The Drunk Fox

So I finally got my hands on D:LT, and permission to post my own sporking of it on here. While I don’t have the pleasure of doing this with anybody else (Kitty, Slyshy, and all the rest, I wouldn’t mind knowing how you all manage to do that…), I’ll do my best.

Wish me luck.

This book, the emerald facet of my life’s work, is in honor of my family, friends…

…And anyone who acknowledges that in a realm of infinite possibility, the pursuit of perfection is the meaning of life!

DF – Well, there went any possibility of my enjoying Jonathan Livingston Seagull ever again.

Circuits lined the preserved carcasses of countless dinosaurs.

DF – That was delightfully random. Except not delightful.

Like monuments of the past, the mechanized fossils

DF – Carcasses are not fossils. They can become fossils over time, but they are not fossils.

surrounded an entire chamber of medieval architecture, still and cold and dead.

DF – I know they’re dead.

Along the stone walls, computerized enhancements ran throughout, wiring lamps and torches that illumined the environment.

DF – I had to check my lexicon to make sure that illumined wasn’t thesaurus abuse. It isn’t. :(

It was a frigid place, one that had not been touched in ages.

DF – First off, if it hasn’t been touched in ages, how is all the technological stuff there and apparently working? Anything linking it to any kind of power grid or supply should have broken down after all that time with no maintenance. Second, the place has electrical lights, but no heating?

Yet, in the center, a single Mobius strip constantly spun, emitting silver rays that shone upon the walls and made them transparent in its wake.

DF – And yet heating the room is beyond the civilization that made all this.

Space could be seen where the strip’s light met the stone,

DF – So the room’s in space? That gives it even less reason to be freezing. Heat has a difficult time leaving objects in a vacuum, and that equipment should be creating heat, as anybody who has touched a lit bulb after a few minutes or owns a laptop knows.

and every star of the cosmos twinkled like a watcher, a spectator of time.

DF – The only watcher I know of who twinkles is Edward Cullen.

The essences of many ages ran

DF – Laps around the track in gym class.

across the air, letting the voices of eons echo.
“There’s no time. We have to get out. Now,” said a female.

DF – A female what?

“What about the sentry?” responded a male.

DF – See the previous question, and remove the fe.

Flames roared, but there were no fires to be seen. It was as if they had come from a place very distant.

DF – You’re not even reading your own narrative, are you?

“We can reach him later. The present is what concerns me.”
“I thought you said there was no time. How can there be a later?”

DF – Because she lied.

Growls shuddered the place, yet there were no beasts from which the growls could emerge.

DF – Yes, we know we’re not in the same place as all this stuff is happening. That was explained in the first paragraph, remember?

“None of your riddles.

DF – Really? That was too hard a question for her?

Just fly to the Pedorian Forest.”
A spherical metal orb blanketed the entire stellar mural outside.

DF – It’s an orb AND a blanket! I bet it makes a great bundt cake, too!

It was a globe of planetary magnitude that was adorned with landscapes far and wide.

DF – Otherwise known as a planet.

“I don’t know Lyconel.

DF – I don’t know Lyconel either.

We might not make it.”
“Too late, Dradicus. We’re already in.”

DF – snerk

The chamber of robotic dinosaurs started to fragment whilst the walls disintegrated into nothingness. The Mobius strip evanesced like a spectre, and all that was left was the gargantuan green-blue orb—the World.

DF – Yay synonyms! Also, what exactly was the point of that entire scene?

—————

Trees floated above the Everkin Forest.

DF – Wouldn’t the trees be the forest? Even if they’re flying trees?

Their roots hung in the air, reaching down like the pale green veins

DF – Roots aren’t green.

to the bizarrely twisted landscape below..

DF – Damn it, Lyconel, stop turning the landscape into pretzels!

The leaves upon the branches were circular and ovoid like those of plants that came from an era long past,

DF – When did trees have egg-shaped leaves? Wouldn’t that be too thick?

yet the air was hardly prehistoric.

DF – So they’re time-traveling flying trees with eggs for leaves. I bet they’re sentient.

Upon the Mesozoic verdure,

DF – I do not think that word means what you think it means.

the sun cast its dawn light, giving life to the hovering woodland realm in the form of photosynthetic vitality that sparkled betwixt the morning arbor.

DF – Or in other words, the morning sun shone on the flying trees. Using more words does not make you special.

It seemed like a peaceful new day, one that was full of promise.

DF – Aside from the thesaurus abuse.

However, nothing on this planet was stable.

DF – The time-traveling flying trees with egg-leaves were a dead giveaway.

Scales rippled through the plant life,

DF – Scaly time-traveling flying trees with egg-leaves.

shedding blood across the twigs. A drake,

DF – Oh.

a dragon without wings, charged through the placid shrubberies, her life fleeting with every gallop she took.

DF – So many thing wrong with this sentence…

On all fours, she dashed desperately past the hanging roots, digging grooves into the erratically warped dirt underneath.

DF – Pretzels make for good traction.

Death was near and she knew it. There was no slowing down or the enemy would consume her.

DF – There’s this thing you can do when you’re badly injured and need to escape someone, it’s called hiding.

Albeit the only thing on her mind at the moment was retreat, even she knew that might not be possible.

DF – I would think that the only thing on her mind would be ‘OW OW I’M MORTALLY WOUNDED OW!’ although not necessarily those exact words.

“Keep moving, keep moving,” Lyconel reassured herself.

DF – That’s not a very good reassurance.

Wood splintered behind her as two beasts followed her path. They too were dragons, one a wyvern and the other a behemoth.

DF – If they’re dragons, and dragons are sentient, then it’s probably not very nice to call them beasts. Also, why did you have to describe what kind of dragon a drake is the moment she was introduced, but not a wyvern or a behemoth? Is it because it’ll be explained properly later?

Their claws ravaged the terrain in devastating blows, tearing up anything and everything that got in their path.

DF – Noooo, not Lyconel’s terrain-pretzels! Or the trees, I guess.

Rapidly, they were catching up, as quickly and menacingly as one’s own shadow.

DF – Again, may I suggest this hiding thing? Unless, of course, Lyconel’s taken too long and they can see her, in which case I’ll call her an idiot.

Lyconel hurriedly tried to make a sharp turn,

DF – You’ll cut yourself with those if you’re not careful.

but a root caught her leg abruptly. Rolling on her side, she knew she was in peril

DF – Pretty sure she already knew that, actually.

and that fleeing was now futile.

DF – Lyconel, you idiot.

As she hit a large stone, she reached for her belt and slung out a spiked mace. She was prepared for battle.

DF – Then why was she retreating?

Almost immediately, a giant reptilian talon came down upon her. Wielding her mace high above her head, she clashed against it, deflecting its claws in sparks of metal.

DF – Reptilian talon + mace =/= sparks.

She whirled the weapon about, trying to strike upon the behemoth’s abdomen, but a colossal axe swooped down upon her and parried her attack.

DF – Can you even parry with an axe?

She swung around, twirling like a dancer as the enemy tried to take her down, feverishly dodging every assault that came her way.

DF – When did she get up? More importantly, if her injury was so bad that she was losing all this blood earlier, how does she have the energy to be dancing around like this?

Alas, she pounced into the air as the blade arced under her.

DF – That doesn’t seem like an occasion to use ‘alas’ or ‘pounced’, and this entire sentence is completely without context. There was no specific mention of any kind of blade being swung before Lyconel jumped, just her dodging everything.

Catching onto the trees, she continued running.

DF – Why…what? The tree is floating. Did she let go of it again before running, or did she climb up to run through the branches somehow? Wouldn’t the latter unbalance the trees?

“Try again,” she dared.

DF – There are going to be a lot of variations of ‘said’ in this book, aren’t there?

The trees started collapsing in her wake as the behemoth rammed his fists into them.

DF – So flying tree + punch = non-flying tree? Or did the author completely forget this detail about his trees?

Crashing trunks fell upon the ground, but she persisted in her furious stride.

DF – And the blood loss hasn’t killed her yet. Amazing.

Wings might have been helpful at the moment, but unfortunately, nature had not endowed her with any.

DF – This sentence might have been helpful, but unfortunately we already know that drakes don’t have wings.

She hurried out to the canopies of the forest.

DF – So she is running along the branches. And yet the trees aren’t tilting to one side where there’s nothing holding them in place, and the branches themselves aren’t breaking.

Standing upon the very apex of a tree, she glimpsed the landscape to the horizon. Far in the distance, whitish, pointed hilltops reached to the sky, forming a chain of mountains. The Fangs of Astinor. She was headed straight to them, and if she went there, she would never come back. Not with two of her greatest enemies on her tail, anyway.

DF – WhoarestillchasingyouRUN!

Suddenly, a rapier lashed at her face.

DF – I told you.

She ducked just a split second before it could hit her.

DF – I know she’s a dragon, but Lyconel’s seeming awfully Sue-ish to me. We’ll know if she survives this and heals perfectly, I guess.

The other draconic opponent flew over her, flapping its wyvern wings as it swiped its weapon madly downward.

DF – I love how the bad guys don’t even get a gender.

Too close to her enemy, Lyconel thrust her talons out, blocking the rounded foil

DF – Is it a rapier or a foil? There is a difference.

with her forearms. Her dermal layer chipped as it struck her,

DF – I’m pretty sure scales don’t count as skin.

and she tried to gain an opportunity to counterattack. Nonetheless, the wyvern was too fast, and delivered a slash that wrapped the foil around her arm and sliced her across the cheek.

DF – Um…how?

A splash of silver blood

DF – She’s been losing blood this whole time, and we only now find out it’s silver?

spurt out from her wound. Lyconel dropped her mace, and then dropped herself deliberately.

DF – Onto her mace. Great idea, Lyconel.

As she descended back into the woodland, she gripped a branch with her tail, grabbed her mace in midair and swung around to her opponent’s rear. Her legs slammed his back, but did little more than knock him away. He

DF – Oh, so now the wyvern has a gender?

instantly darted in for another sortie just as she rushed back into the verdure

DF – That word still doesn’t mean what you think it means.

and continued to flee.

DF – Why didn’t you just flee while he wasn’t looking?

For three seconds,

DF – She was counting?

she heard not the crushing of trees behind her.

DF – But a pack of rabid aardvarks that had picked up her trail.

In a flash of optimism, she thought they had left. Nevertheless, just as fleetly as the silence came, it perished with radiant explosions that erupted all around.

DF – The Tasen are Alpha Striking the planet! Also, ‘nevertheless’, ‘fleetly’, and ‘perished’ don’t really seem to belong in this sentence.

Plasma shots were fired at her, detonating into ever expanding orbs of energy that toppled the airborne plants.

DF – It’s like the author only just remembered his plants were floating! And if the dragons chasing her have plasma weapons, why were they attacking her with an axe and a foil/rapier before?

Now she was certain she would not escape.

DF – She will, though, because she’s a Sue.

Then, something caught her eye. To the flank,

DF – Of what?

a rocky outcrop rose from the ground like a marble web of caves. Stretching up into the air, it formed a mosaic sculpture of stony veins that branched like a living network of pure, solid earth.

DF – The purple prose, it hurts…

The light of morn shone against its varnished surface,

DF – This sounds like the kind of thing you’d notice automatically.

and she knew she could escape.

DF – Suuuuuuue.

She was safe from her enemies – but was she walking into another threat?

DF – You’re not safe yet, Lyconel. Muse about this when you’re actually safe. You fail at hiding.

A plasma shot blasted the ground to her side. There was no time to consider the options.

DF – Actually, there was, but you wasted it considering the options.

Without another thought, she leapt to the webbed caves and scurried along their glossy surfaces. Coming across a dark orifice, she took a breath.
“May the darkness not consume me,”

DF – Considering what the bad guys are shooting at you, I’d worry more about the light right now.

she prayed to no one in particular.

DF – Then why pray?

Quickly, her serpentine form slithered through the opening.

DF – What, running and crawling aren’t good enough for her now?

Into the cavernous veins she delved, swimming through the bleak unknown as blackness consumed her body. As fleet as she entered, she was gone.

DF – Stop saying fleet.

Without a trace, and without a path to follow.

DF – What about that wound that was leaving a trail of silver blood at the beginning of this scene?

The plasma emissions ceased. The behemoth and wyvern perfunctorily crept up to the air-dwelling stone network,

DF – I haven’t read anything about the caves floating before now.

their claws clanking against the rocky surfaces as if they were made of metal. Their composures equally metallic,

DF – sigh… I haven’t read anything about them being metal before, either. The claw made sparks against Lyconel’s mace earlier in the scene, but at the time it was described as a reptilian talon, not a metal reptilian talon. In short: STOP WITHHOLDING INFORMATION.

they located the orifice through which their target evaded and espied the ebony depths.

DF – None of that has anything to do with their composures.

They came to the same conclusion simultaneously.

DF – ‘Cause it’s not like they’re individuals or anything, no.

Knowing exactly what to do, they exchanged glances and waited.
Fires lashed the air before them, seemingly coming out of nowhere. However, these flames were not of light spawned,

DF – Very few fires are.

but of pure darkness. The black conflagrations

DF – Using more syllables doesn’t make you special either, by the way.

grew before them, bubbling like liquid flares, until alas, a shape formed.

DF – Alas, the author seems ignorant of the meaning and proper usage of the word ‘alas’.

It was another dragon, average in stature,

DF – What’s average for the dragons in this trip down the rabbit hole?

but of a hellish essence that far transcended its apparent size.

DF – Of course evil characters aren’t supposed to seem normal!

Dark fires wrapped around its every muscle,

DF – We’re back to hiding gender-specific pronouns again…

licking the air with hot blazes, yet not a single feature could be seen beyond its general contours.

DF – Um, because they’re engulfed in black flames, remember?

Baronial in dread,

DF – I’m thinking of a baron with dreadlocks, here.

it looked to its two watchers.
“Is she annihilated?” inquired Drekkenoth.
The wyvern, Arxinor, and his behemoth colleague, Gorgash,

DF – We’re only now getting their names?

processed the question within their mechanical heads. Gears and circuits turned about in their brains.

DF – This is the first time I’ve heard of both gears and circuits being used for the same activity. Ever. And since when do circuits turn about?

“Unknown.”
Drekkenoth peered into the opening of the Supersurface Cave Network.

DF – Good thing they stocked up on Random Surplus Capitalization.

Neutrally, he accepted the fact.

DF – It could be worse. He could be the ‘fly into a rage, then kill the messenger’ kind of bad guy.

Cocking his forearm, he looked at a wristwatch attached to his talon, one that was built with a face of countless iterating membranes and ten dials that pointed to the thirty hours of the day.

DF – That watch sounds too complex to be really useful. Who needs ‘countless membranes and ten dials’ to tell you what time it is, even if there are thirty hours in a day? And what happened to digital watches?

“The Key,” stated Arxinor in his snakelike accent, “is sssstill in existence.”

DF – Snakes only hiss on some S’s, didn’t you know?

“Affirmative,” replied Drekkenoth.
“Their next objective is to reach the Archive sentries,” added Gorgash.
“The marked sssssentry identity is: Dennagon.”

DF – The selective hissing is going to get annoying.

Drekkenoth looked up to the morning sun at the apex of the sky.

DF – If it’s at the apex of the sky, it’s not morning; it’s noon.

Wires, robotic in nature,

DF – Why are the wires robots?

coursed through his pupils,

DF – How is he seeing anything?

spreading through his body of pure fire as if to make the flame cybernetic.

DF – How are the cybernetic parts holding up in the middle of a fire? From what I understand, they’re generally delicate.

The very bleakness of his gaze burnt the light and made it as black as a laser of shadows.

DF – I’m finding that hard to believe. Then again, I could say the same for 99.9% of the story so far.

“We must make certain that the Lexicon is demolished,” he declared.

DF – I’ve only seen the word ‘said’ in this book once so far.

“In time, time shall be oursssss.”
All at once, they cocked their heads up. Cyborg wings burst out from their backs and they took to the heavens above.

DF – This really is just so corny…

There was so much to do and much to destroy before the closing of the World.

DF – It’s all going to be destroyed, so let’s destroy it faster! Yay!

Before time ceased its bidding.

DF – Who is it bidding?

Comment [24]

EDIT: There’s been an addition to the D:LT team! Nate Winchester is now helping me go through the book, for which I am eternally grateful.

So in the last part of the D:LT sporking (found here for those who haven’t read it), I went through the prologue piece by nonsensical piece. Next, obviously, is Chapter 1, which has already been partially done by SlyShy, Kitty, and ExitMouse via an excerpt from Amazon.com. The result can be found here, and there really isn’t much I can add that I didn’t say in the comments there, so I’ll be skipping those pages and continuing from where they left off. If you’re new and somehow haven’t read it already, go ahead and do so now. I can wait.

Okay, everybody ready?

The crystal ball illuminated even more with ever word it spoke.

DF – So it’ll eventually blind him. Great!
NW – Blind me too please.

“The sapiens have advanced.

DF – I’ve heard a lot of funny names for humans, but sapiens? That’s a letter away from implying they’re smarter than you. Which I don’t mind, but I don’t think that’s what the author was going for.
NW – It could have been worse. At least he didn’t go with “homo”.

Worldly data is continually receding into nothingness.”

DF – Now I know it wasn’t what the author was going for. It explains why everything in this book so far is so stupid, though.
NW – And here we see how idiot worlds are formed.

Dennagon rolled his eyes. Conjured objects were always so fickle with meaning.

DF – Which is a weird thing to note, since Dennagon never conjured it.
NW – He picked it up at the 99cent conjure store.

“I said what NEW events have emerged?”

DF – Your way of fixing this problem is to ask the exact same thing again?
NW – Just like talking with primitives. You have to speak LOUDER and S-L-O-W-E-R.

He took a black marble out of his belt.

DF – What was holding it there?
NW – Utility belt, check.

It was a tiny ebony sphere that dripped with liquid just as dark,

DF – That means it’s evil. It’s in the rules.
NW – “Screw the rules, I have money.”
DF – “Screw the money, I have an evil marble!”

seething with knowledge embodied in material form.

DF – It’s a sentient evil marble! Run!
NW – A lot of playgrounds would have livened up with sentient evil marbles.

It was as soft and supple as caviar,

DF – Then it’s not a marble, is it?
NW – Marblish. Marble-lite?

and he almost felt like consuming it himself. However, he had resisted the thirst for such luxuries for a while.

NW – Today, on a very special Dragons: Lexicon Triumvirate:
DF – C’mon, Dennagon, eat the evil sentient fish egg. You know you want to. All the cool dragons are doing it.

He would not give in now.

DF – Aww…

Casting it forth, he let the crystal ball devour it in a ring of silver fire.

DF – Why does all fire in this book have to be super-special-awesome-colors? Why can’t there just be fire?
NW – So he’s only a pyromaniac if the fire gets all gussied up?

It had been transported to another place far from his home, somewhere it would be out of his sight.

DF – It’s an evil sentient fish egg made of heroin. Exactly his brand of heroin, too, from the sound of it. (Yes, I’m going to continue making Twilight references. Try to stop me! BWAHAHAAAaaaanyway.)
NW – When we reach the point this book makes us want to read Twilight: Game Over.

The crystal ball read the marble’s data and analyzed what he had accomplished that day.

DF – So what can’t this crystal ball do? It teleports stuff, analyzes things, and can tell you what’s going on around the world. It can probably give you an ambiguous reading of your future, too, simply by merit of being a crystal ball.
NW – If Macintosh made a crystal ball…

“Your daily collection of data: 8 million liters of information.”

DF – I don’t know why, but I find the use of the unit liters for data funny. That’s still an awful lot to shove into a sentient heroin fish egg, though. No wonder it’s evil.
NW – It’s not evil, just bloated.

Information could be quantified by material essence,

DF – And here we’ve been using computer lingo! We could have quantified it in liters according to its material essence all this time! What fools we’ve been!

and that was what Dennagon sought everyday.

DF – I thought he slacked off during guard duty all day.
NW – Now we know why he ran his fists through the humans’ skulls. To get to all of that delicious, yummy knowledge…

The World was frothing with knowledge,

DF – Rabies is bad.
NW – Babies is rad.

and it was his duty to gather as much as he could, just as it was the duty of every other sentry in the collective.

DF – So basically, the dragons in this world are arrogant knowledge hogs. Silly dragons, don’t they know information just wants to be free?
NW – Spoils the super special awesome image of dragons when you learn they’re just a bunch of librarians.

Knowledge was not something that could be left in the mines across the planet,

DF – Especially since it’s much more commonly found in books (except this one) and personal experience.
NW – I wonder what an ore of knowledge looks like. “C’mon everyone! I struck calculus.”

for cognation was under threat by the humans that wished to eliminate everything that could facilitate thinking.

DF – I thought they wanted gold?
NW – [insert Washington DC joke]

Why they wanted to do such a thing was really an unknown piece of info in itself, but he pretty much surmised that it was the inherent evil of the hominids that really caused all the ills of existence.

DF – I doubt that, since they really just seemed interested in gold. Then again, the author’s turned all of humanity into a tracing paper cutout of greed and stupidity, incapable of formulating or adjusting usable strategies and yet somehow able to invent and build machinery at least as complex as a catapult, so why not? Let’s just blame everything on them, even if it makes no sense to.
NW – “Hey Dennagon, we’re out of coffee.” “Damn you humans!”

Nevertheless, he knew only one thing – he had to know as much as possible before it was too late.
Out of curiosity, he stroked the ball again.

DF – …I’m trying so hard not to laugh…
NW – Now we know why he doesn’t want anyone disturbing him.

“Who is the day’s most efficient sentry?” he asked.
“The day’s most efficient sentry is Sentry Dennagon.”

DF – Pretty impressive, considering he’s done absolutely nothing useful so far.
NW – The others do less than nothing.

As usual.

DF – Modest, isn’t he?

He had taken the role of the best info hunter in the entire collective, and for that he was both despised and love.

DF – But he hates everybody, so no one cares. And stop using info, it doesn’t fit in the setting you’re trying to create.
NW – Ah yes, info hunting. I remember the days when we had to saddle up and ride out in the frontier to catch the day’s wikipedia entry. Made a man out of ya! You kids today have it so easy with it all contained for your viewing.

The attention he liked,

DF – LIAR.

for it often made him feel significant, even amongst dragons that he didn’t really care for.

DF – And yet, nobody noticed him on his way home, probably because he was trying so hard to get away from everybody. Because he hates them.
NW – Maybe he has a secret identity like Superman.

It was a wonder that he even cared about comparing himself to others in the first place,

DF – Let me help you then, Dennananana; it’s because you’re an arrogant egotist.
NW – “Isn’t it incredible how humble I am?”

but he was aware of precisely why he did want to stay above them. It was for himself. Not for the advancement of his ego,

DF – Again, LIAR.

but for his own good. He wanted to make himself proud.

DF – Even though he’s nothing more than a cold-blooded murderer. Aww.
NW – Remember kids, it’s for your own good to be really self-absorbed.

Before his mind could wander, he focused on his mission once again.

DF – What mission? You’re off-duty.
NW – A drinking mission!

“Did anyone hail my wrath?”

DF – Wait, what?

The crystal ball let out a beep.
“You have three unheard messages,” it stated. “Message one -”

DF – It’s an answering machine, too! And probably a telephone. Seriously, is there anything that thing can’t do?
NW – Run Windows Vista.

Dennagon grabbed a random book and started searching through the masses of literature at his four feet.

DF – …Why?

“-sent today at 8:10 and 26 seconds.”

DF – My bad, it’s better than an answering machine. It tells you the exact second the call came. And yet, I don’t care.

Someone else’s voice resounded.

DF – That’s generally the idea behind an answering machine.

It was a recorded directive.
“Sentry Dennagon. I bring word from the Archive Lord. A wisdom gathering is commencing later.

DF – This just screams Saturday morning cartoon.

You should come. For your own good…”

DF – Way to vaguely threaten your best worker, Anonymous Voice!
NW – Sounds like any other boss in Corporate. “We’re holding this meeting to see why not enough work is getting done.”

Dennagon touched something very cold on the floor.

DF – Ew.
NW – Are you sure this isn’t a colossal hoax? It’s like every sentence is as wrong as possible. He describes things we don’t need to know and then tells us nothing about things we really do need to know.

“No thank you,” he mumbled to himself.
“Message two – sent today at 3:10 and 8 seconds.”

DF – By the way, is that AM or PM?
NW – TM

The cold substance was ice.

DF – I think I’ve asked this before, but…why…?

Fortunately, it was still solid

DF – One of the requirements for ice, really.

and he could feel the chilled carcass of a lion underneath.

DF – Ew!

Wrapping his claws around its furry hide, he pulled it out.

DF – Of what? It was on the floor.
NW – The pile of books. Though why you’d want to keep your books piled on top of a frozen lion carcass is beyond me.

The second message started playing.
“Are you tired of being a dolt?

DF – I dunno, are you tired of being an infomercial in the Dark Ages?
NW – Ah spoofs. Not great, but I’ll take what I can get.

Then try our new and improved memory spells! Crafted by our most superior magicians, these scrolls are guaranteed to enhance your recollection or your gold pieces back!

DF – Of course it’s probably one of those cases where if they don’t improve your memory, they’ll make it so you don’t remember your name, much less that you want your gold back. Besides, I thought these dragons didn’t have gold.
NW – If they’ll help us forget this, I’m buying.

Approved by the Drakemight council.”
“Definitely no thank you,” responded Dennagon with a jowl-full of lion meat.

DF – There went my photosynthetic dragon theory. Also, stop being disgusting!
NW – Why do fire-breathing dragons eat everything raw?

“Message three – sent three minutes ago.”
Reclining, he opened up a good book, only to find that it was a good book he already read.

DF – Yes, it was established that you read all the books already.

Tossing it away, he took another one, as well as another bite out of his lion.
Meanwhile, an ominous heaving breath was emitted from the crystal ball.

DF – Remember; phone- er, I mean crystal ball harrassment affects everyone.
NW – I remember once when this crazy girl left like 30,000 message on my magic 8-ball.
DF – I’ll probably regret this, but…what did they say?
NW – Outlook not so good.

It bore the desperate tone of a creature near death, which meant that it was probably a prank call.

DF – Isn’t he just the bestest good guy evar?
NW – It’s like he and Eragon are in a race to the bottom.

“I speak for the fate of dragonkind,” it declared in a female voice.

DF – Hey guys, guess who finally showed up to the party? That’s right, the plot! How’d you guess?
NW – Damn thing was probably stuck in traffic.

He opened another book that he had read before. Knocking it away, he flipped through countless others that were piled up all around. Each one flashed him

DF – snerk
NW – So he does read Playdragon for the articles.

with an aggravating sense of déjà vu.

DF – We already know it’s futile; why don’t you?

Theories On The Macrocosm/Microcosm Unity. He read it. The 0th Evolution. He read it. The Anatomy Of Existence, The Theory Of Nothing, The Infinitieth Dimension and Holographix. Read it, read it, read it.

DF – Gotta love how the author tossed around random and nonexistent words to make his Gary Stu sound smart, yet said Stu can’t figure out that he’s not going to find anything he hasn’t read already. Or that it’s possible to enjoy the same book (again, except this one) more than once.
NW – It’s nice of the crystal ball message to wait for him to finish searching.

All of it.

DF – So get a new book already.
NW – How can he when Midnight Sun isn’t out yet???

All the while, the last message played.
“We’ve not many trices left.

DF – That word’s not meant to be used that way.
NW – None of these words were meant to be used this way. Shakespeare must be feeling like Oppenheimer right about now. (“I never would have invented English if I knew this would happen…”)

The very existence of life may soon end.”

DF – That’s Dennagon’s fault, he keeps killing everything.
NW – Sign you’re too pretentious #27: You use more than one word to say “apocalypse”.

Dennagon finished up the last bit of his lion, excluding the rear end of course.

DF – Because everybody lets about a quarter of their meat supply rot. (Hey, he didn’t specify how much counts as ‘the rear end’.)
NW – Dragons despise hot dogs.

With a mouthful of carrion, he grumbled.
“Crystal ball, delete this message.”

DF – I know it’s annoying when the main character is incredibly gullible, but this is just a bit much with the cynicism for me. And I’m the cynical one in my family.
NW – Whatever.

The crystal ball started to process the request, but as it did, the female voice made a declaration.

DF – ‘Said’ is not a bad word. You can use it more than once, really.
NW – How long does it take crystal balls to delete stuff? Funny he didn’t ask it to delete the spam.

“The Lexicon is in peril,” it said.

DF – FINALLY.
NW – How can I know how to feel about this without music cues? I need music cues!

The words walloped Dennagon like a ton of maces.

DF – Literally? hopeful
NW – So the magic words for the spell to stun a dragon is ‘The Lexicon is in peril’?

He snapped his neck forth, hurling out the chewed carnage in his jaws.

DF – I already told you to stop being disgusting!
NW – Sign you’re too pretentious #17: You use more than five syllables to describe a spit take.

With slaver dripping over his chest

DF – Our mighty, super-intelligent hero, folks. He can’t even manage to not drool on himself.
NW – That’s what stunning spells do to you.

he thrust his open claws desperately out to the ball.

DF – He changed his mind about the evil sentient heroin fish egg.
NW – That sentence is filthy.

“Ignore that command!” he shouted.

DF – But it was too late. The end.

The crystal ball did so, and the message resumed.

DF – Aww…darn it.
NW – So they do come with recycle bins.

Dennagon, his head perked, listened intently. Nothing else seemed to exist.

DF – He’s still drooling on himself, isn’t he?
NW – Aren’t you reading? Drool doesn’t exist any more.

“From the edges of the sky, I call to you,” stated the unidentified female.

DF – Even though everybody but Dennagon knows who it is. This is why the prologue was completely unnecessary.
NW – The joke’s on you. It’s really Oprah.

“You are all we have left.

DF – ‘Help us Obi- I mean Dennagon, you’re our only hope.’
NW – Now the economic crisis is hitting dragons?

I impose nothing on you, but please consider our request. The world is in your talons, Dennagon.”

DF – Then the World is doomed.
NW – Oh drat, I was hoping it was just a generic distress call and we’d get a “you showed up?” sneer later.

Silence. There was no more. He seized the ball and started wringing it madly.

DF – Am I the only one getting the wrong impression?
NW – He’s going to need a doctor if he keeps this up.

“That’s it?! That’s all?!”

DF – No, it just now gained sentience and decided to keep the rest from you.
NW – How awesome would it be if his rash “delete that” command corrupted the file?

“Affirmative,” it replied.
“Trace that call! Where did it come from?!”

DF – The edges of the sky, she told you that.
NW – Add ‘*69’ to the crystal ball’s ability list.

Another beep. The mana flowed through the crystal structure, letting it reach out to the landscapes of the planet

DF – Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…* Wha? Oh, there’s more?
NW – Yep, but I’ll sum up: We’re all doomed, but Dennagon saves everyone, The End.

and find the traces of magic left by all those who used sorcery on the World. It streamed across the globe, but marked only a broken trail left by the broken creature that called upon it not long ago. That trail was displayed within the shimmering orb.

DF – Will to live…draining…
NW – Now the crystal is a GPS. Maybe the Lexicon is the user manual for this thing.

Dennagon examined it. It was quite a distance from his locale,

DF – Yay more thesaurus abuse!
NW – ImpishIdea needs to pass out ribbons for Thesaurus abuse awareness.
DF –

(Not my best work, but…)

about a hundred miles away near the Cadin Dunes. “From the edges of the sky” she said,

DF – That’s four times total!

so she must have been high above the surface.

DF – Nice deduction there, Sherlock.
NW – Sherlock was a drug user you know. Coincidence?
DF – I think not!

He could be there in a little over forty minutes at best.

DF – So he can fly at around 150mph?

Nonetheless, his capability of arriving there did not account for an important question indeed – should he go there?

DF – So it’s suddenly not so important anymore?
NW – Sign you’re too pretentious #4: You use indeed, outside of a conversation, in fiction.

His frozen thoughts

DF – It doesn’t sound like his thoughts are frozen to me.
NW – They are after eating freezing lion. Like drinking a slurpee.

suddenly melted as the crystal ball let out a ringing sound.

DF – It even rings like a phone! falls over laughing
NW – But in irony, it can’t get the latest solja boy ringtone.

Snatching it, he put it to his ear.

DF – I’m loving this part!
NW – A novel is clearly the wrong medium for this story. It needs to be a comic book.

A deep, ominous voice spoke to him.

DF – Nooooo wait! I want to know more about making phone calls on the crystal ball! Does it have a rotary dial or a keypad for sending out calls?
NW – Does it have caller ID? Can you conference call with it? Is long distance reasonably priced?

“Your lord summons you. Meet him in an hour,” it demanded.

DF – Okay guys, guess what Dennagon’s not going to be doing in an hour?
NW – Anything we care about.

“Who is this?”
“Your lord himself.”

DF – Don’t you love it when the guy in charge takes time out of his busy day to boss lowly sentries around?
NW – I guess it doesn’t have caller ID.

A deep roar accompanied the fading vocalization as it disconnected. Dennagon set the crystal ball down and touched the temples of his cranium.

DF – Just in case you don’t know where your temples are.
NW – Actually DF, in some creatures that may or may not be true. Cladists classify land vertebrates based on the presence of an upper hole, a lower hole, both, or neither in the cover of dermal bone which formerly covered the temporalis muscle. Turtles are the only ones without a ‘temple’, other replies without it are since extinct. Since we don’t have dragons today, this means they could have been a part of the group that didn’t have this feature. Except I just put in more work on this thing than the author did.

There would be no way to reach both the Cadin Dunes and the Archive within the span of sixty minutes,

DF – Onoes! What will Dennananana doooooo!!!!!!!1!1!11!2
NW – Whatever he does, we know it’ll be the right choice.

and there was no defying the lord to which his decree was ultimately bound. Then again, he was never known as one who followed any beckoning.

DF – And yet you’ll happily follow the beckoning of some stranger in the middle of nowhere. Don’t deny it; we all know you will.
NW – The caller was a she. So of course he’s going to follow it if it means getting some tail. [sorry]

Alas, he came to a conclusion, for there was no time to falter with decisions.

DF – And the author still doesn’t know how to use that word. I think he means ‘at last’ but sometimes that doesn’t even fit.
NW – When determining the author’s intention, just assume the most awesome possibility.
DF – That assumes there is an awesome possibility.
NW – I didn’t say the possibility itself was awesome. Just that among your selection, the most awesome one.
DF – What, that the author was smacked around with a thesaurus as a child?

Knocking piles of books out of his way, he opened the hatch and took to the air. Gliding through the dusk atmosphere, he soared toward the city walls, outside of Drakemight and to the unknown.

DF – Okay, by show of hands: who saw that coming? raises hand
NW – If you didn’t,

Mystery lured him with every passing breeze.

DF – Well, it’s nice to know that there’s something that’ll get you in gear, anyway.
NW – If this turns out to be the most elaborate spam call ever, I take back everything I said about this book.

—————
Crystalline clouds separated the murky stratosphere of the desert

DF – Deserts are murky? Since when?
NW – It’s like he set the Setting Generator 5000™ on “random”.

from the orange and purple bands of the celestial zenith.

DF – What?
NW – We’re clearly too stupid to be reading this. Or not enough.

Rain had not fallen upon the Cadin Dunes in well over a thousand years, yet these clouds did not signify that there was any moisture to come.

DF – That happens when your clouds are made of crystal.

No, they were there merely to linger as emblems of false hope, teasing the inhabitants of the long-forgotten death fields with the promise of water.

DF – I’ve never lived in the desert, so could someone who has tell me how often you see clouds there?
NW – More than you might think, except for Antarctica (the driest desert on earth), water still hits these places, which is why things live there. If rain hadn’t fallen in a thousand years (does dew count?), then there should be nothing living.

All the while, the glass ozone layer

DF – Well that’s not normal.
NW – Preserve the ozone layer. Stop throwing rocks!

laughed at them

DF – And that’s really not normal.
NW – If you don’t like the weather… well maybe the weather doesn’t like you either.

above the silver linings of the wispy winds, rolling the airborne perspiration about;

DF – Ew to that mental picture.

but never letting it go.

DF – I’m pretty sure the ozone layer has no say in this, since there are few (if any) clouds that high. Also because it’s a nonliving, insentient collection of gases and, in this case, glass.

Glumly, it frowned, a murky jester,

DF – Again, since when?

under the descending sun enshrouded in gloom.

DF – Nonsensical book is nonsensical. I should be used to this by now…
NW – Are we still going on about the clouds? Sign you’re too pretentious #1: You describe something unimportant to depths that make Tolkien cry.

It allowed none to pass it’s damning gaze.

DF – Who is this ‘it’?
NW – That’s a pretty mean evil eye.

That was not to say that no one ever approached.

DF – Well, I can understand why anybody in this book would want to kill themselves…

Draconic wings pushed the foggy clouds away, rising from the scorched lands below

DF – I think the author is slightly confused on what a desert is. Among other things.
NW – This is what happens when you let an infinite number of monkeys type.

Dennagon, sentry of the collective,

DF – We know.

tore through the floating condensation, his tail lashing about like a fishy fin and his scales speckled shiny by the drops of water they gathered on the way.

DF – sigh…
NW – Sparkle count: 1.

He was a hundred miles from his homeland, and a thousand miles above the ground,

DF – Which is pretty impressive when you consider that the atmosphere is generally measured as being between 62 and 75 miles thick, assuming this planet is supposed to be Earth or Earth-like. There’s more past that distance, but nobody cares enough to include it. :(
NW – Dragons… in… SPACE!

which would make him very late for his commanded meeting.

DF – Actually, Dennananana, you’re very far from your commanded meeting, since by your own estimates you still have a little under 20 minutes before it starts. So you’re not technically late yet.

There had better have been something good there, or someone would pay the price and face his wrath.
“Is anyone out there?” he echoed across the atmosphere. “Who here hath summoned my presence and drove me from my duties?”

DF – You’re not on duty, and why the heck are you speaking that formally all of a sudden? You didn’t even talk to your lord like that.
NW – Lured from your duties. Drove implies that there was something behind you, pushing you out. Not in front of you, pulling you out.

Some of the gaseous precipitation began to churn.

DF – Cloud butter?

It looked almost as if a creature were trying to sneak up on him. He pretended not to notice.

DF – One of these days, that attitude’s going to get him stabbed in the back or worse. And I will laugh.

“Who? Is anyone out there?”
Finally, the bubbling patch of vapor tumbled before him. Bursting out from underneath, a female drake emerged, her scales as blue as the sky would be at noon,

DF – One prologue and two-thirds of the first chapter, and we only now find out what color she is. Note to the author: YOU’RE WASTING TIME DESCRIBING THE WRONG THINGS.
NW – Geez DF, what’s your obsession with a dragon’s color? It’s what’s on the inside that counts you know.
DF – I’d rather not see her insides, kthnx.

and her body as lithe as it was sinewy. She bore no wings, as her subspecies naturally did not, yet she loomed amidst the sky and stood upon the clouds as if they were ground.

DF – Whiskey tango foxtrot?!
NW – This is why you’re careful with your metaphors. So those “crystal clouds” earlier… are they literally crystal or was that a description? This part here implies the former.

Even as her body was damaged by the gashes of battle,

DF – Which were somehow not a hindrance to her during the prologue. SUUUUUUE.
NW – Or right now. In the clouds. Thousands of miles above the ground.

her face was still as pristine and innocent as a gem,

DF – And once again, LIAR. She got her cheek slashed in the prologue.

untainted by her disheveled and unkempt appearance.

DF – I’m finding that pretty hard to believe, too.

But he knew better than to judge a book by it’s cover.

DF – Then why do you only have books with overly complicated names on their covers?

There was certainly some sorcery involved,

DF – I’ll say, she’s standing on clouds! In space!

some form of energy behind those seemingly weary eyes that had just witnessed vast streams of death.

DF – Now how does he know that she’s ‘witnessed vast streams of death’?
NW – So I guess her face isn’t so innocent.

Or, at least there was another beast in the vicinity.

DF – Another sentence that makes no sense. Oh, wait, that’s the same as all the sentences in this book.
NW – See people? This is what happens when you let fan fiction off the internet.

“Yea,” she replied almost sarcastically.
“What is thy name?”

DF – We’ve gone from ‘who is this?’ to ‘what is thy name?’ in almost two pages. What happened?

“I am Lyconel. Lyconel the azure drake.”

DF – Who I will be calling Lycanol for probably the rest of the book, purely because it makes her sound like a prescription drug. Also, he can see you’re a blue drake, Lycanol.
NW – I almost called her Lysol.

Dennagon furrowed his brow, searching his memory.
“Lyconel. That sounds familiar…”
“I am known here and there, maybe everywhere. Dennagon.”

DF – Lies.

“And how do you know me?”
“Because we share one thing in common. We both seek the same entity.”

DF – You only wish it were that easy.
NW – Oh no! It’s some sick love triangle.

Dennagon snorted green fire from his nostrils.

DF – Now, Denny, we’ve talked about those antifreeze and roach poison mixers; they’re not good for you.

He wasn’t going to be led in a roundabout riddle.

DF – For once, I agree, but I bet it’ll happen anyway.
NW – Silly dragon. You’re still in the first chapter.

“I am a sentry of Drakemight. I will not be hassled with paradoxes or lengthy doctrines of poetic nature. You will tell me what your purpose is in speaking, lest I cast you forth into the gorges of doom whereupon my emerald fires shall rip past your scaly hide and smite you with great force upon the desiccated dunes down under.

DF – That’s…yeah. Wow. Overreact much?

Thence

DF – You weren’t done yet?!

shall your corpse remain, a battered, broken ruin upon the wretched earth from whence you were spawned.”
Lyconel smirked.
“You guard knowledge?” she asked.

DF – Hello, and welcome to Let’s State the Obvious! Our contestants today are Dennananana and Lycanol! You both know the rules? Okay, then let’s! State! The Obvious! applause from studio audience
NW – Sign you’re too pretentious #12: Threats spoken by a character are long enough to put people to sleep.

“I live only for that mission, yes.”
“But I’ll bet that’s not what you really want.”
He couldn’t see where this was going.
“You desire, sentry, as I do, the one thing in the universe that can never be found.”

DF – Oh, please. There are at least two dictionaries in my house, and I have access to several more via the internet.
NW – This whole concept is meaningless. Theoretically, if it’s in the universe, it can be found, because it’s there in the first place. I’d say maybe these dragons are going to go look for God, but depending on the theology, He’s not in the universe.

It is the possessor of all data in the universe, the source of everything that can be known.

DF – Well, I have some encyclopedia sets, too.
NW – It’s the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy. How I wish I was reading that. Adams’ pretentiousness was part of the joke.

You are aware of what I speak.”

DF – Also known as listening. The score is now Lycanol 2, Dennananana 0.
NW – Come on team green! Beat those blues.

Now he could. However, he was unmoved.
“Of course,” he bluntly snapped.

DF – Variations of ‘said’ and adverbs! They’re taking over! RUN!

“But such an entity doesn’t exist beyond the mind. It is but a fancy in a million,

DF – The heck does that mean?
NW – Paste the above 500,000 times and you’ll have the summation of our sporking.

an illusory toy for the cerebrum.”
“Then why do you still dream of it every night? Why don’t you attend the wisdom gatherings with the other dragons in the Archive? How come you never want to remember anything the Archive tells you, and how come you hate Drakemight with all your ardor?”

DF – gasp! Lycanol’s a stalker!
NW – I told you Dennagon was a Twilight fan.

Her presuppositions were truthful, and he did not comprehend how she could have understood.

DF – Or, she was right and he didn’t know why. We had this discussion during the prologue.

Somehow, he suspected that she already knew the answers to her rhetoric.
“It is all for this one unattainable entity,” she continued.

DF – We’re not talking to you anymore, STALKER!
NW – See? Fanfiction. The nerd wants a girl that does all the hard stuff and just falls in his lap.

Dennagon could not deny the inevitable.

DF – Technically, you can, just not forever.

There was no escaping his subconscious, what with its desires hidden from his waking mind.
“The Lexicon.”

DF – Don’t talk to the stalker!
NW – I keep reading it as a convention being held in Lexington, KY. Maybe Dennagon loves derby days.

The words came out almost mechanically,

DF – Mechanical words, what’ll they think of next?

as if some force had driven him to utter the truth in all its light.
“It exists, Dennagon. It is your choice whether or not you wish to find it.

DF – But we all know you will, so let’s go already.
NW – Has anyone else read Naomi Novik’s dragon series? If not why are you reading this? Go read her already. She does everything right as great as Eng and Paolini do everything wrong. Like pacing.

Follow me or stay with your collective.”

DF – Now I’m curious; how are all these large carnivores living in huge groups? That’d take some pretty big ranches to feed all of them. Or, if they’re hunting for themselves, it shouldn’t be possible to find enough food. Then again, they fly at about 1507.5 mph… (Thank you, Scary_Viking!)
NW – Borg Dragons!

With that, Lyconel turned about. Trudging toward the sun in the horizon, she slowly walked away, shrinking with every step. She was not turning back, not in space and not in time.

DF – How does one turn back in time?
NW – Step 1) Get some special mushrooms…

Dennagon watched, his expression almost numbed by the unbelievable experience he had endured.

DF – I know, dude, she was, like, walking on the space clouds!

There were so many questions he wanted to ask, but there was no time to resolve them. If he followed, perhaps she would put a spell on him.

DF – Well, she can do that anytime, while she’s stalking you.
NW – Awwww, isn’t young love so cute?

If he did not, he might forsake his very freedom from his already forsaken life.
Then, a glint of the sunlight on her scales flashed through the stratosphere,

DF – They’re not in the stratosphere.

glimmering upon the glass ozone

DF – Ozone is not glass.
NW – Sparkle count: 2.

until it struck upon his eye.

DF – Too many words…

The blue light immersed him with memories of something he had learned long ago. Recollection surged through his mind, granting him that which he needed at the moment – certainty. As the engrams

DF – Thesaurus abuse! Thesaurus abuse!

poured through his brain, he knew exactly what to do, for he now knew who he was really talking to.

DF – She put a spell on him. Seriously, though, they could have skipped all that if she’d just told him who she was in the first place.
NW – She jogged his memory by flashing him. Yes I said it in the most context free way on purpose.

“Wait,” he said composedly.

DF – Five times, even though this one has an adverb.

She did. A hopeful expression formed on her face.

DF – Which doesn’t seem in character for her, since she’s been such a know-it-all so far this chapter.

However, it just as quickly began to recede as she saw Dennagon reach for his hilt.
“Now I remember you.”

DF – This’ll be good. And by good, I mean I’m going to laugh so hard…

In an instant, the scabbard stretched out into an unsheathed blade that whirled around as an incoming overhead slash was delivered.

DF – HA! Sue vs. Stu! Who will win!
NW – In a battle where there can be no winner!

Lyconel lunged forward, her claws digging into the vapor as the sword narrowly missed her from behind. Both warriors took combative posture.
“But we’ve never met before!” she proposed.

DF – Proposed was really the best you could come up with?
NW – By this logic, I’ve had a dozen women propose to me.

“The Archive informed me of your activities. You once tried to decimate Drakemight City.”

DF – What do you care, you hate Drakemight. For that matter, what do I care? KILL THE SUE!
NW – How is one, non-flying drake a threat to a city full of flying dragons? That’s like saying Mongols tried to decimate an aircraft carrier with bows and arrows.

“You don’t understand.”
“I don’t need to. All I need is knowledge.”

DF – Which is useless unless you understand it. Information hog Stu.

Charging forth, he took another swing at her, his two tons of muscle wildly hurling the blade.

DF – I believe it’s been mentioned elsewhere that swords are not throwing weapons.
NW – So are all of his muscles put together two tons? But then how would he put it all into throwing a weapon? Maybe just his arm weighs two tons? But then he’d have to eat hundreds of lions for the energy needed to stay aloft.

Lyconel drew her mace and clashed just before the metal could meet her bone.

DF – How’d she slip it in there without hurting herself? Oh, right, Mary Sue. Sorry.

Feverishly, they exchanged a furious series of attacks and parries, every blow as thundering as it was devastating.

DF – All while she’s badly wounded. Why hasn’t the Stu killed her yet?
NW – Because she’s a Sue! Immovable object, irresistible force kind of thing.

Metal flew across the air, along with occasional punches, kicks and chops. The flurry of assaults was equaled by the number of blocks, but only Dennagon was truly gaining the advantage of the offensive.

DF – Well I should hope so! She’s exhausted and injured, Dennagon isn’t!
NW – She’s also a girl! And doesn’t have wings. And… actually why hasn’t gravity won yet?

Lyconel squeezed in what hits she could, hoping that her enemy would tire out.

DF – Stupid of her, really, for the reasons mentioned above.

Unfortunately for her, he seemed almost limitless in endurance.

DF – And again, see the above reasons.
NW – You know, just this sentence taken out of context…
DF – snerk

Finally, she lost her concentration. In a disoriented moment, her opponent’s sword sliced her across the abdomen, creating a gash of blood as silver as liquid metal.

DF – She even dies special.
NW – Look DF, we’re about to see her insides.

She bore her fangs in pain, but did not give her enemy the pleasure of her scream.
“Not bad,” she commented.

DF – I know I shouldn’t expect it to be good, but the dialogue really is horrible.
NW – Again, this sentence taken out of context…

“You’re right.”
He wailed a frenzy of claw slashes at her.

DF – Did you hear something?
NW – So he just tossed away his sword?

“It’s excellent,” finished Dennagon.

DF – Why is she still alive?

As he came at her, she crouched. Sliding along the gaseous ice of the clouds,

DF – She remembered that they shouldn’t exist up here, much less be able to support her, and fell to her death.

she slipped underneath him and threw a tail sweep. The small spikes at the tip of her tail whipped him in the back of the cranium, jarring him to the ground.

DF – What ground? You’re basically in space!
NW – If he did hit the ground, at 2 tons+ from a thousand miles up… help me out physic geeks.

He fell onto his side. Growling, he pushed himself up and gave her a menacing snarl.
“Ready?” Lyconel inquired.
Dennagon rushed in again. Lyconel, cocky at her quelling of his arrogance,

DF – Now, now, you’re both arrogant enough to earn my eternal loathing.
NW – Funny how this sequence reads when you remove some small details, like the weapons.
DF – I’m sensing a pattern…

flung her mace at his chest,

DF – Maces are also not throwing weapons. Someone’s been taking lessons from Inheritance.

arcing it downward so that it covered enough area to prevent him from jumping over it. However, as it came, he torqued

DF – That word doesn’t fit.
NW – So she aims to keep him from going up, without realizing that there’s still 4 other directions for him to doge. (right, left, down, back)
DF – Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right?
NW – B-A-start.

in the air, spinning to her side in a way that almost defied the laws of physics.

DF – It’s either because he’s a Stu, or because they’re actually in the Matrix.
NW – What HASN’T defied the laws of physics here?

Before she could let out a confused grunt, his fist rammed into her face, and she was floored onto the cloudy ground. Dizzily, she wavered in her pose.

DF – She’s not in a pose, she’s been knocked to the nonexistent cloud ground.

At this point, Dennagon had had enough.

DF – FINISH HER.

Reaching for his belt,

DF – Is his belt some kind of Belt of Holding or something?
NW – He’s a dragon Batman. (Batdragon?)

he pulled out something he used often to slay pesky beasts, a nice little package he kept for efficiency and fun. It was a spellbook, worn and torn at its edge, but still bound together by its unwavering metal book spine.

DF – Why hasn’t he used it before now, you ask? Well, because then he wouldn’t have looked as awesome, of course!
NW – Take off the 2nd sentence there. [chuckle]

Flipping open the cover, he browsed its pages and stopped at several that he had bookmarked.

DF – I don’t care how cool you think you are, Denny, you can’t stop on several different pages all at once.

“All the universe’s hellish wonders,” he read with the ire of a draconic wizard, “give me the strength of mighty thunder!”

DF – So it’s one of those ‘say a stupid poem to get magic’ systems.
NW – “My eyes, my eyes, here they bleed. Burn this book oh pretty please.”

A lightning bolt surged from his palm, ripping across the stratosphere

DF – You’re not in the stratosphere.

like a liquid stream of electric current. It flowed to his adversary in graceful rage, knocking her in the chest as if to steal the air straight from her lungs. Lyconel collapsed.

DF – FATALITY! Dennananana wins!

He flipped a page.

DF – ROUND TWO. FIGHT!

“In the lighted cosmic halls, lend me the craze of azure fireballs!”

DF – Aw, c’mon! The meter wasn’t even close on that one!
NW – “This pain I can’t much more endure. This book will kill me, of this I’m sure.”

Comets as blue as the ocean burned the air, blasting their target, whose equally sapphire torso became even further scarred in the meteor shower.

DF – Comets =/= meteors.
NW – Dennagon cast [meteor]

Dennagon turned to the last of his favorite pages.
“Strongly does the World ensnare upon its grounds the dreaded air!”

DF – Now that one shouldn’t even work in space…

A mental storm of wind exploded from his mind,

DF – I would never have guessed that a mental (insert object here) would come from someone’s mind.
NW – I’m picturing Dennagon’s head exploding like in Scanners.

unleashing a heavy torrent. The gust struck Lyconel like ten tons of metal, heaving her body off its stance.

DF – What stance?
NW – Does this guy have a weight fetish or something? Note writers: being detailed doesn’t help your metaphor or simile.

Cast in the violent tempest, she tumbled around to the very edges of the cloud.

DF – You mean the cloud that shouldn’t be there anyway, since you’re in space?
NW – Clouds… in… space!

Desperately, she caught onto the rim, the silver lining,

DF – I’m sick of that pun already.
NW – No cliché will be left behind!

before she could plummet to the dunes a thousand miles down.

DF – Do I even need to say it?

Dennagon closed his tome of sorcery and stepped up to his clinging enemy. Holding the sword high above his head, he was ready to kill her.

DF – So do it already!
NW – Clinging enemy? She is a stalker!

“It’ll be quite a fall,” said he,

DF – Said count – 6. And I hope you guys didn’t forget, because the score’s now Lycanol 2, Dennananana 1.

“especially when you don’t have wings.”

DF – Lycanol 2, Dennananana 2! It’s a tie, folks!

“I got up here just fine without them.”

DF – Lycanol 3, Dennananana 2.
NW – “Yeah… wait, how did you get up here?”

He delivered a final slash to her face. Just as the blade neared her claws, she let go, plunging to the surface below. It was almost as if she planned to release herself, yet it did not seem as though she intended to die.

DF – Of course, they’re in space, so there should be zero gravity.

As she fell, her last words to him faded.
“The World is what you make of it…”

DF – I bet she lives.
NW – The author already spoiled it 3 sentences ago. As if he was foreshadowing to the reader, “Don’t worry, the Sue will make it.”

Dennagon watched as she shrunk in the distance. He wanted to pursue her and finish her off, but decided that it was best to save his energy.

DF – Yeah, because diving is so difficult.

After all, she was obviously a lunatic, right?

DF – Well you’re a Gary Stu, so there.
NW – Wait, I thought that was a sporking. Who’s he talking to?

Who would drive themselves of a cloud and expect to live,

DF – Actually, you drove her off the space cloud.

save for an imbecile who was willing to sacrifice his existence for the whimsical indulgence of a dream unattained?

DF – So what does happen to a dream unattained?

The very thought was ridiculous,

DF – As is the rest of the book so far, what’s your point?
NW – Ridiculous is par for the course. Kind of like a Roald Dahl story. Except, you know, he was awesome and his pretentiousness was also part of the joke.

and it perturbed him greater that his paranoia fancied she might survive.

DF – Yep. She’ll definitely live.
NW – In case the first foreshadowing wasn’t obvious enough.

He tried to relinquish the thought, and surrender all nonsensical worries. He wasn’t afraid of phantasms as a whelp and he certainly would not concede to fear now.

DF – What does one have to do with the other, exactly?

Alas, she vanished completely as a vapor stream passed before his vision.

DF – And sadly, that’s probably the closest we’re likely to get to the proper usage of ‘alas’.

He had other duties to attend. Judging by the position of the sun, he could tell that it was precisely 18:29,

DF – Good for you! Now watch as I fail to care.

which marked the eve of a thirty-hour day. He had spent ten minutes here, ten minutes of his life wasted. Even worse off, he was late in finishing those books he intended to read later in the day.

DF – What books? You’ve read them all already, and you refuse to re-read anything!
NW – Told you it was Playdragon.

But even worse — he was late for his meeting with the Archive Lord.

DF – That’s your own fault.
NW – Why is he worried? Meetings waste even more time.

“Crud,” he thought to himself.
Without another second wasted, he darted into the distance, wings flapping with urgency. There was not a moment to spare, for as he flew, his master waited for his arrival. He could almost feel the anger building, the impatience tearing through the fabric of the World as if the dragon king’s decree were all that mattered in reality.

DF – Should’ve thought of that earlier, Mr. I-Don’t-Follow-Any-Beckoning.
NW – I think we have a dragon with bipolar disorder.

He just hoped it wasn’t too late.

DF – I, meanwhile, hope it is.

For what hope was worth…

DF – I’m just glad this chapter is finally over. Next time: I don’t know, but we can bet Denananana’s still a Stu.
NW – That was just one chapter? =O

Comment [25]

Before we start, a couple of interesting notes about the last two parts of the book (the Prologue and first chapter) that I didn’t notice:

1) The wyvern from the prologue was using a rapier/foil (even though it has to be either one or the other…) and a plasma gun. Now, I looked through the glossary for the book, and a wyvern is defined as having four limbs; a pair of wings and a pair of legs. While this is actually accurate for once, if he has the typical dragonic wings then how is he manipulating the weapons?

2) The crystal ball answering machine had the first recorded message come on that day at 8:10, and the second on that day at 3:10. This implies that there’s some form of AM and PM time system splitting the day in half; otherwise, the 8:10 call would be the second one that day. After the fight, though, Dennagon notes that it’s evening, and the exact time is 18:29. Which, since they have a 30 hour day instead of 24, would imply that there is no such division in the system (since if it did, the time would have been something like 3:29 after whatever the division point is or something). So which is it?

Anyway, to the point. The previous chapters of this monstrosity can be found here, here, and here, for those who haven’t had the chance to read it. Nate Winchester is still working with me on this, and apparently there’s some kind of a surprise?

NW – I’ve also brought along my pet dragon wizard to help. His name is snuggles.

DF – Can I snuggle Snuggles?

S – No.

The Archive rested in the center of Drakemight, for it was the most important structure of the kingdom. It was a grand sphere of metal lined by stone that appeared strangely organic in structure, as it winded around iron chunks like nerves of rocky substance. Every dragon collected data for the purpose of storing it in this informational core, yet few often pondered why it appeared so odd.

DF – Considering that you live in a dodecahedron, Dennananana, I wouldn’t complain.
NW – I wonder what OS the dragons’ server uses.
DF – Python

No one in the medieval realm had ever experienced such erratic architecture,

DF – Hey, for all we know, it’s normal for your dragons to have acid-trips for buildings.
NW – So that’s the secret to dragon “flight”.
DF – Now that I think about it, it probably is.

not even the artists that manifested their surreal imagery in the forms of paintings and sculptures.

DF – Didn’t people like Lovecraft write about this sort of thing driving people insane?
NW – DF run! We’ve stumbled onto the Necronomicon!
DF – “Ia! Ia! The Goat With a Thousand Young! No!”

Then again, not everybody who questioned the dragon lord’s wisdom ever made it very far. He had secrets to keep, and he had a purpose in doing so.

DF – That’s not a very responsible use of information.
NW – Just one purpose for ALL of those secrets?

Thus, the Archive’s creation remained a mystery that was both beautiful and disturbing at the same time. Its walls were a marvel to look at, encompassing the craft of the ancient world and the craft of something yet unseen. Something almost…cybernetic…

DF – How would Dennananana know anything about cybernetics? Also, I bet I know who the dragon lord is.
S – Blarg! What happened to the architects?
NW – Well we’ve seen numerous pretentious mentions of time so I’m betting they’re from the future and haven’t built the structure – yet.

Inside the cognitive castle, the sacred Archive,

DF – I thought it was a sphere.
NW – You know, “By the power of the cognitive castle” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

millions upon millions of circular dishes floated

DF – I’d complain about gravity here, but really? After the physics abuse last chapter this really isn’t that surprising.
NW – Why didn’t he just say a trillion dishes?

throughout a gargantuan area that rivaled the cosmos in spaciousness.

DF – I’m finding that hard to believe, though.
NW – cough
DF – I know, but still…

Each one contained a gooey, soft, black orb

DF – Hey, the evil sentient heroin fish eggs are back! Yay!
S – Grrrr… This isn’t an archive! It’s a caviar party.

submerged in liquid crystal fluid that sparkled like sugary tar and swirled with countless megabytes of data –

DF – And he’s stopped using liters, too!
NW – mmmm… I prefer to have 2 lumps of sugar with my tar. Oh, and only MEGABYTES of data? Why not countless terabytes or zettabytes?
S – You made that last one up.
NW – Did not!

the speed of light, the Planck constant, the Schrodinger Wave Equation, the radius of a carbon atom, the structure of organic molecules – each bit of wisdom as important as the next.

DF – Knowledge =/= wisdom.
NW – “Look at me! I know science buzzwords!”

They were the embodiments of information transformed from the raw data essence that lined the World’s lands and air, to the core of the planet and beyond, collected by the dragons that lived to support the kingdom.

DF – Hundreds of years of hard work, study and testing went into discovering all these facts and theories and equations that the author has now turned into something that can be plucked out of the air and stuffed into a large fish egg. I don’t know about you guys, but I find that incredibly insulting.
NW – You’re just NOW incredibly insulted? I was insulted when he ruined robot dragons.

The orbs all looked like giant caviar, dripping with dark fluids from their supple surfaces as if to contain embryos and cerebral nutrition within shelled walls of savory, salty substance.

DF – And that’s lovingly described to the point of being disgusting.
NW – Called it!

And assuredly, they were just as tasty as they appeared. The dragon lord promised so, and so they would be.

DF – I would like to amend my earlier statement. The author has turned it into something that can be plucked out of the air, stuffed into a fish egg, and eaten. Also, that doesn’t sound tasty at all.
NW – I hope the dragon lord puts proper nutrition information on those things. I hear data can be fattening. This is what we also call “overdoing the metaphor”.

Dragon sentries amassed in the hundreds, returning from a hard day’s work. Black orbs magically appeared in empty dishes, sent via conjury from domiciles within the city. Those that didn’t feel like expelling mana just physically dropped off their daily collections by coming there themselves. Afterwards, elders tended to each of the newly added inventory, careful with each and every morsel of information that was cropped off. Nothing could be wasted, for although they had the data in their possession now, the knowledge was still not safe.

DF – Then you shouldn’t have made it delicious.
NW – I give the odds a billion to 1 that some of them are not ‘sharing’.

Not until it was consumed.

DF – Oh.
NW – All this great technology and no one has heard of backups?
DF – I guess the dragons are the backups.

Amongst the throngs, Dennagon flew, once again feeling sick at having to remain with all of his low-life colleagues. What made him even sicker, however, was the thought that he was now half an hour off schedule from his appointed time to encounter the master that endowed him life in the first place. Passing through the lanes of floating dishes, he hurriedly bustled through the crowd, trying not to knock anything over as he moved. His reputation was already falling apart as it was.

DF – That’s not what I heard last chapter.
NW – Narrative disconnect. The knowledge is precious to the dragons but they’re just letting it float around in the middle of a bustling metropolis where anyone might bump into it? Is it really that precious?
S – Sounds like we need to invest in some of those tubes they use at the bank.

As he moved, his eyes sometimes wandered to the dark, wet spheres that were spread throughout the realm. At the sights, his mouth watered and his tongue slithered, longing for the flavor of knowledge, thirsty for the sanguine sapidity of information. When he was younger and had just taken up the art of the sword, he used to sample the black orbs that the collective gave him. Indeed, they tasted richer than the most concentrated vanilla flowers on the planet.

DF – Since when have vanilla flowers been salty and savory?
NW – Since when does knowledge have a taste? I wonder what wikipedia tastes like. Or TV tropes.
DF – I don’t know about Wikipedia’s flavor, but TV Tropes probably tastes like concentrated awesome.

Their savor must have become embossed in his unconscious like the scars on his scales, leading his pupils to the ebony caviar like magnets to metal.
With great strength, he wrenched his mind away from them. He knew they tasted like the finest bloody meat

DF – I thought they tasted like flowers?
NW – Bloody meat flowers!

whilst sending surges of orgasmic information

NW – My eyes!
DF – The goggles do nothing! …And there went our safe for everyone rating.
NW – We’d like to apologize to everyone, everywhere.
DF – We’d like to do that anyway, actually.

to one’s head. He knew they were accepted by the majority as the only way to salvage the World’s intelligence and to achieve success. Nevertheless, he had to stop longing for them. Deep in his thoughts, he was aware that there was something not quite right about them,

DF – Something not quite right about what? The evil sentient heroin fish eggs? Nah, you’re imagining things.
NW – Women which are pregnant or may become pregnant should not take Evil Sentient Heroin Fish Eggs. People with heart or liver conditions should consult their doctor before taking ESHFE. If you grow a second head, go to the hospital immediately.

and he would not let himself resort to indulgence before figuring out what that was. For many years now, he had been starving, living off frozen carrion hunted in second-rate forests, and it would probably be many more years until he could again quench his desire. He would not stray from his path, even if it was agonizing.

NW – “He knew that only he could get the ESHFE to Mt Doom and toss them into the fires…”
DF – Every time you compare this book to Lord of the Rings, God feeds a kitten to Snuggles.

Something jarred him. Another draconic sentry bumped him in the shoulder, nearly pushing him into a dish. At first, he thought it was accidental, but then he saw who it was.
“How’s it going, Dennagon?” asked Thargon sarcastically.

DF – I almost liked Thargon, but then I remembered he was in this book.
S – See? They need those bank tubes.

Dennagon cast a stone-cold glance at his mocking “comrade”. Several more draconic sentries surrounded him, glaring at him with disgust. Their words, like poison, shot at him.
“Still on a diet?”
“Wow, you look like you’ve lost a lot of weight.”
“From your reduced brain size.”

DF – I’m sorry, are they in kindergarten or something?
NW – Dennagon will now reply with the ancient wisdom of, “I am rubber, you are glue…”

They enjoyed a good laugh, clasping their talons around each other’s shoulders in grouped conformist ardor.

NW – Why does this author insist on repeating what he previously said before? It gets quite repetitive and redundant.
DF – My theory is that he thinks everybody reading his book is an idiot.

“I take it you didn’t get my message,” continued Thargon.
“Of course I received it. Why do you think I didn’t come to the wisdom meeting?”
“Heh, heh. You’re at a loss, my friend. Knowledge is power, and power is what matters in life. Right?”
“You’re one to speak. Especially when I collect more knowledge in a day than you can collect in a lifetime.”
Everyone stopped laughing. More sentries gathered, all drawing their weapons in insulted demeanor.

DF – This scene conflicts with the first chapter.

Thargon drew a halberd.
“It’s a small World. We’ll find you eventually.”
“Why find me? I’m already here.”

DF – For once, Dennananana actually has a point.
NW – Trying to imagine this scene hurts my brain.

Dennagon drew his own sword.
“If you want to kill me, give me your best shot,” he challenged.
The brutish comportment of his antagonistic colleagues lessened at the sight of his weapon. Attempting to maintain their masculinity, they shirked,

DF – Okay, that’s it. Somebody go take away the author’s thesaurus.
NW – Forget that, someone take away his music track listings before we get a song & dance number.

hiding their cowardice behind euphemistic visages.

DF – I don’t believe I’ve ever seen one of those.

Thargon spit out reptilian slaver.

DF – Thargon SMASH!

“You might be the best sentry now,” he said. “But persistence wears away any challenge. In time, when we have enough knowledge, we will breeze through this globe like gods amongst gods. You will remain a pawn, shadowed in nothingness until eternity croaks. Then, we’ll see who has the last laugh, my friend.”

DF – All that, despite being behind Denny by an almost unbelievably significant amount?
NW – Aren’t they also pawns?
DF – They’re better pawns than he is, though.
NW – … Go ahead.
S – Their power levels are over 9,000!!!
DF – crunches scouter …Ohwait, that was your line, wasn’t it?
NW – He’ll get over it.

With that, they sheathed their weapons and flew off. Thargon snatched an orb from a dish and gladly licked it up, letting its rich juices spill over his tongue. The fluids seethed into his abdomen, coursing through his veins and nerves as he drank. Every morsel of its information gradually appeared in his eyes as flashing glints of light surrounded by dark haloes whilst the data was assimilated into the very fabric of is brain. Physical laws, astronomical constants and chronological facts filled his consciousness. His smirk gleamed in Dennagon’s eyes in an attempt to swarm him with jealousy, an attempt that was fueled by intense jealousy in itself. Dennagon, however, cared little for the thoughts of such insignificant beings. He knew the future did not belong to them, for if there was anything that was certain in the World, it was that he created his own future. Thence, he moved on
As he reached the top of the environment, he neared a colossal throne that stood at the apex of all. Currents of illumined magic

DF – I can’t help but notice he still has that thesaurus.
NW – Don’t you feel sorry for the dragon that got the “Eat at Joe’s” ESHFE?
DF – Probably, yes, but I’ll feel sorry for anyone at this point.

surrounded it, flowing through the spacious area down to the very nadir of the Archive itself so that they could connect to every dragon and orb in the place. This was the lair of his master, the point at which wrath would most likely wrench him for his tardiness. The sorcery surrounding the air there was extreme, emanating from the mind of the one creature that every serpent owed its life to.

DF – So how is that, exactly?
NW – Captain my… biblical imagery scanner is detecting approaching Garden of Eden references.
DF – Biblical imagery scanner…where do you get those?
NW – Standard with the “pretentious crap” survival package.
DF – I knew I forgot to get something before I started this!
NW – It should have come with a deluxe edition of Eragon.
DF – That explains it; I only got the normal one.
S – There’s nothing normal about Eragon.
DF – Relatively speaking, of course.

Guilt and anguish further imbued Dennagon’s heart as he approached.
Straightening his battle gear, he floated before it. The magic gushed past him, but he could not detect any emotions in the conjured tides. The dragon king’s mind was too shielded from the minds of others, and no one ever knew what he was thinking. Some even rumored

DF – ‘Rumor’ is not that difficult a word. Then again, neither is ‘alas’…
NW – We should just get an Inigo Montoya image and just slap it up here every other paragraph.
DF – Probably, yeah. I’ll see if I can dig one up.

that the king had no emotions, which was not that ludicrous of a proposition. Dennagon himself had never seen him display any sentiments, and it was his wish that no rage would swarm over him today.
“What do you ask of me my lord?” he addressed in composed nervousness.

DF – Is that even possible?
NW – Why would he be concerned about the lord’s rage if the lord is emotionless?
DF – Because everyone in this book is stupid?
NW – Must… eat… more… ESHFE…

The throne lit up with dark flames.

DF – I knew it!
NW – If you did not see this coming, please leave the internet. And civilization. I hear Canada’s nice.
DF – They can go live in the 867 area code. Gravekeeper says it’s where they’re going anyway.

Dark flames that seemed to have been in existence forever. A silhouette formed around them cloaked in a shadow eternal, until alas,

DF – sigh It’s like I saw it coming, really.
NW – How do you tell a fire’s age?
DF – How do you solve a problem like Maria?
NW – Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon?
DF – If the good die young, do the evil live forever?
NW – Nah, most people are morally ambigious, hence the random dying patterns.

it could be understood that the unseen shadow itself was the final form of the dragon lord.

DF – Shouldn’t he already know this?
NW – It’s transforming into a Final Fantasy game.
DF – Does that mean it’s time for a One-Winged Angel, or is that later?
NW – After the infinity +1 sword.
DF – I think that gets introduced later this chapter.
NW – If a moogle gets eaten I take back everything I said about this book.

It flared out its blackened blazes, spiraling above its throne in an omnipotent dance of conflagrations that echoed the mystery of a thousand riddles. It was somewhat glorious, yet its artfulness did not negate its fearsome nature. When it was done, the silhouette settled at its own beckoning, sitting down upon its throne so potently. So prominently.
Drekkenoth almighty waited a few seconds before allowing his voice to be heard. He looked at the wristwatch that was strapped to his forearm,

DF – I thought it was strapped to his talon.
NW – His whole forearm could be a talon. Which explains his foul mood.
DF – Hmmm…his forearm is fire, his talon is fire…it could work!

the one timepiece that no one else was allowed to look at. Whether or not it told the time of day Dennagon did not know, but there was one thing he did understand for certain – Drekkenoth was aware at all times of almost everything.
“What I always have, Sentry Dennagon,” said he. “The World is being ravaged, and the sapiens roam the lands, burning the earthen knowledge in their hominid horror. Soon, there will be nothing left of the globe’s wisdom, and ignorance shall reign supreme.

DF – Time out, I thought it was safe after it was eaten?
NW – How does knowledge burn? Can you set the quadratic equation on fire?
DF – Well, you can shove it into a heroin fish egg, so…
S – Please DF, everyone knows that ESHFE are not flamable.
DF – I was sick the day we went over that. SICK OF THIS BOOK.
NW – I think you were sick to pick it up in the first place. A chicken/egg kind of thing.
DF – :(

It is our quest to gather all that remains of the planet’s knowledge before man can destroy it.”

DF – I’ve heard this already, and I’m pretty sure Dennananana has, too. Can we move on?
NW – I keep picturing Fry and the Nibolians showing up at any moment…

Arxinor and Gorgash flew by his sides like reptilian angels designed to guard their lord. Dennagon straightened a final plate that was still crooked.
“With all due respect,” he politely stated, “You have not answered my question.”
Drekkenoth twisted his wrist as quickly as a machine.

DF – OMGOMGUSELESSFORESHADOWINGOMG!
NW – ditto

Amid his claws, colored flames emerged, forming from a rainbow of fire

DF – More special fire. Ugh.
NW – It’s like fireworks just going off in their hand…
DF – Does that mean I can look forward to someone blowing up sometime soon?
NW – This story does seem like it was written for Michael Bay doesn’t it?

the three-dimensional image of the World in its entirety.
“I hath called upon you because you are our greatest warrior. Each day, you collect more data than any other sentry.”

DF – That’s not what warriors do.
NW – Budget cutbacks hurt the librarians the most so the army had to diversify.
DF – That’s what happens when you keep ESHFE everywhere.

“Of this I am aware,” replied Dennagon humbly.
“Then why do you not join us in the wisdom gatherings? We need as many minds as we can to store all the World’s information. The information that may no longer exist after the sapiens raze the planet.”

NW – Considering how many humans Dennagon slaughtered on his own previously… why haven’t the Robotic Dragons just made them extinct already?
DF – Because then the author wouldn’t be able to torture us with how his innocent peace-loving awesome dragons are being oppressed.
NW – “Come see the violence inherent in the system!”
DF – Besides, considering how inept they’ve been so far, would you really trust them to do that successfully?
NW – Well I was guessing the dragons would just trip over their own feet and fall on the humans. What we call “Death by Jar Jar.”

A talon of dark fire motioned toward a group of dragons in the distance. They gathered around the black orb dishes, slurping the cognitive rations and bantering as if intoxicated by ale. Like idiots they were, enjoying themselves far too much when they had far too little.

DF – Knowledge makes you stupid. Who’d have thought it?
NW – Anyone that’s been to college recently.

“I don’t think I am wise enough to hold the insight of the Archive’s cells…”
Drekkenoth was not pleased with the answer, but his neutral expression remained, red eyes gleaming behind a veil of bleak blazes.
“Spare me the false modesty. Knowledge in itself is not permanently saved until it is wired into the brain of a dragon. Dragons are the only species capable of attaining enlightenment, for we’ve reserved ourselves from rapacity for eons.

DF – What does one have to do with the other?
NW – I can’t keep this world building straight. So they have an archive. But the dragons eat all the knowledge… so why then the archive?
DF – Well it has to be cooked just right.
NW – I think the author must have been on some ESHFE.
DF – Wait until later.
NW – …
S – Awww look, the weak little human is crying now. I’ll be taking over for a minute.

Will you let those eons go to waste?” Drekkenoth leaned forth. “Would you let Shevinoth’s will die as he died many ages ago?”
Dennagon hated rhetorical questions, especially when they did not address the true issue at talon. Drekkenoth ranted on, yet his voice commanded a respect that shielded its rambling attribute from consciousness.
“The future must be heeded.

DF – How can you heed something that doesn’t exist yet?
S – Silly human and your ‘linear time’ concepts.
DF – Sorry, I meant how do you heed something that you haven’t experienced yet, by definition? (If Dennananana’s experienced the future, he’s keeping a tight lid on it.)
S – Quiet! Take more ESHFE!
DF – NEVAR!
S – Rawr!
NW – Yes yes, you’re a monster. Now give me the keyboard back.
DF – SUPER SNUGGLE ATTACK! snuggles Snuggles
NW – O.o
DF – Don’t judge me!

There is not much time left in this World. Can you feel the essence in the air, the unchanging fate of the World that shall draw it to its inescapable end? The future must be heeded, for the rise of Totality is coming. It will not be long before all living things are eliminated.”

NW – Oh no! We’ve picked up the Left Behind series for dragons!
DF – NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOES!!!1!111!1!33

Totality. It was one of the most powerful words that could be used, aside from profanities and threats. It meant the merging of the World into a single unification that would ruin all differentiation. If time were to cease, so would life, and thus, everything would fall into an eternal darkness. Albeit it was often viewed as an omega far, far in the future, Dennagon knew that it was his responsibility as well as the responsibility of all beings to stop it. And the best time to do that was now.
“Let’s meet the sapiens head-on,” he declared.
Arxinor and Gorgash exchanged sharp glances.
“Wreck them before they can strike,” continued the highest-ranking sentry. “The humans are infatuated with trinkets of gold and gems and whatnot, for avarice guides their every flaw. They should not be difficult to destroy. In fact, I believe they have already destroyed themselves. Consider their history of warfare and torture.

DF – Because everybody knows that giant carnivorous reptiles don’t have any violent tendencies, obviously.
NW – Glad to see someone listens to me.
DF – Sorry, did you say something?
NW – Not at all. But if it’s the responsibility of all beings to stop it, why aren’t they recruiting or enslaving the sapiens into helping?
DF – Ah, now that’s something that will be explained in a minute! Explained very, very badly, but still explained.
NW – I don’t believe you.

how they lost everything to their own havoc. But consider what matters most – The future is ours only if we take control of the present.”
For a moment, there was an ominous silence. In that foolish instant, Dennagon thought he had impressed the lord with his portrayed zealousness. Nevertheless, that thought died as soon as Drekkenoth rose, a threatening snarl rumbling from his jaws.
“Have YOU, Sentry Dennagon, ever faced a sapien?”
Dennagon shook his head, petrified.
“They have retained the avarice and alignment of the humans, but are not at all human anymore. Far more powerful are their souls.

NW – I still don’t believe you.
DF – Hey, I told you it was very, very badly explained. Anyway, what do their souls have to do with anything?
NW – Didn’t Dennagon face sapiens earlier? Are sapiens not humans? I’m so confused!
DF – According to the second to last sentence here, not anymore. The Farce is strong with these ones.
NW – Wait… are sapiens… zombies?
DF – I doubt it. Zombies would actually be interesting.
NW – Awwww… this book keeps getting so close to greatness. I wonder what the humans’ alignment is. Lawful Neutral?
DF – Nah, Always Chaotic Evil, of course.

Should we attack, they will bring us to death as the waves bring shored stones to the ocean. Speak you to me about the future? I am an eternal ancient. I have had many, many futures.

DF – Well if you want to be technical about it, so has everyone.
NW – It’s like someone writing Dr Who without the wit.
DF – He’s actually reminding me of this and the one after that.

How can you advise me of what is to come when you have sampled nothing of the past?”
It was the first time he had ever heard Drekkenoth speak in such a way, yet the perfunctory inflection of his voice still did not change. Nor did his faceless visage appear to display any emotion still.

DF – That happens when your face has no face.
NW – Maybe it’s like the Once and Future King. Everyone’s living backwards.
DF – Or maybe just Drekkenoth.
NW – You know… I still haven’t read the copy sitting on my shelf. I’m just going to head over here—-
DF – Get back here! You’re not leaving me alone with this.

It was strange to hear such words uttered without any hint of ire.
“Perhaps, if you had spent more time assimilating information, you would have known that already. Be gone.”
With those words, Dennagon immediately about-faced. Descending back down to the depths, he floated past the rows of dishes, staid in his stride. Drekkenoth cast not another glance at him as he left, but instead, turned those flared red eyes forward to stare into nothingness.

NW – Face isn’t so featureless now is it?
DF – No, no, you don’t understand. He only just grew the eyes.
NW – Ah. “Continuity is for suckers”, got it.

The dragon lord was meditating again, and it was best to leave as quickly as possible as not to disturb his concentration. Not that anyone could tap into such an incredible consciousness anyway.
Alas, the throne was far above, and Dennagon tried to find his way to the exit again. As he made his way through, he passed the dragon sentry congregation that loomed in the distance like a blur of scales. They ceased their incessant persiflage as he moved by, only to hurtle jeers at his ascetic disposition.

DF – If it’s incessant, they can’t cease it by definition.
NW – “He passed the [noun] that loomed in the distance.” ().o
DF – You should probably see a doctor for that.
NW – Insurance companies won’t cover it though, saying reading this is “high risk behavior”.

With mouthfuls of blackened orbs, they chortled, liquid ebony crystal bubbling from their fangs to highlight the darkness that lined their forms.

DF – I thought the information was precious and blah blah blah. Eating it that messily sounds like a waste.
NW – We’ve secretly switched their knowledge with folgers fresh, mountain grown caviar. Let’s see if they notice the difference.

Their hollers blended into one another, tripping over one another’s angst whilst meaningless words spilt from their throats. They were vile, unlike dragons of the past. Unlike the dragons that gave dragons their good name.
Dennagon ignored them, for words were as immaterial as dreams. Insignificant they were, for they mirrored the semblance of man in servile baseness complete. They were already dead, even though their bodies still moved and their hearts still pumped. Dead, even though their brains processed occasional “thoughts”.

DF – You know what that means…ZOMBIE DRAGONS!
NW – THIS IS THE GREATEST STORY EVER!
DF – …He said, before his soul was crushed five minutes later.
NW – Well… it does need more Batman.
DF – And cowbell?
NW – Can’t ever get enough cowbell.

They didn’t matter in the slightest, their somas as phantasms piffle in the wind.
Regardless, they were still laughing at him. They remained flying, moving and carrying weapons with the potential to kill him.

NW – The former (weapons) includes the latter (the potential to kill him).
DF – You forget, Denny’s a Stu.

They could probably kill him if there were enough of them attacking at once, and would perchance torture him if they ever had the chance.

DF – And yet the humans are the evil scum, here?

To be tortured by one of them…The very thought aggravated him to the core. He couldn’t bear it.
“SLASH THY TONGUES, YOU WRETCHED WURMS!” he shouted with a fist in the air. “THOU SHALT BE TRAMPLED BY THE HOOVES OF EVOLUTION WHEN THE TIME COMES!”
His words were as meaningless to them as theirs to him.

DF – Dragon is only his second language.

“WHEN THE TIME COMES!”
Green fire spilling from his jowls, he snapped around and continued on his path. A black orb hit him in the back on his way out, flung by one of his colleagues.

DF – Okay, so they are in kindergarten.
NW – And once again, we see that the ESHFE aren’t that precious.

—————
Night had taken one side of the World. Under the plasmatic eyes of the stars, the kingdom was at rest, serene under the stellar lights that were beaconed throughout the celestial sea. The eve still bore a tint of royal blue in its fabric as if to mirror the ocean, or as if the ocean had mirrored it to bring utter symmetry to the planet. Yet, even as water bore its own inherent sapphire tint, it had islands embedded upon its vistas to break the smooth uniformity that existed not in the vistas of the universe.

DF – Ugh, I get it already, it’s night.
NW – ZOMGITSSTILLGOINGARGH
DF – Exactly.

For the universe, strangely, did not have any planets this night or any night for that matter,

DF – Hey, you know what other planets in a solar system look like from the surface? More stars.
NW – If there aren’t any planets any night, then why is that strange? It should be normal from their perspective of reference. And isn’t where they are right now, in fact, a planet? So the universe does have, on this night, a planet.
DF – Stop expecting logic to work here.
NW – My brain feels like Rocky, and this story is Apollo.
DF – ADRIAN!!!

nor any Moon to accompany the glow of the stars or the meager lights of the human kingdom Aurahelm that shone in the far, far horizon. It didn’t really need it, though, for no one ever came out at night anyway.
At peace inside his dodecahedron, Dennagon rested, upon piles of books mounted like a reptilian sleeping beauty.

DF – In what version of that story was she sleeping on books?
NW – You’ve clearly never read some of the nerdier fan fiction out there.

The tomes were his life, his food, his water, and his bed. They were his catalogs of dreams, dreamed by others, and now, upon him he created dreams of his own. The evening lulled him with the greatest song of all – silence – and he slept as deeply as a dead squid at the bottom of the sea.

DF – There’s a mental image I could have lived without.
NW – So there’s tomes. But there’s ESHFE… are tomes forbidden? Out of style?
DF – I’m guessing out of style, since they have the ESHFE, but it’s hard to say.
NW – So was I right? He’s hoarding knowledge? We didn’t even make it out of this chapter with the betting pool.

His fantasies streamed through his eyes, and his eyes streamed through his fantasies.
Beyond his own pupils and waking mind, he was in his own little world. Here, the Moon laid as lucid as a stained glass window, clear as an astronomical orb of silver.

DF – Stop. Writing. Now.
NW – Microsoft should put that feature onto “clippy”. He’d say that after locking you out of Word.
DF – But only if you intend to publish it! Otherwise…I’m glad I use OpenOffice.org.
NW – Sorry DF. We just can’t take that chance.
DF – But you haven’t even seen my awesome time-traveling zombie dinosaur novel (that doesn’t exist) yet!
NW – See, a novel’s all wrong for this stuff. You should write it for comics!
DF – They’d eat it up!
S – I know I would!
NW – Me too! Except not literally.

It floated in the middle of nothing, in vacuum space unbound by gravity and any directional coordinates. Hanging in no particular place or time, it rotated slowly, taking its sweet moments for every turn.

DF – Not unlike how you’re taking your sweet time getting to the point.
NW – It’s like I’m finally understanding eternity.
DF – This is the book that never ends…yes it goes on and on my friends…
NW – I’m abandoning all hope.

Was it revolving around something?

DF – Does anybody really care if it is?
NW – Now begins a love letter to the moon?

Its spectator could not see anything else, but it certainly was revolving around something. Something invisible. Truly, this was the realm of nowhere.

NW – Are we still talking about the moon? My love letters to eighth grade crushes weren’t this sappy.
DF – You had a crush on the moon in eighth grade? ducks
NW – I’d say something about women’s posteriors but that would be too tacky.

In the voids, there suddenly appeared an entity that flew around the moon.

DF – Since we just spent three very long paragraphs explaining that 1) it’s night, and 2) Dennananana’s dreaming about the moon, this is downright riveting by comparison.
NW – Hawking’s history of time is more riveting.
DF – So’s watching grass grow.

It was a serpent of silvery scales that was armored to the bone, but still as fragile as an icicle on a winter twig.

DF – I may be going out on a limb here, but that might be the reason for all the armor.
NW – But how is it wearing armor if its so fragile?
DF – Because everybody the author likes in this book is a Sue/Stu.

In its clutches, it held a hook-ended broadsword that resembled a demon’s head with too horns to the flanks protruding and a snout that was the blade descending.

DF – I bet this is the Infinity +1 Sword.
NW – Yay! So next chapter he’ll use it to go kill the boss and it’ll all be over!
DF – Not unless by ‘next chapter’ you mean ‘after nine more chapters and an epilogue,’ no.
NW – ….
S – He’s crying again.
DF – I’m not surprised.

Against the lunar light, the dragon gleamed, reflecting in its form the visage of the silver orb whilst the silver orb reflected it as well, creating an endless sequence of images that stretched on into infinity. The sight was glorious, but ominous as well.

NW – Cream Count: 1
DF – And you thought you’d only see those in the Twilight Sporks.

Dennagon, all the while, was merely an observer in his dream. He had seen this dragon many times before, and knew his name well. Everyone knew Mighty Shevinoth, first king of the dragons. It was Shevinoth that frequently dominated his thoughts and dwelled in his dreams, a soul of fantasies built that followed him like a shadow in waking and sleeping.

DF – I bet this ends up showing just how special Dennananana is.
NW – What doesn’t?
DF – Good point.

Of course, to him, this was as real as anything, for as he lay in slumber, he was neither a warrior nor a god. He was just a watcher.
Shevinoth approached the silver Moon surface, sailing through space’s airless, crushing environment.

DF – Aside from asteroids and comets and such, what exactly is crushing about space? There’s no pressure out there. It’s pretty much the opposite of crushing.
NW – Well I’m feeling pretty crushed right now.
DF – It took longer than five minutes, but eh. shrugs

Caution accompanied him with every inch he mobilized. After surveying through the area, he landed upon the shimmering, polished lunar ground and brandished his sword high above his head. A sparkling coruscation emitted from its hooked tip, casting a dim, but powerful light

DF – Yay oxymorons!
NW – It’s like if you took just these 3 sentences, you’d be able to induce heartattacks in any English teacher.
DF – You mean rather than the rest of this book? …Actually, I know some science teachers who’d be having heart problems, too.
NW – It’s like a pure concentration of badness. Putting just this part on the back of the book would tell everyone everything they needed to know.
DF – Sadly, Amazon neglected to do this for their excerpt. Or maybe fortunately, if we think of the English and science teachers.

into the dark surroundings as if to notify all who lived that this was to be a remembered moment. Then, a potent strike fell upon the metallic landscape, digging his blade far into the subsurface. The sharp edge clawed its way round and round, creating a jagged circle amid the floor. Craters bubbled out of every cut, dissolving into nothingness just as quickly, until finally, the beginning of the circle met its end. An orifice was torn into the Moon, and inside, there was a hollow.
The one who watched hoped that the lunar-bound warrior

DF – He’s not lunar-bound if he’s already on the moon. Speaking of which, how is he up there?

would make it inside.

DF – Because it’s so hard to climb through a hole.
S – It is for these ‘dragons’.

He mentally cheered on for Shevinoth the mighty to rush inside to the very core of the Worldly satellite so that he could find what was in there. His cheers echoed into his subconscious, repeating themselves as many times as they could until fading ardor washed them away. For as Shevinoth stood, nothing happened. Not a single claw budged to reach into the orifice, nor did any talons shift to sample what was inside. The once dragon king simply remained, an image of glory shackled in stasis.

DF – That’s what you get for breaking the moon.
NW – “the once dragon king”? I warned you he was going to rip off T.H. White.
DF – I never doubted it.

Dennagon pondered. Shevinoth turned as if to face him, the omnipotent master of the dream.
“What is art?” inquired Shevinoth.
No answer.
“There is nothing more beautiful than the self.”
With that, an abrupt blast exploded out of the orifice. Yellow fire and light ringed around the silver dragon’s figure, tearing away his flesh. Strips of carrion flew from whence Shevinoth stood, ashen charcoal scales flinging into the ceaseless depths of space.

DF – Uhhhhhhh…wow. Hey, look at the baby ferrets, guys!

S – Yum!
NW – Quiet you! And once again we have our “E for everyone” rating spoiled.
DF – For those keeping score at home, he’s now ripped off Nietzsche.

All that was left was his skeletal form, burning in hellish wonder as if to beg the question, “why” in its disintegrating vapors. Alas, a horrid shriek ripped even the soundless vacuum of the voids and the body fell to the lunar core in death combusted.

DF – I know it’s a dream, but what just happened?!
NW – It’s a bad trip man.
DF – I didn’t know you could get those from ESHFE.

—————
Dennagon burst into waking consciousness, his sweeping talon knocking a stack of books into a wall. Sweat dripped out from beneath his reptilian dermal layer, coating him in a layer of saline gloss. However, even as his body lay in shock, his breaths were steady and contained, as was the mind that kept perfect control over his actions.

DF – Then he’s not in shock.
NW – REPTILES DON’T SWEAT. Basic biology people.
DF – I was actually going to let that go; most reptiles also aren’t warm-blooded, while there’s reason to believe these dragons aren’t (i.e. – they don’t seem to need to sun themselves, and Dennagon is active in the middle of the night). Then again, birds don’t sweat either…
NW – There’s also plenty of mammals that have little to no sweat but use alternative methods to regulate heat. Like dogs and panting.

He had never been shaken by this nightmare before, and he certainly would not be shaken now.

DF – No, because that would be normal.
NW – A nightmare sequence we didn’t get to see? Cliche averted count: 1.
DF – But we did see it. It was the last scene.
NW – Oops, I thought that was just my nightmare. Cliche averted count: 0.
DF – Sadly, we’re all experiencing that one.

Excellence was constant, not contained in a singular act.
“Steady,” he reassured himself.
Reassurance? How pitiful. If he were really secure, he thought, he would not need to constantly reinforce his composure.

DF – And if you were really shaken by this, then you probably wouldn’t be worrying about your composure right now.
NW – Is he complaining about not being Stu enough? I guess Lysol has +1 more Sueness than him.
DF – Well, she did have a fake death scene, so…
NW – You’re right: +5 Sueness.

He should really stop talking to himself in his head, as well. It certainly wasn’t helping.

DF – Because that would also be normal.
NW – Yes. Please! Anything to trim this.

Wiping the sweat off his head, he took a moment to reassess his thoughts. Reflecting on his nightmare, he had the same cognitions he always had after experiencing it – curiosity, wonder, slight anger, and some questions he always wished he could ask great Shevinoth had he not been slain over a thousand years ago.

DF – Wow. I know he’s seen it before, but…just…wow. headdesk
NW – REPTILES DON’T SWEAT. (yes I’m going to shout it every time I see it)
DF – It’s the only way the author can think of to make his character more ‘human’.
NW – I’m still clutching my infinite monkeys theorem.
DF – Everything’s better with monkeys, though.

There was definitely a meaning to his fantasy, as there was a meaning to everything in life.

NW – As if he was in a pretentious book.
DF – I know! It’s like he knows…

Many a time he had laid awake just like this when he should be sleeping, trying to figure it all out. After all this time, nonetheless, he had not come to a single conclusion.

NW – Angela suddenly barges in to tell him what it means!

Sleep. He really needed it. Or did he? Often, he thought about the necessity of rest in the functionality of dragons. Humans needed to sleep, for they were weak, but why did the world’s knowledge pools always state that dragons needed exactly 4 hours of dormancy every thirty hour day and two hours every ten hour day?

DF – How would that…what? Why do you have to make things so overcomplicated?!
NW – Logic fail! Shouldn’t he notice that the weakest creatures (like say insects) need no rest, it’s the mightier, more complex creatures that require it. (and thus, if humans need more than other creatures, and dragons are mightier and stronger than humans…)
DF – So…if cats sleep 19 hours a day…that must mean…
NW – They really are in charge.
DF – gasp! I can’t believe I never realized it before!

There seemed to be no premise for such a rule, no absolute link in the chain of causality.

DF – It’s because almost every complex organism has to. Now shut it and sleep.
NW – See above.
DF – Or…

Yet, he did admit that he usually felt tired after each day and he did need to rejuvenate himself. Perhaps that was his subconscious’ way of telling him that he needed to resolve his problems.
One problem at the moment was that if he did not rest in the next twenty minutes, he probably would not have enough time to replenish his efficiency by the dawn of the next day.

DF – Do I even have to explain what’s wrong with this?
NW – Dead people know what’s wrong with this!

It was 1:28 in the morn, so he only had a little more than two hours and thirty minutes to finish his nap. There was no time to indulge in frivolous ponderings when he should be readying himself. Then again, he had been having insomnia much more often as of late, since his recurring dream had been popping up more frequently. It wasn’t really affecting his combative habits that significantly, and his “comrades” were complete idiots anyway, so he saw no purpose in having to slip back into unconsciousness. After all, why couldn’t insomnia be a catalyst for exploration?

DF – What?
NW – 2nd base.
DF – Ah.

—————
Deep into the mossy, rock-speckled plains beyond the Drakemight walls, Dennagon strolled.

DF – He was never seen again. The end.
NW – Stop toying with my emtions like that DF!
DF – Sorry. :’(

A lone dragon on an equally lonely landscape, he meandered, looking up to the crystal clear celestial sea above. Stars flickered, as tranquil as the night whilst the rest of the draconic collective

DF – You don’t have to remind us that they’re dragons every five seconds. We’re honestly not as stupid as you seem to think we are.
NW – We’re reading his book. We might be.
DF – We recognize it’s horrible. We might not be.
NW – We recognize it and we’re still reading it. We are.
DF – Even if we’re doing it so others don’t have to? IT’S FOR THE CHILDREN.

remained immersed in slumber. He found his own peace alone in the plains, but even harmony could be beleaguered by discord. As contradictory as it was, the paradox existed in his mind, manifested in his perturbation.
His eyes scanned the darkness overhead. It was well into the night, and at this point, the sun was farthest from his present locale. He liked the sensation of obscurity, for it allowed him to be free of ideas that would otherwise cloud his consciousness.

DF – What does that even mean? You’re just putting random words together because they look pretty!
NW – Sign you’re too pretentious #17: Half of your chapter is filled with late-night dorm room musings.

Everything was lucid now without any light but those of the lonely stellar beacons. Some often claimed that there were places in the world at which two suns rose at either horizon and could usurp the lands in eternal daylight, but he didn’t really buy into those tales.

DF – Especially since having two suns in one place would mean there’d be two suns everywhere.
NW – Now he’s ripping off Magic:TG Lorwyn. Is nothing sacred?
DF – I’m guessing no.

He had traveled the planet far and wide, and he had never seen such solar duality. Nothing would take his darkness from him, for now, he had some special place to which he needed to traverse.
Luckily, he had brought his favorite book with him as he always did on these existential nights.

DF – I thought you hadn’t done this before.
NW – He loves his darkness but brought a book?
DF – He can see in the dark.
NW – Oh right, dragons have darkvision.
DF – Also, he might be Eragon.

Superstition never sat well with him, as assumption was always an imbecile’s best friend, but he always felt comfortable carrying it as a – dare he admit it – good luck charm. The object itself was not that which granted him good fortune, but rather its inner story. Albeit the tome’s title had been scraped off by a human ballista long ago,

DF – It was hit with a ballista and all that happened was the title got scraped off?
NW – Didn’t something similar happen in the first chapter? Why hasn’t he figured out yet to take better care of these books? Like… NOT TAKING THEM INTO BATTLES.
DF – But then he might get bored.

the tale inside always pulled him through good and bad times. It was almost like a friend in the field of war, something he never truly had. Strangely, though, it had been a while since he read it. Did he even remember the story?

DF – You’ve had this book for years and years, the story in it has helped you through said years, but you don’t even remember what that story is?!
NW – Cream Count: 2
DF – Over a book? At least Bella focused on a statue Edward, instead of everything she could.
NW – My Playdragon theory grows and [heh] grows.

Stumbling upon a stone shaped like a spike, he knew he had reached his destination. Carefully, he looked around to make certain no one was watching.

DF – Well, Lycanol’s probably still stalking you, and Edward might be out there somewhere, but other than that…

Scenting the air with his outstretched tongue and his fire-breathing nostrils,

DF – What does breathing fire have to do with smelling things?
NW – Because he’s a dragon you know. Have I mentioned he’s a dragon? I want to be sure you’re aware he’s a dragon.

he detected nothing but the cool smell of flower pollen. When he was certain no one was spying, he moved toward a circular group of stones that surrounded a bumpy patch of earth. Driving his claws into the mud, he burrowed, casting away the upper layers of the ground. Clandestine, he hissed.

DF – Now look at what you did. You broke that perfectly good word, all because you wanted to make it fit somewhere it had no business being. This is why we can’t have nice things, y’know.
NW – Rub his nose in it and hit him with a rolled up newspaper.

How many nights had he come out here?

DF – I thought one, but you’re leading me to believe otherwise for some reason.

How many trices did he waste on fantasies so trivial? Far too many, no doubt. He couldn’t help it. Strangeness always lured him, just like his collection of curiosities lured him to this spot. As a magnet drawn to metal,

DF – Get to the point!
NW – Wait… are we still talking about Dennagon or the author? Just kidding! I know they’re the same thing.

he was drawn to what lay underneath his digging talons so ardently that he would even risk getting caught outside the kingdom barricades in the middle of the eve. The attraction was spellbinding, and even with his sorcerer’s capabilities, he could not resist.

DF – So now he’s a sorcerer, too?
NW – I think it’ll be a shorter list of what he isn’t.
DF – In a relationship?
NW – Lysol
DF – She doesn’t count. Yet.
NW – That’s not what I was reading… [if you know what i mean]

Finally, Dennagon’s pupils caught a dull white object embedded in the medieval dirt. Meticulously, he brushed away the surrounding mud, unearthing the first part of a collection of oddities.

DF – I’ve heard of having skeletons in one’s closet, but skeletons in a random hole in the ground?

Like a prize, he pulled it out of the ground, still speckled with bits of moss, algae and underground worms.

DF – Ew.
NW – Algae generally don’t occur naturally on land. It is grown in cultures and used as fertilizer but that would mean…
What would that mean about this area?

From the sockets in its calcium-encrusted exterior, maggots wriggled out,

DF – Which is odd, because you don’t generally find maggots in dirt.
NW – If we made a drinking game out facts he got wrong, I’d give us 2 pages before our livers shrival up and beg for mercy.
DF – We would also need the entire liquor section of the nearest grocery store.
S – [raises hand] I can do it! I’m part Irish.
NW – Ok then, start drinking.
S – I have been.

falling to the grass at his feet while he cautiously blew off the rest of the debris. When he was finished, he beheld its true figure. A large, 15-foot reptilian fossil.

DF – Unless you painted them, fossils are not white.
NW – And glass doesn’t char. Maybe the author’s colorblind.
S – [drinks]
DF – Sure you have enough alcohol, Snuggles?
NW – Call Russia – we need all the vodka in the country!

“Wonderful.”
Burrowing even deeper, he dredged up several more bones. A few were of rib cages and shoulder blades, others were of spinal cords and tails, and the last few were of arms, legs and claws. As best he could, he fit them together, locking joints like puzzle pieces according to the general draconic anatomy he had studied in many of his tomes. Ischiums connected to iliums and pubises, some of which were birdlike and others which were lizard-like. Prehistory manifested as quickly as he reconstructed the bony frameworks, opening a window to an unknown past. The completed skeletons took the shapes of nothing he had ever hunted.

DF – Because apparently, paleontologists r doin it rong.
S – [continues drinking]
NW – Note that we here at ImpishIdea do not condone or encourage alcohol consumption.
DF – hands Snuggles another bottle We do, however, supply it.

Dead dragons? Impossible. Dragons, although highly varied in bone structure, limbs, wings, scale color and even head count,

DF – Impossibly varied, in fact, since they’re all supposed to be the same species.
NW – So no dragon has ever died? I guess that’s why Lysol survived all those injuries.
DF – By the way, take another shot, Snuggles.
S – [drink]

could not conceivably have such bizarre frames.

DF – Suuuuure they can’t. They can have multi-headed dragons, wingless dragons, limbless dragons, and who knows what else, and yet dinosaurs are bizarre.
NW – Remember, if you’re misshapen, you’re not really a person.

- No one he had ever met had as enormous a skull as one of the upright-standing skeletons he had in his fossil trove. No one had a neck as long as one of the giant quadrupeds he had in storage. Certainly, there was no warrior alive that was as specialized for aquatic life as the eccentric four-finned reptile skeleton he found a few years ago.

DF – How would you know? You avoid everyone. And when are you doing all this fossil hunting, anyway?
NW – I wonder if he’s renting a storage space downtown to hold all this stuff.
DF – But wasn’t he keeping it in that hole?
NW – With his TV lion dinners?
DF – Ah, good point.

The possibilities were limitless. Considering that sorcery could summon up any potential beast, any reasonable being would just assume that these were just the remnants of conjury left from a war long ago. In fact, he would have complied to such an interpretation had it not been for other items he had discovered. Excavating to the farthest reaches of his private hidey-hole, he sought the last anomaly he had gathered in his many voyages. A metallic glint shone in the dust as he scraped the ground away. At first glance it would have looked like a helmet, but as he exposed it further, it took the shape of something quite alien.

DF – In fact, it was an alien.
NW – If this becomes Indiana Jones 4, I quit.
DF – Indiana Jones 4 would be an improvement.
S – [drink]
NW – What are you drinking for?
S – DF is factually wrong.
DF – You’re complimenting this book?
S – There’s no Shia LeBoff.
DF – None of the characters from this book are in IJ4.
NW – Except for the spirit of Jabootu.
DF – That’s only one!

Circuits lined its substance from its outer shell down to its inner joints and wires. It was like a living beast of nerves, veins and bones, except that its flesh and parts were built of pure steel.

DF – That doesn’t sound very effective.

The parts were all over the place underground, for he had spent many a year collecting them from the bleakest places of the World. Yet, the more he looked at them, the less they seemed like they had anything to do with his World.
Gradually, he began to reconstruct the mechanized fragments just like he had reassembled the bony skeletons. The robotic joints fit together much more easily than the calcium ones, as if they had been perfectly constructed to be redesigned.

DF – This is because the joints of living creatures are not made the same way as those of machines. The joints on a skeleton are generally supposed to be held together with ligaments and such, and since those are long gone Dennananana shouldn’t have been able to put the skeletons together in the first place without something to hold the bones in place instead. Mechanical joints, on the other hand, are generally made to hold themselves together without ligaments.
NW – I can’t figure out what the timing is supposed to be here.
DF – He does it all instantly. Stu, and all that.

Metal turbines locked into cybernetic gears. Wire jacks fit precisely into plugs. Everything seemed to have an exact purpose, and there were no vestigial parts that were prevalent in the constantly evolving biological organisms he knew. At the same time, it was extraordinarily complex, for no matter how long he focused his vision, he could never make out the extent to which its inner cables decreased in size. The finished piece was a creature of metal and circuits, dented at its edges, but whole nonetheless. Wholly mind-boggling.

DF – So what does this have to do with the origin of the fossils? Absolutely nothing; as far as I can tell, the author just thought it would be cool (it is, but still…).
NW – Are you drinking for DF again?
S – Yep. She said the author put thought into this.
DF – Going ‘hay this’d be kewl’ and putting it in =/= putting thought into the book.
NW – I think Snuggle’s just looking for excuses now. Definitely part Irish.
DF – He probably could have used the joints as one earlier, then.

Dennagon had less of an idea of what to make of the weird machines than he did of the prehistoric bones. They were the primary reason why he came here, for his mind never relinquished an unanswered question. Unfortunately, he could not think of one possibility that could account for the existence of such incredibly advanced machinery. Even the highest level magicians did not have the capability of creating anything of this magnitude, much less leave it for other creatures to find.
If only Drekkenoth had all the answers. The dragon lord often claimed that only the limitless knowledge of the World could grant one with absolute wisdom, which was one of Dennagon’s motivations in his continuing search for information. Still, even Drekkenoth himself was not omniscient, otherwise he would not have rallied armies in search of all secular data. Hence, there was no way to figure out where the fossilized ruins came from,

DF – Have you tried actually asking?
NW – They’re searching the world for knowledge, but nobody’s found all these fossils on their doorstep?
DF – They’re not trying very hard.

if anywhere at all.

DF – They kind of had to come from somewhere if they exist now.

It made him wonder about causality and logic. It forced him to consider the potential for induction and mathematics to be flawed.

DF – Um…why? Is this going to become a trend? He questions everything because he can’t understand something else entirely?
NW – “I wonder what the secret to life is? ZOMG, does 2 plus 2 really equal 4?”
DF – No, it equals five zillion. I realized that when I couldn’t figure out what potato chips to buy.

But most of all, it made him think about… The Lexicon.
The Lexicon was the one thing that lay on his consciousness more than anything else. If only he could touch upon it for just a moment, to experience what it was like to be all-knowing and totally wise. How far would he be able to see, and what would he be able to understand? To have the mind of god; it was the most magnificent dream of all. The rationale of his brain told him that it wasn’t real, that it couldn’t be found, but the very thought of it elicited a blissful emotion in his heart.

DF – That’s called bliss.
NW – Ok, definite Cream Count: 3.
DF – Okay, I guess it could be something else…

He didn’t want to let it go.
But he had to.
A sudden tremor rocked the ground to its very bedrock. The prehistoric fossils toppled and the robotic skeletons began to melt. At first, he thought it was an ordinary earthquake that happened every so often around the World, but a blinding flash stung his eyes the instant it appeared.

DF – Then he shouldn’t have had time to think it was normal.
NW – I didn’t know earthquakes melted metal.
DF – That should have been his second clue, had he not been blinded by the flash.
NW – [innuendo alert]

He clutched his head in pain.
“Aaahhh!” he roared.
Heat gusted all over his body, and he knew this was no ordinary quake. Prying his own claws off his eyes, he forced himself to espy the distance, where a massive ball of fire had engulfed a large portion of the wall. An army of magicians would have been needed to create such an explosion, and it was likely that there was an army of knights to accompany them. A battle had initiated, one that sparked more grandiosely than any he had ever fought. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
But it didn’t stop there. The conflagration boiled up from the ground like the expanding sack of a red-warm embryo.

DF – The author seems to have a thing for embryos…
NW – Sign you’re too pretentious #8: You make wildly inappropriate birth metaphors.

Growing upwards in the form of a mushrooming cloud, it scarred the sky as it spread out to the flanks, ripping a gargantuan crater in the ground and ozone.

DF – Air =/= ozone.
NW – Once upon a time… I would have found a nuke awesome. Damn you book and what you’ve done to me!!!
DF – What about zombie dragons, are they still awesome?
NW – Only if they have power rings.
DF – Careful, we might find that later.

More radioactive emissions burst out from its center, blowing Dennagon right off his feet and onto his back.

DF – They’re called shock waves, and if Dennagon was only knocked onto his back without injury, he’s incredibly lucky. Or a Stu.
NW – I’m reminded of when I watched the Animatrix with a friend and- oh look here he is:
Morbo – Nuclear Bombs do not work that way!
NW – Thank you Morbo.
DF – For those of you playing at home, take a shot.
S – [drinks]
NW – Ok, we’re now changing you to DS, for “Drunk Snuggles”.
DF – How drunk does he have to be before I can ask why his name is Snuggles?

In a flurry of dust and atomic hellfire, he tumbled back behind a rock. Sickly, he coughed.
“What the blazes was that?!” he blurted.

DF – Medieval nuke.
NW – Ha ha the dragon made a pun. =P

The entire night sky lit up as if it were day. Now he was beginning to believe those tales of two suns, but to his misfortune, that son seemed to have fallen right to the earth. After several seconds, the illumination faded, and the stars began to take the sky again amid a stormy holler of screaming winds. The heat began to lessen as did the roar of the detonation far off. A rain of boulders fell upon the plains like a shower, riddling the terrain with even more shudders from the raging havoc. For a moment, everything was quiet once more.

DF – …Wow. Okay, I actually feel kind of sorry for Dennagon.
NW – (No! That’s the path to the Dark Side!)
DF – He just got his home bombed, his books are gone, everyone he knows might be dead…I know he hates them all, but still…

Dennagon waited for the radioactive winds to stop. He then poked his head out from behind the rock and peered at the cloud of wreckage and dust that engulfed the portion of the wall at which the blast had occurred. The debris was so dense that even the colossal lights of Drakemight could hardly penetrate. Nonetheless, what was penetrating was indeed an enemy force, and he was determined to stop it. Even if it meant ending up like his fossil collection.
“There’s no more appropriate time for war,” he said as he drew his sword, “than the present, and the past and the future.”
The dragon sentry shot into the air, a harbinger of death to all those who opposed his quest.

DF – Never mind, I hate this book and everything in it again.
NW – I’m just sad.
DS – I’m drunk.

Comment [21]

This chapter’s one of the longer ones, so we’ll be splitting it up into two parts in an attempt to cut down on the Wall O’ Text a little. Previous parts can be found here, here, here, and here, so if you haven’t read them yet, go ahead and catch up first.

As always, I’m working with Nate Winchester, and…say, is Snuggles helping out again today?

NW – He said something about going into Witness Protection.

DF – Awww…well, anyway, on with the show.

The sky lit up like a celestial inferno. It was neither day nor night,

DF – But rather, the rare phenomenon known as Glorbnash! Free cake for everyone!
NW – That’s a lie.
DF – You’re right. It’s actually a pie!

but something beyond the two opposing sides of a Worldly rotation.

NW – Sign you’re too pretentious #22: In talking about day/night you use the word “rotation”.
DF – And you aren’t writing a science textbook.

The heavens grew crimson with the blazes that erupted all over Drakemight, blazes that detonated out of massive metal rods that came shooting down from the clouds.

NW – Damn you US Space Command and your Space-Launched Kinetic Megabombs!

The sun and the stars were shielded by the intense flares that ripped across them, replacing them with speckled flashes of the incoming storm of projectiles.

DF – I thought it was night? The sun’s nowhere near them. Then again, neither are the stars, technically.
NW – I’m starting to think this is just God demanding the story to end.
DF – It couldn’t have been me?
NW – You have Space-Launched Kinetic Megabombs?
DF – Does God?
NW – He could. The Dinosaurs learned that.
DF – That was a rock. It’s not the same thing.
NW – Which of the 4 words above does not apply?
DF – Bomb.
NW – Does too.

All over the kingdom, polyhedral towers fell

DF – This will be important later. …Actually, I take that back; it’s important now.

and dragons fled for their lives, uncertain of what was going on, or when it was going to stop.

NW – That’s why they call it a surprise attack.

Dennagon darted through the frenzy, as perplexed as anyone else.

NW – That’s been ESTABLISHED already.

The rain of doom bombarded the walls all around, creating an even greater wall that burned of stone and fire to prevent any units from escaping.

NW – ‘Burned of stone’?
DF – I don’t know either. Also, can’t a lot of the dragons…y’know…fly?

Mushroom clouds bloomed everywhere, spreading radioactive winds across the entire civilization as if to summon a deadly aurora borealis.

NW – If mushroom clouds bloomed everywhere, I don’t think there’s any civilization left.
DF – Except for the new radioactive mushroom regime!
NW – We should start a band named “Radioactive Mushroom Regime”.
DF – I call keyboard!
NW – Oh, and according to this, Alaska has non-fatal nukes causing their aurora borealis.
DF – Aurora Australis are caused by completely different phenomena, though.
NW – Involving alcohol no doubt.
DF – Snuggles…!

There was no place to run, and certainly hiding from the atomic emissions was out of the question.
Just then,

NW – Just when? You can’t jump from vague time references to detailed ones without transition.
DF – You can if you’re special like Dennananana.

two familiar faces passed him amidst the swarms. Arxinor and Gorgash, the two cryptic guardians of the lord Drekkenoth, brushed by his sides, tipping his sword with one of their wings.

DF – Shouldn’t that hurt them? I mean, I know they’re robots or cyborgs or something, but…
NW – We’ve never seen them. Never heard of them, but they’re familiar.
DF – They were chasing Lycanol in the prologue. I know they’re ultimately forgettable (and horribly cliche, and incredibly stupid…), but we have seen them.
NW – But we haven’t seen Dennanna meet them so is Dennanna referring to us, the readers? These guys are familiar to us?
DF – Hmmm, good point. I just figured since they’re Drekkenoth’s right hand guys, he’d have seen/heard of them before the book started. But it’s not safe to assume stuff with this book, is it?
NW – Unless you assume it will be as painful as possible.
DF – Is it safe? dentist drill

He twirled around wildly, stopping himself with an outward thrust of his talons.
“What of the enemy?”
The two guardians turned around simultaneously and identically perfunctory.
“Can you not predict?” asked Gorgash.

NW – Why would he need to predict what’s happening right now?
DF – Because he’s Just That Special.
NW – In that case we’re all Just That Special.

It was rather obvious.
“Humans.”

DF – “Hey Dennagon, we’re out of sugar.” “CURSE YOU HUMANS!”

He looked to the blood-torn sky. “What the hell is this rain?!”
“Let ussss identify it.”

NW – Welcome back Cobra Commander.
DF – COBRAAAA!

With that, Gorgash and Arxinor disappeared into the flying, bustling throngs. Sentry commanders began to amass their frantic forces and lead the draconic battalions into battle above. Gradually, the clamor was receding into raging order.

NW – Shouldn’t they all be dust from all those nukes?
DF – Shouldn’t the city be a crater after the end of the last chapter? And yet there were still buildings standing at the beginning of this one.

Dennagon felt no need to wait for orders. Stark raving mad,

NW – “…like the author”

he bolted into the heavens, gliding swiftly past his slower comrades.

DF – He must be special to be gliding up.

With a talon held out to increase his aerodynamic motion, he rushed forth, blade drawn in his other talon.

NW – Looks like someone should have spent more time with basic physics instead of the theoretical stuff.
DF – AERODYNAMICS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!

There were cylindrical comets in the sky. Hundreds of them. From where he was, he could not determine their size,

NW – As a flying creature, shouldn’t he have a highly developed visual cortex and experience in determining the size of things at a distance?
DF – Normally I’d say no, because it depends on what the flying creature eats and such, but since Dennananana’s a predator, then yes, he should.
NW – You could get a great sitcom out of it. “Food!” _ “Oh dear, you’re a lot larger than I thought.” _[studio laughter]
DF – I thought that was called Natural Selection.
NW – We could pitch it to follow “Big Bang Theory”.

but he could sense that these were not ordinary fireballs that could be forged from any old spellbook.

DF – No. Really?
NW – Because even the fireballs are Just That Special.

These were entities he had never seen before, perhaps something recently written by an experienced spellcaster.

DF – Remember, kids, the secret is to dabble in forces you don’t understand.
NW – Harry Potter 8: Hermione reads too far.

There was no stopping this war without finding out what magic did this.

NW – Or you could just kill the magic caster. That always works for Disney.
DF – No, no, he means he wants to learn how to do it himself.

He was halfway betwixt the stratosphere and the surface when one of the projectiles neared him. It was headed straight toward the Archive at the center of the city, flaring like a meteorite that came directly from the sun.

DF – He’s read all these science books, but he doesn’t know that meteorites don’t come from the sun?
NW – The archive is still standing after all the nukes? Why should we bother remembering info from earlier chapters when the author can’t remember what happened a page ago?
DF – Because someone has to do it.
NW – You can’t make me! If the author isn’t putting that much work into writing it, then I’m not putting that much work into reading it.
DF – But Nate, we’re sporking it. Keeping track of inconsistencies = more stuff to mercilessly make fun of.

He could not let it meet its target. Dashing right in its way, he charged straight toward it, his eyes glowing as his pupils locked onto its fiery tip.

NW – This must be one of those Hollywood Meteors. It only moves when the camera is on it.
DF – Keep in mind that there are more than one of these, by the way.
NW – More than one camera?
DF – No, more than one Hollywood Nuke.

The projectile stared straight back at him as a cyclops would gaze at its prey with a single eye,

DF – Missile: I see youuuuu…
NW – Quick Denananan, use the “look over there” trick!

flames lashing out like a beast’s fanged jaws.

DF – Little does Dennananana realize that this missile is his long-lost half-brother.

In his mind, all he saw were the pages of his books, dictating to him exactly how he should manipulate his realm.
“Velocity is distance multiplied by time,” he reminded himself.
The furious rod-like comet barreled toward him at the speed of sound.

DF – So how does the equation help him?
NW – The speed of sound in air is 1,083 ft/s, or about 1 mile/5 seconds. Our planet’s atmosphere is roughly 62-75 miles above ground. Which means Denananan has 6 minutes, 15 seconds before crash. So in that time he notices this thing falling, gets in its path, has a staring contest with it, and says the above sentence.
DF – So he should be a charred hunk of dragon.
NW – Or pancake.
DF – Radioactive dragon pancake (which would also be a great name for a band). And that’s assuming he noticed it when it was at the farthest side of the atmosphere and just starting to come down!

However, he swiftly spun to the side just as it came, swinging his blade around to carve a groove into its cylindrical shaft.. The projectile jerked up in the air, spiraling off course in a wild trajectory that wound around and about the polyhedral extensions of the kingdom.

DF – So how exactly did that equation help him?
NW – If the projectile was metal, how did his sword deflect it without breaking? If it’s magical, how did his sword have any effect whatsoever?
DF – He cut a groove in it to mess up its aerodynamics, which shouldn’t have worked anyway, since the sword’s blade still should have bent or broken (or at the very least been ripped out of his hands) in the process.

It fell to the ground, amazingly dodging countless potential targets in the way whilst dragon sentries rushed out of its path.

NW – Because we can’t have our Stu make any mistakes.
DF – Sooooo…what about all the other Hollywood Nukes?
NW – They’re waiting for the cameras to focus on them.

Dennagon raced back down, following its awkward trail of smoke as best he could.

DF – If dragons are anything like birds, they should have very delicate lungs and such for getting as much oxygen as possible out of the thinner air they might fly through. That said, how is he not having trouble in all this smoke, both from the missile he wrecked and from the burning city?
NW – How is he still flying after applying pressure by his sword to the counter movement of the missile?

Trigonometry and dynamics shuffled in his consciousness, guiding him with the mathematics of physical laws so that he could optimize his efficiency.

NW – And where are your beloved maths when you fly?
DF – He ignores them then so that he can fly in space.
NW – Oh, it’s math that only works when you believe in it.

To his aggravation, hordes of comrades bustled past him, jarring him from side to side as he tried to catch the plummeting entity that could devastate the entire legion. Enraged, he shouted.
“GET OUT OF MY WAY! GO UP, GO DOWN, BUT MOST OF ALL, JUST GET OUT OF MY WAY!”

DF – Yes, because they’re doing that specifically to annoy you, Denny. Not because, for example, their city is being destroyed by unknown entities and they’re terrified or anything.
NW – How does one stay flying if things are bumping into you? Is gravity optional in this world too?
DF – Everything’s optional in this world if the author thinks he can make it look cool.

In the rumbling night, he could hardly hear his own words. Nevertheless, he sheathed his blade and started punching sentries that were stupid enough to get in his path, making certain that they were clear of the potentially explosive range of the descending enemy projectile.

NW – Because when enduring a surprise attack, it’s important that you punch your own soldiers.
DF – I don’t know why he’s worried about the other missiles; they’re waiting for the plot to focus on them again.

Occasionally, punches and bites were returned to his chest and face, but there was no time for vengeance, he had a mission to complete.

NW – Or there’s no time for vengeance BECAUSE THEY’RE BEING ATTACKED RIGHT NOW.
DF – No, no, it’s because he has a mission. The book centers around him, after all.

Finally, he came within ten feet of the sizeable rod-like object.

NW – [chuckle]
DF – fake coughing fit
NW – Should we be reading this with a sock on the door knob?
DF – I don’t know, but if I knew this was what we were getting ourselves into, I’d have just bought some Wonder Woman comics.

The smoke blared against him, but he quickly implemented the laws of motion in his mind and calculated its presumed trajectory.

NW – As been established!
DF – It’s like the author never edited past the first draft.

With a downward boost of his wings and a strenuous stretch of his limbs, he caught it with all fours. Yanking it upside-down, he put it up in the air whilst his back faced the ground, making certain that it would not erupt upon surface contact.

NW – Inertia – look it up before you write physics porn.

Unfortunately, as the smoke cleared from his vision, he could tell that the ground was actually a lot closer than he originally thought.
“Uh-oh.”

DF – Spaghetti-Os!
NW – We’ve long passed that 6 minutes, 15 seconds mark.
DF – So what’s it called when a Hollywood Nuke has the camera on it the whole time, but still falls too slowly?
NW – Plot contrivance.

Opening his wings even further, he leveled himself out against the currents of air.

DF – How is he doing that when he’s upside-down?

Parallel to the ground, he maximized his surface area and increased his air resistance to its full potential. Slowing down a bit, but not quite enough, he hit the ground with a thud, skewing himself sideways as well.

NW – And became a bloody mile-long smear. The end.
DF – Didn’t you tell me not to do that last chapter?

Blending into a back roll,

DF – Is the author aware that he doesn’t have to start every sentence in an action sequence that way?
NW – A way that makes no sense?
DF – That too.

he let his captured projectile tumble overhead and drop on the ground behind him tail-first. As it clanged against the dirt at the surface of Drakemight, it wobbled around, rolling its two tons of weight along a natural incline. Dennagon sprung to a stance, catching it under his limbs before it could go any further.

DF – He makes it sound so easy, considering the fact that it weighs as much as he does.
NW – Look DF, we have a special guest again.
Superman – None of this makes any sense!
DF – And when Superman says it, it must be true!

He took a breath of relief.
“Whew!” he let out, grateful that it did not explode.

NW – But then it did. How ironic.
DF – The End.

His claws scraped its surface. It was hot and smooth, charred on the outside from the friction of the air, but still recognizable as metal underneath.

NW – It’s like he has no idea how basic fire works. And how is it smooth after he cut it with his infinity +1 sword?
DF – That’s just his normal sword, actually, which just illustrates how super powerful the Infinity +1 sword will be. Other than that…I don’t know.

Like an arrow, this missile was elongated and slender, twice Dennagon’s length,

NW – It’s ok Denananan, it’s not that important to some girls.
DF – It’s not the size of the ship, it’s the motion of the ocean?
NW – We should really move on before—-

maintaining a point at one end and steel tail rudders at the other.

NW – Dammit!
DF – And of course Dennagon doesn’t care about all the other missiles raining down on him and his home, he has a specimen to examine!

A propulsion system seemed to be built into the tail end, but there was no sorcery that could have created it, as it appeared to be a machine in itself.

DF – And…magic can’t just…make machines or something?
NW – Ok! We get it! It’s a missile! Tomorrow’s headlines: Dragons hit by ICBMs. Move on already.

As his claws felt the scar that his sword had left in its shaft, he then realized what it was really made of.

NW – We should have a filthy innuendo drinking game.
DF – We should, but Snuggles isn’t here. Those of you reading at home, c’mon! Take a shot for Snuggles!

Severed circuits protruded from the torn opening like wriggling serpents tipped with electrically charged ends. Sparks flew from their broken edges, lighting up the area with curt

DF – I do not think that word means what you think it means.

pyrotechnics. They were similar to the circuited parts that he held in his collection, except the missile in his clutches was actually alive and operational.

NW –

Electricity surged through it like blood through veins, and it felt as if he were beholding a power that was truly beyond his realm of existence. It could destroy him if it exploded. Incinerate him so that he himself would become a fossil.

DF – Assuming you weren’t turned into a fine dust, sure, why not?

Regardless, the question at talon was how it was capable of being set off.

NW – “You guys see what I did there?”
Well actually, talon refers to the claw on the hand, so the phrase change makes no sense because we don’t say “question at nail” and these creatures do – in fact – have hands so why would they change it to begin with?
“Ha! I’m so smart!”
DF – I think he’s using talon to refer to the entire foot/hand/whatever. It still fails, though.

A high-pitch whistle shrieked. Another missile rocketed toward him from above, clearing all other dragons out of its way. His comrades did not even try to stop it, but merely dodged so that it could hit him.

DF – Or rather, so that they wouldn’t get hit. Like anybody with self-preservation instincts would do.
NW – Nope, I’m firm in my belief that all the other dragons realize this is their chance to get rid of the insufferable Stu.

Dennagon had no time to think.
“Eeeeerrggh!!”
With a tremendous thrust,

DF – snerk So many things I could say, so little time…
NW – Hey, we’re not here to judge.
DF – We’re here solely to judge.
NW – Oh. Then stop lusting after missiles Denananan.
DF – Those who are playing, take a shot.

he hurtled the missile in his clutches to the one that sailed toward him. The two projectiles collided in midair a mile up, emitting a blast of illumination that scorched all of Drakemight with fierce pulses of light.

NW – It was nice of the other nukes to leave some of the city for these nukes to destroy.
DF – Yeah, they’re very polite bombs.

The eruption tossed him back with a force so whopping that he felt like he had been socked by twelve million human knights all at once.

DF – How would he know this? Has he had this happen to him before?
NW – It was a Saturday, pledge week, and he was really drunk…

His body lashed through the flaming air, cutting an infernal streak of red flares in the conflagration cloud. Spiraling horizontal, he crashed into a polyhedral domicile

DF – The explosion is that powerful, and yet after at least one direct hit there are still buildings standing?
NW –

and tumbled around as the metal and stone fragments deformed to wrap around his talons and legs.
The radiation filled the air, but underneath the rubble, Dennagon was mildly shielded.

NW – Allow me to take this moment for a public service announcement. Most people believe that atomic bombs consist of only radiation. While the atomic part is very important, please stop forgetting the word BOMB in the title. There are EXPLOSIONS involved. Explosions kill people. Hence the popularity of grenades.

Still he could only rise groggily, limply tearing off his fettered debris with disoriented slices of his claws. He barely had the strength to growl.
Then, a horrific realization hit him. Snapping his head up, he looked to the cohorts of dragons above,

NW – Through the debris? Does he have x-ray vision now?
DF – He has whatever the plot requires him to have. Just like Eragon.

fleeting ignorantly to meet the onslaught of missiles from above. Idiots they were not to know by now what the missiles were capable of, but instinct drove him to save them anyway.
“Noooo!!” he cried. “Stay back! Do not engage thy projectiles! They will disintegrate you!

NW – “But not me! Because I’m special!”
DF – And yes, it actually said “thy projectiles” in the book. I think it might be time for another shot.

They will-”
The sky was bloodier than it was before as detonations cast roses of red fire, their flaring petals lined by the gore of foolish warriors slain. In the bleeding heavens, hundreds of nukes were set off by morons who decided it was a good idea to strike the warheads with their blades, fangs and claws.

NW – Like… Denanananan?
DF – Well, he’s special.

Reptilian cadavers fell from the celestial sea, showering the polyhedral networks in carrion burnt.

DF – “You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!”
NW – So they weren’t distengrated? [gasp] Stu was wrong!

It was too late for any of his comrades. Dennagon darted into the air, what little air was left about the flaming ruins.

NW – So his earlier pain was more of a “rest for five minutes” ordeal.
DF – Stus have other kinds of pain?

He scudded through the aerial polyhedron maze as edifices crumbled all around, casting their shattered fragments from the flanks and overhead. Storms of stone came to his flank, but he yawed to avoid them. A blast of glass flew from the windows of a domicile being crushed by a boulder, so he pitched below it and flew right past. From behind, a gush of liquefied metal poured from the walls of a melting building, shooting right to his back as a chunk of rock raced to him from the front. He rolled in the air and tucked himself at a 45-degree angle to the side, allowing the metal stream to blast the rocky piece to molten droplets.

DF – Anyone else get the feeling that this was written with the expectation of a movie deal later?
NW – zzzzzzzz…..

Chaos surrounded him, but he remained undaunted.

NW – Oh no! DF we’ve entered groundhog day! The book’s just repeating over and over until we get something right.
DF – WAAAAAAIIIIIIII!

As the edifices ahead continued to topple, he pressed forth, thinking only of escape and survival.

NW – Too bad he didn’t think about it before he headed into the mess.
DF – Srsly, we could have skipped that whole escape scene.
NW – Both of them.

Alas,

DF –

in a trail of exploding and collapsing buildings, he ripped past the crumbled city walls, heaving a plume of dust in his trajectory.

NW – That’s… not really a sentence.

For a second, he glimpsed the mossy plains and thought he was finally safe, but another atomic explosion struck the kingdom at its very heart, sending a wave of heated air across him. An outburst of dirt rolled against him, sending him reeling to the landscape outside his realm. His massive body hit the ground with a heavy thud, digging a giant groove into the moss-coated terrain.
Hitting a tree, he stopped.

DF – That’s generally to be expected when you hit a tree.
NW – That’s the only part of the above that makes any sense.

The trunk broke and collapsed on him, but it felt rather comforting compared to the scorching heat of battle.

NW – And the hundreds of nukes.

“Ughhh…” he groaned.

NW – I think we have a leader in our “understatement of the year” award.
DF – I would have thought it’d be the “Department of Redundancy Department” award.

Flinging the tree off himself, he looked to the distance again. The situation seemed familiar, since he was just here about fifteen minutes ago. Only then, he was ready to head into battle, not away from it.

NW – ‘He suddenly felt like Bill Murray. Doomed to live the same moment over and over again. It must have been the nukes.’
DF – One of those side effects of radiation that no one talks about.

In the horizon now, there was hardly anything left but smoldering devastation ringed by hellish blazes that were more blood red than any fire he had seen before.

DF – No more special fire plzkthnx.

It was going to be a while until the dragons could return to the kingdom. If ever.

NW – Assuming any dragons were still alive.
DF – I know. Didn’t they all throw themselves into the paths of the nukes and blow up just now?
NW – Can we throw this book into the path of a nuke?
DF – Without being killed by the explosion? I’m not sure we’re Sue/Stu enough.

Just then, a rumble of footsteps quaked the ground. Judging by their metallic resonance and their light pressure, he could tell that they were not of his own kindred.

NW – Well that and all his kindred were now the equivalent of bugs-on-windshield.

Rolling, he leapt behind a growth of shrubberies that just barely concealed him as he lay on his side. Through the webbed leaves, he could see what approached.

NW – I didn’t know shrubberies were nuke proof.
DF – Or all that easy to see through.

Metallic bodies marched toward the kingdom. Knights in shimmering armor and simian form headed to Drakemight, some on horses mounted and others on foot prepared.

DF – I’m getting tired of that writing style. It sounds like a really bad rendition of Yoda: ‘on horses mounted, some were.’
NW – Armor of lead, radiation protection, they wore.
DF – And then the horses died from having to carry all that weight.
NW – And the crippling radiation.

They held in their hominid gauntlets lances sharpened to their tips, crossbows locked and loaded with arrows, and halberds whetted to the finest edges. Indeed, the humans had never stooped so low, yet amassed so highly at the same time. This time, they actually stood a fighting chance. Nonetheless, Dennagon was not going to let them take his kingdom, no matter how many units they had.

NW – It’s just a crater now, let them have it.
DF – “No, wait! I think I can still see a building sta-” BOOM “…Never mind.”

It was irony that they always plagued his life whenever he made a promise.

NW – Then what should you stop doing?
DF – Funny, I don’t remember him making a promise when they attacked at the beginning of the first chapter.

Just by merely declaring his resolution to himself, he was expecting an entire legion of ten thousand men to storm the castle, thereby forcing him to fight nearly impossible odds. However, as they plodded forth, he saw the enemy forces in their entirety, and there were little more than a hundred strong.

DF – News flash, Denny; if you weren’t a Stu, those would still be impossible odds.
NW – Or he could wait and let them all cook alive in that armor when they reach the bombed and boiling city.
DF – Why are they going there, anyway?
NW – Why is never the right question with this book.

Cocking a brow, he decided to stay back to see what they were planning.

DF – So wait; if it were ten thousand men, he would go out on a suicide mission, but now that it’s a hundred and he feels he can take them, he’s going to hold back and see what they do? Isn’t that backward?
NW – Now the author can’t remember what he wrote a sentence ago.

One last unit backed up the rest of them. At first glance of its shadow, he thought it was a high-level magician and that for once, he would be able to face a challenge. As it came into full visibility though, it revealed itself to be a mounted knight no greater than any of the others.

NW – But then it turned out to be a magician in disguise and Denanananan was killed in his overconfidence.

Its tunic was more adorned with the symbols of gold, but other than that, it looked like an ordinary man. Even if it was a paladin, Dennagon was not certain what the humans were planning to accomplish with such a puny attack. Even hominids were not usually this dumb.

NW – But then he remembered that all the dragons had been wiped out with a massive nuclear strike and it all made sense.
DF – Nothing makes sense in this book.

A monstrous roar sounded. The paladin craned its neck back, shaking its head wildly from side to side. In a mechanized voice, it spoke.
“Increase mobilization speed. Annihilate everything.”

DF – Robot paladins!
NW – I always felt like the crusades were missing something.

The tone of its speech was droned, similar to that of an insect’s buzzing. It sounded synthetic, as if each of its vocal cords vibrated in tubes of metal.

DF – Isn’t that implied by “a mechanized voice”?
NW – The author laughs at such silly concepts like “continuity”. Not unlike Grant Morrison.

But how was that possible? Humans were of flesh and bone not unlike reptiles, avians and krakens. If this was a knight, it was certainly augmented with an enchantment.

NW – Or, it wasn’t a knight.
DF – Or, it was a robot knight.
NW – A Robight?

And the enchantment was viewable as the paladin turned his head again. Built into the back of its skull was a chip of metal lined with wires, circuits and mechanical nodes that he had no idea what to make of. Integrated into the very cerebrum of this creature, it was unlike anything in his private collection or the missiles he had examined at Drakemight. This enemy was perhaps their secret weapon, a new type of magician on the front lines.

NW – Medieval borg FTW.

Or was it? One more shadow followed it from behind, shaped like a creature that had a slithering neck and a serpentine head crowned with horns.

DF – “Shaped like a creature”? It sounds like it is a creature with those qualities.

Cocking its jaws open, it let out another roar, and it was then that he understood where the deafening clamor came from. It was a dragon. Amongst the enemy lines, there was a member of his own species, attacking the kingdom just like a human would. Now he knew there was something potent about his opponents, for few spells, save for those of draconic sorcery, had the puissance to coerce a serpentine intellect.

NW – Maybe he’s just as fed up with other dragons as you’ve been Denanananan, you hypocrite.
DF – But, but, but he’s better!

Dennagon shifted through the shrubberies, trying to get a closer look at the creature from which the reptilian umbra emerged, but as quickly as he moved, a stone struck him upon his cranium. He almost growled as he fell to the ground, clutching his aching skull. At first, he thought he had been hit by a catapult shot, but as he rolled onto his back, he looked up, only to see a wurm, a dragon with no limbs,

DF – As we learned in the prologue, this means the wurm is important.
NW – Nukes? Don’t hurt that bad. Stones? Bad headache.
DF – He needs to get his pain priorities straight.

slithering on the ground before him. Instantly, he reached for his sword, unsure of whether it was a comrade or adversary.

NW – Do comrades often bash your skull in?
DF – Considering what the other dragons in the collective thought of him…

The wurm picked up another stone, preparing to knock him over the head again.

NW – It picks something up without limbs?
DF – Maybe with his tail?

Withal,

DF –

he was surprised at how quickly Dennagon rose, and backed down at the sight of the sword.
“Sorry, fellow,” said the wurm, “But this has to be done.”

DF – “This story is horrible enough, and it has to end before things get worse.” Aaaaaand Said Count is now 10.

It was an enemy. Dennagon delivered a cross-slash that grazed the shrubberies,

NW – The knights that say Ni began wheeping.

yet completely missed the target, which hopped into the air like a coiled spring. Dizzily, he tried to turn around, but by that time, it was too late. The second stone already hit him in the forehead.
He flopped over, unconscious. The wurm poked him with the end of his tail to make sure he was out cold.

DF – Uh, this story is in third person limited, not third person omniscient. If Dennagon is unconscious, that should be it until he wakes up again.
NW – Kind of a wuss having survived all those nukes and then be taken out by a simple rock.
DF – Is it horrible of me to say that I kind of like the wurm right now? I mean, I know that’ll change eventually.
NW – If he keeps beating up Denananan it won’t.

“You’ll feel better when you wake up. Or maybe you won’t. Or maybe-”
The wurm shut himself up. Wrapping his limbless body around Dennagon’s comatose soma,

NW – Soma? The body of an organism as contrasted with its germ cells?
DF – That’s some powerful disinfectant.

he dragged him silently into the night. All the while, the human hordes rampaged into the remnants of Drakemight, followed by the beast that backed them up. The gargantuan tremors shook the ground as it marched, dark as the night without a star.

DF – And then everybody except the wurm (and the robot, I guess) died of radiation poisoning.

Dennagon’s worst nightmare had come true. In the midst of war, he could now only dream.

DF – Oh, no…
NW – This isn’t a war, it’s a massacre.
DF – No, I mean there’s probably going to be another stupid dream sequence!

—————
The bounds of the World were converging. In a landscape rife with archaic verdure,

DF –

dinosaurs traipsed the terrain, killing at unwilled instinct, surviving for the sake of survival.

NW – That’s true of all life without self-awareness.
DF – Because it works. Not perfectly, but it does let the species survive.

Tyrannosaurus rexes trampled triceratopses whilst plesiosaurs roamed the seas with sharks and prehistoric fish.

DF – I…I’m not sure what to think of this. It’s actually…kind of accurate, for once.
NW – Except I don’t think T rexes really trampled trikes.
DF – Thank you, Nate! I can live normally again!

Slaying and breeding, breeding and slaying were the only two things that went on during this era, the Age of Reptiles. The World was ruled by animals,

DF – Technically, it still is. Unless we’ve started serving fungal overlords and nobody told me. insert Radioactive Mushroom Regime comment here

unknowing of why they behaved in such a manner, yet continually acting on the whims of their unconscious. Were they weak or just ignorant? Probably both.

NW – Yep, they need to get off their tails and evolve consciousness already.

After an apocalyptic asteroid raged across the lands,

DF – I’m pretty sure asteroids don’t rage across the land, apocalyptic or not. They normally just slam into it at full speed, assuming they make it through the atmosphere.
NW – An atmosphere of a thousand miles!!!!
DF – Begins with a single breath?

only the peons of animals survived, evolving into yet another species of beasts – men. Men who were so easily tainted by avarice and cowardice dominated the planet, infesting it with their greed and bloodlust.

DF – Their greed and bloodlust? You just admitted that there were plenty of animals that did nothing but kill and eat whatever they could long before people showed up. Heck, even the ‘superior’ dragons were hoarding knowledge for themselves and killing humans left and right.
NW – Earth was so great before those stupid humans.

Their technological contagion spread throughout the globe, computers lining every inch of the sky down to the very planetary core, creating a gargantuan multicellular organism composed of multicellular organisms.

DF – How is this bad, exactly?
NW – Dual core computers don’t mean that.

In their mechanical flare, they were stuck in the middle of time, along with the observer that watched them in the dreams.

DF – Why?
NW – The middle of time is called the present.
DF – Then why mention that they’re stuck there? We’re all automatically stuck there regardless of what time we’re living in.

Thence, the middle of time burned, the simian realm melting amidst cybernetic havoc.
Alas,

DF –

another center of time sprung forth.

DF – Two presents! It’s like Christmas!

The Middle Ages covered the lands in mystical topography as imaginative as it was majestic. However, even its majesty bore a dark essence that could neither be seen nor heard, only felt. Mana brimmed around the magical brain of the World, Gaia manifested in the form of the liquid of life bubbling around the souls of every conscious being.

NW – Ah, there’s our Star Wars reference.
DF – Mana = The Force?
NW – Pretty much.

It stretched far indeed, for everything in the World and Universe was as conscious as any life form, biological as the creatures on the earth and the sun that let them thrive.

NW –
The universe does not work that way!

These were medieval times, a time of chivalry and honor, an era of darkness and dusk, an endless string of eons

DF –

bound together in an undifferentiated chain of the temporal realm. They were the only realm that could be known of by beings of the dark age.

DF – Are you even saying anything anymore?
NW – It’s the babel fish game!
DF – He translated it to something else with babel fish before writing it in English?
NW – That’s the game.
DF – You can do that with writing a book, though? That explains so much.

Whilst creatures traversed the terrain like shadows on a dune under the dark blue sky, a murky cloud loomed over all existence. The onyx sky charred the vision for all, even more ominous than the jet blackness that smote the dinosaurs in their animalistic mortality.

NW – I thought we were in medieval time.
DF – Who can really tell what’s going on anymore?
NW – Even stoners are at a lost.

Thunder as black as the depths of vacuum space

NW – Because sound has color.
DF – Dennananana must have Synesthesia

scarred the heavens against the silver clouds, bleeding dark flames to the surface below. Albeit, this was no meager prophecy, for there was no future to be foretold in the fields forbidden to temporal flow. It was the present, the past and what was to come.

DF – Ignore common sense, folks; what is to come =/= the future.

It was the word unsaid, the term untold, for everyone knew.

NW – The latter is impossible with the former.

As ebony flames ripped across the dominions and oceans, a ghastly shadow formed over all. A mechanized dragon soared over the world, its biotechnological eyes scanning everything that lived so that its cybernetic brain could process the info underneath its metal-plated body. The knowledge of the World, liquid in sable saturation, boiled out from the earthly mantle up to the surface, drowning out the lands and seas in a sheet of oily residue.

DF –
NW – Nothing in the above works like that
DF – Exactly.

All creatures struggled against it, but not even the most adept warriors could survive this evil tide. The mechanical dragon swept over the jetty waves, surveying its subjects as they were battered under the currents of hellish raven bleakness.

DF – You know what, to heck with it.

It was difficult to tell the difference between the eve sky and the knowledge-coated planet, for even the stars of the Universe burnt with the same inky fire that floated along the surface of the murky flux. The light of the sun also became black, firing dark streams of purely ebony lasers down to the earth to kill everything in its range. Soon, nothing thought, and thus, nothing lived.

DF – I don’t see single-celled organisms having much trouble living. Anyway, let me try to get this straight; ignorance is bad/weakness, while knowledge is evil/will kill you?
NW – Apparently the author has just thrown up his hands and said “I don’t know.”
DF – Then why is there more book after this?
NW – Well that’s no reason to stop writing.

The mechanized dragons dominated the air between the heavens and the knowledge-ridden lands. In the devastation, they all bore the same thought on their minds. They all knew what they were hunting.
“Dennagon”. They knew the name, but were unaware of the nature of the creature to which it was assigned.

DF – So they actually don’t know what they’re hunting, then.
NW – Is this prehistoric or medieval or 20 minutes into the future?
DF – It’s a dream sequence, so it could be any or all of the above.
NW – Never has a book so needed musical cues.

Dennagon the lone sentry was still somewhere on the terrains unwashed by information, and he was the only thing that stood in their way.

DF – Of course he was.
NW – I should try taking baths in information.
DF – Are you hoping that would help you understand this book?
NW – No I’d have to bathe in opiates for that.

Like a pebble lodged in the gears of the omnipotent machine of time, he was disrupting everything, yet they could not find him. Nonetheless, they soon would. As long as he was alive, they could feel him, and his doom was not far.
Time moved forward again, as it always did.

DF – Not in this book, it doesn’t.
NW – Oh he taunts us with Denananan’s death…

—————
Dennagon wrenched open his eyes,

DF – Looks like the wurm is going to have to hit him harder next time.

terrified at the visions that bombarded his mind. In horror, he roared, blood and sweat

DF – Go ahead, Nate.
NW – REPTILES DON’T SWEAT!
DF – Thank you, Nate.

dripping from the gashed scales of his battle-scarred body. Feverishly, he scurried about, trying to flee from the tides of darkness that loomed in his imagination, snarling aghast at every plant leaf that he saw. Despite his terrorized posture, the dark ocean of his dreams only existed as dreams, and nothing more. It took him a second to realize that fact.

NW – Well that’s a new record for his thought process.

“Where am I?! What is time?! Certainty lies in one’s mind, but how can I know anything for certain?!”

DF – “And why am I asking stupid questions like these when I’m supposed to be scared out of my mind?!”
NW – It’s a new game, shout random questions. “What is the meaning of orange!”
DF – “Why did this author think he could write?!”

his random thoughts rambled. “Why am I talking to myself?”

NW – Why are you so sure you’re by yourself?
DF – Why would anyone else want to listen to him?
NW – Yet another way this book is so unrealistic.

After a second, his breaths calmed. Looking around, he noticed that the verdure was inverted so that all tree branches lurked around the ground like roots and all tree trunks and roots poked up toward the sky, which was littered with stars.

DF – Because that’s not inefficient at all, nope.
NW – Eng must just hate gravity.
DF – Well, at least these trees are on the ground, apparently. But neither these nor the trees from the prologue were getting nutrition from their roots, so he must actually hate trees.

Shrubberies adorned some floating patches of land above, hanging transposed like the larger plant life that surrounded it. At first, he thought that he himself was positioned upside-down, but then noticed that the force of gravity still drew him down feet first. The entire woodland was upside-down.

DF – I bet a wizard did it, right?
NW – thousand to 1 odds.

This must have been the Pedorian Forest.

DF – That, or Denananana has gone insane. pause More insane.

A stark contrast to the enshrouding foliage suddenly appeared as his wurmy captor dangled over him, facing him with a goofy expression.
“You’re not talking to yourself,” answered Dradicus, the wurm.

DF – Hey, it’s Dradicus!
NW – Sweet, now this will rock.
DF – Literally?

Faster than lightning, Dennagon grabbed the opponent by the throat and slammed him into a ground-dwelling canopy. Dradicus’ googly pupils ringed around his rounded eyes disoriented.

DF – Hey, another reason for me to like him! Dennananana hates him! And he has googly eyes!
NW – Yep, dragons never fight amongst themselves.
DF – Seriously. Why can’t the humans be this peaceful?

“Ah!” he screamed. “Watch the scales! I just cleaned myself and that’s hard to do when you don’t have limbs!”

NW – Ha ha he’s vain.

Dennagon had no intentions of complying.
“Do I know you?”
“You know nothing yet,” came a voice from behind.

NW – You know nothing- Hey! He stole our lines!
DF – It’s bad enough reading this monstrosity, now the characters are snarking for us?! …Wait.

Two more dragons entered the vicinity. One, a wyvern, grabbed him by his left shoulder while the other, an ouroboros, seized his right shoulder.

NW – What’s with all these creatures without hands grabbing stuff?
DF – Well, the author forgets every other detail in this book, so why not?

They yanked him off and threw him to the ground. Initially, he thought they were Arxinor and Gorgash, but then saw that they clearly bore differing attributes. The purple wyvern was much slimmer than the reddish Arxinor,

DF – And, y’know, purple. I’m also thinking that the apparent lack of metal parts might give this one away.

and the orangish ouroboros always kept his tail in his mouth, unlike the behemoth Gorgash.

NW – Quirky doesn’t work if it’s physically impossible.
DF – Actually, this is another of those rare things that are actually accurate.
NW – Then Gorgash wasn’t one was he?
DF – Nah, he’s a behemoth. Of course, the book never actually says what a behemoth is, even in the glossary, so I don’t know why he made the comparison.

Regardless of their appearance, nonetheless, Dennagon understood only one thing. They attacked him, and thus, were the enemy.
He reached for his scabbard, but his talon cut through thin air instead of clasping a hilt. His sword was gone. Surprised,

DF – Really?

he looked to see the ouroboros dangling it in its index claw, casually taunting him.
“Looking for this, vile sentry?” it asked.
The ouroboros whirled the blade around, his attacks fueled by the hatred of a hundred souls.

DF – How would you know what’s fueling it?
NW – Why are they waiting NOW to attack him?

Dennagon stolidly dodged as best he could, the metal flashing all around his body in merciless assaults. Although the wyvern snickered, this was no joke. They really were trying to kill him.

NW – Which would have been easier when he was unconsicous.

“We don’t like those who keep secrets,” noted the wyvern.
When he saw an opportune instant, he threw a backhand at his adversary. The ouroboros blocked with a forearm plate and returned a roundhouse punch. Dennagon parried the offense, catching the enemy by the wrist. They snarled in each other’s faces, about to finish each other off before two more dragons entered the scene.
“But I think we’ll make an exception in this case.”
Lyconel

DF – She’s ba~aaack!
NW – Cream count in 5… 4… 3…

snatched the sword away from the ouroboros’ grasp. They all backed off as a mutilated elder hydra followed her into the grove. She walked to her captive, her bluish scales still shimmering

DF – Sparkle Count or Cream Count?
NW – It’s a twofer! Cream Count: 4
DF – Sparkle Count: 3

as if she had not even taken the slightest damage from her fall off the cloud.

NW – She cast slow fall.
DF – RPG Cliche #143 – Falling Rule:

“An RPG character can fall any distance onto anything without suffering anything worse than brief unconsciousness. In fact, falling a huge distance is an excellent cure for otherwise fatal wounds — anyone who you see shot, stabbed, or mangled and then tossed off a cliff is guaranteed to return later in the game with barely a scratch.”

DF – In closing, SUUUUUUUUE.

Dennagon wasn’t certain what to make of her apparent survival, let alone everything else he had seen within the past day. She should have been dead, but she walked as lively as any healthy drake.

NW – No scars?
DF – Falling Rule, remember?

“You’ll have to excuse my comrades,” she started. “As you probably guessed, we’re cautious around members of the draconic collective. I’m sure your lord told you about our treachery, of course.”
Dennagon spit out a wad of silver slaver.

DF – Either he’s actually spitting out blood, or all of a dragon’s bodily fluids are silver.
NW – That could be a clever story. Humans go around killing dragons because their bodies actually have valuables in them.
DF – It’s been done, except that the dragon’s body parts were powerful magic components/cures and therefore very valuable. In the series I’m thinking of, anyway.

Although it was a very pedestrian and lowly gesture, he had to discard any knocked-out fangs before he swallowed them and scraped his own throat.

DF – Funny; cats don’t have that problem. Then again, they are superior, as was mentioned in the last chapter.
NW – Or sharks. And they lose their teeth a LOT.
DF – Considering some of the other things sharks will eat, teeth are probably the least of their worries.

“You’re Errants. Dissidents,” he stated. “What do you want with me? Actually, it doesn’t matter, since I’ll die before handing anything over, but just for the sake of quelling my curiosity, what is it that you want? Rations? Recon? Knowledge? What?!”

NW – But he’s a deviant too. Oh the irony!
DF – “No, Mister Dennagon. I want you to die.”

Lyconel’s reply was as calm as a spring breeze.
“You.”
Dennagon looked at her. His eyes were straighter than the path of the fastest light ray.
“Me.”
She nodded.
“You want me and only me, nothing more. What is this? The Draconic Inquisition?!”

DF – Nobody expects the Draconic Inquisition!
NW – Their chief weapon is surprise.

he blared with squinted eyes and shrugged shoulders. “Go ahead, blackmail the collective! See how far you get before a thousand laughs pass your ears.

DF – Kind of hard to blackmail them, seeing as they’re all dead and all.
NW – And he’s hated by most of them.

They want me back as much as they want to suck the bladder of an incontinent minotaur.”

DF – More imagery I could have lived without!
NW – Now the angry video game nerd has invaded.

Lyconel wagged her index claw.
“Oh, no, no, no. You really don’t get it. We come not in malice, Dennagon. We’re here to help.”
“Well, if you want to help, start by getting out of my way.”

NW – “or by not attacking me”
DF – But that part helps us readers.

He headed for the forest depths, but the ouroboros stamped a foot in his way. Another fight was about to break out.
“Nomax, back off,” commanded Lyconel.
The ouroboros, Nomax, reluctantly complied.

NW – Thanks, because that wasn’t clear at all.
DF – I never would have guessed that Nomax was the ouroboros.

“Look, Dennagon, if you want to know the truth, the attack on Drakemight was not meant for the elimination of data,” she continued.
“What else does man crave, aside from gold? Humans do not think, which is why they seek to destroy all knowledge.”

NW – Wouldn’t then all creatures not thinking try and destroy data?
DF – How would they even know what knowledge is? It’s like some guy who was blind all his life trying to destroy color.
NW – Die blue die!

“The words you speak are truthful, but tell not the entire story. The attack you just witnessed was brought about for an even more secretive purpose.”
Dennagon crossed his talons and listened. For some reason, he thought this was going to be entertaining.

DF – I don’t know why, since the only remotely entertaining things in this book so far were the Apple iOrb and the fight between him and Lycanol.
NW – So now ‘talons’ == arms?
DF – It means whatever the author wants it to mean.
NW – Well he can go talon himself!

“Long ago,” Lyconel spoke with a deepened tone, “when the World was first spawned, there was a point that encompassed all moments in time. That point was the center of all being and it was that that the sapiens truly desired.”
A yawn.

NW – ….dammit stop stealing our lines!

“I’ve heard the myths.”
Lyconel could tell that her one-dragon audience was losing interest,

DF – Really? But he was so subtle about it!
NW – As subtle as the atomic bombs earlier.
DF – I know! How do you think she figured it out?

so she pulled out from her belt a sleek metal weapon. Tipped with a cylindrical barrel, it was composed mainly of a firing mechanism, a chamber and a breech system that was mounted with a retractable tripod. Connected to the chamber was a magazine of ammunition that contained several rounds of leaden bullets ready to be fired. Her claw on the trigger, she held it as a human would, pointing it up for safety.

NW – How would a gun designed for humans fit into a much larger dragon’s?
DF – A wizard did it.
NW – Stupid wizards, there should be a law.
DF – So they can break it like all the physical laws?

Dennagon tilted his gaze, unknowing of what the 20th century machinegun was.

DF – Please note that this was invented by a species that supposedly ‘does not think’.

“They’ve already tapped into the source of time. Already, their powers are beginning to grow.

NW – I think the source of time would be ultimate power.
DF – Assuming time even has a source.
NW – That would have made the beverly hillbillies more interesting. “And up from the ground came a bubbling time.”
DF – And then they break the universe.
NW – Stupid rednecks.

That’s how they managed to initiate that onslaught so easily. And that’s not where they’ll stop.”
She gestured to the wyvern.
“Lefius.”
Lefius, the wyvern,

DF – Oh, and just in case you weren’t aware, Lefius is the wyvern.
NW – Wow!

cast a metal helm into the air. Lyconel unleashed a stream of bullets at it, rattling the firearm in her grasp. Explosive crackling filled the atmosphere as a volley of gunfire tore the helm apart and dropped Dennagon’s jaw. All that was left was shrapnel that fell to the ground and the smoke from the machinegun’s barrel.

DF – “Then she pointed the gun at Dennagon.”
NW – “And pulled the trigger, the end.”

“This is but a sample of their capabilities. No sorcery can battle the tides of temporal flow if their powers continue to expand. Only the dragons have the intelligence to bring upon them doom. We evolved to be the most advanced species in heart and mind,

DF – EVOLUTION DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!

and for that we act as their bane. It’s thence our responsibility to stop them from attaining the center of time.”
Dennagon stooped to view the machinegun’s engineering. It was so complex in his eye, even more complicated than the grand clock towers of Glackus, kingdom of the thunderbirds. Gears wound about churning tubes filled with a dusty, unidentified powder, all centered around a seemingly important hammer positioned behind the loaded bullets. He was sincerely impressed with the artful construction, even though he didn’t fully understand it.

DF – And again, this from a species that is supposedly unable to think.
NW – Unable to think but can get the center of time.
DF – We should have a Not Stupid Count, for every time the humans do something (or we’re told they do something) that would be impossible if they’re as stupid as the dragons claim. But then we’d be tallying it every five seconds.
NW – It’d be OVER NINE THOUSAND just in this chapter.

However, he was not as impressed with the weak story his captor had concocted.
“Every being with enough brain cells,”

NW – Haven’t you been saying that humans don’t have enough brain cells?
DF – Not Stupid Count: OVER NINE THOUSAND AND TWO.

he uttered with an air of arrogance, “knows that we, the dragons, are the keepers of wisdom. Certainly, we are beyond the meager whims of the humans,

DF – I have yet to see proof of this.

and it is undoubtedly our duty to keep them under control. Yet, I hardly believe that their ‘powers’, what little they have,

DF – They turned your city into a crater, how’s that?

were a result of tapping into the source of time, unless you meant to say that time granted them enough evolutionary strength to develop into such vileness.” Despite Lyconel’s groans and rolled eyes,

NW – She speaks for the audience!
DF – As have many of the characters. It’s almost as if they’re aware of how stupid this book is!

he resumed in rubbing his point in. “You’re a nice story teller, but I’m afraid you’re not a very convincing general. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a kingdom to return to,

NW – Not any more. Zing!

as well as some knowledge to collect.”
“They aren’t trying to destroy knowledge. They intend to annihilate the one thing that can stop them – the Lexicon.”

NW – Which has knowledge.
DF – Or definitions, anyway.

There it was again. That accursed word that nearly prevented him from meeting with the lord Drekkenoth many hours ago. He wouldn’t have it.
“Is that why you brought me here?! Don’t you think I have better things to do than kill you all?! I’m a defender of Drakemight!”

NW – Well you were. Zing!
DF – So you were late for an appointment, it’s not that big a deal!

She gestured to Lefius again. The wyvern drew a crossbow and fired a shot upward. The arrow hit a sheet of foliage above, scattering the leaves in the air to reveal the sky. Although the stars twinkled against the night backdrop, the ashes of Drakemight

DF – How does he know that’s what they are?
NW – I thought the trees were upside down.
DF – There are bushes and stuff up there near the roots, though. Of course, they’re attached to floating patches of ground.

still lingered in the atmosphere like blackened stellar entities. The heart-shattering truth fell upon him as if the earth were ripped right out from under his feet.

DF – Ohhhhh, no. I’ll let you tug on my heartstrings once, but I’m not falling for it again.

It was such an impact that Lyconel could not help but utter it.
“Drakemight is no more.”

NW – Shouldn’t he know? Wasn’t he there?
DF – He’s in denial.

Dennagon stoically accepted the obviousness of it all. Like a warrior, he bore the pain without a single frown to show for it.

NW – C’mon… a single tear… go for the Stu trifecta.

“Believe us or don’t. You haven’t a home to return to.”
Lyconel held out a blue talon.
“Follow us and we can take you to the only hope you have left. Or you can wander the lands, an errant of a species fallen.”

DF – WILL Dennananana take Lycanol up on her offer? WILL they save the Lexicon? WILL we ever actually care? Find out (or not) next time, in part 4b of Dragons: Lexicon Triumvirate Spork!
NW – Scarier words have never been spoken.

Comment [25]

Ugh, guys, we almost didn’t make it through this one…and even though we did, there were massive cas…well, you’ll see.

Anyway, we made it through to the end of this chapter, and so we present to you all the second half of chapter 3 of D:LT. (Yeah, just the third chapter.) Nate Winchester is, once again, graciously working with me, and for those who are new to the series, links to the previous parts can be found below:

Part 1, Chapter 1 – Part 1, Chapter 1 – Part 2, Part 3, Part 4a

Now, on with the show!

He sensed a lack of sincerity in her words, as he did with most creatures that had the cognizance to choose.

DF – Well, you know how the saying goes: if more than three people in your life are utter, total a______s, then maybe it’s you.
NW –

No creature he had ever met was entirely truthful, for every intellectual being was inherently imperfect.

DF – Isn’t that called transference or something?
NW – So being imperfect means not truthful? That’s not even correlation!
DF – You expected things to start making sense?

Besides, those that were completely honest at all times were usually slain by the claws of brainwashed masses

DF – Re…un…ion…

bw. or by the guile of those beings who knew how to utilize the secrets of dolts foolish enough to divulge too much.

NW – So now truthful people are imperfect? Make up your mind!
DF – Everybody’s imperfect. Except the Stu, because he’s the author’s favorite/stand in.

Albeit he could detect the same treachery in her tone, he had all but any more strategic plans.

NW – I think we found the self-destruct code for grammar nazis everywhere. R.I.P. Elanor.
DF – And English teachers?

Thrusting out his talon, he viciously displayed all sharp claws to show just how friendly he was.
“Fine,” he forcefully said.

DF – Said Count: 11
NW – Should we count a ‘said’ if its prefaced by an adverb?
DF – He still used it, and if we didn’t count them they’d still be in the single-digits.
NW – Awww but I’m not going to beat the spread then. =(

“I’ll battle by your side as long as you do me one favor.”
His pupils shot at Nomax.

DF – Dennagon, get your pupils under control before somebody gets killed!
NW – Hey mister! Your eyes could put someone’s scissors out.
DF – If looks could kill – literally.

“Give me MY BLOODY SWORD BACK!”

DF – Finders keepers, Nomax! FINDERS KEEPERS!
NW – “If it’s bloody that’s not much reason for me to give it back then is it?”

Nomax, wearing a nasty grimace, chucked it to him with the underside of his ouroboros tail.

NW – Without taking the tail out of his mouth? That doesn’t seem physically possible.
DF – Who cares! The author’s hoping to actually hit within sight of the Rule of Cool one of these days!
NW – The Rule of Cool is sitting in its house, refusing to pick up the phone or answer the door screaming, “No! Go away!”

Dennagon snatched it in the air, twirling it until

DF – …he cut his own head off.
NW – New drinking game: every time the author passes up a perfectly reasonable opportunity to kill an unlikable character.

it fell into a comfortable grasp. With a handkerchief of human skin,

DF – 1) Handkerchiefs are not normally made of leather, for good reason. 2) brb, going to be sick.
NW – “Ah yes, got this from an ’82 orphan. Very good year. Well not for humans.”

he wiped off the filthy claw prints.

DF – I think we need to take a shot for the innuendo drinking game.
NW – Or the impossibility drinking game. Can you wipe hand prints off something you’re holding?
DF – Or both, even.

If it was one thing he kept clean, it was his blade and the logical element of his mind.

NW – Denananan mistunderstood mom and thought she said wash between your ears.
DF – It explains why there’s no grey matter in there.

Both were as essential as rations and water to him, for war was what mattered in life.

NW – Oh how soon he forgets his books. This guy has emotional ADD.

Suddenly, a familiar sound in the heat of war alarmed him. Hundred of flapping wings filled the air with an aerial rumble similar to a thousand flags whipping in the wind simultaneously.

NW – Didn’t he hear that all the time in a city full of dragons?
DF – Well he’s not there now, is he?
NW – But it was a familiar sound from battle, but dragons never fight each other so… head asplode
DF – Ooo! Good point!

They all looked up, only to see minions of draconic sentries

DF – “We’re free!” they cried, “Free of you stupid dragons!”
NW – “Wait! We have some literature to share with you!”

soaring above the woodland, all plated in the armor of the recently decimated city. Lyconel immediately slid under the forest’s inverted foliage.
“Duck!”

NW – Wait, is that a command or a description of the minions?
DF – Command. They’re actually the dragons from the city. I don’t know why it said minions.
NW – Damn, and I was hoping for some armored ducks.
DF – That would make this book somewhat bearable, though.
NW – I dunno… we could have gotten a Howard the Duck crossover.

They all did. The rumbles increased in magnitude, spreading to the ground and areas all around. The battered sentries wearily plodded across the entire environment, drained of their energy, but of grim vigor nonetheless.

NW – I thought he heard wings flapping. No wonder they’re weary if they’re flapping their wings and marching.
DF – And if they’re flying, why? They’re tired, and flying is hard.
NW – You forgot, gravity’s optional in this world.

Their bodies were fueled only by the ire and fear that filled their veins, the two emotions that drove them away from their homeland that had just been riddled with the cadavers of their fallen companions.

DF – That they…miraculously…survived wait what?
NW – Apparently death’s optional too.
DF – Right. Rule One for reading this book: Everything is optional.
NW – Grammar, logic, common sense, anything that’d make a book good; that’s all outright banned.

Upon their faces, mindless expressions were sculpted as if from stone carved,

NW – “This has been a service provided by the redundantly repetitive department.”
DF – “If you would like to know more and find out additional information about the RRD, please contact us and call 555-5555.”
NW – “Or stay on the line and someone will be with you shortly. You can also wait a moment to speak to a live person.”

and it was difficult to tell whether the lacked food or the ebony crystal liquid of knowledge.

NW – It’s crystal now? I thought it was caviar. Also, ‘the’? I thought there were thousands.
DF – I think it’s talking about knowledge in general, not just the ESHFE.
NW – But knowledge isn’t crystal liquid.
DF – Logic is optional, remember?
NW – Hey author, can we get a sign when something’s a metaphor vs literal? KTHX.

Through the verdurous growth, they flew in the livid air, galloped across the lands and swam where streams allowed.

NW – Hmmm… I count:

DF – THREE! THREE Inigos! Ah ah ah ah!
NW – It’s a new record Impies, the likes of which I don’t think we’ve ever seen before.
DF – But wait, the author might yet try to top himself…

Thirsting for vengeance. But more importantly, information.

DF – Somebody get them into detox, quick!
NW – “WikiAA: no we’re not a wikipedia about addictions.”

The dissident clan huddled together under the shadows.

DF – Under the shadows? How’d they manage that?
NW – I thought it was night. So… everywhere would be ‘under shadows’.
DF – Well, that’s true. I think the other half of the chapter had them looking up at the starry sky.
NW – But stars provide a… hang on, I need to consult some charts. [ruffles through some papers]
DF – […] Did you find them yet?
NW – I found out that today’s the day I’ll wind up with my head impaled upon a stick.

Their scales pressed against one another as the fleeting lightless silhouettes of their draconic hunters passed all around, unwary of their presence.

NW – I thought all the ‘hunters’ (who apparently didn’t get the memo that dragons never fight dragons) were exhausted and near collapse.
DF – They were born to run.

Dennagon had fought alongside many of them in battle, yet even he could not recognize a single face.

NW – Then how do you know you fought alongside them in battle?

Perhaps he just could not view them in such bleakness, but more likely, it was just because he didn’t give a blasted blight about their visages.

DF – Because you hate everybody, we know already.
NW – *So how did he recognize them?*

He knew only one thing now – he had to stay hidden.

NW – Oh that explains it. Knowing all those identities would be more than one thing.
DF – I knew he was dim, but this is ridiculous.
NW – I keep hearing a car salesman in the back of my mind.

“Intelligence is optional.”
DF – Can I at least get power steering, though?
NW – “Steering wheel is optional.”

Or did he? Why didn’t he ask himself “why?” before coming to such a conclusion? Shame, shame shame.

NW – The character catches up to the audience.
DF – Took him long enough.

He shouldn’t have acted on his instinct, he thought. To do so was to be no more than an animal.

NW – But intellectual beings are inherently imperfect so wouldn’t being not intellectual make you more perfect?
DF – Once again, the author throws up his hands and says, “I don’t know.”

The fear that Lyconel’s coercion incited in him almost drew him to a plight most mad and cost him his reasoning capabilities.

NW – Which was a low cost to be sure but…

Swiftly, he regained his mental composure. He was again aligned with the collective.

NW – What collective?
DF – The one that all the nuclear missiles hit without actually killing anybody.
NW – Remember the good ole days when nukes actually killed things.
DF – Maybe they’re part cockroach?
NW – Don’t you feel sorry for the parents of the first cockroach half-dragon?
DF – Maybe there was some sort of wild party a long time ago that nobody wants to talk about now.

However, just as he reached out a talon to signal for his loathsome Drakemight comrades, he halted. It wasn’t the threat of being assaulted by these rabble dissidents units that were so close by,

DF – Because self-preservation is for the weak!
NW – Another “near-death” for our latest drinking game.
DF – Take a shot, guys!

but rather, the thought of falling for the same mistake he had just made. He could not just act on instinct and trust the collective again, for his reason told him to trust absolutely no one except for himself.

NW – Then why did you ever trust the collective before?
DF – Because the plot demanded it.

Thus, there was naught a single reason why he should believe that Drekkenoth’s purposes were anymore benign than Lyconel’s, even though the dragon king did always appear wise. Both choices were equally dangerous. His mind froze, as did the rest of his body.

DF – And this is why instincts exist; because doing things Denananana’s way can very easily get you killed – and possibly eaten – once you go into the BSOD stage (I refuse to call Denananana heroic).
NW – Remember my article on reinforcement? This is why! If he hates them, why is he in such a hurry to rejoin them? Why not take the opportunity to escape?
DF – Because as much as he might try to deny it, he’s secretly in love with them.
NW – Impossible! That would almost make sense. Denananan isn’t a Stu – he’s a freakin’ plot device.

The tension virtually permeated the air.

NW – Don’t need to use “virtually” unless you’ve seen actual tension permeations.

He could feel one of his new allies immersed in terror,

DF – I always feel like / somebody’s watchin’ me!
NW – Can… you feel / the fear… tonight
DF – Also, they’re not your allies if you just decided to betray them.

another that was stooped in clandestine, covert thoughts, another that pondered meticulously, and the last that just plainly wanted to kill him.

DF – So when did Denananana become a telepath, again?
NW – “Then the dragons sensed his deep loathing and all turned toward thoughts of killing him.”
DF – No, that’s us.

Dennagon ignored these sentiments, for he wanted to take his time.

NW – Now the author’s taunting us.

Time that was slipping away as the dragons continued to pass without a sign of when they would completely mobilize beyond his range.

NW –
One more and we just hire him to do this.
DF – Nah, we’d have to pay him, and we’d never have enough money, and blah blah blah…
NW – Impy fundraiser time!

Their sheer volume was extraordinary, and he was surprised there were that many inhabitants of Drakemight.

NW – Why? You lived there! You were part of a collective!
DF –
Logic is optional.

He could easily kill Lyconel and her band by himself, let alone with a fleet of dragons. He would probably prove himself to be more of hero than he already was

DF – …BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!
NW – Dragons never fight each other though…
DF –
Continuity is optional.

by doing so, and hang her head as a trophy of nobility.

DF – Such respect for life! Such honor for their fallen fellows, despite differing viewpoints! Truly, these dragons are paragons of virtue, to be held up as something we pathetic humans can only hope to someday approach!
NW – Because dragons never fight eac- Oh screw it!

But then again, she gave him his sword back. And even as he crouched, overtly pondering whether or not to betray them, Lyconel stayed as placid as a spring dawn.

NW – I was about to ask how but then remembered that the previous nuclear attack was more subtle than Denananan.

It was as if she did not care to stop him. even though she was aware of the peril.

NW – Or because stopping him would be a struggle and cause a commotion that would draw attention anyway so lose-lose.
DF – Nice to know at least one of them has considered the circumstances, anyway.

At the same time, she was neither apathetic nor hostile, but rather, of a strange organic neutrality.

DF – It’s because she thinks you couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to attack her while the enemy can find you.
NW – But they’re his allies. Except he’s going to betray them. Except he hasn’t done it yet so they don’t know he’s a traitor.
DF – Except they hate him and would probably kill him anyway.
NW – Except they never did kill him despite all the opportunities in the city. Except he was was useful then. Except now they can probably use all the soldiers they can and – [head asplode]
DF – Wait! I can fix this! [fetches defibrillator]
Morbo – For a head wound?
http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/3794/morbo.jpg
Defibrillators do not work that way!
DF – Considering the concentrated stupid in this book, can’t you overlook the silly just this once? I needs help on this thing. (And I don’t want to be responsible for Nate’s death.)

HNW – Behold, I am now headless Nate Winchester!

One that was enough to convince him that she was just as, or maybe more propitious than the collective.

HNW –

He withdrew his talon.

HNW – Considering all the uses for “talon” he has, this could be another drink for the innuendo game.
DF – brb, need to LMAO.

The swell of tension was suddenly released. The rest of the draconic legion rushed by, trailed by a few weaker units that lagged behind. Lyconel nonverbally motioned

DF – Aren’t all motions nonverbal?
HNW – That’s what she said.
DF – …Yes. Yes I did.

for everyone to stay amidst the guise of the shade for a minute before rising once more.
“Follow my lead,” she advisedly commanded

HNW – Wow, now he can’t even keep continuity within one sentence.
DF – It was inevitable, really.
HNW – Soon he’ll actually violate continuity between letters themselves.
DF – Well, at least we have something to look forward to.

She started toward the east, where the dragon army had turned. Behind her, her warriors followed her trail, careful not to strike any sounds in the air and not to leave any massive clawprints in the dirt.

HNW – Didn’t thousands, if not millions of dragons pass by? What will four more footprints matter?
DF – You don’t understand! They have to be stealthy and stuff even if there’s absolutely no point!

Even though the forest was upside-down, there was no reason to assume that the foliage hanging at the floor would conceal any blatantly clumsy marks.

HNW – But all the snapped tree limbs would be a dead give-away.

Marks that were haphazard enough to leave permanent scars in the ground were frequent of reptiles.

HNW – Someone’s never heard of erosion…
DF – Someone’s never heard of a lot of things…

Reptiles like Dennagon, who had left a scar upon something immaterial in the stead of something upon the lands. He had already shown his new clan just about how loyal he was in that near-miss treachery.

DF – Funny how you didn’t care about that five minutes ago.
HNW – At this point, maybe Lysol should ask if the world is even worth saving.

The feeling always made him feel like a furnace had been lit up in his chest, for he always sensed the pain and anguish of others.

DF – And yet, you never act like it.

Thence, he could touch upon the discomfort he had generated just now. There was an uncertain air all around of what everyone was thinking to themselves.
Then again, the situation was always uncertain in the theater of war. He had to do what was strategic, considering the variables he was aware of at the time.

DF – So in other words, you’ve just screwed yourself over.

Only weaklings moaned at the agony of battle, and definitely at the injuring of a potential enemy. There was no time to brood over such meaningless individuals whom he was probably going to ditch later anyway. Taking back his warrior’s heart, he pressed on to find out where his new friend was taking him.

HNW – My eyes!
DF – The goggles do nothing! [gets a blindfold] (Take a shot, guys!)

—————
At the center of the Pedorian Forest, there was a lake that many creatures journeyed to in the past. Inverted like the rest of the woodland, it was unbound by gravity and hung in the air like a floating dome.

HNW – Then it’s not really a lake is it?
DF – This is what I hate about these exotic locations, by the way. There’s no consistency. If everything up to and including the lake and the patches of ground the shrubs are growing from is floating up in the air, then why aren’t the dragons affected by whatever’s causing that? I WANT TO SEE COMICAL FLOATING DRAGON SCENES, DAMMIT!
HNW – You know, it worked in Thief 1 when you were in the mouth of hell and there were lakes on the cave ceiling… but then it was supposed to be trippy.

Its flat, rippling surface

HNW – oxyMORON.

faced the ground below as if to act as a mirror or a watery lens,

DF – Forest fires were common in this area…

yet there was nothing but the stars in the sky to see.

HNW – But everything’s upside down… so are there stars in the ground or…
DF – At least in Sabrous, not making sense is part of the joke.

The same stars that appeared every night just as the celestial maps stated they should.

HNW – Rotation? Red shift? Nope, the universe is completely static.

There were no planets, asteroids or meteors, let alone the occasional fireballs that quarreling idiot magicians used against one another in the fields of petty human battles.

HNW – Again, you are standing on a planet you know.
DF – No, he doesn’t.

Most of all, though, there was no Moon, which was something the World missed dearly.

HNW – Everyone kept telling World that there were other Moons in the sky, but she refused to listen and just sat on the couch, eating chocolate ice cream.
DF – And watching Lifetime.

That was why the lake was there, for the globe coveted its sister, its companion to join it in heavenly harmony. The liquid lens watched the skies every night to linger on that hope.

HNW – Oh we should really introduce her to Mogo.

However, as so many religious fools of the past, there were many who came here that had no hope. At the present, the remnant army of Drakemight congregated, shaken

DF & HNW – Not stirred.

under their armor. Coolly, they tried to regain their equanimity

DF – Unfortunately, they tried too hard and froze.

so that they could bare themselves of the humility of being units that could hardly keep a steady claw at the sign of devastation.

HNW – What? Not using ‘talon’? I’m shocked!
DF – Not using talon when he’s actually talking about the talon. Is there even a word for that?

Their homeland was destroyed, and they grieved less in their strategic loss than in the fact that they were also losing their vaunted images amongst their colleagues.

DF – You mean their dead colleagues back at the destroyed city they just left?
HNW – C’mon guys. Surviving such a devastating attack improves your image! Look at me, still sporking without a head.
DF – I guess extreme logic failure causing your head to asplode counts as an attack…
HNW – He made it clear early on that it’s us vs the author, foxy.
DF – Massive casualties have already been incurred – HOW MUCH LONGER MUST THE MADNESS CONTINUE?
HNW – WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?

Instead of thinking of ways to improve their situation, they only thought of ways they could pretend to be suave about it. The only parts of them that appeared to be okay were the parts that weren’t – their outward aspects.

DF – So, can anybody tell me what that last paragraph even means? Other than the dragons from the city congregated at the not-lake, I got nothing.
HNW – Ummmm… dragons are vain?
DF – By the way, this scene would be the self-destruct code for science teachers, wouldn’t it?
HNW – They waved the white flag two chapters back.

“How goes the night?” uttered Thargon to an amphiptere, a worm without wings,

DF – Actually, according to the book’s glossary and Wikipedia, amphipteres do have wings. I’m counting this as massive editing fail.
HNW – I keep reading that as “amphitheater” which makes the scene even funnier.
DF – I kept reading it as “amphibian”.
HNW – We… keep… reading… it… [sob]
DF – Aw, Nate, it’s okay.
HNW – No it’s not, I’m crying without a head!
DF – We’ll make it through this thing together. And we’ll get your head. Or a head. You’re not picky are you?

who appeared less secure. “Are you in the need of comfort, brethren? Perchance I can be of assistance, lesser one.”

DF – This is actually something that could have been made interesting. Well, despite the massive conflict with what Dennananana was whining about in the first chapter. There’s all these different kinds of dragons; how do they relate to one another?
HNW – Wait… this book has dragons?
DF – …

It snapped its fanged jowls at him.
“Slash thy breath, oh putrid one. I am stronger than you ten times ten!”
“What does that mean?”
“That means that if I had ten units of strength, you would only have one.”
“If that were the case then I would only be ten times as strong as you, not ten times ten as you said.”
The amphiptere opened its mouth for a rebuttal, but his immediate response was a sock in the face.

HNW – I remember when we had these days in math club.
DF – Is it time for another shot?
HNW – Sure, and this time we’ll let you (audience) pick what you’re drinking for.

Under the wavy waters, a brawl ensued, and the two grappled almost as purposelessly as men drunken with the addiction for dominance. Other sentries gathered around to gawk at the fight, males and females alike shouting in ardent displays of false zealousness.

HNW – So much for tired, drained dragons.
DF – Aren’t they just teh awesomez, folks?
HNW – I never thought I’d see the day I’d actually find negative kinds of awesome.

In the underbrush surrounding the perimeters, Dennagon crept, lured by the unambiguous ruckus that had broken out. In front of him, Lyconel, Dradicus, Lefius, and Nomax peeked through the shrubs, careful as to not be seen. Death would be instant if they were caught, and the mission they had on their heads was far too significant to fail. So significant that Lyconel hissed under the audible range of the sentries.

DF – Wouldn’t she be doing that anyway? Unless they’re trying to get caught…
HNW – It’s not quite a near-death but I hope everyone has their shot glasses ready…

From her throat, a vacillating whinny whispered into the auditory organs

DF – Time for another Sign You’re Too Pretentious?
HNW – Oh yeah. Sign #2 – In describing the dangers your characters are in you use the words “instant” and “death” in the same sentence.
And you can’t whisper a whinny either.
DF – And Sign #48 – You use more than three syllables for a part of the body that only needs one.

of her group. Everyone heard the message loud and clear.
“We have to stay out of sight, no matter what. Got it?”
Dennagon was not familiar with the language of the primordial reptiles, but he got the jist of the message anyway.

DF – How?

Her tone of voice was enough to warn him. Quietly, he asked the question everyone else was always afraid to ask.

DF – Translation: Denananana’s about to ask the dumbest question EVER.

“Why?”

DF – See? SEE?! (Brain vampires! BRAIN VAMPIRES!!)

“The Drakemight collective organized that attack upon itself. They’re as much the enemies as the sapiens are.”
“How can that be? I served them.”

HNW – That’s why she said “attack upon itself”!
DF – The hate was mutual!
HNW – “Sir, are you sure we should use all these nukes to kill just Denanananan?”
DF – “How many others might die in the attack?”
HNW – “Over nine thousand.”
DF – “Still totally worth it.”

“Then perhaps they didn’t let you know everything.”

DF – Or he just missed a lot while he was hiding in his room.

The moronic sentries began to brawl their way to their concealed spot. Luckily, they tackled each other away before coming too close. Alas, Thargon walloped his opponent away into a cluster of waiting sentries, knocking him unconscious against a wall of scales. When it was clear that the amphiptere was not going to rise, the spectators rallied and stomped on the defeated unit, shattering the little glory it once had.

HNW – Seems like the sapiens can win this war if they just wait a few days.
DF – Really, the dragons are doing a great job of defeating themselves.
HNW – It’s like fighting the French.
DF – I do kind of feel sorry for that amphiptere, though; he died just because he didn’t like being talked down to.

All the while, their animalistic grunts drew forth yet another visitor. A vast shadow swept over the hovering water like an eclipse of draconic form.

HNW – There’s no moon, only stars, and there’s “a vast shadow”?
DF – Well, the Big Bad has to have an awesome entrance.
HNW – It’s like on Dragon Half when Rosario would actually carry around buckets of dry ice to generate fog for his appearances.
DF – Maybe the Big Bad has a little minion flying around with a spotlight?
HNW – Exactly!
DF – It could work!

The dark umbra of Drekkenoth soared to the center of the gathering, lightless as it was haunting. Silence befell all the inhabitants as they watched the sable flames flare across the sky, neutral and ghastly in their heat’s aloof lordliness.

HNW – DF, how many Inigos do you think?
DF – I don’t even know anymore… headdesk

The king descended from above, reflecting his blackened fires against the rippling surface of the airborne body of water. Ebony light streamed over all the sentries of Drakemight.

HNW – A rave broke out among the dragons.
DF – An oxyMORON rave.

Dennagon now thought he understood. They were probably here in temporary transit to an auxiliary outpost he had heard of often. He couldn’t remember the name, though.

HNW – Area 51?

It was of no importance what it was called.

DF – That’s right…don’t worry about it…there is no Area 51.
HNW – [types it into google maps] You’re right!

He remembered only the most significant fact, that it served as a safe haven in the case that Drakemight was taken.

HNW – Yes that’s kind of the point of outposts.
DF – You mean they’re not like outhouses?
HNW – They could be. Never said they were impressive outposts.

Drekkenoth seemed to be taking on his mechanically patient carriage as usual.

HNW – Aren’t all carriages patient? The horses pulling it might not be but technically any device is going to be “mechanically patient”. That’s why the term “inanimate object” was coined.

While Dennagon almost viewed the king as a silent hero, Lyconel shirked

DF –
HNW – 2nd one for “silent hero” as we’ve seen the king talk plenty.

at the sight of him. It was as if she were in the presence of a demon bent upon deceit in the most cunning of ways, for it was apparent that she was not afraid of his sheer power.

HNW – Get it? Get it? GET IT?
DF – I get it, it’s time for another shot!

There was something else she despised about him and the expression on her face conveyed a form of anger he had never seen in any dragon.

DF – Given the very recent actions of the other sentries…really?

Certainly never on the face of lord Drekkenoth, whose unmatched stoicism had many believe that he was a clockwork machine.

HNW – I’m not sure you get it. DO YOU GET IT?!?!?!?5
DF – You’re scaring me.
HNW – I just want to be sure you get it.

Dradicus, the wurm who had taken Dennagon earlier, poked Lyconel with his tail.

HNW – Lysol gets all the tail she wants.

“Should I scout?” he asked, true to his duty.
“It’s too dangerous. Recon is of the utmost importance.”

HNW – “Is that a yes or no? I’m confused ma’am.”
DF – But…recon is…and they’re already…ARGH.

And recon they sought. Eyes locked forward, they watched the legion as the dark lord hovered above like a demi-god. Drekkenoth said not a word for a few seconds, as if every spoken vowel and consonant was worth waiting for.

DF – He actually speaks in letters instead of words?
HNW – Aye.
DF – Oh.
HNW – Si.
DF – Why?
HNW – You.
DF – oic lolololololol!!!
HNW – zzzzzzzzz

Loyally as canines, the sentries did wait, every moment their pupils focused upon their master.

DF – “Now, play dead!”
HNW – “I left my slippers in Drakemight. Go fetch them!”
DF – “You, over there! Balance this dragon biscuit on your nose!”
HNW – “Hey! No! We do not do that in the upside down forest. Bad dragon!”

Then, in a mighty thundering voice, he started his speech.

DF – “You all suck, and I wish you’d died in that fire.”
HNW – A cheer went up in the crowd.
DF – “Nobody ever listens to me.”

“Silence,” he commanded even though there was already silence to begin with.

DF – Then why say it?
HNW – “Silence! I concur!”

“Our walls are destroyed, but we have not yet lost this battle.

HNW – Nope, I’m pretty sure you have.
DF – Now he can go gloat to the other Evil Overlords about how he defeated himself.
HNW – Just like Gargamel, Cobra Commander or… any villain from the 80’s really.

We must advance upon the human armies lest they wreak their havoc upon the remainder of the World.

DF – Yes, because they’ve been so successful against the humans so far.
HNW – Only while reading books.
DF – But all their books have burned up now.
HNW – Well they’re boned.

The World that is our home and matriarch.”
For a few moments, there was an awkward shuffle as the sentries looked to one another for guidance. One mildly brave unit spoke up.
“B-but they’ve grown too strong. We cannot hold them off.”
Others joined in.
“We’ll not be able to withstand another attack! Didst you not experience their new sorcery?”
“Those projectiles from the sky came as if from hell itself!”

HNW – “Sure it seems not to have killed any of us but we lost all of our pokemon cards!”
DF – Hell is in the sky?
HNW – Well if Heaven is a place on earth than I guess it’d have to be.

Drakkenoth raised a talon high over his head.

DF – Now, which talon do you think he’s referring to? X3
HNW – It’s everyone’s favorite new game show: “Guess the Talon.”
DF – Even more popular than “State the Obvious!”
HNW – I’m still going with my filthy innuendo guess.
DF – Wow Nate, you’ve just played both games at once!

All units cowered, expecting for it to blast them away into the night.

DF – And he would have been right to do so, because these dragons are pathetic!

However, as he drove it down, he hit not one of his subordinates but instead ran right through the floating lake. The airborne water splashed into the air, warping his massive image as he streamed down through it like a bombshell.

DF – Wait. What?
HNW – Ummm… cream count? Oh wait, wrong bombshell.

The liquid never seeming to touch his black fires, he drilled directly into the ground, slamming his claws right through the surface.

HNW – Wait… is this the ground that’s in the air, or the ground ground. Damn this upside down zone!

A potent yet non-lethal quake shuddered the lands and he ripped out something from the earth.
Ebony fluid crystal dripped down his drenched palms to his forearm like oily tar of saccharine glimmer.

DF – ‘Oily tar of saccharine glimmer.’ Okay, just…wow. Yeah.
HNW – When IHOP recipies go bad.

The sugary substance spilled from the hole in the terrain that he created, yet it was hardly of petroleum produced. It was the knowledge of the world, the veins that lined every inch of the globe from pole to pole

DF – So it’s like mako? This is starting to sound like a particularly bad FF VII spin-off.
HNW – Dirge of Cerebus?
DF – Even worse.
HNW – That’s unpossible. Although now I know how to get ditches dug at my house. “Hey kids, forget studying, just dig up knowledge.”

so that humans could attempt to eradicate it and dragons could strive to fight for it. Pure, untainted knowledge in tangible form.
“They are mightier than you are as of now. Their craving for ignorance draws them to destroy this existence as metal is drawn to neodymium.

DF – I looked up neodymium, and while it does apparently make a great magnet, it first needs to be magnetized.
HNW – Ok, let’s accept knowledge is tangible—-
DF – And edible!
HNW – and edible for a moment. Wouldn’t then “craving for ignorance” be the equivalent of “craving for hunger”?

That is why we need this, the data of the World, to seize the lands that belong to us.”

DF – Congratulations, you just wasted time to explain things that everybody already knows.

A dissatisfied clamor loomed about the crowd.
“What is that word? ‘Data’?” inquired a sentry.
Dennagon was just about to ask the same thing. He had heard the term used frequently, and had even attempted to use it himself a few times. It seemed to have something to do with wisdom.
“Yes,” added another sentry. “Why do you keep using it?”

HNW – Hey book – hands of Inigo! He’s ours!

Drekkenoth did not answer. This time, his quietude was not in awe seen.
“I say his leadership wavers,” said the last sentry. “He cannot command us any longer.”

DF – Said Count: 12

They started to draw their weapons. Visions of glory suddenly filled their minds as they dreamed about killing the one who controlled them for so long. Despite the fact that they thought he had saved their lives for so long, the only thing they thought of was triumph.

HNW – So I guess they didn’t think he’d saved their lives since that’d be an additional thing to think.
DF – Seriously, how are these dragons superior to humans?
HNW – The rest are worse?

In fantasies deluged, they prepared for an attack.

DF – Sure you don’t mean, “for an attack, they prepared”?
Yoda – Steal my shtick, everyone does.

“Kill him.”
Drakkenoth was as still as a mountain. Violently, the hordes unleashed a storm upon their master, blades smashing against his sinew, claws scraping against his shadowy scales, tails lashing his face and biceps, and flames tearing from the mouths of the masses

HNW – Oops, almost missed the ‘m’ there.
DF – “Now you can die in a fire! Except…you are a fire… Um…….”

attempting to incinerate him. It seemed so incredibly vehement that even Dennagon was ready to believe that the lord would collapse under the insanity,

HNW – Because the audience has.
DF – Several times.

since no creature in his long years had he ever seen survive such an assault. He prepared for a gory mess, one that would herald the end of a dynasty.

DF – How do you get gore from a fire?
HNW – It’s kind of like a potato in the microwave.
DF – …Okay, I give up. How is it like a potato in the microwave?
HNW – Well you have to get an orphan and a bonfire…
DF – …
HNW – You’re right… almost nobody has that album).

However, as dragon sentries

DF – I want to make sure you don’t forget they’re dragons.
HNW – That would be terrible.

began to tire, they receded, revealing the draconic leader, who was still as solid as a living monument. Not one attack had even scarred his dark scales, and there was not a hint of disturbance in his face. The attacks, if he even felt them, had about as much effect as a pebble striking a grand sequoia.

HNW – A pebble would kind of chip the bark on a tree so critical analogy fail.

“Heh, heh, heh,” he chuckled in mechanistic pace.

DF – Can it get any more anvilicious, folks?

From tranquility to emotionless rage,

DF – If he’s emotionless, then it’s not rage, now is it?
HNW – And i’m pretty sure tranquility and emotionless are redundant.
DF – Well, tranquility is calm, and calm is an emotion, isn’t it?
HNW – According to thesaurus.com, calm has unemotional, dispassionate as synonyms. Which emotionless does too so…
DF – Well, okay then.

he suddenly burst with hellish havoc. His colossal talons ripped through the air, smashing his assailants away until they all knew that they had instantaneously become the prey.

HNW – Well doesn’t he feel silly after that inspirational speech? Imagine Braveheart killing all those scots after rallying them.
DF – I like my version of the inspirational speech better.
HNW – Especially with random violence added.

With ease, his claws and fangs tore through metal armor like knives through paper scrolls,

HNW – You know, depending on the size and thickness of the scroll, a knife could easily NOT tear through. Also, paper is very flexible which makes stabbing it very difficult, so again, not easy.

and reptiles flew even without their wings. Their weapons dropped as they scattered, completely disoriented in the chaos wrought. It was like they had been hit by a tidal wave the size of an ocean.
They tried to retreat into the woods even though they knew it was futile. As fast as lightning, Drakkenoth crossed his talons and drew from his scabbards two swords with blades that were forged of onyx crystal.

DF – And again, I call BS. Onyx is a hard stone (7 on the Mohs scale), but it’s not very strong, partly because it’s so hard. A blade made of onyx would look pretty, but when used to actually hit armor and scales (the kind of scales that, by the way, only got nicked when hit hard with a rapier/foil in the prologue), would probably not keep a sharp edge for very long. Assuming the blade didn’t simply break off or shatter like glass, of course.
HNW – And how does he plan to win a war without any soldiers?
DF – Well, he’s not exactly the master of thinking things through. He had his own city attacked, after all.

Thunderously, he heaved his weapons at them,

DF – Swords are not throwing weapons.

several tons of crystal and metal soaring across the air as quickly and easily as a feather swiped through the icy winter torrents.

HNW – Feathers can’t swipe through torrents. It’s like the author knows nothing about everything.
DF – Well, it would explain a lot.

Blood splattered all over and severed body parts were cast in all directions, the duress of a bestial fury untamed directing the wrath without care for life.

DF – And this is the guy they put in charge.
HNW – He promised them universal health care. AFTER HE MAIMED THEM.

There was no heed in the destroyer’s eyes as he struck, killing some and mutilating others. There was only a sentience that lived on a secret hidden within the dark fires. A sentience that drove him like the clock he was theorized to be.

HNW – Hey rebels? Now might be a good time to escape.
DF – But they haven’t learned anything yet! Well, except that the sentries suck, and their boss is a sadist, and that they’re probably not going to succeed at anything anytime soon…
HNW – They’ve also learned they can get the Big Bad to kill himself if they use a mirror and a talented impresionist venquilitrist.

Horrified, Dennagon could only espy as the severed limbs and hacked torsos flew through the air and splashed into the hovering lake, painting its water with shades of dark, silver blood. Of course, the lake itself never shattered, for the force of gravity that seemed to lie in the middle of the air suspended it as a passive observer. It simply absorbed the gore until the massacre came to an end.

HNW – So… there’s gravity making it upside down but none of the characters are upside down?
DF – Like I said, no consistency.
HNW – Consistency’s optional.

Carrion littered the landscape. The vast majority of the sentries were still alive, but struggled in agony in their writhing postures.
“Do you comprehend?” questioned Drekkenoth.

DF – “That you just kicked our tails? Yeah, we comprehend that…”
HNW – “Here’s an idea sir. Why don’t you go fight the sapiens?”

“Information endows me with the strength of a million dragons. If you choose to remain ignorant, you shall perish.”

DF – “You’re going to kill us?!”
HNW – “We should gather a million and one dragons. Got it sir!”
DF – By the way, given their actions so far, they seem pretty ignorant despite all the information they’ve eaten.

A slow rotation of his head let him survey his fallen forces. Randomly, he grabbed one of them and chewed off its head. Casting the body away, he threw it toward the shrubs. The decapitated soma landed right behind Dennagon’s crew, splattering some of its innards upon them.
“Else, you can be as I.”

HNW – What if they don’t want to be cannibals?
DF – Respect for the dead and dying seems to be a foreign concept here.

Drekkenoth reached into his belt pouch. Sloshing sounds resounded as he retrieved a talon-full of soft black orbs. Each one dripped with precious knowledge, concentrating the might of erudition into rations. In one whirling motion, he flung them into the air, letting them disseminate in the atmosphere like flying spheres of caviar.

DF – These would be the flying variety of ESHFE.
HNW – Solid orbs made a sloshing sound?
DF – Now we know they’re high.

As if to imitate pollen, the orbs soared into the horizon and the unseen distance of the celestial sea, spreading out to vast stretches. Every sentry immediately got up of its war-torn belly and took to the air, desperately chasing the entities that they knew of as their source of strength. They ran as if their lives depended on it, and their wounds seemed trivial as compared to the need to understand the physical laws of the universe.

DF – But they…he…there’s a pool of knowledge right there! He opened it up, remember! …Then again, they are ESHFE addicts…
HNW – You know, the entire previous scene could have been fixed if the dragons had attacked their leader in a rush to get some of the “knowledge” he’d just opened up and coated his arm with.

Finally, Drekkenoth was alone. He did not even crack a smile at their cretinous behavior. His flames were completely soundless

HNW – Flames are always soundless, it’s the heat interacting with the fuel.
DF – So his flames have no fuel?
HNW – No, it’s just what causes sound, you can still have fuel that doesn’t cause sound when heated. Candles don’t deafen you.
DF – Ahhh, okay! I guess that’s it for Happy Fun Science Time for now.

as he sat meditating in the middle of the woodland, holding something within his heart and mind that not even the five units that spied on him could detect. Dennagon did not dare to speak, but could only hold his breath and view the dragon king whose raging conflagrations let not one decibel of noise into the vicinity.

HNW – The only way for sound to not be let into a place is for it to be absorbed by a surrounding material or to have a louder, more powerful sound wave canceling out others.
DF – His special fire is soundproofing material.

Lyconel was almost as still as the enemy she watched.

DF – Well, yeah… Did you expect her to jump out and start parading around in front of Drekkenoth?
HNW – At this point it’d be par for the course.

She had obviously done this before. Thus it was not a surprise when she heard the hums of rockets coming from above, encased in two balls of fire that shot down from the sky like shooting stars.

DF – Dragons from space!

Drekkenoth looked at his wristwatch. His angels of doom were right on time, as he always expected. Arxinor and Gorgash flew to his sides as they were ordered to, plunging through the floating waters in streaks of liquid bubbles.

HNW – Encased in fire? Shouldn’t they have evaporated the not-lake?
DF –
Logic is optional.

Obediently, they bowed.
“That went as calculated,” remarked Arxinor.
“Their pace in downloading has quickened,” descried Gorgash.
“Their minds will grow weak with the cognitive venom we have implanted.”

HNW – “And bashing their heads in probably weakened their minds too sir.”
DF – “So when is their next scheduled beating?”

Something shone in their eyes that were unlike anything in the medieval realm. Circuited veins bled into their corneas as they processed their data. Arxinor and Gorgash spoke simultaneously.

DF – They practiced for hours to get the timing right.
HNW – It’s that extra effort that makes them the favorite lieutants.
DF – And the only lieutenants after Apeoignaspai started speaking a split second after the other two.

“And our grasp over all will thicken.”
Arxinor then happened upon a thought a second before his slower colleague did.
“But what of the target ssssentry?” he asked.
“The one called Dennagon,” finished Gorgash.

DF – Because OF COURSE everything revolves around Dennananana!
HNW – “Sssssir. I sense he is near. Let’ssss talk about him.”

Drekkenoth delved into his internal database.

HNW – Is… is this still foreshadowing?
DF – I don’t know. I think it’s a mallet with “HE’S A MACHINE” written on it, actually.

“He is irrelevant. As long as the Lexicon is kept from their reaches, the mission will continue on,” he concluded.
Arxinor and Gorgash comprehended. They flashed their circuits through their sinew and took to the sky, serpentine wraiths of cyborganic nature born.

DF – And Yoda starts spinning in his grave again.

As comets, they streaked across the heavens, traveling to accomplish their next duties.
Meanwhile, their programmer continued meditating under the Pedorian Forest’s central lake, neither praying nor blaspheming.

HNW – Um… those aren’t your only two options when meditating. Also blaspheming means “speaking ____” so you can’t really do that while meditating anyway.
DF – He’s Drekkenoth! He can do anything!

He was just thinking, for that was what he was best at. Neuromech wiring piloted his intellectual coordination so that he could see his own mind’s workings with utmost clarity.

DF – Um…how?
HNW – Please! Let it end!
DF – Do I have to start singing The Song again so you’ll get it?
HNW – Forget the book, I want the world to end.
DF – Well, in that case, I don’t have that many connections, but I’ll see what I can do.
HNW – You’re just looking for an excuse to talk to Sephiroth.
DF – General Baal, actually.

Serenely sinister, he waited.
Dennagon, having been exposed to so many anomalous weirdities

HNW – Sign you’re too pretentious #11: You use the word “weirdities”.

in such a short time, was completely numbed. He began to implement the age-old question of what was real and what was not, and came to the conclusion that this was as absurd as any dream he had at night. After all, who was to say that anything he perceived at the moment was as tangible as it appeared? It was much more reasonable to assume that he had just been toiling with too much mana, and the magic had poisoned his thoughts. Yes, that was it wasn’t it? What was real? ‘Real’ was a word like anything else.

DF – And yet, when you actually have a weird dream, suddenly it has a meaning, “as there was a meaning to everything in life.”
HNW – Damn you Matrix! You’ve ruined fiction forever!
DF – There’s still no spoon? But I have ice cream!
HNW – Wait and you can drink it.

The ludicrousness of it all propelled him into a state of nihilism, and he thought he was still asleep. The only way to come out of a dream was to die, as he had once read in an ancient text. Thus, the only way to escape was to dash straight into his enemy so that it could free him from this whirlpool of the subconscious. Again, he was compelled to move toward the collective. To move toward this false Drekkenoth so that he could be extricated from this madness and awaken to his former realm. Then, he could live again to ponder whether or not that realm truly existed.

DF – I’d say something here about how that’s completely stupid, but I really want to see him kill himself like that.
HNW – Here we go people. The moment we’ve been waiting for. Ready shot glasses…

Fortunately, a sharp blow to the head with another stone knocked him out. Nomax had seen him edging toward visibility and acted as quickly as he ordinarily did.

DF – CURSE YOU, NOMAX!
HNW – drink

Lyconel, this time, agreed with the decision, and together, they quietly dragged their unconscious comrade away from the scene. Their moves were as silent as the stars twinkling above, and in clendestine sleekness, they swiftly skulked away, their enemy was left in a state of true solitude – but not a state of true ignorance. For Drekkenoth did not need to see his enemies in order to detect them. He needed only to feel them through the wristwatch that was wired to his very spinal cord,

DF – First of all; sensing things through a watch = LAME. Second, he knew they were there the whole time and he still talked about the whole plan?!
HNW – All he needed was a cat to pet.
DF – Hasn’t he ever heard of deceiving the enemy?! He could have made Dennagon doubt Lycanol, possibly gotten him back under his control as well as ruining everything for the enemy!
HNW – Or just killed them. After the group he tore apart I’m sure less than a half dozen would be a breeze.
DF – Seriously!

transmitting information through space and time into the mind that wanted to seize everything. He had battled eternity, and it was eternity that he wished to eliminate. Time was his prison, and in his causal shackles he had plotted for many an eon. Totality would be coming soon…

DF – To me, totality looks like this.

…and he would ring in its arrival.

HNW – It’s like the author had no idea how he wanted to end the chapter and just started throwing darts at a board of words.
DF – Ding, dong, the chapter’s done!
HNW – Foxy… this chapter hurt me.
DF – It’ll be okay…you did good.
HNW – No it won’t. I must hurt this book as it has hurt me…
DF – We will, Nate, we will. Next time, folks, we’re doing something very special!

Comment [13]

The Drunk Fox

Today, my friends, I’ve had a brainwave. Heck, more than a brainwave; a revelation. Even now I find myself at a loss for words, and I’m afraid I have to apologize. Because while you here at Twilight RULES may have become accustomed to the quirky antics of Nate and myself, we will have to prematurely end our spork series. On the other hand, we should all probably be grateful for this turn of events, because otherwise we would be insulting a truly great book, and slandering the name of a great author. Or still be insulting and slandering, in any case.

Kenneth Eng has worked hard and sacrificed much for his craft; who are we to judge and mock him? Rather than ripping apart his efforts, we fellow writers should be encouraging them, holding up the excellent characterization, exotic settings, and riveting plot of his book. Either that, or if we can’t add anything to the mountain of praise the author deserves, we should say nothing at all. After all, isn’t it best to be kind do those suffering the same trials as we do? Let today be the day we change our mindsets toward the positive! Let today be the day we begin to build others up, rather than tearing them down for their differences! Yes, today will be known as the start of a new perspective, a better perspective, one that breathes new life into the literary world! Dragons: Lexicon Triumvirate is a masterpiece, and we will no longer allow it to be treated as anything less! On this day, we will change the world!

Erm…sorry about that, I might have gotten a little carried away. Still, the point remains that from now on, things will be different. Sporking of any of Eng’s works will no longer be tolerated, at least by me (I can’t speak for anyone else, of course). Understand that I’m doing so out of respect for a fellow author, one who puts my attempts to shame. Call it what you like, but that is my stance on the subject.

Kenneth; if you’re reading, I would like to apologize too you too, for all the horrible things I said about your book. Even though I’m sure it’s not enough to ease any hurt I may have caused, but you should at least know that I’m sorry. Good luck to you in any future endeavors. Guys and girls here at TR; again, I’m sorry for ending the series early, but I hope you can understand my reasons. Sometime soon, I hope to start something new to make up for it; something more kinder, gentler, and more constructive.

The Head of Nate Winchester

I can no longer hide my feelings. This book is AWESOME. Every sentence of it brings tears of unexpressible joy to mine eyes. What could be cooler than zombies and robots and nukes? Only if it all involved dragons.

…

Wait, there’s dragons in this? Just stop writing everyone. We’ve reached the pinacle of literature, nothing else can ever be written.

Comment [8]

Aaaaand we’re back! Sorry about the wait, but we wanted to be sure that everything was just right for this chapter. And as promised, Nate and I are doing something very special for this chapter: an all-picture spork! For those of you who are new to this series, links to the previous parts can be found below:

Part 1, Chapter 1 – Part 1, Chapter 1 – Part 2, Part 3, Part 4a, Part 4b

And now, part 5a of the D:LT Spork:

An aerial river stretched out from the center of the Pedorian Forest, snaking over a vast grassy plain amid the morning sun.

DF –

It was a tube of transparent liquid that hovered above the fields, an aqueduct constructed neither of machine, dragon, thunderbird, kraken, nor man, but of nature in its infinite wisdom. Such oddities were commonplace in the realm of the World, for the environments of the planet were spawned forth from limitless imagination.

DF –

Such creativity could only have been crafted by the mind of a dragon

DF –

or a demon, or perhaps both united. No one knew where or how everything began, for that was the essence of the cosmos. Uncertain. Chaotic.

DF –

No matter how hard they tried, few warriors could challenge the tested temperament of entropy unbound. Few could defy the endless variation of the earth and catalog everything there was to know about it.

DF –

However, if no one tried to accomplish omniscience, no one would have existed in the first place.
Dennagon trudged through the grass, his noggin aching from having been twice stricken at close range.

DF –

Lyconel walked in front of him, but he could not do anything do her, for the rest of her comrades had their weapons drawn at his back. Nomax and Lefius, the two grunts, kept a close eye on him, ready to strike him down at any time. Behind them, the elder hydra that followed Lyconel into the grove of the Pedorian Forest seemed to be lagging greatly, slowing them down. He wondered why they didn’t just abandon him, since he was evidently too old to fight and too mutilated to heal even with the most powerful of spells. Regardless, judging by his looks, he appeared to be important.

DF –

Dradicus slithered warily around the area, jumping wildly from side to side. He could move faster than any of his colleagues, and for this speed, they made him the scout of the group. Constantly, he was assessing the peril of the environment according to enemy footprints, bestial scents and anything else that might indicate the presence of a malignant force. So far, on this fine morning, there was nothing to incite defensive actions, but they kept their guards up nonetheless.

NW –

He decided to take a short break. Wriggling across the ground to Dennagon’s side, he poked his new friend’s shoulder with a wurmy tail.
“By the way, I’m Dradicus, sibling of Lyconel

DF –

and scout of this dissident company. Good to have someone else on our side. That’s what we’re here for, to bring those without the sight of conscious to the realm of understanding.”
He was beginning to sound like a religious acolyte, and he knew it. Desisting in his pitiful tone, he resumed.
“Nice spellbook you have there. I personally never liked spells, since I don’t usually have the same mana capacity that most other dragons do. Magic makes me as thirsty as a desert in its drought season. Don’t ask me to cast any spells, nosiree-bob…”

NW –

Still no response. Perhaps he should focus less on himself.
“The ouroboros is Nomax and the wyvern is Lefius. Nomax likes bladed disks, but Lefius is more on the long-range side with his crossbow and all.”
Dradicus then pointed to the hydra.
“Old Ballaxior is the name of the hydra. He guides us through difficult times. His thoughts lay out our paths along this journey, for he has known war longer than any of us. Perhaps we like him because he does all the thinking for us.”

NW –

Dennagon’s face was as icy as a stone locked in frigid carbon dioxide. He was considering clocking the idiot over the head just as forcefully as he was knocked out twice last night. His aggressive stride made no effort to hide that.
Dradicus’ goofy smile receded off his visage. It was time to shut up again.

DF –

A wave of warped light flashed across the tube-like river from the distorted sunlight passing through the water. The contorted illumination washed over them, breaking the image of the solar entity into fractured fragments that melded together slightly at the connectedness of the fluid body. The sight intrigued Dennagon himself, for albeit he had traveled far and wide in his years as a knowledge hunter, he did no frequently see these types of bizarre landscapes. By rationale, if such places were common, then he should have witnessed far more of these kinds of terrestrial structures. Unless of course, he was being led somewhere unique.

NW –

That should not have been all too surprising. After all, in the past thirty hours, he had just lost his entire kingdom and was sent on a quest with a bunch of bandits

DF –

who he was now too weak to kill. He hadn’t had rations in a while, but it was not the disorientation of hunger that made him delusional. There was still a good amount of knowledge in the World to be salvaged and it was the need for such intellectual stimulation that was driving him nuts. He needed to learn something. Fast.

NW –

The first thing that came to mind was his enemy.
“What were those things?”
“What?” chimed Lyconel, even though she already suspected the answer.
“Those three dragons of steel veins that commanded the collective?”
“Technodragons. Futuristically enhanced reptiles.”
“Futuristic? What do you mean?”

NW –

Dradicus could not help but jump in. His mind was riddled with riddles and there was nothing more preponderant in his pondering brain than paradoxes preposterous.

NW –

“Yes, Lyconel. Tell us. What does the future mean? Is this not the future now constantly budding from the stems of the past? Thus should we not think of the future as analogous to the present and the past likewise melded with what is the ultimate ‘now’? Why then, do we even need a term annotated as the ‘future’?”

DF –

Lyconel rolled her eyes and tucked her head down at her inquisitive brother.
“Assuming that we ignore this oaf,” she said to Dennagon,

DF –

“Then we can assume that the future is composed of the unseen depths that lay ahead in the path we travel along time. Those Technodragons were augmented by a time not yet arrived in this World.”
Dennagon had read time travel stories many times before. They usually bored him out of his mind, what with all their senseless contradictions, and he hoped that this was not going to be another false myth told by an ignoramus.

NW –

“So what are they capable of?” he pragmatically questioned.
“Like all things in life, it matters less what they can do than what their ultimate purpose is.”
“And what would that be?”
“To take control of dragonkind and reap the spoils of victory alongside…the sapiens.”
The words nearly knocked him flat on his back. The sapiens were the nightmare race of all existence, feared by everyone in the collective since the time they were hatched. He could hardly imagine any sentry working peacefully in the presence of a human, let alone in the presence of the sapien subspecies that evolved from men. In fact, no one alive had ever seen a sapien and lived to tell about it as far as he knew.

DF –

Despite his shock, however, he was not completely weak-minded. He was open to other conceptions, even if his will strongly attached him to another.
“Are you surprised, Dennagon? Have you not noticed how knowledge breaks the free will of any creature, even a dragon?”

NW –

“That I have seen with my own two eyes, yet even mine eyes can lie.”
“As can mine, but for now, you have nothing to believe in. So hear me. The enemy collective is conspiring with the sapiens to corrupt the minds of all dragons so that the Lexicon remains forever hidden.”
“That implies that all the knowledge I was hunting was actually no more than mental contagion.”
Just then, he stepped on something squishy. A black orb splattered under his feet, spilling its sugary fluids all over his feet. Drekkenoth had actually thrown one of them that far, and it now painted his lower body in ebony. The putrid substance dripped off his abdomen, and he sampled it in his claws.
“Precisely,” Confirmed Lyconel. “We’re hunted because we refused to accept their data and their collective.”

NW –

Dennagon scented the sticky substance. Inside, he could feel that it contained the atomic number for uranium, something that the Archive had not yet discovered, along with other information about chemistry that the sentries would have desired. In addition to its valuable facts, it had a pleasant aroma, but now that he actually examined it closer, he could feel a swell of dark mana rolling around its atoms. It was so faint that it was barely discernable, but he could detect it anyway. A lesser organism would not have been able to.
“These black orbs. They’re meant to grant one knowledge of the workings of the World, but they bear an evil essence.” He shot a confused glance at Lyconel. “Why would the Drakemight collective want to damage its own units?”

NW –

Lyconel drew her mace. Running one of its spikes against her shoulder, she gave herself a small cut.
“A damaged organism heals itself with greater potency.”
Silver blood dripped from her wound.
“You see, Dennagon, now that they have tasted the dire holocaust of nuclear fire, they have hastened their absorption of information. Information, once wired into the draconic nervous system, can never be deleted. The more they work at gathering and consuming data, the more their minds grow corrupt and unwavering, as if their brains were water being frozen into unmoving and unchangeable ice. That’s why we need you.”
Dennagon, flattered and suspicious, cocked a brow.

NW –

“In order to defeat them, we must tap into the sole source of omniscience – the Lexicon.”
“And what have I that you don’t?”
“The Lexicon can only be acquired if one attains an object known as the Key. There are many obstacles on the way to this item, countless trials of difficulty that are meant to test the creatures that dare seek the ultimate goal of existence. These challenges, wrought with the influence of imagined physical laws from the powerful minds of the most potent magicians in all the lands, can only be surpassed by one who has extensive expertise on the laws of physics.”

DF –

Dennagon felt like taking a dump. Luckily, he hadn’t any fecal matter left in his empty stomach.

DF –

“Y-you must be jested once more.”
“Enough with the false modesty. We’ve been watching you through telepathic means.

DF –

You spent all your life reading those mountains of books that were piled up in your domicile.”
“I’ll even wager that he knows the gravitational force on the sun,” butted in Dradicus.
Dennagon was always prepared for battle. However, by the tone of their voices, he could tell that those “tests” he would have to encounter were all but easy to surpass. He wondered what kind of beasts he would have to fight later on…For now, nevertheless, he was just trying to absorb and accept that which seemed to be his fate.

NW –

“Are you certain about those things you say, warrior Lyconel?”
“As certain as one can be,” she replied with a twinkle in her eye.
Ballaxior craned his necks up, including the ones that had been severed. All of his heads looked up to the aerial river, which had turned greener whilst they mobilized. He pointed up, and everyone viewed the algae and vegetation that thrived in this part of the body of water. Finally, there would be rations to restore their much-needed nutrition.
“About time,” commented Dradicus.
Most of the crew could fly up thirty feet to reach it, but Lyconel and Dradicus weren’t blest with wings. It was a wonder how the former managed to soar to the sky without the aid of such bodily apparatuses, let alone how she survived the plunge from the clouds after she and Dennagon fought.

NW –

Notwithstanding, they all continued moving to find a spot where they could stop close enough to reach the water from the ground level.
As they walked the terrain began to slant. Tilting by 90-degrees, it curved around as if to wrap around a spiral formation, yet they were all still bound to it by gravity. Dennagon displayed a quizzical expression.
“Something wrong?” asked Lyconel.

NW –

As if she couldn’t tell just by looking.
“This land is twisted upon itself.”
“Like so many things in existence.”
“Yet, we’re still standing on it.”
“Space and time are relative. Direction and meaning are defined by relations.”

DF –

“Space…I do remember reading about space.”
He looked to the sky, wondering whether or not he should doubt the certitude of the outer vacuum that supposedly encased the entire globe. Before he could come to a conclusion, they ceased at a point where the land inverted by 180-degrees and the water was within talon’s reach. This part of the river practically bubbled with greenery, and the dragons dove their limbs into it. Algae started to collect on their scales.
Dennagon did not bother to gather any morsels of plankton, though. He would probably have expended more energy than he would have gained by doing so, since underwater verdure

DF –

was generally not the most appetizing of foods. He was more interested in the twisting land, seeing as to how the sky was now oriented toward where he used to be standing.
“I’ve never seen this element of the World before.”
“Believe me, there’s much more to be seen,” Lyconel said as she licked up some clumps of algae on her arms.

DF –

Spontaneously, she dove into the river and paddled through the liquid with her drake talons. Her actions frivolous, Dennagon grew impatient.
“What are you doing, bathing?! Where the heck are we going, anyway?”
“Direction is relative. I’ll tell you when I’m done.”
“This is ridiculous. Shouldn’t we be heading forth now?”

NW –

“I’m not moving on an empty stomach,” growled Nomax.
He too joined her in the waters. Shortly, Lefius dived in along with Ballaxior. Amidst the waters, they more easily consumed the aquatic vegetation floating throughout.
“Well, my friend,” said Dradicus as he patted Dennagon’s back. “Truth may be subjective, but one thing’s for sure – we need rations to survive.”
With that, he slithered into the liquid stream and joined the meager meal. Dennagon watched as they swam about like fish in a tank, bound to their need for nutrition.

DF –

He had starved himself of Drekkenoth’s black orbs long enough, and considering the circumstances now, he did not regret doing so. There was no reason not to forego the satisfaction of hunger in place of the necessity for progress.

DF –

“Then I shall find what must be found,” he muttered to himself.
He looked to the direction they were headed toward and espied the river up ahead. Squinting his eyes, he could faintly see what lay a mile away, and a crimson patch filled his vision. There was blood in the waters further on, which meant that there was meat. Savory carnage that was recently killed and probably plentiful enough to appease his extraordinary craving.

NW –

He was generally inclined to handle his duties before devouring rations, but since there were no assigned tasks to him at the moment, there was no reason to remain ascetic.

DF –

If he couldn’t assimilate any more knowledge, he might as well have a snack.
Licking his lips, he turned to inform his comrades of his departure. However, they appeared too occupied in their bantering and algae “feasting” to heed his leaving.
“I’ll be gone for just a moment,” he thought

DF –

as he started toward the other end of the river.

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