System Change

“Lyra wants us to move away from her and the smaller dragonkin before we bring out the wyvern,” Avery said after Derek brought out the last couple of drakes from his Time Prison. “She’s got them under control for now without having to use too much mana, but she’s afraid that seeing one of the wyverns will influence them and set them off. Right now, she only has to use suggestions, and they think they are in their territory.”

“Okay,” Derek said. “We’ll do that. How far away do we need to go?”

“Not far,” Avery replied. “The other side of the clearing should work. And if we act fast, we should be able to keep them contained before they are able to do anything to draw much attention over there.”

“Sounds good,” Derek said. “Let’s go.”

Derek, Avery, Tyron, and Rocky moved to the opposite side of the clearing, leaving Lyra alone with the other beasts. Avery made sure to leave Lyra with plenty of Mana Potions on the off chance that something was to go wrong. Finally, Derek opened his Time Prison once again, except this time, he made sure to make it even bigger than before—the wyverns were massive.

“Which one do you want to deal with first?” Derek asked.

Avery looked over at Tyron and Rocky and rubbed his chin. “I think the earth element one should be the easier one to deal with. Rocky and Tyron’s own elements should be able to overpower that wyvern pretty easily. What do you think?” Avery asked Tyron.

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” the big smith answered. “Give us a couple minutes to prepare and we should be able to trap it.”

Derek nodded and watched as the ground on the outside of his Time Prison began to change. The earth slowly moved away and was soon replaced by a bubbling, dark metallic liquid. Oh… he’s going to trap the earth wyvern inside a metal casing. If he can do it enough to limit all its movement, that should work great.

“Do you think one of them will be able to survive inside this?” Tyron asked. “It didn’t hurt that last monster in the raid that much.”

“That thing was abnormal—extremely abnormal,” Avery replied. “As I am now, I could take out one of the wyverns by myself. But I think this should work just fine—especially if you are able to trap it all the way up to its neck.”

Derek couldn’t help but agree. Also, the fact that Tyron had ample time to prepare his trap, and didn’t have to preserve his mana for a drawn out fight, instead of just casting it on the fly like he had before should make it much more efficient to use against one of the wyverns. Depending on how it holds, it could work on both of them, actually, Derek thought.

A few minutes and a couple of potions later, and Tyron was finished creating his trap. “The two of you just need to get it to fall into the pool instead of flying on its way out. Can you do that?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Derek replied, then looked over at Avery. “Are you ready?”

“Let’s do it,” the archer said and moved into position above the giant pool of liquid metal to keep the wyvern from flying on its way out. “Hopefully, the roars don’t interfere with the lesser dragonkin too much.”

With a nod, Derek headed inside his Time Prison—making sure to avoid the trap by using Void Steps. Soon, he found himself at the very back of the prison, looking at the last two door—the two massive closed cell doors. Okay… now which one was the earth one and which one was the pure magic one? Derek placed his hand on the one to the left, then adjusted the sentence speed and backed away.

Soon, Derek was standing with his back to the exit, so he would only need to kick back off the ground to leave the prison. Finally, the massive door unlocked, and as soon as the notification popped into Derek’s head, the thing swung open with such force that someone not heavily invested in endurance would have had a hard time surviving if hit by it.

With the cell door open, a colossal roar resounded from the cell and echoed throughout the entire Time Prison. Then, the massive brown wyvern appeared in all its glory. Not waiting for a prompt, the wyvern charged out of the cell—crawling on its two legs and wings. Well, it seems pretty angry. Derek smiled. In a near instant, the wyvern was on him.

Derek kicked backwards off the ground and sent himself flying out of the time prison. He made sure to keep as level with the ground as possible, with the hope that the wyvern would continue its charge straight into Tyron’s trap.

And he was pleased when the wyvern did just that. The prison passageway wasn’t large enough for the beast to initiate its flight before making it out, so it had to stay on the ground while it passed through. Unfortunately for it, even though it spread its wings in preparation to take off as soon as its body cleared the passage, it still dipped down ever so slightly and found itself up to its knees in boiling metal.

Next, like a rocket, Avery basically shoulder tackled the beast from above, sending it even deeper into the trap. With his hit, the wyvern’s wings found themselves covered in the liquid metal as well.

Deciding to help complete the trap, Derek appeared right above the beast’s head and punched down with a void covered fist. It was just enough to stun the beast for a moment and allow it to sink even further into the metal. Derek repeated this action a few times until the beast finally sank far enough that over half of its neck was covered in the metal.

That was when Tyron decided it was time to harden the surrounding metal. “Keep stunning it!” Tyron called out.

Without asking any questions, Derek continued pounding away. He had done so many times before, so it was basically second nature to him by now. He wasn’t sure what else the smith had planned, but he trusted him.

Soon, once the metal was hardened, and the wyvern was trapped in a massive block of it, he figured out what the smith was trying to do. An extremely long string of liquid metal rose from the ground and began wrapping itself around the massive maw of the beast, searing into its skin in the process. In front of Derek’s eyes, the metal began being woven in an almost braid-like pattern, then hardening.

It was a smart move, as it would keep the wyvern from both roaring and using its elemental dragon breath. Derek just wasn’t sure if it would be able to hold that long. It was metal created and hardened by a level 250 smith, but there wasn’t anything really special about it other than that. He had faith that the metal trapping it would hold just because of how big and how much metal was used in said trap.

However, the smith wouldn’t be able to put that much metal into the muzzle he was creating. Though, the pattern should at least increase its strength somewhat. Soon, the last bit of metal that the man prepared was wrapped around the beast’s mouth.

“Okay, you can stop now,” Tyron said. The man was sweating profusely at the moment after manipulating so much boiling hot metal.

Derek almost—no, he did feel a little bad for the wyvern. The pain should have gone away and it should have already begun the healing process as soon as the metal hardened, and there was a good chance it hadn’t felt much of it since it was stunned most of the time, but being burned was not a good feeling.

With the beast no longer stunned, it began whipping the uncovered portion of its head and neck around. The ground around them began to vibrate, but any try in manipulating the earth was instantly shut down by the small wyrm sitting on the ground in front of it.

Other than the basic earth manipulation, the wyvern didn’t have any other skills that it could currently use in its situation. Most of the skills that the wyverns used against Derek and the others had required the use of either their claws, wings, or maw—all of which were either trapped by tons and tons of hardened metal, or tied up.

Derek watched closely at the metal wrapped around the beast’s mouth. He winced when the beast stopped moving and tried with all its might to open its maw. To his surprise, its mouth did open ever so slightly—and by ever so slightly, he meant about a foot because of how massive its head was. But even more surprising, the metal actually stretched with its mouth.

Then, as if not able to open its maw any further, the beast’s mouth snapped shut, and the metal retracted back to its original form. Derek smiled. Tyron had made the metal slightly elastic so the beast wouldn’t be able to just snap it by force.

“Whew…” Tyron sighed. “That should hold for a bit. It won’t last a long time, but it will give me enough time to create something that will,” he said. “Though I’ll probably have to use some of the wyvern materials to create such a thing.”

“I’ll make sure to compensate you well when I get back,” Derek said. “We’ll get you some more materials and maybe a Void Beast meal or two.”

Tyron nodded at that. “Okay, I need some time to rest and recover, then we can do the same with the other wyvern.”

“How well will it work on the other? It’s pure magic based,” Derek asked.

“It should be easier,” Tyron said. “This one is earth based, so it has a very small amount of control over the metal, which made it harder for me to manipulate things. Luckily, it was only earth based, though, and was countered pretty easily by Rocky. With one of a different element, it shouldn’t be a problem, and Rocky won’t need to provide support like he is right now.”

“Gotcha,” Derek said. “Just say when, and we’ll move to prepare another trap.”

“Okay,” Tyron nodded, then sat down in meditation after drinking another couple of potions.

Soon, they had another trap prepared, and Derek moved the entrance to his Time Prison over the new trap. The second wyvern fell into the trap even easier than the first, and everything went even more smooth than before. They had played a dangerous game, trapping and corralling all the dragonkin, which is why they chose the position they did and did it all one by one.

If anything had gone wrong, Derek, Avery, Silvi, or Lyra would have been able to control the situation. But everything seemed to work even better than Derek expected. It’s nice for things to go as planned for a change, he thought.

“How’s Lyra doing?” Derek asked Avery.

“She’s fine. A little tired, but recovering. The wyvern’s roars from inside your space made it out into the open and riled the rest of the dragonkin up, so she had to expend some more resources to get them back under control, but now that the wyverns are trapped and silent, their back to grazing like normal. She should be able to keep herself in good enough shape to control any problems that may arise,” Avery explained.

“That’s great,” Derek said. “Thanks for all the help. And thank Lyra for me, too.”

“No problem.”

Derek looked at the ground below him—the massive metal ground. I’m definitely having Tyron create the foundation for any other buildings I need to make. Well… after Bone’s and Ogre’s bunkhouse is created. Tyron’s going to be busy here when Mal goes to commission that building. Derek looked over at Tyron, who was already creating himself a mobile smithing area so he could create some proper equipment for trapping the wyverns.

“If any problems come up,” Derek started. “Don’t hesitate to call in a reinforcement or two. We have a couple dragonkin to spare if we really need to.”

“I will,” Avery said. “Now, don’t you need to get to Alanah? The sooner the better.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Derek smiled. “But first, there’s one last thing I need to do.”