Just because we were the closest to Noknok Dor and his group’s last known location didn’t mean that we were close. It took us several hours to get to the place they had decided to rest at when they reached out to Justisius, and the sky had long since turned dark. Luckily for us, it was a beautiful night out. Some of us were able to rest while others kept watch.
The starry horses and Moose could all see well enough to get us where we were going, and Dalsarel’s eyes could see through the darkness as if it were bright out. She stayed vigilant even with Himia’s assertion that she had chosen the path of least resistance when it came to anyone who would be hostile on sight.
It was important to be cautious, especially here.
Our destination became evident when we came across a clearing that had obviously been messed with. There were logs that had been cut down so people had places to sit, the beginnings of a campfire that had never been lit, and there was one of those new wagons that used magic crystals to move instead of animals.
They must have brought that with them via several extradimensional bags and put it together here. A pain, to be sure, but not everyone had a spell as convenient as Ferrisdae’s Skymirror Carriage.
Cojisto had already dismounted from Moose and was looking around the campsite by the time we arrived. He had a magical torch, basically just a stick with a glowing crystal on the end, that illuminated the area so he could see properly. Moose stood in the middle of the clearing as if to stay out of his friend’s way.
We, too, left the Skymirror Carriage. Ferrisdae kept her spell active as we weren’t exactly sure which direction we’d need to go yet and recasting it would take extra time and effort. Tabitha retrieved Britear from her back and lit her aflame, casting a bright green light across the clearing.
Tracking wasn’t my specialty, but I knew the Human was pretty good at that so I left it to him. I set a hand on the pommel of the crystalline sword as I took my own look around. There was no reason I couldn’t try to figure out what happened while he picked up the trail.
No matter what angle I searched from, there didn’t seem to be any signs of foul play around. No broken branches or disrupted patches of grass from someone digging in before a swing. No sign of spells being slung around, or at least none that didn’t affect the target immediately. There weren't even the telltale signs of a quick escape or ambush.
By all appearances, it seemed as though Segrech’s team from the Clergy Faction just up and left on their own accord.
I clicked my tongue in frustration before sending a message to Justisius that we had arrived. They might not want to follow protocol for whatever reason, but that didn’t mean I was going to disregard it.
“Find anything yet, Cojisto?” I asked impatiently.
“Someone’s a messy eater,” he replied after looking inside their wagon. “It’s kind of gross, actually. Just crumbs and flecks of food everywhere. I thought clerics were supposed to be clean.”
“Everyone’s different, but I’m going to need you to focus,” I sighed, rubbing my forehead.
“You’ve got it,” he replied before he continued his search.
Tabitha ran her fingers across my shoulders as she passed by on the way to help Cojisto search, and I took a calming breath. There wasn’t anything to do but wait and see what they came up with. We already had confirmation that no one on their team used the Teleportation Drafts, so they had to be around here somewhere.
I pulled out the map to look at it again. We were situated a few miles into free territory, where the dungeons had reverted back to their proper owners due to the properties of the Nexus. Whatever was out here was probably going to be hostile to us, but only if we fought inside their domain. Only the most zealous of cult members would give up their conditional immortality for CC.
“Found something!” Cojisto announced, and I immediately started rolling the map back up.
“What do you have?” I asked as the group approached his location.
“They definitely went this way,” he said confidently, pointing towards a mostly dry riverbed that had been hidden by the trees. Following the tracks, the man squatted down to make sure that he was seeing things right. Even with our time table, I appreciated that he was double checking. “Yeah, for sure. I count eight sets of footprints, with a Halfling in the lead followed by a Kobold. No other team had one, right? I don’t remember any.”
“There weren’t any,” Ferrisdae confirmed. “Which means this is definitely the right place. They’re heading, what? East?”
Cojisto looked around for a moment. “East, slightly southeast,” he confirmed before he started moving again.
There was still a trickle of water splitting the riverbed, but it wasn’t anything we would have any trouble crossing. I followed directly behind him while Tabitha took up the rear so our two light sources could illuminate more. While I could have pulled out my flaming longsword, I didn’t need to yet.
Not that I wanted to since it would be a source of fire that couldn’t be controlled like Britear’s. The trees and brush here were thick, making it very easy for Cojisto to continue tracking. It seemed as though we were going further into no man’s land, and I didn’t like it.
“Himia,” I said.
The next moment, she appeared next to me. “Yes, Inspector?”
I looked up at the Information Elemental. “Do you have any inkling of what we’re heading towards?”
“On that front, I have both good news and bad news,” she answered. “The bad news is that I was not able to get much information on the area of the Dungeon Nexus’ web before the connection was severed.”
“But the good news is?” I urged with a frown.
“The good news is that I do remember what is in this direction, and I am fairly certain that it would be able to live long enough that my knowledge is not obsolete.”
“Well, that is good news,” Cojisto said.
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“Not entirely,” Tabitha replied with a shake of her head. “Most things that live that long only grow more powerful with age so, depending on what it is, we might be in for a bigger fight than we wanted to get into at this time.”
“Ah, right. I wasn’t thinking about that,” the Human admitted, though the prospect of whatever it is being strong didn’t seem to deter him all that much. In fact, he seemed giddy.
“Damn adventurers,” I muttered.
“You say something, Badger?” Cojisto asked, not looking back.
I decided not to answer that. “Himia, what do you remember being here?”
“Shortly before we had to flee, the Dungeon Master, Master of Dungeons, had set an egg to hatch nearby,” the Information Elemental answered.
“Nothing good hatches from eggs and lives until they’re multiple centuries old,” Dalsarel sighed.
Himia nodded. “In this case, it was a Shadow Dragon.”
“Son of a bitch,” I cursed, resisting the urge to punch the nearest tree.
“Are you swearing because it means we’re coming up on a centuries old Dragon or because you’ve heard of them before?” Tabitha asked.
“Both. I have heard of them, but I’ve never seen one because they’ve been extinct for the past seven centuries,” I answered sullenly. “Segrech’s clergy hunted them down.”
Ferrisdae missed a step, almost falling on her face if I hadn’t reached back and grabbed her. “Thanks,” she said before shaking her head. “They killed off an entire race of Dragons?”
“On our continent, yes,” I replied. “Segrech is the god of the sun and light, so they’re clearly anathema to the faith. As if that’s not enough, I’m pretty sure the stories about them eating light in all of its forms are correct and not just something the church came up with to make themselves look better.”
“That is correct, Inspector,” Himia confirmed, gesturing forward. “They are fearsome creatures who are able to create areas of absolute darkness. In addition, light sources that are immune to this effect, which generally need to be made so powerful, can be eaten directly by the Shadow Dragon. They grow faster this way than they do actually eating.”
“So Noknok and his team either came this way so they could kill something that, by its very nature, offends their god, or because Luculus Rex is there,” Dalsarel stated.
“Or,” Ferrisdae immediately interjected. “Both are true, and the reason why the expeditions had never found it is because the Shadow Dragon ate it. How powerful could it have been with a couple centuries of being fed divine light? Because, let’s face it, Luculus Rex isn’t going to deteriorate inside a monster’s stomach. It’s a church-defining relic.”
A quiet chill ran through us as we pondered that question. Himia didn’t seem to have an answer for it, either, which spoke of how dangerous this might be for us.
“Hopefully, Noknok and his team are prepared to fight something like that,” I said, scowling at how asinine this whole detour was. “But, if not, then we’ll decide when we get there. Hopefully they haven’t done anything stupid.”
“Fingers crossed,” Cojisto said from the front of the line, and Moose nodded.
“On the bright side,” Himia started, gesturing ahead of us. “We are moving closer to the location of the hatching site. If it has not relocated in all this time, then we can expect it to be there.”
“Fantastic,” I muttered, shaking my head. “Just what we need to hear.”
The team fell silent as Cojisto continued to lead us forward. We reached a tall cliff face and paused while he made sure that we picked the right direction to follow. After about a half minute, he nodded to himself and started southward. All the while, I was lost in thought.
Cojisto and Tabitha were going to have issues as neither could see in the dark. I had my Darklight Goggles, which magically let me see through darkness as if it were bright and vice versa, and I knew that Ferrisdae also had a pair. Dalsarel didn’t need it since she was a race that was naturally acclimated to the kind of environment we were going into.
Which just left Moose, and I eyed him curiously. “How well can Moose see in the dark?”
“Better than everyone here except Dals and maybe Himia, but if it’s magical darkness then he’s going to have trouble,” Cojisto answered quickly. Moose snorted and grunted for a moment, and the man grinned. “Oh, really? No kidding?”
“Translation,” I sighed.
“Right. He says he actually has a spell for that now. Kind of.”
“Kind of in what way?” I asked, frowning.
“He can light up with healing energy, and people can touch him to—”
“Denied,” I interrupted vehemently. “Not only will that be lighting up our healer like a beacon, but did you forget the part where the Shadow Dragon eats light?”
“Right, yeah. Guess that won’t be good,” Cojisto said seriously. “So what’s the plan?”
Just as I was about to answer, a gloom fell over the party, causing everyone else but Himia to shiver. We had just crossed into the dungeon, and I recognized the draconian tyranny in the way it pushed me down.
“That confirms that there’s a Dragon,” I grumbled loud enough for everyone to hear.
Moments later, a cave entrance appeared in the stone cliff. It wasn’t nearly big enough for a Dragon the size we were expecting to come and go, but there was room for us to pass even with Moose. Even I could see that the tracks turned downwards, and I told Cojisto to stop.
“We might not want to pause for too long,” Dalsarel said, frowning. She had her head tilted so one of her long ears was facing the entrance. “I can hear fighting.”
“Damnit,” I swore as I reached into my Dimensional Pocket and retrieved my Darklight Goggles.
Once they were on, the area around us went dark from the light, but I could see everything beyond it clearly. I motioned for everyone to follow me as I entered the cave. It didn’t take long before I could hear what Dalsarel clearly could.
We started rushing, though I kept an eye open for traps. Sound echoed easily throughout the tunnel, and I could hear something massive and the sound of spells being cast. I couldn’t detect any light, which made sense considering what they were up against.
The path led us on a gradual, winding downward slope for nearly three hundred yards before we reached a wall of darkness. Thanks to the Darklight Goggles, the area showed up to me as a solid area of bright light, as if it were noon on a very sunny day, and I could see beyond it.
Five of the eight clerics were down, and I couldn’t tell if they were dead or unconscious. They were bloody at the very least, and some had even lost limbs to the beast.
Two of their number stood in front of them, frantically casting spells. All of their healing was going into one of their members, and it didn’t seem like they could expend any effort on their people behind them.
Noknok Dor was going claw to claw with the largest Dragon I had ever laid eyes on. It had to have been at least twice as large as Oristrella, with pitch-black scales that seemed darker than black and eyes as tall as I was. The monster seemed to lazily fight the Kobold in front of him, more amused than threatened, like a cat playing with a mouse.
To his credit, it did seem like Segrech’s warpriest had dealt some damage to the Dragon. It just wasn’t enough to get it to take him seriously.
I didn’t waste any time after I got the lay of the land. “Tabitha, set up triage here with Moose and Cojisto. Dalsarel, drag the clerics back here to get healed before joining us on the frontline. Ferrisdae, put on your Darklight Goggles and provide buffs and support where you can. If you think you can overcome its innate resistance to magic, go on the offensive but not so much that you grab its attention. I’m going straight to Noknok.”
“Should we join you after the clerics are back on their feet?” my wife asked, gripping Britear tightly.
“If we need you, I’ll call you, but your flames might just make things worse,” I answered honestly as I retrieved my Hilt of Holding. She grimaced, but nodded in understanding. “Alright, move! We’ve got some clerics to help!”
