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claire-starsword · 2 months

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Bloodline of the Sacred Dragons - Chapter 2-7

[warning for violence and dismemberment on this one. yes you read that right. as opposed to me who did not pay attention to this on my first read. lol.]

The group emerged back into the fields, after safely crossing the mountains. They hurried on their journey, heading towards the Pao Plains.

By Krin and Tyrin's calculations, they should be a day ahead of the monsters. If they could get the mercenaries at Pao and come back, they would be able to ambush the enemies at the mountain path that led to the plains. The devils wouldn't be able to escape a trap in such a narrow pathway.

In the forest, Karin replaced Randolf as the lead. Tyrin gave the general directions by her side, and she decided the exact path to traverse according to the condition of the plants and other forest signs. Bleu was speechless on how observant she was, not letting the slightest detail pass unnoticed.

Bleu struggled the most with the thick cluster of trees. Unlike Camallia and Karna, he didn't have the power to heal everyone's exhaustion either. He grew frustrated with himself. Once they got to a wider place or a road he'd be able to stretch out his wings. He did his best to put up with it.

Once the sun had gone down, the group had finally come out the end of the forest, reaching the road between Bustoke and the Pao Plains.

And there, their calculations failed them.

They ran right into the monster squad that had stolen the Manual. A sudden encounter, one could say.

"They shouldn't be here by our calculations, so why…" Krin complained about the unexpected turn of events, as she stared at the twenty or so monsters that had appeared in front of them.

The devils were just as shocked as them.

"Impossible! Why is there a Sacred Dragon here?"

One of the monsters, accompanying the squad of harpies and armed lizardmen, stared wide-eyed at Bleu, with empty eyes devoid of light. Those eyes caught sight of Camallia by his side. The devil then understood everything.

"So you survived. And you guided them here. It's always you, always… Fine, if you'll be this much of a hindrance, then I, Ziduur, will end you just like those pursuing mages."

The monster's fangs showed over the corner of his lips, and his two horns, atop his head like a moth's antennas, swung backwards in a menacing stance. Deep crimson hair ran from the nape of his neck to his back like a mane, bristling. As if answering to that, the lizardmen raised their slimy triangular heads, their bifurcated tongues flickering through their lips. The harpies let out ear-piercing shrieks.

"If you want this, come and take it."

Ziduur held a box made of ebony. It was full of intricate inlay decorations with a foreign feel.

"Sir Bleu, there's no doubt, the Manual is in there!"

With Tyrin's shout, the battle began.

"Randolf, Tyrin, take care of the girls!"

While shouting, Bleu bolted towards Ziduur, as if drawn to the Manual in his hands. Cerberus followed behind him.

"Wait, don't just rush in, it won't go well if we fight separated," Randolf hastily stopped Camallia, who wanted to jump ahead as well.

"Bleu, come back right now! Bleu!"

Karin's voice did not reach Bleu, and he began to fight the harpies in midair.

All his pent up feelings were unleashed at once. And at the same time, he had confidence in being the one who always broke through the enemy lines. With that amount of enemies, he believed he could strike the commander at once and end the battle with that. There was no reason to eliminate them all. Once he retrieved the Manual, he could just disperse the rest of the enemies. The shorter the battle, the less likely it would be for Karin and the others to get hurt. And by defeating all the monsters himself, he could prove his power to them. Maybe then the girls would stay behind without a fuss, Bleu thought.

However, his reckless advance did not go as he expected.

Superior to him in speed and number, the harpies put up a tough fight against him. Wanting to rush to Ziduur straight away, he had become isolated from his allies.

Randolf and Camallia shielded the others, facing the incoming lizardmen head on.

"Bleu, I'll burn down these enemies, get out of the way!"

Krin began chanting a Blaze spell, but Karin stopped her. If she cast the flames in a wide area, Bleu would certainly get caught in them.

"Krin, give up and target a single enemy," Karin ordered, while shooting down an enemy away from Bleu with perfect accuracy. Their lack of coordination was apparent. Karin bit down her anger at Bleu's stupid actions.

"I won't show mercy to any who interfere. Join the hateful corpses that sleep under this earth."

Ziduur took out a piece of a crimson jewel, and held it tightly within his left hand, as if squeezing it. Beams of light came through between his fingers.

"That light!" Camallia shouted, alerting everyone.

Ziduur punched the ground. Thin sparks of crimson lightning ran at once over the surface.

"What did he do?"

Karna watched in awe as the ground in front of her began to stir, and something jumped out from within.

"Eep!" She let out a strangled scream as she came face to face with a skeleton.

"Get down!"

Hearing that shout from behind her, Karna got down while covering her head with both arms. The end of a flail flew past her, sending the skeleton's skull flying like a football. As she pulled the weapon back, Camallia smashed its upper body as well.

In the brief moment where Karna breathed a sigh of relief, more skeletons jumped from below, one after the other. Those skeletal warriors, carrying all kinds of different weapons, were the warped forms of monsters once defeated in that land, and the travelers they once killed.

"Are we surrounded?"

Watching the growing swarm of skeletons and lizardmen around them, Randolf swung his Battle Axe once again. If the monsters attacked all at once, they certainly wouldn't manage to defend against all of them.

Karna shouted for everyone to get closer together.

"O benevolent ones who watch upon all, please hear our prayers. Gather the righteous light within our hearts, and make it into a shield of holy brilliance!!"

By her incantation, the faint shine of the supporting spell Boost enveloped the whole group from within. The monsters with no flesh nor blood were driven away by that light.

Not wasting the opportunity, Randolf and Camallia attacked. The mages covered the openings between them, Tyrin freezing the enemies to stand as shields, and Krin erecting walls of fire with her Blaze spells. They were doing their best to defend themselves, but the situation still wasn't good as they were outnumbered.

On one swing, Camallia's flail became entangled in another flail wielded by a skeleton. The resulting forces made both of them lose their grips on their weapons. Without delay, the skeleton took a short sword from the back of its shield, and charged at the now empty-handed girl. Another short sword was thrown at the skeleton as it did that. By reflex, the skeleton knocked it down with its shield. Camallia jumped at the fallen sword, grabbing it and swinging it at the skeleton's leg to cut it down. The monster fell down as it lost its balance, and Camallia stepped on its bony body from over its shield, using all of her strength to crush it.

"Thank you, Sir Randolf."

Picking up her flail, she stood back to back with Randolf, who had moved backwards. She extended a hand in his direction, trying to return his short sword that had saved her from her predicament.

"I don't mind. Keep it. Without a spare weapon, something like this might happen to you again."

Answering that, he swung his blade at another monster.

At that time, Bleu was also surrounded by even more enemies than before.

Sacred Dragons had tough bodies and powerful attacks, but were in no way invincible. Their thick hide was hard to penetrate with a blade, yet at some point he had been wounded, and it bled. While he had finished off many of the harpies, he had also hurt his wings. The injury was not severe, but it made him unable to fight the remaining harpies in the air. Having fallen to the ground, Bleu faced a concentrated assault from the group of enemies.

Sustaining minor injuries all over his body, Bleu had made a pile of corpses out of his enemies. Yet he was clearly exhausted. Taking a fierce blow to his chest, he began to cough violently.

In this terrible moment, a lizardman brandished his Large Axe. In Bleu's current condition, he couldn't dodge or spew out his lightning breath.

The monsters became agitated.

Steeling himself for the fatal blow, Bleu saw a silver blur pass through the corner of his vision. Fresh blue blood spilled by. With a deep gash on his torso, the lizardman turned around only to be cut again like a paper doll by sharp claws, this time on the chest.

"Zylo!?" Bleu exclaimed in surprise, seeing the werewolf that had showed up behind the fallen lizardman.

"It's been a long time, Bleu."

Zylo's eyes had the glint of a wild beast hidden within, and he narrowed them in recognition for an instant.

Taking that as an opening, the harpies attacked from the sky.

"Watch out!"

Faster than Bleu's cry, Zylo jumped to the air. He spun next to harpy like a gear, hitting it with a somersault, and knocking it down hard to the ground. The blood from the harpy's torn neck ran in lines across her dead body.

"Before worrying for others, worry about yourself. Honestly, what a pathetic fight you put up. Have you forgotten your past experience? I'll show you how it is to fight as a group. Watch and learn."

Zylo howled.

The lizardmen and harpies flinched at the incoming chants of beast hunters. From its direction came the rushing sound of rain. A merciless rain of arrows…

Once the synchronized barrage of arrows ended, Zylo had also disappeared. Too fast for Bleu's eyes to keep up, he ran between the disoriented enemies, cutting them down as he passed them by. One by one they fell to the ground.

Having broken through the enemies surrounding them, Zylo reached Karin's group.

"It's Zylo, the king of Bustoke."

Krin calmed down the others, who were on guard, unsure if he was a new enemy.

"We'll regroup with Bleu. Follow me without delay," Zylo ordered, and turned away from them without waiting for an answer. He spoke as if certain that they'd obey. Not forceful. Just showing unwavering confidence.

"Diane!!" He shouted. In answer, a squad of archers appeared from the forest shadows, led by an elf girl. Their bowstrings rang as they once again released their arrows in unison.

Diane's archers concentrated their assault on the skeletons. The ropes tied in their arrows perfectly wrapped around their enemies. The skeletons hit by them fell down and tumbled through the ground. It seemed as if they knew what enemies they'd be facing, which made Krin impressed, but also a bit suspicious.

"Let's go!"

Zylo dashed away, heading towards Bleu, who had recovered some energy and continued to fight on his own. The others ran behind him as fast as they could.

"Karna, Camallia, heal Bleu, quickly!"

As Zylo and Randolf took the surrounding enemies down, Karin immediately asked the priests to tend to Bleu. While the archers of Bustoke kept lending them support, Camallia healed everyone who had been injured with Aura, the high level healing spell.

"Thank you, Camallia. You too, Karin…" Bleu thanked the girls.

"There's no time to waste," Zylo urged Bleu. "Let's retrieve the Manual at once with this."

Led by the wolf king, the group split apart the confused enemies. Separated from each other, they had no time to recover, and were shot down by Diane's squad.

"Now. Sir Bleu, the Manual!" Tyrin shouted.

Spreading his healed wings, Bleu flew over the skeletons. The monsters were knocked down by the wings and the gust of wind.

Ziduur held up the ruby in his hand. His body was enveloped in red light.

"Like I'll let you teleport!"

The monster had jumped away, but Bleu sliced him with his claws.

Ziduur's arm was torn and sent flying, tracing an arc in midair, weighted down by the ebony box it carried.

Bleu had his attention drawn to the Manual for a moment. Ziduur didn't miss that, casting a Blaze spell in that time. Bleu crossed his arms in front of him as the flames burst in front of him.

"Bleu!!"

Karin and Camallia left the few remaining monsters to Zylo, and ran to the dragon.

He looked down bitterly at the space Ziduur had teleported away from. It shimmered like hot air, proving that a devil stood there just a moment before.

He picked up the box with the Manual, and Camallia saw that both his arms were bleeding.

"Are you wounded?" she asked, walking to him.

"It's no big deal. Just scratches."

"Even a small injury cannot be left alone."

While he insisted that he was fine, Camallia softly kissed his wounds.

Bleu suddenly felt eyes on him, and tried to pull away from her.

"Please stay still."

Camallia's warm lips moved over his skin as she said the words. Her hot tongue traced over his wound, licking off the blood. Her throat made a glugging noise as she drank it. Her lips continued to move over it, trembling with her incomprehensible chants and sighs.

She let go after a while, and no trace of the wound was left.

"Bleu, the king of Bustoke is calling."

Karin only said that before turning her back and running away.

To next part>

Translation notes:

"Zidur" is apparently a word of a power to summon one of the creatures in the Necronomicon by Simon. I know nothing of that book other than a cursory look so I can't talk much about it, but do you know how hilarious it is to google a Shining Force thing and come up with a pdf full of demon rituals and absolutely no other results? Unparalled experience. Also, the character's name does have a longer "u" sound so I reflected that in my translation as well.

I don't recall Ziduur being explicitly referred to as a man, but his speech manners are pretty rough and he'll eventually be using the rough and masc "ore" pronoun, so unlike Otrant I just made the call to use he/him pronouns for him.

Zylo's species in the original game is given as "wolfling". His base class however is "werewolf", so nothing wrong here.

Up to this point I had been calling the dog "Cerberos" because that's closer to the japanese reading and I didn't think to look it up, but I was recently reminded that the games use "Cerberus" instead. I'd rather stick close to the official translations when it doesn't matter so I've updated past posts and will be using the game romanization from here on.

#shining series #shining force #shining force 2 #shining force novel translation #bloodline of the sacred dragons #sf bleu #there we go. the annoying arrogant protag has learned a valuable lesson about the real super power of teamwork!#now things can finally progress smoothly into a great team dynamic!#...#dont. don't look at the page count. don't- it's fine. it'll be fine #sf karin #if this was a game she should be the leader and not bleu just saying #or it could be a protag choice with a few route differences #*person who has only played two tactical rpgs in their life* hmm. getting a lot of fantasy maiden wars vibes from this #also there's clearly a love triangle rearing its ugly head here but i chose to see it as funny like. girl she's drinking his blood #repressed village girl who clearly doesn't have enough going on in her life watching camallia be a badass freak: God I Wish That Was Me #sfbotsd camallia #NORMAL WOMAN. ABSOLUTELY INCONSPICUOUS WOMAN. GODDAMN #and i refuse to complain she's so cool!! woman's wrongs the novel #sf2 karna twiggy #the boost chant is also so cool and i knew it from the nnd summary i used to watch so i've waited more than a year to show you pals #i wish she did more but i'm not unhappy with her role in battles here generally #sf2 randolf dongo #sf2 tyrin piper #sf krin #sf krin's cerberus #so uh. does anyone else feels the writer is constantly struggling to remember the dog's still here? i legit did not realize the first time #she hadn't been mentioned since the lab. i legit thought she had been left in manarina #a shame because a hellhound on the team is prime shining content and i wish it was better used. i wanna play with this beauty #goddamn this is a lot of characters but i do wanna ramble

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bigskydreaming · 5 years

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Why did (do?) the Magivians film you with rage?

Racism, homophobia and anti-survivors trifecta. They had an epic case of Bury Your Gays back in S1 where like, their gay character had to kill his new love interest in self-defense after that guy was possessed by the bad guy, and then when he was understandably upset afterwards because they’d made a point to hype this guy up as the first guy he’d ever had real feelings for, his friends were like boohoo get over it, which was like…swell, lol. Oh and then that same character ended up forced into a marriage with a woman for the sake of some fantasy kingdom he didn’t even give a shit about and was all of his friends’ quest way more than it was his, and only then did they decide to have him say a line about how he was mostly gay but was occasionally into women so bi a little bit even though he’d always ID’d as gay before then so it felt like a patch job to cover up the fact that they only belatedly realized oh hey forcing our gay lead into a hetero marriage he doesn’t want to be in is maybe Not A Good Look.

Oh and I do remember catching a bit of a S2 episode where like, the gay character was throwing an orgy in the palace to make himself feel better for being stuck in fantasy land ruling over a fantasy kingdom he gave no fucks about and was bored and lonely in….only to get chewed out by his wife slash queen (a native inhabitant of fantasy kingdom) about how rapey and coercive that was and an abuse of his power as king because his subjects didn’t feel like they had the option of opting out. Which to be perfectly clear, is an absolutely valid point to make….BUT the fact remains that like, they chose to write in that angle, and they chose to make their gay character the one to learn that Important Lesson About Consent and Power Dynamics….but oh yeah, they ALSO chose to write this particular gay character as forced into oh yeah, a hetero marriage he did not ask for and clearly did not want, for the sake of mystic prophecy bullshit resulting from someone ELSE’S personal quest. And that was just….so…oblivious to me? Its like….ummm….could you not have the Straights educate The Pervy Deviant Gay on Consent Issues WHILST FORCING HIM INTO A HETERO MARRIAGE WITH ONLY HIS EXTREMELY RELUCTANT AND DUBIOUS CONSENT AT BEST??? Hellooooooooooooooo??

Then the racism side of the Awful triangle was like, their only two PoC in the first season (other than the blind black headmaster who was all kinds of Tropey ‘Cryptic and Thus Untrustworthy’ from the way the narrative was framed which, no, stop)….the only other two PoC in the first season and main cast were the girl who just so happened to be set up by the plot as the one revealed to be the ‘traitor’ or whatever who was there at the school under false pretenses and just stealing magic for other hedge witches. Like yes, she was under duress because they were threatening her mom I think? But I mean it was still like super predictable having her be the character that was put in that position and forced to fill that role. And then Penny, the man of color in the main cast, like, again I only watched the first season sporadically because I was like Nope every other episode and just skimmed in the hopes it would get better cuz everyone I knew kept raving about it, but I specifically remember one scene where like Penny was singled out by one of his teachers and told how he was super powerful like way more than any of his peers because he had like wild magic or something…BUT then the teacher went on to basically tell him this was more of a curse than a gift because his own power would eventually burn him out and destroy him or something like that. It was definitely framed as an inevitability, like, just his fate, a natural consequence to being the kind of magician he was innately…super powerful but with a shortened lifespan essentially as a trade off, with no way around that.

And he was something like a Traveler, able to take himself and his friends between worlds? Which was great and super necessary for the plot but also a big part of what made his magic so destructive for him himself in the long run, so essentially the man of color got set up to be a glorified taxi cab for his white friends aka the LITERAL plot vehicle, with it announced to him very early on in the show that like ‘dont be too happy about how mad powerful you are, cuz its basically just gonna kill you way before all your friends end up biting it, sucks to be you kinda’. Again, this was early on in the show so I don’t know if that changed or they added more context to that later, but just the fact that his character in particular, like Kady’s, just so HAPPENED to be the one singled out for that particular plot niche and accompanying fate, like….that was fucking bogus from the jump.

Oh and also there was that really cool (in that not all sort of way) and totally not at all predictable (in that it totally was sorta way) antiblackness that reared its ugly head the second S2 introduced the oft-mentioned ‘barbarian kingdom’ that bordered Fantasy Land…..because hey guess whether or not the first appearance of more than one black person at a time on the show was when a whole bunch of black people showed up in S2 as oh yeah, you guessed it….the natives of the neighboring BARBARIAN Kingdom. Classy, Magicians. Way classy.

And then the anti-survivors angle of the Triangle of Suck, like, the show fucking HATES ‘bad survivors.’ You know, survivors who don’t embrace forgiveness and tra-la-la their way into the sunset and recovery while weaving daisy chains and leaving all their anger and thoughts of vengeance and retribution behind them in the past? Like, god forbid a survivor fucking HATE the person who hurt them and want to make them pay, which was essentially Julia’s S2 arc I believe? And boy was she fucking punished for that. Shit just got worse and worse for her, and it only got better when she decided to try the Healing Power of Forgiveness! Unlike one of her fellow survivors, raped by the same bastard who hurt her, who was also on the same Vengeance Quest as her, except she got murdered extremely graphically and painfully onscreen in like…narratively framed as a See Kids This Is Why Revenge Is Bad And You Should Not kinda way, that Julia was pretty clearly meant to learn from and Make Different Choices.

Oh and let’s not forget that the initial antagonist of the series, the dreaded Beast who killed tons of people and was the one who possessed the gay guy that the other gay guy had to kill right after their makeout session in self defense cuz lol why would that be traumatic…yeah, that Beast…..let’s not forget that he was another Bad Survivor, a guy who was molested by one of the series’ Significant Backstory People years and years ago when he was just a kid. And thus he was pretty blatantly a case of Look How Stewing In Your Hate For What Happened To You Instead of Forgetting All Your Worries and Your Strife Will ABSOLUTELY Turn You Into A Literal Monster Who Murders People and Is Evil and Bad And Must Be Slain For the Good of Alllllll the Land.

And there was actually a lot more than just that because Survivors was a definite Thing on the show, with lots of them showing up and established as being survivors in various ways and almost all of them like….being the focus of the series like….perpetual hard on for torture and torturous death scenes for various satellite characters. Like don’t get me wrong, the series pretty much kills people left and right, its just it weirdly just so happens that the first people standing in line to either the left or the right tended to be PoC, women, survivors, gay/bi characters or characters who lucked out and got to be all of the above for the handful of scenes before they met their untimely ‘Wouldn’t Wish It On My Worst Enemy Let Alone On My Or Any Friend of Mine’s Only Representation On This Show’ demise.

Anyway, yeah I hate that show and it dinged all my NOPE alarms hard from day one and I kept checking back in on it over the first season and then a little bit off and on after that in the hopes it had gotten better because I kept fucking hearing all over twitter and tumblr how amazing it was and progressive it was and I’d watch the latest episode, jump up, yank my hair out and screech like a gibbon monkey while speaking in tongues and asking the universe to help explain to me what the fuck was I missing here, where was all this lauded Progressivism I was supposed to be taking away from all the miserable, tortured and murdered - and also abused, raped and exploited - PoC and occasional white gays or women tossed in to round out the variety pack??!?! Just did not see it, at all, Error 404 Not Found, Did Not Compute, and then I’d hop back on tumblr and see people raving about the same stuff that just whipped me into a frothing rage and I’d be like I DONT UNDERSTAND WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE WHAT IS GOING ON ARE WE USING THE SAME WORDS OR DO I NOT KNOW WHAT THE WORDS MEAN CORRECTLY OR….

Ugh. Yeah. So like I said….nooooot a fan. And also, fans of the show plz don’t @ me if I got things mixed up there or inaccurately remembered a scene I referenced, I’m not claiming to have perfect recall of a show that was actively pissing me off while I watched it and thus I was kinda TRYING not to pay full attention to. I just know that I definitely got a full helping of racism, homophobia and anti-survivor bullshit in SOME form or another from each and every episode I did watch. I freely admit that like, I’m not necessarily describing or denoting the actual things that pissed me off or registered that way to me, like.. for sure accurately here….again, I haven’t watched the show at all in a couple years and I’m not trying to be like This Is Definitely What Happened In This Scene and This Scene. Its more just one of those things where like, I definitely remember these are reasons I hated the show and I’ve put a lot of effort into NOT thinking about it or remembering it, so this is just how that jumbled mess all came out right now while trying to sort through it all and remember specific instances of the Triangle of Suck that made me rage so hard. There’s a reason I’ve never gone around actively engaging in Magicians Discourse or encouraging people not to watch it, lol, I don’t claim to be an expert on it or to have taken extensive notes of my Rage Reasons at the time of watching. Just that like….they were definitely there, and this was the general vicinity of the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

#Anonymous #rape cw #antiblackness cw #racism cw #vague seasons old magicians spoilers I guess?#idk #whats the statute of limitations on those idek

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