Astral Escape, a Scientific Progression Fantasy.

I clang against the hard stone floor, the bulk of the green drake above me writhing with fury as I feel it scrape against my armor. I try to twist my head toward the enemy now above me but the drake takes my armored throat in its teeth and uses it as a lever to viciously rend into the plates on my belly, slamming the metal into my delicate flesh and carving wounds into its surface.

I try to see what's going on, but the slit of my helmet twists and turns as the drake's teeth try to tear it off. Frantically I push it away from me, but my clumsy swipes without the benefit of sight are easily foiled.

I twist trying to get the green drake off me, but as I do I hear a familiar whoosh, the blue drake must be foolishly trying to encase me in cold again. I smirk because I could use some healing for these new bruises on my belly, but instead I feel only a touch of healing as a series of icicles jut out from the floor trapping me in place as the green drake ravages my armor.

Fuck, I didn't know they could do that, although now that I know, it makes sense, I pretty clearly showed just throwing random magical energy at me doesn't do shit. Gosh darn it why am I thinking this while a giant, magical, overly muscular, scaly cat-dog, is tearing me apart?

Thankfully I don't have to scold myself much longer as a burst of fire erupts from the blank tile, the forest of icicles around me previously melting away surprisingly quickly considering how much energy is needed to melt ice. The green drake atop me, quickly scrambles away as the burst of flame quickly chars their scales. I see the blue drake who was trapping me in place before, quickly retreat out of the new green tile they are on as the green drake drags themselves onto it.

As I see the green drake do so, the char on their scales begins to flake off as they begin to visibly heal. Looking at them through a tiny sliver of my helmet slit I cry absolute bullshit, somewhat hypocritically considering the fact that I'm healing myself right now using the blazing magical heat. But considering that I don't have much time, I use the small reprieve I have while all the drakes reorient themselves to twist my helmet back into place so that I can actually see what's going on.

I do this just in time as I hear the claws of the drakes scratching on the tiles quickly approaching and turn to the threat I hear. It's the red drake, looking a lot better after it hid in a tile filled with flame from me trying to finish it off with my icebeam.

Dashing into the flame filled tile it lunges forward teeth first as it snaps at my helmeted face. In a bit of a panic I take my hand with the ice beam still active and slap the side of its face with as much force as I can muster. The drake having lunged quite far is taken off balance, and its quick lunge fails as it slams into the floor its mouth, and an eye now covered with mystic ice.

Seeing that it won't be able to go after me soon I quickly back away, thankfully into a blank spot. I look around to see what's going on. The green drake thankfully is sitting still in a green tile content to be getting healed and I see the blue drake approaching but after retreating out of the now green tile, there are some major danger zones between me and it.

This is my chance, I know that fire transitions into ice, if I can keep it here for a while longer, I'll have the chance to finish it off before it can heal, as these stupid drakes can apparently do.

Sending out the ice beam from my gauntlet I try to encase the red drake in ice as it scrambles to get up. It works to some effect but the restraints quickly weaken and melt in an area filled with ice. The red drake quickly gets up and starts gunning for me in the blank tile.

Seeing it coming I stop aiming at the drake itself and start aiming at the floor of the blank tile, creating a wall that the red drake crashes into. The red drake clearly unwilling to let me stay unmolested breathes a gout of flame at my rather small wall. The wall quickly melts but seeing it sitting so still, shooting out the flame gives me an opportunity.

As the wall gets melted down, I scramble forward, and slam a fist down on its hands, it still stands but it wobbles and it quickly stops spitting flames. Using its wobbling legs I slam my armored foot into its leg and it collapses.

Unlike before I don't head down to try to hold it in place with my body as the tile transitions from fire to ice. That would only give it another opportunity to blast me away with that strange explosion.

I can't restrain it with my usual tool either, my ice beam since it isn't nearly as effective as usual in the fiery red tiles.

But I have another tool in my belt, my meditation technique's. I usually stop myself when I'm blasting through the astral with a burst of calm to slow me down, and if I can slow myself, and the random junk I used to have floating around my rudimentary base, surely I can slow down this drake.

With a flourish I quickly create a melty ice wall, and then sit down, close my eyes, breathe in, breathe out, as I let everything fade away. My immense amount of practice in not freaking out, in a plane seemingly designed to drive me mad allowing me to hold onto this calm even as I can vaguely hear and feel gouts of flame lick my armor, and claws scrabbling against ice, eventually I hear the claws slow, until it all goes still and quiet.

I open my eyes again when I hear the flames subside and the fog rise again, as the pipes turn in defiance of my zone of stillness. Upon doing so I see the red drake amongst the icy fog, quickly I take my ice beam and aim at it, in its slowed state, and ice shut its mouth. I hear a muffled clap as something tries to blast its way out, but its frozen shut mouth only makes it damage itself. I then use the beam to trap its feet, and slow its chest. I see panic in its eyes but I don't stop until its covered in ice, and those eyes begin to dull, and slow.

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Good, one opponent down, now I have a decisive advantage in red tiles. Hmm, maybe I should take advantage of this. This thought however doesn't manage to get far, as the shifting tiles also allows the blue drake to leave the tile they were previously trapped in, as the green tile turns blank. Now both drakes are united and approaching. The green drake briefly skims a fiery tile to make it to the green tile to the left of the icey one the corpse of the red drake is in, as the blue drake advances into the blue tile with the corpse.

Unheeding the corpse, instead using it as almost cover to block off its bulk, I see the blue drake open its mouth just above the red drakes corpse and spit out a series of sharp icicles my way. Quickly jumping back I begin to stare at the blue drake as the icicles it spits quickly melt away in the fiery zone I'm in.

Before that quizical move is wiped off my face when the blue drake takes the corpse it previously sheltered behind and shoves it with extreme force my way. My legs not in a wide stance are quickly destabilized by a massive frozen corpse being thrown at my shins and I collapse forwards onto the frozen corpse as it slides for quite a distance before slamming into one of the central pipes, depositing me into the blue tile behind me.

Fuck, I quickly push myself off of the frozen corpse as I try to get back to my feet, I can't stay here long, if this is an icy tile, I know from before I'll soon be covered in acid when the pipes switch.

I move over to the left, as I look forward and see quite clearly. Oh there's another blank tile right in front of me, they can reach my are-

Before a barrage of icicles slam into my side, Turning over I switch on my heat beam and melt them on the path but I can't stop the barreling form of the green drake as they storm towards me.

I turn to run to a red tile, where I might have an advantage but as I do I hear a spit, and I step onto a sheen of acid.

I scream in pain, as I fall to the floor, my armor clanging against the stone. I hear a dull screech as the drakes rush me down.

I try to stand but soon realize that would only expose me to acid, on feet already dissolved by it. Thus I stay on the floor, and frantically create some icy nubs in their path as the two drakes barrel towards me.

The green drake unable to maintain their balance on the now icy floor wipes out, and their momentum causes them to continue sliding toward my now prone self. I am torn between cursing my fate to keep getting slammed by flying bodies and being glad that the green drake at the very least didn't manage to stay on their feet with nary a stumble like the blue drake.

Unable to move around as normal considering the state of my feet, I scoot backwards and grab the pipe in charge of all the tiles to hold me down before painfully flicking on the earth shot runes on my boots with my acid ravaged toes.

I aim one foot toward the barreling drakes and another towards the floor, and when the eruption of stone pops up I pop into the air from the recoil while simultaneously littering the icey floor I made with random rocks, and pushing the drakes backward.

The blue drake quick agile steps, quickly turn sour with the new debris, stumbling fast, which only makes their situation works when more high speed rocks slam into them and send them to the floor. Frustratingly the low profile of the green drakes frantically rolling and sliding body, drastically lowers the amount of rocks that can push it back so it still finds its way to me frantically holding onto the pipes for dear life as the recoil forces me into the air.

The blue drake temporarily out of the way I focus my efforts on the green drake, it might've ended up here but it didn't end up here undamaged, I see several of those strange outside teeth scattered on the floor leading here, and a copious amount of blood as well. It additionally doesn't look the most cognizant considering it just wiped out, and slid its way here, right now is an opportunity.

I'm not exactly able to wield either of my gauntlets right now considering I'm hanging on for dear life right here, but its not like a bunch of high speed rocks are ineffective at hurting things.

Quickly turning off the boot that was previously pointed at the drakes I With a hooking motion pull the disoriented drakes head closer to me with my armored heel, disregarding the strain and pain this inflicts on my acid damaged feet.

Then using one heel to anchor it to me, I point the other boot straight at its head. Quickly the stream knocks loose many a scale, and causes many a spurt of blood as tooth after tooth flies off, but the green drake perhaps sensing the closeness of its death snaps at my nearby foot with its teeth.

Freaking out with its teeth so close to my exposed, and acid damaged soles I try to wriggle out but its teeth only clamp down harder as I begin to feel the metal on my ankles bend inward and bruise the flesh underneath.

Pointing my other foot at its mouth I frantically try to dislodge it but it stoically receives blow after blow upon its skull, a nigh constant spray of blood adorning its face as more and more rocks slam into it.

Hearing that tell tell scritch and screech of a drake approaching I emit a noise similar to a tea kettle as I begin to kick at its jaw yet it stays attached to my leg, but not for long, as the pipes I had diligently attached myself to with begin to turn.

I almost let out a sigh of relief but I only find more panic as I still feel the drakes grip on my ankle with its teeth even as I swing around on the pipes, the shifting and turning allowing it to get a better angle. Shrieking I give up on these stupid pipes and crash down onto the ground with the drake, armored knees onto its body first.

I might not have nearly as much strength as these overly muscular lizards but I'm clad in some ridiculously heavy stuff meant to float about in zero gravity, when I hit something, my armor makes sure I hit hard. It's time I make use of it without relying entirely on brute strength but instead gravity.

When I land I hear a profound crunch as I feel several narrow bones break inwards as I land on a strange angle onto the drakes chest, crushing a few ribs on my way down. Reeling with pain the drake screams momentarily releasing my ankle, and taking my chances I rip it out of their maw before turning around and slamming my fist into its screaming face.

A rictus grin on my face I activate the heat beam before continuing to pummel the drake disregarding the extreme heat it causes in such close quarters just so I can cause it just a bit more pain.

The drake screams, and claws, and tears at me, but with lungs filled with bones, a skull more covered with blood than teeth, and a rapid char forming in scores, I slam into it over and over again until I feel something crack and spill in its skull.

I breathe in and out, in and out, in and out, at some point a gout of flame falls down from the pipes, but I welcome it, each plume healing my damaged feet as I kneel over the now cooking corpse.

Scanning around I see the blue drake ahead and a bit to my right prowling in a blank spot, most residual wounds wiped away, as it slinks blocked from my way with a series of acidic and fiery tiles.

Hah, whoever designed this room, presumably the dungeon itself considering its sentient, was an idiot, the traps might give the drakes some advantages through the healing they can do, but isolating enemies becomes much harder when there's even a few 4 tile blocks in the way that 50% of the time won't let you through.

If I had been forced to consistently fight all three drakes at once this would have been a much different, more frantic fight. Hell even only having one drake type so they could move through the same obstacles would have been useful. With the way its currently set up for two drakes to team up, one either has to go the long way around or they have to wait for blank tiles to move, which means they can only move through one fourth of the tiles if they flight as a group.

If I were to ever make a deathtrap meant to murder the weak because they're weak, not that I would. It would make more sense to either have the whole hallway be one element and then have the drakes be that same element and beat the crap out of everyone while getting constantly healed. They would have some disadvantages like someone who is really good at fire in a hallway full of red tiles might clobber if all the drakes are fire, but this deathtrap is useless for killing people. What type of deathtrap even is this.

Wait a second that gives me an idea, looking up again after going off on a tangent I suddenly realize that I can't see the blue drake. Fuck, how did I get into a tangent in the middle of a fight with clear dange-