The Crimson Dragon - Chapter 104

Chapter 104

Ignoring the group of defenders of justice that Eliaza had gathered, the temples in Tethyr were also gathering their forces. The news of a legendary necromancer that had appeared in Zazesspur’s mines had long escaped the city boundaries. If the Shadow of the Void ever decided that it no longer wanted to stay in the pit, then the entire region of Tethyr could forget about maintaining peace. Monsters of this level, especially winterwights, if they ever grouped together, even if it was only 5-6 winterwights and one Shadow of the Void, could completely annihilate a city.

Since it wouldn’t be great if Tethyr was turned into a perpetually frozen hellscape, defeating or at least sealing off the Shadow of the Void became the Silver Dragon Eliaza’s top priority. If the necromancers became aggressive, then Eliaza’s sources of wealth that she had accumulated over the years as well as her property that she wouldn’t have time to move would be done for. As a Silver Dragon, any action which would cause damage to her property was utterly unforgivable. 

Claudius swaggered into the mine while Achilles, who was a little hesitant, still fearlessly followed Claudius into the vast expanse. “Step up the pace! Move your ass! What the hell are you afraid of, we literally just went inside! The Shadow of the Void’s way at the bottom, we’re nowhere near it yet!” Claudius loudly swore at Achilles. However, shortly thereafter he gestured to the Bronze Dragon indicating that they should stop. “There’s something following us, aha! It’s a curious little kid!” Claudius suddenly made a move, but it wasn’t to draw his sword. Instead, he punched the air, which shimmered like the surface of water. A petite figure appeared in front of Achilles. “Sleipnir! Why did you come?” The Bronze Dragon recognized this figure, and while he was surprised, he also thought this was pretty normal behavior – Copper Dragons are curious and love mischief and jokes. As such, for the Copper Dragon to show up here wasn’t completely unacceptable. Plus, his nest was on Starspire Mountain, which wasn’t that far from here.

TN: Lots of slang in this paragraph

“I didn’t think I’d know you… let me see, I remember when I met you, Sleipnir the young girl.” The Crimson Dragon held the loli-like Sleipnir in one hand and scratched his chin with the other. However, the Copper Dragon was really flexible, and with a twisting movement she managed to slip free of Claudius’s grasp. “Are you a part time monk?” Claudius felt amused. “That movement was amazing, how old are you? Are you an adolescent yet? Can you use transfiguration?”

When the Copper Dragon Sleipnir expelled the Crimson Dragon Claudius, she didn’t really care about it either way, but she still beat the crap out of him. However, it didn’t really hurt the Crimson Dragon too much, so even though a dragon’s memory is very good, Claudius had long forgotten this dragon. Now, Claudius didn’t particularly care about this dragon. So what if she was young, or if she had advanced to the Gulong level? She wasn’t the Crimson Dragon’s opponent.

TN: Lots of slang in this paragraph too

When the Copper Dragon Sleipnir was outside the attack range of Claudius, she began singing a mocking song. Claudius didn’t really understand the song because it was sung in a Tethyr dialect, but the song that the loli was singing sounded fun. Claudius immediately said: “Your song’s garbage. Watch me sing an actual good song!”

TN: In Chinese, an idiom is used to describe how Claudius speaks and it roughly translates to “when you’re angry enough anything is possible”, but this entire scene seems pretty lighthearted so I assume it just means he’s really getting into it

“Mamaandpapawerelayinginbed!Mamarolledoverandthisiswhatshesaid: Oh,givemesone…” This asshole immediately began singing this song. The language of Faerûn was actually a variant of English, and when a true dragon sings they also use the communication magic, so most intelligent creatures could understand the words, so Claudius was able to sing this kind of song without stuttering. “These asterisks represent Ho Chi Minh, but you can replace it with anyone you want to mock. ***isasonofabitch!Gottheblueballs,crabsandtheseven-yearitch!”

TN: Wanna know what Claudius was singing? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJNQZ_fot0A

The loli Copper Dragon was very interested to finish listening to this famous **. Anyways, everyone here was a dragon so no one really cared about humans breeding, so this shouldn’t sound like a love song to the dragons? But this song was really catchy, so the Copper Dragon learned it really quickly and immediately began changing the words. Before this, the Copper Dragon thought the inner mine was really interesting so she also wanted to take a look. Of course, the bottom was very dangerous but that didn’t matter to the Copper Dragon and Claudius also wasn’t obligated to remind her. Furthermore, the Bronze Dragon also liked to fool around and he also didn’t care about the dangers below, so the small loli followed the group as they went deeper.

TN: The asterisks are intentional

Normal necromancers didn’t show up at all, the mine was completely frozen. Where water once dripped were now frozen icicles. The cave felt like one of those ice caves in the northern mountains. The ground was frozen solid, and the further inwards the group went the colder it got. Claudius didn’t active his Flaming Aura since he wasn’t afraid of the cold. He led the group deeper into the cave, using the dragon’s darkvision to see. 

The three dragons moved quickly because they didn’t need any lighting equipment, but a light emerged ahead very quickly. Emerging from the ground and the ceiling were numerous ice shards, all emitting a bright white light. Normally ice shards weren’t too bright, but the ones in front of them were terrible. It wasn’t dissimilar to looking at multi-layered clouds during the daytime.

Claudius crouched down and poked at the shards with his shortsword. It was some sort of metal, harder than iron, frozen inside the shard. Claudius’s weapon could withstand cold temperatures and his strength was great so he effortlessly pried the metal pieces up. However, the pieces quickly disintegrated and turned into glistening dust on the ground. “This should be the body of the paladin who ran the furthest”, the Crimson Dragon muttered to himself. This place was pretty far from where he first ran into the Shadow of the Void. It looked like those paladins weren’t completely brain-dead. But it looks like no one survived, the people in here walked their last steps and gifted new winterwights to the Shadow of the Void.

The Bronze Dragon also wasn’t all fun and games. For some legendary monsters, he could also get the necessary information from the shared dragon consciousness. Achilles really hated Claudius, but wasn’t he kidnapped right now? Besides, he couldn’t handle the current situation himself since he couldn’t defeat a winterwight, so he was quite excited to see what Claudius would do. 

“The winterwights are ahead of us. Against it, your bronze dragon breath is completely useless. As for the copper dragon, your strength isn’t nearly enough. You can’t even give them a nice warm bath with your breath. So we’ll use weapons to handle this.” Claudius looked at Achilles. “Let me make it clear, I’m not interested in transforming into a dragon and finishing this in one shot. You know why, so don’t overthink it!”