-----


    "Oooh! So you know my ol'' friend Nedrug! You should had said so sooner! Hahahaha!" Kestrelliusughed. It was quite clear how fast he changed his attitude towards us.


    Once we offered Kestrellius some beer and snacks, he quickly became more friendly. I guess the quest was right in that regard. Sometimes for people to show their kindness, you have to give them something to incentivize such kindness.


    "Anyways, about what we said earlier, mister Kestrellius…" I said, giving him a kind smile.


    "Oh right! My bad, I was a bit rude there, I had no idea you guys were so kindhearted as to give me some beer and snacks." Kestrelliusughed. "Sorry about being grumpy, I often have a hard time getting by nowadays…"


    "Huh? Why is that the case?" Asked Acorn. "I had heard the dwarves were living rather well, no?"


    "Well, little squirrel, that happened a while back ago." Sighed Kestrellius. "When we had yet to discover the dangers of these mountain''s depths. Curse our ancestors for being too greedy and mine too much when they didn''t need to, leaving little for their descendants…" He sighed.


    "Is this rted with the Dragon Nest?" Mark wondered.


    "Yeah, yeah, you have some sharpness in your wood, young Ent." Kestrellius nodded. "As you heard from my friend, I used to be part of the team that discovered that ce. Back then, this mountain was never truly THAT dangerous, we could handle most monsters by our own, with our machinery and weapons, and the adventurers that often arrived here to learn our arts would pay us back by hunting monsters too..."


    Kestrellius grabbed the cup of beer and drank it almost to half in a single go, and then sighed, his face looked slightly sad.


    "Well, that happened." He sighed. "It was… I don''t know, like almost a year ago when we found it? The Dragon Nest ended waking up a hell of arge group of dragons. They came pouring relentlessly and took over most of our mines, whatever mines were left were all the emptied ones. These damn lizards eat ores too, so they started eating all our precious products, and could even tear through our golems with their sharp ws and jaws, and eat them! It was utter chaos…"


    "I-It sound much more terrible than I imagined." I sighed. "Why did your King never asked help to the other nations? The fairy queendom is just right around the corner, you know?" I asked. "We could hade to your aid!"


    "The fairy queendom?" Kestrelliusughed. "Sorry, I don''t want to offend you or anything but before that whole Demon King thing happened we barely knew of its existence. Now the whole world learned about them just recently. It is a bit of a mixed opinion, some are skeptical they managed to defeat the Demon King, and others just want to invade the ce… It''s a mix of things, but nobody really wants to get along with them."


    "A-Ah…" I felt a bit shaken.


    I guess the people of this world is not that friendly, not at all… Maybe the Forest of Beginnings was an exception to this rule, everyone there was rather nice.<novelsnext></novelsnext>


    "And so, we go back to your topic." Kestrellius said. "The ck scaled thing, we saw it, I saw it. Huge, with four giant wings, three pairs of red eyes, sharp ck horns, giant ws, a behemoth amongst behemoths… And something above all else, a big, red jewel on its chest, with ancient, dwarven inscriptions…"


    "Dwarven… inscriptions?" Asked Mark. "Why?"


    "No freaking idea man, I didn''t had time to stand there and read what it was!" The dwarf sighed. "I just ran the hell away from that thing before bing his breakfast." He drank some more beer before eating a piece of fruit cake. "Ahem… Well, so anyways,ter on I learned that ce connected to what we call now the Dragon Nest, it is catalogued as a Dungeon or something. We miners barely have anywhere to mine now, so we go look for scraps in mostly emptied ces ande back with almost nothing. I''ve been thinking on just bing a hunter, but I am kind of… you know, afraid of dying."


    "I see… So the problem with the economy is directly rted with the Dragon Nest…" I sighed. "Are there not many yers going there? Have they seen the big dragon? I think it could be the leader of the others."


    "Nope, there are barely any yers here nowadays." Sighed Kestrellius. "And the ones around are cowardly and just prefer to mine out our own resources, the rascals."


    "Well that sucks." Rita sighed, crossing her arms. "Any other rumors regarding that dragon? Like, where it lives?"


    "Hmm, I''ve heard some folks say… It might be rted to an ancient myth from us dwarves, of… Well, what was it? Some sort… of cursed king, that was too greedy, and was cursed by the Gods to be a Dragon. He used his powers to transform people into dragons, and ended almost destroying our kingdom, was it like that? But there''s no way such a thing is real, right? So maybe its just an old dragon that has been here for a while, no idea. Well, if you want to know more about the dragons, there''s my nephew, he''s a young monster biologist, alchemist, and engineer of magic items, though most of them fail." Kestrellius smiled. "Wanna meet him? He must be around the Alchemy Street in the northwest of town, tell him that his uncle brought you to him. Ah, his name is Richard."


    "Ooh, that would really be helpful! Thanks a lot, Kestrellius!" I said with a smile. "Here, a little gift for your goodwill!" I quickly gave him a bag of fresh fruits, and some ores I had mined in the forest.


    "Oh wooow! A-Are you sure miss?!" He asked.


    "Yeah, keep them!" I nodded. "I hope the best for you! Thanks a lot! Let''s go everyone."


    "Thank you!" Kestrellius said with a smile, as the quest was quicklypleted, and a brand-new one was also generated.


    Slowly, we were getting deeper into this mystery.


    -----