Last Lord of the Fey (Progression Fantasy)

Tristan immediately poured essence into his armor, activating Scales of Our Foe, Armor of Ice, Near Miss, and Lucky Instinct. He did the same for his weapon, activating Dragon's Doom and Elemental Imbuement – Multi, which he willed to be ice and lightning. The spells took effect quickly, and he used his left hand to grab, uncork, and drink one of the supreme essence elixirs from his bandolier. Reverse spinning his crucible to suck down the tingling that filled his stomach, he noted that his crucible was at three-quarters of its maximum capacity, but was slowly draining from fueling the spells at his disposal.

Eloise shrank back further into the cell, and looked back at the hole. "I need my gear," she muttered.

Tristan reached down to his amulet belt, grabbed the Amethyst Amulet holding Otherrealm Retreat, and tossed it to her. "Go. Get back to the Citadel. I'll replace mine with yours."

She caught the object and nodded, "Don't do anything stupid!"

Tristan heard another ear-splitting roar that echoed down the hallway. It was louder, and sounded angrier. Otherworldly, as it seemed to shake the air and cause the space around him to warble and ripple. "Go. Now." He moved down the hall and glanced back for a brief moment as Eloise shone with a bright, red light before vanishing with a distinct pop noise.

Felicity flew behind Tristan, flapping in tight circles in her small fairy dragon form. "Well, now we have to find her gear to let you escape."

Tristan moved down the hallway toward where Eloise's gear should be stored according to the Locate spell. He moved silently, minus the slight shuffle of metal from his armor, the very minute scrapes barely noticed over the continuing, overlapping, and multi-pitched roars. The corridor was huge, easily twenty-five feet tall and just as wide, with an arched roof. No lighting fixtures were present, which made perfect sense to Tristan, as Demonkin and Demons did not need light to see in the dark. Within a minute, they had reached the door he had seen in the vision from Logos, and Felicity quickly picked the lock. Entering the space, Tristan pointed to the small chest, "There."

Felicity flew over and picked the lock, opened the chest, and stored all of Eloise's gear into her storage dimension, except for the amethyst amulet that matched Tristan's. She flew back over to Tristan, and he socketed it into his amulet belt before pulling the covering back over. "Now what?" she asked with barely-held-back anticipation.

Tristan poked his head out of the armory, "We could retreat with our artificed items…but I agree with your earlier idea. We need to investigate what's going on here. Best case scenario, we solve a problem that the Parslile are dealing with, and they are indebted to us and join our cause. But, the second things go south, we run with our amulets. Okay?"

"Got it! Let's go and see what horrible fate befell this Demon House." Felicity kept a safe distance behind Tristan as he turned into the corridor and kept going toward the noises. The temperature began to rise, and Tristan could only tell thanks to his ice-coated blade starting to steam from the increase. Felicity was panting, and muttered, "It's too hot." Tristan glanced back at her and could see that she had shifted into a facsimile of a fire dragon, but the red-hued scales of that form were not doing anything to help her with the temperature.

"If you get close, I can cool you," Tristan said. "But if its getting that hot where you might pass out…you should retreat. Use the amulet."

Felicity frowned, "I don't want to leave you here. I can just wriggle into your armor-"

She was silenced as the tunnel suddenly lit up. They were already close to the end of the corridor, and an open archway led to stairs that split off to go up on the left and down on the right. A deep, cherry red glow lit up the stairs going deeper into the mountain fortress, and another wave of heat surged over the two. Tristan barely felt the heat, but he heard Felicity gasp in shock. "Okay," she wheezed. "This sucks."

I can deal with the heat, but she needs to go back, Tristan thought. He turned around and spoke with as much sincerity as he could muster in the moment. "You should go back down the tunnel. I can't focus on protecting me if I'm also worried about you."

Felicity's face, cherry-red from the red dragon form and the amplified heat of the area, shook her head. "No. I'm with you-"

Tristan frowned, "I don't want you being collateral damage. I can survive a blast of fire that would burn you to a crisp. Just trust me."

Felicity's eyes slightly teared up, only to be instantly turned to vapor. "No! I want to be helpful. I can't just leave you!"

Tristan sighed internally, I can't protect her if she can't even take the heat. He pointed upstairs, "How about you go up? Fifteen minutes, we meet back right here." He used his sword and cut a groove into the ground in the shape of a large X. "If we don't meet up in fifteen minutes, use your amulet, and get back to the Citadel."

Felicity sounded defeated, but accepted Tristan's direction. "All right. I'll go upstairs and see what I can find out and steal." She turned invisible and unheard by all without Elf blood, and flew up the stairs.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Tristan moved at a jog, going down the stairs and descending. The staircase doubled back on itself and went down to another layer which looked to be another tunnel with dungeons going even further. But the light came from below, and more roars echoed out along with screams of pain and the sounds of something heavy hitting the ground. He descended, down, a hundred feet, as the heat grew more and more intense; sweltering. Even with his fire dragon blood consumption, he began to sweat a little bit.

Finally, he reached the bottom floor. An open archway led to a scene straight out of an apocalyptic nightmare. He could see corpses all around – charred corpses of Demonkin and Demon alike – all in an arrangement that implied they had charged down the stairs, entered the room, and been obliterated. Once holding weapons and wearing armor, the metal had been turned to slag and melted onto them or the floor, their shape and position the only hint as to what they once were. Metal still liquid and pooling as the heat didn't let up. A massive chamber, easily five-hundred feet long and just as wide, with a large, fifty-foot roof. Several carved square pillars stood aloft, with dozens of hot, red chains wrapped around them and tethered to a figure hidden from Tristan's view.

Along the front of his torso, the bandolier burned away, and the elixirs within – three supreme healing, two supreme essence, and five clearcool – all hissed, then exploded and dripped down onto the ground before sizzling away. The cloth covering of his amulet belt burned away into ash and cinder. Thankfully, everything else was far more durable. Save for the dagger which he had bought in Bhant – it melted to slag on his hip and burned through the sheath, which also crisped away as the leather furled in on itself. Everything else was inside his armor, or made of strong enough material to resist the intense waves of heat.

In front of him, a large Demon, a woman who was naked and covered in scorch and burn marks, was begging in Demon's Tongue. "Please! Go home! We are sorry for summoning you! It was a mistake!" She had a large barrier in front of her outstretched hands – deep, purple, and opaque which blocked all sight to what she was speaking to before her.

Past the woman, Tristan heard the growling and rumbling noise that he had heard from above. But he could not make out the language.

They summoned something they couldn't control, he thought, knowing that summoning as a spell type was one that all Demonkin could use, and he inferred, all Demons could as well. He spun his crucible to ensure the cooling essence flowing through him was on-standby for any spell he might need and walked up to the Demon. "Hey!" he shouted in Demon's Tongue. "The heck is going on?!"

The woman turned around, and her face had been blistered from the heat. "Who are you?" she asked.

"Marius Lestrange," Tristan replied. "Demonkin mercenary."

"Where'd you come from?" she asked, absolutely bewildered and seemingly relieved at the same time.

"You captured one of my friends in your dungeon. I just got her out. And the roaring made me want to investigate."

The Demon woman blinked a few times in shock, "You…" She shook her head, "This can wait. There are more pressing matters." She gestured behind her, "We lost everything trying to contain the Starsworn."

"Sorry…what?" Tristan asked.

"An entity from the heavens above. Heat and radiance given form." She sounded bitter, and completely heartbroken. "If you can kill it, I'll reward you."

Tristan felt unease in his chest, but also knew he could escape in an instant thanks to his amulet in the belt. "If such a thing can be done…but you owe me answers, and a favor. A big one."

"Deal," she replied. "Now…please…get rid of it."

Tristan maneuvered around her barrier and saw what her bulk was hiding – the chains on the pillars, glowing with carved runes denoting their status as artificed items, were holding a huge sphere in place. A black sphere, with an orange-red corona. A blast of heat assaulted him, and he could feel the sweat pouring off of him in buckets, his mouth going dry and eyes watering to try and keep them from drying out. Instinctively, Tristan immediately vented his essence to the surface of his skin, and felt the cooling relief take over. The black and orange circle stared at him, and he felt like he was being watched by Logos. But this was less of being spied upon, and more like he was being questioned by his father after pranking Gisele. "How do I kill it?" he asked as he ducked behind the barrier and glanced sideways at the Demon woman.

She frowned, but there was a glimmer of hope in her eyes. "I have to use a summoning spell to bind it to a mortal form. It will be powerful, and hard to kill. I can try to support you, but I do not think that my essence-weaving will do much to it. Fire cannot harm a star. Neither can smoke." She grunted and Tristan saw the barrier begin to crack. He pushed some of his essence into the amulet holding Pocket Dimension II, quickly retrieved two essence elixirs, handed her one and drank the other down. He both-direction spun his crucible, and the elixir topped off his reservoir. She also sucked hers down before the heat boiled it and shattered the container. Her face spread into a wide grin, "Oh…with that, I can get it into a much more manageable form."

"Then let's get to it." Tristan gripped his blade and felt the reassuring heft in his hand. I have this, he thought as he walked forward, each step bringing a new level of heat that began to make him sweat more profusely, and the ice on his blade steamed even more, as his silvery essence billowed around him in a shroud of icy chill. "Okay, give it mortal form." He ran around the barrier and moved across the fifty-foot gap toward the sphere, pushing even more essence through his skin to cool him in an endless stream of icy chill.

The essence-weaver behind him began chanting in Demon's Tongue, but Tristan couldn't hear her. He was entirely focused on the thing in front of him, that somehow let out an ear-piercing scream despite not having any mouth. The chains tightened around the body and squeezed down as the figure was seemingly pushed into a humanoid shape by the artificed items. Its black center was compressed by the chains into a human form but towering at twelve feet tall. The edges of its body still simmered with orange and red, but the temperature noticeably cooled.

It roared once more in Standard Tongue, holding its hand out as a large spear of the same black-limned-orange manifested in its hand. "You will die for trying to chain the stars!"

The Demon behind Tristan let out a cackle, "We did chain you! And now, this Demonkin is going to kill you!"