Opes
(#22609151)
the plaguebringer's punishment
Familiar
Veilspun Verse
Click or tap to view this dragon in Predict Morphology.
Energy: 0/50
This dragon’s natural inborn element is Plague.
Female Skydancer
Expand the dragon details section.
Collapse the dragon details section.
Personal Style
Apparel
Skin
Scene
Measurements
Length
4.35 m
Wingspan
6.17 m
Weight
417.69 kg
Genetics
Red
Cherub
Cherub
Soil
Spinner
Spinner
Tangerine
Underbelly
Underbelly
Hatchday
Breed
Eye Type
Level 1 Skydancer
EXP: 0 / 245
STR
7
AGI
6
DEF
8
QCK
5
INT
5
VIT
8
MND
6
Lineage
Parents
- none
Offspring
- none
Biography
| __._ |
Tales for Heinous Hatchlings __________________________________ ______________ chapter 2 
Whispers scurried across the blighted lands of the Scarred Wasteland, carried by crows, murmured in taverns, repeated from traveler to traveler, until every pack and clan dragon and beast alike heard the news: an exaltee ran from She Most Decayed—the Plaguebringer Herself. “Who could be so foolish?” gasped the incredulous. “Who could be so weak?” sneered the afraid. “Who could dare betray our Deity?” growled the angry. “What will She do,” wondered one elder, said to be scarred to the bone, “to one who showed such disloyalty?” Quiet. Then the mutter, “Punishment.” And soon, that was the only word on every dragon’s lips throughout the Wasteland, the whispers building in number and volume until it came as a chant, then shout, then roar that sent the crows surging to the skies in the thunderous flapping of their wings and hoarse cries of their own racket. “PUNISHMENT!” ~ Opes slunk between shadows of buildings. A pair of loud, boisterous dragons marched past, prickly with a half dozen weapons each, so focused on boasting to another they never noticed the skydancer standing a stride away, whose red feather crest was suspiciously similar to that detailing several WANTED posters plastered on most every wall in the town. Though Opes had done much to alter her appearance since the . . . incident, no number or quality of dyes or spells could hide that blood-red hue. The Plaguebringer’s Mark, she knew, rarely faded. Once the two warriors passed, Opes readjusted the bandages wrapped around their foreleg, then hurried on with her head ducked low until she arrived at a battered old shop with the window and door boarded shut, old wood paint peeling. Opes looked around once, twice, then muttered a brief word or two. Magic popped in the air, signifying the barrier had dropped, and with a wiggle of a board, Opes managed to squeeze her way through. She dropped to the dirt floor inside and looked around. Her tail lashed to find no apparent individual among the dusty crates and discarded furniture, but she scented magic, too. “Reveal yourself,” she said, voice crisp as a drill sergeant, for she had been one of the Plaguebringer’s own, and that, too, was difficult to conceal. “Or I will.” A dusty beam of sunlight pouring in through a hole in the ceiling wavered, then a tundra stepped out where none had stood before, their head tilted sardonically. Opes gave them a critical one-over, noting the patches of missing fur in their ragged orange coat, a cracked horn with torn webbing, and a missing hindfoot. Common scars to see, in the Wasteland, but the dragon’s eyes were a dark green. “My informant was trustworthy, then,” Opes said at last. She moved forward, still wary, but more confident now. “You’re said to be able to fix this?” She waved her bandaged foreleg around. The tundra showed their teeth, displaying a canine cupped in tarnished silver. “Let’s take a look first, then I’ll be able to give a better answer.” Opes eyed them, but at their gesture, moved to an upturned table on the far side of the room. She and the nature mage righted it, then sat across from another. Opes hesitated, but laid their foreleg atop the table, stretched out towards the tundra. They leaned forward, claws carefully sliding underneath the bandages and slicing them free. Angry yellow boils swarmed the infected cut on Opes’ leg, pulsing slightly, rimmed in sickly pale green that dribbled a sour-smelling fluid, with large orange centers like pupils staring up at the dragons. Though she tried to hide it, Opes flinched. The tundra chuckled, reaching back into an alchemist bag at their side to withdraw an implement they used to poke at the boils. “Rare sight, this. You really did tick Her off, hmm?” Opes clenched her jaw as the thin metal tool slid underneath a boil and attempted to lever it up, as if prying it free. The blister resisted, the green fluid becoming a thick paste that stretched, stubbornly sticking the pustule to Opes’ foreleg. “Stop that,” Opes snapped at last, yanking her foreleg back with a pained hiss. The tundra leaned back, eyes cool, claws and implement held calmly up in the air. “I’m harmless,” they said. “Surely your informant mentioned I heal, not injure?” “Some healing requires injuring,” Opes said grimly. Again, that flash of teeth. “Indeed. I can hardly begin to help you if I can determine what, exactly, needs fixing. Please, allow me to continue my examination.” “So you can fix it.” Opes’ heart beat faster. “You can stop it from. Spreading.” It had started as a thin cut on her foot that refused to close. The tundra clicked their jaw softly. “We’ll see.” Grimacing, Opes extended her foreleg, clamping her jaws shut on an admonition to be careful. She could not afford to show weakness, not even with an old scruffy tundra. Not when they knew who she was . . . but thankfully not what she’d done. Though rumors abounded, Opes kept her silence as surely as the Plaguebringer. No one could know what she’d done. What they— “What are you doing?” Opes snarled, as the tundra took her wrist in one forefoot, pinning it to the table, then spun the sharp-tipped tool around so it pointed straight down over the largest of the clustered boils. “Hold still, now,” the tundra mumbled, and too late, Opes felt the snap of magic closing fast over her body, preventing any movement. “Stop—” Opes shrieked, fighting to break the spell, but not before the tundra plunged the device into the pustule and pierced it open. Fluid splattered, fiery pain erupted from Opes’ leg, making her scream, and the tundra worked quickly, leaving the tool suspended in the opened blister as they pulled out a small ceramic mortar and pestle, a bag of crushed herbs, and a glass bottle filled with a dark, shimmering liquid like the sheen of oil. The tundra sprinkled the powder into the bowl, mashed it a few times, then splashed some of the liquid inside. It paled to gray at first, but as they began stirring, slowly turned back to black. “You—liar—” Opes gritted out, between hot tears of pain that fell from slitted eyes. The tundra hummed. “I didn’t lie. Just your—” they laughed softly, still stirring vigorously with one set of claws, the others still clutching Opes’ foreleg despite the freezing spell— “trustworthy informant.” A growl rolled from Opes chest, but the tundra pushed on, “Now this—this is a delightful little concoction I’ve never had cause to brew before.” Lips peeled back, showing teeth. “Plaguebringer’s Punishment—it hardly needs any assistance from me. But for one like you.” They spat the word, almost a snarl, before regaining themself and stirring faster. “Well. I thought I’d help speed it along.” Opes’ breath became ragged. “What. Is. It.” Opes had heard that word, punishment, thrown around for moons, now. No healer, no alchemist, of all the ones she’d visited, had even been able to identify the exact strain of contagion growing on her skin. Until now. The tundra flicked the pestle out of the mixture with a flourish, then picked up the mortar and held it over the open infection. They paused, green eyes flicking up to catch Opes’ red. Whatever they saw there—anger, hatred, fear—made them grin, and tighten their hold on her wrist. “Are you ready?” they breathed, malice and eagerness dancing in their eyes. “You think you’ve been punished, this past year?” They laughed, and tipped the bowl to spill the dark potion over her foreleg. “My dear patient, it has only begun.” ~ PUNISHMENT. PUNISHMENT. PUNISHMENT. The word boomed dully through Opes head, the chant a constant ache. PUNISHMENT. PUNISHMENT. PUNISHMENT. She gripped her sword in one bloody foot, snarling at the pack surrounding her, the other forefoot pressed weakly against her chest. PUNISHMENT. PUNISHMENT. PUNISHMENT. How many times now? The blade thudded through her neck, cleaving bone and flesh, and Opes died. And woke anew. PUNISHMENT. PUNISHMENT. PUNISHMENT. Opes stumbled under the sun’s unforgiving glare, thirst and starvation hollowing her bones until she fell to the ground, and could only crawl. PUNISHMENT. PUNISHMENT. PUNISHMENT. “Please, just make it quick,” Opes begged. She’d stopped fighting back long ago. But the gleam of the knife denied even that. PUNISHMENT. PUNISHMENT. PUNISHMENT. Opes stared dully at the old WANTED poster, the ink bleached almost to nothing, the last shreds of paper still stuck to the brick flapping mutely in the wind. If she squinted, she could still make out the faint traces outlining her crest. The brilliant shade of red was gone . . . indeed, her own real feathers were almost white, Her Mark almost forgotten. She remembered the first time she’d died, not long after the tundra catalyzed the infectious transformation. She hadn’t been aware of being dead, until a voice, so familiar, so painful, whispered in a scratched, ruined voice, After a thousand cycles of death and rebirth. After a thousand cuts, beatings, starvations, and worse. After the life has been bled from you too many times for the mind to count, the body endure, the spirit rebound—then may you know, at last, my Punishment by Eternal Hunt. A dry hacking laugh rocked Opes’ lungs, and she had to lean against the broken wall of the old fallen building to stay upright. She held out her foreleg, no longer wrapped in cloth, and smiled down at the angry orange-pupiled boils glaring back like so many eyes. “How much longer? When will even your hatred run cold, She Most Decayed?” But, as always, since the day Opes had disobeyed and fled, she no longer heard her Deity’s voice. Just that word, ringing in her skull, that whispered chant. PUNISHMENT. PUNISHMENT. PUNISHMENT!
| ___ |
lore by TETRAHEDR0N #542682
code & assets by Archaic #19153
code & assets by Archaic #19153
Click or tap a food type to individually feed this dragon only. The other dragons in your lair will not have their energy replenished.
Feed this dragon Insects.
This dragon doesn't eat Meat.
This dragon doesn't eat Seafood.
Feed this dragon Plants.
You can share this dragon on the forums by either copying the browser URL manually, or using bbcode!
Exalting Opes to the service of the Plaguebringer will remove them from your lair forever. They will leave behind a small sum of riches that they have accumulated. This action is irreversible.
Do you wish to continue?
- Names must be longer than 2 characters.
- Names must be no longer than 16 characters.
- Names can only contain letters.
- Names must be no longer than 16 characters.
- Names can only contain letters.