"At the roof of the cosmos rise the Dragon Peaks, titanic mountainous ranges that pierce the firmament of creation. This realm, the Dragon Eyrie, is the cradle and crucible, the sanctum and battlefield of all dragonkind. This is where broods of every hue claw their way from shell to slaughter, their first breath a defiance to immortals and kings alike.
Dragons are no mere beasts. They are dominions clothed in scale, empires made flesh, heirs of fire whose wings carve the skies and whose claws have raked upon the bones of worlds. Their might has toppled kingdoms, silenced vast armies, and humbled civilizations; their fury is written in the ruin of continents. They are sovereign predators, apex creatures who stand at the top of the food chain in the multiverse.
Through ages uncounted, when empires withered into dust and gods fell silent in their heavens, the dragons endured. They are a people of flame and fang, of majesty and hunger, bound to no throne but their own dominion. Their peaks cast shadows over stars as mountains over anthills, their roars still shake the pillars of creation, and their wrath is a terror that echoes to every known corner of the cosmos."
Artorius had moved along the edge of the chaos, crouched and careful, dragging his legs through cracked yolk and shattered shells. Every sound made him flinch—every scream of a hatchling, every crack of broken stone. The Nest was alive, violent, and unrelenting, and he had learned that even the smallest mistakes could mean instant death.
Then the air shifted. Not with the shriek of hatchlings, not with the thunderous crash of falling eggs but with something else. The ground seemed to hum under his feet. A shadow cut across the boiling pools of yolk, darker than the ash-drenched haze around it, yet impossibly clear.
From the crimson clouds all around, a shape appeared. It was massive, far larger than any hatchling had any right to be. Scales of onyx and bronze shimmered in the false light. Its wings, folded but immense, carried ridges of bone like ceremonial armor. Its eyes were golden, molten like the yolk that hissed beneath it.
[Brood Caretaker — LVL ???]
Image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/13721973860922772/
The System's prompt appeared in a faint whisper, almost drowned out by the creature's approach. The question marks made his stomach twist. The Brood Caretaker moved slowly, deliberately, each step causing the ground to tremble beneath him. Hatchlings scattered at its approach, crawling and scurrying away to escape the looming shadow. Artorius pressed himself into the fissure between two jagged stones, holding his breath.
It moved among the hatchlings, nudging some toward others, blocking others from those that were too strong for it to fight, gently but with the authority of absolute power. When a malformed dragon appeared through it caught it with a claw, inspecting them then culling them.
Artorius wondered what it would do if it found him. Who had no right to be here. Without looking back he scurried away not wanting to take the risk.
The Fields seethed with life and death, yolk boiling in sulfur, hatchlings shrieking as they tore each other apart. Artorius crouched near the fringe, blood still fresh on his hands, breath raw from the drakelings he had culled. He thought himself unseen.
Then he felt it. A stillness. Not silence, the Nest never slept but a pocket of quiet amid the storm. His eyes caught movement: a figure emerging from broken shells. Not a beast, not a malformed creature, but upright, balanced, refined, and watching him closely.
The hatchling was like him, humanoid in shape but much more draconic in nature and bug-like. Scales gleamed faintly along its jaw, shoulders, and arms, white bronze that shimmered faintly in the red mist. A helm of scale and bone crowned its head. Its eyes glowed low, like embers at the bottom of a dying fire. In its hand was a jagged shard of obsidian, threaded with veins of molten gold, glowing faintly in the dusk.
Image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/32510428556217895/
It did not speak. It tilted its head. Once. As if curious. Then it moved, all he got was a system prompt before it was upon him. [Dragon Lancer — Level 5]
Before it even reached him, its lance seemed to flex with a serpent's whisper, elongating until it hissed through the mist. The first thrust came from twenty paces away. He barely got his make-shift spear up in time as the lance snapped outward like a striking spine, the tip piercing through the stone wall where his head had been.
The weapon retracted with a clang that echoed like laughter and he stared at the weapon in shock. "What on earth is that?" he asked, not expecting an answer and not getting one as the creature lunched at him again.
The Dragon Lancer moved with a rhythm unlike beasts. Its strikes were not wild, but measured and to make matters worse its weapon came from an impossible direction from behind a shell, from above, from the side. The weapon's shaft warped and curved mid-flight, extending and coiling like a living serpent.
Artorius did his best to defend as sweeps of the lance came his way, each one forcing him back inch by inch. Sparks screamed when his spear met the strange creature's lance.
They moved together like dancers in a death-song. Step, strike, counter. His spear darted like lightning, frantically protecting him. The lance fell like thunder, sparks lit their faces, ash swirled around them. Every impact cracked the stone underneath. Every miss carved scars into the Hatchery floor.
The ground cracked beneath each impact of the creature he dodged, it was as though the weight of the weapon was more than metal. Artorius bled freely whenever the lance grazed him. His crude weapon splintered under the onslaught. Every strike from the lancer creature left his arms shaking, his ribs screaming, his vision narrowing.
This was no scavenger like him or a simple beast. It was a hunter, a great predator, a rival. He didn't know why, but deep down inside he believed it was created by the nest to counter him and defeat him.
The creature finally got the opening it was looking for as his crude spear could not hold on any longer and shattered in half. He could only look at his broken weapon as the Lancer's next attack struck true. The lance extended and curved midflight, hooking behind Artorius's arm and pinning him to the wall. Pain flared white-hot as the weapon twisted, spearing through muscle.
The Dragon Lancer advanced slow, regal, inevitable and with each step the lance shortened back into its grip. He screamed, half in rage, half in fear. And then with no choice he let a Command rise to his throat. His voice burned raw as he spat the word, hoarse and bloody: "Kneel."
The strange creature shuddered and froze mid-step, knees buckling as if unseen chains had bound it and its ember-eyes dimming for a heartbeat. For one terrible moment, even the hatchlings in the distance ceased their fighting. But the cost was agony — he felt his throat tearing as blood flooded his mouth. Still, he rose, grabbing hold of the spear in his trembling hands and dragged it out.
Ignoring the gaping wound in his shoulder, light surged along the jagged edge of his makeshift spear. Not fire, not mana but something else that was greater. Heroic Blow. The strike came down like judgment.
However the strange being did the unthinkable, getting out from under his command it struck out against his blow which he thought was foolish until it activated its own skill.
Its eyes flared, molten veins racing across its body. The lance came up not to block, but to invite. His own attack came back rebounding with the same vicious energy he unleashed upon it.
The spear split in his hands. His arms screamed with shattering pain. He was flung across the cavern like a rag doll, his back cracking against stone. Blood sprayed from his mouth. His own ability had been twisted, returned to him as punishment.
The lancer advanced, lance humming with stolen light. For the first time since he had arrived in this Nest, Artorius felt the bone-deep certainty that this was not a trial. It was an execution.
He lay gasping, chest torn open, weapon ruined. The humanoid dragon creature loomed, ember-eyes blazing, lance raised for the killing thrust.
Desperation birthed cunning and a willingness to sacrifice. Artorius did not rise. He rolled. Not away, but into the strike. The lance tore through his side, ripping flesh, spilling blood — but his hands closed around the shaft. He locked it against his ribs, screamed through the pain, and dragged the lancer down with him.
They crashed into a shattered egg. Yolk and blood hissed together, burning, volatile. The lancer twisted, trying to wrench the lance free. Artorius didn't give it the chance as he bit down on his own scream, seized the jagged end of his broken spear, and rammed it over and over again into the creature.
It weakly tried to resist, but he was ruthless, already used to pulling out weapons from his body he tore the knight's lance out of his shoulder with bloodied hands, and forced it upward beneath its helm driving it with every shred of pain and fury left in him.
The sound was not of triumph, but of collapse. The creature convulsed once, ember-eyes blazing, then dimmed into ashen dark. The body slumped, pinning him beneath it. Heavy. Final. The System whispered in the silence: You have slain [Dragon Lancer — Lv. 5]
Artorius collapsed beside the corpse, blood soaking yolk and stone, gasping through torn lungs. His hand still gripped the lance that had nearly killed him. His body screamed, every nerve alight. It had not been victory. It had been survival bought with blood. But he still breathed and the Nest had lost one of its champions.
Also to add to this silver lining he finally got a message saying: Congratulations! You have leveled up.
Race: [True-Blood DragonMen] → Lv. 2
Congratulations! You have leveled up.
Archetype: [Leader] → Lv. 2
Stat gains: +1 INT, +1 WIL, +1 CHA
He got two levels all at once which he felt was a requirement after what he had been through. But the messages did not end there.
The air itself stirred. A pressure built overhead. The air, once sulfur and ash, now carried ozone. Heat bled into the wind, dry and sharp, as clouds gathered where there had been none. The volcanic plain hissed as sudden rain struck molten veins, raising steam in choking bursts.
And then he felt it. A gaze. Not hungry, not mocking, not cruel but vast. Judgmental. Like the weight of the sky itself had leaned down to peer at him. From the far reaches of the Dragon Peaks, across storms that had raged for millennia, a great serpent uncoiled. Its scales shimmered with lightning, its body crowned in thunderclouds.
It had seen him. The storm deepened, rolling thunder splitting the heavens. A single bolt of lightning struck the Hatchery Fields, searing a scar into the volcanic glass only a few paces from where Artorius knelt. Steam hissed upward, wreathing him in smoke and stormlight.
And the System whispered again, uncaring and forthright: [Your valiant duel with the Dragon Lancer has been recognized by the Storm Ryu ???]
Artorius sat frozen, lungs heaving, his heart hammering as if it wanted to claw its way from his chest. He felt small, less than small — a flicker of light at the edge of a sky too wide to comprehend.
And yet… something inside him answered. Not pride. Not arrogance. A fire. The fire of his blood that refused to bow, even to storms. He clenched his trembling fists. If the heavens themselves had marked him, then he would not shame the recognition.
Though this was not the first time he got noticed by something… much greater. He recalled that Void Worm, who had been happy he slew the luck dragon now this Storm Ryu. He wondered what it all meant. There were so many questions left unanswered, but his main priority really was to survive in this hellhole.
After defeating his foe, Artorius pocketed its strange needle-like lance, its weight alien in his hand. This thing had been a very troublesome tool. He used inspect skill on it, reading the prompt; Extendable Lance(Uncommon) - A magical lance that can stretch and bend, able to pierce someone at unexpected angles.
And he took the helm it wore, the metal smelled of ash and old fire and it seemed to suit him. He also noticed one more thing shining amongst the ruined corpse of the creature, pushing his hand into the cavity of its body he drew out a very familiar token.
Lancer Class Token(Tier 0) - A wielder of the spear. It's the path of precision, discipline, and defiance. Theirs is a dance of reach and recoil, each thrust a vow.
Artorius was sure what to do with since he already selected his own path, but he still stored it away. Nonetheless he was left with lots of questions, was the reason this creature was powerful because it had a class like him?
The other draconic creatures he saw so far were all purely beastial. Most likely they only had their race to back them up. Healing up on the dragon egg yolks, he tried to get a lay of the land.
Spotting one tall rock outcropping which was almost as tall as a skyscraper, he guessed it would make do for a good vantage point so he climbed. He had to be careful as there were some draconic creatures there. His body screamed with every motion, torn muscle dragging bone up the jagged pillar. The Nest spread beneath him in waves of fire and shadow. When he reached the summit, the breath left his lungs.
It went on forever. The Hatchery Fields stretched beyond sight, endless plains of broken shells gleamed like cracked moons across the volcanic place, steaming rivers of yolk winding between them. Hatchlings clashed in endless swarms like rivers of scaled bodies tearing, shrieking, and devouring. Some were wolf-sized, fast and furious. Others rose already titanic, their duels splitting boulders, boiling over streams, and shaking the air with their roars.
There had to be millions. For one fragile moment, the weight of it nearly crushed him. He was a speck in an ocean of claws and teeth flung into this land of apocalypse. A trespasser in the graveyard of gods.
With little to no options, he descended back down and started heading in a random direction hoping it could lead somewhere.
-
The Hatchery Fields seethed with violence and life, the air thick with steam and the acrid stench of scorched yolk. He saw more of those deadly dragons which also had classes like him but he kept far away from them. Already one is more than enough.
The first one he saw was a blackened spear wielding drake creature with its body armored in chitin, dark as tar, with spikes jutting from every limb. Its tiny wings flared to maintain balance as it jabbed with a jagged shard of eggshell, stabbing through the mangled body of a lesser hatchling.
Another one was one with a spiked club that stomped through the battlefield like a tiny walking inferno. Each wingbeat fanned heat waves that seared the edges of nearby eggshells. Its maw opened, emitting a shriek that reverberated through stone, and molten spittle hissed as it landed in the pooled yolk. Smaller hatchlings scattered or died in its wake.
As he pressed deeper into the steaming, cracked terrain, he began to notice something far more unsettling. Almost imperceptible at first, slipping through the cacophony of smaller, feral hatchlings dragons, its movements unnervingly deliberate. Artorius crouched behind a jagged mound of fractured rock, eyes fixed on a shadow shifting with uncanny grace.
It emerged, a silver six legged creature. It was a salamander with silky back flesh reflecting the dying light from fissures in the cavern roof. Its eyes were deliberate, calculating, glowing faintly with an intelligence that seemed to weigh the world itself. Artorius used inspect on it.
[Senior Silver Salamander — Lv. 7]
Image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/27092035255991912/
The creature seemed to sense it spied on him and turned to face him head on. Staring at each other, for the first time, he felt an awareness that mirrored his own. Then Artorius blood ran cold as it smiled at him showing rows of razor sharp teeth. By the time he was long gone, he hoped he did not run into something as terrifying as it.
There were other strange, fascinating, and terrifying sights that greeted him in his journey through this hatchery.
The Hatchery Fields changed as Artorius pressed deeper, the endless expanse of eggs and steaming yolk rivers shifting into a region strangely quiet. Too quiet. The air itself felt held, as if sound feared to travel here. Even the thrashing cries of newborn dragons the constant background chorus of this monstrous nursery faded into a muffled murmur behind him.
Artorius slowed, gripping his new lance. The glassy ground was cracked in spiderweb fractures beneath his now chewed up dress shoes. Something was wrong here. He could feel it in his bones. There was nothing here not a single creature for what had to be a mile or two.
Then the smell hit him next, metallic, thick, suffocating. Blood. He passed a mound of dried up corpses which were shriveled, collapsed like drained wineskins. Artorius's heartbeat thudded loud in his chest. Then he heard it. 'Artorius…' A whisper, barely audible, brushing against the shell of his mind like cold fingertips.
He froze. It wasn't a voice from the air. It hummed inside his skull, vibrating behind his eyes. A telepathic murmur. A pressure. A… summons. 'Come…' The temperature seemed to drop. His breath misted and he stared at what was in the center.
A giant egg. . Its surface was bone-white, smooth yet unnaturally pale, like bleached ivory soaked in moonlight. It towered on top a mound of corpses of hundreds of different dragons. 'Come closer…'
If he was in any right state of mind he would have realized how strange it was following a voice in his head. He stepped up the slope, boots crunching on desiccated scales and bones. The stench of blood thickened. His skin crawled, his instincts screaming something was wrong wrong WRONG but the whispering tug overrode them, drawing him hook line sinker.
As he neared, he saw the creature through the largest crack in the egg. A dragon. Barely alive. Malformed. Twisted. The system screamed at him; [Noble Blood Dragonling — Lv. 5]
A twisted, underdeveloped body slumped within leaking amniotic fluid. Its limbs were thin as saplings, its ribcage visible through translucent flesh. A long, noble snout but sunken, jaw trembling weakly. Two horns curled back in unnatural angles. Wings shriveled and twitching. Its eyes, though mostly closed, glowed faint red through their lids.
And its blood. Old, thick, metallic-silver ichor leaked from a wound in its abdomen where the shell had cut too deep. A small part of him wondered who did that, but it was overridden by the creature's will. And as he watched, the creature's head turned. Slowly. Its eyelids cracked open. Red slits stared at him. Not with fury. Not with instinct. With hunger.
Image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/290341507245871680/
Artorius's heart slammed against his ribs, a part of him whatever was left screamed. The dragonling lifted a trembling claw. And then he felt it. A pull. Not telepathic. Biological. His blood responded. Warmth surged in his veins, rushing toward the creature like tidewater being drawn toward a whirlpool.
His body seized. His breath hitched. And then pain hit him. White-hot like needles beneath his skin as his blood crawled from underneath. His veins bulged along his forearms. He stumbled backward, clutching at his chest as the sensation intensified. His blood was leaving him from out the wounds that crisscrossed his body which hadn't healed completely. Being called. Being drained.
The dragonling let out a thin, raspy sound, one that was half cry, half plea and the egg vibrated as if resonating with his pulse. Blood streamed from a cut on his arm, floating through the air in thin spirals. The dragonling opened its trembling mouth and inhaled. Artorius collapsed to his knees. His vision went white at the edges.
His heartbeat grew fainter and fainter. He tried to pull away but his limbs refused to move. All he could do was scream in pain and call out. "Stop—!" His shout was unknowingly lanced with a Command.
The world trembled and froze in place along with the dragonling in which the blood flowing to it stopped for a moment. That was the only opening he needed as he had control of his mental facilities once again.
Artorius staggered to his feet. His breath came in shuddering gasps. "You—" he rasped, "chose the wrong prey today." Light flickered along the lance in his grip. No warmth. No flame. But something greater, sharper, forged from fury and will. Heroic Blow.
Power surged into the weapon, vibrating through the shaft until it hummed with a low, dangerous resonance. The malformed noble dragonling let out a thin, pitiful whine—its body too weak to escape, too starved to fight.
For one moment, Artorius hesitated. It was trying to live. Just like him. A dying creature trapped in a cradle of rot. But then he looked around. Hundreds of corpses laid around it all drained. He looked into the dragonling's eyes. Saw the anger, the hunger, the pride.
If he let it live even for a moment he would become another corpse beneath this egg that held this creature. Worse he did not know how long his command would hold out and that it would assume control of him once again. Artorius raised the lance. "No more."
The lance's point pierced the crack in the egg, shattering the brittle shell. A shockwave of golden light burst outward as the Heroic Blow discharged. The dragonling's body jerked, eyes widening with pain and surprise. The light speared through its frail chest, rupturing the half-formed heart.
A soundless cry rippled through the air. Then its body slumped. The egg split open fully, collapsing like ancient bone. Silver blood spilled down the mound, steaming as it hit the cold air. Artorius exhaled a long, shaking breath.
His hands trembled around the lance. He stepped backward as the broken egg rested in ruin, its occupant finally still. A System notification flickered before him: You have slain [Noble Blood Dragonling — Lv. 5]
Congratulations! You have leveled up.
Class: [Storybook Squire] → Lv. 2
Congratulations! You have leveled up.
Race: [True-Blood DragonMen] → Lv. 3
Stat gains: +1 STR, +1 DEX, +1 CON, +1 PER, +1 CHA
He wondered to himself if there would be an end to this nightmare?!
-
The ground didn't shake at first. It thrummed, a faint, uneven vibration that Artorius almost mistook for an Eggfall. The tremor grew, rolling through the crusted volcanic plain, rattling shards of eggshell and sending thin cracks spiderwebbing across the obsidian floor.
He lifted his head and noticed that the horizon moved. Not the mist, not the heat haze, but the land itself shifting, swelling, rippling like a living tide. Then the sound hit him. A rolling thunder of claws and shrieks, the frantic drumbeat of a thousand tiny bodies in motion.
A herd of them hundreds, no thousands erupted over the ridge like a living flood. Drakelets no larger than wolves, still slick with half-dried yolk, wings underdeveloped and useless, scales in mottled patches of red, brown, and bone-white. Their eyes were wide, feral and terrified, their chaotic screeches blending into one monstrous roar.
And they were charging straight toward him. Artorius didn't wait to see why. He ran. The ground quaked harder as the stampede closed in. Dragons poured around jagged rocks, scrambled over glowing cracks, crashed against one another in blind panic. He sprinted beside them, forced into their wake, dodging snapping jaws and flailing claws as bodies slammed shoulder to shoulder.
They weren't running at him. They were running from something. A panicked wyvern slammed into him, nearly knocking him flat. He shoved off its scaled flank and stumbled forward, lungs burning. The stampede swept him up, carried him, threatened to trample him if he slowed even a step. Claws ripped at his clothes. The air filled with the stench of fear and sulfur.
A shadow fell over them. Artorius risked a glance back. Something enormous moved behind the herd. Not fast. Not frantic. Each step was a slow quake. Its silhouette was blurred in the haze, but he caught flashes — towering limbs, a ribcage sticking out, eyes glowing faintly like dying embers.
[Reanimated Young Dragon — Lv. ???]
The giant thing behind them bellowed, a sound so deep it vibrated the marrow in his bones. The herd only accelerated in fear.
-
As Artorius pushed deeper into the Hatchery Fields, he began noticing a change in the chaos. At first, he thought it was his imagination, some trick of exhaustion but he got to observe plenty of example. The hatchlings were… organizing.
Not all of them. The majority still fought mindlessly, tearing at one another, shrieking, scrambling across the broken earth in a frenzy of hunger and instinct. But pockets within the carnage had started to shift. Patterns formed where there should have been only savagery. Groups were gathering.
He noticed from time to time as dozens of young dragons, usually the same type and species, began to cluster with one another. They pressed together cautiously at first, bumping shoulders, snapping weakly, testing boundaries.
He saw dominance displays, small ones. A hatchling raising its head slightly higher. Another swiping the air without striking flesh. A low growl answered by an even lower one. Territory being negotiated in crude but undeniable ways. Instinct sharpening into structure. It was both astonishing and terrifying. "Tribes…" Artorius whispered. "They're forming tribes."
These creatures were barely hours old, some not even fully dry from their shells and yet they were already shaping themselves into social units. Loose, violent, crude… but unmistakably organized.
The Fields were becoming more than a battlefield of birth. Artorius swallowed, clutching his lance a little tighter. If newborn dragons could organize themselves this quickly… Then he needed to be smarter, faster, and far less noticeable than he ever imagined.
-
The Hatchery Fields stretched endlessly, a living, breathing expanse of chaos and death. Artorius moved cautiously along the edges of the place, mindful of each and every dragon that might be watching, studying, waiting for a single misstep. The Field was a trap-filled crucible, a maze of life, death, and unpredictable violence.
He kept to himself, scavenging the malformed and the dying, stripping what scraps of strength and nourishment he could from them. Days bled into nights, though here no sun or moon marked their passage, only the ceaseless crimson haze of the Nest's false sky. His body grew numb. His wounds scabbed, split, and scabbed again, until even the ache became part of him.
Still there were enough fights he got into even though he tried avoiding them and his progress showed by getting messages from the system. Congratulations! You have leveled up.
Archetype: [Leader] → Lv. 3
Stat gains: +1 INT, +1 WIL, +1 CHA
Congratulations! You have leveled up.
Class: [Storybook Squire] → Lv. 3
Stat gains: +1 STR, +1 CON, +1 DEX, +1 CHA, +1 LUC!
The ground grew brittle, black glass cracking beneath his feet. Nests lay like grave mounds, piled high with broken corpses half-formed wings, cracked jaws, hollow eyes staring forever skyward. Bone dust drifted on the wind, fine as snow, catching in his lungs until every breath rasped.
Rivers of molten lava and glass ran side by side, glowing with sickly light, their fumes searing his lungs raw as they blistered the air with poisonous shimmer. He crossed on bridges of calcified scale, careful not to slip.
Ash storms rose without warning, stripping skin raw. He wrapped himself in scraps of cloth and scale, crawling into husks of dead hatchlings to wait them out. At night, roars filled the air, the cries of young dragons fighting relentlessly.
It was at the far edge of this infernal battlefield that he noticed something different. The stone fractured and fell away into chasms that seemed unnatural. Beyond the fissures and crumbling ridges, he saw shapes, massive skeletal forms, blackened and fossilized, sprawled across terrain that seemed almost untouched by the chaos around it. He squinted, straining to comprehend.
It took him a while to piece it together with what he was looking at. They were the remains of dragons long dead ancient, colossal, their bones sun-bleached or scorched, stretching across landscapes that were otherwise foreign to the Hatchery.
He studied the openings carefully. Artorius realized, slowly, that these were more than just remains. They were exits, gateways from the Hatchery Fields to other places. He watched as dragons left towards them, heading into the great beyonds.
Each exist he came across led to a different place like portals to lands of wildly different variations. One might lead to frozen peaks, another to rivers of molten lava, another to dense, suffocating forests. And each dragon, guided by instinct and affinity, would follow the path it was meant to go to.
Artorius studied them all, careful to stay below the line of sight of the hatchlings in the Fields. Some dragons paused near exits, sniffing the air, tilting their heads, or pawing at the ground. His pulse quickened, finally a way out of here. Still he had to be careful, already he saw plenty of fighting going on in the exits.
One misstep could draw the attention of swarms of savage dragons. He flattened himself against a mound of fractured stone, waiting for the right moment. He inched forward, moving like a shadow along the edge of chaos.
Of them all he saw so far the one that looked the least dangerous and peaceful seemed to be a forest, not just any forest but one of bones. A vast necropolis of skeletal remains, mist curling between towering ribcages and shattered skulls. The pale bones glimmered faintly under the dim red light from the Fields.
He inched forward, moving like a shadow along the edge of chaos. Then darted forward all at once, he slid past a low ridge toward the Bone Forest. As he neared the entrance, he paused, taking in the scene. The Bone Forest was alive in its own way. Mist drifted lazily between the bones, curling around shattered ribcages and hollow skulls. A low wind rattled through the gaps in the vertebrae, carrying whispers of ancient dragons long dead.
Finally, he stepped fully into the Bone Forest. Here, the chaos of the Fields was muted. Mist curled through the skeletal arches, carrying whispers of the past. Broken claws and shattered scales littered the ground. He moved forward cautiously, studying everything and looking out for threats. Mist hid pitfalls, skeletal bridges could collapse under sudden weight, and the echoes of movement could betray him to predators.
Artorius crouched low, pressing against a fallen pelvis of a dragon whose size made him feel infinitesimal. He moved slowly, carefully, across the forest floor. The ground crunched beneath his weight, shards of bone and splintered horn making soft, dangerous noises. He noted faint heat pockets from geothermal fissures beneath the bones, their faint warmth cutting through the mist. Small scavengers darted away as he passed, startled by his presence.
Artorius paused atop a rib arch, looking back toward the Fields. The chaos, the screams, the clashing of hatchlings, the heat of boiled yolk, it all seemed distant now, almost dreamlike. For the first time since arriving in the Hatchery Fields, he felt a measure of control. He had chosen a path. He had found a way out. The Bone Forest lay ahead, ancient and silent, a proving ground and a sanctuary both.
-
A/N: The Dragon Lancer is inspired by Hollow Knight. I have been playing too much silksong recently.
-
Chapter 5 Recap!
Leveled up Race: True-Blood DragonMen to Lv. 2!
Leveled up Race: True-Blood DragonMen to Lv. 3!
+1 STR, +1 DEX, +1 CON, +1 PER, +1 CHA
Leveled up Leader: Archetype to Lvl. 2!
+1 Int, +1 Will, +1 Char!
Leveled up Leader: Archetype to Lvl. 3!
+1 Int, +1 Will, +1 Char!
Leveled up Class: Storybook Squire to Lvl. 2!
Leveled up Class: Storybook Squire to Lvl. 3!
+1 STR, +1 CON, +1 DEX, +1 CHA, +1 LUC!
Found Lancer (Tier 0) Class Token!
Found Extendable Lance Uncommon Magical Item!