Sting
(#83548714)
HUNGER OF FANFARE
Click or tap to view this dragon in Predict Morphology.
Energy: 50/50
This dragon’s natural inborn element is Fire.
Male Spiral
This dragon is hibernating.
Expand the dragon details section.
Collapse the dragon details section.
Personal Style
Apparel
Skin
Scene
Measurements
Length
2.52 m
Wingspan
1.96 m
Weight
113.73 kg
Genetics
Clay
Boulder
Boulder
Gloom
Flair
Flair
Oilslick
Opal
Opal
Hatchday
Breed
Eye Type
Level 25 Spiral
Max Level
STR
118
AGI
8
DEF
6
QCK
29
INT
5
VIT
8
MND
5
Biography
ABOUT
She/her
When struck by her claws, the hard, shiny sections of scales on her body produce sparks, like flint. A quiet muttered spell, and those sparks flame up into bright streams of flame whipped and whirled about her as she fights.
Paired with Psalm. They work as a team, Sting dazzling their opponent with brilliant flashes of flame—and in the dashes of shadow, sudden blindness in the split second after fire, Psalm strikes in perfect concert. Landing blow after blow, the two are relentless. You cannot break their synchronization. Defeat remains your only option.
STRIKE OF A MATCH
Sting grew up in the slums of Cinderslag, just one of another dozens of parent-less kids running amok the place, grimier with ash and coal dust than even the adults working in forges. She learned to take care of herself, sure, the brawl and flight. How to fall, how to worm into hidden places, all that. But it was hardly enough. She couldn't help it if almost, she wanted to get caught by the shop-owners she filched from, the guards she ran from. There was no delight in the world like the sudden rush of giddy fear and anticipation as narrowed, hateful gazes landed on her, only her, all their attention and emotions driven through her as surely as a hammered nail piercing scale, flesh, and bone.
Sting always took the riskiest jobs, the ones most daring and visible. She threw herself between her fellow gutter kids and their pursuers, taunting and sneering, keeping their attention on her as she led them away. Not to protect the others—there's no place for selflessness in Cinderslag, no. Sting merely needed it all for herself.
She might've stayed that way, running small cons with various gangs, eventually getting killed or caught and ending before her flame grew larger than a candlewick. But then a traveling performance troupe from the mysterious Tangled Wood camped on the outskirts of town, and Sting's curiosity at such an unusual event drew her in as surely as a moth.
KEEP YOUR EYES ON ME
At first, wandering the rows of tents and stalls set up for the miniature carnival, Sting was delighted and amazed at the flaunt and flair of the troupe. The colorful streamers! Tiny spellworks woven into the fabric of the tents, engraved into the wood of poles and signs, shimmering through the very air! Each and every sight, scent, and sound mischievous and tempting, luring Sting deeper into their depths for more wonders to discover.
But too soon, the marvel wore off as Sting realized: she was no longer the object of adoration. Performers, jugglers, acrobats, tarot readers, magicians, game conductors, announcers, beast tamers—the audience had eyes only for them. Never had they looked at Sting like that.
Jealousy flamed hot and furious, and Sting knew there was one way she could wrestle attention back. The troupe had taken precautions both physical and magical, traveling through the Ashfall Wastes, but a fervor drove Sting that no protective ward could repel. She gnashed through the defenses set up on their supply wagons, and with a decisive swipe of sparks cast over dry casks and bundles of rope, sawdust, canvas, and foodstuffs, she had her spectacle a terrific blaze roaring in approval.
She sent the wagon barreling through camp, flying above and around it, flashing teeth and claws so as to not be missed and crowing her joy. Every eye flew to her. Terrified screams split the happy buzzing air of before. Dragons leapt out of her path and gawked after her terrible parade. Fire darted out from her wagon and claws to catch their fangs in surrounding tents, and her elation spread in tireless rabbit leaps through the entire camp.
Sting threw her head back, breathing in the smoke and panic and tasting it thick and warm as honey down her throat—before a large shape loomed at her periphery and before she could whirl to face it, the guardian slammed their blunt staff down on her head. Vision sliding sideways, she saw the blurred streaks of her orange flames one last time, before shadow clenched its fist around her and she was drenched in darkness.
Rather than turn her in to the guard, and as she owned no treasure to her name, the troupe decided Sting would pay off the damage done to their equipment by working for them. They had already packed up and moved on by the time she came to, so she left Cinderslag for the first time without ever seeing it disappear over the horizon.
Sting's resentment didn't last long. She loved learning tricks of slight of claw, refining her acrobatics so her flight became more graceful and eye-drawing, and channeling her fire for performative dance rather than destruction. Most of all, she lived for those live performances when she stepped out onto the stage. Though primarily of shadow, the troupe certainly found use for her flame in acts, contrasting it with their darker hues and crafty magics for shocking flashes of heat and light that first had audiences leaping back, then leaning forward, utterly bewitched.
It was here that Sting met Psalm, a young dragon studying puppet-play from an older member of the troupe. Being of a similar age, Sting was handed over to Psalm for her to train up and teach the ropes of the troupe. The two were often given the same chores and rehearsal schedules, and they fell into light friendship, familiar with each other's presence while beating the paths of their daily lives. Psalm was solemn and quiet, focused on her puppets and tasks in perfect obedience, and Sting filled in the absence with chatter, complaints about troupe life and boasts on a maneuver she'd finally mastered.
When Sting's debt was paid off and she was inducted into the troupe as a full member, she thought she might burst from the pride of creating her own show. It would stun every clan they visited, she knew. When Psalm suggested they might co-head a routine involving both their talents, Sting gave it a quick thought, but declared the idea too risky. Fire and puppets? It had never been done. The two mediums just didn't mix. The audience might be confused, or bored. No, better that they focused on their individual specialties, and presented two shows of exquisite delight, yeah? (And so when the audience cheered and applauded at the end of her act, Sting could soak in their praise unadulterated by another by her side.) Psalm nodded at the logic of that, and each got to work on their shows. So focused on her own excellence and preening, Sting did not notice as Psalm grew dourer and more withdrawn, closeting herself in her small wagon to practice her puppet play over and over and over. Psalm didn't come to meals, rehearsals, or even performances, claiming she needed solitude to make her play perfect. Sting could hardly disapprove of that!
IGNITE
Meanwhile, the troupe's tarot reader discovered a disturbing pattern in his throws. Repeatedly, he saw the troupe's destruction, and always a specific detail: devouring by flames. And there was only one fire-elemental among them. Concerns were made to the troupe master, and Sting was appropriately indignant, her pride wounded that they would still suspect her of doing such a thing to the home she'd found. The master agreed to keep her on, but to appease the tarot reader, retired Sting's routine—for now, they assured her. Temporary measures, until whatever it was that prompted the tarot reader so faded and everything went back to normal.
With the stage denied to her, Sting grew restless and bored, interrupting others' practices and getting in everyone's way. She was shuttled off, and so in desperation turned to her friend. Only then did she become aware of just how cloistered Psalm had become. Her friend refused to let her inside her wagon, and only stuck her snout out to impatiently listen to Sting's wail before slamming the door. "If you're no longer wanted, you can just leave."
Where had that come from? Sting had never known Psalm to say any unkind thing, never heard such taut venom from her. By the Eleven, she'd never even seen her in a bad mood! Something was wrong. It itched at Sting's scales that Psalm would ignore her so. First her performance was taken away from her, and now her friend pushed her away! It would not do. No.
Sting leapt back to the door and tried to open it. It was latched from the inside, and that incensed Sting only further. White-hot claws slashed through the thin metal bar, and she barged into the wagon. Or tried to, at least. Shadow made solid rebuked her, an impenetrable wall of pure blackness blocking the entrance. The Shade undulated in slow waves, swirling in an incomprehensible pattern of hues somehow only ever darker than the last.
"Psalm?" Sting shrilled, and her heart thumped against her ribs in the first sheer terror she had ever felt in her life. Against that, her flames could do nothing. "Psalm!" she shrieked again, as the Shade suddenly contorted, twisting at its center in a motion Sting could only interpret as malicious. Something was happening in there; the Shade was doing something to her friend.
"How dare you take her from me!" Sting snarled, slashing claws down her flint scales. A snapped spell, a roar, and she crashed into the Shade, using her flame to beat back the darkness. The wall of Shade resisted her for a moment, Sting thrashing in its alien tar-like substance, then suddenly gave way, dropping her through to the opposite side. She landed in an inelegant heap on the floor of Psalm's wagon, and peering up, found the interior not much lighter than the Shade she'd just emerged from.
"Psalm," she gasped when her straining eyes finally fit together the image of her friend huddled over her work bench a short distance away. "Are you—what are you doing?"
Psalm was not cowering in fear of the Shade. She looked much the same as she ever had, bent over a wooden puppet, adjusting one of its stringed joints with a set of tiny tools. She didn't acknowledge Sting's words or presence at all, ignoring her yet again in favor of her stupid puppets.
"Look at me," Sting snarled, shoving upright and propelling herself to Psalm's side. She gripped Psalm's wing and slammed claws down on her own, preventing her from tinkering. Psalm froze, going stiff at Sting's touch. A feeling of such wrongness swamped Sting, and she swallowed uneasily, but tightened her grip. "Look—look around you! You—you're being eaten by the Shade!"
Psalm turned her head to Sting. "Eaten?" She slid out of Sting's grasp, drawing herself up to her full height on her stool. The nocturne wasn't all that bigger than Sting, but in the gloom of the wagon, her friend suddenly loomed, staring down at Sting with such precise distaste that she found herself shrinking back from that derisive gaze. Sting sought her courage but failed, and after a moment of agonizing silence, Psalm's eyes narrowed.
"You'll do," she muttered, and flicked her claws.
Tendrils of darkness shot out from the corners of the wagon, wrapping tightly around Sting and yanking her back to slam against the wall, holding her there, pinned and helpless. Only her head free, she whipped it back and forth, fruitlessly, and Psalm approached with an intent, scouring gaze, looking her up and down as a butcher might a hunter's newly returned carcass.
"Shh," Psalm murmured, in the same soft tone her friend once spoke with, placing light clawtips on Sting's scales as her claws danced all over her body, sometimes nudging here, prodding there, to test her quality and capabilities. "Yes. Yes, this will work. I will make it work." She withdrew to her bench, selecting a silver needle and spool of midnight thread.
Sting recognized puppet strings. She struggled harder, then as Psalm turned back with tools in claw, begged to know, "Make what work? Why are you—" She couldn't say it. "Why is the Shade here?" With you?
Psalm touched her cheek briefly, half a caress. "It's the only way. Sting, it was inevitable. But I can make it fast." She shook her head, eyes empty. "No one has to feel a thing. One quick thrust, then it's over."
As if to proof her point, Psalm pierced Sting's shoulder with the threaded needle, driving it between two scales to bite past skin, through muscle, and poke out the other side. Where the thread led, the Shade followed, sliding smoothly into and through Sting's body. Sting was too busy shrieking in pain to notice Psalm sewing the needle all across the rest of her joints, until the Shade was bound as tightly around her as her own blood and bone. It clung close, sticky and oozing, seeking to press deeper into Sting's body and take her completely as its own.
"I won't say I'm sorry," Psalm whispered, as she cut through the old bindings with a knife and pulled Sting up to her feet with a few precise, expert tugs on her Shade-strings. "You love to dance, don't you?"
And they danced, right there in the center of Psalm's wagon, Psalm whirling Sting around her in such graceful, neat motions that Sting knew this to be the play her friend had worked so long and hard to perfect. How many hours? Sting wondered in despair, as Psalm dipped her low to the ground, then whipped her back up in a dizzying twirl. The Shade tickled at Sting's magic, and tongues of fire licked up at the air around them, scorching the walls of the wagon. If the dance kept up, and the wagon kept burning, soon it would pass to the rest of the camp, and the Shade-infected flames could consume all the troupe. How many days, spent alone in the dark—Not alone, Sting rebuked herself harshly. How long has the Shade choked her?
"This isn't right," Sting wheezed, wishing she could end the dance, but the Shade-strings kept her moving obediently, unable to twitch even one claw out of place. "Psalm, I'm so sorry. It shouldn't have been this way."
"It couldn't be stopped," Psalm murmured, in that absent, detached voice that had all the life, all the her, sucked out of it.
"No." Sting forced her tail to flick up, catching the edge of Psalm's wing in the barest of touches, brushing it lighter than a moth's fluttering wing, before the Shade seized control and wrestled it to submission. "I should have been the one to be with you. This should be our dance, not its."
For the first time, Psalm's claws slackened on the Shade-strings. She faltered in the dance, and the two slid out of step. The Shade snarled and shoved them back together, Psalm regaining her poise. She directed Sting up and around her, wings flaring wide, a broad arc of fire leaping off her scales to eat hungrily at the roof of the wagon.
"It's too late!" Psalm cried, and Sting saw the Shade-strings anchored in her own shoulders now. And behind her, a greater mass, stretching down from the roof of the wagon, a thick clump of Shade whose long fingers were now the two's strings. "It just needed one spark—you—to start the ritual. I can't stop it now."
Sting snorted in contempt. "You can't? After how hard you've worked? This is your play—you made it, you designed it, you practiced it, you made it perfect. The Shade couldn't compete if we gave it a head start."
Doubt still flickered in Psalm's eyes. She'd already given up. Sting saw it as clearly as she had failed to do so all these past moons. The never-ending work of the troupe. The constant pursuit to improve, make the act better, more exciting, more new for the audience. Acts being compared and measured up to each other, and the lesser one, in the master's eyes, being put aside in case audiences weren't interested. Back to the drawing board, sketching one puppet design after the other, crafting more and more intricate joint-and-string systems, practicing the quick, tiny motions over and over to make the puppet move faster, smoother, more life-like. Make it better, make it enough, make it perfect—
"Oh my darling," Sting cried, heart aching for her poor, dear, exhausted friend. "I know you can do it. But let me help."
With a grunt, then snarl, Sting wrenched against the strings hard enough to stumble forward, nearly falling against Psalm. She fumbled for the pairs of shears she'd seen on Psalm's belt, but the Shade twisted her away, throwing her to the floor. FAILURE, it boomed, enough of its essence drawn into the world by the ritual for its voice to crackle throughout the wagon. It pressed down on Sting, crushing her with its mass. Psalm shuddered, but Sting showed her teeth.
"You can't fight me and continue the ritual," she sneered, gasping against the thick tar forcing itself down her throat. "Already, you're running out of time."
It was a gamble. But rule one of any act was pacing. You couldn't keep the audience's interest without knowing when to pause, when to let the tension draw out, and then when to strike, for the exact moment emotions were at their fullest. Sting might've not known puppets, but she knew Psalm's plays operated on the same principles. Whatever this ritual was, it was still a show, and it must be operated on the correct timing. Resisting Sting like this, forbidding her any movement at risk of her acting out again, would kill the ritual as surely as active sabotage.
Snarling, but sure enough, the Shade retreated, yanking Sting back to her feet and shoving her and Psalm back into the dance. To Psalm, Sting whispered, "What happens next?"
Uncertain, Psalm whispered back, "We take to the air together. But what—"
"Perfect," Sting breathed, and as the Shade-strings lifted them up, just as Psalm had said, Sting kicked off the ground harder than directed, launching her over Psalm's head. The Shade yanked her irritably down—arcing her down right by Psalm's shears. Sting snatched them, but before the Shade could force her to drop them, tossed them with a warning to Psalm. The Shade, its attention focused on Sting rather than the nocturne, was too slow. Psalm twisted free of its hold for a a second, and caught the shears. Then as the Shade lunged for her strings, she threw them back.
Twirling in midair, Sting caught the shears and snipped through the nearest string in sight. The Shade roared, finally seizing the shears and wrenching them apart. The pieces fell to the floor. Then Psalm's teeth sank into the region where the Shade's neck would be. It flailed and shrieked, throwing Psalm off, and all the strings slackened in the moment.
Hissing, Sting grabbed the string lodged in her wing-joint and ripped it free. The Shade whirled on her, then stumbled, a swift swipe of Psalm's claws to another string making it lurch off-balance. All the strings tightened again, and Psalm yelled, "The dance!"
As one, they leapt back into motion, Psalm's whispered prompts directing Sting where to leap, how to move. The Shade pulled at their strings uselessly, unable to make them move more when they already did so perfectly. Sting didn't know this dance. Psalm had never let her in on her practices, and Sting had never asked to watch. But moons of doing the same chores, practicing juggling, passing hidden cards and trinkets to each other in games of slight of claw, predicting when the other needed a rest break or swallow of water—well, despite it all, they knew each other still. Sting trusted Psalm to point her true, and Psalm trusted Sting to follow without fear. Between steps and twirls of the dance, they exchanged blows to the Shade, Sting hissing mockery to draw its ire, Psalm tearing through another string, then launching back into the proper movements necessary for the ritual's completion before it could retaliate.
"We're winning," Sting panted. Half her strings were gone, and likewise for Psalm. The Shade had placed too much responsibility of the ritual on Psalm, and she knew the dance better than it; it couldn't keep up with their random yet synchronized attacks.
"Too slowly," Psalm hissed back. "We won't escape before the dance finishes."
"If we push harder—" Sting began, then cut herself as Psalm stumbled. She hauled herself back up in time to meet Sting's roll across her back, but Sting saw the weariness rooted deep inside her, how her step flagged, and could have hit herself. Would she do the same as the troupe to her friend, pushing her past her limits for some stupid play?
"Never you worry," she whispered to her friend, pressing her brow briefly against Psalm's. "I'll take it from here."
Determination burning out all fear, Sting crouched, gathering all her strength, her snout pointed up to the center of the Shade's accumulated power hanging above her from the roof. A roof that was in shambles. Her fire had burned through the wagon extensively during the fight. Now that Sting brought her attention to it, she heard the screams of dragons outside, and knew all the camp was alight. The flames wouldn't stop this time. But there was still a chance to keep the Shade from them. Looking at it, Sting felt rage surge, and at long last, released all the pent-up fire the troupe had confined to her in setting her routine to the side.
"Sting, what are you—"
"This was to be ours," she roared, launching straight up at the Shade, claws extended. It tugged frantically on her strings, but flame poured down Sting's scales, scorching away every remaining tie to the Shade she had. And kept burning, using her own scales and body as fuel. Sting bellowed, "BEHOLD," and dove into the Shade. It closed its jaws around her and sought to consume her, and she laughed piteously.
Take me, she told it in a snarl. And you die with me. She would burn it—and herself—up from the inside. It wouldn't save the camp. But she could free Psalm.
And damn, what a fine show it would be. With Sting at its centerpiece.
Psalm better be watching, she thought, closing her eyes for the last time. Then jolted as the Shade all at once released her. Her eyes flew open in shock as she fell, burning still, to the wagon floor, and she gaped to see the Shade writhing in pain above her. Psalm rode its back, twin shards of the shattered shears in her claws. She plunged the blades into its spine, dragging them down deep. The Shade thrashed, trying to throw her aside, but the strings still embedded in her flesh never let her go far. A split second later she clung to it again, shears mere blurs of silver as she stabbed it again again again again again—
With a final howl of pain, the Shade tore free of her blades, and her body. The strings dislodged and retracted. All the shadows of the wagon shot towards it, gathering up into one pulsating mass of darkness—then the Shade darted up and away, leaping out one of the many holes in the roof and disappearing into the night sky, dissipating quicker than smoke.
Psalm thumped to the ground, landing heavily on her wing. It snapped, and she shrieked in pain. The sound lurched Sting out of her shock, and she crawled to her friend, curling around her. "Are you alright? Are you alright?"
"It's—it's broken," Psalm quavered, and the simple mundanity of the injury made Sting want to laugh with sheer relief.
"You're alive," she breathed, holding Psalm tight to herself. "You're alive."
"We both are." Psalm wiggled in her embrace, carefully to avoid bumping her wing, to face Sting. "You nearly didn't. You were going to die, right in front of me, and force me to be alone again."
"I didn't want to die—"
But Psalm grabbed her, claws digging in tight enough to be painful. She clutched Sting's head, pressing it hard against her brow. "That wasn't. In. The. Script. You don't die on me, Sting. That's not our dance."
Sting couldn't speak. Finally she swallowed and forced out, "Alright. You're the master."
Psalm held her all the tighter. "That's right."
ACT TWO
Sting's prediction proved true. The camp was in ashy ruins. All their companions, their family, dead. Psalm, clutching her broken wing to herself, couldn't stop staring. Sting couldn't stand to look, to stay. Shade-stink still hung heavy in the air, coarser than smoke.
"Hurry," she urged, tugging Psalm away, turning her head aside. "We need to go." Gaoler Seekers would arrive soon, and Sting knew they would take Psalm away from her—or, really, take them both. She hadn't come away unscarred any less than her friend.
"My fault," Psalm whispered, even as she led Sting lead her away, on foot, unfortunately, but there was no other option. No wagon remained intact. No supplies to scavenge. "My fault."
"Ours," Sting said grimly, using the stars to orient them west. Seekers would be less likely to find them in the Scarred Wasteland. She held Psalm closer. "Our fault. It's just you and me now, but it's you and me."
They fled. It wasn't an easy journey. First priority was to remain hidden from pursuit, second to get Psalm to a healer to fix her wing, so they could fly again and travel faster. But along the way, Sting and Psalm both discovered . . . lasting effects from the ruined ritual.
Though Psalm tried to bury them, burn them, drop them off a cliff, the twin shear-shards always returned to her belt. They fuzzed unnaturally in daylight, blurry on the edges, and at night couldn't be seen at all. But that proved useful when the two's camp was raided by bandits, who struck swift as vipers and had the two bound in ropes before one could squawk the alarm. While Sting kept their attention off Psalm by deriding and jeering the bandits, she quietly slipped the hidden blades free and sawed herself loose, then leapt for the leader to give Sting time to burn her own ropes off and the two escaped unscathed.
And for Sting . . . cleansing her body of the Shade by scorching fire, well, it left a mark. Patches of scales all over her body remain blackened and stiff. No healer could mend them, and Sting's had to relearn much of her technique in flight, dance, and combat to accommodate for the new limitations. She may not be as graceful and fluid as she was before, but her new jagged, splintered motions are hard to predict, as random and frenzied as a roaring fire. In addition, those patches are hard enough to produce sparks when Sting scrapes claws down them, allowing her easy ability to start fires anywhere and everywhere.
So the change in life hasn't been all bad. Now, the two write their own routines and plays, no restrictions, no deadlines, no catering to audiences. They dance for themselves, in glory of each other, to celebrate each other, and to fight for each other, defending against those who would rob them, hurt them, lock them away. Sting grabs their enemy's attention with bright flame and dazzling dance, and in the shadows thrown back by her fire lurks Psalm, shear-shards ready, slicing and cutting in the moments of hesitation and silence between Sting's flaring performance. Before the enemy can locate Psalm and attack, Sting's back, reminding them, YOU CAN'T IGNORE ME, and then Psalm's blade is at their throat, and curtains close.
Sting eats their fear and confusion, the wild desperation in their eyes as they look at her—look at her!—as the last sight they'll ever behold, up. She just adores putting on a show, and being its star.
Double-edged blade, that is, seeking all the attention for oneself.
MELTING ICICLE CHAINS
Independent did not have much trouble finding them after being contracted by Seekers to capture these Shade-touched creatures. She and her Contractors hunted them down, following the trail of rumors of a shadow-and-fire dancing pair, and though Independent thought their double act was cute, a job was a job. The Seeker unit wanted them alive, so the Contractors hauled them in chains back to the Seeker's post.
"That's the contract fulfilled!" Independent said cheerfully, dumping Sting and Psalm at the head gaoler's feet. "Two captured Shadelings. And our treasure?"
She was given a chest of coin, the bounty for the two, and Independent turned to go. The head gaoler reached for Sting, and Psalm pulled out her shears. Within moments, the two were free again, and the head gaoler barking orders to restrain them. Independent turned back around, grinning, excited to watch the fight.
"Aren't you going to help?" the head gaoler bellowed, fending off Sting's fiery claws.
"Contract's fulfilled!" Independent crowed, flicking her tail at the treasure chest. "I'm just here for the show."
Well, Sting liked the sound of that. She caught Psalm's eye, who nodded back.
"Stupid mercenaries!" the head gaoler roared, as Sting dropped another of the guards. "Fine—triple the bounty, just—"
"A contract!" Sting yelled over them, ducking a swipe of their tail, and Independent's head whipped to her.
Psalm picked it up, even as a gaoler knocked the shears from her claws. "We will give you the best show in all of Sornieth!"
Independent's head swung to her.
"No!" the head gaoler cried. "Don't listen to them!"
Independent's lips peeled back. Her tongue ran over her teeth, already salivating. "And what do you want in exchange?"
"HELP US KILL THEM," Sting shrieked, pinned beneath the claws of a guard, who reared back an axe for the killing blow.
"Your contract," Independent growled, stalking forward, her Contractors sweeping out to surround the chamber, "is accepted." She pounced, seizing the head gaoler's throat in her jaws and tearing it open. Blood poured, washing down her neck and chest, as she looked up to meet Sting and Psalm's eyes with a bared grin. "We'll go over the paperwork later."
So Sting and Psalm became Contractors, and it's been the best arrangement in their lives by far. The same level of free expression in their art as when traveling alone, but now they have the shared companionhood they lost with the troupe. Not to mention Independent's protection. Sometimes Seekers come looking for the two as old rumors circulate, but Sting and Psalm don't have to run any longer. Instead, they put on a special show for the Contractors. They know each and every step.
-
REACHED LEVEL 25 ON 3/8/2023
She/her
When struck by her claws, the hard, shiny sections of scales on her body produce sparks, like flint. A quiet muttered spell, and those sparks flame up into bright streams of flame whipped and whirled about her as she fights.
Paired with Psalm. They work as a team, Sting dazzling their opponent with brilliant flashes of flame—and in the dashes of shadow, sudden blindness in the split second after fire, Psalm strikes in perfect concert. Landing blow after blow, the two are relentless. You cannot break their synchronization. Defeat remains your only option.
STRIKE OF A MATCH
Sting grew up in the slums of Cinderslag, just one of another dozens of parent-less kids running amok the place, grimier with ash and coal dust than even the adults working in forges. She learned to take care of herself, sure, the brawl and flight. How to fall, how to worm into hidden places, all that. But it was hardly enough. She couldn't help it if almost, she wanted to get caught by the shop-owners she filched from, the guards she ran from. There was no delight in the world like the sudden rush of giddy fear and anticipation as narrowed, hateful gazes landed on her, only her, all their attention and emotions driven through her as surely as a hammered nail piercing scale, flesh, and bone.
Sting always took the riskiest jobs, the ones most daring and visible. She threw herself between her fellow gutter kids and their pursuers, taunting and sneering, keeping their attention on her as she led them away. Not to protect the others—there's no place for selflessness in Cinderslag, no. Sting merely needed it all for herself.
She might've stayed that way, running small cons with various gangs, eventually getting killed or caught and ending before her flame grew larger than a candlewick. But then a traveling performance troupe from the mysterious Tangled Wood camped on the outskirts of town, and Sting's curiosity at such an unusual event drew her in as surely as a moth.
KEEP YOUR EYES ON ME
At first, wandering the rows of tents and stalls set up for the miniature carnival, Sting was delighted and amazed at the flaunt and flair of the troupe. The colorful streamers! Tiny spellworks woven into the fabric of the tents, engraved into the wood of poles and signs, shimmering through the very air! Each and every sight, scent, and sound mischievous and tempting, luring Sting deeper into their depths for more wonders to discover.
But too soon, the marvel wore off as Sting realized: she was no longer the object of adoration. Performers, jugglers, acrobats, tarot readers, magicians, game conductors, announcers, beast tamers—the audience had eyes only for them. Never had they looked at Sting like that.
Jealousy flamed hot and furious, and Sting knew there was one way she could wrestle attention back. The troupe had taken precautions both physical and magical, traveling through the Ashfall Wastes, but a fervor drove Sting that no protective ward could repel. She gnashed through the defenses set up on their supply wagons, and with a decisive swipe of sparks cast over dry casks and bundles of rope, sawdust, canvas, and foodstuffs, she had her spectacle a terrific blaze roaring in approval.
She sent the wagon barreling through camp, flying above and around it, flashing teeth and claws so as to not be missed and crowing her joy. Every eye flew to her. Terrified screams split the happy buzzing air of before. Dragons leapt out of her path and gawked after her terrible parade. Fire darted out from her wagon and claws to catch their fangs in surrounding tents, and her elation spread in tireless rabbit leaps through the entire camp.
Sting threw her head back, breathing in the smoke and panic and tasting it thick and warm as honey down her throat—before a large shape loomed at her periphery and before she could whirl to face it, the guardian slammed their blunt staff down on her head. Vision sliding sideways, she saw the blurred streaks of her orange flames one last time, before shadow clenched its fist around her and she was drenched in darkness.
Rather than turn her in to the guard, and as she owned no treasure to her name, the troupe decided Sting would pay off the damage done to their equipment by working for them. They had already packed up and moved on by the time she came to, so she left Cinderslag for the first time without ever seeing it disappear over the horizon.
Sting's resentment didn't last long. She loved learning tricks of slight of claw, refining her acrobatics so her flight became more graceful and eye-drawing, and channeling her fire for performative dance rather than destruction. Most of all, she lived for those live performances when she stepped out onto the stage. Though primarily of shadow, the troupe certainly found use for her flame in acts, contrasting it with their darker hues and crafty magics for shocking flashes of heat and light that first had audiences leaping back, then leaning forward, utterly bewitched.
It was here that Sting met Psalm, a young dragon studying puppet-play from an older member of the troupe. Being of a similar age, Sting was handed over to Psalm for her to train up and teach the ropes of the troupe. The two were often given the same chores and rehearsal schedules, and they fell into light friendship, familiar with each other's presence while beating the paths of their daily lives. Psalm was solemn and quiet, focused on her puppets and tasks in perfect obedience, and Sting filled in the absence with chatter, complaints about troupe life and boasts on a maneuver she'd finally mastered.
When Sting's debt was paid off and she was inducted into the troupe as a full member, she thought she might burst from the pride of creating her own show. It would stun every clan they visited, she knew. When Psalm suggested they might co-head a routine involving both their talents, Sting gave it a quick thought, but declared the idea too risky. Fire and puppets? It had never been done. The two mediums just didn't mix. The audience might be confused, or bored. No, better that they focused on their individual specialties, and presented two shows of exquisite delight, yeah? (And so when the audience cheered and applauded at the end of her act, Sting could soak in their praise unadulterated by another by her side.) Psalm nodded at the logic of that, and each got to work on their shows. So focused on her own excellence and preening, Sting did not notice as Psalm grew dourer and more withdrawn, closeting herself in her small wagon to practice her puppet play over and over and over. Psalm didn't come to meals, rehearsals, or even performances, claiming she needed solitude to make her play perfect. Sting could hardly disapprove of that!
IGNITE
Meanwhile, the troupe's tarot reader discovered a disturbing pattern in his throws. Repeatedly, he saw the troupe's destruction, and always a specific detail: devouring by flames. And there was only one fire-elemental among them. Concerns were made to the troupe master, and Sting was appropriately indignant, her pride wounded that they would still suspect her of doing such a thing to the home she'd found. The master agreed to keep her on, but to appease the tarot reader, retired Sting's routine—for now, they assured her. Temporary measures, until whatever it was that prompted the tarot reader so faded and everything went back to normal.
With the stage denied to her, Sting grew restless and bored, interrupting others' practices and getting in everyone's way. She was shuttled off, and so in desperation turned to her friend. Only then did she become aware of just how cloistered Psalm had become. Her friend refused to let her inside her wagon, and only stuck her snout out to impatiently listen to Sting's wail before slamming the door. "If you're no longer wanted, you can just leave."
Where had that come from? Sting had never known Psalm to say any unkind thing, never heard such taut venom from her. By the Eleven, she'd never even seen her in a bad mood! Something was wrong. It itched at Sting's scales that Psalm would ignore her so. First her performance was taken away from her, and now her friend pushed her away! It would not do. No.
Sting leapt back to the door and tried to open it. It was latched from the inside, and that incensed Sting only further. White-hot claws slashed through the thin metal bar, and she barged into the wagon. Or tried to, at least. Shadow made solid rebuked her, an impenetrable wall of pure blackness blocking the entrance. The Shade undulated in slow waves, swirling in an incomprehensible pattern of hues somehow only ever darker than the last.
"Psalm?" Sting shrilled, and her heart thumped against her ribs in the first sheer terror she had ever felt in her life. Against that, her flames could do nothing. "Psalm!" she shrieked again, as the Shade suddenly contorted, twisting at its center in a motion Sting could only interpret as malicious. Something was happening in there; the Shade was doing something to her friend.
"How dare you take her from me!" Sting snarled, slashing claws down her flint scales. A snapped spell, a roar, and she crashed into the Shade, using her flame to beat back the darkness. The wall of Shade resisted her for a moment, Sting thrashing in its alien tar-like substance, then suddenly gave way, dropping her through to the opposite side. She landed in an inelegant heap on the floor of Psalm's wagon, and peering up, found the interior not much lighter than the Shade she'd just emerged from.
"Psalm," she gasped when her straining eyes finally fit together the image of her friend huddled over her work bench a short distance away. "Are you—what are you doing?"
Psalm was not cowering in fear of the Shade. She looked much the same as she ever had, bent over a wooden puppet, adjusting one of its stringed joints with a set of tiny tools. She didn't acknowledge Sting's words or presence at all, ignoring her yet again in favor of her stupid puppets.
"Look at me," Sting snarled, shoving upright and propelling herself to Psalm's side. She gripped Psalm's wing and slammed claws down on her own, preventing her from tinkering. Psalm froze, going stiff at Sting's touch. A feeling of such wrongness swamped Sting, and she swallowed uneasily, but tightened her grip. "Look—look around you! You—you're being eaten by the Shade!"
Psalm turned her head to Sting. "Eaten?" She slid out of Sting's grasp, drawing herself up to her full height on her stool. The nocturne wasn't all that bigger than Sting, but in the gloom of the wagon, her friend suddenly loomed, staring down at Sting with such precise distaste that she found herself shrinking back from that derisive gaze. Sting sought her courage but failed, and after a moment of agonizing silence, Psalm's eyes narrowed.
"You'll do," she muttered, and flicked her claws.
Tendrils of darkness shot out from the corners of the wagon, wrapping tightly around Sting and yanking her back to slam against the wall, holding her there, pinned and helpless. Only her head free, she whipped it back and forth, fruitlessly, and Psalm approached with an intent, scouring gaze, looking her up and down as a butcher might a hunter's newly returned carcass.
"Shh," Psalm murmured, in the same soft tone her friend once spoke with, placing light clawtips on Sting's scales as her claws danced all over her body, sometimes nudging here, prodding there, to test her quality and capabilities. "Yes. Yes, this will work. I will make it work." She withdrew to her bench, selecting a silver needle and spool of midnight thread.
Sting recognized puppet strings. She struggled harder, then as Psalm turned back with tools in claw, begged to know, "Make what work? Why are you—" She couldn't say it. "Why is the Shade here?" With you?
Psalm touched her cheek briefly, half a caress. "It's the only way. Sting, it was inevitable. But I can make it fast." She shook her head, eyes empty. "No one has to feel a thing. One quick thrust, then it's over."
As if to proof her point, Psalm pierced Sting's shoulder with the threaded needle, driving it between two scales to bite past skin, through muscle, and poke out the other side. Where the thread led, the Shade followed, sliding smoothly into and through Sting's body. Sting was too busy shrieking in pain to notice Psalm sewing the needle all across the rest of her joints, until the Shade was bound as tightly around her as her own blood and bone. It clung close, sticky and oozing, seeking to press deeper into Sting's body and take her completely as its own.
"I won't say I'm sorry," Psalm whispered, as she cut through the old bindings with a knife and pulled Sting up to her feet with a few precise, expert tugs on her Shade-strings. "You love to dance, don't you?"
And they danced, right there in the center of Psalm's wagon, Psalm whirling Sting around her in such graceful, neat motions that Sting knew this to be the play her friend had worked so long and hard to perfect. How many hours? Sting wondered in despair, as Psalm dipped her low to the ground, then whipped her back up in a dizzying twirl. The Shade tickled at Sting's magic, and tongues of fire licked up at the air around them, scorching the walls of the wagon. If the dance kept up, and the wagon kept burning, soon it would pass to the rest of the camp, and the Shade-infected flames could consume all the troupe. How many days, spent alone in the dark—Not alone, Sting rebuked herself harshly. How long has the Shade choked her?
"This isn't right," Sting wheezed, wishing she could end the dance, but the Shade-strings kept her moving obediently, unable to twitch even one claw out of place. "Psalm, I'm so sorry. It shouldn't have been this way."
"It couldn't be stopped," Psalm murmured, in that absent, detached voice that had all the life, all the her, sucked out of it.
"No." Sting forced her tail to flick up, catching the edge of Psalm's wing in the barest of touches, brushing it lighter than a moth's fluttering wing, before the Shade seized control and wrestled it to submission. "I should have been the one to be with you. This should be our dance, not its."
For the first time, Psalm's claws slackened on the Shade-strings. She faltered in the dance, and the two slid out of step. The Shade snarled and shoved them back together, Psalm regaining her poise. She directed Sting up and around her, wings flaring wide, a broad arc of fire leaping off her scales to eat hungrily at the roof of the wagon.
"It's too late!" Psalm cried, and Sting saw the Shade-strings anchored in her own shoulders now. And behind her, a greater mass, stretching down from the roof of the wagon, a thick clump of Shade whose long fingers were now the two's strings. "It just needed one spark—you—to start the ritual. I can't stop it now."
Sting snorted in contempt. "You can't? After how hard you've worked? This is your play—you made it, you designed it, you practiced it, you made it perfect. The Shade couldn't compete if we gave it a head start."
Doubt still flickered in Psalm's eyes. She'd already given up. Sting saw it as clearly as she had failed to do so all these past moons. The never-ending work of the troupe. The constant pursuit to improve, make the act better, more exciting, more new for the audience. Acts being compared and measured up to each other, and the lesser one, in the master's eyes, being put aside in case audiences weren't interested. Back to the drawing board, sketching one puppet design after the other, crafting more and more intricate joint-and-string systems, practicing the quick, tiny motions over and over to make the puppet move faster, smoother, more life-like. Make it better, make it enough, make it perfect—
"Oh my darling," Sting cried, heart aching for her poor, dear, exhausted friend. "I know you can do it. But let me help."
With a grunt, then snarl, Sting wrenched against the strings hard enough to stumble forward, nearly falling against Psalm. She fumbled for the pairs of shears she'd seen on Psalm's belt, but the Shade twisted her away, throwing her to the floor. FAILURE, it boomed, enough of its essence drawn into the world by the ritual for its voice to crackle throughout the wagon. It pressed down on Sting, crushing her with its mass. Psalm shuddered, but Sting showed her teeth.
"You can't fight me and continue the ritual," she sneered, gasping against the thick tar forcing itself down her throat. "Already, you're running out of time."
It was a gamble. But rule one of any act was pacing. You couldn't keep the audience's interest without knowing when to pause, when to let the tension draw out, and then when to strike, for the exact moment emotions were at their fullest. Sting might've not known puppets, but she knew Psalm's plays operated on the same principles. Whatever this ritual was, it was still a show, and it must be operated on the correct timing. Resisting Sting like this, forbidding her any movement at risk of her acting out again, would kill the ritual as surely as active sabotage.
Snarling, but sure enough, the Shade retreated, yanking Sting back to her feet and shoving her and Psalm back into the dance. To Psalm, Sting whispered, "What happens next?"
Uncertain, Psalm whispered back, "We take to the air together. But what—"
"Perfect," Sting breathed, and as the Shade-strings lifted them up, just as Psalm had said, Sting kicked off the ground harder than directed, launching her over Psalm's head. The Shade yanked her irritably down—arcing her down right by Psalm's shears. Sting snatched them, but before the Shade could force her to drop them, tossed them with a warning to Psalm. The Shade, its attention focused on Sting rather than the nocturne, was too slow. Psalm twisted free of its hold for a a second, and caught the shears. Then as the Shade lunged for her strings, she threw them back.
Twirling in midair, Sting caught the shears and snipped through the nearest string in sight. The Shade roared, finally seizing the shears and wrenching them apart. The pieces fell to the floor. Then Psalm's teeth sank into the region where the Shade's neck would be. It flailed and shrieked, throwing Psalm off, and all the strings slackened in the moment.
Hissing, Sting grabbed the string lodged in her wing-joint and ripped it free. The Shade whirled on her, then stumbled, a swift swipe of Psalm's claws to another string making it lurch off-balance. All the strings tightened again, and Psalm yelled, "The dance!"
As one, they leapt back into motion, Psalm's whispered prompts directing Sting where to leap, how to move. The Shade pulled at their strings uselessly, unable to make them move more when they already did so perfectly. Sting didn't know this dance. Psalm had never let her in on her practices, and Sting had never asked to watch. But moons of doing the same chores, practicing juggling, passing hidden cards and trinkets to each other in games of slight of claw, predicting when the other needed a rest break or swallow of water—well, despite it all, they knew each other still. Sting trusted Psalm to point her true, and Psalm trusted Sting to follow without fear. Between steps and twirls of the dance, they exchanged blows to the Shade, Sting hissing mockery to draw its ire, Psalm tearing through another string, then launching back into the proper movements necessary for the ritual's completion before it could retaliate.
"We're winning," Sting panted. Half her strings were gone, and likewise for Psalm. The Shade had placed too much responsibility of the ritual on Psalm, and she knew the dance better than it; it couldn't keep up with their random yet synchronized attacks.
"Too slowly," Psalm hissed back. "We won't escape before the dance finishes."
"If we push harder—" Sting began, then cut herself as Psalm stumbled. She hauled herself back up in time to meet Sting's roll across her back, but Sting saw the weariness rooted deep inside her, how her step flagged, and could have hit herself. Would she do the same as the troupe to her friend, pushing her past her limits for some stupid play?
"Never you worry," she whispered to her friend, pressing her brow briefly against Psalm's. "I'll take it from here."
Determination burning out all fear, Sting crouched, gathering all her strength, her snout pointed up to the center of the Shade's accumulated power hanging above her from the roof. A roof that was in shambles. Her fire had burned through the wagon extensively during the fight. Now that Sting brought her attention to it, she heard the screams of dragons outside, and knew all the camp was alight. The flames wouldn't stop this time. But there was still a chance to keep the Shade from them. Looking at it, Sting felt rage surge, and at long last, released all the pent-up fire the troupe had confined to her in setting her routine to the side.
"Sting, what are you—"
"This was to be ours," she roared, launching straight up at the Shade, claws extended. It tugged frantically on her strings, but flame poured down Sting's scales, scorching away every remaining tie to the Shade she had. And kept burning, using her own scales and body as fuel. Sting bellowed, "BEHOLD," and dove into the Shade. It closed its jaws around her and sought to consume her, and she laughed piteously.
Take me, she told it in a snarl. And you die with me. She would burn it—and herself—up from the inside. It wouldn't save the camp. But she could free Psalm.
And damn, what a fine show it would be. With Sting at its centerpiece.
Psalm better be watching, she thought, closing her eyes for the last time. Then jolted as the Shade all at once released her. Her eyes flew open in shock as she fell, burning still, to the wagon floor, and she gaped to see the Shade writhing in pain above her. Psalm rode its back, twin shards of the shattered shears in her claws. She plunged the blades into its spine, dragging them down deep. The Shade thrashed, trying to throw her aside, but the strings still embedded in her flesh never let her go far. A split second later she clung to it again, shears mere blurs of silver as she stabbed it again again again again again—
With a final howl of pain, the Shade tore free of her blades, and her body. The strings dislodged and retracted. All the shadows of the wagon shot towards it, gathering up into one pulsating mass of darkness—then the Shade darted up and away, leaping out one of the many holes in the roof and disappearing into the night sky, dissipating quicker than smoke.
Psalm thumped to the ground, landing heavily on her wing. It snapped, and she shrieked in pain. The sound lurched Sting out of her shock, and she crawled to her friend, curling around her. "Are you alright? Are you alright?"
"It's—it's broken," Psalm quavered, and the simple mundanity of the injury made Sting want to laugh with sheer relief.
"You're alive," she breathed, holding Psalm tight to herself. "You're alive."
"We both are." Psalm wiggled in her embrace, carefully to avoid bumping her wing, to face Sting. "You nearly didn't. You were going to die, right in front of me, and force me to be alone again."
"I didn't want to die—"
But Psalm grabbed her, claws digging in tight enough to be painful. She clutched Sting's head, pressing it hard against her brow. "That wasn't. In. The. Script. You don't die on me, Sting. That's not our dance."
Sting couldn't speak. Finally she swallowed and forced out, "Alright. You're the master."
Psalm held her all the tighter. "That's right."
ACT TWO
Sting's prediction proved true. The camp was in ashy ruins. All their companions, their family, dead. Psalm, clutching her broken wing to herself, couldn't stop staring. Sting couldn't stand to look, to stay. Shade-stink still hung heavy in the air, coarser than smoke.
"Hurry," she urged, tugging Psalm away, turning her head aside. "We need to go." Gaoler Seekers would arrive soon, and Sting knew they would take Psalm away from her—or, really, take them both. She hadn't come away unscarred any less than her friend.
"My fault," Psalm whispered, even as she led Sting lead her away, on foot, unfortunately, but there was no other option. No wagon remained intact. No supplies to scavenge. "My fault."
"Ours," Sting said grimly, using the stars to orient them west. Seekers would be less likely to find them in the Scarred Wasteland. She held Psalm closer. "Our fault. It's just you and me now, but it's you and me."
They fled. It wasn't an easy journey. First priority was to remain hidden from pursuit, second to get Psalm to a healer to fix her wing, so they could fly again and travel faster. But along the way, Sting and Psalm both discovered . . . lasting effects from the ruined ritual.
Though Psalm tried to bury them, burn them, drop them off a cliff, the twin shear-shards always returned to her belt. They fuzzed unnaturally in daylight, blurry on the edges, and at night couldn't be seen at all. But that proved useful when the two's camp was raided by bandits, who struck swift as vipers and had the two bound in ropes before one could squawk the alarm. While Sting kept their attention off Psalm by deriding and jeering the bandits, she quietly slipped the hidden blades free and sawed herself loose, then leapt for the leader to give Sting time to burn her own ropes off and the two escaped unscathed.
And for Sting . . . cleansing her body of the Shade by scorching fire, well, it left a mark. Patches of scales all over her body remain blackened and stiff. No healer could mend them, and Sting's had to relearn much of her technique in flight, dance, and combat to accommodate for the new limitations. She may not be as graceful and fluid as she was before, but her new jagged, splintered motions are hard to predict, as random and frenzied as a roaring fire. In addition, those patches are hard enough to produce sparks when Sting scrapes claws down them, allowing her easy ability to start fires anywhere and everywhere.
So the change in life hasn't been all bad. Now, the two write their own routines and plays, no restrictions, no deadlines, no catering to audiences. They dance for themselves, in glory of each other, to celebrate each other, and to fight for each other, defending against those who would rob them, hurt them, lock them away. Sting grabs their enemy's attention with bright flame and dazzling dance, and in the shadows thrown back by her fire lurks Psalm, shear-shards ready, slicing and cutting in the moments of hesitation and silence between Sting's flaring performance. Before the enemy can locate Psalm and attack, Sting's back, reminding them, YOU CAN'T IGNORE ME, and then Psalm's blade is at their throat, and curtains close.
Sting eats their fear and confusion, the wild desperation in their eyes as they look at her—look at her!—as the last sight they'll ever behold, up. She just adores putting on a show, and being its star.
Double-edged blade, that is, seeking all the attention for oneself.
MELTING ICICLE CHAINS
Independent did not have much trouble finding them after being contracted by Seekers to capture these Shade-touched creatures. She and her Contractors hunted them down, following the trail of rumors of a shadow-and-fire dancing pair, and though Independent thought their double act was cute, a job was a job. The Seeker unit wanted them alive, so the Contractors hauled them in chains back to the Seeker's post.
"That's the contract fulfilled!" Independent said cheerfully, dumping Sting and Psalm at the head gaoler's feet. "Two captured Shadelings. And our treasure?"
She was given a chest of coin, the bounty for the two, and Independent turned to go. The head gaoler reached for Sting, and Psalm pulled out her shears. Within moments, the two were free again, and the head gaoler barking orders to restrain them. Independent turned back around, grinning, excited to watch the fight.
"Aren't you going to help?" the head gaoler bellowed, fending off Sting's fiery claws.
"Contract's fulfilled!" Independent crowed, flicking her tail at the treasure chest. "I'm just here for the show."
Well, Sting liked the sound of that. She caught Psalm's eye, who nodded back.
"Stupid mercenaries!" the head gaoler roared, as Sting dropped another of the guards. "Fine—triple the bounty, just—"
"A contract!" Sting yelled over them, ducking a swipe of their tail, and Independent's head whipped to her.
Psalm picked it up, even as a gaoler knocked the shears from her claws. "We will give you the best show in all of Sornieth!"
Independent's head swung to her.
"No!" the head gaoler cried. "Don't listen to them!"
Independent's lips peeled back. Her tongue ran over her teeth, already salivating. "And what do you want in exchange?"
"HELP US KILL THEM," Sting shrieked, pinned beneath the claws of a guard, who reared back an axe for the killing blow.
"Your contract," Independent growled, stalking forward, her Contractors sweeping out to surround the chamber, "is accepted." She pounced, seizing the head gaoler's throat in her jaws and tearing it open. Blood poured, washing down her neck and chest, as she looked up to meet Sting and Psalm's eyes with a bared grin. "We'll go over the paperwork later."
So Sting and Psalm became Contractors, and it's been the best arrangement in their lives by far. The same level of free expression in their art as when traveling alone, but now they have the shared companionhood they lost with the troupe. Not to mention Independent's protection. Sometimes Seekers come looking for the two as old rumors circulate, but Sting and Psalm don't have to run any longer. Instead, they put on a special show for the Contractors. They know each and every step.
-
REACHED LEVEL 25 ON 3/8/2023
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.
Feed this dragon Meat.
This dragon doesn't eat Seafood.
This dragon doesn't eat Plants.
You can share this dragon on the forums by either copying the browser URL manually, or using bbcode!
Exalting Sting to the service of the Flamecaller 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.