A Tyrant, Sort Of

The first thing Sable did, stirring to consciousness underneath a rising sun, was check her mana.

[ HP: 27,419 / 27,419 ]

[ MP: 1,459 / 1901 ]

Not fully recovered.

At the same time, what she’d regained was a massive improvement from her passive mana generation. And truthfully, Sable hadn’t expected a best-case result. Did anyone? She respected, in a way, the bright-eyed optimists—it beat the cynics—but that didn’t mean she counted herself as one. Somewhere in the middle.

So. Today, she had fourteen hundred mana to tackle the last of the orecrunchers. That should be more than enough.

Or, well, not a comfortable amount, but hopefully enough to make do. Worst case scenario, she had her claws, teeth, and tail to fall back on. Those didn’t take mana and were fearsome in their own right.

Without dallying, Sable set off for the Danner Quarry. She left Aylin behind, as before. The goblin woman would be practicing with her class today against some local, low-level monsters of the forest. That concerned Sable, and she considered sending Granite with her for backup, but she didn’t want her hoard suddenly disappearing and plummeting her back to that debilitating starting state. She needed a guard twenty-four-seven.

Probably, Sable should fill out her thrall sooner rather than later. She hadn’t worked out the moral quandaries there, though. Non-sapient creatures were less troubling to collect, but less useful. Sapient ones … well, forcing people into servitude was obviously concerning. Maybe there were people like Aylin who would want the opportunity for a class, though? Or were willing to serve a dragon directly for whatever reason.

She’d figure it out later. Not high priority.

On the way, she stopped for a snack. Eating raw animals was still somewhat uncomfortable, but growing less so.

Soon enough, she’d returned to the sprawling gouge-mark in the earth that was the Danner Quarry. She continued her task of converting beetle-like elementals into experience.

Yesterday’s practice had had a chance to solidify in her brain. Spells flowed easier than ever, with fewer mistakes in the complex diagrams. Which meant the spells were cheaper for the same effect—her mana pool would stretch even further than she’d budgeted for. Not to the point she could blast indiscriminately, but with hope, she wouldn’t need to rely heavily on her claws and teeth, as she’d first feared.

The hours ticked by as Sable cleaned up the rest of the infestation. Each successive battle was more difficult than the previous, the enemies growing stronger as she worked inward. Bigger, faster, and meaner, the [Greater Orecrunchers] were the superior opponents in every way.

The fights even started to become difficult. The overwhelming advantage afforded to her by her draconic heritage dwindled, the level disparity and exhaustion closing the gap. Near the end of the quarry, encounters were taking her full attention and effort.

She even started taking hits—more than superficial ones. For the first time since Sable had arrived here, the beast’s vicious strikes managed to draw blood. Even the ones where her defenses held left stinging bruises from the impacts. There was a limit to her so-called impervious scales. At a meager level four, and with her stats still reduced by fifty percent, Sable simply didn’t wield the full might of a dragon.

By the time the dredges had been cleaned away, leaving only the Hivemother, who chewed lazily away at her stony meal, ignorant to Sable’s methodical eradication, Sable was exhausted and low on resources.

[ HP: 23,148 / 27,419 ]

[ MP: 393 / 1901 ]

Four hundred mana. Twenty percent of her total mana pool. Was it enough to take down the boss?

Sable wasn’t sure. The Hivemother was level sixteen, which meant a staggering twelve level gap. Beyond that, if she had to guess, the Hivemother would be stronger for her level than a ‘regular’ level sixteen, in the same way Sable was outrageously powerful for being level four. It might not be one of the most legendary creatures on the continent, as dragons were, but it felt a safe assumption that it would hit above its weight class.

She eyed the monster. The lumbering beast sat half-submerged into the cliff face, scraping enormous chunks of rock away and tossing it to the side. Crystalline veins of ore streaked through its gray carapace, strangely entrancing. Easily twice or three times as tall as the largest of the other monsters, it dwarfed even Sable herself, who, while she hadn’t towered over her enemies, had at least had weight and bulk to throw around when the fight turned to a physical brawl. By the way the hivemother carved rock from the cliff face so easily, the beast outstripped its underlings’s strength in spades, too.

Sable debated whether attacking it was wise. While accepting defeat—or a slower than possible completion of her mission—would be devastating to her reputation, all that really mattered was that she stayed alive. Losing progress would suck, but retreating and regrouping meant the ability to try again later. Dying, obviously, didn’t.

The dilemma didn’t plague her for long. She didn’t think it was her newly found arrogance influencing her, either. Not entirely. Just, she wasn’t going to scurry off because the fight might be close. If things went poorly, maybe she’d skedaddle, but she’d at least give this her best shot.

A close fight even sounded kind of nice. Though some of the orecrunchers had started to pose problems, that had mostly been from a war of attrition, not individual power. Bruises collected over dozens of encounters slowly grinding down her defenses, or the rare lucky hit.

But now. A single, intense duel—the culmination of a day’s hard work.

Her heart quickened at the idea. The chance to match herself against an adversary that would pose genuine problems. It sounded … nice.

Four hundred mana. She needed to ration it. How drawn out would the fight be? How much tougher was the hivemother than its underlings?

Only one way to find out.

[Frostfire Grasp] formed in her mind easier than ever. So many brutal hours of combat had yielded the results she’d hoped for: she had become many times more adept at spellwork.

As always, the spell’s activation—even before its manifestation—drew the attention of her enemy. Inside the burrow the Hivemother had been happily half-submerged into, the beast stiffened. Sable appreciated the advantageous positioning. The creature needed to scramble out and spin to face her, which bought Sable a comfortable moment to pour mana into her first spell.

And pour mana she did. More mana meant a stronger effect, and this [Frostfire Grasp] would need to be several times stronger than the ones she used against the regular orecrunchers.

The shard of crystalline magic shot forth, slamming into the ground underneath the Hivemother. Three rings of frostfire ice burst upward in an icy prison, empowered more than any individual spell of Sable’s yet—almost sixty full points. Even considering its size, the beast was engulfed up to the chest by the centermost portion of the spell, securing her opponent in a magical prison.

The Hivemother thrashed. Confines splintered, and chunks of ice flew in every direction. Another jerk of its body and powerful shovel-like appendages had more of the brittle material shattering, breaking further by the moment.

But Sable had already started working on her follow up spells. Normally, she would fling a few ice spikes, but this time, she used the opportunity her powerful rooting spell afforded her to send more roots the Hivemother’s way. None as individually strong as the first—she didn’t have the mana to do so—but rather smaller, cost-effective ones. On each of its six legs, Sable coated small eight-mana bursts of icy, crystalline frostfire.

Slowly, the thrashing became less effective, pinned down by seven concurrent spells. It had taken a meaningful chunk of Sable’s dwindling mana, but now she had her opponent secured and at her mercy.

She got to work. First, she activated [Horrifying Aura]. The defense debuff was sure to help with taking down such a heavily armored opponent. Then she fell back to her tried-and-true classic: regular fire breath.

While [Frostfire Spear] was quickly growing into a formidable part of her arsenal, when it came to raw offensive output, Sable had a suspicion that pouring an ocean of blue-white fire onto her opponent was simply the better option. As her class progressed, and her spellcasting abilities too, that would change. For now, fire breath couldn’t be beat.

So she did what dragons did best in the classical sense. A torrent of blue-white fire washed across the boss monster in waves, blackening the rocky cliff face behind it. She turned the heat up as much as she could, and she felt her mana draining fast. But a strong first attack, with her opponent locked down and helpless, gave her by far the best odds of winning. If she wanted a chance to survive the upcoming melee, then her opponent needed to be greatly weakened.

At least, in her opinion. She was no veteran to this. As days, weeks, and months ticked by, and she earned some genuine experience in combat, she’d be able to better discern optimal strategies. For now, she had to rely on intuition.

The frostfire breath came out in such a torrent that it blocked her vision. So, when the Hivemother crashed into her, she didn’t expect it in the slightest—she hadn’t known the rooting spell had broken.

Her fountain of liquid flame cut off abruptly, and Sable went tumbling backward, thrown like a ragdoll despite her bulk. She’d expected the Hivemother to be by far the strongest opponent she’d faced yet, but the impact felt like a house had been thrown at her. Even with her fortitude, recovering took great effort. By the time she’d climbed to her feet, the Hivemother’s gigantic spade-like appendage was already crashing down like a meteor.

She scampered away, and a fountain of rock spewed upward where the mighty appendage crashed. Sable’s eyes widened at the raw destructiveness of the blow. She doubted that would have left more than just a cut if she’d been hit. This fight was, undoubtedly, something that could get her killed, should she mishandle it.

The threat of death or grave injury probably shouldn’t excite her. Unfortunately, it did.

The fight began in earnest. Sable’s initial efforts had done great work. With a blackened hull that still streamed smoke, the injuries she’d leveled in her opening blitz—at an admittedly great mana cost—had weakened the Hivemother. It put her on much more even playing grounds for the ensuing scuffle.

Even with the hivemother fatigued from injuries, though, Sable struggled to keep up. She weaved [Frostfire Spears] between dodging gigantic swipes of the monster’s shovel-claws. For all its size, it wasn’t slow and bumbling. She took hits, here and there, and they were no weaker than the first; she went tumbling any time she did, thrown from the overwhelming power behind each blow. Only the tenacity given to her through her genetics allowed her to shrug them off and continue pelting the Hivemother with spells and fire.

Bit by bit, she worked the enemy down.

Near the end—mana pool dwindling into the double digits, and her mundane energy flagging too—she started to doubt whether she’d succeed. Did she flee? Try again later?

Whether it was wise or not, she disregarded the thought entirely. Flee? Not likely. She would see this through.

It wasn’t easy, but she made it happen.

Bleeding, bruised, and exhausted physically and magically, Sable stood over the recently created corpse of a [Orecruncher Hivemother]. The beast groaned one last time, then went silent.

A moment later, her reward came:

***

[Path: [Frostfire Sorceress] advanced from Level 4 to Level 5.]

[Skill gained: [Arcana Specialty - Enchant]]

***