Chapter 8 - Boss Dragon Robert

"Rayne, Rayne, are you okay?"

 

Dustbunny bounced toward her and grabbed her arm, grunting as he tried to pull her to her feet. She looked up just in time to see David catch the dragon's attention and step away from them.

“All right, Robert,” David yelled. “We gonna do this, or we gonna pansy around, huh?”

The dragon snorted and reared back like a snake before unleashing a massive blast of ice.

David yelped and half tripped, half dove behind a pile of treasure. Jagged spikes of ice solidified and sent gold and jewels skittering across the floor.

“Guess we’re doin this,” David muttered as he poked his head up. His eyes widened as Robert charged at him with an earsplitting roar. He dove out of the way, avoiding a snap of the dragon’s jaws, but as he rolled to his feet, the dragon spun and whipped its tail around at mach speed.

David had just enough time to brace for impact before he was sent skipping across the sea of gold like a stone on a pond.

“We gotta get that spark.” Rayne turned toward the throne, then back to the dragon. Its glowing eyes focused on her.

“I think we should run,” Dust said.

“Fine.” Rayne scooped up the gormaden and sprinted across the cavern. Behind her, another icy blast decimated a pile of treasure. A giant bell cracked the floor and echoed like a loud gong, a thousand coins raining down as Rayne ran.

“Come on, come on, come on.” Rayne gritted her teeth, clutching Dust tight to her chest. He squirmed as he looked over her shoulder.

“Rayne, watch out!” he cried, and the floor vibrated as the dragon chased after her. There was a splash of metal and—

WHAM!

It was like she’d been hit by a tree trunk in a tornado. She lost her grip on Dustbunny and went flying through the air. Two seconds later, she hit the stone and rolled to a stop, her arms and legs splayed every which way.

For a moment, it was all just a haze. It wasn’t real, hadn’t happened, and she was just . . . on the ground. It was all . . . fuzzy. On the ground? Her body was beginning to throb in a hundred different places, and she’d hit her face on something, and . . .

Rayne pressed a finger to her lip, and it came away dripping crimson.

Noble blood.

Her mind came to, and she pushed herself up onto her elbows and tried to stand. She stumbled the first time and slipped on coins the second, but on her third try, she stood on trembling legs.

She looked up and spotted Dustbunny a dozen yards away, crawling up a pile of treasure. Thankfully, the dragon wasn’t looking at him.

The dragon was looking at her.

Rayne scowled in response and tasted blood. This was her only chance to find the spark and join the guild. Once her parents found out what she’d done, they’d never let her leave the house again. 

Assuming she survived, of course.

She’d come too far. The noble blood on her fingers demanded the noble effort. Rayne wasn’t going to walk out of the cavern without that accumulator, and there was no other way around it.

She started walking. Her legs were shaky and unstable, but with each step, she grew more confident, more stable, more manic with adrenaline. First she was walking, then running, and then sprinting again.

The dragon snorted its disdain and sent a savage amount of frost in her direction. She dodged the ice and raced toward the stone throne.

“Go, Rayne, go!” Dustbunny whooped from his perch.

The dragon began its chase, its thundering footsteps shaking the floor as it crashed through treasure like it was water.

There was the throne, right in front of her. She scrambled up the pile of coins and jewels, slipping and sliding and shifting. She got close enough and lunged forward, catching an edge of the throne and pulling herself up.

The glowing blue crystal was the size of a copper bell and the color of the Eastern Sea at first light. She could feel its power even without touching it, like something spicy in the air that touched at her skin, prickling around her.

With a shout of triumph, Rayne grabbed the Oasis Spark just as the dragon tore through the pile of treasure with its massive claws. 

Magical energy hit her like a thousand waves. The lights and colors in the dim cavern were as bright as a summer noon. Tendrils of magic connecting everything to everything filled her vision.

Rayne didn’t have a chance to focus on the revelry of the pure energy flowing through her. She and the throne went tumbling. She hit the floor with a painful thud, and the throne shattered next to her in a hundred pieces.

Gripping the spark even tighter, Rayne yelled in pain and rolled out of the way a moment before the dragon’s deadly claws cut into the stone where she’d landed.

She rolled again, this time onto her feet, and ran, even though her knees seared like they’d been burned. She couldn’t stop. The dragon roared and flapped its wings, sending out a gust of wind that almost knocked her over.

“I’ve got it!” Rayne yelled to David, wherever he was. “I’ve got it! Let’s go!”

“Oh, yay!” David hopped around the corner, dumping gold coins out of his pants leg. “Because I would like to leave.”

He turned and ran, catching up with Dustbunny, and the two of them raced beside her toward the exit. They were running as fast as they could, and Rayne’s heart pounded harder as the cave entrance came into view.

Before they could reach it, the dragon dropped from above and landed in front of them with a guttural growl. Rayne skidded to a halt and half crashed into David. She swayed on her feet, chest heaving.

“Fayr,” she said, searching frantically for a way out. “How the fayr are we supposed to get out of this one?”

“Okay, so you did lose my sword,” David muttered.

“David, I’m not going to die with you holding that over my head,” Rayne hissed back.

“We don’t have the sword,” David continued, a mischievous smile crossing his face, “but I did bring a surprise. Dust!”

“Aye, aye, sir!” Dustbunny reached into David’s rucksack and brandished a stick of dynamite. 

“Ta-da!”

Rayne’s mouth dropped open. “How have you not exploded into a million pieces?”

“To be honest”—David shrugged—“I have no idea. I do, however, have a plan.” He took a step forward, pulling his silver lighter out of his pocket.

Robert the Frost Dragon snorted, scraping his claws on the stone like a horse pawing the ground.

“Come on, Robert!” David yelled. “Show me what you got!”

His challenge echoed through the cavern, and it was almost like the dragon understood. Its eyes narrowed, and a deep purr-like rumble emanated from the base of its throat.

Dustbunny clenched Rayne’s leg tight as they watched in anticipation.

“Trust me,” David said, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he flicked the lighter and lit the short frayed fuse. In the same moment, the dragon lunged forward, unleashing its icy breath.

David launched the sparkling dynamite straight toward the dragon’s blast. He spun around and tackled Rayne and Dustbunny to the ground as the dynamite exploded in midair. The shock wave hit them like an invisible wall and sent them sliding across the floor.

Rayne’s body squeaked to a halt. She coughed and gasped for breath as she sat up, her cloak and jacket now torn and singed in a dozen places.

David lay splayed out in front of her, coughing and gasping as well. His cough turned into a ragged laugh as the smoke cleared. He pointed toward the dragon.

Rayne stared in shock. There was the dragon, frozen in its own ice.

“You just . . .” Rayne blinked. “You just reversed a dragon’s blast with dynamite. That is . . .”

“Insane,” Dustbunny said with a nod.

“Fayring insane.” Rayne blinked again. “How did . . . I mean . . . Can someone explain to me how that worked?”

“Movie logic. Don’t question it,” David said with a grin. He grunted as he pushed himself to his feet and reached a hand down to help the two of them up. “So you got it? You got the thing?”

“I got the thing,” Rayne said, holding her hand out. The Oasis Spark gleamed in her palm.

Dustbunny rose to his tiptoes and touched it with a paw. His ears perked up straight, and his fur prickled across his body.

“Whoa, that is powerful,” he said.

Rayne nodded and took a deep breath. When the dragon had been chasing her, her mind had been focused, but now that the immediate danger had passed, Rayne’s mind was being pulled into that magical state.

The world started tilting, and Rayne once again saw tendrils of energy. They reached out and made a thousand, thousand connections. One reached out to Dustbunny, and the magic that connected his disembodied limbs glowed faintly.

But David. The magic avoided him. Everywhere he moved, the tendrils ducked and dodged like he was surrounded by a bubble they couldn’t breach.

“You ready to go?” David asked, and his words drew her back to reality.

Rayne blinked, the shift so sudden and her trance so deep that she hadn’t realized how far she’d gone.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” she said. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to just hold on to one of the most powerful magical artifacts. She wrapped the Oasis Spark in a small piece of cloth and put it in a side pocket of her backpack.

“I’m ready,” she said, looking over to Robert the Frost Dragon. His icy prison was already beginning to crack at the edges, and it was only a matter of time before he escaped and came after them again. “We should go before Robert gets angry again.”

“Okay,” Dustbunny chirped. He gave the dragon a wave. “Goodbye, Robert!”

David scooped up his friend and dropped him into the rucksack.

“Real quick,” David said, reaching down and grabbing a handful of coins. “Anybody need any more gold?”

“I’m good,” Rayne said, and she took one last look at all the debris, the towers of treasure that had been toppled, and the physical evidence of everything she’d been through.

The feeling—of having gotten away, of surviving, of knowing she had won—was euphoric. She smiled, brimming with confidence.

“All right, that’s good,” Dustbunny said. He wriggled around in the rucksack, and coins clinked beneath him. “Onward!”

Rayne led them out of the cave, and they were back out in the cold morning air. The sun had broken through the clouds, and the valley was filled with golden beams from on high, like the heavens were celebrating Rayne’s accomplishment.

From her position on the mountain, she could look down and almost make out her entire journey. She traced the path in her mind, and it filled her with more hope and confidence.

She understood, in a way, why her grandfather had always been so eager to escape, to run off to some other part of the world to fight or search for something. Now that she’d obtained the spark, the only thing left to do was go home.

The idea made her anxious. It was an odd thing, being anxious about going back to the one place she was supposed to always be welcome. But there were consequences to every action, whether good, bad, or neutral.

“Not too bad, Maralyn,” David said, standing beside her, drawing her out of the anxious thoughts.

“I almost can’t believe I did it,” Rayne said, “can’t believe we did it.” She paused for a moment. “Is this what it’s like? Going on adventures all the time? Do you . . . Is this the feeling you get?”

“Oh yeah.” David tipped his hat against the sun, squinting a little. “I mean, maybe it gets a little hard to reach each time, but adventures are full of desperate pee-your-pants moments, and they’re also full of hopeful moments that sometimes pay off into moments like these.”

Rayne reached around to the side pocket she had placed the spark in and took it out. She made sure to hold the cloth, careful not to let the magic flow through her, lest she make a wrong step off the mountain while following a thousand connections.

David leaned in, the crystal gleaming in his eyes as Dustbunny crawled up onto his shoulder to look at it.

“That sucker is pretty snazzy, eh?” he said.

“They’re going to have to let me into the guild if I bring them this,” she said, looking up from the crystal and to David. “So what do we do now?”

“Well,” David said with a shrug, surveying the valley. “You know me, famous adventurer and all. We’ve got places to go and whatnot.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“So then I guess this is where we part ways, isn’t it?” Rayne asked. “I’ve got to head back to Volthum and catch the next ferry home.”

She wrapped up the crystal in the cloth and put it back in the pocket of her pack. She zipped it up, patted it, and double-checked to make sure it was there.

“You could come with me, you know,” she added, hopeful.

“Alas, dear Maralyn,” he said, giving her a farewell pat on the backpack. “We must be off. Got worlds to save and donuts to eat, after all.”

“Donuts,” Dustbunny chirped, his deep black eyes glistening as he reached out to give Rayne a hug. He nuzzled his cold velvet nose against her cheek and sniffed.

“Did you get snot on me?” she asked, wiping her cheek.

“Maybe a little,” he admitted, sniffing again. “Goodbye, Miss Rayne.”

“I’m gonna miss Dustbunny,” Rayne said as David gave her a wave of farewell and began to walk away. “But you, not so much.”

He just turned his head and smiled.

“Hey!” she called after him. “Do you think we’ll see each other again?”

“No doubt about it!” he answered, holding up a hand. Between two of his fingers was another one of her granola bars.

Rayne frowned, then broke into a small smile. She felt a little melancholy at the parting. She wasn’t looking forward to the long hike back to Volthum all alone; she’d grown accustomed to the company, no matter how annoying it might have been at times.

Even so, Rayne began the journey home.