Mark of the Fool

The black skies of Tenebrama were heavy with the sound of demonic wings sweeping across them.

In the darkness, monsters raged at one another, screeching curses and threats in their demonic tongues.

“Interlopers! How dare you defile our domain!” a deep, thunderous voice boomed through the black. Whatever was speaking, sounded big. “You have destroyed our sacred Fountain, but even without it, your puny lives will still end in sacrifice!”

As it spoke, the burning light in the distance flared, growing for a brief time.

“Oooooh shit!” Thundar’s voice came from the darkness.

Flying demons were everywhere. Pazuzites. Eyeless, xyrthak-like things. Enormous beings all tentacles and eyes. Bat-winged, horned, warriors bearing weapons of utter darkness.

They came in all shapes and sizes.

They came from all sides.

They swarmed like locusts.

And all were looking right at Alex and his companions as they flew toward the extraction point.

Alex’s mind raced. “Everyone! Drop your ropes and I’ll stop our invisibility with the staff!” he shouted, instantly cancelling his own invisibility, the light from the staff flared. “We need to be able to see each other! Light up the skies, fight for your lives! We—”

The words died on his lips.

An immense surge of mana was growing, building, releasing close by.

“What in bleedin’ hells is doin’ that?” Cedric’s voice was tense. “Drestra?”

Alex turned from the demons.

His breath caught.

His companions were now visible, hovering in the dark. But all were watching one Hero.

Every pair of eyes were transfixed on the Sage of Uldar.

Drestra—for the first time since Alex had known her—had removed her veil. And beneath the cloth? A wide mouth full of enormous, sparkling fangs sat between taut lips. Reptilian eyes burned with an inner light and—as she dropped the rope from her waist—orange radiance flared behind those teeth.

Her mana surged once more…and she began to grow.

First, her crackling voice changed, dropping lower and deeper until it was the rumble and roar of an erupting mountain. Her clothing melded with her skin, disappearing as flesh rippled and twisted in shape.

Drestra’s limbs stretched.

Claws sprouted from fingers already the size of tree branches.

Bones cracked. Flesh tore and shifted.

Her face lengthened, eyes grew as horns sprouted from her skull, dark hair merged with flesh. Deep red scales sprouted from smooth skin. A thick, spiked tail emerged beneath a pair of vast, bat-like wings.

Grimloch and Claygon had always been the largest members of their group, but—in heartbeats—Drestra of Crymlyn swamp dwarfed the entire team combined. When her transformation was complete, she was greater in size than a trebuchet ladened with massive stones.

More ferocious than any Ravener-spawn.

And the heat she was radiating?

Surpassed that of Vesuvius many times over.

Alex’s mind tried to accept what he was seeing: demons surrounded them, he’d seen mana vampires, Ravener-spawn, and other creatures of legend. He’d seen enough magical creatures to fill many lifetimes.

But, nothing had prepared him for this; the shock of seeing a dragon—even more shockingly one who was a friend—in the flesh for the first time in his life.

For that was what she undeniably was.

Drestra of Crymlyn Swamp, the Sage of Uldar, had assumed her true form.

Her true form as a dragon.

Red scales layered her body, with thinner black ones covering her neck and belly. The golden staff that was the Mark of the Sage blazed on the side of her neck. Ridges ran down her back. A duo of curving horns swept back from her skull. Her thick tail whipped the air, sheathed in spikes toward its tip and capped by an enormous spear-blade of bone which looked like it could slice a demon in half, or pierce a castle gate.

The only features that remained the same were her reptilian eyes: the same golden orbs that had always framed her face.

“Don’t just gawk, stop them!” A demon roared from the dark.

The Sage’s draconic eyes flicked toward the voice. Air shimmered around parted jaws, coral-red light built within her maw. Grey smoke and acrid gas hissed between sword-shaped fangs. Venom dripped on black sand.

And Thundar gaped. “This is the coolest damn thing I’ve ever seen,” he murmured.

“No argument,” Alex whispered.

And then the dark skies burned bright.

A cone of flame erupted from her throat, raking the air, consuming a horde of oncoming demons. Her long neck swept to the side, flame scorching flocks of charging monsters. Dragon-fire burned hot, turning the smaller fiends to ash while setting the larger ones aflame like torches.

In a heartbeat, the darkness Tenebrama’s demons lived under was gone, replaced by fire and smoke. Demons flinched away, trying to escape its reach.

And Alex remembered a conversation he’d had with Khalik long ago:

“—and then I found out what dragonfear is.”

The prince had placed his glass on the table and drawn a large, imaginary circle around it. “Dragons have an aura around them of supernatural fear, and the older they get, the stronger it grows. The fear penetrates the mind and infests the heart. Not fear from within—” He’d pointed to his own chest. “—but fear from outside.” He’d gestured around them. “It is magical, and digs into the mind like a pickaxe.”

Now, Alex could observe firsthand what his friend had meant, and while he didn’t feel the dragonfear…the demons certainly did.

The dragon that was Drestra roared, and the demons turned, flying erratically in their scramble to escape. She roared again in rage—whether from the effect of the wrath-field or not—Alex had no way of knowing, then a great beat of her wings sent her in pursuit. Flames blasted from between lips that twisted, casting spells.

A tidal wave of mana washed into Alex, and the red and black dragon shimmered, her form splitting into seven illusionary duplicates. Each breathed fire as one—and though only one’s flame was real—the figment drove demons away like hens fleeing a fox.

Yet, bolder ones remained, roaring back challenges.

An enormous fiend, a creature of mostly tentacles and eyes, soared at her, its tendrils sprouting spikes. She whipped her head toward it, flames extinguishing as she filled her chest with breath.

A stream of acid poured free. Liquid hissed when it bathed the bold creature, sending it into shrieks, flesh boiling away until only a slurry was left to splatter on the sand below.

“Stay away from the fumes!” Drestra roared, her crackling voice thundering. “They bring death! Fly! Fly away my friends! Fly!”

And those words snapped Alex and his companions back from astonishment.

“You heard her!” he shouted, raising his staff. “Get to the portal and support her with everything you’ve got!”

“Understood…father.” Claygon raised his upper arms, palms pointed forward. His fire-beams lanced the horde of demons, striking those closest to Drestra as she winged through the sky, then he shot up after her. “I…cannot be harmed by inhaled poisons. I will protect you, Drestra.”

The golem slammed into a flock of pazuzites—rage driving their attack in spite of dragonfear—cleaving them apart with his war-spear. His fists struck the creatures with each swing, spurring his companions into action.

Hart and Theresa drew their bows, hands blurring, launching a flurry of bolts into the horde. Isolde called on lightning, and Cedric’s morphic weapon changed form, becoming a bow.

“Uldar, bless with me wit’ arrows o’ light to smite all o’ these demons!” he prayed, forming a string and arrows of light, finishing off creatures struck by Isolde’s lightning.

Thundar’s arms snapped out, raking demons with heavy force missiles as they closed in, cracking wings and skulls, sending the creatures plummeting. Prince Khalik flew beside him—with armour of steel and stone sheathing him, studded with glowing runes and quartz crystals—his spells whipping up the sand, transforming it into shards of black glass.

With a gesture, they streaked for the closest knot of fiends, shredding them like dry leaves.

Alex waved his staff, casting haste magic on everyone.

Drestra was first, and he smiled in satisfaction when all of a sudden, the dragon’s speed doubled, sending the demons into panic. Next, he cast the spell on the warriors; their attacks struck with even greater speed and precision. Lastly, he conjured swarms of Wizard’s Hands to fan around them, lighting up the dark and interfering with monsters, tossing them around.

Some tumbled from the sky.

While others tumbled…right into Grimloch.

“Feeding frenzy!” The sharkman bellowed, leading the group toward the extraction point as Drestra criss-crossed the sky, his jaws snapping demons apart as the team followed him. He was laughing now, and his laughter held both anger and relief. “Roar with me!” He shouted at the others.

And Grimloch roared, a sound that his companions joined with zeal. Every bit of anger created by the wrath-field was released into the demons.Their rage finally had somewhere to go.

And Alex’s Wizards Hands whirled demons out of his path like tops.

Roaring together like a pack of behemoths, the companions fought their way through the tide of monsters—at first, tearing through them like Grimloch cutting through the sea. Soon though, since Tenebrama offered no place to take cover and fight from, the demons amassed again, their numbers increasing, swarming, seeming endless.

When the fiends began their rally, they came on hard.

The skies filled with soaring, diving bodies.

Demons began calling on their own magic, casting it down on the mortals.

Drestra flew into the path of crimson lightning bolts, deflecting them, letting them run off her scales like water. She kept roaring, sending cones of flame and war-spells onto the creatures, wreaking havoc through the horde.

But they kept closing on them, trying to form a ring.

And even the team’s ferocious assault, and Drestra’s dragonfear could not keep them all at bay. Demons were edging closer, swooping in, claws, weapons, spells and venom ready. Their magics struck nearer.

“There it is!” Grimloch bellowed. “There’s our extraction point!”

Drestra roared louder, chanting a spell and as the air seemed to ripple, the dragon shot fire from her claws while flame erupted from deep within her core.

“Alright then!” Cedric shouted. “Hold on, bash these bastards a bit longer! We’re almos’ out!”

Alex flinched, expecting the Chosen’s words to conjure some hidden titan-sized demon from thin air. Some terrible final challenger they’d have to strike down when they were so close to escaping.

…but no titan appeared.

And then Grimloch shouted the words they were all waiting to hear as he smashed a persistent demon with his maul, turning it to pulp. “We’re here! We made it!”

“That means it’s almost celebration time!” Thundar laughed, sounding elated.

Alex could feel something in the air—a bit of teleportation magic—as they approached a rock rise that resembled a twisted goblin: the extraction point.

Forming a circle around it, they prepared to defend themselves from the demons weaving toward them.

“They are stopping!” A massive demon raged in the sky. “Kill them! They mustn’t escape!”

And the monsters came for them from all sides.

But Alex was already smiling.

The moment they’d reached the extraction point, he could feel teleportation magic forming.

“Not today, demon,” he said lightly. “Maybe another day! Well actually, I’ll probably never see you again! Bye, bye!”

And the portal opened beneath Alex and his companions—like a great maw opening in mid-air—it rose up, consuming each team member in one swoop.

For an instant, the young, Thameish wizard was tumbling through space.

And then he was in the cave where earlier, they had left the material plane for Tenebrama. The portal they had come through was gone, and in its place, burnt a small, magical fire.

Beside it, Najyah was perched on a stalactite, while Brutus paced back and forth, sniffing the air, his whining filling the cave with their echoes.

His snouts shot up, sniffing faster…then he growled when an enormous dragon rose from a gate near Alex, the other companions soon followed.

Shocked silence held the group in place, the past moments sinking in. A feeling of great relief washed over Alex, blending with waves of emotional exhaustion. The wrath-field had been driving his heart to the limit, and now with its influence abruptly gone, a lethargy had seeped into his very bones and taken over.

There was no question: anger was exhausting.

He took a deep breath, steadying himself.

And then Drestra started talking.

“So…” her voice rumbled through the cavern. “...we need to talk. Obviously.”