Gwenevere is a child of infinite possibility, and she has five thousand competitors playing her game. For Eliza, Nox, Zola and Bleidd, this means facing down thirteen floors riddled with dragons, cat kingdoms and cabbages. Yet in a world where anyth...
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"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Amdraste screamed from bellow.
The relief was gone in a flash.
Holding onto the spine with one arm, Nox leaned in order to peer over the side of the dragon's broad back...
A figure burst from the dust, brandishing a narrow blade that glinted in the light. She sailed towards them, jumping inhumanly high...
Amdraste plunged her dagger into the dragon's hide near the base of his tail, summoning a snarl from Caerwyn. She hung on furiously by only the hike of her blade, struggling with all available limbs to get a grip on the dragon.
"Nox!" Nox wrenched his attention away from the vampiress slowly clambering towards them to Eliza, who had turned to face him. "Can you deal with her?" She called over the wind.
He glanced back at Amdraste, who had devised a system of wrenching her dagger out of the dragon's flesh, stabbing it in a little higher up, hauling herself along and repeating the process.
With Nox located at the dragon's lower back, she was getting alarmingly close. "How?" He called back to Eliza without taking his eyes off Amdraste. Panic began to rise in him as the vampiress drew nearer.
"I don't know! Think of something!" Was Eliza's response. "Quickly!"
Nox furrowed his brows in a combination of terror and confusion. "That's so helpful Eliza!"
"Sorry!"
Meanwhile, Amdraste was mere feet from him, still steadily climbing up the dragon towards him. Desperately he scanned around himself for something— anything— that might be of use.
Yet all he had was his satchel— which contained nothing but a water canteen and his map now— and the giant black spine he latched on to, the tips glistening with some sort of secretion. "Hey
Caerwyn... You said your spines were tipped with poison?"
The dragon's voice rumbled beneath him. "Aye, that is so."
By now Amdraste was grinning, reddish brown hair blasting around in the wind.
Nox needed no more encouragement than seeing her raise her dagger once more.
He reached up and closed his right hand around the top of the spine before him— and cried out in pain as the black liquid burned into his skin. Fighting through it, he whipped around just in time to see that Amdraste had reached the spine behind him.
Tears formed in his eyes, fiery pain searing from his hand up his arm, turning the veins the same vile black as the liquid. Amdraste crouched like an animal ready to pounce, gripping the spine behind him with a hand as she raised the dagger once more with the other—
