“That’s not good,” Seraphae said as she pulled back on the bow, firing off three arrows one after another at the boss kobold.

  Big Boss Kobold spun his staff at such a speed that the crystal on the end created a blurred circle of light. The arrows ricocheted off the wood, two of them firing off in random directions, but one turning around completely to fire back at Seraphae.

  Greg drew Light Drinker at the last moment, streaking it up in front of her and knocking the bright arrow into the air over their heads. He gave her a quick nod before following Autumn down the stairs at a sprint toward the center.

  Volatility: 10 of 100

  Divine Resonance: 7 of 100

  Demonic Resonance: 4 of 100

  He’d been able to get through the bulk of the dungeon using the built up volatility from the long travel without rest, but he doubted this was going to go smoothly enough for that to continue.

  Autumn bowled forward, straight through the bones that now hovered several feet off the ground. There had to be hundreds of them, most of them bigger than any humanoid bone he’d ever seen. Maybe one of the bigger titanbloods or heliors could claim them, but definitely nothing smaller.

  Now wasn’t the time to speculate.

  Autumn, now with the space to really swing the massive sword, took to the Big Boss Kobold with more than enough fervor to keep him busy, so Greg decided to start picking off the little ones. He would need to be very careful about his resonance levels and probably have to burn his Ruin Edict earlier than he’d like.

  The smaller kobolds in this chamber were not the one shot kills of the earlier corridor. The first one he swung at pulled a curved blade from his back and batted his rapier aside with more strength than he’d expected while the little lizard behind him formed some kind of electrical ball in his hands.

  He dropped the couple of feet off the center platform again, letting the ball of energy soar over his head as he jabbed with his rapier in alternating flame and radiant strikes. Keeping one eye on his resonance gauges, Greg started stacking up burning blood from his flame strikes on the lesser kobolds.

  “We’ve got a problem,” Seraphae announced in their heads.

  Greg glanced back as he drove the edge of his rapier past the curved short sword and between the scales of a kobold. He didn’t notice anything at first until the decapitated head of Big Boss Kobold flew up into the air end over end like a hacky sack.

  Suspended about ten feet above the circular altar, the bones had come together. Each indivisual claw the size of his leg, the skeletal dragon remained motionless, except for the crystal between its bleach white ribs. The crystal that had been on the end of Big Boss Kobold’s staff was now locked into place between the fourth and fifth of twenty or so ribs, slowly spinning.

  Dragon heart crystal.

  He’d never seen it before, but what else could it be?

  “That thing isn’t going to animate is it? The crystal can’t do that, can it?” Greg looked over at Seraphae. She didn’t say anything. Just stood at the top of the stair, staring at the bones.

  White hot pain lanced through the right side of his skull, and blood almost instantly disrupted his vision. One of the lesser kobolds had picked up Big Boss Kobold’s staff, sans crystal, and gave him a surprisingly fierce knock across the old dome. His free hand shot up to hold pressure to the gash as he went after the little beast with one arm and one eye.

  “Any advice on solving the problem would be helpful!” He called through the chat function again.

  Autumn was not waiting for advice. Greg drove Light Drinker through the open maw of the screaming kobold and looked up at a loud clattering sound. She’d strapped the sword to her back and jumped straight up onto the tail bones that currently curled around the idle dragon like a sleeping cat.

  “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.” Greg stuck the tip of his rapier into the outstretched hands of the electricity kobold, before delivering a vicious kick to the little thing and sending it tumbling off the dais. While he struggled to make sure skin wasn’t flapping off his forehead, he took a moment to scan the creature.

  Scanning….

  Lesser Bone Dragon:

  The first step of draconic resurrection requires no necromantic magic. Once the full skeleton is collected and the proper amount of dragon heart crystal is applied, the process starts.

  While classified as “Lesser,” this designation refers to it being the initial form of the resurrection process and should not infer its lethality. The lesser bone dragon has no vital organs, blood flow, or fatigue response. They are known to exhibit territorial aggression, show limited self-preservation instincts, and will pursue targets beyond expected damage thresholds.

  “It’ll be fine. Take out the crystal and it’ll fall apart. That’s how all this magic stuff works, right?” Autumn grinned down at him for a moment before leaping from a talon to grab one of the ribs.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Greg felt a smile cross his lips for a split second. Right up until the squelching started. His eyes fell on the tail again, and he watched in horror as sinew sprouted from bone. Mouth agape, he watched as the fibers melded bones together one by one until it started to move.

  If removing the crystal would have worked, she wasn’t fast enough. By the time she’d monkeybarred her way up to the tenth rib, the connective tissue had already pulled the ribs together and locked the crystal in place between them. Autumn lost her grip and fell. She tried to tuck into a ball to brace for impact with the ground, but that was not the impact she should have been concerned about.

  Like a whip, the bony tail of the dragon snapped at her, bringing the red bar beneath her name down to ten percent as she soared across the otherwise silent cavern at ludicrous speed. The impact with the stone wall would almost certainly drop the last ten percent of her health. Greg closed his eyes, and called to The Mother Below.

  The Mother’s Burden

  Boon: Divine

  When an ally within one hundred feet of you would take damage you may prevent it entirely by taking it on yourself in the form of a Burden. Each Burden will affect you in a different way, depending on the amount of damage prevented. These effects can range from a slight slowing effect to instant death.

  The impact didn’t make a sound. She slid down the side of the wall and crumpled to the floor like a used paper wrapper, but the sudden cough and radiating chest pain as blood spurted from his lips told him it had worked. His right eye had swollen most of the way shut and the bit he could see through frequently filled with blood, but his left recognized just how bad of a spot he was in. He wavered on his feet, dropping Light Drinker to the ground as his hands braced on the dais.

  He couldn’t be out of commission with a bone dragon ready to strike.

  Volatility: 24 of 100

  Divine Resonance: 26 of 100

  Demonic Resonance: 29 of 100

  It wasn’t enough. If he burned his edict now, he’d have two minutes at best. Two minutes to figure out how to kill an undead dragon. Is that even what it was? A construct, maybe?

  Greg looked up.

  It’s wings had unfurled, a membranous webbing formed between the bones making a translucent bat-like skin.

  The beat once…

  Twice…

  It was testing.

  “Oh, fuck it.” Greg mumbled as he closed his eyes and called upon the edict. Power flooded through him instantly. Every time he used the skill the sensation heightened. His muscles grew and tightened, thick black smoke shot from the side of his head as infernal fire seared the wound shut, and the swelling around his eye slowly faded. He could not waste a moment of this.

  Greg reached into his inventory space above his head, pulling out the trusty harpoon. With most of Murray’s ‘unbreakable’ rope still attached, he hurled it up into the membrane of the wing and held onto the end. Ruin Edict doubling his luck seemed just enough to shine a little fortune on him. The harpoon pierced through the translucent fibers of the wing and arced to sink into the other side.

  The dragon reacted immediately, pulling its wings back and lunging its enormous skeletal skull in his direction. Thankfully, he had a good grip on that rope.

  “Woooooah!” Greg yelled as he was flung diagonally through the air, up and around the wing that was now beating down as the dragon landed on the dais. Adjusting mid air, Greg landed on its spine and drew Light Drinker. “Any help would be appreciated!” he yelled at Seraphae through the party link before sinking the blade between the vertebrae.

  It took another second, but an arrow pierce through the wing to his left and he heard several more ricochet off ribs below him. While his increased speed and strength made the slicing easier, it wasn’t what his weapon was designed for and the sinew was regenerating just as fast as he could clear it. He needed another tactic.

  The dragon had apparently also learned he was a non-threat as it barreled off the dais in Seraphae’s direction. She retreated through the enormous door and back into the tunnel again, firing arrows the entire way.

  Greg wrapped the rope around one wrist and took a leap. The harpoon anchored on the opposite wing as he swung around its empty torso just below the ribs. The turbulence was less than ideal hanging from a rope on a dragon’s spine, but he had to work with what he had. The ribcage closed itself off, thick fibrous material connecting the arching bones to spine, so he started slicing.

  The tiny icon of the flexing human in the corner of his vision flashed. He was running out of time. The burning effect from the demonic ruin edict plus his flame strikes were cutting through the material, but not at a rate he was comfortable with. He’d built up enough volatility for two jumps, and he was about to use them.

  The first he used to close the couple of feet he’d been swinging from the rope on, driving Light Drinker into the sinew and gripping a tendon that had grown out to keep him in place. The dragon had rammed itself into the wall, digging at the earth and trying to open up the corridor to go after Seraphae. Greg dragged the blade down, and quickly ripped at the hole to open it up enough to peer inside.

  Lit by the crystal in its chest, Greg used ten of his thirty-two volatility to port himself into the ribcage.

  The first thing that struck him from within the spacious cavity was just how quiet it was. The beast struggling to force itself into a tunnel a quarter its size sounded like a battle being waged miles away. He could only see a sliver of the crystal, most of it surrounded by thick sinew, but even through the wall of fiber it lit the space well enough to distinguish each bone.

  Greg knelt down over the light source and started to dig his fingers into it. When Light Drinker reappeared in its sheath a second later, he swapped it out and started carving around the crystal. The dragon made no noise outside the occasional bone rattle, but when its life source started to give way, the bones holding him in the air shook violently.

  “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!” Seraphae’s voice came through the comm channel as one of her arrows finally burst through the ribcage, narrowly missing his face.

  He could almost get his fingers around it. Greg bit down hard on his lip as he raked at the hard ligaments. They closed around his fingers with each millimeter of progress, generating a frustrated growl from him.

  “Can you hit the crystal from there?” Greg asked. “I’ve almost got it, I just can’t get through the front tendons with my rapier.”

  “I can try.” She did not sound optimistic. “It’s a lot of gnashing jaws and slashing claws in front of me though.”

  The flexing man icon was blinking faster now. He gripped the crystal from one side and drove Light Drinker down on the other, the tip of his blade piercing into his fingers with each stab. He finally got two of his fingers wrapped around it and planted his feet, using all his body to pull as his other hand continued to stab down with the rapier.

  The arrow slammed into the crystal at the perfect angle. He felt it strike the top and slide down, releasing from the fibers he’d been unable to cut. He was suddenly flung back, crystal in hand, and colliding with the wall he’d originally cut through.

  The movement stopped.

  He had enough time to look down at the crystal and where his pinky and ring fingers of his left hand used to be. The arrow had freed it from the chest, but the price seemed rather evident as the stumps of his fingers, cut off just below the center knuckle, spurted crimson.