Dragon Harem Quest - Or: Saying You Were Gay Wasn't The Conversation-Ender You Hoped For

You take a moment to consider your options. And then a moment longer. And then a moment longer. And then you realise you're not really paying attention any more, you're enjoying the music. Your talons click against the stone floor as you tap your foot to the beat, nodding your head slightly.

"This is really good," you say. "Very on-mood - did you compose this yourself?"

He tries to hide it but you know proud preening when you see it. He tilts his head back, gazing down his nose at you with a half-lidded look of amusement. "You have excellent taste, then. But flattery alone will not save you, no matter how well-deserved~"

"Wait but-"

He flourishes his blade into a guard position, pointing it straight up between his eyes, and... not vanishes but something close enough that your eyes don't manage to adjust in time. One moment you're blinking at a red-rimmed shadow of the man where he used to be, the next you hear a whumpf of air being displaced behind you, and then a loud clang as he swipes his sword across your spine. It doesn't break your scales, of course not, even most magical blades can't do that, but boy does it hurt all the same with the strength he puts behind it. You're knocked off your feet and sent hurtling forward with a cry of confusion.

He reappears before you, sliding neatly back into place on the floor just in front of his coffin, trailing an overlapping series of afterimages. Oh, so that's what that was, you think to yourself as he wastes absolutely no time following up. He twists himself like a dancer, gracefully serving you high into the air like a ball with a backhand uppercut slice. He holds position, shifting into a more neutral fencing stance and- oh dear.

He starts stabbing you. He does not stop stabbing you. His arm literally blurs before your eyes and he keeps you aloft in the air with the sheer, relentless force of his unending flurry of thrusts. It's like lying on a mattress made of punches and pain. You're jostled and jarred this way and that, all five limbs dancing madly in the strange 'hurricane'.

"What-is-e-ven-hap-pen-ing-here!?" you exclaim in staccato.

You spy Issachar out of the corner of your eye, looking curiously up at the strange display.

"So you can actually feel that?" he asks.

"Yes-and-it-hurts-ve-ry-much-so-get-him-to-stop!"

The mystery man needs no further prompting it seems, because as soon as you shout at Issachar the barrage finally stops. He hops out of your way to let you fall, the blissful relief curdling into suspicion as it occurs to you that he stopped for a reason. You snap your head up and see him dramatically swish his cape outwards, power roiling and coalescing within the shadows of its folds only to erupt into the real world as a trio of fireballs.

"(Mother-)"

They catch you almost perfectly equidistant from the apex of your rise and the ground, sending you spinning out of control and into the wall beside the exit with a heavy crack of breaking stone. You're briefly astonished that you don't fall before you realise that's because you're stuck, horizontal, in your own Eldingar-shaped crater.

"Alright, that's quite enough of that," Issachar says firmly, striding forward to take your place opposite the mystery man. "If it's a fight you crave, I'll happily oblige."

The man takes a deep, theatrical bow, flourishing his extended rapier as he straightens back up. A heartbeat later and he's gone, vanished into afterimages as he goes skating around the edges of the room to appear behind Issachar. The so-called humble farmer swings his stolen mace around behind his head without even looking, deflecting the imminent slash with a keening clang. The man retraces his steps in the same fashion, reappearing before Issachar.

"Oho," he says. "Willing and able."

"In all things," Issachar replies.

You peel yourself out of the crater and fall to the floor in a heap as Issachar and the man rush forward to smack each other around with weapons some more, groaning and rubbing your aching head as you get your bearings. Who is this guy to be smacking around someone as magnificent and powerful and invincible as you? You've never heard of something undead that can do that! Not unless he's the product of an extremely powerful necromancer with a lot of time on his hands and some incredibly specific fetishes. Boyfriend material or not you have half a mind to end this nice and quick with some full-power lightning to the thorax. You get as far as parting your jaws when-


-you think better of it for a lot of reasons. Instead you divert the power down lesser channels and let it erupt from your hand instead, aiming a more precise bolt at the exceedingly pretty coffin-sleeper the moment he disengages from Issachar. He senses it early and whirls, parrying the bolt aside with a sweep of his blade - but it leaves him open, and Issachar capitalises. Thwack goes the mace-head against his side and he half-crumples with a gasp of pain. Baring his fangs as he whips his arm free of his back and seems to try and claw at Issachar despite the gloves blunting his talons. His cape whips around impossibly, billowing and rippling like a living thing as it follows the arc of his free hand and wraps tight around the haft of Issachar's stolen mace. The animated cape steals it right back, flinging it clear across the room on the backswing, and its wielder follows right up with a backhand swipe of his claws. Again it goes nowhere near Issachar, again the cape sweeps in at his command. Rippling shadows like oily black smoke billow from the hem as it swipes across Issachar's face, sending him reeling back as if punched in the mouth.

You charge, head down, shoulders set, aiming to spear the man straight into his 'bed' to give him something to think about. Your pounding footfalls are like thunder on the stone, rattling the gold where it lies as you drive into him with all the force of a train and-

-pass straight through the man-sized cloud of mist where he used to be.

THWACK

Straight into the side of the coffin. The thick stone cracks and crumbles and you fall headfirst into it, horned head flopping down on the mattress-thick leather padding along the bottom. You roll over, blinking blearily - that's weird, why are there four people fighting now? You didn't know Issachar had a friend. And the other guy too. You really want to lie down. Your head hurts and you're tired. There's even lots of gold around here too, perfect place for nap.

You think whatsisname is just showing off at Issachar at this point now he's up against someone unarmed. Doing all these fancy flourishes and forms that make his cape billow and swoosh impressively behind him, passing his rapier from hand to hand in a few of them. Issachar throws him back over a pile of treasure, coins scattering in all directions with a jingling crash, and he rises with something that isn't really a weapon at all. Some kind of golden religious icon, looks like a vase with flames coming out of it?

"Hah," the man scoffs. "Faith alone is not enough to defeat-" CLONK "-argh!"

He staggers back, cradling his split eyebrow. Issachar takes the opportunity to wipe the black blood residue off the icon with his thumb, setting it back down gently on the pile. This time he grasps the hilt of a sword while he's down there and springs up, drawing it in one explosive movement. It's some ornate silver thing, long and curved with a minimalist backswept guard shaped like zephyrs of wind.

He drives forward immediately, putting the coffin-renter on the defensive. Their blades flash in a dizzying array of cuts and feints and thrusts and parries, all too much for your very tired and achy mind to comprehend properly but you do know that Issachar must be pretty good to be fighting so evenly. Honestly your mind's wandering a bit, all that metal-on-metal crashing is already loud and getting louder as the fighting draws closer, in a minute the shirtless one's going to be stepping on your-

aha

Smack goes your tail against his ankles from behind, and it must be like getting tripped by a hellish combo of a whip, a flail and an entire thrown crocodile because it knocks his legs out from under him so violently he practically goes horizontal in mind-air before he hits the ground, hard. Issachar wastes no time kicking his sword away and leaping onto him, knee on his chest and sword to his throat. The tip rests on the ground, the hilt raised at an acute angle, poised to drop like a lever and behead him like a fish. He seems more confused about what just happened more than anything else.

"So," Issachar pants lightly, even and polite as ever. "Yield?"

The man bares his fangs in a hiss of frustration and vanishes again, turning to cold grey mist and zipping out from beneath Issachar. For a moment it looks like he's going to shoot straight through the exit, up the stairs and out of sight but instead he stops, reforming in the doorway with his back to the two of you. The cape obscures his body language somewhat but he seems tense, perhaps internally fighting over what to do next. But then, all of a sudden, he relaxes. He rakes his gloved claws through his long, silky locks in one slow, luxuriant, self-indulgent motion, complete with a brisk flick to fan out the ends. Clearly feeling much better about himself now he whirls around, his cape billowing out to accentuate the motion as he dramatically points at the pair of you.

"Yes!" he declares. "In this moment I, Lyrros, concede that the two of you have bested me! By right of combat I forfeit claim to this crypt!"

He rolls his wrist and curls his hand into a fist, silencing the magical gramophones. You have to admit there's a certain something lost about his whole ensemble when he's not got the appropriate musical accompaniment.

"Bravo," Issachar says with a little clap. "How many other visitors have you entertained like this?"

Lyrros pauses a moment. "Well. That depends. What year is it, by your calendar?"

"1373, same as everywhere else."

Lyrros closes his eyes and huffs, bringing one hand to his brow. "Typical. All this work and all this planning and what do I have to show for it? You'd be the first group to make it this far in a hundred years." He drops his hand, glancing at the both of you in turn. "What is it that brought you here then, if not my fearsome and mysterious legend?"

"If we beat you does that mean we get all this money?" you ask.

"Of course," he replies. "Consider it the bet I placed on myself to succeed."

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay."

He takes one more look at you before his gaze rises to meet Issachar's. "Is he quite well?" he asks.

"He tries his best," Issachar replies. "We did come here hoping to find a bit of unsecured capital, true, since Eldingar's gone through a few financial difficulties recently. But the main reason we know about this place at all is that, also recently, Eldingar came into possession of a magic map that pointed him to certain locations all over the continent. Thus far, they've pointed to... well, potential lovers."

Lyrros slowly, slowly, sloooooowly swings his gaze over to look at you. Lying amid the rubble of his stone-sided bed. You bare your fangs in a smile and wave. You feel confident you made a good impression.

"Innnnteresting," he says.

"Are... come to think of it are you sure you'll be okay to fly back to the spire?" Issachar asks, half-turning to face you. "You did get quite a smacking around just now, dragonscale or no."

"You're not my supervisor!" you retort. "I'm just a bit dizzy and sore, I'm not going to drop you or anything. Cold night air'd clear my head anyway! Or what, are you scared now?"

"Of smacking into a tree branch or six on the way back up in this light? Yes, moderately." He glances at Lyrros. "A little presumptuous I know, but is there a spare bedroom around here suitable to stay the night in?"

Lyrros whirls away from you both, drawing his cape across his body with an elegant flick of his wrist. "You may go where you wish and do as you please within these walls," he says imperiously. "Filled with ghosts and memories they may be, none will dare harm you while I walk these halls."

"... A simple 'yes' would have sufficed-" Issachar starts.

"Begone with you!" Lyrros declares over the top of him, throwing his cape back over his shoulder with a clothy flap and flutter. "Whether to home or to bed!"

[ ] Fly home with Issachar right now. You'll need to rest up tomorrow, but Lyrros will almost certainly come bother you there anyway because he just seems Like That.
[ ] Accept his offer(?) to stay the night in the spooky empty mansion. You don't know what Issachar was talking about with this 'bedroom' business, you're going to sleep right here right now on all this money and there's nobody who can stop you.