This ability of vampires to reproduce with non-vampires regardless of their species is widely regarded as the most likely explanation for the existence of creatures like beastkin or humans. Without this dilution and intermingling of genetics that should never have been combined, the world would be populated only by animals and elves.


    <hr>


    "Mercurios Draconis! It is I, your new patriarch. Send your wisest and most knowledgeable scion to meet with me. We must make plans."


    Such a dramatic challenge would lead to a lot of infighting, and several days worth of dragons murdering each other before one of them finally came out on top as the best candidate for the position.


    Jair, therefore, did not stick around to watch, but waited inside the sheltered valley where he could keep an eye on things if necessary but mainly do his own thing without worrying.


    There was plenty to do while he waited.


    In this instance, his own thing involved teaching Raina how to perfect her imprints and updating her on the progres of his various investigations.


    He’d also pop over to various cities once a day or so to keep tabs on the political and economic situation. So far, things were well within expectations. Different chaos than he was used to, but nothing Sekir-flavored yet. Which reinforced his suspicions about the sorcerer planning something for the upcoming Solaria celebrations.


    Jair worked on imprinting his own spells as well but that was more of a casual thing he did all the time rather than a particular thing that needed its own timeslot.


    <hr>


    "What...?" Lord Curad Veshin stared at Jair like he''d lost his mind.


    "I''d like you to make armor for my dragon. Skyclaw." He waved a hand, and Skyclaw appeared, her green scales glinting with silver and blue light.


    "I... how—what—you...?"


    "Preferably something that can be soulbound so it''ll summon and desummon with her."


    Lord Veshin only looked back and forth between Jair and the dragon, speechless with shock.


    "I''d prefer it to be ready before Solaria, but I understand if it''s going to be difficult to get in custom dragon-shaped armor pieces. If you need a down-payment, you''ll have to talk to the king, he''s managing my finances for a bit."


    It was a very long time before Lord Veshin managed to speak.


    <hr>


    "We''ve got three customers willing to pay to fast-track themselves," Larenok reported when Jair checked in a day after making the proposal. "Here are the names and addresses."


    "I''ll have them done by the end of the day." Jair disappeared in a burst of green fire, reappearing on the street outside the first location. Even if he had been inside most locations at one time or another, after a while they all blurred together into indecipherability.


    Without something specific to set them apart, they''d be lost in the haze of everything that wasn''t notable. Even notable things tended to get mixed around with each other. He''d been practicing teleporting and accidentally ended up in a very different place than intended because he''d swapped mental impressions of them in his head, or simply made up something that wasn''t accurate enough and ended up in the next closest matching place.


    He meandered along the row until he got to the right numbered house, then shoved his way in to announce himself and ask after his customer. The guard at the gate looked scandalized as Jair teleported past him into the interior courtyard, then fumbled anxiously to get the gate opened before anyone realized someone unauthorized had slipped through.


    Jair wasn''t going to be caught and thrown out by one little gate guard though, and simply ran at a pace that kept him one step ahead of the man the entire time. Which was to say, he walked calmly and teleported every few steps, either to one side or the other, while continuing to progress forward. This forced the guard to rush back and forth trying to catch up.


    Jair reached the door, knocked, and waited for it to open.


    The guard finally caught up and tried to grab his arm. Jair lightly poked him with Maelstrom and teleported him back to the gate.


    The guard growled and shouted invective, but Jair had bought himself another few minutes free before the man could reach him again, and by that time the door was opened.


    "Phoenix Healer, here for Ser Metee. I''ll be in the sitting room. Send him down when he''s available."


    He didn''t wait for a response but pushed past the woman who''d opened the door and poked his head into doors until he found one that seemed appropriately sitting-capable, and sat.


    He wondered if Skyclaw would fit in here if he summoned her, examined the ceiling and walls, decided that yes it would work, and summoned her.


    She promptly crushed half the furniture, knocked the chandelier off the ceiling, and broke one of the windows with her tail, but she did fit.


    "I think we can arrange you a bit more dynamically," Jair said, standing to pace.


    By the time Ser Metee arrived, his room had been completely redecorated to accommodate the man seated atop a seemingly-sleeping dragon who had a single eye peeking open.


    "Ser Metee, pleasure to meet you. I am the Phoenix Healer. Are you ready?"


    Ser Metee stared at the dragon, then at him standing with Maelstrom glowing sinisterly in his hand, and slowly drew a sword of his own.


    "Really? You''d pay a fortune for me to come and then attack me just because we squished a  few of your sofas?"


    "No, it is not just because of the sofas," Ser Metee growled. "You are intruding in my home without permission, without protocol. Anyone can claim to be—"


    Jair teleported behind him, stabbed him in the back, and darkflamed him to the other side of the room.


    The man squeaked and gasped helplessly, toppled over, then stared up blankly.


    "You alright there? The process should leave you feeling invigorated and revitalized, sometimes with a clearer mental state, sometimes just untouched from your default status, but it has never been known to have negative effects."


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    That was untrue, but just in case people''s belief had an impact on what results they got, he may as well convince them of its infallibility. Couldn''t hurt anything.


    The man just lay there.


    "If we''ve killed him, I''m going to have to refund them their money, won''t I?" Jair walked over to the man and nudged at him with one foot. "Ser Metee? You alive down there?"


    The man didn''t answer.


    "Well, I guess we''ll have to chalk Darkflame up as ''not necessarily safe''. But still, this is only one in... how many, seventy? Two hundred? I''m sure that we can do better if we keep going. Keep that ratio down."


    "There''s not much of a ratio to deal with if it''s just a single instance," Skyclaw pointed out. "You don''t think that we can save him?"


    "Hm, true." Jair stabbed him with darkflame a second time. If he could revive him, that could save his reputation and record from taking a major hit. If he''d given him a deadly shock by stabbing him from behind or something, that could be dealt with by bringing him back again, right?


    He tried darkflaming him to the other side of the room, and the body just lay there.


    "Back in time, then?" He switched to Temporal Reversion and tapped the guy, reverting him and Jair to two minutes before, and hoped that the being-unconscious thing wouldn''t carry over.


    Ser Metee started, staring around the rearranged room with startled shock. "What? Who? How?"


    "Phoenix Healer, as requested. There was a long delay while waiting for you to get here, so I let my dragon out for a few minutes. It''s alright, she won''t bite."


    Skyclaw gave a friendly hiss. The man nearly passed out again.


    "No need for that." Jair cleared his throat. "I believe we may have gotten off on the wrong start last time. Please, tell me what it is you''re hoping to get out of this service?"


    "My bad knee. My friend said you were able to... it is you, you''re not some kind of strange robber?" His hand crept over to his sword.


    Jair sighed. "Why are you so suspicious? You asked for me, I came, that''s all there is to it."


    "You broke into my house and your dragon has creatively rearranged my furniture and window. I don''t know how you managed to fit the beast inside, but that''s beside the point. This is an unacceptable sort of behavior."


    "You''re the one paying a fortune for me to be here."


    "And I''ll be sure to tell everyone I know what a terrible guest you are."


    "Oh, no, my reputation. What ever will I do?" Jair stabbed him. Darkflame relocated him across the room. Jair held his breath, hoping that the man wouldn''t topple over and disappear...


    He didn''t disappear. He did fall over. Skyclaw caught him in a coil of her tail and gently lowered him to the ground.


    “He’s not alive.”


    Jair sighed. "Guess this guy has an allergy. We''ll have to call that a loss." He reverted to when he was standing outside the gate, gave the guard an elaborate apology to deliver, and headed off to the next location.


    Maybe he should keep Skyclaw in-soul for the next one. Even if her presence wasn''t a factor in the effectiveness of the Darkflame, it was important to keep up appearances.


    <hr>


    It was three days after his demand that he finally got his dragon representative, Liselanzis, an older female who may well be the largest dragon left after Ryenzo’s disappearance.


    She flew over to their volcano and hovered, all pride and confidence. "Who are you that dares to summon me?"


    “Be right back,” Jair told Raina the moment he heard the dragon’s voice. He swallowed the dragoncube and darkflamed himself to the edge of the caldera. He paused and pointed at the mountaintop in front of him.


    Liselanzis growled and hovered defiantly.


    "I am the Stormbrother and Skyholder, whose fire destroys without hope of escape. Sit. Obey me or die."


    She landed crouched, her scales standing up as she flexed her claws and flicked her tail. “You have no right to make demands of me. I should tear you apart where you stand.”


    Against anyone but Jair, the show of aggression would have been effective. An angry dragon was something to be feared even if it were a small and young one.


    This was not a young dragon. It would be a humorous sight to any outside observer, the tiny human beside the predator that could crush him without even trying, yet treating as equals.


    Jair had killed enough dragons, even not counting Ryenzo, that their displays meant nothing to him now. He had called and she had come. Any posturing at this point was meaningless.


    He simply waited until her roar faded and she stared at him in silence, then went on without acknowledging her bluff. “I require your knowledge, Draconis. The heart of Ryenzo''s mountain. What is special about it?”


    The dragon punched her neck and hissed at him angrily. "You trespass upon our matriarch''s land. She will destroy you when she returns."


    "She will never return. Tell me. What is in the volcano? Why has it never erupted?"


    "Mercurios is kept tamed by our matriarch’s will. If you provoke it, it will destroy you." She leaned back on her haunches and laughed harshly. "And I will be overjoyed to watch."


    "Mercurios is the mountain?"


    Liselanzis scoffed and her disdain echoed across the hills. "No. Mercurios is the dragon’s heart. The well of power from which we are all born. It cannot be satisfied and no mere mountain could contain it. The pit of fire is merely the doorway."


    "All right. How do I talk to it?"


    “You do not converse with Mercurios. Mercurios is so far beyond you that to even approach would destroy you."


    From which we are all born.


    Doorway.


    The way the dragon talked about it didn''t sound like a mountain, didn''t sound like a place.


    Or, rather, it sounded like a very specific kind of place. A kind of place that the Oriad specifically had none of.


    "Is Mercurios a dungeon?"


    Liselanzis hissed, tail flicking. "Do not compare Mercurios to the likes of your Meliarn. They are nothing alike."


    Jair nodded. That was confirmation enough for him.


    "Thank you. You''re dismissed. You have done well."


    The dragon huffed out a cloud of acidic vapor, not directed at him, but a clear indicator of her dissatisfaction.


    But whatever Skyclaw had told her family to keep them in line was clearly working. Instead of trying to tear Jair apart, she accepted the dismissal and took to the sky.


    He watched her fly off toward her own mountain, pondering, then darkflamed himself back to the valley.


    "What was that all about?" Raina asked, as Jair spat out the dragoncube and massaged his sore throat. Eventually he would build up enough scars there to be able to use the dragoncube without constantly ripping his flesh open, but for now he’d spend a while swallowing blood as repayment. As far as costs to speak draconic went, this was a minor sacrifice.


    He drank another of Qahrvirna''s soothing potions before relaying the conversation to Raina. "Basically, the heart of their domain is a dungeon, and its entrance is in the middle of Ryenzo''s mountain. Given what we''ve learned about Eythron having spent a lot of time in a dungeon previously, I wouldn’t be surprised if what''s happening here is a… latent soul corruption, for lack of a better term. Something deep in him got twisted from so much exposure to Zoress, and now it draws Eythron irresistibly toward the nearest dungeon.”


    “How did he survive this long?”


    “There are no dungeons in the Oriad, monsters and vampires take care of that particular danger niche.”


    "Where can we take him then? South? He should be safe in the sandmarsh villages. Or Hasti oasis?"


    "I don’t think that will work. Meliarn extends under most of Veor. If my guess is right, anywhere a dungeon’s influence exists, Eythron will be deeply influenced to seek it out. For what purpose, I don''t know, but given that he put in so much effort to flee and avoid being drawn into one in the past, I can assume it''s not good."


    The thought of watching his mentor corrupted fully by a dungeon and turned into a mindless mockery of himself was even more painful than watching him try to throw himself into the lava over and over again.


    “Sounds like we need to go investigate that dungeon,” Raina suggested.


    “Yes. Unfortunately, humans aren’t really capable of swimming through lava, which we’ve demonstrated quite clearly. Even if I get city-grade protection constructs, they’ll burn out on the way in and we’ll have no way to get back out.”


    Raina shook her head. “We don’t need constructs. We have dragons.”


    <hr>