2Greetings, one and all! I'm sorry I've gone off the radar a little bit, I stumbled upon this old story of mine and I thought it would tide you over until the next chapter of Spawn, which will be posted in the next few days. Please review and feel free to offer suggestions of any sort :)
(P.S New people, you should go check out Spawn on my page)
(Upon editing this I have realized it's uncannily like Minecraft Story Mode… this was written long before. I promise it's one hundred percent original.)
The Dragon Slayer
Atrin groaned as he hauled himself up the last few rocks, feeling keenly the distance between himself and the ground. Below him the rest of his little "party" were faring similarly, stories above the hard-packed earth.
Flopping onto his stomach at the top, the blonde rolled onto his back and sighed in relief, watching the fluffy white clouds float past. The sun was beginning to dip towards that end of the sky that nobody in minecraft really appreciated: west.
After a few minutes Atrin sat up, hugging his knees for support as he looked out over the flat vista of trees and plain. Out here in the wilderness, one could almost forget why they had walked this far, why they were scaling cliffs and mountains. One could almost forget the chaos back home. The only reminders were the faintest plumes of smoke on the horizon, smudging the direction they had come.
Well, not the only reminder. Atrin reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled photograph, bent and peeling on the edges. He looked on the faces of his family, all blonde-haired with round faces and warm, clean smiles. They were faded and discolored by sweat and hands, but in Atrin's mind they were as vivid as they day they died. Anger began to boil in his chest as he looked at their smiles. Quickly he stuffed the picture back into his pocket, checking carefully it was secure.
"Don't forget, we're doing this for them." Atrin whipped around to fix a glare on the speaker, a woman wearing a simple cap, from which poured vibrant red hair. As she spoke she was sipping from a canteen.
"I know that, Marie." He scowled, rising to his feet and replacing his pack on his shoulders as the rest of the crew reached the summit. He gave each of them a glare, ensuring nobody else would try to tell him what he already knew.
They weren't a motley cast of characters, as any cliche fantasy would have you believe. Of all five of them, every one came from a hard-working profession, each one with the skills they needed to help find what they agreed was the only solution.
The DragonSlayer.
As they descended the mountain Atrin's mind wandered. By now walking was a tedious chore, climbing more so. It was nearly impossible not to be overcome by flashbacks, and each member of the group was aware the others were experiencing it too. You just didn't forget the things they had seen.
Homes completely destroyed in seconds, skyscrapers crashing around them. Some, like Atrin, had seen their families torn apart before their eyes. Other lost theirs in the unnatural purple flames. Some knew their loved ones were alive and depending on them, and some had heard from strangers that they were killed by the endermen that followed the dragon in swarms.
The dragon. It was the size of a house and destroyed anything in its path. The flames it breathed could melt flesh in an instant, and its claws were fearsome talons that picked up and carried away its victims, never to be seen again. When it charged the unfortunate souls in its path were tossed stories in the air, and rarely survived the fall.
The dragon wasn't supposed to be here, wasn't supposed to exist. According to Melvin, the aged, white-haired man walking on Atrin's left, the dragon was part of an old legend and had been destroyed millennia ago, never to return.
It was all a truckload's worth of lies. The dragon was real, had never been destroyed, and had indeed returned; and it wrecked havoc when it did.
Fortunately for Atrin and his companions, Melvin's knowledge was deep and his obsession whole. According to him, there was a man by the name of the DragonSlayer, who still existed today and would help them in their time of need. Now they followed an erratically spinning compass with odd runes inscribed on the side, trusting that the word of a storyteller in a lab coat it would show them the way.
(Yes, they were desperate.)
Atrin loathed this part of his daily mental recollection. It reminded him over and over that he was failing them all. He felt they would simply walk in erratic lines until they died.