[Monthly Special] DC/RH: Amron Swiftblade II

DC/RH Special: Amron Swiftblade II

The first adventurer didn't even have time to scream before they were gurgling on their own blood, a dagger through their chest. They did try, though, but even in his rage, Amron was a professional. His dagger had punctured the lung. Any attempts to draw breath only caused more pain from the collapsed organ. Foamy bubbles of blood were beginning to form on his victim's lips. It wasn't enough. He needed them to suffer.

Securing the adventurer with a hand on the shoulder, he dragged his enchanted dagger sideways so that its enchanted blade cut through his victim's spine. The adventurer went stiff. Whether from death or paralysis, Amron didn't know, and he didn't care. He was already moving on to the second one.

This one was a seated man polishing his sword as he waited on the meats roasting above their campfire. Those hands soon abandoned his sword to clutch at his throat when Amron forcefully aerated it with the edge of his blade. A cry went up. The whole camp scrambled into an active footing by his brazen attack. By pushing in to take advantage of this distracted second victim, Amron had drawn too close to the campfire and been illuminated by the flames. The armoured lug spurting blood from between his fingers did not help either.

They were only four left, though, so Amron wasn't worried. He raised himself to his full height, a second dagger coming out to accompany the first as he shifted into a simple stance.

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?" their leader — he assumed it was anyway— yelled at him.

She didn't get the chance to say more before a throwing knife came her way. Acting quickly, she batted it away with her hand. The deflection worked. Lucky. However, it did wind up earning her a cut across the back of her hand. She roared in anger, but Amron was gone, his outline fading away a second later. Circling the remaining adventurers, he made a beeline for the one with the magic staff only to get stopped by some sort of magic shield.

'Not complete incompetents then', he realised.

The confirmed mage turned to face him, screaming at his teammates to help. They didn't. The screaming woman from before had gone grey courtesy of a petrification curse from the blightwasp venom that coated his throwing knives. Another adventurer ran out of the magic shield intending to grab and secure the magical bow still on display in the centre of the camp. The fool!

Amron faded into sight behind him before planting his dagger in the man's spleen and kidney with two quick thrusts. Work done, he faded away again, watching as the man keeled over in front of his friends. Regrettably, none of them was dumb enough to run out of the shield again, not after what they had seen. He had to go in after them. Amron waited a beat before rushing back in to test the shield. He attacked it from multiple angles and directions. The mage began to look increasingly strained, but he was able to maintain the shield and even reinforce it.

'Good!' their attacker mused. It meant he had to make an effort.

Switching the dagger in his left to a reverse grip, he prepared his skill only for something to give him pause. Their leader had begun to move. With a growing growl that sounded more beastlike than human, the lightly armoured woman forced herself to reach for her sword. She roared and brought the blade into an offensive guard, her face a rictus of pain and determination. Her actions were stilted and jittery, resembling amateur puppetry more than normal movement, but even with the petrification still in play, she powered through. It was impressive enough to buy her a few more seconds of life as he hung back to watch.

The last adventurer dug through a rucksack and brought out some potions, which she then handed to the others. Amron watched with dark amusement as their leader quaffed the potion and then barked orders at her subordinates.

"Look!" she yelled through the dome. "Whatever you want, just take it! You can have the bow! We know where the stag spawns. We can give you our strats. Just --Please-- LEAVE US BE!"

They couldn't see it, but Amron's face had gone cold, his amusement giving way to a chilling fury. Changing his mind, he sheathed his primary dagger and dug into his bag of holding before coming up with a small round flask.

The other dagger glowed as he faded back into sight and gave his victims one last look at their killer. They were huddled together in their magical dome, preparing for his next assault. Their lying tongues making promises they could not keep while begging for mercy they never offered his friend. Amron's left hand flashed, stabbing then slicing open the magical dome that separated them as he pulled the blade to the side. Basic magical constructs like this had obvious weaknesses. If you had the skill for it, you could cut magic with magic. The cut he made was small, barely as wide as his forearm, but that was all he needed. He tossed the flask through the opening before dashing away.

It had been months since the dungeon first opened. At this point, the weaknesses of the bosses of the upper floors were well known. Optimal strategies for beating them had been developed and polished by the multitude of adventurers that had challenged them. For the blightwasps, this was fire. Fighting the winged monstrosities without it was hell, and the sheer trouble they posed on the first floor meant that those who had no access to mages with fire spells had to resort to creative ways. The flask of fire Amron had just tossed in with them was one of them.

The mage could only trace the flask with his eyes as it fell and broke on the rocks beneath them. While he did not identify it immediately, common sense told him it held nothing good. Sadly, there was no hope of dispelling the dome in time. Half a second later, they were all engulfed in flames. He opened his mouth to scream, but that only gave the flames an opening. Scorching heat rushed into his mouth, nostrils and down his throat as he literally breathed in some of the fire flaring to life in the confined space of the dome. Leathers and linens went up like tinder. Eyes boiled in their sockets, skin and flesh crackled like pig skin and then charred in moments. Yet, the shield held for several heartbeats more before fading away and spilling its contents onto the rocky outcrop.

A safe distance away, Amron stood and watched the burning bodies twitching and wriggling in the flames, a golden bow in his hands.

Author's Note:

This did not turn out how I thought it would. Amron was supposed to be a cold, evil character hunting down adventurers in the dungeon and murdering them for their loot, but halfway through, I found myself rewriting the side story. Maybe I should have stuck to the original plans. DC/RH needs more villains. However, I couldn't find a proper motivation for him to attack them out of the blue.

This isn't an MMO. There's just no point and no guarantee in PKing for loot. If you're going into the dungeon looking for a fight, you might as well fight the monsters. Hopefully, this characterisation does open the character up to a possible future collaboration with our favourite world god and leave hooks for a possible exploration of the black market/smuggling trade.

Ah well, the DC/RH books are far into the future. I might put Amron's character to a patron vote later. We'll see which version makes it into the final draft of the book. Also, this might be a bit more graphic than it needs to be. Let me know if I should tone it down.