"No," Alarion said, unsatisfied with Elena's pithy answer and for the first time angry in her presence. "What was that?"

"I do not believe that I misspoke," Elena responded. Her voice was firm and chill, unwilling to back down from a mere child.

"It is ritual Umbral Magic. A combination of Void and Dimensional affinities," ZEKE interjected before things could escalate. "Albeit one that is lightly explored and still very much in its infancy."

Alarion scowled. "You aren't expecting me to learn that? I don't like it."

"Not at all." ZEKE clarified as the boy visibly relaxed. "I am not even familiar with the discipline. To my knowledge, Mistress Elena is the only practitioner here on the Isles, or in most of Ashad, for that matter. And she is still somewhat of a novice. No, your arcane path will be far more traditional. Perhaps an Electromancer or-"

"So what does it do?" Alarion asked, his attention on the rolling mass of shadow, much to ZEKE's annoyance.

"It will provide you with a challenge," Elena replied.

Elena turned on her heel and began walking toward the manor with ZEKE close behind her, leaving the pulsating mass in her wake. Alarion frowned at the sudden retreat, about to follow them when Elena raised one delicate hand and snapped her fingers.

The acrid darkness poured over Alarion instantly as the lopsided sphere burst, its contents flooding the courtyard with enough force to knock him off his feet. The smoke-like substance flowed in all directions, then sloped suddenly vertical as it met the courtyard's edges. Rather than slosh backward as a liquid might, this vapor crept up the invisible 'walls' of its new container, then along a similarly imperceptible ceiling. Within seconds, Alarion found himself drowned in inky black and blue on all sides.

Yet he could still see. He could feel the substance still flowing around and over him, but now it only seemed to obstruct his vision outside the boundaries, not within them. It was as though someone had built a glass box around him and covered it with thick curtains that let in light.

Rather than dwell on the unsettling metaphysics of the place, Alarion took the most obvious step.

He tried to leave.

Sensibly, of course. He wouldn't stick his hand into a material from outside of reality without prodding it first. To that end, he retrieved the greatsword from the courtyard floor and made for the nearest wall. Or what he thought was the nearest wall. Clearly, he'd made some mistake, given that he'd walked in a straight line for a full ten seconds without reaching the barrier.

Another ten seconds, this time at a light jog, proved that the issue was much more distressing.

Bloop.

The unfamiliar noise stopped Alarion in his tracks. It had come from some distance behind him, and though he dreaded what he might see, he did not dawdle in turning to look.

Small globules of the environment had begun to leak from the floor and the ceiling, like oil clinging to a surface and stretching until the tension finally broke free in individual drops. That soft dripping sound accompanied each, and each eventually collided with a growing mass of the shadow-stuff.

It started out as a ball, just long enough for Alarion to hope that the surrounding environment was returning to its original form. That hope withered on the vine as the mass twisted and distorted. It elongated, stretching out as more and more drops fell into it. Then buds began to form at the edges. It was not long before those buds stretched out, and soon after, the general shape of the thing solidified.

Alarion initially mistook its outline for that of a hunched-over humanoid, that horrible man he had first seen, but it soon became clear that the thing was quadruped. It had a broad, barrel chest and thick, sinewy muscles running beneath the skin. No, the scales. It had too many limbs. Two arms, two legs, a tail. Wings. It was still nowhere fully formed when Alarion recognized it for what it was, though only from legends.

A dragon.

Alarion's greatsword crashed into the inky black floor as it passed through the intangible dragon, his attack on the half-formed creature no more effective than his attempts to flee. But like those earlier attempts, he did not stop at one. Twice more, his blade swung through the creature as limbs extended and membranes knitted themselves together out of blue-black nothingness.

Undeterred, Alarion reared back for a wild punch when a shockwave burst out from the glorious draconic beast that sent him sprawling back over a dozen feet. He felt the wave of force rattle his very bones, but it was nothing compared to what came next.

The dragon loomed over him, thrice his height when on all fours, and utterly dwarfing him as it leaned back onto its haunches, arched its back-

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

And Roared.

You are terrified. -50% to all stats for the next five seconds.

The creature of blue-black darkness towered over Alarion at nearly twenty feet in height and at least twice again as long from snout to tail, its swept-back horns giving it the appearance of a crown as it stared down at the child. Razor-sharp spines riddled its back; its teeth were the size of the boy's torso; its talons were more dangerous weapons than the Imperial Greatsword he held in unsteady hands.

He was nothing to this thing. So little, in fact, that it did not attack. Not when he was affected by its ability. That would have implied that it needed to strike while Alarion was weak.

Alarion desperately dodged to the left as the time on his notification ticked to zero. Even with that small insight into the dragon's mindset, an insight that had come from seemingly nowhere, he had only barely escaped a sudden slap of its tail that would have flattened him instantly.

For its part, the dragon appeared mildly perturbed. Like a cat that had swiped at a rodent, only to find its paw empty. Its tail retracted as quickly as it had lashed out and flicked from left to right behind it in a sign of slight irritation.

The distance between them was vast, but that was far more of an impediment for Alarion than the dragon. Its reach was long, its movements quick, its options varied. It could swipe with its claws, swat with its tail, or devour him with its maw without taking a single step. For Alarion to even harm the beast, he first needed to close that gap and, in doing so, he would provide a more vulnerable target.

No. That wasn't strictly true. He didn't need to advance on it.

Alarion locked eyes with the domineering beast. He set his jaw, gripping his weapon in both hands, knuckles white. The dragon studied him, and for a few breaths, neither side advanced. The dragon's tail flicked. Left, then right, then left again as it glowered, daring him to take the first step.

A growl filled the air as piercing blue-black orbs sought to stare into Alarion's very soul. Challenging him. Daring him to strike.

Alarion won their short-lived staring contest as the impatient draconic beast lashed out with a savage overhanded claw. He hopped back to avoid being pinned to the ground by piercing talons, but landed on the balls of his feet, already lunging forward into the space he had just vacated. The violet metallic edge of his sword gleamed in the air as it crashed down, tearing as much as cutting through the scaled exterior of the dragon's wrist.

The dragon roared, more in indignation than from genuine pain, then wrenched its wounded arm free of the danger. A trail of fist-sized 'droplets' of blood spilled out of the wound, Alarion's sandaled footsteps splashing in one as he advanced into the new opening in the dragon's defenses.

It retreated, but not fast enough to avoid a sweeping uppercut intended to open the dragon from the middle of its chest to the bottom of its neck. Were Alarion stronger, or the dragon's hide thinner, the battle might have ended then and there. As it was, the weapon bit deep, tearing away a single large scale from the creature's broad chest, its tip catching and halting as it tried to pierce a second.

The unexpected halt in his offensive caught Alarion off guard, and the dragon retaliated in his moment of weakness with a vicious backhand. The strike took Alarion off his feet, his body bouncing twice off the stone courtyard floor before it settled into a roll and finally came to a halt a considerable distance away.

You have suffered extreme bludgeoning damage. HP -96. You have been stunned for five seconds. New Condition! Fracture - Severe Your left arm is broken - 30% Malus to STR and AGI when using the left arm.

He could feel it looming at the edge of his blurred vision, the rumble of the ground beneath him as the creature advanced. It was waiting for him to gather his strength, Alarion knew. Crushing him underfoot was not how this fight ended. Not after he'd hurt it.

Alarion rolled to his right and gathered a knee beneath him as his senses coalesced into something resembling a functional nervous system. Just moving sent waves of agony up his broken arm, though to his surprise, he found that some instinct or miracle had let him close his hand tightly around the greatsword's hilt. He was still armed.

Above him, the beast lowered its head, bringing its chin mere inches from the ground to stare him down directly in a mockery of their earlier duel.

One foot gathered beneath him, then the other. Alarion stood straight and tall before the razor-sharp maw of a dragon that seemed to smirk at him. He twisted his body, throwing everything he had into a desperate, momentum-fueled attack.

The dragon's jaws closed around him.

Darkness.

And then he was back in the sunlit courtyard, staring at a rolling ball of ink and smoke, Elena standing by his side.

"So, Alarion. What did you learn?" ZEKE was the first to speak, his tone surprisingly gentle.

"I-" Alarion replied haltingly as he reached for his left arm, patting the uninjured limb in utter bewilderment. He looked to the arm, to Elena, to the orb, and finally back to Elena, his eyes now narrowed. "-Your magic…"

"A modified version of the Void Trap ritual." She explained. "As the name suggests, the ritual is normally used as a trap to split up groups of enemies and fight them in smaller numbers instead of all together. This variant, Void Arena, creates opponents in the void to act as a training exercise. They give essentially no experience, so it is useless once you have a class, but it provides a safe way to practice fundamentals when trying to obtain a new class."

"What matters is what you learned." ZEKE cut in, eager to cut away the logistics in favor of the lesson.

"That dragons are stronger than I am?" Alarion said matter-of-factly.

"Actually," Elena replied. "The foes in my Void Arena are customized to your abilities. That was no true dragon, barely even a pale imitation of one. It was a fiction just strong enough that a skilled combatant of your level should be able to defeat it."

"If you were to play to your strengths," ZEKE chimed in. "Fighting with lighter weapons would allow your hit-and-move or move-and-hit tactics to be much more effective and less risky. And since you lack the power to make committing to a single strike viable, you'd lean towards safer tactics of whittling it down over time, exploiting gaps. The weapons are more suited to your style of up-close striking and-"

"Can I go again?" Alarion asked.

Elena raised an eyebrow. "Taking Ezekiel's advice?"

Alarion shook his head.

"Wielding the greatsword?" She asked.

He nodded.

Alongside them, Zeke merely groaned.

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