Path of Dragons

Book 2: Chapter 27: Distraction

Book 2: Chapter 27: Distraction

The floor of the cell shook with titanic battle as the two ogres clashed with the freed troll. Warbling screams filled the air, suggesting that things were not going well for the jailers. That was as expected; the troll wasn’t just larger, but it had looked far sturdier, as well. Still, even if the winner had been assured – which was no certain thing – Elijah had no intentions of letting it play out.

Not without having his say.

So, wedged in the shaft, he shifted his way up until only his head poked above the floor. When he did, he saw precisely what he had expected. The massive troll had everything it could handle as it fended off the other two creatures, but it was clearly in control of the fight. The ogres were powerful enough to hold their own, though, and it looked like it was going to be a long, drawn-out fight.

Elijah aimed to change that.

So, without further hesitation, he gripped the Staff of Natural Harmony and channeled Ethera into Swarm.

Spell: Swarm

Conjure a swarm of pests that infect your enemies with appropriate afflictions.

The spell wasn’t as devastating as Calamity. However, it had the benefit of being far more subtle, which was precisely what he needed at the moment. He released the spell, and a few seconds later, a few biting flies manifested before landing on the broad, naked back of one of the ogre jailers. A second or two later, it was joined by a veritable horde – or, appropriately, a swarm – of flies.

The bulk of the little insects attacked the same ogre, but the nature of a swarm meant that there were plenty of others for the other jailer as well as the troll. Now that the troll had been freed, and he’d gotten the appropriate credit, he thought nothing of using it for his ends. Certainly, he didn’t want to watch it suffer, but that didn’t mean he would spare the aggressive creature out of some misguided sense of friendship.

If it lived, that was fine. But if it ended up dying, Elijah wanted his afflictions to ensure that he got at least some kill energy from its passing. Besides, he needed it angry and raging, or it wouldn’t be much of a distraction.

The flies didn’t last long, and by the time they dissipated into motes of Ethera, Elijah had already retreated into the shaft where he hoped to avoid notice long enough that he could exit combat.

Meanwhile, the battle continued, and through the use of One with Nature, he kept track of the three combatants’ conditions. The ogres had clearly gotten the worst of it, and the one who’d shouldered the brunt of the impact looked like it was only a hair’s breadth from passing out. Wet, clammy skin, splotchy cheeks, and unsteady legs were only the most apparent of its symptoms, and Elijah knew that it certainly wasn’t fighting at full strength.

The same could be said for the other ogre jailer as well as the troll, but there was enough of a difference that it was only a matter of time before the most affected ogre fell. It ended up coming sooner rather than later when the troll hammered the ogre with a giant, meaty fist that sent it splattering against the wall. Even as the masonry crumbled, the troll pounced, hammering the unfortunate ogre with all its might.

Elijah only caught glimpses here and there – all via One with Nature – but he got the impression that the pummeling was similar to what one might see from a silverback gorilla. In any case, the ogre was done for, and though it continued to fend the troll off with everything it could muster, its fellow could read the writing on the wall.

And when it did, the remaining ogre jailer didn’t swoop in to save its comrade. Instead, he turned tail and ran, dashing through the door as quickly as its meaty proportions would allow. At first, the troll paid it no mind, but the moment it finally finished with its gruesome and single-minded task, it whirled around to look for another victim. When it didn’t find one, the formerly imprisoned troll let out a frustrated roar, then squeezed through the cell door – no small feat, given its larger size – and took off down the hall.

Elijah waited a few moments before he climbed out of the shaft, and the moment he saw the devastation that had been wrought on the cell, his reticence to engage the ogres or the troll in battle was reaffirmed. The walls were cracked, with one of them covered in blood, and large chunks of brick had been torn away. But that was nothing compared to the state of the ogre the troll had killed.

From the shoulders down, it was much the same as Elijah had expected. Just a large, corpulent body composed of equal parts fat and muscle. However, from the neck up was just a mass of unidentifiable meat and exposed bone. The troll hadn’t just beaten the thing to death. Indeed, he’d rendered it entirely unrecognizable. Seeing that, it was easy for Elijah to imagine that the ogre jailer’s death had been a mere byproduct of the troll venting its rage and frustration.

Elijah wasted no more time inspecting the site of the battle. Instead, he quickly shifted into the Shape of the Predator and slipped into the Guise of the Unseen. Only then did the tension in his mind dissipate, and he slipped from the cell, secure in his own invisibility. As soon as he did, he saw more evidence of the troll’s passage. Unlike the cell’s door, the corridor was easily large enough to accommodate even the enormous troll, and yet, it looked like the creature had gone out of its way to smash into everything it saw.

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More cracked walls were the most obvious sign of its ire, but it had also torn torches from their sconces and dented other cell doors. Elijah followed the trail of destruction as he made his way through the dungeon, his passage accompanied by the echoing sounds an ongoing battle up ahead. Along the way, he saw the bodies of the remaining ogre jailers; the troll had clearly used the weight of surprise to ease the battle, and he’d dispatched the unarmored creatures without even slowing down.

Elijah padded forward, his feet silent as he crept from one flickering shadow to the next. He knew it wasn’t strictly necessary – Guise of the Unseen as well as his form’s ability to change color was enough to render him nearly invisible – but he didn’t want to take any chances. As such, his progress was much slower than it likely should have been. Even so, he reached the source of the noise only a couple of minutes later.

By the time he caught sight of the troll, Elijah couldn’t help but let out a silent gasp of horror. It bore hundreds of wounds. Some were small – pinpricks for a creature of its size – but some gaped open, with huge flaps of skin flopping around with every movement. Its opponents hadn’t fared any better, though.

Four armored ogre guards encircled the troll, harrying it with their massive weapons. However, despite their brutish appearance, the ogres displayed no small degree of cooperation and finesse, hemming the creature in and slowly whittling it down with superior reach and the weight of numbers.

That simply would not do.

So, Elijah retreated to the chamber’s door, then ducked out of sight before resuming his human form. Then, he once again used Swarm, sending a cascade of biting flies to inflict their afflictions on the ogre guards. Fortunately, their armor proved no obstacle to the tiny insects, and before the swarm dissipated, the four remaining guards – one had been completely incapacitated, but it was still alive, while another slumped against the wall, its body misshapen and unmoving – had been infected.

And even in that short span, the effect had already made itself known. A woozy guard didn’t move quite quickly enough to avoid the troll’s sudden attack, and as a result, it ended up being slammed against the wall with the force of a runaway train. Predictably, it didn’t survive intact, and even from so far away, Elijah could hear cracking bones over the sound of twisting metal.

That was when Elijah shifted back into his scaled panther form, automatically embracing Guise of the Unseen the moment it was available. Then, he settled in to wait. However, even with the numbers tilting slightly more in favor of the troll, it quickly became clear that it was destined to lose.

The afflicted ogres couldn’t move quite as quickly as before, but the troll hadn’t escaped the swarm unscathed, either. So, while it wasn’t quite as affected as the guards – probably due to a better Constitution attribute or some inherent advantage of being a troll – the gap hadn’t widened enough to give it an appreciable advantage. So, the fight continued on, settling into a standstill, which meant that Elijah had little choice but to act.

After all, it was only a matter of time before the Warden responded. And if that dark elf added its weight to the battle, the troll’s fate would be sealed. Elijah knew he needed to act before then, because if he didn’t have the troll as a distraction, he knew precisely how the fight would go. Perhaps he could use hit-and-run tactics to thin the ogres’ numbers, but in a relatively small and enclosed space, he wasn’t so sure that was a viable strategy. And that was saying nothing of whether or not they could implement an alarm similar to the one that had outed him at the guardhouse outside.

If that happened, he would surely die.

So, with those issues pressing down on him, Elijah did the only thing he could.

He attacked.

Targeting the first ogre proved to be quite difficult, largely because it never quit moving. Moreover, he wanted to time his attack such that he wouldn’t be seen; to that end, he needed to use the troll as a shield from the other two ogres. So, he waited for the perfect moment, and when it presented itself, he pounced.

Striking out like an ambushing crocodile, he used Predator Strike before slashing his claws across the back of the ogre’s ankle. Then, even as it wailed in anger and pain, he dashed away, slipping through the door before the thing could wheel around. There, he waited until, thirty seconds later, he heard the sound of crunching metal before Essence of the Wolf kicked back in.

Now that he was out of combat, Elijah once again embraced Guise of the Unseen before creeping back into the chamber. True to his expectations, the troll had overcome the wounded guard, and the ogre now lay in a crumpled and motionless heap only a few feet from the other dead guard.

There were only two remaining, and the troll seemed more than capable of overcoming those odds.

Still, Elijah wasn’t going to leave that up to chance. So, he once again set himself up for another strategic attack, and when it presented itself, he launched himself forward and sliced through the ogre’s hamstrings. However, it was only when he whipped around to dart back into the safety of the hallway that he realized that he’d pushed his luck a little too far.

The elf, its dull, black iron armor glowing with Ethera, leveled its silver sword in his direction. It started to say something, but Elijah had no interest in hearing some villain’s monologue.

So, mid-stride, he shifted back into his human form and preemptively cast Healing Rain. The spell was wide enough to encompass half the room, and even as the storm clouds gathered, Elijah embraced Form of the Guardian.

The call for stealth had faded.

Now was the time for unmitigated strength.

As he felt his body shifting, Elijah slammed into the wide-eyed elf, but by the time he’d completed his transformation, the creature had recovered his wits enough to once again attempt to speak. And Elijah responded appropriately by harnessing every point of his inflated Strength and ramming his open palm into the elf’s chest.

A sound like a gong announced contact, and a moment later, the slight creature rocketed backward, hitting the wall with bone-crunching force. Elijah wasted no time before bounding forward, grabbing the stunned elf around the waist, and spinning in place like an Olympic hammer thrower before launching him down the hall.

Elijah didn’t wait for his opponent to land before he raced back into the room and threw himself at the injured ogre. His shoulder hit the monster in the hip, eliciting a howl of anger and pain. It hammered a fist against Elijah’s back, knocking the breath from his lungs, but he was too close for the ogre to bring its massive weapon to bear. So, he bunched his legs and drove himself as well as the ogre into the wall.

More bones broke, but more importantly, the guard was stunned by the sudden impact. That gave Elijah the chance he’d been looking for, so he reared back, and brought his clasped hands down on the monster with every ounce of power he could summon. Other than extending the ogre’s dazed state, the blow did little good. However, Elijah persisted, repeating the attack.

When that didn’t finish the guard off, he did it again.

And again after that.

Over and over, he smashed his scaly fists into the ogre’s exposed head. And after the sixth such attack, he was finally rewarded with the feel of a shattering skull beneath his claws. Stil, he gave it one more blow for good measure. That one cracked the ogre’s skull open like an overripe melon, splattering brain, blood, and bone across the wall.

Still, he seethed with a need to keep going. To rip that corpse to pieces with every ounce of his power. Yet, he pushed that aside and forced himself to disengage.

He was just in time to see the elf’s snarling face as it drove its silver sword into his chest.