The Nest, Part III (Sloth)

The sky darkens as the Mother Dragon descends on the nesting ground. It's like the sun just had a stroke. First, it's just the large shadow of the Adult Storm Dragon, then it's the dark clouds that form in her wake. The air collapses as though the nesting area becomes a single, large, pressurized cabin. My ears clog and then pop. My stomach turns inside out and every single hair on my body stands at full salute.

System notifications flash in the top corner of my HUD, but I mentally minimize them. The ground quakes when she lands, the air filling with black dust and shards. The air around her legs crackles with electricity.

If her baby was the size of a house, she's a goddamn cathedral with wings. Each beat of her enormous wings sends out a sonic boom that I feel in my teeth. Her scales are darker than night, each one etched with veins of white crackling lightning. A mane of storm clouds rolls off her back like smoke, and her eyes are twin hurricanes of white-blue hate.

Clyde screams something—probably "RUN!" or "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!"—but it's distant, like he's underwater, echoing in my skull like a memory I'm not ready to process.

I try to move. To grab Veronica and Jelly Boy. To execute our escape plan and get out of there like a bat out of hell. I try.

But I can't.

Something pulses out from the Mother Dragon—an invisible tsunami that crashes into me, quaking through my very core.

Ping!

You are within an [Aura of Fear].

Your Willpower failed Resisting the effects of this Aura.

You are now under the effect of [Fear].

DEBUFF: FEAR

[Description: You are frozen in fear. You are unable to move or execute any voluntary actions while under the effect of the Fear condition.]

The System might as well have told me I was under the effect of the [You are FUUUCCKED] condition. My legs lock and my arms shake violently. I feel another pulsing sensation roll over me.

Ping!

You are within an [Aura of Storm].

Your Willpower failed Resisting the effects of this Aura.

A painful sensation washes over my skin.

Health: 29/130

. . .

Health: 28/130

What the hell? This thing as a second aura effect and it does chip damage? You've gotta be kidding me!

I grit my teeth against the sensation and mentally scream as I throw all of my will into trying to move my legs.

Nothing.

Meanwhile, just being in the Mother Dragon's presence is going to kill us. Its aura is eating away at me like radiation.

The Mother Dragon roars. The sound makes the wyrmling's roar sound like a polite sneeze. The roar is so loud it shatters Storm Essence, tossing more of the black glassy substance into the air. The obsidian shards slice my skin, crisscrossing my exposed legs.

My Health continues to tick down. My vision tunnels. And through it all, through the thunder and lightning and the bone-deep fear of the Mother Dragon's aura, I know one thing. We are so. Damn. Screwed.

Ping!

Another goddamn System-generated ping detonates in the back of my ringing skull. Please don't tell me this thing has a third aura?

THE CARDINAL HAND SEES YOU.

Well… Shit. That's also not good.

Everything stops.

It's as if the single second in time froze. The particles of Storm Essence hang suspended in the air, still glinting and shining with the light of the Storm Dragon's electrical aura. Then, the air above the Mother Dragon's head rips open. It's like someone jammed celestial scissors into the very fabric of the world. A jagged wound opens in the air, the edges fraying with warped thread of unreality, like the space around the tear are being bent by the heat of a mirage. A white glow seeps through the opening.

Something—wait, no, someone—falls through the tear.

She falls like a judgment. Slow, controlled, absolute. She's tall, with inhumanly pale skin and the long tapered ears of an elf. Her long, silvery-white hair is a comet trail behind her. She's… beautiful. No, not beautiful. She exudes an otherworldly energy that's cosmic. Terrifying. She's wrapped in black armor that shifts like liquid obsidian. Her silhouette is perfect in the way knives are. Her eyes are two orbs of amber that burn with all the warmth of an explosion.

The woman hovers in the air, suspended just above the Mother Dragon's head. She swipes her right arm through the air. The single motion is casual—almost like brushing away from pesky cobwebs she stumbled upon returning to her home.

The Mother Dragon's head falls off. No roar of pain in its final moments. Its expression still frozen in anger as a clean line ends partway up its neck, where its head was but is no longer. Its gigantic body collapses to the ground, followed by its head, plummeting before crashing into the sloped side of the nesting area.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Time unfreezes and the pressure in the air vanishes.

You are no longer under the effects of [Aura of Fear].

You are no longer under the effects of [Aura of Storm].

Health: 21/130

Clyde gasps. Veronica softly groans. Jelly Boy gurgles.

The tear in the air closes with a soft rustling sound, like leaves dancing in the wind, reality stitching itself back together. The woman gently lands on the corpse of the Adult Storm Dragon. She's relaxed, arms at her sides, as those burning, amber eyes survey the nesting grounds.

I gulp and examine her.

Identified: Saint of the Cardinal Hand (Sloth), Level ???, Class: Cannot be Determined [Insufficient Level], Race: Cannot be Determined [Insufficient Level].

The nesting area is dead quiet.

Storm Essence crackles under my boots from the residual aura of the now-dead Adult Storm Dragon, but neither Clyde nor I dare to breathe too loud. The corpse of the Mother Dragon steams beside the woman—headless, blood hissing into the air like a broken fire hydrant—but she doesn't seem to notice. Or, rather, doesn't care.

She just stands there. Mounted on the headless corpse like she's at the crest of a hill. Like a queen admiring her domain.

She turns her gaze on us. No, me. Her amber eyes flick over Clyde and Veronica like they're bugs on a windshield, like they're not even the things she came for. But when she looks at me—I feel it. Something crawls into my spine. My ribs tighten. There's a pulse, like an invisible hand reaches through my chest and squeezes my heart once. Then again. Not painful. Just… an announcement. Like she's knocking on the door of my soul.

She tilts her head and clucks her tongue, like a disappointed teacher or a mom who found something weird in your browser history. "Well," she says. Her voice is velvet dipped in steel. "Looks like I was right after all…"

She glances down at the decapitated dragon like she stepped in something mildly unpleasant.

"But this is disappointing. Dragged myself out of bed," she yawns, "and for what?"

I try not to meet her eyes again, but it's too late. She looks at me and I feel it.

That pulse again. Only stronger this time. As though that invisible hand was rifling through my person, making sure I was who I truly seemed to be. It's like being submerged in syrupy terror. The feeling just overwhelming. I feel my limbs lock up again. My teeth clench so hard I feel something pop in my jaw.

Is that her aura? What the actual fuck is she?

After a moment, the invisible hand retreats. I let out a shaky breath, and realize my arms are glistening with cold sweat.

"You're not even ready yet," she says, voice dripping with disappointment.

I'm trying not to piss myself while also mentally running through my inventory of Spells and Skills for anything that can get us the hell out of here when I hear myself say it. My mouth moves before my brain can talk it out of it. "Not ready," I say. My voice comes out hoarse. Cracked. But not silent. "Not ready, for what?"

The wind dies. Somewhere on the other side of the Mother Dragon's head, Clyde whispers a single syllable: "Fuck."

Veronica groans and tries to move, but she's barely able to get up onto her elbows. Still, that's a good sign based on the state she was in just moments ago.

And me?

I'm standing on a mountain made of black glass, bleeding out of my shredded chest, questioning a Saint of the Cardinal Hand.

Smart. Real smart, you asshole, I tell myself.

I stare up at her. And pray she doesn't magic karate chop me like she did Mama Dragon.

"The Contest has only just started," she says.

She glides off the dragon's corpse. I want to say she "steps" off of it, but that would imply she's subject to gravity. She floats down to the ground like the world itself makes accommodations for her. I can't help but think how incredibly bad ass it is.

She touches down onto the floor of the nesting ground with the same grace as when she descended in that tear in reality, seamlessly transitioning into a walk. Each of her steps lands in slow, deliberate clicks against the Storm Essence glass. Measured and mechanical.

I blink and she's suddenly in front of me. We're nearly chest-to-chest she's so close. I freeze, again. I can't help but suck in a trembling breath, as though I'm staring down a lioness draped in black armor. I breathe in her scent. It's like lavender tea.

She reaches up with one perfect, pale finger and drags it down the healing gash across my now bare chest. Just lightly. Just enough to remind me that I'm meat, and she's… something else.

My Health bar flashes in response to her touch, but it doesn't dip at all. Still, it takes every ounce of control not to wince. Not from pain, but from the fact that I know she could end me at any moment.

She looks over at Clyde, who's stock still but trying to look casual. Like he isn't calculating seventeen different escape routes and their success rates (they're all zero percent, by the way).

"And it seems our world is just one of the playing fields," she murmurs, "before the true battle begins."

Then she frowns. And it's the saddest, oldest thing I've ever seen. It's not a tired expression, but something in her eyes carries a depth of ages that I've only ever seen in those ancient souls that still grasp onto enough of their faculties to remember times that have long since passed. It's the recognition of something lost.

"I…" I start, and it comes out dry. I try again. "I don't understand."

That earns me a ghost of a smile.

"I remember when I was in your place…" she says, wistful. "The understanding will come… with time."

Oh. Cool. Cryptic exposition from the super-goddess-of-death-lady. Just what I needed.

"We aren't looking for a fight," Clyde says. He sounds very much like someone looking for a door that doesn't exist. "We're here for a dragon core, and that's all. Then we'll leave this Realm."

She laughs. It's not a cruel laugh. Not mocking. More like… amused? Like we're children with cardboard swords trying to impress her with our bravery and valor. And it seems like she's willing to humor us.

"Don't worry," she says, waving a hand. "I'm not looking for a fight. At least, not any longer." She turns to the corpse of the wyrmling. "But I'm sure our paths will cross again."

Oh good.

Her eyes move back to the headless corpse of the Adult Storm Dragon. She studies the dragon's twitching corpse like a jeweler evaluating a gem. "Ah, I see now. You were sent to be a thorn in that Glutton's paunchy sides."

My ears perk up at the mention of 'Glutton.' I think of Farmer Baptiste's blunderbuss, and of the monster I fought during my first run through this Realm. The Gluttonous Bob, I think it was. The woman steps away from me, flashing that same lazy, serpent-in-the-sun grin.

"That's all fine by me," she says. "I'm glad I was the first to confirm your existence here. But it seems like some of Greed's lackeys have also caught wind of this portentous event."

A chill slithers down my spine at the word "Greed." The Cardinal Hand. It didn't seem like they were a chummy bunch. In fact, it seemed like this Sloth lady wasn't on the most friendly of terms with at least the Gluttony and Greed folks. What that means for me and the others? I have no idea.

She turns and casually strolls back toward the Mother Dragon's body. Her boots leave no prints in the ash. Reality bends around her, warping around her outline like it did around the opening of the portal she appeared through.

"I'll be taking this core for myself," she says, like it's the weather report. "You can keep the infant's. But you won't want to dilly-dally. Dragon cores only last in a corpse for so long. If they aren't extracted quickly enough, the body will burn away the core and leave nothing behind but a husk."

She stops beside the Mother Dragon, leans down, and plunges a hand through scale and bone like she's reaching into a warm pie. The air booms around the dragon corpse in a moment of resistance. A pulse of force knocks up dust and blood, before she extracts her arm from the beast's side. In her hand, now glowing, is the core. It looks like a giant plasma ball, purple and blue electricity dancing within. It's so large that I'd have trouble wrapping my arms around it, and yet she holds it casually in a single hand. It looks a little ridiculous.

She turns back to us. "Good luck retrieving your friend." She winks as the air tears open behind her. Then—just like that—she vanishes. The tear in reality zipping back up behind her.

The moment she's gone, I fall to my knees. And all I can say is: "We are so unbelievably fucked."

Clyde is already moving. "Let's get that wyrmling's core out ASAP. I have some more potions for the others."

I rub at my eyes with the palms of my hands and then look up at my gunslinging companion. "What do you think she meant by that last bit? About retrieving our friend?"

That's when I look over my shoulder and notice that Veronica is lying on her back again, though her breathing is a little more stable. But Jelly Boy is no where to be seen.

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