Chapter 102: Failed Negotiations
I lay, crushed beneath the rubble of the overhang destroyed by the Dragon as it stood atop the wreckage searching for me. Erani and the Dryad were dead, so I knew for a fact that this timeline wasn’t one I’d continue in even if I did survive this. But still, I’d use this opportunity to try and get at least a bit of information from the Dragon.
So I tried to shift myself out from under the rubble that crushed me.
But I couldn’t. It was all so heavy, I couldn’t move at all. My arms were pinned under jagged rocks, my torso and legs would’ve been broken if not for Dark Plate reducing the damage and saving my life, and I couldn’t see anything. I tried casting Expedite on myself, but no matter how limber the extra Dexterity made me, I simply didn’t have the power in my muscles to move.
So instead, I resorted to coughing the dust from my lungs and shouting out.
“Please,” I croaked, “spare me.”
My voice must’ve been weak and muffled, coming through all the stone that was on top of me, but I still felt the Dragon move around, the entire layer of rocks covering me shifting above me.
Its voice came through again, this time much louder – it must’ve moved its head closer to me so I could hear it better. Its deep voice rumbled my heart. “Who are you?”
“My–” I coughed. “My name is Arlan. I am not against you. I want to take that wall down, too.”
I felt a rumbling from above and the rocks covering me were drug out of the way. One sweep of the rubble aside, and I felt the weight lessen. Another, and suddenly I felt like I may be able to move. A third, and finally I could see sunlight breaking through the gaps of the gravel.
I laboriously raised my hands and shifted the dirt and stone away from my face, and I could finally see clearly.
Staring straight down at me was the massive scaly face of a Dragon – head taller than my entire body. Its yellow eyes felt like they glowed brighter than the sun, staring through me. Its reddish-purple scales glinted dominantly, like the beast was brimming with power. Its nostrils flared with each breath, the heat from its air feeling like it would melt my skin if I let it too close to me.
“You are the living one,” it said, its massive mouth opening and showing me just how easily it could eat me – one bite would be all it’d take.
“Yes, thank you for sparing me,” I said, getting to my feet only to fall to my knees, bowing my head toward it. “Please, I believe I can offer you help–”
“What is my name?”
“I– what?”
“You have told me your name. Tell me my name.”
“I don’t know,” I looked at it, confused. “You haven’t told me yet.”
“No. You have not heard of me. Why would you want my help if you do not know why I am?”
Ah. It was a pride thing. This Dragon wanted someone who could stroke its ego. I took a moment to think, then spoke, “I am aware of the great Dragon species, of course. As a member of such a family of beings, you demand great respect. I can promise that I believe in your power.”
“But you do not know my name,” its deep voice rumbled my heart, teeth shining a reflection of the broken helm of my Dark Plate. It was slowly reforming as the forty-second timer ticked down until it could be used again.
“I’m willing to learn!” I said. “Please, inform me of your greatness.”
“I am Mountaintamer, Giantslayer, Kinsbane, Homeholder, Wastelayer, Ashbearer, Chasmcreator, Earthquaker, Humanslaughterer, Wisdomholder, Bearer-of-the-Heavens Astintash! All know my name! You are ignorant. You are stupid. You are worthless.”
“Yes, my sincerest apologies,” I committed what the Dragon said to memory, doing my best to remember all ten titles alongside the damn thing’s actual name. The Intelligence Stat helped to increase memory, in the same way Strength increased physical power and Conjuration increased your speed at casting Spells, so memorizing the name wasn’t as hard as it’d be for an Unclassed person.
“Your apology is worthless,” Astintash said. “Someone who does not even know who I am, trying to speak with me as though they are my equal? I thought you may be an intriguing Human, since you survived my attack, but clearly your mind is not as strong as your body.”
“Please, educate me on your great deeds,” I said.
The Dragon looked down at me. “You have no manners whatsoever. No offering, no foreknowledge, all you can do is ask things of me. I refuse to hear you out further.”
“Wait, please–”
Astintash opened its mouth. “I hope you are worth a good amount of XP, Human.”
You have been bitten. 2.8k damage.
Your Health is 0.
You have died.
Yeah, I didn’t really expect to survive very long. I tried to ignore the memory of the pain of my body splitting in two, focusing on what I’d gained. I knew the Dragon’s name – that was huge, considering how much Astintash seemed to care that I didn’t know it before. But I’d also gathered some other valuable information from our conversation.
Obviously, by looking at the ten titles the Dragon preceded its name with, I could infer some things about its past. Giantslayer – it’d killed Giants. Same with Kinsbane – it’d probably killed some other Dragons before. It was proud of its physical power, considering how many titles mentioned its ability to destroy things, so we probably needed to specifically mention that.
And there were some other things I’d learned from small things Astintash had said. Little context clues to give me some ideas on what we could do.
But that still left me with the question of how it’d found us. Did it somehow see us under the stone overhang, or something?
I felt myself begin to fade, and hurriedly selected a time – the maximum I was allowed to go back, four hours.
And then I was back, lying under some rubble. For a second, I panicked. Why was I covered in rocks? Had I accidentally gone back four minutes or something instead of four hours, and now I was still crushed under the fallen stone of the overhang?
But then I realized where – and when – I was. This was during the time we were hiding from the Dragon the first time, when it flew harmlessly over us. We were safe.
I peered up from underneath the stones and sticks I’d piled up on top of myself and gazed at the soaring beast that I’d just seen up close. And as I did so, I saw its glowing yellow eye shift ever so slightly, meeting mine. Then it looked away and kept flying.
It was then that I realized. It had seen me just now! Before, when this had first happened, I thought I may have seen it glance down at me, but hadn’t been sure. And when it left, I’d just assumed I was mistaken. But that time I was sure. Astintash had seen me.
It’d probably noticed us on the mountain, but didn’t want to attack until it was sure we were headed for it and not just making our way through. Or it wanted to get a gauge on our abilities, or had been weakened from its previous assault, and wanted to make sure it was in top shape before engaging with a group of unknowns. Whatever the reason, it knew we were here, and it seemed like it’d come and ‘talk’ with us in about four hours if we were still around.
Part of me wanted to go back again with my second use of Time Loop, four more hours back, that way we could be sure it didn’t know where we were. But if we did that, we’d either have to engage with it when we had no uses remaining, or wait until tomorrow to get my uses back, which would just delay our plans and give the Demons even more time to establish their defense.
No, we needed to try this now, when the timing was right.
I knew what Astintash wanted from us. I also knew that, at least this time, it was willing to talk. Sort of. It’d made a single surprise attack that had killed Erani and the Dryad instantly, but when it realized I’d survived, it was fully willing to discuss things with me for a bit. And it only killed me because I didn’t navigate the conversation correctly.
Now, I could say the right things and actually get to negotiate with it if we survived that initial attack, so all I had to do was get it to land in a way that didn’t kill us. And something it’d said back there gave me an idea of how to do so.
“Arlan?” Erani said, leaning over to look at me.
I blinked. I was still lying under cover, long after Astintash had flown away.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” I said. “Time Loop.”
She immediately glanced back up at where the Dragon had disappeared. “What happened?”
“You can probably guess. Dragon killed us all. And I think it saw us when it flew over just now. At least, I can’t imagine how it knew where we were when it killed us. We were well-hidden at the time.”
“Well, if it saw us, what are we supposed to do to stay alive this time?”
“Well, I learned a good bit about it before it killed me,” I said. “First, its name is Astintash. Well, really, it’s Mountaintamer, Giantslayer, Kinsbane, Wastelayer, Ashbearer… wait. No, there was another one in there. Homeholder? Yeah, Homeholder, Wastelayer, Ashbearer, and then it was… Earthquaker? Or no, was it something else? Fuck.”
My Intelligence Stat clearly wasn’t helping me quite as much as I hoped it would with remembering all of the titles. Even if I did remember most, I suspected that if I missed one or even just didn’t get them in the correct order, it’d be seen as a massive insult to Astintash.
“It’s, uh…”
Index spoke up. “Mountaintamer, Giantslayer, Kinsbane, Homeholder, Wastelayer, Ashbearer, Chasmcreator, Earthquaker, Humanslaughterer, Wisdomholder, Bearer-of-the-Heavens Astintash.”
“What?”
“That’s the correct order. I’m looking through my logs right now. When you heard it, that’s what you repeated back to yourself to try and remember.”
“Oh. Thanks.” I’d forgotten Index not only experienced what I did, but had an immutable log that’d forever hold all information I took in. It effectively gave me a perfect memory, as long as Index had the time to look back through and find it. That was… useful. I hadn’t even considered that when I first thought about what Index could do for me.
“What is it?” Erani asked.
I repeated the full name back to her. “Index just reminded me. Pretty useful to have around, honestly.”
“That’s what I’m here for!” Index said cheerfully.
“Anyway, yeah, that’s the Dragon’s name. And it’ll get pissed if you don’t remember, so we should probably all go over it a few times to make sure.”
“Okay, so if we know the name, it won’t kill us?”
“...Not quite. It killed us instantly without even giving us a chance to talk, but Dark Plate saved me. It was only after it noticed I was still alive that I could get some info out of it. So if we can get it to avoid attacking initially, then we can show off that we know about it, and from there we should be safe.”
“And how do you suggest we keep it from killing us at first? Should we just find a deep cave we can hide in so it can’t reach us, or something?”
“That may work, but I think I have a better idea,” I said. “When it was talking to me, it kept talking about how insulted it felt that I didn’t do any of the ‘good manners’ stuff. I didn’t know its name, didn’t know its history, but most importantly, it said I didn’t bring an offering.”
Erani slowly nodded. “An offering. So we just have to find something to offer it.”
“Exactly. We put out an offering in a big, visible area, and then when it flies by to kill us, it’ll see that we’ve left the offering out, be impressed by our good manners, and come down to talk. Then we can negotiate about taking down the wall and stuff. If that still doesn’t work, then we can just go back, run away, and try again tomorrow. It’ll suck to be set back another day, but that way we aren’t risking anything.”
“Okay, that makes sense. But what can we offer? Not really much of value that we have on us. And definitely not anything big enough to draw its attention from up in the air.”
“We don’t have anything on us now, but we can gather something to offer.”
“Like what?” Erani frowned.
“Well,” I said, “Dragons have to eat, don’t they?”
“Okay…”
“And we saw quite a few Drakes on our way up here.”
Erani looked at me.
“I think it’s time to do some big-game hunting.”
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