Dragon(s)layer

31

The Roseways

{Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion OST: Dungeon Theme 1}

"Ouch! Watch those horns, Cyrila!" Ignitia yipped.

"How do you think I feel? Me, with your backside in my face?" -Cyrila squawked back. "This is horrible and unacceptable! I think we should turn back, and I think I should be in front!"

"There are two things wrong with that option." The Fallen called back from the head of the group. "It's impractical, for starters, but the most important problem, is your complaining about that fine piece of crimson booty."

Ignitia went cherry-red, and Cyrila was so horrified, that she couldn't muster the proper response. Not much banter followed or preceded this, though, how much of this was because of the prior comment, and how much because of the misery clogging the tunnel, was unknown.

Razoruk was stone-silent from his place just behind the Fallen and Spyra, and most of the bickering between the two Guardians was kept to a minimal silence from that point onward. This left the only source of ambience as the wet, crackly fall of heels in the humus of the tunnel's floor, and the occasional, yawning sigh that the guts of the tree breathed across them in periodic bouts. If one closed their eyes, and tuned out the prolonged pauses between these gusts of air, it was easy to falsely assume that they were standing in the windpipe of a colossal organism. It must have bothered Spyra quite a lot, seeing as her usual pep and spice was basically nonexistent, and her commentary had been kept at an uncharacteristic low.

Lilith was the only one who kept any form of dialogue going. The tunnel was long enough that she certainly had the time to ask questions, and she out of all them was the least bothered by the alien anatomy of the tunnel.

Ignitia filled her in on the majority of the details: the battle in front of the castle, their destruction of the Forlorn Watch, Cynder's repeated attempts on their lives (though she left the Cloud Ripper's escapades with the Fallen out, conveniently) –and the kidnapping of Volteera.

"Avalar is long past the root system of the Suntree." Lilith murmured, grunting as the roofs of her wings brushed against the vine-nets making the cramped tunnel's ceiling. "That doesn't mean it isn't linked to it distantly, but I fear that wouldn't be enough for me to search the tracts of the forest there for Lady Volteera. Unless…"

"Unless what?" Ignitia couldn't look back at her over the tunnel's confines and Cyrila's head and shoulders.

"Honestly, Ignitia, you really should focus on losing a bit of weight." Cyrila hissed to her in some vain attempt of privacy. "What have you been doing lately? You used to be so much more… lean."

"Oof." The Fallen cringed, glancing over his pauldron. "Jesus."

"While I do appreciate you being so judgmental and rude, really, I don't see how this is pertinent." Ignitia blushed, mortified. She sounded like Terra had, when Spyra had run her mouth back at the Guardian Temple. "Please continue, your Majesty."

"Oh! No, no 'Majesty'-, you need not be so formal with me, Lady Ignitia…" Lilith smiled. "It feels strange coming from you, my usual titles. You may call me Lilith."

"If that would make you happy, my lady." Ignitia conceded. "By the way, who were you speaking with through the Vision Pool when we found you, if I may ask?"

"-Nobody." Lilith blurted. She cleared her throat in the resultant stillness. "-I mean, uh… a friend, someone far west, past Warfang, yes."

Ignitia gave a little hum when the queen didn't specify a name. The Fallen- who had perked up and nearly stopped in his tracks –processed what the Queen had said, and let it go with a satisfied harrumph.

Nobody.

He really was everywhere.

"And who might this friend be?" The Guardian of Ice respected privacy much less than her fiery counterpart. Cyrila had been nosy for as long as Ignitia could remember, but it never got easier to stand regardless.

"The queen may wish to keep such knowledge private." Ignitia suggested patiently. "She isn't bound by the same writs as we are, remember."

"Not officially perhaps." Cyrila harrumphed. "But there is still something known as common decency, especially among hens in positions of power."

"Oh no, don't tell me you people have that sort of problem here too." The Fallen rolled his eyes.

"The queen's business is her own." Razoruk snapped. "Do not pester her, Guardians. We are in her house, and her say goes."

Unbelievably, that silenced Cyrila, purely for its logic. She still gave a muted grunt, because it was a male talking her down. Razoruk took the small victory with a grumble, sneering at the cramped confines of the tunnel brushing against his one wing. Still, Spyra struggled in just letting the edge drift away from the conversation, morbidly fascinated as she was. The Fallen had to suppress an urge to politely ask her to shut up.

"Never thought I'd hear an old person complaining about other old people." Spyra quipped over her wing.

"Me? Old?!" Cyrila squawked on reaction. Ignitia was much more controlled and just ignored it.

"There is much to complain about." Razoruk simmered. "For it seems I can flee nowhere outside the bounds of molestation. First, the Dark Army tries to kill me, then a Guardian, and now two Guardians. I should be embarrassed that the Purple Dragon of all wyrms is the one to witness me at my lowest."

"For what it's worth: I am sorry about the way you've been treated." The Fallen said lowly from the head of the procession. "And I'm sorry for pointing my weapon at you."

"It isn't worth very much." Razoruk frowned. "You have the gall to speak to me after your little games back in the forge, and the commentary I know you utter behind my back."

"I respect your service, and that's all there really is to it." The Fallen clarified sternly. "I think I can say the same for Spyra. In the interest of evening the argument out."

"S'no argument from me." Spyra wing-shrugged. "I'm just naturally predisposed to pushing dragons' buttons. I should know, my ma's the Southern Queen-Hippie and I still got her to want to strangle me when I was a hatchling. Attitude's the works, folks, hyeh-heh."

"Your mother was a queen too?" Lilith eagerly- and naively –called.

"Pfft, fat chance. If she was, she had to have the worst court in the friggin' world for me to turn out the way I did." Spyra chuffed.

"I'm quite an avid admirer of the way you 'Turned Out'." The Fallen blinked.

"Small crowd you're in, dude." Spyra rolled her eyes. "Gettin' smaller every day too. Not that I care. If ya' can't deal with the Spyra-Style, that's on you." She glanced around at the tight tunnel. "This ain't so bad in here actually. It even kinda' smells like home back in the swamps, just a little less uh… noxious."

"You can fart again to fix that." The Fallen smirked.

"No~!" –All four other dragons barked at once, much to Spyra's amusement.

"It's just past this turn." Razoruk stated. "Watch your horns."

"Uh-huh." The Fallen gave a quick glance up in edging for his own scalp as he took the last step forwards.

There was a ridge of wood, and the tunnel terminated, funneling out and upwards for a large chamber completely overgrown with vines from top to bottom.

Clusters of green Mana Crystals sprouted from the corners of the earthen cavity like bouquets of flowers, and fireflies were frequent as little pulsing, yellow orbs bobbing around the air. The northern facing of the chamber was overcome with a pair of great double-doors made of solid stone etched with blue trims. The gates were sealed via a brambled arch encrusted with little white-petaled rose vines and nestings of fireflies. Roots snaked like spidery limbs up and down the doors' flesh, and they each were parted right down the middle, their masses struggling against a foreign force squeezing its way slowly but surely through the gap.

More vines, but ones not natural to this place, bisected the facing of the gates, giving the party pause. They stopped in the center of the chamber, staring at what looked like a cluster of wriggling, purple-black fingers covered in barbed spines. The invasive roots were arm-thick, and they produced quiet crunching and shuffling noises as the more active specimens of their cluster flexed in the air like dog tails through thick water. Whatever the roots belonged to was pushing the gateway open, only held at bay by a silvery wrappage of chains and a padlock linking the gateway handle-grips.

"Look at that." Spyra whispered.

"I'm taking it's not supposed to look like that normally?" The Fallen glanced at the Queen and Razoruk.

"No." The latter shook his head. "Those dark roots have been breaching the doors to the Roseways inch by inch, for days, weeks probably."

"The lock and my wards have kept it from getting any closer to the tree." Lilith swallowed, staring at the Fallen's back for longer than she would've wished. "I told you all, see? The Dark Master has planted something horrible inside the Roseways."

"I didn't know Malefora fancied herself an evil botanist." Spyra chuffed, examining the crack in the gateways as she nosed closer.

"I wouldn't get that close-" The Fallen held out a gauntlet.

"Ahh balony, dude, I'll be fine." She dismissed the human with a swish of her tail and a raspberry. As soon as Spyra got close enough, the dark roots bulged and the chains strained with shrieking clinks, making her dance away. "-Ah-! Shit! It's alive!"

"Stand back." The Fallen took his hand from the Nano-box, waiting for the Doomblaster to materialize in his grip. "I'll shoot it away."

"You can't! No physical attack can get through the wards." Lilith interjected. "The chains and lock are magical, and, about the roots-"

"We've tried." Razoruk said. "We've tried burning them, slashing them, and hacking at them. They just regrow or aren't even impacted. The roots can sense you. They'll lash out if you get too close, and those thorns can puncture chainmail, I've seen it."

"How are we supposed to get close enough to unlock the doors then?" Spyra scoffed, watching as one of the dark tentacles slithered up and from under the chains. She yipped when the limb slashed in her direction with an angry burble. "-Ah-! Fucknuggets, man! Get away from me, you fuckin' weed, or I'll torch your rooted ass!"

"Fire is useless against it." Ignitia reminded.

"Oh yeah? Try me! Let's burn."

Spyra's roar rebounded everywhere as she belched out a cone of flickering Flames that engulfed the doors. When the Fire whooshed away, and the air cindered, all that remained was a blackened lick of soot down the center of the gates.

The roots didn't have any visual damage on them, not even stray ash.

"…Shit." The purple dragon blinked.

Just to try, the Fallen lined up his blaster and fired a single shot. The plasma smacked into one of the thick vines in the cluster, and it burst into nothingness via a quick bolt of misting pink. The affected tentacle jerked under the hit, but then swayed back into place with a displeased gurgle, as if nothing had occurred.

"…Shit indeed." He mumbled, lowering his arm.

"What a dilemma." Cyrila sighed. "And dilemmas are time-consuming."

"Let's brainstorm." Ignitia paced a little bit. "Fire is useless, blades and claws are useless, the Fallen's energy weapons are useless, and we need to get those roots away from the doors before we open them."

"Yeah, it looks like a whole bunch of the things have bundled up on the other side." Spyra squinted as she tried to look through the gate's slit. "We open these doors, and it'll be like lettin' a floodgate loose."

"This is why I've only been able to stop the poison plant spreading beyond the doors. I can't reclaim ground it's taken!" Lilith cried. "It's probably infested the Roseways, and all the tombs too."

"Maybe I can-" Wh-CHHSK~!

The Fallen had his speech silenced when he stepped too close, and one of the vines lashed out to smack him across the mouth.

Luckily, his helmet was there, and his energy shields were active to protect him from the crushing blow. Still, his shields flared a flickering white for a second as he stumbled back.

"Right." He growled, steadying himself. The tendril whipped at him angrily when it found it could not strike him a second time. He snarled at it and gave his neck a crack.

These vines were no joke. He'd lost a little chunk of his shields to that blow, and it was done with enough force that his suit's joint-locks had to be turned on to prevent his spine from twisting too far. Normally, he only needed those things for when something as big as a troll sent him flying, or when a titan went to step on him.

Or, when a very angry and jealous dragoness found out for the first time about his infidelity.

But that was neither here nor now.

"I hate weeds." Spyra sneered. "Our luck, that the the deranged bitch in the volcano sends a killer dandelion to stop us. What's next, flesh-eating squash? Blood-sucking Daphodilles? Come on people, there's gotta' be something we can do!"

"Hey," The Fallen pointed, desperate to tear his mind off his inner conflictions. "you."

"Me?" Ignitia blinked.

"No, not you, you, Cyrila."

The Ice Guardian stopped inspecting her forepaw's talons, and raised a brow at the human.

"I hope you aren't attempting to earn my attention with that tone." She said, unimpressed.

"None of the dragons in Oversight have been able to use Ice Breath on the vines, right?" The Fallen asked Lilith.

The queen and Razoruk looked at each other.

"…Uhm… no?" Lilith squeaked, cocking her head at her bodyguard.

"No." Razoruk shook his head. "I'm a Fire Drake, and my element waned years ago. None of the other palace guards were of the descent of Ice. Why?"

"Most plants can't survive in the cold, and since these vines are shielded by dark magic, maybe cold magic will be enough to hurt them." The Fallen reasoned.

"An excellent idea!" Ignitia smiled. "Cyrila, try your Ice Element on the gates. Maybe you can drive the Dark Plant back!"

"Hey! What am I, chopped liver?" Spyra hopped up, trying to put herself between the taller Guardian and the human with a cute- yet angry –flap of her wings. "I have Ice Breath too! I'll do it!"

"Oh, I didn't mean to minimize your potential, Spyra, but," Ignitia paused. "-but Cyrila is a master of the Ice Element, and we don't know how this will cause the plant to react, and-"

"Cyrila, come on, we need you." The Fallen stepped aside and pointed at the gates.

"Goodness. The nerve." Cyrila guffawed, giving her wings a haughty fluff. "And the irony, that this comes from the same sky warrior whom so disrespected me with your vile, adulterated, and venomous vocabulary."

"I… don't think I could've made my words half of those things if I had tried." The Fallen blinked deliriously, like she had struck him across his un-helmed, exposed face.

"Regardless, sky warrior, I shan't even acknowledge you with that kind of language having been passed over your tongue like misting poison in my direction. To whom do you dare make such demands, now? In the wake of your insults? I am a wyrm of the fairer sex, and yet here you are, some ruffian, palavering your demands to me as if I am one of your smelly, adolescent friends."

"-Wait, what? D-Demands? Palaver- Nonono," He shook himself. "-You're kidding, right?"

"Hmmph." Cyrila pouted, nose upturned, eyes sealed. The gate creaked as the dark vines encrusting it flexed, as if emboldened by the Guardian's pigheadedness.

She really was a piece of work. Somehow though, for him, that just made her a bit more… well, sexy.

"Imagine the day where I'd have to be the one to tell you to focus!" Conscience guffawed, pacing impatiently behind the Guardians.

"Look, no plants like the cold." The Fallen reasoned, ignoring his other half. "Besides pine trees and some other exceptions, this thing looks like a giant rose bush gone awry. Roses wilt in extremely cold weather, it kills them."

"Yes, once more, a good idea! Cyrila, try to breathe Ice on the door." Ignitia repeated. "Please?"

"If the beast could withstand the attack power of the oh-so-undefeated sky-warrior, what makes you think my lowly, underappreciated Ice Element will be any more effective?" Cyrila rebuked. "I know when I'm being insulted, and I do not appreciate it. Not at all."

"Alright that's it, lemme' at her-"

"Nono, just wait." The Fallen stopped Spyra. "Cyrila, please try. You might be our only hope."

"That didn't sound sincere in the slightest." Another up-turned snout. "Hmmph."

Not as sincere as your narrow waist and full hips… The Fallen hungrily thought, his bugged eyes sweeping down the curvaceous, ice-blue body of the Guardian in a moment of distraction.

"Something tells me she won't appreciate that as a compromise." Conscience said with disappointment. "You're free to try though."

"Cyrila, please stop giving us a hard time." Ignitia begged. The gate creaked, and the fat, bulbous and evil vines crumpled in the dark, earning a worried glance from her. "I think these dragons' lives are just a bit more important than your pride."

"That's easily said from any outside party." Cyrila rebuked. "I refuse any aid until I am properly addressed."

"What does that even mean?" The Fallen blinked.

"Hmmph."

"God damn it, lady, we don't have time for this-"

Cyrila scoffed with a pitying look for a moment, but right after that, it was back to- "Hmmph~."

"Oh man, I like her." Conscience jabbed a thumb, even as the Fallen's face flushed red from his temper getting a firm grip on him. "Think about the dirty teacher scenarios her British-sounding voice would be perfect for! OhhhHhhhyesss~ Would you like to cum into my parlor, hmmm?" -Conscience mimicked, fluttering his eyelids.

The Fallen sneered at his doppelganger.

"The periods of time where you disappear, are probably the highlights of my life." The Fallen mumbled. "FYI: you're not helping."

"Lies and slander, sir! You'd be in some pretty bad spots lately if it wasn't for me." Conscience shook his head. "Someone's gotta' give you a kick in the pants once and awhile. Who else would you rely on? Dischtill? That guy can't even get the smell of ranch Doritos off of himself, much less be your personal alarm clock. Most people aren't fortunate enough to have an identity crisis that values self-preservation. Your ungratefulness offends me."

Suddenly, from thin air, a dirty old boot materialized, flying past the Fallen's shoulder, before smacking Conscience right in the face.

With the heel.

P-DNK~! "-OW-~!" Conscience cried, falling over and gripping at his pained head. He looked incredulously at the boot lying beside him. "-How the fuck did you do that?!"

"…I can't believe that actually works." The Fallen smiled in excitement. "Note to self, a.k.a you: thinking about objects hitting you in the face is effective."

"You dick-lipped rubber-duck violator."

"How's it feel to be in the other boot?" The Fallen flexed his brows. "Finally, some damned leverage with you. I was giving up hope."

"Two can play at that game, sir!" Conscience exploded, jumping to his feet.

"Oooo, I'm shaking in my snakeskin boots."

"Take that~!" Conscience made a stylized karate-chop through the air, pointing two fingers at the Fallen's crotch.

Dink-~!

"-Ouch." He hissed.

"Ha! You may have the reins on the aerial boots, my good man, but I can make you sprout a surprise-chumpy whenever I feel like it!" Conscience cackled victoriously.

"Heyhey, I heard Little Fallen calling my name." Spyra winked at him, rubbing her hip into his leg as she stared at his codpiece plating. "After this is all over, you're mountin' me. My egg-cooker needs some dusting."

Sex sex sex, always back to the sex. The Fallen was a man who survived off the stuff, but sometimes it got a bit old. He glared at the space Conscience had been standing, somehow disappointed that he couldn't continue the make-believe duel.

"Guardian of Ice, Commander of the Wings, Lady Cyrila." The Fallen blurted out, and all at once, Ignitia and Cyrila stopped bickering, and Lilith and Razoruk turned their attention from them and onto him. "If you would please lend us your skill in getting past this door, which we're all incapable of breaking through, you'd be doing the realms a huge, and generous service, graciously forgiving us for our transgressions upon your good name, and proving your betterment regardless."

Cyrila blinked a few times as she lowered herself away from Ignitia. She opened her mouth- probably to respond with an insult as she had always been doing –and shut it immediately. She hadn't been expecting someone to actually… well… listen to her nitpicking.

"…Ahm… ahem." She coughed into her paw. "…W-Why of course, yes, I will offer my services for this ehm… trial… Because indeed, my intelligence, and station, demands me to put aside lesser offenses beneath myself in the interest of the greater good..."

Ignitia shared with her a confused blink.

"That was somehow above and below your usual quota all at once." Spyra gave him a funny look as they both stepped away for Cyrila to make room. "That was all a guise, right?"

"Of course it was." He grunted too low for Cyrila to hear. A spontaneous guise, but a guise nonetheless.

Cyrila prostrated herself before the gates and took a deep breath. With a cold whoosh of air, the Ice Dragon opened her maw, and an explosive tsunami of billowy, white energy tumbled forth and smashed into the doors.

Over the scream of the blizzard, all of them heard an unnatural shriek. The vines crunched and squelched, and little by little, the gates began to reseal themselves completely closed, the dark tentacles receding under the crushing duress of the Guardian's breath attack.

"Yes! That's it, Cyrila! You did it!" Ignitia cheered. "The dark vines are retracting!"

"-Someone unlock those blasted gateways, quickly!" Cyrila huffed, cutting off her attack.

Spyra took up the keyring and bulleted across the chamber.

"Brrrgghh, talk about chilly…" She muttered, gripping the blazing cold padlock and stuffing the key inside the slit. The padlock uncuffed and broke off, the chains clambering onto the dirt. Spyra whistled and leaped away. "Alright, clear!"

"Get back!" Cyrila cried.

No sooner did Spyra leap away did the doors fly open with a groaning squeal. They each slammed into the walls with deep claps of thunder, and a bushel of dark tendrils swam and undulated into the chamber with fury, whipping, cracking, and constricting in their quest to spread through the now freed arch.

Cyrila's icy breath crackled the air with frost as she drove a fresh wave of it into the center of the tendrils, fluorescent blue light painting the edges of all the dragons' and the human's faces with stark, otherworldly reality.

The dark plants shrieked, and the vines curled away in agony from the assault, their purplish-flesh burning into a deathly, mottled gray as the magical plumage washed over them in bouts, causing their once amethyst-colored flesh to boil, crack, scab, and trail steam.

"They're pulling back more!" Ignitia yelled over the noise.

"-Pah-!" Cyrila hacked, her lungs deflated from the effort. "-T-They- *cough* -best be-!"

The vines slithered deeper down a long tunnelway, like an army of retreating, massive snakes. They left behind frostbitten chunks and smaller tendrils that had snapped off during the assault, some of the latter twitching minutely like dying worms on the ground.

"Lady Cyrila did it!" Lilith cheered.

"…Pfftyeah, well… I coulda' done it too…" Spyra grumbled, kicking one of the dying and convulsing twigs.

"Way to make room." The Fallen smirked. "Come on everybody, the world isn't going to save itself."

"…I never thought I would look upon the Roseways with such dread before." Lilith's mood simmered into something much more blue. The distant creaks and groans of the Dark Plant's limbs echoed down at them from the shadows of the tunnel, making her shiver inside her own scales. "Look at how dark the tunnels have become. They aren't supposed to be like that."

"Hey, listen, if being a virulent landscaper lets me kick some ass, I'm all game." Spyra sneered as the last tendril slipped wetly around a corner at the end of the tunnel. "That tunnel's wide enough for two. I'm on point with ya' this time, Fallen."

{🐉}

The tunnels they passed through were usually encrusted with undulating carpets of vines, and occasionally, they transitioned to artificially made catacombs, complete with ancient dragon statues wracked with creepers and missing chunks of stone. Torches made certain that amber bubbles of light were speckled among the usually grim blackness, proving as an adequate method of pathfinding for the group.

Between that, were clusters of Mana Crystals. The gems seemed in abundance down here due to the high amounts of energy from the Suntree's roots, and the burial cists lining some of the walls. Beside some of these burial rows, scripture riddled the surfaces of plaques that sometimes evolved into fully-fledged, but ultimately illegible murals. There was part of the Fallen that was disappointed by the fact nonon3 was able to read their contents, as he passed each slab by.

According to Queen Lilith, these tunnels were even older than the ill-fated Stormwatch and the Forlorn. Thus, the degradation was expected, however, something not appreciated.

"I haven't been down here in a very long time." Lilith spoke aloud in the groaning din of the otherwise silent atmosphere. "When I was a hatchling, the Roseways terrified me. I could never brave them by myself, not until I was older, and when mother was in such poor health that she couldn't come down here with me."

"Yeah, and now?" Spyra yawned, bored.

"Now, that I know what they are and represent: it isn't so bad." Lilith proudly proclaimed. "…But that was of course before Malefora put a Dark Plant in my basement and turned them into a deathtrap."

"Speaking of…" Ignitia cringed in disgust.

They all stopped before a broken crevice in the ground, breached by a literal wall of the undulating, twisting, and whipping vines. The limbs squelched and crinkled with each movement, some of them beginning to snake closer to tug on their roots in an attempt to grapple the heroes.

"Cyrila?" Ignitia wiggled her nose. "I don't have to beg every time, do I?"

"*sigh* A moment…" Cyrila rolled her eyes.

A few blasts of Ice later and the tentacles retreated into the earth with sickening shrieks and rumbling groans, clearing the way.

"They really are terrible." Lilith gulped, hopping daintily over the earthen gaps now absent of the horrors that had made them. Still, one never knew if the limbs would just re-sprout from the same holes again.

"More like disgusting." Cyrila groaned. "And now I have to step through their mulch! Ugh! My beautiful talons…"

"Dontchya' just looovvveee dirt?" Spyra cackled, wiggling her hips, as she drove her heels through the soil and detritus, much to Cyrila's chagrin. "Mwa-haha-! -Jeez', Lilith, you couldn't hire a janitor or two to clean this joint up a tad? Ever since we got ours, the Guardian Temple's been, like, spotless."

"We have a janitor?" Cyrila blinked at Ignitia.

"I'll explain it to you once this is over and we're back home." Ignitia smiled nervously. "Spyra's statement isn't wholly wrong. There are just some details that, well… might prove a bit startling."

"Oh, how lovely." Cyrila rolled her eyes. "As if today couldn't get any worse, dirtier, or horrible. This all has been a rather taxing affair. I was looking forward to a time where the Dark Master would once again grow weak, and fancy sleeping away the years inside that wretched volcano of hers."

"Not since the last Continental Invasion I'm afraid." Ignitia sadly conceded. "We already had our reprieve. Time well spent in many regards, in my honest opinion."

"Speak for yourself." Cyrila harrumphed. "While you were out touching base with your 'inner soul' or whatever nonsense it all was, Terradora wasted a quarter of her life not doing her job, I atrophied without the proper stimulation, and Volteera tried to roleplay as a wind-chime."

"That isn't funny. And it wasn't nonsense."

"What wasn't?"

"You know what I mean." Ignitia's voice cracked: a sudden rush of emotion washing over her. "Don't you ever speak of what happened like that again. Never in front of me."

"…Would it not prove constructive to make light where there is only darkness?" Cyrila cautiously suggested. Ignitia hiccupped.

"-Oh Cyrila." She shivered.

"Fine, fine, as you wish." The Ice Guardian sighed. "You weren't the only one who pulled her out of that, you know."

"She loves you." Ignitia breathed. "Can't you at least give something back to her?"

"You don't know how to, don't you? With this other dragon?" Lilith gasped, her gaze locked onto Cyrila's icy eyes.

The Guardian went rigid, and a sneer began to slide down her crystalline snout.

"Please, I meant no insult." Lilith shook her head. "It's just… well, I have a propensity to find things within the eyes of others, and within you, I just see-…"

"Begging your pardon, your Highness, but I am seldom interested in having my palms read." Cyrila spat. "And with respect: it isn't involved here in any aspect for it to even pass as being your business."

She met Razoruk's dangerous look with an incline of her chin.

"As I said: spoken with class."

"…Yes, of course I didn't-… You're right, Lady Cyrila, I apologize." Lilith shied away with a blush upon her snout.

"What about me, tootse? Got anything you can see in these lookers?" Spyra put her face entirely too close to the Queen's, making Lilith hop back with an amused giggle.

"My my, a forward dragoness aren't you, Lady Spyra?" Lilith smiled.

"Heyhey, Lady Spyra. I'm diggin' that. You're alright there, Queen Lilith, I think I like you. Now," Spyra blinked girlishly at her. "-anything in my pretty, dainty eyes?"

"…Ahem, well," Lilith looked a little closer, her grin flattening a tad as she delved into some method of concentration. "…You're certainly much to unpack."

"Are you saying I'm fat?"

"-What?! No, I-"

"I'm yankin' your tail, babe'." Spyra snickered. "So alright, a lot to unpack. What's that mean?"

"It simply means that you have a lot of experiences, I feel like, that have sculpted you." Lilith said. "There is age in your gaze, and that doesn't mean you're old in a literal sense, but you've weathered storms, and I would say a fair deal of them over a short period of time. Would you say that's accurate?"

"…Yeah, I guess so." Spyra coughed, her usual pep draining a bit. She looked at the Fallen for reassurance, wishing he wasn't wearing that helmet so she could see his actual face. "I have him to thank for a lot of that."

At the mention of the human, Lilith flinched- like she'd been struck –and did her best to avoid eye-contact when the human glanced down at her. He was taller by almost two heads.

"Oh, fascinating, yes." Lilith swallowed. "-T-The sky-warrior would be a magnet for trouble in these lands, I'd think, yes…"

"I can't help it if some people suck." The Fallen chuckled. "Everybody who I've iced pretty much had it coming."

"That's a lie." Conscience smiled, walking by his flank.

"You must have fought bravely." Lilith stared, googly-eyed.

"-Very bravely, doing battle with that sinuous, athletic form…" Ignitia mumbled, licking her fangs as her gaze followed the slight roll of the Fallen's hips as he walked. "…You have to train vigorously to maintain such bodily form."

The Fallen coughed inside his helm, and gave his pauldrons a roll.

This got awkward…

"You're literally drowning in poon, and now you're complaining?" Conscience gawked. "What the hell is wrong with you? The Grand Quest! Have you forgotten?"

"Never." The Fallen hissed under his breath.

"Really, not at all?" Ignitia blinked, broken from her stupor.

"No, I mean, yes, I do, or I used to, sometimes, agh." The Fallen jogged ahead of the dragons. "We should've just flooded this whole tunnel network in Agent Orange and been done with it."

"Lady Cyrila?" Razoruk called.

Cyrila's icy breath glimmered and whooshed as she cast away a bushel of tentacles swinging at them from a crumbling wall.

"We must be getting close." Razoruk uttered in the wake of her victory.

"What makes ya' say that, gramps?" Spyra sneered at the remains of the dark roots, casting her own icy breath over any stragglers.

"We're nearing the last throne's tomb." The elder clarified.

"Where mother is! And father!" Lilith cried. "There is a large nerve-cluster for the Roseways under them! Malefora must have planted the seeds right beneath the sarcophagi!"

The earthen tunnels changed periodically into artificial, brick-made catacomb passages, all overgrown with the Suntree's veins that snaked endlessly in all directions. Spyra and Cyrila were the only things keeping the dark tentacles off them, and as they went deeper, they began to appear in larger numbers.

"Spyra, I need you!" Ignitia grit her fangs, backing away as a cluster of whipping tendrils rose farther and farther from the gap in a wall they'd birthed from. They curled and whipped as they made to grab the Guardian and squeeze the life from her.

"Kinda' busy!" Spyra barked between blasts of frost. She was handling two groups of the evil limbs that were blocking the mouth of the tunnel. One of them lashed out with speed, and was driven back as Spyra bathed it in a torrent of glowing, frigid white mist. The walls shuddered as a terrible, monstrous groan rebounded down the tunnel. "Call me assumptive: but I think we pissed it off!"

"Is that what you think?" The Fallen hacked at a number of other tendrils, dual-wielding his Plunger in one gauntlet, the other bowed for the plasma-blade in the wrist to burst free in a bright purple torrent. Each slash knocked the tendrils back with angry shrieks, but they couldn't cut, and they couldn't sever. Each blow was as if he was striking them with a dull club. "I can't cut through them! The magic's too strong!"

"-Ohno- Razoruk-! Left-! Right-! N-No, my right-!" Lilith panicked, her high-pitched squeals trumping Razoruk's fine stream of vulgarity and exerted grunts.

For an old cripple who'd lost a wing, he was decent when it came to keeping an opponent occupied. Three of the tendrils burst from the ground in plumes of soil, their thorned-lengths slicing at Razoruk with frightening precision. They aimed for his joints, the shoulders, the thighs, the waist, all points where they could constrict and tear him apart.

The elder snarled when a tendril drew a trio of blood-gushing wounds down his flank in a close cut. Another of the tentacles struck him across the face, sending the dragon rolling through the dirt with an agonized cry.

"Razoruk~!" Lilith cried. The Queen yelped and leaped away when another tendril burst from the ground right under her chin.

Lilith sputtered as dirt rolled down her body and dusted her wings. She went wide-eyed as the man-height tendril reared itself up in an erect stature, before coming down with an eerie growl to slam her into the earth under its thorny belly.

She tucked her wings in and threw herself into a roll, narrowly dodging the blow to let it crash down behind her. The dark tendril was persistent. It recovered from the fall in a second, lashing to the side, and ensnaring Lilith's ankle in a painful grip. The queen cried out as she was yanked back with enough force that it felt like her skeleton punched into one side of her skin.

The tendril lifted her from the ground and held her, dangling her upside-down like she was a string-kept bauble.

"-OooooHhhhh-MmmmyyYYYYyyyy~!" Lilith hollered as it swung her about. She tried to pump her wings and tear herself free. Another tendril broke through the earth below and snared her waist with a sharp crack.

"I'm coming, my lady!" Razoruk roared, surging forwards, he drowned a dark tendril in a tsunami of Flames, sputtering out soot when his vigor drained instantly from the assault.

Razoruk staggered on his heels, wheezing as he gazed upon the vine-tentacle in shock. The thing quivered as it detached from the glassy, scorched ground around it, crinkling as shards and pebbles fell from its otherwise spotless, thorny coat. It made an organic burbling sound at him, quivering with fury.

"Oh, Ancestors…"

"HELP-!" Ignitia cried, two tentacles dragging her back down the tunnel. The hideous appendages lassoed over her hind legs with wet cracks of motion, lifting upwards, to suspend her in the air a ways from Lilith, utterly helpless.

Cyrila's roar echoed down the passage as she showered a cluster of the tendrils in a pure cone of frosty mirth. As soon as the mist cleared, it revealed a static, eerily beautiful bushel of curved, displaced limbs, all of them frozen mid-slash or from an interrupted undulation. They all glittered from the sheath of crystalline blue Ice sealing them eternally.

Cyrila was not so satisfied, however, to leave her enemies as sculptures. So, she twisted around,, shattering the ice-bushel with the blade of her tail. The report sounded like the deafening crash of an ornate chandelier impacting the ground from a high fall. The frozen tendrils exploded into glittering clouds of debris.

The Guardian of Ice rolled under another tendril reaching for her hips, and she spat a careening diamond of cold crystal that whipped across the battlefield like a bullet. It hit the stalk of one of the tendrils trapping Ignitia, severing it at the base with a morose squelch. Ignitia wailed as she sagged in the grip of the other tendril, but still was trapped.

"Hold on, grams, I got ya' I got ya'-!"

Spyra rolled under a series of staccato slashes from a nearby cluster of tendrils. She jittered to the side when a fresh duo of the thorned monstrosities erupted from the soil in her path, and were left reaching for her in her wake. She drowned the base of the other tendril in Ice breath, ramming head-first through the frozen stalk a second later with a shriek of glass.

Ignitia and the dead limbs crumbled to the ground heavily, shaking the tunnel.

"-Oof-!" The Guardian hacked, lying limp for a moment as the stilled tentacle around her waist loosened, and the one constricting her leg slid free. They twitched in summary spasms but were otherwise rendered harmless. She cringed at the bloody rents from the thorns that had been clipping through her scales. "Thanks are in order for that one, I think." She breathed.

"Fallen! The Queen!" Spyra pointed with her tail, backing away as another batch of tendrils crept up on her, blocking her path. "I can't reach her!"

The Fallen snarled as he battered into a cluster of the thorny monster-roots with the Plunger of Doom. The impact blurred the air and sent the tendrils slapping away from him with pained howls. The plasma-blade met each one that tried to flank around him with bursts of burning mist, the tentacles shrieking in pain with each blow. Still, all this did was cast them back temporarily. Each tendril he struck only came back a moment later, angrier, and quicker.

Lilith's yelp regained his attention. The Fallen chanced a quick look over his pauldron. He ducked under the thorns of another tentacle, drowning out the noise of the melee when the jet-thrusters tucked among the rear plating of his cuirass and waist erupted in neon-blue light.

Tentacles gave off ugly gurgles as they were caught in the draft from the thrusters. The Fallen rocketed through the air and over the battle like a missile, nose-diving for the queen as he slipped through the grasp of his attackers.

With a bellowing cry, the Fallen slammed arms-first into the larger of the two tendrils constricting Lilith. He grappled into the thorns, and the weight of his armor combined with the force of the thrusters brought the vine down, slamming it into the ground.

The other tendril died as Cyrila froze and shattered the stalk, it collapsed and slipped off Lilith's tail, its thorns bloody.

"-I can't get it off-!" Lilith screamed, writhing in the crushing, sharp grip of the last tendril. It tightened its embrace like a serpent would have a captured mouse, digging its bladed thorns deep into the dragon's flesh. Tears rolled down Lilith's snout, as she grit her fangs from the horrible pain.

The Fallen straddled the tendril, pinning it between his knees. He dropped his weapons into the Nanobox on his hip, before he worked his gauntlets' fingers into the little gap between the vine and Lilith's waist. He flexed his hands, teeth gritting as he hooked his palms, and began to pull.

"*Warning!*" –A small klaxon inside his helm blared, showing him an alert bubble he couldn't spare the attention to read.

The tentacle had unbelievable strength, being much more powerful than the musculature of an Ape or an Orc. The Fallen began to simmer, a growl building in the back of his throat as he wrenched his eyes shut, his suit bleeping and hissing as the augmenters were forced into action to aid his efforts.

Metal groaned, and the dark plant burbled in great strain. The Fallen's arms began to quiver, white-hot pain shot up and down his bones as his mere mortal muscles were pushed to their very limit. The tentacle twitched, and Lilith's blood bubbled out from the grip-ring as the thorns were agonizingly slid clear of the wounds inside. The Fallen's arms were pinned, elbows daggered outwards as he pulled the mighty plant's embrace open.

Nearby, Cyrila was mopping up a cluster of tendrils, and Spyra was covering Ignitia as she untangled herself from the dead roots that had gotten her.

The only dragon that could watch helplessly was Razoruk, whose fire and physical strength were incapable of even making the dark plants flinch.

"Lilith!" He bellowed, springing to her side as he jammed his claws into the breach beside the Fallen's fingers.

The plant made a thrumming chortle and jolted its length, sending the elder tumbling back with fresh thorn-wounds trailing blood down his chest and arms. The movement caused the Fallen to jerk, but he held steadfast, his utterances slowly erupting into an agonized roar.

His suit creaked, and the stabilizers hissed repeatedly. He battled the plant without pause, desperately ignoring the agony ripping up his arms. The loop around Lilith's waist slacked enough that she was able to wriggle.

"Go." The Fallen grunted, sweat running down his crimson face in reams. "Go!"

The queen slipped herself out, wincing, as the thorns left a last departing kiss from grazing her flanks. Not a second later, the Fallen released his grip, and was summarily tossed away. The tendril unwound and threw him across the chamber with a swift hit. He slammed into the earthen wall of the chamber, and collapsed onto the ground.

Spyra, evidently, was displeased by this occurrence.

"Hey!" She barked. "I'm the only one who gets to kick his ass, you motherfuckin' weed!"

Spyra's Ice Breath burst across the stalk of the offending tendril, and she shattered it into a cloud of glittering shards with the leaf of her tail in a quick slash. The dying tendril thumped and wriggled as it toppled, turning blacker, and losing its purple-blue color as it died, spraying black ichor everywhere, as its fetid life leaked from the ruined stem.

"Should I even ask if anyone's hurt?" Spyra called between tired breaths.

"…Aye." Ignitia groaned, limping over to Cyrila, who was still poised, ready for more of the tentacles to burst from the ground and continue the attack at any second. "What about you, Cyrila?"

"If I thought this was bad before, it has evolved to awful." The Ice Guardian mumbled. She sniffed in a deep breath, and instead of calmly releasing it, cast it from herself in the form of a very angry scream. "My beautiful talons are now filthy~!"

"Ouch." The Fallen growled, hissing as he felt the spinal line-up inside his suit inject the necessary healing agents. Luckily, the shots weren't intramuscular, but it still stung like a bitch every single time. "The queen." –He sputtered. "Where's the queen?"

"Here!" Razoruk wheezed. "She's here!"

"…Really, I'm fine…" Lilith drunkenly swatted at her bodyguard as he doted over her. Blood pumped from the series of lacerations marring her waist, staining her green scales a dull crimson. Laying on her hip, she looked down and over her shoulder at the wounds, and cringed. "…O-Oh my… Those seem worse than they… than they felt..."

"Move." The Fallen finished burn-cleaning his suit's wrist-needle after giving Ignitia a boost. He shoved past Razoruk and knelt over Lilith, presiding over her. "That tendril almost crushed her."

"Do something!" Razoruk was beside himself, metal clacking as he gripped the human's pauldron and shook him.

"Working on it." The Fallen growled, swatting the older dragon's paws away as he aimed the needle for Lilith's scales. "Your Majesty, you're going to feel just a pinch-"

"Wait wait," Ignitia breathed, laying a paw on the Fallen's shoulder. Her eyes were glassy as she focused on something below all of them. "look."

Soil crumbled, and several minute points around Lilith's body began to rise from the pressure of something poking through the dirt. For a heart-stopping second, it looked like more dark tendrils were rising, but then…

"What the heck is that?" Spyra blinked.

"Roots." The Fallen dumbly said on instinct. Spyra glared.

"Yeah, thanks, Fabio, I can see that, but what are they doing?"

Several plant roots rose on their own accord from the earth, but they were different from the dark tendrils they had been fighting. Notably, they weren't freakishly large, bulbous, darkly colored, and covered in bladed thorns. They weren't giving off all kinds of obscene noises, as they tried to kill people, and, they were easily only the thickness of man's finger.

These vines were brown, and were streamed with tiny veins that glowed a fervent white-green. The veins slithered over Lilith's body with care and precision, their points angling towards the various bleeding cuts and wounds dealt across her scaly hide. When the Fallen reached out to take them away, a paw gripped his arm plates and held him back. He looked up to see Razoruk.

"It's her." He rasped, calming down. "Don't interfere."

"Ya'll can't blame him for being jumpy," Spyra mumbled. "every single root we've seen down here has tried to kill us."

"But this is different." Razoruk shook his head, letting go of the Fallen. "The Dark Plant is a cancer, a corruptive agent. This before us, is how the vegetation down here should act."

Lilith huffed as the glowing runes snaking down the vines began to burn brighter, forcing the observers to squint and shield their eyes. The air whistled, and a phantom breeze strode down the battle-worn tunnel across all of them.

"Astounding." Ignitia gawked. "You know a fair deal more than I do in the arts of healing, My Lady."

"-K-Knowledge isn't the key here, actually…" Lilith tiredly smiled, humming as the roots began to retract back into the earth. Soil crumbled, and plant-flesh stretched and crackled. Very soon, the healing roots had slipped underground again. "-I am of kinship with the Suntree. As monarch, I have… ahm… a connection to the plants here, the root systems of the Suntree… I suppose I've been blessed by them yet again, on their decisiveness to not let my life so easily slip away. They seem to have plans for me in the future."

"Aren't you in control of the Suntree?" Spyra blinked.

"No! No…" Lilith shivered as she stood. Everyone's eyes swept down her lithe form, searching in vain for any signs of prior harm, aside from dried bloodstains and grit. The slashes and abrasions had mostly vanished, some gone completely, others reduced to purple bruises or faint, pale scars in her scales. "It has nothing to do with control. I answer to the plants, not the other way around. For my service to the trees, they will protect me, when they can."

"The monarchs of Oversight have always practiced husbandry with the plants of this realm, for millennia." Ignitia clarified. "I've never witnessed it for myself until now."

"Are you well enough to walk?" The Fallen held out his hand.

"Y-Yes." Lilith breathed, platter-eyes locked on him as she took his plated fingers and lifted herself up. "Yes I can walk… Y-You saved my life."

"Hey, so did I." Spyra bumped him with her hip. "Team efforts my foot, huh?"

"I couldn't have done anything if you weren't here too." The Fallen reassured, giving her a playful yank on her horn. Spyra growled in delight and nipped at his arm.

"We've warded the dark plant off for now." Cyrila chimed, looking off down the way they had to go. Strobing, faint, and green light kept the tunnels tinged with illumination, making it easy to mistake the shadows as more tendrils returning to resume the ambush. "But that was too close, all of it. I expect better from you all in the next encounter."

The Ice Guardian ignored the hateful glare Spyra shot her, and looked right at the Fallen. Cyrila's eyes trailed down his armor, and she harrumphed.

"Good work, Fallen. Perhaps I misjudged you."

"Oh, now wouldn't that be a first." Ignitia murmured over to Spyra, making the purple beastess chuckle.

"Yeah," The Fallen retracted his wrist-needle and stood up. "maybe you did."

"Oi', you know, while you're at it, Geezer's got some boo-boos." Spyra nodded at Razoruk, the hold dragon doubled over, staring indignantly at the various wounds that still wept blood over his cloudy scales.

The Fallen gave a patient smile, the needle slipping back out of his wrist.

{🐉}

The droning buzz of firefly wings gave off a whisper of what sounded like sheets of parchment in motion. The fist-sized insects passed solemnly between drapes and walls of loose, lazy vines, their black and orange bodies blending seamlessly with the oppressive darkness that dominated the chamber. The vines were speckled with deep blue flowers that trapped the light of the sconces from the far fringes of the great cavity. Whenever the vines were shifted aside by someone's wings, an arm, or a tail, it caused the strangely reflective flowers to shimmer with the motions, making it look like the vines in actuality were stringed with hundreds of leering, little cats' eyes.

Spyra, heedless of this, was growling and mumbling as she sliced through the vegetation with her claws. Only a quick yelp from the Fallen had reminded her that not everyone here was as invulnerable to her Flame breath as she was, and so, she hadn't tried to torch a path. But even so, the vines were laden with a thick humus of moisture, the nets of plant-flesh glistening and dripping with dew as the party shouldered through them. It was doubtful they would've caught the dragon's breath even if she had tried.

"I'm getting real sick of this place." Spyra mumbled, sneezing, when a finger-sized vine got stuck in her nostril. "There was another tunnel we could've taken back there, but nooooo, nobody wants to listen to the Purple Dragon… And so here we are, lumberin' around like a buncha' drunks in the dark."

"That passageway you indicated earlier, Spyra, had collapsed many years ago. It would have been impossible to proceed down that way anyhow." Lilith sheepishly chimed. She in contrast didn't even seem to acknowledge the vines' existence. She flowed through them without any effort, and in fact, as Spyra watched her, she would've said that the plants were purposefully moving from her path on their own accord, twitching aside eerily in the darkness. But, of course, it was easier to reason such sights as simply her eyes playing tricks on her. She was pretty tired after everything that had happened. The Queen continued to speak. "These tunnels predate the city. When the Suntree first began to spread its roots throughout the realm, they created hundreds of these networks, and many of them dump out into ponds, ditches, and forest clusters all over the province. Some of them were repurposed by Dragons as catacombs and sewer passes. But we're right underneath the Castle, probably by a few miles now. The only artificial structures I know of in this section are the burial chambers for the previous nobility, and of course… the uhm… the last holders of the throne."

"You wouldn't be the first chick I've run into who has mommy issues. We should make a sorority at the campus, Ignitia, call it 'No Moms' –and open up memberships." Spyra rolled her eyes, snarling as she struggled to rip off drapes of soggy vines clinging to her horns like errant wet-wipes. "God damn it, get off my head!"

"Calm down." The Fallen mused, gently nudging her to keep still as he reached over and picked the debris off for her. "A lot more people didn't have shining examples of childhood guardians as you'd believe."

"It's always been said that the parentage of Purple Dragons remains obscure." Lilith carefully acknowledged. "You didn't know your parents, Spyra?"

"Does that matter?" Spyra frowned testily.

"Oh no, of course it doesn't. I'm just curious." Lilith blushed.

"Yeah, well, we all wanna' ask the retired warrior in the corner with the limp, like how many guys he offed during the glory days." Spyra grunted. She angled a horn at the Fallen, pointing with her tail. "You missed one, babe'. Anyway, it don't matter none, because I didn't need my real parents, my only parents found me, and treated me all the same, ya' know, as well as an adoptive mom and dad could with a kid fifty times their size."

"I'm afraid I don't understand." Lilith frowned

"Spyra was raised by a dragonfly tribe in the Southern Marshes." Ignitia said. "Regardless of their smaller stature, their hearts were as grand as any I've ever seen. They taught her well."

"But they never really did iron out that mouth of hers." The Fallen smirked.

"Puh-leeze, I know you can't get enough of that part of me." Spyra stuck her tongue out at him. "Like I said, who cares nowadays? It's been too long for me to be angry about whatever happened to those dragons. Maybe that's why Cyndy-tootles has such a burr up her ass. Maybe she just doesn't cope with being mommy-less well. She could take a few pointers from Taliopia, that girl's got her game down. At least she makes it look like she does."

"I worry for that hatchling." Ignitia sighed. "I do hope she and Morinth are well back in Warfang."

The Fallen glanced over at Lilith, daggering his brows when he saw how pale she looked suddenly.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"Fine. I'm fine." Lilith was quick to shield herself with a smile. "These are two soldiers you speak of? I-I haven't had the pleasure."

"And there is nothing wrong with that. You are above fraternizing with the commonality anyway, my Lady." Razoruk snorted, his sole wing tightening closer to his back-scutes. "Imagine, the Royal House of Oversight, attempting sociality with every single commoner and soldier in the armed forces! Bah."

"Razoruk, your concern flatters me, but I fear taking heed from you would have me end up in a goldfish bowl." Lilith hummed. "An ornate one, probably, but regardless. These are honest dragons- and, er, one sky-man –as you can see."

"Human." The Fallen patiently smiled. "I'm a human. We're not really common around these parts, I'm sure you've all gathered by now. But that isn't really a bad thing."

"Pffffft, I beg to differ, dude." Spyra cackled, swiping away a sheet of vines hanging in her face. "If we could get an army of rut-beasts like you down here, all the drakes in the realms would have to turn gay just to find a vacant hole."

A grotesque squelching noise blended with Lilith's deep swallow. She'd thrown up a bit in her mouth, and was currently bug-eyed from having to swallow it, and the intrusive thoughts that found themselves in her skull, fresh, and eerily warm. Ignitia looked thoughtful, and Cyrila disgusted.

"I could've deduced the reality without such blatant innuendo." The latter harrumphed. "It isn't so hard to believe. After all, Spyra's scent-markers are trailing from the Fallen practically like smoke. It is lucky for the two of you that I am a student of the sciences as much as the Elements. But, just because nature finds a way does not mean at all that it is proper, or that I must be informed of such ways discovered promptly. You can keep your personal accounts to yourself."

"I-I-It does make one w-wonder…" Ignitia blushed, struggling to speak. She changed the subject. "Oh! I-Is that torchlight I'm seeing? Or is that just another firefly…"

"Probably the damned bugs!" Spyra squawked, batting like an angry cat at a cluster of fat insects, who scattered away from her in panic to hide among the vines. "Fallen, tell me you have a fly-swatter somewhere in that super-powered gimp-suit of yours-! I don't think I can take these buzzers anymore!"

"Do you even know what a gimp suit is?" The Fallen blinked.

"—Get outta' here-! Fuckin' bugs…" She glanced back at him. "Wha'…-? Oh, yeah, it's uh… uh… what ninjas wear or some shit, yeah?"

"Stop fooling around and pay attention!" Razoruk snapped. "Look!"

"I shall cover this side." Cyrila growled. "Spyra, take the right. We'll form a wall and push them back."

"I don't believe there's a need." Ignitia gasped. "They're retreating!"

More dark tendrils were crawling around on the wet, mossy floor of the chamber. Their purple lengths twitched and gurgled, bristling with thorns that could shred flesh. Tens of the tentacles dragged away from them in a hurry, slithering like a colony of panicked snakes deeper and deeper through the forest of vines in their effort to escape.

"They're going towards-" Lilith's words caught in her throat. "I knew it. The Dark Master, she must have planted it right underneath the tombs!"

"Whose tombs? The last king or something?" Spyra broke into a run, the rest of the party following suit as they tore through the vines.

"My mother and father." Lilith swallowed. "My mother was the last Queen of Oversight before me! She's interred above the heart of the Suntree's rootball."

"If it's the tree's heart, then Malefora must be trying to kill it." Ignitia said. "Or worse, she's trying to control it. I'm betting it's the latter. She would never pass up an opportunity to deface something by using it against its own creators."

"Yeah," Spyra snarled under her breath. "like she did with Cynder."

Chasing the roots down the chamber at high speeds, the party barreled through the last hanging sheets of vines, tearing several down in their rush and scattering the fireflies hiding among them.

Born from a crumbling arch, was a chamber several stories in height. The air yawned as a sprawling ceiling of sectioned blocks quivered with an absolute blanket of green vines that were nestled among the stone. A huge rootball of pulsating black and neon colors spread out like an eternally frozen explosion of limbs and veins in the center of the roof. It wound down like a fat willow-tree until the great appendage culminated into an artificial atrium of heavy stone henges. Each pylon was riddled from top to bottom in glowing mint-colored runes of indecipherable origin.

On either side of the giant trunk of the Suntree's heart, were two suspended sarcophagi also inscribed across every inch with the same runes. The tree had embraced each of them several times over with years of roots and vines, jealously keeping the deceased under close shelter.

"I think that's the fattest tree I've ever seen." Spyra gasped, staggering back as she followed its girth to the roof. "It's even bigger than the mushrooms back home!"

"But I don't see the Dark Plant." Ignitia said.

"I do." The Fallen growled, an eye catching the bubble in his motion sensors. "Look down."

"-Eew-!" Spyra yelped, crinkling her snout in disgust. "It looks like a tumor crossed with herpes!"

The tree root was suspended on a cavernous and massive stalagmite. The point was smothered in a root-draped island of packed soil and soupy limbs twisting throughout it. The Dark Plant was clinging to the base of the stalagmite's merger with the earth, on the belly of the island.

It was bladder-like, black, with purple streams and bioluminescent veins blinking like runway lights down various spines, tendril-clusters and jiggling sack-like organs that hung from its underside. The whole chamber quivered as the same groaning they had heard earlier blasted out from the cancerous growth itself, disrupting whispers of dust from the ceiling and causing the ground to tremble.

As if enlightened of their presence for the first time, the huge plant-virus gave a mournful gurgle, and the dragons and human alike backed away when they saw tens of the spined tentacles rising from the blackness of the pit below.

"That's quite a drop." Spyra gulped. "-Oh, and uh, a lot of flesh-rending tentacles too."

"Agh-" Razoruk groaned, looking at the stub of his one wing in despair.

"This thing hates cold, right?" The Fallen's jet-thrusters roared to life as he prepared to pounce. The Plunger of Doom crackled as unholy flames swept up its length and cup. "Maybe if Spyra and Cyrila combine their Elements, they can turn the base into solid Ice. We can kill it with freezer-burn."

"That's a good idea!" Ignitia beamed, but then blinked in confusion. "B-But what are me and the Queen supposed to do?"

"You both can sit back and look purty'!" Spyra cackled, her wings creaking as she spread them out. The chamber rumbled and the Dark Plant groaned up at them in a challenge. "I could use the exercise anyhow. Let's do this, Ms. Frosty!"

"I beg your pardon?" Cyrila cringed.

"I've got the tendrils, you both focus on the base." The Fallen rocketed off the platform with a rush of plasma, hurtling downwards like a blue-glowing bullet. He called back through his helm's vox-speakers. "Ignitia, cover us in case anything else shows up!"

"How dangerous." Lilith trembled. "-I know! I know what I can do! I can link to the Suntree! Maybe I can help it weaken the Dark Plant."

"I'll come with you!" Razoruk cried.

"Guard the entrance, Razoruk." Lilith shook her head. "Lady Ignitia will keep me safe."

"It's my duty to protect you as the Queen." He snarled.

"Your duty is to obey my commands!" Lilith shouted in a rare moment of assertion. "And I am commanding you to stand down and act as a sentry for the entrance!"

"No harm shall befall her. I promise." Ignitia reassured. "Besides, all the tendrils look like they're going after the Fallen and-"

Ignitia's eye twitched.

"-a-and Spyra." The Guardian's back stood up like a frightened cat's. "BE CAREFUL!" –She shouted down the cliff, making Lilith wince.

"I don't think the roots are our problem, Ignitia." The Queen pointed with her tail. "Look."

There were shadows materializing on the earthen island of the tree root. Groups of twos and threes of the figures lumbered out from various hiding spaces as the two dragons braced to fly over the gap. Ignitia blinked when she picked out what they were.

Orcs.

-Ones wearing crimson-colored armor plating and black fatigues underneath.

Commandos.

She hated those, almost as much as she hated fighting other dragons. Mostly because they were the only two things that came consistently close to killing her, at least besides Cynder.

If only I'd kept my thoughts to myself, Ignitia flushed. I wouldn't have driven Terradora away, and she'd be here to lend me a paw.

"Ignitia! Crossbows!" Lilith cried.

Thin and gnarled Archer Orcs were rallying on the edges of the island, their weapons aimed down for Cyrila and Spyra as they moved to attack the cancerous ulcer below from two directions.

"How are your fighting skills, your Majesty?" Ignitia spread her wings with two groaning creaks of the membranes.

Lilith looked over at her with determination.

"My houseguard all perished within claw's reach of me back at the castle." Lilith said grimly. "I would've sooner opened my own throat than sit back and cower behind them. I'm with you, Lady Ignitia."

"But, Milady-!" Razoruk barked. "I cannot protect you!"

"So you cannot." Lilith sadly blinked at him, her own wings opening widely. "So I will protect myself."

Ignitia and Lilith flexed their wings, their arms tucking to their breasts as they rose off the edge of the platform, shooting like a pair of spreading missiles over the insurmountably dark gap below.

{Dragon Age Inquisition OST: Dragon Fight Theme}

"-Kill her!" –Bellowed an Orc officer placed among the ranks, his taloned finger pointing downward at Cyrila. The Archers lined their crossbows up, some kneeling to allow mixed fire.

Then, the officer heard a draconic roar, and he looked up just in time to take one of Ignitia's spat fireballs to the face.

Flesh sizzled and squelched, the entire upper half of the Orc's torso and both shoulders bursting into a red and fiery cloud of gore. The explosion scattered the Archer line and sent several of them kicking and screaming as they tumbled off the edge of the island and into the shadows.

Ignitia landed among them with an angry snarl, her tailblade whipping and her talons slicing. She ripped a pair of Orcs into shreds and sent the gory chunks flying in all directions. An Archer strode through the chaos and went to shoot her right between the eyes with his crossbow.

Ignitia leaned forwards and bit down on the Orc's fore, yanking the whole arm out of its socket with a morose pop and squirt of blood. She shoulder-checked the screeching Orc off the side of the island, and spun on her heels, a tsunami of Flames belching out and engulfing more stragglers scurrying to retreat away from the raging Fire Dragoness.

Lilith's landing was a bit more subtle. The Queen touched down nearby, and as soon as she began to fold her wings up, a trio of axe-Orcs noticed her and stampeded over to dispatch her with their weapons.

Lilith snarled, and more minty-green veins of light appeared- this time trailing down her forearms and shoulders –the earth cracked, and the three Orcs hollered and screamed as bushels of arm-thick tree roots burst from the ground and suspended them high in the air, ensnaring their limbs and crushing their hands until they dropped their weapons.

Lilith cocked her head, flexing her talons into the dirt. The roots formed a solid snake over each Orc's waist and shoulders, subduing their hollers as they twisted around and capped their mouths. The queen gave her neck a jolt, and flesh tore as all three Orcs were summarily ripped in half at the hips, showering the ground with deep red blood.

Below the neck of the island, Cyrila grunted as stray crossbolts whizzed and whined past her horns and wings. She gave the latter a fluid pump, inhaled, and then breathed forth a twisting cloud of white, cold energy. The Guardian corkscrewed her curvaceous form in the air, twisting like a drill as the Ice energies whipped around herself in the form of a cyclone. Bushels of the bolts deflected off the Mana like hail against a wall of stone, protecting her as she covered the last of the distance to the tumor of the pulsating Dark Plant.

"'Bout time you showed up, grams!" Spyra cackled from the other side of the stalagmite. She had already zipped completely around the island before any of the Orcs could've lined up shots. "I was getting bored over here!"

"Cockiness killed the dragon." Cyrila harrumphed, pumping her wings as she came to a screeching halt before the purple and black mass of the plant. She cringed as several tens of writhing, black tendrils burst from the morose crystal-flesh making its base. "You really are like Terradora, and Ignitia, at least when the latter was younger…"

The tentacles curled over the black pit-drop below and looped upwards. The Fallen was nearby, his thrusters whooshing and roaring as he zipped back and forth through the air, dodging tens of swiping, vicious tentacles as the plant tried to swat him down.

Perhaps the alien isn't so useless after all. He makes an excellent distraction, Cyrila thought. If only he wasn't so vile and immoral.

On the other side of the plant's pulsating mass, Spyra sniggered, and she swooped low to pass under the earthy chin of the rootball's island. A frigid, shrieking cone of Ice energy belched forth between her jaws and slammed into the plant's purple flesh. The entire cavern trembled, a monstrous groan bellowing out through the chamber as the ugly growth retracted from Spyra's Mana, like a bushel of earthworms would reel from having a singing hot pan pressed against their slimy girth.

One of the tendrils turned away from the Fallen and came for her. It lashed out- slicing through the air like a giant, thorny sword –and nearly took off one of Spyra's wings as she narrowly dodged around it. Though it was a miss, the assault did its job. Her Ice-stream was cut off, and the rimey blisters mottling the plant's hide immediately began to slough off as the monstrosity regenerated. It bellowed triumphantly, and then the underside of its bladder-like mass quivered. Flesh burst outward in a repulsive spattering of black mist, giving birth to a fresh cluster of spiked tendrils that extended over the cliff with frightening speed, aiming for Spyra's limbs.

"Aw shit." Spyra's eyes dilated. Rapid swerves, ducks and loops only sufficed for long. As the Dark Plant pressed the attack, her muscles started to burn from the exertion, and her wings felt like they were on fire.

She managed to catch one of the tentacles in a downwards uppercut, dodging under the slash of its thorny flank, before rising from below and bathing its stalk in Ice. The plant's flesh became crystalline and crackled. Spyra cartwheeled in the air and shattered the frozen flesh in a blast of shards with a blow from her tail. The amputated majority of the tendril curled in on itself and plummeted heavily into the darkness below.

"Blast!" Cyrila breathed, reeling from a thick cone of Ice shooting out of her mouth and into the plant. The growths studding its fleshy body quivered and another angry bellow rumbled the chamber. The Ice was hurting it, but it wasn't killing it fast enough. "-We must strike the beast with more Mana! More than we're currently capable of on our own!"

"I'm always up for a plan!" Spyra squealed, zipping around like a mosquito dodging a million hands as the tendrils slashed and swiped and stabbed at her.

"I can only subdue the plant so much!" Lilith cried from atop the island. Her face was scrunched with terrible strain, her eyes quivering as she kept them shut. Green veins were glowing in spider-cracks in the ground around her paws, the bellowing of the Dark Plant getting louder. "-I have it. But it's strong. I can deplete its powers, but someone must think of something quickly!"

"I'll keep them off of you!" Ignitia breathed, stumbling back as another pair of Commando Orcs crumpled away from her, one missing a head and the other both arms. For a second, it looked like she'd cleared the field.

Then, at least twenty more Orcs rounded the bend of the island's other side, roaring and hollering as they brandished greatswords and axes over their heads in a rabid charge.

"Oh…" Ignitia groaned under her breath, hunching in preparation with reluctance. "…A 'ness like me will end up with a hernia at this rate."

"Ancestors." Lilith grit her fangs, her talons crunching into the soil as she twisted her neck. The veins of magic making fingers in the ground glowed brightly and flashed with every bellow of the Dark Plant below. "I-It's deeply rooted, inside the Suntree."

"Might I offer a soothing reassurance, your Majesty?" Ignitia glanced over her wing as the Orcs came closer. "Or should I just ask you to hang on?"

"I-If you could just prevent those Orcs from chopping off our heads, I'd be grateful." Lilith murmured with difficulty.

Ignitia hunched back as the first Orc in the mob leaped, a sword brandished, and descending for her scaly scalp to dispatch her-

B-CHMMMM~!

Then, the Orcs vanished in a blindingly bright explosion.

-A screaming, armored, ballistic missile landed with a furious roar in the middle of the Orcish horde.

The Fallen's shields flashed as the impact activated their pulse-discharge function. The concussion of both the pulse and the heels of his suit created bubble of lethal force around his body. The shockwave ruptured vital organs, cracked cuirasses and skulls, and popped eyeballs. The Orcs went flying in all directions, screaming incoherently as they vomited blood and jettisoned the stuff from their noses and eye sockets. The Fallen was a porcupine mass of rolling motion emerging from the center of the dusty explosion, the flaming plunger in his grip arcing left and right to scythe down any survivors.

"You looked like you could use some help." He growled through his helm's speakers at Ignitia as the Fire Dragoness jumped and joined the fray with him.

"I believe, actually-" Ignitia smirked, slashing a wounded Orc's chest to bloody ribbons. "-that I had it covered."

"I guess we'll never know." The Fallen's fingers undulated, the Plunger of Doom sweeping like a fan's blade and liquidizing an unfortunate Commando trying to flank him. "But I'm happy to be of service."

"I thought you had tentacle-duty?" Ignitia blinked, shooting a cone of metal-melting flames that incinerated an Archer lining up a shot.

"-Uhm-" The Fallen cringed, killing and trying to glance towards his rear as the bushels of wicked, spined tendrils on his tail began to materialize curling over the cliffside of the island. "-Multitasking's real."

"No it isn't!" Ignitia laughed, her tailblade speckling her breast with gore as it punched into an Orc's throat and ripped through the top of his cranium. "I'm a teacher, I should know!"

"Lies I say." He grunted, before three of the crushing tentacles snared over his chest, and squeezed, making his shields flare. The Fallen was yanked off his feet, struggling angrily as the tentacles dragged off the side of the cliff in a scuffle of dust and violence. "-And slander-!" –He called faintly.

"This frikken' thing will just not die!" Spyra snarled, her wings pumping as she tore off from another run of Ice attacks on the Dark Plant. "It keeps regenerating every time we hurt it with the Ice!"

"As I said before," Cyrila harrumphed, gliding beside her on spread, purple wings. "we must overwhelm it, combine our Mana and attack it in a single spot to punch through its hide."

"Yeah, I heard ya', the first fifty times too! And I'm still waiting for a plan to go with it! Brilliant ideas don't mean jack without some execution!" Spyra shot back. "I'm a moonshining hick who has damselflies for parents, and even I get that! What say you, huh? There isn't anything in that vast trove of hoity-toity crap in your head that you can think of right now?"

Cyrila was just inflating with the intent to explode out with a torrential tsunami of vitriol, but then, her crystal blue eyes locked onto something as they circled the embattled isle.

The sarcophagi.

The artificial henge atrium, at its heart, contained two heavy coffins sealed in rune-inscribed stone. Each was suspended by a pyre of interlocked wood ribbed by ancient and cracked pillars. Even from a distance, Cyrila could see that every time the energies pulsating around Queen Lilith spiked, the runes marking the coffins' surfaces flared.

"…The old King and Queen." Cyrila mumbled. "…Monarchs of the Oversight, Patrons and Matrons of the Suntree, Bound to its Roots… yes, yes! Indubitably!"

"You're endowing me with what now?!" Spyra looked at her funny. "What was that thing you just said? Or tried to say? Is that actually even a word?"

"The magicks that the Queen is using are connected to the Suntree, which means they are connected to the dead spiritual energies of every dragon who's ever been buried down here." Cyrila explained. "The amount of Mana channeling through those coffins must be extraordinary. If I can tap into that energy well, there should be nothing in this chamber that could resist my Element."

Spyra had the glassy eyes of someone comprehending the latest unbelievable conspiracy. She idly flapped her wings and glanced over to follow Cyrila's smug gaze towards the coffins.

"…Uh-huh." The Purple Dragoness squinted, giving Cyrila a suspicious look. "That sentence didn't have a 'We' –in it…"

"There isn't a moment more to waste." The Guardian rebuked. "If you so desire victory: then follow me!"

{🐉}

{Dragon Age Inquisition OST: Dragon Fight Theme}

The plant was trying to whisper to her.

It said horrible things, and showed her nightmares made into waking visions. It showed her fields of black, dead grasslands, endless forests of decay, and the fly-riddled bones of dragons sinking into the fetid mud. All of it was encompassed by the cold and lonesome howl of a deathly breeze, and horrors stalked in the shadows of the deceased willows, preying on the small leftover survivors in the wake of the disaster.

Though the visions made her weep, Lilith did not allow herself to be cast from her mantle. She stood her ground, clawing into the dirt, feeling the membranes of the great Suntree and of every plant in Oversight's realm. She mustered the abilities of nature behind her and used them as both a blade and a shield, relentlessly battering herself into the Dark Plant's faculties with no regard for her own sanity or safety. If she had been allowed to be here so earlier, she would have, she realized, even as what she perceived as her own cowardice continued to gnaw at her innards.

The Dark Plant- for whatever modicum of intelligence it came to the battle bearing –almost seemed taken aback, as if it was briefly reeling from having an episode of sheer overconfidence backfiring in its face with painful results.

Nevertheless, it was just as tireless as she was. The evil magicks churning in its bowels howled and screamed, meeting every offensive she sustained with horrendous resolve and intent. The whole chamber was shivering, dust cascading in arms from the rocky ceiling. The tendrils that had previously been focused on apprehending the others were writhing and slashing in her direction, each of their strikes being held back by green flashes of light before the blow could even get close to Lilith. The Queen mumbled cants and lashed the air with her tail, veins bulging on her temples and crown as she battled against the plant, the latter relentless and roaring as it slammed and whipped and struck the invisible forcefield defending her.

"What is this I see?" –Echoed a distant, frigid voice in the back of her mind. "The Queen of the Realm of Vines has found my agent beneath her feet. What is it that you feel you're to accomplish here, Your Majesty? You think you're going to remove it? Defeat it? Detach it from your precious little tree? No. I'm going to burn your realm and your people away, down to the last hatchling. I'll consecrate your graves with a dusting of your own ashes. Transform Daragon back into the blightscape the mountain once sundered it into."

"Malefora." Lilith breathed, doubling over. "Is that really you?"

"Yes. I offer my apologies for failing to beg your attention earlier, your Highness. I usually make it a great goal of mine to at least greet those who cause me the most trouble before I crush them."

"T-That's very generous of you." Lilith huffed, the energies swirling around her growing brighter. "Now, please get out of my city."

"Never." Malefora hungrily laughed. "You're going to have to try harder than that."

"Queen Lilith!" Ignitia cried, rolling through the dirt with an Orc grappled across her chest.

A shadow befell the queen as heavy footfalls rumbled the earth. Stomping over the piled dead of its smaller kin, a red-armored OgreOrc lumbered through the chaos, razing a studded maul over its ugly head as it made to squash Lilith.

A glowing bolt of plasma caught the Orc in the face before it could reach her, popping open its boiling skull like a gore-filled balloon to a nail. The great corpse heaved over, and fell in a heavy crash, the maul flipping away and over the cliff nearby.

The Fallen's thrusters roared and he landed in a heel's skid beside the body, his Doomblaster raised and barking as he mowed down a clambering squad of Commandos reeling from his assault.

"I'll be dead before I let you ugly freaks soil such scrumptious 'ness poon." The Fallen growled. "I still have my standards at least."

"That's a great truth!" Conscience proclaimed beside him. "Let's hand these peeps their own balls! See? Even the killer dandelion knows the jig's up!"

The Fallen followed his other half's finger, blinking when he saw the Dark Plant's army of tentacles spasming and whipping at nothing all around the island, as if they were constrained chasing an army of ghosts that had invaded the very air.

"Oh, well that's good." He breathed. "I was kind of getting tired."

"Fallen!" Spyra called, ripping him back to the present as she and Cyrila flew towards the island. "The coffins!"

"Coffins?" The Fallen dumbly gawked, glancing over at the henge atrium ringing the base of the rootball in the island's heart. "What about them?"

"We gotta' get to 'em!" Spyra's voice hitched as she and Cyrila darted right over his head in the sarcophagi's direction. "Don't ask why, just help!"

The Fallen vented the port on his Doomblaster to recharge the energy, jogging over to Lilith, who was still doubled over and channeling the energy.

He passed a struggling Orc Commando, who had collapsed and was kicking at a cluster of green vines that had snared his ankles in his efforts to reach the queen. The Fallen took a second to lean over and shoot him through the eye before crossing to Lilith.

"Queen Lilith!" He called over the roaring magicks surrounding her. "Spyra and Cyrila are going for the coffins! They need our help!"

"-C-Coffins-?" Lilith chanced opening an eye. Just that slight moment of a break in her concentration saw the whole chamber quiver. The Dark Plant rumbled underneath their heels, making the Fallen stumble as the earthen island shook.

"It's for the Mana!" Ignitia hurried over, having dealt with the last of the Orcs. "They're going to channel the Mana to improve their breath attacks! Your Highness, you have to funnel the magic into Spyra and Cyrila! Quickly!"

"B-But- but the plant-!" Lilith stammered.

"-Fallen-!" Spyra hollered.

When he looked over, he saw the ruins of the henge atrium were caught in a blanket of little movements. Tens of Orcs and Grublins had materialized from hiding places among the pillars and were gathering in a mob to place themselves before the two dragons and the coffins. Crimson-scaled Wyverns screeched as they flew over the mob's heads on an intercept path.

"I'll distract the tendrils!" Ignitia spread her wings, shooting into the air. "Lilith, start channeling the energy! Fallen, help them!"

"On it." The Fallen gunned his thrusters and zipped over half the island with a blast of energy. He craned his arm upward, brandishing the Plunger of Doom over his head with an angry bellow. "For the Derg Vag'! AHHHHHH-~!"

"-Ground pound! Right here!" Conscience appeared among the bewildered Grublins and Orcs, hopping on his heels as he pointed frantically for a terrified little green goblinoid at his feet. "On this one! On this one!"

The Fallen jetted downwards on the grasp of his thrusters, face twisted under his helm into a pure visage of hate.

The Grublin Conscience had indicated- now dead-center the Fallen's landing area –actually crapped in its breaches right before he impacted.

BkMMMM~! –Fire erupted in a great, magical shockwave when the plunger's cup pancaked the Grublin and cratered the ground. Flaming, dismembered cadavers sailed everywhere in a thunderous explosion, several more wounded Grublins and Orcs collapsing on the skirts of the blast, several of them nursing ruptured organs and eyes and even more rolling as they began to burn alive.

The Fallen swept into the survivors as a wall of wrath, killing indiscriminately with hacks of his plunger and point-blank coughs from his Doomblaster.

He scythed Orcs in two, stomped on Grublins like they were big bugs, and vaporized heads with accurate hip-shots. A Grublin Champion armored in its crested, ugly plating, stampeded through the broken remnants of the mob, swinging bladed gauntlets for the Fallen's head.

The human twisted under one of the blows and jammed his wrist into the Grublin's gnarled neck. A bundle of glowing Plasma Grenades birthed from the vent-port and adhered to the creature's throat. The Fallen vaulted the Grublin over his shoulder and catapulted it into a thick gathering of Orcs via a thunderous blast of his jet-thrusters.

The Orcs tumbled with the body, and then all vanished in a blast of plasmoid-dust and misting gore when the grenades exploded. The mob of Dark Soldiers converged on him, including the Wyverns, who tucked low, and swept under their original targets, beelining for the human as he killed and maimed.

Soaring over the battle, Spyra and Cyrila were free to reach the coffins, unmolested.

"Stand on top of that one!" Cyrila pointed, landing on the sarcophagi to the left of the huge rootball. The stone settled under her heels and felt eerily warm to the touch. The glowing green veins and runes speckling the stone seemed to pulse from the presence of the dragons, as if heightened. The strange runes and the mystical energies bleeding from the stone reminded Cyrila of the Chrysalis Tombs, the defiled cists, her kidnapping…

Few things had rattled Cyrila throughout her career. She had been wounded in the past, had witnessed many former students die, and had experienced the grief of loss, possibly so many times, that such things did not tug at the same strings of her cold heart as they once did. But the momentary pause startled her, and she didn't know why. Maybe, it was the arrival of the sky-warrior, being brought back literally to her own past by Cynder and her meddling…

The coffin she'd landed atop was that of the past queen's. Lilith's mother. Up close, Cyrila could see that the dragon-sized sarcophagi's top chin was carved into an intricate visage of a serene, and sleeping dragoness' snout, the gray and lifeless skull lowered with its snout pointed for an invisible clavicle. If Cyrila did not know any better, she would have said that the expression on the bust looked different… strained, almost.

"Nothing's gonna' pop outta' this thing, right?" Spyra landed on the other coffin, her talons clicking against the supernaturally charged stone. She took one look down at the glowing runes on the lid, cringed, and raised her foot away, as she stared accusingly down at the coffin. This one had a bulky, larger drake's bust carved into its upper lid-chin. Spyra didn't notice the same changes Cyrila did.

"Worry not for these dead, young one!" Cyrila called, craning her neck to try and see Spyra past the giant willow of the Suntree's trunk dividing the coffins. "Their cause is one with ours!"

"They're dead, I don't think they give a shit either way!" Spyra shouted over the racket. "Hope gramps here don't mind me hitching a ride on the Dead-Box. Ya' hear that, dead-guy in the coffin? No hard feelings, really!"

When Spyra looked down at the bust-head making the top of the coffin, her face went pale and her expression dropped, when she saw the stone, lifeless eyes of the head blink.

She screamed like a startled hatchling.

"-Now, Lilith!" The Fallen howled, killing the last of the Grublin stragglers. "Do it now!"

The Queen of Oversight growled, and the lights all over the chamber flashed in uneven waves and undulations. The cavern trembled and stones rained about the island. As Ignitia weaved and bobbed in the air with the tendrils now chasing her, she narrowly had to avoid getting crushed by a falling chunk of the very ceiling that broke off and made for a speedy descent into the darkness.

The magicks flowing around the coffins became blinding, the runes flashing pure white as the air became choked with swirling, supernatural miasma.

Spyra- for a moment –didn't feel anything aside from the blood-chilling adrenaline that had been pumping for the whole fight.

But then, she noticed Cyrila.

The Guardian of Ice was hunching over, eyes scrunched in concentration as spiraling arms of Mana coursed up and down her blue scales, like the rings in a caterpillar's pillowy hide.

Spyra didn't have a chance to opt for comment: the breath had been stolen from her breast as she teetered on top of the coffin, and similar bands of energy started to swim up and down her own body.

The feeling of exhilaration and power.

She knew it already.

This was the same way she'd felt when she had consumed that Mana Crystal, back in the swamps when she and the Fallen had first begun their adventure.

She felt rejuvenated, fresh, unstoppable.

Oh, hell yeah!

"Let's go!" Cyrila called, swooping off the coffin with a flap of her purple wings. She gave the bust's head on her own perch one last, disdainful glance, before taking off.

Spyra followed after her with a triumphant whoop that rebounded up and down the chamber. Emerald light followed both dragons as they arced west and east in the rough shape of a heart, dazzling the Fallen, who had just cast down the last Orc corpse, and was forced to stagger away as the sight overtook his already taxed senses.

The human fell to a knee as the Guardian and the Purple Dragon formed into a pair of descents, shooting for the edges of the island with accuracy and cunning.

The Dark Plant's tendrils immediately stopped chasing Ignitia, they turned in on themselves, time seeming to slow as they spun their hooked flesh around, and dove in desperation to stop Cyrila and Spyra from all directions.

But the plant was too late.

Spyra opened her jaws just at the same time as Cyrila did, and together, they each unleashed the largest, brightest cones of Elemental Ice that any of them had ever seen.

The pure howl of a blizzard at full strength overtook the chamber. The light was as bright as a miniature sun's would be, even burning through the vision-filters in the Fallen's helmet.

The plant moaned right before both streams of stinging cold slammed into its bulbous body from the left and right. Ice crackled, stone cracked and flesh squelched. The rising burn of ozone meshed with the growing murmur of a supernova.

Then, the very air went numb, and an explosion that knocked the Fallen off his feet overtook the chamber, drowning out the agonized scream of the mutated plant, and only eclipsed by Spyra's ecstatic cackles.

"-Chill-out, you freakin' weed-!" She cried. "-Chill-out and eat it!"

Glittering shards of Ice fell like rain as the light began to diminish. The stone stopped shivering, and the rocks stopped falling. The island and the rootball groaned and the air began to settle.

As the Fallen struggled to stand up, he realized that all that could now be heard was the flapping of dragon wings, and the wet squelch of flesh peeling.

Though he could not see it, Spyra and Cyrila could. The Dark Plant resembled a freezer-burned chunk of black meat. It sloughed from the great rock in slimy rivulets, descending in utter defeat and in pieces down the stone and into the blackness of the pit. The tendrils fell from the sky in halves and quarters, rolling down walls, bouncing off stalagmites, and flapping like wet wings as they died.

It was over.

"They did it." The Fallen murmured, his weapons going slack by his sides.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's dead." Conscience wiped the sweat off his brow, cringing when a chunk of blackened tentacle spattered repulsively by the Fallen's foot with a deep squelch. "Pretty sure."

"That was quite a moment of excitement." Ignitia sheepishly chuckled, landing roughly by the Fallen's flank and fluffing her tired wings. She smiled, exhausted. "The Ancestors must be as speechless as I am, at least I would think."

"They tire just as we do." Cyrila landed in front of her, her limbs shivering as the exertion finally began to take hold. Still, regardless, she looked satisfied, which was shocking, because the Fallen didn't think such a thing was possible for her. "And notably: an apt observation, seeing as they did actually have some claw in it all their own."

"The Dark Plant is dead!" Ignitia cheered, her tail wagging furiously as she leaped towards Cyrila, making the Guardian of Ice hiss in torment as she threw her forepaws around her in a crushing hug. "Oh, Cyrila! You were so brilliant! And brave! I'm so proud of you!"

"Yes, quite, indeed…" Cyrila cringed, doing her best to keep her wings extended and free of contact as she looked away over Ignitia's shoulderblade in protest. "I believe I can sense your enthusiasm. Now, if you don't mind…"

"Oh! I'm sorry." Ignitia detached with a blush, pawing at the dirt as she doted on Cyrila lovingly. "…Still, what a wonderful victory! And an amazing demonstration of skill."

"You really are spectacular with your Element." The Fallen limped over, his plunger leaned over his shoulderpad. "We couldn't have done it without you, Guardian Cyrila."

"…Such is truth." Cyrila cautiously conceded, offering the human a slight incline of her snout. "I… thank you, for keeping the Dark Army off of me and Spyra's wings. I did not believe Ignitia's firstclaw accounts, which I now begrudgingly see was an error of mine, and not a falsity of hers."

"Is that humility I detect on your breath?" Ignitia's grin became even wider.

"Humility? Hmmph!" Cyrila took a step up, her snout up in the air. "Do not overextend my generosity, sister, I am merely offering civility where it was not given and yet needed. It's nothing more than that."

"Of course." Ignitia sighed happily, nuzzling her snout with the wincing Ice's. "I'm glad you're okay."

"-So am I!"

-All three of them looked across the cliff towards the entrance arch, where Razoruk was hopping on his heels and calling to them.

"Now someone, retrieve the Queen and assist me and escorting her out of here!"

"Why did we need that guy again?" Conscience cocked his head by the Fallen's side. "Plot reasons, or something I guess."

"Hey, where's Spyra?" The Fallen looked around.

"And where is the Queen?" Ignitia blinked.

"-I'm on toppa' the world, baby-!"

-Ignitia and Cyrila yipped, and then all three of them ducked just as a purple torpedo shot through the air over their heads.

Spyra whooped, corkscrewing in the air as the green Mana energy took its time disappearing off her scales. She left a fluorescent trail of flickering energy in her wake everywhere she went, trying and only somewhat becoming successful in spelling out the word "Badass" –behind herself.

"These people have no need for cocaine." Conscience pointed. "I'm frightened by this. Have we actually ever found a place like that before?"

"Does it matter?" The Fallen smirked.

"Thank you." –Murmured Queen Lilith nearby. The dragoness had knelt, bowing at the foot of the now silent henge atrium surrounding the relaxing rootball of the Suntree. Even as the dead Orcs surrounding her steamed with wafting towers of soot, she was ignorant to the stench of death, and an expression of utter admiration was written upon her snout. "Mother and father."

The Fallen couldn't say for certain, but as the last of the swirling, green energies surrounding the queen began to fade away, he could have sworn that two of the clouds of mist had the vague outlines of quadrupedal forms, with great wingspans and long limbs, retracting from what had been an embrace across Lilith's body.

If the Queen herself saw this, she did not say, and frankly, he wouldn't have expected her to.

{🐉}

Bells tolled as the distant cries of dragons meshed with the otherwise still atmosphere of the city. Fresh reinforcements came in from the east, and entire wagon trains driven by mules and horses flowed down the roads leading down the southern coast of the Dragon Realms.

"For everything that Oversight embodies in the spirit and land, we have always, and also, been a realm with the purpose of war in its heart." Lilith had said, with some effort, as she practically had fallen asleep in her throne as repair crews rushed into the Roseways of the city, escorted by eager warriors to mop up any remnants of Grublins still infesting the tunnels. The Queen looked thoughtful as she stared out one of the throneroom's painted glass aisle-windows, letting the sun dapple off her green scales. "It's never left us. The Dark Continent has hungered for my kingdom for centuries, eons, even. I've struggled to understand throughout my reign, how I was expected to use the power of life, and love, to protect my people against such a heinous and murderous force. I see now, that after this battle, with the chance to rebuild and learn from our mistakes, that such a thing is indeed possible. At least when it is applied correctly."

Lilith hummed as she tapped her talons on the rim of her nested throne. She looked to the foot of the dais at Ignitia and Cyrila, the Fallen, Spyra, and Razoruk, who all had camped out on the steps, eating meals brought to them by the laborer staff, watching the work crews zip around the throneroom with gusto.

"It makes ya' wonder if these people get a kick out of their jobs." Spyra muffled over a mouthful of gravy-drenched potatoes. She swallowed, casting aside an empty plate to join the stack of nearly eight already resting by her flank. She watched a trio of dragons trot out from behind the blossoming Suntree, a cot snatched between their jaws loaded with dead, crispy Grublin corpses, some with limbs hanging over the sides and swaying as they went. "Or else uh… what, right? I dunno', Fallen, how do you live with necessity all the time?"

"Live with it?" The Fallen had gotten pretty good at manipulating the comparatively large dragon-sized silverware, and so was forking his own chicken and potatoes quite well. He shrugged at her. "Isn't life a necessity? Do what you have to do."

"Yeah, but lots of that doesn't involve killing." Spyra glanced at him. "I'm really frustrated with it. I was bored before I got here, and now, I feel like I wanna' be bored again."

"Necessity and coping." The Fallen said. "Really, you'll get used to it." He took another bite and shrugged again. "Or you won't. Some people don't. But I think you'll be fine. You've got the right mindset for it."

"A right mindset? Oh, I do love right mindsets!" Ignitia scootched closer to Spyra, visibly making the poor beastess uncomfortable. "May I ask what for?"

"…Personal shit." Spyra saw that Razoruk still hadn't touched his greens on the little side-plate beside his meal. She carefully stole it from him with deliberate slowness, the plate even creaking against the stone of the step as she dragged it. The elder noticed this but said nothing past a tired sigh. "Ya' mind, gramps?"

"You have already stuck your paw in it." Razoruk glumly noted with a raised brow.

Spyra went to reject this, but then looked down, and saw that he was exactly correct.

"Huh. Whoops." She finished scooping the greens up and shoveled them into her mouth. "Fanks." –She muffled.

"A failed offensive on both ends, a near-catastrophic insurrection from under our very feet, and a foiled scheme of the Cloud Ripper. Could it really get any more exciting today?" Cyrila said under her breath to Ignitia as she ate. "You know that this still isn't over."

"Of course it isn't." Ignitia sighed, suddenly peering down at the remainder of her food with less of an appetite. "It would be naïve to think today was "Enough" –so to speak. But I do wonder: what now? I mean, Malefora's been cast back from all fronts now, except the far east. She's lost her primary headquarters in the South, her invasion of the West Coast has collapsed, and she continues to make no headway in the valleys."

"But she controls Tall Plains." Cyrila added. "Rue the day we forget that. I know it isn't much, but I must express distaste at what could be happening to the Llama tribesmen as we speak."

"I've been trying very hard not to think about it." Ignitia admitted. "I think what we must focus on is preventing the Dark Master from attaining any footholds. You all have seen what she is attempting to do. She attempted to spread corruption through the Vision Pool of Forlorn, through the Suntree of Oversight… She's undoubtedly going to try and do the same thing in Avalar, and Cynder has been given enough time to rally her Apes."

"Well, two Chieftains are dead, and one's practically breaking down from PTSD, so I hardly view them as anywhere near the threat that they were." The Fallen said. "We should head back to Warfang, get Spyra up to speed on her Fire and Ice, and then we should start looking for Volteera in Avalar. How long does it take one of those crystals to sap all of the Mana out of a Guardian?"

"Days." Ignitia grimly murmured, appearing dreadful. "Days and days. Oh, Volteera…"

"Yes, she's a scatterbrain, but undeserving of this." Cyrila nodded with difficulty, rolling her jaw. "Any respite in the capital must be brief. A day, and no more. The war has escalated. Malefora isn't going to stand by idly now that two of her grand plans have been blunted. Three if we manage to prevent Cynder from apprehending the rest of the Guardians."

"…Ah, actually, no." The Fallen interrupted. "Cynder's on her own with that one."

"And how would you know this?" Cyrila crinkled her snout.

"She told me." The human swallowed.

Beside him, Spyra paused mid-bite, suffering a similar depletion in hunger just as Ignitia had. She pushed her plate away with a huff, and wiped roughly at her chops with a napkin.

"Yeah, I bet she did." She grumbled. "And you still think we can get her to just defect, huh?"

"We can." The Fallen quickly nodded. He looked at the Guardians. "We have. That dragon was never meant to be where she is. Not at all. It's more to our advantage if we can apprehend Cynder alive. We do not have to kill her to defeat her, it isn't necessary. I just need more time."

"Terradora perhaps was wise to harbor such distrust in you." Cyrila spat, shifting on the dais steps as she set aside her own finished plate. "One must assume the worst, once common company is discovered to have become so acquainted with the enemy."

"…Fallen, you know as well as I that my opinion of your abilities and talents is beyond admirable." Ignitia spoke. "I have entrusted you- many times now, I will add –and so far, your efforts have done nothing but excel in the preserving of life, and of helping us win. Granted, I haven't seen eye to eye with every little detail, but the results are undeniable. Regardless of that, I hope you understand how many laws me and my sisters are breaking by keeping ourselves silent."

"And this is assuming I shall maintain such?" Cyrila narrowed her eyes.

"Nobody's demanding anything of you." The Fallen sighed. "…But I am asking. Actually, I'm pleading."

"…As am I." Ignitia whispered, looking at her fellow Guardian with a soft expression. Cyrila's hostility immediately melted. "Cyrila, think about how many lives have been saved by the Fallen's efforts. These battles were inevitable. Since he has begun this effort of his, Cynder has not personally inflicted a single fatality, not even against us, and you know firstclaw that she's been given the opportunity several times now. She took you and Volteera alive. That would not have happened a month ago."

"So, what, I'm supposed to be grateful?" Cyrila snorted. "Should I be thanking the sky-warrior for authorizing a homicidal freak to break my face, in the stead of driving a blade through my heart? That's not very endearing, especially for a hen of my stature."

"I'm not demanding, and I'm not asking." The Fallen clarified patiently as he finished his meal. "I just need for you all to be patient. The situation is this: I have a repore with Cynder. My interests with her do not involve a betrayal of the Dragon Realms. I want this war to stop just as much as you do, with Malefora defeated, and the Dark Army annihilated. You do not- I repeat –you do not have to worry about that goal of mine changing. You are not the first force of order I have helped out of a tight spot. All I want is for Cynder to be kept alive. You can do what you will with the rest of them, even Malefora, especially Malefora. But Cynder is to be treated for the darkness Malefora has instilled in her. She is to be treated and cured to the best of our abilities, then, she and Spyra are coming with me."

"Coming with you? Where? What do you mean?" Ignitia's silverware clattered as she jolted on the steps, her eyes going wild. "Where are you taking Spyra? What in the world are you talking about?"

"Jeez', calm down." Spyra laid a reassuring paw on her wrist. "He's not taking me somewhere horrible or nothin'. I just made a decision, is all."

"A decision for what?" Cyrila squinted. "You're the Purple Dragon. Your place is here, in the Dragon Realms. That is how it is supposed to be."

Spyra looked like she wanted to argue that point, but the Fallen mediated by offering his hands up for peace.

"This is a discussion that can wait." He clarified. "What Spyra chooses to do with her life is a discussion that can be had after she completes her training, and after we stop Malefora. I think that's only fair, in the least that we all can compromise over."

"…Agreed." Ignitia cautiously leaned back, her eyes darting between the two of them, and fixing on Spyra dotingly. "I would much like to discuss the details of any decisions made before such hasty action. But we can get to that later. Right now, I still have you…"

The Fire Guardian tightened her jaw, laying her palms over one of Spyra's paws and giving a slight squeeze.

"…Right?" She dryly asked.

"Right right, yes…" Spyra admonished, holding Ignitia's claw back. "Really, Ignitia, c'mon, calm down, alright? I'm not gonna' vanish into thin air or nothin'."

"And what about the Troll in the room?" Cyrila toyed with an empty plate. "I know of those crystals Cynder is using, and of their purpose…"

"The Convexus." Ignitia said lowly, agreeing, as she turned from Spyra, breaking her own haze.

"The Convexus?" Lilith gasped, earning the startled glance of several Moles passing nearby. She quieted down. "What is this you speak of with the Convexus? The tower in the Iron Wastes?"

"Cynder is trying to gather Elemental Mana from all four Guardians to reopen the portal there to the Convexity." Ignitia explained. "That is why we must stick together. We cannot allow Cynder to apprehend any more of us to further complete the ritual. She will repeat what she once did. Long ago, Malefora, the Dark Mistress, was sealed within the realm of Convexity by the dragons of old, because they could not destroy her with any known Element or weapon. She was too powerful, and so they imprisoned her, binding the portal shut with powerful ritual seals. Malefora had the Apes kidnap a single egg when they were done ransacking the Dragon Temple. That hatchling was Cynder."

"How awful." Lilith swallowed.

"…She told me that too." The Fallen mumbled. "…But without much detail."

"I do not blame her." Ignitia shivered. "For all the things Cynder is, she is not a masochist. She has endured the suffering of a hundred lifetimes, all in the span of just two decades."

"How, exactly?" Spyra asked.

"When Cynder was brought to the Mountain of Malefora, the Volcano, the Apes suspended her over a crude formation of pylons meant to link this reality to the realm of Convexity." Ignitia explained, her eyes glassy as she stared at the floor. "Ape engineers are only a modicum of what they would need for brilliance. They get the job done, you see, but they are by far no true warlocks or wizards. The portal they created could only grasp an inkling of the powers they would have needed to bring Malefora back.

"But Malefora knew that, and she didn't need to be present to see through the terrible scheme she had devised. She tortured Cynder. For days. She pumped pure Convexity Mana into her tiny body and heightened it with shapeshifting magicks and growth elixirs. The only reason Cynder didn't go insane was because Malefora was reinforcing her mind with magic as well, to aid her in coping with the literal pain from having her own body ripped to pieces and knitted back together, several times. She did nothing to dull it, however."

Ignitia shivered again just from the thought.

"…Anyway, all of that torture and mutation worked. Cynder emerged from the volcano as a powerful, black-wreathed killer, capable of wielding Elements not natural to the Wheel of Four that we Warfangians understand. And most of all, she had been brainwashed to be totally loyal to Malefora, at least for the first few years. Malefora used Cynder to reopen the Convexus portal, many years ago, when I and the other Guardians failed to stop her. She brought Malefora back. Now, she wants to open the portal again. She wants to use it as a conduit to channel pure Convexity into the realms, to make herself and Malefora goddesses."

"There has to be a catch to that." Spyra said.

"Of course there is." The Fallen nodded. "Cynder's taking a chance. Once Malefora finds out what she's really doing, she's betting she can empower herself with the Convexity quicker than Malefora can kill her. Malefora's going to turn the mutations and magical cants in her body into poisons to kill Cynder from the inside out. Cynder's betting she can become powerful enough quickly enough that she'll overcome the poisoning. If Cynder empowers herself to that degree-"

"-Than your foolish views of her inner innocence and good will be dashed." Cyrila harrumphed. "True power exposes the demon in all dragons. It is why the Ancestors outlawed the practice of using Convexity as an Element. And I would be inclined to agree with them: look at what Convexity does. It creates abominations like Cynder. She will be coming for you specifically, Ignitia." Cyrila nodded. "And Terradora."

"I'll kick that prissy cow's ass before she can get her grimy paws on either one of ya'." Spyra snapped. "Even Terradora."

Ignitia hummed at her and leaned down to nose-nudge her horn.

"I feel safer already." She warmly chimed.

"Yes, we can't have the Guardians splitting up anymore." The Fallen shook his head. "Everything goes down together from here on out."

"Together." Ignitia said awkwardly, looking at him with suspicion. "I suspect a departure is in order then?"

"…U-Uhm-" He stammered, but Lilith cut him off.

"If matters are this urgent then I hardly think it right of me to stand in your way." She said. "You have all saved my people. It pains me to say it: but I have no real way to repay you…"

"Nah, praise is 'nuff for me." Spyra smirked sharply, standing up and stretching like a cat as her joints popped. "I gotta' say though: I dig this place. All the plants kinda'… grow on ya'! Ha! Get it?"

"I just ate." The Fallen chuckled, avoiding Iginitia's stern gaze.

"My castle is always open, to all of you." Lilith leaned close from her throne. "Spyra, Fallen, you must come back to see me sometime in the near future. A war is no place to establish an acquaintanceship, and you both so fascinate me…"

"Methinks our schedule's only gonna' get crazier, but, uh, yeah, sure, we'll see if we can chop out a time-block soon." Spyra grinned cockily, looking towards the Guardians as they rose beside her. "'Specially if it means I can get my paws on some more of that cooking that goes on here. Your dudes sure know their way around a pot."

"…Oh! Well… thank you!" Lilith awkwardly giggled, not sure how to take it. She looked at the Fallen. "And you, Fallen? Does my court suit you well? I certainly hope so."

"Your castle is beyond lovely." The Fallen humbly bowed his head, cradling his helmet. "I've been honored to be here."

"Oversight's lifeblood: we have open wings for the trees, and guests. Especially ones who have done us a great service." Lilith quoted, scooting almost until she slipped off the edge of the throne's nesting cushion. The Fallen blinked when he noticed how… glued her eyes were to him. "Especially since I do owe you my life."

Oh boy…

A tail entwining with his hand and fingers by his side earned from him a quick squeeze and a tug. He expected to hear the usual rowdy growl from Spyra, but was surprised when the Queen was the one who growled.

The Fallen's face went pale, and he quickly locked his gaze on his hand.

It was Lilith's tail! It had snaked into him from on the floor.

He quickly released the green-scaled limb from his grasp and watched it slither with deliberate slowness against his ankles as it departed. Lilith hummed girlishly, an elbow against the arm of her throne as she licked her fangs and studied him.

"I must insist on that invitation." She quietly reminded. "Please do come back. I would greatly appreciate a more private audience with you."

"The afternoon is still young." Ignitia said, stopping in front of the throne to quickly bow her crown. "But I'm afraid we must be moving, my Queen. We'll just have to sort our possessions, collect Terradora, and we'll be off for the capital."

"I doubt that Malefora is in any position to threaten the city further, but should the need for defense arise, you may contact the Guardian Temple through the Vision Pool." Cyrila bowed curtly as well, her tail looping behind her in her impatience. "Until then… cordial farewells, Queen Lilith."

"C'mon, Fallen, let's hit the road." Spyra's tail ensnared the human's arm, yanking him away from the amorous queen.

"-We'll call you!" Conscience hollered, Lilith ignorant of his presence as she waved them off, looking… lighter than she had before they had killed the plant. "Don't go nowhere, baby! There's plenty of the Fallen to go around! We'll set up a din-din! Ta-ta!"

"You alright?" Spyra glanced over her wing at him as she trotted. "You look tense."

"Don't I always?" The Fallen sadly turned away from Lilith, taking a last look around the throneroom. "It does hurt a little leaving a new place behind. It's really beautiful here."

"Yeah, beautiful's one way of puttin' it." Spyra sneezed, sneering at and scaring off another hummingbird that buzzed in her face.

"Goodbye, Razoruk." Ignitia bowed to the elder dragon as the party passed. "I hope our paths meet once again in the future."

"…My thanks." The old one begrudgingly nodded, his one wing twitching. The drake's cloudy eyes narrowed at the Fallen and Spyra. "And be careful out there."

"I'm more careful than a duck on a shootin' range, pops, you ain't gotta' worry about me none." Spyra cockily pumped out her chest. "The Purple Dragon's here to save the day! Consider this the last siege you dragons have to deal with period."

"As you say." Razoruk sighed ashenly, his old bones quivering as he sat on his haunches to watch them go. "By the way, you four,"

The Guardians, Spyra, and the Fallen paused, looking at him.

"-Guardian Terradora I think wasn't privy of your plans." Razoruk said.

"Excuse me?" Ignitia squeaked.

"Some of my staff claimed she departed the city shortly before we reemerged from the Roseways." The elder shook his head. "She said she was heading east."

"Damn her." Cyrila clucked. "She's following the fight. Again."

"We'll have to stick to the plan." Ignitia quickly reminded, though anybody could see the strain soiling her features as she forced herself to not cry out in despair. "To the capital, to then saving Volteera. We cannot delay."

"Yeah, and besides: Cynder's probably ready to crap her tail at the thought of subduing Terradora." Spyra shivered. "-N-Not that I'm intimidated by her or nothing! But just, ya' know… she's tough, and shit. I wouldn't worry about it."

"Good luck to you." Razoruk huffed. "I think you're all going to need it."

The doors to the throne room thundered closed, and the elder stewed for a moment longer before wandering away to pass by Lilith in her throne.

"My lady?" Razoruk croaked, watching a squadron of Moles heading towards the tunnel-entrance with tools and caulk to start fixing some of the walls down below.

"What fascinating dragons." Lilith gushed, sighing lovingly as she draped over an arm on the throne. "And that sky-warrior... *sigh*..."

"...Indeed." Razoruk pawed glumly at a step on the dais. "...He was the worst, out of that whole band of misfits... Bloody hooligan."

"It's quite a relief the fate of the realms is held in the paws of such capable dragons! And one human."

"Capable." Razoruk clicked his tongue. "That isn't the word I would use, my lady."

"Hmm? Whatever do you- Oh! You're right, Razoruk!" Lilith's tail wagged over the front of the seat. "Capable, no no, what was I thinking? They're not just capable: they're perfect for the job! This war will be over in no time!"

"...Yes, my lady." Razoruk shook his head. "Of course, my lady. I'm just happy to see you safe and sound."

"Safe, and much more awake, and ready to be there for her people. Now comes the hard part." Lilith looked towards the painted glass windows.

"The fighting wasn't that part already?" Razoruk swallowed.

"Which is of more ease for a warrior: her skill with a blade? Or with a hammer and nails?" Lilith sadly smiled. "Nobody writes the stories about the cleanup, Razoruk."

{🐉}