-------------------------------------------------

---   Orion   ---

-------------------------------------------------

 

I trudged down the pathway, holding up my oil and cloth torch to light up the loose stony pathway, unfortunately this footpath was the only was down the inside of this mountain. You didn’t want to slip here, this treacherous path was only a few metres wide, with a stone cliff on one side and the empty void on the other, a drop with no bottom in sight.

I leaned towards the side of the path that lead to black nothingness, gazing curiously into the blackness.

My morbid fascination with potential death being only a step away ended when I almost bumped into the person in front of me, the heavily armoured women scowling in annoyance. I still hadn’t really processed that I’d been summoned along with the rest of these guys.

One moment I was camping with my father, the next I was standing in painfully bright room made of polished quartz, a unit of priests surrounding me and chanting in a language I couldn’t understand.

And then the system appeared, well the blue screen called itself ‘the path’ but everyone else that was summoned called it the system, though I couldn’t tell why. It offered me a class and allowed me to magically understand the language of those around me, and after that it was a roller coaster of explanations that barely made any sense.

‘Welcome to the city of the sun where we worship the one true sun god.’

‘Welcome holy warriors, take this three-month training course in killing monsters.’

‘Welcome to the evil mountain, where there’s evil monsters in an evil dungeon, good luck!’

It was a wild ride and naturally many of the people in the dozen of us that ended up here didn’t take it well, I could understand that getting ripped away from your family and friends could be rough. Getting told you’d be hunting malicious and magical animals isn’t for everybody and given that the priests explained that we had to if we ever want to go home made the less enthusiastic people do it anyways.

Though I didn’t rarely care too much about it, the guides from the city tried their best to sell the creatures here as devilish monsters, but that wasn’t really true.

There was a magical snake with eyes that stole your ability to move if you looked into them. But that was it, a snake.

A weird snake, but it fought like a snake and died like a snake. For somebody who’d been raised in the wilderness with a father who lived as a ranger and game-reserve keeper, you get to know animals pretty well. But in the end I really didn’t care if those priests bended the truth about it.

I was here now anyways, and there was a bigger problem for me at the moment.

Casual conversation.

I looked up from my spot at the back of the group, easily noticing the gap between me and the next person ahead of me, widening after I knocked into her. I wasn’t exactly… good when it came to talking, my social skills were more inclined towards… not being social.

“Orion? What are you doing back here?” A cheery voice exclaimed, a happy-go-lucky priest that’d dedicated herself to being the party’s healer. Becky had taken to the whole getting summoned experience like a duck to water, cheerily swapping her jeans for a priestly get up and honestly, she looked nice in it, her curly brown hair and slightly chubby face making her the epitome of a cute yet holy lady.

“Hi Becky” I quietly answered, my voice sounding monotone and emotionless as usual.

“Nothing interesting back here”

“Ah, come on, surely you’re thinking about something” Becky interrogatively asked with her usual grin. I looked up and tried to calculate an answer that would both satisfy her and get her to stop bothering me, not that I disliked her at all, her energy was just too much for me to deal with.

“Our situation I suppose.” I soullessly answered, Becky knowingly laughing in response.

“I guess I can understand what you’re saying but, look around! We’re in a dungeon, fighting monsters with magical powers!”

“Well, at least we are” she joked, gesturing at my bow and hinting at my complete lack of magical attacks.

“I least I know how to use this” I quietly explained.

“I mean it makes sense, but I wouldn’t have ever thought that you’d be the bow guy.” she half-joked, making a swinging-a-sword impression with her staff and reminding me again of how people formed expectations of others the moment they saw them.

I could understand what they’re talking about, when I got here I picked the ranger class, it seemed perfect for me and given my background. But for everyone else it seemed like a strange choice, mostly because I was a tall man and well-built from my father’s… ‘lifestyle’ and people liked to pin the ‘heroic knight’ name-tag to my forehead.

But as they got to know me that assumption changed.

“You could still try out using a sword y’know, didn’t you say ranger does sword and the bow stuff?” Becky reasoned and I just shrugged in response, I have my strengths and the heavily armoured knights on the front line don’t need somebody getting in the way while swinging around a sharp iron stick. I don’t have any illusions about being able to use a sword effectively without some kind of training, which I sorely lack.

“I’m better at this” I shrugged, dismissing her suggestions. At first, I thought she was being completely serious when she first suggested the idea of me using a sword a few weeks ago, but then I overheard her talking with some friends.

She and her friends were all talking about lord of the rings, me being a ‘mysterious loner’ with a bow and that a sword would complete the look. Did I really resemble Aragorn that much?

At least Aragorn was a fictional character that I knew, Lord of the rings was one of the few movies that my father had laying around, he liked the ‘accuracy’, something that I never really understood. How is the story that invented high fantasy accurate?

After my refusal, Becky and I fell into silence, Becky obvious trying to find something to talk about while I just stood there in silence like I usually do. I’ve given up on starting conversations, people didn’t really like my ice breakers.

What sort of a teenager started conversations with, ‘how nutritious a hog’s heart is’ and another such as ‘how to cover up your scent with faeces’.

My internal musings on how bad I was with small talk ended when Elio, a cleric of some fiery deity and the leader of our small group raised his hand, signalling for us to stop walking.

The teenager was an enthusiastic high-school student from Italy, he had a sharp face with long brown hair tied up in a ponytail and a constant mean look on his face that made it seem like he was always scheming. Though Elio didn’t really act how he looked, he was… invested in this fantasy place, he cared about the people in our group, asked about their stories and what they wanted. A genuinely good leader who’d kept some people from falling apart when we arrived here. This mismatch between looks and actions leading Becky to call him a ‘tsundere’?

Never bothered to ask what it meant.

Elio became the unanimously elected decision-maker/leader for the party even before we were stuck in this mountain, his talent in managing the team was undeniable. His timing of skills and use in mixing them together really made the team run smoothly turning dangerous fights into casual affairs.

Even though the guy seemed to not like me I still wanted him to lead the group, it’s not like anyone else was as good as him.

“You two at the back, come join the rest of us” Elio commanded, Becky and I joining the awkward huddle on the side of the cliff.

“Ok, we have another cave leading into the wall of the cliff, got some bones and remains of rats, I’m sure we all remember the rats?” Elio jokingly debriefed, reminding everyone of the most common pest down here, they were everywhere and ate anything. One time I woke up with one chewing on my shoelace. But the most annoying thing about them was the fact that they’re hard to kill and are cockroaches that adapt to your spells. Hit them with a fire spell and if they live, you’ve got a rat capable of making sparks, not that problematic in theory and not that much more dangerous to fight. But waking up to a small fire in your tent is far worse than one eating your clothes, as some of us have learned.

“We’ll probably find the predators that prey on them, so expect something bigger than normal.” Elio finished, the group already organising itself into its formation, Becky and I ending up at our usual positions at the back.

But before we could get moving again, Elio shuffled through the crowd towards me, and putting a hand on my shoulder, having to awkwardly reach up because of his shorter height.

“Hey Orion, I don’t want to insult you or your craft but there a few things I want- need to say.” Elio disclaimed, the ranger in question feeling a lecture coming on.

“Yes?”

“Due to a couple things, like your class and weapon, I’m going to ask you to stand back on this time.” Elio commanded as I gave a slight and confused tilt of my head in response.

“My weapon?”

“Well, this should be obvious to someone with your background, but what’s the first rule of shooting a bow?” Elio asked with a patronising smile on his face, and I realised the point he was trying to make. I felt my brows slightly twitch inwards when I thought about how stupid his argument was.

“Don’t shoot when someone’s downrange?”

“It’s fantastic that you get it, I just don’t want any unnecessary injuries” the cleric said with a beaming smile, leaving me wondering how any of that made sense. He’s throwing fireballs with holy magic capable of burning someone alive, how are my arrows a ‘risk’ compared to that?

“But-”

“No buts!” Elio interrupted, leaving me to watch him walk off in mild annoyance, when my father told me all his military stories, how was idiotic superiors never mentioned?

Right, he usually was the superior in those stories.

After I awkwardly stood at the back of the group while we carefully walked closer to the cave entrance, an unnaturally smooth archway having been chiselled into the side of the underground cliff face.

In unison the knights and warriors unsheathed their blades, everybody preparing their weapons as we stepped into the pitch-black cave. As every time before this we followed the same routine, this place that the locals called a dungeon was surprisingly uniform, along this cliffside path going further into the mountain, there were caves evenly placed along the path. Every encounter with a monster being something living in one of those caves. Fortunately, around the caves the path widened to at least 20 metres across, forming a semicircle platform large enough for us to comfortably stand without being in danger of falling off.

I watched the rest of the group disappear into the blackness, myself being one of the few people who had to hold the torch because my weapon has been deemed a… hazard.

I held my flaming stick high as the inky blackness was repelled, revealing a rather empty room, the only notable thing in the plain circular room being a cracked silvery-blue eggshell, it’s clear gooey egg white strewn all over the floor.

 After noting that something recently hatched here I took another step into the room and immediately felt a tingling on my neck, my skill <Hunter’s senses> screaming at me that there’s something stalking me.

<Hunter’s senses> was a useful skill, enhancing my senses so that I can hear the pitter patter of a rats paws a hundred metres away and giving me a supernatural six sense that allowed me sense things. Then I learnt other people’s skill let them summon blades of light or fireballs, leaving me wanting.

But right now it was desperately screaming at me to look up, or I’ll die.

“ABOVE US” I roared, throwing my torch upwards, creating spinning ring of light and illuminating two giant silvery lizards attached to the ceiling, their wings spread out in a display of dominance.

[using <appraisal>]

[Lesser silver drake – level 21

A lesser descendant of dragons - drake

Nobles among beasts and descendants of the great dragons of the mountains, less predatory and more intelligent than their wyrmling and dreki cousins.

They fight with pack tactics and their claws, taking advantage of their nigh invulnerability to lower forms of magic to hunt magical prey.]

I, like everyone else here used the <appraisal> skill, allowing us to get a glimpse of what our opponents were capable of. But before anyone could shout out a plan the two drakes dropped from the ceiling, one of the beasts landing on the female knight that I bumped into before, the well armoured warrior catching it with her shield before throwing it away from everyone with a grunt.

The other one was blasted away with a fireball from Elio, the man holding a holy charm and chanting in a language that I couldn’t understand. The raw force of the spell knocking the drake away from us and landing it right next to its companion.

Once the monsters had been separated from the group we got into formation, a loose semicircle of armoured warriors and paladins forming as they penned the two drakes against the wall of the cave.

“Magic resistance” Elio scowled, looking at the drake he knocked back with a fireball, a faint scorch on the shiny scales the only evidence that he’d ever cast the spell in the first place.

“Front line, engage and hit them when you can, mages and priests will be on supporting duties today” Elio commanded, the battle finally beginning in full. The warriors ran up to engage the two drakes, carefully holding out their shields to catch the two drake’s swipes, their sharp claws leaving knicks and cuts in the hard steel.

Now that the two monsters were at a safer distance, I could finally appreciate the two animals in full, they’re about the size of horses, with their bodies being arranged roughly the same way. They had thin and wiry frames, the beautiful smoothness and elegance of a snake, and when mixed with those intelligent eyes and wings that look like they’d been made with silk, you have a gorgeous creature worth coming to this desolate dungeon to see.

But that timeless moment when I admired them was ruined when a paladin struck out with a blade and sank its tip into the drake, a cry escaping the beast’s mouth, a deep, yet smooth noise twisted by pain echoing inside the cramped cave. But I didn’t flinch or wince like I used to, I’d long gotten used to the sight of hunting beautiful beasts.

I looked over at Elio and the other fire-based mages next to me, our leader finally casting a lingering spell that illuminated the cave with a pulsating orb of red light. I dropped my torch onto the floor and unhooked my bow from shoulder, the excuse Elio used to have me stow away my weapon having finally expiring as the room got fully lit up. I may not be able to use my bow, but I can still hold it at the ready.

I watched carefully as the two drakes were slowly whittled down, while they took less damage with each hit and inflicted much more with each of their blows than we could, they were still losing. The one distinct advantage we had over them was our priests, the holy light of their spells healing every blow dealt and distracting the dragons with bolts of magic to the eyes, while not damaging them badly, it left openings for a sword to bite into a drake’s flesh.

I willed an arrow to appear onto my bows string, my skill <Barbarika's quiver> giving me the ability to store arrows in a magical space and then summon them at will. I waited for Elio to give me a chance to shoot at the drakes, knowing that an arrow through the eye won’t be stopped by their magic interference.

And I know that Elio knows that, but the man ignores me, choosing to continue this fight pointlessly. But in the end, he’s the leader and he’s competent, so I leave my bow facing downwards in expectation that there’s a plan somewhere.

But as I wait, the wounds on the drakes grow, the distinct feeling that the momentum of the battle  was growing in our direction as the drakes were being slowly forced against the wall of the circular cave. They lost more and more of their remaining room to move as their backs were pressed against the hard stone.

But I kept my guard up, a cornered animal is when it’s at its most dangerous, when it can’t run away from you, all that’s left is going through you.

And as expected, the two drakes made their move, I watched as one of them lunged forwards, spreading its front legs and catching three of our knights in a clawed embrace. The other slammed a talon into the stone wall behind it, using the foothold and a flap of its wings to launch itself over the incapacitated knights and diving straight into our light source, the ball shattering on impact and leaving nothing but glimmering shards of the light spinning through the air.

The cave immediately returned to pitch blackness that was there before we arrived, the only light in the room being the sputtering torch at my feet, casting nothing but a faint glow that illuminated my feet.

But I wasn’t stupid enough to pick it up and I kicked it away from myself so that it wouldn’t reveal my location to the drake’s, all that weak torch would do is show off my location to the drake’s. I was left with nothing in the inky blackness but the hope that <Hunter’s senses> would help me adjust to the darkness faster than the drakes could.

There were some panicked shouts, my teammates shocked into stupidity by the sudden change, but I tried to hear through the sounds of shuffling feet and the clanging of armour bumping against things. I listened for the scrape of claws against stone, and the breathing of a beast much larger than any of us.

*sssscht*

Was that a sword or a talon? I hoped to find out quickly as I turned around and tried to peer into the blackness for any semblance of a shape. My heart raced in panicked beat, the sound of it deafening as the drum of my inadequacies rang in my ears.

 

You’re a warrior, strong, brave and true.

 

You’re a warrior, strong, brave and true.

 

You’re a warrior, strong, brave and true.

 

I took a deep breath, the familiar chant of my father’s anthem helping me calm down. With my heart tamed I looked around again, barely able to see the faint outlines of shapes as I looked for the enemy. It was hard but I barely managed to see an outline of one of the drakes stalking another member of our party.

And from that person I heard mummering, the familiar sound of Elio casting a spell. I immediately raised my bow, knowing that Elio had less than a second before the slinking shape of the drake reached him.

I pulled the string taut and let the arrow loose, the iron tipped shaft disappearing from my murky eyesight like a phantom as it whished into the blackness.

I let out a breath I didn’t know that I’d been holding, the sound of a wet *thunk* reassuring me that I’d hit my prey. And soon after that, an earthy slap echoed as the drake toppled over.

With heavy breathing Elio finished his spell, the whole room bathed in the light of his floating orb and revealing a drake’s corpse laying not even a metre from Elio, an arrow sticking out of its eye, blood leaking from it like tears.

The other drake in the corner reared back in shock, letting the three paladins that it’d been holding through the darkness free, recognisable emotions flowing across its face like waves.

Shock.

Disbelief.  

Then anger.

Undiluted rage engulfed the drake, its blue eyes locking with mine and letting me feel its accusations in its accusing gaze, and in that short moment where our eyes crossed, I winced and hastily looked away. It took it as a declaration of war, letting out a guttural roar and charging straight towards me, attacking anyone who dared get in its way with bloodied claws.

But as it rushed to attack me, it let itself be attacked, the now ignored front line taking the opportunity to stick their blades into its sides, the thick red blood of the drake going everywhere, like someone was madly shaking a bucket of paint.

I watched numbly as the drake began to slow, its life being let out of it through dozens of wound and the rage in its eyes slowly fading. It collapsed, a fighter slicing on of its legs with a nasty gash, the drake collapsing as the life began to fade from its eyes.

But it still marched on, dragging itself forwards with its claws, like a man dying of dehydration pulling at sand to get to an oasis.

I looked into its eyes as it finally stopping moving near my feet, I saw the rage in its orbs be replaced by one final emotion I didn’t recognise as the drake finally looked away and I felt my face twitch with a bit of confusion as the drake stilled.

“and that’s that” A tired woman exclaimed, the familiar female warrior with shoulder length black hair walking up and finishing off the dragon by plunging her sword through its skull, shattering the bone along with the drake’s last bit of life.

I gave the armoured knight a closer look, wondering what her name was, I’d even accidently knocked her earlier… Right, Gin, the one who’d covered herself in enough armour to block a bullet and strong enough to walk around in it just fine.

The whole group collectively let out groans of relief as the hardest battle any of us had gone through ended. I threw my bow back over my shoulder and walked over to the drake that I’d shot, pulling out the arrow as I cleaned off the gunk still attached to it.

As I willed <Barbarika's quiver> to store it, Elio walks up to me, fuming and obvious angry.

“ORION, I asked you to do, ONE THING” He angrily accused, the rest of the party looking at him in confusion.

“But-”

“Didn’t I say no buts? And yet you Still. Did. IT. IN THE DARK NO F#CKING LESS.”

“I had a plan” Elio shouted, pulling out a familiar golden dagger, the relic that the priests back at the city of the sun gave it to him, it was razor sharp and had the ability to extend to the length of a short sword. An ambush weapon that might’ve been able to kill the drake.

If Elio knew where it was in the dark.

And if he wasn’t chanting the spell and if he had the weapon out and ready for use.

But that didn’t matter, the rest of the campsite mummering in agreeance with Elio’s nonsensical explanation.

But before things could escalate further Becky stepped forwards and gave Elio a push.

“How about we discuss this later?” she rhetorically asked through gritted teeth, her anger obvious and the man who it was being directed at hastily nodded, Elio shooting me a look that promised trouble before walking off.

The atmosphere quickly became awkward as the rest of the party slowly exited the cave, Gin giving me a rough clap on the back as she walked past, sending me stumbling forwards a little.

“Good shot though” she sighed before leaving him alone in the room with the two drake corpses.

I crouched down and closed the eyes of the drake at my feet, giving the corpse some sort of respect before walking over to its partner, the one Gin stabbed, to do the same. but as I leant down to do so, I noticed that its dead eyes were aimed at something across the room. At the end of its gaze was a shattered eggshell, and I realised that I’d completely forgotten about it in the heat of battle.

And then, in the now deathly quiet cave, I heard the heavy breathing of a small animal and the light scratching of shivering claws against stone.

I looked over at where the noises were coming from, spotting a head sized stone sitting by the wall. I thought it was strange as I began walking over, there wasn’t any other rocks, pebbles or bits of loose stone in this entire cave.

I squatted by it, lifting up my forgotten torch for a bit of light as I pushed the stone out of the way, revealing a mass of sparkling silver in a little alcove.

A baby drake was sitting there, the helpless animal shivering as the light from my torch blinded it. I reached towards it, my leather gloves reaching out to pick up the infant.