Draconic
I walked out of the tent, I found Lyle. He snapped up expecting the sneak attack I was about to attempt at him, he was about a foot shorter than I, but he was the only beast fighter among my group. “Jaked, I’ve been your friend too long for that to work on me…” Lyle explained before jabbing me in the stomach as I was about to try on him. I saw him walk into Eli’s tent then I heard an “UGHHHH!!!!” yes Lyle had just jabbed Eli badly, that was even louder than normal. I never cease to be amazed when Lyle does that to one of his best friends in the world. I walked out to the centre of camp where Eli and Matthew were watching over breakfast, Eli didn’t really pay any attention to me, but Matthew snapped his head in my direction as I approached when he saw me coming by. He was assessing me as a threat I surmise, “I’m your ally remember?” I said, “I can’t be too sure…” Unfortunately he was right, I would betray them should there be a good enough reason. I would destroy my family should a good enough reason come along, but the reason for me to betray these friends was greater than that needed to drive me to destroy my family.
After breakfast I announced the goal of this expedition, “we are to acquire an alchemist stone before my brother can.” my friends found me to truly despise my brother the little bastard. They couldn’t blame me after tangling with us once. His name was tucker, my little brother. I knew that what he could use the stone for was of unfathomable evil, the ability to gain near limitless power. The means of how it would give the possessor that power was uncertain my best contacts within the field couldn’t give any guesses to how this power was conveyed.
We walked on till we saw a cave bristling with all matter of unpleasant forms of fire and traps unimagined to most a mind. A smell I knew as dead corpses wafted out from the cave. I knew he was already within. We proceeded, after defeating a large number of monsters e.g.: giant rats, dragons, innocent townsfolk. We came upon a chamber I felt a presence dominate. I recognized it as the horrid creature that is my brother. “COME ON OUT TUCKER! BEFORE WE MAKE YOU!!!” I screamed, he stepped out he looked disturbed with the stone, “please Jaked take it, I feel this thing is cursed.” He said frantically, I had seen a look of pure terror upon his face. I took the stone nonetheless knowing I had curse proof gloves, strangely enough a small number of instruction were inscribed upon the stone ,’welcome, you are an owner of a fine changing stone, 1. Insert in water, 2 bring to high boil, 3. Enjoy!’ this may not have been the ominous foreboding I expected, but this is somewhat disturbing that this was once commercially sold. Once we arrived at the camp, I began examining the stone more closely. It had a fine scale like texture upon it; it smelled not of sulfur nor iron, but a singed scent known as dragon breath. This stone had been digested by a dragon, how odd; they never’ve done that when I’ve seen them! I began preparing the stone and the boiling water, Eli, Lyle, and Matthew had come out to observe as I prepared it, when it began boiling, the cauldron exploded in all of our faces. We were all horribly scarred, the scars felt different, they seemed to feel better than the surrounding skin, somewhat scaly. Everybody noticed it as my poll suggested. The stone had not been damaged in the least, suggesting strong magic’s holding it together. Soon we began to notice the scars seemed to spread not heal. We wondered what the cause was, that night it was answered. I suddenly jolted up, I didn’t feel right, the joints on my body felt extremely stiff, I slowly realized I had changed, from that I was suddenly 8’ tall, and I felt like I was walking backwards from the way my legs moved, they were reversed, my feet had changed into 3 lethal talons, my hands were also changed into something similar. I could see better at night than ever before in my life, yes even better than teenager pumped up on adrenalin and testosterone. My shoulders had two extremities extending out from them. I flexed them experimentally, I soon found myself soaring, I developed a craving for meat, so I flew down and barbecued a deer. I felt bloated after swallowing it in one bite, but I also felt content. I returned to camp by dawn, my friends were all still asleep even after changing into dragons. Lyle was a wyvern, a bipedal dragon, while Eli and Matthew were heavily armored western dragons. I tried jabbing Eli in the stomach, but found he didn’t feel it or he was immune to such trivial amounts of pain, most likely both. I tried waking them, but found that everyone but Lyle was too tired to wake, Lyle woke up when I jabbed him in the stomach. “I recognized that move anywhere, but where is Alex?” he asked in a deep reptilian voice, “you are looking at him” I said somewhat irritated. He seemed to be surprised when I explained what had happened, he seemed to be itching to get flying. Soon he took off, I didn’t see him till noon when the other two dragons woke up from their deep transformation induced slumber, “welcome back from the land of nod!” I greeted them with. Matthew began breathing fire upon him so his cold blood could get moving; I tried the same and found it to work quite well. We could all stand upright, but found it somewhat uncomfortable. Around this time, Lyle approached carrying an elephant he had caught in a place he called Africa.
“Lyle, that’s the biggest cow I’ve ever seen!”, “Jaked, It’s not a cow it’s called an elephant by the natives around that part.” He said before letting loose a stream of green fire upon the elephant as he called it.
We ate well that day, but we were distracted by the food, and my brother who was an evil power-hungry alchemist was able to simply waltz into our camp and take the stone. Is that what it’s for? He thought to himself before running away.
“Where’s the stone?!” I yelled worried we lost it. “Jaked… your brother left us a note explaining that he took it” Matthew said calmly. Dear lord help us! I thought knowing what he would try. “Eli can you design us some armor that will fit us? being the engineer you are?” Eli nodded, I began building the plans for our own armor and weapons, Lyle took some ethanol potions (booze) so he could make himself a bunch of Molotov cocktails since he could no longer fight with his fists. I made myself a weapon of mass destruction, the atomic rifle a last resort weapon that will kill all including the firer within a 50 mile radius; I however only planned to use the rail gun I built as I was now strong enough to use it easily. Before going, I smelted enough pellets of iron for use in the rail gun to kill almost anything that wasn’t covered in draconic scales.
We arrived at my brothers’ castle and found that the moat was now filled with lava, Lyle took a dip in it. The castle was filled with many monsters and guards. I fought my way through them by hand. My body wasn’t too badly bruised in any of them. We came upon my brother, who had become a massive black dragon. Matthew and Eli tried to grapple with him, but he was too strong, I knew my brother would become this way with my constant attacks on him in every way, everyday possible. I fired my rail gun at him; he seemed to grin when he realized we couldn’t hurt him very easily if at all. I fired the rifle, it all went white. We never woke up, we were dead… but we had died fighting for what we knew was right, protection of the basic man from evil dragons like my brother… we would do it again if we could, but we can’t. <comments> </comments>
