The Year is 1239, 5 years before the present.
The Selvarian Empire just had its old king, Marius Strabo, resign from the throne by a dueling challenge. Its winner, John Alunas, of the House of Alunas was just sworn in as the new King of the Selvarian Empire. And from the Capital City of Fortuna, A carriage leaves from the main gate.
The carriage has the royal symbol on it, with a Royal Knight driving it. Inside the carriage, are 5 Adventurers who accepted a quest, they are a raid team. Raid teams are the most common type of Adventuring Teams in the European Continent since higher paying quests means high difficulty so, Bundling up together and splitting the rewards between a raid team seems the most ideal solution.
In the Carriage, A brown short-haired man with a longsword and heavy armor who seems to be in his early 20's begins his conversation with a young woman, hiding her face by wearing a helm and light armor, made from leather and steel, covering the crucial parts of the body from direct attack.
Man: Hey, I understand this is your first raid group, don't worry. Its a easy one compared to the ones we usually do.
The girl nods. Her long, white hair, flowing from the back of her helm. The Man continues.
Man: Introductions are in order I suppose. I am William Smith, The Raid Leader, Air Affinity.
He points to a blonde long-haired kid, maybe 16 or 17 years old, with a black sword on his back and a blank expression on his face.
William: That's James Mgrath, Fire Affinity. He and I are going to be running main Damage on the team.
William points to two others sitting next to Alice, one of them is a girl wearing a Hood and is holding, what seems to be a standard Adventurer's Bow in her hand, albeit with some modifications. The other person is a guy, carrying a bag on his back. the bag looks heavy and with each movement the carriage makes, sounds of rocks hitting each other can be heard from the bag.
William: That's Emma Callens and Isaac Thornwell. Our resident ranger and resident sorcerer on the team.
Both Emma and Isaac wave at the white-haired girl. The girl waves back.
William: So, Introduce yourself to the team. Its better for us to know each other before a fight.
The girl hesitates for a moment before starting
Girl: Hi. I am Alice, Earth Affinity. I'm your temporary recruit on this raid. I'm joining only for the quest reward..
William smiles,
William: There's no shame in that, even James here joined us initially for the money and decided to join us full-time. If you like this raid, feel free to join us in the future.
James glares at William with a slightly annoyed expression.
Alice: Y-Yeah. Sure.
William decides to address the whole team on the quest.
William: As you all know, this quest needs us to find and stop a Fire Golem. We know that Fire Golems are made by powerful sorcerers so, we need to be ready to face any sorcerers there. Golems have an exposed Mana Core so, defeating it wont take much work. But be careful, it has a high Damage potential.
Everyone nods in understanding. just then, the Carriage suddenly stops and the Royal Knight who rode the carriage comes out to address the raid team.
Royal Knight: Adventurers. This is as far as I can take you. You will be on your own from now, Good luck and may fortune favor you all.
William looks at the Knight in suspicion. Although his words were firm and stiff, his demeanor felt... wrong, like something was off. William decided to ignore it, insisting that the knight had other things in his mind.
FIRST MISTAKE.
As the entire raid team gets down the carriage, they see that in front of them is just a thick forest. The carriage departs back to Fortuna as the raid team go into the forest. Isaac decides to try and get to know Alice
Isaac: Have you seen a golem before?
Alice gets startled by Isaac
Alice: Oh uhh no. I've only heard of them and seen paintings.
Isaac: I get it, I myself, have only seen a water golem, and that was a year back or so. They're huge! About twice as tall as you.
Alice: Oh really! They sound fascinating.
Isaac: They are. Most Sorcerer's have no idea how to create golems, me included. Even if you knew, it's forbidden in many lands in the world because of how destructive they are.
Alice tries to hear out Isaac while trying to look for any signs of the golem.
Alice: Ahh...
Isaac: Mhmm... You know I've heard that golems are alive? But I-
William: Quiet.
William shushes the Isaac in the back. He signals everyone to look in front of them.
In front of them, there are trees burned to a crisp with little embers still on fire, the trees are also bent outwards, with a patch of land in the middle with no grass but just black powder on top, like something was thrown here but there was no impact zone or an indent on the ground there for anything. The only thing there was, was the black powder.
James: William! Look at this.
James shouts from the middle of the patch of land, over the black powder is an imprint. James points to an imprint of a set of footprints, just a pair that lead to nothing. But the footprint is huge. For James, it meant whatever this was, it wasn't a Golem.
James looks at the raid team behind him,
James: We should head back.
William places his hand on his shoulder and talks to him.
William: We can't turn back now! All of us, including you, need the reward, you know that.
James looks distressed but he knows William is right. Amongst the debts James took to get his basic gear, food, shelter and his savings to buy his family's house that went back to the empire after his parent's death, it was too much for him to pay alone, that's the reason he even joined the raid team.
James: FUCK.
James brushes Williams hand off, and turns back to him with a stone-cold face.
James: Lets go.
James begins to enter deeper into the Forest as William and the rest of the Raid follows him, trying not to step on the footprint. Alice takes a look at the footprints as she passes them.
Alice: They look like-
Emma: Alice! Don't get lost, come with us!
Alice leaves with the raid team, to look for the cause of the fire.
SECOND MISTAKE.
As they go deeper and deeper into the forest, one thing that becomes clear is that, there is no irregularity like tilted, burnt trees anywhere. Yet, everyone in the team feels something dangerous getting closer the deeper into the forest they go into.
But after 30 minutes of walking through the forest, James walks into a small clearing, but the ground that makes up the clearing is covered with black rock. Emma tries to pick one up but it burns her fingers before she can pick it up.
The raid team goes deeper into the clearing, trying to determine what the cause of this is. James closes his eyes and focuses on the sound. He focuses, drowning out the raid team speaking, and hears a hot bubble pop somewhere.
James opens his eyes and points to Alice.
James: Use your magic and see what's under the Earth! NOW!
Alice, scared by James, does as she's told.
She uses her Magic to pull out a huge rectangular piece of earth from the ground, crumbles it in the air and throws it away to the side. The raid team surrounds the hole made by the rectangular block.
They see a huge lake of magma underneath the land, with pillars of black rock holding up the place they walk on.
James: WE NEED TO LEA-
THIRD MISTAKE.
Just then, a huge explosion occurs in front of the team, with magma spilling everywhere. Alice pulls up walls of stone to protect everyone. The Team has no idea what just happened and so, as the stone walls lower, they would all bear witness to one of the most powerful being in this world,
A Dragon!
William: Holy fuck.
James takes out his sword and points it towards the Dragon. The Dragon is Red in color, sharp teeth and 2 horns that with some droplets of magma dripping from its metallic scales make it look like the Devil incarnate. The Raid team had interrupted its bath and so, it will kill them all.
The Dragon roars, its roar loud enough to tear their ears
William: Isaac!
Isaac: I GOT IT!
Isaac throws a bunch of the stones from his bag onto the ground and forms a circle. Runes begin to glow on the stones. Isaac steps into the circle and glowing bands forms on his arms, similar to a control panel.
Isaac: I need 2 minutes to get ready!
Before William can even say anything, James speaks, with a blade in his hand, ready to run towards the Dragon
James: Just get ready.
He then rushes towards the Dragon, using wind magic to dash, making himself faster.
William: What the hell- How the hell is he using wind- Does he have a death wish?
But William understands questions come later, right now, it was time to focus on his fight.
William: Emma! Use all your big hitters on that Dragon but stay FAR away! Alice! You and James are doing close combat. Help him!
Alice nods and runs towards the Dragon but she turns to him and asks,
Alice: What about you?
William smiles, puts his hand out and makes a thumbs up sign
William: I have a plan, don't worry.
James dashes to the Dragon, but the Dragon flaps its wings, creating strong wind currents to push James away, but James jumps up into the sky, avoiding the wind currents and creating a few rough, ice shards and launching it towards the Dragon but the ice shards disintegrated right before they hit the Dragon's scale.
James: What the- How-
For some reason, It seemed like none of their attacks could ever work on the Dragon. James grits his teeth in frustration, what could he do against such a beast.