literature

Zot's great game 1

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  The hatchling descends deeper into the dark, but it doesn't matter anymore. The way was sealed behind her when she entered moments before. One quest, one goal is all she can hope to live for if she does indeed live. With shallow breath and quick pulse she begins her journey

   She scrambles to the eastward door and opens it carefully, only for it to be shattered by a lunging toothed worm. Scrambling back, she utters the one word she had spoken since her training had begun. Back, back the now wounded creature chases her, and again she speaks, now advancing forward against the red back of the creature. The worm's teeth cut into her arm and she leaps back, again reciting her spell and firing a bolt of light into the creature. Into a hall it chases her, hissing loudly like a serpent. She sees several hobgoblins and great lizards as she flees, rounding another corner she blasts through one of the former frantically and turns on a newt before returning to her mad dash to safety, remaining beasts quick behind and forming an inadvertent barrier between her and the worm.

   Finally she can rest, if only for a few minutes, before the worm is back on her trail. She sends another magic bolt it's way and hits it, now visibly damaging the beast. And again, missing, a third time mispronouncing the arcane syllables but still a good distance away if exhausted. The magic buzzes within her out of her own control, and fear mingles with it, propelling the draconian child back, back, back ever still. She finds herself following a loop, and comes across the club dropped by the first hobgoblin in doing such. Wielding it in her right claws she stands, bold, waiting. Again, the worm is too agile for her, but she manages to swing the club into it before it can reopen the gash. The worm is slowing now, dumb with rage and spattered in it's own fluids but it keeps it's advance and she backs away.

  Constantly she barrages the giant worm with small spikes of magic and she keeps her pace well knowing the worm would not hold out long, as it was already spilling it's innards onto the ground it covered. Slamming into a gecko made massive by the dungeon's energies she turns again to the worm and speaks her one precious word again. destroying what remained of the advancing worm and turning her attention to the lizard that now lunged for her. She beat at it to no avail and it lashed at her to futile inaccuracy. She spoke her word again, having recovered now, and at last the reptile fell limp. Tired and wounded, the draconian sleeps, slumped against the dead body of the lizard.

   The hatchling awakens with a start, refreshed but not fully healed, although the dungeon's magic worked away at her wounds even as she got up and stretched in the darkness. She moves southwest now, driven by some hidden sense and sketching out her surroundings as she goes along. A newt confronts her and is dispatched quickly with her club, and she scavenges bread-pies and gold coins from a nearby room eagerly. There are more coins in the hallway which are eagerly snatched up, and some stones which she puts in a small pouch slung over her shoulder.

   Not minutes later she encounters a giant gecko who loses now time clawing at her scales and even less being utterly destroyed by a magic dart. In the moments of peace that follow the hatchling encounters an imp who leaves her with only a spell and a word. The spell is of summoning said imp, the word is "Child." She jots it quickly into the book she keeps all her words and spells in, and continues on.

   Eastward a kobold's bark catches her by surprise and stone contacts with roughening scales. She shrugs it off and leaps forward a step rounding the corner and catching it in the ribs with her club, breaking it in the process and continuing on with only her hands. Curiously, the kobold as well fights with a club though a metal mace lies only feet away. Once the kobold is dealt with, the hatchling hefts the mace and tosses away the broken club she had fought with previously. A scroll is a lucky find nearby, and once she is sure there is no one to cause her harm she allows herself again to fall into sleep.

   A bat stirs the air with it's wings, soon followed by a hobgoblin and a lizard, all quickly crushed by the mace with no further harm to herself. A goblin tries to sneak past, but the paranoid reptilian bashes in it's skull without curiosity to it's behavior. Behind it, another goblin, soon drained of life by magical projectile. Something is awakening within the draconian, something she does not quite understand. Something to which no understanding is needed. She is no longer afraid of the dark, no longer hesitant to kill. She was prey once, and never again. The draconian had proved herself to herself and proved worthy of name as well.

   Kof'lin's journey had only begun. She continues on, on to the fight. On to the kill. Instinct was her ruler and caution her savior. On, on, a goblin and a gecko fall. Forwards, forwards, a hobgoblin falls prey in it's sleep. Another one calls, and she leads it around a corner, straight into her weapon. At long last she is ready to proceed down into the second layer of the darkness that she had been cast into, both in body, and in mind. Kof'lin pockets a potion and a scroll almost Immediately, stopped only briefly by a python who does not even manage a single bite or coil. Two more scrolls, a cloak to hide her fragile wings.

   Runes glow on the cloak when she places it on herself, and a feeling of sureness, of safety in it's warmth against her cold leather and scales flows from it. Fresh, preserved rations of bread are quickly found and packaged near the loaf of rye she had obtained before her descent. Another hobgoblin falls to hands grown expert in a mere day. Has it been that long already? It seems it, certainly. A bat proves somewhat difficult to catch, but is felled in a single hit.

  Newly-named Kof'lin has grown wiser in such short a time. In her small experience she discovered how fleeting life is, how replaceable all are, how easy it is to take from those who are weak and how to hide and run from those who are strong. A stone hits her back, barely doing more than irritating her through the soft cloak. she lunges, and the kobold is smacked down and crushed under her full weight.

  The pain of a giant cockroach's bite remind her of her mortal status, and she finds herself wedged between it and a large lizard. She kills both quickly, but is injured. Resting for a bit, hunger pulls her attention to the roach. She does not see it fit to eat, and briefly considers her rations of bread, but moves on to find better prey after a moment of consideration. An adder is this time's bushmeat, as it were, presenting itself unguarded and seemingly overconfident. The meat is terrible in taste, but delivers sustenance at least.

  A glow catches the draconian's eye, and she soon finds several bits of gold, some scrolls, and a glowing, runed cutlass not far from the room she had been in. Experimentally she lifts the sword. She knew a bit about swords and had received very base training with cutlasses, and fount the speed at which she could swing this one a pleasant surprise. She tests it on a hobgoblin and then a rat, her inexperience earning her a good, solid but mostly superficial knock on the side. A ring is there also, and she slips it on, alarmed at first by a sharpening of her senses but soon adjusting, rationalizing it as an effect of the glow from the obsidian ornament. This earns a smile of confidence in the child, who darts off quickly after noticing another scroll and some fresh fruit in a basket, although how it got there is beyond her even with her new trinket.

  Noting a staircase and another piece of bread, Kof'lin bites into one of the fruit, more in self-congratulation than hunger. The mangosteen is perfectly ripe, and delicious as well. She swats aside an annoying bat, continuing east where she once went west and exploring as she goes along. A hobgoblin jumps out at her, for all practical purposes getting no further than impaling itself on her blade. An ivory ring glints on the ground and she immediately, trustingly slips it on. It feels warm, almost hot but not unpleasant to wear. She is glad for the ever-so-fleeting radiation of her cloak, as the dungeon is cold to her. She barely even glances as yet another giant gecko leaps out at her, as they are barely worth noting now in her growing state of power.

 Two cyan potions enter her possession, although she doubts herself likely to use them. Calmly now, the draconian sweeps herself down again into the third level. Hobgoblins are there, one sleeping, one not, one she could not tell, for his beard covered most of his face. She sends several bolts into the bearded one, and they all come running, clubs drawn, and the old bearded one is ended with a smack from the butt of Kof'lin's sword. A missile of energy impales one of the younger ones, and the final hobgoblin is decapitated in one swoop. She hears a yell and retreats into a room, having wandered momentarily for a pair of boots. Nervously she bites into a loaf of bread and waits, perfectly still.

  An orc footsoldiar presents herself, and the draconian sends out two magic darts, killing her. She returns to her earlier task of retrieving the footwear, only for two more orcs to run at her and chase her back toward the room. She kills the one wielding a trident from a distance with magic and injures the armored but unarmed one behind it with her magic before going for the kill with her sword. The boots would be hers, that was a promise she made to herself.

  A hobgoblin strays into her path and barely gets a chance to land a cut against her. She snatches the footwear up, gecko, kobold and orc trailing behind as she retreats once more. All are killed, exhausting her magic and her body, and she rests. A long sleep holds her, and she awakens fully restored by the dungeon's energies. The boots fit perfectly, and keep her sore feet off of the ground, for that she is glad, and so she can again walk the dungeon. She follows the footprints of the fallen orcs back to their camp and finds nothing but a half-dead kobold, thus continuing on after it's death.

  Another kobold dies without much thought given. Once, the reptilian would have cared for the feelings of others, but that was many hours, perhaps days ago. In such a short time the dungeon had changed the brown-scaled creature. That was all she was now, like the kobolds and goblins, a mere creature. Above nothing, below nothing. Instinct had overridden empathy to her benefit.

  Orcs. Orcs again. Two soldiers tear after the mage, although unseen to her another followed from behind them. Drooling over the prospect of fresh meat, the draconian could not have anticipated the bolt which struck her through her warmth-giving artifacts. Her skull shattered, and she collapsed. Such is the way of life in the dungeons. so fleeting to those not mindful of the subtlest detail.
Crawl blow-by-blow, draconian child. 
Name: none (Later self-named Kof'lin)
Age: equivelent to 12
class: wizard
background: poor

Cause of death: Wrath of Beogh
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