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Memoirs of Dragora

By Arogard

Chapter 2: unwelcomed company

They were 2 days into their journey south, with Dragora checking in at every town to learn of stories of listening to rumors for anything about a war going on. It was the fifth town he stopped at that he heard of the war between Skrith family and the Scathen family. He heard they were to broad families with many supporters on each side that would have full, brutal clashes of their armies in the desert between them. He had also heard of the bandits in the woods being well supplied of late and are causing more trouble to the neighboring communities.

"Based on what i heard we have 2 things to do on our way south. One thing is we can clear the bandits near the towns to relieve tension and find who's supplying the bandits. Another is that we can find what sparked the war between the Skrith and Scathen families." said Dragora with his mind set already on the bandits.

"What are we waiting for then, let's go kick some bandit ass and be on our way, I have a bone to pick with a peculiar bandit local to here anyway." said Zerion, scowling at his past.

"Well we want to remain high on supplies anyway, so let's go ransack some bandits." said Slypnir with eagerness in his eyes.

"No fire spells Slypnir. We don't want the forest to share the same fate as your house." said Dragora, noticing the sparkle in Slypnir's eyes.

After that they came with a plan on how to sneak in to the bandit camp. They would pose as a single traveller delivering supplies to the bandits with the other two inside the caravan. Zerion agreed that he would be the deliverer on account of the rumor being that the courier gets to see the bandit lord himself. After in the camp, slypnir and Draagora would jump out eliminating anyone in the vicinity to avoid alarms being raised and Dragora would continue to drive the caravan up to the bandit lord's tent and provide support to Zerion. First thing the next morning they had everything set up.

"I hope this works; I'm a spell caster, not a fighter." Slypnir said nervously.

"Just keep your head down and your non-fire spells coming, I'll handle the close ones. Dragora replied in confidence.

"Okay, everything is good to go, let's roll." Zerion shouted from underneath the caravan, making it look full of supplies.

They got through the first gate to the camp no problem. When they came to the second gate however, they demanded to inspect the cargo. The bandit began removing the thick wall of supplies in the back one at a time until he got to the last wall between him and the 2 in the caravan. He removed the top 2 layers of supplies and began working on the 3rd when a scout came running saying a band of merchants are taking the "toll road" and they were unarmed. If one more layer was removed, he would have seen Dragora's spines sticking out. The inspector signaled the 2 gate guards to start packing and he ran off into what looked like a barracks. After it was packed back up, the second gate opened and Zerion hurried the caravan through quietly letting out a sigh of relief.

There they were, in the middle of the camp, and Zerion knocked subtly on the side of the carriage, giving the signal to attack this unpacking, and just as the rumors said, Zerion was guided into the bandit lord's quarters to be paid personally. Slypnir's sharp ears counted 6 different footsteps, un-packers on all sides, tearing away at the ropes and fastenings greedily.

"There's 6 around us. 3 unpacking the back, and one each on left, right, and front." Slypnir whispered anxiously, tensing up.

"the front one's going to be tricky to take out fast, but I can handle the back and left ones." Arogard replied grimly at the thought of the front bandit escaping and alarming the rest of the camp.

It was too late for Slypnir to reply, the last wall was being removed, 3 at a time. In one fell swoop, Dragora conjured up his sword and cut all the 3 down, throats slit. They both jumped out, Slypnir casting an ever-freezing curse on the one to the right, Dragora impaling the left one his sword's toothed, scythe-like end against the caravan through the right lung, and using his new-found power, summoned a grotesquely grooved ice pilum and threw it with all his force at the fleeing bandit. The projectile struck with the most deadly accuracy, with a sickening crack followed by a bit a gurgling, the bandit lay dead with a melting icicle stuck through the throat. Arogard fell to the ground, underestimating how much energy the summon would take out of him, and almost passed out from the fatigue.

"How did you know that spell? that's one of the hardest to cast in the magic school of ice. I'm surprised you didn't pass out upon summoning it..." Said Slypnir astonished at his beloved friend's power. "How long have you known it?"

"I...I don't know...I just heard an incantation in my mind..." Dragora grunted tiredly, phasing between concious and unconcious minds.

"Strange, I've heard of that from an ancient text before... no matter, you go lay in the caravan and I'll drive us to the estate." Slypnir said knowing his friend was too tired for anything.

Slypnir pulled the caravan into the courtyard just in time, for the fight between Zerion and the bandit lord smashed through the splintering doors of the estate.

Picking up the regal-dressed bandit by the throat, Zerion asked two words that would decide how the bandit would die. "Where's Arogard?" He asked sternly in a grim seriousness that implied he found the man that wronged him in the past and cost the lives of his family.

"In the back resting, he cast a spell my teacher wouldn't have dared to; I'm guessing that's the man you're looking for?" Slypnir asked him waving at the shadow of a once proud man in the hands of a deadly vengeance of justice.

"yes, and now I can call my oath fulfilled." Zerion stated, Pounding the man's face with his spiked cestus and throwing him to the ground like a used rag.

After they rejoined each other, they systematically took out each part of the camp, leaving the alarm system for last, it was not until this post that Dragora had enough strength to fight and insisted against Slypnir's pleading for him to be fully rested. Dragora pulled his sword out of the thick mahogony wall and shook the dead bandit off of it. This time he was not worried about a massive clash and was more concentrated in battle, reading the bandits moves and cleverly, but so gracefully countering them with deadly precision with the reach of the 5'6" sword against their reckless attacks. Slypnir stayed back, providing support magic and fighting off bandits with a small ebony stick he found before they put the plan into play. All the while Zerion, now even more cool and calm now that he had nothing to worry about, was countering every attempt to attack him, and was punishing for clumsiness with the fury of self-taught spiked cesti fighting, and demoralized his opponents even more with how gracefully he moved in his impossibly looking heavy armor.

Once they cleared out the camp the ransacked the storage area, taking what they could pack, while Dragora, intent on finding out who the suppliers were found a shocking reality; the crates were from Aerinia! While shocked, he had heard of renegade traders, providing anyone with weapons, but send shipments to the highest bidder.

"Oi, come look at this so I know I'm seeing this correctly..." Shouted Dragora rounding up his two companions.

"Aerinia!? agh, renegade traders care nothing for moral at least we can point them out if we see them. Let's take these name planks with us as proof when we come back." Snarled Zerion, hating to see his beloved home city's name smeared in such a way.

"Yep, that would be my neighbor, Qrenjin's signature." Slypnir Pointed out with a lack of surprise that caught Dragora's attention who began staring at him inquisitively. "Alright, okay, I admit I knew about secret shipments but I didn't think they were going to bandits, under-trained none the less."

"Well anyway, I agree with Zerion, let's pull off these nameboards." Dragora said, relieved that Slypnir didn't know who it was to.

After about 4 hours of board-pulling, 6 hours of packing supplies, and 3 hours of enjoying the pleasure of being able to sit and comfortably eat, they were agreeably deprived of sleep. Dragora, however was as restless as ever.

"I'll keep watch for the raiding party that was sent out, you two can sleep." He said in sincerity that convinced them he would not be swayed. Just as he suspected by midday he saw the ill-begotten carriage pull up to the gates. The party was bigger than he suspected, a band of a good 15 men guarded the caravan that came along ever so slowly. He jumped down from the tower with haste, with a fierce vigilance to protect his sleeping friends that would make a king's royal guard envious.

"YOU SHALL NOT PASS." Dragora said valiantly thinking to himself how he always wanted to say that.

"Alright, hard way it is, Surround 'im guys!" shouted the bandit getting off the carriage to join in the fight.

The bandits surrounded him systematically, but also unwisely. the circle was extremely crowded toward the inside of his stance and sparse on the outside. The leader gave the signal with a shout. The sparse side in his peripheral took his bait of not watching them and the ones who lunged forward were cleaved down by the razor-sharp edge of his sword, this demoralized the rest of the sparse side and enraged the compacted mass of bandits now in his main view. 4 of the five were deflected with such force that their weapons knocked themselves out. the last one that lunged at him landed a clumsy light scrape of the scales on his back with a club. Enraged by contact, Dragora picked the bandit up with the inner corner of his blade, half-cleaving into him and threw him into the thick mass of assailants knocking all of them off balance. With that advantage, He lunged at the light side, hooking an attacker's leg, tripping him up and impaling him into the dry earth. It was at this moment that Dragora felt his weakness for soul-binding his soul with wind. As his blade dug into the hard ground, he saw a wisps escape from both his sword and himself. He pulled the blade up instantly for fear that this was the side-affect of "soul-exposure" and was confirmed by him feeling a kind of void-emptiness for a moment and just as quickly as he pulled the sword out of the ground, he felt whole again, but now wasn't fully focused in the fight fearful for of his blade touching the ground.

"I see a weakness in this one, everyone focus on defense boys!" shouted the raid leader, which woke up Zerion from his very light sleep. He rushed outside and Ambushed the heavy side of bandits from behind, demoralizing the rest.

"Having a problem dispatching them?" asked Zerion in a playful voice, puncturing a bandit in the heart with one of his cesti.

"Not anymore, let's take care of them shall we?" replied Dragora newly moralized by his friend's presence.

There was only the leader left who was putting up quite a fight, and was obviously well trained.

"Just die already damn it, I wanna go back to sleep!" Zerion shouted sarcastically.

"Now why would I do that, obviously you've never fought a trained fighter." Snickered the leader.

"Agh, that's it!" roared Dragora, letting a hail of icicles rain upon the unknowing man. He was instantly thrown off guard by the icicles, in which one badly cut the fur on his back and barely avoided one that would've speared him through the head. After the small hail of icicles fall upon his foe, Dragora fainted to the ground as Zerion struck a death-blow to his chest, caving in his ribs to do the piercing.

"Hey, you there? He's dead, you can stop playing now... great now i have to haul your heavy ass back to the damn caravan..." said Zerion remembering him having to do the same thing in Aerinia.

Dragora woke up on a beach as if marooned, but it was a heavily foggy morning, and the sun was greatly dimmed.

"This place... I've been here before... but it wasn't foggy, it was very sunny and hot." Dragora thought to himself recalling one of his past dreams. "such a strange place, and that feeling of freezing again, where are you? I know you're here!" shouted Dragora insistently. Right, 'follow your will,' inside the forest then." Dragora said to himself. But there was no forest just and expansive plane of sand. "damned fog, and why is it so cold?" He started shouting into the grey that surrounded him. As he got frustrated at not finding a tree, he started feeling another sensation. Similar to the one he felt in his last dream, but he started getting hot quickly, uncomfortably hot...

"what's going on?!" he shouted as the fog started fading revealing a desert instead of a beach now. He stamped his foot into the dry cracked dirt and fell straight through, with him cursing all the way. Suddenly, he heard incantations as he fell into nothingness. Not wanting to land hard he muttered the incantations quickly as they were whispered in to his mind. On the last word, he fealt a sharp pain in his back and started slowing down quicker and quicker. He looked his shoulder to find... wings, of what seemed to be just flame. Dragora was one of the so to say, "cursed" draconians and never had the pleasure of flying. As the concept was all new to him, he started flapping like a child, unsure of how to control the new wings. He started thinking of going up to see if that would help any, and to his surprise, it worked. His descent turned into an ascent and as he reached the top, awoke suddenly and this time actually head butted Zerion.

"Okay no more sleep for you pal, that's the last time I haul your ass back to rest and have an encounter with your head!" Zerion shouted, gritting his fangs in pain and rubbing his head.

"Hahaha, I told you to stop leaning over him so much, at least I remember last time. Which element was it this time?" Slypnir asked stuporing down from the burst of laughter.

"Fire I think, and sorry Zerion." replied Dragora, patting Zerion on the shoulder.

"Well while you were asleep we packed everything up to go." Zerion said, grabbing Dragora's hand Worriedly, concerned about the sudden black-outs of his friend lately.

"Then let's go to the families' manors and see what the fuss is about." Dragora said, gripping Zerion's hand in reassurance. "off to the desert."