CHAPTER 17: THE TRIAL OF MADNESS
We watched from a high, wind-scoured peak, hidden by a clever overhang and Nyx's natural [Shadow's Embrace]. Below, the valley, now dubbed the "Somnus Vale" in my mind was unrecognizable. Where there had been sparse pines and rocky outcrops, a jungle now thrived. Vines thick as a man's arm coiled around trees that had grown to twice their height in a single day, their bark split and weeping a faint, phosphorescent sap. The air above the vale shimmered with pollen and psychic distortion, a visible haze of wrongness.
Down on the valley floor, the golden column of Royal Lancers had stalled. They had set up a perimeter, but the men looked uneasy, their polished armor seeming garish and out of place against the primordial, aggressive growth.
And then we saw him. Draco.
Even from this distance, his presence was a dissonant note. He stood at the edge of the unnatural forest, his white and gold tabard brilliant in the sun. He drew his sword, a blade that already seemed to gleam with a light of its own, and pointed it forward.
"This is the place!" his voice carried up to us, tinged with heroic bravado. "I can feel the corruption! The beast's foul magic has twisted this land! We will purge it!"
He mistakes our handiwork for mine, Nyx mused, a thread of dry amusement in her thought. He is a fool.
"He's a puppet," I corrected quietly. "The story is feeding him lines."
Draco led a squad of a dozen lancers into the vale. For the first hour, we heard the sounds of their progress—the hacking of blades against the unnaturally resilient vegetation, shouts of alarm as grasping vines snaked towards them. Then, the sounds changed. The shouts became less disciplined, more frantic.
Through the bond, Nyx shared her enhanced senses. I could see what they were seeing.
The trees seemed to shift when not looked at directly. The whispers Luna had warned of a side effect of the Fey-Moss spores were now a constant, maddening chorus just below the threshold of hearing. Pretender... False hero... Your destiny is a lie...
A lancer suddenly screamed, slashing wildly at a harmless, glowing mushroom. "Get away from me! Serpents! They're everywhere!"
Another began laughing hysterically, trying to climb a tree that was slick with the hallucinogenic sap.
Draco fought on, his face a mask of determined righteousness. "Stand fast! It is an illusion! A test of our faith!" He channeled a pulse of holy energy from his sword, a golden wave that should have cleansed dark magic. It washed over the flora. The plants, supercharged with Luna's neutral but potent growth stimulant, simply grew faster, thorns sprouting along the vines with audible snicks.
His holy magic was fertilizer to our alchemical sabotage.
[Plot Deviation: +5% (Total: 15%)]
[Subterfuge Proficiency: +10%]
The System was pleased. We were breaking the script in a way it couldn't easily counter.
By the afternoon, the squad was in tatters. Two men had to be physically restrained. Draco himself was sweating, his perfect hair disheveled, his eyes darting at every rustle and whisper. The unshakable confidence was cracking.
"This is not... this is not the lair of a mere beast," he muttered, parrying a vine that lashed out at him like a whip. "This is sorcery of a different kind."
Just as I had hoped. We were forcing him to question the narrative. We were introducing doubt.
Then, the story fought back.
As if on cue, a real threat emerged. Drawn by the chaotic energy and the panicked soldiers, a creature that actually belonged in these mountains appeared, a massive, territorial Rock Troll, a hulking beast of stone and rage. In the original novel, Draco would have slain this troll on his way to the dragon, a minor mini boss to showcase his strength.
The troll roared, charging out of a side canyon and slamming into the disoriented lancers. It was a perfect narrative correction, a chance for Draco to be a hero despite our interference.
This was the critical moment.
"Cassian," I said, my voice low. "It's time for the aerial corps to see its first action."
His grin was feral. "With pleasure."
Nyx dropped from our perch like a falling star. We didn't roar, we didn't announce our presence. We were a shadow, a sudden eclipse.
The troll had backhanded two lancers and was raising a massive fist to crush Draco, who was staring up at it with a mix of fury and desperation. This was his heroic moment.
It never came.
Nyx's Void Pulse hit the troll not as a killing blow, but as a precise, concussive slap. The soundless force struck the beast's shoulder, spinning it completely around and sending it stumbling back into the canyon it came from, confused and roaring in pain. It was a rebuke, not an execution.
We landed between the stunned Draco and the retreating troll. The remaining lancers stared, their minds already fractured by the hallucinations, now completely broken by the appearance of a creature of myth.
I looked down at Draco from Nyx's back. Cassian, behind me, had his sword drawn, his face a mask of cold authority.
Draco looked up, his blue eyes wide with shock, then dawning outrage. He saw the dragon, saw me, and his narrative programmed mind tried to categorize us. "You... you are the source of this corruption! You command this beast!"
I didn't deny it. I didn't confirm it. I simply looked at the chaotic, ruined state of his squad, at the hallucinating soldiers, at the vale we had created.
"Your 'Trial of Courage' is over, Blackwood," I said, my voice echoing slightly in the unnatural silence that had fallen. "The mountains have rejected you. Take your men and go. There is no glory for you here."
I saw the conflict in his eyes, the programmed desire to fight, to slay the dragon and the "dark lord" on its back, warring with the visceral evidence that he was outmatched and his mission was in shambles. The narrative was screaming at him to attack. Reality was screaming at him to retreat.
With a final, seething look of pure, undiluted hatred, the first real, unscripted emotion I had seen from him,he spat on the ground. "This is not over, pretender. The Light will purge your shadows."
He turned and began barking orders to his few coherent men, organizing a retreat. He was leaving. He had failed his quest.
[Quest Completed: The Gardener's Gambit]
[Reward: +800 Plot Points, "Subterfuge" Skill Tree Unlocked.]
[Major Plot Deviation: +10% (Total: 25%)]
[Warning: Protagonist Antagonization Level: High. Future encounters will be exponentially more hostile.]
As Nyx beat her wings and carried us back into the sky, I looked down at the retreating golden figure. I had won this battle. I had humiliated the Chosen One and broken a major story arc.
But I had also made myself a permanent fixture in his story. No longer a side character to be forgotten, but the primary antagonist he was destined to destroy.
The Dragon Baron was now officially the Dark Lord in the Hero's tale.
The game was on.
CHAPTER 17 COMPLETE
Next: The fallout. Draco returns to the Academy in disgrace, while Leo deals with the consequences of becoming the "villain" in a story he's trying to rewrite.
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