The room is silent as Lina can’t hear anything but her own heart pounding in her chest.
She looks towards the locked entrance to the boss room no better than a wall, and in front of it stands over 30 Paladins.
All of them are high ranking priests here to capture her and bring her to be sacrificed.
On the other side as she turns her head, is a massive Ancient Skeletal Dragon. Towering over 30 feet tall while being far bigger horizontally. The boss of this mid rank dungeon.
The room is screaming with noise around her as both sides prepare to face off yet it’s so quiet for her.
She feels sick to her stomach as she looks at her own puny frame, all alone.
Evan’s voice cuts through her mind’s silence,
“Lina, this has gone on long enough, come over here and we will take you back to your home.”
Lina considers it, she doesn’t want to die, she’s done terrible things to escape these paladins who are trying to capture her… trying to capture her.
Lina’s eyes refocus from her haze and looks around one last time before she says shakily,
“I refuse, I would rather die to this thing than let you guys sacrifice me for who the hell knows?!”
Lina starts walking towards the ancient skeletal dragon as it finishes waking up from its slumber.
She watches as blue flames flicker where eyes are supposed to be, it turns its massive head towards her approaching form no bigger than an ant compared to this thing.
Lina gulps and her hands are shaking with fear, fear of death, fear that her entire journey up till now has been for naught, but she’s set on her decision.
The terrifying dragon of bones and death prepares to attack, blue flames gathering in its empty ribs and being directed upwards.
Lina freezes in her tracks out of fear, she hears metallic steps from the Paladins behind her, she forces herself to go even closer to the beast towering in front of her.
The dragon fires a tower of blue flames at Lina… Lina closes her eyes and doesn’t move as the flames come barreling towards her…. Then quiet…
Lina at first thinks her journey is over as death claims her till she opens her eyes and sees a Paladin in front of her, shield almost completely gone as the Paladin is covered in severe burns.
It worked, Lina turns towards the other paladins surrounding her but her gaze is solid now as she finalizes her plan, she locks her gaze onto Evan and says trying to act tough,
“You guys need me alive now don’t you?”
Evan says nothing for a long moment, then he simply turns towards his paladins and says,
“Capture her quickly then we can take down the Beast.”
Lina acts quickly cause if she gets caught it’s all over, she rushes towards the paladin who blocked the blast, he tries standing but his burns overcome him as he falls back down.
Lina runs past the heavily injured paladin and towards the dragon. The dragon goes to attack her by raising its front right claw to stomp her, but another paladin shoots an arrow at it to grab its attention.
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The skeletal claw slams not on her but a bit away as the dragon advances towards Evan’s group.
Lina despite not being too close to it is thrown off her feet by the force.
She pulls herself to her feet after being flung across the room.
She sees 3 Paladins coming towards her as the rest fight the Skeletal Dragon.
Lina considers running away but with the paladins faster than her, and the others capable of taking down this beast even down a few, it would only cause them minor delays.
If she is to survive being sacrificed, she needs to face death head on. She rushes towards the center again, heading back towards the ancient skeletal dragon.
An arrow hits her left thigh bringing her down, the paladins need her alive not uninjured, but if she stops now then she might as well have never have left the church, never have killed to flee, never have done any of this to survive.
She gets up despite the arrow in her thigh as she continues running towards the dragon.
There are 3 Paladins closing in around her but not in front, meanwhile the rest are fighting the skeletal dragon a little in front of her.
She charges in and goes right to the left hind leg of the beast, she grabs it and tries hanging on for dear life.
But as the battle continues she is flung off as the dragon takes a step. She lands underneath its tail and barely ducks under it as it turns.
The paladins seeing her in trouble rushes to her aid to protect and capture her.
Lina rushes again towards the danger but this time the tail, she cuts it close but right before she gets hit, a Paladin pulls her back as he gets hit instead.
Lina stabs his arm getting herself free and continues fleeing.
The battle continues like this for quite a while with the paladins losing half their ranks to the dragon as Lina doesn’t make it any easier for them.
As the dragon prepares another round of fire breath, Lina once again rushes towards it expecting some paladins to save her once more.
But a golden string wraps around her leg making her fall over. She is then pulled out of the way and straight to Evan holding the golden string, it feels like her blessing of life, but she thought it could only be used for healing.
The dragon breath fires at the paladins who continue to fight it as Evan ties her up,
“I can’t believe how much trouble you’ve caused for us, we took you in when your parents died, and this is how you repay us?”
Lina spits in his face as she says,
“You raised me just to sacrifice me when my blessing got strong enough.”
Evan drags her back towards the edge of the room while the others fight the dragon as he says,
“Then you must also know why, earlier you spoke like you didn’t know, but I think you do know.”
Lina’s breath runs cold as she says nothing. Evan speaks again,
“Or do you just not want to admit you’re being selfish? Did you tell that odd boy about it?”
Lina looks to the dragon fighting the paladins, as it is a distraction from her sins, she pleads with gods in her mind for him to not say it, not remind her of her sins, but he speaks nonetheless,
“That the only reason we want to sacrifice you, is to give immortality to all people of this planet, to rid the world of pain, suffering, and everything else evil. You ran because you were too selfish, your life for untold amounts of others for eternity, you are the goddess’s chosen, yet you forsake your duty to save others.”
Lina starts crying, partly due to anger at his way of belittling her life, but the other part is sadness as to all she’s done when they are trying to do something noble.
Evan takes a moment to finish restraining her with ropes before he steps away to help his group fight the beast.
As he steps away the golden thread vanishes and 2 Paladins are left to guard Lina.
Lina looks up with tears filling her eyes, this is it, the end.
She looks towards the dragon and paladins fighting, to the 2 paladins guarding her near the entrance… Ashen, she wonders.
She wonders what is going through his mind, left her to face this hell alone, surviving once again off the death of his comrades. She is at first angry at him, then thinks to his gaze as they played cards, devoid of most emotion.
No he’s suffered plenty, besides who would risk their life to save someone like her? She looks down at the floor as tears fall, unable to calm herself.
But a single sound clears her thoughts of self deprecation, the door to this boss room opens with a loud creak.
In the chaos of the battle raging behind her most do not hear it, but as close to the entrance as she and the 2 paladins guarding her are, they hear the door creak open and a single person enter.
Cloaked in Black, with eyes of sorrow that have seen Death far too much, with hair that started his curse of misfortune.
Ashen, holding 2 crappy daggers, as he stands before the 2 Paladins guarding her.
Lina knows there is no way Ashen can beat these paladins, that it’s only a matter of time before the others finish the dragon, the door slams shut behind him sealing his fate.
Lina knows Ashen will probably die here, but seeing him enter when all he cares about is living, maybe, things can turn around?
