Author's Note: Whoa! That was a huge income of reviews from that last chapter! It gladdens my heart to know so many of you enjoy this! Yet also saddens me a bit that this now has more reviews than my main story had had four times as many chapters… At least on Fanfic that is, haha. Anyhow, this marks as my most popular Fic on Fanfiction! I should really update Be Hybrid more often...
Anyhow, if you have any questions feel free to leave a review. Now enjoy the story!
Life of a Zero Dragon
Chapter 18: Scales of Color
When the mercenary sorceress, Elizabeth, found herself at the entrance of the Bronze Dragon Nest a few days ago, it had been a rough journey. The vast traveling distance it took to get to the nest in the first place would've been astronomically high if not for the aid of a bronze dragon. Still, the unbearable heat was a little uncounted for, luckily magic held its uses and being a Warcraft Hero caused extreme temperatures to feel much more mild in comparison to reality.
The Bronze Dragon Nest seemed to be very active, much more so than it ever did when in-game. There were multiple adult dragons going to and fro the desert towards a southeastern direction, where normally would be the location of the player-named Oasis, the biome where Hydras roam.
Now it was another continuation of an endless desert.
"Ah, excuse me,"
Elizabeth came out of her daze, looking around before facing downward, blinking in surprise at the sight of a small non-elemental dragon hatchling.
"Yes?" She questioned the small creature.
"I, uh, damn, hope this doesn't sound weird as hell-"
"You're a player like me aren't you?" Elizabeth interrupted, it was very easy to tell when the now identified Chosen Dragon player spoke in that way.
"Oh thank god," The hatchling responded, "I'm Alex, you?"
"Elizabeth, a pleasure, you aren't the only player I meet."
"Really?" Alex responded with a thankful tone, "I had a really horrible start when that flash of light happened, got attacked by overzealous elves, saved by the bronze, and stuck in the nest because I'm too weak to fight against the creeps to grow to Dragonet. Thankfully leveling works…"
"Same, thankfully Aylmer gave me enough gold to upgrade my equipment really early on. But that confirms it, though, all the players got sent to this new world."
"So the Kingdom player is here too? That means… Did the entire map because real?" Alex Storm questioned.
"In a nutshell," Elizabeth said, "There are plenty of other things, I'll explain a little later. But first, is there any water here?"
"Yeah, follow me,"
It had been a few days since that occurred, now both Mercenary and Chosen Dragon grouped together into the expanse of the Great Kayla Desert.
Alex Storm, who was the 2nd Player, had with the help of Elizabeth grown into a dragonet at level 5.
He had done so at just the right time.
"It's nice and all that I have a gender again…" Alex began, "But shit did it happened at the wrong time! Crap, watch out!"
"I get it!" Elizabeth ducked, avoiding a rather dangerous cleave from an ax half her size. She rolled forward, the sand below picking up from her moments and being thrown into the air, the wind spinning it around. The human sorceress spun quickly, the creature she was fighting, a nine-foot tall tauren.
Unlike the Warcraft's lore, the tauren, or also casually known as cow men, were merely crudely intelligent creeps similar to that of Warcraft's gnolls. Thus, mostly had a desire to kill anything that wasn't also a tauren.
Elizabeth slammed her fist against the tauren's chest, her mind clicking as she activated one of her Hero Abilities. "Siphon Energy!" She exclaimed.
A burst of green and blue colored magic came forth from her hand, draining the creep of both life and mana. As she back up, a long string of ever draining energy formed between herself and the humanoid monster. But the tauren wasn't going to sit ideally, and it charged forward with its weapon raised, bringing it down onto the player hero.
A gash appeared across her side, blood splurting outward and evaporating on the desert sand. But Elizabeth kept her spell ongoing, the wound that had so recently been formed now beginning to heal over, stitching itself back together as the tauren's own life force was being used to heal the player it had injured.
The non-elemental dragonet came up from behind, hovering and biting down the creep's shoulder.
"Grrroaah!" The tauren roared out in pain as he frailed its arms about wildly in an attempt to toss the dragonet off.
Once the duration of the Siphon Energy spell wore off, the effects dissipated, Elizabeth conjured a lone bird made of blue-hued magic, before sending it at the tauren, the attacking construct exploding against the creep's skin.
This was just the basic attack animation for the Sorceress Mercenary Hero.
The tauren raised his ax, before smashing it forward, throwing the dragonet off itself and stunning the player hero. Unable to move, Alex suffered an attack before the stun ran its course and he blinked again in a flash of blue light.
"Do that Siphon Energy spell again!" Alex exclaimed as he recovered from being hit like that, being a strength attribute allowed him to take much more damage before death, perfect to act as a body shield for a glass cannon mage like the mercenary.
"Can't, it's on cooldown!" Elizabeth responded, "And the Monsoon ability is not effective enough against lone targets, nor does it have the higher level damage yet!"
A brief white aura erupted from Alex Storm before vanishing, this occurred due to his activated of his attribute ability for being a strength dragon, Bulky Bulk.
Damage, Armor, Health Regeneration, all these aspects were increased in the usage of this… For 20 short seconds.
But with a 40 second cooldown, and at the edge of defeating an injured foe, not only will 20 seconds be more than enough, but he could in theory spam this for all its worth multiple times in a day.
A single paw raised and hit the tauren with all his strength.
It promptly exploded into chunks.
Alex Storm blinked, "Guess it was on low health left anyway…"
Elizabeth sighed in relief, "We should head back to the Bronze Nest, no luck today."
The Chosen Dragon nodded in agreement, "Yeah, and I can choose my color too, that should make things a lot easier when I can use spells outside of my attribute ability and blink."
The Mercenary hero arched an eyebrow, "Isn't being a strength-type like the worst combination for a bronze dragon?"
"Game speaking, very much so," Alex replied, "But we aren't having the luxury of knowing where the other nests are to really have a choice."
She sighed, "True, outside of the Bronze Nest and the Human Kingdom, along with the environments pulled with the Kingdom, we have little idea on what's going on."
Alex Storm and Elizabeth began to walk back towards the direction of the Bronze Dragon Nest, "That's why we're looking for the Dragon Knights or the night elves isn't it?"
"Yep," She answered simply, "But let's get your color first."
With that, Alex Storm, the non-elemental dragonet, went to become a Bronze Dragon. His appearance to be that of a World of Warcraft bronze whelpling.
Artos Archway had headed east, for a long time he had been traveling stopping only to hunt and feed. He had to admit, he was very thankful food didn't taste bad with the new draconic taste buds that came with being a dragon. Otherwise, he probably would not have lasted this long. The Chosen Dragon player had indeed noticed many things were… Off.
Besides being in the game itself, so many things were different.
He used the Blink ability quite often to hasten his travel time, making week's worth of travel in days time.
But with patience, he finally came across another familiar landscape outside of the Enchanted Cave he had started in. Though it was odd that he could still not find the Orangebark Forest, nor did he know much about this land of 'Gallia,' it was pleasant to see Greenleaf Forest once more.
Artos took notice that off in the distance was the Human Kingdom of Kayla.
"So, there is much more than simple creeps and biomes…" He commented on the discovery. "Still, best to avoid the kingdom right now, color first."
Artos hovered his non-elemental body into the depths of the Greenleaf Forest, taking much caution in case the creeps decided to jump out and attack at any given time. After all, the furbolgs were infamous within the map to be the most annoying, and at times dangerous, monsters for early to mid-game heroes.
Of course, he can just Blink away easily right now, but once you obtain a color in Life of a Dragon Sequel you lost the ability to use that short-distance teleport spell. The game's lore making the excuse that the parental magic had faded once the Chosen Dragon had grown up a bit more.
With a disappearing and reappearing act of using said ability, Artos looked around to find a landmark of his current location, spotting the familiar yet hidden pathway through the trees, he journeyed deeper in to reveal a large opening with a giant-sized old tree.
Artos grinned, baring his canines, the Green Dragon Nest had a most unusual protection in which you could only enter through an enchanted tree bridge. That old tree would collapse and form a bridge into the nest, but then restore itself once fully crossed.
As explained, the Chosen Dragon hovered close by and the bridge fell backward to form a bridge across the gaping pit that would've prove rather difficult to hover across without it.
Once crossed, it restored itself, and Artos Archway was greeted by a bus-sized Green Dragon.
"Welcome to the Green Dragon Nest, Chosen Dragon, please make yourself at home!" The NPC stated.
"Is the Mother Green Dragon here?" Artos asked.
"Yes," it (she?) answered. "Mother Green is tending to the dragonets up in the higher parts of the nest."
"Thank you," He replied, making his way up the pathway, he spotted that the nest still had its eerie similarities to the in-game version, even the ever-glowing purple dragon NPC that guarded the Healing Hays zealously.
He shook his head, "Now I shall get my color, even if its Green its better than nothing." He said to himself, making his way towards the position of the Mother Green Dragon.
Where he will become a Green Dragon, the user of the poison and healing.
A small pause was taken for Asuna Godiva to stare and fully comprehend what the Water Spirit of the Lake was actually concerned about.
The Southern Outland Portal.
"Ah… Well… That is an issue I guess?" She said to herself.
Asuna frowned, attempting to remember what exactly the Southern Outland Portal actually could do. There was only one thing she could recall, and that was it transported things to and fro the other part of Outland.
'But what's in that other part of Outland?' The 3rd Player thought in question, metaphorically banging her head for an answer she could remember.
'It's not like I know that much! I've only played this map a few times to know the basics! Outside of that, I'm a complete noob!' Asuna continued her line of thought, inwardly panicking at the ramifications of her novice skill level.
The Chosen Dragon took in a deep breath, she was level 5, barely edging to 6. What were the creep levels of South Outland? Well, there were the furthest away from the Enchanted Cave on the map, so they had to be higher level than she was for sure, but by how much?
Taking a small moment to observe the circular violet glowing portal, she took notice the terrain around it in a small radius had changed from the native plant life and grasses to a rough, reddish rock and bizarre pink-hued and oddly shaped flowers.
"Screw it, I have blink, I have it maxed, if something goes wrong I can just teleport out," She said, mustering up the courage and she looked at the portal, then ran towards it…
Screaming.
"Ahhhhhhhh!" She yelled only for her to brace herself as her vision was engulfed in light.
Only to see a giant, god-forsaken landscape. A world devastated, with only red dirt and rock on the floor, floating empty plateaus in the sky, and many deformed plant and formations.
Oh, and a fel stalker three to four times her size.
"Fuck!" Asuna's first reaction as it spotted her, charging at the young female dragonet for an easy meal.
The Blink Ability activated, and she vanished right before the fel stalker pierced the dragonet with two spear-like tendrils.
Only to almost making herself fall deep down into the dark abyss of no return, only darkness greeting her as she stared down what almost was her doom.
"Close one…" She said reeling back and taking a few breaths from the fear that overtook her.
The fel stalker turned around to face her, Asuna's draconic instincts caused her to growl menacing at the creep, her inner human thoughts shocked at her display of threat.
That was when a huge shadow enveloped them, and there landed the biggest creature Asuna had ever layed eyes on. It took two stories high, with black scales and many meter long wingspan, the earth answered its call and the ground below broke apart, swallowing the fel stalker whole and closing, sealing it in a tomb.
A golden light signaled her leveling up, but it was unimportant as of now.
"I-I-I…" Asuna was stolen of words.
The large Black Dragon turned his head towards her, "I sensed your arrival little Chosen Dragon, but you have not the strength to challenge these beasts. Come, I will guide you safely to the Nether Dragon Nest I teach."
'I was not ready for today…' Was Asuna's thoughts, 'But… I can become a Nether Dragon so that's something really, really good for me. Thank Kami.'
With the safety of Uncle Black Dragon, the leader of the Black Dragons in Life of a Dragon Sequel who had been protecting the Nether Dragon Nest and guiding them, now leading the young dragonet girl. Asuna Godiva followed him into the Nether Dragon Nest, these creatures, however, were more a cross of a pure energy being and a dragon. Not to be mistaken for the Nether counterparts of World of Warcraft, their appearance were completely different.
"Uncle Black..." Asuna began, a little wary of the huge leader dragon.
"You wish to choose the color of your scales?" He responded knowingly.
"Y-Yes, can I become Nether?"
"Why of course, though you will be the first of Kayla's Chosen Dragons, such a step will strengthen the ties for the new dragons."
With that said, Asuna became one of both energy and dragon, with the elements of chaos.
Current Status:
Chosen Dragon Player 1: Saito Hiraga - Alive - Dragonet (Agility) Level 9
Chosen Dragon Player 2: Alex Storm - Alive - Bronze Dragonet (Strength) Level 6
Chosen Dragon Player 3: Asuna Godiva - Alive - Nether Dragonet (Strength) Level 6
Chosen Dragon Player 4: Artos Archway - Alive - Green Dragonet (Agility) Level 7
Chosen Dragon Player 5: Cora Rune - Alive - Blue Dragonet (Intelligence) Level 8
Dragon Slayer Player 6: Celdrahil - Alive - Slayer Level 7
Dragon Catcher Player 7: Rosina - Alive - Catcher Level 10
The Human Kingdom Player 8: Aylmer and Abigail - Alive - Royalty of Human Kingdom
The Fel Empire Player 9: Grom - Alive - King of Fel Empire
Mercenary Player 10: Elizabeth Loyal - Alive - Sorceress Level 7
Observer Map Maker: Map Maker - Alive - The World Editor