I flew over the skeleton's head and wrapped my tail around its neck as I passed, dragging the undead knight off its feet to land on its back with an almighty clang.
Quick as a flash, I turned around, unwound my tail from the skeleton's neck and used [Stomp] with both of my forelegs, smashing the skull into shards and halting the rise of the sword before the arms collapsed, the magic animating the undead leaving its body.
Panting from the exertion, I looked around triumphantly…and then froze.
Striding down the street was a knight wearing armour of pale bone. Not just that lit LOOKED like bone, it actually WAS bone. Hello, higher-level undead.
[DING!]
You have defeated seven squads of mixed [Average Skeleton Soldiers], [Weak Skeleton Soldiers] and [Elite Skeleton Soldiers], as well as one special elite monster, the [Skeleton Knight]! You gain experience!
You now face [Marquis, the Bone Knight]!
Wha…wait…MARQUIS?!
OK, so, here's Dragon Heart Chapter 5. I'm gonna continue this until it hits chapter seven and then go back to do Stand Proud Chapter 2.
In all honesty, the Jojoverse is a bit hard for me to grasp, mostly because of the Stands. For example, Jōtarō and DIO could fly…somehow. Was that because of their Stands, or was it because of something else? Any help in answering that question would be greatly appreciated.
Also, for all those wondering, Code Geass: Nina of the Submission's prologue is posted on AO3 and has been for the last week. Go and have a look if you are old and mature enough.