The Ancient Grove, a place where the waters were a virulent poison, and the plants were even worse.
Indeed, the plantlife that grew surprisingly well in the Ancient Grove had a bizarre sentience. Frogweeds existed elsewhere, but they were animals that had adapted to look like plants, just like bulb spiders. The only truly sentient plants existed on the banks of the Silver River. Whereas the ones further upstream tended to keep to themselves, the ones in the Grove were very, very violent.
Still, it was entirely possible for a dragon to live within the Grove without fear. Poison dragons had the easiest time, seeing as they had an immunity to the toxins in the water and plantlife. That wasn't to say that other kinds of dragons couldn't, as anyone with the requisite knowledge could avoid the threats inherent to the Grove.
So it was fortunate, then, that Null had done his research.
Not that he had ever expected to go to the Ancient Grove; nobody ever wanted to go to such a dangerous place. But he had wondered, one day, what kinds of dangerous locations existed in the Dragon Realms. Curiosity had led him to read about the Munitions Forge under Mount Boyzitbig, the electrically charged wastes of Concurrent Skies, and most importantly the toxic Grove in front of him.
"I'm… more than a little worried," Apex muttered, staring at the towering trees in front of them. "How are we going to breathe, exactly? The fumes should be even worse down under the trees, right?"
"The waters themselves don't give off the fumes, the trees do." Null answered. He stared at the tree line a little, then padded into the oppressive bog. "We'll be fine if we just don't fall into the poisonous water."
Apex hesitated for a moment longer, then followed Null.
"So what's the plan?" The wind dragon asked, glancing around at the nearby plants. All sorts of luminous purple plants were present, and more than one turned to follow the duo.
Null carefully stepped around a mushroom. "Well, we'll try to get out of the Grove by nightfall, but honestly I doubt we will. It stretches just a bit too far for us to get all the way through in one day, but at the same time it provides shelter from any negative weather. Honestly, nighttime in the Grove isn't too bad, all we'll have to worry about are Grove Beasts."
"And what are those, exactly…?" Apex glanced at the glowing purple mushroom, watching as it changed colors on one side. He shuddered and continued.
"A creature related to grublins, but less intelligent. If that's possible." Null chuckled. "They have exoskeletons, and usually some kind of fungus or moss growing on them. They're a lot bigger than grublins, though, and stronger too. They don't have the same burrowing talent, though."
"That always confused me. How do the grublins even do that?"
"They have an innate connection to earth magic." Null glanced back, noting the surprised look on Apex's face. "What, you thought that only dragons could connect to the elements?"
"Well…" Apex hesitated, thinking. "I don't know. I mean, cheetahs and moles don't have elemental magic, and neither do other species like the apes and the wolves."
"Dragons are the only sophisticated species with a connection to the elements." Null nodded. "But grublins, with their primitive culture, have the ability to merge with the earth. It's just a shame they use it for pointless raids." Null shook his head. "There are other creatures with elemental affinities, and the Grove Beasts are among them. They throw poison magic."
"Pleasant," Apex noted.
"Anyways, otherwise we just have to worry about grove mites and grove worms. The mites won't be much of a problem if we avoid their nests, and the worms only live in the toxic waters," Null continued. "So we just steer clear of those."
"Right, simple," Apex muttered, looking around. There were even more luminous plants all over the place. Mosses, mushrooms, lichens, and more than a few flowers decorated the Grove.
Null used the silence to think more on the way things were going. Apex was constantly tired, an elemental had attacked the village, and there was something deep, deep in the gem cave.
Back to that. What could that giant purple crystal have been? Null hadn't even been able to see the edges, which meant that it was large enough to meld into the horizon. But what had it been, exactly? Was it truly a spirit gem, as Apex had suggested? And if so, what kind of spirit gem? Null had only ever heard of four varieties: green, red, blue, and dark. What, then, were purple spirit gems?
For that matter, how did spirit gems work? They were, supposedly, gifts from the Ancestors. Did that mean the Ancestors as they were now, as spirits that watched over all? Or were the Ancestors once a technologically and magically advanced people, as some theorists suggested? That would, of course, mean that the Ancestors had engineered the spirit gems, which made sense. Spirit gems were far too convenient to dragonkind to be natural, especially considering how fast they grew back.
Still, that didn't explain their odd properties. As far as Null knew, there was nothing that could heal a dragon as quickly as red spirit gems. Likewise, blue spirit gems were the only things that could enhance a dragon's elemental power besides training. Funnily enough, green spirit gems could be replicated, but only by directly transferring elemental energy from one source to another, and both had to have the same element. The fact that green gems transferred energy to any element meant that they defied all logic.
Dark gems, on the other hand, were on another level of oddity entirely. They acted as driving forces for creatures like elementals, but at the same time they acted as a bottomless void as far as external energy goes. They didn't grow naturally, most of the time, but they occasionally showed up without reason. The strangest part, though, was that they only appeared in times when the world was under threat. The earliest recorded dark gems were referenced in a book that was even older than the story of Malefor, meaning that the purple dragon had nothing to do with their creation.
Null hesitated, something felt off about this area. There were no insects chirping, far fewer luminous plants, and there was a slight chill in the air. Ordinarily that wouldn't be a problem, but it was the middle of summer in a boggy location. The combination of heat and humidity should have made it stifling and stuffy, but instead it was dry and cold.
The sense that something was wrong was reinforced when Null placed a paw down and slipped.
He probably should have been paying more attention, but he had stepped onto a faintly luminous purple patch of ground. While many things in the Grove were glowing and purple, none of them took up this much ground space. Nothing but the water, anyways.
And while Null had just placed his paw directly on a pool of toxic water, he wasn't going down.
Rather, he was skidding across the surface.
"Woah!" Null cried out, his claws scrabbling on the ice. He knew what it was, of course, but never had he encountered a patch large enough to take up more space than his paw. With all four legs locked, he slowly slid until he hit the other side of the pool.
"Huh." Apex prodded the ice. "So it wasn't just me. It actually is really cold here."
"It shouldn't be." Null shakily walked off of the ice, digging his claws into the ground to make sure he didn't slip again. "It's summer." Null stared at the ice and shuddered. He couldn't imagine how he hadn't felt the cold earlier, and even still it wasn't that much of a problem to him. He supposed he should be glad that it was cold enough for the toxic waters to freeze, otherwise he'd be nothing more than a pile of bones at the bottom of a pool right now. "I didn't even think it got cold enough in the Grove for the waters to freeze."
"Well." Apex stepped down onto the ice, carefully using his wind powers to push himself across. "Apparently it does."
"Yeah…" Null looked around, now noticing things he had missed before. Flowers that were open in the fringes of the Grove were closed against the cold. Frost gathered on the tree trunks, killing the moss that grew on them. Here and there Null caught glimpses of… was that snow? "This… this isn't normal."
Apex stepped off of the ice and shivered. "I don't like it."
"Yeah… me neither." Null shook his head. "Let's keep going."
As the duo proceeded through the Grove, Null noticed more oddities. Piles of snow in places that weren't even reachable from the sky. Larger and larger bodies of toxic water frozen solid. Not even the buzz of a grove mite filled the air. It was downright eerie.
It was when they came across the treant that Null knew there was a problem.
A creature that, in other circumstances, would have crushed the two dragons like insects; the treant was no threat now. Despite its massive size, literal tree-trunk limbs, and doubtless toxic abilities, there was nothing that the creature could do now. Not while it was frozen solid.
"This is a problem," Null stated, staring at the treant. While it would have probably tried to kill the two of them, nothing deserved to die like that. To be helplessly trapped with no chance of escape, no chance to fight back. "If whatever caused this could freeze that, it's definitely more than capable of killing us."
"What could cause this?" Apex asked, more curious than worried.
"An elemental, probably," Null replied, staring at the treant still.
"Like the one that attacked the village?" Apex was suddenly on edge.
"The one that attacked our village was a goliath." Null slowly walked towards the frozen treant, eyes on a patch of snow at its feet. "This was caused by something with ice element, so it certainly wasn't a goliath. It might have been a Yuki-Onna, but they usually just lurk in places already frozen. Maybe it was a group of Jotun, ice giants, but their specialty lies in random destruction. I really, really hope it wasn't an Aquilo."
"What's an Aquilo, exactly?" Apex was now far more worried than curious.
"A powerful, powerful spirit of ice." Null paused. "You know Dante's Freezer?"
"Are you saying that an Aquilo caused that?!" Apex spread his wings as if to take off, it was clear that he was extremely uneasy.
Null didn't blame him. "No, but an Aquilo maintains it. That particular elemental is sleeping most of the time, and from stories it's actually rather calm. I doubt this is the doing of an Aquilo, but it still worries me. Ah-ha!"
"Ah-hah what?" Apex folded his wings once more, slowly padding up next to Null. He occasionally glanced at the treant, as if afraid that it would move to crush them.
"Treants usually grow near spirit gems, particularly green ones. They also very, very rarely move. As I suspected…" Null dug away at the snow, revealing a glimmer of green crystal. "There are crystals here. Something tells me you'll need them."
"Thanks Null." Apex smiled in gratitude, and Null noticed just how exhausted the wind dragon seemed. It hadn't been more than a few hours, and he hadn't used any of his elemental energy. How was he so tired again so quickly?
Nonetheless, Apex broke the crystals, absorbing the green shards. Almost immediately he straightened, energized once more. "Wow, I really needed that."
"I can tell." Null nodded. "Let's get going. With luck, we'll avoid whatever caused all this ice."
The young dragons set off again, this time with far more caution. Neither of them wanted to meet whatever had caused this freeze, especially when one of them was unnaturally tired and the other was, well, Null.
Unfortunately, wishes don't come true.
The signs of the creature's presence became even more common, if that were possible. Grove worms that were in pieces and frozen were in just about every body of water. There was a particularly surprised looking grove beast standing next to a pool of water, one arm lying on the ground and its entire body turned into ice.
The scariest part were the trees. Trees with trunks that were yards across, sliced down in what seemed like a single blow. There weren't any marks to indicate chopping, leading Null to believe that this creature had some sort of weapon that could cut the trees down in a single stroke. That ruled out Yuki-Onna, as they used ice magic exclusively. It also ruled out the Jotun, because they had nothing that sharp. Seeing as Aquilos tended to a more sedentary life, that left only one potential option.
And as soon as the dragons came into a clearing, that option was confirmed.
It was beautiful, honestly. With intricate patterns composing its entire body, one could mistake this creature easily for decoration. The difference, however, was that decoration didn't have six arms that ended in the sharpest weapons known to the Dragon Realms.
The elemental looked, quite honestly, like a giant, floating snowflake. Its six limbs branched off from a central hexagon of crystalline ice, a purple crystal visible in the center. The glow coming from the crystal caused the entire snowflake to be a faint purple color, with the blades on the ends of its limbs remaining an ice blue color. Those same blades each took the form of a right angle triangle, with the right angle pointing away from the limbs. While at a distance it seemed to be levitating, Null saw the creature's legs, nearly invisible strands of flexible ice that stretched off of its main body. The head of the elemental was similarly nearly invisible, situated between the top two arm blades. Its eyes were closed at the moment, and the whole elemental seemed to be in a meditative state.
Then its eyes snapped open, and two orbs of ice stared at the dragons.
"It's not as bad as an Aquilo…" Null swallowed. "But it's pretty close."
"Er… what is it?" Apex backed up a step, his wings unfurling.
"A Boread."
Boreads, oh Boreads. The scourge of the Freezer. While Jotun were a more common threat, and Yuki-Onna could freeze you solid with a touch, Boreads were physically capable enough to wipe all of that away. They were truly the threat that one thought of when they heard the words 'Dante's Freezer'. Not the undead that lurked there without reason, or the killer climate, it was the creatures that could slice you into fifty pieces in less time than it took to blink.
And they were impossible to sneak up on.
The Boread simply stared at them, its six arms spread out in imitation of a snowflake. It didn't even blink. It didn't need to.
"I say we go back, and take a wiiiiide detour." Apex spoke up, stepping back another pace.
"Small problem with that suggestion…" Null glanced sideways at the wind dragon, before turning his gaze back on the Boread.
"And that is?"
"Boreads consider interrupting their meditation as a personal challenge." Null swallowed again, his mouth feeling dry. "And running as an affront."
"So… what, exactly, is our best option?" Apex glanced at Null.
"We're in luck, this one seems to be giving us the first attack." Null hesitantly took a step forwards.
Immediately, the Boread moved. Its body tilted on a horizontal axis, while its head and legs remained in the same position. All six of its blades were perfectly parallel to the ground, and so sharp that they were almost invisible when seen from the edge.
"Or… not." Null dropped into a combat stance. He knew that he didn't stand a chance against this thing. His only hope was to survive, and pray that the Boread somehow destroyed itself.
The Boread darted forwards, its spindly legs moving gracefully as its arms began to spin, rotating around its body like an icy buzzsaw. A beautiful, elegant, living, buzzsaw.
They were dead.
Null lunged forwards, under the buzzsaw attack, and swung his tail over his head. There was a satisfying chink! as ice chipped off of the Boread's torso segment, and Null grinned. His victory was short-lived, however, because the Boread then kicked him in the head. Its legs may have been spindly, but they were strong.
Null gasped as stars danced across his vision, but was fortunate that the Boread had decided not to follow up. Instead, it seemed to have deemed Apex the bigger threat.
While it wasn't technically wrong, Null didn't quite know what to think about that.
Apex was truly a sight to behold in combat, able to dodge just about anything thrown at him. It was not unakin to the way that grass flowed in the breeze, moving out of the way of a blade or paw. It was a technique that required one to surrender themselves to the wind, and Apex knew full well how to do that.
The whirling blades of the Boread were mere inches away from Apex at all times, yet the wind dragon showed no fear as he battered the elemental with gusts of wind. While the gusts weren't enough to knock the creature off balance, they were certainly keeping it back.
Then the Boread changed tactics.
All six of the blades stopped moving, halting instantly. The Boread's body returned to the position that the dragons had found it in, and the limbs rotated so that it could chop at Apex.
Still the wind dragon managed to avoid every hit, this time using his wind attacks as blades to slice at the head of the Boread. Most of the attacks did nothing to the icy creature's head, until a particularly powerful blast sliced through the Boread's head, removing one of its eyes.
The Boread stumbled backwards, its remaining eye widening in surprise. The blue orb narrowed, and the graceful elemental took a step back. Releasing a low hiss from its head, the Boread fired a beam of ice elemental energy at Apex. As with every previous attack, the wind dragon dodged out of the way, causing the beam to hit a tree and create ice crystals.
Null shook his head and struggled to his feet, trying to shake off the dizziness that being hit in the head caused. Putting his stealth to good use, he slowly began to creep up behind the elemental. Even with the ground frozen solid, he knew how to keep unnoticed.
At least, until the Boread's head whirled around to glare at him with its remaining eye. While three of its arms continued to force Apex to dance around its strikes, the other three began to swing in the opposite direction. Null immediately had to scramble to avoid the attacks, but he had nowhere near as much agility as Apex. The Boread raised one bladed limb and sent it whistling through the air towards Null's back.
There was nothing he could do. He saw the strike, knew that it would incapacitate or, more likely, kill him, and knew that he needed to get out of the way, but he couldn't. He wasn't fast enough.
"No!"
Then, the world was still. Apex was suspended in the air, wind whipping around him, bowing to his will. Tendrils of elemental wind wrapped around the Boread's arm, causing it to come to a complete standstill.
Just as suddenly, the world launched back into motion. Apex released a pulse of wind energy, causing the Boread's arm to simply snap off and fall to the ground. The wind dragon snarled and slashed with blades of concentrated wind, once, twice, three times, removing limbs with each strike. Apex drew back for a killing blow-
And the Boread spun, impossibly fast, using its two remaining arms to slice Apex's stomach open.
Null stared in shock at the bloodied ice as Apex dropped to the ground. A fury. Apex had used a second fury in two days. That was so incredibly draining that dragons had simply dropped dead from the exertion. Usually a fury rendered the user beyond harm, or at least pushed any dangers away, but that level of exhaustion would mean that Apex was weakened beyond belief, maybe permanently.
The Boread turned its head back to glare at Null, raising its remaining blades. One of its arms was attached by a single crystal of ice, while the other was nearly unharmed. Null knew that if he didn't manage to stop this Boread, it would kill both him and Apex. This was his only shot.
Releasing a – rather unimpressive – roar, Null launched himself at the hexagonal torso section of the Boread. He whipped his tail forwards over his back, hoping to use his tailblade to his advantage. Something whirred past his horns, hitting the Boread in the torso and causing innumerable fractures to appear in the ice.
Time seemed to slow as the Boread fired a beam of ice energy at Null. The beam hit the dark green dragon in the chest, chilling him to the bone and making him want to curl up and save what little warmth he had left. He couldn't do that now, not while this Boread was trying to rip him apart. Null crashed into the Boread's torso, causing the outer layer of ice to shatter from the force.
All it took then was for Null to wrap his paw around the dark gem in its core, and the crystal's purple glow faded to nothing.
The clearing was silent. Null took a breath in and let go of the icy crystal that his claws had been embedded in. A shockwave of energy ran through Null's body, and the dark green dragon shuddered. The Boread's body stood over him, frozen like a sculpture.
Then, bit by bit, the icy creature began to fall apart. Each particle broke off and turned into snow, starting at the ends of its bladed limbs. Letting out a whisper of sound, the entire Boread collapsed into a flurry of snowflakes before melting into nothingness.
Null let out his breath. It was dead now. He looked around, spotting the projectile that had weakened the Boread's armor enough for him to break it. He walked over to look at it. The bladed projectile seemed to be made of bone, shaped like a cheetah's dagger. The bladed end was curved like a feline claw, while the end that would be a handle ended in an odd spiked structure.
With a start, Null realized that it was his tailblade.
Null bent his tail to look at the end. The blade was just missing. That was biologically impossible: no dragon had a detachable tail accessory. Some electric dragons had tail accessories that created electricity, mind dragons had tails that could connect directly to their target's mind, and some poison dragons had hollow spikes that injected poisons.
So why, then, was Null some sort of mutation?
He shook his head and turned to look at Apex.
His heart froze.
Apex was fortunate to have been hit by a Boread, because otherwise he would have bled out by now. A massive gash lay across his stomach, laying his innards open to see. If it weren't for the fact that a layer of clear ice had frozen the wound together, those innards would be spilled out over the ground. As it was, blood was seeping into the ice, and it was only a matter of time until that ice melted, now that the Boread was dead.
Null knew he had to act immediately to keep Apex from dying, but the spirit gems that had been packed weren't enough to heal something like this, and there were no red gems nearby.
Still, he had to try.
Null was aware that he couldn't just drag Apex, but there was no way he could carry the wind dragon using his jaws. That meant that he would have to somehow put Apex on his back.
Thinking quickly, Null lay down on Apex's chest. He knew that this would aggravate the wound, but he had no choice in this matter. Using his paws to wrap Apex's forelegs around him, he rolled over. Now that Apex was on his back, he was astonished to find that the wind dragon wasn't as heavy as he expected.
Now that Apex was on his back, he had to move fast. He didn't want to risk worsening the injury, but he had to get Apex to some red gems. He also needed to locate a shelter for the both of them.
Fortunately, he knew where he could find both.
Null began to quickly walk back the way they had come. Apex's weight wasn't much, but it was getting more and more difficult to carry by the minute. He had to hurry.
It was fortunate for Null that he knew exactly where to go, and that it wasn't all that far from the clearing where the Boread had been.
As soon as Null reached the frozen treant, he dug into the snow. There was another fact about treants that he knew full well, one that he hadn't bothered to tell Apex about because it wasn't important at the time. It certainly was important now.
Once as enough snow was removed from the ground around the treant, Null slipped through the revealed hole in the ground. The roots of a treant always, always dug away a large portion of ground. They always made caves where they grew.
Null carefully set Apex down and slipped back out of the hole. Right outside of the small cave was an astonishingly large cluster of red spirit gems, their color and glow hidden by the snow. Null hesitated a moment, then picked up a nearby rock and smashed it against the base of the gems.
Lots of small fragments broke off and absorbed into Null's scales, making the end of his tail tingle strangely, but it was the large crystal that had fallen that his attention was on. Null quickly took off his harness and took the rope out of the pouch, wrapping it around the crystal.
This process would've been easier for anyone else, anyone who didn't have to worry about draining the crystals on touch, but Null was resourceful. He dragged the large crystal into the cave and dropped the rope. Null quickly pulled Apex over to the crystal and set the unconscious wind dragon against the red gem. Immediately the crystal's aura began to dim.
Finally satisfied that Apex would survive, Null took a deep breath and lay down next to his friend.
He was asleep less than a minute later.
A/N:
I swear, I had 'Cold as Ice' stuck in my head the whole time I was writing this chapter.
Anyways, all of the different kinds of ice elemental are based off of mythological creatures. Admittedly I put my own spin on all of them, but what kind of writer would I be if I didn't take creative liberties.
The Yuki-Onna is a Japanese blizzard spirit.
Jotun are based off of the jötnar, ice giants, from Norse mythology
Aquilo is the name of the Roman god of the north wind and winter.
Boreads are based off of the children of the Greek god of the north wind.
Please, review and let me know what you think.
Now read on!