The Drachen Chronicles

The city

The twins standing on the shrill's body in its place,

"O my Frezal! We did it." Quinn had her hands up in the arm as she jumped around on the dead beast. She turned her head to see her brother. Quincey was clutching his chest, a puncture wound where the shrill hit the dragon was transferred to him,

"You good?" Quincey's hand glowed bright red searing the wound shut,

"Yes, fine, don't worry. We need to get moving." Quincey jumped off from the shrill's body. Quinn followed suit; as they did so a roar sounded from the opposite end of the field,

"Whatever it is. It's going to eat like a king tonight." Quincey looked back at the shrill and spit. Quinn looked at her arm it had a small bite mark on it,

"Yea it will. Which way was the city ruins?" Quincey shrugged,

"Should be a map in the ration bag." Quinn took the duffle bag off of the strap it was on her back,

"It is a miracle this thing stayed on."

"We should move a bit more into the forest unless you want to stand in an open field, perfectly good targets for anyone." Quinn looked up,

"O yes, good idea. That's why you were born a minute older, so wise in your old age." Quincey chuckled,

"Yea, yea, whatever half-pint." They made their way into the forest making sure to find a decently covered spot before looking at the map. Quinn opened it up as Quincey stood behind her,

"We must be here." He pointed to a spot on the map right next to a field,

"We headed about northwest of that." The city ruins were in the same direction they already walked,

"It seems about 10 miles from that field. We could make it in a few hours and find a place to camp. From there the research facility should be a mile if even. We can camp once we get to the city and look around for the research facility. How does that sound, Quinn?" Quinn, who still didn't know where they were on the map, nodded,

"Sounds great, let's get going." The forest was dense with trees and vines. Quinn was leading the way with her glave cutting away at the vines and grass. Quincey looked around and couldn't help but feel like they were being watched, but every time he moved his head to where he thought his viewer was there was nothing. Quinn was too focused on clearing a path to notice anything. Quincey put a hand on his sister's arm. Quinn stopped and turned to him,

"What?" Quincey lifted his finger to his mouth telling her to be quiet. Quinn started to listen in the distance. She heard some clacking, nothing abnormal, but the more she listened, the clacking seemed to be circling them. All of a sudden Quincey tackled her to the ground. She was startled at first, but she looked back as to where she was previously standing. A large what seemed like a scorpion tail had struck where her head just was. Quincey rolled off her and shot out a few blasts of light; striking the tail. They ricocheted off and were sent into the trees around them. The tail got free and shot back into the bushes. Both Quinn and Quincey shot up. Quinn took out her glave and dropped the bags. Quincey conjured a bow staff of pure white light. Quincey was all of the sudden knocked to the ground by a stiger. A larger tiger with pincers coming out of the top of its shoulder. Attached to its tail was a stinger it shot down at Quincey's head. He quickly moved it to the left, jerking his knee up into its stomach. Quinn quickly tried to stab it with her glave. It bounced off, but the beast noticed the impact. Quincey then opened his mouth and shot out a breath of fire at it. It burned the stigers' faces, it rolled off of Quincey. Landing on its side. Quinn sent an ice spike through its head for good measure. Quincey got up and wiped the dust off of him,

"Well, that was certainly something fun." Quinn laughed and looked at the creature,

"Why is everything out to kill us here? Like what the heck!" She leaned down and grabbed the bags she dropped,

"You good? We need to get to the city before nightfall. I'd hate to see what comes out at night here." Quincey nodded and shuddered,

"Nightmares sister simply nightmares." The twins grabbed their stuff and continued to walk forward. After a few hours and a few close calls with pygmies along with giant bugs. They made it to the outer rim of the city. It was a ruined marvel of tall skyscrapers and high rises scattered across the city in chunks. Trees and flowers spread everywhere, bright blues and dark purples. The trees wrapped and tangled themselves around the debris of the land. Streams and rivers had made their pathways through the city; carving out their way in the rubble,

"It is amazing how much plant life has taken already," Quinn said as she picked a nice lavender flower with three petals it instantly closed and hardened as she plucked it from the ground. She touched the tip where the petals met. It was sharper than she thought and as soon as she touched it she jerked her hand back,

"Ow!" A wave of crimson red spread across the flower starting from where her blood had made contact. Then it simply just disintegrated into red ash,

"Blood lavender is a nasty flower. It looks pretty but it can be used as a makeshift shiv. A very effective shiv seeing as if you get that ash into your skin it will start to burn." Quincey looked at the ash as it flew away with the wind. Quinn bent down and picked a few and put them into her bag,

"We might need one who knows." Quincey laughed,

"Maybe who knows. It's a horrible way to die." Quincey started to walk down from the little hill they were on. The city was a mess of destruction. They passed one house with a doorframe and the walls around it blasted out. Another building seemed to have collapsed in on itself. They made it to the downtown district. It was even worse. The giant buildings had fallen onto each other creating a bridge system and almost like if you entered one you could get anywhere in the tunnels that were made from it. One however was relatively still standing. It wasn't as tall as its brothers that had fallen next to it, but it was standing. An explosion seemed to have been triggered breaking out the wall on two of the floors,

"It certainly isn't the lux, but it will have to do" Quinn and Quincey made their way through the rubble and debris of broken buildings. Quinn stopped all of the sudden,

"Brother," she whispered, "look." Quincey turned his head and a deer came into sight. A beautiful Twelve point deer at the end of every point bloomed beautiful white lilies. Its fur was an almost golden brown color in the setting sun; it was dotted with white spots that made a flower pattern along its back. A screeching started to echo of the destroyed buildings getting louder and louder with each passing second. Quincey grabbed Quinn who was lost in the beauty of the deer. He quickly pulled her into a cave made by the debris of a*****e and laid flat on the ground. Now along with the screeching, the ground rumbled and shook then out of nowhere a wall of blue humanoid bodies came running past. The deer was hit by the wall of the flesh, a few of the beast stopping to eat it as the rest rushed past.

A few seconds later the monsters passed by leaving a few who were feasting on the deers' corpses. Quinn pushed her brother off her and started walking towards the monsters eating the deer. One looked up at her and a sort of humming scream came from it. Its eyes seemed to only be white dots of energy; its skin looked like all the water was sucked and evaporated. It stood up and started running towards Quinn, her eyes full of tears. She swept her hand to the side making black ice form on the ground. Quinn screamed as the creature got close enough to her and sent the ice on the ground through its chest impaling it on a black spire of ice. Its lifeless body being held up in the air. Quinn quickly crossed her arms summoning long spires of black shadow to impale the remaining two on the deer. Quinn ran up to the deer; wiping the tears away from her eyes. She bent down over the deer, her hands sinking into the ground. Quincey put his hand on her shoulder and bent down next to her,

"The one thing..." she sniffled and wiped her eyes again, "The one thing that wasn't trying to kill us." Quincey patted her shoulder,

"I know sis. I'm sorry about that; it was beautiful." He pulled her for a hug and she embraced him. After a few seconds, he let go and stood up,

"We should get a move on if we don't want to be caught by another one of those hoards. The building is only about another ten minutes from here." Quinn wiping the tears away from her face yet again; got up and began walking. Walking carefully now and making sure to take back roads and side paths as much as they could; they eventually made it to their shelter for the night. Quincey told Quinn to get some sleep. Stating,

"I can stay up for tonight, you can get tomorrow if we are still on this dreadful planet."