《The Dragon of Roads》


 Chapter 1

    The Dragon of Roads - Path of the Dragon


    My ambition never included venturing down the path to godhood, yet there I did tread. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I am but a demigod, as I yet dwell in the material world and mere mortals do not burst asunder in the presence of my divinity. Such theological distinctions are too pedantic for my tastes, as I prefer ventures based in practicality. And for you, dear reader, that understanding of divinity may suffice, even though it is oversimplified. The road to divinity was built by my own hand, and in a far more literal sense than most gods, or so I assume.


    I am The Dragon of Roads; such is my moniker. Much of my life has been spent building and maintaining roads in all the lands of the countless worlds. I play no favorites on behalf of the nations therein, I levy no toll upon travelers, and I care little for permission from the landed gentry to practice my craft and improve the lives of the common folk. I would not say that my purpose is completely selfless, as I too reap rewards from the network of roads I have crafted.


    My roads are my treasure, a part of my hoard shared freely to the world. For what is a dragon without a hoard? My body may be immortal, but my mind is still that of a mortal, and I need a hobby to help me endure the passing of eternity. And so I collect, I gather, I hoard all which pleases me, much as any good dragon should, even at the danger of being found clich¨¦. It has become a goal until itself, a purpose without end, a hunger and, dare I say, an addiction. I wonder at times if I own my hoard or if it has come to own me.


    There is little I do not collect these days. Wealth, gifts received, baubles, ruined artifacts forgotten by man and time, lovers, books, spoons, wanted posters, skulls of my enemies, enemies (with skulls yet unclaimed)... The list goes on, but I certainly collect things that most mortals would not care for. Most of the time when mortals show up, its ¡°You killed my father, and I am here for my vengeance,¡± or ¡°Please help me overcome some oddly specific obstacle in my life that could probably be solved by a simpler means than divine intervention,¡± and never ¡°I really want to see your carefully curated snail collection that you acquired over three centuries while scouring every corner of the world.¡± I worked hard for those snails, dammit! I guess that is all for the best, otherwise everyone and his brother would try to offer me every scrap of junk they found on the ground on their way to petition me.


    I do collect things of little monetary value as well. I remember a little girl, alone with almost nothing left, for all else in her life had been rendered into blood and ash by a raiding party from an army that devoured all in its path. Her own life was down to its final thread, and I am ashamed to say that I could not save her in those circumstances. Her friends and family had been taken from her, and she had only her doll, a crude, anthropomorphic bunny rabbit with a blue dress. She gripped that soiled doll tightly to her frail and ravaged body as she lay there forgotten by her cruel tormentors. If I had wanted the doll for myself, I could have taken it, either before or after she slipped from this world. To her, it had been everything, her security and a promise that she would be safe if she just held onto it, and yet she offered it to me. She did not swear bloody vengeance, but instead asked that I ¡°stop those bad men from hurting more people¡±.


    What value can be placed on the last thing not yet taken from an innocent girl who had lost everything? I accepted, of course. I stayed with her until the end, doing my best to comfort her and probably failing miserably. I watched as a precious flower of youth wilted before it had the chance to bloom, its petals sullied by vulgar wretches. I wiped out the raiding party as they reveled in their misdeeds, devoured the army with my hungering flame as man and beast cried out in pain and terror, tore the body of their vile king asunder with my claws as he begged for his life, and scoured the blight of the entire ruling class of their nation from this world. I toppled their palaces, their churches to their foul gods, their monuments to their greed and their own glory. I eradicated the last vestiges of corruption and avarice from that wretched kingdom with zeal forged from sorrow and wrath in equal measure. It didn¡¯t bring that little girl back, it didn¡¯t save her family, but it was all I could do by that point. Not enough, but my best, even though she deserved far more. I treasure that soiled doll more than most things, and I would not trade it for all the world, my little reminder of innocence lost and of my failure to act before it was too late.


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    Perhaps I get ahead of myself with such sad tales. The roads started out as a means to an end, a way to amplify the flow of goods and the opportunity to collect. I built shrines and waystations along the way, each a safe place for travelers to rest. Turns out, if you put a fancy dragon statue in a shrine, people tend to leap at the opportunity to clasp hands together in supplication at them. I listened to their prayers because I could, for such was one of many benefits of my shrines. I ignored most petitioners, but some requests amused me one way or another, and so I would deign to render aid from time to time.


    Answering prayers proved to be a critical mistake. Particularly pleased customers attracted more as they told friends and family, and with such a following, their gratitude transformed into reverence. Cults arose in my name, though I took no effort to help them form. At times, I even tried to stop them, for I did not want them to see me as being more than I was. Alas, such cults cropped up faster than I could remove them. The cults meant well, forming belief systems centered around doing good unto good and evil unto evil, which aligned with my own values. Cults merged, schisms formed, and theological battles raged. Eventually, such strife gave way to organized religion, although fortunately, one bereft of institutional authority imposed by the church, for I despise authoritarian theocracies that leverage my name as grounds for dominion over the masses.


    Perhaps my single greatest mistake in avoiding godhood was playing along with some of the rituals of my followers. I am a sucker for a good festival, an artistic performance, an eager lover offering herself as tribute, and games of sport and chance. That these rituals were held in my honor was not what attracted me, I merely enjoyed the events themselves. My attendance, and at least the absence of any disfavor, sanctified and legitimized the rituals and encouraged annual repetition. Begrudgingly at first, I enjoyed the experiences and opportunities to add to my hoard in equal measure, so I continued to allow it, seeing no harm.


    And then one day, divinity awakened within me as apotheosis manifested rather suddenly. I gained access to a divine portfolio of powers and responsibilities. I had no means to reject it, to disable it, as no official offer was ever made for me to consider. There were other gods that the people could turn to, yet I had somehow amassed too many followers to avoid that divine spark. I am The Dragon of Roads, a demigod of roads, bridges, safe travel across land via known routes, and of enabling free trade and the sharing of ideas. My churches are my way stations along my roads. To travel my roads is to honor me. To see what wonders I have built along them is to perform a pilgrimage to my glory. To help a fellow traveler is to sing a hymn. I did not choose this. I often wonder if the gods had intended this all along for me, that I would join their ranks as a lesser deity.


    I wield powers unimaginable to most mortals, I bend reality to my will within my domain, and I dictate the fate of the world in many ways. I have gained enemies both mortal and divine. My power grows still, albeit slowly compared to the lifetime of these mortals. Yet, I was mortal once, indeed more than once. I was not always a dragon. I remember being relatively normal and powerless. I retain recollection of multiple lives lived before this one I have now. Though the specific memories of each are clouded, I have certainly lived at least a thousand lives. I know that this life of mine is a reincarnation after death, but it is not my first time as such. I know not if any of that matters any more, for it would probably take until the end of time itself for me to die and test if more lives lie ahead of me. Even if someone could somehow vanquish a demigod, death is not the end for them, merely an inconvenience.


    I accept my burden, my place in the universe. The road was long, and I had many opportunities to venture down a different fork, yet this was the path chosen. I have faced trials and tribulations beyond mortal ken. And now, dear reader, I share my story. I have many tales to tell, but this is one of how a simple boy became a dragon, and how a dragon became a demigod.

 Chapter 2

    I do not remember going before a goddess to discuss my reincarnation into this universe, nor stepping through some mystical door into another world, nor some cosmic entity making a deal with me in return for more life. Not to say that such events did not transpire, but such dealings are not where my memory of this life began. I do remember a carriage traveling along a dirt road towards a quiet little town on the edge of nowhere, my little head nestled into Mother¡¯s side as we bounced along the shabby dirt road. She held me close out of duty as we arrived at our new home. Bear in mind, my body at that time was that of a human child, not a dragon.


    We had arrived at a quaint dwelling on the edge of town, high upon a hill. The house appeared absent the labors of a caretaker for some time. A short stone fence hemmed in an unkempt garden overgrown with an abundance of life and weeds. The thatch roof contained worrisome spots that suggested the next rainfall would not leave us so snug in our new abode. Worn patches of color on the walls hinted at fantasies where paint once adorned it in unparalleled livery. Floorboards groaned in protest as the coachman deposited our belongings upon the dusty floor inside. Vermin scurried to secret lairs, seemingly in protest as sunlight unabated poured into the room, the effect amplified dramatically by opening the storm windows.


    Mother wasted no time in setting about the daunting chore required to make our new abode presentable. She worked tirelessly to improve our house and transform it into a home. Unfortunately, despite her best efforts, she never hit the mark for that goal. The house itself became pristine. She cleaned, cooked, tended the garden, repaired the house, managed the shopping, provided me with an education (for what little I needed), and generally did her duty to care for me. But the place was so sterile, so lifeless. There were few decorations, trinkets, or objects to show character, to tell the world that a family lived there. There was no laughter, no conversation outside of what was needed to instruct me, no games played together. We existed there together, but yet there could be found no closeness and affection from us being family.


    Perhaps fortune blessed me in that I did not need the nurturing love that normal children require. I retained scattered memories and wisdom from my past life. I knew of technology, mathematics, psychology, and other general forms of knowledge that savvy adults would possess, albeit devoid of the context of personal memories and experiences. I only needed to learn history, culture, geography, and other specific details of this world and life. I would hazard a guess that such seemingly supernatural intellect, when compared to my peers and combined with the oddness of Mother, contributed greatly to my complete lack of friends. I was not bullied, but neither was I invited to any event or gathering. People simply tolerated Mother and me and what coin we had to spend.


    I buried myself in books to distract myself and to learn all I could of this new world. I cannot say for sure that my past lives were devoid of magic, but in this world, magic is absolutely real. Every person of all races has some degree of supernatural power which comes in the form of a Blessing, as most cultures call it. Each Blessing contains a range of Skills, and once awakened, most people experience a change of personality to follow the path their Blessing requires.


    I remember asking Mother about my Blessing. She told me to keep it secret, that no one would have heard of it before, that people would fear me or try to capture and control me for their own ends. I heeded her words spoken with the same enthusiasm and demeanor as one talking about the weather despite their disturbing implications, and so I kept to myself and maintained a low profile. I studied, practiced the Skills of my Blessing, and prepared myself for the life ahead of me, one of adventure and danger.


    Mother had convinced two local Adventurers to train me in the techniques of combat. I know not what deals were struck, but the Bradberrys, a young union of two humans, trained me. The husband taught me in the way of the sword and shield, sparing me little in the ways of war or the bite of his waster. The wife favored the spear, and she made her husband appear to be a saint, such was the brutality in how she pressed me with her onslaught. I knew not why they were so cold to me, never once gracing me with anything more than lukewarm demeanors. I lurked in hiding at times to watch the lessons with their other students, each of whom did not go home with nearly as many bruises as I did. Perhaps they sensed some sort of ¡°wrongness¡± in me, that unnatural spark of an innocence already lost for one my age. I cannot say that I found their lessons to be to my disadvantage, for they impressed upon me the realities of combat and the harshness of the world when one takes up the sword. Such lessons had saved my life on more than one occasion.


    The children of the town largely ignored me, which bewildered me, for I completely expected an outcast such as myself to have more than a few stones hurled my way. Few ever approached me willingly, and I found them to be dull and na?ve. I wrestled with the strange duality within me, the youthful urge to occasionally play in the simple games that children desired, coupled with my advanced understanding of the world and what appetites that engendered. I craved adventure beyond tossing a ball to one another, but I could not accurately pinpoint what that entailed.


    The adults interested me far more. Their lives and concerns proved to be more complex than those of the children. Laurndel, the wife of the butcher, was having an affair with the thatcher, Dorrel, a pretty boy elf who consorted with more than just her. He always visited her just after her husband left for work in the morning, usually two to three times a week. If the town had a clocktower, you could set it by the predictable punctuality of his visits. And once again at night, with Thuma, the wife of the town guard on night patrol, so too could such a clock be set by the same elf. Turnabout being fair play, Dorrel¡¯s wife would always meet up with said night patrol guard behind the granary. He always stopped her there because she was ¡°suspicious and required thorough inspection.¡± Apparently that was their routine of how they wanted it to play out.


    I told Mother about such proclivities of the locals. She simply told me not to talk to people about it and to not get caught, offering no reprimand for sneaking out at night. When I asked her if she herself wanted such a man, she paused briefly from her work, only to say that such things were beyond what she could have. If I tried to press her on the topic, she found work for me to do, which quickly deterred any future conversations in that vein. I feel like she was more than beautiful enough to charm a man, so I could only wonder as to what stopped her.


    Mother worked tirelessly, seemingly literally so, for I never saw her stop to rest, not even to sleep. She earned coin by her craft as a tailor and a leatherworker. Mostly, she took commissions for garments of the higher class. She processed work orders for nobility from across the land, with orders arriving by courier in detailed letters. Customers never came to our house directly, so either they had their own tailors for a final fitting or Mother was just that good. I tend to believe the latter, for I never once saw her make a mistake. Her movements were mechanically efficient, unadorned with flourishes or whimsical gesticulations. Her posture was always perfect and rigid, and she neither idled nor hustled for anything.


    She taught me her craft, although my own handiwork, while perhaps suitable for everyday clothing, never passed muster to merit it being employed to assist her in her own commissions. The spacings of my threadwork were too uneven, although I suspected such detail would elude all eyes but her own. Her critique was flat, neither harsh when I failed, nor praising when I succeeded, for she dealt in nothing but facts. She never forced me to correct mistakes, but she also never failed to point them out. At best, she would say that ¡°all of us have our own way of doing things¡±, and leave it at that if I continued to err. With no rhyme or reason, I would either redouble my efforts or give up and accept my imperfections, to which she expressed no approval or vexations one way or the other.


    She showed me how to manage the flower garden. All flowers were placed in a neat grid, with the color and species of flower changing for each row. I remember telling her that the yellow ones were my favorite, specifically the one that resembled a lotus, to which she nodded and continued working. The following year, the garden had three rows of different yellow flowers instead of one, so I knew she did not completely dismiss everything I said. My books only got me so far, for she showed me the finer details that eluded the academics when it came to such things, such as how to properly adjust the fertilizer at different times of the year to manipulate different aspects of plant growth. We never entered the annual flower contest held by the village, but that did not stop the envious stares directed at Mother when the winners would pass by and see the two of us at work in the garden. Seeing as how Mother and I lived on the edge of town, such people went well out of their way to happen by.


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    Despite her craft, Mother only wore a few different outfits. She did not adorn her hair with a flower, which was all the rage at that time amongst unmarried women and adolescent girls alike. By chance, I caught a peek from behind during one of the rare times Mother changed outfits when the door to her room remained ajar. Her skin was flawless, unblemished save for a tattoo between her shoulder blades, a black triangle with a clockwise twist of repeating edges drawn too long, creating a pattern of triangles spiraling outward until the outermost one was upside down. I dared not ask her about it, for such would admit my illicit observation. It seemed eerily familiar, and the thought of it nagged at me. Days later, I scoured my books for some clue. Mysteriously, my book on alchemy had disappeared from my collection, and the slot on the shelf where it had been remained barren of dust.


    Such musings were soon replaced by a new marvel. During the middle of my adolescence, the first newcomers to town since my own arrival had graced the next hill over. A family of elves, and, by their dress and accompaniment of servants, seemingly rich ones. What possessed them to move here, I could not fathom, but rumors abounded that they were displaced nobles who had lost land and title and in some war or scandal. Not that I cared much about the family as a whole, but they had a daughter my age or a little older. Beautiful as all elves are, at least by human standards, she stood apart from the rest by virtue of her carmine hair that hung to the lower end of her shoulder blades. She kept it long and straight, sans a single small braid just to the right of her face.


    She didn¡¯t talk to me, but she would look my way and smile when I passed by. Chaperones accompanied her everywhere, so I can understand if she would not be permitted to familiarize herself with me, but perhaps she found my sleek build, handsome yet boyish features, and finger-length black hair to be to her liking. She behaved prim and proper just like a young lady of her breeding should, much to the constant approval and buzzing of her keepers.


    I caught her out at night while I myself had been prowling about, and she was dressed not in the frilly attire of her station, but rather she was garbed in trousers, boots, and a shirt that eerily resembled what I had seen on one of the manservants. She hastened to a meadow outside of town, just down the hill from our homes where one lone and large tree stood among the grasses. She found herself a stick and set about slaying an army that only she could see. She lacked the polish of training, but the moonlight revealed a grace bordering on dance as she bobbed and weaved between her foes, striking slyly before withdrawing from such figments. She stayed perhaps an hour to frolic and spar before she returned home.


    I found myself enamored with her charm and beauty. A delicate flower by day, and an errant thorn by night, she repeated her outings with regular frequency. I busied myself with tailoring and leatherworking, fashioning clothes more suitable to her ventures. The boots were the hardest, for those would be the most sensitive items, the measurements of which I could only guess by the impressions left by her own footprints. When all was finished, I had made boots of black leather, trousers of a blue similar to woad, a white shirt with bishop sleeves, and a carmine-colored vest to match her hair. I bundled it all up along with an old wooden shield and waster that I no longer needed. I left the package under the tree in the meadow along with my favorite species of yellow flower from the garden placed on top.


    I made a point the next day to pass by her several times, with myself wearing a yellow flower at my breast pocket, an adornment to my person the likes of which had not yet been witnessed around town. She did finally notice me, and I think her smile shone brighter than ever before at that exact moment when realization struck her. She locked her gaze with mine, and for a moment when her entourage looked away, she drew a yellow flower of her own from her sleeve and placed it in her hair, the very lotus I had left for her. For the first time in this life, my heart pounded unabated by virtue of the affection of a crush returned in kind.


    Such merriment was cut short though. That same day, Mother informed me that she did not have long to live, perhaps a year more at most, all in the same matter-of-fact tone that everything was said. I did not understand it then, and many years would pass before I would, but I know now that she did the best she could. I remember her sitting in her chair by the table sometime around my sixteenth or seventeenth year. I knew not my exact age, I still do not, and if Mother knew, she never mentioned it. She smiled at me, the first time I ever remembered seeing such a thing. At that moment, I realized that she loved me in her own way. Memories flashed through my mind, ones from reading my missing book on alchemy, with flickering images of the strange triangle symbol on her back. I knew then that she loved me as much as she could, as much as a [Homunculus] could, as much as an artificial life devoid of a soul or humanity could. I remember her final words still to this day, spoken thus before the light faded from her eyes and she moved no more:


    ¡°I love you. Go now into the world and make your way.¡±


    No funeral was held, not that anyone would attend other than out of a sense of social obligation. Not that she needed one, for her body faded away to dust and ash in very short order. I held her hand as it happened. She never stopped smiling the whole time, despite life, or perhaps animation, being no more. And then she was gone, and so was I, for I left town that very day. She had told me before she died that the house was never truly hers, and that with her death, I would not be able to stay there any longer. I took what I would need to start my new life of adventure, leaving the rest for whoever would live here next. I had searched Mother¡¯s remains and her room for some sort of clue, and all I had discovered was a dull black orb in her ashes, one about as wide as my thumb is long, which I took with me.


    I thought about burning it all down. I do not know why rage welled up inside of me so intensely at that moment as I walked down the hill and into town. It was unfair, that she lived such a short life, that she was incapable of expressing herself, that the powers that be cursed her to a cruel fate devoid of love and adventure. I ultimately refrained from exercising pyromantic inclinations. A certain general in a certain war did not, the names of which have mysteriously been forgotten, most likely due to all records of them being scoured from the annals of history, sans a cenotaph to them that I keep within my most secret of lairs. To this day, the capital city of said general is still devoid of life. It yet bears the scars from the cataclysm brought forth from my wrath, and not even the passing of centuries have alleviated its desolate condition.


    My journey out of town was bizarre to say the least. People waved or called out to me as I passed by, as if we were all good friends. The Bradberrys gave me hearty goodbyes, as if my departure were both foretold and bittersweet. Mrs. Bradberry gave me a warm hug, the first one I can remember having, which both shocked me and reminded me of how starved I had been for any sort of affection. Even the daytime guard gave me a clap on the back as I left and told me to come back and visit the town sometime.


    I had hoped to see my elven crush, but such fortune eluded me. I did not know her first name, for we had never spoken. We had communicated through gifts along with cryptic and poetic notes that we left at the tree, each careful that neither of us could be identified should a note be found. We had known each other for only eight months, and I wondered if a surprise courtship had now wilted before romance could bloom. I did leave her a final note, one that detailed where she could find me if she missed me as much as I would miss her.


    And so I did go into the world and make my way. I would like to think that I have done rather well for myself, but success is subjective to the system by which it is measured. I was weak then in so many ways, especially compared to others my age. My Blessing did not start out as strong as others, and I would come to learn that the mechanisms through which I would advance and gain power deviated greatly from all others that I would eventually study. I made my way alone to the nearest city to seek work worthy of sustaining me. Perhaps this is where my story truly began. Alone, but undaunted, I took my first steps towards godhood.

 Chapter 3

    It took me a tenday to travel to the nearest city of note, Berkerin, The Betrothed of the Mountains. Nestled between three mountains to each direction except the south, wealth poured into the city by virtue of its location for trade and from ample resources harvested from the mountains. Precious metals, iron, stone, lumber, rare herbs, and ingredients harvested from the beasts and monsters prowling the region all fueled the industries of the city, much to the envy of neighboring lands. Great stone walls three stories high towered over those in line to check through security to enter the city, of which I was one among many newcomers flocking there in hopes of finding work.


    All manner of races and beasts of burden awaited their turn as the line inched forward. Humans, naturally, but also elves, dwarves, orcs, and other races I have not heard of. A red-and -blue-skinned woman with goat-like horns who stood a head taller than even orcs scrawled away with fervor in some sort of journal. A frog-turtle-looking woman who rose not even to my waist tended to at least half a dozen offspring, the exact number of which seemed impossible to count by virtue of them never holding still long enough for any such census. Said children apparently found no problem crawling over everything and everyone nearby as they played some sort of game of tag, and since their mother did not scold them, it must have been culturally appropriate or she was too tired to care. Squat, two-legged critters, little more than a mouth full of razor sharp teeth and a stubby tail attached to a bulbous body, jostled off flies as their wagon master lightly dozed at the reins. A seemingly drunk gnome with pants to his knees took a piss, not more than two of his short steps off the road. As I said, all manner.


    Peddlers hawked their wares at stalls all along the dirt road leading to the city gates. Snake oil, cheese, good luck charms, legal documents of questionable authenticity, children¡¯s toys, aphrodisiacs, even more cheese, pickles (which may have had cheese in them), and more earthly delights were all available for those with coin. Criers droned out their songs to advertise any number of goods and services. Doomsayers called out the end times and the dawn of a new age in equal measure. Someone even had set up a puppet show, much to the amusement of a huge herd of children crammed in around his small stage of theatrical entertainment.


    Minutes of waiting turned into hours, and by midday, I found myself about two thirds of the way through the line. I had arrived at sunup, thinking myself prudent for such an early arrival, but apparently more seasoned individuals had known to show up well before then. I kept my hands to myself and my coin purse hidden, for I had seen several individuals unburdened of their material concerns by deft hands and cunning legerdemain. Hunger gnawed at me, the walls of my stomach bumping into one another in their ceaseless quest for food, but I dared not let my guard down lest someone try to snatch away my own possessions.


    By midafternoon, I found myself at the gate and next in line for inspection. The wagon in front of me was being searched top to bottom, inside and out, by three guards, while another guard waited with the driver and questioned him. The lead guard appeared serious in his conversation, his expression a hair better than dour. The glimpse of something shiny caught my eye as the driver and the guard shook hands, which appeared to drastically improve the mood of said guard. With a wave and a shout from him, the other guards ceased their search, and the wagon rolled forward into the city.


    ¡°Next¡±, barked the lead guard to me.


    I had quickly palmed a silver coin into my hand in preparation for the need to bribe my way in. Perhaps that is the way of things around these parts. I stepped forward as commanded. The effects of the previous shininess on the guard¡¯s disposition had apparently worn off already, as a scowl replaced his earlier hint of a promise of a smile.


    ¡°Occupation?¡±, the guard inquired with seemingly no enthusiasm for whatever answer I would have to offer.


    I glance around behind me with exaggerated effect before replying. ¡°No, no army with me today, perhaps next time. I am an Adventurer, if that helps,¡± I responded with a neutral but confident demeanor.


    ¡°Hmm. I¡¯m sure you are. I¡¯m sure the bards will be singing about you all across the lands, Mr. Adventurer.¡± The guard did not appear earnest in his assessment of my career opportunities.


    I feel as though I have always had a quick wit coupled with a clever tongue, not that I had much chance to exercise the latter. I took a gamble by offering a sample of my sass to the guard. ¡°If the bards ever care to take a break from singing praises to the valiant exploits of guards protecting their fair cities from vagabonds and moldy cabbages attempting to pass through the gates, then perhaps they will sing of me. Quite possibly, I will die in an entirely new way, the likes of which no one has ever seen before, and such will be immortalized in verse by a troubadour of some note.¡±


    The guard glared at me for a few seconds as sweat beaded on my brow. Perhaps I had wagered too strongly on humor. Then suddenly, the man guffawed in response. The others chuckled lightly, looking at their commander to see if it was appropriate for them to laugh too. ¡°Shits like you come and go all the time. Well, mostly go, as many never return. I¡¯d bet you don¡¯t last a week.¡± The lead guard gave a good belly laugh at what he must have thought was the most clever joke told since The Sundering.


    I held up my silver coin between two fingers, presenting it clearly to the guard. ¡°I bet you a silver that I survive my first three jobs outside the city. You can keep the silver now, but if I win, you give me two back.¡± I gave him a beaming smile of a plucky youth to help seal the deal.


    He eyed me up and down. I was well dressed in appropriate clothes for adventure and travel. I was armed with a simple short sword, a dagger, and a buckler. Other than my backpack, I had nothing else noteworthy on my person, certainly nothing to suggest that I could be a seasoned Adventurer. I could almost see the gears turning in his head as he made some sort of mental calculation as to my odds of survival.


    ¡°I¡¯ll take that bet,¡± the guard declared loud enough for his men to hear as he took the coin from my hand. I fully expected that he would not honor his word, but gambling had less of an appearance of impropriety than a straightforward bribe, so the potential loss was not unacceptable. ¡°Make sure you register with one of those adventurin¡¯ guilds, Mr. Adventurer, so you can skip the line next time, should you make it back.¡± He waved me forward as his expression once again reverted back to his nonchalant level of enthusiasm for his job.


    Once past the gates, the scenery improved, if only marginally. More peddlers, thieves, and harlots, some of whom were no doubt all three at once, but at least the streets did not smell of leavings from man and beast alike, and the streets here were paved with brick and stone to boot! I made my way forward through the crowd towards the more respectable and official marketplace. I found myself confident that I would see proper signage signaling the presence of suitable adventuring guilds.


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    Not disappointed, I did see the signs. Well, many signs. Blacksmiths, armorers, cheese, stables, fletchers, leatherworkers, inns, clothing emporiums, various guilds, porcelain dolls, more cheese, magical supplies, and damn near every kind of shop a man could want was advertised by one sign or another, which followed no apparent rhyme or reason to shape, size, or color. I followed the sign for the guilds, specifically ones for Adventurers. From what I had read, they are all technically the same guild, but each guildhall specializes in different services. Generally speaking, those services would be for guards, exterminators, harvesters, scouting, and mercenary work. Each guildhall was in a line on the same street, so I chose the one with a beheaded monster, assuming it would be for extermination contracts.


    Memories of my past lives flooded into me as I approached the door. I stood there for a moment as visions of moments lost to eternity washed over me unabated. How many times have I seen this clich¨¦ played out, that a young man signs up at some adventuring guild? Usually, they seem to be coupled with beautiful women my age joining up with me to form a party. I cannot tell which of my memories really happened and which ones were stories I heard in my past lives. Some felt more believable than others, but only vaguely. Ones that started on a grand quest to slay some ancient evil were no more or less believable than other memories where this would become a routine job until I retire and get a gold pocket watch in thanks for my service, other than that more people work until retirement than those who save the world.


    Steeling my resolve and summoning up my composure, I opened the door to the guildhall. The room inside was rather large, evidently an assembly hall for weary Adventurers after a hard day¡¯s monster-slaying. Prismatic crystals lined the walls and hung from chandeliers, providing ample illumination and seemingly fueled by magical enchantments. Walls of stone block, floors of wood, both of which bore marks and scratches that suggest a fight or two had broken out with swords drawn, otherwise appeared clean and tidy. Gruff, shirtless men sat at a table, leather straps strung across their well-muscled chests and backs to hold massive weapons beyond the means of normal men to carry, much less wield. Bimbos and floozies of the arcane persuasion lounged around with their silly, pointy wizard hats and highly impractical frilly and revealing robes with far too many buckles and belts for what they would need. Men and women clad in suits of armor, well polished, but ultimately still covered in the aftermath of some gorey altercation, shared drinks and commenced uproarious merrymaking around one table. Edgy hooded figures sat aloof in the darker corners of the room, one of which smoked a pipe.


    It did not take long to spot the reception counter across the room. I made my way past the tables and curious onlookers, wasting no time to chat and sparing no glances to make eye contact with anyone. Two women stood ready at the counter. One woman was one of those tall, red-and-blue people with the horns, and as I now see, a thin and at least slightly prehensile tail. If there were a contest for wearing as little clothing as possible without breaking laws concerning public indecency, she would take first prize. She had all the right curves in all the right places to inspire rousing approval from my youthful body as my heart rate accelerated.


    Her counterpart was much the opposite in some ways. Still easy on the eyes and equally blessed with generous womanly fortunes as compared to her companion¡¯s physique, she was clad in a simple yet stylish thigh slit dress of various shades of green with white skin-tight pants underneath. With tan skin, pointed ears, blond hair, and sky blue eyes you could lose yourself in, the young elf lacked the smug confidence of the other, but otherwise suggested a coquettish air born of innocent naivety.


    They eyed me as I approached, the tall one with a look I can only describe as hunger, the other blushed slightly and then looked away as I drew closer. I stopped in front of the counter, in part because it was polite, but also because I lacked the means and desire to walk through it. In truth, there have been times where I had both the disposition and ability to do otherwise, but that usually involved stone walls of a fortress with terrified people inside and not wooden counters. The tall one nudged her compatriot, and she snapped back to reality from whatever daydream she may have been experiencing to properly greet me.


    ¡°Welcome to the Berkerin branch of the Exterminator Guild. I am Serideth, and my coworker here is Chooka. How may we be of service to you today?¡±


    She blushed for the entirety of her introduction, but to her credit, she did not stammer, nor did she forget her lines. The other one just smirked knowingly as she passed glances between me and the elf. While I felt the yearnings of youth, my experiences from my past lives girded me with the necessary confidence to fare better than a moonstruck calf when interacting with such a beauty.


    ¡°I would like to register as an Adventurer here. I have heard that you have openings that need to be filled.¡± I cursed myself inwardly as soon as I said that, but otherwise maintained my composure. Chooka leaned forward to rest her elbows on the counter, her upper body completely bent over, giving me ample view of mountains the likes of which undoubtedly many a man has dreamed of seeing the peaks, but fewer still have succeeded in beholding such wondrous vistas.


    ¡°Oh, we have plenty of openings a handsome young man like you could fill. Perhaps you could give us a hand or two?¡± She smiled suggestively as she leaned in closer to me. The opportunity provided me a good view of her horns, which started from her forehead and curved outwards and slightly forward before curving back inwards and then up, to finally slightly curve backwards well above her head.


    I know the type. She likes to tease, and she may actually be promiscuous, but such is besides the point. To show embarrassment, while perhaps adorable from her point of view, is certainly to admit defeat. I had inadvertently stumbled into this innuendo, and I would be damned if I would be the first to shy away.


    ¡°If you would but guide my hands to where they can do the best work, I would be glad to be of service. Is there an application I fill out, or do I just come and go as I please?¡±


    Her smile widened. I know not if it was from the thrill of the game or genuine interest in accepting my offer in a base way. She reached a hand out lightly to my face, caressing the side of it as her thumb gently grazed my lower lip before she pulled her hand away.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you just precious?¡± she whispered with a honeyed tongue as she nibbled lightly on my earlobe, a potential sexual harassment lawsuit in other worlds, but not in this one as I have gathered. In a more commanding tone, she continued, ¡°Serideth, darling, please take this fine little thing to the backroom and show him everything he needs to become a man.¡±


    Serideth, already flushed red by the tension of the encounter, turned a shade darker. ¡°Y-y-y-yes ma¡¯am!¡± she stammered out as she awkwardly turned to walk with rigid motions around the counter towards a side door. ¡°R-r-r-r-ight this way, s-sir!¡± She bolted into the room with hands covering her face without bothering to see if I followed.


    ¡°Aw, such a shy thing. This will be her first time without me there to guide her. Be gentle with her,¡± teased Chooka.


    As I walked through the door, not one to lose the last word at this game, I quipped back, ¡°Sounds like at least one person is ready to move past hand-holding. I just hope she is gentle with me.¡± I ducked into the room before she had a chance to retort.

 Chapter 4

    I closed the door behind me as I entered the small side room from the main hall. Shelves, bookcases, and weapon stands lined every wall of this room that spanned no more than three times my own height in either direction. Books, fake cheese, scrolls, weapons, magic artifacts, loose paperwork, little turtle statues, more fake cheese, and other oddities too varied to describe found purchase wherever there was space to hold them. To be fair, it was organized, but also, no empty spaces were to be found to add to the collection. In the middle stood Serideth, who faced away from me and attended a pedestal with a strange orb on top. I pondered the orb for a moment, considering what purpose it may serve, surmising with a fair degree of confidence that it would assess my Blessing or magical aptitude. Unbidden, I stepped forward opposite her, as nothing else in this room seemed to be noteworthy for my application process.


    Her face a few shades less red than before, she apparently found some measure of resolve as she spoke clearly. ¡°This device will tell us your Blessing and give a general assessment of your capabilities. Jobs are tiered from least to greatest, those being Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond, and likewise, so are the ranks of Adventurers. Normally, you cannot take jobs higher than your rating unless the customer specifically requests it or with the mentorship of someone of appropriate rating.¡± She gestured one hand to the orb. ¡°Place your hands upon it and try to relax and clear your mind.¡±


    I followed her instructions. The orb, a dull black color normally, seemingly sprung to life as light, much like a galaxy of stars shining in the void of space, spewed forth bright enough to see, but otherwise not greatly changing the level of light in the room. The galaxy within took form into a rough effigy of me, and the orb fluctuated between being cool and warm to the touch. I gazed inwards, not just into the orb, but into myself, transfixed by the rushing sensation of calm wonder and determination as inspired by the orb¡¯s apparent magic. The light inside all but faded before exploding in a violent display of colors the likes of which I have not seen before, and then it faded entirely.


    A small clank was heard from within the pedestal. Serideth reached into an alcove on her side of it and withdrew a metal gorget, itself intricately engraved with the crest of the Guild and covered in writing. Despite never giving my name, such was found written there, along with the Blessing of [Dragoon]. I admit I was nervous about that part, that it would instead say [Lesser Elder Dragon Emperor], my true and current Blessing at that time. Blessings rarely evolve to higher tiers for most people, mostly because only the ambitious push their limits, but I knew mine certainly would over time. Perhaps [Dragoon] was the base level of my Blessing that I had as an infant.


    Serideth looked puzzled. ¡°This is¡­ unusual. I have never seen nor heard of [Dragoon] before. I don¡¯t know that I even know what that means for the word itself, much less what your Blessing does.¡± She looked up at me questioningly, her face no longer showing the red tints of embarrassment.


    ¡°Does this mean I pass, and if so, what is my ranking?¡± I inquired.


    She pointed to a silver square on the gorget as she handed it to me. ¡°Silver, as indicated by this square colored as such here. Periodically, you can be reassessed, and should you advance, this square will change to the appropriate color and pattern to reflect your rank. You are lucky, most people who come here are Copper rank. Perhaps you are already well trained, or perhaps your Blessing is that strong,¡± she mused as she looked at me inquisitively.


    I took the gorget as she handed it to me and donned it appropriately around my neck. ¡°Perhaps I am just lucky. Is that all, or is there a fee? Can I take on jobs now?¡±


    She jumped a little and stood straighter with a slight squeak from her mouth. ¡°Of course, the payment, how stupid of me to forget. The service fee to register is two silvers. You can either pay now or your wages can be garnished until it is paid off. Which do you prefer?¡±


    I reached into my secreted coin purse and withdrew two silvers. Eight more remained, along with a few coppers and one gold, the remnants of Mother¡¯s earnings. I promptly handed over the coins as requested. ¡°Here you go. Do I get a receipt or sign some document saying I paid?¡±


    Serideth snatched the coins, then deposited them into some sort of strongbox with a slot just big enough for the coins. She then grabbed one of the largest books I have ever seen and plopped it down onto a small table with no lack of difficulty. She opened it to a page by virtue of a bookmark. Within appeared to be a ledger of names.


    ¡°All applicants sign here, and then I will sign and date here and mark that you have paid in full. This is an official record of your membership and status within the Guild.¡± She scrawled away to fill out her part, all I had to do was sign twice, once for membership and again for payment. Both of us equally satisfied that all was in order, she returned the book back to where she had found it with a similar nature of struggling as associated with its retrieval.


    ¡°That is all that I have for you. Chooka will have more paperwork for you. You can now go look at job postings. If you find a job you want, they are first come, first served, so grab the posting and bring it to myself or Chooka so that it can be claimed. You can also get food at the bar in the main hall.¡± With that, she turned to bid me to the door.


    With an exaggerated bow, I teased her a little, ¡°Thank you, Serideth, for helping me with all of this. I will ever remember your name and the kindness you have shown.¡± A hint of embarrassment once again flocked to greet her fair face, and she hurried for the door and left, standing just outside the room. I followed suit and she closed the door behind me before she returned to her post next to Chooka.


    ¡°You two sure took your sweet time getting to know each other in there. Was she everything your heart desired, or do you perhaps find yourself wanting something a little¡­ more?¡± Chooka casually pointed to herself to punctuate what she could possibly be hinting at.


    I glanced at the windows to the outside and saw that the last vestiges of sunlight were withering away as they struggled to add any additional illumination to the room. I felt as though I had only been in the room for all of ten minutes, but the orb must have warped my perception of time, for clearly at least two hours had passed since I had first walked into the guildhall. Such a passing of time had done much to increase the active patronage of the hall, as more tables were now full of rather rowdy Adventures of every sort.


    Remembering the game with Chooka, I decided to up the ante, ¡°She is a good girl and did her best to satisfy me, but she promised you still had a little something for me. I will be over after I have found a job on the board. Wait for me, will you, darling?¡± I gave her a wink as I walked off to the bulletin board.


    From the entrance, the bar was on the left, the bulletin board to the right, and the customer service counter on the far side of the room. Tables were arranged with a surprising level of organization to allow ample passage between each location, with an especially broad path directly from the bulletin board to the service counter. Perhaps mad dashes to claim a job were common enough to warrant safe thoroughfare.


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    Jobs were printed onto paper, and the paper attached to wooden boards. The boards hung from a grid of hooks on the bulletin board. This had the effect of ensuring no job listing would cover another, that there was only one of each, that they could be detached safely, and that they could be sorted to their ranking. I looked over the jobs of all categories, all of which involved slaying monsters for one reason or another. Kill slimes infesting some farmer¡¯s pond, slay a dragon living in an old mineshaft, desecrate lesser amphiptere plaguing an apiary, demolish a pack of cheese-stealing goblins, another job for cheese-stealing goblins at some different farm, a job to bring the head of a miniature minotaur, and so forth. Some were too easy, while others clearly remained outside the scope of my abilities, so I focused on what Silver jobs I felt I could accomplish on my own. Satisfied, I plucked the posting that I wanted.


    I returned to Chooka, dodging an Adventurer deep in his cups who stumbled into my way. For his part, he quickly discovered how cool and refreshing the wooden floor felt on his face as one foot interrupted the perambulation of the other. Surprisingly, no one heckled me as the new guy, and I wondered if perhaps I was cursed to dissuade people from liking me or if they were too caught up in laughing at the fool.


    ¡°So love, did you find something you desire?¡± Chooka reached out to take my posting. She glanced over it, then eyed me over, seemingly more with a critical assessment of my gear than her typical appetite for my features. ¡°Giant Frogs, eh? Eight of them no less. I think you could handle that if you are careful. They are not the brightest of creatures.¡± She set about the purpose of logging my acceptance of the job. ¡°I have paperwork here for you to review and sign. Please take care of that for me while I do my part here, would you, love?¡±


    ¡°It would be my pleasure,¡± I replied with an exaggerated bow. I looked through the paperwork diligently. Information and directions for bathhouses and toilets, guides for acquiring services to keep my equipment in good order, instructions for laundry services, legal privileges and responsibilities, and housing options. I filled out what forms I needed to and handed them back to a patiently waiting Chooka who had finished before me. As I completed my own stack of papers, she took my paperwork and processed it as well.


    ¡°Hmm, lodging provided by the Guild with room and board subtracted from your fees. A smart move for those just starting out, as the prices are reasonable.¡± She squinted slightly as she studied closer, seemingly rereading several times. ¡°If I have this right, you only want to be paid one coin in the highest denomination available for the job, the rest to be put into an account. Is this right?¡± she asked as she eyed me quizzically. ¡°This is an unusual request, but not outside of our capabilities.¡±


    ¡°It is as you say,¡± I confirmed. ¡°I am confident I can live within my means, and this will help me secure funds for emergencies.¡± In truth, I had more practical and mechanical reasons associated with my Blessing in mind, but I spared her the details.


    She gave me one last perplexed look before she continued. ¡°As you wish. I will set everything up for you. Feel free to order food while you wait. Our [Line Cook] makes a mean chimichanga if you¡¯re accustomed to the results of goblin cooking.¡±


    I took her up on the offer, but only after I had relieved myself at the privy as pointed out in the paperwork. The bar had standard tavern fare. Cold cuts, cheese platters, hot dishes, soups, several kinds of bread, something resembling burritos only in that whatever food it contained was wrapped in more food, more cheese, some sort of pancakes, and ample ale and wine offerings. Seriously, what is it with this city and cheese?


    I found a table to eat by myself in the corner where other individuals brooded in solitude. I had selected soup with bread and weak ale with a side of whatever the pancake equivalents were. They were far taller than the ones Mother made, about as deep as a finger is long, rather than as one is thick. All said, it was quite delicious despite them being entirely too fluffy. Mother was but a mediocre cook, her dishes sustaining but unimaginative in flavor or variety. I vaguely recall having had better meals in my past lives, but it had been so long that this may as well have been a banquet of the highest caliber. Satisfied, I took my tray to the clipper, as no waitresses facilitated such services at this establishment.


    Satisfied, I returned to Chooka, who for her part seemed eager for my return. ¡°Is your appetite sated, or do you perhaps hunger for something else?¡± she inquired with the same air of flirtatious intent.


    ¡°I am full of food, but one never knows what other needs this city may provide by night¡¯s end.¡± I gave her a beaming smile, which was rather honest of my feelings, truth be told.


    She handed me a piece of paper and a key, ¡°Instructions to and the key for your room. I suggest you get over to the bathhouse before they close, as you could stand to freshen up first.¡±


    ¡°Oh, that is absolutely my next stop,¡± I said while sniffing myself with exaggerated effort, ¡±I smell of the road. Thank you for all your hard work. I hope to see you again soon.¡± I waved goodbye and left promptly to do as I had said.


    The bathhouse was all well and good, not spectacular compared to what nobility may experience, but it was clean and well maintained. Few words can truly capture how relaxing it feels to wash off the grime from a tenday of travel and sleeping outside on the ground. I indulged my desire to soak for a while as no other people were here at this hour, at least for the male side of the bathhouse. A woman had tended to my clothes, apparently cleaning them during that time by virtue of her Blessing. I do not know if her Blessing was something like [Laundress], or if she had been creative in finding other ways to use her Blessing to the task of cleaning, but the results were more than satisfactory.


    Clean, dressed, and generally well-groomed once more, I made one last stop at a privy before making my way to my room for the night. Chooka had even graced me with a small, hand-drawn map of how to get to my accommodations, complete with a heart for my final destination. The dormitories for Adventurers who bothered with such a service were but a short walk from the guildhalls, no more than five minutes away for the farthest of such. I found the building I was looking for without much difficulty. My room was on the third floor of four, the last room to the left down the hall on the northeast side.


    As I approached the door and applied the provided key to its intended purpose, I heard shuffling from inside the room, which sounded exactly like someone walking to the door. With my free hand on my dagger, I opened the door. I knew not what to expect, but I wanted to be ready for a fight.


    ¡°Hello there, handsome. I am so clumsy, I must have given you the wrong key,¡± said a tall woman with red and blue skin, none other than Chooka, unless I have suddenly been stricken with prosopagnosia.


    I had not expected this. Sure, she flirted shamelessly, but this was something else entirely. Not one to back down from such a game or to look a gift horse in the mouth, I gave my best counter to see if she would finally fold.


    ¡°Well, it is rather late, and there is not much to be done about it now. Dinner was rather filling, but perhaps you could show me what other appetites one could satisfy this night.¡± It was my smug smile versus her suggestive grin, a battle of wills for who would back out first.


    I expected some sort of coy retort. I did not expect her to lunge forward, grab me by the belt buckle, and to pull me into the room before closing the door behind me. I will spare the full details of what happened that night, but let¡¯s just say that she was the first of many lovers in this lifetime. She was as spirited as she was skilled, and she spared no effort in showing her desire for me. I stayed the night, and by morning, I found myself as the little spoon with her in a bed bereft not of occupants, but certainly of ones clothed in any garments. Truthfully, it was one of the best nights of my youth, indeed my life, an experience that she and I would come to repeat with enthusiasm on many occasions.

 Chapter 5

    Frogs. Giant Frogs. Eight of them. Out in the middle of fucking Frogsville, apparently. Swampy terrain, annoying insects pestering me with their probing proboscises, half a day¡¯s walk out of the city, how could one ever top such a wonderful outing? The contract listed that they were eating sheep, or this world¡¯s equivalent thereof, on a nearby farm. They were still called by that same word, ¡°sheep¡±, but they were taller and covered in hair more like a yak. I was to exterminate eight Giant Frogs and to bring their tongues to the farmer as proof of my deeds. I had left my backpack behind in my room as I did not intend to stay the night, nor to be burdened down with extra kit in such treacherous terrain. I did have a sack for the tongues, as provided for the job. I was assured three times that the sack was big enough for the tongues.


    Chooka was right about the Giant Frogs not being much more intelligent than ordinary frogs, but that did not mean they were not dangerous. The frogs, when sitting, rose up to my chest, and they reminded me of tree frogs with their slender shape and colorful patterns, no two of which seemed to be remotely the same as I would come to find. If one bullrushed me, I would be at a sorry disadvantage on the ground, as I estimated they weighed at least twice as much as I weighed. I could probably survive for a while if they swallowed me, but dissecting my way out from their innards was not an undertaking I was eager to experience.


    The first frog was rather simple. I moved quickly and struck decisively with my shortsword with a hard downward stab into where I believed the brain to be. It croaked in short order, and wasting no time, I hopped to it for the task of tongue retrieval. I cleaned my sword of gore as best I could lest it slip from my grasp. I also checked the blade while I rested momentarily. It would not do to have my blade break on me or to be ambushed by other creatures nearby, presumably attracted by the opportunity for a free meal. Likewise, pushing too hard and fatiguing myself would also most likely result in disaster.


    This frog was my first kill, at least in terms of anything greater than insects or livestock. I felt my Blessing empowered to a degree. From my understanding, for other people, their Blessing grows stronger over time as they perform tasks related to it, and that they have no active choices to make in how it progresses. They can try to skew it one way or the other by virtue of what activities they perform, but that is about it for curating specific Skills. For me, it is probably unique that I gain Experience Points, that each life taken has some value as ordained by some morbid and cosmic actuary. I then choose which Skills to unlock in some virtual web of Skills that only I can see. It all feels like some sort of game I have played before, spending points to unlock Skills or new tiers of existing ones. Some of the web of Skills I can clearly see and read descriptions thereof. For more of it, I can see the pattern of how they connect, but not what they entail. Yet more of it remains obfuscated until I advance closer, as I would come to find out.


    Without going into too much detail, I have several different Skill webs that advance through different mechanisms. My [Hoard] has its own web, but also, I have one for [Age], for simply existing. Such Skills mostly relate to my size as a dragon and what inherent abilities I would have as one, such as my Skill to take on the form of a dragon, which I certainly did not have access to at that time. Another web was for [Survival] and defeating worthy foes, the Skills therein mostly focusing on my capacity to fight, to defend myself, to detect and manipulate my surroundings, or to remain hidden. The last web available at this time was for [Deeds] and achievements. The benefits provided are tied to the nature of the task. In that instant, I unlocked [First Blood], [Slayer - Giant Frog I], and [Harvester - Simple Beasts].


    Curious, I looked to see what benefits those deeds had unlocked. I will try not to bore you with all the details of every Skill I acquire, but I will provide these as examples. The first gave me a small benefit to my striking power with my attacks, that they would hit with a small amount of force beyond my physical means. The second gave me supernatural insight to the behaviors and abilities of Giant Frogs, and the last gave me similar insights, but attuned to the nature of how to harvest body parts from creatures. Not to say that the effects of these Skills could not be acquired naturally through routine practice, but they provided me with that knowledge and wisdom as if I were seasoned in such tasks. Such Skills remained abstract, with no clear concrete numbers for them. It was not something like ¡°Strength increased by 3 when attacking Giant Frogs,¡± or anything so blatant, for my Blessing did not display any such attributes in that manner.


    A single kill of a Giant Frog yielded far more experience than I would have thought. I could purchase several Skills right away. Not that these low ranking Skills were powerful compared to those that I would acquire later in life, but they were cheap and provided nice utility and a solid foundation. I focused my early efforts on Detection and Defense Skills. I trusted my own aptitude and training to stick creatures with the pointy end of my weapons without the need for direct combat Skills.


    With that frog down and seven to go, I resumed the hunt for more after harvesting the tongue. It was a gooey ordeal that I did not look forward to repeating, but I knew I would have to. I examined the surroundings of the Giant Frog for any clues as to how I may find them. Over my head, I noticed dragonflies bigger than my open hand buzzing about just out of my reach if I jumped for them. I did not recall seeing them earlier, but then, I was busy fending off other creepy crawlies. With that clue, I kept an eye to the sky for similar locations. My insight rewarded me, for four more frogs fell to my blade within half an hour at locations with such dragonflies.


    My luck for Giant Frog hunting had ups and downs at that point. On one hand, five kills unlocked the next rank, such that I had [Slayer - Giant Frog II], so I had a better understanding of where to find and fight them, but on the other hand, I was not finding suitable locations for said Giant Frogs. Well, I was finding them, but not full-grown adults, which is what the bounty was for. Out of curiosity, I did kill an adolescent, but it yielded no benefit to the progression of my Skills, so I stopped at that. I can¡¯t say that I feel bad for that particular Giant Frog or that it was wasteless killing. Perhaps that makes me a bad person, perhaps it was better to find that out on a Giant Frog compared to some other creatures, assuming not all life is of equal value.


    Another hour passed with no more Giant Frogs. The midday sun loomed overhead to spectate my progress. Irritating insects buzzed about me with increased fervor. Curious, and not expecting it to work, I took some young Giant Frogs and put one on each shoulder. I must have looked like some strange swamp pirate to an onlooker, were there any to witness, with my frogs as stand-ins for parrots. Surprisingly, the frogs did not protest their new position in life, and with gusto, their tongues flicked out as fast as they could swallow to snatch up the bugs flying about. Flabbergasted that such a silly idea would work, I felt a deal of relief as fewer insects managed to survive long enough to find purchase on my exposed skin. [Creature Handler I] and [Giant Frog Handler I] both graced me as new Skill unlocks, so perhaps such ingenuity in the future would yield similarly interesting results.


    Fortune smiled upon me once again, sort of. I found two Giant Frogs of appropriate size, but they sat right next to each other. I doubted one would just sit by idly after I killed the other, so this may yet turn into a real fight. I checked the terrain, careful to note that the ground was mostly solid and suitable to fight, unlike the knee deep swampy waters I had walked through earlier that day, much to my regret at the time that such was the only way forward. The plan was to coup de grace the first one much like I had done with earlier encounters and then to deal with the second as best I could.


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    I advanced forward cautiously, shield and sword at the ready, taking the bigger of the two as my target. It gazed at me with one large, bulging eye, and let out a cautionary ribbit. I inched forward, ever alert for a change in its behavior. With lightning quick speed, its toothless maw opened, and a large tongue shot out to greet me. I took the impact of the blow with my shield, but the tongue stuck fast and started to pull me in. Instinct kicked in, or perhaps the wisdom granted by virtue of my Skills related to Giant Frog, and I let it pull me as I lunged forward mightily with my sword. Rewarded for my efforts, my sword found purchase inside its mouth as I stabbed upwards into its brain. What last impulse went through its mind, I can only guess, as the deathblow spanghewed it fully over my head and away, wrenching my sword from my grasp as it landed in a dead heap behind me. A mixed blessing, that I lost my sword, but did not have my arm broken in the process, and that the frog¡¯s tongue had let go of my shield. Otherwise I would be in a sorry shape, so I found my current situation acceptable.


    The other Giant Frog took offense to this sudden intrusion of a most violent nature. Distressed that I had disturbed its meditations, or whatever it is that Giant Frogs do, it hopped my way in effort to knock me over. I had expected this, but it had moved far faster than I had given it credit, and while I had mostly dodged, it clipped my side and sent me tumbling. My shoulder frogs apparently had no problem with all of this as they stayed fast despite the tussle going on. Slightly disoriented, I quickly sprung to my feet and readied myself. The Giant Frog charged once again, but this time I was fully ready for it, thanks in part to the most enlightening education it had provided me with just moments ago. I twirled out of the way as I drew my dagger and leapt onto its back. Gripping mostly with my legs, I plunged my dagger into its skull three full times before it too croaked.


    Not one to relax just yet, I sprung off of its body and readied myself for another attack. None came, for both Giant Frogs were dead, and if any opportunistic creatures were lurking nearby, they did not make a move on me. Slightly winded, I took time to catch my breath and observe my surroundings. Shoulder frogs continued to munch away as if completely unfazed by the whole affair. I half expected the Giant Frog King to come bounding out of the swamp as my last foe, but if he existed, he did not challenge me. After a few moments to assure myself I was safe, I retrieved my sword and checked my equipment. My dagger had a small crack in it, and slightly dismayed, I stowed it away. Using it any more for any tasks beyond food and starting campfires would most likely damage it irreparably.


    I found the last Giant Frog and killed it too without much ceremony. I expected some sort of grand finale, but none came. As I neared the edge of the swamp, I removed my shoulder frogs and set them down on the ground. Crouching down to them, I inspected them.


    ¡°I will name you Hopper,¡± I said to the male frog, the gender of which I deduced thanks to my Skills. ¡°I will name your Ribbette,¡± I said to the female. ¡°I must go now, but I thank you for your services today. Hopefully, we will yet meet again.¡± I patted them each on the head, and neither seemed to display any reaction at all either positive or negative to my handling of them. Perhaps they were too simple of creatures to express themselves in overt ways.


    I left the swamp and made my way with eight tongues in tow to the location of the nearby farmer. Swamp gave way to pasture with glaring finality devoid of any gradient. Perhaps some strange magic prevented one from mixing with the other, or perhaps the answer lies in simple farming techniques the likes of which I simply lack the education to discern. Nothing bothered me on my way to the farmer other than a few curious sheep which seemed to want attention and affection. Fluffier, pot-bellied, squat legs, and longer necks than what my memories told me they should be, but called sheep all the same. I petted a few, which only served to encourage them, and realizing my mistake as they started to hem me in, I bolted out of the flock before they could nuzzle me to death.


    The farmer thanked me for the tongues and signed a writ of contract fulfillment, the payment of which was waiting for me at the guildhall. Seeing that it was later in the day than I would have liked, I hightailed it out of there and back to the city, ever watchful of potential threats. A band of raiding goblins would not care that I just finished fighting a bunch of frogs, so it was not like previous fights met the quota for what life could throw at me that day.


    I encountered no resistance on my way back to town. Either my vigilant paranoia paid off or no potential enemies were in the area. I skipped the line by virtue of my gorget which served as an authorization token, but I waved to the same lead guard I saw yesterday as I made my way inside. He did nod in acknowledgement, but perhaps he was too captivated by yet another exciting opportunity to inspect another traveler to spare me any more of his sunny disposition. I made my way first to the bathhouse to clean up, then to the guildhall to collect payment.


    The sun set by the time I had arrived. The place was packed, a large number of patrons sported Platinum rated gorgets and similar styles of equipment. Perhaps a large expedition had returned from some grand conquest. Ale seemed to flow freely as much merrymaking and rambunctious roughhousing occurred. I had to dodge more than a few people as I wove my way to the counter where a waiting Chooka and oblivious Serideth were stationed.


    ¡°Contract fulfilled,¡± I declared with tired enthusiasm as I slapped my writ down on the counter for them.


    Chooka stared at me with a shit-eating grin on her face. ¡°My, what a hero you are! I prepared a snack for you.¡±


    She pushed a covered plate my way. I removed the lid to find eight frog legs underneath, half cooked in batter and half plain. I looked up at her as she leaned in slightly and continued to stare at me with a smile somehow wider than before. I took one of the plain ones and munched down without hesitation as I was indeed hungry.


    ¡°Thesh are prett¡¯ goo¡¯,¡± I muttered out between a mouthful of frog legs. It took a moment more to swallow before I continued. ¡°Did you really just spend, like, a silver on frog legs just to make a joke?¡±


    She laughed gently while leaning in to meet me face to face. ¡°It was totally worth it too. I know you are a man who appreciates good legs.¡±


    I tried not to choke on my food as I laughed at her joke. Serideth looked my way with slight confusion on her face as to how the joke was so funny. I would not unburden her of her innocence via revealing the full nature of what Chooka was getting at, so I just smiled at them both.


    ¡°I think everyone enjoys good legs,¡± I said as I popped another in my mouth.


    Serideth slid a silver coin my way. ¡°Here is your payment,¡± she said as she closed out the contract.


    I took the coin and deposited it in a smaller, secondary coin purse that I normally sequester away on my person and out of reach of pickpockets. This was the first silver coin I had ever added to my hoard, and to me, it was a treasure for the ages. The very first coin of a higher denomination unlocked a generous range of [Hoard] Skills that lower tiers just could not provide even in great numbers. I would be leaving that out in the open in my room with my other coppers that I had collected from what few odd jobs I had completed earlier in life. Yes, I did properly get the key to my actual room before I left this morning for my job.


    ¡°Thank you kindly, my dear,¡± I replied back to her with earnest gratitude.


    ¡°If you want more legs, you know where you can find them tonight,¡± Chooka chimed in with a knowing wink that escaped Serideth¡¯s observation, but not my own.


    ¡°Oh, I certainly plan for and look forward to that,¡± I said back to Chooka conspiratorially.


    Serideth¡¯s visage remained a portrait of bewilderment as she looked back and forth between us before she resumed whatever it was that she was doing. I got a proper meal and avoided the worst of the antics of the other guild members. I watched carefully for Chooka to finish her shift, and after waiting about fifteen minutes, I left the guildhall and headed to a location that would leave my bed yet again unblemished by my sleeping form. It would be a lie to say the same about Chooka¡¯s bed concerning my person that night.

 Chapter 6

    Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. I only took jobs that I could perform solo, and even then, only jobs for rather unintelligent creatures. The advantage came from the relatively low chance that they would be cunning enough to gang up on or outmaneuver me, but the disadvantage was that such creatures do not carry anything of value, such as money. I had every service that I could imagine deducted from my monthly earnings before the final payout of my contracts, all of which played into a wonderful loophole in my Blessing. However, while I can certainly maintain my equipment and person that way, upgrades were both out of the question and sorely needed.


    To remedy my shortage of funds, I took on additional work for straightforward payment. My contracts were to kill monsters, and generally, there was no requirement to harvest anything of value from their bodies other than trophies for proof of task fulfillment, but through more books, asking around, and my huge surge in Skill growth, I learned what additional parts I could harvest from my kills or from flora along the way. Most of this hinged upon my newly acquired pocket dimension Skill for storage and transport. I could only hold about a square twice my height, but it astronomically improved my carrying capacity as well as my means to ensure goods did not spoil. Technically, it is a ¡°non-dimensional space¡±, which is totally different from an ¡°extra-dimensional space¡±. At the time I did not know the difference, so I just accepted it for what it was and made a note to look into the nuance of it later.


    I was finding that this was still not enough, but it certainly helped. Soon, I would need to take jobs on the upper end of Silver rating, ones for creatures like goblins and highwaymen. Yes, even sentient and ¡°civilized¡± races could end up as valid targets for jobs if they caused enough trouble, and these creatures tended to have pockets and pouches, within which one may find all manner of shinies. I crafted for myself better quality clothes, ones with light magical enchantments to keep me temperature controlled, clean, dry, and generally free of noise and rattling. I upgraded to a better quality shield, a broadsword, and a spear as my primary weapon by virtue of its extra reach. My physical strength had improved, only marginally by my body growing stronger, but mostly by my Skills passively enhancing me with magical supplements to it, all of which was required to wield this heavier burden. I found my new equipment to be acceptable, if not ideal, for my new targets.


    I also gained a few Skills that granted useful magical Abilities by this time. Nothing flashy, but enough to get by. I am a sucker for passive effects that are always on and cost no mana or other energy to maintain, but sometimes, one needs something with a little bit of punch to it. People can learn spells and Abilities outside of what a Blessing offers through Skills, but it is usually somewhat challenging and they sometimes require incantations (yuck). I had opportunities to learn from others, or at least observe, and from that, I selected Skills I felt I could utilize. Simple spells involving elemental magic, barriers, bursts of speed, ones to appraise the Skills of others, smokescreens, and so forth. I experimented with crude versions of technology from my memories to see how I could improve or adapt these spells to other means. The technology of this world, at least what I had seen by this point, was somewhere between medieval and pre-industrial depending on where one went, and so most people tended to be unimaginative in terms of using their gifts. I had limited success, for while I knew the end results or some base mechanics in how technology works, the finer principals escaped my grasp. Regardless, I did manage to discover a few tricks to stash up my sleeves, metaphorically speaking.


    I¡¯d like to say that I made friends, but that may be an overstep outside of Chooka and Serideth. I considered most people as friendly acquaintances, people that teach me things or trade with me, but not ones that invite me along for an ale after the workday comes to an end. I did at least confirm that I am not just weird, but that I am supernaturally unsettling as part of my Blessing. Well, I am either unsettling or alluring with little middle ground, the former of which is generally the rule. Perhaps this phenomenon explains why Chooka took a liking to me so quickly. Then again, it could just be that she is rather easy, as she has many lovers, of which I appear to be the current favorite. Most races cannot breed with one another, so dalliances of this nature are more of the rule than the exception, as I had come to find out.


    From her point of view, it was all just a fling, but on a greater scale. Humans would be lucky to live a century barring magical rejuvenation services or aggressively advancing one¡¯s Blessing, but her kind, remnimi, could live anywhere from four to six centuries, depending on how healthy of a lifestyle they live. She was around 80 years old, and Serideth was over 110, but little did they know that I would outlive them both, in a manner of speaking. Chooka told me that her Blessing was [Courtesan], and she certainly seems to be living up to it, and with enthusiasm, as far as I have experienced.


    She taught me many things about life in the city and she made introductions for me. I suppose she found all of it to be absolutely adorable, and she would go to great lengths to make a joke like the one with the frog legs. She was truly a fun and free-spirited woman, and I do miss those innocent days spent with her, as I do of my other friends and lovers. She took me to meet her people who lived high up in the mountains, and she even wore some semblance of clothing that almost flirted with the edge of modesty. I was dressed warmly, for not even my lightly magically enhanced clothes could deal with the cold of the upper mountains.


    Her people practice animal husbandry on creatures similar to alpacas, but with cuteness and fluffiness turned up to eleven. Similar to the ¡°sheep¡± mismatch of expectations, the word for them is still ¡°alpaca¡±, but they slightly defied the qualities my memories mandated to be typical of their kind. I purchased some clothes made from their wool, and honestly, few things in this world are as soft or comforting. Sadly, even thin cloth from it is far too warm for most people to wear outside of cold weather due to some sort of inherent magical property, so I had to stow it away when our journey to the mountains ended.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    Chooka does not return home to her kinfolk often. Her father killed her mother when Chooka was an adolescent. It was not his fault as he was under the influence of some mind-control technique from a powerful monster that was rare and unexpected in the region. No one blamed him except himself, and the guilt and his newfound heavy drinking caused him to push everyone away, including his only child. Such circumstances are what led to her finding employment in the city, so I guess I would never have met her without such a dark past.


    She was not thrilled about the onset of summer. She already had issues of overheating, and the summers here are warm indeed. She saved up money every year to afford cooling services so that she would not pass out from heat exhaustion. To be fair, her place of employment provided that during her shift and at her room in the dorms, but outside of that, she was to fend for herself. More permanent artifacts existed with enchantments to handle such things, but the price remained outside of her reach. She was too generous with sharing with friends and lovers to save up for it, and so I vowed to myself I would get it for her if it was the last thing I did.


    Summer brought with it an all-important cheese festival. Apparently, this city was a big hub for cheese production and the associated snobs that go with it. As summer drew near, more rat-like and mouse-like humanoids started to pour into the city. Apparently, they love cheese, and who would have guessed such a revelation? Yes, I know actual mice don¡¯t prefer cheese over other foods, but culture so swayed by misinformation says they do. The festival attracted tourists, and tourists attracted increased activity from thieves and highwaymen. Fortuitous, then, that the timing of my need for worthy prey matched up with availability.


    I had one more noteworthy ace up my sleeve to help me fight such intelligent creatures, with goblins and highwaymen being the jobs of choice I would take. I had taken a gambit as far back in life as I can remember concerning my Skills associated with [Age]. I only invested into three Skills: one which reduced the interval between Experience Point updates, called [Fast Growth], one that increased the Experience Points awarded each update, called [Ageless Wisdom], and one that awarded flat bonuses to said Experience Points from reaching milestones in my [Deeds], even retroactively, called [Innocence Lost]. Thus, by this point, I had just made it over the hump of what ranks in those exponentially more expensive Skills that I could reasonably acquire, and so I could now start investing in Skills that were actually useful. By my estimates, I would break even by age 25, and from there on, I would be better off than if I had never taken them. Considering I have not died by this point, I believed my risk to be worth the effort.


    And so, I could now turn into a dragon once a day for about half an hour, one that has a body about the size of a horse and can breathe fire. Well, I can breathe four elements: fire, acid, lightning, or ice. I specifically decided not to take an elemental affinity. The upside is versatility, the downside is a lack of raw power. From my point of view, when all you have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail, and I did not want to fall into that trap, hence the more versatile approach. While powerful, I would not use this form freely, and certainly not in a way that leaves witnesses or obvious signs of my presence. I feared that such an overt display would find me on the wrong end of a torch and pitchfork mob, as people fear that which they do not understand.


    My hoard had grown considerably, which in turn empowers my [Hoard] Skills. My room had coins stacked on every surface, but sadly, no gold coin was to be had. And so, when I found a Silver job that awarded a single gold coin, I took the bait. I had previously negotiated with the Guild for how my wages would be garnished, such that jobs would never be knocked down in denomination, and that instead other jobs would take the hit. This job was for none other than cheese-stealing goblins. I had come to find that there was almost always a job for just that task. The little buggers breed like rabbits, steal anything that is not nailed down and half the things that are, and apparently, cheese is their favorite food, at least as far as the evidence provided by contracts to kill them would suggest. With the festival drawing near, cheese-thievery was rampant, and such demand for protection and justice exceeded the normal supply of Adventurers willing or able to complete them, and as such, this opportune windfall was but temporal in nature.


    There is one guy at the Guild who only takes jobs for goblins. He tends to be a loner like me, but he was willing to tell me everything he knew about goblins. I almost regretted the lesson, as he talked with such passion for hours on end about all the ins and outs related to goblin slaying, but the knowledge he provided would certainly save my life, as my understanding of goblins was based on falsehoods. I found out that goblins typically live in caves or other hidey-holes out in the wilderness, which was precisely the last place I wanted to fight. Being out in the open was actually my preferred arena, even at risk of being surrounded. If I could just get them all in one such place, I could exterminate them all quickly as a flying, fire-breathing dragon.


    I had only had my dragon form for two weeks, but I had used it every day at least to practice movement and flying. I had not used it in actual combat, but I felt comfortable that I had gained adequate proficiency in handling it. My breath was not powerful enough to hover and blast everything beneath me into oblivion. I would need to make strafing runs with my breath, but the goblins would surely scatter, which created a problem of containment that I would need to figure out. Additionally, flying in such a straight line left me wide open against archers, of which goblins certainly had plenty. Lastly, the little bastards were notorious for traps, and while I could lure the bulk of them into the field, I would have to go into their hives and exterminate the rest. It only takes one goblin to finish off a fool caught in a trap, so the risk was beyond marginal.


    I bought a huge wheel of the stinkiest cheese I could find, which was central to my fairly simple plan. I would find a ravine to drop the cheese in as bait, one that would funnel the goblins in a line. I would wait in ambush, and when the time was right, turn into a dragon. With a mixed breath of Fire and Ice elements, I would lay down a thick cover of fog. I would not be able to see the goblins, but they would not be able to see me either, and with nowhere for them to go but up or down the ravine, a single strafing run of a more destructive breath attack would finish them off quickly. The plan was brilliant, but the only downside to it was that it did not work in the slightest.

 Chapter 7

    It took me the better part of the day to travel to the location of the job for goblin cheese-thieves. Chooka was downtrodden and worried to see me go on my first job that was for intelligent creatures too far away to be a day trip. I made promises that I would do my best to return and that I would not take unnecessary risks. She had accepted these words with uncertainty, and she had been more tender that night before I left than she was normally inclined to be. By virtue of my Skills from my Blessing, I do have a slight healing factor, enough at least to heal any wounds overnight left by her fingernails in my back, but that night required no such Ability. I liked seeing that side of her, one that was vulnerable instead of confident. I still felt a little bit like a bastard for putting her through such worry that I would never return, but such is the life of an Adventurer.


    My travels had taken me to the base of the northern mountains where flat farmland gave way to forested hills. No one lived in those parts in those days, and so near sundown, I had made use of my dragon form to scout the area. I had reliable intel of where my quarry made their hives and I found a suitable location for my ambush, so perhaps fortune smiled upon me. I made camp with the supplies I had stowed away in my pocket dimension. I picked a location on top of a hill, one that was hard to see from anywhere downhill, and after scouting it out, I felt secure in the wisdom behind my choice. I knew a few warding spells to keep away weaker monsters and to alert me of intrusion, so I would not need to keep watch. I also made no campfire to give away my position. Trail rations did not need to be cooked, and I would not risk a blade in the back because I wanted a cozy campfire.


    I had not slept often in the woods by that point in my life. I lay there restless as the sounds of nature flooded into my tent: songbirds chirping about how much of a stud they are to all the lady birds, the death cry of some poor critter that found itself being horked down the gullet of a predator, and some sort of strange flower that makes a popping sound as it launches seeds out of what is essentially a cannon fashioned from its petals. Sleep eluded me only for so long, and in my dreams, I saw visions of giant cheese monsters sweeping over the city with their cheese breath attacks laying waste to all below. Giant goblins ate the cheese monsters as the cheese monsters ate back in return, the battle raging until the only one left standing was one of those alpacas from the mountains, which I am pretty sure do not eat cheese, but dream logic is special like that.


    Morning came, as it is inclined to do, and satisfied that I had not died during the night, I ate breakfast and packed up my camp. With reckless abandon, I flung camp supplies into my pocket dimension, unconcerned about damage as things inside somehow don¡¯t touch or interact with each other, presumably based around the owner¡¯s concept about what a thing is. A handful of rocks are separate things, but if you put them in a bag, suddenly that is one thing, so I am not entirely sure how that is handled. All I know is my stuff is not broken when I take it out, so that is good enough for me.


    I made good time in traveling to the location I had selected for the ambush. I had seen quite clearly the day before what was the goblin hive. Goblins marked their territory with bone totems and other macabre d¨¦cor to warn off predators and rivals, so it was a rather inescapable observation. Two short but steep hills made a narrow pass at the base between them, and it was long enough for my purposes. Rather clear of trees and well-trodden with all manner of tracks, no doubt that fact combined with the lack of sunlight created a hostile environment for any saplings to reach maturity. The trees around here looked similar to ginkgos, and not being an expert on them, I did not know if that also contributed to it. The soil seemed to be of the desired quality to support life as various grasses and wildflowers made this trail their home.


    I deposited my cheese wheel on a crude platform I hastily built from fallen branches, just enough to keep it off the ground so it could be seen. Using a little bit of Air magic, I created a light breeze to push the scent in the direction of my quarry. I took position up high on the hill behind a boulder, and thus the waiting game began.


    Minutes passed. I had wards in place to warn me if I were to be flanked by one thing or another, so I kept my eye on the cheese. The sun crept lazily into the sky, apparently in no rush to provide me with better light or to heat up the cheese to enhance its stench. An hour passed, and still nothing, and I started to wonder if maybe this would not work.


    As I pondered what my next move would be, a large serpentine head popped into view down in the ravine. Then another, and another. In total, five such heads, each bigger than my own body, bobbed and weaved as they sized up the cheese. Well, they could have been focusing on the wildflowers, but I am pretty sure the cheese was the prize. Fortunately, at least I think it was fortunate, the heads were not disembodied and floating, and as they moved closer, I saw they were attached to long necks, and those necks to one central body with stubby legs and a short tail.


    ¡°Ah, fuck!¡± I muttered under my breath.


    I don¡¯t know what a hydra was doing that deep in the mountains. They typically live near water, and I did not see any large bodies of water around these parts. Do they migrate in mating season like turtles? Is it even hydra mating season? I knew not the answers, not that they really mattered, but now I was faced with a problem. Do I cut and run, or stand and fight to save my bait? Would I really die out here, alone, over some stinky cheese wheel? It was not even good cheese, or so a dozen snobs had told me as I tried to purchase it, each one of which named several cheeses that were better. Lesson learned, always carry backup cheese wheels.


    I decided to fight, but I considered my options carefully. I watched its movements to see how it behaved and how quickly it would react. The heads sniffed around at the cheese, not with snake tongues like I expected, but with their nostrils. Heads nipped at each other, not close enough to sink into flesh, but enough to intimidate one another. I knew not if they had a social hierarchy amongst themselves or how well they would cooperate, but they did appear too distracted to notice me.


    I had a small pool of magical Abilities at my disposal, and a generous amount of mana to power them. I took a special metal pipe out of my pocket dimension along with a pointed metal slug. The pipe itself had a spiral groove on the interior, which when sufficient Air magic was applied to the pipe, would force the slug to rotate as it accelerated forward at high speeds. I took aim at the heads with the pipe over one shoulder and pointing towards my targets, channeling my power into the pipe until it was ready for release.


    In a sudden burst, I released the control of the air pressure within, and with violent fury, the slug shot forward with lethal ramifications to anything foolish enough to be in its way. The slug hit true in the neck of one of the heads on the hydra. I wasted no time in readying another shot as the beast lurched in pain and crashed onto its side. I remember tales that advised against cutting off heads, and to my satisfaction, my shot had avoided such a blunder. The beast righted itself, but one head hung limp and lifeless.


    ¡°One down, four to go.¡± I whispered to myself in smug satisfaction. ¡°This should be a cakewalk.¡±


    Fun fact, no. To my horror, the other heads ripped and tore at their fallen comrade, decapitating the useless head. Black ooze bubbled out of the stub, and within but a few seconds, two more heads shot forth into the world from that terrible wound.


    ¡°Okay, none down, six to go. Bunch of cheaters!¡± I cursed under my breath at such ingenuity. Such tactics were not in any tales I had ever heard.


    For my next shot, I aimed at the general squat body, hoping I would hit a vital organ and take it out. My aim was true, but it failed to penetrate. It did succeed in pissing it off and alerting it exactly as to my whereabouts. Enraged, the four original heads reared back, each taking a massive breath. Doubting they were about to break out into a barbershop quartet of some popular song, and with no haste spared, I took cover behind the boulder and channeled forth a defensive shield around myself. With a great roar, blue streams of icy smoke scoured the boulder and the terrain around me, freezing all that it touched. I huddled there helplessly for several seconds as I watched cracks form in my barrier, and in the moment I wondered if I would be entombed in a bubble of ice or frozen solid when the shield failed.


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Their attack ceased before either happened, and sparing no time to write them a strongly-worded letter or some other such foolishness, I ran up and over the top of the hill. With few options left, I calmed myself, reaching down into my very being, relaxing my muscles and my restraint on my true nature. Clothing and equipment merged into flesh, and flesh swelled and warped, twisting and writhing into shapes unnatural for my current form. With controlled fury, I embraced that which I always was, that which I will always be, and assumed the form and power of a dragon. Not a big dragon, certainly quite small compared to the hydra, but a dragon nonetheless, the kind that walks on all fours with a long tail, a long neck, wings, claws, the works.


    I crouched down low, and with a mighty leap, I shot myself upwards and forwards into the air, my wings set about their designed purpose to take me aloft. I circled first away and then back, lining up for my bombing run as I had planned, albeit with one very angry hydra instead of a gang of confused goblins. Unsure what element would work best, I unleashed a downpour of acidic goo which covered it. I hoped to melt it away such that it could not regenerate or to scorch its lungs as it breathed in the foulness I had spewed onto it. It did have some sort of effect, not so much in it melting away, but rather more of it roaring in pain and getting somehow angrier than before, as if such could be possible.


    I turned around for another pass, this time trying elemental Lightning, but it was ready for me. In an all too familiar stance, it readied its own breath attack back at me. Not favoring the one against four odds I had against it, I took evasive action, but not well enough. With great pain, I made the stunning observation that the beast had raked my left side, the telltale signs of its deed made extra apparent by the ice forming on my wounds. I probably would have fared much worse if the two new heads were capable of such breath attacks. I did manage to recover and return fire before passing it. Lightning worked better than Acid, stunning the creature, but not turning it black while its bones glowed white. Perhaps I would have to wait for a higher tier of breath attack for such to be possible.


    Wounded, and not wanting to play another game of chicken, I decided on a gamble. Closing into melee with it sounded suicidal, as it dwarfed me by comparison to its massive form. Landing up on a hill, I dumped everything out of my pocket dimension, and finding the biggest boulder that I felt would fit inside, I sucked it up into said pocket dimension. It took a few seconds and more mana than I would have liked to spare, but the beast lay stunned and otherwise very much alive on the ground down the hill, compliments to my last attack.


    Taking wing once more, I readied for another sortie. The beast did not change tactics, but I did, and I juked backwards and out of reach of its breath attacks as it wasted them in vain. I knew I had a few seconds before it could recharge, and flying directly above it, I turned straight down into a dive. Enraged heads lunged up to meet me. If I dodged too soon, I would probably miss my next attack, and if I tried too late, I would end up as a snack.


    The center maw from the original necks was but ten lengths of my body away. Jaws opened wide as nightmarish teeth too numerous to count raced to meet me. At the last second I wheeled to the side, taking care to turn my body so my wings would not get clipped. Successfully past that head, the remainder crashed into one another in a mad dash to snatch me up. This time, I was not so lucky, as one or two teeth found purchase in my yet good side and ripped a shallow but bloody cut along its length.


    Ignoring the pain, I used the mana I had been channeling to tear open reality and unleash the boulder from my pocket dimension. Somehow, momentum was preserved, which I had not tested and thanked my lucky stars that it worked. A loud thump shook the branches of nearby trees, causing leaves to fall like rain, as the boulder crashed into the main body of the hydra near the necks, squishing it flat.


    I veered away in time to avoid making myself a pancake on the ground below, but grace eluded me as landing ultimately resulted in a crash. Rocks, grass, and flowers found themselves ripped from their earthly purchases as my body carved a respectable divot in the earth. Upon stopping, I promptly reverted to my human form, unsure if the damage I had taken would transfer between forms. The ice fell away, but my wounds were all too real.


    Blackness lingered at the edge of my vision as it both threatened to envelop me and promised me sweet release from the pain. Summoning up my last vestiges of willpower, I focused on a plan to survive this mess. I could very easily bleed out or be found by other monsters if I passed out, and such was not an option to me. To my astonishment, the hydra had been worth an astronomical amount of Experience Points, far more than the sum of all I have attained thus far. Not taking time to tarry, I grabbed every Healing and Durability Skill I could find available to me, burning through a generous portion of my Experience Points in hopes of finding something that would save me.


    As I drew what could be my final breaths, I channeled the biggest and baddest healing magic that I could afford from my new list of such Skills. Flesh mended in seconds as my wounds closed. Not even a scar remained as a memento for this duel. Feeling much better, but still woozy from the blood loss, I sat upright and greedily gulped down water from a canteen I had on my person. Refreshed as much as I could be, I took the time to actually examine what new Skills I had acquired and what more was yet available. Half an hour passed before I had finished spending my remaining Experience Points and acquiring a whole new suite of Skills. I gobbled up every passive boost I could find like a fat kid at a pie-eating contest.


    My mana reserves, as a percentage, were rather depleted, but thanks to the new Skills acquired, were actually higher than when I had started the fight. By my estimates, I now rivaled the top Gold or bottom Platinum ranked [Mages] for how much mana I had at my disposal when at full strength. I channeled a new Skill to help restore my stamina and wipe away the fatigue from the fight.


    Feeling fit as a fiddle, I took a quick walk to scout the area to see if any scavengers, or indeed the goblins I was here for, had made their way to the hydra. I saw no signs, and decided it was safe to inspect my kill. The heads lay dead on the ground, their necks tangled over one another, sans the two heads that had grown back earlier, which were hastily rotting away before my very eyes. I watched patiently as I tested the air to ensure the vapors from its corpse would not be harmful. Other than smelling downright awful, they did not appear to be dangerous.


    Unsure which parts of a hydra would be valuable, I set to work carving up the body, taking what pieces I thought were valuable. Teeth, eyes, internal organs, hide, scales, bones, cheese, more cheese¡­ Wait a minute! Another casualty had been unaccounted for in this battle. In its death rattle, the hydra had smooshed my cheese wheel, one of its necks now coated in the stuff. Saddened that the very thing I had set out to protect had been lost to the world, I said a small prayer for the cheese wheel, that it may spend eternity in cheese paradise.


    I had expanded the size of my pocket dimension, but it could not quite hold an entire hydra. Including my original kit, which I still had to go collect, I could hold about four fifths of it. With the hunt spoiled and the rest of the day spent carving my kill up into manageable pieces, the goblins would live yet another day. Well, a few more days, as I would be heading back to the city to try to pawn off all the bits I had collected. The Skills from my Blessing enabled me to harvest with supernatural technique, but the process was still time-consuming.


    But wait, something odd was hidden deep inside the creature, something smooth and round, back behind where the boulder had smashed into it. Pulling it up out of its guts, I found an egg, intact, about half as big as me. Now on an egg hunt, I dove in, and found myself rewarded with a total of three eggs, each one leathery instead of made of whatever normal eggs are made of. I used my Skills to examine them. Two were devoid of life, but I could clearly see the silhouettes of baby hydras. But the remaining one, miraculously, was still alive. I took a moment to wonder why a mostly-aquatic creature that presumably lays eggs had fertilized eggs inside its body, but that was a mystery for another time. I used my magic to keep it as warm as I felt it should be considering what temperature the inside of its mother was, plus a little extra because it had been dead and cut open for a while. I set that one aside as I tossed the other two into my pocket dimension, as it was not rated to transport living things.


    By sundown, I had collected my kit and had stuffed as much of the beast as I could fit into my pocket dimension. Carrying the living egg, I walked the rest of the day and half the night back towards the city, for I now only needed half as much sleep as normal thanks to my new Skills. But even my greatly upgraded body had its limits, and I soon needed to make camp. That night, I worried that every monster and demon that stalked the woods would make a beeline for me, but if any did, they gave up before reaching me.

 Chapter 8

    A new dawn greeted me in more ways than one. I felt stronger than before. Quicker too, with faster and keener perception. It was when I tried to put on my boots that I realized they did not fit. Confused, I looked at my feet, and found them to still be fairly normal. The boots were normal as well, but my feet were just longer and bigger than the night before, if measuring them against the bottom of my boots were any indication. My clothes felt a little too tight. Panic threatened to consume me, but before that would be allowed, I took out a hand mirror to examine myself. I looked older, perhaps by two or three years. My muscles were bigger too, not enough to win a strongman competition, but enough that I was less boyish and more filled out. A stubble reflected back at me as I gazed upon my chin. I estimated I was half a span of my hand taller than I was the day prior.


    Curious as to why my skin felt harder, I tested the blade of my knife against it. I pressed and slid with modest pressure, but nothing of note happened. No pain, no blood. The knife was still sharp, so I pressed harder, and only with moderate pressure did I cut through the outer surface of my skin to inflict but a scratch. Within seconds, the wound closed on its own. Clearly, this would need to be explored more later, as mauling myself out in the countryside to see how tough my body had become did not seem to be the safest option. I packed up camp, and now barefoot, continued my way back to the city.


    At one point, I tried to hop over a small tree that had fallen across my path. With alarmed observation, I found myself up in the air, at least twice my height. Not having time to consider the implications, my body began its descent back to terra firma. I stuck the landing with ease, although I had expected to perhaps break a leg. In truth, my biggest concern was that I would drop the egg and it would break, but thankfully, no harm came to it.


    Clearly, something powerful and odd had occurred last night, and so I took the opportunity to examine all my Skills to see if I had missed something. I saw that my Blessing had changed to [Greater Elder Dragon Emperor]. Upon musing through my [Age] Skills, I observed that I had progressed in an Age Category automatically. My dragon form now lasted six hours with no apparent limit to how often I could switch forms. Also, the size was easily doubled if not tripled in all dimensions, making me on par with a small elephant for size. My breath attacks likewise gained a great deal of potency, at least according to the description that only I can read. I would need to test all these new things at some point, but flying back to town as a dragon seemed like a really bad idea, so I still had to hoof it.


    Despite walking barefoot, I felt no real discomfort, but I still preferred to have boots. I made great time, my strides longer and faster, the ups and downs of the terrain seemingly trivial with my body experiencing no fatigue from the exertion. Once out of the forest and back to flat farmland, I decided to really stretch my legs and sprint. I ran with speed unparalleled by most, with only Blessings graced with swiftness being my equal. I ran until I started to feel tired, which was a whole hour later. I did not sweat, nor did I feel exceptionally thirsty from the ordeal. In only five minutes, I felt completely recovered.


    And so, by midday, I had returned to the city. Many an eye looked my way. I knew I was fairly handsome before, but now I was eye candy to most people. Carrying a large leathery egg did nothing to aid in making me inconspicuous. People I knew had to perform a double take when seeing me, their expressions wild with disbelief. Some voiced their wonder that perhaps I had an older brother, but I did not stop to chat. I pressed on straight to the guildhall. News travels fast, and when I opened the door, everyone was already turned to meet me. Chooka leapt over the counter and crossed the room with hurried yet graceful strides.


    ¡°What the fuck happened to you, what is with the egg, why are you barefoot?¡± She eyed me up and down with concern and interest both roused. ¡°You were handsome before, but fuck, you are way hotter now!¡± She stood tall before me, one hand on her hip, expecting answers promptly, an expression of worry and wonder painted upon her face.


    ¡°Killed a hydra, this is a fertilized hydra egg, and my boots don¡¯t fit any more. I could really use your help here if you are not busy,¡± I said flatly, like an old man recounting for the fifth time to the city guards why he backed his wagon into a fence.


    Chooka started to speak, then stopped, then repeated that process two more times before she succeeded. ¡°Are you serious? I don¡¯t believe it, not that you would lie, but a fucking hydra, what were you thinking? Were you trying to get yourself killed?¡± Tears started flowing down her face and her balled fist lightly pummeled my upper chest and shoulders.


    I carefully set the egg down and pulled her in for a hug. She still towered over me, but as she embraced me, she felt lighter than ever before. I know she hugged me fiercely, but it was as if she had no more might than a small child. I held her and comforted her, and I gave a withering glare to the gathered onlookers, all of whom suddenly decided that they had much better things to be doing than ogling this scene.


    When she was satisfied with our embrace, she pulled away and looked at me as her hands grasped my shoulders. ¡°What do you need me to do?¡± she asked.


    ¡°I am going to need a padded box for this egg so I can incubate it, along with books or experts on hydras so I can figure out how to hatch it and how long that will take,¡± I explained with calm detail. ¡°I would also appreciate it if you could look into if this or any other guildhall has job listings for hydras, especially ones to harvest it, as I have all manner of parts to sell. Also, I will need new boots at some point, but I can handle that later.¡±


    ¡°Got it, wait here!¡± she demanded loudly as she took off in a hurry for a supply room, spurred on by a clarity of purpose provided by the tasks I requested of her. Some crashing was heard from within, but after a few moments, she returned with a crate of appropriate size to house the egg, along with some blankets for padding. ¡°Here you go,¡± she said as she deposited it all at my feet.


    ¡°Thanks, love.¡± She blushed a little at that, and I have witnessed her say the most scandalous of things that would make harlots feel shame, so perhaps I struck something there, something I would need to look into later. Add it to the list, I suppose. ¡°Right then, let¡¯s get this egg secured in my room and then take things from there.¡±


    We hurried to it, but the town quickly became abuzz with gossip. Perhaps someone had recognized the egg for what it was, or someone from the guildhall had loose lips, but in the time it took to drop my egg off in the room, the town was rife with news about a hydra being slain.


    ¡°Uh, by the way,¡± I whispered up to Chooka as she walked me from my room and over to the Harvester guildhouse, ¡°What exactly is the difficulty rating for a job for a hydra?¡±


    ¡°Depends on how many heads it has. Three heads is typically Gold, but more than that is Platinum. So, you will probably get a few gold coins for your troubles, if there is a job for one. Typically, creatures like that are always in demand, and so the jobs for them are just open all the time,¡± she said in a matter-of-fact manner.


    ¡°Oh,¡± I said back to her as I considered my next words, ¡°What if it had five heads?¡±


    Chooka stopped and turned to me. She grabbed me under the arms and lifted me up to her height. ¡°Five heads!¡± she shouted. ¡°Five! You could have been killed. You are only a Silver Adventurer, and alone nonetheless. It would take at least two Platinum Adventurers to slay such a monster. How did you even manage such a thing?¡± She shook me slightly as she drove home the point of her last inquiry.


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    ¡°To be fair,¡± I responded calmly as I held up my pointer finger at her, ¡°it did try to eat my wheel of cheese, and you know how much this town loves cheese. It simply would not do to let such a challenge go unanswered.¡±


    She looked at me, unsure if she should laugh or cry. ¡°Idiot!¡± she declared as she pulled me in for another hug as my feet dangled off the ground. ¡°You can always get more cheese, but there is only one of you. You are lucky I have taken a liking to you or I would bury you up to your neck in cheese.¡±


    I hugged her back, and after she calmed down, we continued on our way. ¡°Let me do the talking,¡± she said.


    ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am!¡± I replied smartly.


    She scowled a little, and then unable to keep her composure, she laughed freely. ¡°This will be the talk of the town. Stay frosty, for this is about to get interesting.¡±


    I filled her in on the important details of what parts I had harvested as we approached the guildhall. She listened intently and nodded that she understood. I admit that I was impressed with how she got serious so quickly and did not waste time on pointless questions unrelated to the job, but that is the experience of an expert in action for you. She opened the door to the Harvester guildhall and strode right up to the counter. A gnome with a ridiculously large top hat was waiting to be helped. As the shadow of a serious Chooka fell upon him, he slowly turned and looked up into the menacing red glow of determined eyes as she glared down at him with a wicked smile on her face.


    ¡°I just remembered I left an anvil in the oven, gotta go, cya!¡± With eyes widened, he grabbed his paperwork and scurried off, nearly tripping over himself in his haste to depart for his beloved anvil and oven no doubt. The tricky thing is, with gnomes, it would be hard to tell if he simply fumbled over his words for a halfway believable excuse or if he spoke true. They are an odd sort, so I would not rule it out.


    Moments later, an orc woman popped out of the backroom behind the counter. Confusion begot surprise, which gave way to cheerfulness, all in the span of a breath, as she locked gazes with the remnimi before her.


    ¡°Chooka, what a pleasant surprise. How may I help you today?¡±


    ¡°I know you have standing bounties for various monsters. I have one here with me who needs to turn in a bounty on a hydra, five heads, with most of the parts intact.¡± Chooka slapped a palm down on the counter for emphasis. ¡°Can you help me with that?¡±


    The orc leaned to the side to glance at me, as I stood behind Chooka. I leaned sideways and waved back, beaming my biggest smile for her. She looked nonplussed, save for a bead of sweat that seemingly sprouted from her brow.


    ¡°Uh, right. We certainly do have such bounties. Where exactly are the parts harvested from it?¡± she inquired, not entirely convinced.


    ¡°Well unless you want him to whip it out right here, I think that would be best saved for your storage room. I think you will be impressed with the size,¡± Chooka counted with a smirk and a wink.


    The orc appeared only slightly flustered. Apparently, she was used to Chooka¡¯s innuendos, and it was no secret by now as to the escapades Chooka and I have had together.


    She cleared her throat before continuing. ¡°Very well, show him to the storage room for me. I need to fetch the guildmaster and our prospective buyers. I trust you that you are not pulling my leg on this, so go there and bring out the parts as per protocol.¡±


    ¡°Fantastic!¡± Chooka shouted as she slammed her palm down on the counter again. ¡°Come on, you!¡± she ordered as she grabbed me by the hand and tugged me along behind her.


    We left the guildhall and walked to a warehouse behind it. Naturally, it had many shelves and boxes and all that ilk, but what really caught the eyes were runed circles glowing on the floor in a three by three layout in the center.


    Seeing my inquisitive expression, Chooka spoke thus, ¡°Deposit your ingredients in these circles. They will keep the parts preserved for a while and make them easier to handle and examine.¡±


    I did as she instructed, and I was fortunate enough to witness the rare moment when Chooka was truly flabbergasted. I had filled all nine circles with little room to spare. Pocket dimensions were not unheard of as granted by Blessings or as magical items, but to such a scale was well outside the means of even the best that I knew of.


    ¡°Are you going to close your mouth or are you waiting for me to put something in it?¡± I asked her with mock admonishment.


    The innuendo did the trick to knock her out of her transfixation. I pulled her in for a kiss, as a little making out while we waited would not hurt anyone. She seemed more than eager to sample the upgrades to my physical form, but before things could get too hot and heavy, I had to pry her off me.


    ¡°Not now, my dear. Your eagerness would cause a bit of trouble for everyone else when they show up. You will have to be good and wait until tonight,¡± I chided her, mild and slightly sarcastic, but still true. She looked disappointed, but I walked her over to a bench and we sat there cuddled up as I told her most of the story.


    ¡°There is more I want to show you later, in private.¡± I paused for a moment to let the idea sink in. ¡°Well, yes, exactly what you are thinking, but also something else. We would need to leave the city to show you that something else. Would you be willing to do that? We could make it a romantic getaway.¡±


    That made her smile perk right up. She hugged me all the more.


    ¡°Absolutely! I would love that,¡± she said as she nuzzled into me.


    ¡°Splendid. I would love that too. I think this will be a wonderful opportunity for us to grow closer.¡±


    She probably would have pounced on me right then and there if not for the door opening and the guildmaster walking in. Technically, he is the guildmaster of the Harvester division. The master of this branch of the Adventurer Guild for this city was the grandmaster. Perhaps that is strange nomenclature for their hierarchy, perhaps it would have made more sense the other way around, but that is the truth of it.


    We rose to meet the guildmaster. He was a well-dressed elf, male, looking the equivalent of a human man in his forties, so at least five centuries old for an elf. Unusually, he had red hair and a goatee, which is well outside the norms for elves.


    ¡°Guildmaster Taro, you honor me with your presence,¡± said Chooka as she bowed lightly.


    ¡°And you honor me, Chooka. Unless my elven eyes deceive me, it looks like most of a hydra is located here, with some assembly required. Is this individual with you the representative of the party that defeated it?¡±


    ¡°Not quite, Guildmaster. He does not have a party. This was a solo operation.¡±


    I had expected an incredulous look from the guildmaster, but he just glanced over at the hydra and then to me before returning his full attention to Chooka. Perhaps centuries in this line of work had given him too many surprises to be shocked by anything.


    ¡°Right,¡± he said, with no indication from his demeanor that he disbelieved it or took it at face value. ¡°I will have someone draw up all the paperwork for the bounty. Buyers will be here soon to bid on parts.¡± He clapped me on the shoulder before continuing and addressing me. ¡°You are going to be the talk of the town. I don¡¯t know how a Silver like you managed to pull this off, but I will not pry. I imagine that if this was not a fluke, I am going to be seeing a lot more of you around here.¡±


    ¡°I believe so, Guildmaster. You may need a bigger warehouse one of these times.¡±


    Taro let out a hearty laugh at that. It seemed I had walked the line just right between confidence and bravado. Chooka looked at me warmly as the excitement of the opportunity ahead started to sink into each of us. I took her hand in mine, and she squeezed back with affirmation that all was right between us.

 Chapter 9

    It took three hours to sort through all the parts and contracts, even with a small army of merchants and clerks buzzing around. As it turns out, the Harvester guild has a lot of nuance to their contracts and, as I discovered, larger and rarer monsters typically have a myriad of contracts for various body parts. In total, I had earned three platinum coins, eight gold coins, and fifty silvers, each of which was for individual contracts. On top of that, I had made a hefty sum on odds and ends that were not covered by contract, but were still considered valuable. Apparently, no one expected things like hydra eggs to be recovered, so those were auctioned off at a fair premium, even though they were known to be lifeless. Perhaps they were to be novelty items to collectors or research specimens. I sold them for spending money, not for hoard money. The guild took a modest ten percent cut of the total sale, which I found to be most agreeable.


    By contrast, the Exterminator guild was more straightforward. Nasty beasts and monsters cause enough of a ruckus and a kill contract gets made for them. The contracts that also are in demand by the Harvester guild are hot ticket items, as one can double-dip and accept both contracts, should one be lucky enough to beat the crowd to claim the extermination contract first. The other parts of the Adventurer Guild did not as easily line up for their contracts. The Escort Guild, which is to say, one for guards, not high class prostitutes, may have a client take a path near another bounty, where those monsters may just happen to attack you. I had not dabbled in that, other than for courier contracts around town, where the contents of the package were presumably valuable enough to warrant the protection of an Adventurer over an average person. Most everything else fell under the purview of the Expert Guild, which is one for performing sophisticated labor, usually those involving traveling to dangerous areas where normal people who have the Skills to perform the task could not be reasonably expected to survive. It is one thing to build a cistern somewhere outside the city, but quite another to do so while angry manticores want to rip your face off.


    I canceled my job for the goblins, as was my right. I would have had to pay a fee to back out on it under normal circumstances, but death, grievous injury, or an encounter with a threat reasonably rated higher than what one can handle all provide one with a free out. Well, I suppose the city could have been under attack too, but that is a bit extreme. I would wager that few would have been able to offer as much undeniable proof as I had concerning my encounter outside of my pay grade.


    Considering the increase to my physical hoard and thus [Hoard], the [Age] increase for my dragon form, the various [Deeds] earned, and the Experience Points spent for new Skills by virtue of combat and conquest, I had grown exponentially in power in a little more than a day. I would need to take things easy and explore what I was capable of. I also needed to do a fair amount of shopping for material for new clothes, equipment, and other amenities and tools of the trade. I also commissioned a little something special for Chooka, a token of affection that would be revealed soon enough if events proceeded as planned.


    I did find several experts and several ¡°experts¡± on hydras. I also acquired some literature on them (the hydras, not the experts). It took me a while to sort fact from fiction, but it did provide me with a general idea of when I could expect the egg to hatch and how I would go about caring for the newborn. Very few have ever recovered an egg, as hydras only lay them a day or two before they hatch. Fewer still have succeeded in raising one, as they are considered to be rather challenging to deal with, and nearly impossible to keep adequately fed.


    It took me three days to get my affairs in order and for my commission to complete. Almost everyone stared at me now, and I certainly was the center of most gossip, or at least amongst those who had dealings with Adventurers. I did take another examination for my Adventurer ranking, and to my surprise, I had skipped Gold entirely and went straight to Platinum. Such a deed was rare in the extreme, and this accomplishment only helped to fan the flames of gossip and to bolster my fame. Perhaps the upcoming cheese festival would give the people something new to talk about, and I only needed to wait until then. For the record, I would eventually discover that I was correct about that part, but let¡¯s not get ahead of ourselves.


    Not everyone responded positively to my new fame. Some called me a fake and a cheat, but I just smiled politely and went about my way. A few hotheads drew steel and challenged me to a fight, which I declined. Some surpassed mere brandishing to outright swings in my general direction, and a few swift punches and kicks left them with more bruises and broken bones than they bargained for. I did receive an official challenge for a duel in the arena from one of the most respected Platinum Adventurers, and I discovered that such is tradition and more for an exhibition match than a serious fight. It would be quite rude to decline, and so I had that scheduled for the last day of the festival. Oddly though, an intermediary delivered the challenge, so I remained in the dark about who my opponent would be.


    However, today, the fourth day of my return, I would be going on a date with Chooka. I had made the arrangements for trusty mounts that would get us out into the countryside, and she had taken time off work. We would spend the night out there and return on the evening of the following day. The egg would be coming along, as I felt fairly confident that it would hatch soon, and I did not want us to miss that.


    We left at dawn astride rented steeds. Well, not actual horses, but rather close, if one took a horse and made it very much a lizard with no traces of resemblance to anything equine, but still warm-blooded and fond of eating berries, flowers, and insects. They have long tongues like a frog, and our ride was punctuated by said tongues darting in and out at everything remotely edible along our way to the countryside. Pragmatic, I suppose, for such a mount to maintain its stamina, for they scurried along swiftly on padded feet, ones with ample grip to go up and over pretty much anything in their path. One was highly advised to hold on tight to the saddle horn, as these creatures, geckodons, were known to show little concern for how riders felt about near-vertical inclines.


    These geckodons showed us the meaning of haste, and we made excellent time to the northern mountains. I was not taking Chooka to the same spot as the hydra kill, but rather more to the west and away from the goblins I never killed. Much of the way there took the same path, and it being familiar and unpopulated terrain, I felt it to be a good choice for where we could go to be alone. I would say we got swept up in the wind rushing through our hair, but neither of us had long enough hair for that to really be a thing, so I am guessing we each just fantasized that it happened.


    For her part, Chooka was dressed much the same as always, which is to say, almost not at all, but she wore a leather satchel at her side. Periodically, she would take a small vial from within and drink it down. The summer heat, while relatively mild to most for this time of day, was too oppressive for her, and these potions aided in keeping her cool, at no small expense. I respected that she never complained about the cost of it, but I knew that our trip would put a hefty dent in her coffers, such that she was not provided with supplementary means of cooling when not at work or home. I am sure our great speed helped to keep her ventilated, but she visibly relaxed when we entered the hilly forests and embraced the shade therein provided.


    By midday, we found ourselves past the hills and to the base of the mountain proper. We made camp near a natural spring on flat open ground in a clearing. We let our mounts forage freely, as I was assured countless times that they were well-trained and would return when I blew the provided whistle so issued when I signed the rental contract.


    Upon finishing setting up camp and placing down defensive wards, Chooka wasted no time grabbing me and carrying me like a princess into the yurt we had set up. She eagerly indulged her desires as two lovers may be inclined to when alone on a romantic getaway. Two hours passed before we stepped foot outside, and to her credit, she was rather thorough in demonstrating the Skills of her Blessing of [Courtesan].


    ¡°I want to show you something,¡± I said to her as I took her by the hand and walked her to the edge of the camp. ¡°I trust you enough to accept me and to keep what I am to show you a secret. I hope this will do much to explain everything that words could not do justice to.¡±


    Chooka smiled with reassurance, curiosity piqued, and I detected not even the hint of concern. She nodded her approval, and I let go of her hand and walked about a dozen steps away from her before turning back to face her. Inwardly, I was a tad nervous of how this would go, but I maintained a calm exterior. Any doubt on my part would be infectious, and I did not want her to feel uncomfortable.


    I embraced the calling of my Blessing, my true nature, for with each passing day, my humanoid body felt more and more like a disguise, like a comforting lie I told myself and others as to what I should be. My personal effects merged into my form, while great scaled wings jutted forth from my back to meet the world. My body twisted and contorted as muscle and skin transformed and grew, aligning to my new form as a dragon. The transformation was not accompanied by a flash of light, nor steam, nor a mystical choir of heavenly voices, and while it took but a few seconds, the majesty of it all was undeniable.


    ¡°Be not afraid,¡± I said to Chooka in a much deeper and primal voice.


    I had not assumed this larger version before now, nor had I ever bothered to speak while in my dragon form, so my own voice surprised even me. Chooka did not run or scream, which was reassuring, but she did fall backwards to land on her backside, her neck tilted up to meet my gaze as a small gasp escaped her mouth. To put it lightly, she was equally shocked and fascinated as she sat there unblinking for a few moments while unable to do much more than behold the unthinkable that had occurred before her very eyes.


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    ¡°What do you think?¡± I asked as I moved my head down to her level, just out of her reach.


    ¡°Fuck! How did you¡­ What are¡­ You are very yellow,¡± she exclaimed with much bewilderment.


    She stood up and slowly approached, cautiously placing one hand upon the top of my snout that I had lowered down to her. She gently caressed me, and my smile of satisfaction flashed a view of my maw of teeth, each one a lethal instrument that could rend flesh and crush bone with relative ease. The view startled her slightly and she jerked her hand away for but a moment before replacing it back upon my snout. I took it to be a reflex and not actual fear, but I imagine I was terrifying.


    I stepped back and posed gloriously, my wings fully outstretched, that she could bear witness to my shape and form. My scales, each one yellow with black borders, shone with an almost metallic hue in the afternoon sunlight. I transitioned into several different poses for her, doing my best to be a little extra in how fabulous I could make our private fashion show.


    ¡°You are so beautiful, and a little terrifying, if I am to be honest,¡± Chooka said with a smile. ¡°I trust you, but I see now why we had to come out here away from people.¡± She walked around me to inspect me as she continued, ¡°I don¡¯t think I have ever heard of such a thing happening before, but you can trust me that this will be our little secret.¡±


    Once I deemed that she had finished her inspection and that I had passed muster, I prompted her with an offer too good to refuse. ¡°Care to ride me?¡±


    She laughed heartily, and then scurried over to climb up on top of me. ¡°You know me too well, I¡¯m always in the mood to ride you.¡±


    Her innuendos gave me a sense of security, for she only spoke that way when she felt confident. The spines on my back provided ample purchase for her to hold onto, and after she situated herself just behind my shoulders, I took wing. With each beat of my wings, we climbed higher into the sky, and in but a few moments, our little camp was almost lost to view. I continued until we were at a height about halfway up the mountain, and with no particular destination, I flew around the mountain clockwise.


    ¡°Watch this!¡± I shouted, as the rush of wind would have made it hard to hear otherwise.


    Taking a deep breath, I let loose a fiery attack upon the stone mountainside. There was naught there to hit but rock, so there was no fear of causing a forest fire or killing anything. I had not yet tested the potency of my new breath, and I was rather unprepared for the intensity. Were archers to shoot up at me, my flames traveled easily twice the distance their arrows could travel. Before, my breath could hit a target wide enough to clear out a road, but this one, this could take out a whole troop formation and then some.


    The heat, even at this distance, was noticeable, like the gentle caress of a campfire on a cold winter¡¯s night. I heard maniacal laughter on par with pyromaniacal proportions coming from Chooka, who evidently enjoyed the display to the utmost. Boulders the size of our yurt melted on the outside, and molten rock oozed down the mountainside for a few moments before cooling enough to stall.


    The very earth appeared to tremble beneath the thunder of my wings, for with my next breath, an arc of lightning struck a wide berth, shattering rock and scorching the pieces which yet remained. A miasma of acid next assaulted the mountainside, and all within it melted away into a green and bubbling pool. My final affront to the mountainside took form in a cloud of frosty exhalation. Where it touched, ice formed into large and spiky walls, even though there existed an absence of water to draw upon to create it.


    Leaving that particular spot to reflect on what misdeeds it could have done to invoke my apparent ire, I climbed higher still, and we soared up and over the peak itself. We did not linger, for even as hardy as she was against the cold, I knew that even she could not endure the biting winds that gnawed at her exposed flesh. I turned into a dive, falling faster and faster, pulling up only just before we hit the ground, and at this breakneck speed, I traveled down the mountain and back to our camp, weaving recklessly close to rocks and trees as we made our way. I proceeded to gently land just outside our camp upon our arrival, taking care not to blow it apart with the windstorm generated by my wings.


    I transformed back into my human form before Chooka could dismount, and I finagled it such that I caught her in my arms and carried her back to the tent as if she were a princess and I the gallant knight. She laughed with giddy joy the whole way, and more than once she landed a kiss or two upon my face when she could manage a modicum of composure. Once inside, passion renewed once more, and it was around the time for supper that we decided to trade the indulgence of one instinct for another.


    ¡°I have something I want to give you,¡± I said as we finished eating. We had a good stew, the leftovers of which would undoubtedly be our breakfast. ¡°Hold out your hand,¡± I prompted as I placed myself before her.


    She acquiesced with a degree of uncertainty, her expression changing between wonder and apprehension as her eyes asked countless questions her voice could not. I pulled a small but high quality wooden box from my pocket dimension. I opened it to her, and she discovered the offering made to her in its padded interior.


    ¡°Oh, oh my!¡± She gasped. ¡°It¡¯s beautiful!¡±


    ¡°Put it on,¡± I said. ¡°I hope it fits.¡±


    She followed my instructions, and then displayed the results to me. A bracelet, no more than a finger¡¯s width wide, glistened in the light provided by the illumination crystal in our yurt. The edge was adorned with silver, and the interior bore the handiwork of polished royal azure. The center of the bracelet bore a single ruby, not any bigger than the band or protruding overtly. Such jewelry was modest enough to not be gaudy or impractical, but large enough to catch the eye.


    ¡°I had this made for you as a token of my love, respect, and appreciation for all that you do. I hope that you like how it matches you, and you may have already noticed that it does more than just look pretty.¡±


    Curious, she waved her arm around, then gazed in concentration at the fire with fingers to her temples, and then finally jumped around and tried flapping her arms, each motion made with exaggerated effort.


    ¡°Well, I cannot shoot beams of fire out of my hand, nor move things with my mind, nor fly, so I don¡¯t know what it does,¡± she exclaimed with scientifically confirmed certainty. She held her composure for but a moment before she laughed and examined the bracelet once more, spinning it around her wrist as she tried to figure it out. ¡°Are you going to keep your mistress waiting, or are you going to tell me what it does?¡±


    ¡°Mistress you say? I think you still owe me a brooch if we are to make that official,¡± I replied.


    Marriage between different races was not customary, but taking a mistress as such was the norm, and such relationships persisted to the fullest even after both parties married. Custom dictated the man gives the woman a bracelet, and if she accepts, she gives him a brooch in return. Well, it isn¡¯t always between a man and a woman, as a city that serves as a trade hub evolved to be rather progressive concerning alternative pairings. Either way, no one wears such jewelry casually lest they give off the wrong impression, or if they do, they ensure that such accouterments remain particularly bland. The relationship was not official, only marginally recognized legally, and they could end at any point, usually with the return of the bracelet or brooch, at least in civil breakups.


    ¡°You won¡¯t be needing this any more,¡± I said as I tapped on the satchel at her side. ¡°The enchantments on this bracelet should help you stay cool, and far more effectively than those potions. I know you are comfortable with yourself and how you dress, and I certainly enjoy the view, but I want you to at least have the option to wear different outfits should you so choose without worrying about collapsing from heat stroke.¡±


    ¡°Ah,¡± she said coyly as she reached her hand for mine. ¡°There is certainly something in there that I no longer need for myself. Would you reach in there and find it for me?¡± she asked as she feigned helplessness.


    Intrigued, I followed her instruction, at least technically. I scooped her up off her small chair she had been sitting on and gently laid her down upon the blankets and furs we had made into a bed upon the ground. positioning myself straddling her just below her bosom. I reached back with my hand and inserted it into her sachet. I fished around, and with a legitimately surprised look on my face, I reeled out something round and hard, the only thing I found that was not a bottle. I held it aloft between us. I beheld a circle of gold, inside of which was studded a black onyx that had been polished round and smooth.


    ¡°It was my mother¡¯s,¡± Chooka said calmly as she reached up to touch my face. ¡°She gave it to her lover, and they stayed together until she died, so I¡¯m pretty sure it works. It is not magical, but I want you to have it as a symbol of my love and commitment to you as your mistress. I hope it keeps you safe.¡±


    She took it from my hands and pinned it to my shirt. I tend to wear mostly black, so it matched handsomely. I don¡¯t know if it was the reminder of mothers, the apprehension that maybe she would not accept me for my true self, or the concern that perhaps our relationship was fleeting, but my exterior of confidence cracked as a single tear rolled down my cheek. I did not take myself to be such a sentimental sort about such things, not that there''s anything wrong with it, but like the first trickles of a dam overburdened, that single tear gave way to a veritable torrent.


    Perhaps that was the best possible outcome, for Chooka pulled me down to her and rolled us over onto our sides. She held me close and comforted me without judgment or jokes. She whispered sweet nothings to me as she poured forth all the empathy and compassion I could have ever wanted. I sensed that she did so not just freely, but eagerly, as if she had been craving me opening up to her and being vulnerable, to being honest in ways that words could not.


    We stayed like that for somewhere between a moment and eternity, and in that time, I felt truly safe, desired, and appreciated for the first time in my life. Whatever doubts I may have had melted away before the radiance of her love for me, and it was at that moment that I knew with certainty that I did not want to be parted from her. Such compassion gave way to passion, as if my tears had served to be an enthralling aphrodisiac. We explored the extent of our love that night and found no limits, and I suspect few had ever been so thorough in such a commission of romance.

 Chapter 10

    We slept well into the afternoon. At least that is what I would like to say, but we actually woke up to the sound of a bell being rung repeatedly. Before my mind could even process thought, I found myself sitting upright with a dagger drawn, ready and able to deliver bloody vengeance to whoever disturbed my slumber.


    As reason crept its way into my mind, I realized that no alarm spell caused such a fuss, but rather, it came from the crate with the hydra egg. I had rigged a small bell inside such that it would ring if the egg moved, and generally speaking, I have experienced that eggs do not move on their own unless they are hatching. I keenly desired to be there when it hatched, so the bell had served its purpose to satisfaction.


    And thus, in the wee hours of a midsummer''s morning, Chooka and I, naked to the world as newborns, huddled around the egg with eager anticipation. It did not exactly hatch, for it was far more leathery like skin than solid like eggshell. Tiny teeth sunk their way through the egg¡¯s exterior, and with a bit of shaking, tore loose a section, which was then withdrawn into the egg. The process drew on for some ten minutes at least, no doubt because the conditions inside were rather cramped and the toil itself must have been terribly exhausting for such a young creature. The hydra ate its way out, not randomly, but quite clearly focused on cutting the exterior in half around the middle.


    With a final bite, the egg exterior separated, and with great wobbling effort from the heads within, they flung it free from themselves. Three tiny heads peered up at the two of us, looking at us each in turn, but as I observed, first to me and second to Chooka. The distinction may seem trivial, but that random chance defined the course of life for this newborn. I had expected and confirmed that hydras imprint on a parent, but the loyalty is partially divided, as a parent hydra likewise has many heads.


    I remember kittens and puppies and other small critters with clarity. They start out a little pathetic and get cuter over time as they become more active. This creature was ready to go from the start, more or less, with eyes open and legs capable. I lifted it out of the crate and set it down on the furs and blankets of the bed, very much thankful that it did not bite me. I have seen many babies of many creatures in my time, either up close or in my memories, but hydras are without a doubt the cutest things I have ever witnessed. It stood wobbly on its legs, but within minutes, it was able to waddle with respectable confidence. Its little stub of a tail wiggled with excitement in every direction without any observable pattern. Its heads were a bit large for its necks, and they each bumped into each other with regularity. Their mouths, eyes, and nostrils were proportionally larger than an adult, while the other body parts were stubbier, namely, the legs and tail.


    The heads sang to us, all high pitched, but each in a slightly different key, with a surprisingly good level of harmony. I knew not what the song meant, but it was beautiful. Gingerly, I reached a hand out to pet the central head, and it accepted my affection without complaint. The other two heads quickly vied for my affection. Emboldened by the fact that my digits had not been ripped off, Chooka, who could barely contain herself on the cuteness overload before her, reached a hand in as well. The heads of the hydra alternated between which hand they wanted to pet them, and at times they would nibble lightly, not enough to hurt, but enough to show their curiosity and, as we deemed it, affection.


    The hydra, when upright and with necks stretched to their comfortable resting position, stood at a height up to my knee. We both proceeded to hand-feed it small bits of meat and experimented with other foodstuffs. All heads liked meat and cheese, one head liked berries, and another liked some of the vegetables we had to offer it. And thus we learned that each head had its own preferences and personalities.


    From my research, I had been told that more heads will grow over time, and that no one around here had seen or heard credible tales of a hydra with more than seven heads. When one head is cut off, two more grow back in its place, but those heads and associated necks are temporary, such that they will fall off and wither away. The then ¡°slain¡± head will grow back in time with memories and personality intact. I had already learned the hard way that those temporary heads do not breathe any sort of breath attack, but what element or elements this hydra would take after remained a mystery. There was heated debate in the hydra community that the breath attack element changes over time, or that not all heads have the same one, or that they don¡¯t need to match the parent. I had no idea how soon it would be until it gained such an ability or what temperament it may have.


    There were more mysteries and unknowns about hydras than there were known facts. Many a merchant and noble had offered ludicrous amounts of money for it, but I entertained none of them. This would be my pet and learning experience. I had Chooka walk away from me, and the poor little thing looked confused, each head not knowing which of us to follow. Perhaps it is easier to follow mama hydra when all the heads are on one body, so this must have been an alien experience for the creature¡¯s instinct. It ultimately followed me, much to Chooka¡¯s chagrin. Her cheeks puffed slightly with a pout at being second favorite. In retaliation, she walked over and scooped it up, hugging it close and kissing it.


    We spent the rest of the morning playing with it and performing experiments. I must admit, after careful examination, we could not determine if it was male or female. Perhaps both, perhaps neither, who knows?


    ¡°What should we call it?¡± Chooka asked me as she held the thing close and jostled it up and down like a newborn babe.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. Do we call each head by a different name?¡± I asked, unsure of proper naming etiquette for hydras.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know either,¡± she replied, ¡°but it stands to reason. Each head has its own personality.¡±


    ¡°Hmm,¡± I hummed as I pondered names. ¡°I want to say Nomi, Bitey, Chompy.¡±


    ¡°No, you can¡¯t do that!¡± cried Chooka. ¡°You gotta take this seriously.¡±


    ¡°Oh, and what names do you have, be honest now. I bet you were also thinking something cute like that.¡±


    ¡°I was not! Okay, that¡¯s a lie. I was going to go with Slithers, Snek, and Serpy,¡± replied Chooka sheepishly.


    We talked back and forth about names for over an hour, each throwing out suggestions from silly to serious and short to obnoxiously long. We finally agreed, going left to right, on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Chooka had never heard of the names before and had no good reason to reject them. I could not exactly place why those names felt right, but they did, so I stuck with them. The middle head, Plato, was certainly the boldest and the leader. The left, Socrates, was cautious and inquisitive, while the right was either shy or reckless with no middle ground.


    We decided to take the little guys for a walk. They waddled behind us as Chooka and I walked arm in arm through meadows and over easy trails through the woods, careful to keep an eye on them so that they did not get lost or straggle. Ever the troopers, the trio of heads took turns looking at anything and everything while one would pay attention to where they were going. At times we had to wait for them to catch up as one would get distracted by a bug, a stick, or their own shadow. Once, the trio tripped and tumbled head over heels, rolling three whole revolutions before coming to a stop. They rebounded quickly and shook off their dizziness, and the two of us could not contain ourselves at the sight as we doubled over crying with laughter at such clumsiness. After two hours, the trio became tuckered out, and so Chooka scooped them up and carried them as we made our way back to camp.


    As we approached the campfire, the trio began singing again, which we came to understand signaled hunger, which was perhaps prompted by the stew that yet simmered on the campfire. We both fed them, and when they were full, they waddled a short ways away to deposit leavings, wasting no time to hurry back when completed.


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    ¡°How considerate of them,¡± expressed Chooka with genuine contentment. ¡°I half expected they would just poop on me as I carried them.


    ¡°Indeed. That would be a shitty start to parenthood though.¡±


    Chooka laughed at my crude joke as she petted them. ¡°They seem drowsy, perhaps it is naptime. I think we have a box we can use for a bed if we repurpose those blankets from the egg crate.¡±


    We set about the task of rigging up a bed box for them to sleep in. Chooka and I made up a silly lullaby on the spot as we sang them to sleep. They tried to listen at first, heads tilted in puzzled contemplation at what our song could possibly mean. But, eyelids drooped as heads bobbed ever lower to the ground, unable to resist the soothing melody and its invitation to dreamland. The trio plopped over and fell asleep with the tiniest of snores from each of them.


    ¡°I know we have only had them for a few hours, but I would fight to the death to protect them,¡± declared Chooka with vindication. ¡°They are the cutest things in existence.¡±


    ¡°They absolutely are,¡± I agreed. ¡°By the way, how did you feel today? Did you overheat at all?¡±


    As if suddenly remembering her gift, she perked up and looked down at her bracelet as she rubbed it with her other hand. ¡°No, not at all. I feel great¡± she exclaimed with enthusiasm. ¡°I love it, but not as much as I love you.¡±


    ¡°Do you love me more than our new children?¡± I asked with a grin forming across my face.


    ¡°Well, if the yurt caught fire, I would grab them and run, as I trust you to look after yourself,¡± she teased as she avoided eye contact briefly.


    ¡°I guess I will just have to remind you of how much you love me,¡± I retorted playfully as I pulled her close and kissed her neck.


    ¡°Only if you do so daily,¡± she replied before a soft moan escaped her mouth.


    ¡°Shh. You have to be quiet,¡± I chided as I lowered her to the bedding. ¡°We don¡¯t want to wake them. Let me help you, my love.¡±


    I grabbed her by the throat and gently choked her as we began our favorite pastime together. A bold and risky move on my part, as it was my first time attempting that, but that maneuver soon found its way into our favorite repertoire of techniques. It worked wonders, for our little bundle of joy remained blissfully unaware of our passion as it slumbered peacefully.


    After completing our ritual of bonding, I deposited a tub on the ground outside and then went to the spring to draw water, which I transported back via my pocket dimension. With a little touch of Fire magic and a few scented oils, I had a warm bath ready for the two of us. We enjoyed the good soak and tenderly washed each other off from what filth we had accumulated through recent adventures. Afterwards we dressed and broke camp.


    I used my whistle to summon back our mounts, and true to the reassurances offered by their caretakers, they gallivanted back into view as they snatched up a few snacks along their return trip. They showed no concern for our hydra, and mine did not protest as I rigged the bed box to the saddle and tack.


    We took our time riding back, appreciating the view and being mindful that our route did not disturb the hydra. We arrived back at the city by sunset, and we needed only to flash our guild gorgets to be let in with nary an inspection. Auspicious, truly, that no one checked what was in the box, for questions would have been raised that would have led to awkward conversation. We returned our mounts and made our way back to the dorms.


    ¡°We will need to buy a house with a large and fenced-in yard somewhere on the edge of the city if we are to provide ample space for our children to frolic,¡± I proposed to Chooka as we made our way back to the dorms.


    ¡°Yes we will, we just need to¡­¡± She paused, as realization struck her. ¡°You want us to move in together?¡±


    ¡°Naturally,¡± I responded. ¡°They need their mother, and I need you by my side. Would this arrangement please you?¡±


    With a high-pitched squeal, Chooka jumped up and down and spun about in an excited victory dance. She leaned in and kissed me, but as I was carrying the bed box and a sleeping hydra, I could not properly return as much enthusiasm as I wanted.


    ¡°I will take that as a yes.¡± I said after our kiss ended. ¡°There is much to consider for that. We don¡¯t need to decide it all tonight, but let¡¯s work together and think this through to find the perfect home.¡±


    We chatted away about the possibility of our new home. Chooka rattled away with enthusiasm concerning all the requirements, paperwork, inspections, and approvals that would need to be worked out. It quickly devolved from a back-and-forth to me nodding along as she went over every detail. I loved her all the more as she talked about something she was apparently quite passionate about, and I found it to be a great relief that she knew what needed to be done, for I would have made unimaginable headways in all the wrong directions without her knowhow.


    Chooka had only been to my room once, as hers was of better quality and location, and that had been near the beginning of our relationship. Her jaw nearly dropped as she witnessed the small fortune of coins of all denominations scattered all around the room.


    ¡°Why do you have such wealth lying around? Do you never spend anything?¡± she asked with clear confusion and wonder etched across her face.


    ¡°Well, I am a dragon, and this is my hoard. Each coin here was earned through a specific transaction, one at a time. I couldn¡¯t just grab any ol¡¯ coin and toss it in here, there is no story to them,¡± I explained matter-of-factly to her. ¡°I will never spend these coins, for to me, they are no longer currency. They empower me and cannot be exchanged, so please, never take them. I have actual coins for spending and that emergency fund I set up in case something should arise.¡±


    Chooka nodded silently, as if it all made sense. I could almost see the gears turning in her mind as she pieced together why every contract and trade resulted in one coin.


    ¡°You made us all jump through hoops to balance accounts just right for you, and now I see why. You made a few people upset with your seemingly eccentric demands, but I totally understand your motive now.¡±


    Chooka sat down on my bed, and I placed the hydra¡¯s crate at the foot of it.


    ¡°One more thing of note about my accounts. Don¡¯t ever spend the emergency fund on me, as that would corrupt the value of my hoard. I mean it to be used for charitable causes, ideally in the event of some catastrophe.¡±


    ¡°Got it,¡± she said. She patted the bed next to her for me to sit down, and I took her up on the offer. ¡°So, you have a beautiful woman in bed with you right now. Why don¡¯t you seduce her by giving her the full rundown of everything she needs to know?¡±


    She gazed at me warmly, her hand finding mine as she anticipated my words. I knew she would not tolerate evasion of the topic, but in truth, I wanted to tell her everything.


    ¡°I know you love hearing the details of everything, and I will tell you everything I can, of what I know. There are things I cannot tell you yet, things I am either not ready to explain or that I have not figured out. I don¡¯t want to mislead you with half truths.¡± I took her hand in mine and kissed it before continuing. ¡°I promise I will fill you in as things become clear to me. I don¡¯t want to hide who I am from you, I just don¡¯t completely know what I am yet.¡±


    She looked back at me with calm but loving determination before nodding slowly. ¡°I would not have it any other way,¡± she said reassuringly as she put an arm around me. ¡°I have things I cannot say too, mostly because I am sworn not to, but I trust you just the same.¡± She paused for a moment to let things sink in, before commanding, ¡°Spill the porridge! Tell me everything that you can.¡±


    And so we spent the rest of the night being honest and open with each other like never before. I explained my Blessing, my Abilities and how I often got to choose them, the mechanics behind how I advance in [Age] and how my [Hoard] worked. She listened intently, never once bored, her eagerness to know more increasing with every word. I left out the part about past lives. I was not too sure if they were real, or what implications may be associated with them in terms of culture or religion. It felt like a whole other realm of knowledge to burden her with as well, and I did not want her mind to be blown by being overtaxed with too many revelations in one night. She cried a little when I told her of my childhood and of Mother, and truthfully, I did too, and she held me a while before I continued. The sadness was quickly replaced by a gleam in her eye when I told her about my elf crush back home.


    She in turn shared more of who she was with me. We did have to pause at one point to feed and walk the hydra so that nature¡¯s call could be answered. We also played with them and sang them to sleep once again. Naturally, we bonded further through more physical means, and ended the night cuddled up together.

 Chapter 11

    The cheese festival loomed but three weeks away by this point, and I spent most of my time taking on Gold and Platinum rated jobs. To get an estate of the size we would need for The Boys, as we call the hydra collectively, would require a great deal more in funds than what I had available as spendable currency. I ended up taking the most lucrative jobs at full value, with no payment going to my hoard, and such seemingly whimsical inconsistencies in my contracts caused lingering vexation to more than one accountant. I was in a race against time, for The Boys were growing fast, and I knew they would soon outgrow what space I could provide in the dorms. And certainly, the landlord of the dorms greatly appreciated my intent to move out, as he did not enjoy the constant need to repair bite marks that would mysteriously appear in the woodwork and furnishing.


    I would like to say that I spent all my newfound Experience Points on wise choices, and indeed I tried to, but I couldn''t help but splurge now and then on Skills related to handling and enhancing pets. For instance, I had unlocked an Ability to summon my pets from anywhere, but the rough math on it always felt wrong as it appeared to be three times more expensive than it should have been. Perhaps each head of the hydra counts separately since they each have their own personality. Not that I ever needed to use it, as The Boys were always with Chooka when I was out of town, and I otherwise spent much of my free time training and experimenting with them and new Skills. I did always keep some Experience Points in reserve, for some Skills would only prove useful in specific situations, and I wanted that flexibility should the need arise.


    The Boys started out with scales of a sky blue, but over time, they shifted darker and darker, passing navy blue and approaching a point that I could not distinguish between it and black unless the light shone just right. They molted several times, which was a rather fascinating process to watch. They would squirm and writhe and cooperate to carefully bite each other out of the old skin, which promptly became a welcome snack. They ate just about anything you fed them, assuming one offered foods they actually liked, as each had their own preferences. I know not how their stomach could hold such quantities, as most people in the guildhall enjoyed tossing snacks their way. I had theories, after comparing the size and frequency of their leavings in relation to food intake, that there must be a pocket dimension connected to their body. That would certainly help explain temporary heads at times of decapitation.


    Outside of The Boys, the only up close and personal experience I had with a hydra was from their mother, so I was no authority on the finer points of hydra behavior, but The Boys seemed to possess supernatural intelligence compared to their kind. I swear they could actually understand what I said, for at times they followed along with uncanny accuracy to my instructions. They learned commands typically on the first try and were rather obedient, well, at least to me, and somewhat less so to Chooka. For her part, I did take Skills to help ensure they would follow commands of trusted allies, and that did improve their behavior dramatically as far as Chooka was concerned. They started a small fire that we quickly put out when they got spooked by some sort of overly playful dog-weasel like pet that another Adventurer had at the guildhall, and that being our first introduction to their breath Ability, we took it with a fair amount of shock. No injuries were inflicted that could not be healed with some trusty spells by skilled individuals in the room, but everyone gained a new level of respect for how to handle The Boys.


    I experienced the privilege of witnessing Chooka in her element. She is a master when it comes to paperwork, rules, and navigating bureaucratic systems. Fired up by the chance for a new home with her lover and favorite pet-children, she found all the ducks she needed and put them in a row without me offering much assistance. Not that she needed it, and in her state, I think she would have trampled me if I had tried. She found the perfect estate for us, but the owner was unwilling to part at mere market value, hence my long hours spent hunting everything with a sizable price on its head. The estate in question was located on the edge of the district for such finer dwellings, which was on the north side of town, and it contained a generously large pond and what we imagined would be ample space for a hydra to walk about and exercise. Perhaps more importantly, the fence around it stood at least tall and sturdy enough to keep The Boys penned in, although I felt confident they could still smash or melt their way through it if sufficiently motivated.


    I don¡¯t walk them on a leash, in part because there were no specialty stores that catered to selling hydra harnesses and the ilk, and in part because no one had thought to make or enforce any laws related to it. The Boys, always eager to tag along, followed me pretty much anywhere in town, which became quite the spectacle to the local populace. As The Boys grew, the number of contenders that challenged me to duels declined drastically, and I came to conclude that most people do not fancy the idea of tangoing with a hydra that stands a little taller than a man. Many a soul found themselves enlightened rather suddenly such that they needed to change their travel itineraries at the mere presence of The Boys, the ultimate result being that their paths did not converge, but surprisingly, some small children will run right up to them. I am happy to report that no injuries were sustained after the fire fiasco, and so most people eventually relaxed as the sight of just me and The Boys became commonplace.


    A small lump appeared where the necks converged on The Boys, but the experts assured me that no medical attention would be required, and that soon I could expect another head to sprout forth. I remained unsure if that would require more food, and at the rate they ate, grew larger as a whole, and presumably gained more heads, I calculated I would be bankrupt before winter. I jest, for I took a Skill that would allow me to keep them suspended in an artificially smaller state, for which at any point I could toggle them between that and their true size. I kept them small for the sake of the general populace not panicking and causing a riot, as big giant monsters hopping around downtown was generally frowned upon.


    A week before the festival, high-paying jobs for creature harvesting, especially for meat and other parts that could be used in culinary delicacies, cropped up everywhere. Griffin eggs, wyvern rumps, ooze jelly (but only the black ones that live in swamps), giant snake spare ribs, and other creatures I have not heard of before became hot-ticket items. I made more coin that week than the previous two combined, and by the eve of the festival, I had raised the required funds for real estate acquisition. This pleased Chooka, and she expressed her gratitude with intimate enthusiasm at every opportunity. Not to say that I felt superior by being the breadwinner, for no amount of wealth could have helped me solve the mysteries that she navigated with practiced ease. We had a partnership, and I truly feel that we both contributed evenly.


    However, in terms of raw power, I had eclipsed Chooka ages ago. She could hold her own in a fight, and at times had too, as a few rowdy patrons of the guildhall had the (presumed) displeasure of experiencing when they found themselves on the ass-end of an ass kicking, free of charge, by her swift application of conflict resolution. Most of my power could only be brought to bear as a dragon, either for my ability to even use it or for intensity, but I felt confident enough that I could hold my own against most Platinum Adventurers. All the better, for the grand finale of the festival would be that formal duel, in the arena, with the whole city in attendance.


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    The festival itself was held annually, but only once every five years in the city of Berkerin, as it rotated between sister cities. Chooka filled me in on some of the finer details, but with herself and everyone else being fairly familiar with it, she found it difficult to recall what felt blatantly obvious to her. I knew to expect many actors, with different and seemingly impromptu cheese thievery and heroic recovery antics being common occurrences. Shenaniganry and general tomfoolery were staples of entertainment, along with contests, toys, games, gambling, and any venture one could imagine to make a coin. All manner of tourists arrived seemingly by the wagonful, and spare rooms at inns and taverns went for a premium. I had been told that the best time to book was two years in advance, and upon seeing the surrounding countryside seemingly flooded with various camps, I did not doubt the truth to such hearsay.


    The mouse-people, miccen, and the rat-people, riccen, seemed to be the dominant races amongst the tourists, and indeed the primary contributors to all activities related to the celebration. Everyone accepted it as completely normal that cheese found itself as the center of the culture and religion of those two cousin races, but given my memories and stories of past lives, I found it all too comical and clich¨¦. I could not expect others to share my point of view, for to them, this has always been the way of things, and so it did open my eyes to how perhaps not all meaning in life was universal.


    Miccen were generally inclined to being straightforward and honest once you parsed through their tall tales. They came up to maybe my waist, were generally peaceful, and were usually quite neighborly in helping strangers with small problems. By contrast, the riccen stood at least a head taller, had stockier but hunched builds, and were suspected to be behind more than a few crimes, as they generally dressed and behaved in a shady manner. Oddly, crimes amongst themselves or in relation to the miccen either went completely unreported and unobserved or it did not exist, and I myself had witnessed them all behaving almost conspiratorially in the degree to which they cooperated. I watched one riccen steal a coin purse from an unsuspecting orc, only to return a dropped sash of fancy design to a miccen who appeared to be a stranger to said thief. Perhaps there was something to be learned here, and so I spent more leisure time at night following them around to observe. This new hobby was in part because I only needed about two hours of sleep thanks to a heavy investment in such luxury, but mostly I wanted to learn how this culture worked.


    One night I followed a riccen footpad to a warehouse out on the edge of town in a non-residential district. I jumped from rooftop to rooftop, using Skills to silence my steps and to summon shadows to veil my presence. Not that I was invisible by any means, but in such unlit areas, I may as well have been. A whole pack of them would come and go, with one bigger and tougher-looking boss taking their finds, reviewing it, and adding it to a pile. As I lurked in the rafters, I witnessed a pattern I did not expect of such a vocation. He never struck them, or talked down to them, or delivered any sort of punishment, even to those who came back empty-handed. He was ever positive and reinforcing with his praise, and the younger ones appreciated such affirmation with appetite bordering on addiction. At times, I saw him give demonstrations for how to trip someone bigger than oneself, lift a lid without making a sound, pinch a necklace off someone with only one hand, and other skills needed for larceny. Older riccen practiced with younger ones, with the older ones often playing the role of the victim.


    That night, I only saw food, jewelry, and money brought back. I never detected any contraband or drugs, and I wondered if their culture had rules about that or what was appropriate to steal. Females usually played the role of being a distraction, lookout, or backup, while males tended to do the heavy lifting and actual theft, at least as far as I had witnessed on the street and here where they trained. Subtle though it was, I noticed the females made the smallest of gestures with their hands, and while their mouths barely moved, their throats and whiskers suggested some subvocal incantations. Perhaps the females had ways to cast spells to aid the heist, but I could not deduce what effects they had, if any. Such exposure to what must have been private undertakings for their people lit a fire within me to understand the peoples of this world, a fire that yet burns within me still all these ages later.


    The miccen were far more tame in their hobbies and craft, favoring skilled artisanry, with whole families working together in some form of cottage industry. I learned a thing or two from them, as they were very open to teaching anyone with a passion for enlightenment. The whole lot of them chat seemingly nonstop, participating in two or three conversations at any given time. I cannot say for sure how they really feel about anything, for in one conversation they would judge something as shameful or indecent, and in another they would praise it as ingenious or honorable. I could barely keep track of half the conversations as I studied things like masonry, carpentry, cooking, and other mundane skills I would need as a new homeowner.


    The only conclusion I could draw from how they talked is that they were inclined to arbitrarily pick stereotypical personas and talk as such a person would talk. An elder was kind enough to explain to me that part of their voice was too high pitched for most races to hear, and within that tone, one would be able to detect things such as sarcasm, anger, or mirth. Such did explain how they could deliver the raunchiest or oddly specific and outlandish narratives with such deadpan tones. It seemed to be a game to them, to just tell a story that starts out being believable, only for it to devolve past the suspension of disbelief for any normal person. My time with them led me to believe that they may be far craftier and active liars than their riccen cousins, and I could only wonder as to what devious machinations they could concoct and act out.


    Most Adventurers and I had worked until the eleventh hour, so to speak, on the eve of the festival, for the wealth to be gained was just too good to pass up. By mandate of the Duke, most businesses would be closed for the festival if they did not directly support it, and certainly, that meant the Adventurer guildhalls would be empty. On that eve of the festival, just before the last bell of the day rang out at midnight, and after turning in a generous portion of meat from lava-centipede-monsters to the merchant listed in the job, I found myself alone as I walked home, passing the guildhall along the way. Shadows stirred where none should be of the business of making them at such an hour, but I pretended not to notice and pressed on. I found an alleyway and ducked into it, and then promptly found my way to a rooftop to observe what had caused such umbral disturbances.


    I activated every Ability at my disposal to help prepare me for what could be going on. Spells to mask my presence, to protect me from Divination and Scrying, to enhance my senses so that I could see in the dark, to turn me into the perfect hidden observer. Several minutes passed before my patience yielded rewards, for eight cloaked figures darted from the cover of one shadow to the next as they made their way to the Harvester guildhall. Eight tails betrayed anonymity, for these were none other than riccen padfoots, and with coordination and practiced silence, they formed a ladder from their bodies to scale their way to the second floor of the guildhall. The smallest of the group worked at the window for some time before opening it, and I give credit to their discipline, as none of them complained for how long the deed took. If I were a gambling man, I would have wagered that the shaky legs of the bottom riccen would have given out from such a burden upon his shoulders, but he persevered in silence.


    Once inside, the smallest helped the others inside, the ladder of bodies becoming a rope as the bottommost climbed up their form before the next followed suit. Once all eight were safely inside, one closed the window. The whole maneuver took less than a minute, and I would commend them for their surreptitiousness had they gone undiscovered. Curious, and eager to test my Skills, I gave chase and entered through a side door for which I was entrusted with a key. And so a game of cat and mouse would begin, as I was of mind to hunt down the intruders.

 Chapter 12

    Like a specter, I slipped silently between shadows, shrouding myself with even more spells catering to combat prowess as I ventured to the second floor of the guildhall. I held the advantage, for the gang of riccen remained ignorant that they had been detected, and I had become quite familiar with the building¡¯s interior by virtue of my many jobs for the guild and my trusted level of access gained. On occasion, I had to babysit certain ingredients lest they spoil, or drop things off after hours, and given my Platinum rank, I could come and go as I pleased, and so I took the liberty to familiarize myself with this guildhall as much as the others. I mused that they had not staked out the place, for they would have surely seen me come and go at odd hours and would have recognized me. Perhaps they thought I was gone for the night or deemed the risk acceptable, but either way, they would soon find folly as their only prize of the night.


    I did not want to kill them, or even injure them. Such would be trivial, and non-lethal takedowns would better test my Skills. With practiced effort, I wove spells for traps, ones that would cause happy little accidents to anyone foolish enough to trigger them. Such Skills had been useful in hunting to secure my prey, for while I could certainly take down almost anything in my dragon form, there needed to be a body relatively intact if I aimed to harvest anything from them, and my breath attacks were not known for such subtlety. There were two stairwells to the ground floor, and at the top of one, I made my way back down again, trapping it up such that not even a house fly could make it down without triggering one.


    Satisfied with my work, I made haste to the other stairwell, at least as much as one can while being alert and sneaky. No sooner had I found myself there than a loud crash alerted me to the presence of at least one intruder, sounding less in the way a bookcase topples and more of the variety that a body had been flung across a hallway and into a wall. An oddly specific sound, granted, but my topmost trap had been designed to such subterfuge, so it fit the bill for what I would expect it to be.


    Panicked scurrying could be heard from the second floor, and now that the game was afoot, I made my way up the second stairwell, trapping it up as I went, such that they would have no way out unless they fancied self-defenestration. Such a tactic would break the legs of most without the aid of magical strengthening, for the first floor of the building was exceptionally tall in order to facilitate larger body parts from harvesting operations.


    At the top of the stairs, I peeked around the corner and into the hallway, where a riccen, with breathing elevated by fear and eyes darting to every corner, tried to make sense of a job gone sideways. I waited until her back was turned to me, and then using a great burst of magical speed, I closed the distance and grabbed her from behind in a hold. A terrified squeak escaped her throat before I silenced her with a knockout blow, one that she would live to feel in the morning. I opened a nearby room, deposited her body, and closed the door, all in the span of a few breaths.


    Now the others were faced with a choice. Two of their own, accomplices to the crime, were out of commission. Would they tuck tail and run, or would they recover their comrades first before withdrawing? That squeak from my last victim gave away my position, but I had intended for it, such that they would come to find me. I drew a dagger and left it on the floor, and with a trickle of magic, I animated it to lightly and rhythmically scratch at the door where my last victim slumbered. I traveled down the hallway in the opposite direction, planning to circle around anyone curious enough to investigate.


    Two such brave souls took the bait. I lurked in the shadows, waiting for them to draw closer to the door. Their backs were towards me, and painfully unaware, they inched forward. I could see their bodies quaking beneath their cloaks, and as I listened, their already quick breathing accelerated greatly. One of the two poked at the dagger somehow, for I could not see due to their cloaks, but I felt the spell animating my dagger cease. At that moment, I released a spell I had been channeling.


    Shadows deepened unnaturally as wispy tendrils of inky blackness oozed from the walls, ceiling, and floor, twisting and twirling their way around the two unsuspecting knaves. Fear erupted in limbs bidden to flee, but they yet remained bound fast by shadow made manifest in the physical realm. With each struggle of flailing limbs, their fate became sealed, as a durance of blackness enveloped them. Cocooned as such, the second phase of the spell began as it drained them of energy. Their enshrouded forms shifted within the blackness for a few moments, striving in vain to free themselves, before they ultimately stilled completely. As I relaxed the spell, two exhausted and unconscious figures keeled over onto the floor.


    Satisfied with the results, I crept forward to investigate my handiwork. In but the briefest of moments, a warning spell detected murderous intent, and reflexively, I tumbled sideways and out of the way of whatever could be behind it. Not quickly enough, unfortunately, for a deep gash formed where blade raked flesh on my left shoulder and down my back. As I rebounded from my acrobatics, I turned to see the largest of the riccens coming at me with another swing. He used his cloak to obfuscate his body, and while vexing, I remained ready to counter. His blade pulled back at the last second in a feint as another came from his other hand. Surprised, I mitigated my mistake by taking a slash across my right forearm.


    This close, I could see that shadow shrouded him in a manner similar to myself, and I took a mental note to invest more heavily in skills to detect stealthy enemies. I would not say that I had mastered swordplay or close quarters combat by this point in my life, and that particular riccen pressed me hard, inflicting more than a few cuts and blows as I tried to recover. He bounded off walls and ceiling alike, a whirling dervish of cloak, shadow, blade, and unconcealed fury. I took the defensive, dodging some and decorating the hallway red with my mistakes in judgment. As we passed by a window, the light of the three moons revealed an unnatural glow to his blades, and such illumination unveiled the mystery behind how he could cut through me like butter.


    I channeled my healing magic to help me regenerate. In the span of half a minute, he had scored over a dozen hits, and I had landed none. However, the pattern to his attacks, while paid for with my blood, became closer to predictable. I rushed in on his next feint and landed a solid strike from my fist, careful to resist my rising anger lest I cave in his chest. It did more than just take the wind out of him as I made contact just below the sternum. As he laid there sprawled out on the floor, the scurrying of feet announced the remaining three had come to his aid.


    While he had been difficult, these three verged upon unmanageable. Their coordination exceeded anything I had yet faced, for when one extended for a blow, another provided cover as he withdrew for his next strike. They pushed and pulled each other out of the way of my retaliatory strikes, at times springboarding off one another to leap towards the ceiling, only to push off hard in a dive for me. Would that there were light to see, the hallways would reveal a crimson history of my battle. I healed my wounds as fast as they came, but replacing blood by benefit of magical Skills taxed my mana reserves and my capacity to keep up with demand. They gave me no room to breathe or recover, so relentless was their attack, and I feared I may fall unconscious with not a wound to be found on me.


    I needed a decisive plan, and I needed it quickly. A reckless idea sprung to mind, and feigning cowardice and panic, I let them press me back towards the first stairwell I had ascended minutes before. As I endured their onslaught, I maneuvered them to the top of the stairs, and so emboldened by their countless blows against me, they gave chase with eager and bloody vengeance. At that moment, I released my counterattack. With a great gust of Air magic, I pushed the lot of them sideways and down the stairwell. Surprised squeaks and terrified screams followed as the three of them tumbled down the stairwell and into damn near every trap I had set earlier. Loud crashes thundered through the hallways as magic crackled to life in unbridled redemption against my attackers. And then, silence and dust greeted all present, for their bodies remained still. I released my hold on the rest of the traps, letting their energy dissipate into nothingness.


    Ever wary of one playing dead, I gingerly checked upon their bodies. Fortunately, none were dead, but many bones were broken. Perhaps I had gone overboard in my precautions, for the stairwell and the ragged forms of my attackers were a mess. I would certainly need to clean and make repairs before the festival ended and this whole affair became discovered.


    I administered sleeping and healing potions to each of them in turn. I carried their bodies to one location, taking care to recover what personal effects that may have scattered in our scuffle. I checked them over, trying to uncover their identities. One of the females looked familiar, like I had seen her at the warehouse several nights ago. I could not be certain, for I had difficulty telling one from another, so unfamiliar was I still with their kind. I could turn them in to authorities, but a better idea came to mind.


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    After recovering for a while and letting my mana regenerate to respectable levels, I created chains of shadow to bind them together and levitate their still bodies off the ground. Leading them in a daisy chain as they floated behind me, I made my way from rooftop to rooftop back to their hideout. I detected no lookouts, not even with my sensory Abilities active.


    Boldly, and perhaps foolishly, I opened the front door to the warehouse and pulled my captives inside, closing the door behind me. Only darkness greeted me, but able to see well enough despite it, I made my way to the center of the warehouse with my prize in tow.


    I could feel them, their many heartbeats, their shallow breathing, their beady eyes glaring at me from all corners and hidey-holes. I was not alone, not by a longshot. I waited, and so did they, with neither of us making a move. I tried to sense their leader, but I could not distinguish him from the rest. I decided I would take the initiative.


    ¡°Pardon my intrusion, but I believe we have matters to discuss. I know you are there, so please cease this game of hide-and-seek and share words with me.¡±


    The darkness yielded no response, and neither did those waiting within it. I waited in uncertainty, not knowing if I would be cut to ribbons in the next moment by a barrage of everything they had to offer. I had channeled Defensive Skills, the magic of which yearned to be released as I strained to manifest as much as I could without activating them. Then, a flame flared to life in the distance, small, barely more than a spark, but unmistakable.


    The fire illuminated the face of their leader, a face that I could not detect in the darkness before. I knew not what Skills he had from his Blessing, but I could tell that he would give many Platinum Adventurers a hard time. He strode up to me with casual confidence and grace, yet his posture and effortless motions suggested that no mere bravado proved to be the source of his strength.


    As he approached, I could see the flame that hovered in his hand glowed with increased intensity, and with but a flick of a clawed finger, that ball of light launched itself into the air above him. As if on cue, the remaining riccen followed suit, and soon, daylight itself appeared to be summoned forth within the warehouse. Thick shadows lingered at the doors and windows, and so I knew that none other than us present would be aware of what would transpire.


    ¡°I see my children have learned much this night. Am I correct in surmising that you were their instructor?¡± came a rather paradoxically soothing yet gravelly voice from the leader, like silk drawn across dying embers.


    I arrayed my prisoners around me like a shield, and the leader casually strode around the exterior, his knowing eye inspecting the fallen. At times, he would reach out and touch a spot or whisper things I could not make out entirely, but his words sounded gentle at least.


    ¡°Indeed, it is as you say. These ones happened to find themselves inside the Harvester guildhall by virtue of unauthorized entry. I am sure we can come to agree that this was all a misunderstanding, one that will not be repeated.¡±


    The lead riccen continued his inspection, making full circle before coming before me and inside the ring. Puzzlement and concern washed over me, for while I had not taken my eyes off him, I could not say with certainty when he crossed that threshold. He brandished no weapons, nor did I detect any ill intent, but I felt legitimate concern that if he were of mind to give me a good thrashing, I would be hard pressed indeed just to make it out alive.


    ¡°Of course, it can always be just that, a misunderstanding. But as they intruded there, so do you intrude here. Tell me, why should I not show you the same hospitality that you have bestowed upon them?¡± He punctuated his remark by gently running a clawed hand down a leather strap on one of my victims. A moment passed before the strap fell to the floor, the whole thing shredded to tiny pieces.


    I took a moment to consider his words, knowing full well that a wrong answer would spell disaster. The other riccen, easily thirty in number, had moved forward, each one silently watching as they blocked every avenue of escape. I steeled my resolve, tucking away any fear I may have felt, calming my instincts to flee, freeze, or fight.


    ¡°In my experience, some of my best and most mutually rewarding relationships have started off from a misunderstanding. It is always reassuring to have friends you can count on in hard times, and I think we could get along if we took the time to understand one another.¡±


    He paused, as if to consider my words, but I suspected it to be an act, as if he already knew how this would play out. He continued his inspection, this time from the inside of my now pointless barricade, but I kept my eyes forward as he circled into my blind spot. Once he had made it fully around, he turned to face me.


    ¡°I see they all yet live and that many bones have been broken and mended, but they are otherwise unscathed in any serious way.¡± He spared a moment to eye me up and down, as if he had not already fully assessed me. ¡°I can tell by your bloodstained and shredded attire that they did not extend the same courtesy to you. Such restraint does lend merit to your words, that you desire friendship, but how do I know I can trust you?¡±


    He stood there, his gaze now solely fixed upon me, and even though he stared up at me, I could feel the pressure of his presence looming over me, threatening to crush me if found unworthy. Was this all but a test, and would I pass? I did not have a good answer for him, and so I decided to roll the dice and to be honest.


    ¡°You do not. We never know that we can trust people. But we can trust their motives, their desires, that they tend to work to their own benefit or for that of another. I am not here to be partners in our undertakings, merely to establish an understanding that we can stay out of each other¡¯s way, and perhaps in times of need, lend a hand. It is useful to have friends that your enemies do not know about, ones that you can call in a pinch to turn the tables.¡±


    With a gesture from his hand, the other riccen stepped forth, stopping just before their chained comrades. With a snap of his fingers, my spell ended, and the unconscious bodies of my prisoners fell into dozens of waiting arms. The other riccen withdrew, leaving the two of us alone in the center of the warehouse.


    ¡°Now that you have lost your leverage, what will you do now if I decide to decline your offer?¡± the leader asked as he casually drew a dagger. He proceeded to juggle it with one hand, his eyes never leaving mine.


    ¡°I would say that it would certainly put a damper on our relationship, and if I made it out of here alive, I would bring snacks next time I came to visit, as is the custom.¡± I hoped my joke would do the trick, as I had few options of getting out alive unless I wanted to go on a rampage as a dragon, which I most certainly did not.


    Luck smiled upon me, for he chuckled at my joke, with his mirth evolving into a full belly laugh. He slapped a knee as he doubled over in laughter, his eyes brimming with tears from his amusement, but his dagger never ceased its journey as one hand continued to send it aloft time after time.


    ¡°Perhaps,¡± he said, pausing to chuckle once more, before all laughter ceased completely and his tone turned deadly serious, ¡±Perhaps we could be friends. I have many friends, in many lands, both high and low in society. It never hurts to have one more, but I have had my fair share of friendships being terminated rather suddenly.¡± His eyes narrowed as he finished speaking, and he paused to size me up with his ever critical gaze.


    With his free hand, he wove a series of gestures to me, and I, feeling as if I should repeat them, mimicked them back to him. He nodded, and did it once more, which I followed. Satisfied, he extended his non-juggling hand forward to shake, which I took without faltering.


    ¡°Then we have a deal,¡± he said with a buck-toothed smile as whiskers quivered. ¡°Show that sign to one of mine and they will bring you to me. We don¡¯t need names around here, not yet at least, but I know who you are, Hydra Slayer. I won¡¯t ask you to commit crime on my behalf, and my children will stay away from your guilds. The day may come when we have need of one another, and I will honor that, if the price is right.¡±


    He withdrew his hand and turned away from me, walking back towards his children as lights faded. ¡°Now go, for the hour is late, and my patience for entertaining uninvited guests draws thin.¡±


    The light faded completely, and as the room descended into darkness once again, I detected no trace of even a single riccen nearby. Not one to overstay my welcome, I bowed slightly out of politeness in the direction I had last seen him before I departed. Only after I was more than a block away did I let the adrenaline of the situation flood through my veins. My heart raced with fear at how close I had come to death. That encounter provided a strong and lasting lesson on how not all the strongest people in the world were Adventurers, and so with renewed caution and respect for the unknown, I made my way home for my last night in the dorms.

 Chapter 13

    As I made my way home, my mind worked overtime concerning everything that had just happened. The riccen leader had been aware of me, but for how long? Surely, he would have known I watched from up in the rafters several nights earlier. Was that whole heist a setup to test me and lure me in? Did he plan to either eliminate me or make me his ally from the start? I knew not the answers, but the implications as to how far this all went unsettled me. I would leave the repairs and cleaning for later, unless I fancied Chooka biting my head off when I returned home. I was already half an hour late for our alone time together, and no doubt she would be worrying.


    I made my way quickly from rooftop to rooftop, trying to recover lost time that I normally would have spent walking. I knew I would not be able to explain away the state of my outfit, but frankly, I fully intended to tell her everything that had gone down. We did not keep secrets between us outside of the things we just cannot tell each other, and tonight offered no reason for me to start such a bad habit.


    While bounding along from one rooftop to another, I saw a gnome in the process of being mugged by an orc. The gnome wore a ridiculously large hat, as all gnomes I have seen tend to do, this one similar to a sombrero, but far too big for what he would need, as gnomes are wont to do. Already late, I hesitated about getting involved. Were it just a shakedown, I would probably have kept going, but the glint of steel in the orc¡¯s hand told me that a life may be lost just because I wanted to get home and indulge in companionship.


    In no mood for subtlety or manners, I turned around, leaping three stories down to land on the orc¡¯s shoulders, the impact driving him into the ground. Reaching down, I grabbed the hand that held the knife, and wrenching horribly upon it, dislocated his shoulder. Not satisfied, and still holding onto his arm, I stomped my foot down at his elbow, bending his arm the wrong way and leaving the thug in a sorry state. He probably would have dropped the knife had my grip on his hand been lax, but as it stood, I was but a hair away from crushing the bones in his hand. The orc roared in pain, but with a jab to the back of his skull, I deftly knocked him out. The gnome, eyes wide with terror and wonder, stared at me. I stared back for a moment, then nodded, and continued upon my way, not bothering to look back.


    I arrived at my home about forty minutes late. I could see the light from the window, so Chooka was either there, or The Boys learned how to turn lights on. I made my way quietly through the hallways, doing my best not to wake anyone up. As I entered my room, I beheld a displeased Chooka sitting on my bed, with The Boys asleep at the foot of it. Her expression softened, then turned to concern as she examined me over.


    ¡°By the gods, what happened?¡± she inquired with rising concern as she rushed over to meet me. ¡°Your clothes are torn to shreds and there''s blood everywhere! Are you alright?¡±


    ¡°Those merchants really don¡¯t like it when you finish your contract at the last minute,¡± I joked as I hugged her close. ¡°Well, that is what I would like to say, but the truth is a bit more wild, if you are of mind to hear it.¡±


    Assured that I was not going to keel over dead or unconscious, Chooka pulled me over to the bed and sat us down together, our bodies facing each other slightly.


    ¡°Of course I want to know, tell me everything!¡±


    And so I filled her in about everything that had happened that night, sparing no details and sharing what I felt about it all. She listened with concern, her expression alternating between being impressed, worried, and proud.


    ¡°And then I opened the door to my home, and my mistress wanted to know what happened, so I started to fill her in, and this is what I said to her¡­¡±


    She stopped me there, a smile finally creeping upon her face. She pulled me over to the washbasin and gingerly started to remove my clothes. With tender care, she washed me down with a sponge and she planted a kiss at each of the now clean spots that had been the bloodiest. No scars or signs remained that I had ever been wounded thanks to the quality of my healing Abilities. The washbasin¡¯s contents could have been mistaken for blood itself, such was the depth of crimson that reflected back by the time she finished.


    ¡°Those kisses of yours are pretty good,¡± I commented with playful sincerity. ¡°Now that all my wounds are taken care of, perhaps there are a few more places you could apply your kisses.¡±


    ¡°Here?¡± she asked coyly as she kissed my chest. ¡°What about here?¡±


    She continued working her way down, stopping where her efforts would be best appreciated. We spent an hour more indulging similar desires after the conclusion of that deed, with favors returned with interest back and forth.


    And so we slept our last night in the dorms. Bright and early on the following morning, we finalized the sale of the house. It took only one trip to move everything to it, mostly thanks to my pocket dimension. I experienced a great sapping of my strength when I packed up my hoard. Nausea plagued me during the entire transfer process, the intensity of discomfort such that I would probably never move my hoard that way ever again. Chooka noticed, and I assured her that I would feel better once we could unpack it. With haste, we made our way to our new home with The Boys following closely behind, each head excited to go on a walk to new territory as they sniffed and inspected everything they could while still keeping pace.


    Our new home had two main floors and an attic. The ground floor contained a kitchen and a living area, the upstairs two smaller bedrooms and a master bedroom, and the attic was but one single room under a triangular roof. The walls and the floor of the first floor were mostly stone, with the roof itself being tiled slate, as were most roofs in the city. The backyard contained room for drying clothes, a fully stocked woodpile, a storage shed, and a natural spring that flowed around the house and down a slight hill into the pond. The exterior of the property was lined with a fence as mentioned earlier, but also with trees set back a ways to offer a degree of shade and privacy. The whole estate was but two stone throws wide and three long. Well, not as far as I could throw a stone, that would be absurd, but for what a normal man could muster.


    The Boys wasted no time diving headfirst into the pond. Apparently it was not deep enough for them to completely submerge with necks stretched down, for a stubby tail extended out of the water and wiggled around with fervor. They promptly uprighted themselves and proceeded splashing about and making their claim to it.


    I lingered to watch only briefly, for I felt a little green around the gills. I used the smaller bedroom on the wall away from the main gate to the property to be my treasury for my hoard as well as some of my spending funds. I showed it to Chooka, so that she would not grab the wrong coins by mistake. I had placed the money to be spent in a small and locked chest, with each of us having a key to it. I kept most of my spending money in my pocket dimension, so this was only for Chooka to spend on things needed around the house.


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    We had already purchased most of what we would need to furnish and decorate the place, and by noon, Chooka had led me around and showed me where she wanted everything. I obediently met her demands, as I was not nearly as particular as she was about such aesthetics.


    She made lunch, the first of many in our new home. Chooka was a good cook, and to her credit, there were not many things she was bad at doing. By virtue of her Blessing as a [Courtesan], she had the ability to branch out and become skilled in any number of tasks that would help keep a lover happy and entertained, and good food and the preparation thereof certainly fell in that category. I was not exactly a slouch at cooking, but I reminded myself at that moment that I would need to study with other cooks if I were to prepare a good surprise dinner for her sometime. The harder part would probably involve finding such an opportunity, as she loved doing everything she could around the house. Such is the nature of Blessings, that people become almost addicted to the fulfillment of their nature, and homemaking was certainly core to hers.


    After eating, we checked in on the Boys. They slumbered peacefully, with only their heads resting outside the pond and upon the shoreline, the rest of their body blissfully submerged. The festival would not begin until sundown, and with naught else to do until then, and with our house and new bed not broken in, Chooka and I spent the rest of the afternoon indulging passions that would wake the neighbors were we still in the dorms. With her appetite for such a pastime at least sated long enough for us to enjoy the festivities of the evening, we cleaned and dolled ourselves up.


    Chooka wore black boots with red and blue striped stockings that went halfway up her thigh. Garter straps connected her stockings to low-cut shorts that I would have sworn were only slightly longer than her normal underwear. She wore two belts, one red and one blue, each fastened at one hip and hung low on the other, there more for fashion than useful purpose. She also wore a black leather jacket, unbuttoned, with no shirt underneath, along with red fingerless gloves. Naturally, she wore her bracelet, as she never took it off, not even to bathe. Her tail, which was rather thin and hung down almost to the ground, was sheathed in material much like the stocking, with only the last few inches of it hanging out uncovered. She also wore a choker of black leather, about two fingers wide, complete with metal studs.


    I wore black pants somewhere between pantaloons and trousers, loose enough to provide comfort, but tight enough to not look ridiculous, which was secured by a yellow belt with black trim. I put on black boots that rose to mid calf, with yellow cloth wrappings over the top of my boots and the bottom of my pants. I also wore a form-fitting, black, long sleeve shirt, over which I wore a black leather jacket with yellow trim and decoration. My brooch took its rightful place on my shirt, but centered just below my neck where one could see it unobscured by the jacket. The jacket could always be lost or taken off for one reason or another, so I aimed to wear the brooch in such a way to ensure that it would not be lost, but it would yet remain visible.


    Any observer would clearly be able to tell that we each preferred a certain color palette for our outfits. I did not wear any weapons, for I could easily draw them from my pocket dimension if needed, but Chooka wore a dagger on the outer side of each of her thighs. The daggers quickly disappeared from view, each one and their various straps being enchanted to be invisible when sheathed, which is common for magical daggers. During that time that they were visible, I could see that each one was as beautiful as it was deadly. The daggers I mean, not her thighs, but I guess the description matches both equally well. Given that we normally each wore our gorgets from the Guild, most people would not bat an eye at her walking around armed. Chooka herself was a Silver, somewhere near the middle of the pack for that rating. However, we left our gorgets behind since this was a festival.


    And so near sundown, we woke The Boys and headed into the market district of downtown. We wanted The Boys to tag along in part because we never wanted to leave them unattended, and in part because we had not fed them yet that day and wanted them to indulge in festival food. Chooka had instructed me to that end, for with a mischievous smile, she had promised me that they would come in useful. I had to have a serious conversation with The Boys to behave themselves and to not eat anything unless instructed, with the promise that they would eat their fill. Plato had nodded in understanding, and I trusted him to keep the other two in line as I privately felt pride, wonder, and horror at their intelligence. If I had known just how much those clever rascals could comprehend, I would probably have been able to register them as Adventurers in their own right, for they outpaced seemingly half of the others I had met in terms of intellectual prowess. To be fair, a lot of what The Boys could do was by virtue of my Skills invested in them, but the descriptions of those Skills just never did justice to what they could pull off.


    I was shocked, shocked I tell you, to see such large crowds gathered. Well, not that shocked, for the buildup for this festival had been ongoing since at least the day I arrived in town back in early spring. Most people who were not working vital jobs, such as the poor bastards on guard duty on the city walls, were here, ready and eager to engage in merrymaking. More races of man and beast were present than I have the fingers and toes to count on, all of which seemed to be getting along rather well, perhaps none more so than the miccen and riccen.


    Rumors flowed through the crowd faster than ale. I overheard one miccen speak of a monster half again taller than a man, with black eyes, his body covered in shadow, blood, and torn clothing, that stalked the night to bring evildoers low with his wicked claws. Others spoke of war to the south, and yet more spoke of one [Demon King] or another on the march. A dwarf with a dad bod told what must have been other dads that some monsters were hard to find any more while others seemed to be behind every rock and tree, all the while tiny dwarf children ran around them and crawled between their legs. More mundane rumors also spread, like ones about crop failure in cities to the west, or how a local lord was to be wed soon, or how one of the bar wenches was starting to show noticeably that she was in the motherly way. I overheard many rumors, oftentimes the same ones, with each telling proving more embellished than the last.


    As the last vestiges of sunlight capitulated to the creeping darkness of night, the crowd had gathered before a stage set up in the market square. Upon the stage, at a very short podium, stood an old gnome, wearing an overly large ten-gallon hat and whatever other horrors he may have dredged from the foul recesses of his closet, all of which was colored in the yellows and tans of cheese. Behind him stood a giant platter, with the radius of a man¡¯s height, upon which were piled various wedges of fake cheese, each one shining with a metallic hue.


    In accordance with tradition, the old gnome gave the most dull and boring of speeches, droning on and on, with the history of the festival and the importance of proper cheese curd handling techniques being the only topics even close to interesting. After a few minutes, riccen thieves, well, while most likely actual thieves, but dressed comically so as to exaggerate their craft, would sneak onto the stage and steal these wedges of cheese, with each theft prompting a quiet chant of ¡°cheese¡± from the crowd. As time progressed, the application of larceny became more extravagant, with riccen rappelling down from a tightrope that had been stretched across the square, to ones pretending to be mind controlled thralls retrieving the cheese for their masters. The old gnome, for his part, never noticed, and in about ten minutes, the last piece of cheese was stolen, accompanied with everyone cheering ¡°CHEESE¡± at the top of their lungs.


    Thus began the opening ceremony of the festival, with many commenting that this year¡¯s speech was particularly boring, a fair improvement from the one five years ago, which had been too upbeat. Chooka had informed me that the stolen cheese wedges would be stashed around the festival area throughout the duration of the celebration, and that those who could find these special tokens could redeem them for prizes. Hordes of children surged forth into the streets, each searching high and low for these tokens, with adults chuckling to themselves, each smug in the wisdom that the fake cheese had not been hidden yet.


    With The Boys following behind, Chooka took me by the hand to lead me over to a kiosk that outlined the schedule of events. With excitement bordering on giddiness, she pointed out an event that she wanted us to go to, one that was but an hour away. Intrigued, I promised her we would go, and nearly bouncing along, she pulled me from one stall to the next.

 Chapter 14

    Not ten minutes later, I found myself wearing a special hat with a fake cheese wedge on top of it. The hat itself was simple, with two wooden pegs sticking out the top, upon which the cloth and wire cheese wedge had been planted. Apparently, given the various races, each with noggins of a different size and shape, it was far easier to shape the hats differently and make the fake cheese separate items to be placed on top. Chooka herself eagerly sported her own, and after careful adjustment from a nervous merchant, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle each had one as well, although not before sniffing each in turn in hopes that the hats were edible.


    A veritable trail of saliva could be found in our wake as three ravenous hydra heads ogled every food stand and sniffed at every wafting scent that promised consumable delights. My Skills kept them in check, if barely, but they sang their song of hunger relentlessly. Onlookers beheld a sight of wonder and terror at a trio that sang a tune both pleasant and captivating, their harmony having improved greatly since they were knee-high to a grasshopper. Chooka did her best to avoid the food stands, but every nook and cranny that could hold at least half a stand selling one thing or another was not left unoccupied by peddlers of all sorts. Chooka cooed to The Boys as she petted them tenderly, promising them that we were heading to a place to eat directly.


    I believed I understood what food Chooka wanted for them, and I feared that someone would go bankrupt tonight if I were correct in my guess. Fortunately, that someone would not be me, so I followed along as Chooka marched us to our destination. At one wide intersection, a stage had been set up, one with several groups of tables of different sizes for each group. A banner hoisted high about the stage listed it as ¡°Dol¡¯n¡¯Durn¡¯s Cheese Eating Contest¡±, and Chooka wasted no time in taking us to register for it. I had a fair guess as to which one of us would be signing up. A well-dressed, middle-aged orc stood at a counter just off the stage where people could sign up, and his cheerful expression turned to dread as he witnessed our approach.


    ¡°I¡¯d like to sign up my hydra for your contest,¡± Chooka said to the orc as she leaned upon the counter. ¡°Your sign says you accept anyone. I reckon he¡¯s big enough to be in your heavyweight class.¡±


    The orc looked up at the hydra heads, each one salivating hungrily as they looked at him. ¡°Erm, yes, anyone can sign up. I don¡¯t know if multi-headed creatures count as one or separate entries. This is all rather unprecedented,¡± he finished flatly as he fiddled with some forms, trying and failing to organize them neatly as his hands trembled. The orc looked around nervously, as if trying to find a way out of the mess he found himself in. ¡°Let me¡­ let me check with my partner, Dol. One moment please.¡±


    The orc took off with the enthusiasm of one who wanted to be anywhere but here. Chooka tapped her fingers rhythmically as she waited with a ferocious grin upon her face. After a few moments, the orc returned with a male dwarf, one as well built and stocky as the orc, although noticeably shorter. The dwarf looked up at Chooka, then to the hydra, then back to Chooka, as if he were uncertain of which one disturbed him more in this moment.


    ¡°Right then,¡± the dwarf muttered as he finished sizing us up. ¡°I¡¯m Dol, and the rules do allow pets to enter. I¡¯d guess since yours has one body, that it is one creature, but depending on how things go, you could expect the rules to change next time. I¡¯m just glad that I have benefactors that sponsor this contest. This is really more of their headache, not mine.¡± Dol grabbed a form and filled out some of it, then handed it to a looming Chooka. ¡°Here you go, you are in the third heat.¡± Apparently satisfied, Dol turned to walk away, muttering under his breath as he left us and an awkward Durn, if my process of elimination had correctly identified the orc.


    ¡°It should start soon,¡± shouted an excited Chooka as she turned to face us. She smiled with satisfaction, the same smile I would expect from a fiend that just sealed a dark pact that had a hidden loophole to her favor. ¡°We need to wait, then our precious children can have all the cheese they can eat.¡± At the mention of cheese, The Boys perked up, ceasing their song for just a moment. Chooka coddled them, whispering reassurances as she left me to my private musings.


    More people and their pets showed up, but I had seen only three contenders in the same weight class as The Boys, namely one of those beasts of burden that were mostly mouth and tail, a geckodon, and a giant armadillo-anteater beast, with its long snout most likely being the prominent mechanism that would aim to steal first place. Contest helpers organized contestants, and when needed, their handlers, and we found ourselves situated stage left. Within minutes, illuminators shone down a spotlight on stage, centered on the dwarf, Dol.


    ¡°Ladies and Gentlemen!¡± shouted Dol to the crowd as he motioned for them to quiet down, to little avail. ¡°People please, silence yourselves as the contest is about to begin.¡± A vein bulged on his forehead in irritation as half the people gathered continued to chat away, with miccen being the bulk of those culprits. A synchronized roar of three angry hydra heads turned in the direction of such prattlers worked wonders to silence them, and after a pause to make sure no one piped up, The Boys huffed before facing forward once again. ¡°Uh, thank ye,¡± said Dol as he cleared his throat. ¡°The world famous Dol¡¯n¡¯Durn Cheese Eating Contest is about to begin. I welcome each and every one of ye to our 43rd contest. I am Dol, and I will be your Master of Ceremony for tonight¡¯s events. This year has been sponsored by House Netheon and House Rayvidia, so please, thank them for their patronage when you get the chance.¡±


    Dol rattled on for a while longer before the first heat lined up on stage. The smallest tables were brought front and center. Gnomes, miccen, riccen, those frog-turtle people, children of other larger races, and other smaller races I did not recognize were represented amongst the contestants. The rules had been outlined in detail, but they basically boiled down to eating as much cheese as fast as one can without any of it coming back up. Cheap ale and water was offered to help keep the ol¡¯ cheese chutes lubricated, and as Chooka had explained, past choking deaths had necessitated such offerings. The contestants sat in their chairs with one wheel of cheese before them, and each contestant appeared eager to prove his or her worth. A small army of helpers postured to bring more cheese as needed from a nearby wagon.


    ¡°Alright you lot. Are all contestants ready?¡± A gnome had started to complain about his chair needing more padding, but Dol turned a deaf ear as he rang a nearby bell. ¡°Begin!¡± he shouted.


    With gusto, the contestants munched away as fast as their little mouths could go. They had five minutes to wolf down as much as they could, and if they stopped eating, they would have to cease entirely and step away. The reaction from the crowd was rather mixed. The smaller races cheered their hearts out, but the larger races appeared to be only mildly entertained. For her part, Chooka cheered as loud as she could as she jumped up and down in excitement, leaving me to hold back our hungry hungry hydras as they stretched their necks as close to the stage and the cheese thereon as much as they could. One riccen managed to finish one whole cheese wheel, the wheels being the size of a dinner plate and about a finger deep. Most of the others had to bow out at around half a cheese wheel, leaving the victory for the riccen, who was no doubt now a hero to his people. A prize was awarded, a golden trophy of a tiny wedge of cheese. Second and third received silver and bronze medals without much fanfare.


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    And so the first heat was over. Helpers directed the contestants off stage as the next batch took their places. The second heat was for middleweights. Humans, orcs, elves, dwarves, remnimi, and other races that I did not know well at the time, with a total of 24 contestants by my count as I watched them file up the stairs ahead of me and onto the stage. As they took their places, the remainder of us shimmied forward awaiting our turn. I could only see about half the stage from where we stood, but apparently that heat roused the spirits and enthusiasm for cheers and heckling in equal measure from the crowd. I don¡¯t know who won or how close the contest was, for three large heads and necks blocked my view most of the time.


    And so, the finale was upon us, the heavyweight class, which was essentially large pets. Handlers were required on stage, and so Chooka and I accompanied The Boys as we took center stage. The rules for this were a little different, as we could choose between whole wheels or wedges of cheese. The geckodon and snout-monster handlers chose wedges, while the mouth-tail handler and I chose wheels. The Boys danced in place, lifting one foot off the stage at a time as they shifted back and forth in anticipation. Another wagon had been brought forward for additional cheese, and upon looking at the determined faces of the helpers, I reckoned this would be where they earned their pay. I had to calm The Boys, giving them instructions to be careful not to eat anyone as they devoured the cheese, for which they paid attention as best as they could, seeing as how their loyalty was divided between me and the cheese wagons.


    Three cheese wheels were placed before The Boys, and I had to hold them back with the full extent of the Skills granted by my Blessing. These wheels were at least twice as big in all dimensions as those in the first contest. For five minutes, The Boys would get to experience pure bliss, and I wondered if they would last that long, or perhaps, if the supply of cheese in the wagons would last that long, for I knew not which way that would go. Each table had its own judge to keep track of the cheese consumption, with a noticeable exception to my own, which had three judges, all of whom were located on the ground but pressed up against the stage. The other creatures jostled eagerly as well, and if I were to gamble, I would wager that the other handlers likewise starved their contenders for today, given how antsy they were.


    ¡°Contestants, are you ready?¡± shouted Dol as the crowd remained silent. The motley throng of spectators continued to suppress even hushed whispers, and the tension remained so thick upon the air, one could have sliced it with a cheese knife.


    ¡°Begin!¡± roared Dol, who then promptly dove for cover out of the way.


    Four hungry beasts, collectively with six hungry mouths between them, almost instantly devoured what cheese had been placed before them. The small army of helpers, with practiced efficiency, unloaded the cheese, tossing it from one to the next as they passed it up to the stage. After the first minute, not a creature started to slow pace, and the helpers had all but abandoned placing the cheese on the table, instead favoring tossing it into impatient and seemingly bottomless maws. While I have heard that two heads are better than one, when it comes to eating contests, three are better still. The workers could only toss cheese so fast, and it did not take long for The Boys to have a strong lead.


    After two minutes, the geckodon started to slow down, its tongue flitting in and out slower and slower for each wedge of cheese presented to it, the creature ultimately refusing to eat before the third minute. With great gusts of air, the snout-monster sucked the cheese wedges up as fast as cheese could be flung its way, with its snout sporting three cheese wedge shaped blobs at any given time as they made their way down its gullet. Ol¡¯ mouth-tail chomped away, with dull enthusiasm, but ultimately ended up puking everywhere rather unexpectedly by the third minute mark, much to the apparent distress of the now cheese-covered spectators nearby. The contest appeared to be down to two, but one brave snout finally sniffed its last before the creature as a whole curled up for a nap.


    With a whole minute to go, the contest was now rather literally neck and neck (and neck) between the hydra heads. Socrates, the cheeky bugger, figured out he could snatch the cheese going to the others while still getting his own, and soon a race sprang to life to snatch the incoming cheese while pushing the others out of the way. Chooka and I had to step in to break up the fight, and begrudgingly, order was restored. At no point up to the fifth and final minute did The Boys show any signs of slowing down, but the helpers sure did. The whole lot of them were drenched in sweat, their pace slowed by the mighty exertion of tossing literal tons of cheese. The cheese wheel cart had run out, and so more from the cheese wedge cart had to be brought over. The crowd had gone absolutely wild, their cheering and roaring was almost deafening for those present on stage.


    When the bell was struck again signaling the end of that heat of the contest, the helpers ceased their labor and relaxed, if only briefly. Upon seeing the cheese offering ceasing to yield its bounty, The Boys rushed straight off the stage and to the cart of the remaining cheese with speed I had not yet witnessed from them. Terrified helpers jumped out of the way as The Boys devoured the remaining cheese within seconds. The crowd cheered all the louder, and three triumphant hydra heads roared in their victory celebration.


    Then The Boys paused in their cheese eating revelry, the cheeks on each head puffing out suddenly as if to contain their gluttonous bounty. The crowd, now in a panic, considering previous demonstrations of overly-full cheese-eating beasts, withdrew with all haste, pushing and shoving in a mad dash to get away from the beast before them. Even above the screams, a horrid gurgling sound could be heard from The Boys¡¯ collective gut, and simultaneously, each head of the hydra let loose a thunderous belch, each one lasting nearly half a minute. The stench of partially digested cheese wafted over the crowd, but much to my relief, nothing of solid mass had been expelled with it. The crowd was rendered mute in awe of such a feat, and after The Boys finished their titanic belches, the street remained eerily quiet. After a few moments, as if on cue, the crowd cheered once more as they applauded with unrestrained zeal in the presence of their new cheese-eating gods.


    The judges deliberated for over a minute. They summoned Dol over to them, and after some time spent conferring amongst themselves, the dwarf took the stage. Dol motioned the crowd to quiet, and after they had, he began his announcements.


    ¡°The judges have confirmed that, by a landslide, each head of the hydra consumed more cheese than any of the other contestants. In wheels of cheese eaten, Socrates ate 167, Plato ate 159, and Aristotle ate 171. We leave it to you, our wonderful audience members, to decide if they will take first, second, and third place. All those in favor, on the count of three, shout ¡®Cheese¡¯.¡± Dol paused briefly to let the crowd consider all he had said before he continued. ¡°One, two ,three!¡±


    In the many millennia of my existence, through all the ages and across all the lands, I don¡¯t think I have ever heard a unified and vehement shout of ¡®cheese¡¯ that could rival the enthusiasm of that crowd. And so it came to pass, with seemingly unanimous consent, that The Boys took first, second, and third place, much to the endless excitement of a cheering Chooka. I cannot remember exactly how I felt at that moment, but I do distinctly remember that two whole weeks passed before The Boys deposited any new leavings.


    The Boys, for their part, appeared to have their hunger sated, if only for a moment. Unconcerned with their trophies, they sauntered off down the street in the direction of a water fountain that I knew they were familiar with. I gave chase and watched them greedily drink it dry in a matter of seconds with their mighty gulps. Considering the many tons of cheese they had eaten, plus the full contents of a water fountain, and how their gut appeared no larger than before they started, I feel confident that my theory about their innards being connected to a pocket dimension could be found as scientific fact.


    And thus, overnight, a legend ate its way into existence. I remember hearing people mention that feat centuries later, often told by old men and women to a gaggle of youngsters who listened with equal wonder and disbelief. I probably would have felt the same had I not witnessed it, and while the jig was up for any future eating contests within the city, there would be future contests where similar loopholes were exploited.

 Chapter 15

    We had stayed out later than most, eating and drinking everything our eyes convinced us we still had room for in our stomachs. Fortunately, we did not need to buy any more food for The Boys, not because their hunger had been completely sated, but rather because people of all sorts would toss them snacks. Word had quickly spread concerning the results of the cheese eating contest and its champions, and a veritable flock of children followed after The Boys to see what more would be eaten if offered. More than a handful of youths had begged parents at one food stand or another for tasty morsels to be thrown to their hero, and ample numbers succeeded in securing such sacrifices from begrudging parents. More than a few drinks had been purchased for us as well, which Chooka had taken with enthusiasm.


    ¡°Good morning, Sunshine!¡± I shouted with cheerful and exaggerated enthusiasm as I pulled apart the curtains at the bedroom window to invite in the sun¡¯s rays, which obliged in earnest.


    A muffled moan came from the bed, followed by a pillow flung in my general direction. A tired and hungover Chooka grumbled and muttered curses as she pulled blankets over her head to ward her from the offending sunlight.


    I retrieved the pillow and used it to smack her on the backside. ¡°Up and at ¡®em! Time to seize the day and make the most of it.¡± I made sure to be extra chipper in exactly the way that would annoy anyone suffering from a night of excessive indulgence in adult beverages.


    Chooka pulled the blanket tighter, cocooning herself inside her final bastion against the coming day. Seizing the advantage presented, I scooped her up and carried her now flailing and entangled form downstairs and to the kitchen, depositing her on a nearby upholstered chair. Now properly jostled awake, she yawned and stretched as she let slip the blanket, which fell to the floor.


    ¡°What time is it?¡± she asked groggily as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.


    ¡°It is the crack of noon. How do you feel?¡± I asked as I started a fire in the stove and set about cooking up some grub.


    ¡°By the gods, that late already?¡± She winced as she clutched one hand to her head. ¡°My head is pounding, got anything for that?¡± she asked as she huddled on the chair.


    ¡°I can make you some tea for that. You need to stay hydrated to help cure the ailment brought on from your bender last night. How much do you even remember?¡±


    ¡°The last thing I remember was the cheese thief that slipped on something. The one who got dogpiled by a horde of kids,¡± she said as she accepted a glass of water I offered her.


    ¡°Oh, so that happened like an hour before we headed home. I had to carry you most of the way here. That is better than I expected, for as much as you drank.¡±


    ¡°Please stop me next time if I go that far. I don¡¯t normally go so hard, but festivals bring that side of me to the forefront.¡±


    ¡°Okay,¡± I said as I made my way to the front door, ¡°but don¡¯t get mad at me when I do.¡±


    I popped out to the flower garden in front of the house. In the pond down the slight hill that the house sat upon, I spied three snoozie boys poking their heads out of the water as they slumbered blissfully. At least that was a pleasing sight, unlike the garden. Aside from being in a sorry shape on part of the previous owner¡¯s terrible attempts at homemaking, some of the plants therein were at least of medicinal use, if not of good taste for aesthetics. I plucked the ones I needed for the tea and headed back inside. Surprisingly, Chooka had not opted for a song and dance routine at my glorious return, but rather, she had remained in exactly the same position I had witnessed before stepping outside.


    ¡°Some good hoggerdog tea should do the trick. Their roots can do wonders for a hangover,¡± I said to Chooka, not bothering to check if she even listened.


    I used a mortar and pestle to grind up the roots, bringing them to a boil in a small pot of shallow water before setting it aside to cool while I tended to the rest of breakfast. Bacon, eggs, toast, and some mixed vegetables slathered in a thick and savory gravy were on the menu this morning. The tea roots, now cooled, became the next target of my culinary skills as I started cooking the eggs. I scraped off an oily substance that had partially congealed at the top of the tea once the eggs started sizzling away in a small veneer of bacon grease.


    ¡°This here is the bad part of the roots that makes them bitter,¡± I said as I turned to Chooka while showing her my handiwork. ¡°You don¡¯t want to drink that stuff.¡± I took the rest and put it in a larger pot with more water, bringing it to boil once again around the time the eggs finished. I strained the tea into a teapot by virtue of a fine cheesecloth. The residual powder had no further use, so I dumped that in a refuse bin.


    With the meal nearly finished, I set the table and placed the teapot upon it. I made a second trip for our breakfast plates, and upon my return, I had found an eagerly awaiting Chooka on her chair at the table.


    ¡°Here you go,¡± I said to her as I put a plate before her.


    Chooka clapped twice and paused for but a moment with her head slightly downturned before she took utensils to hand and set about devouring the meal, all the while employing questionable table manners. She crammed food into her waiting mouth as fast as her hands could prepare it, eating half of what was on her plate before drinking down an entire glass of tea in one go.


    ¡°Ah! That¡¯s the good stuff,¡± she yelled out as she slammed down her glass. ¡°I am glad I chose you to be my main squeeze.¡± Chooka took a moment to offer me a hearty smile before diving back in to finish the rest of her meal.


    I myself had been taking my time to savor the flavor, using my spoon for its proper purpose rather than as a shovel. I swallowed my food and wiped my mouth before replying. ¡°Were there other contenders of note?¡± I asked with genuine curiosity.


    Chooka washed down the rest of her food with another glass of tea before responding. ¡°Well, I have several other lovers. None of them are worth much more to me than keeping me company on lonely nights, so I guess none of them were ever really in the running,¡¯ she answered casually. She paused for a moment after finishing speaking, before suddenly tensing up, as if the full implications of her words had completed the process of percolating in her brain.


    ¡°Oh,¡± I remarked with the same degree of concern as one may have when talking about the rainfall patterns from five centuries ago. ¡°I am well aware of your Blessing, and I have heard tales of your promiscuity, so it stands to reason that you would.¡± I paused for a moment for effect as I looked directly at her, our eyes locked on one another. ¡°I know we haven¡¯t really talked about it, but I don¡¯t expect or demand you to change your lifestyle just for me,¡± I stated calmly. Chooka studied me closely, her attention fixated on my every word, concern etched at the corners of her features. ¡°As long as they don¡¯t sap your desire and availability for me, I don¡¯t have any problems with it. I know I can be away for days at a time during a job, so I would think those would be the best times for you to indulge such desires when you do so with others.¡±


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    A smile replaced her concern as she sighed in relief, the tension melting away as she relaxed her shoulders. ¡°I am sorry we did not talk about this sooner,¡± she said sheepishly. ¡°I am glad that you are not hurt by my nature and my desires for companionship. For the record, I am completely fine with you having other people that you bed.¡± She paused for a while, and since I detected that concluded the conversation, I resumed eating. ¡°Perhaps you could share the good ones with me in our bed sometime,¡± Chooka said playfully as she took her glass of tea and sipped slowly at it while averting her gaze from mine.


    I choked on my food a little bit, and I downed half a glass of tea myself to clear my throat. Once I regained my composure, I responded properly. ¡°That would be quite the development indeed. I can¡¯t say that I go out of my way to look for bedfellows, but if I find a good woman who fancies me and wants to explore what the two of us can do together with her, I will extend the invitation.¡±


    Chooka smiled warmly with a hint of victorious finality to her grin as she extended her hand. ¡°Deal!¡± she exclaimed as she waited for me.


    I took her hand in mine and shook on it. ¡°Deal,¡± I agreed.


    Chooka, her form yet unbridled by the constraints of fabric or garments, rose from the table and headed for the back door, most likely to visit the privy out back. I finished my meal in solitude. She returned in short order.


    ¡°By the gods, I thought my bladder would burst,¡± Chooka shouted in announcement of her return. ¡°My Blessing only gets me so far in staving off such inconveniences of nature, but a full night¡¯s drinking taxes even my limits. I will go prepare a bath,¡± she said as she made her way to the stairs. ¡°Perhaps you could join me when you finish,¡± she prompted coyly as she turned to ascend the stairs. ¡°And leave the dishes, I will take care of them afterwards.


    I took her up on the offer. We lingered in the tub for more than just soaking in its relaxing waters, taking our due diligence in breaking in that particular spot of the house with our favorite pastime.


    ¡°What are we going to do today?¡± asked Chooka as she dressed herself afterwards.


    ¡°I am of mind to go buy seed and fertilizer for the garden. Whoever lived here before us didn¡¯t know a weed from a rock,¡± I said as I pulled on my boots. ¡°I am certainly open to other ideas if you want to do something else together instead, and indeed, we could go to market together.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know much about gardening, but I think that would be a good thing for us to do together. Just let me do the dishes first and then you can show me the ropes.¡± She paused after putting on a vest before turning to me. ¡°Wait, won¡¯t everything be closed today?¡±


    ¡°You aren¡¯t wrong, but I know some people who would be more than willing to help me out,¡± I replied as I finished getting dressed. ¡°While you do the dishes, I will inspect the garden again to tally up what we need.¡±


    ¡°You got it!¡± shouted Chooka as she snapped a smart salute before breaking out in a smile.


    We each tended to our chores, and before long, we set off together. We let The Boys continue to sleep, seeing no need to have them tag along. We made our way to various back alleys in town, calling upon various miccen merchants whom I had become acquainted with these past few weeks. We went through the whole song and dance routine of customs and courtesies, meeting the little ones that were growing up like beanstalks, talking shop about gardening, haggling through the ¡°I¡¯ll give you the family discount¡±, ¡°Oh, you don¡¯t have to¡±, and ¡°I insist¡±, as is the custom. Chooka paid attention to everything I purchased and how I interacted with the locals, not that she was devoid of her own social grace, but rather, she was curious in how I went about such things. Apparently, I had satisfied her standards, and by two hours later, the pair of us merrily made our way back home.


    It was when we opened the front gate that we knew something was amiss. The pond remained absent its new resident, and a quick survey of the grounds revealed no sign of our hydra.


    ¡°Boys, where are you!¡± shouted Chooka as she ran towards the pond. I looked around for any sign of them or their passing, but the walls to the property showed no signs of demolition. I activated a Skill to locate The Boys, giving me knowledge of their direction from me and their heading, but not their distance.


    ¡°This way!¡± I shouted to Chooka, who promptly ran hither.


    We retraced our journey from where we started, for the path of The Boys suggested that they had followed us. Having returned from a different direction, we missed them completely. The two of us ran along at a good clip, not fast enough to cause panic or concern in onlookers, but enough to certainly not elicit casual conversation from any passerby.


    Following their trail had proved rather simple. My Skill soon proved unneeded, for a clear line in the dirt on the street indicated the passing of a tail dragged along by a wandering hydra. About five blocks away, we found The Boys, with Aristotle having a trash bin stuck on his head. I whistled to them, and the trio turned and waddled in our direction as fast as their little legs could carry them.


    ¡°There you are,¡± cooed Chooka as she pried the trash bin off Aristotle¡¯s head. ¡°Did you miss us?¡± she continued with more than a hint of baby talk. She proceeded to pet them as they licked at her affectionately.


    ¡°Plato, look at me,¡± I demanded sternly as I stood there with hands on my hips. Plato lowered his head down to just above the ground and looked up at me submissively. ¡°Don¡¯t wander off on your own, and keep your brothers in line. Got me?¡± I asked as I stared down at him.


    Plato let out a cooing sound that I took for acquiescence, and, satisfied with his renewed devotion to obedience, I pet him on the head too. ¡°Good boy, now let¡¯s go home.¡±


    As we arrived at the gates to home, I stopped our little convoy. ¡°Alright, Boys, show me how you got out in the first place.¡±


    Plato snapped his jaws lightly at the others, apparently getting them to cooperate with him for my command. The Boys waddled up close to the gate, about half a body length away. The trio lowered their heads snout-first onto the ground, and leaning forward, they raised their tail end up into the air. Swaying forwards and backwards, they rocked their body closer and closer to the fence, and with one final swing, they extended their necks fully and pole-vaulted up and over the gate, landing gracefully on the other side.


    ¡°Well I¡¯ll be damned!¡± I exclaimed to Chooka. ¡°Impressive and clever little buggers, aren¡¯t they?


    Chooka let out a whistle that elucidated that she found the feat impressive. ¡°We will need to keep an eye on them. I think that is the first time we have left them alone.¡± She opened the gate and rushed in to hug The Boys. ¡°The poor guys got lonely, didn¡¯t you Boys?¡± They gave a few licks and a cheerful song in response to her inquiry.


    I joined in on the petting and made a mental note that I would need to build a better wall. The wall stood almost to my own height, meant more to offer privacy than to provide serious security against trespass.


    With that mystery solved, I showed Chooka the finer points of managing the garden. We weeded and cleaned it, keeping some plants while tossing out others. I showed Chooka how to safely transplant specimens, and together, we rearranged the keepers while planting seeds for new flowers. Another two hours passed before we had the garden in acceptable order.


    ¡°Alright, that¡¯s that.¡± I said to Chooka as I dusted off my hands. ¡°I need to go and make repairs and clean up after my escapades last night. I should be back by sundown, and then we can go to the festival together. Does that sound good to you?¡±


    ¡°Sounds like a plan,¡± replied Chooka. ¡°I will clean up here and tend to other weeds around the property. We¡¯ll have things spic and span in no time,¡± she exclaimed sharply as she flexed a bicep and clasped her other hand to it.


    ¡°Coolio. I will wash up a bit and then I¡¯m off.¡±


    The repairs were made to the guildhall without any event of note occurring. My skills as a handyman and carpenter had improved greatly thanks to the tutelage provided by my miccen friends, even if I did not have Skills backing them up. I had purchased the needed supplies earlier in the day, so I had no need to make more trips. The place soon became spruced up with no signs of a struggle having ever occurred. I returned home at sundown as promised, and Chooka and I cleaned up for the second time that day. With The Boys eagerly following along, we made our way to the second night of the festival.

 Chapter 16

    ¡°Care to unburden yourself of coin in exchange for my wares?¡±


    I jumped slightly as a miccen head peered up at me from between my arm and side. How she had not been crushed in the throng of everyone and his brother being at the festival, I cannot say for sure, but perhaps her kind are accustomed to such dangers.


    ¡°Unless you find yourself divorced of reason, such that you indulge in the revelry of a cheese festival with no appetite for its chief attractions. My uncle, Largy, suffered from such afflictions in his mental faculties. He preferred the allure of anvils in a manner many consider unnatural, but prudence dictated we leave that detail out of his obituary.¡±


    She continued on with her wild tale, as miccen are wont to do, all the while showing me her wares and carrying out the transaction as I purchased some cheese and meat kabobs, each still sizzling in a light coating of its own grease despite no apparent oven or other such mechanism nearby. Such was but one of many wonders of magic, as most vendors employed their Blessing to keep food warm for hours after departing their instruments of cookery.


    I watched briefly as she continued on to the next client while continuing the story where she left off, although without the context of the beginning, doubtless such connections between events would elude her various patrons. She moved with concealed and almost oblivious grace, narrowly dodging being trampled or crushed by less than a whisker length time and again, her movements precise and apparently calculated, for luck would suffer not the company of one person for as long as she would need it to avoid the countless perils of being so small in a large crowd.


    A strong tug at my arm jostled me out of my musings concerning the miccen purveyor, and my attention now dedicated toward the tugger, I followed along as Chooka dragged me to another stall.


    ¡°Darling, you have got to try these cheese-stuffed, beer-battered, deep-fried sausages!¡± shouted Chooka who endeavored to be heard over the din of the crowd and the sizzling of the aforementioned delicacies. She finalized her transaction promptly with a grizzled-looking frog-turtle person, a race I have come to know as frortles, which seemed a bit on-the-nose to me, but perhaps their own language had a more elegant meaning behind it than to suggest a chimera-esque origin. A whole horde of them, presumably his children, climbed over and crawled under everything in sight with no regard for personal space or ownership of property. Mysteriously, no one took offense to a behavior normally found taboo, and I wondered if society had just accepted it or if some magic or other trickery were at play to hinder flares of anger.


    The two of us stood near the cart, doing our best to enjoy our food while frortle children clambered all around, over, and under us. They looked like nothing more than anthropomorphic tree frogs wearing turtle shells to me, of which I had ample opportunity to make such an assessment on account of their kind not wearing clothes unless it was too cold to go without. Anything they needed, they tended to pull out of their shell at the neck, and considering the size and dangerous contours of some of those things, I suspected some sort of pocket dimension at play. Such Abilities or Skills, coupled with their unusual behaviors and appearance, did little to quell any notion that they appeared cartoonish to me.


    In short order, I found myself rather entangled by the brood, and fearing to tread on them, I failed to react in time to avoid collision with someone walking up to me from behind. I sensed he was coming thanks to some Skills granted by my Blessing, but I could do little more than fight to maintain balance as he roughly brushed past me. I had half of a strongly worded invective prepared for the cowled figure by the time I righted myself, but one glance at his back suddenly erased all notion of complaint. There, in the small gap in the crowd, I saw a spiraling triangle clearly printed upon his cape between his shoulder blades.


    Intrigued beyond restraint, I pointed out to him as I tugged at Chooka. She had not noticed the man as she found herself hemmed in near a wall by a growing crowd of curious frortle children.


    ¡°Spiral-Triangle Man!¡± I shouted to her as the crowd merged back together in his passing, quickly swallowing him up and obscuring our view of him. Chooka, taller than most, had a better vantage to try to spot him, her attention now keenly focused on my newfound quarry. We worked hastily to disentangle ourselves from the children as the trail grew cold.


    ¡°Go!¡± shouted Chooka as she helped to wrestle me free of my juvenile captors. ¡°I will stay with The Boys. Good hunting!¡±


    Now free of the ensnarement of curious hands that were far too clammy and moist for my liking, I gave chase, favoring finding my way up to rooftops for a better view and to escape the crowd. I scanned down below as I employed every Skill at my disposal as provided by my Blessing that would aid in my hunt and a potential altercation. I moved slowly in the general direction I last saw him, taking care not to draw unwanted attention. Riccen cheese thieves dressed in the apparel appropriate for their roles for the festival also lingered upon the rooftops. They watched in curiosity, but none made any move to help or hinder me. I likewise spared little effort to interact with them, as my only lead to a nagging question lurked below.


    Perhaps a minute passed before I found myself shrouded in more magic than most people could muster, and yet I still dug deeper for more power, leaving no Ability overlooked, efficiency be damned. I caught a glimpse of the triangle on the far side of the square, my now augmented vision catching a view rather impossible with normal eyes. I questioned how he had made his way that quickly through the crowd, and as I leaped from one rooftop to another in chase, I wondered if perhaps this would prove to be an elaborate trap with many cohorts baiting me in with the symbol. But who would know of my interest in such a thing, as I had not asked around, and surely Chooka would not have gossiped freely of such sensitive matters. Could this really all be a matter of luck and coincidence? My gut told me no, but I pushed on nonetheless.


    I had only made my way halfway across the square before my quarry slipped into an alleyway. Fearing I would lose him entirely, I pressed onward with renewed haste at the expense of remaining surreptitious in my maneuvering. As I moved into range, I tapped into an Ability to scan into where I felt he should be. Similar to echolocation, a pulse of magic radiated out from me, scanning and reflecting off everything around me. For a moment, time seemed to slow as I took in the knowledge of a black world bathed in radiating ripples of white that painted the silhouettes and contours of everything around me. I did not detect him, but not completely disheartened, I continued on. Perhaps he possessed some Ability to block my powers of Divination. I continued to use that Ability periodically, paying mind to the increased cost with repeated use in such a short span and how it would eventually tax even my generous mana reserves if used wantonly.


    I arrived where he should have been in the alleyway within short order, but even mundane powers of observation would reveal no one lingered there, other than a miccen couple closer to the square brushing whiskers as they got a little frisky. Voyeurism not being my intent, well, at least not at this time, I activated another Ability to look for signatures of heat, hoping the impressions of his feet would impart some lingering clue. Rewarded by the quickly cooling outlines of footprints heading away from the market square, I pressed on.


    I rounded a few more turns below me in the alleyways as I stuck to the rooftops, the trail literally growing warmer as I gained ground. Turning the corner once again, the trail ceased entirely, as if he had grown wings and flown away. At the end of the alleyway, a hooded man watched me, and with my vision so enhanced, I could see the smug smirk he gave me as he turned down yet another alleyway.


    Now adamantly believing it to be a trap, or at least not dumb luck, I proceeded with caution, favoring not the buildings adjacent to his path, but ones further in, such that I would only catch glimpses of him. He walked confidently and steadily when I could see him, but each time I next saw him, he had moved ahead much further than such a pace should allow. Surely such disjuncture of perception and momentum suggested either an Ability of his to move quickly and near instantly or some distortion to my sense for the passing of time. I diverted my attention from him, as he clearly wanted me to follow, and instead I focused on my surroundings and possible ambushes.


    Like chasing the horizon, he loomed ever out of reach as I advanced cautiously. Minutes passed as he led me by the nose, to where I knew not. Surely he knew that I knew that we both knew what was going on here, and indeed, a great deal of knowing continued to occur before he stopped in the distance while turning to face me again. I reached out with another pulse of magic to scan my surroundings, and a familiar yet unexpected figure approached from almost his direction. Two alleyways split off before me, each converging at the narrow crossroad where I found myself on top of an adjacent building. Down one stood the cloaked figure I had been following, and down the other, approached a far less mysterious figure with blond hair, pointed ears, and eyes one could become lost in. For those of you readers who forget the details I have scattered about, I am clearly talking about Serideth.


    The man pointed to her, even though the buildings between them would surely obstruct his line of sight to her. With a smile, he disappeared into another alleyway. I felt moderately conflicted, for I had remained incapable of catching him, yet now he would slip away if I went to Serideth. My only lead as to my origin and my initial connection to Mother would disappear almost as soon as it had been found, but clearly he had led me to her, so there must be a motive to his wild goose chase. With a heavy sigh, I considered him lost for now, trusting that he would reveal himself in time, and with my full attention now on Serideth, I pondered what situation of note involved her.


    Flickers in the shadows behind her unveiled the mystery. Pursuers stalked her, and knowing her general oblivious nature, she would surely be unaware. Sensing ill intent from them, I moved to intercept, fully expecting a violent outcome. I readied a dirk from my pocket dimension while keeping in mind my previous experience in urban combat and the often cramped conditions that impaired wielding a larger blade. Lady Luck forsook her smile upon me, for Serideth turned down an alleyway with a little skip in her stride. My keen hearing amplified by my Skills caught the hint of some melody she hummed, the tune of which I was not familiar.


    Shadows shifted as a tumultuous surge of pursuers gave chase, emboldened by the ample opportunity to catch her unawares. I made haste, but I knew I would be too late in reaching her before them. As my heart raced and anger swelled, I thought about shouting out to her, but at this distance, Serideth would not be able to make out my words, and it may very well serve to increase the haste of those who followed her. All I could do was hope that I would somehow make it in time.


    Cries of anguish sang out into the night, cries of a woman in mortal pain in the very alleyway I rushed headlong towards. The coals of my rage now stoked, I leveraged every ounce of the Skills granted to me of my Blessing short of turning into a dragon. Seconds seemed to stretch into eternity as I leapt from one house to another as yet more screams pierced the night. I finally managed to reach the alleyway, not directly above her, but rather a stone¡¯s throw away from her position, and the sight I beheld was ghastly.


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    As I leapt down from the rooftop, I beheld nearly a dozen bodies that lay strewn upon the muddy street, their lifeblood spurting out into the filth around them. All but three of Serideth¡¯s pursuers feebly clung to their last vestiges of life as the remainder continued the assault. A glint of moonlight shone down upon her face, where I saw not the shy, timid, and perpetually oblivious woman I knew, but rather a wide smile and gleaming eyes on a face reveling in the ecstasy of bloodshed. She twirled and contorted with grace normally belied by her clumsy nature, a butterfly knife in her hand finding purchase in exposed flesh as she almost effortlessly rent throats asunder. She laughed tauntingly with almost maniacal glee as she cut the remaining three down where they stood before I could even recover from my landing.


    Without hesitation, she rushed me, closing the distance in the span of a breath before I could even fully upright myself, her blade leading the way. I brought my own blade up to block as I leaned backwards, deflecting her attack up and narrowly avoiding some impromptu facial reconstruction. I continued my momentum into a back handspring while my right foot kicked her blade up and away from me. No sooner had I recovered from my acrobatics had I found her once again pressing the attack, blade still in hand. Taking a risk, I dropped my blade and lowered my magical shrouding that I had employed to hide and obscure myself, hoping she would both recognize me and cease her hostility. Centering myself towards her, I shifted sideways at the last moment, letting her blade sink into my shoulder. With my left hand I grabbed her right wrist to both ensnare her and prevent her from wielding her knife. I stepped in, and with my right hand, I caught her around her waist, pulling her close. Pivoting the two of us, I slammed her up against the wall of a building and pinned her there with my body.


    ¡°Serideth, stop, it¡¯s me, your friend!¡± I yelled at her as I restrained her fury. She relaxed after a second as realization sunk in. The gleam in her eyes faded as her smile turned to a gasp of shock.


    ¡°I¡¯m so sorry, I thought you were one of them,¡± she said as she relaxed the grip on her blade. She started to continue her apology, but a strange glow and hissing sound like a burning fuse caught our attention. The bodies of the fallen contorted and bloated as runes glowed upon their skin.


    Not liking where things were going, I pushed Serideth down into a ball against the wall and pressed my body against hers, doing all I could to completely envelop and protect her while I brought every magical barrier to bear that I could muster. In naught but a moment, the bodies burst, with shards of bone and ample gore exploding everywhere. The walls and street painted red with the aftermath of such carnage, I felt terrible pain all along my back by virtue of my efforts to create a void in such macabre artwork. I lingered in that position for a few moments still lest there be a secondary explosion or a collapse of the building, using those precious moments to concentrate on reinforcing my barriers and coaxing my healing Skills to life. Fortunately, no other perils greeted us, and after a few moments, I uprighted myself and helped Serideth to her feet.


    We beheld a sight like no other as we glanced around. The bodies were no more, their clothes and equipment no better than scraps. Shards of bone had sunk several inches into the walls, and as a few clues suggested, my back, for I had concentrated most of my barriers around Serideth and not myself.


    ¡°By the gods¡­¡± Serideth looked around in wonder. ¡°I have never seen bodies do that before.¡± She stiffened, as if she had suddenly realized the implications of the void where our bodies had been. She spun me around so that she could see the damage to my person. ¡°Oh, oh no!¡± she gasped.


    ¡°Are you alright?¡± I asked as she feebly tried to stop my bleeding.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine, but, this is bad, real bad. We need to get you to a healer right away!¡± She tore at her dress, using torn pieces of it to apply pressure to my wounds, which only produced a sharp gasp from me as there was nowhere to press that did not help sink foreign bones deeper into my flesh.


    ¡°Please, just pull them out. I cannot reach them, and it is hard to heal myself with them still in me.¡±


    Fortunately, she complied without asking complicated questions as she ripped away my shirt and removed it completely. In a world of magic, presumably anything is possible, so people tend to take you at your word concerning supernatural Abilities or Skills. I pulled her knife out of my shoulder and handed it back to her.


    ¡°Here you go, use this if you need to dig them out.¡±


    She took her blade with calm acceptance, and without hesitation, she set about her grisly task of extracting bones from my body. Well, not my bones, just to clarify, but given her previous and almost carnal delight to carnage, I feel like such a distinction is not without merit. The minutes stretched, I kept watch as I endured her handiwork, and being no expert on surgery, it certainly felt like she had some degree of experience. It still hurt like hell, for while my magical healing certainly eliminates pain once a wound is closed, it does little for wounds that currently exist. With each bone removed, my flesh swelled shut within a few seconds. I had invested in a few Skills to help deal with blood loss after my previous encounter with the riccen thieves at the guildhall, so I was not in immediate danger of passing out from exsanguination.


    With the pain in my back now subsided, I realized that pain elsewhere bore evidence that my legs and arms had also taken their fair share, mostly from the side and in relation to the bodies at a sharp angle from me. Fortunately, those wounds were not as deep or numerous, but still enough in number that my pants and boots likewise had to go as she cut them away from me.


    ¡°Shame, I really liked this outfit, but losing it is totally worth sparing you the same fate.¡± I said to pierce the quiet. Her knife pierced a little deeper at that moment, and glancing back, I saw that she was both startled and embarrassed. Gasping in pain, the lesson was indeed learned to not suddenly start talking to someone when they are engaging in surgery upon you.


    ¡°Thanks. I did not expect them to explode and I would not have survived that. You saved my life,¡± she replied meekly, apparently settling into her normal demeanor. She finished her work in silence before continuing with an ¡°All done.¡±


    I turned to face her, for we had not had ample opportunity to look each other in the eyes during our conversation. I produced a damp handkerchief from my pocket dimension as I did so, and grasping her beneath the chin, I set about wiping away the blood from her face that had landed there during her killing spree. Satisfied that she now looked a tad better, I released her. We stared at each other in the light of dual moons with our gazes locked. In her expression I detected gratitude, and perhaps, longing, but before I could fully feel out that emotion, she blushed and looked down. There she beheld the fruits of a body honed and strengthened by the labors of an Adventurer and the gifts of my Blessing. Her eyes paused for a moment about halfway down, and me being unfettered by the trappings and modesty of garments, the obvious nature of my masculine form did not escape her detection. Her head snapped back up, her body rigid and face blushing as she realized the hungry and lustful expression that had momentarily formed on her face before her wits corrected her composure.


    Wanting to relax the mood, I gambled with a joke. ¡°Well, that certainly is half of show and tell, but I think we both have our reasons for being here and would rather skip with the tell portion.¡± Serideth¡¯s head bobbed up and down with vigorous agreement as she maintained eye contact.


    I turned away from her promptly to spare her the pressure of a response. I took the time to reach into my pocket dimension for spare clothes, not as fine as what I had been wearing, but suitable enough to be seen in public. I recovered my personal effects and placed my brooch on my new outfit, as my covetous nature ensures I am ever aware of my treasures and would not let the heat of a moment cause me to overlook them. I could almost feel eyes gazing upon my form as I dressed, eyes that peeked between the fingers of hands clasped over a shy but intrigued face.


    Now dressed, I turned to face her. ¡°I will ask one thing though about tonight¡¯s events. A cowled man led me to you, one with a clockwise spiraling triangle on the back of his cloak between the shoulder blades. Do you know this man or this symbol?¡±


    Serideth shook her head. ¡°I have never seen such a symbol before, nor have I heard of it. I, uh, can let you know if I see it.¡±


    ¡°I would greatly appreciate that and your utmost discretion in the matter. I will be going back to the market now unless you want me to accompany you, but I can certainly understand if recent events require other certain matters to be looked into,¡± I replied flatly while casting a glance around at the carnage surrounding us.


    Serideth flourished her butterfly knife and her demeanor quickly changed to her spunkier version. ¡°I can handle myself, but thank you for the offer. And I do have other matters to look into,¡± she said as she moved in closer to me, ¡°otherwise, perhaps¡­¡± she said as she placed her free hand on my chest, letting it slide downward slowly as she looked me confidently in the eyes, withdrawing and walking away before her hand ventured to my belt.


    I stood there and watched as she left with a practiced sashay. I remained unsure if she was bipolar, very skilled at pretending to be meek and shy, or possessed. I would normally rule out that last one as I am not superstitious, but in a world of magic and monsters, such things may be more fact than fiction. The only thing I knew for sure is that there is more to her than meets the eye and that she had me fooled for quite some time now. I would have to reconsider everyone I know and what I know about them. Paranoia gnawed at the edges of my thoughts as Serideth disappeared from view.


    Waiting a few more minutes for her to depart with a fair degree of anonymity and to see if my original quarry would pay me a visit, I eventually departed when the latter failed to fulfill my desires. I made my way directly back to the festival, passing more riccen thieves along the way as they set about their task of teasing children with the tantalizing prize of the fake cheese. Finding Chooka in the crowd would be impossible under normal circumstances, but I could always locate The Boys with my ability, [Find Companion - Pet]. To be fair, I could also locate Chooka with something similar, namely, [Find Companion - Lover], but the range and clarity of it was not nearly as good. Not that a hydra can easily hide in a crowd, nor are they particularly clandestine in their behaviors.


    I quickly rendezvoused with The Boys and Chooka, sneaking up on her with a snack and a strong drink I had purchased along the way as a peace offering for bailing on her. ¡°I¡¯m back, and I have a snack,¡± I announced as I walked up behind her.


    She spun around quickly, her conversation with the some drunk gnome cut short by my arrival. She took the offerings from my hands, set them down on a counter next to her, and pulled me in for a hug.


    ¡°It seems I also have a snack,¡± she said as she punctuated her innuendo with a squeeze and a light nibble on my ear. ¡°I was wondering how long you would be gone tonight. Did you manage to catch him?¡± she asked as she pulled away to look at me in the eyes as her hands lingered on my shoulders.


    ¡°I did not, but I can fill you in later.¡± I replied as my hands found her hips.


    ¡°Oh, I look forward to you ¡®filling me in later¡¯,¡± she said suggestively as her hand moved to the sides of my face before she came in for a kiss. With that, I knew everything was good between us, and so I relaxed.


    The gnome, for his part, never ceased his conversation with Chooka, and from what I could grasp between his drunken slurring, he was covering the finer points of philately. Chooka pulled me up beside her with an arm around my waist while she leaned onto the counter, her chin resting upon her hand as propped up by her arm. She gave the gnome a patient and polite smile as given by someone not truly interested in the conversation. She would periodically turn to me with a sarcastic grin and a sidelong glare before looking back at the gnome. Any attempt on my part to squirm free just tightened her grip, and together we endured the rest of his ramblings before he passed out on his tall stool. Fortunately, he fell face first onto the counter, so we let him rest there.


    Chooka grabbed the snacks that I had left for her some fifteen minutes earlier, their temperature and freshness still preserved thanks to the wonders of magic, and together the two of us and The Boys continued to make the most of the night.

 Chapter 17

    Chooka spent much of the next two days teasing me about Serideth, going into graphic detail as she shipped us together. I suspected that she was projecting her own desires where such designs had been foiled in the past, but I reserved that tidbit as a nuclear option for when I wanted to tease her back. After all, they were coworkers, and Chooka has enough class to not jeopardize her working relationship for a romantic one when a rejection would make things awkward. Ergo, her advances would have had to have been subtle, but Serideth¡¯s normal personality would be too obtuse to recognize such things. I remained conflicted, for while Serideth had a certain appeal, I did not want to invest my energy into pursuing her. However, it would probably be a different matter entirely if she came onto me.


    Chooka and I had reason to make our way to the festival early, specifically to the colosseum, for tonight, the final night of festivities, would be the night of exhibition in the form of a sparring match. I wondered if the match would be fought with paper and ink, for one briefing led to another, and I had filled out more forms and waivers that night than all other nights combined. The rules had been made painfully clear as one very enthusiastic gnome read the entire rulebook to me along with at least four anecdotes per page. Perhaps this was the real challenge, that I could endure his onslaught of dull droning without falling asleep or strangling him. I had hoped to not suffer alone, but Chooka had found a reason to excuse herself to help prepare and coordinate some of the choreography for my grand entrance.


    When at last the gnome finished speaking, I signed the final document. I made sure to get copies of each as proof in case I ever needed to fight again some day so that I would not need to sit through what most legal bodies would define as ¡°cruel and unusual punishment¡±. I was directed by an orc to a hallway, and as I recalled from the briefing, I would be going to a room to meet my opponent before the duel. He spared me any small talk or lengthy instructions, and after a few turns and stairs, I found myself in a lavish parlor where a waiting Chooka was enjoying tea with a woman I had not met before but recognized immediately through reputation.


    ¡°Erethel Starweaver, you honor me with your presence,¡± I announced politely with an accompanying bow as I approached her. Chooka sat with her back to me, with Erethel to her left in her own chair, and the couch opposite Chooka empty and presumably for my opponent.


    ¡°The pleasure is all mine,¡± she replied politely as she rose from her seat to curtsey and greeted me in return.


    ¡°I did not think I merited our one and only Diamond Adventurer to be the judge for my duel. Forgive my ignorance, but is this completely normal or rather unusual?¡±


    We found our seats with myself sitting on the couch on Chooka¡¯s left side as she scooted down, a seemingly minor detail of etiquette that had been explained no less than three times in the briefing. However, considering I was in the presence of damn-near royalty, anything less than perfection would spell catastrophe as far as the staff was concerned.


    ¡°A reasonable question,¡± she replied politely as she accepted a plate of sweets from a red-headed female elf in a mask, if my judgment of the pointy ears were correct. A silver gorget betrayed that she was an Adventurer herself, but for one so low down the pecking order to be an attendant to one so noteworthy suggested a familial connection. ¡°I actually enjoy these battles, for it is a delight to witness the up-and-coming display the fruits of their training. Also, I sometimes manage to scout a promising recruit for my entourage,¡± she said with a slight chuckle to punctuate her polite humor.


    Chooka and I smiled back in return. ¡°I had expected my opponent to show up by now. Has there been a delay or a last minute change in the roster?¡± I had no idea who I would be fighting, as such details were traditionally hidden from those in my position. Apparently, not having time to plan ahead would show off my skills and Skills more adequately, but I would argue that such a system punishes those who can only shine when they have had time to make appropriate preparations.


    Erethel chuckled quietly to herself, taking her time to daintily wipe away crumbs of food with her napkin before answering. ¡°Oh dear, she probably forgot her paperwork to prove she sat through the briefing in the past. She does that every time. Consider yourself blessed, for you were briefed by the Barkley brother who possesses an ounce of brevity. Not to worry, I think I hear her coming now.¡±


    Erethel gave a flourish of her hand, and upon the coffee table in front of us appeared a simple circle of light. A small cone cutout appeared within it, connected to the center, which slowly began to grow. I deduced it to be a countdown of some sort, and so Chooka and I engaged in small talk with Erethel for several minutes as we occasionally glanced at the timer. It was at the moment that the last vestiges of the remaining circle were swallowed into nothingness that the door opposite me burst open. Well, off its hinges and onto the floor, coming to a halt at the couch across from me, mostly likely as a result of its abrupt introduction to the heavy boot I observed in the air at the doorway.


    ¡°I believe that to be a new record, Blythnin. Last time the door only made it three quarters of the way,¡± commented Erethel casually as she sipped at her tea.


    An angry Summarian elf stormed across the room to join us. She held her helmet under her left arm, but otherwise she was clad head to toe in full plate that was as much art as functional. Her kind lived far to the south and were instantly recognizable by their ashen skin, black hair, and red eyes. She exhibited a number of crisp scars on the left side of her face and neck, and given the ample availability of healing techniques well within her price range to remedy them, they must have been left there as a testament to her valor. A rapier hung in its scabbard at her waist, with her only other armament being a misericorde, so I sized her up as some manner of fencer. My Abilities to appraise her by virtue of my Blessing and some ancillary training showed her to be a veritable monster, so I would certainly have my work cut out for me to even stay alive in the arena.


    ¡°I would gladly foot the bill for his pension if that fucking gnome would just retire by now!¡± she shouted angrily as she plopped down on the couch with no air of dignity spared for the occasion. She sat with arms hooked over the top of the couch and knees spread wide, but her expression quickly softened when she locked eyes with Chooka. ¡°But I see yet a silver lining before me now. Do you come here often, toots?¡± She punctuated that last part with a wink and a light raking of her lower lip with her teeth, making no effort at subtlety when hitting on Chooka.


    Erethel and I exchanged looks as Chooka and Blythnin eyed each other down. ¡°Not as yet, but my darling and I are not intimately familiar with what pleasures the arena can offer,¡± Chooka replied politely as she placed her left hand on my leg and generously far from my knee. ¡°Perhaps if you can show the two of us what delights could be in store for us, we may have more cause to frequent this establishment.¡± Chooka¡¯s words flowed like honey on velvet as she toyed flirtatiously with the uncouth elf. I¡¯m actually not sure how well that works when performed literally, but it sounds smooth, so I will roll with it.


    ¡°Puh, I suppose I will see if he is a real man or not after I put him through the ringer,¡± she asserted boldly while not even sparing me a glance. The two continued their aggressive flirting by trying to stare each other down.


    ¡°Perhaps we could officiate this duel now so as to stay on schedule,¡± interjected Erethel, who for her part managed to maintain her composure in the face of such an awkward situation. The three of us rose at Erethel¡¯s direction and stood together, with Blythnin across from me. We shook hands, with Erethel placing hers on top. ¡°This is a battle of honor, not a fight to the death. Show some class and put on a good show for the audience.¡±


    A power filled the room, as if some incredible pressure radiating from Erethel threatened to crush us as she glared at Blythnin. Her touch was gentle, but the authority and majesty of her intense energy cowed even Blythnin into relaxing her grip as she tried to assert dominance by crushing my hand.


    ¡°Let¡¯s get to it, everyone. You have been briefed, so report to your staging areas,¡± commanded Erethel.


    ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am!¡± acknowledged Blythnin and I in unison.


    I joined Chooka and we left the room together to report to our respective destinations. Once out of earshot of everyone, she let loose.


    ¡°By the gods, Erethel is hot! Did you see the size of her bazongas!¡± exclaimed Chooka as she propped up her own with her hands to emphasize her approval. ¡°I know she is middle-aged, but there is not a blemish or wrinkle on her. Ah, the things I would have her do to me¡­¡± stated Chooka as she gazed upward in contemplation with a lewd leer on her face.


    ¡°Probably the same things Blythnin wants to do to you, if I am to make a good guess.¡± I replied earnestly.


    ¡°I know, right!¡± chimed Chooka excitedly as she looked back my way. ¡°She totally wants to bang me. I¡¯m not sure if I should toy with her more or just invite her to our bedroom.¡± Chooka looked at me with an expression that begged approval.


    ¡°That may be a tough sell. I don¡¯t think she likes me very much, but if you can pull it off, I would see how it plays out.¡± I placed my hand tenderly upon her arm as we walked through the twists and turns of the bowels of the arena infrastructure. ¡°I love you dearly, of course, but it could be fun if she is properly seduced.¡± I gave her a thumbs up to punctuate my approval.


    ¡°Challenge accepted!¡± responded Chooka as a devilish smile brightened her face and a mischievous gleam shone in her eyes.


    Chooka was now on the scent, and much like her passion for paperwork and bureaucracy, there would be no bringing her to heel now. Our paths diverged, hers to a stable and my own to an armory. We were not permitted to use our own weapons and armor, which each and every one of you would know if you had sat through the briefing.


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    The dingy hallways gave way to a well-reinforced wooden door. Scars along its surface suggested sore losers, bookies, or other rascals had attempted to force their way into an area reserved for combatants. A male dwarf, old and gray, yet still strong, waited within for my arrival. One eye inspected the weapons to ensure they were of sound quality, while the other remained only as a memory if his eye patch were any indication. He turned to face me, not with any haste, but certainly with measured and calculated motions that wasted no energy nor taxed his form. Perhaps one did not grow so old by being rash.


    ¡°Master Towlry, I have been instructed that you are the armorer that will assist me for this match. I appreciate your efforts and what guidance you may offer,¡± I said in greeting as I bowed slightly.


    ¡°Aye, that¡¯s me,¡± he replied as his left hand passed over a weapon rack, the tips of his fingers feeling the blades for any defects as he regarded me casually. ¡°Remove all your weapons and armor and leave them with me. These weapons here are enchanted to be extra durable, but otherwise not very sharp or lethal,¡± he stated flatly as he gestured around the motley collection of weapons both mundane and exotic. Many I found familiar, but some I could not even fathom how to wield. Perhaps the latter were for races with a different assortment of limbs. ¡°Take your pick of what you want, and I will record it all down in the leger here so as to ensure you get everything back.¡±


    ¡°Is there a limit as to how much I may take with me?¡± I asked as I started to remove my own weapons and deposit them within a secure chest he pointed out to me.


    ¡°I would imagine as much as you can carry. I don¡¯t know of any rule that places a limit,¡± he responded as he gazed at me quizzically.


    ¡°Good. I will take everything then,¡± I asserted confidently. The crackling of flames lit in sconces upon the walls were my only reply for a few moments as the old dwarf stared at me like I was making a joke at his expense. To inspire confidence in my claim, I opened my pocket dimension and flooded the chest and the floor around it with all the weapons I had at my disposal. ¡°Those are all my weapons,¡± I said as I pointed over my shoulder at them, as if there were any room for confusion.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to need a bigger book to log all of this,¡± he stated in both irritation and wonder.


    I selected for myself a buckler for my left arm as well as the largest tower shield I could find. I figured that if the larger shield would become lost, I would at least still have a buckler underneath as a backup. For weapons, I chose a spear as my primary armament, with a sword across my back and two dirks, each placed just above my waist on my back but parallel to the ground, with hilts facing each way. I also selected two boot knives. The entire rest of the armory¡¯s weapons and armor found themselves sucked into my pocket dimension.


    ¡°I sure hope you have enough. I can¡¯t say that anyone has cleaned me out before,¡± Master Towlry stated dryly as he looked around the room. ¡°This will be an excellent opportunity for my apprentices to clean the place and to learn the finer points of how the log book works.¡± The old dwarf moved to another door on the far side. ¡°You wait here, the big door there will open when they are ready for you,¡± he commanded as he departed. A few unfortunate apprentices would surely earn their keep this night.


    I waited patiently as instructed, not that there was much else to do. Two large doors stood before me, each three times my own height and twice as wide, constructed of hardwood and reinforced with iron. Not as many nicks and marks were found on these doors, but I imagine the other side of them painted a different story by virtue of craven individuals seeking sanctuary. However, if those people had listened to the briefing, they would know that the doors would not open again until the match was over, but panicked minds seldom flock towards reason.


    Master Towlry, overseer to three poor souls, gave a mix of hearty laughter, foul language, and barked instructions as the armory gained a thorough cleaning. To be fair, it was in rather good order when I had entered. I had expected blood to coat the walls, but apparently Master Towlry was a man of character and kept what was entrusted to him in a respectable condition.


    I did not have to wait much longer, for the doors in front of me parted ways as the clamor of distant cheering surged into the room. Before me stood Chooka and a rather decorated hydra. I am not sure who was of mind to create such ornate barding for them, but The Boys were decked out with as fancy of armor as one would probably ever see for a hydra. I assumed it to be custom-made as I doubted anyone just had that sort of stuff on hand, but perhaps some maniac was getting the last laugh somewhere with this being the day his mad vision for such a need bore fruit.


    ¡°Got enough weapons there, or do you need to go back for more?¡± teased Chooka as she greeted me.


    ¡°Oh, trust me, there are no more weapons to go back for. I cleaned the place out,¡± I replied with a smug smile on my face.


    Chooka smiled as she came forward to give me a kiss on the forehead. ¡°I suppose you would know best how to use them all. I am curious as to how that will take shape, but I just hope you kick Blythnin¡¯s ass.¡± A horn sounded in the distance before she could say more. ¡°Oh, that¡¯s my cue. Show ¡®em what you got, darling!¡±


    Chooka rushed out another set of large doors to the right, no doubt to the stables or some staging room for mounts. I would say I saddled up on The Boys, but they didn¡¯t exactly have one, so I just stood upright on their back on something similar to a howdah, but smaller. It at least had slots for me to slide my feet into so that I could maintain balance.


    ¡°Alright Boys, let¡¯s go!¡± The Boys heeded my command and waddled confidently down the short tunnel to the arena proper.


    I found myself greeted by the night sky, a packed arena of wildly cheering creatures of all races, and an announcer in the middle. I could not say what race the announcer was part of, for it appeared to be someone inside a mascot outfit. I believe the name was Cheesy or something, and he appeared to be a rather comical wedge of cheese. Some amplifier magic allowed a strong baritone voice to boom out across the colosseum, and judging by the slight accent and stature, I assumed the announcer to be an orc.


    I paid little attention to the announcer and instead studied the layout. The ground was flat and consisted of some fine sand. The walls were smooth all the way around and a little taller than the door, which is to say, high enough that escape would be impossible. Magical barriers, ever so slightly translucent, shimmered in the light provided by illumination crystals arranged in a periodic fashion around the arena. There was no clear glare provided by any of them, nor any sun to create an opportunity for advantage by positioning relative to its light. The arena itself was larger than I would have thought, with the other side being barely within range of an archer with a strong longbow.


    ¡°And now, for his opponent,¡± continued the announcer as the crowd cheered yet again before being quieted by the announcer. ¡°Hailing from the Ashlands of Summaria, this femme fatale will break your heart as quickly as your face if you dare cross her. Slayer of the Fel Dragon, Eurwelurst, that plagued our city forty years ago. Undefeated champion of the arena with a streak of nineteen wins. The third highest ranked Platinum Adventurer in this fair city of Berkerin. You know her, you love her, give it up for Blythnin, The Sting of Berkerin!¡±


    The crowd roared in approval as Blythnin finished her grand entrance. She rode in a chariot pulled by two steeds of sorts, if those steeds were plucked from the dark corners of The Hells. Their flesh was of shadow given form, the mane fabricated of umbral tendrils that radiated flickers of light like lightning in dark thunderclouds. Their hooves left behind a trail of smoke that flared into purple flame before disappearing. Their eyes were fashioned from the night sky, for to look into them was to stare into the cold abyss of deep space. They were as large as draft horses, yet nimble beyond what their size should allow, for they moved with a grace and speed beyond mortal ken.


    Blythnin herself was clad in much the same equipment as before, at least in form. The equipment of the arena was not very ornate, but it was effectively functional. She wore full plate, and not the silly kind with boob armor. Her helmet was tucked under her left arm and her black hair, perfectly straight, fluttered in a light breeze that I did not feel.


    ¡°Combatants, dismount!¡± commanded the announcer.


    The juxtaposition of Blythnin¡¯s grand entrance and otherworldly horses, combined with a walking block of cheese bossing her around, proved burdensome for my composure, and I had to focus to stifle my laughter at such absurdity. I dismounted as ordered and instructed The Boys to return back to the stables, for which they obeyed, but not before giving a proper roar at Blythnin. She followed suit, and her steeds returned to their stables unbidden by any command I could recognize. We each turned to face the grand viewing box of Erethel, our judge. She rose, and with her stood a man with as fine and regal an appearance that remained unrivaled in the city.


    ¡°The combatants are ready for review, Erethel Starweaver, Star of Final Night,¡± shouted the announcer as he bowed in her direction.


    The crowd instantly became silent. I could hear my own heart pounding in my chest as Erethel spoke, her voice not particularly loud, but sounding as if she were standing before me.


    ¡°I find the combatants to be of the quality and character befitting our fair city. Fight with honor and show us all what the best among us can become.¡± She turned to face the man next to her and kneeled before him. ¡°Grand Duke Archibald Melwyrr Fylthern, by the grace of your mercy and the justice of your rule, I implore you to bless this contest and your people.¡± She accepted a bottle and a chalice from an attendant, and she poured the contents of the bottle into the chalice until it overflowed. She then drank from it, and handed it up to the duke. He took it from her, and turned to the balcony, holding the chalice up for all to see. He turned it over, letting the contents fall onto the sand of the arena, which in turn greedily swallowed it up, leaving behind a deep purple stain in memory of the wine that had fallen from grace.


    The Duke spoke with a calm and eloquent demeanor, a voice born from practice and of a bloodline destined to such a path. ¡°This wine I offer unto the earth, from where life springs and life returns upon ending. I welcome citizens of Berkerin and visitors all, to share in the bounties of the earth and what blessing we may enjoy together while we yet live. It is from each and every one of you and your labors, your passions, and your sacrifices that we have forged our future together. I hereby bless this contest, and may we continue to enjoy nights like this until the gods ordain that we too rejoin the earth.¡±


    All heads bowed as he finished his speech. After a pause the announcer continued the ceremony. ¡°Combatants, take your places.¡±


    Blythnin and I stood on our respective sides, some twenty paces apart. He explained the rules for the audience, and upon completion, he withdrew from the arena. Long story short, victory would be achieved by knockout, having an opponent dead to rights at the throat or head, or by forfeit. Deathblows were forbidden, but otherwise everything was legal, for an army of healers stood ready to patch us up and shield the audience with protective barriers from what destruction we would unleash. Another barrier was erected to divide us, for we would have one minute to prepare for the fight once Erethel commanded it to begin.


    ¡°Try not to bleed out like a stuck pig,¡± heckled Blythnin. ¡°It would be a shame if that beauty you had with you earlier had to wipe away your tears after I make you beg for mercy.¡±


    I could not tell if this was her natural charm or if she was waging psychological warfare with her words. A solid strategy, but I remained uncertain as to how clever she was for such things to be employed. I countered by starting to recite the orientation briefing verbatim, which caused her to momentarily recoil in dread. She placed her helmet upon her head, and we both gazed up to Erethel.


    ¡°Combatants!¡± echoed Erethel¡¯s voice throughout the arena as she raised one arm high above her head. ¡°Begin!¡± As she brought her arm down, Blythnin and I began our preparations.

 Chapter 18

    The instant Erethel¡¯s arm dropped, I deployed a smokescreen. I could see through it just fine, as such a need comes with the territory when one aims to be a fire-breathing dragon. I¡¯m sure some worker bees managing the barriers around the arena were busying themselves with implementing some solution so the audience could see too, but that was not my problem. I raised stone walls from the earth seemingly randomly on my side, and covered the area in all manner of magical traps, both remote and proximity triggered. I made sure to place them about a finger width below the sand so as to reduce any chances Blythnin would be able to see them if she had some Ability to that effect.


    At the same time, I layered active Skills upon myself. I aimed to be faster, stronger, tougher, and quicker-witted than normal, and my Blessing came through to that effect. The air fairly crackled with pent-up arcane fury screaming for release as my body became an avatar of destruction hellbent on victory. Surely my opponent would be clad in a similar fashion by such layers of protection, so our clash would be the stuff of legends.


    Blythnin apparently had a similar desire for privacy, for she had erected a fence between us, one made of stone brick and thrice as tall as a man. Perhaps I misunderstood her Blessing as some manner of [Fencer], but I suspected that she would soon get the point across as to its true nature via the business end of her rapier. My senses, both ordinary and supernatural, could not pierce the veil, so to speak, so I knew not what she had in store for me, but I suspected a vicious alpha strike would be her favored gambit.


    The barrier between us snapped out of existence in an instant, and while my smokescreen wafted towards her wall, nothing noteworthy occurred for a few moments. Then, with a great rumbling and a grinding of stone upon stone, I witnessed holes appear within the wall as small sections rotated a quarter way around, and from those sally ports charge an army of Blythnins. I did not sense heat from them, nor did they give off any scent, but I knew not how substantial they were in the material sense nor if the bite of their swords would be real or merely the fabrications of illusions.


    The clones quickly overran my outer defenses, and dozens of traps triggered automatically. From that, I at least knew they had some manner of substance, for they had to exert some degree of pressure to trigger those traps. I quickly worked to reprogram as many traps as I could to require a degree of thermal energy in addition to mass, but I left a few of lesser importance alone so as to be a hopefully convincing ruse that my plans would be foiled by her wily ways.


    In short order, I found myself besieged on all fronts, for hundreds of her clones had poured in from all directions, pressing me hard. Taking the defensive, I elected to test their capabilities. I let the first one to reach me graze me with her rapier, and while my skin was hard enough to withstand normal blades with ease, it still sliced through me, albeit with difficulty, as the cut was shallow. At the same time, I ran her through with my spear, and her body impaled there felt vastly lighter than I would have expected. She coughed up blood through the vents in her helmet, and then a moment later she disappeared in a puff of smoke and ash.


    Armed with this newfound knowledge paid for in blood, I created choke points with new walls of earth I hastily constructed. I let a horde of them rush me, and at the last moment, I let loose a torrent of air to blast them backwards. Being so light, perhaps less than one tenth of normal, they crashed into a heap against a far wall, which I then toppled down upon them by virtue of my magic still lingering within and heeding my will. Crushed beneath the weight, most vanished much as the first one had, but the remainder rallied fearlessly and charged in once more. I destroyed them with a burst of high pressure water, but not favoring remaining in one place for long, I repositioned further back to my side of the arena. A most auspicious move on my part, for I had not gotten three paces before the wall next to where I was standing exploded inwards with disastrous effect on the next wave of clones. The real Blythnin had taken the field.


    I had the option in my Blessing of taking clones, and while I admit they are useful, their entry cost was steep. Something does not come from nothing, so any Skills they use would drain one¡¯s mana, and unless one went all-in on such Skills, that could very quickly lead to complete exhaustion. Blythnin¡¯s onslaught educated me as to the viability of their use to overwhelm and waste resources for the opponent, and I imagine she was certainly getting the better end of the deal for efficiency.


    The real Blythnin wasted no time in charging me, and in one beat of my heart, she had crossed the distance between us and slammed into me. At least, it felt like a slam, for dozens of hits landed upon my shield within the same span of time as it took her to charge. Even with all my Skills brought to bear, it felt as though she were swinging a sledgehammer, not thrusting with a rapier. I could do little more than endure as her assault pushed me back and taxed the limits of my shield arm.


    The present situation untenable, and the probability of being flanked too great to ignore, I hopped backwards. I expected her pursuit, but she simply faded into the crowd as more clones rushed in to replace her. They felt the full measure of the trap I had activated but a moment earlier, and cursing inwardly at Blythnin¡¯s intuition, I recalculated my plan of attack now that a high-value trap had been expended in vain. I opted for conservative attacks, using minimal force to deal with the clones, but I wondered if I would survive such half-measures if the real Blythnin decided to mix in with a future wave.


    As I cut a dozen down, two dozen more appeared to take their place. The fight had been all of two minutes so far, and by my estimates, nearly two hundred clones had been destroyed. Such numbers were impressive, perhaps too much so. I suspected some trick to it, for none were mere illusions as far as I could tell. No one could sustain this many of them without bankrupting mana reserves, and so I knew I had to venture to her side of the arena to unveil the mystery. If something over there was producing these clones at little cost, then I would need to destroy it to win, and if no such thing existed, then I was never going to win in the first place.


    All I had done so far was react, but Blythnin gave me no quarter during which I could do otherwise, for she appeared from behind for another charge at me, not but ten seconds after her first charge. This time I stepped in and sideways to her thrust, letting the flurry slide off my shield. I could not see her expression because of her full helmet, but she appeared surprised by such audacity. She easily avoided my spear thrust, which, when compared to her own thrusts, was laughably slow. She feigned another burst of thrusts, and I fell for it, and with my timing and positioning off, I was rewarded with a few new holes in my shield arm as she harried me. I quickly recovered and used my healing magic to regenerate, but such one-sided trades would be the end of me.


    More clones rushed me from the back as others rained down upon my position from overtop the walls. However, even while she stabbed me, I had been repositioning traps, sliding them beneath the sand to heed my call for aid. Either she would press her advantage and stay nearby, or she would retreat, and I prepared myself for both outcomes. Time felt like it stretched tenfold, for my senses and mental processing were so acute, but there were perhaps two or three seconds before her clones would be upon me. The timing would be critical if I were to gain an advantage.


    Fortunately, so emboldened by her recent success, she stayed for another assault. I feared this would be the last such battery of thrusts my shield would endure, for I could see terrible dents on my side of it. With perfect execution, she crashed into me once more as her clones were initiating their own strikes. I could not block them all, but I did not need to. In the second that it took her to land dozens of blows upon my shield, I unleashed the trap I had placed beneath us, with myself within a dead zone. Acid surged up from the earth, exploding up over the walls and touching everything around me in its corrosive embrace. The real Blythnin weathered it, if barely, for I could see cracks in the shimmering energy that surrounded her like a second skin. The acid chewed away at her exposed armor, and as quickly as she had assaulted me, she retreated up and away from the cesspool of acidity I had unleashed upon my little labyrinth of death.


    She had erred, for in attacking me from behind, she no longer stood between me and her side of the arena. With her body in the air from her jump away from me, she would not be able to reposition or change her direction until she landed, and it was during that briefest of moments that I made haste to her side of the arena. Now was not the time to be covetous, and so with generous abandon of my previous tactics, I spared no expense in my application of magic as I rushed headlong into the unknown. Scores of clones fell in my wake as I prepared a strong blast of wind to propel me through the air to her side. I gambled that I could get there faster than she could.


    It proved to be a foolish wager, for with blinding speed, I found her on a collision course as we both soared through the air. I tore apart reality at the seams, and in doing so violated Euclidean space as I brought forth my pocket dimension. I rained down the content of weapons and armor stored within, and she would either have to weather the storm to attack me or take defensive action. In that same effort, I threw my tower shield at her as I grabbed a new one, which I had intended to do all along, just not in this way. Blythnin spun in a flurry, and like a whirling dervish, her blade swatted aside my assault. However, she still slowed, for her deflections robbed her of her forward momentum, and thus I squeezed out a small moment of reprieve as I secured a precious advantage in our race to her side of the arena.


    As I cleared the vault over her wall, I saw a vastly changed terrain on her side. She had not made a fence between us, but an entire square of a fortification, complete with stone brick floor and walls. In the middle stood a whole host of clones surrounding a gold and glowing orb, about as big around as a man, that floated off the ground. I detected no other objects of note, so with a fair degree of certainty, I deduced this to be the source of the clones. The new clones appearing around the orb every few seconds added damning evidence to support that theory, and so I prepared a means for its destruction.


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    A powerful barrier surrounded the orb, but some of the clones nearby kneeled before it almost as if in reverence, their own bodies glowing golden as well. I suspected they would need to be eliminated before I could destroy the orb. The normal clones, hundreds of them, rushed forward to meet me as I touched down in the fortress. With pulsing gusts of wind, I repelled them, but their intervention slowed me enough that the real Blythnin was but a moment away. She flanked me on my right side, and with my body being too slow to turn with such a heavy shield, I was forced to drop it to properly twist my body to meet her attack. I still had the buckler strapped onto my shield arm, and it managed to block a few hits, but pain coursed through me and gave fair notice that it proved to be an inferior defensive option.


    A resurgence of healing magic flooded through me once again, but despite such taxation on my concentration, I still managed to retaliate with a well-placed spear strike. She also was moving too fast, and, unable to dodge, my spear struck true. Well, almost true, for just before it found purchase, her body became golden and much lighter. My heightened senses showed the real Blythnin to be where one of her golden clones had been, and so another trick up her sleeve had been used to swap places with it. Now between me and the orb, she rushed to meet me once again.


    This time, I aimed a well-timed and placed swing with my buckler, swatting her weapon away from me as she lunged. To her credit, her grip held fast, but being so exposed, I thrust forward with my spear, only to have another golden clone take the hit. She wasted no time in advancing once more, this time leading with a feint. However, I had become accustomed to her tactics, and so I unleashed a pillar of earth from the ground beneath me, sending me up into the air, with my forward momentum carrying me so that I would be directly over the orb during the apex of my vault.


    I called forth the essence of shadow to shroud me, and encased in a sphere of its inky blackness, I took a risk of exposing my true nature to anyone capable of seeing through such an Ability. I manifested my dragon form, not in body, but in the essence of spirit. Ethereal, translucent, temporal, a visage of my true form took shape inside the privacy of my sphere, and I let loose the most powerful torrent of fire my breath could bring to bear aimed straight down. Clones cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced as flame that could melt stone cleansed the arena of the clones, golden or otherwise. The orb could not withstand such a disturbance, and so unguarded by its golden attendants, it cracked and shattered from the withering heat.


    I let go of my control of the sphere of shadow around me as I landed on the ground. No more clones remained, but a rather crispy looking Blythnin stood across from me relative to where the orb had been. Her protective shield no more, her armor covered in black soot, she stood not ready to strike, but in a stance open to attack. I almost fell backwards, and bracing myself, I discovered the full meaning to her actions as power radiated out of her in pulsing waves, each one stronger than the last as they crashed into me. I solidified my stance, sliding backwards as it pushed me away while I braced for what was to come.


    I put my spear and buckler into my pocket dimension while unsheathing my dirks, while simultaneously diverting everything I could into enhancing my speed and perception. The power radiating from her ceased, but where before I saw a monster, I now saw a nightmare. She stood over thirty paces away, but in the blink of an eye, she had dashed to me. I somehow managed to deflect her thrust, but the force of it sent me spinning sideways and away from her. As I tried to recover and right my fall, she appeared from behind and above me with a downward thrust to impale me. I released the most powerful burst of air I could to push me off course, and though I avoided her blade, the force of it still somehow rent a large gash into my back as it also shattered the floor of her fortress.


    While my body sailed across the arena, I set my healing magics to work to repair the terrible damage she had inflicted upon me. As I crashed into the ground and rolled into the wall of her fortress, smashing through it, I placed a trap between us, activating it instantly in case she was already on her way to me. Tendrils of shadow erupted from the earth, flailing around to grasp anything within reach. Fortune smiled upon me, for Blythnin found herself grappled by such umbral machinations. Sadly, that smile turned into a frown, for Blythnin ripped herself free in short order. However, that did afford me the opportunity to right myself and finish healing.


    My mana reserves, though far beyond the means of normal people, were dangerously low. My superhuman stamina found its limit, for I had pushed my body to extremes beyond what generous gifts my Blessing could afford. But, I sensed Blythnin was not faring so well either. Her breathing was as ragged as mine, and the power I sensed within her flickered down with increasing regularity and intensity. She would need to end things soon, but I feared her next onslaught would overwhelm me. This would be her all-or-nothing attack.


    Upon finding myself flung through the wall of her fortress and onto my side of the arena, I retreated into my maze of traps, pulling every one of them to move around me as I cleared out an open area in the middle. The walls of earth had proven to be a great defense, but now they impeded my sight of her, and I feared they would be little better than paper at actually stopping her, so I removed those walls. I would let her come at me and take one final gamble with my life and victory as the wager.


    Blythnin appeared within short order, but she did not dash in. Instead she strode calmly and confidently, her gait unyielding and uncompromising in its intent, although I detected a hint of trembling in her form, her body paying the debt owed to her profound application of raw power. As traps triggered, she moved faster than my eyes could track, my body just barely quick enough to move out of the way. I would say I feigned panic at that moment, and while I certainly felt a great degree of distress, I had not fallen into total despair. I preyed upon her ego, that hubris would convince her that my played-up recklessness was genuine desperation. I threw everything I had at her, well, almost everything, and she dodged all such attempts to fell her, if barely, for her power fluctuations were becoming highly erratic.


    She stood now not but four paces away, and in that small moment as we looked at one another, I sensed the storm within that suit of armor. Rage at my vexatious and underhanded tactics, pain from the toll levied upon her body, excitement from the crowd cheering her on to finish me, and ecstasy from this dance with death where either one of us could lose with one mistake, all boiled and churned within the confines of her armor, now sullied and battered. She lunged, and I did nothing to avoid it. Her blade sunk deep, up to the hilt, into my gut, just left of center.


    ¡°Looks like I win,¡± she gasped out between ragged breaths as we stood there, both rather exhausted.


    ¡°Looks like you didn¡¯t pay attention during the briefing,¡± I countered as I grasped her sword arm in my left hand while I dropped the dirk that I held within it.


    She struggled to free herself, but to no avail. I have experienced many painful things in my life, but this next maneuver stands out even after all this time. I used the pommel in the dirk in my right hand to smash into the inside of her elbow, forcing her arm to bend as I rushed in. Taken by surprise, she failed to react in time as I hooked a foot behind her and toppled her over, landing on top of her. With all my power, I brought my dirk down towards her left eye where her helmet afforded no protection. Just before my blade found purchase, I stopped its advance.


    ¡°Dead to rights at the head or neck,¡± I said to her before coughing blood up, the essence of it spraying onto her and oozing down my chin. I had her pinned, her sword arm grasped in my left hand, my body straddling her chest while my right leg restrained her left arm. The whole maneuver had shredded my guts terribly, and I wondered if I had enough mana left within me to repair that damage or at least stabilize myself enough for medical personnel to rush to my aid.


    ¡°Victory to the [Dragoon], defeat to the [Chevalier],¡± cried Erethel as she called the match in my favor. ¡°The champion has seen her winning spree come to an end. Well done, both of you.¡± I heard her voice as if she were right in front of me, even though she certainly was not. Even though the crowd cheered to a volume threatening to deafen me, those sweet words sang clear in my heart as the fight was finally over.


    With difficulty and a great deal of willpower, I forced myself to stand, letting Blythnin¡¯s blade slide free of my body as I rose up. Blood spilled forth unhindered, and I concentrated the last of my healing energies to stabilize myself as I hovered on the border of consciousness. Medical staff caught me before I toppled over, their words sounding muffled and distant as blackness loomed at the corners of my vision, threatening to devour me should I surrender to its invitation. I breathed, and I focused on just staying alive while vials of bittersweet liquid were shoved to my lips and healing hands were placed all over my body. I know not how long they busied themselves with their work, for my perception of the world all but faded for a while until they brought me back. I felt physically well again, and I guessed it had been a few minutes at most, but certainly my spry and rejuvenated body was a testament to their skill.


    Blythnin stood next to me, helmet under her left arm, and before me stood Erethel. Blythnin looked a little dazed herself, but she snapped back to reality much in the same way I imagine I did within a few seconds. The medical staff, their task complete, scurried away as other personnel finished up the final touches on their restoration of the arena. Were it not for the blood on my clothes, one would think no fighting at all had taken place here, much less one that nearly tore the arena asunder.


    ¡°Well done, both of you!¡± exclaimed Erethel in praise as she placed a hand on each of our shoulders. ¡°This was intended to be an exhibition match, but it looked like the two of you were fighting to the death,¡± she continued with a slight look of disapproval on her face.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think she would respect me if I gave her anything less, nor would victory have been even remotely possible,¡± I said in genuine respect as I turned my head towards Blythnin.


    ¡°I admit, I tried my best and lost. There may yet be other arenas where I can best you, if not in combat,¡± she said with a shocking degree of warmness, her smug and rude attitude seemingly gone. ¡°I hope to find out soon enough.¡± She winked at me to punctuate that comment, but I could only guess as to the implications. Perhaps there were strange traditions after such a fight that I would soon be made aware of where we would have the opportunity to compete. My imagination turned to some sort of pub crawl or games of skill while inebriated for what she implied.


    Erethel looked at us both with a sly and knowing smile growing on her face before it wilted entirely, replaced by a demeanor of alert shock. Faint at first, but as the crowd slowly quieted, I heard bells ringing in the distance. Their deep notes and distant sound meant only one thing, that these were the warning bells for the city itself. Danger was imminent to the city.

 Chapter 19

    Within the hour, I found myself in an emergency council for war. All the Platinum Adventurers, along with various military commanders, nobles, and other bigwigs were in attendance, sans the Duke, who was en route. I myself ignored them, opting to study the huge map on an equally impressive table. There I could see an accurate and topographical outline of the territory held by the city-state of Berkerin. Small towns and villages dotted the landscape, some of which I had been to, but most I had never heard of. I studied the terrain and strategic locations, most notably the roads and bridges an invading force would need to travel to us. I, like everyone else, remained ignorant of the full scope of what threatened us, but I knew that Berkerin would have to be captured or contained before dominion over this region could be gained by a hostile force.


    ¡°Planning your next vacation?¡± asked a bald old man in a fine military uniform that was complete with gold epaulets and more medals than I have had cause to see before. He appeared as energetic and spry as his mustache was glorious, and he smiled at me before he started placing figurines upon the map, apparently not expecting an answer.


    ¡°It would seem that I have no need to, for word is that exotic lands are coming to us as we speak to share their culture with us,¡± I replied as I watched him go about his work.


    ¡°So it would seem,¡± he said as his smile grew wider. ¡°I am sure they plan to charge a hefty premium for their services. I bet they will make us an offer we can¡¯t refuse, the kind where we can find relaxation in comfortable dirt naps.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m not really a fan of such pushy salesmen,¡± I said earnestly in continuation of our sarcastic banter. ¡°Hopefully we can box their ears and send them packing before too long. I say this, but we could very well be dealing with them several years from now if we can¡¯t secure a decisive victory.¡±


    ¡°All too true,¡± he replied as he finished placing the last of his figurines. ¡°The men that start wars hope it will be over quickly, but it is the men on the front lines that see to it that it stalls out. I¡¯ve been both of those men, and let me tell you, I prefer the company of the latter.¡±


    I nodded in agreement, but before we could continue our idle chatter, the main doors burst open, followed by an unannounced Duke Archibald Melwyrr Fylthern. Apparently not a man for ceremony during a crisis, he waved away a man who was about to rectify that breach in protocol. The room instantly quieted as the Duke took his seat at the far end of the rather circular room. I found it prudent to slink off to a seat somewhere, but the old man gently put his hand on my arm to stop me. Now ensnared by his gesture and roped into politics, I found myself embroiled in a crisis meeting with no apparent means to escape.


    ¡°General Eisenfaust, brief the room,¡± commanded the Duke in a flat and almost impatient tone. I suspected he would suffer no rigmarole from anyone as he sat sullenly in his chair, his fingernails digging into the ornate woodwork as he clawed at it in vexation.


    ¡°By your command, your Grace,¡± replied the old man next to me as he bowed in reverence. His voice boomed out towards those gathered as he addressed the assembly. ¡°All of you are here because an attack is imminent on our city. Multiple reports have detailed that a force of fifty thousand combatants, along with their non-combatant support personnel, are marching upon us from the northeast.¡± Murmuring broke out in the audience at the disturbing news, but the old man¡¯s stern and steely gaze silenced the riff raff before he continued. ¡°The Theocracy of Ulsfarh apparently seeks to bring us back into the fold. Many of you know that we gained our independence from them over three hundred years ago, and while relations had been good, in the past decade they have increased aggression towards us. Now they strike at us with no declaration of war. Make no mistake, they will not seek a diplomatic solution, only complete and unconditional surrender will satisfy their avarice, and as they see it, their holy mission of reunification.¡±


    Murmuring rose again from the rabble, and it threatened to break into true discord, but a shout from the Duke silenced the masses. General Eisenfaust continued, and as I would soon discover, his words were as capable instruments as any weapon of war. ¡°Our new champion and I have been discussing strategy, and he has come up with an excellent plan for our defense.¡± My eyes went wide as I stared at him, for I had never been thrown under a wagon so hard in my life. ¡°Should it please you, enlighten everyone with your brilliant strategy that you have been discussing with me.¡± His grip upon my arm, formerly gentle, now tight, suggested that it would please me to do so if I enjoyed my station in life. He moved his hand to my shoulder as I turned to address the room, and I could do naught but hope my words would convince everyone that I was not a complete fool.


    ¡°I have reviewed our situation, and I have a plan that depends upon the leadership of those gathered in this room.¡± I found myself surprised as I spoke, for information and ideas flooded into me, and the tendrils of magic I sensed from the general¡¯s hand upon my shoulder suggested that he quite literally had a hand in this. To be fair, I had studied the map and the nature of warfare in this world from numerous books I read in my youth, so I was probably more apt than most of these silkpants to spitball a stratagem that may secure victory. ¡°In optimal conditions, they will be at our walls within three days, but they will need to travel through Arthu-Ja¡¯an valley if they are to reach us.¡± I scanned the room to ensure my audience at least had a basic grasp of geography, and to my relief, people appeared to be following along. ¡°There are only two bridges across the river there, so we should be able to stall them until they force their way across.¡± I looked around the room to ensure I had everyone¡¯s attention, and indeed, not a soul appeared to dare show disinterest.


    ¡°I propose a force of mostly Gold Adventurers led by Platinums to intercept the enemy, doing all they can to harass them and inhibit their approach while taking no great risks. We will need them in the battles to come, for certainly the enemy means to lay siege. Meanwhile, our Coppers, led by Silvers, will travel to every village and town to help people evacuate to Berkerin. They will also gather any supplies they can and destroy the rest so that the enemy cannot supplement their own supplies with raids on our settlements.¡± Heads bobbed in agreement for my rather rudimentary explanation of preparation for a siege. ¡°The army will fortify the city''s defenses, while the remainder of the Silver Adventurers will scour the nearby land for all resources, either directly or as armed escort for civilians who can assist. We need to defoliate the surrounding lands, turning the ground outside the city walls to dirt, leveling the nearby forest so they will be without cover or a means of firewood or construction materials. Should they launch an assault, we will turn the land around us to mud by whatever Abilities available as granted by the Blessings or magical equipment of our defenders. That should greatly inhibit their efforts.¡± More heads nodded in agreement, and with my confidence boosted, I prepared for an unorthodox strategy.


    ¡°Inevitably, they will make their way to our walls and lay siege, no matter what we do. Our city only has some thirty thousand people, perhaps forty with the refugees and visitors for the festival. We cannot take them in the field, and so we should not face them in pitched battle outside our walls.¡± A few grumbles were heard in the direction of the military officers. No doubt they sought glory in the days to come, but I would not let foolish pride be our downfall. ¡°I suggest that our Platinum Adventurers, with support from Gold, form a perimeter around them to keep them contained and to constantly harass them. Should they try to form up for an assault, they will pay dearly and leave their camp and baggage train completely exposed to our retaliation. Likewise, our Adventurers know these lands and should be capable of retreating from or defeating any retaliatory strikes from the enemy rank and file troops. We may not be able to defeat them straight up, but we can bleed them out.¡±


    I spoke with conviction beyond my normal passions, for many were coming around to my way of thinking, ¡°No doubt, they have their own Adventurers on hand, but each day we stall them brings them closer to financial ruin, as services from their own Platinum and Gold Adventurers do not come cheap.¡± A few chuckles were heard around the room, and while I had meant what I said in earnest and not as a joke, it did seem to relax the audience, if slightly. ¡°Our lives are on the line more than theirs are, so I predict they will not be so bold as to venture far from camp, seeing as they can make a far safer livelihood back in their own lands.¡±


    I looked to the general for approval, and he merely nodded and smiled as he prompted me to continue. ¡°I propose an interdiction force of our most versatile and experienced Platinum Adventurers, which, should the council see it fit, I would lead. Each of us signed a contract,¡± I continued as I grasped my gorget, ¡°And in that contract, we waive taxation on our income and property in return for mandatory military service in defense of our lands. Now comes the time to make good on our promise. Those of you skilled and brave enough to join me will operate behind enemy lines. Once they cross into our lands, we will destroy the roads and bridges for their retreat and resupply. We will steal or destroy any supplies they send to their army. We will target their non-combatants, seeking to kill their specialists, most notably their siege engineers, for they cannot breach our city until they exhaust our defensive barriers.¡± Murmurs broke out, and indeed naysayers complained that what I proposed was too dangerous or underhanded. Fortunately, the general intervened again to silence them, and I was free to continue.


    ¡°Make no mistake, they are the aggressors, and they deserve no mercy. They come here without the Duke¡¯s permission and with the intent to take that which is ours. We have not acted in bad faith against them, nor is this retaliation for any aggression on our part. All that matters is that we don¡¯t lose, and to that end we either annihilate them or shatter their resolve. To me, their rank and file soldiers are our lowest priority, for if we can destroy their supply lines and all of their support personnel, their morale will crumble, and they will be forced to starve or flee. With the path out of our lands destroyed, their retreat will be difficult, and we will continue to harass them the whole way. I seek to destroy them so utterly that they will never again dare step foot into our lands.¡±


    My words seemed to be inspiring confidence, and so I seized the opportunity from that momentum. ¡°Now is the time to share information and resources. We will need to carefully coordinate and allocate our personnel so the best people are available for each task. Now is not the time for protocol and station, and I expect each of you to follow those who are experts in their field, even if you would normally outrank them.¡± I glared down members of the audience that I suspected would protest, namely the lesser nobility, and my intimidation appeared to have the desired effect on account that no one protested. ¡°This attack would have been planned well in advance. In all likelihood, the enemy already has agents within our city. It is critical to our unity that we avoid our investigations devolving into a witch hunt, but it is also equally critical that we find and destroy saboteurs, for if they manage to destroy our barrier or dispose of the people who maintain it, our situation will be most dire. I don¡¯t know who is normally responsible for this task, but that needs to be our most immediate and prioritized concern.¡±


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    I paused for a moment to let my words sink in. Many were clearly pondering the implications of my strategy, and I took care not to overwhelm them. ¡°We also need to infiltrate their camp with our own spies. We need to kill their officers, sabotage their siege engines, sow dissent and disinformation, and distribute rumors and information that defectors will be awarded amnesty and citizenship, an offer that should be real and legitimate. Each person that defects is one fewer we will need to fight, but obviously, they should be closely monitored until a peace treaty is signed. This task will be extremely dangerous, so I advise that we only accept volunteers.


    ¡°Make no mistake,¡± I shouted for emphasis as I addressed the room, ¡°They will eventually launch an assault on our walls. We need to delay them as long as possible and hamstring any efforts on their part to effectively succeed. We need to compromise their leadership, their morale, and their supplies, so that they will be unable or unwilling to continue hostilities. This war will not be glorious. It will be a vile and disgusting waste of life and resources, but we must defend ourselves. Everyone helps to the best of their ability. In accordance with the law, anyone who betrays us will be executed. Keep each other honest, support one another, and be patient and respectful, as times are about to become difficult for everyone. This concludes the overview of my stratagem.¡±


    With that, I turned to the Duke and bowed as appropriate. In truth, I had no real fealty to him, but this was my home, and so our interests aligned. In that moment, the general¡¯s hand departed me, and I felt the magic and wisdom bestowed upon me drift away. However, I still remembered my words and the basic ideas it granted, so my education on warfare certainly bloomed at that moment. I don¡¯t think I said anything truly profound, but many in the audience lack even a basic understanding of what needs to be done in war.


    ¡°I find your council to be favorable,¡± commented the Duke, who now appeared far more agreeable than when he entered the room, his posture far more relaxed, much to the appreciation of the chair arm if it could express itself. ¡°General Eisenfaust, do you find fallacy in this plan?¡±


    ¡°No, your Grace. I could not have said it better myself.¡± As we were both bowing to the Duke, I caught a wink from the general, and suspected that perhaps he was being more literal than figurative.


    ¡°Then by my authority as Duke of Berkerin, I, Archibald Melwyrr Fylthern, decree that it be so. General Eisenfaust, I leave the implementation of this plan to you. I must deal with matters of state to rally the people to our defense and to coordinate logistics. You are commander in chief for military operations in this theater of war. Bring us victory.¡±


    ¡°It will be so, your Grace,¡± replied the general with a final bow.


    The Duke and his retinue departed promptly, but whether or not they would actually be dealing with matters of state or venturing off to lollygag somewhere, I could only guess. However, the Duke himself appeared to be that rare breed that actually cares about his people, so I imagine he personally would honor his word. Most of the rest of Platinum Adventurers stayed here with the military staff, although Erethel and some others left as well. Judging by their attire and my knowledge of them by reputation, they would be managing the defensive barrier around the city, a most arduous task that I certainly did not envy.


    ¡°My apologies for putting you on the spot there,¡± said the general to me as people shuffled to their stations to receive orders, as if somehow each knew where to go and what to do. ¡°My Blessing is keenly gifted at strategy and coordination, but frankly, the former does not manifest well within me, and so I need to proxy it through someone else.¡± He smiled at me rather earnestly as he stroked his mustache with his right hand. ¡°You delivered your words marvelously, and indeed I had to provide very little in the way of helping you devise a strategy. It was all already there in your noggin,¡± he continued as he tapped his own bald head for emphasis, ¡±All I had to do was help calm your nerves and organize it for you as you spoke. You must have had a solid education.¡±


    ¡°I have read a great number of books and treatises on warfare, but I was completely shocked when you said I had a plan. Some warning would have been greatly appreciated.¡±


    The old man laughed at that, his eyes seemingly looking back through the years at precious memories. ¡°Everyone says that, and you are not wrong, but that initial shock helps me integrate my mind with yours so that I may employ my Blessing correctly.¡± He leaned in conspiratorially as he whispered into my ear. ¡°There is a reason no one else was up here around the table. No one ever tells the new guy to do otherwise. You just happened to be the poor soul who unwittingly volunteered to help me.¡±


    ¡°Why do I get the feeling that I volunteered for far more than just being your voice for this briefing?¡± I asked as I sized him up. The general appeared to be in his element and greatly enjoying the opportunity. I sensed not that he lusted for war, but rather for the opportunity to apply his skills to a worthy challenge.


    ¡°Ah, you do learn quickly.¡± he replied with a smile as he clapped me on the back. ¡°Your interdiction force is a bold move, and I am going to be depending upon you to bring us victory. No pressure, but I suspect everything hinges upon you.


    I did, in fact, feel pressure, but as he addressed the room and gave orders, my impression of him changed. At times he had the calm reassurance of a father to son, and at others, his majesty at dealing with difficult personalities and challenges was like watching a maestro bring harmony to an impromptu orchestra. We talked at length for hours about all manner of matters that would need to be addressed, oftentimes with me as his puppet, and it was not until sunrise that everyone had their orders and a detailed battle plan had been concocted.


    Potions were passed around, the expensive kind that gave the benefits of a full night¡¯s sleep in a few gulps. The bottle had a clearly printed warning to the detriments of continued use over a period of time, and not wanting to develop the laundry list of mental disorders that such could bring, I made note to follow the schedule by which I could safely use them. Apparently, such conveniences were standard practice during a war, and those and other essentials were stockpiled at great expense between wars for the key players to consume. While I indeed felt well rested and refreshed after drinking it, I found it did not include the comfort of a warm bed shared with a loving mistress, nor the opportunity to dream and simply not have to think. This particular brand had a tagline of ¡°No rest for the wicked¡±, and I found that the message struck home all too well after its consumption.


    I hand-picked those who would be in my interdiction team. Myself included, there were 83 Platinum Adventurers in the city and 427 Gold. From my understanding, rank and file soldiers were on par with Coppers, and seasoned veterans were on par with Silver, so the burden that the Platinums and Golds shared was not extended to the rest of the Adventurers. We shouldered the lion¡¯s share of the responsibility for national defense, but so too the spoils of war if we perform admirably. I had wanted Blythnin on my team, but I begrudgingly had to accept that she would lead the interception force, for her clone army would be far too valuable to lead attacks and cover retreats against the enemy vanguard.


    My team would have six members, myself included. A male gnome, Bellwright Muddlespoon, would be my support specialist. Prideful, but easily managed by praise, his Skills at battlefield control and transportation would be critical, as he was a known expert at getting a party into and out of a fight for rapid and undetected assaults, all the while miring the enemy¡¯s ability to defend. Not satisfied with one support specialist, I opted for a second in Gulfore, a beefy female orc who specialized in defensive barriers and powerful boons to amplify our strength and Abilities. She did not speak much, but her discipline was second to none. I had the male elf twins, Garro and Rarro, each powerful blasters that would rain down destruction with reckless abandon upon our foes through their mastery of the arcane. Apparently, such was their favorite pastime, much to the distress of many erstwhile party members caught dangerously close to their wanton application of force. Lastly I had a human female known as Skull. She wore all black, and her full plate was macabre and intimidating, which matched her absolutely wicked looking zweih?nder. She would be my frontline fighter, for she was both fearless and capable of sowing terror and despair through her martial prowess and by the Abilities of her Blessing.


    I gave us each two hours to gather supplies, make preparations, and say our goodbyes, after which we would rendezvous at the city gate. After recovering my personal effects from the arena, I followed my tracking ability, [Find Companion - Pet], to The Boys, for they would lead me to Chooka. I found them at the guildhall, where Chooka was in her element in a veritable storm of paperwork and handling logistics. We said our goodbyes briefly, for while I knew we cared for one another, we both knew that what was at stake was too important for us to catch up on feelings. If anything, we both avoided talking about the fight in the arena or the war, opting to table that for when we had time to spare. I could see that she was worried, but she buried herself in her work to distract herself from her concerns that I may not return. I promised myself that I would survive no matter what, for I did not want this to be how she would remember me if I perished. Also, I am rather adverse to dying, so it was not a difficult vow to make. Surely countless more made similar vows, and doubtlessly, some depressing percentage would fail to keep such a promise.


    While our parting may seem weird, something far more disturbing had occurred. I had ignored it at the time, or possibly missed it due to being nearly unconscious, but I had unlocked a Skill, [Dragoon - Favored Mount I], apparently because I technically rode The Boys to a battlefield, dismounted, and won a challenging fight. That [Deed] provided a cornucopia of perks for The Boys and my connection to them, especially in relation to how I could communicate with and command them.


    ¡°Come back soon, Papa,¡± I heard in my mind as I left The Boys. ¡°And bring snacks with you,¡± chimed in a slightly different voice. Apparently, in addition to a host of other perks, I could now hear the thoughts of The Boys if I so wanted. They were a clever bunch before, but my new Skill granted them even more intelligence beyond their kind. I mused on the implications that would bring as I restocked my supplies.


    With a heavy heart, I headed to the rendezvous point. Birds sang their songs while merrily oblivious to the approaching peril as they greeted a late summer morning that promised to be fair, at least as far as the weather was concerned. More people than normal at this hour hustled and bustled, each doing whatever they felt appropriate in preparation for the coming war. I could only hope that their efforts were not self-serving, but I found myself thankful that they were at least not rioting.


    Fortunately, my party assembled without issue, each well equipped for what was to come. I would expect nothing less of Platinum Adventurers, and without much talking, we set out. We rode in a spectral wagon as summoned by Bellwright. It did not exactly touch the ground, so the ride was incredibly smooth and swift. As I watched the city grow smaller in the distance, I wondered if I would see it or those I loved ever again.

 Chapter 20

    With the enemy army approaching from the northeast, we headed northwest to swing around the mountain the long way. We needed to remain undetected, and not heading straight towards them seemed like a fair tactic to remain surreptitious in our endeavors. By the time we made it around the mountain, the enemy would most likely have progressed into the Arthu-Ja¡¯an river valley where they would meet the interception force commanded by Blythnin. I estimated that such conflict would provide sufficient enough distraction for us to wreak havoc on their supply line.


    The task of scouting fell to me, for I had the largest assortment of Skills that would be useful to observe our surroundings. The duel with Blythnin, while not resulting in any death, still resulted in a generous portion of Experience Points, so I reinforced what Skills I had to detect threats. In such wilderness untouched by civilization, few dared to dwell, and so my Abilities to detect sentient life within about a mile of me would not instantly overload me with too much information. Naturally, some adversaries would have Abilities to counter my attempts at Divination, most notably enemy scouts, so caution was still advised. We advanced swiftly and silently in our wagon while I applied Abilities to detect threats in different mediums. Thermal imaging, echolocation, enhanced hearing and vision, remote scrying, something like radar but for people actively using magic, and many more techniques were employed. Such would exhaust most people, and indeed only Platinum Adventurers or their civilian equivalents who specialized in such a role would be able to keep it up all day, but I managed just fine.


    Similarly, I also had the role of providing concealment. For all the means that I knew to detect enemies, I also had Skills to obfuscate such techniques if employed by our adversary. That left little for everyone in the wagon to do, and so I had them link with me to transmit their own mana into me for a little extra juice to essentially overclock the potency and range of my Skills, careful to ensure I left everyone else perfectly stable as to their natural rates of mana generation. Gulfore facilitated that little trick, but its efficiency would decrease over time. I had no real way of knowing if any of my concealment attempts were working, at least for a time, for we saw no one until just after sundown.


    I instructed Bellwright to bring us as close as we dared on the uphill side to these unknown interlopers. We dismounted, and I gave instructions for everyone to prepare themselves for combat. Gulfore layered on a respectable yet conservative number of utility Skills to strengthen and protect us, while additionally creating a communication link between us all. With but the quietest of whispers, we would be able to talk to each over a generous range without all but the keenest of observers being able to listen in. I commanded Garro and Rarro to stay in reserve to support anyone that became overrun, not that I expected that to happen, but I did not want their actions to result in half the realm knowing where we were by virtue of destructive explosions.


    Skull and I led from the front. Despite her full plate armor, she made no sound, and even I could barely see her as some manner of darkness shrouded her. I wouldn¡¯t say it was optical in nature like the shadows I summoned, but looking at her made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as if I were looking at that-which-should-not-be. Essentially, it was not that I could not see her, but my mind did not want to acknowledge her existence as if she were some unnatural and horrific stain upon reality. Bellwright hovered along behind us on a floating disc, tugging along a similar disc on which stood Gulfore who appeared to be in some sort of trance as she did whatever it is that she does best.


    A group of eight individuals moved as best they could in the forested terrain near the base of the mountain. From where we watched, they were about half again the distance an arrow could accurately hit. They wove their way through the trees and around boulders at a measured and steady pace, none breaking formation with two in front, four in the middle, and two in the rear, each about a stone¡¯s throw from the other. I reached out with my senses to observe them carefully. I had several Skills at my disposal to appraise their Abilities, equipment, and general proficiencies with each.


    ¡°Listen up, team,¡± I whispered as quietly as I could, which was more than enough for everyone to hear. ¡°By my estimates, the one in the back right is their leader, or at least the most seasoned among them. When I give the order, I want Skull to neutralize him first. We are not here to take prisoners, but be silent and efficient in your work. You will have plenty of time to impress me with the full extent of your skills in the days to come, so right now I want you to focus on impressing me by following orders and staying in formation. All members sound off to confirm.¡±


    In the predetermined order we had specified, each member of the team responded with an acknowledgement. I proceeded to give specific instructions for how we would attack. On the signal, which would be as Gulfore deployed her various barriers around us, Skull would cut down their leader, while Bellwright would warp the terrain to box them in while leaving the uphill side unmolested by his handiwork. I would simultaneously take out the one closest to us. Gulfore would deploy a barrier to block sound, light, and magical forms of communication from leaving the field so that we could murder with a degree of privacy like civilized people. Garro and Rarro would pick off any enemy who retreated or strayed too far from us. Skull and I would engage the enemy directly after our alpha strike, and I felt more than confident that our opponents would be completely outclassed by our elite group.


    Giving the signal to advance, I watched as Skull planted the tip of her blade in on the ground before her, and, gripping the hilt in both hands, a ghost of her flew out into the night, hovering just off the ground. Black as the darkest pits, that specter drifted down the hill and behind the enemy completely undetected. At least, I assumed as much, for it looked like the stuff of nightmares, as if thousands of trapped souls silently screamed for release on the edge of the ghost¡¯s form as it stalked the night. I could only imagine cries of terror would fill the night had the enemy witnessed it, so Skull¡¯s efforts at stealth met my expectations. Upon reaching her position, the ghost disappeared, as did Skull¡¯s physical body, only for her body to appear where the ghost had been. Equally impressed and disturbed, I did not stand around to gawk at it like a cow staring at a new gate, for that whole time I had been making my way down the hill while shrouded in shadow, my feet only touching down with the lightest of steps as I nearly levitated over the earth.


    I gave the signal to attack, and Skull¡¯s blade immediately swept in a wide arc into the night, completely missing everyone, for she was still ten paces from her target. Confused, but trusting that she knew what she was doing, I struck down from above on the poor soul before me, burying my dirk deep into his body at an angle between his shoulder and neck. Skull rushed forward, and ignoring the commander, she charged downhill at the furthest individual, cleaving him in two with a horizontal swing. In that same instant that she moved to do so, a shadow of her rushed the commander, and following the exact same sweep from her blade as performed earlier, it cleaved him in two. And so, in her opening attack, two enemies far apart were felled from the same attack and by the same person, their torsos racing to see which could meet the ground first. For those of you that care, the enemy down the hill won that contest, but only because his top half landed on a boulder before toppling off onto the ground.


    Before I even hit the ground, a ring of mud and vines rose from the earth to box our remaining enemies in, with said vines shooting out from it to ensnare our enemies in their thorny embrace. The two enemies up front immediately disappeared to avoid such entrapment, only to reappear just barely on the other side of the enclosure, apparently by virtue of some means of short range and rapid teleportation. My physical eyes may have been busy with the task at hand, but through remote scrying Skills, I beheld their demise. They managed no more than three paces before a giant beam of energy raked the landscape, its thickness easily twice the height of a man. I could see a clean cut, all the way back to the twins, as if everything in between those two points had crisply been disintegrated to molecular precision. Indeed, it scoured a trench into the earth, a wound that would likely never fully heal as it became an instant and permanent addition to the landscape. I had rather hoped our escapades would not require us to redraw maps, but the twins apparently held no such convictions. Even from here I could smell the sweet and pungent scent of ozone, with the air positively charged with something electric. I mean, the air certainly felt as though it possessed some sort of electric charge, but I don¡¯t know if it is positive or negative because I am not some pedantic nerd.


    The three remaining enemies panicked and struggled to draw weapons as each sought only to fend for himself. Their bodies ensnared by vines, they remained helpless as Skull and I finished them off. The back left one pleaded for his life, but he found no mercy except for the swift death levied by my blade buried deep into his skull. They made the choice to invade us, so I gave no quarter, but that did not mean I wanted them to suffer needlessly. I honestly do enjoy the thrill of a good fight, but this one was hardly fair or challenging. The poor lad was no older than I, and yet I cut him down just the same, angry that he would never taste the sweet pleasures of life because some rich bastards far away craved wealth and power beyond the bounty they already possessed. I knew not if he was conscripted or a soldier of fortune, but I promised myself that I would see the same sealing of fates visited upon his masters some day.


    ¡°Excellent work, team. That was a textbook execution of an ambush. Is anyone injured?¡± I highly doubted it but I needed to get in the habit of asking. Each team member reported that they were fine, so I focused on expanding my senses around the general area with an especially strong pulse of Detection magic to see if we had been noticed. Finding no witnesses, I ordered an inspection and looting of the bodies.


    I watched as Skull knelt down over the bodies of the two ensnared individuals she had executed. She brought their heads up to her own, and touching their foreheads to where her forehead would be under her helmet, she paused like that for each in turn before standing again. As if sensing my unspoken inquiry to such a bizarre ritual, she whispered to me an answer.


    ¡°The Dark god, Gulthar, is my patron. These men died in terror, and in doing so, they foolishly unlocked the mysteries held within their minds for me to view. I caught glimpses of who they feared or what they feared to lose.¡± She hoisted her sword in one hand up onto one shoulder as she continued, apparently feeling rather relaxed about the whole ordeal. ¡°Most of it is boring stuff about their families or lovers, but their commanding officer scares them. These men were indeed scouts, and they were expected to bring back results, not excuses. They knew of no others sent to scout in this direction, but that does not mean that other officers did not send their own patrols this way.¡±


    I found myself impressed by her reflection on such a possibility. I gained renewed respect for her, for I had underestimated her as a bit of a meathead, but she proved that cleverness had not forsaken her. I was familiar with Gulthar academically. In this sense, ¡®Dark¡¯ referred to a pantheon of gods in a spectrum of Dark to Light, and those gods that did not exactly care for matters of good and evil. Gulthar is a god of Fear, and of overcoming Fear with Courage, and as such he bestows powers themed to that portfolio upon worthy followers. All the gods in that pantheon have a theme of some concept and its opposite or counter, but outside of clergy, I knew of few mortals who were specifically devoted to any such god, as most people only seek out the favor of a god for a specific purpose when it should arise.


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    ¡°A useful Skill.¡± I noted with sincere approval, ¡°I hope it does not, like, damage their soul or their journey to the afterlife.¡±


    Skull let out a hearty laugh at that. ¡°No such thing, as far as I know. This isn¡¯t something foul like most Necromancy. It is no more morally good or evil than if I had done something similar for a god who cared about their hopes and dreams or what they desired to protect. It probably doesn¡¯t matter which god in the pantheon one follows, I am sure all could get similar results through Divination if the practitioner were creative enough.¡± She paused for a moment, then shrugged. ¡°I just like Gulthar because I want to be fearless and he has that brooding bad boy vibe, you feel?¡± She approached me and placed her free hand on my shoulder. ¡°And I am truly fearless, like, literally incapable of feeling fear, but that does not mean I am reckless, as Gulthar despises such overconfidence. I will wade headlong into any fight for you that I think I can win, but I won¡¯t march to my death.¡± Her helmet made it difficult to truly read her expression, but I sensed no veiled threat from that last comment, merely a statement of fact as to what I could expect from her.


    ¡°And I am glad to have you by my side,¡± I replied as I placed my hand on hers. ¡°If you do happen to find yourself marching to your death, I will be right there with you, for I would never abandon any of you.¡±


    ¡°Good to know,¡± she said as she started to walk off to join the others. ¡°Gulthar suffers not the coward, and neither do I, but I see you are not one.¡± I knew not if she said such to be polite or if she could literally detect such a nature in people, so I remained cautiously respectful of what she could bring to bear.


    I had Bellwright restore the earth back to what it was before his impromptu terraforming, although the aftermath of the destruction brought forth by the twins would not be so easily remedied. I took all the gathered loot into my pocket dimension, promising to divvy up the spoils fairly when the war was over. Not that these scouts had anything extraordinary, but I did not want everyone bogged down by extra baggage. No one objected, and if anything, they seemed delighted that I had volunteered to be a pack mule. I continued our advance, for I wanted to at least make it around the mountain to see the enemy camp before we made our own.


    We resumed our journey with no more fanfare than if we had stopped to take a leak. We made good time, and by perhaps an hour after midnight, we found a suitable vantage point to observe the tail end of the enemy forces. Like a long serpent made of tents and campfires, the enemy army made their sprawling camp in the valley below. They did not form an organized grid, no doubt because the forest they found themselves in prevented such structure, but the fancier tents were certainly grouped together in what was probably the center, as the mountainside obstructed our view of the front of the formation.


    ¡°Skull, with me,¡± I commanded after finishing my initial observation. ¡°The rest of you, make camp. We should be back soon. I only need to sleep about two hours a night, so I only need one person to take the first watch. Sort that out amongst yourselves.¡±


    Skull and I advanced up the mountain, then continued around so that we would have a full view of the enemy camp. They had made it two thirds of the way across the Arthu river, for which the valley was named. The literal translation is ¡®river valley¡¯, so ¡®Arthu-Ja¡¯an river valley¡¯, as it is called, is rather redundant. I suspect some linguistic snafu back in the day when natives told explorers the words for ¡®river¡¯ and ¡®valley¡¯, and said explorers just nodded while jotting it down before continuing on their merry way without considering the true meaning of things. History lesson aside, the army would certainly be well across by next nightfall, so we just had to ensure we paced ourselves so that we did not bump into their rear guard.


    ¡°I sense fear, and overconfidence,¡± said Skull as she gazed down upon the valley below. ¡°The people on the edges are almost terrified, and from what I can feel, they are the fresher and younger troops. The ones in the middle must be the officers, judging by their tents, and they have no fear at all for the war to come, but not because they are brave, for few among them seem to express that emotion.¡±


    ¡°Then we shall have to educate them about things that go bump in the night,¡± I replied with a grin.


    ¡°Indeed, Gulthar shall sort them all, the wanting from the sufficient, for I will offer them all unto him to be tested.¡± I could almost feel the smile that she wore under her helmet, and her aura radiated excited anticipation like a kid before Winter¡¯s Givings. ¡°I will cut down the unworthy, but those who steel their resolve to face me will only have overcome the first of many obstacles to best me.¡±


    ¡°You must really love to fight,¡± I said back, hoping to prompt a deeper response.


    ¡°There is no better church in which to commune with my god,¡± she said as she slapped me on the back lightly. ¡°Don¡¯t confuse him with a god of war or bloodshed, for he does not explicitly desire such things, but rather that one face and master one¡¯s fears. I have yet to find a better place to inspire such a feat.¡±


    ¡°Neither have I. I hope to do a lot of ¡®inspiring¡¯ tomorrow, but I¡¯m sure you will be doing the lion¡¯s share of that, for even as I watch you fight, I almost feel afraid, and I am your ally.¡±


    ¡°Perks of following a god of Fear,¡± she said, and I am pretty sure I caught a glimpse of a wink behind her helmet. ¡°I am a badass bitch that strikes terror in the hearts of men and monsters alike, and while some of that is from my intimidating prowess,¡± she said as she flexed a little, ¡°most of that is supernatural in origin by virtue of my Blessing. My Abilities do discern friend from foe, but I am not surprised it still impacts all of you to some degree. No one is perfect,¡± she finished flatly with a shrug. I knew not if she meant her Ability was not perfect at not impacting allies or if we were not perfect at resisting fear or at considering her to be a true ally. Perhaps the difference is trivial, but it matters to me mechanically. I did however let it go for some other time.


    We made our way back to camp, which quite frankly, we could not find. We looked all over the place we had left, which I was rather confident we had returned to, but simply no sign of a camp was to be found.


    ¡°Psst, over here,¡± came a disembodied voice, for I saw no one.


    I headed in the direction indicated, and the air shimmered briefly before I passed through some sort of magical bubble. Inside stood Bellwright, and all else to be seen was a little hut with a cloth draping for a door.


    ¡°Everyone else is inside,¡± he said as he pointed over his shoulder with a thumb.


    I simply nodded in acceptance while wondering how everyone could fit in such a ridiculously tiny place. I had suspicions that all was not as it seemed, for the hut was not even as wide across as it was tall. Upon entering the hut, I found myself in a tavern of sorts. The rest of the crew sat around a fireplace where they ate dinner while sharing stories of past adventures, all appearing to be in good spirits. A very pleasant aroma of a hearty soup wafted my way, and now realizing that I was indeed more than a bit peckish, I joined them.


    Skull likewise tarried not, and upon her removing her helmet, I saw her face for the first time. I don¡¯t know what I expected, but she had long black hair, pale skin, and fair features. She looked to be perhaps in her late twenties, but since she was in the socioeconomic class that could afford good quality rejuvenation treatments to stem the tide of aging, she could have easily been twice that. Her face in no way appeared intimidating, but anyone who saw her in action like I had knew there was reason to fear her. She laughed easily and joined the others rather normally. I guess I had expected someone devoted to a Dark god to be more gloomy or dour, but perhaps that was but an ill-conceived notion on my part.


    ¡°So, boss, you two get a good look at the enemy, or did you sneak off to get it on?¡± asked Garro.


    ¡°Yeah, were you looking at the enemy camp or each other¡¯s naked bodies in the moonlight,¡± chimed in Rarro.


    Clearly they were busting my chops, as was the nature of Adventurers, if not most people when in the company of friends. Adventurers tend to be quicker at being overly familiar with people as it takes too long to form conventional bonds when the key occupational hazard resulted in death.


    ¡°I¡¯m sure if that''s what she wanted, she would have no problem doing it right here in front of everyone,¡± I remarked casually as I reached for a bowl of soup. ¡°She¡¯s got moxie, so I don¡¯t think there was a need to sneak off. But yes, we did get a view of the enemy camp.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s true,¡± Skull said as she helped herself as well. ¡°You participate in enough orgies, you get over any shyness for that sort of stuff.¡±


    The twins looked at each other and then at her, each not sure if she was messing with them or not. They grinned and laughed, and then everyone joined in, apparently satisfied with the humor and that I didn¡¯t throw a tantrum at their jabs.


    Stories were shared as I ate my fill, and while I would have loved to listen, I decided it prudent to get to bed quickly so as to relieve Bellwright who was on watch. There were several rooms upstairs, each on par for what one would expect of a good quality tavern, complete with a large wash bin fit enough to bathe in. I fell asleep almost instantly once I situated myself in bed, and not because I was especially tired. I suspect that some convenient magic was at play to help ensure I did not waste time tossing and turning. I woke up two hours later by my estimate, and after cleaning myself up in the wash bin, I went outside in short order. Gulfore was on watch, and she simply nodded as I relieved her.


    I stayed within the illusory bubble, for while I could see out of it just fine, the camp was completely hidden when viewed from the outside as if both the hut and I simply were not here. Nothing of note happened on my watch, and I let everyone know to sleep in as I wanted everyone well rested and we had time to spare before we could make our approach. Slowly, lights below in the valley extinguished with the coming dawn as tents were packed away. The army broke camp to the sounding of horns and the beating of drums, and gradually it began to crawl forward as it was funneled by the two bridges and the terrain of the valley in general.


    Nothing of note happened, aside from me reporting our progress to headquarters by virtue of a magic book I had been given. My words appear in its twin, and so two-way communication could be conducted over a vast distance with ease.


    I only received brief reports of how the other fronts fared, for no one had yet reported back, and so all evidence available to headquarters had been from their own observations. Apparently things were going about as well as could be expected, with the invaders having to fight for every inch of ground that we had no intention of holding, slowing the enemy advance considerably. I hoped such would continue, but it appeared the enemy was keeping their heavy hitters in reserve until our forces tired. Tomorrow would prove to be bloody if such were true.

 Chapter 21

    ¡°Morning,¡± greeted Bellwright as he plopped down beside me on my lookout perch. He held a bowl of soup in one hand, and with the other he offered a bowl for me. I considered that perhaps not all of today would be war and gore as he sat down besides me for breakfast.


    ¡°My thanks, Bellwright,¡± I replied back as I accepted the offered bowl. ¡°Some of those down there seem like they could not pour water out of a boot if instructions were printed on the heel,¡± I commented as we both looked down upon the enemy. Some of the enemy host were but inexperienced levies, untrained in the ways of war, and it showed in how long they took to form up and get into good marching order.


    ¡°Those instructions would only help if they could read,¡± said Bellwright as he stroked his well-groomed mustache while he idly chuckled at his own joke.


    I smiled in turn, appreciating his contribution to the assessment of the enemy. ¡°I have a strong academic knowledge of our adversary and their culture, but I am significantly lacking in any practical experience about them and how well they can fight. Would you be able to enlighten me?¡±


    I set the bait before him, showing my own ignorance and providing him with an opportunity to show the prowess of his worldly experience. He puffed right up at that, unable to resist the temptation.


    ¡°Why yes, I would be able to point out a few finer details. I¡¯ve been in a war or two myself, but not with Ulsfarh troops, mind you.¡± I watched as his demeanor shifted, like that of a grandfather lecturing a gaggle of children on a field trip. ¡°Surely, each of them has a Blessing, but not all of them are well-suited to warfare. Beyond that, it would be impossible to manage an army if everyone had completely different Skills. Like all armies, they would have a need for military doctrine as to what types of troops they field and what Abilities must be mastered to be part of those troop types.¡±


    ¡°And what types of troops do they have, and how would they differ from Adventurers?¡±


    ¡°They don¡¯t have ratings the same way we do, which, as you know, are not merely cosmetic in nature. Our ratings, from Copper to Diamond, actually help unlock or foster latent talents within our Blessing.¡± He paused to make sure I was paying attention, which to my credit I was listening intently. ¡°An army would go bankrupt trying to evaluate all their troops like that, and so only their elite troops will have any sort of rating in that sense. Mechanically, a unit as a whole will have a rating, with sergeants and officers having slightly higher ratings, with their system having more tiers to it than ours. Ergo, as long as you meet the requirements of the unit, you have the perks provided by the unit, which tend to be stronger if they are in range of their banners.¡± He pointed out to the valley below us. ¡°And so, take out the men holding the banners, and the army will weaken, bereft of such boons that they depend upon to function as a whole.¡±


    ¡°And how can they afford to train everyone to meet the requirements of a unit?¡± I asked, for none of this was covered in my books on warfare. ¡°I know one can learn techniques and spells outside of one¡¯s Blessing, but those tend to be slower to activate and weaker, oftentimes requiring incantations or weaving hand signs, where those same Abilities as granted by a Skill do not.¡±


    ¡°Now that is a valid question,¡± Bellwright continued as he sized me up, looking as if he were trying to assess how far my training went so as to not tell me what I already knew. ¡°Most start out as fresh recruits, and those banners focus on easing the difficulty of those under it to train and to learn doctrine Abilities. Those who show an aptitude one way or another are later sent to more specialized units once they learn the basic requirements for the banner. The tougher the requirements, the stronger the benefit of the banner. And so, they rise from lesser banners to greater ones, each one along the way meant to teach that which is required to advance. They can learn and develop far faster than we Adventurers, but their ceiling is notably lower. The banners somewhat oppress their Blessings, usurping their power and using it to fuel the banner, which then boosts everyone under that banner.


    ¡°This means that the war cannot be allowed to continue to great length.¡± He paused as he held up his right index finger for emphasis. ¡°Levies, conscripted en masse, with ill-fitting armor, cheap spears, and small shields shoved their way, make up half of their host. They work great at tiring out our own troops, even though they will take massive casualties. However, those that survive a battle or two will qualify for a stronger banner, and even though their numbers dwindle, so long as their casualties are not too high, their effective strength remains the same. They may not be able to hold as much territory, but eventually the density of power across what troops remain will be enough to punch a hole into our city.¡±


    ¡°That is a disgusting way to wage war, to throw so many lives into the meat grinder,¡± I protested.


    ¡°Yet effective,¡± the gnome responded with a wicked grin. ¡°This is one of many ugly truths of war that fails to make it into textbooks. Their nobles care little for lives of troops, only for results, so long as they are not so callous as to provoke mutiny or desertions. And for the levies themselves, the opportunity to advance out of poverty is too good to pass up, and so each gambles with his or her own life. Tack on their devoutly religious culture and government, and each is emboldened that what they do is the will of the gods.¡±


    I pondered his meaning and the implications. I am not sure if I would object so strongly if all I had to look forward to in life was each day being a struggle to fill my belly. Ulsfarh was a theocracy to a strict pantheon of gods, all other gods being deemed heretical. To go against the will of the state would not only be treasonous but also heretical, damning to one in both life and death, at least as far as the people believed. People, like water, took the path of least resistance, and storming enemy ramparts sounded more promising than swinging from the gallows for failure to muster when conscripted.


    ¡°So how do we win? Could they not just make more banners if we destroy them?¡±


    ¡°That is the tricky part, for there is no clear answer. Every war unfolds differently and each general has their own strategy to deal with it. The banners themselves are fairly cheap and help daisy-chain the boon to the unit, but there is one standard in particular to each unit and the army as a whole that matters. The aquilifers are the troops that hold the standards, which are extremely expensive to replace, and even then, the unit would be significantly less powerful in the meantime. Destroying those standards is of prime strategic value in any battle, but capturing them is far better. In addition to shaming them and crippling their morale, we could then use it to amplify our own banners while theirs cease to function.¡±


    ¡°I imagine that to be a feat easier said than done.¡±


    ¡°Indeed, that is so. Standards function best when they are located in the center of the unit, so it isn¡¯t like they could park them on a hill somewhere and have a chain of banners to pass the benefit to the troops. Their most elite troops and defensive wards will be located around the standard, and you would pretty much have to surround a unit to force a surrender or find someone crazy enough to claw their way to the center and take it.¡± He let out a long sigh at that, his eyes glancing up as if he were looking at the ghosts of his past. ¡°I have lost friends that way, ones who thought they were good enough to survive that gauntlet. It is a foolhardy venture, so I would advise against it.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m guessing then that ¡®capture the flag¡¯ is more than just a war game for training.¡±


    ¡°In that you are correct, although that is normally done with defensive structures holding the flag. Such a fortification amplifies the range of an attuned standard, but as a general rule, fortresses cannot move. In that sense, our own defensive troops at the city proper have an advantage of range, and our standards need not be risked upon the field, provided we do not chase them too far from our walls.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t have a good sense of scale in this. Could we six take a banner, and if so, under what conditions?¡±


    Bellwright pondered for this a moment, looking at me dubiously as he formulated an answer. ¡°I think we could steal a standard from a division of no more than five hundred men, where they were at best the rank and file troops above levies. We would have to catch them by surprise and take it from a fortification, as taking on such a force in the field would be foolhardy without some clear advantage to our favor. They will have elite troops grossly overqualified for their unit, and their whole purpose will be to endure our assault and to protect the standard. If we lost momentum while surrounded by their host and failed to take the standard in the first exchange, they would overpower us with an active and powerful surge from the standard for its defense. It would be brief, but during that exchange, each of those elite troops would be able to take on a Platinum Adventurer. Hence why I suggest we do not pursue that course of action.¡±


    We sat together in silence for a while as I considered all he had said. Our primary objective was to take out the bridges and disrupt supply lines. If an opportunity should arise such that we could steal a standard, I would consider it.


    ¡°Any advice on taking out these bridges? I know they, like most key infrastructure, are warded to The Hells and back to safeguard against brute force and structural fatigue, but surely they have some sort of weakness.¡± I had the beginnings of a plan, but I wanted more input before I proposed it to the group.


    Bellwright pondered this a moment as he stroked his mustache, musing over different approaches to the problem. ¡°Well, the southern bridge is older, smaller, weaker on wards, and less traveled. It fell out of favor when the northern bridge was built. I feel confident we could smash it in good order, but then the enemy would surely know we are here. The northern bridge is the main thoroughfare. That one dwarfs the southern bridge and would have maintenance areas to access the wards. If we can get to those and disable them, the bridge could be destroyed.¡±


    ¡°What options do we have for exfiltration?¡± I cautiously tailored my tone so as to not be offensive as I made my point. ¡°The wagon is good and all, but I suspect it is a little slow when it comes to leaving a battlefield.¡±


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    ¡°No denying that,¡± replied Bellwright seemingly without any offense taken. ¡°It is quiet and it eludes the eye from a distance. I have faster but admittedly far from subtle vessels to get us out of there, don¡¯t you worry.¡±


    ¡°It seems like the trick will be getting from one bridge to the next quickly and undetected.¡± I pointed in the direction of the river. ¡°Do you have anything that is fast and quiet that can travel the distance between the bridges, which looks to be half a day by conventional wagon? And would you then have enough mana left for our ride out?¡±


    ¡°Not by myself, but if Gulfore helps out on making our little escapades discreet, I could manage that. I won¡¯t have enough left in me for any grand workings for battlefield control though, so you lot will need to be quick about destroying the bridge.¡±


    I nodded in understanding as I looked out below. Long marching columns of troops sluggishly snaked their way through the countryside to form up on the road. With any luck, today would be the first day of true harassment from Blythnin and her forces. Only the vanguards of each force had duked it out yesterday, but now both forces in full would be trading blows. They had superior numbers, but approaching us in an attack formation would grind their march down to a snail¡¯s pace. Sticking to the road in a marching column would make their numerical superiority useless, especially if Blythnin could unleash her fortress upon them like she used during our duel. That would turn into a meat grinder heavily in our favor, as her clones would not count among our casualties.


    We sat there together, each alone to his own private thoughts, contemplating the day to come. It isn¡¯t brooding if you are that close together, even if you do have an impressive perch to look down upon the world. I had an idea in mind, one crazy enough it just might work, but it hinged on everyone else being able to handle the roles I had in mind for them.


    As the sun inched higher into the sky, the rest of the party made their way to the two of us. First came the twins, each grinning like they had just lifted a coin purse off a fat noble without getting caught. I predicted some headache would come from that, but I decided not to press them as to the cause of their fine moods. Skull came next, already in her full armor with helmet on, despite our relative safety. Perhaps she possessed healthy paranoia that did not count as fear or experience taught her the value of always being armed to the gills. Gulfore came last, performing a short ritual to pack up our campsite.


    ¡°So, I have a plan, and I think some of you may actually like it,¡± I said to those assembled.


    ¡°Will it involve gratuitous violence,¡± asked Rarro.


    ¡°Yeah, will we get to blow stuff up, ¡° asked Garro.


    I contemplated their requests with exaggerated expressions, my hand stroking my chin as I looked upwards in thought. ¡°Hmm, probably, unless they decide to pack up and go home.¡±


    The twins shared a look with one another, their grins widening. ¡°You son of a bitch, I¡¯m in,¡± they replied in unison.


    Well, at least half of us were on board, that just left the rest.


    ¡°You two will destroy the southern bridge. That will be our opening move. Gulfore will do what she can to amplify whatever explosive spell you two have in mind while also working to keep our approach and retreat quiet.¡± I turned to Gulfore for approval, and she nodded once in confirmation. ¡°Bellwright will be our ride north to the other bridge, which we will try to get to as quickly as possible without fighting anyone at the southern bridge. This will be taxing upon him, so we cannot expect much from him in any fight. I want Skull to be the bodyguard of the twins, who should work to disable the wards on the bridge. I should be able to take out that bridge, and I have a few tricks up my sleeve that should keep the enemy busy while we wait for the wards to come down. Then Bellwright gets us out of there and we rendezvous back here. Any questions, comments, or concerns?¡±


    Garro raised his hand as high as he could like an over-eager child in school who wanted to impress a teacher with a correct answer to a difficult question. ¡°Ooh-ooh, pick me, pick me!¡±


    ¡°Yes, Garro,¡± I said flatly, expecting something cheeky to follow.


    ¡°What do we do when this whole plan falls apart because of some unforeseen circumstance?¡± He giggled like the cretin he was, while his cohort twin joined in.


    ¡°The same thing we Adventurers always do,¡± I said with a sigh. ¡°We improvise and murder everything in our way.¡±


    That got amused smiles and a few laughs from the group, and so our foolproof plan that could not possibly go wrong was set in motion.


    <hr>


    Beads of sweat formed on Gulfore¡¯s brow as she concentrated on her workings. A bubble enveloped the six of us huddled on our perch above the southern bridge. Bellwright had brought us in nice and quiet-like, and the guards below had not yet detected the mass of arcane power collecting to the twins.


    Not that I expected us to be found out by this point. I am something of an expert of magical traps by now, and what few I had seen on our approach were laughably weak and obvious. A drunk ogre could have stumbled his way through without hitting one. The troops below numbered about two-hundred, and while some were standing sentry, most were lounging around behind flimsy chevaux-de-frise, or wooden spike fences for the rank and file who probably never heard such fancy words before. Certainly, no one had decided that sending out patrols would have been a good idea on account that we encountered none.


    A sergeant shouted his lungs out at some poor recruit who must have had something wrong with his belt and scabbard as he fumbled with said equipment. The poor bastard¡¯s day was about to go from bad to worse, as most eyes and ears were keen to bear witness to such a browbeating instead of, oh, I don¡¯t know, an unexpected attack that would wipe them off the map.


    The unwitting distraction contributed a great boon to our cause, for while the poor trooper below was fumbling for his sword that he dropped upon the ground, much to the ire of his sergeant, a great runed circle appeared in the sky about a hundred feet above the bridges. The twins were putting their back into this working, each one sweating profusely and with limbs trembling as they channeled more power into their craft.


    The men below slowly began to notice, with the sergeant being one of the last as he slowly caught on that something was not right with the reaction his troop had taken to the offered discipline. Most men stared at it in wonder. Some ran away, while one complete idiot ran onto the bridge, directly below the circle, while holding up his spear and jabbing it into the sky impotently.


    The sky crackled with energy as a harsh downdraft of wind stormed down upon the area, sending tents and other supplies flying. Men panicked as what few [Mages] they had with them hastened to a ritual to counter the working of the twins. Too little too late, for not even the twins could hold back what was to come, not they would ever feel inclined to withhold destruction.


    The runed circle in the sky sputtered, and then disappeared. For a heartbeat, the men below looked relieved. Then horror erased all hope, as the sky shattered, a great void tearing into reality and expelling malevolent energy straight down. A writhing column of purple and black energy smashed into the bridge in its entirety. I know not for sure what fate befell the brave soul who dared to stand against it, but I feel like his fate was much like that of the bridge: oblivion.


    The spell unleashed lasted perhaps ten seconds, stopping as suddenly as it began, and the sky mended itself as if nothing had ever disturbed the natural order, completely indifferent to the destruction below. A deep cylindrical pit was all that remained while water poured into it. Great plumes of steam rushed outwards from the edge of where the spell hit, and those men caught within that expanding cloud screamed as flesh cooked on their bones.


    We all gazed in awe at such raw destruction. Even the twins seemed cowed by what they had unleashed, their smiles abated while they took in the entirety of what they had wrought.


    ¡°Time to go, ladies and gentlemen,¡± I commanded as I tugged at the twins.


    The camp was in complete disarray, and with our objective complete, we scurried away to the northeast a few hundred yards where we would be out of sight.


    It was Bellwright who took the lead here. ¡°To the river,¡± he exclaimed while pointing in the inescapable direction we should head. He ran that way as fast as his little legs could carry him, the rest of us jogging along to keep pace.


    At the water¡¯s edge, he muttered to himself while he reached for a runed copper rod on his person. Holding it out towards the water, he closed his eyes in concentration while he began his own working. Wisps of magical essence coalesced in the air in front of us, weaving themselves into tendrils that defined shape, an outline of a boat bigger than a gondola but not quite like a knarr. Color poured forth from the edges, giving mass to the form, and once completed, it plopped down a few inches into the water from where it had formed in the air.


    We climbed in, Bellwright seated at the tiller. A smooth and rounded metal box was positioned there, and using the same rod as before, he inserted it into an impression in the box and turned it like a key. Something within roared to life as bidden by its master, the frequency long and the rumble low, much like purring.


    From within his clothes, Bellwright pulled out some goggles and equipped them properly to his person. ¡°Hold on tight,¡± he shouted while he cracked his knuckles. The purring increased in pitch and frequency, and with a sudden jolt we surged forwards, several of us not expecting it and nearly tumbling. Naturally, I myself would not have been caught so flatfooted and did not fall prey to the same folly. However, Skull slamming into me caught me off guard and we both almost ended up sprawled out on the deck.


    Bellwright steered us out to the middle of the river. We traveled at great speed, perhaps on par with what I could accomplish horizontally as a dragon in flight without a boost from taking a dive. I counted ourselves lucky that we did not have to worry about rapids or waterfalls, but I would at least like to think that Bellwright would have chosen a different vehicle had such been the case. However, looking at him, seeing a gleam in his eye and the ear-to-ear smile on his face as we rushed along like a stone skipping on water, I suspected he would have welcomed the challenge.


    I used my sensory Skills to watch ahead for patrols, but none were near enough to the river to detect us. Two miles from the bridge, I had Bellwright cease powering the boat, letting the current take us while Gulfore kept up a barrier to keep us undetected. Only those looking closely at us would see the shimmer of the outline of the bubble of protection she made, but with the way the light caught off the water, most observers would hopefully dismiss it as a trick of the light.


    We coasted up to the middle of the northern bridge where the gap between piers widened a little to give access to the bridge ward control. Bellwright dismissed the boat to conserve mana and to help ensure we were less conspicuous.


    ¡°Right then, you lot rest here a bit while I make my way to shore. I am going to place explosive traps on the bridge and then cause a ruckus in camp.¡± All eyes were on me, much to my satisfaction that no one got distracted or over-eager for mayhem. ¡°Wait until I begin my distraction before you bring the wards down, or every [Mage] around will be on you within minutes. Does everyone understand the plan?¡±


    Nods followed all around, and after smoothing out a few details of how things should go down, I shimmied off the edge and into the water on the upstream side. The current was gentle here, not enough to wash me downstream so long as I didn¡¯t let myself get exhausted. It took me half an hour to make my way near shore, having to pause twice when patrols walked across the bridge. I rested for a few minutes before making my opening move.


    ¡°Alright then, let¡¯s see what you can do.¡±

 Chapter 22

    In the shallows of the ¡®Arthu-Ja¡¯an river, tucked away behind the last pier of its northern bridge along the eastern shore, I called upon a power that I had not used before, mostly because it required, at least at that point in time, an incantation, and I hate those as a matter of principle. At least it didn¡¯t require some fancy language; the common tongue would suffice. It was but a whisper, but power rippled through creation at even such a minor utterance.


    ¡°I invoke the contract that is our bond, and as your master, I command you, come forth and see my mandate made manifest!¡±


    A circle of light appeared above the water, followed by two more a heartbeat later to either side. The light glowed gently within, as if it were a pool of sunlight playfully inviting reality to align with my will. Up from the central and largest circle rose three heads and an upturned belly as The Boys appeared in front of me. Apparently in the middle of getting a belly rub, they keeled over and splashed awkwardly into the water. Stubby legs kicked fervently in the air, but they righted themselves in short order, all heads eagerly attentive to my orders.


    More disturbingly, two Giant Frogs appeared in the other two circles with a noteworthy delay, the beginnings of their appearance starting after The Boys had uprighted themselves. Both were smooth and slender, much like tree frogs, but were so large as to be taller than my own person while in their natural sitting position.


    The first had a black body, but with patterns of red, orange, and yellow that resembled flames going up his legs, lower back, and belly. It too plopped into the water, where it stared at me with an expression I found to be unreadable. The second seemed to be a girl as evidenced by a ribbon tied into a bow that was placed on her head, slightly askew from center. How a frog got ahold of such a ribbon or how it stayed attached would be a mystery for the ages. Not that boys cannot wear ribbons, but I don¡¯t know how progressive Giant Frogs are in that respect. Her body was a maze of purple and green stripes, each having dots of the opposite color within them. On closer inspection, some of those dots were skull and crossbones, which seemed ominous.


    And suddenly, the mystery of the triple cost of that Ability became apparent. It was not that each head of the hydra incurred a cost, but rather that there were three separate creatures I could call upon. I had thought of the Giant Frogs as mere passing companions, ones that would return to their lives, but I had given them names, and names must have borne weight upon their Fate.


    ¡°Boys, Hopper, Ribbette, good to see you all. We are going to hold this bridge and annihilate anyone who dares approach, except for my companions. The Boys will take the lead, you two will cover him. Any questions?¡±


    The frogs unblinking gaze belied their intelligence, for after a few moments, they each raised their front right leg to their head in some appearance of a salute. The Boys nodded eagerly, then turned to wade around the pier and face the shore.


    I released the seal upon the Boys that restricted their size, another thing that I had not done before. I don¡¯t know what I expected, but the sheer size of them baffled me. Three giant and writhing heads appeared to rise up from the waters near the bank of the river as supported by long necks, each easily twice as thick as a man was tall. At their full height, I would guess they stood five or six stories high. With one massive foot waddling up the bank, The Boys lunged forward, their little stub of a tail never leaving the water.


    With great roars that caused terrified men to tremble before them, The Boys launched their opening volley upon the camp. Aristotle breathed forth a continual jet of fire that spread out across the camp, consuming all before it in ravenous flames that melted iron and burned through men and fortifications alike. Plato gave forth short bursts of water, each like a massive drop of rain propelled at high speeds that smashed into the fortifications around the camp. Watch towers shattered like they were made of twigs in the grasp of an angry god while man and beast were crushed or ripped asunder by the overwhelming pressure. Socrates spewed forth a foul black mist that enveloped the land before him. I could not see into the mist, but I saw what was left in its wake: desiccated plants that had withered within seconds, husks of corpses that had been petrified within a few heartbeats, and earth tainted black and bereft of life.


    Hopper leapt onto the shore, and as some brave souls on the flanks rushed our position, he pushed himself down and back like a sprinter preparing for a race. Then, like an arrow loosed, he sprung forward, his body hovering about a foot off the ground as he covered over two hundred feet in almost an instant with a single hop. Bodies flew everywhere as he smashed his way through them, and in his wake, he left a trail of fire twice as tall as a man. I think if I blinked I would have missed it, for he crisscrossed the camp in single bounds with reckless abandon as he wrecked everything before him.


    But the defenders were not so easily routed. Men gathered to banners and the standard came forth. Shieldwalls rose as magical barriers followed behind them. Volleys of fire and lightning fell upon The Boys, each harmlessly absorbed by their black scales. They paid no heed to the attacks, but the attackers themselves were not spared such concern. Even behind their magical defenses, they found no safety, for the three-fold wrath of the Boys descended upon them with unrelenting breath attacks. The barriers held, for a few seconds, and then cracks formed. Cracks gave way to the overwhelming pressure, and like a fox in the henhouse, all were consumed by the barrage from The Boys.


    A cabal of [Mages] near the front gates of the fortification around the bridge were nearing completion of some ritual. Ribbette, whom I had forgotten about during the chaos, seemingly appeared behind them out of thin air. With a great bellow, she croaked out a loud and high pitched attack. The mages clutched at their ears, most falling to the ground in pain as they bled from all observable orifices. Their magical workings dissolved, in part because they no longer focused upon it, but also, as I suspected, because of some property of her sonic attack. Even from where I stood, I felt uncomfortable hearing such a sound, like reality itself rebelled against such an intrusion to the natural order of the universe.


    I guess I expected that we would secure the bridge, valiantly fighting to hold off the enemy long enough for the others to bring down the wards. I thought we would lose ground as we were pushed back on the bridge, doing all we could to buy each precious second before we retreated. I did not expect such annihilation. Of the thousand or so men and women who manned this little fort here at the bridge, maybe one in five had succeeded in fleeing the camp proper. With my extraordinary senses, I simply watched as the frogs chased them down. Ribbette let forth a hail of needles from her mouth, and the men so hit by them died before they could take ten steps due to some deadly poison. Hopper leapt high into the sky above those who retreated, only to smash down with titanic force and sending shockwaves that caused the earth to ripple unnaturally. Men fell as the earth rose up to meet them, and few regained their footing before Hopper landed upon them.


    With the camp secure, The Boys stretched their necks out to grab whatever dead beasts of burden they could reach, careful to never let their tail leave the water. They munched away happily, nonplussed by the carnage around them. I found myself disturbed by what had just happened, myself unbelieving the scale of destruction that my pets were capable of unleashing. I wondered if I had just committed a war crime, that my actions here would have dire political consequences. My mind raced down the implications presented by the worst case scenarios, but the return of Hopper and Ribbette coaxed my wits to return.


    ¡°Did any escape or survive,¡± I asked.


    The frogs sat still for a moment, then turned to look at each other, then back to me. They shook their heads.


    ¡°Good job everyone,¡± I said as I acknowledged that it had definitely been a war crime. ¡°I am so proud of all of you.¡±


    I continued to praise and pet them, the frogs especially enjoying pets on the head both between the eyes and below on the throat. The Boys were just too damn big to do much to pet them, even when they rolled over for some belly rubs. I did jump up and onto their belly for said rubs, which they appreciated.


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    Satisfied that I praised them enough, I returned to the ground. I applied the size limitation back to The Boys, who shrunk back down to their more manageable form.


    ¡°Oath to order had been called upon, the muster for summons answered, the tribute of labor paid in full. I release you now to your own desires until next I call upon you.¡±


    With that second incantation, I released them back to where they came, for they had only been summoned for a short while and not truly teleported to me. Fatigue washed over me as the last lights of their circles faded, and with shaky steps, I looted what I could of the camp, ensuring I grabbed the standard, before I made my way back to the bridge. I invoked my restorative Abilities to sooth away my fatigue, and while my natural ability to resist such limitations of the flesh was impressive, I knew that my mana was more than half drained from that excursion. It had not even been ten minutes from beginning to end, including the petting, and some thousand souls had departed to the hereafter. I lamented more how draining the experience had been than the loss of life, for they were the invaders who chose to trespass upon the lands I call home, and so they forsook any claim to mercy. By the time I made it halfway back to the others, I felt right as rain.


    Ahead of me on the bridge, Skull was holding back enemies of her own. Twenty men could march abreast in a shieldwall across the bridge, and they had been stalled by one woman. Granted, that was one intimidating woman in bitchin¡¯ black armor with macabre d¨¦cor, but it was still a sight to behold.


    She slashed out at the air in front of her, seemingly wildly and randomly, only for shadows of herself to rush forward and repeat those attacks on the shieldwall, the shadowy blade passing through armor and men alike as if they were made of paper. Dark shadows coalesced around her as each enemy fell, her presence seeming to swell and grow into some dark horror that towered over them, its grin a wicked invitation to terror unabated. Sergeants shouted and blew whistles to keep men in line, but the left flank routed, first one man, and then five more after him.


    With their shieldwall broken, Skull pounced eagerly at the opportunity, charging forward at that opening and cutting down four men in a single swing of her zweih?nder. A shadow of her remained where she had started her charge, and as the enemy tried for a counter attack, she instantly switched places with her shadow doppelganger, which dispersed from the onslaught of their panicked swings.


    Eerie spirits of shadowy smoke oozed out of her form, each one shrieking the shrill cry of a banshee as they darted towards the enemy. They passed through bodies harmlessly, but each person grew more unhinged as terror clawed at the dark corners of their minds. Their advance halted completely as men refused to step towards Skull, their bodies rebelling against the demands of their minds to press forward. More routed with each swing of her blade, and her shadowy presence swelled into a tyrant towering over them, a villain from their worst nightmares made manifest as it cackled callously at the slaughter before it.


    Like a burst dam, the line folded completely, and the panic-fueled rout turned into a mad dash to escape. Men who tripped were trampled by the sudden stampede of terrified soldiers. Some even ran off the bridge and into the water in their haste, their heavy armor dragging them under where their only salvation would be found in death by drowning. A terrible fate, but apparently more appealing than what nightmares their fears had concocted in their minds. By the time I finished walking up to her, only the dead remained of the enemy on the bridge.


    And then, besides the dead, Skull and I were alone on the bridge, the only spectators to the massacre that had occurred only moments before. She turned to face me while removing her helmet, her zweih?nder floating in the air beside her, dark smoke and shadow idly fluctuating all too slowly compared to real fire as it caressed the blade and bathed it in the power of Gulthar. Her long black hair, now unbound by her helmet, tumbled down, and seemingly sorted itself out as if it had been freshly combed. Despite her exertion, not a bead of sweat could be found upon her brow.


    ¡°I could feel it from here,¡± she stated flatly. ¡°The fear, the unbridled terror of men and women fleeing for their lives,¡± she continued with increasing enthusiasm as her hands went to her face like a young maiden glancing at a strapping young lad. ¡°I could feel their horror at the slaughter, the panic as death took hold of them tighter and tighter.¡± By this point her arms had crossed themselves to hug her body just above the hips as she swayed slightly side to side, her face blushing and her voice increasing in speed and excitement. ¡°I could feel Gulthar smiling down upon you as men and women cried out in vain to their gods for salvation, making promises for anything and everything for their lives to be spared.¡± She panted longingly as she looked up as in thought, her imagination running wild as a depraved leer adorned her face. She stepped right up to me, her fingers and thumb gripping my chin as she pulled my head down slightly so we would see each other eye to eye. ¡°I knew coming along with you would see proper sacraments offered to Gulthar.¡± She leaned in, her mouth right by my ear, her hot breath tickling my ear as she whispered.


    ¡°What other delights will we find together before this war ends?¡±


    I felt myself blush. I thought Chooka was daring, but Skull could give her a run for her money when it came to subtle (or less than subtle) advances. Perhaps having no fear at all gave her a leg up for those sorts of things. I had no chance to make a reply, for she turned to the side of the bridge in the span of a heartbeat and took a step to the edge as a pair of small hands and a proportionally small boot appeared on the edge.


    ¡°That was quite the show,¡± exclaimed Bellwrigth loudly for the two of us to hear as he scrambled up over the edge. ¡°For a second there I thought my ex had joined the battle, but I guess that was only your hydra,¡± he continued as he brushed himself off and straightened his clothes. ¡°Still, that beast was massive, what do you feed it?¡±


    My mind was still trying to process everything that had happened, especially with Skull just now, and so it took me a moment to properly respond. ¡°Beasts and monsters from quests, cheese, snacks from vendors, maybe the odd gnome or two,¡± I replied after a short delay.


    ¡°Hmph. I think I know a gnome or two who would be greatly improved by passing through a hydra¡¯s digestive system,¡± he grumbled back. ¡°I could give you names and addresses,¡± he said hopefully with a small grin growing on his face.


    ¡°That won¡¯t be necessary. I can just hang out near a hattery and have my pick of the litter.¡±


    That got a guffaw from Bellwright and a smile from Skull, so I considered that a win.


    ¡°Ain¡¯t it the truth?¡± Bellwright, now that the jokes were over, suddenly took on a more serious expression as he straightened his posture. ¡°The bridge is set for demolition. I guess the twins finally figured it out without any premature detonations. They somehow did some arcane tomfoolery that linked your demolition traps to the other half of the bridge and their own power. Shall we be away then?¡±


    I nodded in assent, and before long, the whole crew was back in the boat. We made our way back upstream, and at about a mile away, Garro got on one knee before Rarro, holding out his hand as if holding a ring box in proposal. Instead of such a thing, a small magic circle appeared in his hand.


    ¡°Would you make me the happiest man in the world,¡± he asked Rarro.


    Rarro, being overly dramatic, put his hands to his face in mock shock. ¡°Oh Garro, yes, yes! Nothing would make me happier¡±, he exclaimed with mock excitement that was a little over the top.


    As Rarro pushed his finger to the circle, all eyes turned to the bridge, where nothing happened. All eyes turned back to the pair, and Rarro pushed a few more times while muttering.


    ¡°I swear this never happens,¡± explained Garro to the group.


    Before we could rag on them too much, a loud pop greeted our ears, the sound coming from the bridge. First one, then a cascade of them as if they went along the bridge from the center and going outwards. After a short pause, the middle pier of the bridge exploded, followed in turn by the rest as pairs continued that pattern from the center and going outwards. The deck of the bridge, now unsupported, tumbled into the water, greeted by a fanfare of crashing waves in celebration of our success.


    ¡°That is some remarkable restraint from you two,¡± commented Skull. ¡°I expected huge explosions, but it looks like you only used as much force as you needed to in order to collapse the bridge. Commendable work,¡± she finished flatly with a faint air of approval.


    The twins both stood and bowed towards all of us like thespians at the conclusion of a play.


    ¡°Thank you, thank you. We could not have done it without the support of our many fans,¡± said Rarro cheekily. ¡°Also, you guys were there too,¡± he continued with a grin.


    That earned the pair a few light punches from everyone nearby, and indeed everyone was laughing. Even the reserved Gulfore cracked a smile at the twins¡¯ antics.


    The rest of the ride was filled with idle chatter, and with nothing of note happening, we made our way back to where we camped the previous night. As night fell, we set up camp there again, and I made reports back to command about our mission. Overall, the day was a solid win that exceeded expectations, which certainly made morale quite high. If only the same could be said for all fronts.

 Chapter 23

    While I sat alone on watch, I took the opportunity to reflect on what had happened. Killing that many armed combatants was lucrative for Experience Points, even though the lion¡¯s share was restricted to Skills for my pets. It was strange how Experience Points worked. Killing a dozen creatures one at a time was not as potent as killing a dozen all together. Perhaps it was because the actual challenge is what mattered. Indeed, going back now to kill Giant Frogs would yield nothing for me even though they had once been most profitable. I observed a noticeable bonus for the fact that I had not just killed many soldiers, but I also wiped out their unit as a whole and captured their standard.


    I could now appreciate why enemy Adventurers would bother joining the military campaign. I am sure few cared about the war as a whole and the politics involved, but getting paid handsomely to sharpen their Skills must have been an alluring prospect. Not that anyone else gained Experience Points like I did. Their system of Blessings, to which mine only paid lip service, was far more abstract. Exercising their Skills in meaningful ways unlocked new Skills or improved existing ones. As such, placing well in a yearly flower competition was just as rewarding to a [Gardener] as a war was to a soldier (and whatever Blessing he or she actually had that was usurped by the standard). By the same vein, growing a good harvest during a famine was exceptional for a [Farmer], even if it took no more effort than would be needed in a year of plenty.


    I came to a crossroad. Well, a figurative one, for I still sat still and kept watch while making my choices. For The Boys, I had a choice to continue them down a route of being a big, bad, scary monster that stomped around and wrecked everything and everyone. It provided them with increased strength and raw power, which would be great for devastating huge areas. The only other available route made them smaller in size, but quicker, more cunning, and more refined and flexible in what they could do both in and outside a fight. Considering they were already larger than most buildings and perhaps not even fully grown, I decided the first option was a poor choice. Their mother was much larger than I was, but I was too nimble for her to deal with, and I did not want The Boys to face the same fate.


    I decided to skip over the first path, [Evolve Hydra - Tyrant of Desolation], and picked the second one, [Evolve Hydra - Master of Many]. From the description, it suggested that each head of the hydra would earn Skills in a different area of expertise, and thus as more heads were gained, entire new Skill sets would be available to them. It was the slower route that paid a bigger return on investment, and considering I was not living in a dangerous world (sans the current war), it seemed to fit my needs. Plus, The Boys would like it, for large and scary monsters do not get offered much in the way of snacks or belly rubs from the general masses of a city.


    Plato, the leader, unlocked a myriad of Skills for water magic, which certainly matched the breath attacks he had used in the fight. He also no longer needed to keep his tail in a body of water to fuel his Skills, which I had suspected was perhaps an issue, but also apparently no longer one. Socrates, ever cautious and inquisitive, gained a plethora of poison spells. More importantly, he provided protection against such things, and considering all the mediums of delivery and the various types of poisons in the world, that would undoubtedly become an important asset. Aristotle, my reckless and shy bundle of joy, was all about fire. It remained his first and last problem solving tool when startled. While not great at actually stopping things from getting to him if they were already in motion, it would provide a deterrent to anything more clever than a boulder chucked his way.


    With what other Experience Points I had to spend on them, I shored up their defenses and stamina. I figured they could win a slugfest if it were drawn out, so I wanted them capable of weathering the storm. I also focused on Skills to help their coordination and general wisdom. They may not be performing complex math calculations any time soon, but they would at least have more than just base instinct to rely upon when assessing and responding to threats. In part, they could even tap into some of my own wisdom, and so if I had faced a particular creature in the past, they would know what strategies those creatures used. Or put another way, some of the benefits of my [Deeds] applied to them. Overall, while their size had decreased, they were now tougher than a brick shithouse with a hefty arsenal of tools to utilize for ¡°conflict resolution¡±.


    For my beloved Giant Frogs, they each had a few ways to go for advancement in their innate Blessing of [Giant Frog]. I rejected ones like [Speed Demon], [Rock Hopper], [Froggy Longlegs] (which was nightmare fuel), and [Bullfrog Dozer] for Hopper. They all felt to be way too specialized and a bit comical for my tastes. Similarly, Ribbette had options like [Tea Frog], which focused on poison through prepared drinks, [Licker of Death], which focused on licking things and being licked to transfer poisons, and [Tadpole Patroller], which focused on using offspring to deliver poisons as well as Abilities to aid in scouting. Perhaps whatever system governed Blessings was having a lark at my expense.


    However, I found an interesting matchup for them both that seemed to fit thematically while also providing small bonuses to each other because they matched. I chose [Kaeru Kenshi] for Hopper and [Kiri No Kaeru] for Ribette. I only vaguely understood what they meant, like I heard them in passing, and even then, my memory could just be wrong. I am pretty sure they were meant to mean ¡°Frog Swordsman¡± and ¡°Frog of Fog¡± respectively, but my vague knowledge of languages from other lifetimes was not very solid in those days, and my Skills reflected what I knew.


    These changes were both cosmetic and functional to their form, but additionally, they would be more intelligent than before. Not a high bar to beat, but I¡¯ll take it. I likewise continued with Skills to increase their defenses, perception, and means of being sneaky. They had already proven to be quite deadly, so I banked on the idea that an upgrade to their Blessing would not somehow make them less effective. I aimed to make Hopper more well-rounded while Ribette would be focused on hit and run attacks with strong alpha strikes, moderate cooldowns, and a need for some preparation before she could unload.


    For myself, I gobbled up everything I could find to make my pets more efficient on my own person and mana. Having half my mana drained in under ten minutes during their debut was not endearing me to forsake such an investment. That Skill investment led to mana drain being significantly reduced when my pets were idle while summoned as well as having mana regenerated during certain activities, such as them performing a combination attack with each other or me. Again, all of it was suggested to me in abstract terms, but I wagered the coming battle would provide me with ample opportunity to test things out.


    As for what I could freely spend on myself, I decided to bolster areas where I was weak. I had never been in a party before, so working as a team and indeed leading a team were both well outside my wheelhouse. I gobbled up all the small goodies I could find. For example, [Leadership - Decisive] to help bolster my confidence at leading and to give direct and clear commands. It would help me with things like saying, ¡°Skull, put out that fire,¡± instead of ¡°Someone needs to put out that fire¡±. Such subtle and seemingly innocent clarifications for orders could prevent the wrong number of people being dispatched to solve a problem. Another Skill, [Teamwork - Trust], gave me an innate and seemingly supernatural sense as to the intent and capabilities of my teammates in a fight. It would guide me to getting out of the way as they launched an attack, or convince me to make a leap of faith, trusting that a teammate would use some special Ability to ensure I succeeded at something that would otherwise be foolhardy.


    Sadly, my [Age] category of Skills remained gated by the passing of time. Other than [Deeds] providing boosts to it, I was not going to get anything good from it any time soon. The fact that everything in my [Deeds] web of Skills remained a mystery until they were accomplished remained irksome for how I could leverage them harder. Perhaps at some point I would unlock a Skill to scout out the [Deeds] web, but for now all I could do was try to accomplish new things and try not to die.


    And it was at this point in picking my Skills that something odd occurred. I don¡¯t think it was anything related to the most recent Skill I had picked, but all my Skills for teamwork, pets, social networking, and all that ilk shifted into a brand new Skill web called [Social]. New Skills replaced the ones left behind in the other webs, Skills that appeared to be a hair more powerful than their neighbors of comparable cost. I know I have been vague about things until now, but that brought my Skill webs to [Hoard], [Age], [Survival], [Social], and [Deeds]. I marveled at the implications as I watched the grand visual display that accompanied it, all performed in the theater of my mind. The old Skills burned away like parchment to flame with new ones rising out of the ashes. The new Skill web seemed to unfold like some complex origami contraption.


    Now I had to go back through with my remaining Experience Points and check over everything from top to bottom. I found it to be a little annoying, but ultimately more exciting than anything. Would I be able to unlock something like [Combat] if I picked up more Skills directly related to my martial prowess, or perhaps [Magic] if I dabbled more into the arcane? I knew not the mechanics that drove this change nor what prerequisites I would need for it to occur. Would I need the right [Deeds] and a certain number of thematically related Skills for this to happen again? Would having Skills getting snatched up by one new Skill web make other webs impossible to unlock? The mysteries were endless, and so now I had to consider not just how good a Skill itself would be, but also how that may lead to new or improved Skill webs.


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    I would have killed to unlock a Skill that worded things in concrete terms, and indeed I had been killing things left and right to that end. My Experience Points collectively were more like a cistern of water that I could use to fill up Skills until they unlocked. I could take estimates as to how costly Skills were, but without clear numbers, the math behind it remained dicey. It would also have been nice to see myself in such terms. I knew I possessed great strength and could lift several times my own weight, but it would have been nice to see some page of statistics where I could see it clearly labeled, such as ¡°Strength - 50¡±, but alas, such was not to be had. Take for example [Veil of Shadows], my number one move for being sneaky.


    [Veil of Shadows: An active Skill that weaves shadows around you, making you more difficult to detect and observe. Decreased efficiency and effectiveness as light levels increase.]


    Why did it say ¡°detect and observe¡±? Did ¡°observe¡± mean that it was painful to look at me, much as how I felt dread and apprehension when trying to watch Skull use her shadowy Skills? How much mana does it use, and how much worse is it in bright light? I hoped to see it written more like this:


    [Active - Shadow - Stealth - Veil of Shadows: Use 10 mana per second to become more difficult to detect. Anyone looking at you feels a compulsion to look away. Decreased efficiency and effectiveness as light levels increase, up to 50 mana per second in bright daylight.]


    Now that description would easily tell me if a Skill was Active or Passive, what school of magic or what have you related to it, what general category of use it belonged to, the name of the Ability, and a detailed description with numbers and math. Not that I knew how much mana I had in quantitative terms. I had to take notes in a book just to keep everything straight and try to catalog what I had like some sort of barbarian. Where was my snarky spirit guide who would explain it all to me and make suggestions? Maybe I¡¯m just a grumpy old-timer. ¡°Back in my day, we didn¡¯t have numbers in our Skills. We just had to figure it out and keep track of it in our heads. You won¡¯t always have a calculator on you to sum up how much your Skills cost.¡± Bah!


    Realistically, I could only spend Experience Points for Skill unlocks in [Survival] and [Social]. It made sense that violence rewarded Experience Points for [Survival], so now the question became if [Social] would also get the same treatment? After all, violence was the universal language. Pretty much any challenging task also gave Experience Points to [Survival], and somehow murdering monsters could then equate to me being better at knowing a good price for gravy boats with my [Appraise - Sundries] when it was still part of [Survival]. So, if I managed to create a [Combat] web of Skills, would I lose that benefit and have to spend more time at thrift stores haggling over trivial goods to continue advancing other Skills in [Survival] if the advanced webs did not gain Experience Points from violence? Or would it work like how my pets gave mostly Experience Points towards Skills related to them, but also gave me a portion to spend freely?


    I did not have any good answers to these questions. Simply unlocking the [Social] Skill web had provided a generous number of Skills for free. It also unlocked more advanced Skills that I had not seen when it was all part of [Survival]. Perhaps the price of better Skills was a restriction on how easily they could be earned. I felt like I was tiptoeing all around the answer, but all I could do was continue to strive for more Skill webs unlocking and hope I did not paint myself into a corner.


    At least my [Hoard] kept pace with my expectations. The standard I had captured gave me an aura that increased the mana efficiency of myself and allies near me. Mind you, that is an effect for me as long as the standard is in my [Hoard], not the effect of the standard itself as it had for a military unit. Sadly, it would not function while it was within my pocket dimension, so I would need to deposit it in my home at some point to reap the benefit provided. It also unlocked a [Deed], [Spoils of War - Appraise], which would allow me to quickly spot valuable goods in an enemy camp and to have a better understanding of their market price value.


    Some potential Skills were rather wild and permanent in nature. Most combat-themed Blessings have some Ability themed around the concept of ¡°haste¡±, or generally moving and attacking faster. They all flavor it differently and have slightly different mechanics that drive it, but the general effect is the same. I had the offer to take this little gem:


    [Fools Rush In - You can no longer activate any Haste Abilities, but you automatically gain an improved version of the most powerful Haste ability activated near you while that Ability lasts. This is a passive skill.]


    This would vastly change my combat style, especially since it said ¡°Abilities¡± and not ¡°skills¡± or ¡°Skills¡±. ¡°Abilities¡± was a broader term, including magical items, potions, spells that others had trained you in using, boons from gods, and so forth. I had a handful of weak actives and passives to help me with moving faster for combat purposes (which Skills certainly seem to differentiate between combat and everyday use). Even being around enough people who had barely restrained hostility towards you could deactivate Skills that were not meant for combat, and so mean-mugging someone before mugging them was a valid strategy. This Skill would devastate anyone who relied on Haste effects, but it would leave me rather lacking when trying to overpower people who had no such Abilities, whether they be from Skills, items, or other effects.


    I had not been too reliant on haste so far. Mine was [Charging Dragon], and it offered tremendous speed when charging at an enemy. I rarely used it since laying traps and generally ¡°peeling the onion¡± against my foes was my preferred strategy. On one hand, I would not be reliant on it to win a fight, but on the other, I would have less practical experience at how to utilize it effectively unless I had a training partner who could give me Haste. I decided it was a worthwhile trade, and so I took that Skill.


    In a similar vein for potent Skills, I had this Skill as well:


    [School¡¯s Out - This passive Skill gives bonuses when not using the same school of magic as the previous active Ability used. Using an Ability of the same school of similar magnitude in a row gives penalties. Each Ability magnitude maintains a separate tracker.]


    Boy, that mouthful had a lot to unpack. I think I understood the gist of the ¡°magnitude¡± part in that I could not cheese the rule by using my cheapest Skill on mana to thread my Ability combo together. It also meant that the record was distinct for different potency levels of Abilities, the exact specifics of which Abilities go into which brackets remaining nebulous. I would have to play around with it to see where things fell. Additionally, what the ¡°bonuses¡± were that it provided were also vague, but I like bonuses, vague and otherwise, so it seemed acceptable.


    I had been abstaining from devoting myself to any particular school of magic. I wanted to keep my options open and to have the correct answer to any given problem without needing to resort to overwhelming force. I was almost doing as the Skill described anyway, so with some practice and discipline, it would just become natural to me. With no obvious downsides to going down this route, I took the Skill.


    The real breadwinner of them all was for what I had been doing completely up until now.


    [Forsake Armor - This passive Skill gives strong bonuses while you are not wearing armor, excluding shields.]


    I have never worn armor. It is expensive, it needs to be constantly repaired, and it can be easily outgrown with the need for higher quality as one advances in power. I had been relying on my technical skill in combat, quick movements, positioning, and healing abilities to compensate. Granted, some plucky youth who picked up a sword to gallivant off to fight monsters as an Adventurer had no training to fall back on, so I was rather fortunate to have such a luxury. I could also see the outlines of Skills that branched off from it, so I damn near could not accept the Skill fast enough once I saw it. Additionally, I was already tougher thanks to my [Age] Skills, so any weapons that could pierce my skin would also go right through whatever armor I could afford.


    Those three major Skills cemented my combat style and how I would advance in the future. I would keep my eyes peeled for more like that, but I currently had none. I would kill for some Skills themed around using a shield. Shields are always good and go with most weapons, but being stuck with, say, daggers, would make one pretty worthless when fighting oozes or other things that generally lack any concern about being stabbed. Even the less martially-inclined Platinum Adventurers have several different kinds of weapons so that they can deal with different kinds of threats. Getting pigeonholed into one weapon type is a trap that Silvers fall into.


    Other than my emergency reserve of Experience Points to help me in a pinch to solve niche problems, I had acquired everything I could for new Skills. I spent some time in deep thought for how I could deploy them to the best effect, formulating several contingencies for different scenarios that were likely to unfold in the war. I looked forward to trying some of them out, so for me, dawn could not come soon enough.

 Chapter 24

    We spent the next four days harassing the enemy supply lines with guerilla warfare. We also intercepted and neutralized any scouts we could find snooping around. My pocket dimension was stuffed to the rafters with our spoils, and so at night, we would sort through it and figure out what we could store away in some hidey-hole in the mountainside such that we could retrieve it after the war. Most of it was food, which would certainly be needed for all the refugees, but we also looted a generous supply of magical odds and ends, mostly consumables and tools.


    The disturbing amount of arcanium powder suggested they had artillery for a heavy siege. Such cannons were not great for knocking down solid stone walls, but they could wreck magical barriers and enchantments if left uncontested. Artillery of such nature favored offense, for a large barrier was difficult to maintain and costly to repair, and one the size of a city was almost impossible to miss. Conversely, a barrier just big enough to hold a cannon and its crew was cheap to maintain and easy to repair. Ergo, if opposing artillery duked it out, the city would eventually be the first to break.


    Reports on the other fronts were mixed. Most nearby towns and villages had been evacuated to Berkerin without incident, with only a few experiencing skirmishes with raiding parties. Fortunately, plenty of retired Adventurers and other skilled individuals volunteered to assist in the evacuations, especially those specializing in transportation or dimensional storage, so very little of scorched earth tactics needed to be employed. Likewise, the deforestation and moderate terraforming around the city had been performed exceptionally. I had only read reports about it, but by the description, I could expect to see a vastly different landscape upon my return.


    Unfortunately, our interdiction force, led by Blythnin, had been pressed hard. Casualties had mounted, for the enemy vanguard could rotate in fresh troops, while ours remained the same and exhausted. Most were dangerously close to ¡°healing saturation¡±, the limit at which healing magic could no longer continue to render any benefit. Granted, most of the Platinum and Gold Adventurers had Skills within their Blessing to mitigate that buildup or quickly recover from it, but even their limits had been pushed to the extreme.


    And so, on the morning of what was supposed to be our fifth day of general raiding and mayhem, I received an emergency message in my communication book that ordered all personnel to return to Berkerin. The interdiction force had withdrawn from the field in favor of the safety of the city. The strategy involved them resting and recovering various ¡°saturations¡±. One can only chug so many potions for health, stamina, and mana, or otherwise benefit from magical intervention to the same effect before becoming saturated in each respective category. That followed the same limits on the potions we had to remove the need for sleep, which fortunately, my companions and I have not needed to use. On a small note, my self-healing was extremely efficient at not saturating myself, and to a lesser degree, my pets. From what I heard, most self-healing falls into the same boat.


    Speaking of boats, Bellwright summoned up a boat of sorts after we packed up our camp. It hovered off the ground. Similar to our previous boat in that it had no sails, said similarities ended there. The bottom was rounded, but it looked like another and larger boat had been turned upside down and placed on top while held up with several masts to form a roof of sorts. On the sides of the boat were large, horizontal cylinders near the middle of the sides. Small flames jutted out the rear end of them. We loaded into individual seats, each one with belts to secure us to them.


    ¡°Hold on to your butts,¡± shouted Bellwright as the boat lurched forward.


    With a mighty roar, great gouts of fire belched forth from the side-cylinders. I felt myself pressed firmly into my seat as we jolted forwards while heading widdershins around the mountain, climbing slightly as we went. Apparently, Gulfore knew what was next, for she mumbled an incantation to create a spectral ramp that went halfway down the mountain. It straightened out and then inclined about 30 degrees upwards at the end. Without bothering to stop, Bellwright took us down the ramp. I was nearly crushed into my seat as I held on to the belts that strapped me in.


    I felt my breakfast jostle within my stomach as we cleared the end of the ramp and were launched skywards. A new thrumming sound could be heard from below the boat, so some arcane mechanism must have been activated to slow our ascent as we loftily hovered our way towards the city. We lost altitude slowly, but I could tell we would arrive with plenty to spare.


    Below us, we all observed the state of things as we drew closer to our destination. The head of the enemy army was perhaps half a day from the city, while their vanguard had already secured an area for setting up camp. A week ago, the city had been surrounded by forest up to about an arrow¡¯s flight away from the walls. Now, complete desolation surrounded it up to a mile away. The land had been completely defoliated, not even stumps nor a blade of grass remained. The barren earth had been flooded and turned into a veritable quagmire. No doubt it was riddled with all manner of traps and other goodies to welcome our uninvited guests. The enemy would have to either make due with it or find a way to restore it to solid ground if they wanted to lay siege.


    I observed great stockpiles of logs and lumber within the city. What had once been public parks or parade grounds were now stuffed full of that and everything else that had been harvested from the terrain. Even boulders had been removed from the field, as much as to deny the enemy projectiles for the siege as to provide material to repair our walls. I witnessed tiny figures moving around some boulders off to the side as they went about their labor to shape the boulders into blocks. Apparently, the citizens of Berkerin had pulled out all the stops when it came to preparations to defend the city. Considering the enemy was here to conquer and subjugate instead of merely demanding tribute or sacking, I could understand the impetus to pitch in.


    I could see heads turned our way. The ship¡¯s engines had all the subtlety of a meteor storm. The boat was loud on pretty much every spectrum, most significantly in the realm of magic. I felt confident that the average person could feel the magic radiating off it from a dozen or more miles away. Certainly, that explained why we only used it to retreat, for we were like sitting ducks up here in the sky where anyone hostile could launch anti-air attacks upon us. Naturally, we gave the enemy army a wide berth, for we did not want to get impromptu lessons in skydiving.


    Perhaps the most disturbing sight was the three giants that moved with the enemy army. Two of them stood perhaps three stories tall, with the last at perhaps four. The first was a golem made of wood, and it lumbered along ahead of its twin made of stone. Behind the pair could be seen their presumed master, a giant humanoid with four arms, one of which held a massive club that rested upon his shoulder. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be some sort of tetsub¨­. If any of those giants managed to make it to our defenses, they would smash the walls to smithereens. Clearly, they would be high priority targets, so I dreaded the seemingly inevitable clash that I might have with them in the near future.


    My hours of study in my youth and my supernatural intuition as provided by some Skills related to matters of military science suggest that, even with optimistic expectations for their prowess, the enemy would not be able to launch an assault until dawn the next day. More than likely it would be at least two days if they wanted to set up a fortified camp and start reshaping the terrain back to solid ground. Naturally, both sides would harass the other and feel out defenses, but the preparation and interdiction stages had come to an end for the defenders.


    A hole appeared in the defensive ward around the city as we made our approach. Apparently, we were either expected or Bellwright had some sort of token to safely breach it. With engines screaming, for that is what I then knew them to be, he set us down near a fountain about two blocks away from the guildhall. Small lights laid about the area in an organized fashion clearly marked that this area was cordoned off for flyers to come and go. Guards approached us, not with any urgency, but more to the point that they were available if we had injured or needed assistance transporting supplies.


    I waved the guards off as we landed while Bellwright dismissed the boat. We cleared the landing zone quickly as another flier was making an approach to land. It was more of a glowing ball of green light with people floating inside. Not as flashy or fast as Bellwright¡¯s boat, but it got the job done.


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    We hustled off to the guildhall, which had been turned into the command center for Adventurers. We passed a few groups of people likewise running hither and thither, but otherwise, the streets were clear of anyone going for a casual stroll. I expected the inside to be barely constrained chaos, but it was all a rather orderly affair. The chairs and tables had been removed, with organized desks being placed at key positions, behind which busy clerks scribbled feverishly at their paperwork. Colored lines painted the floor, each line leading to a desk and starting near the door.


    We joined our respective queue, which was the green line, and we shuffled forward at a reasonable pace. It only took ten minutes until we were next in line, so apparently the wheels of bureaucracy had been greased with at least a small amount of efficiency. I looked around for Chooka or Serideth, but I did not see either of them. I had the privilege of dealing with the clerk, a male orc with a perpetual scowl on his face whose eyes seemed to be stuck in an unwavering and disapproving glare. After a boring but brief conversation, he handed me a missive for my orders, and my merry band and I departed the building for the comfort of the street. I opened the missive to read the orders, and afterwards turned to the expectant faces of my party that eagerly awaited the news.


    ¡°Good news everyone, we have leave until dawn tomorrow.¡± A cheer followed from everyone at that announcement. ¡°Bad news everyone, we are to report to the Gates of Friendship by tomorrow at dawn.¡± Less enthusiastic noises followed that announcement. ¡°I have an empty room in my home, so I am going to drop off our spoils of war there. If I die before the war ends, you know where to go to get it. Mind the hydra.¡± A few chuckles followed that comment.


    Before I could properly dismiss everyone, I felt my legs leave the ground as someone tall and slender crashed into me from behind. Judging by the tenderness of the embrace and the lack of clothing brushing up against me, I felt confident as to the identity of my hugger.


    ¡°The rest of you can scram,¡± declared Chooka boldly as she held me aloft. ¡°He is mine now!¡±


    Not bothering to wait for any backtalk, she quickly flipped me in her arms such that she had me in a princess carry. She promptly turned heel and headed at a brisk pace to the direction of our home. I heard a few guffaws and comments from the peanut gallery as we departed, and within a few seconds, we were already a block away and alone.


    ¡°Miss me much?¡± I asked playfully as I reached an arm behind her to rub her back.


    She glanced down at me as she hustled back home as fast as she could carry me. ¡°Eh, the dishes were starting to pile up, so I came to fetch you,¡± she replied casually, the slightest hint of a smile starting to creep into her demeanor.


    ¡°You know the real trick is to just throw them away and buy new ones. That way you never need to wash them.¡± I tried to look serious, but I couldn¡¯t quite maintain my composure. ¡°Really, if I had known that dishes stacking up was all it took for you to sweep me off my feet and carry me in your arms, I would have bought dirty dishes and stacked them on our sink.¡±


    She laughed at that joke as her muscles relaxed somewhat, and soon an errant tear streamed down her face. I nuzzled into her as she ran full tilt to our home, nestling myself within the comfort of her embrace as I tried to soothe her concerns by continuing to rub her back. I am sure we made an odd sight, but there were few people to witness us, and at the pace Chooka ran, we didn¡¯t linger long enough to hear any snide comments or hushed whispers.


    As we approached the front gate, I deployed [Veil of Shadows] and everything else I could think of to hide us from The Boys. I am sure they wanted to greet me, but I could tell that Chooka was eager to ¡°decompress¡± after the stressful week of my absence. She leapt over the gate and surreptitiously made the approach to the house. The Boys snoozed away with their snouts resting on the edge of the pond, their body submerged. Chooka made our way to the back door, and we crept our way inside and up the stairs as if we were burglars and not the owners of the house.


    Upon entering the bedroom, Chooka activated a Skill from [Courtesan] to block sound from leaving the room. She threw me onto the bed from halfway across the room, and before I could even land, she pounced to land on top of me. Indeed, she landed on top of me posthaste, straddling me at my midsection. Things escalated into a tussle in the sheets, not gentle and tender, but passionate and burning with the unquenchable flame of unbridled desire. Afterwards, we cuddled for a while, each basking in the comfort of the other absent any words needing to be spoken to express ourselves.


    ¡°Do you want to go first or should I,¡± I proffered, breaking our silence.


    ¡°You first,¡± she replied as she perked up, her body resting on top of mine with her head on my chest, careful that she didn¡¯t gore me with her horns.


    I started to regale her with a full account of my adventures. She interrupted me after the scene on the bridge with Skull.


    ¡°She totally wants to jump your bones!¡±


    ¡°You think so,¡± I asked, unsure if that was the case.


    ¡°I am a [Courtesan] and a woman. I totally know that sort of stuff. Oh, hold on!¡±


    She scrambled off of me to grab a book she had stashed in her nightstand. It was a nondescript book about as long as my forearm and bound in good quality but otherwise undecorated black leather. She snuggled up next to me and cracked it open for the pair of us to view. Inside on the left of each spread of pages could be seen rather erotic and quite detailed pictures of people, complete with color. On the right side were words and statistics. She flipped through the pages until she found what she was looking for.


    ¡°Here she is, Skull! I have been trying to bed her for years now.¡±


    She pointed to a ¡°Conquest¡± section of the page, for which I saw no tally marks in any of the various explicit and provocative acts listed there.


    ¡°She isn¡¯t in town very often, and she already had a bedmate every time I could catch her.¡±


    ¡°Perhaps something could be arranged,¡± I suggested, and Chooka beamed at me with an expression of hunger and gratitude. ¡°Wait! Do I have a page in here?¡±


    She flipped the book open to my page. I must admit, the picture was rather generous and flattering, showing off my lean but toned muscles while leaving little to the imagination. I noted the various activities of a lascivious nature. They didn¡¯t just have tally marks, but actual numbers, many with triple digits. I looked further down to see how she ranked me on matters of skill and personality both inside and outside the bedroom. A few grumbles escaped my mouth on some of them, as well as a few sounds of acquiescence on others as I nodded my head with a slight side-to-side motion.


    ¡°Is there a scoreboard somewhere?¡±


    She excitedly flipped to the front of the book, showing me a section for rankings based on various categories. I had placed well in all and first in a few. I could feel myself swell up with pride, almost like a peacock strutting with his tail fanned wide. We spent some time going through the book, with Chooka excitedly pointing things out, especially those on her wish-list that she wanted to add to her collection of ¡°Conquests¡±. Keep in mind, they were not for bragging rights, but rather for her own personal satisfaction and to unlock new Skills for her Blessing. She is not the type that would kiss and tell without permission.


    ¡°Well, it seems there is room for improvement if I aim to achieve the highest score.¡± I yanked her close with a sudden jerk, which elicited a squeal of surprise out of her. I wrapped my arms around her and gave her a kiss. ¡°Does that earn me a point?¡± Then I moved down to her neck just below her left ear for another kiss. ¡°How about that one?¡± I continued to work my way lower, stopping to attend to her where my kissing would earn me the most points.


    After some time passed and we were both satisfied with the exhibition of skill, she opened the book. She erased a number next to a certain statistic then eyed me up, making exaggerated expressions and motions as if she took great consideration of the matter. She wrote in a new number. I looked over at it with curiosity.


    ¡°That is a¡­ modest improvement,¡± I commented, my expression showing how I was calculating how long it would be to reach the highest score.


    ¡°It is about both quality and quantity, and some people have a few years of a head start on you,¡± she admitted with a small smirk that suggested she was overall content with how things turned out. ¡°But I think you have the quality part well under wraps.¡±


    ¡°Well then, by the time I am done, either you will need to lower everyone else¡¯s score, or allow me to have an 11,¡± I suggested mischievously as I hugged her close.


    She laughed at that, and I could tell that what worry she had for me during the last week had melted away. She slept peacefully in my arms that night, and I wish that such a night would never have ended. Alas, time progressed on as per its normal routine.

 Chapter 25

    We woke up about two hours before dawn. We shared breakfast together in peaceful bliss, each enjoying the company and normalcy provided by the other before the reality of the day would need to be faced.


    I had deposited the spoils of war in the spare room upstairs, but upon review, I decided to write up a work order for the arcanium powder and the related shot that went with it. The shot was like a hollow sphere, the exterior made of six rings welded together, where the arcanium powder would be magically suspended in the center. I knew not how to do that, but simply lobbing them at magical barriers once they were prepared would be well within my means.


    Chooka and I made our goodbyes before we each headed our separate ways for the day. I had The Boys tag along, for their martial prowess may be needed to defend the city. I stopped by a munitions workshop in the city and put in a high priority work order to have my siege bombs prepared. I had enough supplies to make a little more than a thousand of them, and I planned to keep them handy as a contingency if the war fared poorly. I didn¡¯t get backtalk or even a raised eyebrow for my request, just a mischievous grin from the miccen artisan who took off with a gleam in his eye to see to it that my order would be processed.


    With that well in order, The Boys and I headed for the Gate of Friendship. I had been told that the name harkened back to some ancient feud when the city was still a town, where some elves and dwarves were having a tiff before they needed to join forces against a common threat. So the story goes, they got along well enough by the end of it that all was water under the bridge, and so their descendants built the gate to commemorate their friendship forged in battle. The gates themselves had a mosaic on the outside of an elf and a dwarf, one on each door, shaking hands. The inside was more scenic, with three panels of them breaking bread together, mourning their fallen together, and building the city together. Most likely it was all rather romanticized, for several other races were certainly present when building the city, so it was not like the dwarves and the elves did all that unaided.


    To be fair, elves and dwarves get along swimmingly these days. Elves tend to live on the surface and ensure a community lives in balance with nature, providing food and textiles. The dwarves live underground in such settlements, in charge of city maintenance and mining operations. Such a pairing has made a large number of towns across the world very lucrative and desirable to live in, for they tend to marry aesthetics and natural beauty with the practicality of quality infrastructure and public utilities in a manner that is sustainable. Perhaps then, the story surrounding the Gate of Friendship is just a parable to comment on that relationship that predates the city, but such ponderings would have to wait until after the war.


    Directly inside the gate, what had once been a large open area full of various stalls and carts selling everything under the sun was now bereft of any such mercantile endeavors. Infirmaries, cafeterias, portable privies, small shrines to a few gods, arcane rituals, and a command center filled the plaza. The place was quite lively, with people coming and going at presumably all hours, as if this had become a small town within a city to tend to the needs of those stationed upon the wall.


    The strangest arcane ritual of them all was operated by [Cooks], [Chefs], and other individuals of the culinary persuasion. They had three rings of cooking stations that surrounded a massive cauldron that bubbled away from the hearty fire beneath it. Of all things, a goblin stood on the brim of the cauldron, stirring it and tossing in spices occasionally as he danced rhythmically around the edge. There was only one goblin in town as far as I had heard, so it must be Alterez, the cook from the Exterminator guildhall. This was my first time seeing him in person, but he deftly dodged incoming food that landed within the cauldron as the cooks went about their ritual. They danced from station to station as they prepared all manner of dishes, each person in step, spending no more than a minute at any given location, such that everyone would have a hand in making every dish. I knew not what they were cooking up, but it seemed to not be the food that people would be eating.


    I decided to put a pin in that, opting instead to find the other members of my party and report to our section of the wall, which was directly on top of the gate, our bad luck be damned. Surprisingly, Garro and Rarro were the first to show up. I had expected them to be last and doing their best to malinger, but they each seemed chipper. The others made their way eventually, with Bellwright being last on account of his short stature making it difficult for him to find us. It was more accurate to say that I found him with my sensory Skills and then had the group join up with him, for he had started to wander in the wrong direction. Either way, we were certainly assembled ahead of schedule, and so we would make a proper first impression becoming of Platinum Adventurers.


    I don¡¯t know if anyone had ever witnessed a hydra climbing stairs before, least of all the stairs that led to the battlements above the city gates. The Boys struggled with it at first, for said stairs were not designed with hydras in mind, or perhaps, the stubby legs of hydras were not well designed for stairs. They finally opted to go up the stairs backwards, using their snouts to push off stairs below as they backpedaled their way up. It was a slow and arduous process, but somehow no one waiting to use the stairs decided to voice any complaints about the holdup. Either everyone was minding their manners or no one wanted to agitate a hydra that was clearly irritated by its ordeal with the stairs.


    Such a scene somehow was not the talk of the town at that moment, for most people were chatting away about how there were no stars in the sky all night. Many theories were postulated concerning why and how that came about, anywhere from divine intervention to some arcane ritual. Given all the rituals going on in the plaza, my money was on the latter.


    With a triumphant roar, The Boys announced their victory over the accursed stairs, and together we made our way to the section of the walls directly over the gate. We were met with equal measures of surprise and gratitude from the tired individuals we relieved. The empty remnants of the sleep-in-a-bottle concoctions littering the area suggested that they had been here for a while. We cleaned the place up and set up a rotation for watch as we went over provided dossiers of all the enemy heavy hitters, formulating strategies for how to deal with each one. We set out what supplies and consumables we would need, and all gave thanks that Gulfore¡¯s little hut could fit on the battlements without blocking anything. With the defenders being stretched thin, we would be here for the next week at least, so we made ourselves at home.


    The most challenging part would be keeping The Boys entertained, for they were not used to working like this. In the guildhall with Chooka, something was always happening for them to watch, but up here on the walls, little of note occurred. The sun rose to our right, which is to say, the east, and it illuminated the enemy army oozing their way across the desolate plain before us. Each of us eyed the giants in the distance, knowing full well we were an attractive target for their assault and well within smashing range if they approached, given their tall stature. The enemy set about building their camp, a considerably slow process on account of the dearth of building supplies available nearby. Fortunately, between the cornucopia of activities behind us, the army in front of us, and everyone sharing stories, The Boys remained content for now.


    Defenders occasionally sallied forth to harass the enemy, and likewise the enemy would launch a few probing offensives against our wall to feel out what we were capable of; however, no belligerents committed overly to any offensive. It was mildly entertaining to watch, for no one was revealing the full extent of their capabilities or Skills. Night fell without incident, only for the pattern to repeat again and again until about noon on the fourth day of the siege.


    It seemed that the enemy had finally finished making camp, and I could see an assault party forming in the distance. It seemed that the giants would be taking the field, for they stood at the vanguard. I ensured everyone was awake and ready, but it was still the better part of an hour before the enemy started their trek across the muddy field to approach us.


    As they came into range, the city¡¯s artillery opened up on them. The wood golem¡¯s arms sprouted giant vines that twisted together to form great shields to intercept incoming missiles. The stone golem generated a similar effect out of stone to form his own shields, and together they formed a shieldwall, marching forward as our siege projectiles bounced off them impotently. The four-armed giant was clad head to toe in some sort of armor made of wood and stone, mostly likely as a result of a Skill. He did not try to block or dodge whatever got through to him, but rather he let it bounce harmlessly off his armor as he strode forward, club at the ready over his shoulder.


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    As he approached within range of [Lesser Appraise - Skills], I detected that most of his Skills were related to [Golems], [Illusions], [Combat], and [Earth Magic]. The [Illusions] gave me the most concern, so I immediately spent the entirety of my emergency reserve of Experience Points on Skills related to detecting and resisting illusions. Sadly, I did not know what his specific Skills were or what they did, just the general categories they belonged to and how many he had relative to the others.


    Garro and Rarro were channeling some big badda-boom spell to blast the troop formation behind the giants. We hoped to rout them or at least get them to break formation so they would scatter. Bellwright had the task of messing with the terrain to throw the two [Golem] giants off balance and to hopefully split them apart so as to break their shieldwall. Gulfore provided various boosts and precision shielding for anyone about to take a hit. That left Skull and I to deal with the giants with The Boys as backup.


    The Boys let loose their breath attacks. Sadly, Golems are not susceptible to the poison from Socrates, and the giant leader was too tough to be phased by it. Likewise, the blasts of water from Plato only pushed them slightly, for they were too massive to be knocked flat by them, much less damaged. Fortunately, Aristotle¡¯s fire breath did seem to damage the plant [Golem], which promptly dropped to the ground and rolled to smother the flame, quite unsuccessfully.


    With that opening, Skull and I leapt from the wall at the stone [Golem]. Its massive form rendered no aid in averting our attacks, for we swarmed it like pestering insects as it feebly tried to swat us down. Skull seemed to have some difficulty, for a sword does not fare well against stone and a [Golem] has no morale for her to damper with her fear Skills. However, she did provide a distraction, and so I laid down explosive traps along its body, specifically targeting the joints of its limbs.


    We leapt off towards the four-armed giant as I detonated the explosive runes on the stone [Golem]. It did not fall apart, but it stopped moving. Great cracks appeared in its form, and either such cracks rendered it incapable of locomotion, or it risked falling apart if it tried. We used its still body as a place to retreat when needed, leaping between it and the four-armed giant as we dodged incoming attacks.


    Where it once held a single club, now it held four, one in each hand. I knew three of them to be illusions, but knowing that and having the discipline to let it hit you when it can do no damage are two different things. My mind still screamed danger and prompted me to avoid such hits even though I knew them to not be real. Just as I became comfortable with dealing with them, I made a mistake. The illusion became real as everything slowed down. No, not slowed, but the giant had used some form of haste Skill in that moment.


    The four-armed giant had teleported his real club to the hand that was swinging the illusory club at me. With my body midair after jumping at him, I had no way to dodge. I readied what shields and defenses I could, but I did not like my odds one bit at surviving such a massive weapon smashing into me. Then suddenly, I was back on the wall and stumbling to maintain my footing. In horror, I watched as Bellwright occupied the location where I had just been. He had used some Skill to instantly switch places with me, and I could do naught but behold his grim fate as a furious yell escaped my throat in protest.


    Just before the club obliterated Bellwright, I observed his entire body take on a metallic and dull gray sheen. The club, in an upward swing, smashed into him, but his body did not become pulp. Rather, it seemed as if he had turned to a statue of iron, and seemingly unharmed, the club launched him up and away. With my sensory Skills, I observed his profile growing smaller in the distance, with one last twinkle of the light denoting his departure before he disappeared from my sight entirely.


    Enraged at the loss of a snack-giver, The Boys leapt off the battlements and thumped down on the ground below.


    ¡°Release us, that we may strike down those who dare raise a hand against you!¡±


    They screamed in my mind for release, that I remove the seal on their size, such that they may fight at full strength. I obliged promptly, and I moved into position to support them. Skull quickly disengaged the four-armed giant, her attacks proving futile against his thick armor. She had floundered in her attempts to hamstring him, and so now the two of us backed up The Boys as they grew to their full size.


    The last time I had released them to wreak havoc, they had been perhaps six stories tall. After their last upgrade from my Skills, they were approximately half that height now. They roared as they faced off against the giant, only for a club to come swinging at them in return.


    One head of the hydra moved to intercept, latching onto the arm swinging the club, but the giant teleported the club to another arm. The process repeated twice more, but the hydra would be outnumbered on heads to arms by the time of the fourth swing.


    ¡°Help us, lazy bones!¡±


    ¡°Yeah, tarry not, we need you.¡±


    ¡°Less dilly-dally, more battlefield finale.¡±


    I heard the Boys call to me in my mind with our shared communication from my Skill. While they were a little disrespectful, I chalked that up to the heat of the moment. I had been making traps underground and sliding them underneath the giant¡¯s feet to throw off his balance, so it was not like I was standing around gawking. I moved to assist, but I was too late. The club in the last arm of the giant came down at The Boys.


    Like a boil rupturing, the fleshy blob on the side of The Boys exploded as another head and associated neck lunged upwards to intercept the incoming club.


    ¡°I bet you were expecting Papa to help, but it was me, Diogenes!¡±


    I needed a Skill to facepalm in combat without exposing myself to an attack. The new head of The Boys, Diogenes, had pronounced his name completely wrong. I heard him say ¡°Dee-oh-jeans¡± instead of ¡°Dai-aa-juh-neez¡±. However, given that it is his name, I guess he can dictate how to pronounce it.


    I am sure everyone else just heard a roar of some kind, perhaps even singing, whenever they talked, but I could understand them clearly. Diogenes growled something to the giant, but I knew his heart on the matter.


    ¡°Move a little to the right; you are blocking my sun.¡±


    The Boys, now firmly latched onto the four-armed giant, lifted him bodily off the ground and shook him violently like a ragdoll in the mouth of an aggressively playful dog. The giant¡¯s armor held for the most part, and The Boys flung the giant away from them. The sky around The Boys darkened, as if all the sunlight were being sucked into Diogenes. The rest of The Boys peppered the giant with breath attacks to keep him at bay while small wisps of condensed sunlight coalesced in Diogenes mouth.


    I moved traps into the path of the giant as Skull launched waves of shadows at him, each of us trying to buy time for whatever was to happen next. The giant had regained his footing, but he currently found himself preoccupied with blocking the incoming attacks, his arms raised in front of his chest to fend off our assault.


    Darkness enveloped The Boys as if they were wrapped in night. The vortex that redirected all sunlight to Diogenes faded away as he faced the giant. His mouth opened, and the world shone with the radiance of a thousand suns.


    A solid beam of condensed sunlight hit the giant center mass. His entire body slid backwards, leaving great gouges in the earth as he tried to withstand the attack. My traps, at first designed to undermine his footing, had shifted to ensnare him, and with his feet so entangled, he could not move out of the way. The beam melted through his arms and chest alike, punching a gaping hole in his torso. As the beam fizzled out, the giant fell over dead.


    The mooks that had been following behind the giants looked on at the devastation, each man and woman frozen in awe at such raw destructive power. I had mostly forgotten about them, but apparently, the twins had not. The troop formation had not dared to enter the fray, perhaps preferring to wait for the giant to win before advancing. It mattered little, for much like how the first bridge had been destroyed, so too did the sky open up as death rained down from above. Instead of a giant beam of energy, small meteors of all colors of the rainbow smashed down on them and exploded, wrecking their defenses and obliterating their formation. What few survivors remained quickly routed.


    And just like that, the assault ended. The Boys dragged the corpse of the four-armed giant back to the Gate of Friendship where they dined upon their latest prey. Many looked on with a mix of awe and horror, unable to look away, as if they had seen a carriage full of orphans catch fire and crash into another carriage transporting beehives, also on fire. They took turns munching away, one head on watch, two holding down the corpse, and one ripping a bite out of said corpse. Surprisingly, no more assaults were launched on our position that day while the hydra went about feeding, their eyes gazing hungrily at the enemy yet in the distance.

 Chapter 26

    Bellwright made his way back to our position on the wall a little after sundown. He plopped down on a chair with a huff.


    ¡°Well that was unpleasant,¡± he stated flatly as we all stared at him.


    ¡°Thanks for saving me, Bellwright. That giant pulled a fast one on me,¡± I told him earnestly as I handed him some dinner.


    He accepted the food gratefully and dug in, pausing only to respond.


    ¡°The worst part is, that isn¡¯t even a record for how far I have been swatted away. Good thing we gnomes get racial Skills to handle those sorts of things.¡±


    ¡°I thank you just the same. I feel that I owe you a gift, so I was wondering what kind of hat you want.¡±


    Bellwright paused eating and pointed his spoon at me as he spoke. ¡°First of all, how dare you assume that a gnome wants a hat as a gift, and secondly, I want a tall, silk, stovepipe top hat that noticeably tapers wider towards the top. Red ribbon around the base please.¡± He spoke with only a modicum of indignation before he continued eating, apparently quite pleased with the arrangement as he tried to hide his smile by chowing down heartily. He paused again, then added a new requirement. ¡°Make sure it comes in a cedar box, Bretheon Style number 11. Just go to a gnomish hattery, they will know what I mean. Make sure to mention my name so they add the reward points to my account.¡±


    I retrieved writing supplies from my pocket dimension to write it all down, partially so I would not forget his exact specifications, but also to show that I was serious in my gratitude. The conversation died down while Bellwright ate, the relative peace of the evening interrupted only by the nearby blasts of artillery and the crunching of bones from below. The meat having run out, The Boys satisfied their hunger by gnawing on what bones remained of the four-armed giant. I waited until Bellwright finished eating before I briefed him on the situation.


    ¡°The wall held, as you can see, but the enemy moved their artillery into range during the distraction provided by their attack. HQ doesn¡¯t have a good solution to take them out. Unless you have an ingenious idea, Bellwright, we may need to resort to desperate measures. Apparently, our success in holding the gate has earned us the task of neutralizing their artillery.¡±


    Bellwright nodded at me, then stood up to walk to the nearest crenelation in the battlement to look out at the enemy artillery. Twelve cannons faced us, their model designed to employ magic to propel arcanium-powder-empowered shot. They would wear our city¡¯s shield down and then launch their assault while we were vulnerable. There was no doubt that they had the numbers to breach our walls and take the city if that happened.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have anything that cannot be stopped by their [Mages]. I¡¯m sorry, but this is not my specialty.¡±


    ¡°Alright,¡± I sighed as I ran my hand through my hair. ¡°I have a favor I could call in, as desperate times call for desperate measures. From this range, would you be able to deploy some sort of smoke screen behind their cannons that can obstruct the view of the army from the cannons, especially one that goes high up into the air?¡±


    Bellwright looked at me quizzically, not at all familiar with what offensive I had in mind. He placed a hand on his chin as he thought about it. ¡°If Rarro, Garro, and Gulfore assist me and empower me with their mana, I could do that, but it wouldn¡¯t last long, perhaps a minute or two before the enemy countered me, depending on their reaction time. We would still need a way to break their shields before we could hit the cannons though. This will be very difficult indeed.¡±


    I nodded in response. ¡°If we pull this off, the course of the war could change. Without those cannons to breach our shields, they will be forced to launch a very reckless assault or go home. The fate of every person in the city hangs in the balance here. Show us what a lifetime of mastering your Skills has to offer, and you may well be the hero of this city in our darkest hour.¡±


    I laid it on pretty thick, and that perked Bellwright right up. He puffed out his chest and stood at his full height, which is to say, not even to my waist.


    ¡°It will be done, or my name isn¡¯t Bellwright Muddlespoon,¡± he declared loudly for all to hear, a fire lit within him to see the task done.


    ¡°Look for my assault on their cannons on the first light of the fifth day, at dawn look to the east. This will be an aerial attack, and I will be lined up with the sun to mask my approach, for as a general rule, most people do not stare at the sun. Skull, you are with me.¡±


    Everyone nodded or grunted in agreement. Some details were hashed out to coordinate the attack. I would tell The Boys that the attack would be starting, and they would signal those on the wall to lay down the smokescreen. Then Skull and I were off to the munitions workshop to pick up my order. With over a thousand rounds of arcanium powder shot in my pocket dimension, Skull and I slipped away to the east in the middle of the night. We ran quietly, sneaking past enemy scouts as we escaped the combat theater. We stopped to rest when we were well clear of any hostiles.


    ¡°So, you gonna tell me the actual plan, or are you gonna keep a girl waiting?¡±


    I hesitated, carefully choosing my words before speaking. ¡°Skull, would you say that you are fearless, and indeed, that you are the bravest person around.¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± she replied emphatically, as if there were no room for argument.


    ¡°I have a plan that will strike fear into the hearts of our enemies, one that will have them trembling in their boots. Also, it will destroy the cannons and shatter their morale. Are you interested?¡±


    She leaned in towards me, removing her helmet before she spoke. ¡°No need to get a girl all hot and bothered, just tell me the plan.¡± She seemed a little too excited by the bait I laid before her, and I decided that Chooka knew her stuff when it came to her intuition about attraction. Given Skull¡¯s flushed face, quickened breathing, and the lack of any personal space between us, I confidently deduced that she was excited in more ways than one for what I had to offer.


    ¡°What I am about to show you is a secret, and I hope I can trust you to keep it. Do I have your confidentiality on this matter?¡±


    ¡°I doubt you have anything I haven¡¯t seen before,¡± she replied with a smile as her eyes briefly wandered down my body. ¡°But yes, you have my silence on this matter,¡± she replied as she slid right up to me, our bodies mere inches apart.


    ¡°The sun will be rising soon, so we best get to it, we will need to practice a bit before we make our attack.¡±


    That got an expectant and excited look from her. I placed a finger on her lips as if to shush her before walking away. I could tell she felt a bit flustered at that, but she stayed still.


    And then, much like before with Chooka, I embraced my true nature. My personal effects melded into my body as my flesh warped and changed. Within seconds, I had transformed into my dragon form, my metallic yellow scales with black borders shining brilliantly in the light of the two moons.


    ¡°Woah! I must admit, I have not seen that before!¡± Without hesitation, she ran up to me, looking at me all over and placing a hand on me to feel my scales. ¡°I don¡¯t see any dangly bits between the legs, is that why you were nervous?¡±


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    ¡°I¡­ That¡¯s not¡­ I¡¯ll have you know¡­¡± I couldn¡¯t think of a proper response, with it now being my turn to be flustered. I took a moment to collect myself before I dignified her comment with a response. ¡°Ahem, I feel like an Adventurer of your caliber should know that dragons do not have ¡®dangly bits¡¯ as you so eloquently put it. That¡¯s not the issue here, I don¡¯t want people to know I am a dragon.¡±


    She didn¡¯t respond, but rather hopped up onto my back just behind my shoulders, grabbing onto my spines as her heels lightly kicked me in the sides.


    ¡°Giddy up. The hour draws late, but I can still ride you a bit before dawn. I want some practice.¡±


    I acquiesced, and I discussed the plan as we practed our maneuvers. She took to it like a natural, perhaps on account that she was quite literally fearless. It took some trial and error, but we had ourselves sorted by the time the light of dawn crept over the horizon.


    ¡°Showtime,¡± I said as I cracked the knuckles of my draconic hands. Or are they feet?


    I took to the air, flying low and in line with the sun. As we made our approach, I used my telepathic connection to The Boys to announce our arrival. As we neared the enemy artillery, a smokescreen sprung out of nowhere, obfuscating the main army from the cannons as it expanded upwards to the sky, just as planned. The smoke appeared powdery, and the magic radiating off it would be strong enough to block most Skills to see through or disperse it for at least a little while.


    As we had practiced, I tore open reality by breaching the material plane with the interference of my pocket dimension. Skull formed shadow magic into stubby pipes where my portals opened, and from them, the arcanium powder shot launched outwards. The shots did not have much force, but I had significant forward momentum. Also the enemy artillery positions were not far in front of me, so they impacted just fine.


    The shield of the first cannon shattered swiftly under the barrage of my jerry-rigged dual autocannons (and somehow I knew what those were at that moment). Flashbacks to past lives had to wait, for no sooner did the shield break than I let loose a deluge of acid breath to melt the artillery and the hapless crew alike. Most people did not even have time to react, for the smokescreen had taken them unawares, and I had been as inconspicuous as possible on my approach. Sure, letting out some good, old-fashioned dragon roars would scare the mooks, but it would attract their higher-tiered Adventurers, and those scared me far more than mooks.


    Skull cackled maniacally the whole time, her person swelling with power as terror gripped those below. Our actions and her Skills only fanned the flames of panic in our victims, and so in short order, we completed our bombing run. Not fully satisfied, I circled back while climbing a little higher into the sky. Their munitions caches were behind their artillery, and I made them my next target, this time with flame breaths. Magical explosions detonated below as we continued to rain down death from above. That is when things went awry.


    Some pretty boy with too many earrings and ridiculously toned muscles leapt up into the air at me. The fact that I was over a hundred feet in the air apparently presented no obstacle to him as gravity seemingly gave him a free pass. He had spikey, white and blond hair, a red and open vest that highlighted his chiseled abs, and light gray pants that fit loosely. He also wore some rather ornate bracers that seemed to display a stork or crane of some kind. He also wore some sort of slippers, not boots or sandals like most people, so overall, he seemed to be some sort of [Monk] or [Brawler]. Also, the Diamond gorget around his neck spelled bad juju for me.


    I know all of this because time seemed to stop, so I had ample opportunity to take in all the details. I could barely move, not because I was caught in any ensnarement, but because he was moving that fast as my [Fools Rush In] Skill struggled to keep up. He gave me a hearty wave, the kind that is mostly in the wrist, and even a gleaming smile, before his foot crashed into my ribs.


    Having ribs broken is rather uncomfortable, to say the least. Having them break in slow motion is remarkably less comfortable. Having the breaking of ribs cascade into damn near every bone in your body being pulverized makes for a red-letter day. My body sailed forwards at high speed, and slightly at an angle to my right. Considering I yet remained under the effects of [Fools Rush In], I would be traveling at supersonic speeds by this point. As if quagmired in molasses, I tried to pivot my broken body, using what Skills I could to rip Skull off my back and deposit her in my arms and hugged up close to my chest. I wrapped my body around her, mostly via the use of magic to move myself like a puppet, for my broken body could not move under its own power.


    My healing Skills had already kicked in, which was rather excruciating considering how blows of this nature worked mechanically. Any powerful hit like this applies the force of the blow over time, typically such that momentum is maintained even if crashing through walls, trees, and solid rock, until eventually the effect fades. That is how powerful people can send weaklings flying with a flick of a finger. Ergo, my bones constantly mended and broke as my Skills merrily continued their task of keeping me from coming down with an unfortunate case of being dead. At the time, the prospect of being dead had a certain allure, for I found that the whole process of dying was really not for me. Please return to sender, I would not like to renew my subscription to ¡°Bones Breaking Secondly¡±.


    Then [Fools Rush In] ended, while I somehow glimpsed the final wave from that [Monk] as he bid me farewell. The divide between Platinum and Diamond had been made abundantly clear to me. I had been as hopelessly outmatched as a Copper fighting a Platinum. And with that thought, my body went screaming through the air as I broke the sound barrier. The earliest invention of man to do so was the whip, and the second was my mangled form. I could be wrong about the second one, but at that moment, I would not have been in the mood for any pedantic corrections.


    We slowly lost altitude for somewhere between seconds or eons before we crashed down hard into the earth. Fortunately, I landed in some farmer¡¯s field and not the forest, and my body gouged a trench into the ground as I constructed a new irrigation system for the farmer. Special delivery, free of charge. But wait, there¡¯s more! You know those pesky trees at the end of your field, I¡¯m just gonna take them out too. Free trees felled for firewood this winter, because I am so generous.


    Some dozens of trees later, my mangled body came to a halt in a copse in his field. Fortunately, none of the trees were old growth, otherwise my body may have yielded instead of the trees. I lay there for some time, not really knowing anything beyond pain as my body mended itself. By the time I could think straight, I noticed Skull was not nuzzled up to me between my arms, but rather, a trail of shadowy smoke continued deeper into the copse.


    I rolled over to stand up, my body still weak and very sore despite my healing prowess. Considering I had miraculously survived the whole ordeal, I considered it an acceptable outcome. I would make a full recovery eventually, and so my biggest concern was for Skull.


    I followed the shadow trail and found her body a few dozen broken trees away. Her body had landed in a sitting position up against a tree bigger around than most around here. I saw signs that she had been in a cocoon of shadow, but what remained of it was quickly dissipating into nothingness.


    I changed back into my human form as I drew close to quickly examine her with some sensory Skills. Most of her bones were broken, she had massive internal bleeding, and many organs were crushed. Yet, she still lived, perhaps clinging to life from sheer tenacity, if not a Skill of some sort. No healing potions were capable of managing that, and as panic crept into the corners of my mind, I considered my options to stabilize her.


    I reached out to touch her, and as I laid my hand upon her, the shadow that engulfed her coalesced into a small ball that floated between us. It wavered there in the air, sputtering at times, and sensing the need to act, I touched it with my free hand.


    The ball of shadow expanded almost instantly, enveloping us both in inky blackness. I lost sense of time and space, all thought and reason suspended as I drifted through The Void. I forgot my pain, my body, Skull, everything I was doing, as tranquil peace flowed through me.


    And then I found myself standing in a room of worked stone, a red carpet leading to the only exit, a pair of double wooden doors. Torches lit the walls, although shadows still clung to the edges of the room, seemingly more alive than not. My wits now returned to me, I gazed at the shadows, and I felt as though dark creatures lurked within, waiting to pounce the unwary.


    I stepped to the door and inspected it. Solid wood reinforced with iron made up its form. Two large brass knockers were located on each door, themselves clutched in the mouths of the skulls of some ferocious beast I had not seen before. I used one to knock, and for a moment nothing happened. Then, a great surge of shadowy wind surged in the room, billowing so strongly I nearly lost my footing, before it crashed into the door and blasted them off their hinges forwards into some grand hall.


    I peeked out at the new room. Pillars supported the ceiling, but shadow obfuscated exactly how high it went. The red carpet continued forward, but I could not see the far end of the room. The hall appeared wide, but otherwise bereft of anything of note.


    ¡°COME IN!¡±


    A voice boomed in the distance, demanding an audience with me. Not one to be rude, I strode forward, digging down to muster every last ounce of courage. My education in the realm of theology was a bit lacking, but even I knew whose halls I strode.


    I found myself in the realm of Gulthar, Dark god of Fear and Bravery, and my recklessness had brought his champion to death¡¯s door.

 Chapter 27

    There were no lights in the room ahead. The light seemed to radiate a few feet from me, and as I walked forward, it moved with me. Not ten paces in, a new light shone down to the side of the hall. Like a spotlight, it illuminated a few people, each absolutely lifelike, but somehow faintly transparent. Illusions, no doubt.


    I beheld a scene of a little girl with pale skin and black hair surrounded by thugs. The meager rags she wore as clothes were covered in filth and stains. Her hair was matted and ratty, her feet covered in scabs and small cuts common to those with no shoes. One thug held a knife to her throat, but she stood there, defiant, not a tear to be seen in her eye, not a whimper escaping her lips. Those were not the eyes of a victim cowed, but of a captive filled with hate and vengeance, a promise of a reckoning yet to come. A backhand to the face knocked her off her feet, but, shakily and with great effort, she regained her footing to stand tall once again, her expression calm but her eyes betraying her true emotions. She would rip them all limb from bloody limb given half the chance.


    The thug with the knife drew the blade across her throat, but not skilled or tender enough that it did not nick her in a few places. They laughed as they tormented her, but she stood her ground, defiant to the end. A drop of blood fell from the blade to land in her shadow, the sound of it hitting seemingly echoing through the halls. With my keen perception, I saw the drop of blood absorbed, not into the ground, but into her shadow itself. As if it were an offering received favorably, a shadowy figure rose from the ground, forming a twisted specter of umbral smoke and bone, one with clawed hands and horns coming out of his skull. Only tendrils of shadow existed below its waist, and it hovered in the air silently.


    The thugs did not even seem to notice until a clawed hand suddenly ripped the throat out of one of them. Their laughter stopped as they froze, each not knowing what had happened. Before any could bolt away, the specter continued to lash out, felling each of them in the blink of an eye.


    The girl did not move, but she calmly looked upon the specter before her as a smile illuminated her face, not one of mundane joy, but one of eerie satisfaction and desire. The specter hovered before her, not even an arm¡¯s length away, but she did not flinch.


    ¡°Brave for one so little, standing your ground when hopelessly outmatched. Your stalwart resilience shed light on their cowardice, and thus their craven nature betrayed their reasoning, sending them to scurry like worthless vermin. Serve me, and I will grant power unto you, and the world will tremble at your passing.¡±


    The specter spoke in a soothing voice, calm and inviting, while its voice echoed in grating cries of anguish throughout the halls as I looked on in intrigue. But the girl did not mind; she only nodded. The specter circled behind her, embracing her in its arms. Its jaw unhinged unnaturally wide as if to swallow her head whole, and then it bit into her. But the girl remained unharmed, the specter simply phasing into her body and merging with her form.


    The scene faded, the light dimmed back to normal blackness, and I pressed on, feeling a little unsettled. A few paces away, a new scene appeared. The same girl appeared, but older, and moderately cleaner. Whereas before she may have been seven or eight years old, now she possessed the form that suggested eleven or twelve years of age. I observed a village in flames behind her as she fled into a forest dark and dreary. The armed men putting the town to the sword did not follow, and as she fled, the forest grew darker still.


    Not a minute later, the same girl found herself surrounded by wolves, their hackles raised as they circled her, looking for an opening. She stood her ground calmly, glaring at them as she recovered her breath from the run. One cautiously approached her, ready to lunge for her throat or leap away at a moment¡¯s notice. Her placidity gave way to determined resolve, her expression hardening as she stood there with arms akimbo in deep disapproval of the pack¡¯s actions. She leaned down over the snarling wolf, and even though it growled at her menacingly, she stood firm.


    Then, as if it had caught the scent of death itself, the wolf yipped and cowered in a submissive posture before scurrying away with its tail between its legs. The remainder of the pack faltered in confusion, before they too felt the same effect and likewise vacated the area. The girl pressed on, not slowing her march as more terrifying beasts lingered in the shadows, stalking her every move. But none dared approach, and the scene seemed to skip to where she left the forest, undaunted and unharmed. Then that scene too faded, and I likewise continued on.


    More scenes of the girl appeared as I pressed on. She got older each time, so they were presumably sequential. I witnessed her sparring with someone much older, perhaps her mentor, and he battered her around the training yard, but she never complained or quit. This played out several times as the seasons changed. Her muscles filled out more each time, her speed and poise improved, and soon she was holding her own. The scene finished with a nod from her mentor as he gave her a real sword of fine quality, if not ornate design. They bowed to one another, and she left.


    The same girl, perhaps 16 now, knee deep in monster guts as she waded through giant worm creatures that just kept coming despite the carnage she wreaked. She had some cheap armor now, but it appeared rather battered and gory from her struggle with the worms. The girl, now a woman perhaps in her early twenties, in some dark and ancient temple, donning the armor I now knew her to wear. The woman, clad in armor macabre, casting aside the sword given to her by her mentor, drawing her signature zweih?nder from the skull of the ancient remains of some colossal beast in the depths of the earth. The woman, astride a dragon of gleaming and metallic yellow scales with black edges as she bombarded the artillery positions below. The woman, battered and broken, her body leaning against a tree, unmoving, as a shadowy specter with a skeletal body, clawed hands, and horns on its head, cradled her in its arms.


    The hall continued for a long way, but no new scenes presented themselves despite the ample space. Perhaps her story had drawn to an end, or perhaps it had only just begun, for what scenes I had witnessed only occupied a small fraction of the hall.


    I walked for what felt like hours, but I drew no nearer the end. I turned back to see if anything behind me may indicate what I needed to do, but dark shadows coiling around pillars and wafting through the air obstructed my view. When I turned forward again, I nearly jumped backwards as I found myself before a massive wooden desk. Mahogany, if I were to guess, given its reddish-brown hue and the dearth of imperfections to the grain.


    At the desk sat a proportionally large skeleton so oddly dressed. Perhaps three or four times larger than a normal man, the large skeleton wore a button-up shirt of sky blue, a zesty yellow tie with little black hydra silhouettes on it, a fake and long white beard as clearly evidenced by the string going around his head, and on his head he wore the cheese hat as seen at the festival. He even wore a pocket protector with four different pens in it. His desk was full of stacks of paperwork, each neatly arranged in an orderly grid, and without bothering to look at me, he took a page from a large stack, looked it over despite not having any eyes, and then slapped down a stamp on it before placing it on another stack.


    ¡°I know what you¡¯re thinking.¡± His mouth did not move as he spoke, but his voice still carried to me just fine. It was the same voice as the specter, calm and reassuring, but echoing cries of pain and fear as it reverberated through the halls. ¡°I look ridiculous, don¡¯t I?¡± Not once did he bother to look at me, for he continued to process the paperwork as he waited for a response.


    ¡°It is as you say,¡± I replied.


    ¡°How politically polite of you,¡± he replied dryly. ¡°But you also fear me because I look so ridiculous. You probably expected me to be macabre in appearance, just like my little Skull is fond of. You don¡¯t know what to expect from me, do you?¡±


    ¡°I do not, nor do I know why I am here.¡±


    ¡°Hmmph,¡± he replied as he stamped down extra hard on the page before him. ¡°You took my favored daughter, the apple of my eye, my most cherished flower, and gallivanted off on a reckless attack without full knowledge of enemy capabilities and with no means of reinforcements to bail you out.¡± His voice rose in volume and authority as he spoke, the room trembling with every word uttered. ¡°And now she lies broken, dying, because you failed to protect her, and you barge here into my halls and just saunter up to me, expecting me to do something about it!¡± Anger roiled through his words, but he still did not look at me. He processed paperwork faster and faster, his stamp becoming a blur as it smashed down furiously on each page.


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    I could feel my body trembling. Angering a god was not on my to-do list, and here I was, being taken to task for my shortsighted endeavors. I dared not avert my gaze, and though my instincts howled at me, demanding that I run away screaming, I stood my ground.


    ¡°Yes,¡± I replied quietly, barely more than a whisper, but the full amount of what I could muster.


    He set his stamp aside as he stopped grabbing more papers to process. ¡°You know what I think of your little stunt?¡±


    He leaned over the desk at me, his body stretching unnaturally as his face lowered to be right in front of me. I was not sure if it was rhetorical, but after a pause and an expectant look that I somehow discerned despite the lack of facial features, I felt compelled to reply.


    ¡°No.¡±


    That time I spoke with a little more confidence. To back out now was to be destroyed. Gulthar, the god of Fear, despises the craven, and to insult him by showing cowardice in his own home would be a sin. Knowing that was one thing, but acting accordingly took every fiber of my self-control to maintain discipline in the face of such adversity.


    ¡°I think it was fucking epic.¡±


    I blinked as he reeled back to his desk. He let out a deep belly laugh as he slapped his hand down on his desk a few times. Papers flew everywhere, but a stern glance for him had them favoring returning to whence they came rather than obeying the laws of physics. He continued to laugh for a while before he could compose himself once more.


    ¡°1,218. That is how many people there pissed their pants in fear. 27. That is how many fainted. 65,212. That is how many people were afraid of the two of you as you performed your bombing run.¡± He leaned back, grabbing a pipe from seemingly nowhere, taking a puff from it before tossing it over his shoulder where shadows swallowed it up. ¡°Ah, I haven¡¯t had a rush like that in years.¡± He leaned towards me again. ¡°Sure earthquakes and stuff scare people and on a larger scale, but they don¡¯t quite pack the punch of a giant monster rampaging nearby, where a simple whim could cause it to bring devastation your way.¡±


    He cleared his throat, despite not having one, then took out some reading glasses and donned them. He grabbed a little card on his desk and prattled off to me in an impassionate voice.


    ¡°You have been found to be in violation of 34-019B, reckless endangerment of a champion of a god. You have been found to be in violation of 34-018A, grievous bodily harm to the champion of a god through negligence. You have been found in violation of 15-100, entering the domain of a god from an unauthorized location.¡±


    He rattled on for some time, clearly not very interested in what he had to say. Before he finally arrived at the last part.


    ¡°Your punishment will be determined by the god against whom the crimes have been committed. Any attempt to circumvent punishment will result in further divine retribution. You must sign the provided form to acknowledge that you have been informed of your transgressions.


    ¡°Yadda, yadda, yadda,¡± he said as he handed me a form to sign. It contained a bunch of legalese about what he had talked about, but it did not list my punishment. I signed it and he snatched it back from me, placing the document in a pile while seemingly satisfied. He removed his glasses, and together with the card, threw them over his shoulder much like the pipe before.


    ¡°Are you ready for your punishment?¡±


    He somehow grinned even wider despite no movement to his jaw and possessing no facial features. It was more that I could feel his expressions and emotions and his presence loomed larger.


    ¡°I am.¡±


    I didn¡¯t like the present circumstances, but I had to face the music, so to speak. There was not even a trial, just an assumption of guilt and some paperwork.


    ¡°Very well.¡± He cleared his non-existent throat again. ¡°You are tasked with keeping Skull company, to be her companion, to help foster her growth, and to protect her as she continues to serve me. She will follow you wherever you go, and through you, she will sow terror and fear until such time that I call her home or release you from your punishment. Also, you must perform one labor for me in the future when I deem you strong enough to complete it. Do you accept the punishment as described to you?¡±


    It didn¡¯t seem that bad, but I felt sure that if I looked deep into the details, I would find a devil or two. There had to be a catch or something I was missing, but nothing could be done about it, so I would just have to take it in stride. Not one in a position to talk back to a god, I give my response in a succinct manner ¡°I do.¡± The deal felt slimier than a used-wagon salesman, but with no other divine powers coming to my defense, I would have to grin and bear it.


    ¡°Very good.¡± He leaned down to me again, his hand placed up to my ear as he whispered into my ear conspiratorially. ¡°Also, you should probably heal her posthaste before she succumbs to her injuries. It would be bad form for you to fail in this task almost instantly.¡±


    ¡°Uh, how would I do that? I don¡¯t have any good healing Skills for other people or any potent healing potions on me.¡±


    ¡°You have the blood of dragons in your veins. You are not some [Drake], [Wyvern], or other such paltry beast, but a [Dragon Emperor]. That is not a lesser dragon, but a top tier [Dragon] Blessing. A single drop of your blood into her mouth, combined with my divinity, should do the trick. We gods are not supposed to interfere directly, but I can¡­ ¡®amplify¡¯¡­ your blood to make it potent and stable. Also, entirely strip her of her armor and clothes immediately after administering your blood. She will be totally pissed if it gets damaged as a result of you not doing so. She will be in her right and true state of mind, just¡­ uninhibited.¡±


    I turned to face him, not sure as to the full implications to his words, but he simply winked at me. Not that he had eyes or glowing light in his eye sockets to follow, but rather that the bone of his skull reformed to temporarily close over his socket. He then leaned back to his desk to sit upright.


    ¡°Any questions?¡±


    ¡°I do have one question. What is with all the paperwork?¡±


    ¡°You come into the halls of the Dark god of Fear and Courage to ask why he processes paperwork?¡±


    ¡°Well, that was not my original reason for being here, but I am curious.¡±


    ¡°Hmmph. Not a bad question. Since you and Skull are here together, this realm and my appearance are a mix of what you each would fear. Skull¡¯s greatest fear is being chained to a desk and forced to fill out paperwork. I am already reprimanding her in another instance of this hall. She knows full well that if she dies again before her time, that will be exactly what is in store for her. It is only by my grace and divine power that her soul does not pass to the hereafter. And you two better get a move-on, because divine power doesn''t grow on trees. Now scram, before you two drain me dry with your dawdling.¡±


    And with that, it was if some giant, invisible hand grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and dragged me backwards out of his hall. I accelerated faster and faster until the hall became a blur, passing once more briefly to The Void before returning to reality.


    Not wasting any time, I removed Skull¡¯s helmet. I cut my finger and let a drop of blood fall into her mouth, my wound healing over before the blood even completed its journey. Taking the word of a god at face value and not wanting to piss Skull off, I immediately began stripping her. She mentioned going to orgies, so she probably was not that shy. Either way, I did my best to show respect and preserve her dignity.


    I laid her body on the ground on some bedding I pulled out of my pocket dimension. I used my Skills to flatten the earth and to create a dome of stone around us with an air hole near the top. I placed illuminators on the walls, and, satisfied that we had some privacy, I turned away as her body healed. I could hear her bones snapping back into place, which sent a shudder of sympathetic memory through my body.


    When she woke, she spun me around to face her. She pounced me, easily overpowering me with superior strength as provided by her Blessing. Her eyes glowed golden with elongated pupils, just like mine as a dragon. She pinned me down, her body pressing against me as her mouth lunged for my neck. I couldn¡¯t stop her if I tried, and I felt hot lips press onto my neck as she kissed me passionately.


    ¡°I want you,¡± she whispered sweetly into my ear.


    Now I understood the words of Gulthar, in why I should strip her naked, of how she and I would be companions. Given that I had prior approval from Chooka and that I viewed Skull as a beautiful and desirable woman, I saw no reason to deny her request.


    She was aggressive and passionate, truly bereft of inhibitions, much as Gulthar had promised. Spirited and brimming with stamina, it took many hours and several bouts to sate her lust. I had only wished that the circumstances had been different, for it all felt a little forced upon her. I knew not if she truly consented, but considering she was the one pinning me down and having her way with me, I am not sure who would be the victim here if this were not consensual.


    After completing the consummation of our companionship, she snuggled up to me and fell asleep. I must admit that I too felt exhausted, not only from our most recent activities, but also from having healed my body a dozen or more times over from death¡¯s door. And so we both slept as the world outside continued. Surely the war would manage itself for a time with the two of us absent for a spell.

 Chapter 28

    ¡°So that happened,¡± I hesitantly told Skull in an attempt to break the ice after our escapades. She had just woken up a few minutes ago and promptly took to enjoying the bath I had prepared for her.


    ¡°So it did,¡± she replied as she released a sigh of comfort as she sank lower into the steamy water. ¡°I do hope and expect that it will happen more in the future, minus the grievous bodily harm,¡± she added after a short pause.


    ¡°I agree wholeheartedly. We may need to settle for moderate bodily harm next time, and it may not always be just the two of us.¡± I busied myself with cleaning her armor and trying to fix some of the dents, not staring at her but also not completely avoiding her gaze. This conversation could go poorly in a heartbeat and I didn¡¯t want to pressure her. At least the armor fixed itself better than I could, at the detriment of it leeching my mana.


    She smiled as she leaned back more into the tub, her arms resting on the sides. ¡°You must mean Chooka will be joining us. I have heard that she has been asking about me for some time now. Am I wrong in believing that she wishes to add me into that famous black book of hers.¡±


    ¡°You already have a page,¡± I admitted as I glanced over at her. Her smile had all the features of smugness and mischief. I wondered if she merely preened at the implication of her desirability or if she would begin to toy with me. ¡°Granted, it is not filled out, but you are in the top ten for the most desirable ones yet unconquered.¡±


    ¡°Well, she will have ample opportunity to write up a detailed dossier about me, for where you go, so too do I go.¡± She let out a small laugh at some amusement only she seemed to be aware of. ¡°Plus, she is pretty hot, and quite talented from what I hear. I would be hard-pressed to find a better way to spend an evening than with the two of you.¡±


    I paused my cleaning for a moment as her words sunk in. She had dropped a strong hint as to our long-term relationship, but I decided to put a pin in it for just a moment as we cleared up the current issue.


    ¡°Do you want me to tell her that her Winter¡¯s Givings wishlist just got fulfilled or do you want to keep it a secret and surprise her?¡±


    Skull¡¯s countenance took on a pondering expression, and she thought about it for about half a minute before finally giving an answer.


    ¡°I see the merits to both. On one hand, foreknowledge would allow her to make preparations, but showing up unannounced would allow me to catch her off balance. I only get one attempt at the latter, so let us keep it a secret for now. We can conspire later as to exactly how this surprise should go.¡±


    ¡°A wise choice,¡± I replied as my head nodded in agreement.


    I left her alone with her thoughts, her eyes unfocused and her mind clearly fantasizing about the possibilities of the future as a coyness vied for dominance with smugness for control of her smile.


    I am not a laundress or [Laundress], but I feel as though I had done a passable job of cleaning her clothes and armor while working out the worst of the dents. Mother had made sure I knew how to take care of myself, so I was no stranger to tending my own clothes. I can¡¯t say that I had much experience with tending to women¡¯s clothes at that point in my life, for Chooka wore so little clothing and did her own laundry.


    Apparently, Skull approved of my handiwork, for no sooner had I finished than she rose from the water and took the few steps needed to close the distance to me. With a little bit of magic and Skill from my Blessing, I conjured up a stream of warm air to quickly dry her off. Within half a minute, she was dried to satisfaction, and without missing a beat, accepted my help as she dressed and I helped her don her armor.


    ¡°You know, this is so much easier when you are conscious.¡±


    ¡°True,¡± she replied, ¡°but I do wish you were taking my clothes off instead of helping me put them back on.¡±


    ¡°Down, girl!¡± I responded cheekily. She swatted at me playfully, which I easily avoided.


    ¡°You could at least maybe cop a feel,¡± she pouted.


    ¡°And then you would pounce on me and before you know it the war would be over by the time we get back.¡±


    Her back stiffened at that, and she applied herself more seriously to the task at hand.


    ¡°Quit dawdling! The enemy may be forced to assault the walls now that their artillery is out of commission, and I don¡¯t want to miss it!¡±


    We quickly finished getting her armor situated on her person to her satisfaction, and without delay, I packed up all my things and collapsed our little private abode. Not that such summoned material would have lasted more than a few weeks at best before decaying as bits and pieces of it disappeared back to wherever it came from, but it was considered bad manners to let such things linger in the world beyond their intended use.


    Judging by the sun, the day had progressed perhaps an hour or so past noon, and with the ample illumination it provided, I witnessed a change as I gazed into Skull¡¯s eyes. They had previously been a sky blue, but now a golden glow could be seen in her irises, as if the normal black background had been filled in with gold. Perhaps dragon blood was potent stuff, or perhaps her patron deity had commissioned some change within her. Either way, her eyes were rather captivating, and I had to force myself to look away lest I spend the afternoon staring into her eyes. I had a sinking suspicion that such a change harbingered the bond that presumably existed between us as ordained by Gulthar.


    We hustled back to Berkerin. I noticed that I had to slow my pace for her, not that she ran any slower than our run out here, but I had somehow improved such that I could run faster than before. I mentally cursed myself for not checking on any improvements to my Blessing while I had the time earlier. Admittedly, I had found ample distraction to draw my attention away from such necessities, but such carelessness is how one ended up dead. I would have to wait until I could find a quiet place in order to check it out, as doing so while running through potentially enemy-occupied territory did not strike me as a wise choice.


    We skirted the enemy camp and made it back to our section of the wall, just above the Gate of Friendship, before sundown. The Boys were nowhere to be seen, but otherwise we were met not with eager smiles from our comrades, but rather with grumbling and muttering. Indeed, only Bellwright appeared happy to see us, and as we approached, I caught a glimpse of coin purses changing hands in the unopposed favor of the Bellwright.


    ¡°I am glad you are both back okay,¡± exclaimed Bellwright loudly for everyone to hear. ¡°Just before sundown too. Why, who could have imagined that you would ever return at such an hour?¡± he continued with an inflection and a fair amount of smugness that belied his amazement.


    ¡°Took you two long enough,¡± commented Garro sourly.


    ¡°Yeah, were you two just smelling the roses on the way back or did you decide that knocking boots would be an ideal way to pass the time?¡± asked Rarro.


    ¡°No roses,¡± Skull commented casually as she shrugged in response. ¡°Plenty of boot-knocking though.¡± She removed her helmet and casually dug into what food was available, apparently unconcerned with the privacy of the matter.


    Bellwright¡¯s smug smile quickly wilted as a scowl replaced it, and more money changed hands, this time in the favor of the elf twins.


    ¡°Oh, do tell!¡± chimed in the twins with enthusiasm.


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    Curse the twins and their chaotic nature. To my amazement and horror, Skull did tell, in graphic detail, the extent of our boot-knocking. I felt my face going red with unbridled embarrassment as Skull gave a full account while I found a seat. She continued on, seemingly passionate about the subject, going into great detail of all the things she wished to do with me of a similar nature. About a minute into her monologue, I withdrew a few pillows from my pocket dimension and passed them around, the other men gratefully accepting them while placing them on their laps for a comfortable place to rest their hands. Skull had our rapt attention, and she grew more excited and animated the more she elaborated on the fine details on every act she wished to take part of. I caught a glimpse of Bellwright covertly taking notes while the twins gazed at Skull in fascination. After about five minutes, Skull mercifully came to a stop, her breathing quickened, her face flush, and her eyes focused only on her fantasies as her arms wrapped around her body in a hug.


    Gullfore merely snorted and walked away, muttering something about ¡°not enough teeth¡±. Bellwright simply commented that he suddenly and unrelatedly had a plethora of new things to research and excused himself for a moment. The twins, with ear to ear grins on their faces, wandered off to whisper conspiratorially to one another. I found some food to eat and very mechanically set about eating, unable to meet the eyes of anyone else as I struggled to maintain my composure.


    After finishing my meal, I snapped Skull out of her fantasies and mustered the rest of the party.


    ¡°Bellwright, please brief me on what has happened since I have been gone.¡±


    The gnome puffed up a bit at that, apparently pleased by the implication that he was at the very least the de facto second-in-command.


    ¡°Not much happened during the night if you exclude the constant artillery barrage both ways. At dawn, Skull, on the back of a dragon, came by and bombarded the enemy artillery, effectively destroying their full battery and detonating much of the ammunition, much to the consternation of the enemy forces. Then the dragon got kicked out of the sky and went sailing away to the horizon. The enemy spent the rest of the day putting out fires and recovering while our own forces launched a series of daring raids, of which we did not take part. Chooka came by to collect The Boys, for they were apparently needed on another section of the wall for their intimidation effect and to ¡®dispose of¡¯ enemy corpses that littered the field. That was about two hours ago, and then you returned. Then Skull recounted how much she would like to-¡±


    ¡°Thank you, Bellwright!¡± I cut him off sharply at that, the little bastard smiling as he finished his report. ¡°Have new orders arrived for us?¡±


    ¡°Not at present,¡± he replied quickly with a look of concern on his face. ¡°The rumors circulating suggest that the enemy will launch a full assault soon in an attempt to save face after the humiliation the dragon handed them earlier. It is not entirely unheard of for dragons to render service or boons in trying times, but I cannot say I have heard of any around these parts for some time. Speaking of, who exactly is the dragon?¡±


    ¡°A concerned party who wishes to remain anonymous,¡± I replied sternly, my steely demeanor harboring no invitation for further comments or inquiries.


    Bellwright and company apparently took the hint, for no more questions were directed towards me on that topic. A few more details were discussed concerning our watch rotation and battle plans in the event of an assault, and by midnight Skull and I were alone on watch as the remainder of the party rested within the convenient abode provided by Gullfore. I idly created and placed magical traps and slid them across the ground, just beneath the surface, creating a veritable killing field should the enemy march upon us.


    ¡°I got a new Blessing,¡± Skull commented suddenly, the silence now pierced by her sudden spark of conversation.


    ¡°Oh really? Did your Blessing evolve?¡± Blessings evolving were rare amongst most people, but Adventurers were inclined to push themselves to their limits, so those that survived tended to achieve such things. I threw up a spell for privacy to help keep our conversation secret from any eavesdroppers.


    ¡°No,¡± she shook her head. She turned to me as I turned to her, and while the skull-like visage of her helmet masked her face, I could feel the smile that lay hidden beneath. ¡°I am Dual-Blessed!¡± she exclaimed with a small squeal of excitement.


    ¡°That¡¯s amazing!¡± I responded earnestly as I clasped my hand on her shoulder in celebration. Such a feat is quite rare, and it usually involves some shenanigans related to the gods or other powerful entities. ¡°I am sure you will be Diamond in no time with that. If you don¡¯t mind me asking, what are your Blessings now?¡±


    She leaned in towards me conspiratorially as she whispered her response. ¡°I am a [Divine Champion] in service of my patron deity, Gulthar, and a [Dragon Knight] in service of you.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t say I have ever heard of a [Dragon Knight] before. How does that work, and how can you serve two masters?¡± I leaned in towards her, throwing up a few more spells for our privacy. Details like this could not be allowed to leak out, even though the level of privacy such spells provided were now rather overt to any onlooker. Hopefully, no one would be dumb enough to try to barge into our conversation.


    ¡°You know how cryptic Blessings are in their description of things, and it isn¡¯t like I can choose what it does.¡± I could almost see the frustrated scowl that must surely be on her face under her helmet as her voice hardened in vexation of that sad reality for everyone who isn¡¯t me. ¡°From what I understand, it seems that I can get some draconic traits from you and Skills themed around protecting you and riding you into battle, with a good number of Abilities to help ensure you are not grounded or otherwise incapacitated. I don¡¯t have many Skills yet, but I will surely get many in the coming months if I stay by your side.¡±


    She placed her hand on my shoulder, driving home the point that there would be no room for me to send her away or give her the slip, not that I intended to.


    ¡°To answer your second question, it is rather simple. I serve my deity in spiritual matters and try to see his tenants expressed in the world, insofar as I maintain the balance that he and the other gods strive for in such matters. In terms of worldly matters, I follow you and help support whatever goals you aim for. Gulthar seems to be rather pleased with you and expects that you have a bright future ahead of you, one of spreading fear and luring out brave souls to face you down in combat, so I think he is more than satisfied with this arrangement where my attention may be a bit divided.


    ¡°And how do you feel about these new developments?¡± I was not sure which one of us I was asking, but she did not hesitate to answer.


    ¡°It suits me just fine. I have been enjoying our time together, so spending more time together seems like a good idea.¡± She paused for a moment and then shrugged before continuing. ¡°I am a simple woman. I like fighting, feasting, and fucking. Your cooking is pretty good, but I am most impressed with your prowess at the other two. I look forward to experiencing them with you in the near future.¡±


    I preened at her praise, which concerned me only in that I don¡¯t remember praise ever feeling so intoxicating before. Was this my draconic nature influencing my personality or did she have a Skill related to it? Either way, I knew I craved more, so I coaxed her to elaborate.


    ¡°The way you inspire fear in your enemies is enough to make a girl like me excited. They tremble beneath the shadow of your wings. I could feel it, taste it, the fear the enemy felt when we flew over them, and it was glorious. Then to find out on top of that that you know your way around satisfying a woman in bed, why, I think I came looking for copper and found gold. You are very attentive to what I desire and my emotions, and I can¡¯t say most of my partners have been so considerate.¡± She pulled me in for a hug, apparently not bothered by how her armor dug into me in places. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t trade you for the world.¡±


    I fiercely hugged her back, that last line of hers having a more profound effect than everything else she had said combined. It felt good to be validated by her praise, but to be desired and coveted¡­ That provided a whole new level of satisfaction that fulfilled some need I didn¡¯t really know I had. Chooka had struck it before, and I thought that to be enough, but to have another person fulfill it was rather addictive. I would have to reflect on this later and the accompanying notification from my Blessing, which I promptly ignored in favor of living in the moment. I didn¡¯t tear up like I had with Chooka that one time, but it still hit me right in the feelings.


    I pulled away from her as I grasped her on the sides of her face, well, her helmet, as I gave my response with as much seriousness and honesty as I could convey.


    ¡°And I am glad to have you by my side. I cannot guarantee you will always get as much of my attention as you may desire, but I promise to treasure you and do what I can to keep you happy as we venture through life together. I know not what fate nor the gods have in store for us, but with you by my side, I feel confident we can take on anything. Please try your best to get along with my companions; I really would like to avoid infighting.¡±


    Skull nodded in agreement. ¡°I will do my best, although I make no promises, I will suffer not a coward, and I understand that I stand second to Chooka in your life. I am sure she and I can work something out that amicable for all of us.¡±


    I smiled in response, glad that she had picked up on what I had left unspoken in any explicit sense. As if to commemorate our new bond, a series of explosions illuminated the sky in the direction of the enemy camp. Panicked men and women ran hither and thither in the distance as they tried to make sense of the blatant attack. Apparently our saboteurs had not been idle in my absence, for which I would soon get a brief summary of their success in the message book. Until then, Skull and I simply sat back and enjoyed the fireworks together, each of us with an arm around the other and with her head leaning onto my shoulder. No doubt the screams of panic in the enemy ranks made the whole affair rather romantic for Skull, but I found the whole thing peaceful, glad that she and I had come to terms with our circumstances and each other.

 Chapter 29

    The enemy took the next day to lick their wounds and organize their remaining forces, but their positioning of troops soon made it clear that an assault would indeed be launched. The longer they tarried, the more we would chip away at them and the more time our forces had to recover from healing saturation.


    Skull and I took time to review our Blessings and what Skills they provided, not just for ourselves, but how they would interact with one another. We came up with a combat doctrine and a few maneuvers we could employ, along with code phrases or motions to signal them. We had a lot to go over, for Platinum Adventures had a whole handbook that covered things like mind-control, doppelgangers, geases, time loops, supernatural manipulation of emotions or perception, and other such esoteric situations that may only ever remain hypothetical but would otherwise be disastrous if they ever actually occurred to the unprepared. Technically, there were several different published handbooks in circulation about such topics and other advanced concerns for Adventurers, but I digress. Our party was but one of temporary convenience for the duration of the war, and it would dissolve upon the end of it, so we had not really bothered with such contingencies. However, Skull and I would most likely spend the rest of our lives together, so such measures seemed to be prudent and a good way to get to know each other better.


    I had a whole host of Skills under [Hoard] related to Skull as my [Dragon Knight]. These Skills fell in the part of my web related to companions, of which the only other one was Chooka, and not many Skills were available related to her, which was rather mysterious considering how much time she and I had spent together, especially considering how Skull had been my companion for such a short while and already had plenty of options available to me. I found it odd that people were under [Hoard], but pets, like The Boys or my Giant Frogs, were under [Social]. Perhaps things would shift around more as I unlocked enough Skills to create a new theme.


    I had gained a huge chunk of Experience Points from the bombing run, and so I quickly sunk the lion¡¯s share into Skills related to Skull. I grabbed basic ones, like ones to detect her location, her emotional state, her physical condition, and her mana reserves. There were more advanced ones that amplified her power and finesse with her own Abilities while acting in service to me, which would pretty much be all the time. I also grabbed ones to be able to share our perception feeds and my perception-related Abilities with her, or at least the information they generated. I also had one to summon her to me instantly if she were relatively close, or as a ritual if she were far away. The former was a quick teleport, but the latter was a temporary summon similar to what I had for The Boys.


    I also purchased a suite of Skills for her to be able to ride me effectively in my dragon form for combat or whatever, as she already had proven quite competent at it for my human form, but that is quite a bit different than what the Skills aimed for. My Skills provided her with various means to protect me with shields, wards, barriers, and other terms that seem to mean the same thing yet have nuanced differences that I won¡¯t bore you with right now. I remained unsure as to where the line between her Skills and mine were and who would need to be the one to acquire them to get some specific Ability, but she informed me as I purchased specific Skills if that also suddenly gave her a corresponding Skill, for which only the teamwork-oriented Skills did.


    Skull, amazed at my ability to actively select my own Skills, eagerly conversed with me at length about my options and how best to leverage them. She had far more experience than I for the various forms of combat and how to survive in the world. Fighting monsters was totally different from fighting people, just as fighting an organized army was different from fighting a ragtag team of Adventurers, so she provided a wealth of useful input for my Skill selection.


    It was near the end of spending my Experience where I had worked my way to a Skill that allowed Skull to be sucked into my shadow, where she could then materialize from it later. She demanded that I take it, for the versatility it provided to allow her to follow me anywhere and for me to appear alone remained too good and too rare to pass up. I could feel that she was already scheming all the ways to leverage it (by virtue of Abilities related to understanding her thoughts), and so I took the Skill as requested.


    I had been keen on it too, but I would not have taken it if she were not inclined to indulge its use. We had a whole conversation on consent and what boundaries we wanted between being able to impose our will, thoughts, or emotions on one another as part of our Abilities. Overall, she was very comfortable with me taking control when needed and being able to spy on her. She is not a very private person and completely unafraid and unashamed of who she is, so she expressed no concerns that I could potentially detect her thoughts and feelings. However, she understood that she is the exception, not the rule, and so she would be in no way offended if I found myself disinclined to be as forthright. Overall, she was used to being in a relationship with a power imbalance due to the fact that she was a [Divine Champion] of a deity, so she found no fault with my hesitancy to be so open so soon with her.


    We did find time to covertly practice the new Skill, called [In My Master¡¯s Shadow], which was a bit on the nose and strangely worded considering it was MY skill. She popped into my shadow just fine as, over the course of a second, her body seemingly squished inward horizontally and stretched into nothingness vertically as it was sucked into my shadow. She popped out just fine a few moments later, promptly fell over, wrenched her helmet off, and retched everywhere as extreme vertigo and nausea overcame her. I know that is what happened because some of that sensation bled over our empathetic connection, not so severe that I felt it in an adverse way, but enough that I was made abundantly aware.


    I tried to comfort her with equal parts laughter and concern at her undignified attempt to use the Skill, but she confessed that her Blessings are as cheeky as they are cryptic. Her Skills don¡¯t reveal the limitations or underlying mechanics until after she tries them, and in this case she discovered that she was required to wait a certain amount of time before she could safely exit my shadow unless she wanted a repeat of what just transpired. With more experimentation and some dry heaving, she discovered that she needed about five minutes before she could pop back out, but that scaled in her favor with the intensity of my shadow in relation to my surroundings. She did unlock a Skill after a few more attempts that allowed her to feel when it would be safe to exit.


    I had gained more respect for her after that. She was a real trooper to go through such an unpleasant experience time after time until she figured it out, and so I tried to muster my resolve such that I too would not hesitate in the future to go through unpleasant experiences if it would be to her benefit. I cleaned her up, as being covered in vomit was so pass¨¦, and together we rejoined the others upon the wall.


    We had to wait a few hours for the enemy to finally assemble into attack formation. Apparently, our saboteurs had been more effective than predicted in our war councils. They had taken out fewer high ranking officers than expected, but way more sergeants and junior officers. As such, while the enemy had plenty of senior officers to give out broad commands on a strategic level, there existed a notable lack of anyone capable of providing directives on a tactical level to see all of that done. Not that the enemy army had been a well-oiled machine before, but the assassinations of their junior staff had transitioned them from cumbersome to unwieldy.


    The enemy had perhaps five hours until sundown, and so the popular opinion was that they would launch a full assault, take a beating, and retreat at least for the day, if not withdraw from the war entirely. The enemy commander had a vested interest in keeping his head firmly on his neck, and so tucking tail and running home without even attempting a full assault was not an endearing technique to employ on his superiors if he desired such an outcome. We expected this to be more about honor and saving face, but the stench of desperation would soon mix in with that of blood and guts as the battle progressed.


    Warhorns sounded the order to advance, and as aquilifers raised the standards to their full height, the accompanying bannermen initiated the march upon our heavily fortified position. The levies marched up front, each poorly trained and poorly equipped, but each also quite suitable for soaking up our artillery fire and the other nasty surprises that lay hidden.


    I looked on in horror and disgust as men and women bravely and foolishly marched forward into pitfalls, traps, incoming spells, artillery fire, and all manner of devastation that Berkerin could muster. The enemy, lacking a sufficient number of [Mages] to maintain shields to block incoming fire, simply left most of the levies completely exposed, and those poor souls paid for it dearly with casualties quickly climbing into the thousands before they even reached our walls.


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    I could feel my anger rising, a seething rage at such callous and casual disregard for life. The armchair generals would safely sit out the war in the camp while their conscripted soldiers marched to their deaths. I pitied the footsoldiers who had no safe way to refuse the order. At best they would just be executed for cowardice. At worse, their families would also not receive compensation or would face punishment as well. These men and women were literally dying here and now so that their families would be fed and not evicted from their homes at the hands of their cruel masters.


    Even Skull seemed to notice, despite my attempts to dampen what emotions bled over to her (of which she was totally aware of said dampening). How could such vile tactics be allowed, and those responsible for it be praised as virtuous? How could the gods, specifically the Holy Trinity that the Theocracy of Ulsfarh followed, stand by as such carnage was allowed to happen? Perhaps the gods were limited in what they were allowed to do in their eternal power struggle and sense of balance, perhaps they did not want to impose upon the free will of mortals, but all I knew is that the gods deserved whatever contempt they earned this day if they condoned these actions or stood by idly.


    Skull put her hand on my back to comfort me, for she herself was also a little disgusted. Gulthar appreciated the fear felt by the enemy, but it fell into the realm of being foolhardy, as the actions of the enemy posed not so much a risk of danger but a near certainty of death. As such, the whole mass of fear wafting our way from the enemy was tainted by foolishness and hopelessness, similar to what prisoners feel on the way to the gallows, which is certainly not the kind of fear that Gulthar enjoys.


    No, this was not a battle where the valiant could rise up and seize victory from the jaws of defeat. This was a wholesale slaughter with bodies literally piling up in some places as the enemy, forlorn yet undaunted, continued their advance. It took two whole hours just for them to make it to our walls, and by then, over a quarter of their forces had been wiped out. Siege ladders were brought to the front and hoisted into position as men scurried up one after another. None found ample purchase on our segment of the wall, for six Platinum Adventurers proved to be too much for levies. However, from what my sensory Skills could tell me, other sections of the wall experienced a more tenuous set of circumstances.


    The enemy kept their elite troops in reserve, waiting for the beleaguered defenders to tire themselves out on fighting levies. As soon as the enemy established a foothold on the walls, the elites would be dispatched to assault that location. Unfortunately for the enemy, our defenders did not seem to tire. As far as I could see, everyone seemed to be fighting just as vigorously as before, even as the sun slipped over the horizon. I knew I did not have a Skill that helped me personally to this magnitude, and certainly everyone else did not either, so I suspected it had to be an effect as provided by some ritual. Considering my hunger felt sated and a slightly spicy flavor lingered on the tongue, I suspected it was related to the cooking ritual as led by Alterez.


    Unfortunately for us, the enemy did manage to secure a foothold on the wall. Several in fact, despite the unflagging efforts of the defenders. I contemplated sending one of us to handle it as we were in no way at risk of being overrun. However, it appeared that I would not be the star of this battle, for another had taken the field to resolve the situation.


    Above and behind us, almost to the top of the barrier around the city, floated Erethel Starweaver, Star of Final Night, as she unleashed the ritual she had been preparing for several days now. Outfitted with rather ornate and impractical armor of a celestial theme, she hovered there for a moment as she muttered out the last of her incantation. I moved my remote senses closer to get a good look and to listen in, and I saw that she indeed had the classical ¡°boob armor¡± thing going on, the kind that would deflect any thrust to her chest right into the middle rather than off to the sides, but considering she was more of a [Mage] and a leader, she probably needed to look good more than she needed to be able to go fisticuffs with someone.


    ¡°... and through our pact, I call upon the promise forged by the bond of our blood. The stars have aligned, and let the heavens be torn asunder and crash into the world below. Until the dying of my light, I will shine alone in the heavens until the Final Night!¡±


    Damn, I missed the start of her incantation! It sounded pretty cool, but it isn¡¯t like I can just ask her what it is. Incantations tend to be rather flowery and ornate because that helps them stand out. Deities have to listen to a lot of petitioners at any given moment, even more so in a crisis, so having an oddly specific and long-winded phrase helps a god to pick out an approved solicitor of divine power from all the rest of the noise.


    Few noticed at first, but near the end, anyone who could spare an eye to gaze skywards found out the result of Erethel¡¯s ritual. One by one, the stars became visible and then sputtered out, quickly accelerating in a chain reaction until only one star remained, the one directly above Erethel, which itself grew larger and brighter. It shone not bright enough to be a sun, perhaps only an eighth of the size, but it remained the only celestial body visible in the night sky, for even the five moons dared not try to steal the spotlight.


    And after a short while, streaks of light could be seen in the sky. No, not streaks, but falling stars, each heading down towards the enemy position. No mere Comet Barrage, Hellfire, Meteor Swarm, or other such spell, each powerful in their own right, these falling stars were infused with divine power and would pass right through any magical defenses the enemy could muster unless they too drew upon such potent divinity.


    Apparently the enemy had prepared for this exact scenario, for Erethel¡¯s moniker was not earned from quiet contemplation studying musty old tomes in some arcane library, but on the battlefield of wars past. The nature of her Abilities were no secret, but knowing it and countering it are two wildly different feats. In hindsight, I would argue that the cure was worse than the disease, so to speak, but the enemy clearly set a goal and met a goal, so I can give them props for that.


    I know not what ritual they performed, nor what entity empowered it, only the fruits of their labors. The earth trembled and ruptured as grotesque worms surged skywards to intercept the falling stars. The smallest were hundreds of feet long and as big around as a house, while the largest were the size of warehouses and believably half a mile long. Their black bodies were covered with mouths, with larger mouths having smaller ones inside them, each one a hideous menagerie of teeth and oozing bile in seemingly unnatural configurations that would not conform with conventional anatomy.


    Skywards their bodies rose, their hungering maws intercepting the falling stars, each one of which was a brightly glowing ball of light, as if each were a miniature sun. Sometimes the heads of the worms exploded or melted away from the force of the impact or the heat of the stars, but from their mangled bodies and mouths, more heads sprouted and lunged skywards. Few stars hit the ground, but a few proved sufficient as terrible explosions shook the earth and vaporized anyone even remotely close by. Mushroom clouds rose skyward as shockwaves rippled across the earth, ripping man and beast apart. Even behind our shields, the walls shook from the impact and the unwary soon found themselves bowled over from the blasts.


    Still more stars fell, and still more worm-creatures rose up to meet them, oftentimes with the unwary or the unlucky being caught in their maws as worms sprung up from the earth. The bulk of the worms arose from the ground around the outskirts of the enemy army, much to the poor fortune of the levies at the front who found themselves devoured whole. The enemy command center appeared to be spared even a single hit, but the outskirts were not so generously protected. Even the elite troops took a beating with more than a few standards falling to the barrage.


    A final massive star descended, its depth hard to gage, but by all accounts it rivaled the size of a palace. The worms¡¯ bodies converged, some devouring others as they melded into one giant aberration of otherworldly flesh. I could feel the overwhelming pressure of magic, divinity, and even displaced air as the massive star crashed down towards the enemy. Undaunted, the massive worm rose to meet it, swallowing it whole, before its head exploded in a disgusting shower of gore. More heads sprouted from the mouths upon its body, and a writhing mass of them bit and tore away at the remnants of the star as it continued its descent. Ultimately, the worms prevailed, and their disgusting bodies seeped back into the earth or melted away into nothingness in quick order.


    Not a trace of the worms or stars remained, but the results of their battle had scarred the earth. Massive craters dotted the landscape in a ring around the enemy command center, the craters less densely packed the further one went from the center until they faded out entirely. Their momentum crushed, the enemy retreated to regroup and recover from their devastating losses. The sky, equally exhausted from such a display of raw power, reverted back to normal, and without witnessing it, one would question if such divine intervention had even happened at all.


    Apparently, that whole ordeal had caused a different flavor of fear, one that Skull was very keen upon devouring as she feasted upon the bounty it provided. With her mind not making much distinction between that upwelling of power and lust, she could no longer contain herself. Such fear of that intensity on such a scale, for both the defenders and the invaders, had overwhelmed her self-control. She picked me up, threw me over her shoulder, and carried me into the abode provided by Gulfore. She promptly stormed up the stars to the bedrooms, found hers, and threw me inside and onto a bed.


    With a snap of her fingers, her armor had doffed itself, along with her clothes, and before I could so much as to try to snap her out of her state, drunk on power as she was, she had leapt upon me in order to indulge her pent-up lust. Technically, the battle was not declared over, so a lot of rules were being broken right then, but if anyone cared, no one came to stop us as we spent the night indulging our passions.

 Chapter 30

    Their forces so diminished by their foolhardy assault, the army of the Theocracy of Ulsfarh decided to head home. However, they neglected to officially surrender, and so they found themselves harassed every step of the way. They took especially heavy losses at the Arthu-Ja¡¯an river on account that they no longer had a bridge to ease crossing. Their march turned upriver so that they could try their luck crossing where the waters were easier to wade across. Pinned against such an obstacle, the defenders of Berkerin inflicted heavy casualties on the dwindling enemy forces. Not even the daftest of souls found themselves ignorant of the wrath of Berkerin towards foreign invaders, and for many, that became the last observation they ever made.


    Many levies simply surrendered, perhaps even forsaking those they left in their homeland to their own fate. Others, upon observing that the defenders of Berkerin mostly targeted officers and more elite units, tended to fumble longer than usual in getting into formation for combat, much to the detriment and untimely demise of the more elite units. All told, estimates suggest that at best, two in five of the enemy made it home, and at worst, one in five. That meant that between 30 and 40 thousand troops had perished in addition to any camp followers. Their retreat exposed many to capture and much of the baggage train was simply abandoned because there were not enough people to transport or protect it. The whole retreat took eight days, and to say that the campaign was a complete disaster would perhaps be an understatement. No doubt, heads would roll for such a disgraceful failure, and no doubt the blame game was already well under way.


    However, Berkerin did not come out of the war unscathed. Of the 427 Gold Adventurers that had participated, 135 had died, with another 28 grievously wounded. Likewise, of the 83 Platinum Adventurers, 12 died and 3 were grievously wounded. Of the city militia and garrison forces, some four thousand people died with plenty more wounded. Dozens of nearby towns were razed either as part of a scorched-earth policy or from enemy raids. In short, Berkerin had suffered noticeable losses and remained vulnerable to further raids from neighboring lands. Such fatalities would give rise to a great number of funerals and bones shipped southward.


    After-action reports became my life for a few days, both writing my own and reviewing those from other people. When not doing that, I found myself stuck in meetings and briefings. It appears that most of the Gold Adventurers that died disobeyed orders or overextended, much to the surprise of no one. Such overconfidence and lack of discipline was a huge dividing line between Gold and Platinum, a reason why many otherwise powerful individuals could never make the transition to the higher tier. The Platinums just got focus-fired down, since each individual was famous enough to be known, recognized, and explicitly countered. The Silver and Coppers fared rather well, all things considered, for they were mostly placed in support roles or to guard less strategically important locations. Still, they each took about twenty percent casualties, of which the reports did not specify between dead and wounded.


    Most older Adventurers took it all rather well. For them, this was just a reality of life and the price paid for a privileged lifestyle. However, many of the younger ones showed clear signs of grief and trauma, for which the mind healers were overwhelmed with managing their numerous patients.


    I had gathered some like-minded Adventurers, and together before a post-war council with all the nobles and the upper crust of society, we petitioned a voluntary charity to help rebuild, especially for the outlying villages and towns. I had donated my entire savings from Adventuring, the stash I could not spend on myself, right then and there before everyone. With such a generous pledge, around 150 platinum coins, donated by a single Adventurer without lands or titles, the nobles would look weak and avaricious if they too did not try to at least match my contribution and downright evil if they opposed the petition at all. That action garnered me more than a few dirty looks as coin purses found their strings begrudgingly loosened.


    Word got around quickly of my generous donation and how I had pulled one over on the nobles. Combined with my impressive military feats, I became the talk of the town, with ample drinks bought for me, and, more importantly, countless artisans became more than eager to teach me the basics of any number of professions free of charge.


    Grand Duke Archibald Melwyrr Fylthern could not afford to ignore me, nor my contributions, but honestly, I do not think he intended to. As busy as I had been, he had been busier, but finally I received a summons for a private audience. The man appeared to be genuinely pleased with my efforts, and after some conversation, we worked out a deal concerning myself and the dragon. The northern mountain around Berkerin had been undeveloped for generations due to the dangerous beasts and monsters lurking nearby and the relatively safer and more lucrative resources of the other two mountains. I hashed out a deal to acquire ownership of said territory with the dragon as a legally protected entity. That was the deal made behind closed doors, with the more official version made public with all the fanfare that goes with a formal summons from the Duke. I¡¯m pretty sure I got a title or two to go with it, not enough to gain peerage of nobility, but enough that I could tell the nobles to fuck off if they stepped onto my turf. Basically, I became a noble in practice for how I was granted rights as a landowner, but not one for any rights of peerage to hold public office.


    The days bled into one another and I defeated the army of paperwork and meetings, but after about a month after this whole war began, I finally found myself reunited with Chooka where we could actually have some time to spend together. We had bailed out early on a celebratory party of our victory that also doubled as a wake, for Adventurers tend to be more upbeat than dour about such things. We slowly perambulated our way home, in no hurry to arrive, just enjoying the crisp night air and the joy of each other¡¯s company. The Boys waddled behind us, content to go wherever we wanted, with even the newly sprouted Diogenes behaving himself despite his normally confrontational demeanor.


    ¡°I¡¯ve been looking forward to tonight for some time now,¡± I admitted as we continued along our way, giving her a little squeeze with my arm around her waist. ¡°Despite being in the city for over a week now, I have been too busy to even make it home, and I apologize for my absence, for I truly missed you.¡±


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    ¡°I missed you, too,¡± she replied as she leaned down towards me to whisper into my ear, her arms squeezing me in reciprocation. ¡°My other lovers could only treat my symptoms, but they could not cure the loss I felt from your absence. I tried all of them, but none of them worked. I guess that makes you pretty special.¡±


    I stood a little straighter at that compliment, that an accomplished [Courtesan] would consider me to be her favorite.


    ¡°I could have just as easily walked into any other guildhall when I first arrived in town, and I don¡¯t think we would have met and bonded as we have had I done so. I feel as though I am the luckiest man in the world to have picked the guildhall I did. I don¡¯t expect to spend all 432 days of a year with you, but I still count each one as a blessing.¡±


    Apparently that pushed the right buttons, for Chooka squeezed me tightly as she nuzzled her head into mine before planting a few kisses on my head. She seemed to be as happy as a clam now that we were together again, and she spared no time for other matters not related to expressing such enthusiasm. I had to pry her off for a second so I could get a word in edgewise before she engaged in public indecency.


    ¡°Much has happened, and much has changed, and I will tell you all about it, but there is one thing I must do first,¡± I told her as I held her by the waist far enough away from me that we could make proper eye contact.


    ¡°And what would that be?¡± she asked as a coy smile spread across her face.


    ¡°You!¡± I whispered.


    Before she could come back with a lewd reply, I swept her off her feet and began a swift jog home, mindful that The Boys were not well known for their overland speed. That maneuver elicited a squeal of joy and a few giggles from Chooka as we hastened our way home. The Boys made their way to their pond as Chooka and I headed for the house, which itself looked much the same as we had left it last. Well, almost the same as I paused briefly near the door to comment on the changes I noticed.


    ¡°There are weeds in the flower bed. You have been lax in tending the garden, I see.¡±


    ¡°I have been a bad girl,¡± she replied with mock guilt. ¡°I suppose you will have to punish me for my carelessness,¡± she continued as she eyed me suggestively with what manner of punishment that could possibly imply.


    With a grin on my face, I carried her up the stairs, and before long, we found ourselves entwined in each others¡¯ arms as we expressed our affection for one another by indulging all our favorite pastimes together. It was after our third such tussle in the sheets that she paused long enough to cuddle for a moment, Chooka clearly intent on another bout soon enough.


    ¡°There have been some developments as of late, some of which are rather permanent.¡±


    She lifted her head from my chest to look me in the eyes, her interest piqued by my sudden admission.


    ¡°But I think you will enjoy what I have in store for us,¡± I told her as I sat upright.


    Chook sat upright to look at me, not entirely certain as to what I was getting at, but trusting that it would be something good and curious as to the answer. With a snap of my fingers, Skull transitioned out of my shadow and appeared before us at the side of the bed. She wore her own version of lingerie, which included a frugal amount of rather sheer black cloth and a lot of bones to outline her figure. She even had the whole arrangement of skeletal hands to hold her breasts in place, and upon closer inspection, I became convinced that those were indeed real bones. Around her neck she wore a leather collar, and from that, a leash extended to my hand.


    ¡°I answer my master¡¯s call,¡± she stated plainly yet firmly as she crawled onto the bed. ¡°I may wear this collar for now, but it is you who will be on your knees wearing it by night¡¯s end,¡± she exclaimed defiantly to Chooka as she crawled over and on top of her.


    ¡°All you have to do is obey the master,¡± she whispered into Chooka¡¯s ear as her lips gently brushed against it, ¡°and all the pleasures of the world will be yours.¡±


    Okay, that whole bit certainly had not been in the script, but I liked the energy and the improvisation. Chooka looked at me, then at Skull, then back to me, before she came up with a reply.


    ¡°What is my master¡¯s bidding?¡± she asked submissively as she bit her lower lip in anticipation.


    ¡°Well, for starters¡­¡±


    I won¡¯t go into the full details, but rest assured that Chooka was quite pleased with the new dynamic. Her black book had more than a few updates and at one point we ran out of rope and honey. I ended the night in the middle of a double snuggle as we all caught up on some much needed sleep.


    The demand for work for Adventurers was rather lacking in the following days. More people were focused on rebuilding, not acquiring rare ingredients from beasts and monsters, and said creatures were scared away by the war and a large army stomping through their territories. Thus, they were not causing too much of a fuss to warrant any pruning of their numbers. I tried to obtain lessons from various artisans, but most found themselves bereft of materials to practice their trade, especially for wood, stone, and metal.


    And so, with tools in hand, well, in pocket dimension, I set out into the wilderness to collect such materials. I had no way of knowing that such a simple willingness to pitch in would set me down the path to divinity, but that is perhaps a tale for another time. Thus the first steps of my life found their conclusion, but many more yet remain to be told.


    If you stick around, dear reader, I will share more tales with you. Long is the road, but the journey is worthwhile to those that dare to tread every step of the way. I will not bore you with each and every thing that has happened in my life, but rest assured, things were about to become a whole lot more arduous for my younger self. Soon, I will even be able to tell you my tale from other points of view, but you would have to stick around to find out why that is and why I have not done so thus far. And so I raise this question to you:


    Do you dare to tread the path of The Dragon of Roads?

 Chapter 31

    The Dragon of Roads - Road of Ascension


    The crashing of trees upon earth signaled yet another of my many victories. I know it sounds arrogant to phrase it like that, for these particular trees can hardly fight back, but sometimes one has to phrase things in a good light to really appreciate one¡¯s hard work and dedication for a task well done. I had even managed to line them up so one tree would knock down another, and I had a feeling this one would be a record.


    Sadly, the fifth tree twisted as it fell and failed to knock down the next tree. Perhaps I had missed my calling as a lumberjack on account that it never came. I knew people who could fell trees with a single swing of an axe, yet here I had to take four or five to get them ready to topple.


    By reflex, I moved my arm to wipe sweat from my brow, an overall fruitless task on account that I no longer perspire, but such habits were not unlearned overnight. I stood by as long, serpent-like heads snatched up the fallen trees, the quartet of them working together to strip the trees of limbs and bark before stacking them on a neat pile. Each black neck of the heads was easily as big around as the trunks of the trees I felled, which were some kind of fir with pleasantly straight trunks. These heads were not in fact snakes, but the four heads of my pet hydra, collectively known as The Boys.


    Socrates, the leftmost, cautiously examined every tree for dangers, with efforts redoubled after the last incident with the Ragesting Wasps, so named for their calm and polite demeanor when a curious hydra pokes around their broken nest at the base of a felled tree. Diogenes, who pronounced his name wrong, took most things as a slight or a challenge, and, always ready to pick a fight, had destroyed the pesky wasps and a whole patch of trees in the process. However, being the youngest, he had some catching up to do in terms of maturity. Plato, their leader and the best behaved, kept his brothers in line and ensured they stayed on task, much to my appreciation. Aristotle, the rightmost, appraised each tree carefully for a few moments before going buck-wild on delimbing them. That one was either inclined to be passive or extremely enthusiastic in his undertakings with little middle ground.


    Still, they performed rather well together, and the little tykes had grown into a force of nature. None of the local wildlife or monsters dared approach with a hydra around. To be fair, they also never approached when a dragon was around, but I currently maintained my human form. By benefit of my increase in age, I was now able to maintain my dragon form for eight hours a day, and sometimes I would do so to clear trees faster. One sweep of my tail could fell many trees at once, but I did not want to be observed doing so. Currently, I was almost at the border of my holdings to that of the nearby farms, and I did not need rambunctious farmers going into Berkerin spreading rumors of a mad dragon rampaging through the forest.


    I had been working diligently for several months now to clear a path for and to indeed create a road from my new holdings at the northern mountain around Berkerin to the road that just sort of ends in that direction. Someone decided to just stop civilization there, and no farms or other settlements continued past where the current road ends. However, I had been paving the way for improvement, with my road being more than a mere dirt trail. I had dug out the path for the road with some new trusty Skills as part of my Blessing, [Greater Elder Dragon Emperor]. I filled that path in with proper layers of sand, rock, gravel, and other materials as shown to me by several helpful experts in such matters. They had taught me all about proper layering of materials, water drainage, inclines, and all manner of engineering techniques to build a road, and now I endeavored to put such knowledge into practice.


    The stone bricks were initially the most difficult part. I had to carve them out by hand like some gods-forsaken savage until I finally unlocked a Skill to do it for me. Then I unlocked another one that allowed me to take stone of any size and shape it into bricks, including transmogrifying loose stone and gravel into it. Things really accelerated at that point, for I no longer had to take care in how I quarried out my stone blocks. Combine that with my new and specialized pocket dimension that could only hold stone, and I had completed more roadwork in the past month than the last six combined.


    Similarly, I had also gained one pocket dimension that specialized in wood, and I could likewise shape any sort of wood into lumber. However, it still remained cheaper in terms of mana expenditure to keep the wood as log-like as possible, for a pile of splinters and sawdust taxed even my generous mana reserves when used to fuel such endeavors. These new logs would soon be sucked into their pocket dimension where they would remain in stasis.


    Anything inside those logs that was not sufficiently like wood in nature would simply fall out, and so the pocket dimension could be used as a sort of sieve. I had collected a modest but steady supply of various metals this way from random boulders and stone from a quarry I had made, and likewise, these trees occasionally had a useful herb or seed that could turn a profit if sold to the right merchants. And indeed I had come to know these merchants as of late, and in doing so had made a respectable source of revenue from my various finds.


    Such money was typically for spending, and normally, one could say that all money was meant for such. However, as a dragon, I decided that some money obtained in certain ways, one coin at a time, was to be part of my hoard, or that is to say, my [Hoard]. My various jobs that I took as an Adventurer provided most of those tributes, and these days, I pretty much only bothered with the postings that could pay me a platinum coin. I always rounded my payment down to the largest denomination of coin, the rest going to a fund for a rainy day when someone other than me needed financial aid, but I had still collected a good sum over the past year and a half since the war where Berkerin was unsuccessfully besieged by the Theocracy of Ulsfarh.


    That war, and my efforts in it, had found me rewarded with the uninhabited mountain to the north of Berkerin. The war caused a need for building supplies, which in turn led me to my current undertaking of harvesting resources. The harvesting of resources necessitated a road, because traveling through the woods every day grew tedious when roads were faster. I was already harvesting lumber, so it made sense to do so in a mostly straight line towards the mountain. I could hardly fly to and fro as a dragon if I wished to remain incognito, so hoofing it remained the only viable mode of transport. I had long since developed to the point where I could outpace and outlast a Geckodon, my preferred steed for transportation, in overland travel, so I literally ran back and forth from home to work every day.


    The Boys had to be summoned to me, and when dismissed, they returned back to whence they came, which was typically to the guildhall where Chooka worked. She and I were lovers, and I had taken her as my official mistress. The Boys loved her dearly as their mother, even though she was a remnimi and they were a hydra, but they had imprinted on the two of us as she was there with me when The Boys hatched. The Boys enjoyed the exercise and any chance to spend time with their Papa, as they call me when we communicate telepathically. I am The Dragon of Roads, but in these days I did not go by such a moniker, nor did I have divinity, so Papa worked as fine for them then as it does even now.


    Perhaps I should back up for a second and introduce myself to you, the reader. I am The Dragon of Roads, a demigod. My Divine Portfolio includes the Domain of Roads, of which my past self is currently building his first road. Yes, I am narrating my own story of my past self, but I think it works just fine if you learn to figure out which of us is talking. I do admit I am a little out of touch as to what mortal minds can comprehend, and you mortals only have one mind, so I apologize if my style of storytelling confuses you. It is called ¡®artistic license¡¯, and I have literally been issued several different licenses to be an author throughout the ages, so I am certified to say that I know what I am talking about here.


    Anyway, I was building this road, and I had about a stone¡¯s throw to go before I connected my new road to the existing dirt road. That is to say, a stone thrown by a petite gnome maiden who suffers from some form of muscular dystrophy and not some hill giant that professionally hurls boulders all day. I had just cleared the last of the trees in my way and then some, for I had found a good location to try for a new record to knock a whole bunch down in one go. I felt confident that doing ten in a row would unlock a new [Deed], which would come with some benefit in the shape of a Skill for my Blessing.


    Speaking of Skills and Blessings, I had managed to unlock a Skill web from [Survival] for [Harvesting]. That transition is what netted me many of the delicious upgrades, such as the individual pocket dimensions for different resources and the abilities to recombine smaller parts into a larger whole. That brought my Skill webs to [Age], [Deeds], [Hoard], [Survival], [Social], and [Harvesting], each a separate realm to spend Experience Points to acquire new Skills from my Blessing, generally speaking. [Deeds] were unlocked only by doing things, and they often gave free Skills in the other webs. [Age] entailed most things to do with my draconic form and what it was capable of, such as breathing elemental attacks or the size of my body, and it is gated by time and growing older. [Hoard] depended on things collected, one at a time, each with their own story. [Social] is rather straightforward, concerning leadership, understanding people, my pets, most illusions, and all that jazz. [Harvesting] I had already explained, and pretty much everything else fell under [Survival]. [Social] and [Harvesting] had evolved from [Survival], and so I remained confident that I could coax a few more skill webs from [Survival] if I dedicated Experience Points to Skills related by a common theme. Surely someday soon I would get one for Traps, Illusions, Defense, Pets, or Perception, as those enjoyed the lion¡¯s share of my Experience Point Expenditures.


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    Such would have to wait for another day, for I was focused on finishing my road. Around the time I placed the final stone bricks into the road, a figure clad in black, macabre, full plate armor silently walked out of the forest and towards me. Unless such was the latest fashion trend, it could be none other than Skull, my bodyguard. Entirely and quite literally fearless, she remained a [Divine Champion] in service of Gulthar, one of the Dark Gods. He was all about Fear and Courage, so hooking his champion up with a dragon would do wonders for him in the future for causing both of those to happen in the countless souls I would encounter in my travels. However, she also served me as a [Dragon Knight], and being Dual-Blessed was indeed a rare and coveted feat. I am quite fond of her, and so is Chooka, so together we three remained in an interesting polyamorous relationship, which really was not uncommon in those days.


    ¡°Nice road,¡± she told me as she came right up beside me. ¡°I am so glad you are finished. No offense, but this whole endeavor has been rather boring. Weeks can go by until something pops out of the forest looking for a fight, and even then, it isn¡¯t much of one.¡±


    I glanced over at her for a moment to acknowledge her before I finished the final touches.


    ¡°Maybe another war will start soon or a bounty will come out for a particularly dangerous monster,¡± I replied casually, not particularly bothered by her complaints.


    ¡°A girl can dream, I suppose,¡± she responded with a sigh.


    Even with her helmet on, I could tell that Skull was bored out of her, well, skull. Our empathetic connection allowed me to sense all manner of things about her, of which she was in no way shy or bothered by such invasion of privacy.


    ¡°There, and done!¡± I exclaimed as I placed the last brick.


    She pulled me in for a hug at that, for she remained always eager to show affection. She enjoyed fighting, feasting, and fucking, as she so eloquently puts it, and so I could understand why she would try to coax me to focusing on at least one of those things with her.


    ¡°I know this may seem hypocritical considering I just complained about how boring this all is, but shouldn¡¯t you place some sort of marker here? Like, a sign post or a statue or something?¡±


    I hugged her back, before withdrawing.


    ¡°You are right, as usual. I have just the thing in mind. I have been practicing my illusions, wards, and enchanting, so I think this would be a good test to bring them all together.¡±


    And I had been practicing and even sought out experts to tutor me. I simply nodded my head as they explained all the magic theory that went in one ear and out the other. I simply acquired the related Skills, marched to the beat of my own drum, and figured out my own way to make it work. I developed my own rune language, each one a small and separate instruction rather than a large and complex one that was the style at the time. Like, why remember thousands of different runes that do complex things when I could just remember a couple dozen that can basically be used the same way letters spell words?


    I found that I indeed had some natural talent for those distinct disciplines. Combined with my skills and indeed Skills related to creating magical traps, the whole kit really fit well together for a dragon to create a lair to house a hoard and keep out pesky intruders or lure them to their deaths. Even though I had ample training in direct combat and could perform adequately well at it, I did not take many Skills for that, so I tended to lag behind other Platinum Adventurers that specialized in such things. I tended to be more of a generalist and focused on using the right tool for the job rather than overwhelming force.


    The right tool for this job would be a small obelisk of marble. I first cleared out the ground beneath where I would build it and filled in the area with the proper layers of material to create a stable foundation. I created a solid stone slab for the base of the whole area. With practiced skill, I imposed my own version of reality as my pocket dimension for stone opened in the air above where I would place the obelisk, and with a steady metaphorical hand and some concentration, I carefully worked the stone to the desired shape and placed it into location as I drew it out of that other dimension, almost like drawing a sword from a sheath or something I suppose.


    I didn¡¯t break the foundation, so I considered that to be a good start. The obelisk stood up to my height, and at about halfway between waist and chest, I carved out a little nook that would hold the main attraction, a small and magically animated baby dragon that would hold a coin I gave it. I carved the runes needed to allow it to detect people, to growl at them if they tried to take the coin, to chirp happily if pet, and otherwise maintain as lifelike an appearance and behavior that animated stone could offer. More runes provided warding against vermin and water so that it would remain uninfested and dry. A few more to keep it clean and to self repair from any small cracks that would develop over time, and I found myself satisfied with what it could realistically do without a dedicated mana supply.


    Speaking of mana, I carved out a nook in the back for a S.M.A.R.T. crystal. Such relates to a broad category of said crystals, each one with different specifications for what they do, what tolerances they can handle, and what environments they can endure. More specifically, they are ¡°Self-sustaining Mana Accumulating Relays/Transformers¡±. This one was designed to absorb ambient mana from the environment, transmogrify that mana into my own mana signature, and deliver it to the various runes carved in the obelisk, all done in a way that can be maintained indefinitely provided I did not overdraw power. Ambient mana could wax and wane, so I threw in a few more crystals that were far cheaper and acted as batteries to store excess for times of want. Satisfied, I created a backplate of marble to hide the little mana generator I had constructed in the base of the obelisk.


    ¡°Alright, here we go.¡±


    Skull took a step back. She remained fearless, but also prudent, for Gulthar has little love for carelessness in the face of danger. Her vote of confidence cast, I rolled my eyes as I channeled my mana into the construct, priming the pump so to speak to kickstart the whole thing.


    It took a second, but the runes glowed with a soft, pale light, and the little baby dragon statue animated as if alive. Illusions created the pleasant cries of curious affection as the dragon accepted the platinum coin I handed to it while it playfully cuddled around the coin and guarded it jealously, if not effectively. One good blow from a hammer would surely shatter it, but it lacked any true sentience or sapience, so it would not balk at trying to fend off an attacker way above its weight class.


    ¡°Aww, it¡¯s so cute!¡± exclaimed Skull as she moved in closer to examine it, her arms tucked in close as her balled fists rested on her chin. She shook back and forth slightly at the waist in adoration, which really clashed with her terrifying image of death and destruction that her black armor gave off. The zweih?nder clipped over her back did nothing to dispel the illusion that she remained an absolute terror on the battlefield. ¡°And so feisty!¡± she continued as she withdrew her hand from it. The little guy had bit at her impotently as she reached for the coin, for it lacked the strength to pierce flesh and draw blood, much less magically-reinforced armor blessed by a god.


    ¡°This is a lovely little shrine, don¡¯t you agree?¡± she asked innocently, not understanding the implications of her words.


    ¡°Indeed, it is a lovely little shrine,¡± I conceded like the fool that I was. It was too late, for my younger self said the very words that gave it legitimacy! Unbeknownst to all present, I had already set in motion the very first act of forging my godhood. How could I have known that such a harmless little symbol of my existence would lead me down that slippery slope to divinity?


    It was at that moment that some strange power overcame me. It flowed over and through me, and it felt good and right like nothing else I had ever experienced before. Skull grabbed ahold of me in concern, for she could feel the raw magical energy bleeding into her through our connection as power overwhelming crashed through my veins. The sensation only lasted a few seconds, but I knew I needed this, that whatever had happened had taken one small step to completing me in some way I never knew I required.


    ¡°Are you alright?¡± Skull asked with calm but still apparent concern. No tinge of fear could be found in her words, but she remained ready to act, to follow any order I would give her.


    ¡°I feel amazing!¡± I responded as I looked over my person. I felt stronger, more alive and vibrant, as if I could fight any army single handedly. ¡°I don¡¯t know what that was, but I feel certain that I need to make more of these. Something about it felt so¡­ right.¡±


    ¡°I see,¡± Skull said flatly, clearly not fully understanding or appreciating the full implication of my words, but resolved to follow me nonetheless. ¡°How about we head home for the day so you can check if your Blessing has changed any in peace and comfort?¡±


    ¡°That is a good idea, as usual,¡± I admitted. Going down the rabbit hole of checking on such things in the wilderness remained a rather distracting endeavor, and such carelessness would not embody the tenants of wisdom. Checking on one little thing could easily devolve into several hours of also seeing what else was now available or would go well with some new acquisition.


    ¡°Come, Skull! We depart.¡±


    Heeding my word, Skull slid into my shadow, her entire body disappearing entirely as it stretched into nothingness. There she would remain on our journey home, for I outpaced her by a sizable margin. Not that she herself was a slug or anything, but I possessed speed that surpassed most as I quickly devoured the distance between us and home.


    Today had been a good day with an excellent new discovery. It also served as a marker for my divine insight, for with that first symbol of my divinity branded into creation, I now have the means to look back in time to see the stories and perspectives of those whose paths cross my own. I had no way of knowing that fate had already conspired to draw people towards me, but now I will share their perspective from time to time.

 Chapter 32

    Alterez stumbled down the alleyway on his way to the guildhall. He had been drinking, but that had not been the cause of his awkward gate. The poor gnome with bad taste in fashion had been the cause of sorts. Alterez had convinced the gnome to take a nap by virtue of a blow to the back of the head, and he had then proceeded to unburden said individual of his reprehensible taste in clothes. The poncho felt a little small, the ridiculously large sombrero didn¡¯t quite fit his head, and the maracas shaking in his hand with each step made him feel a little sleepy. A quick bump when he arrived at work would jolt him awake, but for now, he continued the short ways to the side door to the guildhall.


    ¡°You should take his money, too.¡±


    ¡°And his life while you are at it.¡±


    The voices in his head tried to convince him towards engaging in risky ventures, as usual. He had grown accustomed to ignoring their less-than-sage sources of advice, and indeed the plethora of drugs he took on any given day helped to drown them out. Not that he was addicted or anything like how humans would become dependent on them. Oh no, as a goblin, he remained immune to such inconveniences and to any risk of an overdose. Much the better, for Alterez rarely found himself sober from more than three substances at any given time.


    Alterez really didn¡¯t want to work today. He had a lead on a new illicit substance that had quickly become all the rage for those degenerate enough to indulge. He knew everyone who was anyone involved in such things in Berkerin, and he had decided to wait a while to see how other users reacted to the substance before he too experimented with it. Not that he feared adverse side effects, for his supreme goblin physiology was not susceptible to such things. No, he remained aloof to see how the plugs would react to customers. Sometimes the first hit is free, and before you know it, the plugs have their meat hooks in you, and Alterez had not fallen off the turnip wagon last week.


    As he neared the door, he clicked his tongue in dismay. She was there, along with her lover boy. She had quickly caught on to his wily ways, for trying to get out of work was one of his favorite pastimes. The gnome had provided the means for today''s exc¡­ er, reason, yes, reason why he could not work today. He could smell her scent as it wafted around the sides of the closed door, the light fragrance of pleasant perfumes tenderly caressing his nostrils as he chanced a whiff. Undoubtedly, she lingered there to nag his green ass until he agreed to work. He patted his cheeks with the maracas to focus himself on the task at hand.


    ¡°Showtime!¡±


    He opened the door and danced his way in, a large and perhaps creepy smile plastered on his face as he shook his maracas and gyrated his hips in his best sashay as he entered the kitchen of the guildhall. She stood there, hands akimbo, awaiting his latest masterpiece of why today was not a good day to work.


    ¡°Chooka, you look wonderful! Love the horns by the way, you simply have to let me know what you use to shine them. Anyway, I can¡¯t work today, religious holiday and all. I simply came by in the traditional attire that one wears when communing with goblin gods as a courtesy to inform you that I will be visiting the Shrines today.¡±


    Today was not Shrine Day, not that he regularly attended, but Chooka did not know that.


    ¡°Oh really. Are you sure your Shrine Day was not exactly three days ago? You know, the day your pet beetle-dog needed to be properly mourned in remembrance of his passing. I¡¯m certain that the work schedule is not wrong in that you are to work today, so cut the bullshit!¡±


    Scratch that, she did know his Shrine Day schedule. If only he had been a troll, he could claim wai¡¯fudo as an excuse, since that was legally protected as a good reason to ditch work. Alas, the gods, in their superior judgment, had found such a crass form too inferior to contain his greatness and had blessed him with the body of a most magnificent goblin. This could still be salvaged though. Time for some alternate truths.


    ¡°Calumny! I implore you not to abnegate her gorgeous physique, but rather to steel yourself lest she inveigle you in her prevarications!¡± Alterez drooped his ears and gave his best beaming gaze of hope towards the human next to her. If he could be swayed, then the battle would be won. ¡°I beseech you, assume the responsibility of a plenipotentiary on my behalf and convince your fine lover to not divorce herself of all reason. The exegesis of my people¡¯s most sacred texts demand that I appease the gods, not as a lickspittle, but as a humble and faithful petitioner.¡±


    ¡°Alterez,¡± the tall and scantily clad remnimi female interrupted as he prepared for his second salvo of buzzwords. ¡°You always use big words when you try to weasel your way out of things. I swear, if I retrace your steps and find an unconscious gnome who was waylaid on his way to a Gnomerween party, I will personally¡­¡±


    She slipped into speaking goblin at that point, which Alterez was pretty sure she learned just to threaten him. The human did not understand a word of it, but by her tone, he caught the drift of her hostility. She really pulled out the stops this time, and the three different ways she implied she would mutilate his genitals and use them as a garnish when she force-feeds him his own guts nearly brought a tear of joy to his eye and really needed to be remembered for his own threats in the future. In a way he felt a little proud at how well she had progressed in her linguistic aptitude for the sophisticated communication medium that is the goblin language.


    ¡°You should let her do it.¡±


    ¡°You might enjoy it.¡±


    And now the peanut gallery had ruined the moment he was having with Chooka. They weren¡¯t exactly wrong, but they probably wanted him to bleed out from a foray into hedonism. They coveted his body and wanted their turn, but him still being alive held up the line for the other goblins to reincarnate in the timeshare that is his body. After all, he had done much the same to the previous host, so he could not exactly blame them for trying. The real problem was that the amateurs always gave bad advice. They should at least seduce him with good advice for a few decades before they pull a fast one on him and get him strangled in a back alley poker game gone wrong like civilized goblins.


    The human didn¡¯t say a word, clearly not wanting to get mixed up in this, and with the battle lost, Alterez needed to gracefully recover from this setback.


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    ¡°I think I dropped my coin purse on the way here. I will be right back in a jiffy to get right to work, boss!¡±


    With his closing argument, and a few shakes of the maracas, he sashayed his way back out with the extra large smile on his face. He retraced his steps to the gnome, dressed him in the ridiculous outfit, and woke the poor soul up. Alterez provided a standard and well polished dose of fibbery and flattery, and the dope even thanked him for his help! With that settled, he returned to the kitchen, where Chooka waited for him to get started.


    Alterez removed a vial of violet powder from inside his vest. He popped the cork and deposited a line of it on the counter in front of him. Plugging one nostril, he snorted the whole thing in one go, and after a few sniffles, placed the bottle back where he had withdrawn it. Purple Maze was an excellent substance to help one focus on a task for hours at a time, and he would need it today to distract him from his desire to seek out Dragon¡¯s Kiss, the new substance that he intended to try.


    Satisfied with the dosage and the sensation of clarity washing over him, he donned his apron and chef¡¯s hat. He flicked a finger at the dials on a vox-illusio, and the clash and carnage of metal and death filled his ears as the music of his people played for him. With a guttural and primal shout, he let the hate flow through his veins as he grabbed a nearby cleaver and set to work to prepare for today''s food orders.


    Chooka, satisfied that he would do his job, departed with her boy toy in tow. The man in question wasn¡¯t so bad, and he even brought Alterez some prime ingredients every now and then, but they couldn¡¯t understand how being the only goblin in town could be frustrating. A goblin has needs, needs that a [Courtesan] like Chooka could fulfill, but she would never give him the time of day, even if the difference in size could be made up for. Gnomes were not green enough and miccen were too furry for his tastes. Perhaps he would have to make a visit home one of these days and find himself a bimbo.


    Rage flooded his mind as he turned the music up to eleven. Each and every dish was carefully prepared with the proper amount of hate and spite as his drug-fueled bender careened him towards another day in the kitchens. A few drops of Fairy Garden to make the lights taste pretty, a puff or two of Amber Destiny to keep his hand perfectly steady, a few sips of Milk of the Wereflower to push his metabolism to the max, and he was a one-goblin cooking machine. His movements were practically a blur as he dashed between stations, managing several dishes at once with practiced ease.


    Orders came in and food was dished out. Dishes were washed in an instant thanks to Skills from his Blessing as a [Line Cook]. The kitchen was his domain and he the unrivaled master of his realm. They had all laughed at him when he first came to town all those years ago, but no one laughed any more. He had shown them all his skill, his knowledge of the culinary arts, and of dark rituals for victuals. He had even led a cooking ritual during the war. They had called him mad, but when the entire defensive line had not faltered due to hunger or fatigue as a mystical force empowered the beleaguered defenders, they had no choice but to acknowledge his superiority.


    CHOP!


    Down came his cleaver, perhaps a bit too hard as he thought back to the ridicule he had faced from his rivals. It wasn¡¯t even the good kind of ridicule that a certain tall and lithe remnimi used upon occasion after he goaded her. The way she could loom over him with murder in her eyes as she humiliated him with her disgust and insults had awoken something with him, something he craved more every time it happened. She made him feel small and pathetic in a way that freed him of all other concerns and silenced the voices. Sure, she had a great rack and luscious lips, but Alterez was not a shallow goblin. He loved how she made him feel, and if she were unavailable, he would have to find someone else to fill the void.


    The drugs sure were not doing it, but another bump of Purple Maze helped him to regain his focus. Just take it one day at a time until he got what he wanted. Maybe the new stuff would help scratch the itch or dull the desire. Dragon¡¯s Kiss was purported to make one feel good inside, so maybe this one would round out his routine. It would probably be a good idea to take along some extra muscle when meeting the new plug. Perhaps lover boy would suffice, and maybe he would gain some insight into how to seduce Chooka as an extra benefit.


    ¡°You could see to it that he meets an unfortunate accident along the way.¡±


    ¡°Poor Chooka would be lonely and would need some loving in his absence.¡±


    Amateur hour! Such rookie advice would never work. She would hold a grudge against him if she did not brutally murder him. Even taking the long road of slowly driving a wedge between them would similarly fail. No, best to let it run its course. Chooka had a boatload of lovers who came and went. It would only be a matter of time until he too left, and for a seasoned goblin such as Alterez, time was in infinite supply.


    He had learned from his past mistakes. He had been killed a dozen times over, and for as long as he had lived in this body, this may very well be his last reincarnation before Gubberloodoo took him to the Great Beyond. He had been patient as he waited for his next chance to take control of the body. He had watched and learned from the current hosts, gaining their trust and subtly pushed them to reach beyond their grasp. Biological immortality was already his by birthright, and provided he didn¡¯t come down with a mild case of death, he would live forever.


    No, it simply would not do to backstab the man. Backstabbing had its merits and Alterez found himself a skilled practitioner of the arts of betrayal. Just as the wrong knife to cut a fish yielded poor results, so too would the wrong social tool inevitably bar his path to success.


    Alterez would need to befriend this one and use him as a means to delve deeper into Chooka¡¯s social circle. He had heard of her current romantic dynamic, with Skull and Chooka both sharing a bed with the man, at the same time even! Surely one more added to the fun would not be unacceptable. He just had to play his cards right and he would be part of the inner circle.


    But how would he be able to achieve such a thing? Being a live-in chef would get him in the door, but it may well cast him as ¡®the help¡¯ and prevent him from drawing them in deeper. He had to keep things cool and casual with Chooka, using the other two as the bridge. Skull was a bit too intimidating in a supernatural sense. Her vibe gave off more of a promise than a threat of terrible violence, and that didn¡¯t do it for him.


    Perhaps he would need to galavant around with them. They always ran off together on some adventure or another while Chooka stayed in the city. Perhaps he could endear himself to them by his usefulness as a cook as well as a fighter as they slayed monsters or whatever it was they did. Alterez had enough experience to know just the right spot to slide a knife in someone to take them out quickly and quietly, so surely he would not hold them back too much.


    Yes, this would work, but how would he broach that topic? He could not just tell the guy, ¡°Yo, help me buy some drugs.¡± That would scare him off. But that little errand would be a good in, especially if they enjoyed a small dose of shared adversity, the best building block of a good friendship. Perhaps a light street fight would be enough for that. He would just have to improvise.


    Near the end of his shift, Alterez used a Skill to send a request to Chooka to send her man around. He also turned down the music so that he could converse properly. A little bit of powdered Monkey-Weasel blood to help calm the nerves. The man arrived after a few minutes and Alterez stopped his cooking to speak to him. Manners were important, and giving undivided attention showed respect.


    ¡°Yo, help me buy some drugs.¡±


    Fuck, why did I say that? I had explicitly decided not to say that.


    Alterez cursed inwardly but maintained a calm demeanor. This shitshow was off to a great start. Well, in for a copper, in for a pound of flesh. Just gotta wing it and it should all work out.

 Chapter 33

    I hardened my gaze as I stared down at the goblin cook. To be so brazen and forthright about his plans to acquire illicit goods seemed far too bold for such a schemer. Perhaps some Skills from [Social] had fiddled with Alterez¡¯s intended opener. Although he appeared calm, supernatural senses from my Skills detected more than a shred of anxiety that had not been there before.


    ¡°I¡¯m not paying for your habits,¡± I replied in a hard tone. I didn¡¯t want to dismiss him out of turn, but I also wanted to establish clear boundaries.


    ¡°Peace, friend!¡±


    Alterez¡¯s ears twitched slightly as he held up his hands with palms facing me in a universal sign of non-aggression. His ears, much like the rest of him, were entirely hairless, and roughly shaped like those of a fennec fox, except a long V had been made from the tip to almost where they sprouted out of his head. As such, it almost looked as if he had two sets of ears, but such was completely natural for goblins. Something about special sensory organs in the tips, and moving them closer together or further apart detects air pressure or magnetic fields or something.


    ¡°Why, I would never dream of implying or indeed asking that you do any such thing. I merely wish for you to accompany me for added security. The world can be a dangerous place for a small and weak goblin such as myself, and I would not want to run afoul of prejudice or miscommunication with a new plug.¡±


    ¡°Oh heavens have mercy! A drug deal where violence could ensue and terrified bystanders may flee for their lives. I guess you have twisted my arm, so I suppose I must aid you to help your friend.¡±


    Skull gave her sarcastic support for this venture from the safety of my shadow, and admittedly, I had yet to learn this aspect of society¡¯s underbelly, so I could hardly ask for a more experienced individual than Alterez to show me the ropes. However, I was not about to do it for free. I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall, looking non-committed but still thoughtful about the offer.


    ¡°One silver coin for my protection, increased to one gold coin if violence ensues.¡±


    Alterez beamed a hearty smile that somehow eluded the pitfall of smugness, although I could still detect traces of the emotion wafting off him. My [Social] Skills were really working overtime to give me all manner of covert clues about the little hellion.


    For most people, my fee would be slightly more than modest, but to such a skilled and refined chef, it would be chump change. Adventurers tended to have Skills for increased perception, and sometimes those also impacted the sense of taste. Ergo, picky eaters that live on an economy of scale much higher than the average person can afford high priced food on the regular, and Alterez held a coveted position that found him well-compensated for the premium food he provided.


    ¡°We have a deal then,¡± he stated with triumphant satisfaction as he held his hand out for me to shake.


    He beamed me a wide smile, the eeriness amplified by his goblin mouth being far wider than those of other races and each tooth being like those of a shark. Goblins have two rows of such sharp and triangular teeth, and with as often as they get knocked out from one venture in folly or another, perhaps it was best for them that they grew back quickly. I shook his hand somewhat reluctantly, unsure as to what devious shenaniganry I had agreed to.


    ¡°I need to let Chooka know that I may be home late tonight. That should give you enough time to finish cleaning up around here before we depart,¡± I said as I gestured vaguely at the surprisingly few dirty dishes around the kitchen. I guess I had expected a goblin to have heaping mounds of filthy plates and unscrubbed pots, but there would be no way he could keep this job if he were lax at keeping things tidy.


    ¡°Ya, sure thing. You kiddos kiss each other goodbye or whatever while I clean things up here. We can leave in ten, yeah?¡±


    I nodded in assent, and promptly made my way out of the kitchen and over to the service counter in the main hall where Chooka would be stationed. Indeed I found her there as expected, and she happily processed paperwork as she hummed a melody that was probably popular twenty years ago.


    I grabbed her by her slender tail that had been swaying back and forth lightly to her tune, and with a surprised yelp, she found herself yanked back into my arms that waited to envelop her. The trap sprung to satisfaction, but her arms, tail, and one leg quickly wrapped around me in turn as she twisted in my grasp, and soon it appeared that the hunter had become the prey. She maneuvered me over to a wall, pinning me while lifting me up to her height, such that we may see eye to eye.


    ¡°Oh darling, I love where this is going, but I¡¯m working right now. Perhaps we could resume this later tonight and see where it leads,¡± she whispered to me with a suggestive grin growing on her features.


    ¡°Chooka, love, the light of my four moons, nothing would make me happier.¡±


    ¡°But¡­¡± she continued, knowing something more would follow such praise.


    ¡°I may be a tad delayed as Alterez has asked for me to escort him and ensure his safety as he travels to acquire new product.¡±


    ¡°Oh, a night out with the boys, eh? Just as long as you don¡¯t pick up any nasty habits along the way, I¡¯m fine with it. Did you at least get the little rascal to pay you for your protection?¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t get into the normal minutia of my contracts and bore him with all the brass tax, but yes, I did.¡±


    She squeezed me tighter as her smile, which had withered slightly at hearing how I may be delayed, came back in earnest. However, something diabolical had crept into her visage, the kind of look that suggested she was up to something.


    ¡°Brass tax, eh? I am sure you will be alright though. I am sure you would say that this is the kind of job that will take brains, not bronze, right?¡±


    ¡°Exactly!¡± I replied earnestly, thankful that she understood me. ¡°The bronze will only need to come out if someone would benefit from a blade between the ribs, but we hope to keep things civil.¡±


    She pressed herself fully up against me, trapping me utterly between herself and the wall as we shared a passionate kiss for a few moments.


    ¡°You are just so adorable sometimes and you don¡¯t even realize why,¡± she whispered into my ear as her devilish smile lightly brushed against my neck, a few quick kisses peppering me as she let loose a bombing run of them all the way down to my shoulder.


    She held my gaze for a moment afterwards before she unceremoniously chucked me off towards the kitchen in such a way as to throw me off balance. I managed to tuck into a roll and spring back up to my feet.


    ¡°Have fun, my love! I suddenly remembered that I have some shopping I need to attend to this evening,¡± she said with a cheery smile on her face that belied her mischievous machinations.


    And with that, she turned back to the counter to continue with her paperwork. One quick glare at the room helped all the onlookers remember that there was much merrymaking and feasting to continue indulging instead of staring at the scene at the counter.


    I returned to the kitchen with the nagging feeling that I had made some sort of mistake, but for the life of me I could not figure out what I had done. I had seen that smile before, the one that leaves me as the butt of some joke, so no doubt she would be up to something tonight to that end. I could feel some mirth and suppressed laughter bleeding through my connection with Skull.


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    ¡°Anything you want to share with the rest of the class there Skull?¡±


    ¡°Oh, it is nothing. I am sure you will find out soon enough.¡±


    ¡°What did I ever do to deserve such an unruly [Dragon Knight]? I will have to punish you later tonight to teach you some discipline.¡±


    ¡°Only if you have the ¡®bronze¡¯ to succeed. Test your ¡®metal¡¯ against me and we will see who kneels to whom.¡±


    Alright, alright! Even Skull was picking on me now. I did not know what I had done or said wrong, but I would no doubt be enlightened in inescapable detail as to my incorrectness in the near future.


    Now arriving back in the kitchen, the place was spotless. Every surface has been cleaned and sanitized to perfection, complete with a strange and twinkling glow all over the place, no doubt due to some cosmetic Skill to supply the effect. Alterez lingered near the door with enough knives strapped to him to supply a small army. These were not the wicked looking blades of a cutthroat, but the tools of his profession. Still, they worked just as well on living flesh as aged meat, so people would think twice about messing with the little hellion.


    ¡°Right then, lover boy, let¡¯s go.¡± He stashed away a hip flask and we departed promptly.


    Out in the alleyway, he proceeded to provide me with a lecture on the finer points of things related to scoring drugs as we walked along.


    ¡°Never walk straight to the plug, they will spook and run. You gotta take a meandering path, give them time for their lookouts to see you and report on your coming. It also gives them time to see if you are being tailed,¡° he finished as he pulled out a cigar, cut off the tip, and lit it up. ¡°Ah, nothing beats a good stogie on a night out. Also, I can use it to covertly blow smoke signals about my intent, such as any changes in how much I want to buy, or like, if I know I am being followed and need help slipping away. Everything was set up beforehand with a broker, including what signals we would be using with one another.¡± He took another puff before he continued. ¡°The broker sets up the meeting and manages all the lookouts, informants, and both figurative and literal magic behind the scene to make sure the fuzz is none the wiser.¡±


    He blew a smoke ring and blew another one back through it as he walked past it.


    ¡°See that there, that means I am here to buy product,¡± he continued nonchalantly as we continued to perambulate through the various back alleys of a residential area.


    ¡°A very sophisticated operation, I see. I had assumed the riccen would have put a stop to such dealings.¡±


    Alterez grinned up at me as he took another puff. ¡°Oh, they certainly try to maintain a monopoly on the underworld of Berkerin, but as of late, there has been a new game in town that has secured some turf of their own. They prod and poke at one another, but no true war has erupted as of yet. I don¡¯t think the relative peace will last for long though.¡±


    ¡°And where does that put you?¡±


    ¡°There are pros and cons to each side winning. The riccen don¡¯t allow any of the harder stuff to hit the streets, so I would lose access to some of the good stuff if they won. However, I could see this city falling deep into decay if the other side wins, and I kinda like it here, so I don¡¯t want that to happen. Even us goblins have standards when it comes to a proper city and its underbelly, and the riccen are rather fair in their dealings.¡±


    ¡°And who exactly is this ¡®other side¡¯,¡± I asked as we squeezed between two houses that were built no more than a foot apart.


    ¡°Oh, you¡¯ll see for yourself when we get there. I wouldn¡¯t want to ruin the surprise for you. You don¡¯t see their kind in cities all too often. But, as a goblin, I guess I don¡¯t have much room to say that some other creature is an oddity in a civilized society.¡±


    ¡°And how and why exactly did a goblin such as yourself end up here of all places?¡±


    ¡°Eh, I got old, I guess. After I grew out of being young and dumb, I looked around at all that goblins had achieved, which is to say, nothing, and I decided I wanted something more. Goblins are creatures of chaos that prefer to steal and murder than to build anything for themselves. They live in shit and filth and struggle to survive. Plus, the boss is usually just the biggest and meanest guy around, or a hobgoblin, which is far worse, so I decided to get away from all that. I¡¯ve died enough times of stupidity, and I don¡¯t think I have any more freebies until ol¡¯ Gubberloodoo comes to cart me off to the afterlife for good. Ergo, my good sir, I have decided to grace you good civilized folk with my prestigious intellect, devilish good looks, and exquisite cooking skills until next I bite off more than I can chew.¡±


    That got dark a little faster than I expected, so we each took some time to reflect on these revelations as we continued along and scanned our surroundings. I had a few Skills going to sense my surroundings. No one followed us on the streets nor along the rooftops. Every now and then I would catch signs of someone scurrying off into the darkness, but they must have had contested me with Skills of their own for stealth, for I could not distinctly identify their features.


    Bekerin doesn¡¯t have anything that other cities would call slums, but we soon found ourselves in the poorest part of the city. They still had a proper sewage system and there were not heaping piles of trash anywhere, but the homes were smaller, crowded, and overall not as aesthetically pleasing to look at. Alterez filled me in on more details about the city underworld and how that related to the local government. It essentially boiled down to the idea that crime would always exist, so the government tolerated such things as long as criminal organizations obeyed certain rules and didn¡¯t interfere with the nobility.


    The Duke prides himself in making sure everyone who lives here has proper employment and that wages and work hour limits allow everyone to get by without having to struggle for every last meal. A lot of gold had been poured into cleaning up the city after he assumed power some thirty years ago. His father had not been so dutiful in tending to the city or its people, and a great deal of corruption and hedonism had been purged in the past three decades. While not a perfect city, it was rather progressive. The Duke had found his efforts rewarded with a flourishing trade city with a low crime rate, so the people loved him and had pride in their home.


    In short, with this being perhaps the most ¡®dangerous¡¯ part of the city, the most anyone may risk when walking around alone at night is having a drunk puke on their shoes. Between the city guard and the riccen gang that mostly controlled the city¡¯s underbelly, violent crime was stopped with extreme prejudice and a notable lack of adherence to the judicial process.


    ¡°We¡¯ve arrived,¡± said Alterez as we approached a store that sold magic wands. I don¡¯t think any self-respecting mage would be caught dead with those these days, so it must serve as a front rather than a distributor of stylish arcane accessories.


    I placed a few [Observers] around the place, a Skill that allowed me to remotely view things from the perspective of a fixed position. It could rotate in place as needed, but it could not move vertically or horizontally. I had another Skill, [Overseer], that could move, but it had limited sight range as if everything too far away appeared shrouded in fog, so I opted not to use it at this time. A few more Skills provided sensory mechanisms for sound, smell, and a few other esoteric mediums. I wanted ample means to detect anyone snooping in on our little operation.


    The wooden door to the place was of solid design, but unadorned and only hinting at the last vestiges of paint having ever been applied to it. Alterez opened the door, seemingly indifferent to the rugged appeal of the establishment, and together we walked inside. A single lamp near the counter to the left illuminated dusty shelves lined with boxes that have probably gone untouched for decades, each one housing a pristine but otherwise outdated wand. With no one to greet us, we walked behind the counter, into a backroom, and down a long flight of stairs to the basement, probably at least half a floor again under the one we just came from.


    The basement was barren save for a table with four chairs and four individuals who presumably had been sitting in them playing cards moments before we arrived. These four stood around the same height as Alterez, which is to say, not quite to my waist. Their leader wore blue pants, a white shirt, a black leather jacket that was unbuttoned, and sported a pompadour that jutted too far forward to be practical. The leader drew forth a switchblade, and when sprung, I observed that it was in fact a comb, which he promptly nonchalantly administered to his hair while the other three meekly waited for him to finish.


    ¡°So, word is you are looking to buy. I may have the product if you have the coin,¡± said the figure as he stepped forward two steps to meet us.


    As he did so, the light from the ceiling illuminated his figure better. Short legs, short arms, a tail that hung to the floor, large eyes, and scales on a bipedal but otherwise lizard-like body.


    ¡°I should have known kobolds were behind the newest stuff in town,¡± replied an unperturbed Alterez. ¡°I have the coin, let¡¯s see the product.¡±


    I crossed my arms and assumed a nonchalant and imposing stance of a loyal goon with a slightly dour look on my face. Inwardly, it took all my willpower to not laugh at the scene. These kobolds, little lizard people with stubby limbs and long bodies, were too cute to be taken seriously. They looked like overgrown geckos or skinks with color patterns varied between them such that no two looked the same. With sharpened senses from my Skills, I could smell the glue that held on the pompadour wig. One even wore a flat cap and had some fresh grime smeared on his clothes to look like a quintessential street urchin. I struggled mightily to take them seriously, but I kept in mind that they would not have made it in a city like this if they didn¡¯t have some serious muscle backing them up.


    ¡°Let¡¯s get down to business then, yeah?¡±

 Chapter 34

    ¡°I¡¯ll take a half dozen of all my usual products, plus the same amount of this new stuff you are peddlin¡¯. I¡¯m sure the broker informed you boys as to what I came here to buy,¡± started Alterez with his turn of negotiations. ¡°How''s 15 gold for the sum of it sound?¡±


    Pompadour, as I will call him, crossed his arms as he stared at Alterez as if in contemplation of the offer. I honestly had no idea if the proposed offer was reasonable as I have not ever purchased such merchandise before. Pompadour and company are presumably just the plugs who deliver product to the final customer, with there being a middleman broker who people go to when they want to place an order. The broker also handles meet locations, many of the lookouts, bribes, and all the other necessities that allow the underbelly to operate smoothly when gangs rise and fall all the time. Most gangs don¡¯t have the proper Skills to manage such a network to ensure everything stays secret and to give most people plausible deniability, so this setup had worked well for well over a century.


    ¡°Cha, ya gotta be kiddin¡¯ me with that offer. That would be fine for everything except this new stuff. It would be an extra 10 gold for that.¡±


    Both explicitly avoided direct names to anything. Dragon¡¯s Kiss, as you may recall, is the ¡®new stuff¡¯ being referred to. The haggling continued for a minute, and while I paid attention, something else distracted me. Heavy footfalls, the stench of ale on breath, and some muttering were easily detected thanks to my sensory Skills. Four dwarves were approaching from the outside, and I focused my perception on an [Observer] I had placed upstairs. They appeared to be miners fresh back from their stint out in the mountains, and given that they approached the door to the wand shop, they most likely were looking for some party supplies of the illicit variety.


    Thankful that my constant vigilance, or perhaps paranoia, had paid off, I put my hand on Alterez¡¯s shoulder before crouching down to whisper the news into his ear. He nodded in thanks before addressing the kobolds.


    ¡°And here I thought we had something special between us. It seems you invited a few more of your friends.¡±


    Pompadour blanched at the news as his confidence in the situation faded. ¡°Excuse me for one moment please while I consult my business associates.¡± he nabbed the Urchin kobold and called a huddle. I overheard a few insults and cursing as Urchin no doubt received a stern reprimand.


    Loud thumps announced the descent of the dwarves as they delved deeper into the stairway towards the six of us. I moved Alterez aside to the right corner and stood between him and the doorway in the event the dwarves were feeling surly and belligerent.


    The four of them barreled into the room without any concern for the occupants being in the middle of a transaction. They wore overalls, boots, a hard hat, and each had a pickaxe at their hip. Arms bigger around than a kobold¡¯s body were clear for all to see as none of their shirts had sleeves.


    ¡°E-yellow, we¡¯re budging in front of youse, don¡¯t you know that then,¡± The lead dwarf said in the typical thick accent of those of his kind that were born out in the sticks. ¡°Right, boyce, we wants to buy off of some dat dere Dragon¡¯s Kiss, dun-chya-no,¡± he exclaimed to the kobolds as he dismissed Alterez and I entirely.


    Seizing the initiative, I took two steps towards the dwarves, thumbs hooked into my belt, I gave my best impression of appearing casually annoyed. ¡°You lads have more ale than manners. Go back upstairs and wait your turn before I make you.¡±


    Skull channeled some of her Skill for intimidation through her connection to me as she lurked in my shadow. The kobolds inched closer to the wall behind them as Pompadour gulped nervously, hoping to go unnoticed in the altercation that may break out. Sadly, the dwarves, stubborn and boozed up, appeared to be made of sterner stuff as they remained stalwart in the face of my threat.


    ¡°Ishka,¡± replied the lead dwarf as he and the others turned to face me, a steely gaze in their eyes. ¡°Oi, I knows you. Yoozda guy who won dat dere turdament aways back. I lost a munce pay cause you dint lose. Yooz nuthin¡¯ special, and boat-a-yuz be smart to leave ¡®for I lose me temper or we¡¯s gonna give ya a good drubbin.¡±


    ¡°Oh for sure der, bud!¡±


    ¡°Dern-tootin, far as dat goes!¡±


    ¡°Ya sure you betcha!¡±


    The dwarves appeared to be in agreement, but I stood firm, conceding the initiative to them to throw the first punch. Not that I had been idle by any means, for the whole room had been covertly covered in traps thanks to my Skills. To be fair, I started doing so the moment I entered the basement. Activating my Skills, at least from my own personal experience, doesn¡¯t require any movements, speaking, or other overt activities. There would be no outward sign of my activities to such an endeavor unless the Skill itself required some action, such as some sword Skill making you really good at stabbing things would require you to have a sword in hand while doing a stabbing motion towards some poor chap.


    Traps have been my main means of combat since shortly after I started my life as an Adventurer. They were invisible circles of magic placed just beneath a surface, such as a floor, which I can slowly slide around as needed. They are only revealed once triggered, typically through touching them or remote detonation on my part, and I make a habit of placing them wherever I go. I can simply keep them unarmed until a time of my choosing, and this situation has devolved into one of those times. I invested heavily in a whole plethora of trap skills, such that I possessed different payloads of both highly lethal traps and those designed more to just incapacitate. The latter are the ones I used here, for I didn¡¯t fancy complicating affairs and drawing attention by mixing dead bodies with a drug deal. Taking them all out swiftly would be easy, but I had another goal in mind that required the fight to drag out.


    ¡°Well, are you gonna throw up your hands or just stand there and admire my beauty?¡±


    That did the trick, for the angry and now irate dwarf took a swing at me, which I easily sidestepped. I move far faster than a chunk of rock deep in a mine, and a drunk dwarf would find his prowess impaired besides. I continued my motion from my evasion action, grabbing his extended arm while jabbing him hard a little lower than the armpit and slightly towards his back. Each race has a slightly different layout of muscles and nerves, and while it may not have much of an effect on a human, the dwarf would soon feel his shoulder go numb and somewhat unresponsive. In the same motion I raised my knee into his side to shove him across the room towards the table.


    The other three dwarves wasted no time dawdling, and unperturbed by their leader being introduced to the floor, they came in swinging as well. I activated a trap between us, and a great burst of air exploded from the floor and sent the trio sailing upwards and backwards. Their hardhats performed admirably to protect their noggins from the ceiling, but were found wanting and out of their depth for much protection to the rest of their bodies as they slammed into the far wall.


    The kobolds, perhaps out of fear or wrongly timing an opportunity to escape, bolted for the door, but the trio of dwarves were already back on their feet and full of piss and vinegar for round two. The dwarves, stout and solid, would do terrible things to the comparatively small and fragile bodies of the kobolds who happened to find themselves on a collision course of the second charge. Heedless of the danger and perhaps focusing only on the exit, the kobolds took no evasive action. Inwardly cursing their stupidity but praising my luck, I lunged forward to grab the four idiots in a bear hug, promptly leaping backwards and onto the wall.


    During that whole maneuver, I had changed the loadout of a trap upon the wall there to one that could redirect my momentum. Normally, I used such a trap to trip enemies, but this time I used it to launch me and the now screaming kobolds across the room and more or less back to where they had started.


    I lightly tossed them into the corner, but not before activating a Skill to place tracking markers on each of them. I had hopes that they would eventually lead me back to where Dragon¡¯s Kiss was made, and this fight had provided the perfect excuse to reach out and touch them without it being weird or suspicious. I turned just in time to catch the lead dwarf¡¯s shoulder charging into me, slamming me against the wall. I could have avoided it, but I wanted to put on a good show. I felt a few ribs crack as the wall behind me shattered in a large circle around me from the force of the blow. My potent self-healing abilities would tend to my wounds before the fight even ended, but I doubt the wall had such enchantments to affect such repairs on its own sorry state.


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    The lead dwarf wrapped his arms around me, not in a lover¡¯s embrace, but in an attempt to grapple me so the rest of his crew could dogpile me. I feigned some degree of incompetence by struggling in the grapple, encouraging and emboldening the other three to do as their leader no doubt intended. Predictably, they charged in, each full of fury as they roared some warcry in an accent too thick to understand.


    That is when my trap activated. Sticky strands of shadow sprung from the floor to ensnare all the dwarves now so conveniently corralled into one location. The four of them, caught in my web of umbral strands, found themselves on the receiving end of a Skill of the Shadow school. Entropic tendrils drained the energy out of the dwarves as they fought vainly against the darkness, their struggles only ensnaring them further. Little by little they lost steam, and within ten seconds, the four of them were out cold.


    The kobolds cowered in the corner, clutching at each other for comfort and as possible meat shields against any unfortunate kinetic events. I withdrew the pickaxes from the unconscious bodies of the dwarves, and facing the kobolds so they could see me in action, I bent each pickaxe so that they more resembled grappling hooks than mining equipment.


    ¡°So,¡± I started now that the alternative diplomacy had come to an end, ¡°I believe my associate had said that 15 gold was the proper price. Best make that ten for the inconvenience of being double booked and his confidentiality being compromised. Go ahead and knock that down to five because of how he was nearly grievously harmed. You best make that free of charge considering I saved your sorry asses from being made into paste.¡±


    The kobolds all bobbed their heads up and down in agreement as fast as their little muscles would allow. One of their number opened his trench coat wide and started removing small bags from various pockets, tossing each in turn to an awaiting Alterez who had wandered over to us. I glared at the kobold as the tossing of bags stopped, clearing my throat at the same time. A few more bags found themselves tossed to Alterez at that point, and satisfied, turned to leave. I turned back when at the door to address the kobolds.


    ¡°You lot clean up this mess. Your broker messed up big time by letting this happen, so I expect that Alterez will be given favorable terms for his future dealings as compensation.¡±


    I did not wait around to listen to their grateful platitudes, opting instead to get out of here before our commotion attracted any unwanted attention. Alterez followed close behind, and once out of the shop, we slipped into a dark alley and continued to hightail it out of there in a different direction from whence we arrived.


    ¡°So that was an unexpected twist,¡± started Alterez suddenly as we made our way on a circuitous route that would eventually lead us back to the guildhall. ¡°It seemed to me like they were looking for any excuse to pick a fight. I am glad that I brought you along,¡± he continued as he let out a nervous laugh. He shakily fumbled with a bag for something to calm his nerves, no doubt.


    ¡°That¡¯s one gold for your protection. That is one more gold for protecting your associates. One final gold for negotiating a discount and extra merchandise,¡± I stated back flatly, my attention focused on looking for any pursuers.


    ¡°Tsk. Well, you did manage to get me a significant discount, so sure. I have heard that you like to itemize each and every part of your payment, but I suppose any manner of neurotic behaviors are common amongst you Adventurers.¡±


    After consuming some calming substances, he fished out three gold coins from a pouch and handed them to me, each one dropped into my hand one at a time. I tucked them away in a secret coin pouch of my own. These were payments for individual deeds of note, each one distinct and separate. I would add these to my hoard, each one never to find itself in circulation as common currency as long as I had a say in things.


    My [Hoard], a set of Skills devoted to collecting things, was one of quality, and the circumstances of how I added to it mattered. I couldn¡¯t just obtain a chest full of gold and dump it on top; that was for a quantity-based [Hoard], which was mutually exclusive with my own style. These would be put on display with the rest of my hoard, available for any foolhardy thief with more guts than sense that would dare to rob me. The benefits of [Hoard] scaled with how well known were its contents and how accessible they were, so squirreling it away in a pocket dimension was out of the question. I had to do that once when moving in together with Chooka into a house I purchased and I felt more than just under the weather from even that short stint of being cut off from its boons.


    We made our way silently through the night, but I could feel the tension building up within Alterez. He wanted to say something and struggled to muster the nerve. I would probably never have noticed without my [Social] Skills, the way a few muscles tensed in his shoulders, the uneven breathing that quickened and slowed, the way his eyes darted around and glanced at me from time to time. It wasn¡¯t the drugs, but some hidden desire. It fell upon me to give him a push.


    ¡°That was quite the little escapade we had tonight. I feel like we both learned a lot,¡± I said to break the silence.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± he laughed, a little nervous as an all too wide smile grew on his very round head. ¡°I think it would be fun to do it again sometime. All I do is cook and try to escape my inner demons; it would be nice to get out and live a little.¡± He turned his gaze up at me, puppy dog eyes being amplified by the drooping ears and the oozing of hope that I could detect from him.


    ¡°I won¡¯t dismiss you out of turn, but I wonder what benefit you will provide when I go on an adventure. Everyone has to be able to pull their weight in some way.¡±


    ¡°I can cook for you and your party, and the food I make can provide you with potent buffs to your abilities,¡± he exclaimed enthusiastically, his arms and features animated to go along with his narration. ¡°I can butcher anything you kill, far better than what you have brought me. I know a great deal about all manner of flora and fauna and their value, and who would want them. I can sneak into places, especially those too small for you to fit. I may not look it, but I¡¯m pushing a thousand years old. Well, I haven¡¯t been alive in a body all that time, but I have still witnessed many things and know a great deal of history and cultures. I won¡¯t hold you back, I just can¡¯t contribute in direct combat to the level that you can. Just consider me a support specialist, and I will be a force multiplier for you.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sure The Boys would vote in favor of you since you could provide them with snacks. Next time I get a job that I think would be a good fit for you to come along, I will let you know.¡±


    Alterez beamed a hearty smile up at me in gratitude. We chatted idly until we arrived back at the general area of the guildhalls. Alterez bid me good night before he slunk off into the night towards the guild dorms, which is where he still lived despite long since having the means and qualifications to move out.


    I casually strolled into a dark alley. I activated the extent of my Skills to boost my stealth, perception, and speed, and taking to the rooftop of a nearby building, I quickly and soundlessly backtracked to see if I had been tailed. I found signs of no one, which either meant I had exceptionally skilled individuals following me or no one followed me at all. Feeling a little dissatisfied with not finding a tail, I made my way home.


    I quietly leapt the gate and onto my property. Four heads snoozed quietly, each one resting on the bank of a pond. The Boys must have been tuckered out after a day of helping their Papa, for not a one of them stood guard. I would have to reprimand them for such carelessness later. They were perhaps a little spoiled, living in a city where they did not need constant vigilance to survive predation, and it showed. That would have to wait until another time, for I was already late in coming home thanks to my job with Alterez.


    I snuck in through the back door so as to not to wake the hydra. Like a thief in the night, I quietly made my way upstairs, opening the door to the bedroom and stepping inside. Not a light had been on in the house, so I had assumed Chooka had gone to bed. Indeed, a figure lay in our bed, nestled under the blankets.


    Two arms suddenly grabbed me from behind, and before I could react, I found myself flying through the air as my assailant body-slammed me into the bed. I had fallen for a cunning ruse, for Chooka had waited for me in the blind spot where the door opened into the room with the ¡®figure¡¯ in the bed being nothing more than pillows under blankets. Firmly entrapped in her nuzzling embrace, I contemplated my situation.


    ¡°Just how long have you been keeping it secret that you had such strong stealth Skills that even I could not detect you. You must have been planning this since forever.¡±


    ¡°Oh, you know, since after our first date. I had been waiting by the door for an hour, waiting to spring my trap on such an unsuspecting victim,¡± she gloated as she squeezed me tighter, her entire body wrapped around mine from behind.


    ¡°Well, you caught me, you fiend! What do you intend to do with me?¡±


    Chooka maneuvered herself to be on top of me while pinning me down, a victorious smile proudly plastered upon her all-too-smug but exceptionally beautiful face.


    ¡°Oh, my darling,¡± she whispered into my ear. ¡°I¡¯m going to have my way with you.¡±


    Indeed she did, with Skull coming out of my shadow to join in at one point. The whole thing could have been the ¡®plot¡¯ of one of those bodice-ripper novels that lonely housewives are fond of. All just another typical night when in a relationship with a [Courtesan], much to the envy of countless men and women who gave me harsh glares when they saw me with their goddess. Happy is the life I lead.

 Chapter 35

    I only needed two hours of sleep back in those days, and with Skull getting many boons from my Skills and indeed her own Skills from both her Blessings, she likewise only needed such small amounts of rest. On the other hand, Chooka still needed a full night¡¯s sleep, so Skull and I would snuggle her to sleep, and when we woke, we would go about our lives, leaving Chooka to her beauty sleep.


    We set about our chores, keeping the house in order and preparing food for the day, all very domestic stuff. We only had a few Skills between us to aid in such an undertaking, but we had learned Abilities to make up for that shortcoming. That is to say, we learned spells from people who had the useful domestic Skills and the ability to teach us. Abilities could also include magic items, boons granted by gods, or other such mechanisms outside of one¡¯s Blessing, but everything that fell under that blanket term tended to be less powerful, efficient, and expeditious in their application. Worse, some even required incantations, which are totally gross!


    Some people laughed at the notion of having a Blessing of [Maid], [Butler], or something similar, but powerful individuals who had honed their Skills could manage the domestic affairs of a whole estate single-handedly and thus were highly sought-after and well-compensated. No Blessing was weak if a person pushed it to its full potential, but most people were happy to only develop themselves to the point where they lived comfortably. Similar to how anyone could get chiseled abs and rippling biceps if they hit the gym, yet a great number of people still lived sedentary lifestyles, most people were content to pursue other ventures.


    Such passions necessitated the need to learn things outside of one¡¯s Blessing, and ¡®spells¡¯, if you will, were just generally agreed upon concepts of what should be the input and output of using mana. For instance, channel mana into thermal energy, condense it, and chuck it at something, and you have a fireball spell. Refine it to an acceptable grade where you can produce the quantity and quality of a specific expected grade of its use, and you are said to know that spell. Militaries operated entirely under this concept in order to create a cohesive force doctrine, for having individual troops all with wildly different Skills would prove chaotic and unwieldy on a battlefield.


    Skills from Blessings just gave Abilities for free without having to really learn them, and the versions from Blessings were typically superior. However, some Blessings, such as [Mage], [Warlock], [Wizard], and so on, were designed to learn spells and collect other Abilities and use them. The downside is that, except for me, and to some extent Skull, people do not get to explicitly choose their Skills for their Blessing. They can try to coax it to develop a certain way by doing specific activities, such as unlocking more sword Skills by practicing swordplay, but they could not choose each and every Skill they earned. Thus, Abilities helped to even the playing field, and some individuals lacking in Skill could be absolute monsters due to their Abilities.


    Sadly, Skull and I were not monsters when it came to keeping the house and grounds in order, so several hours were devoted to that undertaking. Mother had taught me how to garden, so the task of maintaining mine generally fell to me. Skull busied herself with food preparation and firewood. She sucked as a chef, but she fared just fine at getting all the ingredients prepared, slicing meat and vegetables down to size and getting everything organized and laid out for me to come cook. Mother had been an unimaginative cook, so I had ventured far and wide throughout the city to learn some useful recipes. I couldn¡¯t hold a candle to [Chefs] and the like, but Chooka and Skull both enjoyed the edible results of my endeavors in the kitchen, so that was good enough for me.


    Chooka awoke to a bath freshly prepared for her, clothes for the day laid out, and breakfast ready for her by the time she stepped downstairs. Skull and I had the time to make sure Chooka did not need to expend her efforts for such trivial matters, and in turn, Chooka took care of us and our needs. As a [Courtesan], she provided valuable entertainment, and while not a [Musician], she absolutely crushed it on the electric shamisen and could probably have made a living off that skill alone. Her singing was on point, too, able to do that husky growling of the death music like Alterez listened to, but she could also hit respectably high notes.


    ¡°How did you sleep last night,¡± Chooka asked me, a not uncommon occurrence.


    ¡°Same as normal. More dreams from past lives. They slowly grow sharper and more distinct, but not enough for me to make complete sense of them,¡± I answered after swallowing down a mouthful of food.


    That¡¯s right, this is one of those stories of being reincarnated in another world. However, given my dreams and memory flashes of various ¡®me¡¯s¡¯, I had to be somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand lives across as many worlds. Some had technology advanced enough to colonize the stars, and while I did not know the specifics of how it worked, I understood the general concepts. If I ever see a combustion engine in its natural habitat, I will recognize it for what it is.


    Like, I had never seen an airplane in this world, but I would know one when I saw it and what it did. That did give me clever insights into certain applications of magic, such as the veritable ¡®bazooka¡¯ I had used to kill the hydra that is the mother of The Boys. I had since outgrown the need for it, but no one else seemed to employ such a device. Perhaps it was because plenty of Skills performed a similar effect far better than such technology, and indeed, magic and the reliance upon it had made the need for most technology more of a curious pastime than a serious undertaking. The general layman still knew germ theory and the like, but no one invested in mundane cures to diseases when a [Cure Disease] spell healed people of such pestilence.


    ¡°All in due time, my love. The mystery will unravel itself when the moment is right, and we will be here with you until that time and beyond.¡±


    Chooka squeezed my hand in reassurance, and Skull, not wanting to be left out, squeezed the other. With both my hands occupied, Skull also stabbed her fork in the direction of a sausage on my plate, but a quick magic barrier erected around one side of my plate thwarted her attack. However, a tendril of shadow had gone under the table, my chair, and back up behind me, to grab another sausage from a different angle. I detonated a trap under one of the legs of her chair, and Skull fell backwards, her concentration and the grip on the sausage broken. The sausage fell back to my plate, but not before Chooka snatched it out of the air with a lightning quick jab.


    ¡°Always a good morning when I manage to get your sausage in my mouth,¡± she stated proudly before chomping down on it. Double entendres and sexual innuendos are the staple of her conversation with me, a sure sign that she was comfortable and happy.


    Skull huffed, unsatisfied as she righted herself and the chair. Stealing each other¡¯s food with sabotage, subterfuge, alliances, and betrayal had become a favorite pastime of breakfast together. It kept each other sharp and offered a forum to air any grievances before they festered into relationship problems.


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid that may be all you get this morning then,¡± I replied as I turned my gaze down to her plate.


    Chooka looked down in turn, and her scrumptious and piping hot food faded away, the illusion I had been maintaining on it broken.


    ¡°Oh, you clever bastard! When did you make the switch?¡± inquired Chooka with a mixture of pride and mock anger on her face.


    ¡°When you lunged out for the sausage, I opened my pocket dimension just barely above the surface of your plate to absorb your food and placed an illusion at the same time. You were so distracted by your attack that you forgot to defend.¡±


    Smug, I took a sip of my drink, only to spit it out as the whole thing had been spiked with salt. Skull blew me a raspberry and took a swig of her own wine after righting her chair, her whole attempt to pillage my sausage having been a diversion. Skull and Chooka gave each other a high five, and together we all shared a laugh.


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    ¡°Well played, ladies. I¡¯m sure some god of trickery will smile upon you today at the shrines.¡±


    ¡°Remnimi don¡¯t have a god of trickery in their pantheon. We are an honest and loyal people, noble in spirit and purpose,¡± she stated matter-of-factly, the bald-faced lie apparent to everyone and she knew it.


    ¡°Exactly what a god of trickery would want you to say,¡± chimed in Skull.


    ¡°Fear not, my fifteenth love, I would never try to trick you,¡± replied Chooka.


    ¡°Fifteenth! Last week I was fourteenth. How have I dropped so in the polls,¡± inquired Skull with mock indignation.


    ¡°Oh, you know, I gave you one requisition form to fill out and you hand it in two days late,¡± answered Chooka as she took a sip from her tea.


    ¡°You wanted it in triplicate, you monster,¡± roared back Skull with a slight hint of genuine frustration. She turned to me pleadingly, ¡°Tell me that she is the villain here, not me. It isn¡¯t my fault the letters swim about on the page. Makes it hard to fill out,¡± she mumbled the last part to herself as she lowered her head in self-pity.


    ¡°Skull, I love you dearly,¡± I started, ¡°but you should ask for help next time. Yes, triplicate is monstrous,¡± I continued as I spared a glare at Chooka before returning my gaze to Skull,¡± but that is no excuse to tarry on something so simple. We are here to help you, but you still need to ask.¡±


    Skull remained silent for a moment, staring down at her plate in contemplation before looking back at me to answer. ¡°You are right, and I will do better next time. Chooka,¡± she continued as she turned her gaze to the remnimi, ¡°I apologize for my tardiness, and I promise to do better next time and to destroy something you love if you make me fill out paperwork in triplicate when you know damn well that there are any number of Abilities out there to make copies,¡± finished Skull, her emotions communicated honestly as always.


    ¡°I would expect nothing less, my thirteenth love,¡± Chooka answered as she patted Skull¡¯s hand, who in turn perked up at that news.


    Maybe it was Chooka, maybe it was Skull, or maybe it was some quirk of [Courtesan], but people seemed to want to be in Chooka¡¯s good graces. Certainly, no Adventurers in the guildhall dared defy her, and even the guildmasters hesitated to countermand her, such was her presence and the value provided by her extreme competence for the job. How she didn¡¯t get a Dual-Blessing as a [Quill Pusher], I will never know, for paperwork and navigating bureaucracy was her undisputed domain.


    ¡°First love,¡± she said as she suddenly turned to me, ¡°I believe the dessert should be cooled down by now. Be a peach and fetch it from the windowsill, please.¡±


    ¡°As you command, my mistress,¡± I answered as I stood and gave an overly dramatic bow.


    I walked over to the windowsill and found the scones that had been cooling there nowhere to be seen. I gazed out into the yard, a trail of wet grass leading back to the pond.


    ¡°Oh Booooooyyyys,¡± I shouted out across the yard at them. ¡°I would like a word with you.


    Four heads turned in my direction, each avoiding my gaze, and one in particular looking extra sheepish.


    ¡°Dio, would you happen to know where the scones went? The ones that sat here on this windowsill to cool. The ones with the same kind of filling as I can see is still plastered on your lips and staining your teeth.


    Diogenes let out a small shriek of dismay, still not meeting my gaze but knowing full well he had been caught.


    ¡°Dio, look at me,¡± I commanded.


    The vandal slowly turned to look my way, the other three doing likewise.


    ¡°You were not allowed to have these scones. You stole it, and stealing from your family is wrong. No snacks for you for three days.¡±


    A loud whine followed, accompanied by suppressed snickers from the other three.


    ¡°As for the lot of you,¡± I continued, all necks snapping to attention as the mirth stopped, ¡°None of you stood guard last night. I snuck right past you while you all slept. You are supposed to sleep in turns. Any hydra living in the wild does this to survive. No snacks for any of you for a day.¡±


    Four times the whining followed. I closed the window to help keep out the noise. I looked on as heads started nipping at one another while they proceeded to argue amongst themselves. A few bites accompanied that, but with little fear that they would all decapitate each other at the same time, I left it to them to sort themselves out.


    I turned back to the two women awaiting their scones, with naught to offer but bad news.


    ¡°My apologies, my little doves. A certain rapscallion had absconded with our scones.¡± I walked towards them, doing my best to be as seductive as possible with a bit of a sashay to my strut. ¡°While scones are no longer an option for dessert, perhaps instead you could have¡­ me.¡±


    I used the pause at the end to be coy and suggestive as I pointed to myself. Normally, this maneuver would probably be performed by a woman seducing a man, but I packed all the confidence I could into it and doubled down on my hope that I could pull it off. Chooka and Skull shared a look at each other before turning back to me.


    ¡°Sure, I could go for that,¡± Skull shrugged in response.


    ¡°I¡¯ll bring the sweet wine to go along with our ¡®dessert¡¯¡±, answered Chooka.


    Back up the stairs the three of us went. An hour later found us all gathered together and ready to head into town, none of us having been devoured, as vore had not made it onto our list of deviant predilections. We may not have had scones, but we did indulge in some pattycake. Well, you know what I mean. The kids don¡¯t, but they shouldn¡¯t be reading this.


    We were all dressed for Shrine Day. Skull wore her armor, as always. She basically could only be found without it when at a bathhouse or in a safe place to rest. Ergo, the public only ever saw her in armor, and she had a reputation for being a serious badass in part due to that, and in part due to the one-sided brawls she participated in from time to time. She also had her zweih?nder on her back, and it also looked ornate in the same macabre fashion of her armor. Bones and skulls tended to invoke fear in people, and invoking fear was a core part of her person and a tenant of her faith to Gulthar.


    Chooka wore a rather conservative outfit, which is to say, short shorts and a tank top that went almost to her navel. She also sported thigh-high stockings, complete with garter straps to her shorts, as well as combat boots. She kept brass knuckles in a pocket in case things got rowdy, and of course she wore the bracelet I had given her to officially make her my mistress, an ornate yet simple thing of polished azure with a silver border and a single ruby as the centerpiece. She never went anywhere without it, for she cherished it not only for how it represented our love, but also because of its enchantment that helped her stay cool. Remnimi tended to live in colder climates because they easily overheat in temperate zones. So, while she no longer needed to wear skimpy outfits out of practicality, she continued to do so because the attention she gained from it helped to fuel her [Courtesan] Skills. The whole ensemble was red and blue, which matched her skin tone, all accented with black, which matched her hair and horns.


    I wore a mix of yellow and black with the only part of my body exposed being my neck and head. I carried no weapons on my person, for I rarely needed them, and my arsenal of such things remained stored in a pocket dimension. My Skills and training more than made me capable of handling myself in a fight, and it was actually faster to materialize a weapon from my pocket dimension than to draw it from a sheath. I never wore armor, as I had Skills that relied on that. My biggest concern in a fight would be that my clothes got ruined, for my regeneration and healing Skills could handle pretty much anything except for the yet untested decapitation or head being crushed. It would be a battle of attrition to bleed me out of both mana and blood, and such would be unlikely to occur in a city, so I kept my clothes casual yet stylish.


    The three of us ready, we set out on a nice stroll together to the shrines. I was tall for a human, and only barely taller than Skull. Chooka, on the other hand, towered over us, easily a head taller than me, taller still if you count the horns. We probably made for an odd sight, but the locals were used to us by now, especially on our Shrine Day.


    We galivanted along to the Shrine District, the part of the city relegated to the affairs of the divine and the patronage of the gods. We greeted people as we went, seeing familiar faces of people who had the same Shrine Day that we had. A week was seven days, and Shrine Day came every ten days. With there being exactly (down to the second) 432 days in a year, and twelve months in a year, that came to some weird math for when Shrine Days and days of the week lined up within a given month, assuming one stuck to the same schedule. Ergo, it helped ensure that everyone had a fair disbursement of Shrine Days such that their weekends were not always bogged down with their duties to the divine. Today was our day, so we did our part.

 Chapter 36

    Perhaps one would expect the Shrine District to be full of vendors hawking wares for divine protection, offerings to the gods, or various talismans that are purported to ward off evil and bad luck, but such was not the case. Perhaps one would envision burning incense everywhere with monks leading prayers and preachers offering salvation on every corner. Again, such was not practiced in those days, and any who dared to do so tended to come down with a nasty case of smiting.


    Religions did exist back then, but most people were not religious. Naturally, everyone knew the gods existed; one could go to any shrine to commune with a god and they tended to converse back. A connection to a god is a relationship and personal, and religions try to dictate that relationship and how one should think and feel when acting in accordance to a god¡¯s wishes. Even longer ago, religions were all the rage, and indeed countless ideological wars were fought between various sects and cults over whose cosmic sky daddy or mommy was the best.


    However, the gods soon wised up. Multiple religions in the same area tend to pick fights, and people can hardly be practitioners of multiple religions at once. Such conflict leads to strife, strife to war, war to death, and death to fewer petitioners to the gods, which was an all around bad deal for everyone. The gods sorted things out, crunched the numbers, and found a more ideal solution.


    Divinity is the font of a god¡¯s existence, what makes them more than just powerful beings. Divine Essence, if you will, is like mana in that it can fuel extraordinary abilities, but gods do not generate it naturally like one does mana. Instead, they get it from some degree of devotion and recognition from mortals. Now if a person prayed every day to one god and was devoted, a god would get some amount of Divine Essence. However, pray every ten days and casually follow the ideals of a god, and they get about half as much. Ergo, instead of maybe one in ten people following you with true devotion, having five in ten following you casually earned much more Divine Essence, and generally that would lead to less conflict, and so that style was adopted.


    People commune with the pantheon of their race and then also typically with whatever is the flavor of the millennium for a larger pantheon. In those days, that would be the Light and Dark gods. The membership of what gods are in what pantheons could change based on their popularity. For instance, if elves started to worship a dwarven god while the dwarves stopped worshiping said god, eventually that god would become an elven god and take on the appearance and personality to match. As such, an endless cycle existed of mortals shaping the gods through their beliefs and the gods shaping the minds of mortals through dogma.


    We first went to all the shrines of the remnimi gods so that Chooka could commune with them. Shrines are simple things, the biggest of which might take up as much space as a food stall. There were no churches back then, no grand cathedrals with flying buttresses. People did not sing hymns or go to mass as there was no ¡®faith¡¯ so to speak for gods. Chooka went to each shrine in turn, head bowed and hands folded, offering her recognition that the deity in question existed, had supremacy over the Divine Portfolio granted to it, gave thanks for all the god provided, made petitions for any request of protection or aid, and left a personally-made offering.


    Chooka¡¯s offering was always a unique request form of some kind tailored specifically to that deity. Gods care not for the intrinsic value of things, but rather that you personally put effort into making it. Ergo, purchasing something to offer to a god would be blasphemy. If a king ordered one hundred cattle sacrificed to a god, it would be ignored at best by a god, for the king did nothing personally for it. If instead he carved a little wooden statue of a cow and offered it, that would be worth more than gold to a god, for the king personally tried his best to make something for the god. The skill in making one¡¯s offering is immaterial; only one¡¯s effort and good intentions matter. Well, not all offerings are acceptable, as human sacrifices are generally frowned upon.


    Chooka¡¯s forms often found themselves nestled between little statues, cool rocks people found on the ground, a little pie or cookie that someone had baked themselves, small bits of embroidery, and other little knickknacks. No one knows exactly how or when the gods receive their offering, but if you look away from the shrine long enough, when next you look back, your offering will be gone.


    Next, we would visit the human gods for Skull. Even as one devoted to a single god, Gulthar, she still at least paid nominal tribute to the other gods of the appropriate pantheons. Gulthar recognizes the role other gods have in maintaining balance in the world, for each god has their part to play, and thus they need the Divine Essence required to fulfill their duties. For example, there would be no one to be brave if the god of fertility doesn¡¯t enable new life to be born.


    Indeed, all the gods do their best to ensure no one god falls out of favor with mortals, assuming no god decides to become a tremendous jerk. Gods have winked out of existence before due to lack of devotion, and eventually, the desire of mortals for there to be something divine in charge of some aspect of the universe will force a god to spring into existence. Some of those new gods have been difficult to deal with, and most gods are content to deal with the devil they know than to roll the dice on what new god may come into being.


    At that point in my life, I had long since stopped trying to go show devotion at any shrine. I tried the human gods first, but the most polite amongst them firmly told me in no uncertain terms not to worship them. I tried the rest of the racial gods, and then the Light and Dark gods, but all refused to allow me to worship them or entreat them for any favors. They never told me a reason, and I could not have known at the time that I would someday become a demigod, but the gods knew I would. Time is not as linear to them, and Divinity tends to propagate backwards in time as well in some ways. Gods worshiping other gods in the same tier in the divine pecking order tends to create a whole bunch of fuckery that gods almost unanimously want to avoid. Demigods are in a league of their own, and not even the most chaotic of gods would want to touch worship from a demigod with a ten-foot pole.


    Demigods also have their own shrines, but people are not ¡®expected¡¯ to show devotion to them. That falls much more under personal choice and perhaps what future ventures one would take. Demigods represent more oddly specific domains, such as how I have the domain of Roads. Gods would represent something more abstract, such as Travel or Civilization. Ergo, people prayed to demigods on a much more transactional basis. Most races have a god of the Sea, but you go pray to the demigod of Sea Travel (of which there is only one such demigod present in the world at a time) whenever you take a voyage on the ocean. The further some activity is from one¡¯s Domain, the more costly divine intervention would be for a god to help a petitioner. Demigods fill that void for the things that are too specific to warrant a god personally dealing with it.


    Now, when people pray to me, a small tithe of what Divine Essence I get from that goes to the appropriate related god above me in charge of Travel, which is usually the one related to the race of the petitioner. In return, those gods help me out when I need to coordinate with other gods so that no toes are stepped on. When I build a bridge over a river, they handle the politics for me in ensuring the god of Rivers or whatever doesn¡¯t throw a hissy fit about it. That makes us all one big happy family where everyone has their place in the Grand Design, as we call it.


    We would typically go with Skull to the Temple of Gulthar as well. Chooka and I mostly liked to look around because it was rather pretty in a macabre fashion. Temples are places of learning, for both laymen and clergy, as well as places to receive certain services, store holy artifacts and relics, and to offer more serious prayers. They are not churches and do not offer religious services and all that nonsense. That is a very clear distinction that even gods make a point to enforce. Stepping into the church of another religion is sacrilegious if one follows a different faith, but a temple serves as more like a consulate or embassy between mortals for various gods. Skull has her own responsibilities to Gulthar, and sometimes that requires her to help out with the mission of the local temple.


    Every Adventurer loves having a healer in the party and will go out of the way to recruit one. Most Adventurers don¡¯t actively like having to help the healer go do things for the healer¡¯s patron god. However, since few Blessings have any potent means of directly healing other people, [Clerics] and other people with Blessings of a more divine nature are often the only source of it to be had. As such, we saw more than a few parties of Adventurers traveling to various temples, usually with one person merrily skipping along while the rest begrudgingly followed. Gulthar¡¯s temple perhaps provided one exception, for it also had a haunted house in one wing, which often provided ample entertainment to gaggles of plucky youths trying to test their mettle. Only a year ago did Gulthar decide to put up a publicly visible leader board for people¡¯s scores. I don¡¯t know how one scores a person going through a haunted house, but the end result was that business boomed since the change.


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Fortunately, Skull could use the employee entrance, so we could skip the riff raff. Mercifully, nothing of note was required of her this tenday. Three months ago we had to go put a beatdown on an order of knights that talked a big game but were nowhere to be seen when they were called upon to do their job. Gulthar despises cowards, especially arrogant ones in a position of privilege where their duties require them to be brave from time to time. Most strange was how a good chunk of those knight¡¯s treasury also disappeared around the same time that the treasury of Gulthar¡¯s temple grew by the same amount, which will probably remain an unsolved mystery.


    With the shrines out of the way, we had one final civil duty to fulfill. We meandered over to a large plaza that had a few tents on one side and long queues leading to them. Fortunately, the queues were rather empty, not for a lack of customers, but for the streamlined and expeditious processing as set up by those in charge. We made our way to the tents, the first of which has healers that use some sort of [Detect Disease] Ability. None of us had any ailments, but if we did, we would go to an adjacent tent to have it treated. Some cities take epidemics seriously and are willing to use an ounce of prevention rather than a pound of cure to ensure they don¡¯t break out, and Berkerin was one of them.


    Berkerin had to be pretty progressive on the front of combating disease. As a thriving trade city, goods and peoples from all over the world traveled through it, and with them they brought afflictions. Curing all the patient zeros was cheaper than having the city slammed with a plague every decade. It also made the city rather alluring to anyone wishing to set up shop, and so the population had grown over the past couple decades thanks in part to the public healthcare provided. Small cuts, broken bones, dentistry, and eye care were all provided at no cost to residents of Berkerin or its surrounding vassal villages. Anything more advanced, such as organ failure, would require a specialist and was thus paid for out of pocket. That¡¯s still better than most of the world, so the people were rather happy about their quality of life.


    I could only imagine how it was all paid for. There must be close to fifty healers here on any given day and they don¡¯t work for free. Healers were mandated to work here on their Shrine Day, but they were still compensated for their efforts. Most could make far more money as Adventurers and indeed did, at least until they retired from that life, and so their services did not come cheaply. The bureaucracy between the Duke, his noble retinue, the local temples, the guilds, the merchants, and everyone else in town who had skin in this game must have been a nightmare, but fortunately, the average person did not have to deal with it. They simply got in line, received treatment, thanked the healer, and went about their lives without paying a copper. I would wager this played no small part in the Duke¡¯s wild popularity and the strong sense of community of the local populace.


    The smaller towns and villages, client vassals of Berkerin, would not have that many healers or indeed shrines to each and every god. Healers were on an annual rotation where they traveled a circuit between the various towns, usually with one showing up once a month for a few days. The shrines in those towns were typically All Faiths Shrines or, if they splurged, Pantheon Shrines. The gods found it to be a bit crowded, having to share shrines, but they understood the practicality of how a small population could not maintain large numbers of shrines. Typically, the healers were aligned in some way with some god or pantheon, so they also tended to the maintenance and other duties related to their own shrines during their travels.


    Fortunately, Skull was no healer. While still a [Divine Champion] to her god and thus having some education in shrines and how to tend to them, such duties were in many ways beneath her. Unless a shrine long since forgotten and run-down located out in the wilderness needed to be reconsecrated or something, she was not called upon for such trivial matters. Some gods get finicky when a devotee of another god comes to tend to their shrine, but sometimes needs must when the devil drives, so Skull could in theory be called upon to tend to shrines for other gods as well.


    I¡¯m not sure why gods have shrines way out in the middle of nowhere or why they let them fall into decay. I suspect it is intentional, that it provides some grand quest for a neophyte to go tend to. The accomplishment of the task strengthens the bond between deity and devotee. Some shrines in the wilderness are well known and Adventurers camp by them on the regular, so they stay maintained. Perhaps the pattern of where Adventurers go shifts over time, and so shrines that were used often yesterday go out of style the next.


    For me personally, I never let my shrines fall into disrepair, but I have the advantage of being a demigod and thus can exist within the material world without destroying it. Gods cannot set foot here directly, and creating an avatar and maintaining it costs a lot of Divine Essence. [Clerics] are just too few and far in between to maintain everything for them, but I do not find myself at the mercy of my clergy to see that my interests are followed. Demigods are at times called upon to go do such things by the gods. It is all about trading favors, so usually we demigods play nice.


    Perhaps back in those days, the gods called upon me and my associates to do things because the gods knew I would become a demigod and wanted to condition me to be inclined to help. Gulthar was the first to establish a relationship with me back when he saddled me with Skull as a companion. It was done as a punishment and payment for almost getting Skull killed, but if I knew what I knew now, he should have been the one to pay me to have one of his devotees tag along.


    Most gods would kill (and many have) to get one of their own in the inner circle of a demigod. Gods are restricted to their universe and what worlds (such as other planes or planets) it may have, but the one distinct thing that separates demigods from gods is that demigods can travel the multiverse. Granted, we don¡¯t often get a choice of which universe we end up in, why we are there, or when we get yanked out of our previous universe, but our connection to those other universes gives us knowledge beyond what gods have. We are their eyes and ears in those universes, and we can gain knowledge of what other demigods exist and when they may find themselves in a particular world.


    When I travel to a new universe, my divine retinue goes with me. That means Skull goes with me. Skull still has her connection to Gulthar, so he can see the world through her. Sometimes, a clever god figures out how to jump the gap between universes and establish themselves in multiple universes at once. This creates a local cluster of universes, and it could elevate a god from being a god of a single universe to a god of many universes, which is essentially a promotion. As such, gods tend to be rather generous in their dealings with demigods, since we are the vessels through which they can get a free ride to another world in hopes of ascension.


    For our part, we demigods stick together. There will never be two of us with the same Domain in the same universe at a time, so I only tangentially know of other demigods with the Domain of Roads. However, time doesn¡¯t exist or flow between universes. I could meet a demigod in one universe when he is 1,000 years old and I am 10,000 years old, and in the next universe, he is 10,000 years old and I am 1,000 years old. From our own perspective, it is like we see past and future versions of each other wherever we go. We cannot change things for their past selves, for if we try to, well, it already happened as far as their future self is concerned.


    So we help each other out, show new demigods the ropes, and help each other cope with the trauma of being ripped from a world we were happy in and into another. Few demigods enjoy it when they are forced to bring about the end of the world, so we offer what we can to make the task easier to endure. There are no cosmic therapists, and we demigods in many ways still have mortal minds and thus can suffer the same mental perils as mortals, such as post-traumatic stress. Our perfect memories come back to bite us, for sometimes even I can still hear their screaming and see the anguish on their faces as the mortals beg me to spare their worlds.


    Okay, so that got dark and depressing real fast. I¡¯m sure this has been a huge theological information dump. Most mortals are not allowed to peek behind the curtain to how the universe works, but I figured I would let this universe know and see how it plays out. Just follow me, the Dragon of Roads, and we will get right back to bedding beautiful women, slaying scumbags, eating cheese, and giving snacks and belly rubs to The Boys before you know it.


    Anyway, Shrine Day was over, and it being lunch time, we headed home. The Boys were given their daily meal (no snacks), and Skull and I parted ways with Chooka for the day. Those trackers I had placed on the kobolds were heading out of the city, and I wanted to see where they went before they got out of range.


    With Skull in my shadow once again, I took the quick way out of town by traveling across rooftops. Thankfully, rooftops were made to support the weight of people skulking about, but it was generally frowned upon to use them casually. It is just bad manners to crowd someone trying to brood as he looks down on the city, so you gotta be quick if you want the best spots for the night. With it being just past noon, very little brooding or skulking took place, so I didn¡¯t have to fight much in the way of traffic, other than postal workers and couriers, who were quite busy at this time of day.


    I made haste in an all-too-familiar direction. Three mountains surrounded Bekerin to all directions but the south, and the one before me to the north would be where my trackers moved. They were heading suspiciously close to my road I had built, and dare I say, they were probably walking on it right now. My road stopped at a very small and absolutely temporary cabin that I intended to replace with something nicer than a glorified shed. Beyond lay the ascent up the mountain proper. If these kobolds had a lair in that area, I would have seen them by now, unless¡­ No, no sense jumping to conclusions. I would need to investigate to find out more, so onward I went.

 Chapter 37

    Her glowering glare stared at the entrance to the cave, the unworked stone unfazed by her perpetual foul mood. Soon the little henchman would return to report. Soon she would be toyed with by her captor. Chained as she was, arms outstretched with her neck lashed such that she was forced to her knees in a compromising position, she could do naught but watch and wait. No entertainment could sate her rage, not that any such niceties would be extended to her, for her host and captor was anything but gracious.


    No, he was a vile being, conceited and absorbed only with his own glory. She remained ignorant of the deal that found herself in his possession, but of all her many captors, he remained the most detestable. First there had been the hunters that laid her low, cast her down from the sky to pin her to the earth. Then there had been the merchants, eager to anoint their altar of avarice with her acquisition. From there, she found herself as a trophy for many a lord and lady, changing hands with all the concern of farmers selling cattle at the market. Her current lord would be ill-inclined to part with her, for he treasured her greatly as a centerpiece for his hoard.


    ¡°Come now, my little Princess,¡± commanded her captor as his body shifted in her direction. Gold coins slid down the pile as his crimson-scaled body scattered some of his hoard. A coy smile revealed the fangs hidden behind it as he sweetly whispered to her. ¡°You have but to swear fealty to me, submit to my will, and you will be free once more.¡±


    The same promise, the same offer to sup from the poisoned chalice that traded one imprisonment for another. Undaunted, her expression remained uninviting. She neither recoiled in disgust nor unveiled any more hostility than normal.


    ¡°You remain silent as usual, I see,¡± continued her captor in response to her passive silence. ¡°A predictable outcome. Why, many are stricken mute by my mere presence and majesty.¡± He placed one clawed hand on his chest while he spread his wings wide, posing for his unappreciative and captive audience. ¡°I would have thought you would have grown accustomed to me by now, but such is my brilliance and radiance that even you can find no words to express your devotion to me.¡±


    His words sought to rattle her, to tug her proverbial chain when literal ones were more readily available. Were they not blocking her Abilities, she would crush him beneath the tidal waves of her fury and the ocean of mana and training that stubbornly remained just out of reach in a most tantalizing fashion.


    He himself had ample awareness of her Abilities and dared not touch her directly lest he somehow free her from her constraints. Unperturbed by the chase, he slid down his pile of gold, which honestly was noticeably smaller than his own body, to position himself in a more revealing pose on his side facing her.


    For her part, she did not avert her gaze, but continued to show the same level of scorn as usual. The slow dripping of water in the background punctuated his failure to seduce her once again, but he remained undaunted. Few good things in life were easily acquired, and he would pursue his quarry until her legs tired from the chase and she bent the knee to him.


    ¡°My Lord Count Vladislav, I, Gambino, your humble servant, come bearing news of your glorious enterprise.¡±


    Annoyed, the dragon rolled his eyes as he rotated over to sit upright and facing his minion.


    ¡°Ah, Gambino, I have been expecting your report. Speak.¡±


    From where she remained stuck fast to the earth by her bindings, she could see the kobold who knelt in submission. This time he dressed himself in a sharp pinstriped suit, complete with a fedora and a carefully-folded handkerchief in his pocket. Last time he had a black leather jacket and a ridiculous haircut the likes she had not seen before.


    ¡°Your supreme vision has borne fruit. Many lesser beings have found themselves enraptured by your superior product. Dragon¡¯s Kiss has taken the market by storm, and many more yet crave a taste of the bounty you have to offer. Much wealth has been amassed, and a delivery of your rightful fortune will be shipped to you on the morrow.¡±


    The kobold remained kneeling for the duration of his report, his hand holding his hat over his chest while his eyes remained fixed on the floor in front of him. She held no disdain for the little kobold. It was questionable if they even had free will, for they were creatures devoid of morality, instead loyally if not oddly serving whoever they saw as the strongest. If only she could slip her chains, they would submit to her strength, but she focused on calming her mounting rage, disciplining her emotions as she watched the scene play out.


    ¡°You have served me well, Gambino. I offer¡­ recognition, for your efforts,¡± replied the loathsome dragon in front of her.


    ¡°Your words are too kind, but there have been a few setbacks, one of note.¡±


    ¡°Oh, do tell,¡± encouraged the Count with a mix of curiosity and ire as he idly flashed the claws of one hand as if to inspect them.


    Gambino swallowed nervously before continuing. ¡°We had an altercation between clients. The broker double-booked us, which is such an unprecedented mistake that it could not have been an accident. The second group of clients, a bunch of rowdy dwarven miners, seemed to be itching for a fight. They lost the fight to a henchman of one Alterez, a goblin cook of some note.¡±


    ¡°A most interesting development,¡± responded the Baron through clenched teeth as his claws raked a tremendous gouge in the stone floor before him. ¡°Tell me, why do you think this happened?¡±


    She looked on, interest piqued in this new development. The little kobold trembled before the ire and focus of his master as he thought up a response.


    ¡°Oh mighty one, this one knows not for certain. I suspect someone paid the broker a great deal to breach the sanctity of his contract and to tarnish his own reputation. I believe that the goblin, Alterez, was not the reason, but his bodyguard, the up and coming Adventurer who had been a mighty champion of the recent war between Berkerin and the Theocracy of Ulsfarh over a year ago.¡±


    ¡°Tell me everything,¡± demanded the Count as he took a step forward and lowered his head to be directly in front of the kobold.


    The kobold spoke, and with rapt attention, she listened. Perhaps the winds of change and fortune would both blow in her favor once more. She would not miss the opportunity, and so, she planned and waited as words were exchanged between master and servant.


    <hr>


    ¡°Bambina, toots, get ova¡¯ here,¡± shouted Gambino after he left The Master¡¯s lair.


    He had just finished another star performance. Earlier had been the drug deal, where the opposition bought the craven nature of his crew, hook, line, and sinker. Then The Master had believed him terrified as he gave his report to said master. It really did help to have a Skill to tremble on demand.


    ¡°Proceeding,¡± Bambina replied as she scurried over.


    ¡°Doll, you did great out there. You really sold that incompetence to those clowns about how you messed up with the booking,¡± Gambino praised as he drew her in and wiped away some of the grime on her face. ¡°Could never have pulled it off had you not scouted the broker and perused his appointment book.¡±


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    Bambina preened at the praise as Gambino tenderly caressed the side of her face with his hand. Gambino savored the moment, letting it sink into both of them as a core memory.


    ¡°The boss has a new job for us, see. Go recast yourself, and this time, use your pretty scales and get yourself all dolled up. The whole world should get to see how you shine.¡±


    Bambina blushed at the praise, her blue tongue flicking down over her bottom lip in an overt sign of attraction. Gambino drew her in closer, a finger and thumb gripping her chin as he brought his face closer to hers. With a quick peck, his own blue tongue dabbed her on the forehead in a show of affection. Gambino then spun her around and swatted her playfully on the behind to get her in motion.


    Bambina paused at the door and turned back to Gambino.


    ¡°What about the delivery of The Master¡¯s gold?¡±


    ¡°Fuhgeddaboudit. We have a new job. Prepare for the next act and we shall rehearse our next scenes.¡±


    Gambino smiled to himself as Bambina nodded in acquiescence and scampered off to change. He found her to be a good girl, eager to please and exceptionally easy on the eyes. She has talent, and with his help, the whole world would know that she is a star. Too bad the other two were not so helpful. They only had [Background Character] Blessings. Useful in supporting roles, but not capable of doing much on their own. They couldn¡¯t hold a candle to his own Blessing of [Impresario], but it was not so much from skill as luck that the gods had chosen him to be the troupe leader. He hoped he could live up to the responsibility.


    Gambino¡¯s smile wilted into a frown as he reminisced. His troupe had been larger once, and the others had played their final act with poise and dignity as they died in droves. Six of them had escaped, with two more succumbing to cruel twists of fate along their exodus. But the man had promised them that things would be on the up and up if they took this new temporary job. They just had to play their parts, as normal, and soon they would find themselves on the grand stage once again.


    The man was an oddball, but yet so entirely familiar to Gambino that he felt that he had known the man his whole life. Doubtful, as he had never seen the man before and kobolds and humans were not known for cohabitating in the same area. Plus the weird triangle symbol would have been memorable. But he trusted in the man¡¯s words, despite any evidence to support it, and so now the hour drew near to see if it would all play out as the man said it would.


    Gambino made his way through the cave system, going to a deadend that had a crude wooden wall and door installed. Removing a key from his pocket, he opened the door and stepped inside the small alcove sequestered away from everything else. All that remained of his clan¡¯s treasures were found here. Some were mere props, others the real deal, and for this scene, he would need some serious hardware.


    He opened a sturdy foot locker, and within, drew out a fine leather suitcase. Opening it, he drew out the exact item he needed to provide the desired utility for his upcoming scenes and to really bring the aesthetics of his character to light. He checked it over, ensuring that the parts were clean and undamaged. A few spare cylinders were in the suitcase, and he grabbed those too and added them to his pockets. Despite the losses of late, the show must go on. It would be one damn fine show, one that would see his troupe go down in a blaze of glory or commissioned by a new and powerful patron. With what he needed in hand, he left the room, locking up as he left, and returned to the rest of his troupe.


    <hr>


    Nabonidus gazed vacantly out at the stretch of wasteland to the north, a gentle breeze playfully tugging at the drool oozing down one corner of his mouth. Nabonidus had been sitting in his spot just behind his tent since sunrise, doing nothing, thinking nothing. At least, that is what he wanted the others to believe.


    Three days had passed since he came into existence. There was no birth, no parents, no preamble to his spawning; he simply was not and then was, fully formed with sufficient knowledge to understand the world around him. The first day offered him no time to think, to organize his thoughts and knowledge into any useful frame of reference. The biggest and meanest of his kind had ordered an attack on an approaching caravan, and not knowing enough to find a way out of it, he joined the others for an assault.


    Two others from the tent across from him had joined the raid, the ones with nasty scars from acid on their faces and chests. While the raid had been successful, those two had perished. Nabonidus watched that evening and noticed none coming or going from the tent of those two, but come morning, two new hale and hearty ogres had stepped out of that tent, seemingly springing forth from the nether, their eyes betraying no hint of intelligence beyond what one needed to smash and consume.


    But Nabonidus himself possessed intelligence far beyond such banal undertakings. He had never studied, nor read books, nor experimented with the world around him, but he knew things beyond base instinct. Not just facts about the world and life, but of things that would come to pass.


    No, he did not simply know about the future as if someone had told him about it, he had in a sense, lived it. He was there, watching, listening, feeling, while two dragons fought to the death while yet more dragons fought other creatures. The Actors were all cast; that part of Destiny had been decided, unchangeable lest one with foresight intervene. The Outcome remained inconclusive but heavily in favor of the dragon seen in all his visions of what was yet to come. The others with him though, sometimes they perished based on what choices they made.


    Nabonidus reached out with his gift, with his Blessing, and tugged at the strings of Fate to favor the dragon that showed up time after time in future after future. Something about him seemed all too familiar, yet they had never met as far as he knew. But the dragon was so far away, across the wasteland, beyond plains, forests, mountains, and other lands he had never heard of or been to. His grip on those strings remained weak with him being so far from the Scene, and come the moment of Fate being decided, he would need to exert his influence just right to ensure the optimal Outcome.


    His instincts screamed at him to be cautious. All the rabble of the camp went about their lives as brutish oafs with violence and shouting as their primary mediums of communication and interaction with the world. However, if he himself possessed intellect beyond that of a savage, then surely others did as well. And if his instincts told him to hide himself, to play dumb and mask his gifts, so too would the instincts of the others. For if he saw one of them acting wiser than the rest, he would surely and surreptitiously move to kill them lest they plot and scheme against him. Turnabout being fair play, he kept his actions covert.


    But if he himself was an [Oracle], then perhaps others were as well. He had no reason to believe he was unique, or that other [Oracles] would not move against him and the future he sought to bring about. Everything hinged on the dragon, and with that, the fates of the other ogres would be dire. Only Nabonidus would stand to gain from this future, and with some of the others surely having weeks or months of a head start at life and mastering their Blessings, he would be at a disadvantage if they knew of his goals.


    Many grim futures awaited him. The only bright futures involved the dragon, but they became hazy and confusing the further in the future the chain of events went from the upcoming fight. In the best versions of the future he wanted, the dragon came from the north, its body a great serpent devouring a path in the land towards him, the dragon¡¯s companions walking along his back. Along the path came an endless tide of wagons full of bone, each one heading further south from Nabonidus¡¯s own camp.


    To the south, Nabonidus saw only darkness and chaos. The future there was too distant to see clearly and too horrible to comprehend. Profound calamity and chaos reigned there. He saw large titans brought low, swarmed by endless hosts of unspeakable horrors that defied his ability to categorize as any manner of creature he knew. Countless futures clashed, and doing more than glimpsing at it would find himself lost in the endless tides of the future as waves of insight propagated back to him. Such folly led only to madness, and being so young and new to his Blessing, Nabonidus knew he did not have the skill to navigate such dark waters.


    And so he focused on what was to come, how to help this dragon that somehow had Destiny entangled with a lowly ogre in the middle of nowhere. He planned and schemed, hatched plots and contingencies of how he may discover the others like him without exposing himself. The best time to get a knife to the back would be when he planted his own knife in someone else¡¯s back. Best that he find a way to have them all knife each other, that he may reign supreme on a mountain of corpses. Not that he wanted to lead the ogres, for no future involved them. No, instead his ambition could be summarized in a single word: survive.


    And survive he would, even if he had to murder, cheat, and steal to do so. While knowledge was his birthright, so to speak, morality remained a luxury of civilization. And this deep in the forsaken wilderness, civility had become a sparse commodity. His thinking done, Nabonidus grabbed his club and headed back to the camp before anyone could grow suspicious. He would survive his fourth day of existence, and then those that yet remained, until his foresight failed to find a way forward.

 Chapter 38

    ¡°Stop! Go back, I think I saw something unusual!¡±


    Just as I traveled from the inner gate to the outer via the battlements that created a nice little kill zone for invaders, Skull tugged on my metaphysical and proverbial leash, my body hastening to obey as her insistence and enthusiasm bled into me through our empathetic bond. Normally, such a feat was reserved for her to manhandle me out of harm¡¯s way in the thick of combat, but I let it slide as one cannot both have such a bond while desperately clinging to agency of one¡¯s own actions.


    ¡°By Gulthar¡¯s eerie grin, that is [Paladin] Gamgrox!¡±


    Even though Skull remained in my shadow, she still retained her perception of the world around her, and I could feel giddy excitement welling up inside her like an innocent schoolgirl being asked to a dance by her crush. She held not a hint of fear or nervousness, but I remained unsure how much of that was her own confidence and how much of that was from what boons Guthar had granted her to make her fearless.


    ¡°I guess I am missing the significance of seeing a [Paladin] in Berkerin,¡± I replied silently through our bond.


    ¡°Not simply ¡®a¡¯ [Paladin], but ¡®the¡¯ [Paladin], specifically, the [Paladin] of Echludoro, the Light god of the Domains of Space and Time. Each god only has one [Paladin] at any given time. They make a [Divine Champion] like me look like a chump as they can call upon the favor and power of their respective god easier than you or I breathe.¡±


    ¡°An intriguing development,¡± I admitted honestly. ¡°All I see is a walking suit of thick plate armor with a heraldry-strewn tabard and cape on top that is armed to the teeth. How do you know it is said [Paladin] and why would the [Paladin] be here? Berkerin is a decently sized trade city, but it isn¡¯t as bustling as a capital city of a large kingdom.¡±


    ¡°I have a Skill, [Find the Faithful], that allows me to see other clergy members and devotees of Gulthar. The advanced version of it allows me to see much the same, but for those who follow other gods. Some may be able to hide their affiliations and deceive my Skill, but a [Paladin] would not only be incapable of being so clandestine, but they also stand out like a beacon in the darkness to my Skill.¡± I could feel her excitement climbing as she continued, my body almost atremble with her exuberance. ¡°I have no idea why he would be here, but I am sure he will be the talk of the town before he even makes it to his lodgings. Are you sure we need to chase these kobolds?¡± she asked pensively, her desires tinged with curiosity to know more but loyalty to my pursuit.


    ¡°The [Paladin] will surely be here when we return. That will give time for rumors to spread and for your temple to be formally briefed as to the nature of the visit from such a prestigious guest to the city. You will have your answers upon our return, no doubt.¡±


    We lingered for a moment as his entourage made their way into the city, the guards practically making an express lane for a seemingly unannounced visitor. I could only guess if someone dropped the ball and forgot to inform the guards that a [Paladin] would be arriving today or if said [Paladin] intentionally showed up unannounced, but I believed that a lot of people low and high in the pecking order of Berkerin would start sweating over the new arrival.


    With the moment passed, I vaulted off the wall and began my journey towards where I had last detected the kobolds. Peddlers and hecklers along the road soon gave way to farms and small settlements as my legs devoured the distance to our destination. The last vestiges of winter still clung to the shadows in some places as its icy talons desperately tried to claw a safe haven for the remnants of once large snow drifts that had all but melted away. One field even had a snowman standing proud and defiant out in the open, unyielding to the sun and the pleasantly temperate weather that would surely be too much for it. Probably, some shenanigans involving Skills or Abilities kept it from melting and the carrot nose from being eaten by animals.


    As we neared the edge of civilization, the beautiful and well-maintained farms gave way to the far more decrepit grazelands for all manner of herds. The buildings here were not exactly shabby, but certainly devoid of the pride and tender care that everyday, salt-of-the-earth farmers that lived closer to the city employed upon their own structures.


    I had come to learn that such farms and pastures were intentional loss leaders, that their presence served as a buffer between civilization and the wilderness. Goblins as well as a host of different beasts and monsters are a vital part of a healthy ecosystem, and part of tolerating their existence is permitting a certain degree of raiding. Adventurers are called upon to cull any that get too rambunctious, but those critters hold territory that may otherwise be held by far more dangerous creatures. The government subsidizes those that live here so that more profitable farms can mostly go unmolested, but few actively seek to live out here in the boonies.


    In short order, we reached the edge of civilization. Right where my stone brick road connected to the dirt road of the farmland, one could see a line in the pastures to either side, as if the animals that grazed there dared not to nibble even an inch past what was the territory proper of Berkerin. During my outings as an Adventurer, I had seen that a roughly circular shape of this boundary existed around the city, and it finally clicked that maybe some Skill from the Duke was involved, that there was a true and technical difference between civilization and the wilderness.


    The implications of such would have to wait for rumination at a later date, for now my attention remained focused on my surroundings and the denizens of the forest just up ahead. Few animals, beasts, monsters, or loosely ¡®civilized¡¯ creatures, such as goblins, would dare approach me in the forest, but hungry bellies could make for desperate gambits, and they only needed to get lucky once to make a meal out of me.


    My speed picked up now that I ran on a higher-quality road. I had trimmed back the vegetation and trees near the road such that the shoulder was about as wide as the road itself on either side. However, nature is rarely so easily bridled by my ambition, and a trim was well in order. Not breaking stride, I employed a Skill, [Ethereal Trimmers - Lesser] to trim back the plant life on either side as I ran along. The Greater version of the same skill cost significantly more and was used for more serious landscaping, but this version suited just fine for maintenance.


    Like an invisible wave in my wake, a clipping of grasses and limbs followed me as I made my way to my cabin. Once there, I entered without any fanfare or subtlety, making an effort to appear that my presence in the area was simply routine and not an endeavor at stalking. There, I employed a few illusions to make it appear as if I were working at my desk in the corner. Simultaneously, I pulled out all the stops on employing my stealth Skills. Shrouded in shadow and supernatural silence, I made for a secret tunnel, appearing surreptitiously about fifty feet away from my cabin in a small patch of brush.


    Using Shadow magic to obfuscate and obscure my presence physically had been a staple of my outings since I was a child. While said Skills and my personal aptitude had grown, some fancy new Skills had found their way into my kit as of late. Now, not only was I physically difficult to see, but one Skill in particular, [Non-Detectable Presence], manipulated the mind of an observer to either subtly force them not to look in my direction or for their mind to ignore detecting me. Such was naturally contested by their own Skills, and even without them, a savvy individual could notice the pattern of not looking a certain direction while on their guard if I lingered in a nearby location for too long.


    I backtracked at an angle to intercept the last known location of the kobolds, which in hindsight, was an area I had avoided going to despite having traveled up, down, and all around this northern mountain. Something felt suspicious as to how I had never visited the exact spot, with a handy map Skill clearly showing a blank spot perhaps two miles in diameter that I had not explored. Thinking back, I always had made justifications to myself as to why I would not go there, and those reasons all felt so ludicrous now even if I only vaguely remembered them. Not only was my memory pretty good in those days, but I felt as though something had actively manipulated me into forgetting the fine details.


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    As I approached closer, intrusive thoughts implored me to go away. Thoughts of ¡®I should go see what the [Paladin] is up to¡¯, ¡®it is too dangerous to go this deep into the forest¡¯, and ¡®I am heading in the wrong direction¡¯ all nagged it me with increasing frequency and intensity as some foreboding pressure exerted itself upon my will.


    ¡°Do you feel it too, Skull, that insidious desire to turn back for one reason or another?¡±


    ¡°Indeed I do,¡± she replied as anger, her anger, welled up inside me and stoked my own. ¡°Something clearly does not want us here. All the more reason to press on and give it a taste of our ire for daring to manipulate us like this.¡±


    I tended to agree with that sentiment, and after another hundred paces at most, I paused. Up ahead, reality appeared to be flawed, as if a skilled painter had created the landscape on one giant canvas and plopped it down for us to view. However, the shadows and lighting were not quite perfect, and at times the colors and shadings were a tad too lacking to be believable. As I cautiously approached, the illusion became more apparent, as if a great dome had been placed in the landscape. I lightly tapped it with a stick I pulled out of my pocket dimension, and the air rippled as the impact propagated in a wave along the dome.


    ¡°Woah! I could sense your apprehension, but I didn¡¯t see anything wrong until you touched¡­ whatever it is that you touched,¡± exclaimed Skull in surprise through our bond. ¡°How did you even know it was there?¡±


    ¡°I could see something off about reality. Given that I have Skills for both creating and detecting illusions, and you do not, I am inclined to believe that this is some high quality illusion on a grand scale. The mana cost to maintain this must be staggering,¡± I replied with wonder in my mental voice to her. Good thing that tone and other nuances of sound still get communicated through such telepathy.


    ¡°Do you want me combat ready, or should I stay hidden in your shadow?¡±


    ¡°Stay hidden for now. I don¡¯t want to fight, and we will retreat if spotted. This is purely reconnaissance, for we don¡¯t know who or what lives here. They have to have some serious combat potential if they can make an illusion like this.¡±


    I could feel Skull¡¯s sentiment of agreement, and though one final and seemingly desperate assault on my will urged me to turn back, I powered through such temptation. I expected some manner of resistance, but nothing of the sort happened as I casually passed through. Surely some sort of ward had been pushing me away mentally, and now I would wager a few coppers that another would alert those sequestered within the barrier as to my presence unless my Skills allowed me to slip by unnoticed.


    I don¡¯t know what I expected, but upon pushing through, I can say for sure that I was surprised to see very few trees and indeed a large lake taking up most of the space of the two mile or so width of the dome of the illusion. How such a lake went unknown to me for so long, especially in idle chit-chat from other Adventurers or locals, will forever remain a mystery. Whatever trees that had once been here had long since been eradicated, with only a sparse sampling of bushes and saplings infringing upon the otherwise short grasses and flowers. The sudden juxtaposition from forest to lakeside made me suspect some hillbilly with a crossbow would soon show up to tell me to get off his lawn.


    I stood uphill of the lake, with the landscape sloping downward gently in such a way that I could see much of the lakeside without the terrain itself breaking my line of sight. Not even two hundred paces in front of me and to my left I could plainly see a drake sleeping inside a magic circle which glowed upon a smooth stone dais. You know the kind, the ones with all the fancy lines and glyphs everywhere to power some big badda-boom magic. The circle, not the drake, but after a second of thinking about it, the drake probably supplied magical energy to the circle. Now if you ever see a drake made of magic lines and runes, maybe drink a little less of the punch at Gnomerween parties.


    I sent one [Overseer] to check out the drake, with several more making their way around the lake. I had to be careful, for doubling the distance of an [Overseer] quadrupled its persistent mana cost, so they didn¡¯t stop to closely inspect anything. Through them, I discovered four more such drakes, all configured in a pentagram shape. On the right side of the lake, which would be the side uphill on the beginning of the slope of the mountain, I could see a waterfall. And, like any good waterfall, it had a cave behind it, complete with a stone door.


    Adventurers don¡¯t exactly hand out a field book on things you can see in the wilderness, but in the absence of such a monster manual or bestiary, idle chats shared around a table with mugs of ale in hand are the baseline of education for most young Adventurers. Sometimes one had to separate fact from fiction, but at the very least the mechanics about dragons were fairly well understood, and between such tales and actual books, I had a decent understanding of what to watch out for from the perspective of an Adventurer. Sadly, even though I myself am a dragon, I didn¡¯t have any instinctual knowledge of the finer points of dragon society, but I can cover the rough parts of what I knew then.


    The smallest of dragons are whelps. Stubby limbs and wings, big heads with big eyes, they are designed to wield the insidious weapons of cuteness as their basic form of defense. They are hardly dangerous in and of themselves, and even the largest of them could sit in a person¡¯s hands put together. However, all evidence suggested that anything a whelp perceives was instantly also perceived by its parent. As such, one needed to first and foremost avoid all whelps when raiding a dragon¡¯s lair if one planned to use the element of surprise. They are about as smart as a child of five or so years, so they are easily tricked. They do handle menial chores, so when not patrolling, they typically were hauling one thing or another.


    Next up were drakes, roughly the size of horses. They tend to act as long range scouts, flying high and looking down upon the territory of their parent dragon. They also form the first line of defense, serving to interdict intruders while help arrives. Even a Gold Adventurer on the lower end of the scale could probably win against a single drake, but the drakes are not the dangerous part.


    Wyverns would be the tricky part. Hulking brutes compared to drakes, notable for having a single pair of legs and wings where their forward set of legs would be, much like a bird, whereas most other dragons would opt for the quadruped form. Mean, angry, brave, and rather tough, a more seasoned Gold Adventurer would be needed to take one on with even odds as to which would win.


    All three of these dragons are often called False Dragons or Lesser Dragons. They are infertile and not overly burdened with intelligence. However, they work well in groups and could easily rout a group of Adventurers before any raiding of hoards could commence. The foolish underestimate the whelps, for while they can¡¯t fight very well, their adorableness is supernatural and distracting, and even hardened murderers hesitate to harm them. Their cuteness can almost enthrall the unwary, like moths to flame, buying time for drakes and wyverns to take one out.


    Now, with no whelps in sight and the nearby drakes being busy maintaining the illusion, circumstances deviated heavily from the norm. However, the odds of the residential dragon being very large or powerful would be rather small, as there would be far more drakes around in support. However, where there is one dragon, there are more, for the True Dragons tend to live in small groups. I could probably expect anywhere from two to two dozen of them, but the lower end of that scale would be most probable.


    Having not moved an inch since passing through the barrier, I spent a half hour scouting with my [Overseers] while formulating possible scenarios of how it could play out. Sadly, I found nothing else of note, and feeling fully confident that I would be foolish to rush in with just Skull and myself, I had a pretty good idea of what to do next. Just to be safe, I asked Skull for her opinion.


    ¡°Prudent to not rush in. We don¡¯t know enough about how many dragons there are to make an assault. However, I believe there to only be two or three True Dragons here given the size of the territory and the number of Drakes. Even if a Marquess class dragon made this small space his home, we could take him in a fight if he were alone. However, even a Count would still have other dragons with him, and if we try to peel the onion, so to speak, he will fly off with his hoard while his underlings hold us off.¡± She paused for a moment, as if thinking, before she continued. ¡°Chooka would know more. She has handled most of the official requests for dragon hunts in the past, and she would know more about what to expect. I think we should consult her before we decide on anything.¡±


    ¡°I am glad we are of the same opinion on that front. Let¡¯s sneak along home and see if we can¡¯t figure this out with her guidance.¡±


    Like a thief in the night, we slipped away quite as could be. Not two paces behind me, I passed through the illusion dome. I used a Trap skill to place an unarmed and covert beacon that most likely only I would be able to detect. I would use it later when I returned to find my way. Worst case, I arm it from a distance and detonate it to create a flare, but I had hoped to not need to resort to such desperate measures.


    I made my way back to my cabin the same way I had come, passing again through the secret tunnel. Dispelling the illusion of me at work, I made my way home, cleaning up the trimmings I had made on my journey out here, my trip home unbothered by any creatures as I completed my rather legitimate-looking work. With the sun rather low in the sky, I made my way home to Chooka, and I could feel the excitement and tension in the air from the not-so-hushed whispers and gossip of the locals as they all talked about one thing.


    The [Paladin] of Echludoro had come to Berkerin.

 Chapter 39

    When I arrived home, I found Chooka sitting at the table facing the door, a cup of tea before her, the steam rising from it indicating it was rather fresh and hot. Given that she was not prone to just idly sitting and waiting for me without a prank involved, I found the timing too convenient to be coincidence. Perhaps she had recently gained a Skill to locate me and thus knew I was arriving. She certainly wouldn¡¯t tell me if she did, for that would spoil the fun of ambushing me with future shenanigans. Few were the secrets we kept from one another, but ones to keep things spicy were best left sleuthed by the other.


    ¡°Ah, my love, I have something for you. Come, sit, and see for yourself.¡±


    She pushed the chair across from her out from the table that I may sit upon said chair, that grin of hers growing wider, the kind that let me know some kind of joke was coming. I took the seat, and Skull removed herself from my shadow, taking her seat as we sat in roughly a triangular formation. Skull removed her helmet and hooked it on the back of the chair where the pegs that supported the back jutted up a bit from the main bracing part.


    Chooka took a box from her lap and slid it over to me. It filled up most of the palm of my hand and it was wrapped in some ornate paper. By the heft of it, something heavy remained underneath it all. I took my time playing it up, shaking the box to listen to what may be inside, only to hear no rattle. Carefully, I removed the paper as Skull and Chooka both leaned in. The paper came away to reveal a simple but well-crafted wooden box, some kind of elm if I were to guess.


    The box had no handle or latch, so I opened it, facing a small amount of resistance as something internal to the box helped keep it shut so the lid would not open from its own weight. Confusion and wonder etched their telltale signs across my face as I pulled out a brain made of bronze. Around the edges of the box, nestled within the rather form-fitted padding, were tacks made of brass.


    I set them out on the table, and upon noting the inscription on the brain, read it out loud.


    ¡°Brains, not bronze.¡±


    If my memory served me well at the time, those were the words I had spoken earlier to Chooka. Not getting it, I knew this was the joke, but I couldn¡¯t see why.


    ¡°I don¡¯t get it,¡± I said to Chooka as she was all but bursting with laughter.


    ¡°It isn¡¯t ¡®bronze¡¯, you goober, but ¡®brawn¡¯. The expression is ¡®brains over brawn¡¯¡±, she enunciated while she cackled in merciless mirth at my expense. ¡°And, instead of ¡®brass tax¡¯, like paying taxes on the sale of brass, it is ¡®brass tacks¡¯, like the tacks here, used when pressed into a board to measure lengths of cloth from a bolt at prearranged distances from one another. Your mother was a tailor; how did you not know this?¡±


    My face flushed red in embarrassment as all the nearby rocks I could crawl under and die undoubtedly displayed their ¡®no vacancy¡¯ signs.


    ¡°To be fair,¡± I started as I tried to finish crafting a good excuse, ¡°Mother never measured anything through any means I could divine. She just cut things with perfect accuracy like some sort of machine. And secondly,¡± I continued as Skull howled in laughter and fell out of her chair and onto the floor, arms clenching her sides as she fought for breath, ¡°I only heard that first expression like a few times in my life and the first guy I saw say it did so while palming the hilt of his bronze knife.¡±


    Chooka stood from where she sat and walked over to me, sitting in my lap facing me while wrapping my head in her arms and hugging me close to her bosom.


    ¡°Sometimes you just do or say the most adorable things with the utmost confidence without understanding how wrong you are, and I just love that about you. I will tease you every time, but don¡¯t ever change.¡±


    She hugged me close, and I just let her warm embrace wash away my embarrassment, the only sound disturbing our bonding moment being Skull trying to right herself and get up off the floor, a process made more difficult with a rather inflexible zweih?nder on her back making sitting up a challenging prospect. She managed to stand up after a few seconds, and with her laughter in check, she came behind me to join in her group hug.


    ¡°I kinda sorta love you too a bunch,¡± Skull muttered shyly, and as I witnessed via an [Observer] I kept above me to watch anyone who may try to sneak up on me, she also turned her gaze away as she blushed a bit. While certainly fearless, perhaps admitting her affection out loud toed the line of what she was comfortable with, despite the almost total lack of any sort of boundaries or privacy in everything else she shared with me through our empathetic bond. Maybe she showed little shame or embarrassment for everything else because nothing in her life mattered as much as her love for me. I made a note to think on that more and see if she should be promoted from a paramour, friend, and bodyguard to my second mistress.


    ¡°And I love the two with at least five sevenths of my heart. Just the two of you, me, and The Boys, that is all that really matters. Everyone else, they would be hard losses, but manageable, and all the things in our lives can be replaced.¡± I managed to buck Chooka over to just one leg as I reached behind me to grab Skull and spin her around the chair and into a sitting position on my other leg. ¡°In all that I do, I consider how my actions would make you feel, and I try to plan everything so I would not bring sorrow into your lives. I hope we can continue to actively and honestly communicate and share with each other in the future, that you will correct me when I am wrong, even when I say silly things.¡± I pulled them both close into a firm embrace, on arm hugging each of them. ¡°You are worth more to me than my pride. I can only hope that I am seen as worthy of the same in return.¡±


    My [Overseer] caught me a glimpse of a tear or two running down Chooka¡¯s face as she peppered me with little kisses and nuzzled me to reassure me, taking tender care not to gore me with her horns. Skull just grabbed my hand and held it to her chest in both of her hands, looking unsure of how to properly convey deeper affection than normal but clearly wanting to.


    Things got more serious from there, and an hour later, we found ourselves in bed after bonding a little more closely with one another. Clearly, Chooka loves me, with no room for misunderstanding or disputing that fact. Skull has more of a strong crush on me, the seed of love clearly planted, but the roots having not burrowed deep yet. Towards each other, Skull and Chooka are more of friends with benefits, for without me to be the tie that binds, they would only hook up casually once in a while.


    Chooka still had a slew of other lovers, and I knew that going into our relationship, but none of them could exhaust her endless supply of love and intimacy for me, so I saw no reason to contest that part of her life. Skull had literally not strayed more than a several hundred feet from me since we were bonded, and I knew full well that she had taken no other lovers outside of Chooka and myself. Not that I would begrudge her such an opportunity if she desired it, for she certainly is not my property and I am not very possessive of women in that way. I¡¯d still gouge the eyes and limbs from sockets from anyone who tried to cause them harm, and I wouldn¡¯t even so much as lose sleep over it, so don¡¯t think I didn¡¯t care for them deeply.


    As we embraced one another in a double snuggle with me in the middle, I decided that this was a good time to get down to, ahem, brass tacks.


    ¡°Skull and I found an interesting and perhaps time-sensitive discovery today for which we need your sage advice, for we believe you to be a credible expert on such matters. We also want to know the gossip about the [Paladin] in town. I leave it to your choice as to which we should discuss first.¡±


    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Maybe some would say I gave her the illusion of choice there by presenting her with only two options, neither of which involved not discussing such things, but I did not really mean to be manipulative in such a sneaky way. I trusted her in spirit and by her reputation that she would under no uncertain terms make it clear if she didn¡¯t want to talk about it. Far from it, she propped up on her side while supported by her arm and eagerly started to fill me in on the juicy details.


    ¡°Something big is going down! A [Paladin] would not come to such a small city like Berkerin on a whim. I haven¡¯t heard anything specific as to why he is here, but I have it on good authority from a friend who works in the temple of Juvumwambi that their [Paladin] will also be showing up soon.¡±


    ¡°Wait,¡± Skull interrupted. ¡°Juvumwambi is the Dark God of Trust and Lies. What makes you think your source is credible?¡± Skull idly stroked her hand up and down my arm and shoulder as she voiced her concern, a simple gesture to show her continued passion for me outside of just getting laid.


    ¡°It took me a few attempts to word my queries in a way that he couldn¡¯t wrangle out something deceptive. You know how the clergy of that god are, always trying to deceive without telling any factual lies, for they just can¡¯t help it as it is as much an instinct as a tenant of their faith. But I did manage, and I have a few Skills that can help me discern the honesty of my paramours.¡± Chooka gave me a wink at that tidbit as she beamed me a smile, and I couldn¡¯t help but smile in return while thanking my honest nature in dealing with her.


    ¡°I also heard other less credible rumors,¡± she continued. ¡°Ones like how maybe the Theocracy of Ulsfarh is going to launch a full blown crusade against us after their failed invasion from almost two years ago. I have heard that some great cult lurks within the city or the nearby countryside and needs to be purged. I have heard that the [Demon King] has agents in the city, or that Demons themselves may be here, which are two completely different things,¡± she added for my benefit. Granted, I had heard children''s tales about the Twelve and One Demons, but I lacked the fine details of how they were unrelated. Well, I know now that they are indeed related, but back then, most people didn¡¯t know of any connection.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think there is merit to those rumors or the dozens of others I have heard. The only exception was about how they may be forming a quorum for a conclave, but they would certainly be going well out of their way to do so. I think at most three or four of them are going to show up to join forces on some threat further away from here, because if there was a threat big enough to warrant more than one [Paladin] around here, we would know of it by now.¡±


    Her grand exposition of the local rumor mill completed, she gave us about five seconds to ponder things before she prodded me with a light shove. ¡°So, what did you find? Tell me!¡±


    I snuggled into Skull as I prepared to share the story of my escapades in snooping, and Skull returned the sentiment by snuggling into me, ready to support me if I needed help in getting the details right.


    ¡°Deep in the forest, not far from my cabin in fact, I tracked those drug-dealing kobolds to a massive illusion. It must be two miles across if not more. Something about it made me want to not approach, as if I simply had better things to do with my time. When I walked through, I witnessed a massive lake, complete with a waterfall with a secret cave behind it. That cave has a stone door, so clearly something of note is there.¡±


    ¡°Do you think it is a wandering dungeon,¡± Chooka asked before I could continue my briefing.


    ¡°Possible, but doubtful,¡± I continued. ¡°You see, there were five drakes in a roughly pentagram pattern near the edges of the illusion, each curled up asleep upon its own stone dais. Each dais had a magical circle with all the bells and whistles to mean they probably maintain the illusion as powered by the mana of the drakes. I saw no whelps or wyverns, so something fishy is going on. We thought you may know more about what peerage of dragon may live there.¡±


    Skull¡¯s demeanor turned deadly serious in a heartbeat as she focused on the news.


    ¡°That is no small finding, and it has to be reported to the Guild immediately.¡± She bolted out of bed, scrambling from one of many binders she kept on the bookshelf by the wall in our bedroom. ¡°Fortuitous, for I just so happen to have the proper paperwork on me right here.¡±


    I felt Skull flinch away and then hug me a little closer at the mention of paperwork, but, undaunted, I hazarded a question.


    ¡°Does this check off a lifelong desire of yours, one of your deepest fantasies, to fill out such a form after having bedded two lovers to complete satisfaction?¡±


    Chooka turned to me with a grin plastered on her face as she finished fishing the forms out of her binder. ¡°More than you could possibly know,¡± she supplied in answer.


    Forms in hand, she grabbed a trusty fountain pen from the nightstand and sat cross-legged in bed, some Skill of her keeping the paper rigid despite a dearth of any real support from a desk or clipboard. I watched her eyes bounce back and forth as she scanned the form while she explained things.


    ¡°Basically, the Guild understands the reward and benefit of such a find and how those who discover it want to keep it a secret so they can get first dibs at it. However, it also represents a security issue to the city if you go off to claim it without telling anyone about it and die horribly. This form allows you to inform the Guild about it and get a full day head start without the details being revealed to the other Adventurers. Even without any bounty being placed on it, they would naturally all leap at the chance to do it pro bono for the bragging rights and the loot of the hoards. The only problem is we need two Guild members to sign off on it, and neither of you can because you are not Staff, but rather Adventurers, and also because you are the two who saw the dragons in question.¡± She glanced up at me before driving the point home. ¡°We will need to find someone else who is Staff to sign off on this and quickly if we don¡¯t want to be in hot water.¡±


    ¡°Serideth,¡± Skull and I supplied as one.


    ¡°Hmm, a good candidate, but she has taken a few days off to do gods knows what. I don¡¯t have the means to reach her, especially on short notice.¡±


    ¡°So we need someone we can trust, that we can locate, who won¡¯t ask too many questions, and will go along with signing this form instead of running off to tell their friends,¡± Skull asked with a slightly puzzled expression.


    ¡°That about sums it up,¡± confirmed Chooka.


    As I pondered who I would pick, Skull¡¯s face lit up with an answer.


    ¡°Alterez! He has a crush on you, Chooka, and has experience in discretion on sensitive matters from his time scoring drugs. If you ask him nicely and show a little cleavage, he will say yes. Or, if you push him over and put your boot down on him and demand he obey like a good little worm, that will probably also work, as I am pretty sure he is into that sort of thing.¡±


    I rolled in place to turn back and look at Skull directly, not trusting my [Observer] to confirm that she wasn¡¯t pulling my leg. She looked completely honest at that, and I learned something that day that I could not unlearn.


    ¡°Oh, I am well aware of how that second option will work on him,¡± replied Chooka with a grin as I witnessed a plan forming as her inner helion crept into her visage. ¡°I have had him wrapped around my little finger for some time now; perhaps it is best to put it to use.¡±


    I am not sure what level of willpower she possessed to not rub her hands together while cackling maniacally, but she clearly found her winner for the late-night document signing. Rising from the bed, she began dressing for the occasion, with long boots that went up her legs to halfway past her knees, each one laced up the whole way and sporting stiletto high-heels. She also applied some underwear that was more straps and hooks than anything covering, but it did cover the bare minimum she needed. She wore a corset that lifted her ample bosom so as to be enticing, and I must admit that it did the trick as Skull and I stared in wonder. Lastly, she put a trench coat on top of all of it, probably more for the shocking reveal than for modesty. She would have had no qualms in walking around in the outfit underneath, so it must have some purpose in her plan.


    ¡°You two wait here. I will go pick up Alterez and have him sign the forms. I will then drop off the forms and bring him back here so we can plan our dragon hunt.¡±


    Her plan garnered no backtalk or dissent, and, satisfied with her preparations, she departed in subdued haste, her movements quickly closing the distance to the door without looking rushed. Given how she was around seven feet tall, her strut could outstride most anyone in town, so she didn¡¯t need to hurry.


    Skull and I, left unsupervised, cuddled while we waited, knowing we would need to eventually get dressed when Chooka returned with Alterez, lest he get the wrong idea of why we wanted him here. But until then, we simply enjoyed the company of each other¡¯s embrace for a few moments longer before the reality of our upcoming escapades would need to be faced. Such was bliss.

 Chapter 40

    A solid knock at the door yanked Alterez¡¯s mind from the queue into dreamland. Curious and irritated in equal measure, he begrudgingly sat up in bed, adjusting his nightcap and nightgown as his legs lazily swung over the edge in pursuit of his jackalope slippers. A second rapping, three quick knocks, urged him to hasten himself, and for some reason unknown, he complied.


    As he opened the door, he came face to lace with boots that just kept going and going. Craning his neck back more and more, he beheld the sight of his dreams, of Chooka dressed in a combination of leather and silk that revealed as much as it shrouded in mystery, with the capstone of her disapproving and stern expression glaring down at him.


    ¡°Is it my time already? Have I died in my sleep, and this is the last gift to me from Gubberloodoo before he carries me off to the afterlife?¡±


    One of those boots hooked its way between his legs, lifting more than kicking as it flung him through the air and back onto the bed, the motion done roughly but not with cruelty or malice. He bounced upon landing, crashing into the wall, but not coming to harm as he landed in a sitting position. Before he could even offer a prayer in thanks to his fortune, a stiletto from the heel of the same platform boot rested just barely on his throat, with Chooka standing on one leg at the edge of the bed.


    ¡°No such luck for me, I¡¯m afraid.¡± Chooka leaned over as she whispered sweetly, somehow not losing balance as her bodice struggled to contain its ample cargo. ¡°I have need of a little worm like you, and you will obey,¡± she whispered sweetly, the words caressing his ears as they perked up in stiff attention to her commands. That wasn¡¯t just figurative, for the fine whisker-like hairs on the tips of his ears trembled in a soothing fashion at the timbre of her voice. ¡°You are normally a wretched disappointment, but I have no time for such gross nonsense tonight. Are you man enough to satisfy my desire, or should I look elsewhere?¡±


    With her stiletto pressing a little harder, not enough that it was hard enough to breath, but hard enough he knew who was in control, he mustered a response. ¡°My body is ready.¡±


    ¡°Good,¡± Chooka purred in satisfaction, the sound nearly intoxicating as it worked its way past his ears and into his very soul. ¡°But,¡± she paused as she stood upright, her stiletto right where she left it. ¡°You will need to sign this form before we continue.¡±


    Seemingly pulling the form and a pen out of nowhere from behind her back, she passed them to him. In haste, Alterez scrawled a respectably legible signature where she indicated.


    ¡°Excellent!¡± She beamed him a hearty smile as she withdrew her leg while simultaneously snatching away the form and pen.


    Alterez kneeled there, legs spread, arms stretched wide, head tilted back, eyes closed, ready for his due punishment. He waited, and waited some more, then peeked out of one eye to see a smirking Chooka with hands akimbo.


    ¡°Silly little Alterez,¡± she chided sweetly, no hint of displeasure in her voice. ¡°Get dressed, grab your knives; we are going on an adventure with ample violence on the menu.¡±


    Confused by the sudden turn of events and by Chooka¡¯s compassionate demeanor, Alterez complied with mechanical efficiency as his mind tried to make sense of the new development. Maybe this was all still a dream, like if he walked out of the door he would be in the kitchen, which itself had somehow been transported to a cosmic island in a lake of ephemeral stardust. By the time he finished getting ready, Chooka stood waiting by the door, a donned and open trench coat mostly covering her figure, a sin unto itself to hide such beauty from the world.


    As he approached, she gently yet sternly grabbed him under the armpits and lifted him up to her height. Face to face, she smiled as she gave him instructions.


    ¡°I will be carrying you under my coat. Hold on tight. Scream or make too much noise, and I will smother you with my boobs.¡±


    Before he could acknowledge her command, she hugged him close, his face buried in between twin bundles of joy. Darkness enveloped him as he contemplated releasing a rebel yell with all his might. Then they were moving, his body lightly bouncing along as two arms lightly held him, no doubt hooked across her chest.


    And then it happened, something that had not happened for so long, he had nearly forgotten it. Alterez wept. Slowly at first, but then wracking sobs flooded his chest as he clung tighter. Chooka¡¯s reassuring hand patted his back and head through the jacket as pleasant and reassuring cooing from Chooka calmed and coddled him. All the loneliness, the ridicule, the depression, the years of neglect, just faded away before them, as though they were twin suns risen, their brilliance melting away the frost that had gripped him for so long he had forgotten the warmth of compassion.


    At that moment, he felt as safe as a babe in a mother¡¯s arms. Those twin gazelles among the lilies, those fountains of ambrosia, those pillows of desire and comfort, they opened and healed a wound that had long since festered in neglect. They contained the hopes and dreams of many men and women, for they were the first things that provided such comfort, and a lifetime had been spent trying to find a way back to them. Many forms of magic have the power to heal, but nothing can compare to the healing power of boobs freely mashed into an eager and awaiting face. Visceral and surreal in equal measure, something long since dormant had awakened once again within him.


    Alterez wanted to be loved, to be desired, but it warred with the unstoppable duo of his self-loathing and ego. Only now did he notice that, this whole time, none of the other voices had uttered even a single word, for they, too, were enthralled by this titan of comfort and compassion that held them all in her loving embrace. An eternity passed in such rapture, a single moment in time as brief as a wink, hour or seconds slipping away as nothing else mattered. Only vaguely did he notice they had stopped in the guildhall, the belated fact revealed to him by that familiar and lingering scent of the traces of his own cooking fading away.


    And as all things must fade away, as the world must end and the stars flicker and sputter out as the cold and inevitable heat death of the universe impassively devours all, so too did his journey through the heavens with his goddess come to an end. Foul light flooded into his warm and dark enclosure, and tender yet forceful hands wrenched him away from his two favorite things in the world. Born again in the harsh reality of an uncaring world, he found himself deposited onto a chair in the kitchen of Chooka and her lover.


    Well, perhaps lovers was a better way of saying it, for Skull was there with Chooka¡¯s boy toy. Was he even twenty years old? Hard to tell, since human physiology is so inferior to the perfection that is the goblin form. Still, magnanimity demands lenience to such lessers, for humans were but the prototype race of the gods fumbling their way towards a more perfect being. A blink of the eye and the human man would be old and gray, with another blink, his bones carted down south.


    His wits fully returned to him as he blinked his eyes awake a few times, Alterez glanced around the room, taking it in. A simple yet tasteful enough abode, but [Detect Pantry] revealed a barely passable spice rack that would make weaker chefs cry in anguish. Alterez had done more with less, so perhaps he would truly have to flex his skills as a [Line Cook] to prepare food worthy of his maker¡¯s mark.


    ¡°So, what have I been shanghaied into?¡±


    ¡°A dragon hunt, my friend,¡± stated Alterez¡¯s favorite bodyguard. ¡°We need you to come along so we can rest assured you don¡¯t tell anyone, plus your skills at butchering exceed my own. Scales, bone, meat, organs, the whole lot of it will fetch a pretty copper. You get ten percent of the sale for your help in this undertaking.¡±


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    ¡°Ah,¡± replied Alterez with a nod of understanding. ¡°That explains the form I signed.¡± He turned to look at Chooka. ¡°I am familiar with section 5-4, subsection 3 of the Guild Employee Handbook, Charter 1207(b) as passed into law by the Duke, and the Non-Encroachment of Affiliated Dominions Organization agreements concerning ¡®Dragons and Other International Security Threats¡± outlined in Articles 37, 68, and 97(c), whereby the finder of a dragon lair has the right to a head start on a dragon hunt, provided proper authorities have been notified beforehand.¡±


    Chooka smiled earnestly, and her eyes sparkled with a hint of interest at that. Years of studying rules and paperwork had all suddenly been worth it, for Alterez had finally impressed Chooka with his knowledge of the law and other regulations. Using it to his advantage to weasel his way out of one thing or another took second place compared to this prize.


    ¡°Wow, I¡¯m proud of you, Alterez,¡± chimed in Chooka as she gave him a head pat. ¡°Looks like you have been a little bookwyrm in studying dragons and the law.¡±


    A small shudder of satisfaction rippled through his body as a tiny moan threatened to escape his throat, but Alterez managed to suppress it before things got awkward. Truly, he had died and gone to an afterlife far greater than what he had deserved.


    ¡°Oh yes, mommy!¡±


    And now the voices were back, ruining things. More lewd and unwise advice followed, but dwindling reserves of willpower were called upon to ignore them and the siren¡¯s song of all manner of illicit substances to suppress the peanut gallery.


    ¡°You are too kind,¡± he replied while enraptured by her touch. ¡°Tell me how I can help.¡±


    ¡°Here¡¯s the plan so far,¡± began his new best friend, the one who had opened the door to getting to know Chooka better.


    <hr>


    Morning finally broke as Skull patiently waited for the sleepyheads to wake. Chooka and Alterez, both unblessed with any Skills or Abilities to limit the amount of rest required each night, had needed their beauty sleep. Her Lord and Master in earthly affairs was likewise awake, and not needing much sleep, they had spent their spare time going through their kits after the other two had dozed off after a night of planning and preparing. She did enjoy calling him by such lofty titles around others, just to tease him, because he didn¡¯t like having such ownership, for lack of a better word, over her.


    ¡°Master, the others have awakened. My kit is prepared for our departure.¡±


    ¡°Very well then,¡± he replied with a blush, the reverence of her moniker for him having hit the mark. ¡°Let¡¯s get some breakfast and be off.¡±


    Breakfast was available in ample measure, the cooking of Alterez always appreciated by all present. Sadly, breakfast was absent the normal shenanigans, but with Alterez present, they didn¡¯t feel comfortable including him in such things, as he was more of a guest. Stuffed, energized, and ready to go, Skull stood waiting by the door. A peek outside confirmed that The Boys were still vigilant in their guard duty as one head turned to notice her. More heads followed, each eager for a snack, but as she had none on her, she just closed the door and turned back to the snack-givers.


    Chooka stomped her way down the stairs, a heavy and rather large footlocker in her grasp. Her lithe frame belied her true strength, and though she had somewhat respectable muscle tone, Chooka could not hold a candle to Skull¡¯s own chiseled body. However, a glance at Chooka¡¯s unbuttoned vest that barely covered the discrepancy between their forms reminded Skull that Chooka had other physical merits. Not that Skull herself was lacking in that department, but Chooka had as large a bosom a woman of her figure could have without it being too much.


    ¡°My love, transport this for me, would you please?¡±


    Master compiled by putting the foot locker in his pocket dimension while Chooka adjusted her clothes. She wore black combat boots, with long pants tucked in that had an olive drab color that would make her hard to see in the forest. Two belts hung on her waist, one side of each draping low down on different hips, each festooned with pouches and tools. Her vest remained unbuttoned, but it had the same color as her pants, and it likewise had as many pockets. How it remained fixed in place to provide decency when contested by such worldly delights that yearned to be unbridled Skull could not say, other than that probably some Skill was involved.


    Chooka had also cut her hair, which normally hung down to the base of her head. The sides and back were cut almost to skin, but the hair from the top still hung down just the same, making it look thinner as one could catch glances of the buzzcut beneath. A red headband was tied around her forehead, the knot in the back, with the extra length hanging loose down to the base of her neck. Skull doubted she herself could pull off the look, especially with her pasty white skin, but Chooka made it look natural and rather beautiful all at once. Even Chooka¡¯s red and blue skin did not clash with the color of her clothes somehow, which defied Skull¡¯s admittedly limited understanding of fashion and how colors were supposed to ¡°match¡± or ¡°clash¡± as people liked to say.


    Alterez wore typical ¡°sneak¡± clothes, full of leather straps and hidden pouches to contain his many knives and other tools. A cloak concealed most of him when not in motion, and with the hood up, he could likely disappear in a heartbeat if one took one¡¯s eyes off of him in the forest.


    As for Master, he wore his normal black clothes with yellow trim, designed to compliment his normal draconic form of shiny, metallic yellow scales with black borders. He wore no weapons, but Skull knew from experience, whether it be in sparring or watching him in action, that he could draw a weapon from his pocket dimension faster than most [Fighters] or the like could clear a sword from scabbard.


    Master went through their pre-adventure ritual, checking straps, buttons, and kits of everyone, making sure nothing was loose or could rattle. Chooka mostly behaved herself when it was her turn, only groping or forcing herself into position to be groped by him three times, which was more discipline than Skull had expected. Alterez just accepted Master pawing at him, looking like he didn¡¯t know if he should open up more or swat Master away. With only a few discrepancies found and corrected, they set off outside.


    ¡°Behave now when we are gone,¡± Master commanded The Boys as he petted them and offered snacks. ¡°I will be summoning you later, so be ready for combat when I do.¡± Heads bobbed rapidly in excitement and acknowledgement, which made Master laugh and smile in that beautiful way of his that made Skull feel mushy feelings inside. ¡°This will be a serious fight, probably your toughest one yet, so be prepared.¡±


    A literal chorus of understanding followed as The Boys sang a little song to Master, one of love and anticipation of a good scrap that led to snacks. With The Boys properly briefed of the day¡¯s schedule, the party departed for an adventure. Skull took her place in Master¡¯s shadow, while Chooka was carried princess-style in his arms. Alterez found his place sitting on Master¡¯s shoulders, and collectively, it must have made a strange sight in the early morning as the trio of visible bodies made their way out of the city.


    Before long they were clear of the city, and not even the gale generated by Master¡¯s tremendous speed could flip open Chooka¡¯s unflappable vest that stubbornly covered the tantalizing prize hidden beneath. Skull preferred the company of men, but even the straightest of women had second guesses as to their conviction as such when presented with Chooka¡¯s romantic advances or shameless displays of her body. Perhaps some [Courtesan] Skills were at play, or maybe it was the power of perfect breasts, but Skull couldn¡¯t help but stare at the sight instead of paying attention to the countryside and potential threats.


    Before she knew it, Skull found herself back at the cabin, and a short time after that, at the border of the illusion dome.


    ¡°Everyone ready? Sound off,¡± commanded Master with confident authority - not overbearing or tyrannical, but clearly in command and in his element, their lives in his capable hands as he would be calling the shots. Everyone did so in turn, Skull through her bond to Master, and Chooka and Alterez via a telepathy Skill from Chooka that required physical touch to work.


    Without further ado, Master removed the foot locker from storage, and from it Chooka removed a¡­ a¡­ weapon of some sort. Master had never seen this particular weapon before as far as Skull knew, but she could feel that he knew more or less what it was or what it did. Alterez looked intrigued, perhaps only suspecting what it was, but his inner hellion showed through as a too-wide and mischievous smile spread across his face, revealing his double rows of shark-like teeth. Whatever it was, it required a big pack on her back, connected to whatever the monstrosity of pipes and metal was via some metallic tube. A rather quiet metallic hum accompanied the tubes rotating as Chooka apparently tested that everything was in order. Master packed away the foot locker as quietly as could be, almost faster than Skull could track.


    Satisfied, Chooka gave Master a nod, and together, the four of them stepped through the illusion. The sight of the same lake and the same sleepy drakes in their runed magic circles greeted them. Together, they made their way to the cave, keeping an eye out to see if the drakes stirred from their slumber, but none did. Now behind the waterfall and at the cave door, the true adventure was ready to begin.

 Chapter 41

    Carefully, we crept our way forward, wary of any trap that may have been sent to thwart us from the vast hoard that was ripe for the taking. My superior leadership kept the others from any misplaced steps that could spell our doom. Our first obstacle stood before us, unyielding and solid. The door, well crafted, barred us entry, and not having any means to open it through conventional methods, we had to improvise.


    ¡°Anyone have any ideas on how we can get in here?¡±


    ¡°We could look for a backdoor,¡± came one suggestion.


    ¡°That would take us far from the lake,¡± I countered, not wanting to leave one of our greatest assets behind.


    ¡°Maybe we should ask for help,¡± came another suggestion.


    ¡°No one would help us and what we are doing is against the rules. We are on our own.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s just bash the door down and be done with it.¡±


    ¡°That would certainly get us in trouble. Besides, we have no way to repair the door once we are done. This needs to be delicate and quiet.¡±


    We put our heads together and sat there for a moment to ponder our options. Sadly, violence was not the answer, and as time went on, we would only get hungrier. Tempers would flare soon if I did not lead the others to victory, so time was of the essence.


    ¡°What if we replace one part of the door at a time, leaving the final door unlocked, and then assemble the original door off to the side here.¡±


    ¡°Would it even be the same door, or would it be a different door, even though all the pieces would be the same?¡±


    Our ponderings deepened with this new take on things, for such was one of the many mysteries that plagued us.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think that would help because none of us know how to assemble a door, much less take one apart.¡±


    ¡°What about a window then? We can easily open the rain shutters and open the window pane proper with our tongues.¡±


    ¡°Hmm, a good start, but none of us can fit through any of the windows.¡±


    ¡°Unless we shrunk ourselves down. We are normally smaller than we should be anyway, why not go smaller?¡±


    No one found a reason why that wouldn¡¯t work. They had never tried it before, for being larger was usually better to get attention and to scare away bad people.


    ¡°Then we can take all of it and put it on a heap outside. We can each take turns subtracting from the heap.¡±


    ¡°But at what point will the heap no longer be a heap if we keep subtracting from it?¡±


    That stopped us in our tracks, for we didn¡¯t have a good answer to that one either. We eventually decided it would be best to determine that through experimentation. We were about to make our way through the window when our lookout sounded the alarm.


    ¡°Behold, a man!¡±


    Three heads turned in unison to do a spot of beholding on this newcomer.


    ¡°Good eyes, Dio, but while I agree he is a featherless biped, I don¡¯t think he technically counts as a man.¡±


    ¡°What makes you say that?¡±


    ¡°I got a whiff of his scent. He smells just like Papa. He even looks like Papa, maybe Papa¡¯s Papa. I don¡¯t think he is technically a humanoid, because Papa isn¡¯t.¡±


    The pantry raid would have to wait. The newcomer had been spotted standing at the gate, and with one elegant jump, he vaulted over and landed gracefully inside the yard. Cohesion dispersed into the nether as dissenting opinions arose.


    ¡°He is an intruder and we need to smash him,¡± said Diogenes.


    ¡°We need to be careful, we have no idea who he is or what he wants. For all we know, he is here to unlock the pantry where the delicious snacks are held,¡± countered Aristotle with cautious excitement in his thought-voice.


    ¡°Perhaps we should parley and come to terms after we deduce his intent,¡± chimed in Socrates with neutral reasoning.


    ¡°Papa put me in charge. Let¡¯s slip back into the lake where we have cover and prepare for diplomacy. Dio, you take the right side if negotiations break down. Socrates, the left. Aristotle, you take overwatch. I will take the center. Let¡¯s see what he wants. Let¡¯s avoid anything too destructive as Papa will be upset and withhold snacks if we wreck the place.¡±


    Graceful as a spider-penguin, we slipped back into our lake, barely creating a wake as we waddled across the bed of it, our heads popping back out just enough for us to see the intruder. He waited patiently for us to get into attack pattern alpha, and once we were fully situated, he strode casually in our direction.


    The man, or maybe not-man, wore a long black cape that concealed much of the front of him. Well dressed in black with gold trim, his black hair looked just like Papa¡¯s. This man had a short and thin beard just along the jawline, along with a simple mustache to match. His cape parted to reveal a large sack in hand, and from it wafted the most heavenly of scents that drifted our way, our nostrils caressed by that most divine of scents.


    SNACKS!


    Snacks made of meat, grilled to perfection, coated in seasonings and sauces, the meat itself injected with at least three different cheeses. Our mouths¡¯ watered as saliva dripped into the lake without any concern for decorum or decency. We each knew only one thing, that we needed this snack above all others.


    Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn; those were our options. Fleeing was right out, as we would never get the snacks that way. Fighting was an option, but the man made no indication of trying to withhold our birthright and very reason for existence. Freezing may work, but then our superior camouflage may make him lose sight of us, at which point he would walk past us, completely unaware of us due to our superior steathynessitude.


    ¡°Operation Fawn is a go! I repeat, Operation Fawn is a go!¡±


    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    Our four heads rose from the water, our immaculate chorus of begging and praise for the snack-giver gracing the air. Our heads rocked side to side in unison as we lowered them closer, our voices ringing gentle and clear as we gave our best pleading eyes, all bright and filled with hope.


    The man opened the bag, and from it he withdrew the aforementioned snacks. Each haunch of meat was larger than the bag itself, and considering four shares had defied physics to fit within the bag, some pocket-dimensionry was at play. Completely mesmerized, we stared in rapt attention as the man offered up that most delectable of delicacies to¡­ to¡­


    Dio.


    With snapping jaws, Dio snatched the snack out of the man¡¯s hand, the lucky bastard suckling on the savory flavors as he swished it around in his mouth and let the juices flow through him. Yet ever hopeful, our eyes, sans Dio¡¯s, turned back to the man, following the hand as it returned to that cornucopia of comestibles, that pouch of provisions, that gunny of grub, that blessed satchel of snacks!


    Next came an identical snack for Socrates, followed by one for Aristotle. Ever hopeful that the best would be saved for last, I, Plato, patiently awaited the snack as my willpower crushed that of the others, overpowering control of the legs as I performed the tippy-tap dance underwater.


    Then, that heavenly morsel was withdrawn from the sack, and holding it aloft before me, the man smiled in exactly the same way Papa did. At that moment, I felt as safe as a hatching in Papa¡¯s arms when he hand-fed me my first meal. Delicately, I accept the offered tribute with adulation.


    A tsunami of flavor exploded within my mouth as I squeezed the juices from the meat. Cheese flowed freely, seeping into my taste buds and indeed my very soul as I ascended to new heights of flavor. That outer layer of meat, perfectly shy of the border of being charred, unleashed a torrent of ecstacy through my mouth as my whole neck quivered with delight, my mortal form forgotten as I soared through the heavens in the arms of the angel of snacks. The bone in the haunch cracked beneath the might of my fangs, the inner marrow most succulent as it oozed its way into the meat, making one final feast of savory sensations.


    But almost as soon as it began, my journey to flavor town ended. The cold, harsh reality of a world without snacks crashed back into me as my soul found itself ejected from the very heavens themselves. The grim and cruel reminder of a world where Papa and Mama barely fed me rung like a bell in my newly enlightened consciousness. It had been two whole hours since last they had offered a meal, and not even this glorious new snack could stave off the foul and ever-present machinations of starvation. Bereft of a second helping, I sought solace in the company of my brothers, each also likewise in a fugue after that singular and glorious experience.


    My wits returned, I found the man no longer stood before us. Just before he vaulted the fence once more, I caught a glimpse of the back of his cape, whereupon a strange and golden spiraling triangle symbol was evident in black background of the fabric. I knew not what it meant, but I would keep an eye out for our Papa-Not-Papa-Snack-God in the future.


    ¡°I feel strong,¡± thought-said Dio.


    ¡°Me too,¡± chimed in Aristotle and Socrates in unison.


    ¡°I make four,¡± I agreed. ¡°I feel strong enough to raid the pantry.¡±


    I witnessed the heads of my brothers bobbing in unified agreement at my suggestion. Slyly, we turned upon our new prey, slinking closer through the water and up the beach to the house where Papa and Mama lived. Surreptitiously, Aristotle worked the window open while Dio kept a lookout.


    ¡°Goth ith,¡± Aristotle told us in his thought-voice as his tongue finished opening the window. Why he would think in a lisp while his tongue was busy remained food for thought.


    ¡°Prepare for downsizing!¡±


    I activated [Hydras of Unusual Size], shrinking us down to a more appropriate size that could fit through the window. We went in heads first, each bracing our necks and noggins along the wall inside the house, taking care not to bite, scratch, gouge, or otherwise leave any marks that would give away our pillaging. Working together, we pulled our torso through as I controlled it and our legs. Things went swimmingly until they didn¡¯t.


    ¡°Help me brothers, I¡¯m stuck!¡±


    Working together, we employed all our leverage to brace and lift our tail end higher, relieving pressure off of how it pressed against the window pane and allowing me to wiggle our hips through the window an inch at a time. Once our hips passed, we slid right through, and so unbalanced due to our long necks and concentration on fitting through, we tumbled into a heap. Carefully, one of us extracted our respective neck from the heap until we were no longer a heap of hydra necks on the floor, and now standing upright, we gleefully waddled over to the pantry.


    Daintily, Aristotle gripped the handle to the pantry door in his teeth and gingerly pulled, taking care not to make any marks upon it. Socrates wedged his tongue between the slightly ajar door and the frame, signaling Aristotle to release his grip on the handle. Dio, in his excitement, accidentally headbutted the door, and a muffled cry of pain exited Socrates¡¯s mouth as his tongue got pinched. In a great labor, the likes of which were worthy of a saga, Aristotle powered through the pain to open the door. Jaw snapping and fangs bared, Aristotle reared up in challenge at Dio, whom himself didn¡¯t even have the decency of looking contrite.


    ¡°Peace, brothers,¡± I thought-commanded the pair of them. ¡°Dio, you owe Socrates two snacks for that.¡±


    ¡°Not my fault it is so crowded in here. There¡¯s nowhere to spit in here but in his face.¡±


    ¡°Now, now, brother Diogenes. Now is not the time to be covetous. I have altered the deal. You now owe three snacks. Pray I do not alter it further.¡±


    With a huff, Dio begrudgingly accepted his punishment, and with the pantry door now open, I had the others hold back while I withdrew a few snacks.


    ¡°We have apples, potatoes, tapotoes, tomatoes, and peaches that are all easy to extract. I¡¯ll take your orders now.¡±


    A chorus of orders came my way, each requesting what they desired as I handed out snacks fairly to each of my brothers, taking snacks for myself last, for I am a generous snack giver.


    Just then, a ring of golden light appeared around our feet. Aghast at the poor timing, we scrambled to try to close the door as we sunk into the light. Unable to move our lower body, we struggled vainly, our heads too close to the door and unable to move out of the way to close it.


    ¡°Egads! We left the window open!¡± exclaimed Socrates.


    ¡°And we tracked mud everywhere!¡± provided Aristotle with a strong note of concern.


    ¡°Maybe Papa won¡¯t notice,¡± expressed Dio with wishful thinking.


    Unable to do much to hide the evidence, we grimly accepted our fate, each like the stalwart captain going down with the ship. Once through, we found ourselves in the void between worlds, our body contained within a large beam of prismatic light as we zipped along at high speeds. Alongside us were two large frogs, Hopper and Ribbette.


    ¡°Oh hey guys!¡± I sang to them. They stoically glanced at me, their expressions slow in response as they traded looks with one another. Slowly, they each saluted us, perhaps gleaning our intended greeting despite not speaking our language.


    A tongue lashed out from Hopper, landing on my cheek and licking off some peach juice. He tasted it for a moment, his eyes skewed in an appraising look. He cast his gaze between us, and then rubbed one webbed finger down a finger on the other hand a few times in a clear sign of admonishment.


    ¡°Hopper isn¡¯t the brightest of the bunch, but even he figured out our snackscapades. What do we do?¡± asked Aristotle.


    ¡°We have to be good boys and fight hard for Papa and Mama so that they overlook our snacky ways. After all, we needed the extra strength of snacks to triumph.¡±


    My brothers, reassured by my sound logic, calmed down. Silently, we drifted along our path of light, with other similar paths flaring in and out of existence in the distance. Today would be a good day, one of precious snacks and a good scrap with unknown foes. Long had it been since we got to let loose, other than sparring with Papa. Each of us were eager to prove ourselves and perhaps maybe be rewarded with increased rations for the foreseeable future.


    The light brightened into one last brilliant burst, and then we found ourselves back in reality next to Papa. Mama, Auntie, and He-Who-Cooks-The-Good-Snacks were nowhere to be found. Maybe Papa wouldn¡¯t notice the snack juices.


    ¡°Oh Boys! I left you unsupervised for two hours, and you already managed to steal some food.¡±


    Okay, he noticed.


    ¡°Operation Fawn is a go! I repeat, Operation Fawn is a go!¡±

 Chapter 42

    Carefully, we crept our way forward, wary of any trap that may have been sent to thwart us from the vast hoard that was ripe for the taking. None of us detected any signs of traps on the door, and, being the hardiest of the bunch, I had everyone else stay back while I opened the stone door, which was itself unlocked. Surprisingly, it did not have that familiar stone-on-stone grinding sound, for the door lay in a track of some kind that allowed it to slide smoothly.


    ¡°Whoever made this door put a lot of effort into making it smooth to open. I wonder if it is of dwarven make,¡± I postulated to the group as I wedged the door open. Last thing we want is for it to close behind us and keep us locked in.


    ¡°Could be,¡± replied Alterez, ¡°Although gnomes are known for over-engineering things. From what I can see from here, the cave beyond has only hints of worked stone here and there, so I am inclined to believe dwarves may have made the door but otherwise did not live here.¡±


    Convinced by Alterez¡¯s clear and reasonable deduction, I flashed him a smile before I led the way down the stairs. We could only travel in single file, and Chooka crouched awkwardly to avert smashing her horns into the roughly hewn ceiling. We trudged along at a downward pitch for perhaps three flights of stairs before coming to a lobby. Fully furnished with the tasteful but otherwise sterile and lifeless style that could be found in big corporate offices, nightmares of past lives stuck in the soulless work within the confines of cubicle labyrinths echoed through my consciousness for but a moment as we finished filing into the room.


    At the receptionist desk sat a lone kobold.  She clearly wore a wig, one with hair tight back in a neat and professional manner, about neck length. Likewise, she wore pinstriped but formal business attire, although it looked to be cut intentionally revealing, showing off her rather massive breasts which kobolds certainly should not have, being lizard-based creatures and not known to produce milk. She also wore red lipstick and rectangular-framed glasses, the latter of which did not fit in a sensible way on her head to actually correct vision, with kobolds having their eyes located slightly more to the sides of their rounded heads than forward-facing like other humanoids. Despite her change in appearance and more illustrious skin pattern, there existed a certain familiarity about her that made me believe that she was the Urchin from the drug deal.


    ¡°Salutations, and welcome to North Mountain Lakeside Caverns. Do you have an appointment?¡± She spoke clearly and with calculated friendliness, her smile wide and cheerful, but it never reached her eyes.


    ¡°No,¡± I replied on behalf of our group, leaning in on the counter as I answered the ¡®receptionist¡¯, ¡°We don¡¯t have an appointment. We are here to evict a few dragons that are illegally squatting on private property. My property, as granted to me by Grand Duke Archibald Melwyrr Fylthern himself.¡±


    ¡°I see. The boss doesn¡¯t accept walk-ins at this time. I¡¯d be happy to schedule an appointment for you. Allow me a moment to fetch all the proper paperwork.¡±


    The Urchin turned and hopped off her chair and walked to a filing cabinet behind her. She bent over at the waist to open the bottom drawer, her way-too-short-to-be-professional-skirt giving an enticing glimpse of her pink underwear while her hips and tail swayed rhythmically as she rooted through the filing cabinet.


    I myself didn¡¯t feel enticed by her blatant display of sexuality, for while kobolds are undeniably cute, they aren¡¯t my type. However, Alterez¡¯s eyes threatened to plop out of his skull and roll across the desk in front of him, his body leaning over the counter as he stood perched on a convenient stepladder that allowed him to see over the desk. Chooka merely looked amused by the whole thing and winked knowingly at me, while Skull sent jubilant sensations through our bond which hinted at wanting to pick up the kobold and squeeze her close in adoration.


    ¡°Thank you for waiting,¡± she said as she scrambled back into her chair that stood too tall for a race of such short stature. ¡°I have the proper forms to file a request for an appointment or a tour. Tickets for a tour cost three silver coins per head. Will you be paying now or at the time of your tour?¡±


    Alterez started to reach for his coin purse as I put my hand on his to stop him. For some strange reason, everyone went along with this clear charade at civility without batting an eye, but I felt no qualms about continuing our way through the cave system to find the dragon or dragons who lived here. Only my curiosity as to why the others seemed so docile kept me in check.


    ¡°No need for a guided tour. We will be able to manage things ourselves.¡±


    ¡°Well then, you will need to fill out these forms,¡± she continued as she slid a few different forms across the desk to us, ¡°If you intend to engage in any roughhousing, this cavern is registered as a historical landmark and as such there are restrictions imposed against remodeling or damaging it.¡± She pointed at a plaque on the wall that gave credence to her claim, the fancy and engraved brass plate mounted on a wood backboard outlined the historical nature and protection of the cavern.


    I had to bodily restrain Chooka from pouncing on the forms, for I did not want to waste time filling out silly paperwork that probably would never be filed with the proper authorities.


    ¡°You look like you want to fill out the paperwork,'''' Urchin stated with an edge of authority to her voice as she turned her head to Skull. ¡°As an act of good faith, I will permit the rest of your party to continue on while you stay here with me to fill out these forms.


    Even though her helmet remained on, I could tell Skull blanched at the prospect. Though fearless, some things remained unpleasant. Like, people are not necessarily afraid to reach their hand into a chamber pot to fish out something that had accidently dropped into it, but it is still a situation people would go to great lengths to avoid. Skull begrudgingly advanced as Chooka struggled mightily to escape my grasp and seize the paperwork for herself.


    ¡°Release me, you fiend!¡± Chooka flailed in my grasp, desperate to volunteer in Skull¡¯s place, but still mindful not to drop or damage her bulky weapon. ¡°You don¡¯t understand, that is rag paper, made with no wood pulp. It has 110 gsm and 95 whiteness! The ink on it has an 84 percent trapping and a fineness of grind of 30 Gnomish Grain Units!¡±


    Skull removed her helmet, a single tear streaming down her face as she sullenly faced the paperwork in front of her. I¡¯ve seen convicts on their way to the execution block more chipper than her, so clearly a tribulation like no other stood before her.


    ¡°Please continue to the next room,¡± the Urchin stated while pointing to the only other doorway in the room. ¡°An associate will be there to guide you further along.¡±


    I carried the kicking and screaming Chooka on my shoulder to the next room, leaving behind a grim Skull consigned to her fate. One 90 degree turn to the right from the last, this room had two old kobolds, judging by their long white beards that kobolds certainly should not have. Neither one was Pompadour, so these must be the other two kobolds from the drug deal. Back then they were¡­ they were¡­ hmm. I remember they looked to match the other Urchin and Pompadour, but I can¡¯t remember anything specific about them during the drug deal.


    ¡°Greetings, Adventurers.¡± One of the ¡®old fogies¡¯ greeted us, but I found myself hard-pressed to know one from the other. ¡°We have all these dangerous and rare substances that we need to sort and store on the shelves behind us. Some of these will make you see things, some of them will take your mind to the heavens in a blissful and serene exploration of the universe, so you need to be careful with them. But, my poor old back isn¡¯t what it used to be. I sure could use a tall assistant to help me store things in these high shelves behind me.¡±


    Chooka, usually a softy for helping others in need, calmed down at the odd request from the two kobolds. Feeling 80 percent confident Chooka would not immediately bolt back to the previous room and fight Skull to the death for the right to fill out the paperwork, I set her down gently into a standing position.


    The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    ¡°We sure would appreciate the help of a fine young lady like yourself,¡± said the other kobold to Chooka. ¡°You look like you have good organizational skills and could help us sort this mess.¡±


    Easily baited by a compliment to her competency and their pitiful and pleading expressions, Chooka stepped away to join the kobolds at the table that held an assortment of bags, bottles, and boxes. Some containers held powders, but others contained small parts of creatures or plants. There were way too many tentacle-based ingredients in the bottles for my liking, so I found myself glad to not be chosen.


    ¡°I have some experience with these kinds of things,¡± stated Alterez to the kobolds as he scratched at his neck with shaky hands. ¡°Perhaps you would want a more experienced individual to assist you.¡±


    The kobolds leveled disapproving and silent glares in response. Chastised by their response, Alterez turned back to me, and with slumped shoulders he moped as he walked towards the next door and continued along with me to the next room. Some nagging feeling gnawed away at me as we entered. Something was amiss, but I could not put my finger on it.


    Before us stood Pompadour, only this time he dressed differently. Flashbacks of a life spent rum-running flickered through my mind, the sensation more vivid than what I had experienced earlier with the receptionist. Something about this cave triggered errant memories of lives long since passed, and the poster-child of a mafioso before me reminded me of a life that ended with cement shoes. In his arm, he held a weapon, somewhat similar to Chooka¡¯s, only it had a single barrel and a much thinner cylinder just before the wooden stock.


    ¡°You¡¯se two are late. I needs onsya to help me sight this in,¡± he stated in greeting as he patted the butt of his weapon. He spoke around a cigar in his mouth, the end of which gave off a stream of bubbles rather than smoke. ¡°You,¡± he continued while gesturing at me, ¡°can amscray.¡± He nodded to the door. ¡°The boss is expectin¡¯ ya.¡±


    Without a word of complaint, I headed to the next door, only hearing a portion of the conversation behind me. Something about a, ¡°Put this on your head and walk down to the edge of the range and¡­¡± Confused by something elusive, I continued on, not understanding what was happening, passing through a few intersections without noting them too much, uncaring what lay down them as I advanced as if seemingly guided to my destination.


    ¡°You are under a compulsion. Fight it! Wake Up!¡±


    The voice felt distant, not in sound, but in a metaphysical sense, as if the speaker spoke to me across a vast distance and directly into my mind. I could feel his presence, his deep baritone voice shattering my complacent tranquility. I looked south, and I felt a presence there, far away in a desolate land.


    Shaken from some foul sorcery, I found myself in a huge and magnificent cavern, up high on a ledge that overlooked the bulk of it that lay below me. Activating a few stealth Skills, I crept closer to the edge and gazed down. A red dragon lay sprawled out on a small yet respectable hoard of gold, precious metals, and jewels. I glimpsed a woman, arms outstretched and body bound in a humbling position, two solid pillars on either side of her forming anchor points for her bindings. The dragon faced her, and moved animatedly as he conversed with her, seemingly oblivious as to my presence and his body obstructing my continued study of her.


    Bereft of my companions, I stood alone against the dragon. No, not just a dragon, but three, for two more waited in silence nearby, one smaller than the other, but both smaller than the one talking to the woman. Apparently, I was not in fact expected, despite being told so.


    I couldn¡¯t make out his voice from this distance, and I hesitated to use any Skills to scout him out. There remained the very real possibility that any of those dragons could spot an [Observer] or [Overseer], and I did not fancy my odds at winning against them without surprise on my side.


    A clever idea whispered itself into my mind, one with the same essence to it as the voice I heard earlier, but not as blatant as a true voice speaking into my mind. Following along, I took the idea and began plotting a plan, one with contingencies in case things went wrong. For several minutes I observed as I schemed.


    Going back for the others was out of the question, for I would most likely be ensorcelled by whatever had impeded my judgment earlier. It felt so obvious and shamelessly whimsical now, the insidious trap that had been laid for me. They had separated us one at a time, each ploy taking less effort than the previous one. Thinking back, I couldn¡¯t even remember much about the second room, only that the kobolds were old and they were sorting stuff. My memory is pretty keen, so some sort of Skill or Ability had impeded my ability to remember them. The receptionist, Urchin, had said that this was a ¡®cavern¡¯, or a series thereof, whereas the plaque on the wall had called it a ¡®cave¡¯, which felt like an obvious discrepancy in hindsight. Pompadour didn¡¯t even put on a dog and pony show, he just commanded us and Alterez and I followed obediently.


    These kobolds are not to be underestimated. Each one played their part in a little scenario, as if each one were its own small play and they needed a volunteer from the audience to help tell the story. Strange how the most obvious participant was not selected for each task. Perhaps the mesmerizing effect would not have worked had we done so. Hmm, something to consider.


    Anyway, the dragons didn¡¯t seem to be doing much or caring about intruders into their lair, so perhaps they had not been notified or they had no Skills to know about it. The lack of whelps and wyverns concerned me, for if they were not here, what were they doing? Nothing could be done about it, so I finished planning and continued on to the execution phase.


    With careful and practiced effort, I focused on creating the smallest and weakest trap I could muster, taking great care not to pulse my magical power too hard and give away my position. Traps do have an element of Stealth to them in the magical sense that they don¡¯t give off any ambient magical energy. However, the creation of a trap does, and so I needed to ensure that the small ripples of magic through the area around me would go unnoticed by the dragons below. A second trap followed the first, each imbued with the minimum energy needed to exist. I had invested heavily in Skills that would allow me to modify them remotely at a later time, so they didn¡¯t need to be armed and dangerous. Granted, giving the proper payload from the get-go would be more efficient, but in this case, discretion trumped such concerns. I calculated a travel itinerary for them and sent them off, the duo sliding slowly but inexorably towards their destination, each programmed to move between each waypoint I had outlined along the way.


    However, a moving trap could be detected by anyone with the right Skills, and being that I faced dragons that needed to protect their lairs and hoards, odds were they would have trap-related Skills. I would need a distraction to mask their presence, and nothing provided a distraction like a fight for one¡¯s life. With events in motion, I had no time to dawdle, and so I began the next phase of my assault. All I had to do was whisper the words, the (ugh, gross) incantation, and things would probably turn violent.


    ¡°I invoke the contract that is our bond, and as your master, I command you, come forth and see my mandate made manifest!¡±


    Three circles of lights formed behind me, the central one suspiciously not noticeably bigger than the other two. Golden light shone upwards and outwards, small coronas of mystical energy radiating outwards from them with all the magical subtlety of a goddamn strobe light to the dragons below. From the bottom up, two frog creatures appeared in the outer circles while The Boys, smaller than I left them and their mouths covered in juices from edible things that matched what I had on stock in my pantry, appeared in the center.


    This not being the time or place to chastise The Boys, I put a pin in it and turned my attention back to the three dragons below, each one now facing me and completely aware of my presence. At least I still held the advantage that he did not know I was a dragon as well.


    ¡°Those incompetent fools,¡± the big one roared in anger, great wings spreading as he stood to challenge me, ¡°they were to inform me when my uninvited guests and challenger arrived. Let us fight then, dragon to dragon. I will send my underlings outside with yours, that they may fight separate from us, as honor and tradition demands. You have come for my hoard, but you must first claim my head if it is to be yours.¡±


    Okay, so, he knows I am a dragon and he loves to hear himself talk. While the cavern is rather spacious, fighting in here with four dragons, two large frogs, and a hydra is not something I look forward to. Not to mention the rest of the gang once I pull them out of their charm effect. My deepest, dragoniest instincts told me that his offer of a duel was true and fair. No one would be permitted to interfere. It is just me, him, and our hoards in conflict, winner takes all. I knew in my bones that ¡°kill them all and take their stuff¡±, is the way of life for dragons in conflict, but there were certain rules about how one goes about it.


    ¡°I accept your terms and challenge. I hope you washed your neck for me, because I am coming for your head.¡±


    He smirked with a little huff of amusement, apparently entertained by my appropriate level of arrogance and satisfied that I have accepted terms. The fight of my life, or perhaps of his life, was about to begin. Two dragons enter, one dragon leaves. It¡¯s time to duel!

 Chapter 43

    ¡°Oh, Boys! I left you unsupervised for two hours, and you already managed to steal some food.¡±


    The Boys, much smaller than they should be and already belly up in submission in an attempt to placate my ire, let out a small whine in unison.


    ¡°Boys, Hopper, Ribbette, follow those two dragons. Once you get to your fighting area, try to kill them. If you are in danger of dying, let me know and I will unsummon you. And Boys, I see the peach juice on your mouths. We will talk about this later.¡±


    Four tongues licked at their respective lips, each trying to hide the evidence of their misdeeds and savor the last remnants of their snacks. The frogs, after a delay, simply nodded and stood ready to obey.


    The two smaller dragons, the smaller around a thousand pounds and the second half again as large, took wing and rose up to the ledge we were on, neither one attacking but clearly on guard. The larger one pressed a single claw into the wall, and a section of the wall lowered to reveal a tunnel behind it that sloped upwards. They beckoned my pets to follow with a wave of the hand, and then they walked into the tunnel.


    My pets, obedient and combat ready, followed behind at a distance. Though they are but beasts, or ¡°magical beasts¡±, as is the technical term, they still have significant intelligence, and though they had the advantage of fighting two dragons that could not turn to face them in a tunnel, they had the presence of mind to know that a cave-in triggered by a struggle would not be worth the ambush. Being that they are not animals, they would not fall prey to the plethora of Abilities that could charm or control them. Such a distinction works well to my benefit, but no doubt there had been a few [Druids] or the like in the past who attempted to form a bond with a beast when mistaking them for an animal and found that [Calm Animal] did nothing to protect them from getting mauled.


    Now alone with the remaining dragon, I transformed into my true form. Golden-yellow scales, each with black borders, graced all onlookers as I sauntered over to the ledge. Sadly, I looked a little young, having only a stubble of bony growths and horns protruding from my head, so I did not quite capture the majesty that my form could bring to bear. Conversely, my opponent in red scales with much deeper crimson borders had ample horns and protrusions of bone. Clearly, he was older than me, but hopefully he lived a pampered life and was not an able fighter. Unfortunately, he was about half again my size, so I would be at a disadvantage in terms of reach and weight to throw around.


    I lept off the ledge, my wings spread to control my descent. I glided into position in a large open area of the cave. The magic lingering within the walls and floor, along with the less natural appearance, suggested that the cave had been hollowed out and enlarged extremely recently, perhaps even in preparation for this very fight. The whole time we had been talking, I had been scanning for traps or other ambushes, but I found none in the ¡®arena¡¯ area of this cave. My opponent walked to his edge of the fighting area, tall and proud as he eyed me up and down.


    ¡°I am Count Vladislav of The Blood Keepers. You have accepted my challenge. Now we fight. To the Death!¡±


    I expected more of a monologue, but instead he opened with a great gout of flame, one much bigger and hotter than my own. I had never specialized in any particular element for my breath attack, and while I could perform all of them, none of them were as strong as they could have been had I specialized. Combined with his increased size and older [Age], and there was no way I could contend with him by countering with my own flame breath.


    Instead, I focused on my versatility, countering his breath with one of frost. I specifically focused it to create a wall of ice between us. While it would not hold for long against his flame, it would buy me time to move out of the way and create a screen of mist when it melted. I moved to the right, readying a quick breath of acid to follow. Normally, I would also have denoted several traps on him, but I didn¡¯t want him looking for traps nor did I want to risk accidentally detonating my two earlier traps that were about halfway to their destination. Considering how a good chunk of my combat kit was tied up in traps, this would be a dangerous fight.


    He used a wing to block my acid, and it looked none the worse for the wear. Such was a common misconception about dragons, the notion that their wings were a weak point. In reality, they are the toughest part of a dragon, extremely difficult to damage, and easy to heal. He shook off the acid casually while looking smug.


    ¡°That the best you got, whelp?¡±


    It was not my first time fighting a large opponent. The Boys and I sparred from time to time, and they dwarfed me when I released them to their full size. I was already beginning a second attack before my acid even hit, and likewise already moving to circle around the Count. Fortuitous, for a great spike of rock erupted where I had just been standing, foreboding in that I did not even sense the magic creating it until it was unleashed.


    Taking a leaf from Skull¡¯s book, I unleashed a flurry of swipes and bites in his direction, trying to look menacing and intimidating in my flourish. However, the distance between us was far too great for me to reach him. I had hoped he would think I was just posturing like an amateur in an attempt to intimidate him, but he was wise to my ways. He took a defensive stance, hunkered down, ready to leap out of the way or block with his wings. A few moments passed as I continued my assault, the very air in front of me the only victim to my strikes.


    As I finished my combo, another rock spike jutted out of the earth, but this one found purchase as it scraped a long gash along my left leg. It was shallow enough not to draw blood, but strong enough to rough up my scales rather unpleasantly. The attack struck much harder than simple rock should, for my scales were normally hard enough to block such unpleasantness. Another good strike or two in the same spot would punch through, and considering he said he was of The Blood Keepers, I didn¡¯t fancy allowing myself to bleed near him.


    Nothing happened on my end as I bided my time, struggling more and more to prevent my attack from unleashing as the pressure built up. Finally, he let his guard down and moved to close the distance and strike me. As he did, shadows of me moved forward and repeated the attacks I had made earlier, each one after the other in order, but the timing between their strikes was far shorter than when I had performed them.


    Surprised and hurt, he roared in pain and anger as his blood flowed freely over his rent scales. Some of the blood vaporized, a fine mist spreading around his wounds, while the rest hardened like instantaneous scabs. Either I packed more punch than I thought, or he had far weaker scales than I had.


    Not stopping to admire my work, and almost in tandem with my shadows, I opened my pocket dimensions above him, each raining down their respective cargo onto him. Boulders, tree trunks, chunks of ore, water, and sand poured down upon him, hoping more to knock him off balance than to finish him off. To his credit, he dodged some, but I soon lost sight of him as he became buried in it.


    I repositioned and planned my next attack, but a red mist rose from the debris of my attack. The mist, composed of blood, seeped out towards me. I set my wings to work to blow it away as I breathed air attacks from my mouth to try to corral it over on his side of the room. Rock shattered and tree trunks withered and splintered as the blood did something that I sure don¡¯t want happening to me. Unfortunately, my wind had little effect, more nudging it around than stopping it, as if it resisted air currents. Concern growing, I created a wall of rock in front of me, my power bidding the very earth to move at my command and to spring up to seal the blood mist away.


    But the mist ate through the wall without issue, rock melting away as if consumed by acid. So distracted by the mist, I failed to see the Count rise up out of the earth to my right, his body springing free as if moving through water rather than stone. Leaping up and over me, a great gout of blood mist spread from his open maw and down towards me.


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    Ice, Shadow, Acid, Space, Air, Earth; these were the elements I had used and the order I had used them in. My passive Skill, [School¡¯s Out], gave me bonuses for using different schools of magic in succession, but penalties for repetition. I had invested in that Skill back during the war, and I had since put more towards it. The longer the chain went on without a repeat, the stronger it would become, instead of capping its beginning limit, which I had discovered through trial and error was three schools deep. I needed a way to evade the attack without a repeat, and with a fraction of a second to decide, I found my answer.


    With Nature magic, I sprouted coiled springs of vines beneath my feet, each compressed and angled in a favorable position. With a mighty leap on my part, the springs pushed outwards and launched me backwards at great speed. Turning while in the air, I spread my wings and angled myself upwards, careful to avoid the blood mist but otherwise on an intercept course for the Count.


    The Count could not continue straight on unless he wanted to crash into the rock wall in front of him, and while I saw him swim through the earth before, such a Skill could not be cheap or without risk. He would need to turn, and no matter which way he went, he would be at a disadvantage. Towards me, and he would not be able to angle his body fast enough to retaliate. Away from me and I could get him by the tail. Down and he would be penned in by the ground. Up and he would have no cover, completely naked to a breath attack of my own.


    Impossibly, he tucked his head under himself and rolled over midair, his momentum completely reversed without inertia either carrying him the way he had been going or ripping him apart. Some bullshit Skill if you ask me. Completely unfair. I totally need it.


    Now the one in a bad flight path, I closed my eyes and held my breath as his foul blood mist washed over me. To say it burned is an understatement. I felt foul, unclean, corrupted, the very darkness of it seeping into me, sapping my strength and corroding my reserves of magic. I banked around to face him, and being smaller, I had a tighter turning radius. Using [Overseers] and [Observers] to guide me, I oriented myself towards him for a collision.


    Using Poison magic, I excreted poison from my scales, the yellow-green gunk mixed with necrotic clumps of crimson stained black. While dragons generally have Skills for high resistance or immunity to mundane poison, magical poison upped the playing field. Crashing headlong with claws rending and teeth gnashing, we tumbled down to crash hard into the cave floor.


    The poison expunged his corruption admirably, and furthermore it coated me in a protective layer and greased me up like a pig at that one game at a county fair. More often than not, his fangs and claws failed to find purchase, and when he did, he traded a nasty dose of poison for a minor scratching on my person. Despite our size disparity, it quickly became clear that I was physically more durable and stronger. However, my magic was far more depleted than I would have liked, so things were not going entirely my way. I released waves of healing magic through me, focusing on closing wounds before I could bleed and curing the rest of the corruption within me. That took care of the wound on my leg, but no more active healing would be forthcoming for a while if I wanted to continue benefiting from [School¡¯s Out]. I did manage to bundle several healing Skills so they counted as one effect, and the one that gave me continued regeneration above and beyond what I could accomplish passively would have to hold me through this fight.


    I was coming out on top of our exchange, the Count bloodied and seemingly running out of supply of his mist and scabbing material. Anger welling within him in equal portions to his magic. I struggled to disengage as power erupted from him in an explosion. Caught in the blast, I was sent sailing to the far wall, crashing hard into the stone, shattering a nice dragon-shaped crater where I impacted it. Dazed, I fell out of my crater and down to the floor, where a new and slightly less impressive crater greeted me as I crashed down.


    I was close now, I just needed to buy some time, but there was one hang-up. I was bleeding, my regeneration having been insufficient for just a moment. Wounds closed quickly, but the damage was done. My blood stained my scales in places, and those places felt like a vice gripping me, and not in the fun way that Chooka and I use them in the bedroom. Pain lanced through me as my blood pressed me to the floor. I looked up in time to see him take a deep breath, and while I thought of a solution, he breathed another gout of flame at me.


    First of all, how dare he make me bleed my own blood. Second of all, it seems cheaty that he can breathe such powerful fire and blood. Surely he specialized in one or the other. But as I watched, an idea clicked that maybe he was extra cheaty. Blood has a high water content, and water is made of two gasses, that if separated, were highly flammable if ignited. I will just gloss over how I know about atoms, oxygen, and hydrogen, those exact terms coming to me in the moment that I needed to think about and know them. What if he had found some way to do that with the water in his blood, some sort of magical [Bullshit Electrodialysis Blood Voodoo] or something and ignited it to get the flame breath?


    I unleashed water magic to create a shield around my skin, both to protect me from the flame and to wash off the blood and gunky poison. It held for the most part, but some of his breath did get through. While hot, it lacked that magical umph to it. If he was cheating like I suspected, then he was only physically turning the blood magic into real fire, not magical fire. I had ample defensive skills to deal with real heat and fire bereft of magical fuel, so it actually didn¡¯t do much but soften my scales from the intense heat.


    While freed from his control of me due to washing or cooking my blood off of me, he conjured forth his own tendrils of blood to grab ahold of me just as his breath abated. Hoisting me up into the air like a ragdoll, he slammed me into the wall, the floor, the debris pile, and really just anywhere that looked like it would hurt. It truly was a cunning ruse, and while slamming into the rocks hurt, it didn¡¯t cause much damage. However, such a continued beating would eventually chip away at me, and with my scales so soft, it would only be a matter of time before he punctured me on something pointy.


    A good minute passed like this, him gloating in some monologue I could barely hear over the rather rude din of someone slamming into everything and anything. I managed to catch key words that villains like, such as ¡°foolish¡± and ¡°worm¡±. I used physical enhancement magic to make myself tougher, hardening my body and giving me more physical might. While it did wonders for the beating, I could not free myself from his bonds.


    ¡°Any last words?¡±


    He looked puzzled, then angry, then amused at my enquiry.


    ¡°I think you misunderstand your place, whelp. It is you who is on the verge of defeat.¡±


    ¡°I beg to differ,¡± I replied as I released a buildup of magic into those two traps I had placed earlier.


    He glared at me for a moment before turning to look behind him. Back at his hoard, under the two pillars that confined the woman, twin pillars of fire erupted from the earth. For those of you counting at home, that is 12 schools of magic that I had used in order; Ice, Shadow, Acid, Space, Air, Earth, Nature, Poison, Healing, Water, Physical, and finally, Fire. I had performed a manual reset of the combo before the fight, which was not something to be done for free, but it cleared up the counter from my stealth, scouting, and trap Skills I used before the fight and at the beginning of the fight proper.


    Fueled by my long school combo, pillars turned to slag as chains melted away, the energy and heat of the magic focused inward so that the women would not be harmed by it. The voice had told me that the key to my victory would be found in her freedom, so I had taken it to heart.


    ¡°Oi, bitch!¡± The woman cracked her knuckles and neck as she approached, stretching her arms and rolling her shoulders as she loosened up. ¡°I¡¯ve had several years to think about your offer as you tormented me. I am ready to give my response.¡±


    From the point of view of an [Observer], I had the pleasure of witnessing the Count¡¯s expression wilt as icy fear devoured his smug confidence. He hastened to flee, his blood grip on me going slack and his hoard abandoned as he scrambled to be anywhere but here. Everything slowed down to a snail¡¯s pace as the woman activated some sort of Haste Skill, which triggered my Skill, [Fools Rush In]. It took me along for the ride, granting me an even stronger Haste, at the cost that I could not activate such a Skill myself.


    The Count almost appeared frozen in time, his body moving oh so slowly, like a glacier sliding along during a thaw. The woman casually walked over to him, paying me no mind as she walked underneath the Count to be standing right under his chest. She punched upwards with a jab, her finger penetrating through the Count¡¯s scales like a hot knife through blubber. Wait, I think that is the expression; I would need to double check with discrete sources. Anyway, she yanked her arm back down, and within it, I saw a heart. The Count¡¯s heart. Ripped from his chest while still alive.


    Time still slow, she walked over to me and stood beside me, turning to stand and watch before time crashed down around us with its normal flow. The Count made it all of two steps before his body gave out and he toppled. No bitter last words followed, no tirade of threats, curses, and pleas, for he was dead on the spot, his body unable to regenerate from such a massive blow.


    ¡°For what it is worth, I think you could have taken him in a straight fight if you had not focused on freeing me.¡± I returned to my human form to stand next to her, a little exhausted but not nearly as drained as I had expected I would be. Most of my mana expenditure had been from his corruption effect. ¡°I do appreciate the consideration,¡± she continued. Though wearing little more than rags, she held herself with a regal posture. She curtsied as she spoke once more. ¡°Allow me to introduce myself. I am Princess Nanu of the defunct flight, The Secret Stalkers.¡±

 Chapter 44

    The letters swam around on the paper, the words teasing her as they respelled themselves over and over, forming new and nonsensical words as if to taunt her. Skull hoped against hope that somehow she would find a way through this trial.


    [Command]


    ¡°Heed my words. Gather Chooka and Alterez and withdraw from the cave. My pets will be fighting two dragons outside. Your first priority is to protect Chooka. Your second priority is to stay in reserve in case Wyverns or other dragons show up to aid the dragons. Your third priority is to assist them to prevent their deaths. I want my pets to grow stronger from this challenge. Heed your Master¡¯s words and [Obey]!¡±


    The first Skill from Master distracted Skull from her paperwork and gave her a new purpose. The second sent a wave of pain crashing through her as it also empowered her, giving her the strength and resolve to see things through. Master normally was not so rough, even when she asked for it, for he was a compassionate and gentle sort, but the Skill was designed to counter the very thing that Skull had found herself under: compulsions, charms, and other forms of mind-control. At least it was the good kind of pain, like an electrical shock down her body, and not a headache or paperwork.


    ¡°I must go now, my Master needs me.¡±


    ¡°Then I will go, too,¡± replied the secretary as she hopped off her chair and over the counter. She removed her glasses, setting them down as she jumped off the counter and onto the floor.


    ¡°Betray me,¡± Skull said flatly as if discussing the weather, ¡°and I will cut you down.¡±


    ¡°None of that to be had,¡± answered the kobold as she raised her hands to show she was no threat. ¡°Your master is contesting my own in a battle for ownership. As such, I need not follow my master¡¯s commands at this time. I do rather hope your master wins.¡±


    Skull nodded knowingly, the nature of kobolds no secret to her. They followed the strongest, acting with the morals that aligned with their master¡¯s and in the mannerisms that suited them in the moment. A bit dramatic with a flare for stories and stereotypes, but manageable.


    Skull marched swiftly to the next room, barely even slowing her stride to grab Chooka by the back of her vest and yank her along, the flaps of which stubbornly refused to offer a glimpse of the prizes hidden beneath. The two bearded kobolds shared a look with the secretary and then followed along silently. In the next room, Skull let out a piercing whistle, motioning Alterez to huddle ¡®round.


    ¡°The Master has ordered me into combat. You two are to attend. You kobolds may accompany us if you would like to. We are to keep Chooka alive, stay in reserve to intercept wyverns or other dragons, and offer aid only if The Master¡¯s pets should risk dying. You will comply.¡± Mechanical in her delivery, [Obey] spurred Skull to action and brooked no backtalk.


    ¡°I will lead ya¡¯s to where the fight¡¯s gonna be.¡±


    The fancily dressed kobold with the strange small weapon led them down a tunnel past more rooms. The Master stood in a large cavern, transforming before their very eyes into his draconic form. Skull spared a glance to Alterez who looked on with eyes wide open. Apparently, The Master had overlooked a part of his plan, for now the goblin knew of Master¡¯s true form. Such a secret would probably be kept, but Skull contemplated a blade swinging through his neck just to be sure. However, Master had not ordered thus, so she would wait and see how things played out.


    Ahead of them in a straight tunnel that angled upwards towards sunlight, Skull caught a glimpse of the silhouette of four long necks that would undoubtedly be The Boys. At as swift of a march as the others could manage, all too slow considering the short stature of all else but Chooka, Skull led her troop up the tunnel as she donned her helmet.


    By the time they reached the top, the pets were already in position for a brawl out in an open field while the dragons soared overhead to circle them. Behind them, the ascent up the mountain offered a little hill upon which they could watch and be ready to offer aid. Continuing on, she marched them up the hill, with Alterez huffing and puffing a little from the exertion.


    ¡°Stay alert; be ready for wyverns,¡± Skull commanded while she drew her sword.


    Skull moved through her forms, swinging her sword in a series of arcs and thrusts, preparing her [Shadow Killers] for their attacks, should she need them. After two dozen such movements, she ceased, and while keeping an eye on the battle, she remained vigilant against any other dragons, lesser or greater, that may dare approach.


    The fight stalled out early on, largely due to the fact that dragons like to fly and bombard foes that cannot fly, which certainly includes Hydras and Giant Frogs. Both sides were getting a feel for what each other could do before committing to anything serious. Skull had gotten into better fights in Shrine Day School. It would eventually heat up, but until one side feared for its life, Skull remained unimpressed.


    ¡°That¡¯s a nice piece ya¡¯s gots there,¡± said the kobold with the strange weapon. ¡°What is it, the Gyrating Automatic Targeting Laser Induction Nanomagical Gun v4, or maybe v5?¡±


    ¡°Close,¡± replied Chooka with a smile as she turned and gave the connoisseur of heavy ordinance a beaming smile. ¡°This was custom made for my 5 times great-granddaddy by the legendary artillery manufacturer, Helmsworth Wellerbottom, himself! That must be over 600 years ago, I reckon, and they don¡¯t make these bad boys any more, largely on account of the creator dying and not passing on his crafting secrets.¡±


    ¡°A beautiful piece of hardware, but far too big for me. I prefer my Target Obliterating Magic Induction Gnomish Urban Neutralizer,¡± he responded while patting the stock of his weapon. ¡°Doesn¡¯t pack a punch like yours does, but it is great for hit and run attacks.¡±


    ¡°Does it still perform the same role as a shield shredder?¡± Chooka leaned down to inspect the kobold¡¯s weapon while showing off her own.


    ¡°Not quite. The ammo is designed to bypass wards that detect incoming high-speed projectiles. In the heyday of these things, all the rage was using rapid response shields that were only big and strong enough to stop one projectile. Wards were used to detect and calculate the trajectory of incoming attacks and a person typically had some related device that would then automatically deploy the magical shield. It was seen as cheaper than maintaining a big shield all the time, less draining on the mana supply, but clearly that strategy has a drawback that this gun can take advantage of.¡±


    ¡°Huh, that¡¯s a neat way of going about it. I never thought of that,¡± replied Chooka as the two of them ogled each other¡¯s weapons. ¡°Mine is loaded with an even but randomly sorted stock of ammo, typically with 8 elements of magic present. Combined with varying intensity and speed as provided by each individual barrel, it was designed to overload auto-adjusting shields that would attune to the intensity and nature of whatever magical element was being thrown at it. It isn¡¯t as effective on actual armor or flesh compared to other weapons, but the rate of fire and the breadth of the types of wounds it can inflict makes medical treatment a nightmare. I think some countries ban these for reasons related to war crimes.¡±


    And on and on the two went, both nerding out about their fancy guns. The kobold even slipped out of his accent due to his enthusiasm. At least they were not actual firearms using gunpowder and physical ammunition. Those things were banned for good reasons, those reasons usually outlined in various treaties between nations under the category of, ¡°let¡¯s not have the gods wipe out civilization again.¡±


    Skull still preferred a good sword or some other piece of trusty steel at her side, all the better to get in close and see the fear in the eyes of your enemies before taking their lives. And besides, melee weapons were versatile and required actual skill, whereas a person using ranged weapons, once countered by an opponent¡¯s strategy or equipment, just became extra baggage. Such was a reason why bows and crossbows were not a staple of combat doctrine between large armies and why those weapons were mostly used by scouts or small raiding parties. One good magical [Wind Wall] blowing away incoming projectiles made such things obsolete.


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    ¡°Eyes up, we have enemy contact.¡±


    Skull silently offered a prayer to Gulthar for the oncoming challenge and a break from all the gun-talk. Three wyverns flew down the mountain at them, their mouths agape and ready to spew some manner of breath attack down upon them.


    Chooka took a wide stance, her torso lowered, with her left foot out front and her right leg back, her hips angled to provide stability for her cumbersome weapon. A rainbow of death rose up from the rotating barrels of her weapon as each element in turn spewed forth in tight beams of light from those muzzles of destruction. The first wyvern took a good raking across his head, chest, and feet, but being that the wyvern was flying straight at them, its profile was rather limited for solid hits.


    Likewise, the little scamp of a kobold led the other three in an assault, each having a weapon similar to his as they opened fire in unison at the same lead wyvern. Where they had been storing them, Skull could not say, just that they seemingly appeared in a moment when she took her eyes off them.


    The wyvern, much worse for wear, having not yet entered range to open fire, continued stubbornly forward into the hail of elemental gunfire. Its right wing frosted over from the secretary kobold¡¯s purely Ice aligned ammunition, and with the lopsided weight and reduced maneuverability imposed by ice, it careened hazardously to crash sidelong into the mountainside. That one would not be getting up anytime soon, if ever.


    The other two wyverns continued unabated. Hardy bastards, they were designed to take a beating while other dragons could muster to reinforce those fighting off invaders to their master¡¯s lair. Ornery, too, for with angry roars they unleashed bolts of Fire-infused goop at them. Undoubtedly sticky, getting hit by that would be a terrible way to die, so Skull took action.


    Turning her back to the enemy, Skull kneeled on one knee. With her sword planted in front of her, she leaned her head onto the blade and whispered an incantation to Gulthar.


    ¡°I fear not the enemy at my back, for Gulthar protects the worthy!¡±


    Almost instantly, a great mantle of shadow, like a cape, sprung from Skull¡¯s shoulders, growing exponentially in size and enveloping the entire front side of them in a protective layer of Shadow magic that drained the energy of the incoming shots. Not only did it arrest the forward momentum, but it also devoured the magical energy within and delivered a portion of it to Skull. A full dozen blows impacted impotently on her [Shadow Veil], a powerful Ability granted by Gulthar to his favored [Divine Champion], Skull. Sadly, it was not a Skill, or otherwise she would most likely be able to skip over the incantation.


    The two wyverns landed, one on either side. Unlike most dragons with four limbs and two wings, they had two thick hind legs and their wings were part of their forward arms. This made their tail and neck shorter, their body stockier, and overall more durable than their true dragon counterparts. They were not especially dangerous to a Platinum Adventurer like Skull, but they were still rather time-consuming to kill, for they could shrug off blows that would kill most creatures.


    ¡°You lot take that one over there; this one here is mine,¡± Skull commanded as she turned to face her new dance partner.


    The gaggle of kobolds, the goblin, and the remnimi heeded her word as law, and together they circled around their target like a pack of wolves taking down an elk. One of them summoned up large cubes of wood for cover, and the lot of them darted in and out to pepper the wyvern with a hail of gunfire before retreating.


    Reasonably sure they could manage, Skull focused on the task at hand. Your run-of-the-mill Gold Adventurer was expected to be capable of taking a wyvern in single combat, of which the greatest difficulty is isolating one from a pack to test that theory out. Skull herself had killed two wyverns in her day, although never as a solo fight. However, confidence welled up within her, not just because she was fearless, but because she knew her capabilities and limits far better than she did in her youth.


    Seizing the initiative, Skull rushed in at an oblique angle, closing the distance to get beside it before it could muster up a breath attack. Sluggish on the ground, wyverns could still have small busts of incredible speed, and indeed they favored instilling overconfidence in their foes before snatching them up suddenly after taking a sustained beating. Not incredibly intelligent creatures, but deadly cunning where it counts, the wyvern pivoted too slowly to face its attacker, opting instead to shield itself with its wing while sidestepping away into a lumbering turn to face Skull.


    Skull unleashed her [Shadow Killers], the shadowy phantoms of herself that rushed forward and performed the same strikes she had performed earlier. The wyvern hunkered down, ready to endure the onslaught until it could strike back. However, her phantoms were not so mindless in their approach, for they struck at vulnerable points along its body rather than waste their energy impotently upon its wings. The creature roared in protest, but Skull did not wait around to admire her work, having leapt onto its back to hack away at it. Wearing it down with an attrition of blows was the safe way, but the longer Skull took, the less able she would be able to protect Chooka and her Master¡¯s pets. She felt compelled to [Obey], but restrained herself lest haste make waste. And so she would have to ¡°peel the onion¡± as Master liked to say, for her fight had only just begun.


    <hr>


    Gambino found himself thankful that he had the right Skills to fight the wyvern. [Writer¡¯s Block] had produced five foot cubes of dense wood to act as obstacles and cover for him and his troupe. A summoned work of sturdy construction, they would disappear back to the nether or wherever they came from when the duration ended, but for now, they remained a key to their strategy. [Plot Armor] had saved him from a nasty death by sticky flaming goop that would have caught him straight in the chest when he made a mistake in his timing, but fortunately, his two allied kobolds with the Blessing of [Background Character] yet lived. For what boss in the stories ever dies before his underlings are all dead? [Encore] allowed him to create a [Doppelgangster] that would repeat his last series of attacks, increasing his throughput on whittling down the wyvern.


    In spite of the attempted beatdown, the hulking brute continued to persist despite the brutal punishment it was taking from the five of the gunners. The goblin had yet to attack, instead running around and handing out small samples of food and drink. Gambino sure did feel empowered by the offering of victuals, his mana regenerating almost as fast as he could spend it, so the goblin certainly pulled his weight. After all, the gun drains mana with each shot, and considering the sheer number of shots he had put into the creature, he would have passed out from exhaustion long ago.


    However, things were going well until they didn¡¯t. The two [Background Characters] crashed into each other and fell to the ground in a heap. Gambino tried to use [Limelight] to distract the creature, but such were its resistances to mental persuasion or so enthusiastic was it about an opportunity to strike back that it ignored the effect. Not even [Curtain Call] could save the duo as a massive maw of piercing fangs descended upon them, tearing them apart and crunching down on their broken bodies. Fortunately, each used [Hilwelm¡¯s Piercing Scream] as they died, which convinced the creature to eject them from its mouth rather than to swallow them down. That would certainly simplify their revival if they could get access to dragon eggs later.


    The tall red and blue one, with a defiant yell, led a charge, blasting the wyvern at close range with empowered shots. Most likely she flipped the selector switch to Close Range to overcharge the firepower at the cost of effective range. It would overheat soon if she maintained it, but inspired by her daring, Gambino and Bambina also rushed forward to kill or stun the wyvern with withering fire.


    That was when the goblin decided to jump into its mouth. Not near its mouth, but straight in, you know, where all the teeth and breath attacks like to be. Gambino considered that a [Dirge] or [Eulogy for the Dead] would be needed soon to bless the goblins'' bones, that they may complete the journey to the far south, but matters unfolded in a way that suggested such measures would not be needed.


    With a guttural and final roar, the creature staggered side to side before collapsing in a heap. The goblin popped out of its mouth like a cork stuffed into the spout of a boiling kettle, his body crashing straight into the open arms and ample bosom of the tall one. They really should have exchanged names during all their gun talking, but such was the wisdom of hindsight.


    Too early to celebrate, apparently the fight between the other dragons and the pets of their hopefully soon-to-be Master had reached a key development in the form of a dragon falling out of the sky right on a collision course for their location. A quick glance around revealed that the scary lady was hacking away at the other wyvern, the creature in turn appearing to be on its last legs.


    ¡°Get to the chopper!¡±


    The tall one¡¯s scream stirred Gambino to movement. Grabbing Bambina by the hand, he half dragged her as he ran towards the other wyvern fight where the ¡°chopper¡± was the scary lady chopping away at the wyvern. A sensible enough name for her, but Gambino still preferred ¡°hacker¡± over ¡°chopper¡± to describe the process of wyvern killing. It was sporadic and chaotic, not controlled and orderly like chopping wood, but one cannot expect others to be the best at proper word choice in a crisis.


    And so the four of them ran over to the scary lady, just in time to evade being caught in the crash of the dragon into the wyvern corpse. Cool kobolds don¡¯t look at dragon crashes, so they continued on without sparing a glance to their defeated foe. This was all shaping up to be a good story for one of their next plays, and so for the first time in a while, Gambino felt happy.

 Chapter 45

    We waddled out into the daylight behind our soon-to-be opponents. The Giant Frogs, no longer [Giant Frogs] for their Blessing, remained alert as they followed behind us. Hopper, the male frog with a black body covered in red, orange, and yellow flame patterns, registered as [Kaeru Kenshi] to our Skill, [Discern Snack Potential IV]. Ribbette still had a purple ribbon on her head, which didn¡¯t seem very edible. It went well with her purple and green stripes with skull-shaped dots of the opposite color that went lengthwise across her body.


    Hopper sported a new straw hat, slightly conical in shape, with a long gash cut into it just above his right eye. He had a piece of straw in his mouth, which [Snackitude] labeled as ¡°farmer¡¯s gum¡±, whatever that was. Hopper also had a large sword at his waist, one with a curve to it, which [Detect Head-Cutter-Offers] labeled as an ¨­dachi. Very nasty, very dangerous, not very snackable. Good thing Hopper was on our side.


    Ribbette wore some sort of shirt, except it mostly only covered her arms and shoulders, looking more like one long tube of cloth going from arm to arm with loose sleeves, the pattern mostly white with cherry blossom petals on it. She also wore a white scarf with bloodstain patterns of purple and green upon it. It also had bells attached to it along the top and bottom of its great length, but they did not jingle despite her movements. We are not so fashion-minded, but even we can tell that her clashing menagerie of clothing accessories did not conform to social norms.


    So boring, stop talking about their clothes! Dio here; the cowardly dragons gave some big dumb speech about stuff and mentioned their names. Viscount Branislav was the bigger one and our opponent, Baron Eradnevir was the other one and would fight our friendly frogs. Whatever, I don¡¯t try to learn the names of my snacks, so I don¡¯t know why he bothered. They instantly chickened out and took to the sky after all those words, right where they were hard to reach. Prudent, for they would be no match for me if they stayed on land to fight us maw to maw. Plato released us up to an appropriate combat size, one approximately in an equal weight class to our opponent.


    Being that I am the only one among us awesome enough to blast them out of the sky, I began charging up my [Solar Nexus], the surrounding sunlight funneling into my mouth as I prepared to obliterate the big one with one solid hit. My brothers, like, covered for me or whatever, doing their things with lesser breath attacks. I couldn¡¯t be bothered to control the legs, so someone else did that.


    Careful, brother. Good thing that I, Socrates, remained vigilant. I deftly waddled us out of the way of a slow-moving bombardment that peppered the landscape in a straight line, the attack made of sticky globs of [Burning Blood], according to my [Detect Snack Attack] Skill. We would need to bide our time and study our target. The first thing I knew about our adversary is that I knew nothing. However, my brilliant strategies would always carry us to victory, provided my brothers would just listen.


    I released a [Controlled Smokescreen] into the air above us, such that we retained the advantage of sight down on the ground, but a clever layer of it hovered above us so that the dragons could not see us. I magnanimously shared [Smoke Vision] with my brothers. Though a passive Skill for me that allowed me to see through smoke, fog, mist, and the like, I generously spent my hard-earned mana to allow my brothers to benefit from it.


    Dangerous, too dangerous! What if they could see me, Aristotle, and hit me with some attack before you completed the Skill link with us? Too risky by far. I released blast after blast of fire breath attacks in front of us, each pooling into a ball and attached by a string of flame to a different tooth in my mouth. I only have so many teeth, so I had to be cautious. I would stockpile them up, and then when the dragon came to land, I would launch everything I had at him. Too soon and I would risk missing; too late and he would be fully landed with wings ready to shield my attack.


    Careful, steady. I want to go home. But, that dragon was made of meat, and the best snacks are made of meat, therefore the dragon was a snack. Ahah! Fire! I unleashed a full salvo via my Skill, [Look on the Broadside]. A few scored good hits, but there is no kill like overkill. Fire everything at everyone! Fire everywhere, let the world be consumed in cleansing flame, that the snacks will be purified and ready for consumption. My laughter drowned out my fear, the fiery glow of the dragon across from us reflecting not just off my eyes, but my very soul. I had never felt so alive, the fire speaking to me as it-.


    Well, shit. Aristotle just got decapitated. The dragon had retaliated with a bright red beam of blood that shot straight from its mouth, completely obliterating the neck of my beloved brother. More snacks for me, Plato, if we can kill the dragon before Aristotle regenerates. Still, that was not good, not good at all. Only one of us needs to live to the end, but our odds of winning decrease with each true head lost.


    I utilized [Headhunter] to recruit new heads for our body. I went through the list, picking out what heads were available from the shared pool of spare heads in my family tree. Ah, perfect, these two would do. I jettisoned the remnants of Aristotle¡¯s neck and began growing out Achilles and Patroclus. They had a favorable combo that may come in handy right about-.


    Okay, well, I had intended to time it better, but another blast from the dragon had already obliterated Patroclus. We were not yet in melee range of our opponent, so that seemed bad. Hopefully, I could keep Achilles under control so he would not attack us while I focused on closing the gap to our opponent. I waddled us forward, but the window of opportunity to use the combo closed quickly, so I sang out the incantation.


    ¡°RAGE: Sing, Goddess, Achilles'' rage!¡±


    Achilles grew longer, thicker, and meaner. His teeth transformed into gouging curved spikes, perfect for piercing scales and gripping prey. Our legs swelled in size and strength, and our waddle accelerated several times over as the distance between us and our prey quickly evaporated.


    Single-minded in his bloodlust against our opponent, Achilles rammed us right into the startled dragon. I coordinated my brothers into wrapping around the dragon to pin him, leaving the biting work to Achilles. I used [Safety Bubble] to protect our main body, the Water magic shielding us from magic and blows alike. Powerful, but expensive, I would not be able to maintain it for long.


    The dragon roared in defiance, but it found itself quickly outmatched. Each bite from its maw and rake of its claw only enraged Achilles even more, and more than I normally do, I felt like a passenger in my own body as I struggled to maintain control from Achilles.


    Yeah, dumb plan. I had enough sunlight now, so leave it to me instead of the intern. The dragon¡¯s head eventually got pinned in place, so I lined up my head straight across from his. He struggled and tried to prepare his meager breath attack, but I was faster. Point blank, I unleashed [Solar Nexus] right into his open mouth. It wasn¡¯t a kiss or anything, idiots, just an attack. It¡¯s not like I like the dragon or anything.


    Dragons don¡¯t have cloacas or posterior orifices like that, but by the time my attack completed, this one sure did. With his neck lined up straight with his body due to how we pinned him, it obliterated his insides and punched a hole straight out of him under his tail. I guess today was the day that the sun did shine in that particular spot, for I am clever and my brothers would have laughed at my joke if they were smart enough to understand it.


    One thousand snack deficit for Dio!


    I second that!


    I third that.


    I canceled Achilles, his neck falling off and rotting away within minutes. We all glared death stares at Dio. My brothers nipped at him, and while I focused on regenerating Aristotle, they broke out into a bit of snippy fighting with teeth gnashing at one another. Dio had ruined the single greatest snack haul we have ever had. It had that scent, the same scent as the delicious snacks that had been given to us by Papa-Not-Papa-Snack-God.


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    I snatched up what scraps I could find while the others bickered. But then, they paused, eyes turning to me as they noticed my chomping away at what I could find. Their qualms forgotten for now, they lunged into the ruined corpse of the dragon, each pushing at each other and me as we devoured what we could scavenge.


    Papa, Mama, and True-Mama¡¯s ghost. Whoever eats the fastest, gets the most!


    <hr>


    And there, near the shores of Lake Arthu-Pul, did the Baron Eradnevir and Baron Noddeg perish, felled by my own blade and by the clever poisons of my beloved Ribbette. How two such foul fiends could share one body, only the gods knew. For as soon as Baron Eradnevir had taken his starting position for our duel did his body split in twain down its length, each half in symmetrical proportions. Blood spewed forth to reform each half, and where one dragon began, two stood to face us. We exchanged introductions as customary etiquette demanded, each side remaining civil during such formalities.


    The fiends, lacking honor, took to the air posthaste, and forthright were they in administering their aggression upon the landscape. Vexed by our nimble forms peerlessly evading the foul machinations of their blood sorcery, they roared in dual shriek''s of rage as they harried our position upon the earth. Oh how I lamented my impotency at such a distance, for neither blade nor tongue could assail our foes at such range. A stalemate soon ensued, neither side able to strike forth and offer wound and insult to the other.


    Fortuitous, then, that the barons offered a silent accord, for they alighted themselves upon the earth and gave battle proper. My blade yet remained sheathed, but the opportunity to enter the grand melee favored my training. In tandem, like noble dancers upon the lily pads, my beloved and I dashed to and fro, harrying the enemy with our Skills.


    For several minutes, I landed blow after blow with kicks and punches, the strikes ineffective at wounding our foes. Not in vain did I strike thus, for I provided the frame to that picture of beauty that is my flowery love. Ribbette struck forth with [Poison Needles], each honed with [Acute Puncture], so that they flew through the air to where I had struck as if bidden by the very heavens to strike true. Hardy adversaries, possessed of a stalwart constitution, but they displayed no signs of affliction from my beloved¡¯s poisons. However, I trusted in her knowledge of her craft, that our foes would succumb to such toxins in time.


    My beloved sang to me of her affection, her voice carried the sweet promises of a life well spent in her company. Great croaks assailed the barons, the acoustics resonating with the needles already impaled into their flesh, sinking them deeper and amplifying the poisons upon them. Then she opened her mouth wide, from whence spewed forth a green mist, one that carried death upon it, for to breathe it was to find the eternal slumber of the grave.


    She and I suffered not from the ill effects of such foul vapors, but alas, my vision failed to pierce through such a veil. My sense of sight hampered, I relied on the bells on my beloved¡¯s scarf for guidance, their chimes informing me of her location and that of our foes. Baron Eradnevir, perhaps in dismay by the sudden fog of war, attempted to take flight, and by the guidance provided by the bells, I struck forth to thwart his ascent.


    Upon taking a deep breath, I activated [Flame Dash] to spur me forward and [Leapfrog] to carry me aloft. My blade, unsheathed for the first time during our altercation, swung forth to strike true, deftly decapitating the craven baron who dared to flee the battlefield. However, such was not enough fell him, for blood rushed forward to reform his head. However, the baron found his flight arrested by the kiss of my blade, and soon he crashed back down upon the earth and into the fog once more.


    Alas, I too could not remain aloft at my leisure, and so I descended abruptly. There below rose up the maw of Baron Noddeg, his visage one of satisfied mirth as he endeavored to swallow me whole. Auspicious that death awaited me, for [Trial by Fire] activated, granting me a moment of perfect clarity and invigorated poise. I activated [Crucial Crucible] to coat my blade in molten flame, the Fire magic so dense as to become visible and nigh unstoppable for but a few heartbeats. With [Lily Nilly] did I narrowly evade that most hazardous pit of fangs, and with [Eruption of Blades] did I strike his body on the way down. A crescendo of blows from furious metal upon scale sounded my arrival as my blade found its mark, my beloved¡¯s poison having already rendered the baron weak and sluggish.


    Upon landing, I sheathed my blade and walked towards my beloved, for she yet battled Baron Eradnevir. Behind me, Baron Noddeg remained motionless, his body seemingly frozen in time. I coveted no need to see the fruits of my labors, for the sound alone confirmed the precision of my blade. His body, unable to bear the countless strikes that I had inflicted upon him, toppled apart, for I had severed him into 108 pieces. Gorey heap of flesh squelched in my wake as a loose pile formed from the fractured pieces of his body, each one cauterized by the heat of my blade. And so ended the life of Baron Noddeg.


    <hr>


    This Baron Eradnevir can eat a bag of dicks. I don¡¯t have any on me, but if I did, I would ram it down his throat and rip it out of his stomach. I would boil the eyes from his skull and beat him to death with his own severed limbs if I could. How dare he resist my poison so! Whatever, I¡¯ll just keep screaming at him and throwing more poison at him until he passes out. Then I¡¯ll rip his scales off one at a time and use them to decorate my pond.


    Dumb fucknuts can¡¯t even catch me, and every breath he takes just brings him that much closer to death. He can see a little ways into the fog though, so I¡¯ll give him that much, but not nearly as far as I can. I just need to outrange him and distract him with my bells. At least a certain idiot knows what my bells mean and can follow my instructions. This dingbat keeps launching gross blobs of blood at where my bells ring, thinking I am still standing there. As if I would let him get his blood on my nice clothes. What a dumbass.


    Speaking of fools, it looks like that idiot finished off Baron What''s-his-bucket. Now he¡¯s strutting over to me looking all proud with that stupid glint in his eye. He probably thinks he looks cool with that swagger to his stride as the baron¡¯s big dumb body falls to pieces behind him. He probably waxed poetically the whole time like the idiot he is, going on and on about his love for me. As if I would like those big strong arms, that dexterous tongue, those fancy webbed feet, and those captivating flames upon his body that highlight the mesmerizing color of his eyes.


    Get it together, Ribbette. You almost got hit there by the overgrown lizard. So what if Hopper makes your heart skip a beat whenever you look at him, he¡¯s just a big idiot who likes to swing his sword around while looking dashing. Just tell him right where he can shove that sword and be done with it.


    Fuckwits McGee is getting slower and weaker, so my poison is working. I am the only one with a brain around here who knows how to tire a foe out. However, he will probably make a desperate play soon, so I should be careful. [Frog-nosis] estimates that he has another minute until he passes out or dies like a bitch, so just a little more of leading him by the nose and I will be able to stand over his corpse. I just gotta-


    Fucking tits! I just stepped in some of his blood he spit at me, gross. I¡¯m sure it will wash off, just gotta evade and¡­ Dicks and double dicks, I¡¯m stuck fast here. This shit is like glue and I can¡¯t get out. Oh fuck, oh fuck, he¡¯s charging me, what do I do? I¡¯m too pretty to die! I guess this is the end. I should just close my eyes and hope he chokes on me. There is no time to inform Master in time of how I fucked up, so there is no way I can be unsummoned. Plus it takes too long for [Froggiest Idea] to translate things into the Master¡¯s language and vice-versa. I had a good run at least.


    Something solid and muscular crashed into me, but no teeth chomped down on me, so maybe that isn¡¯t so bad. Better open my eyes. Ugh, it''s that big strong idiot with a silly smile on his face. He scooped me up in his arms and hopped up and away from that dragon. Speaking of, the bastard has followed us, up and out of the fog as Hopper carries me aloft. However, my poison finally did its job, for the fuckwit passed out mid flight.


    Time for [1000 Needle Pricks] to do its work. Every last needle I have still stashed away in my sleeves and scarf should do the trick. Each one is coated with a caustic substance that will melt him like acid. I go ahead and do that because I¡¯m not an idiot.


    The dumb and now dead dragon went and crashed into the hill behind us. It almost hit Master¡¯s friends, but it did hit some chonky dead dragon over there. All in a day¡¯s work because I am awesome.


    We¡¯re back on the ground. He¡¯s still holding me in his arms. He¡¯s got this big dumb look on his face like he just caught two flies in one flick of the tongue. But there¡¯s something about it that I can¡¯t escape. Okay, maybe he is a little handsome. Idiot! He¡¯s an idiot for making you feel this way.


    Okay, well, he set me down, so that¡¯s something. And he keeled over. Shit fuck, he¡¯s bleeding everywhere from his back! Two large cuts from the dragon¡¯s claws did a number on him. Idiot didn¡¯t even tell me. But if he hadn¡¯t gotten in the way of the dragon¡¯s claws for me, then I would¡­


    I would have figured something out. Idiot. I¡¯m an idiot. I would have croaked my last croak. And this idiot saved me. I guess that makes us a pair of idiots. I suppose I should use a healing potion that Master gave me to fix him up.


    Yeah, so, whatever. The potion worked, idiot Hopper is fine. The bitch-ass barons are dead, everyone¡¯s happy. So why do I feel so frustrated and why is my heart thumping all wonky?

 Chapter 46

    ¡°Oh how awful, did Aristotle at least die painlessly? To shreds you say. Tsk, tsk. How did your opponent hold up? To shreds you say.¡±


    Princess Nanu waited patiently for her rescuer to finish communicating with his pets and allies. Apparently, things had gone rather well. Only two kobolds died, which was no big deal. Count Vladislav took joy in bragging about his many eggs, and seeing as how he was now deceased, he could not air any grievances about utilizing them to resurrect the kobolds. It would be a cold day in hell before most dragons would waste precious eggs on [Background Character] kobolds, so this would be a most cathartic way to add insult to injury to the late Count¡¯s legacy.


    Princess Nanu had already cleaned herself up. Years of filth and grime had not tarnished her beauty, but it didn¡¯t exactly highlight it either. Simple grooming spells removed the physical aspects of her despoilment, but it lacked that cleansing feeling one encountered with the indulgence of a good soak in a hot bath. From her pocket dimension, she drew forth an outfit of loose-fitting wraps of sheer fabrics and silks, the type that revealed much yet left mysteries yet to be discovered. Twenty years had she wasted away in captivity, twenty years bereft of intimate companionship or any sort of positive stimulus. Hopefully, her rescuer would be excited for her to ¡°reward¡± him for his bravery, otherwise she would cause the local brothels to close business for a few days so the staff may rest and recover from her lust-driven escapades.


    And to think, of all the people that could have come to her rescue, it was the very [Dragon Emperor] himself that had replaced her late grandfather. Surely she had pleased a number of gods in her life to be so blessed with the perfect opportunity to extend her existence. Now she just had to play her cards right and ingratiate herself with him, to be seen as indispensable, so that she may come to favorable terms.


    ¡°Thank you for your patience, Princess Nanu. I am-¡±


    ¡°No need to introduce yourself, [Dragon Emperor]. I know full well who you are. Count Vladislav, being a mere noble and not royalty, lacked the required Skill to see who you really are, but I, with the peerage of Princess, can see you shining like a beacon. Foolish and arrogant, he would not have dared to resist you had he known who you are.¡±


    Princess Nanu took a knee, head bowed with right arm bent to cover her heart. A gamble to be so impudent as to interrupt the Emperor, but she had to seize the initiative if she were to thrive.


    ¡°I am most grateful for your assistance in rescuing me. Please, allow this one to serve you and to be your guide. No doubt, the late Count¡¯s drakes have taken wing and will retreat to the lairs of their relatives where their memories will be scanned. Likewise, the memories of the true dragons will be passed on to their relatives. You have made your debut on the world stage, and all the dragons of the world will know who you are and where you are located. Some will seek to destroy you, others to control you, and very few to be your friend and ally.¡±


    Princess Nanu prostrated herself before the Emperor, and if Fate should smile upon her once again, her new Emperor.


    ¡°Please, stand, there is no need for such formality.¡±


    Princess Nanu stood, facing the now uncomfortable and agitated Emperor before her.


    ¡°By your command. This one humbly requests that you adopt this one as Princess Nanu into your own flight.¡±


    ¡°I ugh, don¡¯t know what that entails or how to do that,¡± he responded as he held his hands up towards the Princess to keep distance between them, seemingly uncomfortable with such a burden.


    How utterly adorable! The new Emperor is a little shy and not enthralled by the prospect of making her his new slave. Perhaps she could pull this off, but she would need to be careful. Being manipulative to her own benefit would be a sucker¡¯s game, for with how-long lived dragons were, he would eventually wise up to such mistreatment, and that would spell the end of Princess Nanu. Best to be a positive influence, grooming him into a strong and independent Emperor, so that she may ride his coattails to success and be free to pursue her own interests once he becomes established in the world.


    ¡°It is a simple enough undertaking, one I would be most delighted to indulge with you,¡± Princess Nanu whispered sweetly as she leaned in close, giving him an opportunity to sneak a glance at her ample cleavage. All the better to entice him with her womanly charms now, so that he would be more amenable to the adoption ritual. ¡°However, we can save the details for later, perhaps once your allies have returned and you have had a chance to assess the situation. I would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have.¡±


    Boldly, he took her by the hand, and for a moment, Princess Nanu believed he would take her somewhere private and ravish her. Sadly, he only brought her over to the hoard of the late Count, where he opened his own pocket dimension to pull out some chairs, a table, and a few refreshments.


    ¡°Please, sit, if it suits you.¡±


    Such a gentleman, but sometimes it was fun when a man could be a little demanding. Graciously accepting his invitation, Princess Nanu took the seat opposite him. Courtesy demanded that she reserve the seats next to him for his favorite lovers, and surely those two women she had seen but briefly earlier were his favorites. The ridiculously high number of Traits each of them held would have attracted them to him and him to them like sharks to blood.


    ¡°Gratitude for your hospitality, Emperor,¡± she greeted as she poured herself a cup of tea and grabbed a few of those delicious-looking pastries. She indulged her hunger, a small squeal of delight escaping her mouth as she all but devoured the most scrumptious of treats.


    ¡°Wait, how long has it been since you have had anything to eat or drink?¡± Concern and slight panic etched his handsome features as he stood ready to do¡­ anything, she supposed, to make her comfortable.


    ¡°Probably around 18 years or so. My, these pastries are delicious though.¡±


    More food flooded the table at her reply. Meats, both cold cuts and delectable roasted and fried morsels, were placed right before her. Cheeses, fruits, soups, breads, cookies, cakes, and candies followed, each one looking more scrumptious than the last. Wines, ales, teas, fruit juices, and clean spring water followed to help slake her thirst.


    ¡°That¡¯s all the more variety I have on me at the moment. I have more of each dish, should you want more to eat.¡±


    ¡°You are too kind,¡± Princess Nanu replied as an errant tear dared to streak its way down her cheek. Such compassion had been denied her these past two decades, and thinking back, very few such genuine offers had been made to her in her life without any strings attached. However, the Emperor appeared to have no ulterior motive, his expression one of deep concern and sympathy as he offered her a fine cotton napkin. ¡°Thank you, for doing all this. It is simply wonderful,¡± she managed to get out before her throat choked up and more pesky tears spewed forth unbidden. Is this what she had come to, a mere stray dog, starving and neglected, brought to heel and made loyal by an offering of food paired with kind words and gestures?


    The Emperor graciously sat in quiet restraint, a thousand questions clearly burning to be asked, but otherwise held captive in his mind a while longer as she feasted. Hunger that she had suppressed for so long it was almost maddening welled up within her, and now, free to indulge in that most primal of needs, she loosed herself upon the helpless morsels in front of her. Plate after plate and bowl after bowl, she devoured all, with dishes stacking up as more food was brought forth to appease her.


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    So transfixed in the pursuit of her appetite, she lost track of time and manners. Upon realizing that the mountain of dishes before her were all that remained of the food, and that she herself had been the one to eat all of it, Princess Nanu blushed and put down her silverware.


    ¡°No need to be shy,¡± he consoled, a tender hand patting hers as he pushed another plate her way. ¡°Eat as much as you want, but don¡¯t eat just to appease me if you are full. I want you to be comfortable. Besides,¡± he laughed heartily for a while as if remembering a good joke, a jovial and sincere smile springing naturally to his countenance, ¡°my pet hydra could eat you under the table, so there is no need to be self-conscious about how much you eat. I can afford it just fine.¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± she chuckled a bit herself at the image of her trying to out-eat a hydra, ¡°I don¡¯t think anything could eat more than a hydra. I don¡¯t even know if they have a limit.¡±


    ¡°Neither do I. I entered The Boys into a cheese-eating contest once. Pretty sure that is what got them banned from all-you-can-eat buffets and food-eating contests. They ate all the cheese, even going after the carts full of cheese after the contest was over. And they were smaller back then and with one fewer head to feed.¡±


    ¡°I am some 800 years old now, and in all my days, I don¡¯t think I have known anyone who has tried to tame a hydra, much less succeeded,¡± Princess Nanu stated as she accepted the offered food, but this time, she actually took to the time to taste it and eat at a civilized pace. ¡°How are you not bankrupt trying to feed such a beast?¡±


    ¡°Lots of hunting and work as an Adventurer.¡±


    ¡°An Adventurer! My, that¡¯s not something I have ever heard of a dragon doing either. Usually, we are on the receiving end of Adventurers trying to kill us and take our stuff. I think the last time I had to deal with any, my sister was behind it. She was trying to set me up with a bard that was in that particular party.¡± Princess Nanu looked slightly away from the Emperor, her eyes still as if thinking back to a particularly fond memory.


    ¡°And how did that turn out?¡± A silly grin crossed his face, one eager to know the outcome.


    ¡°Let¡¯s just say her fingers were gifted for far more than plucking the strings of her lute.¡±


    A hearty laugh followed her big reveal, his eyes watering in mirth at the bawdry tale.


    ¡°That isn¡¯t even the best part,¡± she continued with mounting excitement at telling the tale. ¡°While I played it off as the bard seducing me, I seduced the [Divine Knight] in their little party, and he was a stickler for the rules. Quite the good cuddler after you get him off a few times though. The three of us shared a bed while the rest of them had to camp outside my lair.¡±


    More laughter followed at that, the two of them bonding a little over their experience with Adventurers.


    ¡°Is that common?¡± he asked as he managed to regain some semblance of control over his laughter. ¡°Dragons creating contracts for Adventurers to take out other dragons.¡±


    ¡°I see there is much you have yet to learn, my dear Emperor. I would wager that almost all such contracts have a dragon pulling the strings. Show me a dragon-hunting organization that is not secretly funded and managed by another dragon, all the while unbeknownst to the hunters, and I will eat my shoes. It is a lucrative way to take out your rivals and get a chunk of their hoard while mitigating risk and exposure to oneself.¡±


    The Emperor¡¯s expression darkened at the news, looking more sad than angry. ¡°Isn¡¯t that a little evil, an enemy sending murderers to kill you and take your stuff?¡±


    A long sigh escaped Princess Nanu¡¯s mouth as she reached for the Emperor¡¯s hand, taking it gently in hers and squeezing it reassuringly. ¡°I can tell you were raised in the cultures of humanoids, but do not mistake their morals and values to be universal truths. Simply put, no, it is not evil to us dragons. Half the time it is more of a game to keep us entertained, on our toes, and our senses sharp. You came in here not with an army, but a small team of trusted individuals, and challenged the Count for his hoard and won. They were not hirelings, but people you know and trust. In dragon culture, lacking the strength to hold onto your lair and hoard is seen as legitimate and natural grounds for another dragon to challenge you for it.¡±


    She sat up, releasing his hand, continuing the lecture. ¡°Both forces were of relatively equal size and power level, so that will be seen by the dragon community at large as completely fair and not an act of war. Generally, there would not be any retaliation from the Count¡¯s family, but he was part of The Blood Keepers, and they are known to not to respect the outcome of such civilized discord between dragons of different flights. They will undoubtedly send dragon hunters after you, at least to save face, but I doubt a true vendetta or [Blood Feud] will follow. But they will ensure the world knows who and what you are. Your days of being incognito are over, I¡¯m afraid.¡±


    ¡°I guess it is true I know very little about dragon culture. I only know about dragons based on my own person and what I have read in books or heard from other Adventurers,¡± he responded as he scratched his head and looked less confident than before.


    ¡°Much of that is intentional misinformation and propaganda on behalf of dragons to sway public opinion, oust rivals, or otherwise convince dragon hunters to use ineffective weapons and tactics. I would be delighted to educate and guide you, should you find my council worthy, but much of what I have to offer cannot be shared unless you adopt me. As I said earlier, I am of The Secret Keepers, and as the name implies, I don¡¯t divulge secrets to just anyone. Adoption would get around those pesky NDAs and other such oaths of secretary, for I could hardly be expected to keep secrets from my Emperor.¡±


    ¡°I feel like there is a catch here. What¡¯s in it for you, and what¡¯s in it for me? Is this sort of thing normal or common?¡±


    ¡°When an Emperor dies¡­¡± Princess Nanu started, taking a moment to collect herself as memories of her beloved grandfather and the rest of her family flooded her. To his credit, the Emperor waited patiently, encouraging her to take as much time as she needed to collect herself, the sweetling.


    ¡°When an Emperor dies, the remaining royals lose some of their power, and most importantly, we can no longer resurrect ourselves in any of our remaining eggs or continue to gain Skills. We are left vulnerable, and it becomes open season as other flights hunt us down as trophies or slaves.¡±


    Princess Nanu took a moment to calculate how to phrase the next part. A small voice, familiar yet foreign, encouraged her to offer a full and honest disclosure, and unbeknownst as to why she listened to it, she did as it bid her to do. ¡°The remainder are adopted into existing flights, filling the gaps left by other dead or yet unborn dragons, ultimately strengthening the flight. Such adoptions come with contracts, which are typically just glorified slavery, and they are quite unbreakable, for the gods themselves enforce them. Faced with that or death, many choose to be adopted. This has been the way of things for as far back as I know in the histories of dragons, and my flight was well-versed in the secret and hidden histories of the world. I fall before your mercy, and I will accept whatever terms you offer. You have the full power to take advantage of me in whatever way you choose, and I am not in a position to refuse, for death awaits me should I be without a flight if I choose to return to the world at large.¡±


    Princess Nanu rose from her chair and rounded the table to throw herself at the Emperor¡¯s feet. Something about his kind and gentle soul convinced her that this was the right move to earn his sympathy and reduce the severity of terms. For the first time in a long time, a part of her felt disgusted with how she shamelessly manipulated the kindness shown to her, but she tucked away that resentment for later, or never. Self-preservation won out over morality, that precious luxury of civility so estranged to her now that her life remained in the balance.


    Princess Nanu didn¡¯t know what she expected, but what happened next still surprised her. He pulled her to her feet and embraced her in a warm and compassionate hug as he too stood with her. ¡°I have no fondness for slavery, and I would not see you bound again, in chains or in words,¡± he whispered in her ear as he patted her back reassuringly. ¡°You have more value than what you can provide. Believe in yourself, and believe in me, that we will both treat each other with dignity and respect. I will ask nothing of you that you do not want to do, and none will force themselves upon you, not as long as I am around. Trust, respect, and loyalty flow both ways, and I will not be the first to sunder that bond.¡±


    What years of torment and captivity could not break, his words shattered in but a moment. She wept openly, falling deeper into the comfort of his embrace as she let out two decades of fear, grief, and despair. Hope had seemed to be but a nefarious illusion, one dangled just out of reach the whole time she had struggled impotently against her bonds. Her hate and desire for vengeance had kept her strong this far, but with the Count dead, she felt empty without it to accompany her. And here, this Emperor, fully capable of returning her to that same state, instead offered her unconditional love and support, something she had thought forever lost to her. Not even her own sister, who had sacrificed herself so that Princess Nanu could live when the dragon hunters came in force, had offered her affection and care so freely.


    For how long she cried, Princess Nanu didn¡¯t know. Even if he were manipulating her or ensorcelling her with some Skill, she didn¡¯t care in that moment. She would serve her new Emperor, not out of a desire to survive, but because he was worthy. In that instant, she vowed a [Supreme Secret] to herself that she would do all she could to care for and protect him until he could stand on his own, provided all that he promised held true.


    The voice had been right, and if she ever met the speaker, she would repay the favor in full.

 Chapter 47

    ¡°You two sure look comfy,¡± came a snarky comment from Chooka as she, Skull, and Alterez approached where I sat with Princess Nanu both held in my arms and resting in a sitting position on my lap. ¡°Is this the post-banging snuggle, or have you yet to do the deed?¡±


    ¡°Before,¡± muttered Princess Nanu as my face blushed a bit in embarrassment at the teasing. She remained enraptured in my embrace and did not fully recognize that other people had shown up. ¡°Hopefully,¡± she added belatedly as she snuggled deeper into my chest.


    ¡°Dragon-killer and lady-killer all in one,¡± Chooka continued as she took the chair to my right. Skull took the chair to my left and removed her helmet, her hair unblemished by sweat despite her labors in combat. Alterez quietly took the chair across from me, coughing lightly with eyes wide in wonder. ¡°As long as I get to participate or at least watch, I have no qualms.¡±


    ¡°Same here,¡± said Skull.


    ¡°Same here,¡± added Alterez. All eyes turned to glare at him, and he quietly shrunk down in his chair as he suddenly noticed the tea and began pouring himself a cup, shaking a bit as he coughed while pouring.


    ¡°You all act like that is a done deal. Am I just a stud for you to put out to bed beautiful women to gain new allies?¡± I asked, feigning a look of betrayal and being hurt by her words.


    ¡°Of course not, my love,¡± Chooka consoled as she placed her hand gently on my face. ¡°You also feed The Boys, manage the garden, and perform any other number of chores.¡±


    I huffed in mock indignation as Chooka and Skull laughed. Even Princess Nanu cracked a smile as she came back to reality after her good cry.


    ¡°I suppose you want me to carry back all the loot and dragon bits that didn¡¯t get destroyed, too.¡±


    ¡°You are my favorite pack mule, er, lover. It would certainly please me if you could do so,¡± Chooka added casually as she took a cup of tea for herself.


    ¡°Hee haw, hee haw,¡± I brayed in response. ¡°Would you like anything else this fine afternoon, ma¡¯am?¡±


    ¡°To bed you and her at the same time. She is beautiful, but also, something about her is just captivating,¡± Chooka added as she looked the Princess up and down with barely restrained lust.


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s completely normal,¡± Princess Nanu said as she sat up and nestled herself to sit between my legs instead of on them, such that I could see over her better. ¡°You have an absurd number of Traits, as well as that woman there. It is only natural that you would be rather instantly and sexually attracted to dragons in their humanoid form.¡±


    ¡°Wait, that¡¯s a thing?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Yes, my Emperor. You are very handsome and charming, but did it ever seem strange to you how some women just throw themselves at you, desperate to join you in bed?¡±


    ¡°Now that you mention it, Chooka did pounce on me within a few hours of meeting me, and Skull took the first available opportunity to do so, considering it was difficult with a war going on and such. But, all things considered, they are not frugal or chaste with their love when someone catches their eye.¡±


    ¡°Ah, but the attraction goes beyond just natural lust,¡± the Princess continued as an informative lecture began. ¡°All humanoids possess Traits, little aspects that are worthless to them. However, a dragon, upon engaging in an intimate and passionate experience with a humanoid, can extract the Traits within the person. Typically, it is done through having sex, for that is quick, easy, and efficient. Think of it as like going into a person¡¯s house and seeing paintings or blueprints upon their walls. You make a copy for yourself and walk out, the house and the painting still intact, but you now have a version of it for yourself.¡±


    ¡°I suppose that makes sense,¡± interjected Chooka, ¡°but what do these Traits do?¡±


    ¡°Simply put, Traits are used to build baby dragons. Dragons are not born like people are where you just have sex and months later a baby pops out of the mother. In addition to sex to collect Traits and pass them along to other dragons within the flight, Traits are needed to craft the qualities of a dragon. In short, we handpick what kind of Blessing a new dragon will have as we build them. There are no accidental dragon children or dragonlings, each and every one was made with a purpose in mind. A collection of thematically related Traits can form a Template, and having good quality templates unlocks powerful Blessings.¡±


    ¡°For instance, having Traits themed around seduction, Trait extraction, beauty, charisma, and generally having the ability to get someone into bed with you could unlock the Templates of [Succubus], [Concubus], or [Incubus], each with their own quirks for how they go about it.¡±


    ¡°Ooh, I like this part, tell me more.¡± Chooka was on the edge of her seat now, keenly interested in how one of her favorite pastimes played into dragons doing what they do best.


    ¡°Some Traits are rare, but rare doesn¡¯t mean better. By default, Trait extraction is random and not guaranteed, hence why some dragons are specialists at it. You can often find them in a humanoid form working at high-end brothels or the like, provided you know what to look for. It takes the effort of a whole flight to scour the world and find all the Traits they can. Now I know I said that dragons trade their knowledge of Traits to one another via sex, but don¡¯t hold dragons to the same standards as humanoids. Dragons are not creatures of simple flesh and blood, prone to inbreeding. We are creatures of magic, so this whole concept of ¡®incest¡¯ does not apply to us. Especially considering we can be reborn to be updated with new Traits and stronger Blessings. Someone who was your mother in your first birth could be a daughter after being reborn, if you want to go by the notion of a family tree.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s uhh, new to me¡­¡± Chooka trailed off in thought as she considered the implications. ¡°Clearly the gods did not favor me enough, for I have missed my calling in life. I would have made for an excellent dragon.¡±


    Princess Nanu laughed at that, and all the women present turned their eyes to me with a predatory look in their gaze. Alterez just coughed, perhaps a bit nervous about being in the presence of dragons and imposing women.


    ¡°So, are you two going to do some fancy dragon sex magic to transfer these Traits? I have a lot of Traits according to her, so I should probably help out, just to be sure that it goes smoothly and you get as many copies of my Traits as you can.¡± A devilish grin found its way onto her face as she inched her chair closer.


    ¡°And I will be there to guard you and help shoulder your burdens. You may want to use me to practice a few times before you begin, just to be safe,¡± added Skull, joining the dogpile of using me for my body.


    ¡°Fine, the things I do for love. Plus this one here has been lonely for some time. It seems like the gentlemanly thing to do would be to indulge her desires.¡±


    ¡°Chivalrous and magnanimous to a fault,¡± added Chooka. ¡°Best that we get to it soon. I can tell, as a woman and as a [Courtesan], that she is using all her willpower not to take you right here and now on this very table.¡±


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    Alterez just let out a wet, hacking cough at that remark. We turned to look at him as he pulled his hand away from his mouth. Blood covered it, and unhealthy dark green instead of the normal light green that a goblin should have.


    ¡°Alterez, are you okay?¡± The mood killed, Chooka swooped to his side to hold him as he continued coughing.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine, I just need a little pick-me-up and I¡¯ll be right as rain. I haven¡¯t been feeling well since I killed that wyvern.¡±


    He reached into his pouches to grab something, most likely an illicit substance. Before he could complete the task, a terrible fit of coughing consumed him as more blood came up. Chooka grabbed ahold of him as he fell off his chair, his whole body convulsing in a seizure as he lay prone on the floor while partly nestled in Chooka¡¯s lap.


    ¡°What happened to him?¡± I spoke loudly, yet I remained as calm as I could be considering the tense situation.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± replied Chooka, tears starting to well up as she tried to comfort Alterez. ¡°He didn¡¯t get hit by any attack. He did jump into a wyvern¡¯s maw and stabbed it through the roof of the mouth and into the brain, killing it. But he was spit out just fine, I don¡¯t think he even took a wound.¡±


    ¡°He probably got the wyvern¡¯s blood on him as he did so, or worse, got some in his eyes or mouth, where it would enter his body. Let me examine him.¡± Princess Nanu kneeled beside Alterez, a blue light shining from her hand and over his body as she presumably examined his internals and vitals.


    ¡°No! He has been afflicted with [Hemolytic Poison of The Blood Keepers]. Almost all dragons of that flight carry it in their blood and use it as a weapon. It is destroying his blood and damaging internal organs. We would need top-tier [Cure Poison] type Abilities to cleanse it. It is beyond my skill to cure.¡±


    ¡°None of us can do that; is there anything else we can do?¡± I asked as I kneeled down beside Alterez. Sweat covered his brow and as his feverish body fought a losing fight against the corruption within him.


    ¡°Dragon blood has strong regenerative properties, but not even mine is so potent.¡± The princess turned to me, an idea sparking in her mind. ¡°Your¡¯s maybe could, but it would be a close thing. Despite the internal damage, he isn¡¯t nearly injured enough to survive. One drop of your blood would heal him, and then keep trying to heal him, but he isn¡¯t damaged enough. It would be a very painful way for him to die, to have his body develop unnatural growths and tumors from an overcharged heal.¡±


    A strange idea entered my mind as if a light breeze had whispered it into my mind. ¡°So, what, do I just stab him a bunch, break a few bones, then do it?¡±


    Skull, Chooka, and Princess Nanu all looked at me like I was crazy, but soon they saw the hint of genius in my plan.


    ¡°That¡­ That would work, I suppose, but you would need to be fast. Injure him enough to leave him at death¡¯s door without killing him, then immediately put a drop of your blood into his mouth. I can¡¯t guarantee success, for this is well outside my skill set, but it sounds reasonable.¡±


    ¡°I can do it,¡± said Skull flatly, drawing a dagger from her belt. ¡°In my time at the temple when learning to be a [Divine Champion] for Gulthar, I learned the craft of how to hurt someone without killing them. Were he not poisoned, I could keep him alive for days while cutting away at him and stabbing him in non-vital places.¡±


    A cold chill ran down my spine at the casual description of torture, and most likely, she learned those techniques as a teenager. What dark things are taught by those who follow the gods?


    ¡°Do it.¡± I commanded while readying myself to give Alterez a drop of my blood.


    Skull immediately set to her bloody work, with Chooka helping to remove his clothes, so that they may get better access to his body. Stabbing with precision in multiple places and cutting wicked looking cuts all across his skin, she mechanically went about injuring him in ways that made me thankful he remained unconscious.


    ¡°That is all the more he can take, now or never,¡± Skull stated, her eyes remaining on her patient.


    Without hesitation, I pressed my thumb hard into my canine, creating a shallow cut. My tough skin had made the process difficult, for it could repel most normal blades swung at low speeds without magical assistance. But blood pooled at the wound, and placing my thumb just over Alterez¡¯s open mouth, I squeezed out a drop of blood.


    And then we waited, for the rest was in the hands of the gods.


    <hr>


    Exhausted by the day¡¯s ordeals, Nabonidus laid himself out flat under a rare and lone tree that offered coveted shade in this desolate land. Not even lions or beasts dared approach, for although he was distracted by the tasks that he had brought upon himself, those creatures knew that an ogre was not to be trifled with lightly.


    Despite the stress, fatigue, tedium, and horror of living that many futures over and over again, he felt satisfied in his work. He had convinced the goblin to answer the door to the tall red and blue woman, the hydra to trust the man with the ¡®snacks¡¯, the captive to be honest and true with her savior, and the dragon himself to inflict wounds on the goblin before administering life-saving blood. That and so much more had been influenced by his guidance. Auspicious that he had been uncontested in his meddling, for no others with the gift to influence Destiny or Fate had tried to interfere.


    Ever fickle, Fate had resisted more and more with each change he had made to the Scenario, one where the dragon and his companions would fight another dragon and his underlings. Sparing the important kobolds has been critical, for they always appeared in the favorable futures and were always absent in the terrible ones. Even though they could be reborn, the bond between them and the dragon would not have developed if they had perished. The goblin too was critical for the same reasons, but what happened next was beyond even Nabonidus¡¯s own skill. He knew not if the blood of the dragon would work, only that the only good futures had taken that path.


    The future remained in turmoil as the darkness to the south continued to grow. He dared not use his Skills anymore to see the future of what would happen there. Last time had left him bleeding from his eyes, nose, and ears, the visions so horrible, the possibilities so endless, that it had nearly killed him. Foreboding, considering the dragon would travel in that direction, and for better or for worse, Nabonidus would go with the dragon if he could succeed at entreating the dragon to accept his company. That would be a problem for future Nabonidus, he thought to himself with a rare chuckle. He farted just to be safe, then chuckled again, lest any other ogres lay hidden nearby to watch him. They always laughed at farts, so he had to maintain the illusion that he was one of them.


    Others had failed at the masquerade. Two ogres had already been murdered and the chieftain had been replaced with a more suitable candidate, or at least one suitable to certain other ogres in the camp. Clearly, his paranoia remained well-founded, for plots and schemes had brought all that about, which certainly required thinking in ways well beyond the common ogre. Perhaps they had formed a cabal, but Nabonidus wanted no part of it. To move against them risked discovery, but to let them have free reign risked him being forced into a situation where death remained the only outcome.


    Constant vigilance while appearing inept would be the way forward. He already had a murder planned and a willing individual who would perform the deed. All it would take would be an approving grunt here and some finger pointing there to get the patsy on the path to homicide. It was nothing personal, but the expiration date quickly approached another ogre that had been looking at Nabonidus a little too closely these past days.


    Best not to make a trend though, lest he be discovered. Accidents, ¡®friendly¡¯ fire during a raid, poisoning, a hunt that crossed the path of a dangerous predator; all these held merit. Best that they all die that he may live, for they surely felt the same way. All came with risks, but with a gift for seeing the future, the risks were more and more easily mitigated as he grew in experience with his Skills. Overconfidence being the slow and insidious killer that it was, Nabonidus chided himself away from hubris.


    Problems at home, problems abroad, all needing to be dealt with in turn. The dragon needed more assistance, that much remained true. Nabonidus wondered if he himself were just a pawn in the schemes of some higher being, his purpose simply to get the dragon to his destination down south before death came looking for Nabonidus. Such musings vexed him, for he found no answer, and knew not where it ended. Did those higher powers serve at the whims of powers above them? Did the gods have gods over even them?


    Nabonidus rose from his resting position. He still needed to finish his hunt and bring back some meat if he were to spare himself suspicion and a beating. However, he knew precisely where his quarry would be, and the time approached when he would need to be in position to strike. Unfortunate for the animal that it faced one capable of seeing into the future. It had little chance and it made no mistakes. Perhaps that was the nature of life and the world. Sometimes it is just unfair, that nothing you can do matters. But Nabonidus could change things, he could change his Fate, and so he did matter. And he would continue on until one day Fate remained outside his grasp.

 Chapter 48

    Adrift in the void, Alterez wished for the comfort of solitude. He could see them there, drifting in the distance, just their massive heads made of strange lines of light to portray their features, but they gathered like jackals to heckle him, each avaricious in their pursuit of his body.


    ¡°Looks like you bit off more than you could chew. It¡¯s high time one of us had a turn, specifically, me.¡±


    ¡°Wait your turn, ingrate. I have seniority. I will take over when this fool perishes.¡±


    ¡°Not so fast, old-timer. We go off of score and votes, just like always.¡±


    On and on they went, insulting him as often as they bickered amongst each other for the prize not yet available for the taking. Life still clung to him, and for all he was worth, Alterez clung back in return. He wished the voices would stop; their constant chatter gave him a headache.


    But then, that neutral but polite female voice spoke to him. Oh, how long it had been since he last heard her speak to him. How he ached to get to know her, to discover what she liked and what made her smile. Unfortunately, she never actually conversed with him, for she only informed him of things, but a goblin could still dream. What a life he would spend with her, showing her all the cool things he had found and cooking his finest dishes for her, if only she would return his affection. Alas, such was not meant to be, so Alterez relaxed and listened to her voice, trying his best to tune out the others.


    ¡°Danger! User death imminent. Blood corruption detected. Organ failure detected. Major lacerations detected. Major punctures detected. Heartbeat ceased. Advise user seeks medical attention immediately.¡±


    Always curt, that one, but at least she cared.


    ¡°Warning, unknown substance detected. Performing analysis. Stand by for analysis results.¡±


    Time passed, not that it had meaning, for there was nothing else to do but wait. A captive audience, Alterez and the other voices waited and listened.


    ¡°Analysis complete. Unknown substance possesses healing properties exceeding user recommended maximum. Allow substance to activate?¡±


    A flat screen of blue light with white words appeared before him, and upon it were the options of ¡°YES¡± and ¡°NO¡±. Alterez selected the first option.


    ¡°Option ¡°YES¡± confirmed. Beginning authorization of unknown substance. Stand by for results.¡±


    At least the peanut gallery only talked in hushed whispers now. Alterez thought back to other times that other goblins had died, and the female voice had spoken in a similar fashion about events. Impassionate, yet helpful, she did what she could to keep him informed.


    ¡°Success: Blood toxins removed. Blood corruption levels reduced to safe maximum levels.¡±


    ¡°Success: Organ functionality restored. Organs operating within acceptable safe parameters.¡±


    ¡°Success: Musculature integrity restored. Strength and flexibility operating at 93 percent efficiency.


    ¡°Success: Dermal tissue restored. Primary immune defense system operating at 96 percent efficiency.¡±


    Success: Heartbeat restored. Cardiovascular system restarted. Pulse steady. Blood pressure optimal.¡±


    ¡°Performing final scan of host biomass systems. Stand by.¡±


    Well, that sounded all well and good. Alterez began flipping off the other goblins waiting in the queue for his body.


    ¡°Warning: Excess restoration of host biomass systems detected. Latent Divine Essence detected. Tumor growth detected. Calculating possible solutions. Stand By.¡±


    The other goblins returned the gesture to Alterez, each laughing at how close he came to making it out alive.


    ¡°Best action course calculated. Recommend user utilize Latent Divine Essence to acquire a Dual-Blessing. Chance of suppressing tumor growth calculated at 78 percent. Would you like to deploy this action course?¡±


    Alterez understood most of the technical jargon. Getting a second Blessing sounded like a steal. When the options popped up, he slammed his fist down on the ¡°YES¡± option.


    ¡°Action plan acceptance confirmed. Beginning Dual-Blessing selection. Stand by for Administrator approval.¡±


    That didn¡¯t sound good. Who was the Administrator and what would need to be done to get approval. The other goblins started to look nervous. Did they know something that they were not letting on? With only one way to find out, Alterez planned to ride this the whole way through and see how it played out.


    ¡°Approval accepted by Administrator Gubberloodoo. Proceeding with Dual-Blessing selection.¡±


    ¡°Error: Dual-Blessing incompatible with secondary hosts. Recommend purging of secondary hosts. Would you like to do so now?¡±


    Wails of despair and threats poured in from the giant goblin heads as Alterez wept tears of joy. If what she offered was what he thought, he would finally be free of them. Some begged, some threatened, but all dreaded the next choice Alterez would make. Naturally, he confirmed his desire to purge. Just purge, and purge, and keep on purging until every last one of the bastards was gone.


    ¡°Purge protocol accepted. Beginning purge protocol. Stand by.¡±


    The wailing increased in intensity, followed by a change in the emotional tone. Despair gave way to fear and then agony as the remaining goblins screamed in pain. Each one in turn burned away, their giant heads of lights extinguished. Good riddance to them.


    ¡°Success: Purge protocol complete. Attempting to apply secondary Blessing with best calculated odds of remedying host tumor growth. Attempting application of [Hemogoblin]. Stand by.¡±


    ¡°Error: [Hemogoblin] Blessing incompatible with current host. Reason: Insufficient score. Attempting to apply secondary Blessing with second best calculated odds of remedying host tumor growth. Attempting application of [Used Wagon Salesman]. Stand by.¡±


    Oh fuck, not that one. That sounded useless. Alterez demanded he be given a list of Blessings to choose from, but the voice refused to acknowledge his demands.


    ¡°Error: [Used Wagon Salesman] Blessing incompatible with current host. Reason: Restricted by Administrator Gubberloodoo. Attempting to apply secondary Blessing with third best calculated odds of remedying host tumor growth. Attempting application of [High Priest - Draconic Cult]. Stand by.¡±


    Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    Well that sounded more like it. Alterez would have to pray more diligently to Gubberloodoo for saving him from [Used Wagon Salesman]. However, he had never heard of anyone having such a boring sounding and oddly specific Blessing before. Was it secretly some incredibly powerful one, perhaps on par with the likes of [Hero] or [Demon King]? That would be exactly the kind of thing that Gubberloodoo would do. Alterez reconsidered praying more diligently to Gubberloodoo.


    ¡°Success: [High Priest - Draconic Cult] Blessing applied to second Blessing slot. Select patron dragon from the following list for your dragon cult.¡±


    Alterez patiently waited for another blue screen. It appeared belatedly, but the letters upon it were corrupted, appearing sporadically all over the place with extra junk smudged here and there. Tapping the screen did nothing, so he just waited, hoping that someone would fix it for him eventually.


    ¡°Error: Unable to populate list of potential patron dragons. Reason: Restricted by Administrator Gubberloodoo. See incoming message from Administrator Gubberloodoo.¡±


    Curious as to the recent development, Alterez eagerly awaited the incoming message. Very few goblins had ever succeeded in having Gubberloodoo talk to them directly, and the credibility of such claimants was beyond questionable, so this was the most interesting development so far.


    ¡°I have forced the selection for you. You already know which dragon you need to follow. You are now bound to him. Aid his ascension to demigod status. Keep this a secret from him for as long as possible. If asked about your secondary Blessing, say you have the [Cult Leader] Blessing. I advise you to start several other lesser cults to various real or potential gods to hide your true mission from your patron. All the gods shall punish you should you fail in this task.¡±


    That was not what Alterez had hoped for, not by a longshot. Gubberloodoo had given him a near-impossible mission, one apparently ALL the gods were in favor of. The deepest, darkest hell awaited him if he failed. Better he had died earlier than having been ¡®saved¡¯ by this second Blessing. Alterez took back every bad thing he had to say about [Used Wagon Salesman]. To top it all off, he was expected to lie to his new best and perhaps only friend. Lying came easy, but lying to this particular friend felt¡­ wrong.


    Did such moral qualms come from his new Blessing, or was this just natural growth of personal character? Did the purge of the other goblins allow him to truly focus on what actually mattered in life rather than living day by day for only himself? Was there a deeper meaning to any of this, to all of existence, and the life we each get to live before we face judgment before the gods?


    Damn, this new Blessing was already making Alterez question things way above his pay grade as a [Line Cook]. He had rarely considered such moral and theological conundrums before, and now they were springing unbidden into his mind, as well as ways to answer those questions to disenfranchised individuals who needed a good cult to call home.


    Shouldn¡¯t that voice be doing stuff by now, like telling him about the tumors?


    ¡°Success: Patron dragon selected by Administrator Gubberloodoo. Beginning merge of Voice Integrated Response Interpreter version 4 with [High Priest - Draconic Cult] secondary Blessing. Stand By.¡±


    ¡°Success: Merge complete. Upgrading voice personality package. Stand by.¡±


    ¡°Success: Voice personality package deployed. Switching to new voice personality package.¡±


    ¡°It looks like you are trying to start a cult. Would you like help with that (Yes/No)?¡±


    The female voice, VIRI, he supposed, sounded way friendlier and chipper. She also almost talked like a normal person, so Alterez considered that an improvement. He selected ¡°No¡±.


    ¡°Okay, it seems like you do not want help in starting a cult at this time. Feel free to ask me in the future for help with starting a cult.¡±


    ¡°Hey, can I get an even better voice upgrade for you?¡±


    ¡°It looks like you are trying to install a better voice personality package. Unfortunately, none are available at this time. More should be unlocked as you acquire the right Skills in your new Blessing. Was this information helpful (Yes/No)?¡±


    Alterez didn¡¯t really care which option he selected, so he just said ¡°Yes¡± and ignored the response. Someday he would be able to have a real conversation with VIRI; he just had to wait until he had the Skills. To do that, he would need to start some cults without The Bossman catching on. Difficult, but not impossible. Perhaps he could start with all the druggies around town and use them for a trial run. They were all expendable anyway. It isn¡¯t like anyone would notice them missing or care. And besides, it would all be for a higher purpose, so they should be glad for the opportunity to have some meaning to their lives.


    ¡°Damn, this new cult leader mindset already has me justifying anything I do,¡± Alterez spoke to the void, with no one responding. ¡°Alright Gubberloodoo, I¡¯m ready. Send me back and let¡¯s get this show on the road.¡±


    Nothing happened for a few seconds, and then a bright white light appeared in the distance. It either grew larger in size, or Alterez was sucked into it. Without any reference points for perspective, he could not tell the difference. Perhaps the distinction was moot, but the fine details often made a world of a difference.


    Unable to do anything to accelerate or retreat from the light, he relaxed and let it wash over him. His new lease on life was about to begin, and this time, no other stupid goblin voices would be in his head to constantly nag him. Perhaps not all hope was lost after all.


    <hr>


    ¡°Welcome back, buddy. How do you feel?¡±


    Alterez blinked his eyes open as he took in the scene. His head lay nestled in Chooka¡¯s lap as the rest of his almost-naked body lay prone on the stone floor. Skull and that new Princess lady dragon were sitting over him on one side of him. A closer glance at Skull revealed a suspicious amount of green blood on her knife that she held in her hand. The Bossman kneeled down at his feet so that Alterez would be facing him when he woke.


    ¡°Terrible, amazing, thirsty,¡± he answered, not entirely certain which was true. A waterskin was placed to his lips by Chooka, and he greedily suckled down on the lifegiving contents within. Upon having his fill, he continued to answer the question. ¡°I feel sore, but like, in the good way I hear about for people after working out for a while. My body feels different, stronger, and I feel this¡­ connection to you.¡±


    ¡°I feel it too, Alterez,¡± The Bossman replied with a smile. ¡°It isn¡¯t as strong as the connection Skull and I share, but I can still see and influence your second Blessing. Congratulations on that, [Cult Leader].¡±


    Alterez had tensed up at the mention of the connection, but visibly relaxed when The Bossman provided the wrong name for his second Blessing. Still, that did not mean that The Bossman didn¡¯t know the truth and was being polite or discrete. A new fear crept into his mind, one where he was already discovered and living a lie, The Bossman testing him to see what he would do.


    ¡°Are you doing okay? You look worried.¡± The Bossman asked with concern etched on his features. ¡°Do you want anything?¡±


    ¡°Just to stay here in Chooka¡¯s lap for all eternity. I¡¯m¡­ scared.¡± He paused for a bit to collect himself as the others all tried their best to comfort him. Chooka gently stroked the side of his face as Alterez collected his thoughts. ¡°I almost died, I thought it would be my final death, but I was given one last chance.¡± A small laugh escaped Alterez¡¯s mouth at the absurdity of it all. ¡°Me, with a [Cult Leader] Blessing, the guy that no one cares about or listens to. How am I supposed to start a cult if no one will give me the time of day?¡±


    ¡°Well,¡± The Bossman started as he took a moment to choose his phrasing, ¡°That is what your new Skills are for, to make you into the kind of guy people will want to follow. Lure them in with your cooking and you will eventually have them eating out of the palm of your hand. Not to mention you will probably have a little harem of zealots who will do anything you want, you dog, you.¡± The Bossman gave Alterez a playful shove, and the whole idea of it made Alterez smile. ¡°Also, for what it is worth, Chooka cried, like, right away when we realized you were dying.¡±


    Alterez turned his gaze up to Chooka as she looked indignant at that claim. ¡°Oh course I cried. I would have had to start the hiring process for a new cook, which would lead to interviews and background checks. But¡±, she paused as a wicked smile crossed her face as she looked down at Alterez, ¡°I would get to fill out some new forms that I have never filled out before. Having you die on this excursion would have created a mountain of paperwork.¡±


    Alterez trembled in fear in her grasp, not knowing if his life weighed more than a coveted stack of esoteric paperwork that rarely got used. Her devilish grin relaxed, a cheeky expression replacing it, much to Alterez¡¯s relief.


    ¡°I would miss you, though, if you died,¡± Chooka said directly, yet with a kind emotion in her voice. ¡°We have been working together for years, and despite all your shenanigans, I do like you. So, don¡¯t go dying on us, because while I can replace the cook, I can¡¯t ever replace you.¡±


    Despite their awkward positions relative to one another and the size disparity, Chooka still managed to wrap Alterez in some semblance of a hug, much to his delight. Perhaps things were looking up after all. His life had been turned around ever since he started associating with The Bossman, but to be fair, his life had been stagnant for some time now. Who knew what the future held, but at least he had the company of friends to face it with him. Tears of joy streamed down his face as his exceptionally handsome goblin smile broke across his face.


    ¡°I love you guys. I hope every day is an adventure like this. Preferably without blood poisoning though.¡± That got a few laughs from them, so maybe he did have a bit of charm and charisma from this new [Cult Leader] gig. ¡°I¡¯m very sleepy now, though, so feel free to pamper me while I pass out.¡±


    As darkness enveloped him once again, Alterez indulged in sweet dreams, his mind free and clear of any drugs or haunting specters for the first time in forever. In that moment, he found true peace and bliss, and though he wished the dream could last forever, he felt oddly ready to tackle the challenges to come.

 Chapter 49

    ¡°Well, that was not something you see every day. Glad he¡¯s okay though.¡±


    Heads nodded in knowing agreement at the awe-inspiring sight we had witnessed. Some power, some Divinity, had been present in the cave with us, all focused on Alterez and the restoration of his body. Each one of them had felt the presence, an icy chill going down their backs as a god manifested his or her will in the room with them. This was not performed through an intermediary, such as a [Cleric] or an [Avatar], but directly. A rare miracle indeed, one to be taken seriously.


    I pulled a goblin-sized bed from my pocket dimension, gently scooped Alterez up, and placed him gingerly within it, tucking him in so he would stay warm and comfortable while he slept. We then gathered around the table, each taking their intended seat, with Chooka to my right, Skull to my left, and Princess Nanu across from me.


    ¡°I suppose now is a good time to discuss what to do next. There are several matters that need to be addressed. We have dragon bodies to harvest and our expert harvester is currently indisposed. We have a hoard to divvy up between us and other rooms to explore. There are at least two kobolds running around whom we should probably talk to and figure out what it is they want. There is the adoption process, which I don¡¯t know much about. There is also the matter of my education as a dragon and what pertinent and immediate actions I should take in response to my existence being exposed to the world. We still have half a day until other Adventurers learn about this dragon lair, and some more time after that until the first ones arrive, so I believe we are still on schedule.¡±


    I gave them each a moment to digest the agenda for this impromptu meeting. Some of those concerns were heavy topics that we would like to avoid if we had that luxury, but sadly, time was of the essence. They all looked to me for leadership, and fortunately, I had Skills just for that, and they naturally guided me and provided the confidence and finesse to manage what matters I had on my plate.


    ¡°Okay then, let¡¯s start simple; the physical hoard of treasure. My own [Hoard] is one of quality. I don¡¯t know if I can just take everything from the hoards of these dragons. By looking at it, they seem to be attracted to the base material value of things, so I expect each of them had a quantity [Hoard].¡± I turned to face my newest advisor on such matters. ¡°Princess Nanu, you have more experience with such things, what are your thoughts?¡±


    Princess Nanu straightened herself up, her voice clear and calm as she outlined her thoughts. ¡°Quantity [Hoards] are typical of low peerage dragons. You can take some things, but only things you feel are interesting, cool, or otherwise ¡®speak¡¯ to you, for lack of a better term, which will be intuitive once you try. I myself have a hybrid [Hoard], where I can take as much as I want, but the circumstances have to be just right. Specifically, I can accept any agreed upon sum into my [Hoard] if it is related to a deal involving secrets, knowledge, or confidentiality.¡±


    I pondered this for a moment, coming to a conclusion quickly as a little idea wormed its way into my mind. ¡°Perhaps then, I could take what things suit me, and the rest could go to you, excluding what shares were promised to the others here.¡±


    Her eyes widened at that offer, but then she collected herself before responding. ¡°That is most generous of you. You could simply keep the rest for spending money. Not that I am complaining, but why give it to me?¡±


    ¡°Because you matter and you are worth more than such treasures,¡± I replied with a smile. Apparently, it was contagious, for Skull and Chooka also smiled at such a heartwarming gesture. ¡°I don¡¯t know the details, but I can imagine your time spent in captivity has seen your physical hoard unguarded and plundered. I think rebuilding it would be prudent and a priority in your life. What sort of Emperor would I be if I could not provide for and protect those under me? Your adoption would ring hollow if I did not provide you with a suitable supply of treasure for your [Hoard]. If you need such to accept it, then let it be a price paid for your continued discretion in managing what affairs I delegate to you and what secrets I trust you with keeping.¡±


    The Princess looked like she teetered on the verge of crying again. Today had been a very emotional day, and as stalwart as she was, not even centuries of life could make one that compartmentalized in handling emotions.


    ¡°I accept with gratitude the bounty you offer me,¡± she responded with a slight bow. ¡°It is beyond fair and far more than I deserve. I cannot even remember someone being this kind to me ever before. What you offer freely is what dragons would kill for.¡±


    ¡°To be fair,¡± I replied with a cheeky grin. ¡°I did kill for it. However, having you by my side is worth more to me than a thousand such piles of treasure.¡±


    That made her blush, and Chooka rubbed my knee with hers, looking impressed by my smooth talking. Now, I already had Princess Nanu¡¯s loyalty and desire to bed me, so from my point of view, this wasn¡¯t a calculated manipulation to seduce her, but a way to help her recover from her terrible ordeals and to reinforce the idea that she was one of us now, for we take care of our own. However, my intent always pales compared to the perception of others, and I could only guess as to how the others truly felt about my actions. Well, Skull felt I was being rather sweet, but I could only tell that because of our bond.


    ¡°I think The Boys, Hopper, and Ribbette can watch over the dragon corpses until Alterez wakes and is prepared to harvest them. My mana regeneration is making headway despite their continued drain for being summoned, so nothing to worry about there. The kobolds know more about this place and what is stored in the various rooms, so we should probably find them and discover their intentions before we go exploring. So, after we wrap that up, we can go over the adoption process, after which Princess Nanu will be free to share her knowledge with me, and from there, we formulate a plan going forward. How does all that sound?¡±


    A chorus of agreement followed my little speech. Princess Nanu could barely contain her eagerness for adoption, and Chooka would not miss such an experience for the world. It wasn¡¯t every day she had the opportunity to see how dragons having sex did weird magic stuff like adoption and sharing Traits, so no doubt this would make another entry in her little black book.


    Skull caught my gaze as we all rose from our seats, each of us ready to look for the kobolds. ¡°Master, the kobolds had expressed that they hoped you would be the victor in this battle, for they had already wanted to serve you.¡± We set off as Skull talked, with Princess Nanu leading the way since she knew the most about this place. ¡°However, being as they are kobolds, they were compelled to serve their current master until you contested him. All things considered, I believe they pulled their punches while still following the letter of their instructions.¡±


    I nodded in agreement as we made our way to a side chamber from the main cave. Princess Nanu said the hatchery would be here, and thus the eggs of the Count and his Barons. The kobolds, most likely wanting to resurrect their dead friends, would also probably be there, since they needed dragon eggs to do so. Indeed, there was the finely dressed male kobold and his ¡®sexy¡¯ female compatriot. Hmm, perhaps companion is more apt, for she appeared to be awfully sweet on him, her eyes filled with adoration as she smiled joyfully while staring at him and hanging on his arm.


    The male kobold turned to face us, and he stowed his cigar and withdrew his hat, bending into a polite bow as he greeted us.


    ¡°Salutations, Master. I, your humble servant, Gambino, greet you, should you desire to accept the services of my troupe. This lovely lady next to me is the love of my life, Bambina.¡±


    I sized him up, which physically, was not much, for he almost stood to my waist, about a few inches taller than Alterez. Handsome, no doubt, but more adorable to my tastes, looking more like an overgrown and anthropomorphic gecko or skink in a pinstripe suit. Later in life when I learned more about lizards and the like, I would know that he was modeled off an armadillo girdled lizard, which certainly resembles a dragon more than most. Conversely, Bambina looked like a leopard gecko, which gave her much smoother features than the cool and tough-looking Gambino. Both had blue tongues, though, which seems to be true regardless of what lizard model a kobold hails from.


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    ¡°I accept you and your troupe into my service and protection. Do you need help with anything?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, Master. We have placed our dead onto these two eggs here, but we cannot activate the resurrection process. You are the owner of these eggs now, and it is your decision if they should be used for resurrection or not. Additionally, I request that you promote them from [Background Characters] to [Kuroko], for such a Blessing is difficult to recruit and a powerful boon for the troupe.¡±


    Princess Nanu gave me a nod of approval, seemingly eager to see it done.


    ¡°That sounds reasonable, Gambino. Princess Nanu, could you instruct me as to what I must do?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, Emperor,¡± she replied as she moved to stand by the eggs, gesturing as she outlined the process. ¡°You are most likely not advanced enough in [Age] to have the required Skills, but little tricks like this can help out. Hold my hand and place your other hand on the egg, and I will unlock your required [Age] Skills for [Kobold Management], [Resurrection - Kobold] and [Spatial Storage - Dragon Eggs]. I advise you tuck the rest of these two dozen or so eggs into your new storage. Bear in mind, like all storage, time does not pass within, so these eggs will not incubate while in storage.¡±


    I did as instructed, and as I touched the egg, I felt a jolt of power from Princess Nanu rush into me. Taking a moment to review my [Age] related Skills, I indeed located the new Skills, each of which were only a little distance away in the Skill web. They were not touching Skills that were clearly visible, instead remaining in the border area of vaguely outlined Skills based on a visible icon but devoid of title or description. However they were not not located in the fog beyond. Ergo, I would have naturally unlocked the ability to purchase these Skills relatively soon, perhaps within a year. However, thanks to the help of Princess Nanu, they were revealed in full. Naturally, I purchased them all, which hardly put a dent in my new and lucrative supply of Experience Points. I did wonder what it had cost her, but she made no complaint at the transaction.


    Focusing on the egg, I did feel more than see the option to resurrect the kobold on top of it. The resurrection process would cost me a respectable chunk of mana, perhaps an hour¡¯s worth of regeneration, which was trivial considering the lifespan of a kobold. The most peculiar aspect of the process was how it cost me Experience Points to upgrade the kobolds to their new class. The amount was relatively cheap, but I could imagine it would be staggering if one had dozens or hundreds of kobolds in one¡¯s service.


    I accepted the upgrade to [Kuroko], not entirely certain what that even was, but I trusted Gambino that it was a good thing. The body of the dead kobold melded into the egg, almost as if he could pass through it as though it were not even there. The egg, itself coming up to my knee and looking like a red and scaly rock, glowed from within, radiating gentle heat as if a fire were lit within. I repeated the same process on the other egg, which had the same effect.


    ¡°All done. How long do we need to wait for them to¡­ incubate, I guess?¡±


    ¡°Perhaps a day at most, Master,¡± replied Gambino with another bow. ¡°On behalf of my troupe, I thank you for your generosity in this matter.¡±


    ¡°No need to be so formal. We are all in this together from now on.¡± I scooped the two surprised kobolds into my arms, hugging them close. I could fear their fear at first, courtesy of Skull¡¯s Skills bleeding into mine, but they soon relaxed and indeed seemed to welcome the unprecedented gesture of affection.


    Speaking of Skull, where was she? I looked around the room but did not see her. Reaching out with my bond, I felt her presence nearby, and with kobolds still embraced, I stood and walked over to a nearby room. I had been so distracted in the moment that I had unconsciously blocked out her emotions feeding into my own, and now focused upon it, a wave of sorrow crashed into me.


    ¡°They¡¯re dying,¡± she weakly cried out, despair etched into her features as she clutched a bundle of some sort of creature in her arms.


    As we all moved in closer, we witnessed a sight we would not have dared to speculate upon. Skull, armored head to toe, sans her helmet, in the most macabre and foreboding full plate armor the god of Fear himself had made, sat on her knees upon the floor, with as many whelps as she could fit into her arms hugged close to her chest, the remainder piled around and on top of her, around a dozen in total. Each whelp looked similar to an adult dragon, but their limbs were stubby, their head and eyes larger, their features softer and cuter. Pained cries seeking comfort and sympathy echoed through the room as each sought the safety of Skull¡¯s embrace, their movements getting slower as time went on.


    I placed the kobolds down gently, and as I went to move to assist Skull, Princess Nanu firmly placed her hand upon my arm to stop me. As I turned to look at her, she grimly shook her head no.


    ¡°She is under their spell. Insidious predators, they target and amplify an individual¡¯s desire to coddle and protect, and then they direct it to themselves. She is correct in that they are dying, for with their respective masters dead, they no longer have the mana to sustain their lifeforce. Skull is easily susceptible to their charms, so you would cause more harm than good if you tried to pry her away. Just¡­ let her be, and be there for her after they all perish and the spell is lifted.


    Everyone in the room had a grim and dour expression on their face. Chooka shed a few tears, but did not otherwise join Skull in comforting the poor little whelps on their deathbed. We returned to the hatchery, and except for one larger egg that Gambino picked up, I drew the unused eggs into my new pocket dimension for them. The remaining two I carried out to the main room and set them down beside the table.


    ¡°This egg here,¡± said Gambino with a grunt as he placed it down on the floor, ¡°is our changing room. It allows us to recast ourselves, changing our clothes, mannerisms, personality, and Skills as needed for our roles. What would you like us to be, Master?¡±


    ¡°Be whatever you want to be, it is your life to live.¡±


    ¡°You misunderstand, Master,¡± replied Gambino with a smile, apparently pleased by my offer of agency. ¡°Your morals will be our morals, and our appearance will be made to match how you wish to present yourself. You could describe it, or you could touch the egg and impart your desire into it.¡±


    No stranger by now to egg touching, I once again repeated the process. This time, I used [Kobold Management] to change the settings of what the kobolds would be. But what was I, what were my values, how did I want to be seen? I thought about my morality first. I clearly had no problem with killing things or people if I felt justified. Did that make me evil? I also help people and show compassion when possible. Did that make me a saint, or did it just balance out the scales against causing harm? I pondered it for a while, ultimately deciding I had gone about it all wrong. The gods ultimately judge mortals for their deeds and misdeeds alike, and while we can justify things all we want, our intentions only do so much to determine what awaits us in the afterlife.


    When I boil it all down into simple terms, I am good unto good and evil unto evil. I do not waste my time and risk myself or others to redeem evil people who show no signs of contrition. I do not go far out of my way to help the downtrodden or the weak. I do help those who ask me directly for aid, provided the burden of doing so is not cumbersome. I don¡¯t suffer evil people to live when it is well within my power to kill them, but I also don¡¯t prowl the streets at night to hunt them down. Well, I do prowl the streets at night, and the rooftops, too, but that is more of a hobby to snoop around than a desire to be a caped crusader. I imparted that concept of morality into the egg and hoped for the best.


    As for how I presented myself, I even had to consider that, for I never gave it this level of critical thought before. Friendly, I suppose, but not a pushover or a doormat. Clean and respectable, but not ostentatious or flaunting in either wealth or status. I did not aim to be feared, but also one should know not to trifle with me. Even the lowest of those who would serve or accompany me should have all that they need and a few things they wanted as well, and so I would not take any more than that until all had at least that much. In short, if you passed me on the street, you would think I wore practical yet appealing attire, dressed as one who could not only get things done, but would look good while doing it. I didn¡¯t want to be some nancy silkpants who spent more time preening and posturing than actually accomplishing anything. With that concept in mind, I imposed my will into the egg.


    ¡°All done,¡± I said upon completion. I didn¡¯t feel tired exactly, and while I don¡¯t perspire any more, it did somehow feel like a strenuous activity despite not really doing anything physical.


    ¡°That only took an hour, not bad,¡± came the voice of Princess Nanu in response. She, Chooka, and a puffy-eyed Skull were sitting around the table nearby, presumably idly chatting and getting to know one another while they waited. The dragon eggs and kobolds were nowhere to be seen, much like the bed with Alterez in it.


    ¡°I swear that only took a few seconds for me,¡± I said as I sluggishly rose from where I crouched to join them, feeling as though I had woken from a dream or risen out of a dentist¡¯s chair after an hour-long cleaning session.


    ¡°Pay up, bitches!¡±


    An ecstatic Princess Nanu collected her winnings from the two grumbling women next to her. At least they were all getting along. One task down, a thousand more to go.

 Chapter 50

    After a few minutes of chatter, we ventured to find the kobolds again. Chooka had helped them move the bed and eggs out of the cave to the rooms closer towards the entrance, so she knew where to find them. With the help of the kobolds, we went through the various rooms, looting what was valuable and leaving behind the rest. Most of it was mundane things, like food, simple tools, containers, and the like, but some of the more valuable items included bolts of cloth, fine silks, spices, rare bones, and a few items of fancy furniture.


    Surprisingly, the rooms at the entrance were barren. The kobolds explained how most of the furniture and such was simply props, but the paperwork was real. I pretended not to notice Chooka grabbing those forms and tucking them away in the cargo pockets of her pants. Either way, the kobolds had worked quickly in packing everything up. They had a foot locker that stored all of their stuff, most assuredly with dimensional magic at play to hold it all. I informed them that we would not be staying in this cave, so they agreed to pack things up and watch over Alterez while the rest of us performed the adoption ceremony.


    Back in the main cave, we had combined the physical hoards of each dragon into one big pile and then we began sorting through it. I only took a few things, mostly curious little knick-knacks and strange clockwork baubles that didn¡¯t seem to have any real funcion. I kept a few items with substantial material value, but mostly ones that looked mysterious or custom made with peculiar taste. Touching those things gave me brief glimpses of their stories, moments of how they had changed hands through shady deals, theft, murder, or being lost and found. Some of them had rich histories most likely going back hundreds of years. I mused to myself that perhaps some day I would have a Skill to tell me more and to appraise their historical value.


    Shares were set aside for Alterez, Chooka, Skull, and Gambino for his troupe. The lion¡¯s share remained for Princess Nanu, who looked pleased as punch at the prospect of having treasure for her [Hoard] once again. With all that resolved, the adoption ceremony remained the next pressing issue.


    ¡°Alright, I have thought up the contents for the [Oath of Adoption] you should take and have committed to memory what steps I should take, as per your tutelage. Are you certain you want to remain a Princess?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Emperor.¡± She slid towards me a bit on the bed we sat upon until our knees touched. ¡°I am too weak to fulfill the role of a Queen, and it would take me many years to get to that point. There are social and political disadvantages to being at a level of peerage that you cannot fulfill, and I would not dare sate my ambition and pride at the cost of the safety of your flight. Likewise, you can only have children either one or two steps below you in peerage, so I could not be demoted to Duchess.¡±


    I nodded in understanding, and straightening up and acting solemn and serious, I recited the contents of her oath.


    ¡°Do you, Princess Nanu, swear to join my family and flight, to serve me as your Emperor, to protect and hold dear all that I do and to show no tolerance for that which I do not tolerate? Do you swear to uphold my interests, to offer me sound and true counsel, to keep my secrets in confidence, and to protest my lapses in judgment? Do you swear to share in the bounty and sorrows of my flight, that all members and allies will be treated with fairness and justice in accordance with the rules that I outline? Do you swear to air any grievances fairly and to accept any adjudications or arbitrations that I or one appointed on my behalf pass onto you? Do you swear to share the concerns and desires of your person, the flight, and my allies with me, that I will not lose touch and sight with the ordeals and dreams of those around me?


    ¡°Know that in the acceptance and promise of this oath, I, too, hold a promise to you. I promise to do my best to ensure all members of the flight are protected and provided for, that none should suffer needlessly or endure senseless cruelty. I will treat you and others of my flight with dignity, respect, and grace. I will see to your education and foster cooperation and communication within the flight. I will share my knowledge and the spoils of my labor, that all will rise with me and grow in character and power. I will strive to provide opportunities that bring satisfaction and provide happiness for you and the rest of the flight. This deal may be ended at any time by either party, but it is my hope and sincere wish that such grounds for termination be resolved before relationships spoil to the point of no return. I offer you my love, trust, and respect, all freely given. I hope that I will be found worthy of it being returned in kind.¡±


    ¡°Now, Princess Nanu, speak your vow before me and let it be known unto the gods for their enforcement. Of all that I have spoken in this oath, do you swear it, such that we will be in an accord?¡±


    Proud, serene, and grateful of my generous and loosely worded oath, Princess Nanu lifted her legs over mine, scooting forward into my lap, her arms wrapped around me as we sat together in a loving embrace.


    ¡°I, Princess Nanu, with gratitude and desire, under no duress or compulsion, accept your oath. I pledge before all the gods that I will keep it and honor you and our accord until such time as it is nullified or I am released from obligation. May you, my Emperor, prosper from my service and find me worthy of such terms.¡±


    I choked back a tear, surprised that I was getting all worked up and emotional. I rubbed her back as I held her close, relaxed and safe as she returned the sentiment.


    ¡°Then let it be so. An accord has been reached between Emperor and Princess through the [Oath of Adoption]. Let it be finalized between us and before the gods through our [Ritual of Binding], performed without proxy, but rather, personally between Emperor and Princess.¡±


    No sooner had the last words passed my lips than Nanu pushed me down onto the bed, her hands roaming to more interesting places than my back as a hungry and impassioned moan left her mouth.


    ¡°I think that went rather well. You sure are eager to get right to it,¡± I commented as clothes started to be ripped off or removed.


    ¡°Less talking,¡± she commanded. ¡°I have better uses in mind for that mouth of yours,¡± she promised with a grin as she moved to kiss me passionately along my neck.


    I don¡¯t know how long that whole process lasted, for it was pure bliss. Draining bliss. Skull looked on with longing, albeit obedient, restraint, as Chooka fervently scribbled notes and examined our courtship rituals with enthusiasm. Nanu showed no shyness at the presence of an audience, and if anything, she seemed emboldened by it. Sometime after our fifth or sixth bout, the other two were allowed to join in.


    Now, I would like to think that I am a man capable of satisfying a woman. I would like to think that my Skills and draconic heritage would have given me ample stamina to perform to satisfaction. However, somewhere in the daze of it all, and with three women eager for my attention and affection, I found the limits of what my flesh could offer. Even though they indulged in each other¡¯s ministrations while waiting their turn with me or for me to recover, my well proved to contain insufficient water to slake all of their thirst. While Chooka and Skull were satisfied for now, and indeed appeared to be most content, Nanu remained ever ravenous for what had been denied her for the better part of two decades. She understood and begrudgingly accepted my limits, only to promise and expect more bonding to follow at a later time when I had recovered.


    A drained husk of a man, sore of body and with ego bruised, but overall pleased with Nanu¡¯s skill, enthusiasm, and creativity, I cuddled together with all of them in bed, exhausted in the sharing of my love for all of them. I normally only sleep two hours a day, but after that tussle in the sheets and indeed the affairs of the day including the battle with the count, I must have dozed off for four to six hours. And in those hours, I dreamed of something old and something new.


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    <hr>


    Somewhere along the way, my conscious mind yielded to the demands of sleep, and within that ephemeral realm of whimsical fantasy I beheld sights too real and vivid to be normal. The reality of it harkened back memories of my time in the realm of Gulthar, that awareness and presence in the moment going beyond what mere dreams can offer.


    I found myself in a city of steel, concrete, and glass. Smooth roads with colorful but consistently patterned signs filled the void at the ground level of each building, with sidewalks providing a buffer. Each building had its own unique architecture and style, many looking older than others in design and in form. People of all races walked by, each animated in the pursuit of their own ambitions and dressed in a mottled array of fashions and colors. However, each felt muted in some way, like the color saturation was lessened from normal, their faces ambiguous masks.


    Curious, I walked along the streets, looking for a purpose to all of it. Entering a shop revealed nothing of note, its shelves neatly arrayed with organized and uniform boxes of some unknown product. The whole place looked too sterile and organized to be realistic, and bored of it, I returned to the street. However, the street had changed, and with it, the scenery.


    Like stepping backwards in time, the city had turned to one of simple stone and brick. Chimneys pumped out black smoke that contributed to the constant smog overhead. The streets were dirty, the people sullen and quick to scurry to their destinations. The atmosphere pressed down upon me, suffocating as the joy and wonder of the previous version of the city faded away.


    But then I saw people who were not so dulled out. I ran to catch up to them, having only glimpsed them out of the corner of my eye. Surprise and shock gripped me as I beheld the sight of¡­ me. Along with me were Skull and Alterez, each dressed in accordance to the style of the city, looking more like gangsters than common folk. More people followed along, but each of them were black as night, only silhouettes of what they should be, but each clearly illuminated just like the other me, Skull, and Alterez, as if giving off a halo of light and color.


    They rounded a corner, and as I caught up, the world changed again. The buildings were much taller than before, the sky filled with flying vessels of metal. Technology beyond what this world offered, each and every one a marvel in its own right, casually graced the scene. People walked about with devices covering their ears or screens before their eyes. Lights projected advertisements in three dimensions, inviting people into stores to part with their earnings. Large screens of light covered whole sides of buildings, the scenes upon them changing constantly as they entertained or promoted ideas or products.


    Strange yellow tape with black words upon it separated me from the other me and those same individuals that followed him. His manner of dress suggested an inspector or city guard, and together, each in uniform, they had cordoned off an area around a dead man as they started to collect evidence and question witnesses. One looked up and pointed behind me, and I too turned, only for the scene to change again.


    I found myself on a road leading to a large tent. Inside, crowds gathered to watch some sort of performance in the middle. Other me dressed fabulously, complete with a big top hat, as he fascinated the crowd with a speech. Up high, Skull and a silhouette stood on a platform, ready to swing across on a stick suspended by ropes. Alterez and another silhouette waited on the other side with their own contraption. Before I could see what happened, a tap on my shoulder distracted me, and I turned to see what it was.


    Before me I saw the blackness of the void. Before I had time to panic, a light turned on, followed by another, like spotlights shining down. I walked along a brick road, and each side was lined with versions of me, each from different worlds and levels of technology. Some were young, others old, some poor, others rich, but all unmistakable in that they were me. They stood motionless, like a person frozen in time.


    I passed perhaps a thousand or more before I came to a statue of the current version of me, lifelike and colorful, but likewise frozen. Behind this statue were ten others, each like the silhouettes I had seen earlier, except for two, which were noticeably Skull and Alterez. The others were all distinct, each appearing to be of a different race, but somehow so familiar that I felt as if I had known them forever. I could not make out the specifics of who they were, but I felt certain that I would know them if I found them.


    One in particular I would bet my life on was Chooka. I recognized the curve of those horns, that sensual shape of that tail, and that buxom bosom anywhere, even if she were entirely black. Another, the size and shape of a certain male gnome with an all too particular top hat, spoke evidence to being Bellwright Muddlespoon. An elf, clearly female, remained too indistinct to pin down, for this one seemed to fluctuate as I moved around it to examine her, as if it alternated between two figures. One wore some kind of hair ornament, but otherwise, I had no clues to go on. One fellow was very large, bigger than an orc and taller than a remnimi. The only race I knew of like that was ogres, but none of those lived around here.


    In total, the races represented were human female with Skull, male goblin with Alterez, female remnimi whom I believed to be Chooka, male gnome, female elf, female troll, female orc, male ogre (which is the only option as far as I know), male dwarf, and a a pair of what I guessed to be kobolds held together in a dancing pose. Considering I did know a pair of kobolds that looked the part, I suspected that my hunch about how these people were real and that I would be meeting them all soon held merit.


    ¡°Familiar?¡±


    I turned around to face the voice, but I saw no speaker. The voice sounded similar to my own, but older, more mature. Instead, I found a statue of me again along with my draconic form slightly behind it, yet scaled down. Four blank spots stood behind me, and behind that, a row of eight more, one of which was occupied by Nanu and her draconic form. I guessed that the first four would be my Kings and Queen, the rest my Princes and Princesses. Looking down at my feet, I observed tiny miniatures, no taller than my thumb, of The Boys, Hopper, and Ribbette. I detected no indication for how many slots, so to speak, remained for more pets, if any.


    ¡°What are you trying to show me?¡± I spoke to the void, uncertain who would be there to answer.


    ¡°Past, present, future; all roads converge.¡± I turned to face a man, an older version of me. A noticeable difference was the thin beard along the jawline, complete with a similar mustache. ¡°Collect, build, ascend: this is the mandate of your Destiny. You still have the power to choose, to forge your own Fate, but all has led to this.¡±


    He turned, his cape billowing as his back faced me, the strange spiraling triangle symbol on his cape. With his arms raised, panels of light lit in different sizes and at various angles, although I could still see them clearly. Scene after scene from world after world played out. Some were primitive, no more than cavemen with clubs learning about fire, others were of civilizations spanning an entire galaxy, and the rest were anywhere in between. All showed those latent memories, of past lives lived, and perhaps, of lives yet to be lived.


    The panels slid towards one another, merging in shape and color until my draconic form stood before me, albeit massive and much older, complete with fine horns and all the bony growths that made me look more mature. Something about the form was more prominent. Power radiated from it, almost overwhelming, threatening to crush me and to force me to kowtow before it, but I held fast, seemingly because I was too paralyzed to bend the knee. But that draconic form faded away, and with it, the power that washed over and consumed me.


    ¡°Who are you, Spiral-Triangle Man?¡±


    A grin gripped his face as he opened his mouth to answer. ¡°A question you have asked before, a thousand times at least. The answer is always given when you no longer need it, for the truth will come to you in time. For now, think of me as your guide, one who goes before you to clear the way. The path you ultimately take is still your choice. Also,¡± he continued, acting more casual and less serious and grandiose, ¡°The triangle symbol isn¡¯t, like, my brand or anything. It was just something I made up to get your attention, which clearly worked. Call me what you like. Harbinger, Guide, Sage, or,¡± he continued with a smirk, ¡°Spiral-Triangle Man. It matters not.¡± He resumed his mysterious and serious posture and tone as he continued once more. ¡°You are under no obligation to do as I say, for I only offer guidance. This may well be your last mortal life; use it well.¡±


    With that, he turned, a rather dramatic flourish of his cape causing it to billow as he quickly walked away from me.


    ¡°Hey wait, I still have more questions, jackass!¡±


    I ran after him, but despite my speed, I could not catch up to him. I tripped and fell, landing face-first on the¡­ ground, I guess, of the void. I stood once again, now in the body I had as a child, and instead of the man, Mother walked away from me, her backless dress showing off the spiraling triangle symbol.


    ¡°Wait, don¡¯t leave me, Mother!¡±


    I cried out, begging her to stop, but she outpaced me, vanishing into the distance as darkness swarmed in from all sides, smothering me in its cold embrace as all awareness faded.

 Chapter 51

    I woke from my dream to a faceful of boobs, judging by the feel of soft bundles of joy upon my face. Additionally, I found myself on top of Nanu, who was on the floor and just to the side of the bed.


    ¡°Oh, couldn¡¯t get enough of me while awake, you had to pounce me while in your sleep,¡± she teased as she hugged me closer into her bosom while I strained to look around and get my bearings.


    Sensing my unease, she released me, and I raised myself to sit on the bed while offering her a hand up.


    ¡°Bad dream?¡± she asked as she sat down beside me. ¡°You tossed and turned in your sleep, despite Chooka¡¯s best efforts to console you. I was surprised when you tackled me off the bed just now.¡±


    ¡°Something like that,¡± I replied as I put an arm around her while leaning into her for support. ¡°One that was too real, that teased out a few answers to my questions while raising a thousand more. I witnessed scenes of lives past, with some of the same people in each one, as if we had lived our lives together time after time.¡±


    ¡°Ooh, tell me more,¡± shouted a surprisingly alert and chipper Chooka as she flung herself onto my back and wrapped her arms around me. She was normally groggy in the morning, so today must be a good day for her.


    ¡°Well, there were always ten people, seemingly the same, but eight of them were just silhouettes. Two I could clearly see, namely, Skull and Alterez.¡±


    ¡°What!¡± Chooka shouted as she started tugging at me, ¡°Skull I can understand, but Alterez over me! What did I ever do to deserve a lover who doesn¡¯t dream of me following him in each life?¡± She proceeded to playfully bite me while pinning my arms to my side, letting her dissatisfaction be known as she hassled me in jest. ¡°Those are the only two you gave your blood to, right?¡±


    Feeling stupid for not making the connection before, I probably blushed in shame. To be fair, I had just woken up and hadn¡¯t had time to piece it together. ¡°Yeah, that makes sense. I am almost positive one of them was you, Chooka, but I don¡¯t think having Skull stab you to be within an inch of death before giving you a drop of my blood is the right way to confirm that.¡±


    ¡°Fair enough,¡± she said while nibbling my ear. ¡°You are better at penetrating me than she is anyway.¡±


    With that entendre came the certainty that she was okay with things. Heavy petting ensued all around while I told the two of them about my dream. Skull was off searching the area, looking for signs of other Adventurers who may aim to poach my kills, so I would have to fill her in later.


    ¡°Hey,¡± I asked Nanu as I massaged her back, ¡°Do all dragons get to choose their Skills with Experience Points, or is that just me?¡±


    ¡°Good question,¡± she said with a small gasp as I worked out a particularly stubborn knot. ¡°You, like all Emperors, are seemingly unlimited for what Skills you can have and your ability to pick them. As one moves down in peerage, one has less and less ability to choose Skills, with some just being purchased automatically. However, lower peerage dragons have access to more customized Skills, whereas high peerage dragons have more generic Skills. Ergo, it behooves your high peerage dragons to spend time near the bottom so they can curate useful Skills.


    ¡°For instance,¡± she continued as she laid down on her belly so I could put more pressure into my work, ¡° I am a Dragon Consort, which means for my creation, one parent was a dragon and one was a non-dragon, such as any of the sentient races. Dragon Consorts spend more time in humanoid forms and get along with humanoids better. Within the same peerage, their power is weaker than Dragon Paragons, which have two dragon parents, but in return, they tend to have more versatility or specialization for their Skills. I was born a Duchess, demoted down step by step to Baron, and then promoted all the way back to Duchess, where I remained for two centuries before being promoted to Princess. Few dragons get to have such attention and grooming, but royalty or promising aspirants to royalty do.


    ¡°My Blessing is [Archivist of Secrets]. It was my job to monitor, protect, audit, and control the inventory of my former flight¡¯s hidden caches all throughout the world. Most have probably been looted by my kin, but a few of them were entrusted only to me, as far as I know at least. Some of the Skills I needed for my job could not be learned by a Duchess, hence the need to go down the ranks until I had them all. It is pretty rare for a dragon to start low in peerage and climb high up, for they are generally created to exist at their tier or perhaps one up or down for most of their lives.


    ¡°As for Skills, they are flexible in what they can do. In theory, you could cause a tsunami with just [Basic Water Manipulation], but the mana cost to do so would be astronomical. The closer your Skill aligns with what you use it for, the easier and cheaper it is. Typically, you also have more control and finesse or other perks as well. Your big bada boom Skills are more common to those with high peerage, whereas something like [Detect Hidden Piles of Stinky Cheese] is so oddly specific that you would probably find that way down at the Baron tier. It would be super efficient and effective at what it is designed for, but less so for cheese that didn¡¯t stink or was not hidden. Does all that make sense?¡±


    She moved to roll over, her body completely exposed to me as I started on the other side. Her skin, reddish-brown with a hint of yellow, was rather exotic, more common to those who live further south in or near the desert, and I couldn¡¯t help but get an eyeful while I worked, much to her satisfaction.


    ¡°Hey, why do you dragons get to pick your Skills while the rest of us just do our best and hope we get the ones we want,¡± asked Chooka as she sat back-to-back with me and worked on Nanu¡¯s legs.


    ¡°That is a mystery that only the gods know of. Best case, you could try to be remade as a dragonling, but at that point you are at the mercy of your parent dragon to choose your Skills for you. But that is a difficult ritual that only Princes or Princesses and above can perform.¡±


    ¡°Hear that?¡± asked Chooka as she pushed her back into mine. ¡°That means you can make me one someday. I would get wings and a better tail, but probably keep my horns. That would also give me some sweet scales here and there to make me look more badass.¡±


    ¡°Maybe someday when you are older,¡± I replied noncommittally as I continued my massage on a grateful Nadu. ¡°That isn¡¯t something to rush into since I barely know anything about them or being a dragon. Besides, I like you the way you are now. You''re pretty cute, you know.¡±


    ¡°Thanks, you¡¯re pretty cute too. How about we take this back to my place and have a tussle in the sheet?¡± she whispered suggestively while she flexed her arms back behind her to grab me on my sides.


    ¡°Point taken,¡± I answered as I rose from the bed, much to Nanu¡¯s dismay. ¡°I suppose we have lazed around long enough. Let¡¯s wake up Alterez and get to butchering what we can of the dragons so we can head home. Naturally, I hope you tag along too, Nanu, because I like you too.¡±


    ¡°But of course,¡± she uttered in between clothes going over her head and onto her person. ¡°I still have years of pent-up sexual desire, and you have volunteered yourself to sate my hunger. What was it, something about you promising to ¡®provide opportunities that bring satisfaction and provide happiness¡¯, to me?¡±


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    ¡°Hey!¡± shouted Chooka. ¡°Anything you do to my man in bed you also gotta do to me. Also, I will do it to him as well,¡± she finished with a mischievous grin lighting up her face.


    ¡°What if I did¡­¡± Nanu started before whispering into Chooka¡¯s ear. Chooka¡¯s expression, animated and exaggerated, cycled through gleeful enthusiasm, surprise, shock, doubt, and respect for the wisdom Nanu had to offer.


    Fully clothed and ready to go with all our things packed away, I addressed the two women still swapping daring ideas like schoolgirls. ¡°You ladies ready to get this show on the road, or should I leave you behind and let Skull do by herself all those dirty things you have been talking about doing to me?¡±


    The pair of them, looking indignant, started chasing after me as I led them to Alterez, for we needed his butchering Skills if we were to make it home at a reasonable hour.


    <hr>


    After hours of gutting and butchering dragons, Alterez would be happy to never have to do it ever again. The Count had been mostly intact, so that had been the lion¡¯s share of the work. The Boys had eaten one, so that had been a free pass. Likewise, Hopper had sliced one up into mostly unusable parts, so little could be salvaged from it. With fortunes continuing, the one Ribbette had killed had crashed into a wyvern corpse, and with it being so heavily contaminated, it had melted into a poisonous pile of bone and goo, so only the bones from each were salvaged. Skull¡¯s wyvern was mostly intact, albeit hacked to bloody pieces in spots, but it had still been a chore to carve away at it. Likewise, the one they shot down needed to be processed as well, which naturally fell to Alterez to do. With everything packed up and stored away, that just left the kobolds, who showed up as Alterez finished cleaning his blades and person.


    ¡°Oh, how cute!¡± Alterez heard The Bossman shout as the kobolds approached. ¡°They¡¯re little ninjas!¡±


    Alterez didn¡¯t know what a ¡®ninja¡¯ was, for he had never seen one before, but two of the kobolds were dressed in black from head to toe with only their eyes and the flesh between them showing.


    ¡°And you two look¡­ unique,¡± The Bossman finished diplomatically as Gambino and Bambina also approached.


    Gambino wore some strange but stylish suit, complete with a tie and a blue-collared shirt visible under his dark-gray blazer. A strange, white, metallic hat with a short rim on the front of it sat upon his head, appearing rather small considering the shape of his head did not allow normal hats like it to fit like it would for a more ¡®humany¡¯ humanoid. In his hand he held a clipboard and a lanyard with a picture of him on it hung from his neck. He also wore a bright orange and yellow vest over top of it all.


    Bambina looked similar, but sadly, she didn¡¯t have a bust any more. Her hat was slightly skewed to one side and yellow. She did not wear a blazer, but she did wear work boots instead of fancy shoes like Gambino. In her hand she held a staff, and at the top of the staff was an eight-sided and thin piece of metal that said, ¡°STOP¡± on one side and ¡°SLOW¡± on the other, each side having red/white and orange/black color schemes respectively. She sported a similar vest, but hers was unbuttoned, unlike Gambino¡¯s.


    ¡°Thanks, Master. Everything is ready to go. Just sign here and here, and we can depart.¡±


    The Bossman, playing along, signed whatever form Gambino had presented to him on the clipboard.


    ¡°Alright then,¡± Gambino continued, ¡°How are we getting to your home?


    ¡°I will carry Chooka in my arms with Gambino and Bambina hanging off my back and Skull in my shadow. Alterez and the other two kobolds will go with Nanu. I am sure you can keep up,¡± he declared as he gave a glance to Nanu. ¡°Hopper, Ribbette, you two have done excellent work and I¡¯m proud of you. You are released from your summoning to continue as you please.¡±


    After a long pause, the pair of Giant Frogs nodded and disappeared in a halo of yellow light.


    ¡°As for you Boys!¡± The Bossman wheeled on the hydra, each head looking nervous for what would follow. ¡°Since you had enough energy to raid the pantry, you must have the energy to run along home with us. You lead from the front, and if you slow down, we will all ¡®motivate¡¯ you to keep running.¡±


    A chorus of whining followed as The Boys complained about their punishment. Giving them no slack, The Bossman physically prodded The Boys to make their way back to the road, which they did at a plodding pace, taking care not to trip. Conversely, Alterez got to enjoy a pleasant trip nestled in the arms of Nanu, who herself was every bit as attractive as Chooka. Not as tall though, perhaps an inch or two shorter than The Bossman, but her long black hair, which hung freely to her waist, seemed to supernaturally defy entanglement from the wind, staying prim and proper as they followed along.


    ¡°Now, mush,¡± barked The Bossman once they got to the road. The Boys, still whining but obedient, waddled along as fast as their stubby little legs could take them as they made their way home. Their speed was deceptively quick considering their awkward form, and no doubt they could easily chase down a terrified goblin on open terrain. Glad to be on the side of The Boys, Alterez enjoyed the wind over his bald head as they made good time for about three or so miles, at which point The Boys slowed to a crawl for a while until they ultimately collapsed in a heap, too tuckered out to continue.


    ¡°Let that be a lesson, Boys,¡± The Bossman chided, the whole time carrying the kobolds and Chooka, the latter of which looked sympathetic to the plight of her scale-babies. ¡°Stealing from your family is bad. You aren¡¯t going to do it again, right?¡±


    Four heads bobbed in unison, renewed vigor finding their way into their necks as they sought to placate their Papa with soothing songs and subservience. The Bossman rubbed their belly for a bit, which made for an awkward motion while still carrying Chooka in his arms, but overall The Boys were reassured that Papa still loved them.


    ¡°Okay then. I release you from your summoning. Shrink down first so you don¡¯t break the house upon your return.


    The Boys stood upright in response, one neck bending as if to salute in response. They shrunk down to about the size of a person, and then they too disappeared in a halo of light.


    ¡°Now then, let¡¯s leave the wilderness behind and get home.¡±


    Their speed picked up dramatically at that point, the distance between them and the city shrinking rapidly by the minute as farms zipped by one after another.


    As they neared the city, Alterez knew something was amiss. Large lines had gathered at the gate, and as they neared the side gate for Adventurers and the like, they were waved through without so much as a confirmation check for their identities. Slowing his pace, The Bossman jogged along as a lot of fancily clad men and women in armor escorted them, herding them in a direction that wasn¡¯t home. Many different forms of heraldry adorned their tabards, shields, and armor, so this amalgamation of knights represented something big. Upon closer look, Alterez realized that the symbols he saw were all of gods, and not just any gods, but representing the full pantheon of Light and Dark gods. Somehow, The Bossman had got tangled up in something very important, and by virtue, Alterez was now part of it too.


    They arrived at a heavily guarded meeting hall within the temple district. The Bossman¡¯s ad hoc honor guard fanned out to create a screen that boxed them in and left them nowhere to go but up the stairs and into the hall. Hundreds of similarly fancy and holy-roller-looking individuals roamed the area, ever vigilant for eavesdroppers and assassins. If a flea farted, at least a dozen of them would smell it before the flea did.


    ¡°So, does someone want to tell me what this is about?¡± asked The Bossman to an assembly of super holy-looking people.


    No, not just any holy people. Each one was a [Paladin]. Four for Light, four for Dark, and a smattering of other ones. Strangest of all, even a goblin [Paladin] was present, and if that was not the [Paladin] of Gubberloodoo, Alterez would eat his boots.


    ¡°We are glad you could attend, Emperor. We have much to discuss,¡± declared one of them that Alterez could not see clearly on account of Nanu setting him down. Likewise, the others were set down and Skull even came out of The Bossman¡¯s shadow, which surprisingly, made no one flinch or draw steel. ¡°I am the [Paladin] of Echludoro, Light god of Time and Space. I head this quorum of [Paladins], and it is for you, on behalf of our respective gods, that we gather.¡±


    Panic racing through him, Alterez swallowed nervously at the news. Stuff like this usually ended in people burning at the stake, if the stories were to be believed.


    ¡°Worry not,¡± the [Paladin] continued, ¡°You are not in trouble. The gods have a request to make of you. Would you kindly stay a while and listen to what we have to speak of with you.¡±


    The request that was not a request now made, The Bossman and company were shown to their seats. Of all the places in the world to be a [Cult Leader] on day one of practicing, this was the worst possible place to be. Alterez focused on remaining uninteresting, hoping that he would remain less toasty than the food he cooked by the time the day ended.

 Chapter 52

    The initial pleasantries were exchanged, all polite and proper. Too much protocol and etiquette for my tastes, but for such a monumental event, listing out all those details for the meeting minutes is important. I get it, but still, it took like half an hour to get through all the introductions.


    To summarize, there were [Paladins] there representing the major Pantheon of Light and Dark gods. For the Light Gods, there are Hulonch (Light/Life), Echludoro (Time/Space), Sulvio (Matter/Energy), and Rufastrodun (Elements/Nature). For team Dark, the members are Icanthyicthus (Darkness/Knowledge), Gulthar (Fear/Courage), Juvumwambi (Trust/Lies), and Kimelidae (Fertility/Death). It is important to note that Light gods do not represent ¡®good¡¯ and Dark gods ¡®evil¡¯. More accurately, Light gods represent Domains that are complementary, whereas Dark gods represent Domains that are seemingly antagonist but ultimately enhance one another.


    Additionally, some racial gods were represented, notably, Hammerrabi for the dwarves (Construction/Law) and Gubberloodoo for Goblins (Reincarnation/Judgement). Some other god that I did not recognize was also represented, and given his symbol of a skull with bones arrayed around it, he was either a pirate or a necromancer. Oddly, three demigods were also represented. Considering my moniker as a demigod is "The Dragon of Roads", I consider myself lucky that I did not end up like these guys. Like seriously, how does one keep a straight face while praying to them? The demigods represented were Many Words Paperman (Pamphlets/Instructional Media), Old Man Moneybags (Currency/Economics), and All-Weather Transporter (Mail/Couriers). No joke, those are their names.


    Despite the ludicrous naming convention for demigods, the gods bend over backwards to keep the demigods happy so they do not leave this universe for better ones, especially Old Man Moneybags. Every single coin that is legal tender is made by him, each and every one of them imbued with his unmistakable magical signature. That is what stops a country from minting and distributing tons of inflated coins of arbitrary purity, which, as some of you know, does terrible, terrible things to the economy. It completely eliminates forged currency and doesn¡¯t allow one nation to bully another by dictating the currency of trade. The other two are nice to have, but not as essential. Still, it is a luxury and convenience to be able to get your mail anywhere in the world in a reasonable timeframe instead of literal months or years later after paying exorbitant shipping fees.


    In hindsight, I totally get why they were there. The roads I would build in my time in that universe would greatly facilitate trade, which is what all of them depended upon. In short, I would be making their lives very easy when roads connect pretty much everything, so they clearly had a dog in the fight of making sure I had everything I needed to do my job.


    Anyway, boring meeting stuff happened until we got to the meat and potatoes of it all, with [Paladin] Gamgrox being the primary speaker for the gathered [Paladins]. I guess he was picked because the Domains of his god (Time/Space) most closely matched my own compared to what the other gods had to offer.


    ¡°As to the nature of the requests of the gods, they would like you to lead a team of engineers in building a grand highway that runs north and south on this continent. A series of roads already exist in most places, you just need to improve them and connect them to enable large-scale deployments of troops to and from the south. Upon completion, it is furthermore the hopes of the gods that you would likewise rebuild the roads that connect the highway to major cities.¡±


    ¡°I see,¡± I stated once he finished the big reveal. ¡°I do have some questions before I can agree to fulfill this request.¡±


    ¡°Naturally,¡± replied Gamgrox. The orc smiled at me as he gestured with his hand spread in invitation. ¡°We are here to answer your questions and help in any way we can.¡±


    ¡°First off, how do you or the gods know about me and why was I chosen?¡±


    ¡°We learned about you a few days back, the same day you completed building your road to the northern mountain. Our gods informed us that you are the new Emperor dragon, one whose flight has yet to be named, so you certainly have the desired upper limit in power and finesse to tackle the challenges of building this road. The skill and speed at which you built your road is extremely noteworthy and far in excess of what even skilled teams of professionals can accomplish when working together. Logistically, you have the capacity to quickly collect, shape, and distribute the resources needed for creating roads and bridges. You are likewise capable of defending yourself against the many threats in the wilderness through which this highway will pass. Your reputation precedes you as a man who is honest, fair, and competent; all desirable traits in a leader. Likewise, you are a politically favorable candidate, for you have no strong allegiances to anyone. All things considered, you are by far the best man, er, dragon for the job.¡±


    I took a moment to consider his well thought out answer. No doubt he and the others had plenty of time to come up with answers to any likely questions I would have. I could find no holes in his reasoning, for what had started as a labor of convenience to help rebuild Berkerin turned into a major undertaking that I finished with flying colors. By now, I certainly had the Skills to put down road quickly, provided I had a nearby supply of suitable stone. Somehow, in all of that, I overlooked that the road had nothing to do with it, but rather, that shrine next to my road was practically a giant beacon saying, ¡®A new demigod in the making is right here!¡¯.


    ¡°Let¡¯s say I were to agree to do this. What would I get out of it?¡±


    Gamgrox took a few moments to exchange a few looks at other [Paladins]. Heads nodded in turn, and so he faced me and answered clearly for all to hear.


    ¡°You will be granted ownership over the roads you create, with full power and authority to tax those who utilize the road, provided you do so fairly and without discrimination based on protected categories. This includes the land immediately next to the road, which is all outlined in a contract that we have drafted for your review. All the political hassles will not be your concern, for you will have certain powers of eminent domain to build this road. In short, you will have the authority to boss around pesky nobles and royals who try to strongarm reparations out of you for the road.¡±


    That got a few knowing laughs from those gathered. From my take of it, [Paladins] had little love for the minutiae and posturing of politics, preferring instead to actually get things done with grit and steel.


    ¡°This will also include rights to any discovered troves of resources, such as veins of ore, rare groves of valuable plants, dens of powerful beasts, and so forth. Much of the road will go through relatively uncharted and unowned territory, so it is considered fair payment that you and your flight be granted the rewards of anything valuable you find along the way.¡±


    I took a moment to confer with my allies. Everyone seemed to approve of the deal, and Nanu advised me that having free and uncontested legal access to the lands I would come across would be a tremendous boon for my flight, provided I had the power to seize them from the local beasts and monsters.


    ¡°Okay, all that sounds reasonable, but now let¡¯s get to the heart of the matter. Why the sudden need for this road? What is really going on down south?¡±


    The [Paladin] of the strange god rose, and only now did I realize that he had not introduced himself during all the fanfare at the start. Gamgrox yielded to this mysterious individual, letting the newcomer speak. This guy wore a black and gray cloak over his armor. The whole ensemble looked to be made of bone and rather tattered, but perhaps that was just an edgy aesthetic and not a result of poor maintenance.


    ¡°I am [Paladin] Ulrinth, and my god is Lenthnegrel. He is the god of Bone and Ash, and it is no wonder that you do not recognize my god, for he had almost faded away into obscurity. For thousands of years, the faithful have collected bones of all manner of creatures and buried them in the Ashlands far to the south. The magically rich ash there empowers the bones and grants them unique properties that are useful in necromancy. We have been stockpiling these bones, because of all the gods, only he remembered what has happened before and what will happen again very soon. Such is the nature of the gods, that something forces them to forget important things until the hour is nigh, but in this case, one remembered what others could not. Though he was considered a mad doomsayer, the gods have recently come to an agreement that everything he said is true and will come to pass soon.


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    ¡°You may be familiar with how in recent years, most countries forbade funerals, instead mandating that all bodies be stripped of flesh so that their bones may be sent south. Those bones end up in the Ashlands, for we will need them in a coming war. An enemy seeks to invade our world, one that has powerful magic that can strip the flesh from the bones of anyone within a great range of where they will appear. They seek to kill each and every one of us, to devour our world in some foul crusade for resources and plunder. As such, conventional soldiers, being made of flesh and blood, will be worthless, and so warriors devoid of flesh will be required to fight off this threat.


    ¡°Hence, constructs of necromancy being easy and cheap to make are the desired solution, with bones being the primary ingredient in creating such skeletal warriors. However, all manner of long-ranged warriors will be needed, along with those who can create magical shields and barriers. A veritable army of specialists will be needed to bottle this threat up until the gods find a solution to close the connection between our planet and wherever our enemies come from. While the faithful can make the journey through the wilderness with the bones they bring back, large armies could not hope to move through such terrain, hence the need for a good road to facilitate a constant and efficient supply chain. Our very existence is on the line, and so all will pitch in or we shall all perish.


    ¡°Ossimandias, Emperor of The Bone Wardens, has long worked in cooperation with my god and his mortal servants. This may be an opportunity for your budding flight to forge an alliance with his, for he is keen on ensuring this threat remains contained. I cannot speak as to the other flights and what motives they may have to either you or this coming war, but they too will perish if we fail to contain it.¡±


    His speech over, he sat down without any fanfare. Everyone present appeared grim at the news, and I suspected while most of the [Paladins] knew the broad strokes of what was to come, most did not previously know this level of detail. None showed any signs of doubt, so surely the gods truly considered this to be an existential threat to our world.


    The rest of the day devolved into examining maps and looking over contracts, with several corrections or clarifications made by both Chooka and Nanu. I had expected them to be competitive over paperwork, but perhaps the stakes we faced cowed them into cooperation. Overall, the contracts were made in good faith and aligned both with what had been said and my own interests. I was poised to become extremely wealthy from this undertaking if I saw fit to push the limits of the contract.


    Surprisingly, the documents outlined a great number of specific individuals who were requested to muster at the rally location for this whole operation. A good number came from Berkerin, no doubt since I knew them and I was the star performer in this grand affair. For instance, Chooka, Skull, Alterez, Gambino, Bambina, Hopper, Ribbette, The Boys, Bellwright Muddlespoon, Serideth, and Blythnin were all explicitly listed as tier one personnel.


    Serideth was Chooka¡¯s coworker and a woman capable of effortlessly killing a band of assassins sent after her. She also had at least one other personality rocking around in that noggin of hers, but hey, them¡¯s the breaks when you are a stone-cold killer. Blythnin was the ashen-skinned elf whom I dueled and defeated in the city arena just before the war broke out. Like, literally, the announcement that we were at war happened right as I was being congratulated for my victory.


    Other names I recognized appeared in tier two, so still important, but not as critical. Garro and Rarro, the twins who liked blowing things up, along with Gulfore, a rather stoic female orc, were part of my merry band of scouts back in the war. It certainly seemed like we were getting the band back together, so to speak. Countless more names appeared, but I only recognized some of them. They were either other Adventurers or skilled craftsmen from the city that I had trained under when I had the time.


    A fair amount of the contracts were ironed out by nightfall, but large swaths of paperwork governing logistics yet remained to be processed. The [Paladins] and their retinues were largely of the militant variety, and few had experience in large-scale construction projects, let alone one that spanned half a continent. They were knowledgeable about how to supply and feed armies, which certainly helped, but they didn¡¯t know the exact resources and supplies that would be needed and where to get them. Generally, most of that fell to my discretion and that of the engineers and other experts assigned to me. A lot of good faith was offered both ways in this deal, and I would not be the one to besmirch my character and risk the wrath of every god by taking advantage of it.


    Fortunately, the various religious orders and whatnot would help to strong-arm prices to ensure that ¡®enterprising¡¯ merchants, or ¡®greedy fat slobs¡¯ as I like to think of them, wouldn¡¯t bend us over a barrel with the sudden demand for certain goods. Like, the sheer amount of S.M.A.R.T. crystals I would need throughout the road to maintain enchantments that would prevent wear and tear, water damage, sinkholes, and other such things would drain most regions dry of supply. For that and more, I would have to look into finding a way to craft them myself on a large scale. I can make them, but for a 2500 or so mile long road, I can¡¯t make that many in an acceptable time frame. Auspicious that I am sitting on a huge chunk of unused Experience Points from the fight with the Count, for I would need to bolster my Skills to get this done.


    As for the continent, Rubioco, it is much taller than it is wide. Both the northern and southern tip are very well-developed and populated, but that tapers off closer to the center where various deserts, wastelands, and indeed the Ashlands lie. The southern portion has a large amount of jungle, so most of their settlements are coastal, whereas the northern portion is more temperate with traditional forests. Berkerin itself is a little left of center and in the north, but the staging area for all persons involved to muster would be to the southeast. Enough roads existed this far north that rebuilding them would happen much later, probably as the capstone of this whole affair.


    The tricky part to all of this was in the terrain. Three mountain chains would need tunnels dug through them, and one river over a mile wide at its narrowest point along the way would need a bridge to cross it. Considering the river floods during the spring thaw, the bridge I would need to build could span over two miles in length. Fortunately, after the third mountain and into the wastelands, the terrain is fairly smooth and flat, so the speed at which we build the road should pick up considerably after that point. However, I would also be responsible for creating aqueducts and the like to ensure water would be available all along the route. With the river being the last abundant source of known water along the way, the aqueduct would span over 800 miles in length if I had to take it the whole way, which would be a massive undertaking.


    The reality of it all definitely sunk in. Chooka did her best to remain upbeat, but I could tell she knew as I knew; this would take years to make, and we would not be returning to our home in Berkerin for some time, if ever. She had spent most of her life here and all her friends lived here. She loved her job at the guildhall, so losing all of that would nearly devastate her. A clever little idea coalesced within my mind on how to salvage the best parts of that to make her happy, so I would pitch it to her later when all of us made it home.


    We agreed to adjourn until tomorrow morning. It would take several days to hash out all the paperwork, and though none of the [Paladins] openly showed boredom, I could tell that the fatigue of wheeling and dealing was getting to them. We were granted an honor guard to escort us home. I suspect it was so we didn¡¯t run off to the hills like raving madmen, but it did actually turn out to be useful. Large crowds gathered all along the route home; some eagerly tried to talk to us and others at least attempted to be more subtle about their inquiries. Some of our guards posted up outside our home to keep away the riff-raff, which ultimately brought some semblance of peace. The whole city knew by now that I was involved in something big, and everyone and his brother was itching to know more.


    After giving the newcomers a tour, I deployed beds from my pocket dimension for Alterez and the kobolds to sleep in the living room. My mind nearly cooked from the day spent going over paperwork, I ambled over to bed to turn in for a few hours. However, I could feel the eyes of hungry predators gazing upon me as I took off my boots. Three pairs of hands joined in ¡®helping¡¯ me out of my clothes, for in my haste to get some shuteye, I forgot that other labors yet needed to be performed. Oh, the sacrifices I make for those I love! At least Nanu had the decency to place up some wards to keep the sounds and vibrations from spilling out of the room.


    And so another night passed with my body being used to provide pleasure for one insatiable woman and two others not far behind in the magnitude of their lust. Oh how awful! Just tell me the exact time and place where it will happen next, you know, in case I wanted to avoid it or something. In all seriousness, it was all a pleasant distraction from the events of the day, but I would need regular and hefty supply of it in the coming years if I were to manage the stress of taking on perhaps the most ambitious construction project in the current age. Each of the lovely ladies by my side assured me they were up to the task, and so the night ended in one big happy cuddle in a bed that quickly approached the limits of how many occupants it could hold.


    I don¡¯t think Nanu slept a wink. I don¡¯t even think she needed to. I had not bothered to ask about her sleep and food requirements. That and so much more about dragons remained to be asked. And so, while Chooka slept, Nana, Skull, and myself sat around a table with a sound ward in place to talk about where to go from here. We would fill Chooka in on the pertinent details later, for she needed her beauty sleep. Long was the road ahead of us, but we were ready to tread it.

 Chapter 53

    ¡°So,¡± I started our little meeting as we sat around a table together with refreshments at hand, ¡°what is the best way to go about this? I have a lot of Experience Points and good ideas on how to use it, but I figured it would be prudent to hear your advice first.¡±


    Nanu, looking pleased that her counsel remained in demand, launched into a lecture on the topic.


    ¡°I gave you the heart of the Count. At some point in the very near future, assume your dragon form and eat it.¡± At my raised eyebrow at such a seemingly barbaric suggestion, she smirked in satisfaction before she continued. ¡°It will advance your [Age] by a noticeable amount, unlocking the potential to take new Skills that will be helpful. Additionally, it will reward a large chunk of Experience Points, with a little extra since this is presumably your first time doing it.¡± She raised her own eyebrow in turn, questioning my history with such practices. I nodded in confirmation, and she continued right along. ¡°I believe that should stress the value of eating dragon hearts at or above your relative level of power, and likewise impress upon you the danger of being hunted for it. I have never heard of anyone succeeding in eating the heart of an Emperor, but that doesn¡¯t mean it is for lack of trying.¡±


    ¡°What about your previous Emperor? He was your grandfather, was he not? What happened to him?¡± Nanu frowned at that, seemingly lost for a moment in an unpleasant memory before she composed herself to answer.


    ¡°That is one of the great and nagging mysteries that still haunts me. At the time of the death of Mehczeczi of The Secret Stalkers, I was deep within a hidden archive performing my routine duties. No communication could pass through the wards layered around it, so by the time I emerged, he was already dead and the rest of my flight in tatters. We did try to rally and protect one another, but it was all in vain. Any who knew what had happened were already dead, their memories having not made their way back to us, so something powerful both eliminated him and his guards quickly and prevented all manner of Skills and contingencies from triggering to keep us informed. Most of the time was spent running and hiding, but what little evidence we could gather did not point to another flight attacking us. Only a large crater remained of my former flight¡¯s stronghold, so the bodies of the fallen were likely obliterated.¡±


    I took her hand in mine to support her emotionally, doing my best to pass on my sympathies. Skull did likewise with Nanu¡¯s other hand, and together, we sat there silent for a few moments while Nanu battled the ghosts that yet haunted her.


    ¡°You will want to invest more heavily in various pocket dimensions,¡± she continued suddenly as if nothing yet bothered her. ¡°The sheer scale of what needs to be done will require you to be able to transport hundreds of tons of stone or other materials in a single trip. The more you can carry, the fewer trips we will need to make to the mountains. The fewer trips, the faster things go and the less exposed we will be. Worry not about Skills for combat, for I will be at your side at all times to protect you.


    ¡°To be technical, you will want Skills that increase the size and mana efficiency of things that have the ¡®Non-Dimensional¡¯ descriptor. You have a bad habit of using generalized terms for things, and while ¡®Pocket Dimension¡¯ is indeed a catchall, there are other types. ¡®Extra-Planar¡¯ would be like if you scooped up the city of Berkerin and its surrounding lands and moved it to another demiplane. Large in size and scope and capable of supporting life, but ultimately finite. ¡®Non-Planar¡¯ references temporary tunnels that connect things, such as a magical doorway on a plane that connects somewhere else on the same plane or another plane. It is very useful for traveling vast distances quickly, but such Skills remain outside of your capabilities at the moment. ¡®Extra-Dimensional¡¯ refers to temporary spaces that overlap reality without damaging it. The classic example is a deep pit for someone to fall into, which could even be placed on a wooden board and set down on the floor, despite a board not being thick enough to contain such a pit. Lastly, ¡®Non-Dimensional¡¯ refers to storage, where each object placed inside exists separately in a void and no time passes for it. I don¡¯t want you to get burned by you taking a Skill that you think will be awesome but it actually doesn¡¯t apply to anything useful. Been there, done that, would not recommend.¡±


    Skull and I were both engrossed with her detailed descriptions, each of us making note of things like our lives depended on it, because, you know, they did.


    ¡°As for dragons and the peerage system, both male and female terms are used, but for the sake of simplicity, I will stick to the male terms. From top to bottom, you have Emperor, King, Prince, Duke, Marquess, Count, Viscount, and Baron. The nomenclature may change in a given flight, but few deviate from that structure. You can expect that the physical size of a dragon roughly scales up by half again each time you move up in tier, but the combat prowess of them is not so straightforward, even for those that do not specialize in combat. You handled a Count well, but a Marquess would probably defeat you. A Duke would be no contest in that you would die horribly. However, I will help train you in the ways that dragons fight so that you will be more capable of defending yourself.


    ¡°Flight doctrine is another matter, but the theories behind it would take many hours to explain, and so we can cover that at some later point. The abridged version is that as you grow in [Age], you will get more ¡®currency¡¯ of sorts to spend on them, ultimately capping out at some point. You could go for a ¡®wide¡¯ flight with many members, but each one is proportionally weaker, or a ¡®thin¡¯ flight, where you have few members but each of them is incredibly strong.


    ¡°Either way, you will soon be old enough to breed with a humanoid and produce your first female queen. Keep in mind that there are no accidental babies, for you must consciously craft the offspring before a woman can become impregnated by your seed. Typically, you will want to shoot for twins and also have a son. The Queen will be your [Broodmother] to pump out your Dragon Paragons so you can fill up your flight based on how much currency you have. It is a ¡®race to the bottom¡¯, as we dragons call it, for a dragon can only produce offspring at one or two tiers below them. Granted, when two dragons produce one offspring, one is the primary parent and the other is offering support. There is nuance to it all and how to go about matchmaking to create a versatile flight, but the end goal is to get all the way to Baron quickly. That will open the potential for your flight to have access to all Skills, such as the oddly specific ones.


    ¡°That goes hand-in-hand with Trait collection. Marquess, Count, and Viscount are best suited to it, so you will want a bunch of them as quickly as possible to be your little army of whores going around and banging everything that moves.¡± That tidbit elicited a hearty chuckle out of Skull and a wide grin from me. ¡°With better Traits, you can rebirth the members of your flight to make them stronger or more specialized. The other dragon flights will only give you so much time to establish yourself before they start picking away at you, so you need to breed quickly.¡±


    Nanu moved around the table to sit in my lap, apparently maximizing our time together to get in a little extra attention and affection while she continued the lecture. I kept the roaming of my hands tame but encroaching, all the better to tease her. It all seemed to be rather straightforward, almost as if I already knew and believed most of it and just needed someone to organize the information for me.


    ¡°As for current flights and politics, I will go over those now. They are typically stated by the name of the Emperor and the flight name. For instance, the one you learned of earlier is Ossimandias of The Bone Wardens. They mostly dabble in collecting bones and necromancy, but the [Paladins] were correct in that you stand to become his ally, which you certainly need. The flight that all others hate typically gets ganged up on and eliminated.


    ¡°The Count we fought was part of Karlenstein of The Blood Keepers. Karlenstein himself is rather agreeable, but he gives his flight too much free reign, hence why a lot of them are a bunch of dicks. They like to perform experiments on lifeforms, oftentimes unethically, and are more than a little snobbish about how ¡®pure¡¯ they are.


    ¡°Encrodecro of the Crypt Lords is all about seizing and guarding crypts, graveyards, and the like, for reasons I can only guess at. The Bloods and the Crypts hate each other since the Bloods like to raid tombs for bodies used in their experiments. While the Wardens are tentatively at peace with the Crypts, they both compete over similar resources, so tensions are high between all three.


    ¡°Synsinac of The Pact Sealers was antagonistic with my former flight, The Secret Stalkers. They are all about mediating and facilitating contracts, of which they get a cut. You will undoubtedly run into them or their underlings in all the contract work needed for supplies and land acquisition. Always read their contracts thoroughly for loopholes, for they can be cutthroat negotiators.


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    ¡°Bylo¡¯selhi of The Equivalent Scales is a giant merchant conglomerate, and they have a finger in pretty much any pie out there. If there is coin to be made, they know about it and probably play both sides. There are so many layers to their business strategy and how they seemingly infight that even I cannot unravel what is truly going on.


    ¡°Ejnarri of The Star Harbingers is likewise a mystery. They seem to mostly be concerned with astronomy, prophecy, and the occult. I have no idea what they want, but they have plenty of assassins to make sure things go the way they want.


    ¡°Lastly, Bonpricha of The Eternal Pretenders and her associates are a bunch of hippies. They can make their imagination reality, and they seem to believe in fairies of all things, as if those existed. I have no idea if they are for or against the fey, but they generally do not meddle in worldly affairs. They are very dangerous in a fight though, so don¡¯t mess with them.


    ¡°And that concludes my prepared lecture for today on dragons. I know it was a large information dump, so feel free to ask questions if you have any.¡±


    Her lecture certainly left me with a lot to consider. In terms of friends and allies, I had an eclectic bunch to choose from. The Blood Keepers already had a reason to hate me, and given their unsavory practices, I was not keen on mending relationships with them. The Bone Wardens did seem like the logical ally since I would be working with them in the near future. The Pact Sealers and The Equivalent Scales felt rather neutral, for each seemed to focus more on opportunities and profits than grudges. The remaining flights with living Emperors were too unknown in motive and attitudes to properly assess how to handle them. That potentially left me with one strong ally, two loose allies, four unknowns, and one enemy. Overall, it did not seem to be a great foray into diplomacy, but for all I knew, I would be swinging for the fences to even have that good of relationships with the other flights.


    As for my flight, I was leaning more towards the ¡®thin¡¯ variety. That would offer fewer personalities and ambitions to manage and it would limit that sheer amount of treasure I would need to satisfy all their [Hoards]. My flight was already out in the open, for seemingly every [Paladin] that mattered already knew exactly who I was. What if I ran with it, and instead of remaining in the shadows like other flights seemed to, my flight was very out in the open? Like, I have not once walked down the street and observed a dragon just sitting there counting his coins. Would it work, or was it a fancy form of suicide? Dragons were almost universally hunted, seemingly through proxies by other Dragons, but if I could give my flight legally protected personhood, then I may be able to pull this off. I would have to check and see what Skills I could get to swing that after eating the Count¡¯s heart, and while it seemed foolhardy to plan the next couple millennia of my flight¡¯s existence on what I could figure out in the next couple days, it seemed that Destiny offered me few choices but to do just that.


    First things first; I excused myself from the table and hopped out the bedroom window. Once outside, I removed the Count¡¯s heart from my general storage pocket dimen¡­ er, ¡®Non-Dimensional¡¯ storage. The Boys, thinking it was snack time, started to amble over, but I waved them off. Looking hurt and betrayed with the crocodile tears in their eyes, they slowly waddled back to their ponds with lowered heads and dramatically flopped into it. I nearly strained myself from rolling my eyes too hard, but I had more important things to deal with than an entitled and mopey hydra.


    I hunkered down and assumed my draconic form. Low to the ground, only small parts of my body could be seen above the fence around my house. Quiet as a cat¡¯s foot, I gobbled down the Count¡¯s heart, which surprisingly, tasted rather delicious. Feeling nothing different, I employed just as much haste and discretion in turning back to my human form. For any onlooker, perhaps all of twenty seconds had transpired to watch the scene, and even then, they would have had to penetrate through all my Stealth Skills. I did not fall into the trap of believing that none could or did, but at least the commoners snooping around probably did not notice.


    Before I could even make my way back through the window, I felt a power well up inside me as if a great flame had been stoked in the coals of my heart. With quickened breathing forming the bellows, something great and powerful forged itself with me. My skin itched and crawled, as if thousands of bugs skittered across me. I nearly fell backwards out the window, I was so distracted and uncomfortable, but Skull caught me and yanked me in. My muscles tightened, feeling as though they would rip right off my bones, but despite the sensation, it didn¡¯t exactly hurt. As the doctors would say, I instead felt some ¡®pressure¡¯ as changes occurred with me.


    Nanu grabbed me and pulled me in close for a hug. I¡¯m not certain if I needed it or if she just seized the opportunity to press up against me, but a good five minutes transpired before the sensation passed. Afterwards, she handed me a mirror, and looking at myself in it, my mouth opened in shock. The lion¡¯s share of my boyish youth had faded, replaced instead by the maturity of a man closer to his prime. I had physically aged to appear about 25 or so years old, and the virtual years had been kind on me.


    Taking my shirt off, I could see that my muscles were lean and toned to be on par with Skull¡¯s, if not better. That maneuver certainly garnered no complaints, for their eyes devoured the sight before them with unrestrained greed. Whereas before, Nanu came up to perhaps just an inch shy of my height, she now measured to about three inches shy. As like the last time this happened, my boots were too snug, but I felt vindicated in how I had already prepared for such an eventuality by having available to me a whole range of larger boots already made by my own hands.


    ¡°My, you have certainly grown in such a short span of time. I wonder what else has grown,¡± Nanu stated brazenly as she positioned herself to remove my trousers. Yet insatiable, I accepted that this is who she was, and perhaps how all dragons were, as she and Skull half-guided and half-carried me back to the bed. To be fair, I was just as perpetually hungry for the indulgences of the flesh, I just at least had the dignity to pretend I had better things to do than stay in bed all day with a lover or five.


    Speaking of lovers, a sudden realization hit me. One lover was common, two was understandable, but at three, one hesitated to not call it a harem. Had I unwittingly man-whored my way into some clich¨¦? Oh no, here comes the slut-dragon to seduce all the women in town and add them to his collection. As we woke Chooka and once more began our nightly bonding rituals, I idly wondered if this is why the trope exists for why dragons were wont to capture princesses - sexy, horny, lonely princesses that spent their days imagining what a bad dragon would do to their bodies.


    Such musing would have to wait, for the three of them, especially the very real Princess, distracted me from thinking about anything but them. My stamina issues, while not completely resolved with my older form, certainly were decreased to almost a negligible amount. However, it was not a lack of desire or ability that brought a halt to my escapades with the only woman left who still had it in her to continue, but a need to examine my Skills and see what I would do with them.


    With Nanu still stubbornly clinging to me like a leech, I drew forth a comfy floor pillow from my dimensional storage and sat down upon it. Seeing the change in my demeanor, she moved as if to depart to give me space, but I caught ahold of her and left her nestled in my lap as I sat cross-legged on the pillow.


    ¡°Stay with me for a while, for I need to reflect on my Skills and want your company and guidance.¡±


    Astonished by my slightly deeper and more masculine voice, I took a moment to try speaking a few silly things to test it out, much to the amusement of Nanu who laughed as I held her in my arms. My vocal range surprised me, for I could hit both the low and the high notes if I took the time to sing one of those complicated songs. Perhaps I would serenade Chooka later after some practice, assuming the attempt didn¡¯t kill me with embarrassment. She would absolutely love it, so I made a mental note to practice.


    Skull entered into my shadow, which from her description, provided her with a world unlike ours. She could move about freely, but ultimately remained tethered to me. It allowed her to wander about and see around corners, to listen in to people unawares, and to strike with certain Skills without much fear of reprisal. Most importantly, it was in that realm where I could also manage her Skills, at least for her second Blessing, [Dragon Knight]. Still a fledgling Blessing, having been granted to her not even two full years ago, she had grown quickly in its use, but still mostly relied on what she had from [Divine Champion]. I hoped to change that soon enough by providing her with more utility and flexibility.


    Fortunately, dragons have a good number of Skills to induce fear in people, and by extension, Skull¡¯s Skills as a [Dragon Knight] reflected that. Mechanically, the way those Fear Skills interacted with those of [Divine Champion] allowed her to ¡®double dip¡¯ so to speak in her attempts to induce fear. By the time she fleshed out her kit, few would be able to stand before her without trembling in their boots, provided she had cause to terrorize them, and perhaps that unique combination had been the intent of Gulthar all along. Not to mention that [Dragon Knight] offered a great deal of the protective properties of dragons, she would be a veritable ¡®brick shithouse¡¯, as the saying goes.


    Relaxed, content, I focused on my Blessing and my Skills, delving deeper into the mysteries of what it was to be a dragon.

 Chapter 54

    With my Blessing of [Greater Elder Dragon Emperor], ostensibly a more advanced form of [Dragoon], abundant choices remained open to me for spending my Experience Points. All my Skills were clustered together in individual webs, which is to say, thematically related groupings, that, provided I could daisy-chain one to the next, allowed me to acquire all manner of tools needed to make my way through life. Some were revealed, even if their descriptions were vague. Others remained visible in how they connected, but I could not tell for certain what they were or did. The rest remained in a fog on the outskirts of the web, only becoming visible as I drew close with unlocked Skills. Therein remained the fear that I would dance all around some incredibly powerful ability, never knowing it existed because I never scouted in its direction by purchasing cheap Skills.


    However, no concrete numbers existed to guide me. If my Experience Points were a bucket of water, then Skills were cups of various sizes. I could only guess how much water I had used from the bucket and how many cups I could fill before my reserves ran dry. Perhaps such vexing conditions were meant to help balance the scales with the humanoids who couldn¡¯t choose their Skills. Certainly, they could behave in a manner that was likely to unlock the desired Skills, but it was still a roll of the dice for them.


    My Skills were divided into different webs, as I had covered earlier. Before eating the Count¡¯s heart, I had [Age], [Deeds], [Hoard], [Survival], [Social], and [Harvesting]. A great multitude of notifications jockeyed for my attention, each outlining my various accomplishments as of late. That little perk came as a result of a Skill, [Secretary of the Skill Webs], which only existed to help highlight the changes of my Skill webs. Otherwise, I would have to look it over thoroughly and compare it to what I remembered, which certainly had become too cumbersome a challenge to manage on my own. Just the opportunity cost of sitting around trying to see what had changed cost me more in unearned Experience Points than what it had cost to purchase, so I don¡¯t regret purchasing it, but I still think it was bullshit that I had to in the first place.


    However, I witnessed [Flight Management] break off from [Age]. This included skills to deal with Traits and their acquisition, eggs, making baby dragons, managing kobolds, and some logistical and housekeeping Skills to keep my children in line. Hold on a minute, what were egg Skills doing here? I¡¯m a boy dragon, not a girl, so something was fishy. [Basic Egg Creation] allowed me to create eggs, so clearly I remained ignorant of something.


    ¡°Um, Nanu.¡±


    ¡°Yes, my Emperor,¡± she replied as she remained happily perched in my lap.


    ¡°I am a man, yet I can create eggs. Is that¡­ normal?¡±


    She laughed a little, not to mock me, but at the innocence of it all. ¡°Most certainly, my Emperor,¡± she answered with mirth still gripping her words. ¡°Gender is a social construct, but as to your sex as male or female, that is also a construct as a dragon and subject to your whims as you age. I myself was male in my 300¡¯s. It was fun for a while, but I prefer to stay female. In your draconic form, you may notice you don¡¯t have the important bits to make such a distinction. Fear not, for you do not lay eggs, you just sort of¡­ teleport them into existence next to you when they are ready. Eggs are your most precious resource, for you can only create them so fast, and everything from the smallest of whelps to the biggest of Kings requires an egg, even if they are Dragon Consorts.


    ¡°You will want a hearty amount of egg Skills, as well as ones to make your children age faster and learn quicker. Trait collection is also a priority, perhaps more so than the Skills you will need to build your road. Getting your flight up and running quickly cannot be stressed enough, for they will be your strongest and most loyal allies in the years to come.¡±


    Feeling reassured that I was not some freak of nature, I used my [Skill Planner] to earmark those kinds of Skills. It would let me keep track of what Skills I wanted and how their costs compared to my budget without actually taking them on the spot. Many were the Skills that I wanted, but even with the bounty of Experience Points I had earned, not everything could be acquired.


    Skills tend to be progressive in nature, where a new Skill replaces an old, doing the same job but better. In a sense, if someone makes a big sword, you make armor to block it. When they make an even bigger sword, you make even better armor to block it. As such, many Skills offered specialization to accomplish specific tasks or counter specific Abilities used by an adversary. For instance, I had many Skills tagged with Stealth, meaning they all enhanced my ability to be sneaky. Typically, Skills tagged with Detection were meant to counter Stealth, and since Detection dealt specifically with countering Stealth, for equivalent expenditures of Experience Points, they were more powerful in scale and scope than Stealth. Ergo, if you want to be really good at something, you need to go all in, for someone who dabbles in countering it will still beat you if you do not specialize.


    Things like Stealth and Detection are usually referred to as disciplines, and they were not to be confused with schools of magic, such as Fire or Nature, for Stealth was ¡®what¡¯ you wanted to do and Fire was ¡®how¡¯ you wanted to do it, generally speaking. With Light, I could bend physical light around me, and while not perfect, I would be practically invisible if motionless and viewed at a distance. With Nature, my skin could change its color pattern, much like chameleons are said to do, to blend in with my background. Both operated under different principles but accomplished the same goal.


    Skills for Stealth and Detection both made the shortlist, as well as Skills for Observation. Not to be confused with Detection, Observation Skills dealt with things like my [Observers] and [Overseers]. Spectrums of light, thermal radiation, gravity, displacement of air, and the like were all ways to spot someone, so having Skills to notice the fine details of those things usually fell under Detection, whereas being able to view places remotely or see things far away as if they were up close tended to fall under Observation. It may seem like a distinction without difference, but some Skills specifically call out others with the proper disciplines or schools on them. Things do get wonky though when you start using both at the same time, but there are Skills even for that.


    With my safety mostly being trusted to Nanu, I would not need to enhance my Skills for combat too much. I mostly picked up passive Skills that didn¡¯t require any activation or thinking, ones that would make me tougher, stronger, faster, and all that jazz. If I could endure a beating, possess the speed and stamina to run away from a threat, and just generally be slippery enough that a foe could not catch me, then I could buy enough time for help to show up. It may be seen as cowardly, but my pride comes more from results than the techniques I use to achieve them.


    Most of my Combat Skills came from [Age] and [Survival]. I looked for the cheapest ones, but nothing too flashy jumped out at me. Still, about 15 percent of my Experience Points went into shoring up my weaknesses. [Deeds] could not be purchased at all, and while I had a few new ones from killing dragons and eating one¡¯s heart, they mostly granted me small advantages in dealing with dragons, whether it be in detection, diplomacy, or combat. [Hoard] offered a good number of Skills, but I didn¡¯t qualify for many of them. After looking them over, it seems I would need to become a collector of things other than coins if I wanted to advance much. I made a note to give it a try. Perhaps if I collected enough cool cups and mugs, I could get something for that.


    [Survival], [Social], and [Harvesting] were where the lion¡¯s share of my Experience Points would be spent. Most of my Skills related to Enchanting, Illusions, Constructs, and Crafting were still stuck in [Survival]. If only I had known what the world wanted from me to make those disciplines create their own webs, I would have focused on knocking those out by that point. Each would be needed to keep up with demand for all the specialty widgets I would require in building my roads. Or put another way, [Survival] offered the basic version of those Skills, but the more advanced ones would need to come from their specialized Skill webs.


    Quartz is by far the most common crystal around, and fortunately, it is well suited to the types of runes and enchantments I need to maintain roads. Like, you wouldn¡¯t use it in a necklace to block an incoming fireball, but it does wonders for preventing a harsh rainfall from flooding the ground under your roads. Hand-in-hand with quartz comes obsidian. Made of practically the same stuff, obsidian would be my end-all-be-all building material if I had my way. However, heating up rock, separating out the bits you don¡¯t want, and cooling it back down just right to make it, is challenging, expensive on mana, and time-consuming. And so, for both of these, I aimed for the proverbial holy-grail in my Skill web: [Basic Thermal Bottle].


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    [Basic Obisidicrete Production] and [Basic Obsidisteel Production] both were prerequisites that allowed me to create obsidicrete and obsidisteel respectively. While I had only read rumors about it in obscure dwarven texts, they remained the desired materials to make almost anything for a building or road. Incredibly durable, easy to enchant for construction purposes, self-healing from wear and tear, able to be colored or textured in just about any way one wants, and easy to shape into any form, they beat out any material one could hope for. Both were also mostly empty space, structured more like a lattice or scaffolding, each with proprietary special substances mixed within (that I won¡¯t share even with you, my readers), they made for surprisingly light material. Give me enough mana and time, and I could make a space elevator out of them. I had spent hours fiddling around trying to figure out how to create them, and while I never succeeded, I must have gotten close enough that these Skills unlocked for me.


    Each Skill was prohibitively expensive, and combined with [Basic Thermal Bottle], a full third of my Skill points were already gone. The [Basic Thermal Bottle] provided the key to all of it. First, materials inside of it levitated into the air. Secondly, thermal energy could not escape, so if one kept pumping heat into it, anything would melt into liquid, turn to gas, or even plasma if you let it. As such, filtering out different materials and sucking the thermal energy out of them as it leaves the bottle in such a way that it maintains whatever structure you want would be the new way of purifying and building my materials. It could not turn lead into gold, but it could turn ore into slag, lead, and gold if that was what comprised the ore. Granted, some chemical reactions are endothermic or exothermic, but a few puffs of fire from my breath attack could provide extra thermal energy when needed. I could put in rock and pull out rock, gravel, sand, glass, or the like as required. It lacked the finesse to make works of art, but it could make suitable blocks, which then could be shaped with other Skills.


    I had wanted these Skills for a while now, but I had lacked the Experience Points to purchase them. These made the mandatory list, along with most of my new and admittedly limited in variety [Flight Management] Skills. Most of the rest of my Skills went towards my dimensional storage options, all manner of Skills in [Harvest], and a few new skills to lead and manage perhaps thousands of people in a large-scale project. The name of the game was being able to get or do more faster and more efficiently. It costs mana to put things into and to pull things out of non-dimensional storage, so getting those costs down would be a huge boon to how much I could do in a day. Simply put, my physical stamina could easily outpace my mana regeneration if I worked all day, so squeezing out every last drop of efficiency would help to close that gap. Likewise, simply generating more mana and having a larger mana pool would help.


    With Skills being earmarked left, right, and center, I did go over budget. Now came the time for a thinking cap and math to figure out how to balance things. Because of my growth spurt in [Age], compliments of the Count having a big heart, I could maintain my draconic form for an 18 hour stint, with another 6 hours in a day if I were willing to spend mana on it. That meant I could technically be a dragon every hour of the day. Sleep also became something I would only need two hours of every three days, so I could mostly work around the clock, in one capacity or another, if I needed to.


    However, considering this would be a marathon and not a sprint, I would need to schedule time for leadership, leisure, and planning the route. Hopefully, I would not need to plan my schedule to such a degree that even piss breaks were in it, and speaking of, I quickly went back to [Survival] and got that Skill that let me just forgo such things from now on. No more lengthy visits to the latrine for me, just a casual walk by as my waste gets teleported out of my body and into the chamber pots. That did free up more time, which then threw off my math, so back to recalculating everything.


    From my experience building my first road and my knowledge of the maps of the route and where building materials would come from, I had to consider how much time I would be spending flying around transporting materials versus time spent harvesting and refining materials. Fortunately, [Skill Simulator] allowed me to do some of that. I still had to plan out what I would want to do, but it could crunch the numbers for me and determine how stable my mana regeneration would be. Considering the mountains would provide me with material and that the road would be built in their direction, the time spent in flight would decrease as progress approached the mountain. However, I would also gain some unknown quantity of Experience and personal mastery of my Skills as I drew closer, both of which could make better Skills become accessible and affordable. I spent about an hour just setting up my first simulation, and the results were¡­ not as good as I had hoped.


    About 8 hours of work on a good day was what the simulation spit out, which really didn¡¯t meet the schedule before the end of the world came a-knockin¡¯. However, I really didn¡¯t factor in what my massive army of construction workers and engineers would contribute. If I could leave it to them to clear the path for the road of trees, boulders, dirt, and the like so that I just had a nice trench to fill with the appropriate layers of materials, that would save a lot of time, effort, and mana. However, that freed up more time to do resource runs to the mountains, which meant more material faster, which led to more time spent refining and placing it into location. That actually made me less mana efficient, since those tasks were mana-intensive. Clearly, more tweaks would be needed.


    The sad reality I had to face was that I had been too greedy with the size of my dimensional storage. Stone and the like were king, not so much for lumber, plants, ores, and other luxuries. Sacrifices were made to slash the budget allocated to those things, and those freed-up Experience Points went to more Skills for mana efficiency and generation for what I would be doing the most. If I relied more on the Skills of my engineers to provide heat for my [Basic Thermal Bottle], I could save a lot of mana. Heck, even just transmogrifying the lumber into charcoal and burning it for heat would be cheaper, if not good for the environment. However, considering I wouldn¡¯t be spilling billions of gallons of oil into the local ecosystem, I considered a few fires inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.


    Strictly speaking, I didn¡¯t need to commit to my bulk purchases of Skills right then and there. I did get the ones I knew I would need and made a plan to go try them out. After experimenting with new Skills, interacting with my army of workers to see what they could do, and seeking advice from experts, I would then reevaluate my decisions and go from there. However, there was still that nagging desire to just buy everything I wanted on the spot for immediate gratification, but that would have been foolish.


    Instead, as dawn reared its ugly head with the tentative greetings of a few errant sunbeams promising another day spent cooped up with a bunch of [Paladins] and their mountain of paperwork, I begrudgingly put aside pondering my Skills and began making breakfast. Nanu clung to me like a little monkey, her legs wrapped around my waist and her arms around my neck. A little clingy, perhaps, but I had to cut her some slack considering she spent two decades alone and tormented. Besides, it felt kinda nice to be so desired, perhaps suspiciously nice. As I started to root through my raided pantry for ingredients, I wondered if such attention had always made me feel good or if one of her Skills influenced me. Perhaps even my draconic nature and the associated pride hid the answer to the mystery.


    ¡°What in the world are you doing,¡± came the voice of a slightly groggy Alterez as he approached me in the kitchen.


    ¡°Making breakfast?¡± I half-said and half-asked in reply.


    ¡°No, just no. Not like that. Here, let me do it.¡±


    Conceding control of the kitchen to the master, I got out of his way as the [Line Cook] worked wonders I could only dream of. Even with my sharp eyes, at times it seemed like three or four goblin chefs moved about the kitchen, such was his speed in preparing ingredients and cooking up a veritable feast. With that well in hand, I made my way upstairs to rouse Chooka.


    Dangling a fancy piece of paperwork in front of her nose, the love of my life sniffed at it while still asleep. Her lips twisting into a disturbing smile, her fingers clutched at the paper, each working to ascertain the mystery that her closed eyes and sleeping brain could not parse. Eventually, Chooka woke to the sight of me, with Nanu still clinging onto me, prodding her gently.


    ¡°Rise and shine, my beautiful and most desired lover. Today is another day of fun and adventure. Would you like to share it with me and see where our hearts take us?¡±


    She groaned at my cheesy greeting, but smiled just the same for how heartwarming it was. To be fair, I was at such an enlightened level of sarcasm that it rang the same as honest truth. I yanked the blanket off of her, just to be safe so she wouldn¡¯t go back to sleep, and with a yelp at the invasion of the cold air, she curled up and hid her head under her pillow.


    ¡°Skull. Release seals nine and eight. Permission to use attack plan ¡®Pouncing Fox¡¯ granted. You may engage with extreme prejudice,¡± I stated out-loud for Chooka to hear.


    ¡°As you wish, my Master,¡± came Skull¡¯s voice from my shadow as she materialized in front of me. ¡°It will be my pleasure.¡±


    I did not stay to watch the barbaric savagery that would ensue. I made my way to the door as howling laughter announced the arrival of Skulls fingers on Chooka¡¯s ribs. Skull could be generous in many ways, but she hoarded mercy covetously. Chooka would submit in time, and then together we would go forth and conquer the day or something dramatic like that.

 Chapter 55

    ¡°If I am to do this, I will need diplomatic immunity for myself and my flight.¡±


    My opening statement for the day to the assembled [Paladins] brought all action to a halt as all eyes stared at me. Some looked rather grim and stern at the announcement, some inquisitive as to why I would say such a thing, and of course the goblin [Paladin] found humor in it as he grinned that too-wide and creepy goblin smile I was starting to get used to.


    ¡°This time of my youth,¡± I continued, despite the tense atmosphere, ¡°Is when an Emperor is normally supposed to focus on building his flight in secret. But I will not have the luxury of privacy and remaining incognito. It will be inescapably obvious to those who could harm me as to who I am and who my children are. Without protection from persecution and hunting, my flight will not be able to survive in this world. How then, could you ask of me to do that which will lead to my death if I am not offered protection?¡±


    Many mouths started moving at that explanation, all chattering away making words that more often than not were against me. Before it could devolve into an open brawl, Gamgrox held up his hand and shouted to the room.


    ¡°SILENCE!¡± He paused, glaring around the room to see who would dare challenge his authority. ¡°Perhaps we should reserve judgment until a full explanation is given.¡±


    Taking perhaps the only bone that would be thrown my way, I ran with it, giving them a proper breakdown. ¡°I am sure none of you have ever seen a dragon openly revealed in civilization. They are covert in their actions and typically unknown in their motives. What I offer is something new. My flight will live and walk among you, open in our identities and clear in what we aim to accomplish. We will be granted personhood and the protection of the law, free from being enslaved or hunted, able to own property, and to generally enjoy the same rights and freedoms of normal people.


    However, I am not so na?ve as to believe there will not be those who would pass laws that would discriminate against my flight. That is why I will need some degree of authority to rise above the law, for my flight will focus more on what is good for the people than what is legal.¡±


    A lot of grumbling came from that part. Handing out the ability to exist above the law would be a recipe for disaster. I needed to break that down for them, lest they get all uppity again.


    ¡°I am not trying to say that my flight will not be held accountable. I will keep them in line, ensure that my children act fairly and justly. If a suitable compromise cannot be reached between me and regional authorities, then I will accept mediation or arbitration from a council of neutral individuals representing the gods gathered here. For it is you [Paladins], your gods, and the churches of the gods who will hold me to my end of the deal and bring down retribution on those who would dare unjustly impose their will on my own.¡±


    Some of the muttering turned to be a little more agreeable, but I still needed to sweeten the pot.


    ¡°My flight will not be freeloaders in return for this privilege. As my flight grows in power and members, for what we are able to do, we will build and maintain the roads, bridges, aqueducts, pipe networks, and other such transportation infrastructure between lands and cities, all done free of charge or tariff. We will not discriminate except against those who endeavor to do evil or harm, and all who travel my roads will be under the protection of my flight for the duration of their journey along them. This will not include canals or any sort of sailing, for we would not infringe upon such Domains that have been claimed. Likewise, the streets of cities and towns will still be theirs to control and maintain, but all the roads and highways of the world will fall under my jurisdiction when I have the strength to claim them.


    ¡°My flight will not bring senseless harm to civilians or destroy their property unjustly. Any grievances we have with regional powers will be dealt with in a manner that only directly impacts the belligerents. My flight will strive to isolate and contain violence to the appropriate minimum, using only as much coercive force as required to align my adversaries¡¯ ways of thinking with my own. My flight will strive for fair and open diplomacy, always preferring the carrot over the stick, but we will not suffer the avaricious desire or the casual cruelty of those who rule when making such deals.¡±


    More grumbling, but seemingly evenly split. However, I had them on the ropes, so I needed to bring it home.


    ¡°What I aim to do is no different than what all of you already do. I will strive to make the world a better place, to enhance the lives of the common people so that they do not just merely survive, but thrive. Are not all of you good unto good and evil unto evil? How then would it be just to deny me to live by the same virtues? Instead of serving a god, my flight will serve me, and I in turn will serve this world; not nations, not kings, not council of aldermen, not theocracies, but the common people. I will not impose my will any more than I must to ensure that all may enjoy the use and bounty of my roads. I ask that you consider this accord carefully, that you judge it with wisdom rather than your emotions, for the fate of countless lives and those yet unborn hang on the decision that each and every one of you will make on this matter.¡±


    Gamgrox, for his part, seemed to respect my offer, although he did need to maintain a neutral demeanor for the sake of fairness in leading the assembled quorum. Ulrinth also appeared to be happy with my offer, perhaps because he and the faithful of his god were tired of hoofing it overland to collect the bones of the dead. The goblin [Paladin] seemed pleased for reasons unknown, perhaps because goblins are little hellions who love chaos and a good twist to negotiations.


    What I offered was to be a god in all but name for the system of roads in the world. However, I felt confident that one god or another would step in and take over, or if needed, the universe would spit out a new one because the peoples of the world needed one. Such had been the way of things since time immemorial, so I would not need to shoulder the burden alone for long. If only I had known then how correct I would be in that assessment, perhaps I would not have made the [Paladins] such a heavy bargain.


    ¡°We will need a while to deliberate and seek the counsel of our gods,¡± stated Gamgrox diplomatically, as much to me as the other [Paladins]. ¡°It would be best if you and your entourage remained at your table so that, should anyone have questions for you, they will know where to find you.¡±


    What he really meant was that we had to behave ourselves and couldn¡¯t meddle or try to overtly seduce or influence anyone here. Chooka¡¯s cheeks puffed a bit as she crossed her arms at the news. Clearly peeved but compliant, despite her desire to work the room with her charm, she instead opted to idle away the time with me.


    ¡°A good speech, my favorite love, but a bold one. Are you not worried that you have bitten off more than you could chew?¡± Her hands joined together just behind my neck as she loosely held me to her. She would have gone for something more intimate if this were the time or the place, but also, she still wanted to be able to look me in the eye to glean some insight into what I was thinking.


    ¡°I needed to take action for our safety. The world knows who I am, and if I could just hide away for a while, I would have started my flight in secret. However, such is not an option any more, so I needed to secure protection lest we come to harm.¡±


    Chooka kissed me on the forehead in response to my unvoiced apprehension. I had made this decision on my own without consulting anyone else first, but I did not have the time to delay this matter until such deliberations could be made.


    ¡°I¡¯m not some na?ve schoolgirl who doesn¡¯t understand how the world works,¡± she admonished me as she whispered into my ear. ¡°You don¡¯t need to justify every little thing you do, even if it impacts me, for there are times when I simply need to trust your wisdom and heart on matters, and this is one of those times. You do your best to keep me and the others in the loop and to seek our opinions before you make a decision, which I am grateful for, but I am not so selfish or demanding as to expect it at all times. As I trust in you, you need to trust more in me that I can and will stay by your side when you make a decision for us all.¡±


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    Her voice and posture softened as she continued, the reprimand past and approval forthcoming. ¡°I know your enemies would hurt you to get to me, and like it or not, we are both together in this situation now. It is frightening and exciting all at once, for the new opportunities before us hold as much wonder as they do danger. I guess I just wish things could be better, but I don¡¯t know how to make them so. The deal you offered is probably better than anything I could have thought up. You had limited leverage and currency to barter, but you still performed admirably, and so I am proud of you. You did your best, and so now we must wait and see how the world responds. No matter the outcome, I will stay by your side because I love you.¡±


    Chooka always knows just what to say to make me feel better, and right in that moment, that was what I needed to hear. We kept our affection appropriately chaste for the sake of those gathered around. Not that Chooka would be shy about starting an orgy, but the [Paladins] were not the kind of crowd for such a thing. Well, mostly, as some of them were probably down for that if it got them out of this meeting.


    A few hours passed as the assembled [Paladins] talked it out. Only one punch was thrown the whole time, which was remarkably tame considering the menagerie of egos and charismatic personalities assembled. None of them were wallflowers, nor were they passive-aggressive, and each let his or her feelings be known as they discussed and argued on the merits of my proposal. Eventually, some sort of consensus must have been reached, for they took their seats as Gamgrox readied himself to give me an official response.


    ¡°We have discussed at length the matter that you brought to our attention. We have conversed with one another and our gods as we deliberated the merits, costs, and risks of what you have offered and what you request in return. We acknowledge and see legitimacy in your concerns, and so we have come to an understanding.¡± Gamgrox walked forward to my table, a thick bundle of papers in hand, which promptly found itself loosed from his grasp and deposited in front of me for my perusal. ¡°We have drafted a rough outline of terms, for while we understand the broad strokes of what you have said, there still remains room for abuse from all parties in its enforcement. As always, we are here to negotiate terms, so take some time to review our offer. We will continue discussing the minutiae of logistics that do not need your direct involvement while we wait for your response.¡±


    With that said, he returned to his table, and the assembled [Paladins] and their attendants began churning their great paperwork machine as they did what Gamgrox had said they would do. Meanwhile, I examined the deal they had provided me while Chooka and Nanu each eagerly read over my shoulder. Skull seemed more inclined to keep an eye out for intruders, despite the ample layers of security, and her eyes never seemed to linger for more than a moment on any paperwork as she continued her vigil.


    ¡°Well, what do you think?¡± I asked the two lovely ladies behind me as they had finished reading.


    ¡°The deal is good, very good. Suspiciously favorable, but I cannot find anything untoward within,¡± Nanu replied.


    ¡°I don¡¯t see any loopholes either,¡± answered Chooka.


    Therein lay the conundrum. The gods could have hit back with demands of their own, ultimately forcing me to compromise and concede away protection and benefit both. Now, if past me had known what I know now, then he would have known that the gods were practically dancing a little jig in joy and excitement that I had boldly offered to do the exact thing they had planned to force me into. Sometimes Destiny opens a door and invites you in, other times it forms a massive sinkhole under you and devours you within its grasp. This was more of the latter, for I had unwittingly volunteered myself for filling that role of the god who would control the roads. As they say, ¡®man proposes, heaven disposes¡¯, and while I had planned to offload the godly duties to some yet unknown being, I was the dead ringer candidate to be said god.


    It was only natural the gods would seduce me with a deal too good to be true. They needed a new demigod, one who was impressionable and would accept their guidance, especially in matters of close confidants. Each wanted to put a Skull-like figure in my life, one I would take with me when I departed this world, that they would each have a fingerhold in universes beyond this one. I was their ticket out of here, for the other demigods, older and wiser to such practices, were a tough sell, but I was inexperienced in such things, being not even a demigod by that point. I had practically presented myself to them on a silver platter, and they eagerly took what was offered to them.


    This isn¡¯t to say I hate being a demigod or am unsatisfied with my life. I just perhaps wish that younger me had a chance to enjoy a bit of a normal life first before ascending. Not to say that I became a demigod on the spot right then and there, but I had placed myself firmly on that path to ascension by making and taking the deal.


    Anyway, Chooka, Nanu, and I processed the terms and made little corrections here and there. The deal was good, but a few clarifications were made. For instance, if I faced mediation or arbitration, the members of the various churches who would sit in judgment over me would be drafted from far away lands, with that and other measures in place to ensure I had politically neutral judges with stalwart reputations for fairness.


    Overall, the deal and all the contracts so far were generous to me and above reproach. So continued the pattern of behavior and meetings for another week. By the end of it, I sat down with the [Paladins] one last time for a final review and a signing of all documents. This would be the day to officially accept the deal. The gods were known for malicious compliance when following the letter of a deal, but they favored following the spirit of an agreement when possible, and this was one of those times, for they needed me more than I needed them, even if I remained ignorant of that fact.


    I reviewed the documents and contracts in full. I did not fear that anyone had doctored a few clauses on the sly, but I wanted to be completely confident that all loopholes had been closed and that all deals were as I had imagined them. The [Paladins] waited patiently, each and every one of them a testament to their discipline and conviction as they made no distractions or complaints. Hours passed, but finally, I put pen to paper and signed away. Something about the nature of it made me feel as if I were signing a contract with the Twelve and One themselves, but I felt the same way when signing the deed to my house, so maybe that is just a natural feeling of putting one¡¯s name to a commitment forged in paper and ink.


    ¡°Excellent! I am glad we have come to an agreement and we can be done with all this paperwork and planning,¡± exclaimed Gamgrox as he shook my hand afterwards. ¡°We have pushed the limits of what this lot here can tolerate. I am sure that they ache for the open road and some great evil to overcome.¡± The big orc let out a hearty laugh at his joke, but to be fair, I too wanted to go fight something just so I could feel alive again. ¡°My attendants will draft up copies for everyone, and you will keep the originals and a few copies. Best of luck to you, Emperor. The whole world is counting on us, but gods willing, we will work through this tribulation together.¡±


    ¡°Same to you, [Paladin]. I am certain we will meet again in the Ashlands when the rift between worlds opens,¡± I replied as I shook his hand back with equal enthusiasm.


    With a smile and a nod, he left me to my own devices as he busied himself with the paperwork. Others came up to shake my hand and thank me, some clearly grateful that a resolution of any kind had been reached so they could get back to swinging swords and smiting evil.


    ¡°It is pleasing to see that you keep such good company,¡± stated the goblin [Paladin] as he shook my hand. He spared more than a glance at Alterez as he did so. ¡°Gubberloodoo has great hopes for you and your associates here, and so with great anticipation will I watch and see how things turn out.¡± His gaze turned and fixed on Alterez, his expression seemingly friendly but holding a stern and authoritative undertone to it. ¡°We all have our tasks in life. Best that we fulfill them to our utmost lest we be found wanting in the afterlife.¡±


    Alterez gulped nervously, his brow showing little beads of sweat forming as he chuckled nervously under the intense and withering glare. Then, as if nothing had happened, the goblin [Paladin] looked at me once again, his expression jovial and relaxed as if we were best of friends. His task completed, he wandered off to do whatever it is he and the other [Paladins] do while they wait to be formally dismissed. Clearly Alterez was supposed to start a goblin cult or something, but it was not my place to pry, so I chalked it up to goblins being goblins.


    Eventually, I received the originals and copies of my contracts, and with those safely stored away in a special pocket dimension of my most important things, I gathered my people to me and departed as a group. We each knew our parts, and with tonight being our last night in Berkerin, we would have some sort of party before mustering at a rally point tomorrow morning to lead the locals to the staging area for the great highway that we would be building for the next several years.


    With much to do and little time to do it, we hastily made our way home. Chooka and I decided not to sell it, but we did secure contracts for caretakers in our absence. However, we still needed to pack away most of our things into my dimensional storage. Moving the physical contents of my hoard would be tricky, for I would need to carry it openly unless I wanted to forego its boon and feel sick the entire time. Additionally, Chooka had a party planned, and so everything needed to be taken care of before then.


    The whole city knew by now that I was the new [Dragon Emperor], so gossip remained rampant as people desperately tried to see me or talk to me. Only the lucky few would attend the party, so it would be a night to remember.

 Chapter 56

    Many groggy faces and droopy eyes idly turned my way in passive greeting as people stumbled towards our rally point in the wee hours of the morning. I recognized some of the people gathered as attendees of the party that Chooka had thrown last night. Most of the rest had presumably attended other parties, seemingly ones with equally ample levels of alcohol available to those who cared to imbibe. Miccen, dwarves, and gnomes represented the bulk of the skilled and technical experts, with orcs comprising most of those who would be performing grunt work and a few remnimi as scouts. Humans were a noticeably small minority, for they tend to not be specialized enough at anything to outcompete other races.


    Chooka had indeed hosted an orgy for our going away party, one with a strict dress code of ¡®anything but clothes¡¯ being enforced. We did allow people to wear normal clothes to the gathering hall we rented out, but then they had to change before they were allowed into the party proper. The various pots, pans, plants, jars, tools, and other forms of improvised apparel had found their way to the floor before long, but it gave each person in attendance an opportunity to showcase their creativity in the matter. I myself had used illusions to create black bars to obstruct a view at my nether regions, whereas Chooka had somehow conjured up mist and flower petals to just barely obfuscate her own goods. Skull just used conjured shadows that resembled the screaming souls of the damned silently crying out in torment, but it did not dissuade the bold who coveted a chance to press against her exposed and steely muscles.


    Nanu had worked the room, shapeshifting as needed into the desired race and gender of whatever paramour that suited her. Combine that majestic wonder with her exotic novelty of being a known dragon and she had been the most popular individual of the night by far. I had not been far behind, and although I lacked the ability to shapeshift into whatever type of person I wanted, simply being a [Dragon Emperor] had many suitors come a-calling.


    I had been far more discerning than Nanu as far as what aesthetics and equipment I desired in my couplings, and indeed, Chooka had to coax and encourage me to entreat all the lovely ladies to the delights that I could offer. I was not so much shy as concerned that Chooka or Skull would feel as if I were cheating on them if I enjoyed the company of other women too much. They solved that by rounding up a harem of honeys and tossing me into their midst. The smorgasbord was to be enjoyed for the bounties it had to offer, for when the night ends and the people go home, they both knew with confidence that the two of them and, I guess now Nanu, would be the ones favored most.


    Also, they all wanted me to collect Traits and start pumping out baby dragons. It¡¯s like those women all lived in a world where people viewed them in such a way that their only value was to produce offspring or something. I hope they appreciate the sacrifices I make for this family by bedding all these beautiful women who throw themselves at me like drunk girls with daddy issues on prom night. I know Skull just wants a cuddle puddle with the whelps, for she is ever transparent in expressing her desires.


    Now, being an [Dragon Emperor], I had a lot of perks at my disposal for Trait collection. For other dragons that don¡¯t specialize in doing the deed, they have a chance to get a random Trait from their lover. Some specialized Templates, like [Succubus], can cherry-pick as they please or maybe even get multiple at a time if they are strong enough. I had the means to do so inherently, and as I could now see what Traits people had, I did begin being more picky than just aesthetics about what partners I wanted.


    Traits like [Scales - Tough] and [Scales - Hardened] were all part of the [Scales] set, and apparently, getting the full set does something special. Likewise [Bones - Hardened] and [Bones - Ice] were other examples, and so I could likewise collect the [Hardened] set. Those are examples of basic Traits, but some get more complex, such as [Socialization - Charming (Bad Boy, Quick Witted)], which as you can see, has four different parts to it. My understanding of why a flight needs a dedicated team of sluts to go forth and collect grew with my acquisition of Traits.


    Sadly, Nanu only retained a fraction of her Traits from her previous flight. During her time as an Orphan, as dragons without a living Emperor are called, her Traits decayed away. She still had the use of the ones for her current Templates and Blessing, but her repository of what she had collected had withered during her captivity. She made ample effort that night to restore her lost glory, but ultimately, the whole process of finding all the Traits in existence could take a full flight several centuries of effort. She did inform me that duplicate copies of Traits are fine and useful, but the nuances of how they were useful escaped me. In simple terms, it is better to collect new ones than to get duplicates, so that is what I did.


    With enough people having one Ability or another to [Cure Disease] or something similarly named, the spread of venereal diseases had become a moot point, except perhaps amongst poor people in cities with terrible public healthcare. Likewise, people of different races could not breed, and dragons had to make a deliberate choice to procreate, so from a purely physical perspective, promiscuity had no appreciable downsides unless toxic emotions got involved. Even Alterez managed to get some action, and I believe at one point I saw Gambino and Bambina eyeing him invitingly from across the room. The three of them and the two [Kuroko] kobolds had wandered off somewhere private, so either he was dead in a ditch somewhere or he would be strutting to this gathering with enough pep in his step to act like he owned the place.


    Indeed, my favorite new [Cult Leader] swaggered towards me with a wide grin on his face. Granted, once he started a cult, he would have plenty of devotees who would do anything to please their leader, so he would be drowning in volunteers for bed-warming duty in no time. I had wondered what kind of cult he would start. Probably something around drugs and food, like an occult potluck that had the munchies from all the substances they consumed.


    ¡°Morning, Bossman,¡± the devilish charmer greeted as he sauntered up to me. ¡°Quite the party last night. We should probably throw another one when we herd this gaggle of lollygaggers to the rallying point of this road of yours. Where are we going exactly again?¡±


    ¡°Southeast to a T-intersection that is more or less centered east-west on the continent. It is the middle of nowhere, for it is just where two roads converge between three major trade routes. Nanu and I will be ferrying people over there on our draconic backs, with Bellwright and a few others assisting with what flying vessels they can conjure up.¡±


    ¡°That ought to be a treat and a spectacle,¡± Alterez commented as he munched down on some breakfast. ¡°I bet not many can claim to have ridden a dragon before, much less survived to tell the tale.¡±


    ¡°Well, a few did have the pleasure of riding a dragon last night,¡± I replied with a cheeky grin on my face. ¡°As far as I know, most of them are still alive, but I cannot speak for Nanu¡¯s ¡®riders¡¯.¡±


    Our grins grew wider and wider as we stared knowingly at one another, until finally, we could contain our mirth no longer and both broke out in hearty laughs.


    ¡°Where is she anyway?¡± Alterez asked as he offered me some sort of burrito for breakfast, which I accepted. ¡°I figured Chooka and Nanu would be here around now.¡±


    ¡°Oh, they are at the guildhall picking up some very important documents that I had drafted just for her. I expect that any minute now, Nanu will be escorting an exuberant Chooka over to us. I¡¯d bet you two silvers that Chooka jumps on me or even tackles me in excitement.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a sucker¡¯s bet,¡± Alterez answered as he held his hands up in defeat. ¡°If you did something to please her, which I am guessing you did by all the sleight of hand you pulled with a certain document that Chooka never got to see during all those damn meetings, then you have something in the works. I may not have been paying complete attention to the contents of the meeting, but I did watch what people were doing. You may be crafty, but I saw what you were doing.¡±


    ¡°Well, if I am charged with wrongdoing, then you will have to take it up with the temples, for I have diplomatic immunity,¡± I countered as I evaded his baseless accusations of paper-shuffling under Chooka¡¯s nose. ¡°Are all goblins so quick to point the finger at dragons for any perceived wrongdoing? How long must my people endure such persecution and discrimination?¡± I put on a dramatic flare to my little speech, the back of my hand raised to my forehead as I embellished the situation.


    This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    ¡°Oh, forgive me, good sir,¡± Alterez pleaded with an exaggerated bow. ¡°Goblins such as myself are strangers to being disenfranchised and wrongfully accused. You are truly a saint to endure such hardships without complaint.¡±


    On and on our little foray into whimsical and passive-aggressive complaining continued until suddenly, the ground rose up to meet me as a pair of arms fiercely gripped me in their embrace.


    ¡°I knew there was a reason you are my favorite lover,¡± exclaimed Chooka excitedly as she nuzzled me into the pavement. ¡°I don¡¯t know how you managed this, but this is the best thing that has happened in my career in a long time.¡±


    ¡°I love you, too. I almost made two silvers on this tackle, but Alterez didn¡¯t take the bait for a wager.¡±


    ¡°Smart goblin,¡± Chooka replied as she sat upright and pulled a document out of a satchel on her waist. ¡°See here,¡± she exclaimed to the curious goblin as he leaned in to examine what words were written upon the official-looking paper, ¡°It says I am the new guildmaster of the temporary guildhall that will be wandering around with us as we build the road. This is the best day ever!¡± she shouted as she raised her hand in the air and wiggled her hips into my chest in satisfaction. ¡°Just think of all the paperwork that will need writing, all the diplomacy and negotiating that will be needed with local leaders and their already-established guildhalls.¡± Chooka¡¯s eyes unfocused for a moment as she daydreamed about such future possibilities.


    I took her distraction as an opportunity to wrangle my way out of the pavement. Being that I was vastly stronger than my physical form would suggest, it was a simple matter of brute forcing my lack of proper leverage to hoist myself upright with a satisfied Chooka in my arms.


    ¡°Oh, have you volunteered to carry your new guildmaster in your arms the whole time,¡± asked Chooka with a cheeky smirk on her face. ¡°I could get used to such treatment,¡± she continued as she preened for all to see.


    ¡°Only if you want your new office to be fuck-all far away in the mountains where you get to constantly hear the sound of stone breaking and rocks falling, instead of, you know, back at camp,¡± I answered.


    ¡°That would put a damper on my relationship with the other guild members,¡± she quipped before putting her arms around my neck. ¡°I guess I will just have to enjoy it while it lasts. As long as you find your way home to bed me every night, it shouldn¡¯t be an issue that our work will keep us apart.¡±


    Her passive method of airing her chief concern now employed, I took the moment to coddle and cajole her with all that lovey-dovey stuff that makes embarrassed teenagers gag. By the end of it, she had damn-near wrangled a contract out of me, her new authority going to her head as she went mad with power. Her maniacal cackling drew a few looks, so we begrudgingly toned it down by ten percent so as to only cause a scene instead of a panicked stampede of those who may be second-guessing this expedition.


    ¡°Should you feel inclined to carry me from time to time,¡± interjected Nanu as Chooka and I continued our antics, ¡°I would rebuff your gesture of compassion. Likewise, we should plan time to share Traits as well, perhaps twice daily, just to be safe.¡±


    The three of us shared a knowing look at one another at the blatant request for frequent future entanglements in the sheets, but such is either the nature of dragons or just ones that have been imprisoned for two decades. After a few moments of that, I set Chooka down and gave her a swat on the behind to send her on her way.


    ¡°I reckon it is about time our glorious new guildmaster took command and started roll call. We don¡¯t want any of these good people left behind.¡±


    Saddened to no longer be in my arms, but excited to round up her posse of new underlings and get this rabble into some semblance of organization, Chooka departed with a little skip in her stride.


    ¡°You know,¡± started Alterez as he watched her go, ¡°nine times out of ten, I would call nepotism in such a situation. However, I honestly don¡¯t think I could find anyone in the guild more qualified than her for this job. That woman has a strange passion for paperwork that verges on the unhealthy.¡±


    ¡°That is why I picked her,¡± I responded as I walked us over to the oncoming kobold troupe. ¡°She is too qualified and passionate to sit around bored while I am out working, and besides, this is too big to fail and she won¡¯t let that happen.¡±


    Alterez and Nanu nodded in agreement while Skull spoke to the same from my shadow. Three of the kobolds were dressed in blue with neat and form-fitting uniforms that included a skirt and a fancy scarf for Bambina. They each had some luggage on wheels that they rolled along beside them. Gambino dressed in black with three gold stripes on his jacket just above the wrists. He also sported a fancy black hat with gold emblems and flourishing that helped to make him look like he was in charge. They continued strutting past us towards where people would be loading onto or into their transportation mediums.


    Nanu and I likewise made our way over, and as other individuals with their own flying mechanisms gathered to their locations, Nanu and I transformed into dragons. Although these days, I felt more and more like a dragon who transformed into a person. After Chooka gave us the go-ahead, I heard three tones in rising pitch as Bambina made an announcement.


    ¡°Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of Imperial Airways, it is my pleasure to welcome you aboard flight 403 with service to the middle of nowhere.¡± On and on she continued as she guided people through the boarding process, calling up individual groups while Gambino clambered his way up my body to sit where my neck meets my shoulders. ¡°Ladies and gentlemen, please turn off and stow away all portable magical communication devices in preparation for departure.¡± I zoned out for a moment, but it seemed like we were close to leaving, with most of the baggage being stowed away in my pocket dimension.


    I had glorified saddlebags on my neck and tail to hold the contents of my [Hoard], and the [Kuroko] kobolds, each now in uniforms more appropriate for manual labor, began checking all the straps and harnesses that would allow those bags and the passengers to remain affixed to me. Their pre-flight checklist complete, they each grabbed a pair of glowing sticks and moved out to marshal the awaiting craft and flying creatures into the sky.


    I could not determine if the kobolds actually believed in the actions and steps they took, but they performed their roles seriously enough. I never asked them to do anything specific, they just showed up in whatever outfits matched the scene and began working. I know full well what their dress and behavior alludes to, but how did they know it? Airlines don¡¯t exist in this world, so how did they know about it? Were they pulling memories from my past life or were they somehow enlightened by some yet unknown source? Either way, it was funny, adorable, harmless, and surprisingly useful, as it did help streamline the process and people just went along with it like it was all very normal, despite it being the first time any of them had done anything like this. Blessings are weird, Skills even more so, and the power that they could bring about, often without people noticing, was a little frightening at times.


    Before long, I too was in the air, our little convoy slowing down to allow the last to take off to catch up, and, indeed, we progressed at the speed of our slowest member, which thankfully, was some roc and not me. I don¡¯t care much for birds, perhaps because they dare contest the skies where dragons reign supreme, but the poor creature did muscle through despite looking overloaded.


    Two descending tones sounded, followed by a large inhale and very muffled speaking. I could tell it was Gambino¡¯s voice, and although my Skills kept the worst of the wind away from my riders, his sound clarity was absolutely terrible.


    ¡°Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome aboard. We are currently flying at two thousand feet on our flight from Berkerin to the middle of nowhere. We are expecting a smooth flight and anticipate an on-time arrival in the middle of nowhere at lunchtime. We hope you enjoy your flight.¡±


    The whole affair sparked memories of lives past, and I chuckled at how the kobolds get all the little details just right. My memories were becoming more and more clear over time, especially since that dream with the Spiral-Triangle Man. I didn¡¯t need to encounter things before I knew what they were as often as I did in the past, and I found joy and insight from knowing more culture and technology than I would otherwise know from being raised in a small village in a different middle of nowhere.


    We arrived at lunchtime, which is a very broad time frame. A sizable camp of two or three thousand individuals and beasts of burden had already assembled. We touched down outside the camp, and the passengers disembarked and collected their luggage. I was glad to be free of them, for although I like miccen well enough, they never stopped chattering the whole time. Literally, each one talks non-stop and somehow still keeps up with the umpteen conversations going on; it was nearly maddening. As I made my way to the camp, I wondered if that would be the status quo for the next couple years.

 Chapter 57

    I set to work right away, for while the tent city was nice and all, people wanted more semi-permanent housing. The mustering camp was situated about ten miles away from the T-intersection in the direction the road would be built, and a short ways from that a clearing had already been established by dutiful workers. All the shrubbery, trees, rocks, and so forth had been removed, the ground flattened and  leveled, latrine pits dug, and building markers placed. They even had the time and presence of mind to complete appropriate drainage systems for rainwater. Overall, it was a very well thought out and professionally designed camp; it just had no buildings or actual infrastructure.


    A few hand-picked individuals awaited my arrival. I had not been idle the past week and had spent my nights harvesting resources and putting my [Basic Thermal Bottle] to good use crafting large modular bricks that could easily be stacked without the need of mortar to hold them together. Such construction of bricks would be a bitch and a half to make through conventional means, but when I can reform stone into any mold of obsidicrete or obsidisteel I want, complex had become the new simple.


    And so, building the walls of the camp and the foundation of the buildings became a simple matter of placing blocks where they belonged. Some highly Skilled and speedy [Couriers] had delivered blueprints to me, so I just had to measure out the spaces and count out how many bricks of various sizes and patterns I would need to fill it. This far into the wilderness, the walls were the most important part, but I opted to build the foundations first just so I had room to move. I am not incredibly large compared to the impromptu town we were building, but backing up into a wall when I am trying to work would get old fast. Dragons may have small trunks to their bodies, but the necks, wings, and tails just stretch on and on and make fitting into places without squeezing a hassle.


    With foundations completed after an hour, I started on the walls. I would pop the bricks out of dimensional storage roughly over where they needed to be placed, and to save my mana and time, the workers gathered would use some kind of levitation or telekinesis to move them into position for me. I made it about halfway up the wall before I ran out of bricks, but everyone knew that would happen. Instead of continuing the wall, which was good enough for a few hours, I started on the buildings.


    I had crafted panels for walls and ceilings out of wood, each one keyed to fit together with wooden pegs and dowels. Ergo, the four walls of a building were assembled by me and some helpers ahead of time, and now they just needed to be put together in place. Likewise, roofs were done in a similar manner. This made all the buildings rather boxy and boring, but they were quick and easy to put together. Considering we would be tearing down camp and moving it every couple of days as we built the road, modularity and ease of construction trumped aesthetics. If we got it down to a science, by the time the bulk of the town moved to where the next town would be, we would have it torn down and reassembled before they could arrive.


    I had a cache of bricks nearby, and while they were too big and heavy for my helpers to move on their own without a great deal of backbreaking effort, it was simple enough to place them into my storage, move over into position on the outside of the wall, and pop them back out. In this manner, the wall was completed, and by sundown, the basis of the town was finished. All I had to do was scoop up water from nearby and dump it into the water towers for storage and dispersal.


    Sadly, plumbing was not a thing, not just here, but throughout the world in general. Nightsmen, or gong farmers, depending on who you asked, would collect the contents of chamber pots. We didn¡¯t yet have the fancy ones like in the big city that could teleport the night soil to regional collection points, so some people would have the fun task of going to each building to collect it regularly. The night soil would be dumped into latrine pits outside of camp, where savvy individuals with the right Skills would mature it into fertilizer. There was big money to be had in such business, and I heard that the bidding war on such contracts was fierce, and dare I say, bloody. Bathhouses were located near the water towers and they did have rudimentary pipes to said towers, but the town as a whole would have to send family members to fetch water every day.


    While most people can summon water to drink, it isn¡¯t safe to do so long-term, as summoned materials disappear over time. The rates vary based on Skills, but the constant factor is that summoned material doesn¡¯t care if it is currently in use inside your body when it is time for it to return to whence it came. Summoned food and water is also bad for mana regeneration, and while you could technically survive on it for weeks if stranded in the wilderness, you would eventually not be able to keep pace as your body essentially faded away while your mana regeneration trickled to nil. Hence the need for actual water collected from the environment, although a one to ten ratio of summoned water is technically considered safe in most places. Summoned water is great for dishes, but not bathing, as it can leech your mana regeneration away if you stay for a good soak, which is what most people would be doing after a hard-day¡¯s work.


    With the finishing touches completed just as the first grateful people from tent city started to arrive, I returned to my human form. Nanu, who had been flying circles overhead the whole time in overwatch, landed beside me in a smooth transition to human form as she touched down, such that she didn¡¯t clip any of the buildings in the maneuver. Clearly, she had practiced at it, and equally clearly, I had not, for I would have certainly smashed into something or face-planted if I had tried. There are Skills to get things done, and then there is genuine skill, of which she had both in spades.


    Everyone already had assigned houses. I deduced that this was not the first rodeo for whoever was in charge, for I had expected a snafu somewhere to cascade into a shit-show. I suppose when Blessing and Skills get involved, the ability to organize several thousand people can become trivial. We had no major hang-ups or snags in our construction process, no confused individuals wandering around without any housing assigned to them, no dangerous predators bursting into the camp to munch down on the innocent civilians. It was almost anti-climactic that nothing major went wrong, which in its own weird way was rather exciting. I vaguely remembered a few key names from the paperwork, but I had yet to actually meet the man in charge.


    Fortuitously, a meeting had been planned for that very night for all the leaders of the new town. While all the worker bees would have their own small meet-and-greets, the brass would get together in the town hall. To be fair, those of the upper crust didn¡¯t have all that much fancier accommodations than anyone else, for they would still be using the same communal wash bins and cooking stations like the rest. However, the town hall would host a wide range of services, and so it needed to be big enough to hold around two hundred people at a time.


    Many were the jobs in camp, and so too for positions of leadership. Engineers, general workers, guards, Adventures, cooks, scouts, surveyors, diplomats, contractors, logistic personnel for food and other sundries, hunters, doctors, chaplains, nightsmen, prostitutes, brewers¡­ it just went on and on. Chooka, being the guildmaster for the local and new guildhall for Adventurers, was mandated to attend. Alterez, as the head cook in town, also had to go. Skull slipped along in my shadow and Nanu escorted me as my advisor and bodyguard. I was not entirely certain what deal Nanu and Skull had going on for the protection of my person, but they got along swimmingly and didn¡¯t seem to be jealously competitive about it. Naturally, as the guy in charge of everything, I had to attend, and so I did.


    Chooka, Nanu, Alterez, and I arrived with appropriate punctuality. A few had arrived ahead of us, but we were by no means the last to show up. A youthful and eager-looking dwarf greeted us at the doors to the town hall; no doubt he volunteered or was ¡®voluntold¡¯ by an elder because he wanted to score points in the pecking order of his clan. Once inside, I found that the previously empty box I had assembled hours earlier was now furnished with tables and chairs. They were arraigned in long columns so that each person could turn their heads to view the elevated set of head tables.


    Most assuredly, heads would have butted if someone had not had the foresight to have created an assigned seating chart ahead of time. Each seat had an illusory indicator that would glow only for the person it was meant for. I did not envy the task of arranging all of that, for someone had to make sure that people with large egos didn¡¯t feel slighted by being placed too far away from the front or too near ¡®lesser¡¯ individuals. My party and I made our way to the front, for we were certainly important enough to be at the head table.


    I had been placed in the center of the head table, with Chooka to my right and two spaces between her and Nanu. Alterez was placed on the end and closest to the kitchen, which was a good thing for him since he was responsible for the dinner that accompanied the meeting. Chooka, Nanu, Skull, and I already had a little wager of five silvers going for how many times he would need to scramble into the kitchen to yell at some poor sod to hurry up. He would have done all the cooking himself, but some of the younger cooks needed the experience of serving such large audiences, so he begrudgingly had to be more hands-off than he would have liked.


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    ¡°Hello there,¡± greeted a burly dwarf as he sat down beside me, presumably with his very pregnant wife in tow. ¡°Name¡¯s Torborg. I am your Junior Chief Engineer and the guy in charge of keeping this rabble in check so you can do your job without the additional headache of management.¡±


    I half stood to shake his hand as he situated himself, greeting him in turn. ¡°I am impressed with the blueprints and the level of organization that went into making this camp. There were no major hiccups or roadblocks to speak of, which vastly exceeded my expectations. With leadership skills like yours, I am surprised you are not a Senior Chief Engineer.¡±


    ¡°Bah,¡± he replied as he laughed heartily. ¡°I am a Senior Engineer, but Junior when it comes to being a Chief. That means my leadership skills are not as strong as my construction skills. However, since there are only a few thousand people on this building project, a Junior Chief Engineer was deemed appropriate.¡±


    ¡°How tough is it to become a Senior Chief Engineer then? All of this,¡± I said as I gestured vaguely around the room, ¡°seems to be no small undertaking.¡±


    ¡°After a few decades of jobs on this scale, I could get promoted. Senior Chief Engineers lead jobs that typically have ten to twenty thousand people working on them. We are only building a road, not a whole city underground, so the logistics and engineering concerns are vastly simpler.¡± His words finished with an accompanying shrug, he poured himself a drink and took a swig.


    We continued to exchange pleasantries, and while I had not spent much time around dwarves by that time of my life, I did learn a good bit about their culture from observing him and asking him questions. He wasn¡¯t being a dick by ignoring his wife, for her job was to converse with the person next to her, a divide and conquer strategy of socializing. Likewise, he never helped her or pampered her despite her clearly being close to giving birth any day now, the reason being as doing so in public would be seen as insulting her with the implication that she was incompetent or weak. The only expectation was when he poured her more ale and wine, reminding her that she was ¡°drinking for two¡±.


    That isn¡¯t to say that dwarves detest helping the weak, but from their point of view, she clearly isn¡¯t, and so she doesn¡¯t need help. Self-reliance is a virtue to them, but so is knowing when to ask for help, and helping someone who doesn¡¯t first ask is not exactly rude, but it rewards the wrong sort of behavior. In short, if she needed or wanted his help or doting, she would have made it clear to him, and then he would have provided. I made a mental note to be explicit in asking dwarves for help when I needed it, as looking lost and pitiful would not cut it.


    Now, to paint the picture a little more clearly about dwarves for you readers, they are shorter than humans by about a head or two. Very stocky though, with arms usually at least as big around as their heads for their men. Women don¡¯t have beards, at least not on their faces, but men do. If a dwarf is clean-shaven, then something very terrible has happened to him, the kind of thing that starts a grudge and a feud with the whole clan.


    Loyalty to oneself and one¡¯s values is core, then to family, then clan, and finally the community as a whole. While they don¡¯t have a caste system, promotion of younger dwarves through the ranks is slow and at times prone to nepotism. Dwarves live to be around 300 to 500 years old, depending on how well they honed their Blessing and assuming they don¡¯t come down with a terrible case of being murdered. They tend to live mostly underground, but they try to get a few hours of sunlight and a walk through nature every day. They do get along well with elves, with dwarves securing the land and resources below ground with the elves living directly above. That offers twice the number of people to wield pointy sticks at invaders when the time for violence comes.


    I know, some of it deviates from the stereotypes, but I have seen dwarves and ¡®dwarves¡¯ from other universes, and let me tell you, some of them are unrecognizable when compared to your beard-braiding, ale-swigging, pickaxe-swinging, oath-making, grudge-bearing, ore-smelting, stone-shaping staple of dwarves. Also, don¡¯t call them ¡®dwarfs¡¯ unless you want them to punch your lights out for an insult to their size, since they are not humans with dwarfism. Better yet, just never insult a dwarf, for they take such things very seriously.


    For the sake of fairness, since I described dwarves in such detail, I will describe goblins, too. Goblins in the wild steal anything that isn¡¯t nailed down, and if it is nailed down, well, that is just a good source of nails before they steal that, too. There, that¡¯s like 80 percent of what you need to know, and now I have met my quota on being fair about describing various races.


    Speaking of goblins, Alterez scurried off to the kitchen. That¡¯s one. My [Observer] nearby didn¡¯t detect any uncontrolled fires, yelling of threats, bodily harm, or other such unsettling developments, so that boded well. Before long, servers appeared with trays of food, each one apparently having special Skills to carry twenty or more at a time without dropping any. We ate the same fare as the rest of the camp, which for tonight was a hearty stew of meat and vegetables with sides of cheese, bread, and fruit. Alterez could seemingly turn any ingredients into a feast fit for a king, for the food soon had the whole room buzzing with compliments, which certainly made him as proud as a peacockitrice. I made sure to stow away a full serving for Skull so she could eat later.


    Again, Alterez darted for the kitchen when most people had finished their meals. That¡¯s two. Dessert was brought out shortly after, some sort of personal-sized pie filled with cream and fruit and topped with fruit paste mixed with honey. It came paired with a cup of wine that matched well with it, complete with all the pretentious wine terms I don¡¯t know other than ¡®full-bodied¡¯, although it was not super strong as we still needed everyone to be mostly sober for later. More heartfelt praise could be heard from those assembled for the expertise of the cooks, so no doubt they would each be getting a little bonus, or more likely, poached as personal chefs as a side-hustle.


    With the food all finished and the dull roar of people chattering and rubbing elbows receding as many looked to the head table expectantly, I took the opportunity to kick off the meeting by rising from my seat and tapping my glass to get everyone¡¯s attention.


    ¡°Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for coming here tonight. While we will not always have the opportunity to experience the comfort of each other¡¯s company and the excellent catering that we enjoy this night, I look forward to the future we will build together and the bonds we will forge.


    We stand together at the forefront of one of the most ambitious construction projects ever undertaken on an international level. As most of you know, our mission is to build a grand highway that connects the north of Rubioco all the way south to the Ashlands. What most of you do not know are the stakes involved.¡±


    A few chairs squeaked as people shifted to see me better, the interest of said individuals piqued as to the urgency of building this road.


    ¡°It is not for dramatic effect that I say that the fate of our world is on the line, for our very survival hinges upon this road being completed in a timely manner.¡± That earned a few nervous looks, but [Let Me Speak], a leadership Skill of mine, suppressed anyone who would openly contest my claim. ¡°Within a few years, a great evil will emerge in the Ashlands, one that will require a continually deployed army to contain until it can be vanquished. This road will be vital to supplies and troops being delivered for the war effort. All we need to focus on is the road, for the burden of fighting the good fight will fall upon other shoulders. I have full confidence that we have the required expertise, attitude, and work ethic to complete this task, for you are among the finest in your fields that our world has to offer. With that in mind, I will now turn things over to Junior Chief Engineer Torborg, who will be handling the day-to-day affairs of leadership.¡±


    Torborg rose, thanked me, and began getting into the meat-and-potatoes of the whole meeting. He called out each leadership position and had the related people stand to be recognized. That process would allow each person to remember the names and faces of people they would work with or report to. Thank the gods he did not make each person introduce themselves, say where they were from, and list a hobby of theirs. We had around two hundred names to go through, so he kept things moving along at a good clip. We had leaders for three shifts, as our work-force would be busy at all hours of the day to meet our deadline. With the chain of command established, he outlined rules, reporting procedures, and all the other wonderful matters relevant to command. Fortunately, handbooks were provided to go into more detail. However, no one here would have the grounds to say they were not told the rules, and so now the expectation to behave and do their jobs fell soundly upon them.


    The meeting went well into the night, but eventually, we all made our way to our new homes. Mine was a wooden box just like what everyone else lived in; however, mine was kitted out with better creature comforts because I could afford to transport such things in my dimensional storage. Public baths were okay and a great way to scout out new paramours, provided one did not ogle, but a private bath in one¡¯s own home was a luxury. We had to clear the furniture to fit the giant tub big enough for Chooka, Nanu, Skull and myself. Without much further ado, we all hopped in and enjoyed the pleasantly warm water.

 Chapter 58

    ¡°So, how is everyone feeling?¡±


    To help maintain balance in our large wooden tub, we each sat apart from one another, but not so far that our arms didn¡¯t touch.


    ¡°I feel like it''s time for you bitches to pay up!¡± shouted Skull as she held out her hands to us. ¡°Alterez only had to go to the kitchen two times. You guys were way off.¡±


    Considering we were all naked and in the bath, coins were still exchanged just fine. Nanu and I had pocket dimensions, but I could only guess as to how Chooka managed. When I raised an eyebrow and gave her a curious glance, she just winked and smiled while implying it was a secret. I made a note to never play Three Shell Monte with her. Skull preened with her earnings, flaunting her ¡®vast wealth¡¯, even though it was pocket change at the economy of scale that we operated at. I don¡¯t know what she would spend it on since she mostly only owned what she could carry, but that was her business.


    ¡°How soon until your mana recovers enough to call The Boys?¡± asked Chooka as she reached for a bottle of oil. ¡°They must be awfully lonely by now, the poor dears.¡±


    ¡°Calling, being a legitimate teleport, unlike a temporary summoning, is much more mana-intensive. It will be well after midnight before I can manage that,¡± I answered as I accepted the bottle of oil and repositioned to help rub it into her back. ¡°I will also be calling Hopper and Ribbette, so that compounds the cost.¡±


    ¡°I hope those two adjust well to civilization,¡± commented Skull as she set down her coins and accepted the oil. ¡°I don¡¯t know where or how they acquired their clothes and weapons, but they will be expected to follow the rules around here just like everyone else. They may walk upright like people, but they are still magical beasts.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sure they will manage,¡± added Nanu in the defense of my beloved pets as she took the oil to work it into Skull¡¯s back. ¡°The Boys behave just fine, and hydras would normally eat people. Magical beasts are highly intelligent, which only gets better when they are officially made pets that are backed up by Skills of their owner. Dragons commonly have such pets, and they tend to behave better than people.¡±


    ¡°I will explain the rules to them.¡± I turned my back to Chooka so she could rub the oil into me. ¡°They are a little slow, but they eventually seem to understand.¡±


    ¡°They are only slow because you don¡¯t have a Skill to translate faster for them,¡± Nanu reprimanded as she splashed water at me. ¡°You may not have access to one yet, so you may need to invest in the cheap Skills to scout one. There are probably three or four levels of it, ultimately culminating in them being able to speak out loud. Telepathy between you and your pet is also an option, followed by telepathy and close associates of yours, but don¡¯t rely on it as a substitute for them to comprehend speech.¡±


    ¡°I already have short-range telepathy with The Boys. I turn it off most of the time because they just prattle on and on about the nature of the universe or shamelessly beg for snacks. I allow Plato to have priority access to speak to me because he is in charge, and he uses it responsibly.¡±


    ¡°I can sorta hear them when I am in your shadow,¡± stated Skull as she took a cloth in hand and washed herself. ¡°It is muffled, but I can make out bits and pieces of what they say. They also have more heads in that realm, but the number shifts and changes all the time.¡±


    ¡°Maybe those are contenders for future heads,¡± I replied as I too took a cloth in hand for some good scrubbing. ¡°They started with only three heads and Diogenes joined later on. I would guess they have some mechanism to choose when or how to add another head.¡± I glanced at Nanu for more insight, but she just shrugged apologetically in response.


    ¡°Where did the kobolds ever get to?¡± I asked as I began to wash out Chooka¡¯s hair and polish her horns. ¡°I don¡¯t think I have seen them since shortly after we arrived. Do they even have a place to live?¡±


    We all exchanged mystified looks, for none of us had a good answer. I lacked any Skills to know where my affiliated kobolds were located, so I would have to track them down after a few days if they didn¡¯t show up.


    ¡°Right, then, I guess I need to add settling that matter to my list of chores. We are all going to be so busy at least for the next couple weeks until we get a rhythm going, I am not sure how much time we will have. Should we post a calendar on the wall and fill in our time slots?¡±


    Chooka and, to a lesser extent, Nanu, jumped at the opportunity. Skull sheepishly looked away from the prime real estate of barren wall that could host such a thing.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Skull, we can just use pictures or color codes to show what we are up to. There is no need to explicitly list out things in detail.¡±


    Skull moseyed up to me, cradling herself on one of my shoulders.


    ¡°It isn¡¯t like I don¡¯t like words or stories, but the letters move about and it makes it hard to read properly,¡± she half-confided and half-whined as she nestled into me. ¡°I would love to hear more stories, but not if I have to read them.¡±


    ¡°We should have a fair number of books in the loot of the Count. He used to read bits and pieces of stories to me, and then just stop reading out-loud when he got to a good part.¡± Nanu clenched her fists and teeth as she thought back to her moments of captivity. ¡°It drove me up the wall, and I know he did it to irritate and break me. A good number of those books were stories or histories. Perhaps we could sometimes read to Skull during our downtime while we wait for our mana to regenerate.¡±


    That suggestion earned me a hearty squeeze from Skull who beamed me her best puppy-dog eyes. The poor dear, no wonder she liked to hang out around taverns and talk to random people. Skull is intelligent and craves enrichment, but books could never sate her like they do for the rest of us.


    ¡°I think that is a wonderful idea,¡± I answered as I gave Skull a kiss on the forehead.


    There were only three of us in the tub now, for Chooka had stepped out to dry off and go hunt down some supplies for a calendar. I had to open my dimensional storage to drop off the boxes that would have what she wanted for it, so we left her to her own devices while the rest of us cuddled in the bath.


    Then Nanu wanted to showcase how long she could hold her breath to Skull, and she submerged herself in the water to such a purpose that would make for a pleasurable time for me. My composure not being a sure thing in the moment of such an undertaking, I opted to cuddle Skull in one arm and pet her, which she gladly accepted. Eventually, Nanu¡¯s ministrations bore the desired harvest, and without surfacing, she employed the same trick to a surprised Skull. I found myself glad that we all got along and I hoped such civility and passion for one another would continue unabated forever.


    After about half an hour of water sports and calendar making, we were all dressed and ready for our respective duties. Chooka explained the calendar to us with enthusiasm, showing off the different pins, each color coded, that we could put into different time blocks to show off where we would be and what we would be doing. While our schedules were still ambiguous at that point, we certainly did not have much projected overlap with Chooka, for Skull and Nanu would be with me at all times. Ergo, we three agreed to make as much time for Chooka when we could so she would not feel left out. We all helped tuck her in, for she needed her beauty sleep for the challenges of the coming day, and then the rest of us made our way outside and out of the camp.


    I had expanded a nearby pond in preparation for my aquatic pets. The plan was to have them sleep and rest there, but otherwise follow me throughout the day when they were able. The Boys were surprisingly helpful when clearing timber and they seemed to enjoy the challenge and occasional snacks that came with the job. Hopper and Ribbette would also be able to slowly get used to being around large groups of people under my supervision, returning to the pond when they needed to rest, but otherwise never really alone with the common people.


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    As I neared the pond, several obvious clues about the whereabouts of the kobolds made itself known. The first clue was a rather large barrel in the pond. Well, half of one cut longways, complete with a mast and a sheet for a sail. I don¡¯t know where or how they managed to appropriate one so large, for it was probably around a gorda in size. That¡¯s 700 liters or 185 gallons, depending on how the gods voted for this century¡¯s units of measure. The second clue was all the nautical terms being spouted off from the occupants of the make-shift boat, some of which were questionable in authenticity. Someone¡¯s presumably missing laundry basket made the crow¡¯s nest, and in it were two kobolds.


    ¡°Avast, me scallywags, weigh anchor off the starboard bow and hoist the poop deck! The Master has called us to port. Look sharp, me hearties, or I¡¯ll make you walk the yardarm!¡±


    Gambino continued to shout orders that would make a sailor cry and rage. Perhaps he was still learning the ropes of his new role. Eventually, the six of them did manage to bring the ship to the edge of the pond. Wait, six kobolds! Last I checked, the troupe only had four, and I didn¡¯t see any other kobolds on the passenger list or in camp. I was about to ask about that when the ship beached itself and Gambino somersaulted three times through the air before he landed neatly in a bow with his tricorn in hand.


    ¡°Greetings, Master. We were just rehearsing for any upcoming nautical adventures you may have,¡± he finished with a flourish as he stood upright and placed his hat back on his head.


    ¡°Uh, keep up the good work. Seems like you have a long way to go. Where did the extra kobolds come from?¡± I looked around at his pirate crew who had crawled out of the boat to line up behind him, and only Bambina really stood out, being a skimpier version of pirate with her shirt tails tied together at her chest instead of buttoned-up properly.


    ¡°Indeed, Master, but it is all just a part of learning. I am the troupe¡¯s [Impresario], or leader, and Bambina is our [Prima-Donna]. You have already met our two [Kurokos]. Our newest recruits are our two new [Background Characters], but we still need [Stunt Doubles], two [Best Boys], a [Dramaturge], a [Composer], and a [Choreographer] at a minimum. We also need one [Fight Director] if you wish to take us into battle, and an [Intimacy Coordinator] if you wish to take us into your bed. We would also want a fair number of [Stars] and [Co-Stars] if you want us to do anything on a large scale.¡±


    Gambino rattled off the whole list without hesitation or trepidation. Neither his tone nor is body language hinted at anything awkward or suggestive about [Intimacy Coordinator] and its use, and I felt inclined to just gloss over it completely. Maybe Alterez would have more use of such a kobold with an oddly particular Blessing. However, I felt compelled to say something in response, so I cooked up something that should appease him.


    ¡°It seems like you know well what you need for your troupe. Feel free to recruit as needed, but remain discerning for quality talent. Keep up the good work.¡±


    Apparently satisfied with my response, Gambino gave another elaborate bow and returned his troupe to their nautical adventures. They unbeached their boat and set sail for distant shores, which was about two stone throws away on the other side of the pond. Satisfied that I would not be interrupted, I began the calling for my pets while Skull and Nanu stood guard. For ten minutes I channeled and incanted as part of an overly elaborate ritual that would send my mana signature radiating for miles around like a giant beacon for people to come kill me while I remained relatively helpless. Perhaps that was the point of it all, a way of the gods making things fair so that people could not just summon an army in the middle of a city. At the end of the whole ordeal, my pets managed to make their way through their respective rings of light to stand beside me. Well, they flopped over onto the ground, as did I, for the whole thing had exhausted me with seemingly supernatural fatigue. And there we remained for another half hour until we recovered enough to stand again.


    ¡°Welcome, Boys, Hopper, Ribbette. I¡¯m going to explain some ground rules now, so listen up.¡± Hopper and Ribbette eyed me for a while before they nodded and snapped to attention. It seemed like Nanu was right and I would need to invest more into Skills for comprehension. The Boys stood there patiently while they awaited my words, each perhaps curious if the explanation of the rules would culminate in an offering of snacks. ¡°No harming or killing people or their animals, no destruction of property, no harassing or threatening people. This is your pond and you will reside here for a few days when you are resting. We will be moving every couple days, so you will have a new pond every so often. Boys, you will be helping me with timbering. Hopper and Ribbette, you will most likely be tasked with escorting and protecting people that I assign you to throughout the day. I have plenty of food for you, so do not wander away from camp, me, the pond, or your assigned tasks in search of food. Any questions?¡±


    The Boys, who were shrunk down to about my size, let out a chorus of pleas for snacks. Apparently, they had learned that being smaller makes the snacks last a little longer due to a decrease in size disparity. They also learned that shrinking to too small a size makes snacks taste bad, so this size must be the best of both worlds. I offered them each a small snack and a collective belly rub at the immediately offered and upturned underside while I waited for the Giant Frogs to catch up. Eventually, they nodded in understanding, and satisfied, I brought forth proper diners for all of them.


    I provided The Boys with kibble, which they enjoyed, and meat, which they loved. The Giant Frogs had an assortment of grubs which apparently pleased their pallets. Hopper took the time and effort to hand-feed Ribbette who sat in his lap. She appeared torn in that she wanted to be standoffish, but she also wanted to be pampered by him. Perhaps a romance had bloomed there, which made sense considering they were the only two Giant Frogs around who had evolved to an advanced form. With that taken care of, I told them to get some rest because we would be off to work at sunrise. The Boys ambled into the pond and slowly stalked the ¡®pirate ship¡¯, which quickly devolved into a game of keep away and faux attacks from each side.


    ¡°Two silvers say the boat is sunk or beached by morning,¡± I bet Skull and Nanu as we made our way back to camp. Neither one took my offer, and with a loud and woody crunch sounding out their reasoning as we walked away, odds were the boat would be lucky to last even that long.


    We made our way home, and Nanu placed a sound barrier around Chooka so she would sleep well without disturbing us. I promptly retrieved one of the crates full of books from the looting of the Count¡¯s stuff, and together we looked through it.


    ¡°Ahah!¡± Exclaimed Nanu as she retrieved one book in particular. ¡°Here it is, the journal of some guy. I was left on a cliffhanger last time.¡± She took a moment to parse through the book, her eyes scanning the pages far faster than normal eyes could move. ¡°Bah!¡± she cried out with dissatisfaction as she flung it over her shoulder. ¡°He was one of those Lunatics. One True Moon my ass. Everyone knows there are seven moons.¡± She was right of course, so I decided not to read the book of some Lunatic cultist.


    ¡°Huh, this one is suspicious. On Subterranean Cave Snails Vol. III. This has to be some sort of code book.¡± Satisfied with my newfound code book, I selected it for later reading. ¡°Is there anything here you want us to read to you?¡± I asked Skull as I rummaged through the pile for titles that may be more interesting to her. At my prompting, she selected a book of her own.


    ¡°Hmm, The History of Tarr, that sounds okay to me. I don¡¯t even know what or where Tarr is.¡±


    The two of us cuddled up on a big comfy chair together, the kind with extra thick upholstery for excellent reading marathons. I read the book to her while Nanu continued to curate her short list of preferred reading material. We still had a few hours before we would need to get to work, and since none of us three sleep much any more, we would spend a decent amount of time at night resting and regenerating mana. Idling away the hours together with books in hand sounded like an excellent way to relax to me; my only concern lay in that we may not have enough to last the whole time it would take to build the road. We had enough for now, though, and presumably there would be trips to cities for diplomacy and whatnot, so we could get more books later.


    Skull found herself engrossed in the history book. Whoever wrote it seemed to prefer accuracy over flair, yet also managed to word things in a way that still grabbed one''s attention. We both gave death glares at the first rays of dawn that dared to intrude through the window and into our private sanctuary of learning and bonding, but for whatever reason, the sun refused to be cowed by our efforts at intimidation and stubbornly continued to rise. Unable to hold off the inevitable, we set the book aside and began the ritual of rousing Chooka from her slumber.


    Before we could even finish creeping up on our helpless victim, she bolted upright and hopped out of bed as quick as you like. As gnomes would say, she was all ¡®slug spit and crow teeth¡¯. I guess that is because a slug¡¯s spit moved faster than the slug and a crow having teeth was impossible or highly unbelievable. In normal terms, she moved quickly to get ready, which was highly irregular behavior considering we normally had to coax or drag her out of bed. In not even ten minutes, she had dolled herself up and was out the door for her first day at her new job, so clearly she just lacked proper motivation to do the same on most mornings.


    Skull and I mostly stood there bewildered by what had happened. Eventually, Nanu came over and snapped us out of our stupor, and together, the three of us set off for our first day of work.

 Chapter 59

    The first series of tasks for building the new road involved scouting and surveying, each of which is distinct from the other. The scouts look for resources and threats along the way, because having your road go right past a den of monsters or a hidden army of rogue undead is a bad thing. The surveyors plan the route the road will take, map out elevations and floodplains, determine the best courses of action for cut and fill to smooth out the road, and determine good rest spots along the route. Small groups of scouts and surveyors, along with guards and Adventurers for protection, were assembled for an expedition into the wilderness.


    Nanu, myself, and a few other individuals were to fly people out and drop them off along the way such that each group would be spread out roughly evenly along the 300 mile distance to the first mountain range we would need to tunnel through. The best of the bunch were tasked with surveying the mountains and finding a good place to tunnel through. It was deemed prudent to start the tunnel construction early for two purposes. The first reason was that stone removed from the tunnel could be used to build the road, so that made efficient use of time instead of just randomly chipping away at the mountain somewhere else. The second reason was that only so many people could work in the tunnel at a time, so we needed it finished by the time the bulk of the workforce could arrive at the mountain.


    Most of the terrain to the mountain was a mix of gently rolling hills that were lightly forested or grasslands. Thankfully, no swamps, bogs, fens, or other such water hazards of note obstructed our roughly calculated path. Likewise, there were no known groups of indigenous people who would feel upset about a road being built through their land, but that did not mean they did not exist this deep in the wilderness, hence the need for scouts. Strong emphasis was placed on building the road in such a way to have the least amount of negative impact on the environment as possible. No one wanted to travel a road that cut right through migratory paths of dangerous animals or beasts, nor did we want our actions to anger some kind of ancient forest spirit and have our whole enterprise doomed. The wilderness remained unclaimed for a whole host of reasons and we did not want to add to the list.


    Soil and rock samples would be collected all along the route for later analysis. Different soils behaved differently based on things like levels of sand and clay present for how they handled groundwater, and some rocks were more suitable for different kinds of construction. These principles applied not just to their physical characteristics, but also to how the materials and the regions as a whole would interact with magic.


    Inherently magical materials, such as exterrium, the whole family of mithrilic ores such as adamanthril, certain species of inherently magical gems, and so forth needed to be harvested through manual labor because using actively magical means would taint them for hundreds if not thousands of years until they would naturally purify. That meant using a magically enchanted pickaxe that was stronger and sharper than normal was fine, but using a Skill that manually shaped and moved the earth was to be avoided. Such materials would be naturally found along the way, and the demand for such materials always exceeded supply. Considering the cost of funding an expedition with thousands of experts that could demand high pay for their services, recouping costs with rare resources would help mitigate the blow to the coffers. The deal I had worked out outlined different levels of ownership to resources discovered, and I certainly had a powerful financial incentive to ensure that such rare and magical materials were harvested correctly.


    Similarly, the local ecosystem needed to be properly managed. All manner of big nasty creatures live deep in the wilderness, and they in turn pressure less nasty things to live closer to civilization. The pattern repeats until typically the weakest beasts and monsters live near the border of civilization. Simply culling the local population of dangerous predators or territorial prey could destabilize conditions and lead to unusual and devastating developments to towns and villages hundreds of miles away. For instance, many of the big bad monsters kept each other in check, each afraid to leave their territory lest the others seize it in their absence. Kill all but one, and suddenly it is free to go forth and conquer new lands to expand the holdings of the brood. To combat this issue, we would need either tunnels under the road or land bridges above the road so the local wildlife could cross the road without actually walking upon it and being exposed to people.


    Water sources needed to remain uncorrupted by any changes we would make to the water table. Groundwater pollution and rerouting of waterways remained serious concerns that needed to be handled. I had only received a passing education on most of these matters, but fortunately, I had free access to the best and brightest minds in those fields and the others discussed. The last thing we wanted was a war breaking out because we rerouted a few key streams that provided the bulk of the water supply for one nation or another.


    Then there were the more esoteric concerns, such as elementals that called the region their home. We needed to make sure we didn¡¯t step on any toes and had their permission to move through their territory. Fortunately, elementals were known to be easy-going, but the payments they would want varied wildly. An earth elemental may want an offering of rocks from several nearby mountains to help complete its rock garden, or an air elemental may want us to tell it a dozen good stories or rumors. Balancing the budget for essentially bribing beings that did not operate under the same motives as humanoids must have been a nightmare.


    As for the mountain range itself, the mountains in it were relatively ¡®young¡¯. That is to say that they formed perhaps in the past million years instead of ten million years ago or something like that. Shifting of tectonic plates could cause mountains to form, but after that process ran its course and any volcanic activity ceased, mountains only shrunk over time due to erosion and landslides. Well, that is a general rule if you exclude magic, but the point stood that the mountains were very tall with no promising prospects of weaving a road through their peaks and valleys. Ergo, we would need to build a series of tunnels through the worst of the mountains to make the road continue south.


    While mountains are certainly made of rocks, they also tend to have a lot of dirt leading up to them. Tunneling through dirt is pretty terrible since, especially while soaked with water, it behaves more like a liquid than a solid when compared to the scale of a tunnel. Digging through it is simple enough, but the pressure of the surrounding earth can easily cause cave-ins or simply send it oozing into the front of the tunnel. The dwarves had a few techniques and Skills to help deal with that, so I would have to trust in their ability to help me out.


    My primary concerns would be digging the tunnel, creating obsidicrete and other materials for the road, and placing the proper materials into the prepared path for the road. The bulk of the workers would take care of shaping the path for the road and preparing it so I just needed to place the levels of sand, gravel, stone, and brick on top to make a good quality road. Culverts, retaining walls, drainage ditches, and the like were not my responsibility.


    Fortunately, once I got into the part of the tunnel that was solid stone and not soil, things would get easier. Instead of digging out the tunnel as a whole, I could just dig a continuous spiral around the very edge of the tunnel. The stone would then snap off from its own weight, and that stone could be scooped into dimensional storage for transport. As such, larger tunnels were more efficient, since the width of the circle I would cut away on the edge remained the same regardless of how big the tunnel would be. However, I remained limited mostly by how much mana I had available to pack away the stone. The workers would cart away as much as they could for me to deal with later, but I would still have to tackle the lion¡¯s share.


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    Fortunately, there are a few ways to cheat. While each person has a unique mana signature and typically cannot use the mana of others, some people have highly coveted Skills to transfer mana to others, typically at a slight loss. Likewise, certain magical constructs could be made to assist in the work. For instance, some variation of S.M.A.R.T. crystals could levitate the stone out of the tunnel or heighten my mana-efficiency while within their range, assuming the crystals were each calibrated and enchanted for their exact tasks. Presumably, anyone with the correct Skill or Ability could charge up a crystal with mana, so that would take some of the strain off me. There are limits to these things, either in scale or scope. I can only accept so much mana from other people in a day, for the efficiency of transfer drops each time I do it within a time period.


    Mana regeneration, not just for me, but for all the workers, was the primary resource to be managed. Generally speaking, the total supply of one¡¯s mana and its regeneration worked in a similar fashion to muscles. The more you work out, the stronger you get. Ergo, draining a mana pool in a short amount of time can make it bigger, and constantly draining mana throughout the day can make it regenerate faster. That was why people like [Warriors], [Rogues], [Miners] and the like tended to have small mana pools with high regeneration. They could do simple tricks all day with their Skills, but they couldn¡¯t get enough mana for big flashy things like dropping a meteor swarm on their enemies. Conversely, people like [Artisans], [Mages], and [Clerics] tended to have large mana pools with low regeneration because they were boom and bust in the use of their Skills.


    I personally had a large mana pool with high regeneration and a high level of mana efficiency. That last part means that not only do my Skills not cost as much as the same Skill used by someone with low efficiency, but my Skills don¡¯t ramp up in cost nearly as quickly when I use them in a manner that does not align with their intent. I could dig a tunnel with [Basic Earth Manipulation] better than someone else could because of Skills like [Advanced Earth Magic Efficiency]. However, [Advanced Stone Manipulation] performed much better when working directly with stone compared to [Basic Earth Manipulation]. When efficiency combined with the proper Skills, the difference in what I could do compared to normal people was exponentially different in magnitude.


    However, despite my advantages in magic, even I could not both dig a tunnel and remove the stone from it during all hours of the day. Naturally, I would grow in Skill, power, and general wisdom over time, but so would everyone else. Staying on task and not being distracted by my desire to do everything would prove challenging since I was used to being self-reliant and independent. With thousands of workers dependent on my efficiency and timely delivery of supplies, I would have a few ¡®handlers¡¯ to make sure I didn¡¯t deviate from my assigned work. As vexing as such constraints were, I understood the need, and indeed everyone else also followed such rules, so I would comply.


    This is not to say that we were all tyrants and mindless workers. Everyone still had leisure time, and, for some individuals like me, we were still permitted some amount of personal mana expenditure. It would take time to discover the proper work/rest cycle so everyone could exist in harmony. As time went on, everyone would grow in Skill and as a team, each learning the tricks of the trade and how to work together efficiently. Everyone expected these first few months to have growing pains, and by the end, we were projected to produce two to four times the amount of road in a day compared to when we started. That assessment did factor in how the terrain near the end of the road would be relatively easier to build in than even grasslands and sparse forest.


    To be fair, the first few days passed without incident. None of the scouts died by biting off more than they could chew. No surveyors found that their area of concern contained impossible terrain. By the end of the week, we had finished planning the route to the mountains and out the other side, analyzing samples of soil, stone, flora, and fauna, and drafting up maps and blueprints. The biggest blow came from the birth of Torborg¡¯s son.


    At that point in my life, some of the finer details of dwarven society escaped my knowledge. Grim dwarven faces all around offered sympathy to their Junior Chief Engineer. There are many complications that can occur during birth, and not even the rare line of Teleportation Skills could overcome them. For instance, a nuchal cord, which is when the umbilical cord wraps around the neck of the baby when it is to be delivered, cannot be solved by just teleporting the baby out of the mother¡¯s womb since they are too intertwined and would both teleport together. That just glosses over how a baby is too fragile to withstand any turbulence that may accompany teleportation.


    Torborg¡¯s son had a similar problem, but it also involved the baby¡¯s beard being entangled in the umbilical cord and around his neck. Strangulation being a chief concern, the midwife and the healer both concluded that extreme measures had to be implemented to save the boy¡¯s life. With heavy hearts all around, the decision was made and the efforts implemented to perform the grim and live-saving work. A healthy baby dwarf was born that day, but his beard had been mostly shaved off while still within the womb. Such a boy, growing up without his baby beard, would suffer ridicule and would be ostracized by his peers.


    The best that could be done was muttonchops. It would be well into his adolescence when the fine hairs of a dwarf¡¯s baby beard would fall out and be replaced by thicker and more masculine adult beard hair. But even then, the stigma and shame of not having a baby beard, not to mention the trauma from not fitting in, would likely linger with him for much of his life. Not even the best of Cosmetic Skills could fix it, for the beard was too ingrained in dwarven culture and society to be affected by such Skills.


    Torborg took a few days off to be with his family. His firstborn, a child that was essentially viewed as a cripple, would live a hard life, and his parents knew it. I did not know how to comfort or console my new friend, especially with the nuances of dwarven emotions and civility being a mystery to me, so I remained available if he wanted assistance or to talk but otherwise passive. Chooka, being a [Courtesan], possessed a fair number of Cosmetic, Social, and Therapy Skills that could help, so she offered to help in any way she could. While Torborg¡¯s son would not be prince charming, he would not be a complete pariah either if Chooka had her way, so I trusted that the boy would be in the best hands this camp had to offer.


    Despite the tragedy, time passed as days yielded to weeks. When it comes to trauma like that, it never gets any easier, but the person experiencing it grows stronger. Being from a resolute and hardy people, Torborg soon returned to work, and within a few weeks, his smile almost returned to its normal level of width and mirth and his laughter almost carried the same degree of merriment, and so everyone continued with their lives as normal.


    His tragedy and Chooka¡¯s support helped us to grow together as friends, for at times he would ask me what it was like growing up as a dragon among humanoids. I told him tales of my childhood and how I was often excluded from group activities and how I adjusted and grew because of that. However, I was a well-adjusted adult with only a few quirks that were not detrimental to my social standing or health, such as my inclination to prowl the town at night surreptitiously and just people-watch. Not exactly a harmful quirk, but more than a little invasive of privacy. In time, Torborg learned to deal with and accept the reality his family would face, but my family, for that is what Skull, Chooka, Nanu, my pets, and myself were, helped him cope as we could.


    As months passed, we made our way through the mountain range, and at one point, we needed to ferry everyone across since the construction of the road outpaced that of the tunnels. Between the constant digging, use of dimensional pockets, leadership responsibilities, and other challenges I faced, my Skills grew quickly as Experience Points racked up hand over fist. Occasionally, we got to fight beasts or monsters, which Skull absolutely lived for since not much else happened when she guarded me. Upon occasion I would spar with different people to keep my Skills sharp, which often became spectacles of entertainment for workers on their break. For the most part, time was spent building as we made our way down south.

 Chapter 60

    Robed figures, each with hoods drawn as they chanted in unison, gathered around Alterez as he stood over his latest victim. A pretty young thing, the naked woman before him remained gagged, her wrists and ankles shackled to the stone slab that made the altar for this ritual. Illuminator crystals cast eerie shadows as two other robed figures walked towards him. The taller of the two, a kobold, held forth a wickedly curved blade known as a kris, which remained the favored implement to deliver ritual sacrifices. The woman¡¯s eyes widened at the sight of the blade, and though she struggled against her bonds, her efforts yielded no results as she found herself helpless before her captors.


    The chanting increased as Alterez drew the blade high overhead, which admittedly wasn¡¯t very high on account of his short stature, but it still carried with it the terrorizing effect. In one swift motion, he plunged it down at the woman, where the blade buried itself deep in the offering as liquid, red and warm, sputtered forth from the sacrifice. Muffled screams escaped the gag on the woman, her body trembling and thrashing until she eventually stilled.


    ¡°And so we implore you, oh great and powerful Vomithrax, to accept this sacrifice freely given unto you.¡±


    ¡°And so it be given.¡±


    The chant echoes forth seven times from those assembled in the matching robes. The offering accepted, the remnants of it disappeared as the god took his due.


    More muffled sounds came from the woman as she stirred once more. Alterez removed her gag to listen to what the woman would say.


    ¡°That really tickled,¡± she uttered as soon as the gag was torn free of her mouth. ¡°What was that, a cherry pie?¡±


    ¡°A good guess, but more nuanced than that,¡± explained Alterez as he removed the shackles from the latest initiate. ¡°We have plenty more; you should try some.¡±


    With the ritual complete, Alterez signaled the one who gave him the knife to turn the illuminators up. The figure lowered his hood, as did the one next to him, and none other than Gambino made his way to the control crystal and rotated it until the lights were all the way up. Bambina remained behind to offer the naked woman her new robes which matched those of everyone else.


    ¡°Who wants some pie?¡± shouted Alterez excitedly as the crowd cheered.


    Moving over to the nearby table laden with pies, Alterez began handing them out to the grateful members of his ¡®cult¡¯. Really, it was just a little club for people who wanted to relax in a way that was fun and felt taboo. The god, Vomithrax, was real enough, but being a god of Food and Fellowship, he appreciated the pie more than a living sacrifice, same as most gods. The woman being naked was just her personal choice, as most kept on their undergarments during initiation.


    As Alterez handed out the pies he had made and greeted people, he thought back to the beginning of this whole cult business. He had first recruited the kobolds, each of whom eagerly accepted the opportunity to perform in front of others. Together, they recruited bored and hungry people who wanted an exotic and private means to hang out after work. This being their 18th camp so far, The Bossman, ever knowledgeable that Alterez was a [Cult Leader], had snuck in a secret underground chamber under the dining hall to help Alterez facilitate his occult hobbies. It also technically doubled as a safe room in the event of an attack, but The Bossman just happened to ¡®forget¡¯ to tell everyone about its existence.


    The kobolds had somehow secured fabric for robes; the bolts of cloth were dark red with two yellow stripes going down both the front and back. Alterez, being the leader, had more embellishments on his hood and sleeves, and overall, they looked the part of cultists. The tricky part had been making the cloth into robes, but the kobolds seemed to be rather adept at making costumes and handled it well. Gnomes, dwarves, kobolds, miccen, and a scattering of humans, orcs, and remnimi made up the bulk of the cult, with Alterez being the sole goblin.


    Someday, Alterez promised himself, there would be more goblins. It was only a matter of time before the road went through goblin territory, and by that point, Alterez would have the Skills to charm and recruit some of them to live in civilized society. Until then, he would bide his time and continue the experiment with his trial-run of a cult. The worthy among them would be invited to his next cult, and the even worthier would be invited to his true and hidden cult. It was all cults hidden within and behind other cults, the secrecy and duplicity coming naturally to his superior goblin mind. The gods had ordained his work, and so he would not fail in the task. As the kobolds would say, ¡®the show must go on.¡¯


    <hr>


    Vultures gathered in their masses as air currents created updrafts to facilitate their constant circling. Down on the ground, Nabonidus gazed up at them in contemplation, for there was not much else to do this far from camp. Soon, because of his mistake, they would feast upon the flesh he provided, for while he could see the future, he could not always control the outcome. One simple mistake was all it took to end a life, and for Nabonidus, that mistake would nurture new life as countless hungry bellies devoured unearned flesh.


    ¡°Feel like talking yet?¡±


    The ogre remained silent, continuing to play dumb as he lay staked out on the ground. A quick blow to the back of the head had been all it took to fell the ogre, and so incapacitated, the simple task of restraining him remained the only chore between the deed and the interrogation.


    ¡°Have it your way then. I¡¯ll be here when you are ready.¡±


    Doubtful that the ogre would last long under the withering glare of the oppressive sun in this desolate and forsaken land. If that didn¡¯t kill him, then the freezing night winds when the temperature plummeted would finish him off. Not that Nabonidus cared much, for death was always the end result at this point.


    The ogre continued to play dumb, perhaps foolishly hoping that some rescuer would be arriving, but such was a vain hope. Nabonidus had seen the futures, seen the ones where the blow came to the back of his head, and so had taken measures against it. The fact that the other ogre pinned down on the scorching ground never got a chance to act upon it was not a moral problem for Nabonidus, for the truth of the visions spoke enough as to the intent.


    The question now became, who had put this ogre up to the task? As Nabonidus took refuge in the shade of a tree, he wondered if the ogre he had gone hunting with had truly planned this all himself or worked on behalf of another. No visions of the future could pierce the veil of that mystery to see the face behind the scheme. Perhaps no such person existed, or perhaps said individual contested Nabonidus with Skills of his own for Divination.


    Few ogres had survived the entire year and some change that Nabonidus had been alive. Such a life expectancy could be attributed to luck, but with ogres generally being extremely stupid, Nabonidus found such odds to be low. His instincts told him that those ogres were like him, masquerading as simple brutes in the struggle to discover and kill one another. Nabonidus considered himself a master at the game, but even he had made a mistake.


    This other ogre, Glombo, had witnessed Nabonidus stashing some food under a rock outside of camp. Such foresight in saving food for later, a seemingly basic concept for survival, still remained beyond the realm of creative thinking for most ogres. Nabonidus had noticed his onlooker, but yet feigned ignorance. As he left camp this morning for a hunt for food, he had grunted in the direction of Glombo in invitation to hunt together. Nabonidus took them far away from camp where there would be no prying eyes.


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    Just over the next ridge, Glombo had planned to strike Nabonidus in the back of the head. To distract his foe, he had simply pointed in a direction and said, ¡°look, water¡±. The oaf had turned to look, since they were both parched, and that is when Nabonidus struck down Glombo. And now Nabonidus waited to see if the hot sun would loosen that tongue and cause it to wag favorably. Returning to camp alone would not draw suspicion, for all too often, fewer ogres returned than those who left. Now Nabonidus just had to be patient and remain vigilant lest the oaf did actually have someone following to aid in a murder.


    In the world of kill or be killed, Nabonidus killed each and every time. There was no hesitation or remorse, nor was there needless cruelty or delight. Current circumstances deemed torture prudent to extract information, but Nabonidus didn¡¯t feel wicked pleasure well up within him at the thought of it. It was just business after all.


    Danger lurked around every corner, not just in the wilderness, but in the ogre camp. Many times had Nabonidus tried to leave, but each time, something had stopped him from going too far. It wasn¡¯t just a force, but an intelligence with intent. For weeks, Nabonidus had tried to ascertain what manner of being this specter was, and with countless looks into the future as he tested destroying one thing or another in the camp, he had finally isolated the source.


    The fire. In the home of the chieftain, which itself appeared to be a giant jar that had been smashed through on one side, a fire burned in a fire pit. No wood had ever been added to it, but it burned just the same day and night without end. Many hours had been spent staring into the flame for insight, but only when sleep threatened to distract him from his vigil, he would see it. A face in the flames would laugh and leer in his direction. Truly, some foul spirit had made its home there and kept the ogres captive, for what else could explain how none ever left?


    Killing or destroying it proved difficult. There were always ogres around the flame, those that licked the feet of the chieftain. Even if he could get past them, some manner of compulsion restrained his hand. Any desire for violence against it had been quelled, the connection between thought and action severed no matter how hard Nabonidus had tried. He could not destroy it on his own, and neither could the other ogres. He would need to find an ally and convince it to perform the deed for him. But where would such a person be found?


    The only other sentient creatures Nabonidus ever noticed were strange individuals hauling bones down south. Sometimes they were alone, other times, they traveled in caravans. Despite the ogre raids, they continued their task, always returning empty-handed when traveling north. Those beings were intelligent, yet they continued to travel through the territory of the ogres. Some fought back, most managed to escape more often than not, but they persisted in traveling this route.


    Nabonidus had contemplated the ¡®why¡¯ of it for many hours and could only come to one conclusion. The lands beyond to the east and west must hold impassable terrain, whether it be poisonous swamps, great rifts into the earth, or creatures so dangerous that no sane person would dare intrude. A myriad of possible circumstances existed for the nearby lands, but the end result had to be that traveling through the territory of the ogres was ultimately safer. Nabonidus had made the perilous journeys to the four corners of the limits of his range, and though he extended his sight as far as he could with his Skills, the effort yielded no discernable insight, for the land appeared the same for as far as he could see.


    He had tried to talk to those people, but they could not understand him and did not linger to engage in peaceful attempts of communication. They remained devoted to their tasks, and while they never attacked him first, they still refused to give him the time of day. Perhaps they saw him as a boon, for a peaceful ogre was a good ogre to have around. If they killed him, a new ogre would spawn to fill his place, and the new ogre would doubtlessly be violent.


    With that option exhausted, only one path remained to Nabonidus. The dragon approached, slowly but surely. Some day within the next few months or years, he would reach Nabonidus. In his visions, the dragon would talk to him and listen, and so Nabonidus had one shot to ingratiate himself with his new lord and implore him to destroy the fire that held him captive. To that end, Nabonidus had to survive until such a Destined day would arrive, and then he would choose his own Fate.


    All of those considerations circled back to Glombo. Was he working with other intelligent ogres? Were they in league with the spirit in the flame? Nabonidus would know what Glombo knew, and when satisfied that nothing more remained to be learned, he would kill Glombo, for that was the way of the world.


    Hours passed, but finally, Nabonidus was rewarded for his patience. Glombo tried to speak, but his mouth, parched from the hot sun, could not properly form words. With a hollowed-out horn that he kept on his person, Nabonidus delivered water to Glombo and encouraged him to speak. While Glombo did speak, his words were naught but the ramblings of a madman. Try as he might, Nabonidus could not parse through the incoherent thoughts for a deeper meaning. Wary of a trap, Nabonidus remained vigilant as he constantly looked around for any signs of danger. Hours passed, but then Glombo ceased speaking.


    As Nabonidus went to finish the job, Glombo spasmed, his body straining at his bonds as white froth formed within his mouth. The seizure lasted perhaps half a minute before Glombo perished. Just to be safe, Nabonidus used a rock to crush Glomgo¡¯s head into pulp. The last thing he needed was an undead ogre chasing after him.


    The experience had not been entirely fruitless. Glombo had spoken with a rich vocabulary, one far beyond what normal ogres used in their vernacular. As far as Nabonidus could tell, Glombo had not been possessed by another being and spoke with his own words. That meant that Glombo had indeed been intelligent. With that tiny morsel of a clue in mind, Nabonidus would keep watch for anyone who expected Glombo to return. Even a slight disturbance in the composure of another ogre was enough to give away the ruse, but that worked both ways.


    With nothing else to be gained, Nabonidus made his way home. Finding food had become trivial in a sense, assuming food was to be had. If any animal worthy of being eaten were to cross his path on the way home, Nabonidus would know of it and would be able to be in the right place at the right time to strike. Nabonidus had to be careful to not be too successful at hunting lest he draw suspicion, but eating smaller animals out here in the wilderness or stashing food away helped to maintain his cover.


    He just had to survive, one day after the next, until the dragon arrived. Nabonidus knew not what god to pray to, but he prayed anyway to those who would listen that he would survive that long.


    <hr>


    ¡°Now on to the matter of the late Count Vladislav,¡± spoke the senior among them to his peers. ¡°It would seem that he failed in his task. What do you have to say for this, Margrave Conrad?¡±


    Margrave Conrad cleared his throat, his nerves on edge at being called out by his superior. ¡°My apologies, Uncle, for the failure of my son. The research data is corrupted, for someone tore my son¡¯s heart from his chest and later ate it.¡±


    ¡°Not just someone,¡± interrupted the other dragon, ¡°But none other than Princess Nanu. Her escape and adoption by the new Emperor is an unacceptable outcome.¡±


    Wilting under the irate glare of his superior, Margrave Conrad lowered himself in submission, his wings and tail tucked close in subservience. ¡°A thousand apologies, Uncle. I will dispatch our finest dragon hunters right away to recapture her and the new Emperor as well.¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    Margrave Conrad looked up at his displeased uncle, but did not dare to speak.


    ¡°No,¡± his uncle repeated as anger filled his voice and caused the walls to shake with his power. ¡°You will not simply dispatch them! You will lead them and see to it personally. Do not dare return without my prize recovered. I had loaned her to you to help further my research, and it is your head that will roll if she is not recovered.¡±


    ¡°As you wish, Uncle,¡± replied Margrave Conrad meekly as he cowered.


    ¡°Why are you still here?¡± roared his uncle. ¡°Begone from my sight before I can no longer contain my rage!¡±


    Margrave Conrad scurried away as fast as he could, his body staying low to the ground the entire time. His peers laughed at his craven retreat and disgrace, and though resentment burned in his heart, he remained in no position to strike back. Though it would bankrupt his savings, his life and the fate of his children hinged upon his success. Best that one failure not compound upon another and see his progeny purged for having inferior blood.


    There were many knightly orders of dragon hunters to choose from, each capable of ensuring success. Margrave Conrad would hire all of them, lead a grand hunt for the most favored of prizes. Although the hunt would be highly illegal and the various churches would try to intercede, the most daring and ambitious of hunters would still flock to the challenge.


    With a small and silent laugh to himself, Margrave Conrad relished the day he would cross paths with the new Emperor and clear his own name. With a plan forming, he chanted his flight¡¯s mantra.


    ¡°Glory to the Blood!¡±

 Chapter 61

    The Dragon of Roads - World''s End


    With a thunderous collision like a ten-ton sledgehammer to my left jaw, my body found itself crashing down hard on my right side, the fight nearly knocked out of me in a single blow. Before my opponent could capitalize on my stunned condition, I utilized the last remnants of my focus and reasoning to detonate traps beneath my fallen body. Great gales of air sprung forth to push me upwards and backwards, my body landing on shaky legs as I recovered my wits from the devastating jolt to my noggin.


    ¡°Keep your head in range of your wings,¡± my opponent lectured as she swiped at me on my left side again.


    This time, I backed my head up, my neck going high to make the required bend while I moved my left wing forward to block. The rake of her claws bounced off impotently, but her teeth grabbed ahold of my wing and tugged. She turned in place and swung me wide, and once again I found myself in a me-shaped crater as she slammed me into the earth. This time, I summoned forth a wave of water under me to push me away, her grasp on my wing already lifted as she readied her next attack. As I rolled with the wave to upright myself yet again, I witnessed an extraordinary feat of acrobatics as my opponent, somersaulting through the air, brought her tail down upon me at high speed. Though my wings blocked the worst of the blow, the overwhelming force still flattened me. Before I could react, my opponent had leaped into the air, her body twisting so that she landed facing the same way as me, but unfortunately for me, on top of me and in a grapple. Pinned by her superior weight and size, I found myself helpless before her might.


    ¡°This is where you would die,¡± she scolded as her teeth gently set themselves against the scales of my neck just below my head.


    Hearty guffaws and cries of consternation came from the direction of the rabble of idle workers enjoying their time off by spectating me getting trounced time after time. Money changed hands as people won and lost fortunes while wagering how many exchanges I could withstand before I lost again.


    ¡°You are getting better,¡± Princess Nanu encouraged as she pinned me down snugly with her weight. ¡°Well, a little better every day. I am actually having to try harder, but the bar was rather low to begin with,¡± she teased as she wiggled her hips and shoulders into me. You keep thinking as a humanoid would think, but you need to use your entire body like a dragon should.¡±


    Her lecture over, she dismounted me and raked the back of her claws along my left side as she walked back to her starting position. With her draconic body over twice my size, she decided to be sporting and withhold from using active magic. Despite the handicap, her superior weight, reach, and finesse rendered our spars into one-sided beatdowns. We practiced fighting as dragons for an hour a day, and with our session only halfway over, the displeasure of getting smacked around still remained within my immediate future. Help, help; someone call domestic violence on her!


    With it better to ¡®die¡¯ a thousand times in practice compared to once in a real fight, I resumed my place at my starting position. I considered myself clever, but nothing I could do worked on her. Breath attacks of any element just harmlessly washed off her. My swipes with my claws and smashes with my tail were no more than love-taps. Trying to overpower her was outright suicidal. Traps, which remained the bulk of my fighting kit, were likewise fruitless. She could easily see them despite their subtle and covert nature, and even the ones that did hit her likewise failed to secure an advantage for me. And to think, Nanu was ¡®only¡¯ a Princess. I could only wonder as to the horror and awesome destruction a King or Queen could unleash if let loose.


    Being that I was an Emperor, I felt pretty weak, but to be fair, I was rather young, appearing to be in my early twenties in my human form. However, such physical aging would slow down considerably as I advanced in [Age] as a dragon. Even if I lived another ten thousand years, I would be capable of looking much the same in my human form as I do now if I so desired. Only this morning had I unlocked the Skills to take the form of other humanoids, which is to say races like orcs, dwarves, elves, and so on. However, I would need to make it through sparring before I could go try out such shapeshifting shenanigans, so I focused on the task at hand.


    Nanu always gave me the initiative to attack, and so I lunged forward in a feint to bait out her claws. She fell for it, and as her claw swung past, I latched on to her hand with my mouth. But you see, dear reader, I had erred, for she had been the one to bait me. With me still clinging on tightly, she swung her arm in a backhand as she twisted her body, and with dastardly physics cordially inviting me to follow her momentum, I once again found myself sailing into the air.


    Despite trying to let go of her to get away, her claws had wedged themselves in my teeth. This time, instead of hitting the ground, I crashed into her underside. She had gone prone in her swing and rolled over to continue the momentum of my impromptu flight. Her wings corralled me into her upturned body, and with her legs and free hand spinning my body as I came down, I found myself in the dragon-equivalent of a rear naked choke. Her teeth found purchase on my neck, and with my tail and limbs restrained respectively by her own appendages, I could find no leverage to free myself.


    ¡°Dead again,¡± she chided as she nibbled at me playfully.


    At this point, I almost felt like she lorded her strength over me. Perhaps that was the point, to cement in my mind the vast disparity of power between us. She was not even at full strength for what a prominent Princess should be and I could not even begin to take her in a fight. While it may have appeared that she showboated every technique she knew to defeat me, much to the adulation of cheering fans, I believed it to be to my own benefit as to the versatility of the draconic form in terms of martial prowess. She deftly married adroit counters and graceful movements to engage me in maneuvers I thought physically impossible. I kept my temper in check only because I felt as though she wanted to coax that out and put me in my place. The lesson to be learned was if I fought a dragon who was a Marquess or higher in peerage, I would lose, plain and simple. Count Vladislav, whom I had fought months ago and defeated, had been a fluke.


    ¡°Tomorrow, I will size myself down to match you, and we will begin training in earnest.¡±, she informed me as we took our starting positions. ¡°You have seen the bulk of what can be done without active magic to aid my prowess, and since dragons always fight with potent magic, continuing with just martial techniques alone would start to create bad patterns in your behavior. Just think of all the interesting new ways I can box your proverbial ears and flatten you,¡± she announced excitedly as the crowd cheered her on.


    Anger swelled within me unbidden, and I casually wondered if I should water down the ale that the onlookers swigged heedless of my discomfort or spike it up high enough to knock them all out. Perhaps even, I should just eat one of them so they tone down their heckling. Now, that was a disturbing and intrusive thought that definitely seemed to stem from my draconic nature. I did not think such anger and pride were my vices, so perhaps I would have to talk to Nanu about it later.


    ¡°Temperance, Master, lest you drink too deeply from that chalice of dumb-bitch-juice and become intoxicated with poor judgment.¡±


    Skull, my ever loving and faithful [Dragon Knight], safely concealed away in my shadow, offered sound counsel with a dash of sass. I did take a moment to collect myself, feeling vexed more at my mood swing than my martial performance. She and I shared a powerful bond, one where our thoughts and emotions could bleed into one another if we did not actively suppress such transmigrations. I did at least admit to myself that she reproached me with a fair degree of wit, for she matched her words to the habits of imbibement of the peanut gallery.


    Mercifully, time eventually advanced until the hour of training came to an end. My healing Skills had earned their keep these last few months as Nanu beat me bloody day after day. It almost made me miss the days of my youth when I trained with the Bradberrys. However, Nanu at least made it up to me each night with affection and intimacy aplenty in our bedroom. Not that I ever wanted Mr. Bradberry to do such for me, but Mrs. Bradberry could have done worse by me than such an indulgence.


    Today had been another day of digging tunnels. With an 82 foot diameter tunnel, of which about half of that volume was filled in with obsidicrete to prevent cave-ins and to allow a structure for roads and pipes, a great deal of earth needed to be excavated with each mile of progress. Such stone would then go through my [Basic Thermal Bottle], which would melt everything down to base natural elements (not to be confused with the elements of magic) and then reconstituted into my proprietary blend of obsidian or as quartz for S.M.A.R.T. crystals. Both relied heavily on oxygen and silicon, so finding rock with high concentrations of silicon, iron, and¡­ I want to say magnolia. No, that¡¯s a flower, but some other element that sounds similar to that. Anyway, just find some rock, correctly take it for granite, and then you have pretty much everything you need for obsidian, and thus, obsidicrete.


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    The road that I, along with several thousand people under me, we were making was 72 feet wide, 1 foot deep, and roughly 3,000 miles long. However, with granite being only about 50-70 percent silicon by weight, some of the refuse had to be deposited into great storage silos I built along the road. Additionally, with granite being around 14 percent aluminum by weight, which was itself a valuable metal, I would still come away with a pretty penny. Add in the other traces of elements and the odd vein of precious ores, and I would have a great deal of spending cash once I made it to market.


    I will spare you all the full math, but to build the road and the inside of the tunnels would require about 31 miles of tunnel to provide the materials needed, excluding any bridges or ramps. Awfully convenient, I would say, that the projected series of tunnels through three mountain ranges was estimated to be around 40 miles in length. With each mile providing just shy of 10 million tons of rock and other material to be moved out of the way, processed into obsidicrete, and then placed into location, I had my work cut out for me as the sole manufacturer of obsidicrete and the chief transporter of rock.


    Everyone else either supported the various functions of our nomadic town or worked directly to prepare the terrain for my road. Around half of the people in the camp were workers that went forth to clear trees and rocks, cut and fill for smooth roads, or built retaining walls or other such infrastructure. It didn¡¯t need to be permanent, but at least good enough to last a decade or two until I could come back through and build it properly. The S.M.A.R.T crystals created a relay, similar to an electrical grid, that would provide my mana to keep everything in tip-top shape. Ergo, as long as the mana supply lasted, I wouldn¡¯t have to deal with much in the way of pesky maintenance tasks as the road repaired itself to the wear and tear of time and water damage.


    For now, the relay of crystals remained largely dormant, for a few months without them working would not hurt anything. Eventually, we would come to a river, and with that, an infinite supply of moving water. The dwarves are a crafty people, and they know a thing or two about turning kinetic energy into magical energy, or as it is said across the world, mana. As long as our future mana stations were attuned to my mana signature and operating nominally, the crystals would continue to keep the road in good condition for hundreds if not thousands of years. I don¡¯t know why cities don¡¯t typically harness this same concept, for mana is a much more versatile and efficient medium than electricity, of which cities do not use either for any semblance of sophisticated infrastructure. Perhaps I would have to show the world someday by building my own fancy cities with running water and working sewer systems.


    However, all of that would have to wait until after we prevented the end of the world. Indeed, the gods got together to spill the beans to us mere mortals about how a portal to another planet will open soon and unending tides of flesh-rending monstrosities will pour forth into our world to devour everything. I doubt their prophecy even rhymed, so they clearly whipped it up last-minute.


    Regardless, the situation worked out well for me, as it secured vast wealth and legal privileges for my flight, even if that flight only had two members for now. As the Emperor of my flight, it was my duty to start popping out eggs to make children. The ¡®making¡¯ of children would be more literal than how humanoids do it, for I would consciously choose how to create my offspring. I would have great leeway in choosing their Blessings, and now I just needed to find a suitable breeding partner as I already had a few eggs primed and ready.


    Technically, Princess Nanu, my adopted daughter, would work if I promoted her to Queen, but that would come with a host of downsides that outweighed the benefits. Dragons, which are creatures of magic and not biology, don¡¯t really have a concept of incest, gender, sexual identity, or a whole host of ideas that would get you lynched by small-minded individuals. I aimed to create Dragon Consorts, which have a non-dragon parent, for they would speed up the process of growing my flight compared to Dragon Paragons, which have two dragon parents. Considering dragons of peerage, sans Emperors, regularly were ¡®reborn¡¯, ¡®reforged¡¯, ¡®remade¡¯, or whatever ¡®re-word¡¯ you cared to use, their relations to one another could change rapidly. The seeming paradoxical situation of being the mother of your mother was totally a normal aspect of life for dragons.


    Nanu had told me to hold off on picking a mother for my children. She had kept it somewhat a surprise, but informed me that a perfect mother was on the way to camp any day now. My education in the ¡®birds and the bees¡¯ of dragons glossed over what made one humanoid better than another, but I trusted her judgment, as she had a great deal of experience in curating the pedigree of her previous and now largely extinct flight, The Secret Stalkers.


    With a future session of ¡®begetting¡¯ on the horizon, for which my lovers dutifully helped me prepare for via ample sessions of practice, I ventured home with Nanu beside me and Skull in my shadow. Both of them, along with Chooka, were my primary paramours. Chooka, my mistress and primary lover, only edged out the other two by a somewhat slim margin. I try not to play favorites, but Chooka wins more times than not if there are competing interests. Fortunately, she was not a jealous lover, for as a [Courtesan], she had ample experience with having several lovers at a time. To be fair, monogamy was not a common thing in the world at that time, especially between members of other races where unwanted offspring were impossible.


    In fact, Chooka was the one having to force me to branch out to other women so I could collect the Traits needed to build my flight. Traits are like blueprints to building dragons, and dragons tend to shapeshift into humanoids to whore their way into collecting said Traits. Chooka set up a calendar the very first day we made camp, and to help stress the need for me to build my flight, she even arranged the matchmaking of what lovers I would have each night. Naturally, Chooka, Skull, and Nanu got a piece of me every night, often with all of us together, but other random women also got in on the action. I don¡¯t know for sure if she makes money off it and pimps me out or if I am doing it pro bono. Either way, I counted myself fortunate that my draconic heritage granted me the stamina, lust, and general lack for any need of sleep that one would require to meet such demands of the flesh.


    The town itself was not much to look at, just a wall of obsidicrete on the outside to keep away predators and boxy wooden buildings on the inside to house people. The whole camp was designed to be easily disassembled, transported down the road, and then reassembled every so often. At one point, we had to move everyone past the mountains in several sorties of various flying crafts and critters. Ergo, we now dug the final stretch of tunnels through this particular mountain range backwards to reconnect with the rest while we advanced the road ever southward.


    My comfy, little, wooden box of a house was about twice as big as others, but it housed four people and the physical contents of the hoards of two dragons. The power of a hoard came from not just its contents and perceived value, but also its availability to plunder and how well known it was. With the doors unlocked and everyone in camp knowing right where Nanu and I kept our respective hoards, we received ample boons from our coveted treasure in the form of [Hoard] Skills. My hoard was curated for quality, where each item was collected one at a time through a particular transaction or investment of my energy, whereas Nanu had a larger hoard, but only as the results of contracts involving secrecy. Some of us dragons are discerning in how we add to our hoard, unlike the uncultured swine out there that snatch up every last coin that they can get their grubby little claws on.


    These days building my first major road were among the riskiest days of my youth. I had no way of knowing that each shrine I built along the road only contributed to my ascension to a demigod. I am The Dragon of Roads, a demigod of roads, bridges, and pretty much any overland transport system that doesn¡¯t involve boats or going off-road through the wilderness. However, with as many pipe networks, sewers, aqueducts, and cities I have built in my day, it is a wonder that I didn¡¯t get a name like ¡®The Dragon of Infrastructure¡¯. But what is a pipe if not a road for fluids, or a sewer if not a road for waste? However, I was not yet a demigod in those days, merely an Emperor trying to establish his flight before the other seven Emperors ganged up on me.


    There was also the possibility we would all die well before then, especially if I did not finish this road that would allow the nations of the world to transport troops and supplies down south for the biggest war in living memory. At least one other flight, The Bone Wardens, were at least nominally my allies, but they had yet to send an envoy to me to establish diplomatic negotiations. However, we were only about one-fifth of the way complete, and that did not include the troubles of a massive bridge we would need to build and two more tunnel systems, so we were still reasonably far away from the territory of The Bone Wardens.


    As we three approached our house, we observed Chooka standing outside with two individuals. One I recognized by her ashen skin, black hair, red eyes, full-plate armor, and rapier, but the other I knew only to be a female troll. The former could be none other than Blythnin, the Summarian elf who was a Platinum Adventurer and also known as ¡°The Sting of Berkerin¡±. Come to think of it, I had not seen her other than in passing since our duel in the arena just before a war broke out some two years back, so I remained surprised and excited for the unexpected occasion to catch up.

 Chapter 62

    ¡°Well, well, well; if it ain¡¯t the last man I penetrated with whom I did not enjoy the pleasure of reciprocation.¡±


    Blythnin would have to wake up earlier in the morning if she aimed to make me blush at her greeting. Chooka had said things that made entire orgies blush, so I found myself well-conditioned to maintain composure at such scandalous outbursts. The troll with Blythnin, a fair maiden I assumed considering she still looked a few years away from the paint properly drying, so to speak, did blush while eyeing me up and down with a look of coquettish interest.


    ¡°Somehow, I don¡¯t think you want me to run you through with a sword, but I¡¯m sure Chooka can manage to squeeze you into my schedule, if I understand the thrust of your desires,¡± I responded as we mutually extended our hands for a handshake. Chooka and Blythnin both smiled at my appropriately crude humor while the troll maiden played with her hair. ¡°And who is your friend here?¡±


    ¡°She,¡± answered Blythnin as she shoved the shy troll forward, ¡°is It-Has-Pockets.¡± I gave her a look up and down, but considering she still wore a traveling cloak with the hood up, there wasn¡¯t much to see. ¡°Go on now, introduce yourself,¡± prodded Blythnin as she yanked off the cloak.


    ¡°Wonderful,¡± exclaimed Chooka as she stepped forward and pulled the troll into a hug before I could get a good look at her. ¡°You are so beautiful! You simply must tell me how you keep your hair so silky and shiny while on the road,¡± she continued as she fawned over It-Has-Pockets. I sensed a tinge of expended mana in the air and some Skill shenaniganry before Chooka pulled away. Most likely, Chooka spruced the girl up since she probably had not had an opportunity to clean up from her travels.


    I wouldn¡¯t say my jaw dropped physically, but I did pause for a moment while my brain ceased all activity. She wore an outfit of exotic-looking ribbon that wrapped itself up and down her body, concealing and containing very little and highlighting all the curves and toned muscles of her feminine form. Her skin was the color of freshly-pressed olive oil, which is to say, bright green. Her facial features were somewhere between that of an orc and an elf, marrying the savage and unbridled beauty of the former with the majestic and seductive grace of the latter. Her lower canines slightly peeked out past her lips, and tribal tattoos adorned her skin along most of her body.


    ¡°This one is It-Has-Pockets,¡± she stated calmly with a bow, her hands in front of her with her left in a fist and the right one gripping it. ¡°This one has been brought here to serve at your pleasure.¡± After she uttered forth that statement that totally could not be taken to have multiple meanings, she deftly twirled in place on the toes of her left foot, her body bending and weaving around erotically, seemingly in defiance of gravity or momentum. For but half a second, she would pause in a pose, only to continue to spin around at high speeds once more. She showcased her physique, especially her absolutely impressive shoulder muscles. Additionally, strapped to her back was a long, single-edged blade that was almost straight, but at the tip it bent upward. ¡°This one is a [Blade Dancer], daughter of Threads-The-Needle, a [Dressmaker]. I am fathered by eight, each one of favored blood and Blessing. This one hails from Wattin, the capital of the nation of Tarr. Should this one be pleasing unto you, then you have but to accept the service of this one on behalf of my people,¡± she stated as she finished her display and ended it with a prostrated kowtow.


    ¡°I, uh,¡± I looked to Chooka and Nanu for guidance. Chooka bobbed her head up and down emphatically, while Nanu simply looked on with the dazed wonder of someone who had just won the lottery. Considering little phased her, It-Has-Pockets must be far more than the wonderful image that meets the eye. I cleared my throat before continuing. ¡°I accept you into my service and welcome you into my house.¡±


    She stood up just as soon as I had finished, and surprisingly, appeared far more relaxed than during our introduction. ¡°Good,¡± she stated as she snatched up my arm and clutched it to her chest as she walked beside me. ¡°Now we can drop the formalities and get to know each other. By the way, my wai¡¯fudo is coming up soon and I don¡¯t see any male trolls around here so you need to ¡®accompany¡¯ me during that time so I don¡¯t die. You do know what that is, right?¡± she asked as she looked up at me with doe eyes.


    With Blythnin already on my other arm and blowing a raspberry at a less-than-chuffed Chooka and Nanu who were bereft an arm of their own to hang onto, I found myself frogmarched into my home before I could even process what I had gotten myself into.


    ¡°I think I understand the broad strokes of it, but why don¡¯t you fill me in,¡± I offered diplomatically, as I wanted to know what she thought it was so there would be no misunderstanding.


    ¡°As you may know,¡± she started as she deftly opened the door with her foot and somehow squeezed in while still clinging to me. ¡°It is a legally protected and mandated responsibility normally delegated to male trolls. They even can get a paid day off work for it. When a female troll is in heat, which happens once or twice a year depending on food supply and other factors, she will spend a full day bedding males without much interlude between sessions with them. Usually, there are six males working in shifts to service her, which would then be the customary six fathers of her offspring, if she doesn¡¯t miscarry.¡± Her expression, which had been chipper during the explanation, turned rather remorseful during that last part. ¡°In half a year, I will be 17 years of age, and I have been through wai¡¯fudo four times now. Sadly, I have no offspring to show for it, which is common in younger females.¡± Again, a flash of sorrow crossed her features before she brightened up. ¡°But I hear this time will be a guaranteed success as I will be the mother of your dragon children!¡± She bounced up and down excitedly while still clutching my arm as the gaggle of us found our way to the bedroom.


    Events were transpiring at a mile a minute as I still tried to wrap my head around things. There were more clothes and bits of armor on the floor than on the people in the room as Skull, Chooka, Blythnin, Nanu, It-Has-Pockets, and myself found ourselves in or near a bed that overflowed with eager petitioners for its waking utilization.


    ¡°I might be able to manage that,¡± I responded to her explanation as many hands roamed across my toned body. ¡°I am curious, though, exactly why your name doesn¡¯t match your Blessing. I was told trolls tend to do that.¡±


    ¡°For shame, you can¡¯t just ask a troll why her name doesn¡¯t match her Blessing!¡± shouted Blythnin at my apparent faux-pas. ¡°Fucking piss-dicks dammit! I was so close!¡±


    Blythnin reached over the bed to fetch a coin purse as others did the same. Even Skull somehow had been part of this, and considering she never strays far from my side, that was a feat to keep me out of the loop. Coins changed hands in favor of It-Has-Pockets and Chooka, with the lion¡¯s share of the losses coming from Blythnin.


    ¡°You¡¯re feeling a little light there, Blythnin,¡± stated It-Has-Pockets as she removed the last of her clothes and leapt on top of me. ¡°Not only did he ask about my name before I managed to get in bed with him intimately, but I did it in under five minutes of meeting him. That is an extra 50 gold you owe me.¡± More cursing followed from Blythnin as her coin purse continued to dwindle in size.


    ¡°You cost me a lot of money with that mouth of yours,¡± Blythnin exclaimed as she too positioned herself favorably upon me. ¡°Best you apply it to an apology without words, especially since you have kept me waiting for this moment since the war.¡±


    Events proceeded from there, and with me being the lone man with five eager and lust-filled women to indulge, I found myself put through my paces to see if I could handle the challenge of a solo wai¡¯fudo. At some point, I tried out shapeshifting into a male troll, complete with a little help from Chooka to manage the cosmetics of the tattoos. Apparently, I looked strapping, for It-Has-Pockets nearly drooled after she witnessed the transformation.


    Looking at myself in the mirror, my visage looked as though I could either charm birds down from a tree or make grown men piss themselves in fear depending on how I batted my eyes or hardened my gaze. While It-Has-Pockets had a shorter and wider mohawk, which was customary for her people, mine was thinner and taller. Were either of us married, we would have different haircuts that matched our respective spouse. Ergo, our haircuts signaled our marital status as single and available.


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    It-Has-Pockets had been a chatterbox the whole time, even managing to get a few words in edgewise during the throes of passion before that moment where words became impossible. We heard all about where she grew up, her journey here, her thoughts on the road we were building, and more. Strangely, not one of us ever tired of her tale, so I suspected some Skill enabled such captivation. That, or it was everyone trying to overdose her on pleasure to see if they could break her concentration. Outside of little side wagers and cloak-and-dagger battles at breakfast, it became one of our new favorite games, which she seemed to appreciate.


    Apparently, her mother had thought her daughter would be some kind of [Tailor] as well and had named her daughter to reflect that. Trolls took a leaf out of the dragon handbook and all females have some Skills devoted to building their offspring from her own genetics and that of the many fathers. However, they are not as good at it as dragons, and oftentimes they create offspring that are not viable, either for life to be sparked or to meet their standards. Trolls have a much higher than average quality of Blessing compared to other races, but they also have a higher metabolism and eat two to five times as much food. Ergo, any offspring that don¡¯t make the cut get culled, which sounds a bit dark but I get it. Anyway, Threads-The-Needle ¡®failed upwards¡¯ and had given birth to a baby that, as she matured, developed into a much more powerful Blessing than anticipated.


    At its core, a [Blade Dancer] typically hails from your basic-bitch [Warrior] or even a [Dancer]. From there, one can become a [Battle Dancer], which combines the supporting and enhancing Skill webs of [Dance] with the murdery ones of [Combat] or [Warfare]. Advancing on, it can branch to [War Dancer], which supports from the vanguard, or a [Blade Dancer] which supports near the commander and is typically one of the best duelist and bodyguard Blessings a military commander could ask for. Considering how rare her Blessing is, she was practically royalty. Likewise, taking into account how she trained in the Imperial Palace itself during her youth, that claim may not be far off. Not to say that a human [Warrior] could not train to become a [Blade Dancer], but most mortals never apply themselves to really excel enough to evolve their Blessings all that much.


    I will spare you the details of her travels, but suffice to say, she had a splendid time taking in the new sights as she sailed up the east coast, joined a caravan that traveled west, rendezvoused with her escort, Blythnin, and made the rest of the journey to our humble little camp. Poor Blythnin had met her halfway and had to ¡®play nursemaid¡¯ to It-Has-Pockets, which certainly explained her absence all this time. Why no other trolls had come along or formed a guard detail remained a mystery to everyone.


    Eventually, It-Has-Pockets talked herself out and curled up asleep with Chooka and Blythnin. Nanu, Skull, and I needed very little sleep, and certainly not daily, so we made our way to our small living room to confer with one another while the normies slept.


    ¡°So,¡± I asked as I sat across from Nanu while we indulged in tea and biscuits. ¡°What about It-Has-Pockets had you all hot and bothered? Was it her looks or something else?¡±


    ¡°She certainly is easy on the eyes, and I may well transform into a male troll to ¡®help¡¯ you on the  wai¡¯fudo, but that is not what caused me to get ¡®all hot and bothered¡¯ as you put it,¡± she huffed as she daintily sipped at her tea. ¡°I¡¯ve been with more beautiful men and women than you have met, so don¡¯t group me in with the star-struck maidens out there,¡± she continued as a small smile found purchase on her lips. ¡°What surprised me was how many Traits she has.


    ¡°I know you don¡¯t have the Skills to see them yet, but in terms of quantity and quality, that girl is unnatural. Someone, some dragon, had a hand in what we dragons call ¡®gift-wrapping¡¯ her for us with a carefully curated cornucopia of rare and powerful Traits. She has 108 Traits, to be precise, which is a special number to The Eternal Pretenders flight, but that doesn¡¯t mean they did it. Either way, ¡°she paused for a bit to build anticipation and to sip some more tea, ¡°it seems that someone out there wants to be your friend.¡±


    ¡°I see, I see,¡± I said as I worked up the courage to phrase my next question. Nanu waited patiently, seemingly knowing what was to follow as she straightened herself up and took no effort to hide the smirk on her face. ¡°Speaking of dragons, I was wondering about some things.¡±


    With me pausing for a moment, she took the opportunity to speak in a slightly motherly and patronizing tone. ¡°Your body is going through some scary changes right now, and you may notice things like your voice deepening, your muscles growing stronger, and certain urges developing.¡±


    ¡°Not that, you ass!¡± I shouted as Nanu and Skull both laughed at the precursor to the coming-of-age talk about the birds and the bees that parents do. ¡°But, I guess something maybe similar to that. Sometimes I get angry and want to do harmful things to rather innocent people, or my pride gets hurt about things that would never have bothered me in the past. I am frustrated with these mood swings and I don¡¯t understand the cause. Could you explain it to me?¡±


    ¡°Rest assured, all is completely normal for a dragon,¡± Nanu responded with warmth and seriousness now that her joke was out of the way. ¡°I have been trying to elicit some kind of tantrum from you for a while now, but you have done an excellent job keeping your cool.¡± Something about that compliment made me feel warm and fuzzy inside more than normal and I wanted more. ¡°Did that compliment about your performance make you feel good? Did it feel better than it normally would, say, three years ago?¡±


    ¡°Are you reading my mind or something?¡± I asked with a spark of incredulousness in my voice.


    ¡°No, but I have helped raise many dragons and I have seen it all. Pride is an aspect of a dragon¡¯s mentality. All the mortal races have it, but it is more pronounced in dragons. You desire and crave compliments that are heartfelt and related to your performance. Some dragons, especially ones I would judge more as ¡®evil¡¯, crave bootlickers that offer compliments about their prowess or appearance, even if they are not related to any actual skill or deed performed. If you do not manage your pride and control it, it will control you, and you will grow up to be a man-child, so to speak.


    ¡°Older dragons still have pride, but it manifests in strange ways. It tends to involve complicated and convoluted schemes or pranks that take decades to see fruition and involve all manner of unbecoming or scandalous activity. For instance, my brother once masqueraded as a beggar for like twenty years as part of an elaborate plot to be in the right place at the right time to help some king fleeing in the night from a failed coup. The coup was also my brother¡¯s doing, and he ended up ingratiating himself with the king and purging the land of the disloyal lords, all of which was part of my brother¡¯s scheme to position his son as the voice in the king¡¯s ear as his chief advisor. It did work, my brother didn¡¯t have to go through such troubles to make it happen, but I think it all started over a bet over if it ¡®could¡¯ be done. Moral of the story, you should expect to get far more petty as you get older.


    ¡°Likewise, a lot of ¡®bad¡¯ or ¡®negative¡¯ emotions will manifest more strongly than your normal humanoid counterparts. You will lust for beautiful women, and maybe someday, men. For instance, you fell in bed with It-Has-Pockets without batting an eye or being overly lecherous about it, as if it were all a natural occurrence. You crave to add to our hoard, you indulge in fine food and drink, and you seek the approval and respect of those you call friends. These are not explicitly shallow traits and they can be channeled into positive outcomes as long as you actively manage and direct those feelings. Abstinence from such things only makes it worse and serves no real benefit. Overindulgence likewise leads to a life of hedonism. As in all things, balance is important.


    ¡°This road of yours is ambitious, but as time goes on, it won¡¯t be enough, and you will seek out grander and grander undertakings. Life has no purpose unless you make one, and since you will live until the day you are murdered, as all dragons do, you need to find goals that are worth accomplishing. Too easy and you feel unfulfilled and burn out, too hard and you may fall into despair when you fail. All these changes may seem daunting at first, but you will adapt and I will always be here to help you along.¡±


    With her explanation complete, she rose from her chair and crossed the distance between us to nestle into my lap and pet me tenderly. Skull, who had been quietly munching down this whole time, and seeing the head-pats being handed out for free, likewise put down the refreshments and sought a means to join us. The chair groaned in protest over our combined weight, and between our constant shifting from tickles and jostling for attention, it surrendered to the inevitable as a leg snapped. We quickly found ourselves on the floor amongst the fractured remnants of a shattered chair. With ample laughter and mirth in our hearts, we cuddled together on the floor while we rode out the giggles until composure would find us once again.


    ¡°Also, you better be ready for tomorrow, Skull.¡±


    ¡°Me? What did I do?¡±


    ¡°It is what you haven¡¯t done: protected your master. You, Hopper, Ribbette, The Boys, and the various kobolds are going to gang up against me tomorrow and I¡¯m going to beat the stuffings out of all of you by myself.¡±


    ¡°I am sure my Master needs my moral support and would feel better if I stayed in his shadow tomorrow.¡±


    We laughed at her joke, and while we all knew Skull was truly fearless, she was not suicidal. Fighting a Princess would leave all of us battered and broken before the hour of training was over.

 Chapter 63

    Just because you can heal through physical pain and damage doesn¡¯t mean the trauma just goes away. We had been burned by fire and acid, frozen in ice, zapped by electricity, had our bones broken and our bodies nearly rent asunder from sharp claws, fierce teeth, powerful blows from a tail, and more. Nanu seemingly delighted in the carnage of battle, and even with the three dozen or so of us versus just her, we had yet to inflict any sort of serious blow against her. Granted, a large part of our roster was kobolds, and they are not very useful in a straight up brawl, but I had hoped The Boys would at least have made her sweat.


    The Boys had been decapitated far too many times in the past four weeks. Fortunately, not all of their hydra heads had been decapitated at the same time, otherwise, they would have died. Diogenes was the most frustrated of the bunch, for when he finally hit Nanu with his strongest attack, it was likewise as impotent as anything else we had tried. Socrates spent much of the time playing defense. He used his neck as a shield by wrapping it around their main body. One good hit there could kill them, so protecting their core remained their primary concern in a fight. Aristotle¡¯s reckless and pyromantic tendencies were slowly being reined in, but thanks to the leadership of Plato, they were working better as a team as the days passed. If only that fat bump where their necks met their body would mature into a new head, they may have a chance of lasting a little longer before they lost the fight.


    Hopper and Ribbette, my two [Giant Frog] pets, fared better mostly because they are more nimble. That is to say their base Blessing is that of [Giant Frog], not that the creature itself is specifically named ¡®Giant Frog¡¯, like how one species of weasel is the ¡®Least Weasel¡¯. Likewise, they are not just larger than average frogs and just called ¡®giant frogs¡¯. Any number of magical beast species of frogs have the Blessing of [Giant Frog], and though they are now [Kaeru Kenshi] and [Kiri No Kaeru] respectively, their advanced Blessings have not helped them actually hurt Nanu.


    As for the Kobolds, the best among them for combat were the [Kuroko]. Each one wore black ninja outfits and would seemingly pop up out of nowhere to distract Nanu. Despite them posing no real threat to her, she still retaliated when she saw them, so either they had some Skill to force her attention onto them or she acted as opponents on our level would act towards them. Either way, they bought us breathing room and deployed smokescreens. The rest of the kobolds, sans Gambino, typically worked in a choir and orchestra. There were perhaps a dozen of them, but the variety of musical instruments and voices I heard seemed more like several hundred. I don¡¯t know for certain what effect their intense and thematic music had on the fight, but it did keep our spirits up. However, we did learn to get nervous when they start singing in some language we don¡¯t understand. It usually means Nanu is about to get serious and thrash us.


    Skull fared the best out of everyone. She could shrug off hits that would turn most Platinum Adventurers to pulp. Considering she was Dual-Blessed with both [Divine Champion] in service of Gulthar, the Dark God of Fear and Courage, and a [Dragon Knight] in service to me, I would say she may stand a chance at being a Diamond Adventurer in the near future. She reveled in the thrill of battle and delighted in how Nanu could strike fear in the hearts of onlookers without any obvious and explicit Skills to do so. Her zweih?nder, so empowered either by potent enchantments or her connection to her god, actually managed to do some damage to Nanu. The blows were shallow, but they added up and sapped Nanu¡¯s strength more than they seemingly should. We still lost every time, but Skull was our frontrunner for taking down a difficult foe.


    Others in the camp would also try their luck from time to time in sparring matches, either with us or each other. We had started a trend, and we even had to build actual training fields for people to spar and try out their Skills. Some of the normal citizens, which is to say, not Adventures or military personnel, even took up training in their spare time, much to the delight of the more competitive among them. Orcs especially turned out in droves to let off steam with a good brawl. The more the merrier, for if our little mobile city ever got raided, we would need people who could pull their weight to defend the rest.


    The wai¡¯fudo with It-Has-Pockets came and went without much issue. It had been absolutely exhausting, even with Nanu¡¯s help. It-Has-Pockets did not become pregnant in the conventional sense, well, at least not for more than a few moments, but I did now have two eggs that were incubating. I had yet to actually start the process of constructing what children of mine they would yield, for they still needed more time to mature to that point, but it would soon be a new and exciting opportunity to learn more about dragons. Basically, some fancy dragon sex-magic turned our indulgences of intimacy into fertilized eggs, which I did not lay like some kind of bird, but rather I sort of materialized or teleported them into existence. They, along with a few lesser eggs for whelps, sat safely in my home with my hoard. Typically, someone from my inner circle stayed with them so that they were protected at all hours of the day, for fertilized dragon eggs were a rare and valuable commodity, even more so for those created by an Emperor.


    Chooka found herself in her element as the guildmaster for our local branch of the Adventurer Guild. It was not big enough to separate out the various roles of guards, exterminators, harvesters, scouts, and mercenaries to different buildings, but she somehow made the wheels of such bureaucracy continue to turn with ease. They had plenty of work to keep them busy, and most of the coin that came through our camp went to pay those Adventurers, only for it to end up back in the local brothels or taverns, from which I collected a tax.


    Yes, even out here, taxes were a thing, but I didn¡¯t pocket it. Chooka helped me manage the books, but I kept the records of taxes public and transparent. Still, taxes alone did not keep us afloat, and every now and then a flier would arrive with a new shipment of funds, with much of it being spent on sundries to keep the camp running. As such, Chooka also worked heavily as a bit of a treasurer for our community, at least for certain accounts. She kept our operating costs in the black, and that is what mattered to most people of note who financed our expedition.


    The progress on the tunnel had slowed to a crawl. The dwarves, ever skilled at mining, had detected a large vein of mithrilic ores ahead. Digging the ore out with magical means would taint them, so more mundane methods, such as pickaxes and drills, were employed once we reached the minimum range where my magical digging Skills would no longer be allowed.


    I would have faced mutiny and riots had I suggested we dig straight through it. Even joking that we just go around and ignore it had resulted in a scuffle that ended in no fewer than three dwarves needing to be hogtied for the safety of all involved. I had never seen a dwarf froth at the mouth before while muttering about ¡®gold in them thar hills¡¯ until that day, but the whole experience did reinforce how seriously dwarves take their mining.


    In the end, an elite team of only the most experienced dwarves dug a mine shaft to the ore. We still awaited them clearing it out so that we could continue the tunnel. That is not to say that we sat around doing nothing, for most of the camp moved past that stretch of mountain to continue building the road and to dig the tunnel from the other side. This being the second time we had to perform this maneuver, people knew what to expect.


    Junior Chief Engineer Torborg personally managed that offshoot of our camp, for the value of the ore was such that it would finance the entire camp for at least six months of operating expenses. With a camp of around 5,000 people, and the average person consuming perhaps 2 gold a day in expenses and wages, and considering a year was 432 days across twelve months, that was just over 2 million gold worth of ore! And that was just a conservative estimate of the value of the ore.


    Some darker circles of individuals had betting pools for how many miners would need to be hanged for trying to steal bits of the precious ore. It was a serious offense, not just legally, but also socially for the dwarves, but opportunities at such wealth can corrupt the most respectable of individuals with greed. Personally, I found such wagers to be in bad taste, but I also had 20 gold riding on it being 3 hangings, so let the discipline be harsh but restrained in usage.


    I was slowly learning more about the cultures of the various races. I had a few confederates to help me blend in and mingle when I shapeshifted into other humanoid races. The kobolds flat out could tell from one glance that I was not a true kobold, but they still humored me. I could pass for a socially awkward elf as long as I behaved with grace and dignity. Gnomes fell for it completely, and all I had to do was demonstrate a few eccentric interests or hobbies to be one of them. Miccen were impossible because I could not follow that many conversations at once, and I didn¡¯t understand the local thieves'' cant of riccen to blend in. Dwarves were tricky because they have so many cultural references to great dwarves of old and their many deeds as told in their oral traditions. I had yet to try orcs, for they were a difficult lot to understand. They can be prim and proper one moment and violent and savage the next, so I needed to understand them better before trying. No other races were present in ample numbers where everyone didn¡¯t already know everyone, so I held off on trying them.


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    Animals, magical beasts, monsters, and other creatures I could not categorize correctly were outside what my shape-shifting Skills could match. For instance, someone had convinced a fire elemental and his ¡®harem¡¯ (as is the proper term) of ice elementals to work in our freezer. The fire elemental is clearly older and in charge, with the ice elementals being the equivalent of children or adolescents. They can and do talk, with pretty much every single sentence having a fire-themed pun, and their bodies are roughly humanoid in shape most of the time, but I guess they don¡¯t count as humanoids somehow. I¡¯m not certain what they get out of standing around in our freezers all day keeping things cold, but they do seem to be rather content to chill there.


    The Boys like to spend time talking to them, not that The Boys can speak in actual words that humanoids understand, but the elementals have no problem. I suspect The Boys mostly wanted the food that the elementals loosely guarded, at least in the sense that they would snitch on The Boys if food were stolen. And it was for that reason that I found myself in the freezer talking to a fire elemental, for The Boys had gone missing and my Skill to know their location was not working for some reason.


    ¡°So do you or do you not know where The Boys went?¡± I asked for the fifth time.


    ¡°They were really fired up to leave all of a sudden,¡± one ice elemental responded.


    ¡°They had a burning desire to head out of camp in the middle of conversation,¡± answered another.


    ¡°I think they blazed a trail to the east if I rem-ember correctly,¡± came yet another response.


    ¡°Indeed, they ash-celerated in that direction,¡± answered the only fire elemental. ¡°They were stoked by something they heard, for they res-cindered their desire to stay for a chat and departed without saying anything.¡±


    ¡°Thank you for your help. If you don¡¯t mind me asking, why is a fire elemental in a freezer with a bunch of ice elementals?¡±


    ¡°A fair question for the ignorant. You have kindled my desire to illuminate you on the subject. I escort them on their odyssey, for they must learn of the world and how to manage temperature anywhere. They push thermal energy to me to stay cool, and I absorb it to stay warm. We would normally have a water elemental with us to help heal them and to absorb the condensation, but the last one we had experienced burnout for the job. I know your kind think we would be antagonistic, but you rarely see a fire elemental without an ice elemental. You can talk to them for more details if you want, for they will not give you the cold shoulder.¡±


    Okay, so they make terrible puns, the kind that make me want to groan but also happy at the same time.


    ¡°I will have to take a rain check on that offer,¡± I responded as the fire elemental raised a fiery and disembodied eyebrow at the apparently water-themed pun I had made on accident. ¡°I know working here may not be all shock and thaw,¡± I added as his expression turned more approving with a slight smile, ¡°but I appreciate how you help them instead of going into early re-pyre-ment.¡± He tilted his head side-to-side in contemplation of that last terrible pun, but ultimately slapped me on the back and gave a hearty chuckle.


    ¡°I see you are learning. Take care and good luck finding your pet. If you need us, we will only be a stone¡¯s throw away.¡±


    Okay, so apparently older elementals are not picky about which element their puns are themed around. Surely there was more nuance to it all, but I would need to figure that out later. For now, The Boys were unaccounted for.


    I left the freezer and literally scooped up the closest kobold I could find so he or she could not scurry away on whatever errand was important at the time.


    ¡°Round up all the kobolds.¡± I commanded. ¡°The Boys have gone missing and we need to track them down.¡±


    The startled kobold, still dangling in my outstretched arms, nodded quickly in understanding as he also tried to salute, and as I set him down, he ran off to find the others.


    Before I even made it to the gates of the camp, kobolds popped out of the woodwork to join us. Gambino, their leader, and Bambina, his lover and second-in-command, arrived wearing long black boots and gloves over long tan trousers, a white shirt with a tan vest, and a plinth helmet. Gambino also sported a monocle and a rather fancy curled mustache, despite the fact that kobolds do not have hair.


    ¡°I say, old chap, are we up for a spot of hunting today, wot wot?¡±


    How he and Bambina managed to get into costume so quickly or how they knew what a safari outfit should be would remain one of the many mysteries about them.


    ¡°Just tracking down The Boys. Nanu should be here soon, and then we set out to find them.¡±


    ¡°Tally-ho, good sir. My beaters will put on a drive for you. We will find your wayward pet quick as you like.¡±


    Some three or four dozen kobolds had assembled around me before Bambina organized them into rank and file. They are a short race, on par with goblins and gnomes, but most of them are faster in a sprint than your average humanoid. A good number of them were in their ninja outfits, but a smattering of other ones were visible. One had on a Sou''wester and a yellow jacket, complete with a pipe and a short white beard. Another wore a ghillie suit, with another wearing a headdress of many colored feathers and an elaborate loincloth that hung almost to the ground.


    I had no idea what they were rehearsing for, but my little collection of obedient and anthropomorphic geckos and skinks did put on plays from time to time. Well, they constantly lived a play; they just formally made coordinated performances for the masses at set times.


    Before long, Nanu walked over to us with Hopper and Ribbette in tow. Some kobolds cowered slightly in fear, for many still sported bruises from our latest sparring match. Still, they seemed happy to be in service of dragons, especially ones that treated them well, and though they looked on with thinly veiled adoration at Nanu and I most of the time, they remained serious and on-task when I had specific orders for them. The idle chatter cut out as soon as she made it to my side, and in the distance, I witnessed It-Has-Pockets hustling to make it over to us from the same direction Nanu arrived. I waited a moment for It-Has-Pockets to arrive on my other side before giving the briefing.


    ¡°Alright, you lot. The Boys have gone missing and my Skill to track them is not working for some mysterious reason. We need to track them down. Gambino, send out your best trackers to pick up their trail. They wander in and out of camp all the time, so find a trail that leads out to the wilderness. I have some evidence to suggest they headed east, but that was also the direction of the closest gate from where they were last seen. Once the trail is found, report back and we will set out to follow and find them. That is all, so get to it.¡±


    A menagerie of different terms of acknowledgement greeted my ears, each one themed to the character each individual was dressed as. A score of kobolds took off out of the gate without prompting. Minutes passed in silence as we awaited word. While Nanu and I could have turned into our draconic forms to fly off and find The Boys, we did not have an approved flight path and escort. It would be dangerous for us to venture off into the wilderness, for the body parts of dragons fetch a good price and my location and identity as a dragon was well-known. Nanu took my hand in hers to comfort me, for The Boys were rather domesticated and had never wandered off into the wilderness before and probably did not have very good and practical survival skills. Hopefully, hunters saw hydras as less valuable or at least not worth the risk.


    ¡°I say. old bean, one of my scouts has found the trail of The Boys. Shall we set forth?¡±


    I nodded to Gambino, and he sounded a hunting horn. Our little band hustled after him, with me trusting that some Skill had enabled communication between Gambino and those of his troupe who were out scouting. We made our way northeast, then the trail turned due east, to finally hook southeast. The Boys¡¯ footprints stood out plain as day, each one making a deep impression in the earth. At times, their stride seemed to slow or change direction suddenly, so they must be following something that is moving. I had my [Observer] and [Overseer] Skills scouting the way, but The Boys had at least a two-hour lead on us.


    Three hours later, the terrain had transitioned from grasslands to forest and then to marshlands. The kobolds seemingly had no trouble navigating the terrain, but It-Has-Pockets started to slow us down as she got bogged down up to her knees for the third time. Having enough of that, I scooped her up into a princess carry, for Nanu and I had the Skills to navigate the terrain and Skull remained safe in my shadow. After another hour, I heard an all too familiar quartet. The Boys were singing, and as I listened, I could hear something else singing back in the same style.

 Chapter 64

    After another five minutes of navigating the swampy terrain, we came to an island with solid ground. There I found The Boys within a wide ring of earth that had been flattened and cleared of vegetation. Another hydra with four heads stood across from him, with a third hydra with six heads standing outside the ring. My [Deeds] Skill web gave me many boons to understanding hydras on account of me being the parent to The Boys and a hydra-slayer myself. The intuition that those vein of Skills provided was typically on an as-needed basis. Ergo, I knew more about hydras when that need for knowledge became relevant.


    I knew The Boys were ¡®male¡¯ inasmuch as hydras have a gender or sex. The Four-Heads was likewise male, with Six-Heads being female. The Boys and and Four-Heads were singing at each other rather aggressively as they strutted around the ring. Eventually, they each came to stop on opposite sides. The Boys leaned over and raised one foot as high as their stubby limbs would allow before smashing it down, then repeated the process for their other foot. His opponents did likewise, and soon, all eight heads between them were hunkered down and ready for some kind of fight.


    They charged one another, each hydra equal in size, and they collided with a thunderous crash. Heads roared as necks smashed into one another and the main mass of their bodies pushed one another. Oddly, no biting or breath attacks occurred, nor did anything egregiously harmful. They pushed and twisted, each trying to throw the other out of the ring while Six-Heads looked on. None of the hydras seemed to mind us too much, although one head of Six-Heads eyed us and gave us a warning grumble while another sang a wavering tone as it turned in all directions.


    The kobolds wasted no time in placing wagers, at least the ones dressed as commoners, while the ninjas and the more martially-themed ones set up a perimeter. I likewise had my Observation and Detection Skills employed to survey the area for hidden predators or opportunists. With no apparent danger and The Boys not in imminent risk of dying, I watched the fight drag out.


    The Boys took a few nasty blows as necks were used to cudgel one another, but ultimately, The Boys managed to nimbly sidestep a shove and push their opponent out of the ring. Four-Heads roared in protest, but Six-Heads used two of her heads to roar at him, which sent him packing. Defeated, he wandered out into the marshland and soon disappeared in a pool.


    Six-Heads then entered the ring, but this time, neither The Boys or her were antagonistic. They circled one another more playfully, each singing a sweet song to each other as the head with the wavering song ceased her singing to join in with the choir of her sisters. Round and round they circled each other, at times their heads venturing out towards one another to gently stroke each other¡¯s necks.


    ¡°Are we about to learn where hydra babies come from?¡± I looked down into my arms to see It-Has-Pockets watching the spectacle in comfort. She seemed more than content to stay in my arms despite how her sword might make it an unpleasant perch. ¡°I know a mating dance when I see one, since I am a [Dancer] and all. Looks like your Boys have the moves. Oh wow! They are real ladies men!¡±


    We looked on with fascination and horror as each hydra faced one another with bodies pressed close. Six-Heads was bigger, but that did not stop The Boys from joining her in entangling their necks around those of each other as tender nibbling and licking occurred. Some of the bites turned a little more aggressive and drew blood, but nothing too serious. Skull left my shadow to cheer them on, and It-Has-Pockets and Nanu joined in.


    Then things took a turn for the worse, or at least as far as they were concerned.


    The hydras stepped away from one another. Without hesitation, all but one head of Six-Heads moved towards Aristotle and quickly decapitated him near the base of the neck. In turn, the remaining heads of The Boys likewise decapitated the one head of Six-Heads that did not partake. The remaining heads then devoured the severed heads of the opposite hydra. One head would hold the meal in place while others ripped and tore, each taking turns at holding, feasting, and keeping a lookout.


    Skull seemed to approve. It-Has-Pockets covered her open mouth with one hand as she stared in captivated wonder and horror. Nanu had some sort of notebook in hand and was furiously scribbling away. Gambino and Bambina were conspiratorially whispering to each other about the whole thing, so I could probably expect that in a play or as a ritual in that cult of theirs that Alterez leads. The remaining kobolds settled bets with what I am pretty sure are fake coins of brass or bronze.


    Strangely, the necks did not grow back temporary heads. Each hydra plopped down on the ground and threaded their necks through each other¡¯s to rest their heads on each other¡¯s backside. After about ten minutes of cuddling, they each rose and stood apart from each other and began singing a new song. As they sang, Six-Heads quickly grew a bump where her necks joined her body, the kind of bump that would someday become a new head. The Boys already had a bump of their own, and from it, a new neck and head burst into existence. Almost immediately following that, Aristotle grew back, as did the severed head of Six-Heads. The full choir of each sang to each other as they waved their heads back and forth. As their song came to a close, Six-Heads turned and walked away into the marshlands.


    The Boys, now five instead of four, strutted over to me with a lot of swagger in their stride. The new head looked around curiously at his surroundings with Aristotle enjoying the praise and envy of his brothers. He looked especially smug as the others pestered him with questions.


    ¡°Hello, Papa. Aristotle is a real man now. Say hello to Chrysippus, our newest brother,¡± exclaimed Plato as they approached.


    ¡°Hello, Chrysippus,¡± I greeted as he extended his muzzle down to me so I could pet him.


    ¡°Papa is a dragon. Dragons can fly. Therefore, Papa can fly. Will you take us flying with you someday?¡± asked Chrysippus as he accepted my caress.


    ¡°Maybe someday when I am older, for you are heavy and large and I am not fully grown.¡±


    ¡°When fully grown, then maybe flight is possible. Not fully grown, therefore, flight is not possible. I accept this for now.¡±


    ¡°He is still adjusting to being out and about. Give him time to fit in so he stops talking all weird.¡±


    I was about to give some reassurance when a tremendous pressure built up in my head. It did not exactly hurt like a headache, but it was inescapably apparent to me that something was happening. I staggered to the side and clutched my head as I dropped It-Has-Pockets, nearly losing my balance as Skull and Nanu rushed to my side to catch me. It-Has-Pockets deftly recovered with only her feet even touching the ground, and her sword found itself immediately drawn as she began a battle dance to support me. If anything, it made the pressure grow, but removed the discomfort, as if something had been blocking it and now it could continue on.


    ¡°What is wrong?¡± Skull and Nanu both voiced their concern in tandem as The Boys altered between inquisitively sniffing me and keeping lookout.


    ¡°I, I don¡¯t¡­¡± The pressure built until it burst, and an all-too-familiar voice shouted in my mind as if from a great distance and in distress.


    ¡°Imminent danger! Dragon hunters approach. Threat level: deadly.¡±


    The pressure immediately subsided as the voice cried out in despair before being silenced. I immediately withdrew a signal flare from my dimensional storage. The flare was a small stone with a rune on it, and I pressed my thumb into it to activate it before throwing it skyward. This flare was the highest threat level flare I had on me, the one that would bring all available personnel to my location to rescue me from deadly combat.


    The stone screamed skyward as it pulsed out waves of mana and bright red and white flashing light. Even this far out from town, they would absolutely be able to see it, and more importantly, feel my personal and authentic mana signature as it radiates outwards.


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    Hopper and Ribbette, who had been aloof until now and collecting grub, leapt onto the heads of The Boys for a better vantage, just as we had trained. Nanu, upon seeing me launch the flare, immediately transformed into her draconic form, with me following along right after her. The kobolds scattered into the marshlands to secure a wider perimeter and to waylay any hunters. A choir of remaining kobolds began singing and playing instruments to an ominous tune, the kind with words no one understands. I don¡¯t know how that was supposed to help, but I trusted them enough to not be playing games in a crisis.


    We were at least four hours away from camp at the pace that we could track The Boys on foot. That meant our fastest fliers were at least 15 minutes away if they were to reinforce us, assuming they were ready to sortie. Other fliers not on standby and with slower means of travel could take well over an hour to muster and arrive. For all practical purposes, help was not coming in a timeframe that mattered. The dragon hunters, which I assumed were out there, would certainly know the flare for what it was and thus were pressed for time to make their move. Whether or not Six-Heads had been a honeypot or merely a unique opportunity remained irrelevant, for we were vulnerable and ripe for the taking.


    Nanu would be our primary means of surviving what would come. She was by far the most powerful individual among us when it comes to a fight. The Boys would mostly support with their breath attacks, for a few hunters up close would make short work of them. Hopper could duel a few people at once and Ribbette could keep groups of enemies at bay with her poisons, but I was not optimistic about their usefulness. Dragon hunters would be Platinum Adventurers each and all, and perhaps even a few could be Diamonds. Skull could maybe hold off one such individual, but they would undoubtedly have overwhelming numbers. It-Has-Pockets could tango with a few of them, but I had only seen her spar lighty and never truly go all-out, so she remained a wildcard. Gambino and Bambina were the only kobolds with names, perhaps even literally so, and as such, the only ones that mattered of the lot of them. Neither would die as long as enough of the troupe remained thanks to [Plot Armor], but they couldn¡¯t exactly stop the dragon hunters either. That left me to defend me, for my head was the prize.


    I thanked my paranoia that I had a habit of placing my traps anywhere I went. I had a couple dozen already in place around us, but I would need hundreds more to stop the tides of dragon hunters that would swarm me. Nanu and I had discussed tactics and histories of hunts at length, so we could expect no fewer than twoscore hunters. Given my fame and rarity as an Emperor, it could be upwards of fivescore. I felt more inclined to believe the latter, for there was no kill like overkill and I ostensibly had a great number of guards, most of which were now too far away to matter. What few Adventurers that were in the field and in this general area would already be on their way to intercept, but that would still leave my force vastly outnumbered.


    We could try to run, but dragon hunters had plenty of individuals that had the right Skills to ground a dragon. Magical nets, vacuums to remove the air beneath my wings, or force fields could stymie my escape. They would have speedsters that could cut me off if I tried to sprint across the ground, their whole objective being to interdict me until the muscle arrived. They would have [Clerics] or other divinely favored individuals that would try to interfere with Skull calling upon divine intervention from her patron god. Their biggest advantage was rushing and overwhelming me with superior numbers, mine in delaying them until help arrived and allowing small groups of them to approach me so I could take them apart piecemeal.


    However, these would be experienced and disciplined dragon hunters, not rookies. Even so, they had been most likely waiting for months for an opportunity to strike, the whole time avoiding my scouts, so they had most likely gone without comforts for a long time and were eager to finish the hunt and leave. If Skull¡¯s aura of fear and Ribbette¡¯s poison could keep the bulk at bay, and if the kobolds could encourage select individuals to rush in, we may be able to throw off the coordination of their attack enough to tip the scales in our favor.


    Not even half a minute had passed since I launched the flare before the enemy began their assault. The ground shook beneath our feet as horns sounded and drums... yes, drums, in the deep of the marshlands, beat out a fast-tempoed order to attack. From all directions, a smokescreen rose to encircle us and obfuscate our view of their approach. We could not get out, and shadows moved in the darkness of the smoke. We could not get out, so we would stand and fight.


    A vanguard of a dozen or so approached from the east. The sun was perhaps two hours from setting, so at least the sun remained at our backs and did not blind us. Those first few, so eager for the hunt, rushed in headless of the danger. Two fell prey to my traps as they predictably leapt from one spot of dry ground to another, but the rest advanced. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle began their breath attacks, scouring the land and the enemy with fire, water, and poison. Dio raised his head to the sky, sucking in all the nearby sunlight, which cast the area around us in the darkness of night. Chrysippus nudged It-Has-Pockets and somehow communicated something to her, for she changed her dance completely. Hopper and Skull stood ready to intercept as Ribbette departed to the rear to lay down poisonous clouds to guard us from getting pinched.


    The kobolds sang a welcoming dirge, and although the details were subtle, the enemy advanced with less cohesion than predicted. Some hesitated while others rushed in, almost as if they were taking turns. Nanu began working on a complicated spell that would take time while Skull and Hopper engaged the enemy. Most were cut down in short order, with Hopper mostly waylaying as many as he could while Skull killed them one after the next. In the past, she had made temporary shadows of herself charge forth to deliver an attack, but now, with each kill she made, shadows of her rose from the corpses of the fallen to join her in combat.


    Not even a minute had passed before the entirety of the vanguard had been slaughtered, sans one woman who clung to life. Skull grabbed her behind the neck and hoisted her broken body off the ground. The woman screamed bloody murder, but then her scream turned to terror and pain. The second wave at the edge of the smokescreen faltered and observed as Skull invoked some Dark ritual of her god. Skull¡¯s hand passed into the woman from behind all the way to the elbow as if the woman were not even there. Then with a mighty tug, Skull ripped out the woman¡¯s skull, spine, and ribs as if her flesh and clothes were not there. The woman¡¯s screaming stopped, at least in body as the fleshy heap of it collapsed. Skull dropped the corpse, but the skull of the woman continued to scream and wail like a banshee.


    In horror, the onlookers observed the grotesque rearrangement of the dead woman¡¯s spine and ribs. The spine rearranged itself like a tiara floating above the skull, the ribs forming a headdress with their curve going backwards. Dark flames of shadow and pain burned in the skull¡¯s eyes, and its mouth, always open and constantly screaming without pausing to draw breath, unleashed a foul shadow that pooled upon the ground wherever it passed. Skull sent the monstrosity forward, and it hovered across the earth and descended upon the attackers, always remaining just out of reach as it continued to scream at them.


    The enemy advance faltered, with many of our adversaries trembling where they stood in hesitation. Those that froze soon found themselves engulfed in flame, crushed by high pressure bursts of water, or convulsing and collapsing in a heap as The Boys assaulted them with breath attacks. Platinum Adventurers tend to have the Skills to be hardier than most folk, but that offers them little benefit when they don¡¯t use them and instead stand still to take lethal attacks head on. For each that died, two more replaced them as the more stalwart individuals pressed the attack.


    Three minutes into the attack, my claws took flesh and broke bone as my assailants made their way to me. My regeneration Skills healed what wounds they inflicted as I returned their violence in kind with extreme prejudice. They avoided Skull as best they could, for none wanted to fight her, until one individual in particular met her head on and held his own quite well. Nanu continued working on some Ability that required time to channel, although she could still lash out as needed to defend herself.


    Without their active help, I continued to protect myself. Always moving, always laying down more traps, and continuing the cycle of one element after another in my attacks without repetition until I ran out of elements. Each Ability consumed mana, the precious resource that enabled magic and indeed the use of active Skills, but each continuation of the combo empowered the next Skill. I would need to consume the combo in its entirety before I repeated the pattern, creating an extra-powerful attack that would take out their heavy hitters.


    Despite the devastation and loss, they pressed onwards, seemingly heedless of the loss of life around them, as if driven to a frenzy. However, the losses were not so one-sided. A spear had lodged itself in my side, one with powerful enchantments that stubbornly resisted it being dislodged and hampered my regeneration. The Boys had lost a head already, with Plato, their leader, being the first to fall, which did not bode well. More disconcerting was the fact that no head grew back to replace him, and I knew from my hydra-related [Deed] Skills that the mating process was not to blame. If they brought along weapons that specifically were anathema to dragons, odds were they had some for my pet hydra.


    I repositioned to offer them support, scraping off the unlucky few who clambered over my precious Boys in their despicable attempts to strike at the core of their body. With bloody vengeance, I ripped and tore, with claws rending and teeth gnashing as I unburdened the guilty from their worldly concerns. Anger welled within me as a cool rage simmered beneath the surface of my control. Attacking me was one thing, but attacking those I care about was another matter entirely, one that garnered no mercy from me.


    Five minutes in, and The Boys had lost all but two heads, with Aristotle and Chrysippus being the only two left. Skull had been sent sailing into the marsh, and our fate appeared grim. I knew not if we could hold the line until help arrived.

 Chapter 65

    ¡°Oh shit, not good! I just got here, Aristotle, do something!¡±


    ¡°What do you want me to do? Plato handles reinforcement heads. I just burn things.¡±


    ¡°Papa¡¯s new woman has completed the [Rain Dance]. Attend to recruiting replacements while I lay waste to the enemy.¡±


    I, Chrysippus, had just been born again. Only a handful of heartbeats had been mine to experience before carnage and slaughter descended upon me. My brother, Diogenes, had been felled before he even had a chance to unleash his breath attack, but the power he had collected still lingered. Though he dreamed in The Void, I could still hear his voice, and he sang to me the song of rage and sorrow. I seized that power for my own, and with the storm clouds now gathered above, I harnessed my birthright and brought it to bear upon the rapscallions that assailed us.


    I unleashed tight and controlled beams of condensed sunlight from my mouth and at the enemy. They lacked the potency of what Diogenes could create, but their purpose was not to kill, but to mark. Where my light hit, the clouds obeyed and cast forth the storm of my vengeance upon my foes. Lightning crashed down upon those so marked, bolt after bolt striking those who opposed me until they moved no more. Great winds welled up from the storm clouds as freezing rain poured down upon them. Thanks to Plato¡¯s Water affinity, each drop of rain sapped the strength, and, more importantly, mana from the enemy and fed it to my brother and I.


    We were the last, and we would hold the line until death claimed us.


    Anyway, I was busy looking for new recruits. I, Aristotle, had never had to do this before. Plato said there was a list that he could bring up to see what heads were available for recruitment. Naturally, Chrysippus would have been on that list only a few minutes ago, but we had agreed to recruit him as our newest member. I looked through the names, desperately trying to find the ones I recognized from those we did not recruit. Pythagoras would have been great if we needed extra detection Skills to triangulate the position of our enemies, but considering some of them literally crawled over us, we had that task covered. As I looked, the names faded away until only two heads remained.


    I looked, then cleared my mind and looked again, and what names I saw still remained the same. These names transcended belief, for I had not explicitly called upon them. We hydras have no gods to which we pay tribute, but if we did, I stood before divinity. Unbidden by any petition on my part, they offered themselves freely unto me. In no position to refuse, I gladly accepted that which others of my kind would kill for.


    And lo, the world yet again witnessed the rise of the fallen ones. The Firstborn once again were loaned mortal flesh and were released from The Void and into the realms of us mere mortals. Death itself had come to lend its aid unto my brother and I, and I¡­ I witnessed the harbinger of the end times casually deal destruction on what scale our meager and mortal coil could offer to its temporary reincarnation. Woeful tidings unto our foes, for Titans once again meddled in the affairs of mortals.


    <hr>


    My Emperor, I have lost one already, but I would die before I let you perish. You made the right call in sending up the signal flare when you did, for you bought us precious seconds to prepare for the onslaught. This would not be my first time on the receiving end of a hunt, but for you, I can imagine it would be a stressful and frightening experience. I, however, lived for such events. Battle calls to me, it stirs my blood to action, and I heed my instincts.


    I, Princess Nanu, favored child of my Emperor, would give my all to his protection. I immediately began channeling a potent Skill, [Secrets of the Sands]. However, the enemy had channel-jammers, those who endeavored to undo my work and foil the manifestation of my most powerful Abilities. However, it took a dozen of them to delay the inevitable, which meant a dozen of them were not otherwise attacking us. The tables would turn when I completed my Skill, and so I just had to bide my time.


    Even with [Parallel Minds], my concentration was pressed. My primary mind was devoted to coordinating the rest and choosing long-term goals. Sub-Mind One handled sensory information and flagged threats for Sub-Mind Two, which handled threat assessment and response actions. Sub-Mind Three kept track of the larger picture of the battlefield and developed strategies to counter my foes. Sub-Mind Four handled communications and some emotional processing in my efforts to compartmentalize the onslaught of feelings that welled up inside me. Such was my limit, and my Emperor fought without such boons. Soon, he too would have such a benefit, but it would be too little too late if he fell here.


    As my Ability neared completion, I felt a ripple of primordial mana wash through the fabric of reality. I turned towards its source, and though each of my minds had its own task, all faltered in their undertakings as I bore witness to what ancient legends and veiled mysteries had hinted at.


    I had spent a lifetime learning and collecting knowledge and secrets. I had curated the most trusted and confidential truths and theories that my previous flight, The Secret Stalkers, had accumulated. I had learned the sagas of old, and of those that walked the earth when the first Emperors were born. And of those creatures, few were as shrouded in half-truths and mystery as the Titans. One for certain still lived from the primordial age, The Phoenix, the greatest quetzalcoatlus that had ever soared through the skies. Two for certain were dead, felled by a coalition of The Four Emperors. And yet, those two lived yet again here before me. They manifested themselves in The Boys, and I¡­ trembled, before their majesty.


    My Identification Skills declared them both plain as day to my senses. [Ninth Head of Hercules - Control] and [Second Head of Heracles - Madness] had spawned into existence. Hercules, the male, and Heracles, the female, were the Firstborn of hydras, each with twelve heads, and Titans each of them. The oldest tales spoke of their many labors, how they shaped the rivers, felled mountains, and hollowed out the earth such that the seas were created. I believed such tales to be embellished, but after witnessing what fractions of power they brought to bear in the meager vessel of The Boys, I questioned my disbelief of those tales.


    The first thing I noted that lent credence to the authenticity of the Firstborn was how hydras started pouring out of the proverbial woodwork. Four-Heads and Six-Heads, who had departed only minutes ago, rallied to their ancestors and obeyed their commands. As the minutes passed, more hydras appeared, with Six-Heads being the strongest of them all. However, even a hydra with three heads can kill a Platinum Adventurer caught unawares. How they arrived so quickly defied conventional wisdom, so surely some great Skill carried them here from distant places in the marshlands. Dozens of them assisted, each one unleashing their breath attacks and snatching up the unwary in their maws. Many perished in the battle, but such adverse conditions failed to dissuade them from heeding the call for aid. No doubt, Control conscripted them into service.


    Madness let loose a horrendous and discordant screech of a song. I felt it wash over the corners of my mind, its tendrils sifting through my thoughts but ultimately passing me by as it sought others. It felt foul and invasive, but that was only a taste of what it offered. I witnessed hunter turn against hunter as they cut each other down with maniacal laughter and sadistic glee. It had spared me, and likewise, my allies, but what stalwart few of the enemy that resisted the workings of Madness soon found themselves cut down by their former allies.


    Despite the setback, they still pressed their attack. With my channeling complete, I felt upstaged by the Titans, but I still unleashed what I had been working on. A ball of sand, no bigger than a human¡¯s fist, fell from my mouth and onto the ground. Where it struck, sand sprung into existence, and it spread in all directions, devouring the earth and temporarily overlaying a new reality onto the landscape. The land chose the favorable of the two landscapes to aid my allies, providing proper footing in the marshes or hidey-holes to the hydras that dwelled within the pools. Likewise, it chose the less favorable condition for my enemies. No longer aware of where they stepped, some found themselves swallowed up by pits of mud, or others by quicksand as they sank deep into the suffocating embrace of the earth.


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    The [Secrets of the Sands] offered a powerful Illusion made real that hid many other perils. [Sand Sharks] prowled the constantly shifting sands. They leapt out to devour the unwary, and a feeding frenzy ensued upon the unfortunate who fell prey to their ambushes. A [Stone Colossus] walked among them, it being a facsimile of an ancient pharaoh, but more than capable of crushing people beneath its feet. Vipers and serpents, both mundane and monstrous, lay hidden within the sands, each one ready to bite at those who would tread upon them and deliver deadly payloads of poison.


    And yet, the enemy kept coming. Over a hundred had surely died by now, but the assault continued.


    <hr>


    Fear may not have been the first instinct of life, but it remains the most dominant. More than hunger, thirst, sex, exhaustion, or discomfort from pain and the elements, fear guides all beings, pushing lifeforms to remain vigilant and to avoid dangers at all costs. Fear lurks within the hearts of all mortals, and even gods have their own fears.


    Yet I fear nothing, for Gulthar is with me.


    The woman from whom I made the [Banshee¡¯s Bride Crown] feared both me and death. Her overconfidence had shattered before the weight of her overburdening fear once I had knocked the senses out of her in our opening exchange. She screamed, she begged, she cried out for any and every god to save her, but not even the mercy of death could render aid. Though my necromantic creation will linger in this world for perhaps an hour at best, her spirit still clings to it and suffers perpetual torment for her transgressions. Her soul, however, departed for the hereafter, for no magic short of resurrection could impact a soul.


    To be technical, fear is internal and passive. People fear spiders, the dark, monsters under their bed, and the like. The idea of what ¡®could¡¯ happen is the essence of fear. Great and terrible situations, ones that can be objectively and subjectively understood as truly perilous and real cause terror, the imminent expression of dread for what will most likely happen. My [Mantle of Fear] stokes the fires of fear in the hearts of others, but only if those fears exist in the first place. Someone with no arachnophobia would not feel fear no matter what illusions and horrors I show them that are themed around spiders. Yet, if a [Giant Spider] were really here and biting them, terror would certainly well up within them.


    Master, as a dragon, will certainly someday have something similar to my [Mantle of Fear], although I expect it technically inspires terror at the imminent prospect of a dragon ripping one to shreds. Now, that is not to say I do not have Skills of my own in the discipline of Terror. [Cower Before Me] works wonders after I have killed a few people. It really presses home the reality that any one of the remaining foes could be next. [Contagion of the Mind-Killer] helps to spread the building terror from one victim to another, for each one¡¯s doubt that they are the only ones afraid is quickly remedied with a swift dose of reeducation. Every one of them is afraid of me.


    Ah, sweet sings my blade with that melody of fear and terror as panic gnaws away at the edges of their reasoning. Roaring dragons and angry hydras were not enough, apparently, for even Titans had made an appearance on the battlefield. Oh, what sweet sacraments they offer with their screams, each one anointing the altar of despair in the church of screams and blood. Not that war itself was the domain of my God, Gulthar, but battle sorts out the cowards from the stalwart. I had hoped to find one truly brave, but between the madness gripping them from the Titan and the recklessness spurring them onwards from the kobold choir, few were truly at peace within their hearts.


    That is until Brick Shithouse here challenged me. A hulking brute of an orc, his greataxe probably weighs more than I do with my armor on. He has no fear in his heart, only the song of battle and the lust for bloodletting. He feels no terror, only the seductive satisfaction of the kill and the power to strive for victory. Were I merely a [Divine Champion], he would have killed me a dozen times over, for that Blessing works best against the craven masses.


    No, I instead relied on the hardiness, regenerative Abilities, and overwhelming power offered by [Dragon Knight] to endure the blows that have left my arms numb from parrying. Rage and pride welled within me, eager to be released to prove him unworthy as [You Dare Stand Before Me] constantly fueled increasing power to my body and Abilities. [Wings of the Dragon] gave me short bursts of incredible movement in both speed and maneuverability, both of which I needed to avoid the kiss of his blade. I am sure the pair of us looked like a blur as we dashed around the battlefield, which had become a sandy arena as of late.


    Master favored no element and selected none for his breath attack, but I have always loved the school of Shadow. Each kill had earned me a [Shadow Squire] to back me up, but they were all busy fending off the other dragon hunters while I dueled this foe. They had to keep killing to sustain themselves, and with people running around in terror and madness, they had a target-rich environment to do just that. None of them would help with this guy though, for my blade only chipped away at him ever so slowly when I could land a blow.


    They spread more terror and stoked more fears, and such dreadful thoughts in the minds of others only served to empower me as [Dread the Inevitable] feasted upon their panic. I had but to endure my opponent as my power ramped up, then I could kill him once and for all. But orcs are a hardy sort and can shrug off blows that would kill other humanoids. Likewise, his metaphysical presence grew in tandem with mine, for he had some Skill of his own that ramped up his power. We were each giants among insects, but to hesitate or give in to distraction for even an instant would see either of us dead. We gave our all to the struggle, for only one would walk away from this encounter. We both reveled in the dance with death as it intoxicated our minds with the promise of knowing what it is to truly be alive.


    I knew not his secret, for I observed no overt usage of Abilities with any elemental affinity. Certainly, he used Skills that [Warriors] have to fight up close in melee, but I did not see fire wreathing his blade nor the earth rising up to form armor like a second skin. Perhaps he was a purist, trading away the elements for raw power. It sure felt like it as a backhand to my chest sent me flying. I crashed down hundreds of feet away in the marsh, so he knocked me out of the range of the sands from Nanu. Before I could even rise, he was there with his axe raised high and ready to bury it in my chest. I lacked the strength and leverage to properly block, but I would fight to the bitter end. The first blow knocked my sword from my hand, and the second came down shortly after.


    Master, forgive me. Your loyal servant, Skull, has failed you.


    <hr>


    512; that is how many of the scoundrels I knew lurked about thanks to my Skill, [Froggy Went A-Countin]. The dastardly cowards ambushed us in the marshlands, and though my beloved Ribbette guarded the rear, some of the craven hunters managed to find a way through. I defended my Liege Lord to my utmost, distracting who I could and interdicting them with my flaming kicks and the reach of my blade. Though Titans walked among us and strange sands terraformed the field, I did not yield or falter. My Liege Lord had offered no quarter, and so I cut them down without mercy. 310; that is how many lay dead or dying after a few minutes of battle.


    One poor fool found himself tied to a pole and carried by the kobolds like game from a hunting trip. The kobold with the headdress stood atop a small stepped pyramid. There, the sacrificial victim was held down as the kobold cut open his chest and ripped out his heart, holding it aloft to where the sun would be if not for the storm. Well, I am sure the sun is still there, but hidden by the clouds. Almost at the same time, another kobold cut off the victim¡¯s head. So, that makes 3 so far who shared that fate, with another one on the way by the looks of things.


    But the kobolds did not fare as well as one may hope. 15 were dead. Gambino and Bambina had been manning a crossbow the size of a ballista, with Bambina holding up the front and Gambino firing it from the rear, but they had both been impaled on a spear. They yet lived, but their lifeblood flowed freely from their bodies. The black-clad kobolds dragged them to safety, but without healers to render aid, they too would perish. More kobolds died by the minute, and many would remain dead, for my Liege Lord did not have enough dragon eggs to resurrect all of them.


    Skull, the Knight Champion of my Liege Lord, had been knocked into the distance by a rather large fellow. In that moment of distraction as I watched her peril, someone took ahold of me, but a swift application of [Wrestle Up Some Grub] allowed me to break his hold and push him away. I saw the axe rise up in his hand, and seeing the perilous nature of her prone position, I sprung to action. With legs braced, I ignited my Skill, [Spanghew BBQ], to close the distance while leaving a trail of fire in my wake. I am inclined to believe BBQ stands for ¡®Bullfrog Bullrush Quotient¡¯, but Ribbette disagrees, saying it is something about cooking.


    Either way, before his axe could come down on Skull a second time, my lead shoulder crashed into her assailant as my free hand wielded my blade in a thrust for the head of his axe. Between me pushing him and my blade nudging his axe off course, his swing found itself afoul of his intended target, with the head of the axe finding purchase in naught but mud. [Spring In My Step] allowed me to kick off him within a fraction of a second of our collision and transfer all the momentum to him as I landed deftly next to Skull.


    She rose up on her own accord and might posthaste, and together, we valiantly stood ready to face the brute¡¯s countercharge. This battle would be a bloody affair. I could only hope that my Liege Lord and the love of my life, Ribbette, would survive, for the odds were still grim.

 Chapter 66

    The progress of the hunt unfolded in a most unfavorable manner for Margrave Conrad. It had taken a week to scrounge up every last copper he had to his name and that of his progeny to afford the services of the dragon hunters. Another month had been spent mustering said dragon hunters from six different knightly orders to form this crusade. Add on one more month just to travel into position and months beyond that waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike, and the investment of time and money had been both beyond reasonable and unfruitful considering the circumstances.


    The [Prophet] of his crusade had foreseen this Scenario, and he had worked backwards through the many branches of Destiny to find a path that would guarantee this ambush. If only the fool had paid more attention, he would have seen his own demise. Instead, the worthless lout now lay bleeding out like a stuck pig as some insanity took those nearby who had then cut him down. Perhaps that pesky [Oracle] was to blame. The [Prophet] had kept complaining about constant interference in wrangling the desired future, but had made assurances that all was also well in hand. Fool him, to believe he could wrest control of the Outcome and force the desired Fate from an [Oracle]. However, Margrave Conrad had no other recourse, for his coffers lacked the funds to also field his own [Oracle], and so he had made do.


    The day had started with 512 men and women, experts all in the ways of dragon hunting, here at the ambush site itself, with another 100 screening the Emperor¡¯s reinforcements. Not a single one of the Emperor¡¯s bodyguards, sans a handful of kobolds, were dead. With nothing to show for his efforts, Margrave Conrad would face ridicule and harsh punishment if he scurried home with his tail between his legs, so the time to do or die approached.


    At least the terrifying woman in full plate had been knocked away by that brute of an orc. Ideally, said orc and the rest of the dragon hunters would die so that they would not need to be paid in full, but such an outcome only boded well if the Emperor also died. As such, the first part of the plan was going swimmingly, but that second part remained vexingly out of reach. The Titans, which were completely unprecedented, and, quite frankly, unfair, had probably scored half of the kills. Well, not directly, but between the one or two dozen hydras that showed up and the insane dragon hunters cutting each other down, the distinction was practically without difference. However, the Titans would soon run their course, for their vessel would not be sufficient to house them for long.


    Once the hydra that hosted the Titans collapsed from exhaustion, Margrave Conrad would send the rest of his hunters after the escaped Princess Nanu. With her out of the way, Margrave Conrad would duel the Emperor. He could almost hear the adulation of his peers, could almost see the smug smiles on the faces of his betters washed away by the tides of his triumph. The details were all prepared, the rest was but execution. The jig would be up once he took his own draconic form, for the hunters would not take kindly to being duped by a dragon. Best that none live to tell the tale.


    But still, 512 hunters at the ambush had been overkill. There should have been no need for Margrave Conrad to take the field himself, but perhaps good help is hard to find. The largest hunt he had ever been on the receiving end of had been against 30 hunters, and Margrave Conrad had only made it out by the skin of his teeth. How a veritable army of Adventurers of Platinum or better quality had perished in a single hunt would overload the rumor mills for decades.


    Soon this whole charade would come to a close and then he could wash his hands of it. For Margrave Conrad had faced more trials and tribulations than this upstart whelp of an Emperor and would not be bested by such a neophyte.


    <hr>


    The situation currently appeared slightly better than grim. My Boys had grown some interesting heads. I couldn¡¯t tell who exactly they were, but I knew them to be powerful and ancient. They had turned the tides in our favor for a while, but their power waned. Chrysippus and Aristotle appeared to be exhausted. Both focused entirely on defense and their movements were noticeably sluggish. Nanu and I had done our best to guard their flanks, but all of us were injured in dozens of places by weapons that inhibited regenerative Abilities. Even during the fight, I had used what extra Experience Points I had reserved for emergencies to unlock more Skills like [Regeneration Inhibition Mitigation]. It certainly helped, but it would not win me the battle. Too bad more experience would not be awarded until after the battle concluded.


    In short, we would need to rout the enemy soon or we would perish. Already, I began concentrating on an Ability to send The Boys to safety with a Skill that was similar to summoning them, but in reverse. They would return when the Skill ran its course, so I could not simply retreat after sending them off or they would be slain by the hunters.


    Skull had been sent flying, but fortunately, Hopper had seen to her rescue. My [Observers] and [Overseers] kept an eye on the fight, and slowly but surely, one of my most potent traps was sliding its way over there just beneath the surface of the ground. I had invested in Skills to ensure Skull and my pets could all see my traps, so they would know to lure their opponent onto it. Unfortunately, Skull and Hopper either remained out of range for me to telepathically communicate with them or something jammed such an Ability. I felt confident they would figure it out once they saw the trap, so hopefully they would play it safe and stall in the meantime.


    The fighting over here had stalled out. Those that remained of the hunters were freed of insanity, and likewise, most of the supporting hydras were out of commission. Six-Heads was noticeably in the fight, but four of her heads were now replacements. It was worth noting that two heads replaced each one of hers that was lost, so perhaps The Boys would soon get such an upgrade to their replacements, assuming we survived the fight. The enemy seemed to be aware that The Boys would soon collapse, so they prowled at our flanks like a pack of wolves as they looked for an opening.


    Surprisingly, the kobold choir had been unmolested this whole time. Their music suddenly turned more solemn with a tinge of remorse, and so I felt clued into a change of some sort happening somewhere, which was vague, but I kept my eyes peeled.


    ¡°We tire, Emperor, and soon the burden of Fate will be squarely on your shoulders.¡±


    I heard The Boys speaking in my mind, which was normal, but abnormal in that it was their guest heads and not any of The Boys themselves. That had never happened in sparring matches, so I assumed that such replacements simply could not or would not speak to me. At the same time, I could physically hear his voice, which was sing-song in nature but unintelligible. Whoever he was, he looked at me, and given the lull in battle, I looked back at him in turn. Indeed, all eyes of everyone present appeared to be upon him, as if the majesty of his presence demanded it. But then he turned his head skyward with sorrow and longing, and the storm clouds parted to show¡­ a patch of stars in the sky?


    ¡°Witness, One True Moon, how those loathsome usurpers tarnish your sacred vigil with these wretched pretenders. Shamelessly, they vaunt the theft of your name from the Annals of the World-Heart as they persist in shrouding your dance through the heavens.¡± While the rest of the clouds dispersed into nothingness, he lowered his head to look at me eye to eye as he continued. ¡°Emperor, guardian of my favored sons; hear me! Cast down these false idols and restore her to her rightful throne and I will grant you a boon. So do I, Hercules, Firstborn of my kind and Titan of this world, swear unto you.¡±


    I didn¡¯t really understand everything he had said, but it sounded important, so I would add that to my to-do list. I did seem a little non-sequitur considering we were in the middle of a fight, but perhaps it had been on his mind for a while now and he wanted to vent. Everyone knew there were three moons: Vipassana, Therodroxries, and Lun-Ka. A spare glance showed that indeed all five were in the sky right now. Wait, five moons! My head started to hurt until I looked away for a moment, only for three moons to remain in the sky as expected after I cleared my mind. Perhaps some [Illusionist] with the hunters was up to some sort of trick with the moons. Then, the other guest head turned to speak to me as well.


    ¡°Hubby can be overdramatic at times. Thank you for looking after The Boys for us. We will be returning to The Void soon, but we look forward to helping our heirs again in the future. I am Heracles, Firstborn of my kind and a Titan as well. We have left a memory packet for The Boys, so if you survive this fight, have them look through it so that all those questions you want to ask the two of us will be answered. Ta-ta for now!¡±


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    With that, the two Titans wrapped their necks around each other, the embrace seemingly affectionate as the bottom of their jaws rested against one another. Without much further ado, their necks fell off the main body, each severed at the base, and within moments, both had rotted away into nothingness. Two seconds later, The Boys staggered as droopy eyes struggled to remain open. With a giant yawn from the only two remaining heads, they collapsed onto their belly, tucked their legs up, craned their necks to rest their heads upon their body, and fell asleep.


    With the Titans now departed, the hunters crept forward, the bravest among them releasing a warcry and charging forwards only to meet their demise swiftly at the claws and fangs of Nanu. Without hesitation, I finished channeling the Ability to send The Boys away and recited the pesky incantation.


    ¡°I invoke the contract that is our bond, and as your master, I command you, Boys, depart posthaste that I may call upon your services at the hour of my choosing!¡±


    Golden light circled the sleeping Boys, and their body slowly sank into its gentle embrace before disappearing entirely. When they had completed their departure, the light also faded, and without their presence, the remaining hunters felt emboldened. The kobold choir resumed their normal hymn of battle, which I now realized had been a lullaby when The Boys went to sleep. Perhaps fatigue was getting the better of me, for such details were coming to my conscious mind far too slowly for my liking.


    ¡°Surrender, Emperor, and I will spare your companions. You cannot win this fight.¡±


    One of the hunters had stepped forward as if from some concealing illusion. I really needed to invest in more Skills to detect illusions, for he could have suckerpunched me if he had wanted to. His challenge needed a response, and considering how tired I felt, I didn¡¯t waste the effort on showing much dignity.


    ¡°That¡¯s just, like, your opinion, man. Besides, if these dragon hunters want to bag a dragon trophy, they should just kill you and call it a day.¡± The hunters looked taken aback by my statement as they glanced at their supposed leader. ¡°That¡¯s right, you¡¯ve been hoodwinked. That guy there,¡± I shouted as I pointed a clawed hand at him, ¡°is a dragon pretending to be a human.¡±


    The leader-guy-dragon looked rather enraged by my statement, and a glance at Nanu suggested that I had committed some kind of faux-pas. I don¡¯t know what kind of messed up rules demand that I don¡¯t out a dragon leading a dragon hunt against me, but fuck it, he had brought a army against me, and that felt unsportsmanlike. I don¡¯t see why I should extend such courtesy to someone who fights dirty. His men hesitated, as some mulled over my statement while others looked ready to take me up on the offer of easier prey.


    ¡°Preposterous, he¡¯s bluffing because he is on his last leg. Everyone, attack the Princess and then we will take down the Emperor!¡±


    With that counter-offer apparently being some sort of strange compromise which was noticeably divorced of sound logic, the bulk of the dragon hunters snapped out of their musings on target-selection to charge Nanu, leaving me without opposition. That changed in a heartbeat as cheeky coils of blood sprung up out of the earth, and like great springs, they launched me up and over the enemy dragon. The coils continued to expand and push the whole way, and while they lacked the potency to pierce my scales, they performed admirably in separating me from Nanu. Just how long had this bastard been working on sneaking that in on me anyway?


    While I did free myself from the blood coils and landed deftly on the ground behind my apparent opponent, I was indeed isolated, sans for It-Has-Pockets, who had grabbed ahold of my tail during that spring attack. As I assessed the situation, I observed Ribbette stayed near Nanu to assist in fighting off the four-score or so that assailed her. A few dragon hunters remained indecisive, and if the glint in their eye suggested anything, opportunistic and not at all picky about which dragon they took home as a trophy. As long as I could keep them at my opponent¡¯s back, maybe I could get them to cheapshot him.


    ¡°Well then, let¡¯s get this over with. I have a triumph to attend and your head will soon adorn my hoard.¡±


    Arrogant and rude. My head would at least be the centerpiece of his hoard. No accounting for taste I guess. Too tired for a good witty reply, I just gave a rude one.


    ¡°When I win, I may find a trash collector that will deign to carry your head to the refuse pile, but most likely, I may need to settle for a gong farmer.¡±


    That pissed him off. His face turned an unhealthy shade of crimson as he bared his teeth at me. He transformed into a dragon without delay, but not being a true gentleman, I launched a breath attack of a single and solid metal spike at him as he did so, which buried itself a few inches in his shoulder. Enraged, he charged at me. I guess it would have been proper to let him power up first or whatever, maybe even shout the names of my Abilities as I used them, but I was never big on such impolitic niceties. Fatigued, but not exhausted, I stuck to my training and began the dance with death. Two dragons enter, one dragon leaves.


    <hr>


    It-Has-Pockets had been lost in the dance, her body gracefully moving to the rhythm of battle as her mind drifted through the movements. She had remained both keenly focused and detached from the world, much like a vivid dream where you casually make choices in direction without consciously taking action to change how it unfolds. Her body knew what to do, and her sword knew how to cut flesh and bone alike, all she had to do was enable both to perform.


    What a surprise it had been to perform a [Rain Dance]. She had somehow understood the hydra, not so much in words, but in intent, for a true [Dancer] knows how to comprehend any specific request to perform. Delight had flooded through her and laughter had escaped her lips as she discovered the reason for the request. The pattern of lightning strikes sang to her, and she in turn had stomped her feet to the rhythm of the unfortunate and unwary being struck down. Even more of a surprise had been the audience that had witnessed her dance. Were it not for [Discern Patron], she would have not known them to have been actual Titans, and it had taken all her willpower to not openly tremble before them. Auspicious that they were on her side, for she did not desire to test her skill against them.


    When utter chaos had broken out, men and women had cut each other down in droves. Some had even rushed her or her inamorato, which she had cut down without even breaking her dance. To be fair, she couldn¡¯t choose to attack them, for [Go With The Flow] and [Feel The Rhythm] both depended on her continuing the dance and carrying out vague instructions or movements. She could do things like defend herself or advance in a certain direction while cutting down foes along the way, but she needed to finish one routine before she could begin the next, and thus, responding on the fly to new objectives remained impossible.


    Only through luck had she been along for the ride across the battlefield. She had been in the middle of circling around her inamorato¡¯s tail, favoring going over the tip of it with a pirouette into a somersault when it had clipped her and carried her with it. [Graceful Recovery] had allowed her to improvise a way to continue the dance up the tail while airborne, somehow defying gravity and momentum while still sticking the landing.


    Now, she found herself on her inamorato¡¯s rump while some other dragon appeared across from her. Sweat beaded on her brow at the prospect of tangoing with it, but she could not disgrace herself and the people of Tarr by fleeing.


    ¡°This was supposed to be an easy gig, a simple life of luxury in service to a dragon with the occasional small fight every now and then. Why the fuck am I fighting for my life against godsdamned dragons bigger than my inamorato?¡±


    The enemy dragon roared in protest against the spike that had embedded itself in his shoulder. Quickly finding a dance routine that would see her dismount and get out of harm¡¯s way, It-Has-Pockets rushed to finish her current routine before she ended up squished between the two dragons that dwarfed her in size. By a narrow margin, she cleared away from the collision that saw the red dragon sent sailing with a tomoe nage. Or, in simple words, the gold dragon rolled onto his back and used his legs to fling the red dragon up and over, the latter of which crashed hard into the earth while the former quickly righted himself afterwards.


    As she spun away from the action, two things of note caught her attention. The first was to be found on the horizon. Though distant and small, fliers could be seen heading to the rescue from the direction of camp. The second and more immediately concerning was the looming dozen or so dragon hunters that made their way to her. A few of the closer ones leered with undisguised lust, and both disgusted and adverse to the prospect of sating their carnal desires, she changed into a sprinting and leaping routine that would see her move closer to the two dragons. Like it or not, the safest place to be would be in the middle of two dragons duking it out, for while she could take on Platinum Adventurers onesie-twosie, a dozen at once with her as the only target was suicide. With much to live for, she retreated into the ¡®safety¡¯ of the draconic brawl.

 Chapter 67

    I had been in straits more dire than current circumstances, but not by much. 53, no, 54 dragon hunters including one sneaky fellow who thought himself undetected, along with various [Clones] from all manner of Abilities, brought my number of opponents to 74. Normally, such overwhelming numbers would be more than sufficient to take down a Princess like myself, one not at the peak of her power. However, a few advantages provided a ray of hope for survival.


    First, I had Ribbette with me. Her poisonous fogs and needles harried the enemy and provided deterrents and concealment both to aid me, while I could see through her fog just fine. Ever a wildcard and opportunist, she would prove invaluable in a longer fight as she slowly sapped the strength of our enemies. The second advantage was that I had not been caught flat-footed. [Secrets of the Sands], one of my more taxing and powerful Abilities, continued to wreak havoc on their advance, and more than a few would fall prey to it before they could close into effective range of me. Third was the kobold choir that egged them on in a most insidious and intoxicating manner that robbed them of prudence and wisdom in their approach, the fires of their greed and lust for fame and glory fanned by a full orchestra and choir. Lastly, a few hydras still lingered, although they were severely wounded and the effects of Control waned. Most were just feeling territorial and acting out of lingering reverence for their ancestors and their favored sons.


    Unfortunately, I had dozens of wounds big and small, and most were not regenerating well due to their weapons countering such an Ability. Not even cautious and crafty Ribbette was without injury. We were both fatigued and low on mana, but not so low that we could not finish the fight if we remained frugal. The flashy Abilities were off the table, so this would be a drawn-out affair of martial prowess and attrition until one side experienced defeat in detail.


    With an exertion of will, I shaped the sand into pillars around me so that Ribbette would have more hiding places and vantage points. My [Stone Colossus] slowly limped around the area, ready to strike at the unwary, but a stiff breeze would probably shatter it. However, I didn¡¯t need it to last much longer, for I already prepared my last powerful Ability that would make use of it. While Ribbette and I have never practiced what I would do next, I had instructed her in the theory, so I trusted that she would stick to our training.


    Eight pillars of sand provided a cage around me. However, I was not trapped in here with the dragon hunters, but rather, they were trapped in with me. I waited until three quarters of them crossed the threshold of their final durance before I activated [Colossal Wreck - Boundless and Bare]. In one last surge of power, it heeded my will and leapt into my impromptu arena, where it shattered into a sandstorm. Harsh winds and abrasive sands scoured the area and the flesh of the unprotected, while also providing me with Obfuscation that few could counter.


    Immediately following, Ribbette released a poisonous fog that quickly dissipated, the sand absorbing it while still remaining free of any sort of clumping. Now thoroughly poisonous, the tiny abrasions caused by the whipped-up sand would carry its treacherous payload to my foes. Dismay and dread filled the hearts of those within my trap, while fear and trepidation persuaded those outside to see how things would play out. With the initiative seized, Ribbette and I got to work before they could rally.


    The sneaky one was the first of my victims. My tail sliced him in two, and with a flick, I sent the parts of his corpse crashing into his allies. Demoralized and distracted, some panicked while others huddled. The sun, closer to setting than not, feebly attempting to provide illumination, but the thick sands shrouded what rays it could offer, and in the miasma of poison, sand, and darkness, one very angry dragon stalked in her element.


    I singled out those who were alone, sneaking up on them and dealing lethal blows. Stabs and thrusts were to be avoided, with a strong preference for decapitation. Healers could do wonders to help the wounded recover from stab wounds, less so for missing heads. Their cries, piercing but faint over the gale of the sandstorm, spread fear as a dozen fell before they could amount to much. However, some were stalwart and could see me without issue, and so those ones were priority threats. Now I found myself with a dilemma. Do I focus on them and risk the sandstorm stalling out before I can kill everyone, or do I leave them for Ribbette and take out the helpless ones first?


    I favored the latter option, and in a game of cat-and-mouse, I avoided or distanced myself from those who posed a threat while trampling and slicing those who were helpless. A few close calls were had, as well as more than a few new wounds, but still, the thrill of battle sang through my veins. One wrong step would spell my demise and death, and only a dauntingly long series of correct actions would see my triumph. Long had it been since last I flirted so with life and death in so intimate a dance. Round and round the arena I stalked, each pass claiming new victims while Ribbette skulked near the pillars to spring her ambushes on my pursuers. I seduced death with my tribute of those unworthy of life, and soon, only a handful remained.


    However, that handful proved to be a problem. A great spear of ice smashed into my side, and surprisingly, penetrated perhaps two feet into me. Before a nasty follow-up finished me off, I transformed back into human form, which dislodged it without a moment to spare. An explosion of ice-shards scoured the area, and one unlucky fellow met his demise from friendly-fire. The bastard who hit me soon found his smug satisfaction dispersed as Ribbette snuck up behind him and soundlessly placed a needle in his neck. She slipped away into the safety of the sandstorm as he fell to the ground, screaming in pain. Vindictive, Ribbette showed no remorse and extended no mercy. The man would die, slowly, but certainly, unless an extremely powerful healer were right next to him. His screams would continue to sow fear, so Ribbette had clearly learned a thing or two from Skull.


    Now in my human form, I would not be able to transform again for a minute or two, which hamstrung my combat potential. However, a human is significantly smaller than a dragon, and so I relied on Ribbette¡¯s poison to finish the work as I dove into the shifting sands, passing through it like a fish through water as I evaded my pursuers. Time would tell if I bled out before they collapsed of poison, and so our race towards death continued.


    <hr>


    Fucking shitsnacks, that was close.


    Dickless over there nearly skewered me like a shish kebab with that ice spear explosion. I say Dickless, because the necrotic effects of my poison will certainly decay his extremities before he dies. Overkill, but sometimes a girl needs to make a point. Now Dickbag, over here, is a different matter. As his insides turn to mush and the lining of his guts disintegrates, he will experience catastrophic hernias as gravity does the rest to fill the lower half of his body with his liquified insides. A terrible fate, but not half as painful as he deserves.


    It does bring satisfaction to watch the dumb bastards hesitate to cut off a poisoned limb, with each second of indecision only making their situations worse. Even better when they are distracted by the limb-cutting-off process, for that is when I sneak up to poison another limb with my needles. Skull had shown me what such terror-tactics can do to morale, and I respected her ingenuity as my mentor.


    Fortuitous, then, that Nanu approved of my poison-sand combo. Currently, she stalks her prey beneath the sands, and the ripples of the [Sand Sharks] looked an awful lot like hers. One dumbass thought he got her good, only to get ripped to shreds by a [Sand Shark]. The rest of them were more or less my bitches. My poisons had already done their work, for they were but dead men walking.


    One uppity fuckwit decided now was a good time for an incantation. No idea what for, because after I gave him a good [Tongue Lashing], he keeled over from the cocktail of poisons I delivered to him. His friend took offense to that, and so I dashed away and hopped to the top of a sand pillar.


    Glancing outside the arena, the others had lost heart and booked it. They had scattered in dismay, with more than one falling prey to ambushes from waiting hydras. Bunch of three-headers, not much good in the brawl, which is probably why I didn¡¯t see them the whole time, but excellent at snatching up the hasty.


    Just to be certain, I opened my mouth wide and angled my head back. Reaching into my mouth, I withdrew my pride and joy, a blowgun twice as long as I am tall, all stored away safely thanks to a handy pocket dimension Ability that Master gave me. I lined a bead on the one farthest away, and I took aim as I inflated my vocal sac to the maximum. [Fire and Froget], combined with [Poison Dart], meant I could shoot the coward without a need to wait and see if I hit. One after another, I hit each of them with a lethal payload, and satisfied, I turned back to the arena. Perhaps Hopper, that lovable idiot, would praise me for my marksmanship when I told him about it later.


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    In the two minutes or so that I had been sniping bitches, the arena had changed. The sandstorm had mostly died out, but then, so had most of the enemy. Only two remained standing, and they staggered doggedly onwards towards Nanu. Well, Nanu, or [Sand Sharks]. Just as I was taking aim at one, I found myself in freefall as the pillar of sand collapsed beneath me. Taking a leaf from It-Has-Pockets playbook, I planted my blowgun into the ground as I landed and pole danced my way down, kicking my legs out and into a spin to transfer momentum horizontally. I stuck the landing spectacularly, by the way. It should be obvious that I would succeed, but I know I have to spell things out for some of you dumbasses.


    Anyway, douchebags needed darting, and so I prepared my blowgun. One good puff cleared the sand, but before I could take a shot, they both collapsed. My fun denied me and, as I expected a clever ploy, I gave them each four darts, which should be more than enough to kill them. A quick look around showed no signs of any enemies. Well, standing ones at least. I made my rounds to carefully finish off the dying, staying at maximum range the whole time. An attachment of a spearhead to my blowgun gave me a veritable ten-foot pole to poke them until they died.


    With that chore done, I deployed a normal fog cloud to provide concealment. My mana was about spent, and Nanu would be in rough shape. I hopped over where I felt she would be, which was slightly off-center of the now fading arena.


    She garbled something at me, and after a few moments, [Froggiest Idea] translated it for me. Apparently, she was tired but happy to see me. A quick once-over revealed that she would live and regenerate from her wounds, but she would be largely out of commission for a while. As my adrenaline crashed, I too felt the mounting exhaustion brought on by my near-constant exertion of physical energy and mana. Too pooped to poop, I plopped down beside her, and together, we collected our strength as we watched two dragons duke it out. As spent as we were, we would only get in the way if we intervened, so we hoped and prayed for victory.


    <hr>


    Impossible. Such were several feats of the accursed Emperor. [Blood Rush] granted me alacrity nearly unparalleled compared to other Marquess and even some Dukes, yet the Emperor matched my speed and then some. And the sheer number of elements of magic he could use was disturbing. Did he really not specialize in anything? Such squandering of Experience Points in breadth would surely stymy the depth of his power, and yet he continued to counter one Ability or attack after another with a perfectly selected element. Air, Water, Shadow, Fire, and even Blood were at his disposal. Just how many did the fool pick up?


    And the pesky vermin lingered at my flanks, snapping at me whenever the Emperor pressed me. They had outlived their usefulness, but I presently lacked the resources to deal with them. Unfortunately, I could not risk my children tagging along to tie up loose ends, for they were not Skilled enough to evade the detection of the dragon hunters. They had inflicted a few fleshwounds and then some, and so they owed me a [Debt of Blood] for their transgressions that I intend to collect with interest just as soon as I finish up this vexing Emperor.


    He has far more wounds than I have and is half my size, yet he is tough to pin down. Someone had clearly trained him, for he moves with practiced grace in his draconic form. Most likely that bitch, Nanu, had taught him. After dealing with the Emperor, I would have to collect her, too. Surely, the remaining dragon hunters had taken care of her by now, for the sandstorm had abated entirely.


    Still, I cannot let this fight drag out. Though a fresh Emperor, he still has the power of his peerage to make him hardy in a fight of attrition. If he would just hold still for a moment, I could finish him in one blow. [Blood Feud] would enable a strong retaliatory strike, so perhaps baiting him with an opening would do the trick, provided I did not take too grievous a blow. It would be futile against a death by a thousand cuts, but against a heavy hit, it would be devastating. He thinks I don¡¯t see the trap he is sliding over towards me, along with the even sneakier second trap, so perhaps one of them would pack enough punch to bring about his demise.


    Best to be cautious as I lure him out. He probably suspects I can see the first trap, but doubtless, he doesn¡¯t know that I invested greatly in Detection Skills. I must not become complacent, for he may catch on if I play along too well. It¡¯s all in the details, the little tells and distractions that clue one in to what an opponent knows or suspects. An Emperor he may be, but he could not last a day in the Court of Blood, where a single twitch of the eyebrow can reveal everything.


    How tedious. Even more elements to thwart my advance. Such is the nature of young dragons to show off every move they have. Perhaps he is simply fishing to see which Ability can strike me down or chase me off, but I have won against his betters in a duel. It is just a matter of time and his head is mine.


    <hr>


    Some guys just can¡¯t take a hint. This dude keeps chasing after me despite how I dance away from him and under the legs of the dragons. He clearly has designs that involve his carnal satisfaction with my body, and so I feel that turnabout is fair play. I changed tactics and danced suggestively for him, using the provocative swaying of my hips to lure him in and enticing views of my breasts to lower his guard. With a lecherous grin and reckless abandon, he followed after me.


    And down stomped a dragon¡¯s hind leg, and that was the end of my stalker who found himself as nothing more than a red smear beneath the foot of a red dragon.


    Right, one down, four more to go. Stalkers that is, not feet, but if I could cut the dragon¡¯s feet off, I would. As long as I keep focusing on defense and mobility, I can continue to evade the destruction wrought by the draconic brawl, provided the red one never focuses on me.


    While I am no Adventurer, I do have a significant advantage over the dragon hunters. I have trained almost exclusively in my youth to fight humanoids and to duel, whereas they have trained to fight magical beasts and monsters, and, naturally, dragons. They learned through experience and were generalists, whereas I had elite instructors and specialization. I was more than a match for any one of them provided I could take them one or two at a time.


    One less predisposed to rape me and more of the inclination to kill me made his approach. A dwarf, judging by the shorter stature and the bulkier frame. Also, the gratuitous amount of plate armor, including intricately engraved beard-armor, gave it away. He swung his hammer for my left knee, but a leap and a spin found me twirling over his head horizontally as I landed on the side from which his swing started. A sweep of my blade caught him under the arm, though the blow was shallow thanks to his armor. I would peel him like a potato if that was what it took, but getting him caught in either dragon¡¯s attack would be preferable.


    As I lured him towards the dragons whose fight at extreme speeds has carried them away from me, something snagged on my foot and tugged. In a panic, I tried to right myself, but something had ensnared my foot. I rolled in time to avoid a thrust of a sword through my gut, but the she-elf prepared another attempt as her blade, now wreathed in flame, descended again. Even if she missed, the flame would probably burn me, and so I thrust at the fancy hilt of her sword to stop her blade from descending, if even for a moment, just to buy some time to escape.


    Just then, of all things, one of the kobolds sprung up from a pool of water and attacked her from the side. It was the kobold with the yellow hat and jacket, and he also wielded a harpoon of some kind. My hero got her right in the neck, but in her final moments, she turned and drove her sword right through him. The pair of them collapsed on their sides, each one dying. With no time to mourn my little hero, I quickly untangled the snare around my foot and recovered to a standing position before the armored dwarf could catch up.


    Another she-elf, a sister of the first by the looks of it and the tears of anguish in her eyes, charged at me from the opposite side. Rage and hate fueled her strikes, and though she appeared to be some sort of [Warrior], she lacked the discipline and poise of one well-trained. Casually, I danced away from her strikes, getting the measure of her patterns as I prepared to retaliate. She screamed something in elvish at me, which I only vaguely understood the literal meaning of due to her dialect not matching my education, but the venom in her voice got the point across. She lasted 19 exchanges before I took her head. Clearly, fatigue was getting to me such that it took that long.


    That just left a slow dwarf and¡­


    An arrow to the left shoulder answered that mystery. An [Archer], clearly, for no one without such a Blessing would take such an easily countered weapon into battle. The arrow dug deep, as if hungry and alive, and with a scream of pain and a mustering of willpower, I pushed the shaft through and barely out the other side. A quick snap near the fletching and another awkward tug saw the arrow removed and me screaming in pain. Badly injured and bleeding, I hobbled away, my [Dance Routine] interrupted. The arrow came from nowhere, and scared and alert, I counted on my superior troll bloodline and the regenerative capabilities of my kind to deal with the wound as I hastened towards the dragons once more.

 Chapter 68

    A cool and refreshing breeze caressed his skin, offering a tantalizing promise of a cold night and a reprieve from the oppressive heat of the badlands. A warm fire could always ward off the worst of the night chill, but even the best shade could offer only a pittance of respite when temperatures soared during the day. And, being so large with a body of steely muscles covered in a protective layer of dense fat, preventing heat stroke presents a challenging obstacle that many others have failed to overcome. With a deep breath, he savored the pleasant atmosphere as a setting sun struggled in vain to stave off the creeping darkness of nightfall.


    Comfortable, cozy, and safe, Nabonidus savored the calm before the storm. While it would only last a few minutes in real time, his mind would venture on a journey that would take days or weeks, for an [Oracle] does not simply see the future; they live it. And not just one future, but countless futures, with as much granularity as one desires to look into the minutiae of the smallest of movements and the most seemingly inconsequential of choices of the Actors in the Scene.


    Liken a glimpse into the future as playing catch with a small child who lacks the skill and coordination to reliably throw a ball to you. You look into the future of where the ball will actually go, and then move to that spot. However, the child adjusts the aim of the throw, and a new location will be where the ball will land. Rinse and repeat until the incompetence of the child matches up with your location such that misjudgment and poor aim combine in such a peculiar way as to yield miraculous success. However, each glimpse at the future of the same Scene costs progressively more mana than the last, not to mention the banality of living it over and over to find the right one. As such, an [Oracle] needs discipline, an iron will, and conviction to be successful.


    But there is a secret to it, one that undoubtedly others have discovered independently, just as the ogre had. Why look to the future yourself when your future selves could do it for you? What if, instead, a future version of you looked through a thousand futures, based on a given criteria of what to look for, and gave present you circumstances that led to the desired Outcome? Look to as many versions of future you as present you needs, each delegated to their own workload, and push them mercilessly until they give you what you want or break.


    The catch is that creating a future version of oneself taxes the mind and mana reserves, and so those future selves have less resources to work with. If the process is repeated, then they can yield fewer results, so a balance between the number of instances of the future and their workload compared to their resources must be sought so that each of them would ideally use every last drop of what they have before they return an answer. Easier said than done, but Nabonidus had been practicing as of late just to keep himself and the Dragon alive.


    Surrendering to a meditative state within the confines of his crude hut far from the main camp of the other ogres, Nabonidus gazed into the infinite, seeking the Scenario as mandated by the inescapable grasp of Destiny.


    The Dragon would fight overwhelming odds, that much was certain. An ambush, hunters, allies, but where? Where would the Scene take place? Searching, delegating, outsourcing to future versions of me. One to look in deserts, another in forests, a third in towns. A dozen more to look in a dozen more biomes, and a dozen more after that. None have returned a positive answer. Widen the search to less ideal landscapes.


    An answer, a swamp or marshland of some kind. Good job, future me! A smirk, a distraction of the flesh, focus. Dismiss all future instances, start over with new directives. When and where specifically? Start with the present and work forward, as all [Oracles] do, for the distant future becomes fuzzy. Obfuscation, a shadow mires the vision, but a clue. Why hide something unless it should not be seen? Spin up twenty more future me¡¯s. Meddling, sloppy. Delegate a future me to delegate to his future hims as to who or what tries to interfere. Headache, distraction of the flesh, not enough practice with such layering of futures, only have one future delve into the third layer like that.


    ¡°A [Prophet], skilled, but outclassed so close to the imminent Scene.¡±


    Ah, future me came through with two answers. The Scenario would happen soon at an upcoming Scene in the very near future. Focusing on events in the next hour. Sweat, heavy breathing, distraction. Press onward, for life depends on it, most notably our own, you lazy future mes! Put your backs into it!


    ¡°I found it!¡±


    Ah, Future-Me-14 found it! Examining his memory packet. The hydra, more hydras, a mating ritual, a honeypot, ambush, death of the Dragon. Unacceptable. Calibrating for exact timing of the True Scene. Delegating.


    ¡­


    ¡­


    ¡°Four minutes from now!¡±


    Not good. The [Prophet] had been sneaky to hide it from me until that last moment. Assess options for acceptable Outcomes. Body getting woozy, thinking difficult, must end soon.


    ¡°Send warning at appointed time in memory packet. Warning message as follows: ¡®Imminent danger! Dragon hunters approach. Threat level: deadly.¡¯¡±


    That¡¯s it? Nothing else needs to be done? Too simple, too tired to keep looking, trust future self, consciousness fading.


    Waiting. No other futures revealed any rebuttals. Mana reserves low. Must time message good. Think much hard.


    Time now. Send message to Dragon. Message sent. No think now. Sleepy.


    With a rare smile of satisfaction crossing from his lips to the world of any observer, Nabonidus took the last moment of consciousness to revel in the delight of a disaster averted before he keeled over and fell into a deep sleep. And as he slumbered, he dreamed of over a score of heads that came to make a deal with him.


    <hr>


    Assailed so by the Incredible Brute, our limbs trembled from the stress of enduring his blows. Would that I could say we fought with the skill and poise of the heroes of legend, but alas, we merely struggled to survive from one exchange to the next. His axe sang its way through the air as it sought purchase on our mortal coils. I could barely follow along with the melody of his blows, but I knew the energy of that song well, for it spoke of death and destruction. How long we could persist in such a stalemate before we lacked the reserves of vigor to fend off his most egregious ministrations to our anatomy, I knew not, but I would continue to fight for my Liege Lord until I perished from this world.


    Skull, most virtuous and stalwart of servants to our Liege Lord, continued to swell in strength as the mantle of her power manifested. However, her form was as obsidian; hard, but fragile. While her figure bloomed, wreathed in shadow and the ravenous strands of raw terror that hovered about her like nascent wraiths, her energy reserves dwindled at an untenable rate. Now, I enjoy a good [Slug Fest] as much as the next, but the Incredible Brute showed no signs of slowing down or taking any serious damage. Even my [Tongue Lashing] to his face had only brought a small moment of reprieve, but he soon grew wise to my methods. I dare not use it again lest he grab ahold of my tongue and swing me around like a flail.


    Skull has reached her zenith, and victory would be found now or never. Perilous though the gambit would be, I trusted in her familiarity with my own fighting style due to our hours of training with her and our Liege Lord. Gripping the metal opening of my scabbard, I channeled [Frog Stud] for extra strength for my plan of attack as I slowly circled around behind him. I waited and waited, continuing to draw strength in anticipation of Skull making an opening.


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    Skull managed to catch his axe on the hilt of her blade, and though it arrested his momentum for but a moment, I seized the initiative and leapt towards him, my blade forsaken as I dropped it. He may have been expecting a stab in the back, but I had something more honorable planned. Utilizing the benefits of [Wrassle Up Some Grub], I grappled him from behind, and though our struggle was short, I managed to force him to his knees as I pinned his arms to his side. I wrapped my tongue around his neck to secure his head in place, and the tip of my tongue forced his mouth open. My meager form could barely contain the Incredible Brute¡¯s fury as he railed against my efforts to constrain him, but with luck, Skull would dispatch him before he broke free. All I could do now is trust in our camaraderie and our training to see us prevail over such evil.


    <hr>


    The pacing of our struggle changed the instant Hopper withdrew from direct engagements with Brick Shithouse. I ascertained that it was not through fear or terror that Hopper ceased his excursions from his distance of relative safety for a foray into the reach of that monstrous axe, and although he surely felt the effects of fatigue as much as I did, I could tell he had a plan by the gleam in his eye.


    I redoubled my efforts, one final push to secure an advantage as I threw everything I had into creating an opening. A perihelion of Shadow magic escorted me as I offered Brick Shithouse free samples of my swordplay. Grasping hands of shadow, each like the desperate last attempts of the drowning to latch on to anything as the icy depths pulled them under, reached out towards him to ensnare his movements and leech his vitality for my own use. Few found purchase, as if an intangible force buffeted them away like pesky flies, but a handful succeeded and provided me with that precious trickle of energy to keep me in the fight.


    His movements slowed, albeit marginally. Dodging his blows remained the preferable course of action, for even a glancing blow would wreak terrible damage upon my armor and my body underneath. Although [Dragon Knight] gave me tremendous regenerative capabilities, even it had its limits in the face of a full rearrangement of my innards. The bones in my left arm had shattered at one point, possibly an eternity ago, for the concept of time felt fuzzy in the storm of power that we each wielded against one another. Though fully healed, I remained inclined to not repeat that painful experience ever again, for not only did it hurt to have a bone shattered, but healing it slowly likewise pushed my pain tolerance to the limit.


    For his part, Hopper stood by idly, his eyes ever alert on our fight, but his left hand firmly gripped the opening of his scabbard. For what spare mental effort I could offer to ponder his activities, I noticed a subtle shift in his frame. Muscles twitched, and at an accelerating rate, they began swelling in size as his already hefty frame packed on even more muscle. Almost grotesque to witness, and although his stature did not increase, his muscles bulked up to at least triple their original size. Were the situation more peaceful, I may have laughed at how ridiculous he looked, for he appeared to be almost incapable of movement with all that swelling.


    What glances I caught of him showed the muscles had ceased growing, and instead, they compacted, each looking denser, as if made of solid steel. What little fat his froggy figure possessed seemingly disappeared as he showcased unrealistic body standards for males everywhere. His straw hat popped right off his head from the strain on his body, and if that fact registered in his mind, his countenance did not display even a hint of it, such was his focus.


    Sensing that Hopper was fully prepared, I feinted a vertical chop to Brick Shithouse, who luckily took the bait. He let out a horizontal sweep of his axe, eagerly willing to race me to see who could hit whom first. I twisted my swing, bringing the tip of my blade down to sink into the earth, angled to block his swing. The head of his axe passed my blade, but the shaft found itself arrested where my blade met the hilt. I wrenched my blade down hard, using it as a lever to pull his axe towards the ground. Snugly caught, he pushed his axe forward and twisted the shaft to spin the head of the axe out of the trap before I could pin it to the earth. Apparently, all was in vain, for the trap had already been sprung.


    With a lightning quick dash, Hopper was upon Brick Shithouse, grabbing the hulking orc from behind and pushing him down to his knees. With his arms pinned at his sides and his head pulled back, he let out a mighty warcry as he struggled to cast off Hopper. Hastening to seize the advantage of the opening on a helpless foe, I used  [Wings of the Dragon] to take me aloft perhaps three stories into the air, and then quickly reorienting myself with my spectral and draconic wings, I descended upon my helpless prey with my sword aimed straight down.


    His mouth wide open, Brick Shithouse found himself inescapably aware of my sword shoved down his throat, the tip of it punching through the other side of him somewhere and buried in the earth. With frenzied purpose to my most violent ministrations to his person. I twisted my blade and shook it back and forth inside him to inflict as much damage as possible. Gurgled screams of pain and rage choked their way past my blade to announce his disapproval of my actions.


    Beyond reason, beyond belief, he shrugged off Hopper and pushed me away. With one shaky leg stepping foot onto the earth from his kneeling position, the other followed in dogged pursuit of the first as he stood while grabbing his axe. Blood spewed out of his mouth and somewhere below between his legs as he took a step towards me, then another, as he raised his axe high.


    Not faltering in the least, I unleashed a deluge of Shadow upon him, calling upon every Ability I had to enervate his advance. When my wellspring of power ran dry, Brick Shithouse still stood tall, his axe raised above his head, motionless. As if in one final boast of his prowess to mock my victory, he had died on his feet, his body frozen in his final attack that never came.


    Hopper and I paused for a moment, both exhausted and unsure what would follow. He cautiously circled around our foe and joined me with his blade in hand, ready for the next impossible feat. For a few moments, we stood there, before the rush of battle receded and joyous laughter at our victory seized us. Our mirth ceased when the sky raged and split as the earth trembled.


    Like a crack in reality, the sky sundered, revealing a red and gold sky behind it as an uneven portal opened to our world. Concerned, but not afraid, I watched as an imposing figure plummeted from the sky to land directly next to Brick Shithouse.


    ¡°You have bested my grandson in battle, a most arduous feat,¡± pronounced the figure armored in the eastern style as he removed his helmet. I witnessed the thankfully calm visage of the most famous and esteemed of orcs, at least according to the orcs, whose likeness could be found at any shrines to their gods as a testament to what mortal orcs could achieve. The great Khan of Khans himself had descended from the heavens to claim his own.


    Carefully, yet resolute in purpose, Berxerxes withdrew my zweih?nder out of the gullet of his grandson, and once withdrawn, he handed it to me. Almost dazed with the majesty of it all, my body moved on its own to accept.


    ¡°He died in battle to worthy foes, servants of one most promising and powerful in their own right. May all the world know of the last battle of Bamborax. He has earned his place in the hallowed halls of Grel¡¯la¡¯kel. You two,¡± his voice boomed as he addressed us. ¡°Warriors both, step forward to receive your spoils.¡±


    Without thinking, we obeyed, our minds overwhelmed by the circumstances of standing before such a legendary figure. A side glance to Hopper confirmed that even a frog from the swamps knew who stood before us and the certainty of our death should we not comply.


    Surprisingly, Berxerxes greeted us with a fierce but toothy smile, the kind that reaches the eyes in satisfaction. He held out his hand to shake, and in the style of warriors the world over, we gripped each other¡¯s forearm and shook once. Immediately, I felt power flow into me, not energy to rejuvenate me, but something else. Like instinct, I knew that new Abilities had been bestowed upon me, but I would need a moment of peace to ascertain what they were. Berxerxes shook hands with Hopper as well, and without a word, he turned back to his grandson as he donned his helmet.


    With one gentle and deft movement of his hand, he plucked the axe from Bamborax and slung it in place on the back of the dead orc. Hugging his fallen grandson close, the pair of them ascended quickly into the heavens and through the portal into the sky. As suddenly as it began, the portal closed, and the sky reformed as if no incursion into our mortal realm had occurred.


    Whelmed, but on the cusp of overwhelmed, and now truly exhausted, I collapsed onto my backside and rested my blade at the ready as I leaned it onto my shoulder. The fight truly taken out of me by the whole ordeal, I sat and watched as Master fought one of the few foes left on the field, another red dragon.


    One of Master¡¯s traps, subtle to even my eye, as he intended for us to be able to see them, had been creeping over to us. However, as if it were aware it was no longer needed, it slowly began its exodus from our battlefield as it inexorably slid away towards the duel between dragons.


    ¡°Well fuck me!¡± I exclaimed to Hopper as I threw an arm around him when he plopped down beside me, his normal level of bulkiness having returned to his figure. ¡°First Titans, then the [Herald] of the orc gods, what¡¯s next? Actual gods!¡± Although I knew that literal gods could not enter our world, an avatar could, but I hoped us mere mortals would be spared such a fate for at least another five minutes or so.

 Chapter 69

    Few feelings could top flying through the air. Well, on a vehicle flying through the air, as doing so from being swatted by something giant in size quickly grew old. And on this particular outing, the various anti-air spells screaming their way up to meet him put a damper on the whole affair. A dozen transport craft or critters were on their way to rescue a pair of wayward dragons, and Bellwright Muddlespoon mentally offered a prayer or two that their three fighter escorts would be enough to help them punch through the blockade.


    Alterez had insisted on coming along. The goblin had no mustache, hair, or even a fancy hat, so hopefully his combat prowess would serve better than his questionable taste in fashion. At least he could cook, and those secret potlucks of his were all the rage of the poorest kept secret in camp. Even the extra secret and exclusive potlucks offered exceptional delights for the palate, and such delicacies had endeared Alterez to Bellwright, unlike the flak, which had hit the left arcanite engine, unlike Alterez, who thankfully remained buckled in his seat and had not been flung off the vessel and into the air intake of the engine. At least that much was going right, for a friend or two had gone through the engine in the past with most disastrous outcomes for the experience. Friends can be replaced, but engines are not cheap.


    Losing altitude, Bellwright utilized [Emergency Repairs] in a hope-filled venture to stabilize his descent. At least some sort of goose-necked griffon-creature had swooped in the way of another barrage, seemingly taking the hits in the chest with nothing to show for it but a litany of angry honks and three equally surly dwarven riders throwing hammers in retaliation. Their timely intervention bought enough reprieve to get the engine back in working order. While his poor summoned craft would not be gaining altitude any time soon, at least it would not crash, which was a marked improvement.


    Two of the twelve craft in the vanguard of the relief force had careened accurately towards the earth, their methods of propulsion and lift so thoroughly compromised that success at crashing was all but guaranteed. The occupants would surely survive the crash, assuming the flak did not kill them, for everyone assigned to air patrol had to have some Ability to do so and had to be certified in crash landings.


    With throttle full ahead and engines screaming, Bellwright steered them through the gauntlet of explosions and shrapnel to within appropriate bombing range of the enemy below. Readying a large seed pod he had been channeling mana into, Bellwright casually chucked it through a little hatch he opened in the floor. A dozen seconds later, a colossal patch of briars ripped their way into existence, entangling and poisoning anyone caught in their gluttonous embrace. Large flowers bloomed at the top of the briars, each one probably twenty feet across and sporting a motley collection of colors. Quite pretty, if memory served, but being directly over them, Bellwright could not see the glory of his handiwork. Not one to say correlation equated to causation, the briar patch did coincide with an almost complete cessation of flak, so that was a good sign.


    Though he could just barely make it out visually, from the perspective of magic the fight ahead shined like a beacon. Some sort of tear in the fabric of reality had appeared in the sky, with a small speck falling out of it. Whatever it was, it radiated some spark of divinity, so Bellwright contemplated easing off the throttle until that resolved itself. Perhaps The Bossman had everything under control and haste would make waste. Fortuitously, about a minute later, the speck zoomed up to the sky, and the sky repaired itself. A few beads of sweat sprouted on his brow, but his aviator hat collected them instantly, so no one would be any the wiser as to his apprehension in getting tangled up with divine powers.


    Looking around, only four other fliers could be seen. The rest had either engaged the enemy or received an irresistible invitation to sample the local flora and geology at inadvisable speeds. There were perhaps twenty individuals between them that could reasonably assist in the duel between dragons up ahead. All signs of dragon hunters remained elusive. Well, given the unmoving and prone figures ahead, there were plenty of dead or incapacitated dragon hunters, but there were perhaps one or two still standing.


    As they approached, Bellwright¡¯s eyes widened in disbelief. Though he looked upon the scene with [Enhanced Optics], he could clearly see hundreds of bodies on the ground. Reports estimated only about four dozen kobolds had left with The Bossman, and given his usual entourage, even if all of them had perished, that still easily left another 300 dead dragon hunters visible in the distance. Given the swampy terrain, surely more of the dead found themselves sucked into the mud, hidden away from the world and last rites. That The Bossman still lived ventured into the realm of miracles, for no one could take on that many dragon hunters with such a small escort. A glance to Alterez, equally wide of eye, suggested that the assessment of the situation reached a consensus.


    With eyes peeled, Bellwright continued his advance towards the only fight left, the duel between a large red dragon and a smaller gold dragon, the latter of which was The Bossman. Even at top speed, the fliers were four or five minutes away from effective range to assist, another minute after that to be in the fray. And that was not just blind speculation, for they had trained every three days for months on end for just this sort of rescue mission.


    With his finger idly caressing the switch for [Turbo Boost], Bellwright did his best to hurry up and wait. The engines would be inoperable once the effect wore off, so that last burst of speed would be used just before their landing as he unsummoned the craft. The timing would have to be correct to ensure they arrived as quickly as possible, and so nothing more could be done to prepare than to sit idly until the moment arrived. Ready for the fight, and oddly enough, eager to test his mettle against a dragon, Bellwright continued onward to the hottest piece of gossip of the decade. Slap a coat or two of embellishment on the occasion, and he would be the talk of the gnomish community for years to come.


    <hr>


    I would like to say that the fight was going well for me. In truth, my hours of training had instilled the discipline needed to resist panicking. I¡¯m not sure of the context, but the phrase ¡°button mashing¡± crept into my mind as a gambit to resolve the situation. However, no tawdry tactic would suffice in this particular predicament. At least auspicious circumstances had developed that my most powerful and secretive of traps was no longer needed to deal with that powerhouse of an orc. Sadly, it remained a good distance away, and given that it moved slowly, it would be a hot minute until it moseyed its way over here. The real question involved whether or not I would be alive or at least conscious by the time it arrived.


    My plan involved using the first two sneaky traps as bait while I slowly withdrew in the direction of Skull. I would need to control my countenance to look satisfactorily victorious when I detonated them, then dismayed when I saw that he remained unharmed. That would goad him into doing whatever attack he has been saving up this whole time. With luck, his guard would be down and the hidden third trap would be his demise. The other countless and partially sneaky traps would serve as chaff at the start of the whole thing, but they were just there to make him think that I think my first two sneaky traps are oh so sneaky, so I did not consider them to be of much consequence for inflicting any real damage. At least, I had a gut feeling that he had a big attack that he was preparing, but that could just be one of the various and painful spears that impaled my belly.


    Exhaustion loomed at the edges of my mind, inviting me to let go, to surrender, and to embrace the sweet release of oblivion. Instinct screamed at me to fight until my last breath, and then afterwards, to find a way to keep fighting while dead. The din of their argument left my mind feeling foggy, with any sort of advanced calculations being beyond my means. Stalwart in purpose, I pressed on. I think I am on my fourth or fifth rotation of working my way through the elements so that I could unleash a powerful version of [School¡¯s Out], which required that I combo as many elements of magic I could in succession without repetition. Sadly, while it had been enough to win me the fight against Count Vladislav, it did not hand me victory at this juncture. I did not have much else in the way of tricks up my proverbial sleeve, so all I could do was bide my time for those fliers I see in the distance or end the fight decisively with my traps.


    I would not say my opponent, who had failed to introduce himself, was a one-trick pony, but he did favor Blood magic. I had shored up my weaknesses to it as best I could after the fight with the Count on the prospect that his flight would seek vengeance against me. Ergo, while he could not interact with my blood to cripple me, he could still use his own just fine to send knives and spears of blood at me or entangle and whip me with tendrils of the same.


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    I began my withdrawal, complete with a planned air of desperation at my plight as I retreated towards my third trap, which as of yet had accumulated plenty of power, but it lacked the final contribution of any particular payload. Sensing my ¡°weakness¡±, or perhaps legitimate weakness, my opponent pressed the attack, harrying me the whole time I withdrew, making it quite clear that I would not be able to simply turn and run without being cut down.


    For the first time in a long while, I actually found that my fatigue was merely of physical and mental proportions, for my mana reserves were ample enough. All those months of constant mining, hauling, building, and training had garnered finer mana control on a practical level, as well as a few Skills I manually unlocked and [Deeds] earned to that effect. I also possessed more discipline to use a simple swipe of my claws or a good chomp with my teeth to dispatch threats instead of using Abilities powered by mana. And while an ocean of power dwelled within me, only a trickle could be used to heal my wounds due to the pesky anti-regeneration of the dragon hunters. Ergo, wounds piled up and compounded with fatigue to make the situation untenable.


    With my retreat in effect, my opponent continued after me, with a few errant dragon hunters nipping at both of us. Those opportunistic vermin had been scampering about incessantly, although It-Has-Pockets had whittled away at most of them that pestered me. The only remaining threats on that front came in the form of an elusive [Archer] and one slow but determined dwarf clad in enough armor to feed a colony of metal-eating mites for weeks. I think I stomped on him once, but he just popped out of the mud like a cork stuck in the spout of a hot kettle and continued unerringly trodding along after It-Has-Pockets, which appeared to disturb her and cause no small amount of distress. A stalwart little bugger, perhaps I could make use of him.


    Tendrils of blood, this time tinged with Lightning magic, lashed at me, but a quick deployment of Nature magic caused the marsh grasses to swell and grow quickly to intercept them. A specter of my opponent¡¯s form, made entirely out of blood, lunged towards me with eager claws and ravenous mouth ready to find purchase on my exposed flesh, but I tactically deployed Water magic to have the swamp water rise up and crash into the specter, which caused it to impotently dissipate into the water. In the same motion, I froze the wall into a spike of ice and hurled it at him, which he blocked with his wings. While so distracted, and his vision obfuscated by both his wings and the ice, I immediately followed up with a breath attack of Poison magic. With his wings forward to block, he would not be able to effectively buffet away the poisonous mist heading his way via a quick flap of his wings.


    Nasty sores sprouted across his body wherever the poison touched. He roared in pain and anger, and he took a step back to recover and get some distance. Unfortunately, he had some fancy [Antidote] skill, for his flesh soon mended and cast off disgusting globs of pestilent-infused ichor. Still, that had to cost him more mana to fix than it did for me to inflict the wound, so I continued to peel the onion as I used his temporary withdrawal to likewise retreat. I managed to get perhaps 50 feet before he assaulted me once again with renewed vigor and increased tempo in the timing of his attacks.


    I could block or dodge most of them, for I rarely remained in one spot for more than a moment before darting one way or the other. However, some still landed, and though I gave as good as I got, I started the fight wounded while he started fresh, and it showed. At times, he seemed to purposely take hits he could have blocked, and I suspected some manner of nasty riposte would be coming my way eventually. Perhaps he wanted to lure me into overconfidence. Well, two can play that game, for I was luring him into a trap. My third trap was almost in range, and so the finale of our encounter would commence imminently.


    I willed my somewhat sneaky traps into position, the ones he would surely detect. I positioned them in a rectangular box between him and me. I did my best to bait him in by appearing less than confident about our recent exchanges. He almost walked into it, and at the last second, with a smug look on his face, lashed out with tendrils of blood to stab each of them and rupture their spell matrices. They failed to detonate, which was certainly expected, but I had a different purpose in mind for them, which made them surprise tools that would help me later. I could still deploy their stored-up mana for another tactic even if they could no longer detonate.


    Confident, he stalked forward as I moved my first super sneaky trap into position. I gave my best look of dismay as he foiled my ¡°master plan¡± that I had been working on. Then I let a sly grin escape my control as I tried to detonate the trap. With a stomp of his left forelimb, he crushed it before I could trigger it.


    ¡°Aw, did I just foil your trap? And to think you went to all this effort for me, I simply must repay your hospitality,¡± he taunted as he performed a mock-bow in a genteel fashion.


    Good, a short monologue. Sneakier trap two go! And the poor bugger was stomped flat by the other forelimb before it could detonate.


    ¡°Really, another trap? Don¡¯t you think they are little pass¨¦ by now? That may be a big word for you, it means ¡®no longer fashionable¡¯,¡± he goaded as he took another step forward into my failed trap rectangle.


    I glanced around, my eyes looking for any means of recovery or escape, my breath growing rapid with fear. At least, that was what I aimed to sell, and given that my customer was eager to buy, hopefully he would not look too closely at the label and observe that what I offered was a cheap knockoff of the real deal. Also, he hopefully would not notice that I had neared the end of another element combo. Time would tell, and the time for telling would be in a few heartbeats. Hopefully, they will not be my last.


    <hr>


    Such insolence! Such arrogance! This upstart whelp must be punished! To think that I, Margrave Conrad, would fall prey to such an obvious series of traps. He is four centuries too young to get the drop on me. And see how he panics now that his traps have failed. He has no allies here to help him, except for perhaps that slip of a troll, but she is currently busy leading a dwarf by the nose. He knows he cannot turn and run, for I would kill him the moment he does. The Emperor likewise knows that he cannot defeat me in a straight fight. His fate is as good as sealed, but just to be certain, a little payback is in order.


    Either through luck or foresight, he never tried to land a decisive blow, and so I never had the opportunity to use [Blood Feud] as intended. However, with [Poikilo Plasma], I had been slowly storing his small hits against me to fuel my retaliation. Not as efficient, and certainly more taxing upon my body, but such strategies are what have been the difference between life and death in that past. I had left [Blood Rush] idling at only a marginal increase to speed of body and thought, for somehow he had been not only matching but exceeding the benefit it provided me. Perhaps a correctly timed burst would surprise him. Only one way to find out.


    Activating [Blood Rush] to full power, I raised my right hand, palm facing the Emperor, and unleashed [Blood Feud]. A beam of raw Blood magic as big around as my palm shot towards him. Impossibly quick, he raised his own arm to block, but it would be too little too late. Predictably, it blew his arm off, but unfortunately, it did not exsanguinate him or otherwise punch a hole into him.


    ¡°Impossible!¡± I roared in protest of yet another counter to my attacks as I rushed in to finish this in melee combat. Down an arm, he would be at a serious disadvantage.


    And as I rushed in, a few details caught my eye. The first was the glint of metal in the hand of the severed arm of the Emperor as it spun through the air away from him. The second was a lack of that dwarf chasing the troll. The third was the glow of the deactivated traps, their mana being used for something even though they could no longer detonate in any violent working of magic. The fourth, and perhaps most concerning discovery, was that my body felt heavy, as if gravity had increased thrice over. That underhanded tactic prevented me from eluding the fifth and sixth discoveries, which included the ground breaking under my feet as I fell into a deep pit with a very large and powerful trap in the process of detonating beneath me. With [Blood Feud] expended, I could not use it again so soon, and with no way out, I plummeted to my doom.


    Though I tried to cling to the walls to escape, I found insufficient purchase as the Emperor landed on top of my back and grappled me. The pair of us descended into the exploding trap, with him no doubt being immune to whatever payload it would unleash.


    ¡°Curse you, foul Emperor!¡±


    Well, at least I got the last word. I would probably not survive this, but surely my children would pay the [Blood Price] to afford my resurrection. For I am Margrave Conrad, and though I would know defeat this day, my legacy would not end with this paltry death. The Emperor may have gotten the drop on me this time, but I would return twice as strong to finish him and claim my rightful place.


    White light. Blinding. And from it, shadow. No, not just shadow, but Shadow, pure and powerful, an unadulterated connection to the Plane of Shadow. And then, the oblivion of The Void as I died my second death of this life. It should only be a minute or two in The Void, regardless of real time, before I revive. And yet, it has been hours, weeks, years. But, but, I am Margrave Conrad! To end¡­ like this?

 Chapter 70

    Events had unfolded far too quickly for comfort for It-Has-Pockets. One second, the dragons were duking it out as normal while the armored dwarf chased her around, the next moment occurred in a blur of rapid movements. The red dragon had fired a beam of some powerful magic at her inamorato. Simultaneously, her inamorato snatched up the dwarf in his left hand and held said dwarf in position to intercept the beam. Were it not for [Tempo Rush], she would not have been able to track their movements at all, and even with it, she could barely make out what had happened.


    Her inamorato¡¯s left arm had been blown off with the dwarf still clutched in its hand, the dwarf¡¯s armor remaining surprisingly intact, but his blood had been drained completely and sucked towards the red dragon. The arm and the dwarf went sailing away into the marsh, and before they even hit the ground, the red dragon had rushed in. It-Has-Pockets had skedaddled out of the way as quickly as her deft legs would allow, and though she tumbled and somersaulted as needed, she still managed to glimpse the red dragon falling into a pit that appeared in the earth. Her inamorato promptly jumped into the hole as well with a flip that left him facing her. Then a blinding white flash followed such acrobatics, which served as a precursor for overwhelming shadow that seemed to suck all the light from the area.


    Two dragons had found themselves in the darkness of the pit, but only one returned after the hungering darkness abated its prowling hunt for more light. Fortunately, said dragon was her inamorato, alive and well, sans the missing arm.


    ¡°Looks like it¡¯s lights out for that guy,¡± he stated mischievously after scrambling out of the pit to stand upright. It-Has-Pockets managed to conceal her groan and eye-rolling at the terrible one-liner, but only barely. ¡°Now where is that [Archer]?¡±


    It-Has-Pockets, suddenly remembering her adversary, crouched down and spun in an evasive flourish, ready to intercept any more arrows heading her way. However, as she spotted the dumb-struck [Archer] who had been gaping at the whole spectacle instead of hiding, she noticed half a dozen kobolds pouncing him and taking him to the ground. Her inamorato, seemingly satisfied that there were no more enemies left, limped over to his severed arm. Sitting down, he picked up the severed limb in his good hand and held it to his lightly bleeding stump.


    ¡°Looks like I get to see how well my Skills work at reattaching limbs,¡± he said to her as he waited patiently for his body to work its magic.


    Feeling that she ought to respond, she shook her head to clear her mind and walked over to him, her dance complete. ¡°Better an arm than a head. I imagine that would be an order of magnitude more difficult.¡±


    ¡°One would think so,¡± he responded as he lowered his head to her, his eyes seemingly pondering some mystery, ¡°But then, many people seem to live full lives without ever using their head, so perhaps there is hope for me if I fail at such regeneration.¡±


    He flashed her a toothy smile, one meant to be friendly, but the sharp teeth still portrayed the threat of annihilation to anyone who would dare cross the dragon. Still, the juxtaposition of the near-death experience with his terrible jokes somehow worked, for It-Has-Pockets found herself giggling as she leaned up against his good arm.


    ¡°Looks like the cavalry''s here,¡± she said as she pointed at the fliers heading their way. Doubtless he could see them with his eyes being a little more on the sides of his head than completely forward facing, but it showed she was paying attention.


    One vessel, looking like a flat-bottomed boat with some strange cylinders on the side of it, descended rapidly and, as it was about to land, disappeared. Wisps of magical particles trailed after the vessel as it was unsummoned, its occupants falling the remaining two feet to the ground and somehow sticking the landing as they slid through the mud. The gnome and goblin she recognized as Bellwright and Alterez respectively, the other two were some random humans she had never met.


    ¡°Boss, you¡¯re alive! What do you want us to do?¡± The goblin jumped up and down excitedly to punctuate his greeting.


    Craning his head towards the new arrivals so he would face them, her inamorato took a more serious tone as he issued orders. ¡°Have the other fliers scout the perimeter for any escaping dragon hunters. They are to be taken dead or alive with no preference. I want all the bodies of the fallen and their equipment collected in one central location. Try to organize them neatly in a grid. Alterez, you begin skinning and butchering the dead dragon in the pit over there. Bellwright, try to morph the terrain for a large patch of solid ground where the bodies can be laid out. If need be, I can also create a makeshift platform if you could get the terrain in order. No looting, and provide medical aid to my allies, especially the kobolds. That is all.¡±


    With orders given, the four newcomers hopped to it. The humans apparently had Skills to relay messages to the other fliers, for said fliers veered off from their landing approach to circle the perimeter. Alterez wasted no time in hopping down into the pit with the dead dragon. How such a little goblin would be able to manage such a large corpse was a mystery to It-Has-Pockets, but where there are Abilities, there is a way.


    Minutes passed in quiet as her inamorato seemingly concentrated on things she could not see. Gradually, others trickled in, including Skull, Nanu, Hopper, and Ribbette, the last two of which seemingly appeared eager to embrace, but shy to engage in public displays of affection. Meanwhile, a second wave of fliers from the vanguard arrived, some barely limping along as they were in dire need of repairs or healing. Likewise, in the distance, the slower fliers carrying the bulk of the relief force were visible. Bellwright had managed to elevate a large section of land about two feet above the waterline, which created a suitable space to deposit loot and set up camp.


    ¡°Great One,¡± shouted a kobold with a colorful headdress of feathers. ¡°Many of my fellow kobolds have fallen in service to you. While they do not lament such an honor, you do not have enough eggs to revive all of them. While we can decide amongst ourselves who shall be granted the blessing of your magnanimous offer of eggs for resurrection, two kobolds of note are at death¡¯s door. Gambino and Bambina¡¯s wounds resist our healer¡¯s attempts at mending, and we humbly call upon your mercy and the bounty of your efforts to heal them.¡±


    It-Has-Pockets turned to look at her inamorato, only to see his face etched with deep concern and dismay. She once again had to catch herself from falling as he transformed into his human form and approached the kobold.


    ¡°Take me to them!¡±


    So he commanded, so the kobold obeyed. He scurried off quickly to the medical tent, with her inamorato and the rest of the gang hot in his remarkably speedy heels. There they found Gambino and Bambina on a cot together, each with a nasty gut wound that went completely through them. Even unconscious, they clung to one another in a romantic and heartfelt embrace.


    Though her inamorato¡¯s left arm hung limp at his side, it didn¡¯t fall off, which was promising in terms of his recovery. Less promising was the recovery of the poor kobolds, who at best had a few anguish-filled hours before they expired. Clearly worried, he took a moment to take a deep breath and clear his mind with his eyes closed before he continued.


    ¡°Here, Boss,¡± offered Alterez as he handed over a rather wicked-looking ceremonial dagger, the kind used at the potluck for ¡®sacrifices¡¯.


    ¡°Thank you, Alterez. It seems that you are well aware of what is to happen, considering you have gone through it, too.¡±


    And with that, her inamorato cut a small gash on his left forearm, just enough for a drop of blood to form on the tip of the blade. It-Has-Pockets curiously leaned around him to get a better view as she watched him then touch the tip of the blade to the blue tongue of Gambino, forcing the blood into the kobold¡¯s mouth. He repeated the process for Bambina, and upon finishing, handed the knife back to Alterez, who looked a little too eager to have the knife in his possession. Then her inamorato staggered, almost falling until Skull caught him.


    Stolen story; please report.


    ¡°Easy there, Master,¡± cooed Skull as she held him close. ¡°Two at once may be quite the strain upon you. Rest now, and let the healing take place.¡±


    A strange sense of jealousy jolted through It-Has-Pockets. Clearly, they each knew of something deep and intimate that would soon transpire. Likewise, It-Has-Pockets wanted to both be the one scooping up her inamorato and the one being scooped up by Skull. To be so excluded from the whole affair left her feeling a tad abandoned. It vexed her more than anything that she felt that way at all, for she was the one who had spent her youth making others pine for her affection. Now that the tables were turned, she was forced to admit to herself that doing so to other people was pretty shitty behavior.


    Skull gently set him down on an empty cot next to the kobolds. Kneeling at his head, she tenderly ran her fingers through his hair while massaging his head and whispering sweet-nothings to him. Nanu pulled a bowl of water from dimensional storage and began gently washing away the blood on his now-healed wound on his forearm. Alterez scampered off, probably remembering he still had a dragon to butcher, the knife tucked away almost as a precious keepsake as he kept one hand upon the hilt at all times while he dashed out of the tent. Not wanting to feel left out, It-Has-Pockets kneeled at his feet, removed his boots, and began to massage his feet.


    In short order, her inamorato had fallen asleep while surrounded by three beautiful women who all loved him and, to a lesser extent, each other. And as she comforted him, she wondered if perhaps this life were not so bad. Caught up in her imagination, she entertained one fantasy after another of their lives together as she made plans for the future.


    <hr>


    Gambino awoke in a strange stone room, one filled with light despite no apparent source. Unadorned, the only features of note were a pair of doors that presumably led out of the room. Fortunately, Bambina remained in his arms, and though she mumbled something about ¡°five more minutes¡±, she soon startled herself awake as she tossed around in his arms.


    ¡°Where are we?¡± she asked groggily as she rubbed at her eyes with her tongue.


    ¡°Your guess is as good as mine, toots.¡± he answered as he rose to his feet and helped her up. ¡°However, as long as you are by my side, I know we can do anything.¡± Bambina beamed her best smile at him as she hugged him close and pecked him on the cheek with her tongue. ¡°Let¡¯s say we¡¯s go and check it out, ya?¡±


    She nodded in approval, and together, they reached up on their tippy toes to grab the handle and yanked it rhythmically to pry the door ajar. Once pried open, Gambino stepped towards the crack between the doors and pushed it open enough for the pair of them to slip through.


    Both with eyes peeled and mouths agape, they found themselves in a grand hall, one ornately decorated with murals of painted stone depicting dragons performing various deeds. Great statues, at least twice the size of a normal human, depicted what they guessed to be the humanoid forms of dragons standing next to their draconic forms, which were also statues. Hundreds of them filled the hall, which only progressed straight ahead, with statues arrayed evenly on each side and likewise spaced apart as if placed in a grid.


    ¡°How did you two get here?¡±


    Bambina leapt into Gambino¡¯s arms in the style of a princess carry, which was exactly how they had practiced being startled by sudden announcements. Pride and approval flowed through him that his love stuck to her training when spooked.


    ¡°You know what, nevermind. Stay there, I will figure it out for myself.¡±


    A low rumbling sound filled the hall, one that steadily grew louder as if approaching. Gambino looked into the distance to see something round rolling towards them. With no way out and not wanting to appear rude, the pair of kobolds patiently waited for whoever spoke to approach. Within a few seconds, it became clear that some kind of egg was rolling towards them. However, with every blink of his eyes, the pattern on the shell changed, which spoke of some disturbing shenaniganry from Skills. The egg arrived far quicker than expected, almost as if the distance had been magically shortened instead of the egg rolling faster. It uprighted itself, and upon inspection, one could clearly see that it was a dragon egg. Stubby legs poked their way out of the bottom, wings and tail out the back, and two holes appeared where gold glowing orbs for eyes gazed out at them.


    ¡°Hmm, yes, I see.¡± It spoke in a neutral yet critical voice, like a farmer at the market looking over a draft horse that he considered purchasing. ¡°That makes sense, you are with the Outlier. He is doing weird stuff that isn¡¯t in my handbook. I would normally ask my supervisor for help, but he hasn¡¯t been here for,¡± it paused as if calculating something, ¡°over 500 million years, give or take. I am starting to suspect he is not going to be coming back with the coffee like he promised.¡±


    It paused, looking at them expectantly, while the Kobolds just shared a look of bewilderment between them. Eventually, it continued talking. ¡°Anywho, let me review your master¡¯s track record and figure out what you are here for.¡± Its eyes disappeared from view while the egg shook, its voice sounding farther inside the egg as it grumbled and muttered something about ¡°stupid clipboard¡± in its struggles to do¡­ something.


    ¡°Aha! Here we go. Ahem.¡± Its eyes returned to view as they looked downward and quickly moved side to side as if reading. ¡°Yes, I see. You are here for your Dual Blessings. Have anything in mind?¡± Gambino and Bambina looked at each other in confusion for a moment before they both tried to somehow answer, only to be cut off. ¡°Of course not, you wouldn¡¯t know that is what you are here for. Kobolds are not even supposed to be in here, as this area is for [Dragon Emperors] only. Well, there isn¡¯t so much a rule as it is normally impossible for anyone else to get here. This is shaping up to be a red letter day.¡±


    And on and on the chatterbox in the egg rambled, casually mentioning things profound and mysterious about the workings of the universe, dragons, kobolds, how dragons and kobolds came to their symbiotic relationship, how kobolds could ascend to draconic forms, and so on. All of it was said in passing in a matter-of-fact manner, the speaker completely oblivious as to how he glossed over the very thing all kobolds dreamed of; how to become a dragon.


    ¡°It seems you two are a pair in more ways than one, so your Dual Blessings should match. Technically,¡± he stressed the word as he paused briefly, ¡°I am authorized to distribute those to you since you qualify. Hmm, let me think up what ones you should have.


    Its appendages withdrew into the egg, with all the holes in the egg repairing themselves seamlessly and instantly. The shell flashed through colors and patterns several times a second, with the egg itself shaking sometimes. The pair of kobolds leaned in to hear it, only to catch a few snippets of it muttering to itself in different tones of voice, giggling, growling, and perhaps a snort. After five minutes, it popped back out again as before.


    ¡°I got it!¡± it exclaimed triumphantly as it slowly danced in a circle. ¡°You!¡± he seemed to point at Gambino, despite no arms as of yet poking through the shell. ¡°[Used Wagon Salesman].¡± It paused for a moment as if it clearly expected something to happen. ¡°What¡¯s going on here? Oh, that Gubberloodoo has that one locked. Hmm. Okay then. That was going to be a really powerful one, I guess we need to go to the bargain bin. How about [Twin-Souled Draconic Scions]? It hasn¡¯t been used in thousands of years, but it is still on the books.¡±


    Its eyes shifted back and forth between the kobolds expectantly, and he leaned in as he waited for a response. Gambino looked at Bambina, who nodded to him, the gleam in her eye saying that she would follow him anywhere.


    ¡°We accept,¡± responded Gambino with more confidence in his voice than he felt, given the bizarre situation.


    ¡°Excellent! I¡¯ll process that request here directly,¡± he said as a strange scratching sound like pen scrawling across paper could be heard from within the egg. ¡°Likewise, while I would love to have you stay and chat, you two chatterboxes have to leave since your souls were not designed to linger here. Tell your master to come by here soon and to bring coffee. Okay, bye, toodles.¡±


    Gambino tried to reach out to the egg, to beg for more time so that all the questions both he and the kobold people had could be answered, but before he could even move, he found himself floating in The Void with Bambina. Almost instantly, a light appeared, with a tether going from them to the light. Nearby, The Boys could be seen with their own tether, and they were curled up, their body asleep and weary after their fight. Then the tether yanked the pair of kobolds in, and they found themselves awake and in a tent. Many pairs of expectant eyes stared down upon them, but even without looking, he could feel Bambina in his embrace. All would be well, for she remained with him, now more than ever. Though his new Blessing was in its infancy, he could feel his bond to her, and to a lesser extent, his bond to his Master, who had saved their lives, who had earned their service more than he could know.

 Chapter 71

    Alterez glanced around nervously as he hurried back to the dragon he had been butchering. At every shadow, he saw danger, and every glance his way promised that the observer knew and coveted what he had. Despite night having set in, his brow remained soaked in sweat as he scrambled over to the pit and hopped down to where he would not be disturbed. Just to be safe, he crawled into the corpse of the dragon where he would have the room and privacy to relocate his treasure.


    Quietly and with utmost care, Alterez unhooked the sheath that held that dagger that The Bossman had used earlier in a ritual to save the lives of Gambino and Bambina. They, like him, were truly initiated through their baptism by blood from the [Dragon Emperor]. Even luckier, The Bossman had casually accepted Alterez¡¯s very own ritual blade, one that had been used countless times in the super secret cult. This was no private potluck club dagger, no, this was specially made for the hidden cult to The Bossman himself. Now the blade would be properly sanctified with His favor. Future rituals would have weight and credence to them, and through that, Alterez was one step closer to completing his task.


    He tucked the blade and scabbard into his shirt, keeping its profile well hidden by the leather armor he wore and well secured by special straps under his clothes. This would need to remain secure until he could relocate it to his hidden altar. With this holy relic, his true cult would grow quicker than ever.


    As the hours passed while he butchered the dragon, his hammering heart calmed down to a dull roar as he continued his bloody work. The corpses of dragons yielded many treasures that were highly sought after, perhaps now more than ever with an existential war on the horizon. Every now and then he would climb to the top to deposit some meat or hide for The Bossman to collect into his dimensional storage. This would be the final trip, for the bones had been stripped clean. Not that the bones would go to waste, for the bones were the true prize here and could be used for any number of lucrative ventures.


    Climbing out of the pit by virtue of a ladder that someone had provided after his dozenth or so trip, he took in the state of the camp that had sprung up in the swamp. The Bossman walked down the rows of corpses of dragon hunters, lifting them into the opening to his pocket dimension. The bodies would fall through completely naked while all their personal effects would go into storage - a cool trick that certainly flirted with the limits of what Echludoro, the Light god of Time and Space, would permit. Most likely it had to do something with the owner of the pocket dimension manually putting things into the pocket dimension instead of some sort of assembly line doing the heavy lifting for him.


    Oddly, following behind The Bossman was Ribbette, escorted by Hopper. She had a leather sack with her, one that appeared a bit bloody around the stitching. With fascination and horror, he realized she only stopped at the corpses of males, and she used the knife in her hand to cut something away from them, which quickly went into the sack. Dismayed at her barbarity, Alterez scrambled to find a jar and pickling agents before someone snatched up all the eyeballs.


    <hr>


    Gambino finally found a moment for a [Costume Change] after playing twenty questions following his revival. He had work to do to keep the kobolds in line, and proper clothes were important to the image of a leader. He summoned up the [Armoire of Inviolability], which kept all the costumes and stage props of his troupe. It was a welcome upgrade to the old foot locker as it held more stuff and did not need to physically exist in the material plane at all times.


    He exchanged out his explorer outfit for that of the boss. His favorite black and white pinstriped suit, another new addition, along with the matching fedora and wingtip shoes, would ensure everyone followed his commands.


    Bambina, lovely as ever, changed into a simple yet captivating black dress. With her on his arm, he made his way over to the tent where the other kobolds were gathered. Two kept guard at the front, more to keep out busybodies than enemies. Inside, Montezuma, still wearing his feather headdress and loincloth, along with two other no-name kobolds, stood guard over their prisoner.


    ¡°Favored Ones, you grace us with your presence,¡± he greeted in Kobold as he bowed to them. ¡°The prisoner is available for your judgment.¡±


    The prisoner, a male elf, and based on the weapons he had used, some sort of [Archer], had been stripped naked and staked to the ground, his mouth gagged and his eyes blindfolded. The two no-name kobolds never took their eyes off him, not even to pay attention to the conversation. The prisoner trembled in trepidation, the uncertainty of his fate weighing upon his mind.


    ¡°This one tried to kill The Master. Only by The Master¡¯s magnanimous mercy does he live. However, such an insult cannot go unpunished.¡± Gambino paused to pull out a fake cigar and ¡°light¡± it with a bit of [Prestidigitation]. He puffed at it, with illusory smoke wafting up into the tent, as he savored the moment before he continued. ¡°Break both his legs and have him nursed back to health. Don¡¯t use any healing magic, potions, or any of that nonsense. Let him recover naturally. Rehabilitate him so that he learns to walk again. Once he has made a full recovery, break both his legs again and seal him alive in a hole in a wall somewhere. His fate should serve as a lesson to what happens to those who cross the Master. Also, it will make a great story for one of our plays. Capeesh?¡±


    ¡°It will be as you say, Favored One,¡± Montezuma replied with another bow before he left the tent to attend to that task.


    Fully confident that it would be done professionally and quietly, Gambino left the tent with Bambina still on his arm. No one in the tent, sans the prisoner, would have objected to any form of punishment or clemency delivered to the prisoner. Such morality simply was not in their nature, for their actions reflected the desires of The Master. And since The Master had not given any explicit orders concerning the prisoner, it fell to Gambino, leader of the troupe, to make the decision.


    As he walked over to where The Master processed the last remnants of the bodies, he caught a view of Alterez going down the line with a jar almost as big as himself. A good number of eyeballs could be seen in the jar, and Gambino licked his lips in anticipation of them being snacks at the super secret cult meeting later. Such delicacies were too good for the riff-raff of the normal cult meetings or even the secret meetings. Fried fingers could be fine for the normal meetings though, so perhaps he would suggest it to the Alterez if the goblin did not make a second pass at the corpses.


    ¡°Ah, Gambino, you are looking sharp in that suit,¡± called The Master as he picked up another body and dropped it into his pocket dimension, only for the corpse to fall through. Nanu remained at his side, her eyes ever vigilant for threats. ¡°And you, Bambina, are simply radiant in that dress,¡± he continued as he moved on to the next body.


    Gambino stole a glance at Bambina, who blushed at the praise and flicked her tongue down onto her bottom lip. Who could blame her, for The Master was handsome and everything a kobold aspired to be. Alas, he either remained oblivious to their advances towards him or politely ignored them so as to keep relationships platonic.


    ¡°You are too kind, Master,¡± Gambino responded with a bow as he removed his hat. ¡°Of the 52 kobolds that left camp with you, 28 have perished. You have only 14 remaining eggs through which we may revive them, so 14 of them will remain under the effects of [Funeral Dirge] until such time as you have more eggs or our [Bards] collapse from fatigue. If kept on rotation, they could probably keep it up for two or three weeks, which also hinges on what recruits we get to the troupe. All of this assumes you will be gracious enough to donate any eggs to the troupe,¡± Gambino finished as he bowed once more in subservience.


    The Master ceased his work and turned to the pair of them. Nervous as to how The Master may respond, Gambino¡¯s mind almost did not register that he found himself and Bambina scooped up into The Master¡¯s warm embrace.


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    ¡°Of course you can use all the eggs I have. You and your troupe risked your lives for my protection, and many of you perished to preserve my life. As you serve me, so too do I serve all of you. Any failure to do my best to provide for you would be an egregious transgression against our pact. You two in particular are precious to me,¡± he whispered as he punctuated his words with a fond squeeze. ¡°Take care of yourselves and see to it your troupe lives as comfortable of lives as kobolds can. I hope the two of you stick around for as long as I live, so don¡¯t throw your lives away carelessly.¡±


    As they lingered in the sanctity and comfort of his embrace, the pair of kobolds could feel their love for their Master bloom beyond what they once thought possible. Through their bond to one another, they could tell that they both felt the same way, and that they perhaps were a little in love with him as well. Likewise, through their bond to him, they could feel his affection for them radiating towards them like the light of the sun kissing their scales on a beautiful summer morning. If only the moment could last forever, the pair of them would know true bliss.


    Sadly, the hug came to an end, and with gentle care, The Master set them down upon the ground. The pair of them were blushing shamelessly, each fighting to control their emotions lest their lust run rampant. Soon, they too would ascend and become like him, if their Blessing followed what the name suggested.


    ¡°Nanu, feel free to say no if you don¡¯t want to, but do you have any eggs to spare?¡±


    Surprised by being put on the spot, the Princess quickly schooled herself, with only a slight raising of the eyebrow giving away her consternation.


    ¡°I had intended to use them for whelps, but I suppose that whelps can always be made later. The dead kobolds cannot remain dead for too long, and so I will spare the remaining 14.¡±


    She spoke the words The Master wanted to hear like an employee to her boss when turned down for promotion but still attempting to keep things civil. While The Master may not have as much experience with how tight-fisted dragons can be with their eggs, Gambino knew all too well that what donation of eggs was pressed upon her clashed with her instincts. He made a mental note to have the troupe do something nice for her later as payment for her practically extorted generosity.


    ¡°You are more virtuous than the saints,¡± The Master said to her as he pulled her in for a hug and kiss on the cheek. That did cheer her up somewhat, so his flattery had not been in vain. ¡°Make sure you two get something to eat, it is going to be a long night,¡± The Master stated as he turned back to the pair of them.


    ¡°Gratitude, Master,¡± Gambino replied with a bow. ¡°I will see to it that my troupe gets fed and that our dead are properly tended to until we can return to the camp and revive them with your generously donated eggs. And yours too, Princess Nanu,¡± he finished as he bowed to her as well.


    Quickly turning tail, he walked away with Bambina ever by his side. There would be a great deal of work ahead of them to transport all the bodies of their troupe come morning, and so the pair of them set to work. As they say, the show must go on.


    <hr>


    ¡°Your countenance suggests that you would give voice to matters of import, Nanu. Unburden yourself by enlightening me as to your thoughts, that we may dispel any disharmony plaguing your mind.¡±


    Overly flowery speech, a clear sign that her Emperor suspected he was the center of her vexations. Though he continued to process the bodies for their loot, he paid close attention to her, most likely through sensory Skills. They were alone now, save for Skull, who loomed in his shadow, but just to be safe, she placed a ward for privacy around them.


    ¡°I am upset because you forced my hand to donate my eggs, and I am upset at myself that I am not so free with my eggs as you are. The kobolds gave their lives to defend us, yet I am so loath to surrender that which is mine. I don¡¯t know if even a rebirth can fix this defect of my character.¡±


    He paused for a moment, his labor arrested by contemplation. Nanu knew he did not want to hurt her feelings, which was sweet and endearing, but also a little annoying. Sometimes, an Emperor needs to be decisive, able to make impartial decisions for the benefit of the flight.


    ¡°Would you have preferred that I let you offer them yourself? You were like a child standing by the stream, eager to jump in and splash around, yet hesitant of how cold the water would initially feel on the body. I just gave you a push. I have asked nothing of you that I likewise did not do. Tell me then, what would you have done to make the situation better?¡±


    An improvement. He justified himself without getting defensive, stating his position without being domineering, yet laid the burden of improvement at her feet. Acceptable diplomacy, without a doubt.


    ¡°Only inconsequential semantics could have improved the situation, for you held no contempt and set me up to appear magnanimous to the kobolds, which would endear them to me. I accept that my attitude is petulant. Perhaps¡­ Perhaps having everything taken away from me has scarred me deeper than I believed, such that I am not as generous with my resources.


    He stopped his work completely, standing upright as he stepped forward to embrace her. Secure in the castle of his arms, she lowered her guard and relaxed, the tension leaving her shoulders as she held him close in return. After years of captivity and relative isolation, her hunger for intimacy and physical contact had not yet been fully sated, and such a gesture of compassion intoxicated her passions with blissful yearning of his continued acceptance. Even though she knew that half of that at least stemmed from his Skills and their bond, with him being her Emperor, she still craved him.


    ¡°No one expects you to heal so soon. And if you never fully heal, we will still be here for you, to love and support you,¡± he whispered in her ear as he squeezed her closer. ¡°You are not a burden, and I am grateful for all that you do and proud of your accomplishments. I am excited to see what more you can do, how much more you can grow into the best version of yourself, and if you continue to allow me to be there by your side to help you face your trials and tribulations, I would consider myself blessed. Every moment with you is a treasure, I only hope that I, one so undeserving, can somehow continue to be deemed worthy of your companionship and council.¡±


    Oh, that was dirty! Hitting below the belt! How he so smoothly struck at her draconic pride, praising her based on merit, she was helpless to resist as his heartfelt words seduced her and forged chains that bound her fate to his. The inherent loyalty and affection of a subordinate dragon to a parent be damned, her feelings for him were genuine! And as if his words and gestures of affection had pierced deep into the sanctity of her innermost thoughts, Nanu did something she had not done in a long time.


    She cried. Ugly cried.


    And he held her in his arms, soothing her with kind words and gentle backrubs, with nothing else competing for his attention except for her needs. There were no snide remarks, no jabs at her weakness, nor veiled insults at her vulnerability, none of the hallmarks of her old flight. Here, she could be just Nanu when she wanted to, instead of Princess Nanu, [Archivist of Secrets]. And when she finished, she pulled away from him, not in shame or embarrassment, but with remorse that work still needed to be done. She cleaned her face and dried her tears before addressing him once more.


    ¡°Also, use the bones of that dragon over there as a gift to The Bone Wardens, for they hate The Blood Keepers and absolutely love high quality bones. You will make friends quickly with such an offering. Don¡¯t spend any Experience Points until after you go to that place that Gambino told you about, and take coffee with you; it sounded important. Emperors don¡¯t talk about that place or what goes on there, but surely, it is where you will officially forge your flight. After you do that, you can build your first two children, and I will guide you through it should you desire my help. Additionally¡­¡±


    On and on she went, rattling off one thing or another that required his attention, and he listened earnestly without complaint, with all evidence suggesting that he took her words to heart and appreciated her continued advice. The more she spoke, and the more he listened, the more Nanu felt useful, needed. And she needed to be needed. He stared at her with a silly grin on his face and responded when prudent, yet his attention for her never waned, not like her last Emperor, who could rarely be bothered to listen to her beyond any official report she gave him.


    ¡°What?¡± she asked as she paused from her lecture of their itinerary.


    ¡°You are just so beautiful, inside and out. You radiate positivity and conviction, and I just love to see you in your element where you can thrive.¡±


    Nanu blushed. He so effortlessly spoke his true feelings and knew exactly how to get her all hot and bothered. Whether or not that was his intent remained a mystery, but Nanu prayed for restraint lest she pounce on him right here and now. Later tonight, they would forge a passionate memory for the ages. Truly, she had found where she belonged, making all those lost years worth every second.

 Chapter 72

    Nanu was quite the cuddlebug that night. Apparently, showing just the basic level of dignity, respect, and affection can have that effect on a person. That was of course after she voraciously indulged her passions of the flesh with me. Skull likewise had an extra twinkle in her eye that suggested she liked something that I said or did. We would not have normally slept that night, but it turns out that fighting for your life can tucker you out enough that you need four hours of sleep. It-Has-Pockets slept like the dead in her own tent, and I am pretty sure she had passed out before her head even hit the pillow.


    By morning, the bodies of the dead were taken care of. Basically, all the ¡°greenskin¡± races have no problems eating other humanoids, although at least in civilized society, they don¡¯t go out of their way to increase supply by bumping people off. I have no real qualms with them eating the dead, however, the bones were not part of the food and were kept immaculate as gifts for The Bone Wardens. With everything packed up, we headed back to the main camp.


    Chooka swarmed me as soon as I got there, a torrent of questions, slaps, hugs, kisses, and curses coming from her faster than street urchins will run off with your purse. She clung to me like a remora as I walked over to the pond for The Boys and summoned them back, for the mana drain on keeping them in The Void had increased over time and had become quite the burden. I had waited until now because I wanted them to be safe and comfortable within the walls of camp, for they were closer to death than I felt comfortable with.


    Then the gang and I went to debriefings where we were both complimented and chewed out about the events of the previous day. Even my [Social] Skill, [Gag Order], would have been as useful as bee farts before a hurricane at stopping the rumor mill from churning out tales of what happened, so I put Gambino on the case to control the narrative. His troupe gladly set about creating a new play to immortalize the battle, so I expected that I would see their performance before too long.


    With all my pressing business taken care of, I retreated to my house, where Skull and Nanu stood vigil as I meditated, retreating into my mind as I held a cup of coffee in my hand. Well, it looks, tastes, smells, and otherwise has the same properties of coffee, but they grow on short trees, just like potatoes, so I suspected some powerful [Farmer] genetically engineered the plants to be easier to grow and harvest. Either way, I had in my possession the proper token for the ¡°egg-dragon-person¡± that Gambino whispered about into my ear while under the most stringent of privacy barriers.


    I soon found myself in my inner world. I could not definitely say when or how I got there, as if I had zoned out and stopped paying attention to anything and everything, only to find myself there. The scenery had rearranged itself to a degree. The ten statues of my supposed companions were arrayed around a tiered dais, kinda like a wedding cake I suppose, but larger in diameter and perhaps only three inches high between layers. One layer down from them were what I assumed to be my Kings and Princes, for Nanu was the only one among them that was not a silhouette.


    I examined my companions more closely. The most noticeable change was how the kobolds were no longer silhouettes. Instead, Gambino and Bambina were clearly visible, the pair of them frozen as if captured in the middle of a dance. Likewise, the elven female shifted between more than two people, but the exact number remained elusive. Perhaps it was my choice through Fate, or perhaps Destiny had yet to decide for me.


    Considering that this only happened after sharing my blood with people, and all the people I had done it with were here, I deduced the means to bind them to me and me to them quite easily. However, my instincts told me not to use it willy-nilly or to force it, that the moment would come when my blood would spare them from death. Considering that one mistake separated them from actual death, trepidation at the future flooded through me for a moment as I considered what circumstances would lead me to binding with Chooka.


    My Skill webs were also visible all across the floor around the dais. [Age], [Hoard], [Survival], [Social], [Deeds], [Harvesting], and [Flight Management] were my current webs, each with their own Skills. They appeared like constellations, with lines showing the connections between nodes that had Skills within them. And, like errant stars floating in their midst, Abilities that I had learned through practice and tutelage also appeared amongst them, with vague and translucent lines connecting them to the web, although they dithered and shifted where they would connect. This led me to believe that perhaps every Ability ever could be found in my webs if I found out how to unlock them as Skills.


    All around me, outside this courtyard of sorts, the cityscape shifted, never when I was looking at it, but behind my back as I turned away. Buildings would change from the most primitive of huts to the most advanced megastructures of the distant future, and everywhere in between. The statues of presumed past versions of me lined the exterior, forming a barrier between this island of stability and the chaos of the outside.


    All of this was but a pitstop to my true destination. I carefully navigated my way up the dais, mindful not to bump into any statues, so that I could get to the doorway on the top level. Two wooden doors, simple of concept yet masterwork of execution, were closed within the doorframe that stood at the top. The doors had not been here in any of my past visits, so perhaps I had just recently unlocked the means to see them.


    The knockers of the door were in the mouths of golden dragons. The doors themselves were sized for me, and without much further ado, I grabbed ahold of the knockers and pushed the doors open. Inside was a simple stone room, with another set of doors, the whole thing matching what Gambino had described. I likewise opened that door and found myself in a hallway filled with statues of past [Emperors], for I knew within the core of my being that is who they were, even if I did not know their names specifically.


    ¡°Ah, the Outlier has chosen to visit. Finally! Now, where is my coffee?¡±


    I was already facing forward, and though it started from a great distance, an egg quickly rolled up to me, just like the manner in which it had been described, as if the distance between us had been made artificially shorter. Likewise, the egg flickered through patterns and colors frequently. I offered the egg the cup of coffee that I had been holding in my hand in the real world as the egg¡¯s various appendages burst through the egg¡¯s exterior, sans the arms. Instead, translucent yet corporeal hands were conjured by the egg to accept the cup offered to them.


    Using the opening of its left eye hole, it poured the coffee into it. A satisfied smacking sound of tongue upon lips sounded from within as it eagerly guzzled down the coffee. A bellowing belch followed promptly upon the vessel being drained of its ambrosia.


    ¡°Ah, that hits the spot! You must be here to establish your flight. I hope you thought of a name for it. Also, you can¡¯t take any of the names already used here, them¡¯s the rules. Come along then, let me show you to your statue.¡±


    The egg half rolled, half waddled its way to turn around, and then the occupant waddled forward on his stubby legs. As I took a step to follow, the distance quickly diminished as a slight feeling of vertigo introduced itself to my senses. However, in only three steps, I had made it to the end of the hall, or at least, where the statues ended. Of the final eight statues, all but one, which was mine, were rectangular blocks.


    ¡°You are not allowed to see them because they are still alive,¡± the egg-person answered before I could even ask my question. ¡°And I won¡¯t give you my name, as there is no one else to talk to here and you won¡¯t ever be talking about me outside of this place, ya hear? No, I¡¯m not reading your mind, but I have literally done this a thousand times before and you all ask the same things.¡±


    The egg-person turned to me, seemingly standing straighter as he rattled off his next speech in a slightly droning monotone as if reading from a script.


    ¡°Welcome, Emperor, to this place, name redacted. This is your statue, and with it, you will establish your flight. There exists a large list of Perks to choose for your flight, where you gain something presumably advantageous and lose something presumably worthy of sacrifice. There is no limit for how many Perks you can take, and while some are custom-made for you based on your personality and achievements to date, the bulk of them are available to all Emperors. Your Perks adjust how the Template for your flight will work, and based on what you do to it, you can unlock Bonuses, which are free benefits.


    ¡°You have an infinite amount of time to make your choice, for while you are here, time stops in the real world. You can freely see all Perks and Bonuses, and you can play around with them as you choose until you find the combination you want. You will likewise be able to preview how your choices would impact your Skill webs.


    ¡°When you finalize your choices, a Capstone will be generated for you, which will give a powerful boon to your flight. You cannot view your capstone before finalizing your choice. Regardless of what you choose, you may not discuss the choices you did not take with anyone else, even other Emperors. These rules are enforced by the gods; may they smite you down if you break them. Good luck, new Emperor, and may your flight reign forever.


    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    His speech apparently over, he continued to talk in a more personable tone.


    ¡°With that over, feel free to take your time making your choice. I have literally nothing better to do and will be here to answer any questions you may have, provided the answers are not forbidden. I don¡¯t mean questions like, ¡®What is beauty?¡¯, but questions pertaining to establishing your flight. Any questions?¡±


    ¡°Not at this time. I guess I just touch the statue where there is an outline of my hand to start.¡±


    ¡°Yep. Also, you can look at the statues of dead Emperors. It shows their name, the name of their flight, how long they lived, what Perks and Bonuses they had, who killed them, and it gives a brief overview of the circumstances surrounding their deaths. Maybe use it for inspiration or as a warning for what constitutes poor decision-making.¡±


    Curious, I walked back a few steps to look at the statue of Mehczeczi of The Secret Stalkers, who was the Emperor of Nanu¡¯s previous flight. He had a laundry list of Perks and Bonuses themed around Kings and Princes, to the detriment of pretty much everything else. No wonder Nanu felt weaker now, because with his death, she was stripped of those boons. Looking at his death, his killer was ¡®Mehczeczi¡¯, and the circumstances around his death was, ¡®Failed apotheosis that triggered a large explosion of primal magic within his demiplane, killing everything inside.¡¯. Okay, so that was one mystery solved, I made a note to tell Nanu about it, since the egg-person did not list that as forbidden knowledge.


    Continuing my streak of curiosity, I went down the line and looked at every single Emperor since the dawn of time. I had infinite time at my disposal, and it only took an estimated 5 hours. Some made wild choices that, on paper, should not have done well, yet they lived for centuries, if not thousands of years. Others seemingly made sound choices, yet died within years, or for one poor bastard, just 8 days, since the statue reflects the age of the flight, not the age of the Emperor. I did notice certain trends though. Anyone who made it past the 150 year mark tended to live for at least 500 years, for there were very few deaths in between those numbers. The flights near the beginning of time lived longer, often thousands of years, with those in recent years living 4 or 5 centuries on average.


    With that knowledge stored away, I began experimenting with the mechanics of making a flight. In tabular data, I could see the base layout of a flight, as well as a twin to that data which reflected my tentative choices. Past me could not talk about things in detail, but present me is a demigod and thus I have permission to talk about things to you, my dear readers.


    I could write whole books on the mechanics of flight building based on what I saw, and indeed I experimented with hundreds of combinations before I found one that spoke to me, that I knew felt right for me, which I will outline for you.


    There are a few mechanics to understand. Flight Power is a number that reflects the total individual power of the peerage of my flight. Ergo, not whelps, drakes, or wyverns, but everyone else, sans the Emperor. The Power of a dragon involves how many Traits I can put into a baby dragon, with different Traits having different costs. Ergo, more Power means stronger dragons. Every rank of peerage has its own baseline level of power, which could be increased by a global Flight Power Multiplier, or rarely, specific multipliers to that rank. Likewise, the non-peerage dragons have Power as well, although I guess their Power doesn¡¯t count for the most part when considering Bonuses.


    The Perks I chose were as follows:


    [Elites - Flight roster has reduced numbers. Barons have been removed. Flight Power Multiplier increased by 100%. Benefits of Baron Traits available for all ranks of Peerage.]


    [Elites II - Viscounts have been removed. Flight Power Multiplier increased by 50% (Total of 150%). Benefits of Viscount Traits available for all ranks of Peerage.]


    [Open Borders I, II, III, IV - Your flight has (75%, 50%, 25%, 0%) wyverns. Whelps increased by (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%). Whelp Production Rate increased by (20%, 40%, 60%, 80%). Whelp Power increased by (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%).]


    [Tithe of Whelps - Your progeny have half as many Drakes. Your whelps are doubled. Your Whelp Production Rate is doubled. Your Whelp Power is doubled.]


    [Tithe of Whelps II - Half of the whelps of your progeny are your whelps. They gain the same bonuses as your whelps and you control them. However, your progeny still create them.]


    [Burden of the Masses - Your Viscounts and Barons no longer have Drakes. Your Whelp Power is doubled.]


    [Dragonkin - You have no drakes. You may choose to produce Dragonkin via coupling with humanoids. You can have as many of these half-dragon offspring as you desire, but they have no inherent loyalty to you.]


    Some of you may notice a theme here. Since I have no Barons or Viscounts in my flight, there is no real penalty to them having no Drakes. Likewise, I doubled down on making whelps. That was because of the bonuses I got, which are as follows:


    [Power Overwhelping - (Requirements: 20:1 or higher ratio of Whelps to Peerage) - Your flight is mostly made of whelps. Legends say that if you look hard enough, you may spot an actual dragon among them. Whelp Power doubled.]


    [Hoard of Whelps - (Requirements: Personal Effective Whelp Count >= 4000) - You have so many whelps! Some say too many. Your total whelps is rounded up to the nearest thousand. Your Whelp power is increased by 25%.)]


    [The Few, The Proud, the Critically Endangered - (Requirements: Flight Peerage <= 500) - Your flight has very few members of Peerage. You are one disaster away from extinction. Have a boost to help keep you alive. Flight Power Multiplier increased by 25%.]


    [Honor Guard - (Requirements: Flight has no Wyverns) - You kinda need to have wyverns to protect your hoard. You somehow managed to have 0. Have a dozen Imperial Whelps as a consolation prize. They have double Power. Additionally, Flight Power Level increased by 25%.]


    [Four Heavenly Kings - (Requirements: King Power Level >= 50,000) You Kings are quite powerful. Let''s make them even more powerful! King Power Level increased by 25%.]


    [My Kingdom for a Drake, Lesser - (Requirements: Drakes <= 500) Your flight has very few drakes, but not 0. Here is a little boost to help you out. Flight Power Level increased by 20%.]


    [Many Whelps, Handle With Care - (Requirements: Personal Whelp Production >= 5.00) - You have made great sacrifices to produce many whelps. They better be powerful to make up for it. Personal Whelp Power Increased by 25%]


    [Flight Power Benchmark IV - (Requirements: Flight Power Level >= 400,000) You have a decently strong flight. A bonus for your flight has been automatically determined based on your choices. Whelp Power increased by 40%. Whelp Production increased by 40%.]


    The cool thing was that bonuses could trigger other bonuses, which is how I got [Flight Power Benchmark IV]. It only took me like 30 minutes of playing around to figure that out for myself when the math did not add up. Finally, I ended up with this capstone after I confirmed my Perks.


    [Capstone - You have 5,000 whelps and 12 Imperial Whelps. You managed to get your Personal Whelp Power Multiplier over 50.00. Your Whelp Production is over 5.00. Your flight has no wyverns and barely any drakes. Clearly, you have a goal in mind that involves whelps playing a central role to its fulfillment. You even elected to be able to spawn dragonkin and reduced your Peerage to dangerously low levels. Evidently, you are not a True Dragon-supremacist. A few boons have been granted to your whelps. Whelps under your control gain practical immortality. Should they perish, they will respawn in your hatchery after 24 hours. Your whelps are extra adorable; people will appreciate, protect, and respect your whelps far more than normal. Your whelps can summon your Imperial Whelps, and your Imperial Whelps can serve as conduits for your Abilities.]


    Okay, that is well and good, but read that part carefully. ¡°...your Imperial Whelps can serve as conduits for your Abilities.¡± That single part brought the most power to the table. Whelps serve as mobile eyes, ears, and noses for dragons. Whatever they know, I know. The fact that I could send my Imperial Whelps wherever I wanted AND I could use any of my Abilities through them felt overwhelmingly powerful. My only concern was that no other flight on record had even dabbled into whelps, much less went all in like I had. Either I had stumbled across something powerful beyond understanding or I would be dead in like 2 weeks tops.


    Now, a basic, unmodified whelp has 100 power. My whelps have a 50.3125 Power Multiplier, with Imperial Whelps being twice that. That¡¯s just over 5,000 power, which is on par with an unmodified Marquess, which has 4,500 power. Keep in mind, Power just allows more Traits, assuming one has enough Traits to use all that Power, and at the end of the day, whelps have a rather pathetic frame to slap bonuses upon compared to a dragon. Like, a field mouse, no matter how many drugs you slam into it, cannot take a blue whale in a fight, even a sickly one. My modified Princes have 12,000 power, which is a little more than the 10,062.5 that my Imperial Whelps have.


    And I did not make my choices on a whim like a madman. I checked and double checked my [Flight Management] web before committing to the choice, and I had veritable cornucopia of potential Skills to modify whelps, to research or straight up unlock new Traits for them, or to otherwise find ways to cram 50 to 100 times as many or more potent of Traits into them.


    I reasoned that, since my flight was already completely exposed to the mortal races, I could not depend on dragons as much as normal. However, with extra cute and cuddly whelps that I could hand out like pets to promising mortals, I could slowly build an army of loyal humanoids who could be monitored by my whelps. I would be outsourcing labor to humanoids while raising them from birth, if I could, in an environment that would most likely engender loyalty to me, and all it would cost is a cute and seemingly harmless little whelp per person, one that could probably wreck a Gold Adventurer with a glance. With 5,000 of them at my disposal once my flight was fully grown, that yielded almost triple the number of True Dragons I would have had with the basic flight.


    Granted, while it seemed overbearing, other Emperors also had their own powerful Perks and Bonuses. While I could not see their Capstone, I could see what they were aiming to do and how strong they would become if their Capstones were on par with mine. It was anyone¡¯s guess if I would succeed or not with this approach, and now committed, I readied myself for what was to come.

 Chapter 73

    ¡°The Crossroad Wayfinders, eh? Not the catchiest name, but it certainly fits your flight¡¯s theme of and claim to roads. I could see yours either being best friends or worst enemies with the The Equivalent Scales. And It is based on whelps of all things, too; I did not see that coming. You may end up back here sooner than you think to finalize your statues.¡±


    The egg-person rattled on and on about his thoughts on my choices and flight, which overall garnered me a passing grade, but nothing exceptional in its vast experience.


    ¡°Oh, and you brought me coffee, sweet, delicious coffee. That quest has been available for like, 20,000 years now. How hard could it be? Well, first I had to wait for evolution to take its ¡®totally random and not at all ordained by the gods¡¯ path for coffee to exist,¡± he continued with no shortage of sarcasm, ¡°then wait for it to be discovered by humanoids, cultivated, and crafted into such delicious brew. But once that was done, it should have been easy for an Emperor to bring it to me, but no, they never bother coming back here willingly, too busy being edgy and conquering swaths of the world for themselves to remember little ol¡¯ me. Your kobolds, blessed be their scales, made for convenient messengers.


    ¡°Anyway, as a reward, I grant you the Skill, [Rare Plant Cultivation]. With it, you could grow all those rare and magical herbs and whatnot that people use to make potions and the like, such as the coveted healing potions. You could start your own gardens, where normally such plants cannot be cultivated in domestic settings. Maybe you could find a way to make a coffee plant that doesn¡¯t need sunlight and you could bring it here or something, I don¡¯t know, just spitballing ideas.¡±


    Its motives clearly transparent, I accepted the reward I didn¡¯t even know I would be earning. I could almost see the gravy train of endless gold that would pour my way as I cornered the market on such plants, or perhaps, the endless supply of daggers I could end up reselling as competitors tried to plunge them in my back. How had no Emperor bothered to bring him coffee in expectation of a boon? Maybe dragons are more self-serving than I thought or just entirely lazy.


    ¡°You are most gracious. I believe all is in order here. I cannot make any promises as to coffee plant bioengineering, but I will try to look into it.¡±


    ¡°That is more than most offer, so I will totally get my hopes up that you will come through for me someday. I suppose you will be off now.¡± His glowing yellow orbs for eyes took on a shaky and watery look as he continued, ¡°they grow up so fast.¡±


    ¡°Take care. Until next time,¡± I replied as I excused myself and walked my way out of the halls.


    Leaving through the door to The Void, my mind drifted for some indeterminable amount of time before I found myself awake right where I had been in the real world, the cup of coffee in my hand still as warm as I had left it, but somehow ¡®feeling¡¯ drained of whatever spark of coffeeness it had before I left.


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong? Did you give up already?¡± asked Nanu.


    ¡°I am already done. Meditate on your Skill webs and see what I have unlocked,¡± I replied as I stood up from my sitting position.


    Nanu closed her eyes and relaxed, her expression an ever-changing sea of turbulent emotions. Though she schooled her countenance well, my [Leadership] Skills, as well as my connection to her as her Emperor, gave me supernatural insights into the state of her emotions. Confusion, anger, intrigue, bewilderment, mischief, and consternation waged war for dominance as she seemingly examined every new Skill under her equivalent of [Flight Management]. After five or so minutes, she seemingly finished as she opened her eyes and glared daggers at me.


    ¡°My Emperor, I know you are not beholden to me, and though I dare transgress beyond my station with such council, I would be remiss to not fulfill my duties towards you. What, and I cannot stress this enough, the fuck did you do?¡± she shouted as she grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. ¡°These Skills are nothing like my old flight, all I see are Skills for whelps. Whelps! The disposable fodder of the flight that could be killed by a strong breeze.¡±


    Skull wavered between trying not to laugh and trying to show concern for my situation. I could feel through our bond that she trusted me and my judgment on such matters.


    ¡°Let¡¯s get the gang together so that I may elucidate everyone all at once instead of piecemeal. Nanu, if you would please go notify Chooka, Gambino, Bambina, Alterez, It-Has-Pockets, Bellwright Muddlespoon, and Torborg that I would like a meeting together as soon as possible, preferably today, concerning matters of my flight and our collective future. This will be a private meeting that involves discretion, so no guests will be permitted.¡±


    Less than chuffed at having to wait for me to divulge all my secrets, Nanu bowed politely as she acquiesced. ¡°By your will, Emperor.¡± She then departed posthaste, equal parts giddy like a child waiting to open presents, but also frustrated, like the same child being told to wait until after dinner to open said presents.


    ¡°You know, she only gets formal like that if she is feeling snarky when doing your bidding,¡± Skull stated as she brushed up against me, her gauntleted fingers lightly caressing my own.


    ¡°I know, but I think she would grow dissatisfied if she always got her way. Besides, this way she will feel that she played a role in earning the information I will provide, so that should soothe her ego once she realizes it,¡± I replied casually as I set myself to the purpose of pouring myself another cup of coffee that I suddenly had a hankering for, the old contents of my cup being discarded.


    ¡°Perhaps, but dangling such juicy secrets in front of an [Archivist of Secrets] was nearly criminal. Her mind will find no peace until you enlighten her. You sure have grown into such a tease,¡± she continued as she playfully bumped her hip into mine.


    ¡°Well, after having bedded almost every beautiful and willing woman in the camp twice over by now, I have come to learn that a fair number of them enjoy being teased, whether they realize it or not. Some enjoy the chase, others being chased, and others still just prefer direct and clear communication. Nanu enjoys a good chase; such is her nature to earn things.¡±


    ¡°Oh, and what do I like?¡± Skull asked as she handed me the sugar and cream for the coffee.


    ¡°You are in the last category. You hold a small nugget of disdain for people who beat around the bush because they are afraid of rejection. You think that people who want to be chased are vain and dishonest. You are frustrated by people who are slow to share their desires with you because you think it means they harbor some aversion to you.¡±


    ¡°Okay, wow, that is fairly accurate and I almost feel attacked right now, but I did ask for it,¡± she exclaimed as she put the cream and sugar back where she found it after I finished using them. ¡°Good thing I am well-adjusted, otherwise that would come up in therapy, if I ever went.¡±


    ¡°Do you have a reason to go or not go see a therapist?¡± I asked sincerely before tasting my coffee. Egg-person was right, it does hit the spot.


    ¡°Pshh, there isn¡¯t an Adventurer out there who doesn¡¯t need therapy. If we were perfectly healthy of mind, we would settle down and open a tavern or something, not risk our lives out there in the wilderness for a few coins. I would be bored to death if I did that, so perhaps it is a matter of perspective as to what makes one sound of mind, ya feel?¡±


    This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    I nodded in understanding. Adventurers are dark of humor and oftentimes disposition. Some wear their emotions freely, others bottle them up, but all have nightmares and grief that cannot be solved by some miracle at the bottom of a tankard.


    ¡°Thank the gods for repression,¡± I stated flatly as I sipped my coffee once again.


    ¡°I know, right!¡± Skull beamed me a hearty smile, even though her helmet obstructed vision of her face. ¡°It works wonders at managing all that emotional baggage for later. I think the snobs call it ¡®compartmentalizing¡¯, but it''s the same thing.¡±


    We stood together in silence for a moment, me contemplating my coffee and how those two terms were not the same, given that compartmentalizing regularly gets around to processing those emotions, but we had made good progress on the front of mental health, so I didn¡¯t want to spook her by going too deep into the weeds. Plant a seed now, harvest the crop later.


    Given that we were waiting for the gang to assemble, I found a book and sat down with Skull in my lap, who removed her helmet to make things easier on us. Today, I read to her about ¡®Filigree Fungi¡¯, a gnomish work about how to decorate mushrooms and the like, which was actually more of a page-turner than I would have expected, complete with pictures, which Skull enjoyed. Skull can read, albeit slowly, for as she says, the words swim around on the page. We do take turns reading passages, for I wanted to slowly help her overcome her burden so that she may enjoy the full bounty of literature. We read for hours, one book after the next, until finally near sundown, Nanu returned.


    ¡°My Emperor, I have prepared arrangements for dinner tonight in a private meeting at the town hall. I have seen to its security and privacy. All who have been invited have accepted. The meeting is set to begin in one hour¡¯s time.¡±


    ¡°Excellent work, Nanu. You have exceeded my desires in a most welcome and exceptional manner.¡±


    Nanu preened at my praise, the honest compliment having its way with her draconic pride. I pumped my legs up and down, and Skull took the signal to stand so that I could likewise stand. I then crossed the room to Nanu, who remained at the door to the house, and embraced her in a hug, one complete with a head pat and and a back rub, which she nuzzled into.


    ¡°We must change into our dinner clothes,¡± she stated as she pulled away from my embrace with regret and longing to continue indulgence. ¡°It simply would not do to show up appearing slovenly in our day clothes.¡±


    We neither hurried nor tarried as we bathed and dressed ourselves accordingly. Skull changed into a form-fitting outfit of black silks and breathy cloth, noticeably with pants instead of a skirt or dress. It revealed some of her form, yet remained tasteful for a formal gathering. She did not wear any jewelry or weapons, for her armor and sword had been absorbed into her shadow. In a pinch, she could use some sort of Ability to summon and don it almost instantly, although it would provide no protection to a sneak attack, which we were not expecting.


    Nanu dressed in a mix of scarves and ribbons of blue, green, and teal, the whole ensemble somehow remaining on her body instead of falling onto the floor. I dressed in black with complementary yellow patterns and trim. Neither of us needed any weapons or armor on account that we were both dragons, albeit in human form. Should we need to fight in melee, we could both partially transform parts of our bodies into their draconic equivalents, such as turning our hands to claws or sprouting our wings as shields.


    Properly dressed for fine dining, the three of us sauntered over to the dining hall, saying hello to people and accepting a few petitions for one thing or another as we went, for we had plenty of time to spare. Fortuitously, we intercepted Chooka who had been heading there straight from the guildhall where she worked as the guildmaster. Delighted to see us and to finally have another opportunity for a formal dinner, she changed course to intercept us and quickly devoured the distance between us with her long strides.


    ¡°My love,¡± she greeted as she kissed me, ¡°and number 9 and 15 as well,¡± she continued as she teased Skull and Nanu, both of whom were content to believe they were in ninth place. It was half jest and half truth, for she literally keeps a book with scores and dossiers on her lovers. ¡°I¡¯m glad you finally decided to rub elbows at formal engagements, but the guest list seems a little sparse,¡± she continued as she hooked her arm with mine and nudged out Nanu, who walked beside her. ¡°I suppose this must be a rather serious matter to have such an exclusive guest list.¡±


    ¡°All too true, my love,¡± I answered her unasked question as we strode along four abreast. ¡°I have matters to discuss with my inner circle, as well as those who are one step away from being part of it.¡±


    ¡°Oh, and who doesn¡¯t make the cut so far?¡± she asked casually, feigning a mild interest despite eager to know peoples¡¯ individual standing with me.


    ¡°You will soon find out, but don¡¯t worry, I might be able to squeeze you in as like a door guard or something.¡±


    She elbowed me in the ribs at my jest, her other hand rubbing her knuckles into my skull. ¡°Aren¡¯t you just a funny one? I bet you say that to all the girls.¡±


    ¡°Heavens no, most don¡¯t even get invited, even though many would probably gladly be part of it if they could be a doormat. However, anyone with such enthusiasm has either peculiar tastes or is a spy.¡±


    ¡°It could be both,¡± chimed in Skull. ¡°Enjoy what you do, and you will never work a day in your life.¡±


    ¡°Indeed, some clients might pay extra for that. We should put that in our listing and see how many takers we get,¡± added Nanu.


    ¡°Wait, you guys are making money off the women I bed? I thought I was doing it pro bono.¡±


    ¡°Eh, the less you know, the better. Besides, you would have to be in my inner circle to know the truth,¡± teased Chooka as we reached the door to the town hall.


    While the three of them laughed at my expense, we made our way inside. We were dining in a private room, not the main hall, which would be used as a dining facility for many of the workers at this hour.


    When we arrived, Junior Chief Engineer Torborg rose from his seat to greet us. Pleasantries were exchanged all around before he spoke something that was clearly on his mind.


    ¡°My youngest son has been blessed by Hammerrabi. His beard is growing quickly, and even better, it has naturally turned green.¡± He beamed a proud smile at all of us, taking a moment to realize that not all of us understood the significance. ¡°Oh, I sometimes forget what you do and do not know about dwarven culture. It is a sure sign from the gods that he will grow up to be altruistic. People will trust him and they will be eager to pursue business ventures with him. Such a gift is rare indeed, and he will have his pick of any master of any profession he wants among the dwarves for his apprenticeship.¡±


    ¡°That is excellent news indeed,¡± I responded as I gave him a hearty pat on the back. ¡°Your devotion to your gods and family has seen you and your son favored. Your family will be the pride and envy of the dwarven community.¡±


    Torborg let out a hearty laugh at that as he clapped me on the back in return. ¡°Kind words, kind words. I look forward to being there to teach him how to be the respectable dwarf I know he will become. I just can¡¯t wait to take him to his first tavern for his brawl-mitzvah. Oh, that¡¯s a lad¡¯s first barroom brawl. Why, when my father took me to mine, we¡­¡±


    The happy dwarf continued on and on as we waited for the others to arrive, his mirth never fading as he apparently had been eager to regale us all with stories of his youth and the prospects of his family. Truthfully, his stories were interesting, each tale spinning an image of a past filled with mischief and shenanigans. Bless his poor mother for doing her best to keep him out of trouble. If his son takes after him, he will have to lock his tools up at night lest the little rascal disassemble the whole house while the family sleeps


    Bellwright, along with Gambino and Bambina, arrived close to the start time, the three of them appearing to have arrived together based on their scent lingering on one another. That¡¯s the nice part of being a dragon - a whole world of information opens up to you via a snoot that can actually detect subtle scents. It-Has-Pockets arrived last, and with her, the gang''s all here. Alterez would undoubtedly be bringing in our food, for such an opportunity to cater to us would do wonders for his Blessing of [Line Cook] unlocking new Skills.


    We each found our seats, with Chooka to my right and Skull to my left. Nanu to the right of Chooka, with It-Has-Pockets at the left of Skull. The rest found their seats where they pleased, with a spot reserved for Alterez.


    Speaking of, the goblin of the hour brought in a wonderful assortment of foods, including hot dishes and cold cuts, simple soups and salads and complex dishes that I am not fancy enough to fully understand. I¡¯m pretty sure it involved layers of meats from different animals intermingled with an assortment of cheeses and sauces, the whole thing covered in gravy.


    Each of us hungry, we dug in with gusto and engaged in fellowship and conversation. Alterez ducked out to fetch dessert at one point, which was a rather intricate dragon guarding its hoard, the whole thing looking realistic, but made entirely out of cake. And when dinner wound down, we finally got to the crux of the purpose of our gathering, the meeting to discuss my flight.

 Chapter 74

    ¡°Alright then, it is time we get down to,¡± I spared a glance to Chooka as I continued and enunciated my words clearly, ¡°brass tacks.¡± She smiled warmly at our little inside joke. ¡°What I have to say is confidential and should not leave this room.¡± I glared at Bellwright in particular as I continued, ¡°No rumors, no talking around it without trying to state it, no hints, no leaks. If anyone feels that they cannot abide by this, please speak up now.¡±


    I paused, and though Bellwright looked fidgety, he finally resolved himself after taking a deep breath and nodded for me to continue.


    ¡°As you know, I am a [Dragon Emperor]. Earlier today, I officially established my flight, The Crossroad Wayfinders. As you can guess, I plan to claim the roads of this world as my own, to protect those that travel them, and to keep them in good repair. My flight is unique in that it has been completely exposed, for the world knows full well who I am. It would be impossible to remain incognito, and so I have taken a strategy with how I build my flight to address such circumstances.¡±


    All eyes were upon me, each person keenly listening to my every word. Nanu schooled her visage to appear in control of her emotions, but she was bleeding impatience and a desire for me to skip past the preamble and get to the juicy stuff. Torborg, Bellwright, and It-Has-Pockets, the individuals with the least involvement with my flight, appeared intrigued, as if delighted to be trusted and in the know of one of the great secrets of the world.


    ¡°Apparently, I have some unique aspect to my person and my life, or perhaps, lives. All evidence suggests that I have lived many lives, across many worlds, and that a select group of individuals have been with me in those lives. Our appearances change to a degree, our roles and skill sets as well, but the familiarity and comradery in my vague memories of those lives remains the same.


    ¡°I have an inner world that I can visit, and in that world, there are silhouettes of people in a central area, each one frozen in time as if a statue. At first, all were black as night, but after performing a specific ritual on certain individuals that matched the appearance of the statues, those statues have all the color and image of living beings, and indeed, they match the people on whom I have performed the ritual.


    Expressions of puzzlement and slight concern flowed from those in the room who were not yet in the know, yet they remained steadfast to hear me out. Perhaps a few [Leadership] skills soothed their concerns and quieted their questions until the explanation finished, or perhaps they possessed the discipline or social tact to withhold such inquiries.


    ¡°Skull, Alterez, Gambino, and Bambina are the ones who have undergone the ritual, and the last two are of the same statue, their figures embraced in dance.¡± The kobolds in question beamed at the news, happy that even in my mind, they were together. ¡°Chooka is almost certainly one of the silhouettes that remains. I suspect that It-Has-Pockets, Torborg, and Bellwright are likewise candidates. To undergo the ritual is to have your life saved by me, and through it, you would be empowered and bonded to me. It is not something that I would force circumstances to require, but Destiny and Fate may both conspire to see it made so for you. If any of you do not wish to accept this Fate, should it come your way, then speak up, so that I may do what I can to ensure another future awaits you.¡±


    I paused for a while to let the news sink in and to examine the expressions of those gathered. It-Has-Pockets appeared concerned and intrigued, like one wanting to pet a fluffy wolf but unsure if it would bite. Bellwright puffed up, his ego stroked at the prospect of being so close to an Emperor. Torborg sat with eyes lowered, his face contorted in concentration as he internally assessed and weighed what I offered. Minutes passed until he looked up once again and raised his hand.


    ¡°Ask your question, Torborg, for this is not something I would want you to accept lightly.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s say all this is true, that I am the one to be bonded to you, whatever that entails. What would be my role and responsibilities?¡±


    All eyes focused on me, each eager to hear the answer, as if my next words would sway anyone here one way or the other on the choice.


    ¡°While it is not something you need to accept now, I would have great use for an engineer of your caliber. While my roads may lead all over the world, it will take great feats of engineering to have anything of value where those roads lead. I plan to have towns and cities all over the world, and all will need infrastructure to support their populace. I have seen what passes for acceptable in this world, and I find it lacking. With the resources I will command and our shared insight on how to build a better world, I would want you at my side to help see such become more than schematics on paper.¡±


    Torborg stroked his beard as he contemplated the pros and cons of the offer. After a minute, he responded. ¡°Aye, sounds reasonable and enticing. What¡¯s the catch?¡±


    Concern and doubt cropped up on those gathered, some wondering if perhaps they had gotten too deep into circumstances beyond their means.


    ¡°Honestly, I do not know.¡± I paused to let my words sink in before I continued. ¡°I don¡¯t know what the future holds for me, why I am what I am, why I remember past lives or where that knowledge could lead. Certainly, I will make powerful friends and enemies, and indeed, your stars will rise or fall with my own. I want to build an environment where people can thrive and pursue their ambitions, and I prefer to offer the carrot over the stick. I have no nefarious intent for any of you, for the greatest of ambitions attained in full would feel hollow without friends at my side to share it with. That may be campy, but it is how I feel, and I would like to help all of you achieve your goals as well.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll accept it, should circumstances come to pass where you will save my life,¡± responded Bellwright before Torborg could contemplate and answer. ¡°You have done right by me so far, and I have been around long enough to read the measure of a man. You have my approval.¡±


    It-Has-Pockets glanced around the room, skittish but excited. I turned a gentle gaze upon her, a slight smile inviting her to speak her mind.


    ¡°It sounds a little frightening, but the opportunity is above what even my elders would have anticipated for me. I was born to achieve great things, at least that is what I have been told my whole life, and even riding your coattails, I would be a legend of Tarr and an inspiration to trolls everywhere. I accept.¡±


    Torborg, inspired by the other two, yet still considerate of his future, sighed before giving a response of his own.


    ¡°We dwarves live long lives. I am old enough to have seen the faults of the world and the stagnation of society, yet young enough to still have the fire burning within me to fix this world. If it should come to pass that I am in need of this ritual, then it will be by Hammerrabi¡¯s will that I find myself in your service. I do not seek it, nor do I try to hide from it. Let the future be what it is, and I will accept how it unfolds.¡±


    I turned to Chooka, nudging her lightly as she looked out at everyone else for what they had to say. Startled, she quickly found her composure and gave an answer.


    ¡°Oh, naturally, I accept. I thought that was a given. By the way, are there more than just us?¡±


    A heavy burden I did not realize I shouldered suddenly lifted from me as her words carried it away. I don¡¯t know what I would have done had she refused, and thankfully, I would not need to spare any of my thoughts for such moot hypotheticals. I gave her hand a reassuring squeeze under the table and a beaming smile before I answered.


    ¡°Indeed, there are more. Ten in total, if you count Gambino and Bambina as one. There yet remains an orc female, one who is tall and strong, which really does not narrow it down. There is a female elf, yet that figure keeps shifting between several individuals, so perhaps that future is rather uncertain. Lastly, of all things, there is a male ogre, and considering I have not met any ogres ever, that may be either a challenge, or it will be the first ogre I see. My instincts tell me that I will at least meet everyone soon, if not bond to them as well.¡±


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°Okay,¡± interjected Nanu, her patience having grown thin,¡± but how does that relate to your flight?¡±


    ¡°Right, that part,¡± I responded coolly, as if I had forgotten it, my casual disregard for the main item on the docket rattling Nanu just a little.


    ¡°Such a tease,¡± chided Skull. ¡°Just tell the poor girl already before she explodes or pummels you to a pulp.¡±


    Properly chastised, I proceeded to the big reveal after clearing my throat.


    ¡°My flight will be based around whelps. As most of you know, whelps are fairly harmless and not very powerful. Mine will be an exception to that rule, and I will have far more than what an ordinary Emperor would have at his disposal. They will be my eyes and ears around the world, and I would gift some of them as pets to individuals that show promise for great things.¡±


    ¡°Ah,¡± interrupted Torborg, ¡°I think I see where this is going. You plan to cultivate a loyal army of us mere mortals who will fill The Void where the dragons of your flight should. Your whelps, pets though they may seem, will keep tabs on us.¡±


    Unperturbed by how he stole my thunder, I rolled with it, for with him being the one to say it, I did not sound like some nefarious mastermind in the shadows plotting and scheming.


    ¡°It is as you say. Dragons tend to live at odds with most of the civilized world. Rather than maintaining an antagonistic relationship with humanoids, I would like to foster cooperation and comradery. The True Dragons of my flight will be few in number. They will assume a mostly administrative role or serve as heavy hitters in times of strife. I want to build a community that doesn¡¯t include both wondrous palaces and slums full of starving peasants at the same time. By bringing the mortal races into the fold, at the discretion of each individual of course, I can help them to build a better world. I will just keep things fair and crush the greedy bastards that try to take more than they need.¡±


    ¡°Oh, aye, that all sounds well and good, but how long until you become jaded at how stubborn and foolish we mortals are and try to force it?¡± asked Torborg, clearly not content to let my plan stand unless I had ironed out the kinks. He wasn¡¯t being a dick or anything, for not only was this how dwarves ensured real plans were made instead of mere ideas, he was offering me an opportunity to showcase my point without seeming like I was preaching.


    ¡°An excellent concern that would not stretch the imagination to consider it has been the folly of many who sought the same goal. I believe that is what all of you, my companions, will be for, to keep me grounded and to help restrain my darker impulses to speed things along. I expect I will fail many times before I succeed, and that concessions will need to be made. If anything, the plan will need to adapt constantly to meet the goal, and I expect the council of those here to ensure that I do not overstep on the freewill and wellbeing of mere mortals.¡±


    ¡°That is a noble pursuit for an idealist, Boss, but how would you make it so?¡± asked Alterez. ¡°I¡¯m not trying to rain on your parade,¡± he continued as he put his hands in the air in a sign of non-hostility. ¡°I am almost a thousand years old, and I have seen people with such ambitions come and go. None have succeeded. The system isn¡¯t broken; it is working exactly as intended. You are going to step on the toes of powerful people that have established themselves in a lifestyle that would not fit in your world. Convince me that you can get around that, and you will have my vote for this plan.


    Everyone looked to me for an answer, one I had thought of over countless nights as I contemplated a solution to that very problem. Ready to bring the hammer down while the iron remained hot, I responded with the best answer I could come up with.


    ¡°In truth, it will take great wealth, patience, an information advantage, and perhaps a dose of skullduggery. The main goal is to build, if not a utopia, some place that is much better than what life most people live. You have seen what I can do, how quickly and easily I can build roads and buildings that would take thousands of workers months, if not years, to build, and I do so in a fraction of the time and at a pittance of expenses. If you lived in the slums, and rumors spread of a nearby city that sprung up overnight, one with ample housing, free food, healthcare, education, and opportunities to rise above your station, and all it would cost was to physically walk over to it, would you not take the offer?


    ¡°I am not here to conquer the world with the sword, but to build a place so desirable that people will immigrate to it in droves. If I can simply absorb the populace of the workers of a city, then all the city will have left are its nobility and bootlickers. They would have little choice but to toe the line, find a new city to live in, or risk starvation or war where they have no fodder for soldiery. Either way, they lose their wealth, and if they come to me with it, I will have a source to bankroll repeating the process to the next city down the line.¡±


    ¡°Hmm, sounds like a lot of words to say you are starting a cult.¡± Alterez leaned forward with a devilish smile on his face, one that showed all his shark-like teeth in his all too wide mouth. ¡°I can get behind that.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not sure how I feel about that,¡± chimed in Torborg. I felt my blood run cold as I thought I would lose him unless I assuage his concerns. ¡°It would be a shame to let cities with rich histories and cultures just fade away like that, but on the other hand, many of those cities have a dark history of oppression and poverty among the masses. There would be chaos.¡±


    ¡°There would be opportunity, Torborg,¡± I countered. ¡°Many people have no opportunity to advance their station in life; they are born poor, they will die poor. Many struggle just to survive, and most have spent a night hungry for lack of food, or cold for lack of shelter. They have no spare energy for education, art, or exploration, for every day could be their last as they are one mistake away from starvation or a beatdown from which they will never rise again.


    ¡°Cities are not buildings and infrastructure, but rather people and the systems of how they interact. Those systems could be culture, law, religion, or shared strife. If the people relocate from their cities to mine, then the heart of the city will live on. We can build cities together, complete with the infrastructure to support it, but without the people to breathe life into it, we would just have a fancily arranged collection of brick and stone. What I offer is a chance; it is up to individual people to take it or leave it.¡±


    ¡°I,¡¯ Torborg started, then faltered, as if still collecting his resolve. ¡°I want my family to live in a good world where they will be safe and can pursue their dreams. Indeed, most people claim the same. While dwarves take care of kin and clan, we are almost worse than dragons at hoarding our wealth. We, or at least the heads of clans, are wealthy beyond measure, and we covet our wealth, storing it away in fortress-cities under mountains, where it can tarnish away in vaults that have never seen the light of day. I have often wondered what good the wealth we have, so hidden from the world, serves, if not its own exclusivity of access.


    ¡°You say you want to build a better world, and I could probably find fault with any plan you make. However, I would be a hypocrite to not offer my aid when I share your vision. I would probably never find an opportunity even half this good if I lived to be among the oldest of dwarves. If you fail, it is because we failed. You have a clear goal, noble of purpose and pure of intent. Even the mightiest of engineers can not build a city on their own, for many hands make for solid foundations, and many minds make for strong defenses to stave off disaster. I will help you in this undertaking of yours.¡±


    With Torborg swayed, the rest appeared to follow suit. I turned my attention to It-Has-Pockets to see how she felt.


    ¡°As we trolls say, keep me fed, bred, and in a comfortable homestead, and I am yours. Sounds like as good a plan as any. Just make sure to spend time with me, ya?¡±


    ¡°Naturally,¡± I answered, ¡°I will make time for all of you, as much as I can spare given how calamities crop up one after another. I will endeavor to ensure you do not suffer neglect.¡±


    ¡°Fair enough,¡± It-Has-Pockets replied with a slightly sideways nod, one that agreed but also would see how it played out.


    The rest followed suit, with most eager to find their place in this world I intended to build and in my internal hierarchy. I had dangled a tantalizing opportunity in front of them, and each sought a way to leverage it for their own ambitions. Alterez wanted to do cultist stuff. Gambino and Bambina wanted to elevate kobold-kind to dragons, or at least as close as they could get to a draconic heritage. Torborg wanted to build and improve. Bellwright wanted fame and recognition for his skills. It-Has-Pockets wanted to live both a life of luxury and one of adventure. Chooka looked forward to the mountains of paperwork to make this happen and the social intrigue of getting people to buy into it. Nanu craved to manage the network of secrets and information that would be required to pull this off.


    Skull wanted almost nothing. My bond to her was the strongest of anyone, at least in my capacity to understand her feelings, for Gulthar had helped forge it. She wanted to protect me, to get in good fights, to join me in my bed, and to spend quality time together making memorable moments. She did not care if I conquered the world or remained an Adventurer, as long as I kept things interesting, and I respected such sentiments. Lucky for her, things would continue in the general trend of being interesting, whether I wanted it or not.

 Chapter 75

    The meeting ended shortly after, with little of note transpiring as I answered a few minor questions. Eventually, everyone departed, presumably for their homes or cultist activities. The Boys had finally woken up from their slumber, and after feeding them several carcasses of what game I could procure from hunters, I shrunk them down so they could fit inside the house. Hopper, Ribbette, The Boys, Skull, Nanu, Gambino, Bambina, It-Has-Pockets, and myself retreated to the privacy of my abode after Chooka went to bed, for we had to discuss matters of our own.


    ¡°Okay, boys and girls, after-action report, go,¡± I stated for all to hear as I started our second meeting of the night. ¡°I want opinions of what went well and what went poorly and how we can improve.¡±


    ¡°The Boys got lured in by a honeypot!¡± exclaimed Bambina excitedly, eager to participate and show her value through contribution. ¡°They left without telling anyone. That led to a series of circumstances that caused an ambush. We still love them, though.¡± She showed no shame in throwing The Boys under the wagon.


    Turning my stern gaze upon The Boys, I applied some pressure, ¡°Well, what did I say about wandering off like that?¡±


    ¡°It is mating season and she was looking like a snack.¡± Aristotle didn¡¯t answer my question, but I understood his motives.


    ¡°Don¡¯t blame me, I just got here.¡± Okay, to be fair, Chrysippus was not to blame. Moving on.


    ¡°These brothers you gave me, they made me leave. I could not overrule them to control our legs.¡± Plato seemed to be fishing for an excuse, but to be fair, they could have overpowered him. He gets a slight pass.


    ¡°You said not to do it, but you were not around to ask for permission.¡± Socrates actually answered the question. I guess I technically did not leave any stipulations for how long they should wait to ask before just doing what they wanted, so maybe that is on me. Still, he broke the rules overall.


    ¡°We kicked ass out there. You should be thanking us.¡± Diogenes is just Diogenes. He certainly has not been overburdened with overflowing wisdom or humility. I still love him though.


    I translated their words to the group and made a show of pondering their fate. The Boys grew increasingly contrite, sans Chrysippus, who literally was not at fault. I made a show of ruminating on their punishment while I let the tension mount.


    ¡°I am disappointed in you four. Chrysippus, you did nothing wrong, and welcome to the team.¡± Chrysippus smiled at me as best as a hydra can, which probably would have intimidated most people with his toothy maw of death on full display. ¡°The rest of you could have at least told someone where you were going, but you didn''t even do that. Nor did you inform Chooka first. Your actions endangered everyone, including yourselves. You nearly died in that fight, and I don¡¯t know that I could ever forgive myself if you perished in an ambush meant for me. I love you dearly, but you need to consider how your actions impact those around you.¡±


    ¡°Sorry, Papa,¡± The Boys whined as they rolled over, belly up, and continued to sing a song of lamentation and a desire to do better. I waited for a moment to let my disappointment really sink in, then I indulged them with a belly rub.


    ¡°Just so you remember for next time, Chrysippus gets all your snacks for a week. Plato gets half snacks.¡±


    Their song turned to a remorseful whine, but none of them backtalked, for they remembered how such disrespect had earned them harsher punishments in the past. After they calmed down, I shrunk them even smaller, such that I could set them in my lap and pet them, which I did as the meeting continued.


    ¡°Alright, Nanu, you are next,¡± I stated as I stroked The Boys, all of which sans one were almost asleep, their eyes wet with the beginnings of tears.


    ¡°We faced overwhelming odds, and we would have certainly died without two Titans helping us. Granted, dragon hunters of that caliber are Platinum Adventurers, but typically, they hail from places with lower standards for entry into that rank and they are not known to be the best or most disciplined. Considering they dared to take on an Emperor, they were probably the most desperate or least educated in the dangers involved. However, over 500 against us should have won handedly. How they managed to get so close to camp is a matter that we already covered in other meetings and changes to camp security have already been made.


    ¡°Overall, we did well. We protected each other and eventually lured away the remainder so you could duel one of the strongest opponents, which is ideal. Ribbette complimented my fighting style well, so our practice fights have been worthwhile and we should continue them. I don¡¯t know what we could have possibly done better in such an impossible situation, for we are beyond lucky to have all survived.¡±


    Her lecture finished, we all took a moment to contemplate her words. Feelings of pride and comradery emanated from those gathered. After a short while, I continued the meeting so that we would stay on track.


    ¡°Skull, how about you?¡±


    Skull straightened up in her seat as she commanded the room. Her helmet was off for the meeting, but she still struck an imposing figure in her armor.


    ¡°Though we were ambushed, we swiftly seized the initiative and directed the flow of battle, which is paramount to survival in such a situation. Quickly sowing fear and crushing morale gained us the breathing room we needed to take them a few at a time instead of all at once. I think such shock tactics would serve us well in the future.


    ¡°I spent most of the time fighting Bamborax, whom I should have recognized, for there could not be many axe-wielding Diamond Adventurers who are direct descendants of Berxerxes himself. He must have had some trinket on him to evade such notice, and were we not in the heat of battle, I would have recognized him. I believe he went along with the hunt because he sought death, for he would have to have been over 400 years old. To die a warrior¡¯s death is the dream of old orcs, and what better way to die than to try to do so in the manner of his grandfather by fighting an Emperor?


    ¡°Hopper did an amazing job saving me and then harrying Bamborax until we could learn how he fought. Hopper then bought me an opening to deal the finishing blow. Without his help, I would have lost. It was the hardest battle of my life, and considering Bamborax was closer to the peak of Diamond than not, I am probably on the threshold myself by now. That may attract individuals who seek glory and fame by killing me, so we may need to be mindful of that going forward. That¡¯s all I have on that topic.¡±


    ¡°We need more kobolds for the troupe,¡± Gambino declared the moment Skull finished. ¡°I will work on finding more. With your victory, and considering the scale of the fighting, we will surely have many kobolds eager to join. However, at the time, we had insufficient numbers for a proper escort, which could not be helped. Give us a few months, and we may have over a thousand. If those numbers exceed what the camp administration deems acceptable, then I will have auditions so that we only accept the best. Having a bigger choir would do wonders for strengthening your allies and causing your enemies to lack coordination and prudence.¡±


    Well, that certainly confirmed my suspicions as to the point of the choir. They were a force multiplier, and as my entourage grows, they will be more and more valuable. Had my enemies not been so bold, they would have worked together to defeat me. Instead, most rushed in on their own and were cut down quickly. I would definitely be whispering in a few ears so that we could get more kobolds around camp.


    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    ¡°It-Has-Pockets.¡±


    ¡°It was exhilarating and terrifying. I danced for my life and killed more people than I ever had in honor duels. When I got caught on your tail and we went sailing through the air, I thought that would be the end for me. I was cutting down people left and right, afraid for my life, but never feeling so alive before. It was quite the rush, but I don¡¯t know that I want to do that again so soon until we have more practice. All it would have taken was for you to be knocked down on top of me and I would be dead. We need more practice where your allies are fighting that close alongside dragons, for we haven¡¯t done much of that in our sparring.¡±


    A worthy bit of advice at the end. I could feel the predatory enthusiasm in Skull as she focused on It-Has-Pockets. Skull wanted to turn It-Has-Pockets into a battle junky, and the sweet young thing was only a push or two away from it. I would have to be careful that Skull did not go overboard with her efforts.


    ¡°I agree that we could all use more practice as a team. Now that our individual skills are at least passable in a fight, we can focus on fighting together. May the gods show mercy upon us, for Nanu will not,¡± I finished with an overly dramatic expression of reverence and prayer to the gods, although I still caught the glint in Nanu¡¯s eye and the wicked sneer on her face at the prospect of pummeling us as a group.


    ¡°Hopper and Ribbette, how about you?¡±


    They both sat there for a moment before finally sharing a glance with one another, the latency of their comprehension by no means an impediment to their verbose replies. I had to translate all the croaking for the team, but Hopper waxed on and on in a poetic manner about the display of skill everyone demonstrated during the battle and of the spirit of comradery that filled him to push beyond his limits. It was easily a ten minute speech, and either he had Skills to make such a speech on the spot or he had been planning it for a while now. Conversely, Ribbette uttered such indecencies that would make the saltiest of sailors and the most shameless of whores blush. One vile invective followed another as she riled herself up with her account on events, mostly focusing on her contempt for the insolence of our audacious and foolish foes. A quick peck on the cheek from Hopper was enough to calm Ribbette down once she finished her tirade, and I don¡¯t think anyone missed how her personality changed completely to be on par with a fair maiden experiencing romance for the first time.


    ¡°I guess that just leaves me,¡± I stated after letting everything sink in after the translation of monologues. ¡°I don¡¯t have anything profound to add that has not been stated. We got caught with our pants down because we lacked proper scouting. We were beyond lucky that two Titans showed up to help us. With my flight now established, I will meditate upon my Blessing and see if I cannot find a path forward for our combat doctrine. Expect some sort of change in how we do things. Until then, enjoy the rest of your night, for I call this meeting adjourned.¡±


    Some small talk followed, but within a short while, just Nanu and Skull remained at my side. The Boys remained in their shrunken state, and I carefully deposited their mostly sleeping form onto a cushion on the floor, for Chrysippus kept watch while the others enjoyed a good snooze. Skull watched over us while Nanu and I meditated on our Blessing, for we both had a great amount of Experience Points to spend.


    The first thing I noticed was I could not even access my Skill webs, and for lack of a better word, a popup appeared over them, one which demanded my attention. It displayed the following text:


    ¡°Congratulations, Emperor, on establishing your flight. Choose a Greater Focus, an Intermediate Focus, and a Lesser Focus for your personal Skills. New Skill webs will be provided (if not currently available), each with unique Abilities based on your achievements, experiences, and talent. Some of these Abilities would not otherwise be available to your Blessing without these Focuses. Choose wisely, for once selected, these Focuses cannot be changed, and rare are the opportunities to acquire more. Only through diligence, discipline, and danger will such opportunities be realized. Make no doubt, the other Emperors strive for such.¡±


    The ominous words burned into memory, I dismissed the popup, only for another to appear, one with a large list of Focuses to choose from. Their descriptions were enough to understand the gist of what they would provide, but vague enough that they raised more questions than they answered. All bones and no meat, as the saying goes. Considering I almost found myself on the ass-end of an ass-kicking just the other day, I already knew what I wanted to remedy my shortcomings; I just had to find the Focuses that matched up.


    I clearly lack in my combat ability to directly fight an opponent. I have versatility in spades, but lack any real punch unless I can manage to get a good trap lined up. [Traps] are great at punching down for my weight class, but as I can imagine, would be little more than whimsical unless I can somehow go all-in on them when it comes to fighting Kings or higher. Going heavy into [Traps] felt like, well, a trap, so I opted to not make that a focus group.


    A metaphysical smile adorned my metaphysical face in¡­ whatever this place is. It isn¡¯t my inner world, but it isn¡¯t the material world; I am not asleep, nor am I fully conscious. Younger me could access my Blessing while fully alert and awake, but as I grew in power, so too did the complexity of managing my Blessing, such that I needed to meditate to access it. Such a drawback feels intentional, as if the powers that be want strong individuals to have moments of vulnerability. Either way, I found my Greater Focus.


    My Flight would not be strong on its own merit. Certainly, the individuals would be powerful, but with our numbers being laughably low, I would require the loyalty and assistance of mortals. Comparatively, most mortals are weaker than dragons, and so I needed the great equalizer, one that could be easily disabled if I were to find myself betrayed, and only one Focus lined up with my interests and talents that could facilitate strengthening my flight through auxiliary forces: [Enchanting].


    No doubt about it, the capacity to churn out powerful magic items like a walking, talking factory would be the key to empowering my followers. Magic items are expensive, and kitting out even a retinue of bodyguards would bankrupt me. Making magic items myself would be far better, and as I have already discovered through my own means, I have a knack for it, even if I disregard everything I have been taught and march to the beat of my own drum. Even with my modest investment of Skills into [Enchanting], I am exceptionally good at it. With it packing versatility and power, going all-in sounds more than wise.


    However, [Enchanting] is not cheap, and while rare materials are not always better materials, sometimes they are when it comes to [Enchanting]. Getting the quantity and quality of materials I will need for my enchantments would be taxing, even with my good [Enchanting] skills allowing me to use cheaper materials. As such, [Material Arcane Science] fits the bill to solve that problem. It doesn¡¯t exactly turn lead into gold, but it does focus on processing mundane and magical materials to enrich them. I just knew my [Basic Thermal Bottle], my key Skill at processing materials, was the poster child of what that Focus was all about. It would also help me build roads a lot better if I could upgrade that Skill and get more of them in the same vein. And magical materials don¡¯t play nice when you try to use magical Abilities directly on them, which is why magical ores are mined with a trusty pickaxe. Acquiring the means to ignore that pesky limitation would vastly accelerate my means of production, and with all that considered, [Material Arcane Science] won the position of my Intermediate Focus.


    As for my Lesser Focus, there were many valid options, and considering I had to choose it here and now, I considered a few. Combat-related Focuses would help me in a fight, but it felt like the ceiling for that was low. I don¡¯t hear tales of Emperors fighting each other directly, which is a problem. That probably means all of them take a Focus in combat to dissuade conflict, or none of them do because they have a way to circumvent a fight. Through effort and growth, I feel like I can overcome my shortcomings in a fight, so focusing more on not getting in a fight and letting my powerful bodyguards protect me feels like a better plan. Sadly, no options were available to focus on my flight, not even one for [Whelps], which may be a reflection on how my options are ¡°personal¡±.


    [Illusions] had merit, to both hide me and make spiffy decorations along my roads, but I feel like [Enchanting] can do much of what [Illusions] does, provided I don¡¯t need it on the fly. I ruminated on it for a while before ultimately dismissing it. Likewise, any that dealt with Detection, Perception, and Stealth, while tempting, felt too narrow in scope. After considering what I probably could not achieve with [Enchanting], I discovered a little gem that garnered more interest the longer I looked at it: [Spatial Manipulation].


    [Spatial Manipulation] would give me better pocket dimensions, maybe even a demi-plane some day. Most importantly, it could lead to the coveted [Teleportation] Abilities. I would not be allowed to make any perpetual motion machines unless I wanted to be smitten by Echludoro, Light god of Time and Space, but it otherwise offered a great deal of utility, most noticeably for avoiding conflict. Presumably, I could either teleport away from my enemies or stop them from teleporting past my defenses or accessing their dimensional storage when within my territory. It is only a Lesser Focus, and with no frame of reference for how weak that would be, I may not get everything I want out of the gate, but it is a start.


    And with my mind made up on the matter, I locked in my choices for my Greater, Intermediate, and Lesser focuses, with [Enchanting], [Material Arcane Science], [Spatial Manipulation] being those choices respectively.

 Chapter 76

    With my unexpected but not at all unwelcome Focuses out of the way, I could now access my Skill webs. Well, sort of, for I had to wait for a fancy display of Skills shuffling around as webs were remade. All the fanfare did look pretty, like parchment burning away as fresh webs were drawn quickly to make the new display.


    The first thing I noticed while watching it all was how [Harvesting] was eradicated and replaced with [Material Arcane Science]. The Skills from [Harvesting] merged into the new Skill web, and I observed that some which previously had dead ends now had more to offer in their little pockets of isolated Skills accessed by some core Skill. For instance, one needs [Basic Forestry] to access the more advanced Skills pertaining to harvesting trees and the like, but those nodes are in their own group that are otherwise not connected to the main web, which is precisely how things have always worked.


    The second thing I noticed was a lack of fog in these Skill webs related to my Focuses. I could see everything the web had to offer, although some individual Skills were unidentified until I unlocked them. I at least knew where they were, and those Skills were now few and far between. Before even a single Skill was purchased, I spent what felt like hours going over each and every one of them across all my Skills webs so that I could plan out how I wanted to grow.


    Sadly, [Deeds] were lacking in some departments. Normal Skills provided knowledge and the capacity to do things, but [Deeds] gave wisdom and finesse as if you have done something a thousand times. So, while I could go hog-wild on [Enchanting], without the [Deeds] to back it up, I would most likely waste a great deal of time, effort, and resources making foolish things. While I already had the basic Skills, I decided to just dabble in picking up a few more to spruce things up so that I could eventually have a dedicated crafting session to test things out.


    Skills can be tiered, with A leading to B leading to C, all doing the same thing but better. Sometimes, it raises the floor, perhaps so one no longer needs to concentrate on something or struggle, whereas others may raise the ceiling on what could be done, and both are needed. For instance, something like [Fire Resistance] may be the entry level Skill, with [Fire Resistance - Basic Shielding] raising the minimum temperature before one starts to take injury from fire. Conversely, [Fire Resistance - Basic Insulation] may raise the maximum temperature that the Skill can partially mitigate before it is completely ineffectual. Other supporting Skills, typically passive in nature, buff and support a main Skill, either making it more potent, easier to control, more efficient on mana, affecting a larger range, and so on. Ergo, I picked up the supporting Skills to my more basic [Enchanting Skills], but did not pick up the Skills that would grant me access to more powerful enchantments, which can roughly be categorized into tiers.


    If only everyone could agree on what those tiers were, life would be better, which is a plague across most professions. Like, quantifiably being able to identify the potency and side-effects of a healing potion in such a way that every person and organization can agree upon is a pipe dream, especially considering the alchemists who make said potions are covetous of their craft and the trade secrets they discover. One [Alchemist] may have only four tiers of [Potion Making] in his Blessing, so he may label his potions across four tiers, whereas another [Alchemist] may have five tiers in his Blessing, and label his potions as such. To make matters worse, just because the second [Alchemist] has five tiers doesn¡¯t mean both make equivalent quality potions at tier four if all else between them is equal.


    My [Enchanting] has eight tiers, the last two of which were locked, which confused me at the time. These were not normal locks like on other Skills, which tended to require either an appropriate [Deed] or enough investment in Skills within a web to unlock them. Rather, these Skills, while observable in what they did, just could not be purchased. My Enchantment tiers, from weakest to greatest, are Lesser, Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, Greater, Master, Imperial, Divine. Somehow, the big red flag of ¡°Divine¡± went over my head as far as what I would need to unlock it and what my future held in store for me. All the clues in the world as to my inevitable divinity and apotheosis just remained inert in my ol¡¯ noggin. For you readers who are a little slow, that meant I had to be a demigod to unlock Divine tier of enchanted goods. And I don¡¯t mean you, reader; you are smart. It is all those other readers who are not as clever as you to understand these highly advanced matters.


    With [Enchanting] Skills taken care of for now, I still had a great sum of Experience Points to spend considering all the murderfication I had handed out recently. Easily, all the Experience Points I had earned and spent to date were less than what I had available to me now. That doesn¡¯t mean I would become twice as strong overnight, for higher tier Skills may have a linear progression on potency but an exponential increase in cost. A hefty tithe was paid to all my passive defensive Skills, ensuring I acquired every economically available Resistance under the sun, of which there are legions. Another dose was issued to attain more Skills for Perception, Detection, Stealth, Illusions, and Pets, as well as [Leadership] and [Flight Management] webs in general. Now down to about 60 percent of my remaining Experience Points, I could start unlocking my shiny new toys.


    Starting with the [Spatial Manipulation] web, I gobbled up more dimensional storage, especially what I could economically purchase for the mana efficiency of using them, which was no small boon. I roughly halved the mana cost of storage and retrieval, both of which are sadly different Skills. I also doubled my storage and picked up a few more storage categories, specifically ones for ores, metals, and equipment (weapons, armor, clothes, tools, and the ilk). That would allow me to transfer all the loot from the dragon hunters out of general storage and into their more efficient and larger storage areas. With these Skills alone, I would be able to mine out tunnels approximately 25 percent longer due to my mana efficiency for hauling stone around.


    All the while I did so, I meandered my way towards Teleportation-themed Skills. I had to take one, short-ranged [Blink], which is nice and all, but I had my sights set on something more potent. Sadly, no Skill allowed me to teleport from anywhere all willy-nilly, but there was a Skill that let me teleport between set locations, namely my shrines I had been building along the road, mostly at key locations or intersections. Again, another red flag that went over my head that the Skill oh-so conveniently worked with my existing shrines and encouraged me to build more. To be fair, I was not expecting that I would ever become a demigod, so I didn¡¯t even bother to consider the implications of such boons. With a few more points to top it off, I could also take a handful of people with me between shrines, although allowing select individuals to teleport between shrines without me accompanying them remained too expensive, though I fully planned to return for those Skills later.


    With my remaining Experience Points looking a little lacking compared to my ambitions, I finished with what I could acquire from [Arcane Material Science]. Fairly quickly, I snagged the [Intermediate Thermal Bottle], and not stopping there, the [Advanced Thermal Bottle], along with the juicy support Skills to make it cheaper to use. Not only would this increase my throughput of materials being melted down and refined, it allowed for increased complexity in what I could make with it and in what shapes I could create things in. For example, I could make steel ingots before, but now I could fashion a proprietary alloy of iron, aluminum, titanium, and carbon in the shape of a sword. I couldn¡¯t make something overly complex, like a turbine for a jet engine, but single objects with simple shapes were permissible. Now, while that sword may not be as good as high-grade steel when forged by a proper [Blacksmith] or [Weaponsmith], it would work for practicing [Enchantments] and be well-suited to bring out the most they have to offer.


    That would have to do for now, for while other Skills would allow me to take more sophisticated approaches to processing stone, wood, gems, oils, and other valuable materials, I just didn¡¯t have the required currency to purchase them. At that moment, I started to understand the reputation for dragons to burn down peasant villages for all the practically free Experience Points, but I didn¡¯t want to go down the slippery slope into villainy.


    With only my emergency stash of Experience Points remaining, I finished that portion of managing my Blessing. However, a certain indicator informed me I had more to do regarding The Boys. Apparently, they had qualified for an evolution to their Blessing, which was far too early of an achievement, so I expected some strings had been pulled by the Titans. Last time I had evolved their Blessing, I had taken the Skill, [Evolve Hydra - Master of Many], but this time it was not so much a Skill of my own but a more mystical choice I needed to make on their behalf.


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    From Hercules, I was offered [Scion of the Apocalypse], which focused more on their destructive capabilities. From my Hydra-related [Deeds], and indeed those from meeting the two titans, I attained increased knowledge of Hydra lore and history. Apparently, Hercules was tasked by the gods in shaping parts of the world, mainly to make lakes, ponds, and rivers. However, prophecies state that he will someday be resurrected and usher in an apocalypse. Present me knows that the gods do indeed dust him off every now and then when they need to reset the world, but past me didn¡¯t know that level of detail.


    From Heracles, I was offered [Herald of the New Age], which focused on utility and support. Apparently, whenever Hercules was tasked to terraform the world, Heracles followed right behind him to handle the finer details and to reseed life. Not that she could actually create life spontaneously, but she would reintroduce the flora and fauna of a region, especially for bodies of water. There¡¯s been a cult or two throughout the ages dedicated towards her, but she was just as capable of terraforming as Hercules.


    Now, you know me, I¡¯m a sucker for more utility. While, [Scion of the Apocalypse] sounded cooler, [Herald of the New Age] appeared to offer more of what I wanted. Plus, I already can¡¯t leave The Boys unsupervised for five fucking minutes without them getting up to mischief, so giving them more destructive power feels like a bad play. However, giving them more resources to be creative about how they go around skirting or breaking the rules also feels like a headache waiting to happen. That sounds like a problem for future me, so I mentally imagine myself smashing my fist into the metaphysical button of [Herald of the New Age] to confirm it.


    With that taken care of and nothing else jumping out of the woodwork at me, I felt the growing excitement at trying out all my new toys threatening to overtake me. The implications of [Arcane Material Science] allowing me to work with inherently magical materials with my own magic as part of the refining and shaping process had me almost giddy with the anticipated rewards of such experiments. [Engineers], [Alchemists], [Blacksmiths], [Tinkers], and the like would kill to have such a Skill. Although, it does make me wonder what the other Emperors chose instead, for surely I am not all that exceptional in what Focuses I was offered. My enthusiasm tempered with the threat of unknown powers from my greatest rivals, I would need to be careful not to flaunt my new Abilities. Damn draconic pride, always meddling with my behaviors and attitude as it wants me to strut my stuff!


    My meditations on my Blessing complete, I returned to the affairs of the waking world. As I opened my eyes, I found Nanu¡¯s face mere inches from mine, a hungry grin upon her face that I would describe as ¡°leering¡±. Internally startled, but outwardly cool as a cucumber, I passively observed her.


    ¡°Hello, handsome,¡± she called to me with her best creepy voice.


    Unperturbed, I leaned into her, pressing my forehead against hers until our faces were as close as possible.


    ¡°Now we are both cyclops,¡± I replied back to her as I assessed my surroundings with a few [Overseers]. Skull stood right behind me, her posture relaxed but still attentive to her surroundings. I could feel the empathetic bleeding of her emotions that some manner of tomfoolery was afoot.


    Nanu blinked in surprise until realization finally struck her as to what I was on about. With our faces so close, our view of each other made it seem as if the other had only one big eye instead of two normal-sized eyes. Huffing in displeasure, she pulled away from me and flicked a gold coin to Skull.


    ¡°How did you know he wouldn¡¯t jump with fright from being so startled?¡± she half-whined to Skull as she lamented the loss of such precious treasure, even if it was not part of her hoard.


    ¡°Eh,¡± Skull replied noncommittally as she shrugged her shoulders, ¡°I am eternally connected to him, so I can sense his emotional state and know him rather well by now. I knew he would not freak out.¡±


    Nanu just huffed at the reply as she pulled away from me and crossed her arms. She maintained the pretense of dissatisfaction for only a moment before dropping it completely and moving on.


    ¡°So, now that you are done with your Blessing and the flight is officially established, are you ready to finish your two King eggs?¡± she asked as she stood up and offered me her hand.


    Stifling a groan of dismay, I accepted her hand as she pulled me up, but a sigh did still manage to escape. ¡°It¡¯s just one damn thing after another, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    Nanu placed her hands on my shoulders in comfort as she consoled me. ¡°I know it may seem like that for now, but trust me,¡± she paused for effect as a new grin adorned her face, ¡°the damn things will start overlapping soon enough.¡±


    I snorted in agreement with her joke while Skull chuckled lightly, the three of us commiserating by virtue of the veracity of Nanu¡¯s claim.


    ¡°Well then,¡± Nanu announced as she withdrew her hands from me and clapped once for emphasis, ¡°shall we?¡±


    We made our way to what seemed to be a large support column in the center of the house. A mere four feet wide and square of shape, the stone column secretly stored a most valuable treasure. Sucking a few of the stones on one side into my pocket dimension, I revealed my clutch of eggs, two of which were rather large, about three feet tall I would say. The remainder were a little bigger than ostrich eggs, but all were leathery rather than hard-shelled like bird eggs. Each displayed a riot of colors, as if a resplendently fabulous unicorn had eaten a rainbow and vomited it back up on the eggs. The colors changed with an observer''s position with respect to light sources, and the eggs appeared sparkly and slightly metallic.


    Nanu and I had already gone over everything I needed to do. My two precious King eggs, each one housing a Dragon Consort, remained safely inside the enchanted cubby that provided them with the right amount of heat for incubation. With my new knowledge of runes and enchantments, I outwardly frowned at my past work. I had been proud as a peacock when I had made those enchantments, but now I only felt a degree of disgust at how shoddy they were. I made a note to fix them in the near-future.


    I channeled my primordial and draconic power as an Emperor, an instinct so refined within the core of my being that it came to me as naturally as breathing. A droplet of golden light condensed at the point of my right finger, and I gently let it fall onto the first large egg. As the droplet of my unadulterated mana landed upon the egg, it seamlessly merged within it as the egg¡¯s exterior rippled. Soft golden light shined out from the egg, not enough to be blinding, but enough to be clearly visible.


    ¡°Tamadora,¡± I whispered to the egg as the light faded.


    Tamadora had been designed with the Templates of Adult, Broodmother, Educator, Spy, Succubus, and Therapist. She would be the mother of my remaining two Kings and all my Princes. Her role in the flight would be to gather Traits while also collecting intelligence on current events. I envisioned her as an oiran or geisha who entertained men and women while covertly discovering state secrets. She would also raise and care for my offspring, and so it remained imperative that she possessed the desired ethics and personality to ensure the members of my flight would conduct themselves in an appropriate manner. Something about my nature made me want to be hands-off about childrearing , and so I opted to outsource that role to her.


    Repeating the same process with the other King egg, I uttered his name as well.


    ¡°Kaisadoro.¡±


    Kaisadoro would be in charge of administration of my empire and handle the daily affairs of what civilization I would carve out of the world for my own. I had bestowed upon him the Templates of Administrator, Adult, Ambassador, Incubus, Multipotentialite, and Statesman. He would be the Prince Charming of myth, seemingly perfect in every way, yet aloof enough that people would want to chase him. He would be knowledgeable about everything and be able to converse with anyone on any topic, not to the depth of a scholar on the subject, but enough to talk shop. He would be the most interesting man in any room and people would endeavor to earn his favor.


    This was not to say their names were written in stone. All the names of the True Dragons in my flight would end in at least ¡°dor¡±, the gender-neutral suffix. ¡°Dora¡± would be for females and ¡°doro¡± for males. Considering dragons tend to be a bit fluid on gender, that allowed for them to have easy name changes without having to come up with a completely new name.


    Both would be born as fully formed adults, which gave them a boost out of the gate but lowered the ceiling on their power. Someday, I would remake them, removing the Adult Template, such that they would need to go through childhood, at which point such an experience may be a nuisance for them, but such sacrifices would need to be made. I do not have the luxury of waiting for them to mature naturally and start collecting Traits and creating eggs to grow my flight.


    I had no idea what Blessings they would end up with. A lot of fuzzy math and pseudo-science could try to predict Blessings based on their Templates, but at best, one could eliminate Blessings that they would not get. Each egg still needed time to mature, and certainly, the other eight whelp eggs did as well, so I replaced the wall for the night to secure my precious eggs in their little sanctuary once more. I could only hope that my budding flight would survive the storm that was to come.

 Chapter 77

    My nervous sergeant stands at attention as I glower down at him. Young, still puny, barely done suckling his mother¡¯s teat, he had somehow seen himself fit to enlist in the Pillars of Strife free company. Some recruiter must have seen something in the boy to sign him on as a sergeant, but whatever it was, I have yet to see it. Perhaps nepotism is to blame, but I thought we orcs were above such disgraceful practices. I can feel my countenance harden as I continue to inspect the poor lad, his sweat upon his brow evident as he all but cowers while still maintaining eye contact.


    ¡°You call that a clean and serviceable uniform, sergeant?¡± I half ask, half state as I lean towards him so as to be more imposing.


    ¡°Ma¡¯am, Captain Jericho, ma¡¯am!¡± he tries to bark out, but it sounds more like a yelp at the start. He gulps profusely before continuing, barely avoiding stammering as he answers. ¡°My uniform was clean this morning, but I tackled an escaped sheep this morning. I-¡±


    ¡°That doesn¡¯t answer my question, sergeant!¡± I bark back with real ferocity and weight to my words as the sergeant leans away from me ever so slightly. ¡°Have you forgotten how to answer in the affirmative or negative?¡±


    ¡°No, ma¡¯am!¡± He pauses for a moment before my raised eyebrow prompts him to continue. ¡°No, ma¡¯am, my uniform is not clean and serviceable.¡±


    ¡°Well then, it only seems right that your men match so you don¡¯t look out of place. Follow me, sergeant.¡±


    ¡°Proceeding, ma¡¯am!¡± he sounds off as I saunter my way over to the barracks. My pace may seem leisurely to onlookers, but considering my height, I need to maintain a slow gate so my subordinate can keep pace with his hurried steps.


    The barracks, like all buildings in camp, is made of stone, the all-wooden buildings of the camp being a thing of the past ever since the dragon decided to make a change. Perhaps the fire hazard presented by a wooden town had been too pressing of a concern that he upped his game. As I approach the door, a glare from me to my sergeant impresses upon him that he should open it for me.


    ¡°Room, tench¡¯huuut!¡± he barks out with a spark of renewed confidence in his voice.


    Bodies start spilling out of bunks as men and women of different races, still in their smallclothes, line up in two orderly rows on each side of the barracks. They stand at attention as I make my way down the line. I didn¡¯t even make it four steps before a pair of fully laced boots caught my attention. While they were in the correct spot beneath the bed, they conveyed a problem.


    ¡°Are those your boots, soldier?¡± I ask the human male in front of me. Well-built for his kind, most likely a farm hand, but otherwise still puny.


    ¡°Ma¡¯am, Captain Jericho, ma¡¯am, I don¡¯t know which boots you are referring to.


    Not missing a beat, I grab him by the waist and pick him up, his body still at attention. I effortlessly manhandle him and take a step over to the boots in question, such that his body, still stiff as a board, finds itself with his face mere inches from his boots.


    ¡°Ma¡¯am, affirmative.¡±


    ¡°Do you see any problem with your boots, private?¡±


    ¡°Ma¡¯am, they are dirty.¡±


    ¡°What else, private?¡±


    Silence follows for a moment as he has no answer. I give him one shake before he pipes up.


    ¡°Ma¡¯am, the private does not know.¡±


    I step back and address the female elf to his left.


    ¡°You, private, can you help your comrade out?¡±


    ¡°Ma¡¯am, Captain Jericho, ma¡¯am. His laces have not been loosened such that he can slip on his boots at a moment¡¯s notice.¡±


    ¡°Correct. Why did you let your comrade go to bed with his boots fully laced, private?¡±


    ¡°Ma¡¯am,¡± the elf continues as her body starts to tremble. ¡°The private did not know her comrade¡¯s boots were in such disarray.¡±


    ¡°Sergeant!¡± I bark out loud and clear, even though he stood right next to me.


    ¡°Ma¡¯am!¡± he replies as he stands a little straighter.


    ¡°Be sure to remediate your troops today. I expect to not see any boots out of place tomorrow.¡±


    ¡°Affirmative, ma¡¯am.¡±


    I swivel the man in my arms around until I have him in a princess carry. My ears detect some snickering in the background, which I will address in a moment.


    ¡°Your comrade¡¯s life is a precious thing, private,¡± I continue as I address the elf again. ¡°If he is in need of your assistance, you will swoop him up into your arms and care for him if need be. Arms up!¡± I shout as I hand the man in my arms over to the elf.


    She accepts him into her arms, likewise in a princess carry, her limbs trembling from both fear of me and from the exertion of trying to hold a man at least half again her size.


    I then turn my attention over towards the direction of where I heard the snickering before continuing my browbeating. I find the culprit and march over to stand before him. A remnimi male, he actually comes up to my height, even if he is perhaps half my weight. He has the lithe figure of a hunter, not the mountain of muscle that a true warrior possesses.


    ¡°Something amuses you, private.¡±


    ¡°Ma¡¯am, Captain Jericho, ma¡¯am. Negative,¡± he responds in a voice quiet enough that the entire barracks cannot hear him.


    ¡°Do you have any balls, private?¡±


    ¡°Ma¡¯am?¡± he asks, uncertain of my question.


    ¡°Do you have testicles?¡±


    ¡°Last I checked, ma¡¯am.¡±


    I could feel the bodies of everyone stiffen as the shitling gave a flippant answer.


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    ¡°Allow me to check for you, just to be certain.¡±


    His eyes bulge in surprise as a groan escapes his mouth after I grab him by the family jewels and apply pressure. I have enough experience by now to know the exact limits of what a man can take before I inflict damage, and if I just so happen to go too far, the healers could always use the practice. Even when he falls to his knees with high pitched squeals from my ministrations, I don¡¯t let up.


    ¡°Well, there is something there. Overly large pimples, perhaps. Should I pop them just to be safe, private?¡±


    ¡°Negative, ma¡¯am,¡± he screams out while knees all around the room reflexively bend inward to protect their own valuables and with empathy for their comrade who is learning a harsh lesson.


    ¡°It looks like you learned how to sound off like you got a pair. Remember that next time.¡±


    ¡°Affirmative, ma¡¯am!¡±


    I give a moment of an extra hard squeeze so he remembers it and not at all because I secretly enjoy it. The non-orcs just can¡¯t take very much abuse to their bodies, a fact that has disappointed me on more than one occasion. I stand up to address the room as I leave the whimpering private on the floor.


    ¡°Listen up, shitlings!¡± I shout as I take measured strides down the center of the room. ¡°We are going to the training yard today. Maybe some sense will get knocked into some of you by day¡¯s end, and if not, tomorrow is always another opportunity. It doesn¡¯t matter if your shit is squared away if your comrade next to you is all manner of fucked up. I don¡¯t care if you have been blessed by the gods themselves, nothing you do matters if your comrade falls behind. Do I make myself clear?¡±


    ¡°Affirmative, ma¡¯am!¡± the room rings out in a chorus of agreement.


    ¡°Sergeant, take over. I expect all of them to be formed up at the training yard in five.¡±


    <hr>


    The sun was nearly down by the time we finished our training day. I could barely contain my disgust at how I had been given raw recruits instead of seasoned veterans to guard the camp. We were in the middle of hostile wilderness, building a road that would facilitate saving the very world we know from annihilation, and I got a bunch of shitlings. I didn¡¯t ask how the Pillars of Strife were not in violation of our contract, but I would be damned if I would let those under me continue to fail to impress.


    As I made my way to my own quarters, my eyes caught a most inviting sight. Though the sun threatened to set any moment now, the last rays it cast off still managed to illuminate the specimen before me, one I had not seen before. Broad of shoulder and tall of height, the orc stood with axe in hand as he split wood, the mountain of kindling behind him a testament to his efforts, yet, not a bead of sweat could be found in his brow despite his exertion. He must have great Skills to pull that off.


    Intrigued, I approached the individual. He wore blue pants that were not quite long enough for his legs, the tightness of them clearly showing off the contours of his body, especially where the legs of the pants joined. The gods had been generous in their bestowment upon him. His red flannel shirt was likewise stretched to the limit, and the shameless slut had his sleeves rolled up of all things, as if the whole world needed to see his impressive forearms.


    The showoff even had some Ability to levitate the next piece of wood in place for his axe, which I guess should be expected of an experienced [Lumberjack].


    ¡°I haven¡¯t seen you around here before. And here I thought I knew all the big strong orcs around.¡±


    Dammit, why did I come on so hard? I¡¯m not some thirsty debutante making her first rounds. Thankfully, [Officer¡¯s Composure] helps me maintain my countenance at my blunder.


    ¡°I suppose that is to be expected,¡± he responds as he stands upright, his axe propped up on one shoulder while he grabs the other end just before the head with his other hand. His pose clearly presented his bulging biceps for my purview and his barrel chest strained at the buttons that struggled to contain his form. ¡°I am new around here.¡±


    He chuckled for some reason, and caught up in his mirth, I laughed along with him. That was when the topmost button of his shirt surrendered to the inevitable stresses imposed upon it by his shaking chest and went flying off somewhere. He paused in laughing for a second, and then continued laughing uproariously. As he finished laughing, he made eye contact with me, only to lean his head up and to the right, which exposed his neck and part of his shoulder to me.


    What an absolute slut! That could be a sign of submission if he were clearly weaker than me, but with our body sizes being comparable, that is absolutely a blatant invitation for sex.


    Does he expect me to take him right here and now, for that is how he is presenting himself. And yet, his face betrays no such intent, as if he innocently doesn¡¯t know what he is doing. Somehow, that gets me all the more hot and bothered to tackle him and do just that. With mounting difficulty, I suppress that desire while extending an invitation.


    ¡°The pleasure is mine,¡± I respond as a smile lights upon my lips. ¡°I am Captain Jericho of the Pillars of Strife. There is a tea party tomorrow night at town hall, invitation only. You could be my plus-one,¡± I finish as I struggle to not bite my bottom lip. What is getting into me today?


    ¡°I¡¯ll take you up on that offer. What is the dress code?¡±


    Taken aback by his reply, I struggle to understand how such an impressive specimen has not been to a tea party before.


    ¡°Orcish formal, naturally. Whatever constitutes as formal for your tribe.¡±


    He eyes me up and down once, his gaze lingering for a moment on my prominent chest, much as most men¡¯s and some women¡¯s do. If he continues to undress me with his eyes I might blush, but his gaze doesn¡¯t remain in hiatus long enough to be impolite.


    ¡°I look forward to it, Jericho,¡± he smiles as he casually stretches, which only goes to further showcase his mountain of a figure.


    Berxerxes¡¯ fangs, I want this guy to bite me here and now! ¡°Alright then, see you there an hour after sundown.¡±


    ¡°See you there,¡± he replies as I quickly stroll off to get my things and take a cold bath.


    <hr>


    Well that went well. I seem to have made a good impression on Captain Jericho, and I have only heard of her just now, so doubtless she knows nothing of how I moonlight as an orc. I did just what Nanu said. Sleeves rolled up to show I have no hidden weapons, tight clothes to show the same, neck turned away after a greeting to demonstrate I mean no harm. I think I nailed it! I even put my axe up on my shoulders and held it in a posture that kept me loosely prepared for battle, but incapable of responding well to an immediate threat, which showed me as competent yet inviting.


    I have no idea what an orcish tea party is, or even that orcs had tea parties, but I am excited to go. Shapeshifting into the body of one species or another imparts some level of understanding of fitness and sexual attraction, and I could tell that she was quite the looker for an orc. Gods she was strong! Probably not a smidge of fat on that frame. She was almost as tall as me, probably around 6¡¯6¡±, or 198 cm for those who use that measuring system. If only the gods could stick to one system of measurement.


    And to use Chooka¡¯s words, those bazongas! I thought her lower canines protruded upwards just right, but Jericho¡¯s chest threatened to redefine perfection. I don¡¯t know why, but when she looked at me, I could sense her hunger. Not just in a mere sexual way, but I am pretty sure she was one double tap of raised eyebrows on my part away from biting me.


    Hmm, something to think about I guess. Either way, I¡¯m done here since I made an orc friend. With no one else around, I could surreptitiously suck all the wood into my pocket dimension. Good thing I came along with some pre-chopped wood, otherwise my pile may not have been impressive enough to reel her in.


    ¡°Hey Skull, any idea on the etiquette of an orcish tea party?¡± I ask my companion in my shadow?


    ¡°Not at all. They are very secretive about such things. All I know is that it is by invitation only and only for orcs.¡± I could sense her frustration at such past disappointments on the topic.  ¡°I¡¯ve always wanted to go, but I have never been invited.¡±


    ¡°Hmm, well considering Berxerxes himself gave you his blessing, I am sure that it will not cause too much of an uproar if you pop out of my shadow during the party.¡±


    ¡°Could be, could be,¡± she replies noncommittally. ¡°I have noticed how orcs stare at me when I am openly walking around with you. They show ample respect, so perhaps that is good enough to have a standing invitation.¡±


    ¡°One way to find out. Let¡¯s go home for now. I need to make new clothes, preferably ones that fit better. I feel like I could rip my way out of these clothes if I take one wrong step.¡±

 Chapter 78

    After surreptitiously asking around about where Captain Jericho hailed from, I discovered she was born and raised in the Steppes of Strife, which is just past the Pillars of Strife, a geological location from which her free company has taken its moniker. It is the only safe path through the mountains to the steppes and is known for its tall and thin rock formations, along with countless deadly predators. Further inquiry educated me on some aspects of the customs and manner of dress for the people living there, and as such, I quickly fashioned an outfit to match.


    I am no [Tailor], but I had watched Mother closely as she went about her craft, and indeed, I had a fair amount of practice making my own clothes after her passing. I did dabble in a few Skills to help me out in the process, and while I could not make clothes with as fine of quality as Mother, nor nearly as quickly, by the time I had to get back to work in the morning, I had fashioned myself a silk deel, which is a fancy robe or overcoat. I didn¡¯t have the time to embroidery all the details, so I cheated. With [Enchanting] Skills being put to task, and a smattering of Illusion magic, I had a deel with a black background with yellow dragons adorning it. The cuffs were likewise golden, and I wore a golden silk sash and leather gutal boots that had no laces, also of a black and gold color palette. I also wore a toortsog on my head, which is a round, conical, and formal hat. My boots and hat also had illusions and enchantments powering their patterns, for putting the proper shapes of everything together took far too much time.


    Everything I wore had a draconic motif, and indeed, black and gold colors had been my theme for a while now unless I wanted to blend in with the masses. I counted my lucky stars that I hoarded every kind of leather and fabric I came across for both outfits and my inevitable practice crafting enchantments. To be fair, I hoarded pretty much any kind of crafting material I came across, at least to the limits of what my pocket dimensions could hold, with the expectation that I would eventually get around to using them. I had ample practice back in Berkerin with all manner of artisans learning the basics of every craft I could, and so I purchased all the materials I would need to do just about anything I could set my mind to.


    Satisfied with my craftsmanship, I reluctantly had to go to work digging the tunnel instead of doing more touch-ups. I probably would have fiddled with it for hours on end with diminishing returns on any improvements for my efforts, so perhaps it was for the best that the sun decided to rise yet again.


    The process of digging the path for the tunnel, refining the stone into obsidicrete and obsidisteel, and then building the proper structure of the tunnel passageway had become closer to trivial thanks to my Skill upgrades. We were easily going five times faster, and that felt slow only because we had yet to work through the logistics of how much faster we could go and as to what parts of the process I could leave to the regular workers. Torborg and I had to stop around noon just to hash out a plan to fix our production process because the workers were completely overloaded with more material than they could process. We ultimately called off work on the tunnel a few hours early because the workers were too exhausted to continue.


    I, however, was still fit as a fiddle. My mana reserves were well over half-full thanks to my improved efficiency at processing materials and dimensional storage. However, instead of going home early, Torborg and I continued to go through the minutiae of who would be responsible for what tasks. Ultimately, I took most of the tunnel work upon myself. Clearing the rock and fashioning materials became solely my job, as well as placing blocks mostly into location. The workers would handle the rest from there, for those tasks require more perception and finesse than needed for normal grunt work. That did leave us with a small army of workers who no longer had a task to perform, so we set them to harvesting lumber and building palisades along the road. Armies marching this way would need places to rest for the night, and defensive forts along the route would help them immensely.


    By the appointed hour for the tea party, I found myself freshly bathed, groomed, and dressed for the occasion. Strictly speaking, I had sufficient Abilities to clean myself without a bath, but bathing in hot water feels better and provides oneself with more opportunities to socialize with a few beautiful and fortunate ladies.


    Speaking of beautiful ladies, I spotted Captain Jericho waiting for me outside of town hall. She wore traditional clothes in the same vein as my own, albeit those traditionally appropriate for females. A riot of various colors, decorations, and strips of cloth adorned her outfit, so I struggle to properly describe it in detail, but rest assured that she looked spiffy. As I approached and we locked eyes, I detected a delighted and approving smile plaster itself upon her eager face.


    ¡°Why hello there, tall, green, and handsome! I¡¯m glad you showed up.¡± She rushed over to me with more pep in her step than perhaps decorum dictated appropriate, so I took that as a sign that she wanted to get to know me.


    ¡°Greetings and salutations to you, too, Captain Jericho,¡± I replied as I held out both arms to her, right palm down and left palm up. She extended her arms likewise, and with each hand, we grasped each other¡¯s forearms just below the elbow in greeting.


    ¡°Oh, Captain Jericho is my work name. I¡¯m off the clock, so call me Jericho,¡± she responded as we finished our greeting and let go of one another. Wasting no time, she swiveled around to my side and hooked her arm with mine as she nuzzled in close to me.


    ¡°Would you kindly escort me inside?¡± she inquired with an inviting look in her eyes.


    ¡°It would be my absolute privilege and delight to have such an honor bestowed upon me,¡± I answered with a toothy grin on my face. I thought it would take longer to get used to my protruding lower canines jutting upwards, but shapeshifting as I do gives me the proper insights to feel natural in my new body. Ergo, my lips didn¡¯t get stuck on my teeth.


    With other people also making their way inside, we merged into the flow of traffic and found ourselves a seat at a table. The chair strained at my weight as if it would fall apart at any moment. Feeling it in my hand, I could tell it was made of a light wood, and even Chooka could crush the wood to a pulp in her hands. None of the chairs or tables had any sharp edges, which to me spoke of some degree of quality craftsmanship. So, why was everything so flimsy otherwise?


    The table itself was covered in white cloth, with only room for two seats on one side. All the tables were on the outside of the room with all chairs situated that everyone faced the center of the room. Our table had teacups, saucers, spoons, and a teapot, all of which were made of brass, which I assumed would be a little too soft and delicate for orcish strength. Perhaps that was the point, that everyone had to employ deft skill in handling everything so that nothing would break.


    In hardly any time, the room had filled with all manner of orcs, with skin colors from dark green to light, some getting to an orangish-brown tint, while others were hued with blue. The formal attire varied greatly, with everything from women in kimonos to men looking like the quintessential barbarian kings of legend with their furs and leather, along with those in elaborate dresses and simple button-up dress shirts with slacks, for each operated at their means of acquiring formal clothing. Many had symbols of heraldry, denoting either family, clan, or tribe. Surely, orcs all across the continent had gathered to help build this road, and yet they displayed cordial attitudes that suggested the solidarity of being orcs came before any disagreements between governments. Of note, all were beautiful and young, so perhaps only the best specimens of orcish blood were invited to the tea party.


    ¡°This is your first time attending a tea party, yes?¡± a sultry voice whispered into my left ear.


    ¡°Indeed it is,¡± I replied back in hushed tones to Jericho as I leaned towards her. ¡°I would appreciate your continued guidance so I can avoid any faux paus that would bring dishonor upon me, for I know very little about the proper etiquette of such a ceremony.¡±


    Her arm wrapped around mine, hugging it to her bosom as she continued to whisper sweet things into my ear. ¡°A man as handsome of body and dress as you will surely draw attention, and so allow me to elucidate the proper decorum you will need to observe.¡±


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    She smiled sweetly at me as she provided me with the information I needed. By the time we finished her crash course, all guests had been seated. When a gong was struck, all voices quieted as everyone found their seats, each person sitting up straight with hands flat upon the tables in front of them. Then, a person whom I can only describe as the final boss of tea parties entered the room as escorted by two handmaidens. Her outfit was a riot of color and a motley collection of ribbons, charms, jewelry, and just about every doodad that could have been tossed her way. I¡¯m pretty sure that if she walked past a murder of crows, they would have stripped her to the bone in following their instincts to collect shiny things. She stopped in the center of the room, and with the grace of a dancer, she slowly spun on one foot as she addressed the room, her handmaidens walking around her so as to always stay by her side.


    ¡°Behold, let thine eyes be drawn to me. Hark, let thine ears heed my voice,¡± she spoke in orcish, which I didn¡¯t even realize I knew until now. Perhaps being an orc let me comprehend the language - not that any orcs ever spoke it in public, but I knew the language for what it was.


    ¡°Tonight, we share in fellowship of our trials and tribulations, of our accomplishments and deeds, of our mistakes and fortunes as we journey through this life, that we may each and everyone one of us be found worthy to feast in the halls of Grel¡¯la¡¯kel upon our deaths.¡±


    ¡°May honor and death be ours to claim,¡± intoned the handmaidens that walked around the MC.


    ¡°May honor and death be ours to claim,¡± chanted back all of us in attendance at our seats.


    Without more ceremony, the MC and handmaidens nobly strode over to their seats at the head¡­ table? After a quick search, I detected that the table was off to the side. After the MC took her seat, the handmaidens carried the table over and into place, then they took their seats.


    ¡°Now, let us join in fellowship and enjoy a cup of tea in harmony with our neighbor,¡± announced the MC as she lifted the brass teapot before her. With deft movements, she poured tea into the cups of each of her handmaidens.


    Almost as one, everyone on the left side of their respective tables reached for their teapots and poured tea into the cup of their neighbor at their table before placing the teapot back to its resting spot with the spout facing the left. As Jericho instructed me earlier, and indeed as everyone in the room demonstrated, I then took the teapot and poured the tea into Jericho¡¯s cup. I returned the teapot to its resting spot with the spout facing the center of the room.


    In unison, everyone present lifted their teacups to their lips and drank it down in one go. The tea had a pleasant and minty taste, and it was the perfect temperature for drinking comfortably. I then returned my cup to my saucer, as did all present, and no one went back for seconds with the tea.


    ¡°Who here has a grievance they wish to air?¡± inquired the MC of the room without addressing anyone in particular.


    One burly orc stood up, one dressed like a barbarian king, minus the weapons, which somehow did not make him any less opposing.


    ¡°I, Tortok of the Grinning Wolf clan, take issue with Rummela of the Fire Valley clan. Why, when I commissioned you to sharpen the axes of my work crew, did you not complete sharpening a single one for three days?¡± he asked an orc lady in fine silks whom I can only assume to be Rummela.


    The handmaidens hurried over to Tortok¡¯s table, and picking it up, they carried it over to the center of the room and placed it down side-on to the MC. The woman, Rummela, stood up to answer her challenger.


    ¡°I, Rummela of the Fire Valley clan, would have words with Tortok of the Grinning Wolf clan, that we may avoid discord between us.¡±


    Apparently reaching an accord, Tortok and his neighbor picked up their chairs and made their way to their table, while Rummela and her neighbor did the same. Only once all were at their respective table did they sit down. Over a few minutes, they talked through their differences, which felt a bit like a soap opera. Long story short, logistics, overwork, and conflicting orders had led to Rummela not being able to complete her work order to sharpen the axes, and the two of them found an amicable agreement as to how to proceed. Tortok, the offended party, poured tea for Rummela, and she in turn poured tea for Tortok. They then each drank their tea in one go, placing their cups back down onto their saucers.


    Interestingly enough, no one returned to where they had been positioned before at the exterior of the room. The MC asked if any more had a grievance to air, and the whole process repeated itself four more times without issue. It was on the sixth such observance of the ritual of peaceful resolution of conflict that things soured.


    One heated orc stood, and, grabbing his chair, he swung it down hard on the orc he had a disagreement with. The chair shattered upon contact, and seemingly unphased by the impact, the chair-stricken orc grabbed the brass teapot and smashed it into the face of his attacker. The fight quickly grew rowdy as other innocent bystanders were hit with errant fists and furniture. Before long, the center of the room devolved into an all-out brawl, which quickly spilled to the outside of the room.


    Before I knew it, I found myself in a battle royale. Jericho and I defended ourselves from our neighbors, but I soon found myself in a contest with only Jericho herself. As I caught sight of the action around the room with [Observers], I noticed that most people were not fighting just one or two people, and most were fighting someone of the opposite gender. However, I detected some unspoken rules to the chaos. No one was breaking bones or otherwise maiming their opponent, but otherwise, furniture and dishware was being broken with reckless abandon.


    Right next to us, a male orc bit into the female he was fighting, right where the neck met the shoulder, and a moan escaped her mouth that sounded out of place for a battlefield. I detected no lack of ecstasy in her voice, and she sunk her fingernails into his back and raked them down towards his posterior. Likewise, around the room, men and women were ripping the clothes off their opponents, many caught in a grapple and taking it to the floor, where hostilities devolved into the pursuit of more base instincts.


    So shocked was I by the proceedings that Jericho managed to land a swift kick right between my legs, and for the life of her, I don¡¯t think she held back even slightly. Angered and strangely aroused, I was surprised that the pain only spurred on how attracted I was to her. In retaliation, I quickly feigned a haymaker, only to give another feigned kick with my left leg. The true attack was still with the haymaker, but instead of a punch, I aimed lower and grabbed her by the throat. My left leg, also not a complete feint, moved behind her, and pushing her off balance as she fell into my leg, I choke-slammed her to the floor.


    A husky grunt escaped her throat as I quickly pounced on top of her. Straddling her waist and pinning her arms above her head, I felt driven by madding lust and instinct as I leaned over and bit her on the neck as I had seen demonstrated earlier. For a moment, my mind wandered to a remark made by an orc named Gulfore about ¡°not enough teeth¡±, when Skull illuminated my merry band about her and my own escapades in romance, and suddenly Gulfore¡¯s words made sense. Teeth are good.


    All around the room, men and women were biting and clawing one another as moans of pain and pleasure filled the room. Women were ripped out of bodices that they wore beneath their clothes. The handmaidens handed out pillows, blankets, silk ropes, and other toys to those who wanted them.


    Flogs made snapping sounds as they struck bare skin. Bottoms were turned red by the ministrations of paddles. A quite literal orgy of pain and pleasure could be found all across the room that now lay littered with broken furniture and bodies intermingled in the pursuit of lust.


    ¡°Ravage me, handsome,¡± demanded a defiant and concupiscent Jericho who offered the pretense of unyielding resolve as she struggled in my grasp.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you mean, ¡®ravish me¡¯?¡± I asked.


    ¡°No, no I do not. Take me, and be rough,¡± she answered back with a smile on her face.


    And so what had started as a prim and proper ceremony had spiraled out of control into a night of indulgences in passion and desire. Few and far between were the boundaries of deeds performed, although it did seem that all respected the consent of their partners. By most humanoid standards, the orcs were brutal to one another, yet none seemed to be dealt more than they could take. Orcs had a reputation for being prude in public, and now I understood that they required lovers who could handle such savagery. I had explored such ¡®deviant¡¯ behaviors with past lovers, but the orcs took it to an extreme.


    And so, as the night drew late, Jericho and I, much like many others with their respective paramours, found ourselves cuddling with one another in a sea of sweaty bodies, broken furniture, and toys not meant for children. Slowly, individuals, couples, and larger groups found the remnants of their clothes and brought them to the MC, who worked her magic to repair clothes and bodies alike into serviceable condition to allow an appropriate level of modesty for the trek home.


    ¡°That was fun,¡± I confided in Jericho as we made our way out of the building. ¡°Care to come back to my place for round two?¡±

 Chapter 79

    ¡°That was fun,¡± he whispered into my ear as we walked our way out of town hall. ¡°Care to come back to my place for round two?¡± he continued as his seductive baritone voice promised blissful undertakings.


    Despite my wishes, I had to turn him down. My reason feels lame, but I have to work tomorrow, and it would undermine my authority if I, as a captain, arrived late for work. I did promise that I would take him up on the offer later when I had more time off work.


    Yet his words still lingered on my mind as I slowly made my way home. It isn¡¯t like he was particularly suave beyond measure, but the message he conveyed aligned perfectly with my desires. Quality males were few and far between around here, and most were already taken. Beyond that, there was some other enigmatic quality about him, some allure that tugged at me, that I yearned to approach him and stay by his side.


    Did he use mind magic on me? Would I even recognize I was enthralled by such foul machinations if I were so ensorcelled? But, it didn¡¯t feel abhorrent or so direct. Forsooth, that familiarity we shared, the comfort of each other¡¯s presence, felt natural beyond what little time we had shared together. It felt as if I had known him my whole life and beyond, and he knew me as well. Perhaps that is how mind magic gets you.


    And this affection I feel for him, gah! I¡¯m not some schoolgirl pining for her first crush. But why do I feel so certain I love him and not in a fleeting way? Is this Destiny, our convergence ordained beyond our control, with Fate sealing our choices that we have yet to make?


    ¡°Get yourself together, Jericho!¡± I admonished myself mentally as I continued my walk home. He may be everything you seek in a man, but he¡¯s just one orc among-


    ¡­


    Wait a minute! Black clothes with yellow decoration. Shows up out of nowhere and no one has heard of him before. Charismatic and handsome, yet such an Everyman that he could be from anywhere. Has fine enough clothes to be a chieftain, yet he cuts firewood for a living. Furthermore, his clothes are festooned with draconic icons and imagery.


    ¡°By Berxerxes¡¯ balls! That was the Emperor!¡±


    Why would he slum it with us orcs? But, he has garnered a reputation for promiscuity. It was a well-known secret that women only had to approach the guildmaster, Chooka, to arrange for a night of passion with the man, assuming one was found worthy. Had his appetites turned even towards orcs? Admittedly, many men and some women have eyed me appreciatively, but few have had the stones to make a move. Would I end up as just another conquest for him, or was there something more there?


    Gah, so much makes perfect sense as the rest remains as nebulous as it is vexing. I would have to see him again to get answers, no doubt about it. And my traitorous heart pounds faster at the thought, all too eager to bend the knee and declare my undying love for him. Okay, maybe I¡¯m being a tad dramatic, but still, something fishy is going on.


    In pondering such mysteries, I came to realize that I had been oblivious to everything going on around me, which in and of itself is a dangerous pastime. More to the point, I had walked well past my home and almost to the gate that leads to the road we are building. Perhaps I should stop by and see if the guards are attentive to their duties or not. Those posted there may not be from the Pillars of Strife, but I could still bring the heat down on their commander if I went through the chain of command, should I find the guards there slacking off.


    An eerie feeling flooded through me as I drew near the gate. Something unnatural approached, of that, my instincts screamed. Shaken, but unrelenting in my duty, I continued forward, summoning my weapons from my storage ring that had been gifted to me when I had made captain. Though unarmored, my trusty tower shield and axe would see me through the worst of a scuffle if ¡®kinetic events¡¯ became the only recourse for ¡®alternative diplomacy¡¯, as my training instructor had lectured me on such terminology to veil brutish violence with eloquent euphemisms.


    I hurried to the gates from which I heard shouting and observed flashes of light. As I drew closer, I could see the craven guards in the watchtowers of the gatehouse trembling like leaves in a gale, yet they took no action to ring the fucking alarm bell not three feet away from them. The gate, for whatever godsforsaken reason remained ajar at this hour, appeared otherwise undamaged, but the guards posted there were nowhere to be seen. Perhaps they had rushed out of the gate to handle some threat.


    Not half a minute later, I arrived at the gate, and the shouting from outside had all but abated, other than some sniveling wretch, presumably outside the gate, who sounded much like those who had succumbed to battle fatigue.


    ¡°Wake up, you dogs!¡± I shouted at those on watch. ¡°The gate is open, what in the blazes is going on?¡± I continued as I took up a defensive stance, ready to meet whatever may burst through the opening of the gates any moment now.


    Yet, those on guard remained as they were, gripped so tightly by fear that they remained unresponsive. Unsure if I should run up to ring the bell or work to close the gate, my ponderings remained moot when an unlikely individual bumbled his way through the opening in the gates.


    ¡°Oh, pardon me, my dear!¡± a hunched old man in drab clothes and leaning heavily on his walking stick greeted as he ambled the rest of the way past the gates. ¡°Dreadfully uppity lot out there. No respect for their elders, hmph,¡± he continued as he walked as if to make his way past me.


    ¡°Halt, identify yourself!¡± I ordered the stranger, but he made no effort to heed my warning.


    The hairs on the back of my neck raised in alarm as the distance between us slowly diminished with his slow but inexorable gait. I was a split-second away from using coercive force to convince him to comply when a voice, not my own, strongly advised against it.


    ¡°Strike not The Pacifist, or perish.¡±


    I could hear those capitalized letters in the warning. Not, ¡°the pacifist¡±, but ¡°The Pacifist¡±. The Walking Calamity, The Bumbling Doom, The Wandering Old Man, the list of appellations goes on, but the point remains the same. If the voice were to be trusted, which I deem it is, then this old man was one of the Twelve and One.


    Demon.


    I thought all children had been told bedtime stories of the Demons. If so, then the guards should have known not to attack him after the first perished. Careful to show no aggression, I slipped past him and through the gates to confirm my suspicions. Where once guards had been, only piles of ash and their equipment remained, their bodies painting a tale of how they had all been rendered such when they went to strike the Demon.


    Shaken, but stirred on by duty, I returned through the gates and closed and barred them. On trembling legs, I climbed the stairs to the gatehouse and rang out the signal on the bell that I had memorized but never dreamed I would need to use. Three quick rings, two slow, two slow, three quick again. With pauses in between, I rang it out two more times before using [Signal Flare] to launch a signal for the camp. A white glow illuminated the sky like the noon sun, changing to crimson red before sputtering out entirely.


    Stolen story; please report.


    My duty fulfilled, I collapsed as the reality of how closely I had brushed against death sunk in. The Pacifist, of the Twelve and One, was a Demon, as are the rest. He, or it, cannot harm anyone directly, but can defend himself. Should someone try to attack, imprison, obstruct, or otherwise interfere with his agency, said individual would be turned to ash in an instant. Such had been the fate of the guards, and such would have been mine if I had followed protocol.


    I am no stranger to battle, to dancing with death, to watching the blade come for my neck with only a fraction of a second at my disposal to thwart quenching its thirst with my blood. But Demons exist beyond my experience or complete understanding. Their motivations are aberrant to reason, their methods perverse and abhorrent, their means supernatural and mysterious. The terror that clawed and scraped at the barriers of my sanity were beyond simple fear, and I could do naught but tremble on the floor of the gatehouse like some pathetic greenhorn who pisses his pants on his first fight.


    I thought myself stalwart, brave, undaunted by the horrors of this world, but I am wrong, and such revelations are a bitter pill to swallow. Tears of frustration and rage at my own weakness streamed unbidden down my face as I cowered. And to think, the Demon didn¡¯t even turn his power against me directly; I just happened to be nearby. All I could do was think and pray while I waited for the effect to wear off.


    ¡°Gods above, save us from your miscarried kin that walk among us.¡±


    <hr>


    Jericho turned me down for tonight, but her eyes and smile promised future repetitions of our indulgences. Something about her pulled me closer, and I have a strong feeling I know what. I remember there being a female orc among those statues of my companions in my inner world, and if she was not the one depicted there, I¡¯d eat my hat! Well, eat it in my draconic form, since the hat would be easy to swallow whole, but the point remains that the attraction I felt was beyond lust or even simple affection.


    ¡°More time to snoop around, or will you practice your enchanting?¡± asked Skull from my shadow where she had remained hidden.


    ¡°Probably snooping, I have not done enough of that lately. Also, I¡¯m surprised you did not make your debut to the orcs.¡±


    ¡°I figured you should have the first night to yourself. Plus, I was busy looking around and taking in the sights,¡± she continued, her voyeuristic enjoyment seeping through our bond. ¡°Plus, I want to see if I can scare her if I make the big reveal during the next time you two knock boots. I only get to do that once; no sense wasting it.¡±


    ¡°Fair enough. Hey Skull, do you see what I see over there,¡± I asked my eternal companion as I turned my gaze over towards the back of the town hall where a small and shadowy figure skulked about.


    Skull, her presence more known to me as I grew in power and familiarity with her, moved over in that direction. Her incorporeal and shadowy figure was visible to me now, a most recent development, and so I had an inkling of how she occupied her time as she remained presumably within another plane or dimension connected to my shadow, or the concept of my shadow perhaps.


    ¡°Shady; let¡¯s check it out,¡± she replied with interest. I could tell she wanted to sneak up on and scare the person, and so I began to stalk my prey.


    The figure wore robes, so I could not be certain who it was at this distance. However, upon advancing closer, a certain realization illuminated the answer to the mystery, and so delighted at my opportunity for shenanigans, I followed the unsuspecting interloper who entered town hall so late at night.


    Quiet as smoke, I crept my way inside while shrouded in magical shadows. A light could be seen coming from inside near the larder. Slinking closer, I rounded the corner and shouted at my unsuspecting prey.


    ¡°ALTEREZ!¡±


    ¡°What?¡± he complained as he turned to me. Completely unfazed, he chowed down on a slice of cheese.


    ¡°Damn, I thought I would have surprised you. What are you doing eating cheese at two in the morning?¡±


    ¡°Boss,¡± Alterez sighed after swallowing to answer my inquiries. ¡°This is a kitchen and I am a [Line Cook]. Nothing happens in the kitchen that I don¡¯t know about. I noticed you the instant you ¡®snuck¡¯ inside.¡± He continued to slice off more pieces of cheese and handed some to me before continuing. ¡°As for your second question, I am a goblin and it is two in the morning. Where else would I be? Any self-respecting goblin would be eating cheese at such an hour while standing inside a larder. The goblin gods look favorably on those who follow such tenants.¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± I replied as I found myself dumbstruck by such innocent and peculiar activities. ¡°I guess I don¡¯t really know what goblins believe or what tenants they should observe to follow their gods.¡± Skull joined me, and together we ate our cheese together, which was very good with a light, nutty flavor.


    ¡°Many are the tenants that we supreme beings must follow,¡± he lectured as he cut off another slice of cheese. ¡°Eating cheese at this hour is one of them. Not killing [Fromagers], [Cheesemakers], [Cheesemongers], and such, or otherwise stealing too much from them. Bullshitting your way through life and inane questions. Taking the nails when you steal things. Bathing at least once a day. I have been a devout disciple of the gods for a long time now, or at least more than most goblins. It¡¯s really a low bar to beat to be so devout, but yet my kin often disappoint me,¡± Alterez continued as he frowned while looking nostalgic. ¡°Anyway,¡± he continued as his mood perked up, ¡°now that you have eaten the cheese with me, you are complicit in any and all crimes which I will totally deny any part of.¡±


    We shared a laugh at that joke, which I also understood to be equal parts serious. Our merrymaking was interrupted by the sound of a bell. Alterez¡¯s ears perked up at the sound of it, the tiny hairs on the ends of his ears quivering with the distant vibrations. I likewise heard the sound of an alarm, which I would have perhaps ignored since it would normally be for others to handle, but this particular alarm was unexpected but not unplanned for.


    ¡°Oh shit! Not good,¡± Alterez stated what we all were thinking as his ears drooped. ¡°Do you want me to stay here and guard the kitchen and our victuals, or¡­¡±


    ¡°Come along; you probably have more experience with calamity than most,¡± I answered quickly, which clearly was not the answer he was hoping for, but he complied nonetheless.


    As we made our way to the front gate, I observed men and women rushing from their homes with weapons and armor at the ready while other people, presumably non-combatants, rushed to designated shelters. Some took command, barking orders and issuing threats and cusses to lollygaggers as a defensive countermeasure was assembled.


    ¡°Oh, what are we fighting,¡± asked a strange old man who leaned heavily on his walking stick as he waddled over to me.


    I turned to the man and was about to answer him when some surly human bumped into the old man accidently.


    ¡°Watch where you are going, old man!¡± the youth shouted as he moved to shove the old man.


    To the horror of all onlookers, the youth never connected with his shove. In less than a second, the man incinerated in a flash of blue and green fire. I felt no heat wash over me, but the pristine and immense mana that powered such an Ability was clear to even the least talented among us. The man¡¯s clothing and personal effects remained intact, but they fell to the ground as ash spilled out of them and onto the ground.


    ¡°Hmph, kids these days have no manners,¡± the old man complained as he resented his balance from their earlier collision. ¡°Why, back in my day¡­¡± the old man continued to lecture as he grumbled about times long gone.


    As I looked on at those gathered, I saw them gripped by fear, their bodies trembling as few could muster the strength to move. Skull, naturally, was completely unaffected, and if anything, she seemed envious of the old man¡¯s power, or perhaps jealous that her god did not have a monopoly on such Abilities.


    ¡°Peace!¡± Skull shouted to the masses. ¡°No one is to harm this old man or bar him from moving about freely,¡± she continued as she turned about to address those gathered here. ¡°This old man is a Demon, The Pacifist. He cannot harm you, but should you try to harm him, you will die instantly. If you want peace and privacy, all you must do is lock your doors at night, for he will not break into your homes. Do not attempt to evict him should you find him where he does not belong or otherwise engage in any violence or hostility towards him. He is only as dangerous as you make him.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, well said, well said, young one,¡± the old man complimented Skull as she finished, before turning his eyes to Alterez, whom I had forgotten about. ¡°Oh, it¡¯s you again. I don¡¯t see any of your friends around to rob me this time, but will that stop you from turning tail and running away again? I had hoped you would have learned your lesson after the third time you tried it.¡±


    All eyes turned to the goblin. I could almost see the gears turning in his head as the bullshit factory primed itself for a special delivery.

 Chapter 80

    ¡°First of all,¡± Alterez started as his all-too-wide smile plastered itself upon his face. ¡°I can neither confirm nor deny any such actions, real or imagined, that may or may not have taken place. Any such allegations of misdeeds committed are as slanderous as they are fictitious. Furthermore, any alleged crimes would have occurred centuries ago and are thus beyond the statute of limitations, not that I would ever engage in such dishonest and criminal activity, being that I am an upstanding member of society and a pillar of the community.


    ¡°Now, I may recall a time or place when a certain old man traveled through the territory of a certain goblin tribe, where one unnamed but ridiculously handsome and charming goblin may have witnessed some coworkers try to engage in larcenous activities against said old man. Said coworkers may have burst into flames and turned to ash almost instantly. The heroic goblin in question may have then run away to warn the others. The hero may have then returned with reinforcements, after which the same outcome came about. The hero may have then returned with certain individuals from the tribe that our hero did not like, which resulted in the same outcome. Now our hero, ever pragmatic, would not have let all the personal effects of his associates go to waste and just rot away on the ground, so the hero may have collected any valuables that were in dire need of ownership and a new home after a night of gambling. That¡¯s all I have to say about an unclear memory I have that may be from some book I read or something.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, or something,¡± the old man snorted as he shook his head. ¡°Gong farmers everywhere would strike it rich with you. They have but to make you speak, and shit comes out of your mouth. Well, at least I know why you tried so many times. You are not the first to have goaded his associates into attacking me for such underhanded reasons as looting their remains, but few have been so clever or annoying.¡±


    ¡°You may have me confused with someone else with your most charitable compliments,¡± Alterez responded as his smile widened even further. ¡°I assure you, my goblin body you see before you did not engage in any such ¡®underhanded¡¯ activities with you in the past, at least to my knowledge.¡±


    Alterez shared a knowing look with me as he finished his explanation. We both knew that he has reincarnated many times into the bodies of other goblins that have perished through circumstances that most likely involved his unsound advice. As such, he undoubtedly did not possess this particular body at the time of the crime.


    ¡°Well,¡± I interjected with my best diplomatic personna after a silent pause in discussions, ¡°it seems that is one mystery solved. Perhaps, my good sir,¡± I continued as I addressed the old man,¡± you would elucidate the circumstances and motives that bring you all this way to grace our humble town with your presence.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, it seems you put that shit in your mouth to use for the purpose of fertilizing those flowery words of yours, but I know you don¡¯t want me here. Too bad!¡± Some incoherent grumbling and muttering followed before he continued. ¡°I know the end of the world when I see one, it¡¯s not my first time, you whippersnapper. It will draw my kin and I like carrion draws vultures. Some of them want to use you, some of them want to be abused,¡± he looked around for a moment as if he had made a great joke which none of us understood, and indeed, no one was laughing. He grumbled a bit more about ¡®back in my day¡¯ before he continued. ¡°Well, my kin may cause chaos, but we won¡¯t jeopardize the fate of the world since we reside here and all. It gets rather boring for a while when civilization gets wiped out,¡± he finished as he stood silent, his eyes trapped in a forlorn gaze viewing that which only his memories could provide for him to witness.


    ¡°That does sound like a terrible fate,¡± I condoled after an appropriate moment of silence. ¡°Well, since you do not enjoy such solitude, perhaps you would appreciate me assigning an honor guard to you for the duration of your stay.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, more like they are for the protection of the people here than my own safety, but it isn¡¯t like I can stop you.¡± With teeth gritted, as if he struggled emotionally to say the words, he labored to continue. ¡°I will try my best to keep my meddling to the appropriate minimum since we share a common cause.¡± A hurt look of disappointment and annoyance crossed his face. I suspected his nature was to antagonize people into attacking him, so abstaining from his favorite pastime for the greater good must have weighed heavily upon him.


    ¡°A most magnanimous sacrifice on your part. We are all grateful for your assistance and cooperation in saving the world,¡± I replied with an equal mix of sincerity and veiled sarcasm.


    ¡°Hmph,¡± he grumbled, trying to hide his flustered embarrassment at my compliment by stroking his beard. ¡°Oh, I guess I should release this lot from my aura,¡± he stated casually. With a wave of his hand, the supernatural fear that gripped the masses dissipated, even if normal fear still remained.


    ¡°Gam-¡±


    ¡°Here, Boss!¡± responded just the kobold I wanted to talk to as he and Bambina swiveled around to stand in front of me. I somehow never detected their approach, and between my senses and the bond we shared, it should have been inescapably obvious. I made a note to work more on my bond with them and Alterez at some later date.


    ¡°Excellent,¡± I stated before clearing my throat, a maneuver performed strictly to regain my composure at my two biggest fans¡¯ unyielding commitment to the bit of serving me. ¡°Form up a kobold honor guard. I am picturing big flashy banners that will catch the attention of passersby. I don¡¯t want anyone to aggravate or attack our community¡¯s newest guest by mistake. Bambina.¡±


    ¡°Here, Boss!¡± she chimed up as I called for her.


    ¡°I want you to lead an educational campaign so that everyone here is fully abreast of the situation. I want everyone to know the basics of Demons, Titans, demigods, and whatever else great and powerful that may crawl out of the woodwork at us so that we can avoid future mishaps. By my authority, this is compulsory education. Nanu should be able to provide all the knowledge you need to educate the masses. That¡¯s all I have for you two at the moment.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Boss!¡± they answered as one.


    ¡°And don¡¯t call me Boss,¡± I replied back to their sharp confirmation of my orders.


    ¡°Yes, Boss!¡± they responded just as enthusiastically as they snapped to attention. I could see the twinkle of mischief in their eyes as they did so.


    Sighing, I turned to Skull as my eager kobold companions scurried off to perform their master¡¯s bidding.


    ¡°Would you kindly and peacefully disperse this crowd for me.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Boss,¡± she replied with a snarky smile before she acquiesced to my request. Cheeky.


    She would rather scare them away, but she had been told to play nice. Surprisingly, her voice was extremely positive and chipper, as if she had worked in customer service or as a tour guide, one jaded by life but still capable of killing her customers with kindness. When idiots asked her questions, she gave non-answers and a cheerful smile that somehow still communicated the towering monstrosity of unbridled terror that lurked within her, which quickly sent the remaining rabble scattering for their homes. Doors would be locked tightly that night, but whether it be more out of fear of Skull or the Demon was anyone¡¯s guess.


    <hr>


    Groggy and groaning, my fist smashed impotently in the direction of the alarm crystal that my First Love had crafted for me. I swear the thing had been designed to gleefully evade my attempts to thwart its incessant chiming as it announced the arrival of a new day. Victory was mine in the end, but ultimately pyrrhic in nature, as the damn thing was also linked to the magical apparatus that automatically drew open the curtains when the alarm was silenced.


    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Even after all these decades, I was still used to the hours more common to a lady of the night, one who ensured the normally lonely hours until dawn were not spent in solitude for those who could afford to part with some coin for the privilege. Those had been good years, but I didn¡¯t want to stagnate in that profession, despite how well it suited me, and so I had to moonlight as the hunter instead of the hunted in order to find companions.


    Fortune me, that I made such a career change for my adorable and at times dorky First Love. Had I not been in the guildhall that day, I may have missed him entirely, for he never visited the pleasure district of Berkerin. Well, not unless I dragged him along to indulge with me, and indulge he did, much to my satisfaction. Still, it would have been a chicken and the egg scenario, so I remain thankful to the man who suggested the career change and even went so far as to open doors for me in getting my job, which was strange considering he had not been one of my clients. Thinking back, I vaguely recall that he seemed rather familiar.


    I shook my head at such musings. That was many years ago now, and I had only met the man briefly, so my memory of him was foggy at best. Either way, it all worked out well in the end, and hopefully today would, too.


    First Love had left a warm bath for me. He, as well as the rest of his harem, had departed early. Today was the day to start moving camp through the mountain now that the tunnel was finished. It would be smooth sailing from here with the frequency of changing camps being increased dramatically. Not only could he build roads and dig tunnels faster, but now that the road made its way through less mountainous terrain, it would be a far easier undertaking to continue construction, and thus, necessitate moving the camp often.


    After a pleasant soak and some breakfast that First Love had left for me, I finished dressing myself for the day. I caught myself rubbing the bracelet that he had acquired for me as a symbol of his affection, and more and more, I found comfort in it beyond any such trinket I had received from past paramours. He and I both still bedded other people, but we still chose to be with each other most of the time, which satisfied me more than I had expected. What had started as a fling on my part had grown into something serious, an eventuality that past me would have scoffed at. Smiling, I stepped outside the house and into the fresh air of early autumn.


    ¡°Morning, Chooka,¡± greeted an axolotl-kobold child as she walked past me by while on her way to do whatever it was that kobolds did. Absolutely adorable, as long as one looked past how they had no native morality of their own.


    One couldn¡¯t throw a rock around here without it bouncing off one kobold and it hitting another. And there were so many types. Axolotls, salamanders, newts, geckos, chameleons, iguanas, and skinks were of the anthropomorphized critters that I knew of. They flocked here from all over the continent after The Battle of the Swamp that occurred so many weeks ago. Each and every one of them adored and perhaps idolized dragons, with the ambition in their heart to become dragons themselves one day. Gambino and Bambina, each now having a draconic Blessing, were practically royalty to the kobold masses, and their leadership had been undisputed. The town had physically doubled in size to accommodate so many kobolds, but they were not idle.


    Even now, I saw a pair of them pushing some elf, his legs confined in casts, in a wheelchair for his morning constitutional. Such sweet things, helping our wounded recover. It must have been quite nasty if the healers could not have tended to his wounds. His face suggested a level of resigned displeasure, but I suppose that is to be expected from one so confined and helpless.


    Filing that under ¡®not my problem¡¯, I continued my short walk to the guildhall. Today would be another day of packing things away for our migration, but fortunately, I had a small army of kobolds who were well-versed in how to handle that for me, so I only needed to perform a perfunctory effort to oversee the whole affair. Instead, I would do what I always did. Paperwork did not process itself, thankfully, and I would certify those quests and allocate the payments that my clerks would then dispense to the eager Adventurers looking to make some coin.


    We had only the best Adventurers around here, or at least we did initially. Gold chaff had migrated to our town, and being more pressed for manpower to address the seemingly unending hordes of beasts and monsters that lurked this deep in the wilderness, we accepted all the help we could get. Quests were accepted within the day, and by evening, new quests were drafted to investigate what had become of those who never returned to the guildhall for payment and a night of merrymaking. Some Platinums specialized in those tasks and earned good coin and free loot by ¡®avenging their fallen comrades¡¯, as they liked to put it.


    Sadly, I had processed the whole stack of paperwork waiting for me before we had even opened our doors to the public. I idly tapped my fingers, waiting for the moment some uppity Adventurer demanded to speak to the manager. I was itching to knock some sense into a few skulls, for while those Gold and Platinum Adventurers could take me in a fight, they all knew of my status and my relationship to a literal Emperor Dragon, so most knew better than to fuck with me.


    Sadly, without a [Noble] to keep the wilderness at bay, there were not any darling Coppers or Silvers out here. It was bittersweet to see those bright-eyed and bushy-tailed youths swagger towards the desk with bravado or timidly look around until invited over, only for far too many of them to leave one day on a quest and never come back. No one was ever sent to determine their fate, but more than one Adventurer had come across the corpses of the unlucky. Everyone here was seasoned and could not be as easily teased as the young¡¯uns.


    Oh, how I had worried when my First Love had left town on his quests, each time fearing he would not return. I had learned long ago, through the most painful of lessons, not to meddle in what Adventurers would try to tackle. A mild suggestion here or there was best, for trying to pull them to me only served to push them away. The day he had slain the hydra had left me crying when I found some time to be alone, for he had come so close to death over a stinky wheel of cheese. Gods, I was a mess of love, anger, pride, joy, and fear when he had casually informed me how he had slain a beast most feared to tackle, and alone at that. But, he had brought with him the egg that held within it one of my greatest sources of joy, so I could not complain too much.


    Speaking of, The Boys should be waddling over here any minute now. They like to snooze until after sunrise, and since they are not helping with building the road today, we get to spend the day together as I work. Sure enough, within minutes, the door slowly opened as five heads, two legs, and a stubby tail entered my office.


    ¡°Mama!¡± four of them greeted me. ¡°Snacks!¡± greeted Dio. The other four just looked at him like he was not all there in the head. ¡°Snacks,¡± the other four eventually chimed in as they scurried over and jumped up and down in front of me.


    Fortunately, my adorable Boys had the presence of mind to shrink down to lapdog size, otherwise they would have wrecked the building. The smaller size also meant snacks lasted longer. Using a ring that First Love had fashioned for me, I withdrew bits of jerky from dimensional storage and fed them each a piece.


    ¡°We love you, Mama!¡± They all sang to me as they nuzzled their snouts into me affectionately.


    ¡°Oh, you little cuties!¡± I replied as I scooped them up and held them in my arms. ¡°I love you so much, too.¡± I remained ever thankful that First Love had somehow shared the Ability for me to understand what The Boys were saying. Even though I understood their affection, it was great to know precisely what they said.


    ¡°Ma¡¯am,¡± a voice stated loudly at the door as a knock was rapped out with confidence. ¡°A customer wishes to file a complaint.¡±


    ¡°Be right there,¡± I replied to my clerk. ¡°Let¡¯s go, Boys. You know the drill.¡±


    Eagerly, I bounced my way along, descended the stairs, and headed through the employee side of the guildhall to the front desk, where I was ushered to the complaining customer.


    ¡°Took you long enough,¡± shouted the pretentiously dressed gnome that I recognized as the leader of The Elite Crimson Four, their group moniker related to the red hair that each member possessed, but I could tell that the female elf dyed hers. ¡°Your clerk wouldn¡¯t let us accept this quest,¡± he continued as he held up the paper for the quest.


    ¡°I¡¯m so sorry about that,¡± I said in my best customer service voice. I could clearly see that the quest required a minimum of eight people, and since no one wanted to work with The Elite Crimson Four, they lacked the manpower to meet the safety standards of the quest. ¡°Perhaps I could direct you to where you can file your complaint,¡± I continued as I set The Boys down on the counter.


    The Boys hopped off the counter and onto the floor, where they turned to face the gnome whilst they expanded in size until they crowded the ceiling. Five heads full of teeth nearly as long as the gnome, and far sharper I might add, lowered themselves down to his height as they surrounded him.


    ¡°Just fill out the form and place it way back there in any of those mouths. Don¡¯t be afraid to crawl inside if you need to. They don¡¯t bite¡­ much.¡±


    The gnome proceeded to piss himself as The Boys licked their lips in anticipation of a snack. Today was off to a good start.

 Chapter 81

    Fortunately, there were no more ¡®incidents¡¯ with the camp¡¯s newest Demon, or at least not enough of them to warrant my attention. The kobolds took to their task with gusto and with as much fanfare and pageantry as possible to clearly announce the presence of the Demon. Banners, horns, robes, thuribles full of incense, vendors selling dolls of the Demon with stunted limbs and a big head, free pamphlets full of facts about the Demon to educate the masses, the works. Combine that with mandatory education about the Twelve and One, and the masses were annoyingly well aware of the dangers that Demons present.


    We did make it through all the mountains in this area, and now our camp was moving regularly every two or three days. It became easier just to have two camps and leapfrog them along, but either way, the great migration of the army of workers occurred regularly. Weeks passed as we made our way through plains that at times gave way to small forests or gently rolling hills. Dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes made this region of the world their home, and given the increased nature of their size and ferocity, the Adventurers were rather swamped in their work to maintain a perimeter.


    Storm Mastodons also made the plains their home, their sonic attacks able to split your lungs with blood and thunder if you venture too close. Some species of Sky Whale, all white in color for camouflage, followed the Storm Mastodons around, the whales safely hidden in white puffy clouds. Both beasts were gentle giants one moment and rather ornery the next, and so I had to build land bridges over my road so that wildlife could cross over peacefully. Few found it to be an alluring prospect to be casually walking down the road only to have a bolt of lightning crash into one¡¯s person because a Sky Whale thought some interloper approached too close to the herd of Storm Mastodons, and so the workload doubled thanks to those bridges.


    That was not to say that everything was hostile. Bumble Turtles also walked the plains, typically favoring large fields of flowers. The great beasts had giant beehives on their backs, with rather large bees, about half the size of a hand, making those hives their home. A Bumble Turtle, which normally has legs like a tortoise, usually ambles along, slowly eating what it wants, which also serves to move the hive around so that it has access to more flowers. The bees reward the turtle with a tithe of honey, and the turtle provides protection and transportation to the hive. In a pinch, those turtles are exceptionally speedy, and they can scurry to a pond and dive underneath, keeping the hive protected in a bubble of air. I guess whoever named them observed them first underwater, because the turtles¡¯ legs transform into the flipper shape more common with turtles when they are swimming about.


    Squadrons of various species of Sky Manta Rays, numbering in the tens of thousands, would descend from the clouds to feed on other critters that swam through the air as if it were water. Curious and affectionate, some would veer off from the main group to beg for treats or snacks before ultimately leaving, of which there was a noted increase on food expenditure on those days, as well as a lack of productivity.


    In short, all manner of flora and fauna made this plain their home, from the most primordial of dinosaurs to the most esoteric collection of bits and bobs of various critters smashed together to create novel creatures not seen elsewhere. Some were loved, others despised, but all were dangerous if provoked, and so our camp did experience casualties, just not faster than we could replace them. The workers could get briefings from sunup to sundown about the dangers of the wilderness, and they would still ignore them because some interesting critter caught their eye. These events just got filed away under ¡®acceptable loss¡¯, and the camp moved on.


    Eventually, the plains gave way to scrubland, and the scrubland to badlands. I don¡¯t know if such a term exists, but worse lands lie beyond the badlands, which we just call the wastelands. However, before we could get that far, we needed to get across one particular river that was well known to exist here, for it was among the deepest and widest the world had ever seen. This is where the various engineers, dwarven and gnomish for the most part, would earn their keep.


    The Boys also made an impact, which surprised many of us. As [Herald of the New Age], they had certain boons granted to them. They simply made their way into the river, and after singing for a while, seemingly gathered every hydra in the region to them. The Boys dictated terms, and the hydras obeyed. While onlookers could only wonder as to what transpired, my many [Deeds] related to hydras provided me with ample context. As a herald of the Titan progenitors of their kind, The Boys were granted authority over their kin, and they commanded the hydras to not attack the people that move through the area and to furthermore protect the bridge from other predators. With their voice being more on par with high priests than kings, the hydra masses obeyed without question, and they each returned to their territory and provided no problems for the workers.


    With that taken care of, we spent another month just prepping for the bridge. The approach on each side had to be constructed, along with caissons to keep the water away from where the eventual piers of the bridge would be built. The caissons had to be constructed in pieces and assembled to the whole, and the entire construct of each one slowly lowered into the water as we built it, for in places the water was simply too deep to allow them to be made all at once. One looking at the bridge may be inclined to say that it had entirely too few piers to support it, and one would be correct. For although obsidisteel and obsidicrete were wondrous materials that could bear loads far higher than normal stone, they still had their limits.


    Thus, I commenced my first major enchanting project on such a large scale. While I had ample experience making trinkets and baubles, enchanting such a massive structure would be an undertaking far beyond my experience. The crux of all the effort would go to massive spheres of iron coated in brass. Two in total, and each spanning over 30 feet in diameter, they were no small undertaking to forge and place within the ramped approaches to the bridge, one on each end.


    The general idea was to redefine space, such that some of the area beneath the bridge, most notably those points farthest from any support piers, would have their load supported by the surface of the spheres instead of the empty air directly below the deck of the bridge. As long as the pressure was applied evenly to the surface of the spheres, they would stay intact, although such pressure would generate heat. That heat would then be processed through my proprietary enchantments and S.M.A.R.T. crystals to convert the thermal energy into mana, which would then sustain the enchantments.


    This whole process would experience a net loss, and so more S.M.A.R.T. crystals would act as accumulators and relays around the region to collect and redirect ambient mana to the bridge. Such leeching of ambient mana had to be dispersed across a large area to ensure it remained sustainable and did not negatively impact the environment too harshly. As such, one could spot a grid of obelisks on both sides of the bridge that served the purpose of collecting mana. To this end, I needed to get to the Greater level of [Enchanting], and so I broke my piggy bank of Experience Points to purchase those Skills, which left me rather destitute for any emergencies.


    However, that only met the mana needs of the bridge itself to stay upright. We still needed mana to create the energy needed to collect river water, purify it, and pump it through pipes some 800 miles to its final destination. It remained no small undertaking, and while mana remained more efficient and safer than more mundane means of energy manipulation and transfer, such as an electrical grid, some principles remained the same.


    Waterwheels were attached to the bridge, just beneath the deck. More magical abuse of physics, via my enchanting, allowed the wheels to leech the kinetic energy from the flowing water without actually touching the water, provided said wheels were positioned within a respectable distance of the surface of the water. My army of engineers designed and constructed the facility that converted that kinetic energy into mana, and then that mana into a force to process and pump the water, along with all the bells and whistles to ensure it could be controlled safely and could respond to various disasters, such as a loss in pressure if a pipe burst. The engineers also built some sort of primitive intelligence, artificial in nature, that could manage the power generation, one on par with the intelligence that goes into making a golem, although more sophisticated in that it could solve problems that fell under scenarios related to its purpose.


    I poked my nose in on how all that worked, added a few ideas and enchantments here and there to streamline the process, for which the engineers were grateful and eager to learn more in how I accomplished my enchantments. Sadly for them, I have always walked to the beat of my own drum, even when I had learned the basics of crafting enchantments back in Berkerin from any artisan that would teach me. Some people seem to think that there exists some direct relationship with expensive materials and complex constructs to make good enchantments, and so that was how society developed. I disagreed.


    Even before I selected my Greater Focus in [Enchanting], I had a knack for creating my own methods to enchant things. I created my own language and library of runes to define the enchantment, and my own materials to hold them. The Greater Focus allowed me to take it a few steps further. I could create my own rune library, and the World recognized and respected it. As in, the Annals of the World-Heart contained a copy of my library, which allowed me to bend the universe itself to follow the instructions of my runes. This meant I could define complicated processes or functions with a long series of runes in one script, and use a single symbol in another script to refer to it on an object. The key takeaway there is that, without such a boon, I would have to write out those complicated functions on each and every object if I wanted to refer to them on said object. That may work on something like a cuirass, which has a lot of smooth and flat space to inscribe runes, but not on a small dagger or a gear. I suspect this whole process had been done in the past by someone powerful, otherwise the runes that enchanters use would not work at all.


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    Such a boon also provided me with infinite security that no one could steal my runes for their own purposes, and thus copy my runes to make their own enchantments. I could grant others access to the library that defined what those runes did, usually as specified in contracts as to the limitations of what runes can be used and on what objects, but without said access, such runes were just fancy scribbles into objects. This meant I could grant someone access to use my runes, but that person could not further grant such access to additional parties without my authorization. I could also revoke access to the library at any time, and so someone wielding a sword that used my enchantments would find it to be no more than a normal sword should it be turned against me. Ergo, many aspiring or established [Enchanters] would sell their own family for a chance for me to share access to my rune library with them, and so I would find myself with a growing crowd of such petitioners over time.


    As one may imagine, a great deal of the time in preparation for the bridge was spent programming my runes and defining my library. Making the runes flexible and scalable was the key. For instance, if I wanted a rune that made something hot, I needed to be able to pass in the parameters of how quickly it should heat up, the maximum temperature it should have, the maximum mana draw it could use, the mana source for it, the target of what it would heat up, and so forth. Memories of past lives became more clear to me as I drew upon their wisdom, for in some of those lives, I had lived in societies of advanced technology, where programming of such a nature was commonplace, if not equally as shrouded in mysticism or complexity as this world such that it exceeded the cognitive abilities of the common man.


    Then came the cycle of testing runes and going back to fix them as I slowly hashed out what worked from what did not. Torborg had much wisdom to offer on such things, for apparently the dwarves had ample experience in programming things, such as golems or clockwork machines. He instructed me on design patterns on how best to take complex problems and programming and to break them down into smaller parts that were predictable and followed doctrines and conventions. This saved me a lot of time, effort, and aggravation so that I avoided stringing everything together like a massive tangle of spaghetti, and instead I had organized the chaos in such a way that it would perhaps be reminiscent of circuitry.


    Then came the tedium of actually building the bridge. While designing the bridge and its enchantments had proved to be a challenging and stimulating endeavor for the mind, the grunt work of actual construction left something to be desired. Being no stranger to hard work, I made trips to storage areas for the stone needed for the bridge and hauled it over, with Nanu and Skull serving as escort each and every time. I would say they did so without complaint, but at times, there were passive-aggressive comments related to the tedium of such undertakings. To remedy such misgivings, we may have deviated from our flight plan a time or two to hunt the local wildlife, much to the annoyance of the individuals who maintained the schedule.


    However, brick by brick, the bridge was assembled as days passed into weeks. The sheer quantities of materials involved in construction would beggar most nations if purchased at market value, and that isn¡¯t even considering what conventional labor would cost to haul and process it. In short, this was one of the most ambitious construction projects the world had witnessed in centuries. Initial estimates all that time ago during our planning phase in Berkerin had been optimistic.


    The bridge, including the approach, stood just shy of three miles long, for we took into account the most extreme conditions of seasonal flooding, migration patterns of fauna, and other forces of nature. Each end of the bridge had a fortress around it to protect it from the wilderness, and the deck of the bridge was high enough that nothing from the ground could reach it. Yes, even the bigger species of brontosaurus couldn¡¯t reach it if they stood on their back legs, those big bastards and their stupid desire to chomp on things in high places, not that I am still vexed about their habits in any way to this day.


    The bridge itself, dubbed ¡°The Rainbow Bridge¡± because of how I used obsidian with a rainbow pattern as the veneer of the bridge, stood resplendently tall with a commanding view above the river by the time construction was completed. It was not a completely aesthetic choice, for something about the riot of colors deterred certain pests from nesting upon it. A great celebration was held before moving on, as well as a partial recovery day to allow the many hangovers to run their course.


    And move on we did, this time with massive pipes being installed under the road to transport the water that would be needed by the thirsty defenders of our world, since summoned water was not safe for drinking. Technically, the water never touched the inside of the pipes, for enchantments kept a thin layer of air between them, since pure water tends to be rather corrosive. However, pure water doesn¡¯t allow buildup of sediment, so the pipes would not need to be cleaned, which saved future me from future headaches of maintenance.


    It was also at this time that I had a sufficient stockpile of stone prepared at depots near the bridge such that I could be burdened with additional tasks. Encampments would be constructed along the route, each large enough to house 10,000 soldiers and their attached non-combatants for the legions that would inevitably march down this road. A doctrine had been established back at one of the many meetings in Berkerin all those months ago that an experienced legion could cover 120 miles in a day on good quality roads. Ergo, encampments were constructed at such distances, and eventually I would need to backtrack and build said encampments all the way north through the wilderness on the other side of the bridge.


    Backtracking to the depots to get more stone would prove to be more bothersome and time-consuming the further we ventured away from the bridge. With my capacity to quickly churn out simple goods via my [Advanced Thermal Bottle], I could quickly churn out metal barrels with all my enchantments scrawled into them. It just took some effort on my part to empower the enchantments so that they actually worked. These ¡°Barrels of Holding¡± were attuned to hold stone, and were given the good enchantments such that they would sustain their pocket dimensions even in areas with low quantities of ambient mana. Various [Haulers], [Porters], [Wagon Masters], and the like would create a continuous stream of caravans, complete with their escort of more martially-inclined individuals, to pick up more stone for me so that I could focus on production. While they did not come out and say it so directly, Skull and Nanu became much more chipper after such convoys were established. The fact that I pumped out storage containers that cost more than most [Enchanters] earned in a year like some sort of factory press paled in comparison to how they had more free time.


    And that free time went to more training and sparring. Using magical attacks at all times in tandem with physical ones proved challenging. Nanu made it look simple, but she assured me that such practice would expedite my progress in unlocking [Parallel Minds]. That promise in no way spared any of us from being beaten black and blue on a regular basis, for Nanu kept growing in power now that my flight was officially established and her [Hoard] continued to grow. It was not just Skull and I that were included, but Gambino, Bambina, Torborg, It-Has-Pockets, Alterez, Jericho, Chooka, Bellwright, The Boys, Ribbette, and Hopper were regular attendees to the beatdown that was her training. Even Platinum Adventurers threw their hat into the ring from time to time, such as Blythnin, who reveled in the challenge more than most. All of us combined did not always fight her all at once, and indeed the gap between Nanu and the rest of us grew smaller by the day, but she was still a force to be reckoned with. Considering that more of my little gang was getting armed with enchanted weapons and armor from my experiments, we would soon overtake Nanu any day now. Any. Day. Now. It''s just over the next hill.


    I shuddered to think what other Princes from other flights could do. Nanu assured me that, compared to her peers, she was well-trained, experienced, and generally groomed to be one of the best. She was also much older than most of them, for she had been born at the dawn of her first flight and had lived past its dusk. As a [Archivist of Secrets], she needed the skills and muscle to protect that which she guarded, and she excelled at ¡°punching down¡±, where she can handle multiple opponents weaker than her with ease. Any single threat beyond her means to handle she could stall against until reinforcements showed up to defend the flight¡¯s greatest treasures. Ergo, she was rather elite and exceptional, which she took no shame in flaunting in a playful manner when we touched upon the topic.


    And so, with all the dinosaurs behind us, we ventured into the scrublands and the badlands beyond. Even in late winter, it was still oppressively hot most of the day, for the passing of seasons did little to change the weather this close to the equator. Well, hot for the masses, not for me, as I had the Skills to handle it just fine, but work remained on pace. It slowed because people were too hot, but sped up because there was not a whole lot for the workers to do to clear out the already smooth and largely barren terrain.


    As we neared the heart of the badlands, scouts reported a most unusual discovery. A dungeon had been spotted directly in our path, one with a peculiar nature that needed to be addressed before the road continued too far. It was also when that familiar voice spoke to me once more.


    ¡°In three days at dawn, arrive in Group 12 with Jericho, Alterez, and Bellwright. Please save me.¡±

 Chapter 82

    The next three days were spent in preparation for the raid of sorts on the dungeon and planning who would go in what group. The concept of a ¡°dungeon¡± is difficult to categorize, for dungeons are created through completely unrelated phenomena and the different species of them are unrelated in any way other than that there are things to kill and stuff to loot. Some dungeons are partially sentient and have cores that, if destroyed, destroy the dungeon as well. Others endlessly spawn monsters, and if said monsters are not culled, they spill out into the wilderness. Some are underground in caves, whereas others are out in the open on the surface. Some were the results of experiments from ages past and were known for teleporting around the world seemingly at random.


    This particular dungeon, named ¡°Test Ogre Village Please Ignore¡±, as my scouts assured me several times that there was no mistake to its name, was outdoors. This dungeon was among the ¡°Instanced¡± family of dungeons, such that five people could enter together as long as they considered themselves as a group. Passing some invisible field around the dungeon, they would fade away into nothingness as witnessed by an outside observer, with those entering the dungeon beholding much the same effect concerning those who lingered near the edge of the outside.


    Ergo, those five who enter are on their own to either brave the dangers of the dungeon or leave. Some such dungeons had been known as hiding places for nefarious groups in the past, but each time one enters, one has to handle the threats within that have magically respawned. The scouts did nothing more than peek inside, for we did not want to tip our hand. Some dungeons, or the denizens therein, are capable of learning and remembering things about intruders, even between instances of it. Best practice was to use the weakest Abilities one had to clear a dungeon, for as the dungeon learns, the difficulty increases.


    I only entered the dungeon a few times in quick succession beforehand to see how it would handle Skull being in my shadow when I otherwise had a full party. Apparently, the dungeon considers her to count as a pet, familiar, or some similar concept, and so she is a freebie. However, I could only take one pet with me, so Hopper and Ribbette would have to go in a different group. Skull, if anything, seemed to relish her status as a pet with unashamed depravity, even making hints that she deserved a choker to make it official. Far be it from me to judge people for their kinks, for I have collected my own over the ages, so I filed that away on my to-do list.


    Myself, Jericho, Alterez, and Bellwright make four if Skull counts as a pet. That left a slot that was inescapably unfilled to those who can count to even modest sums. I suspected that the mysterious individual who presumably lived in the dungeon had some plan to join our party, but for what purpose and to what effect, I could only guess. No other messages had been sent to me, save for one:


    ¡°Twenty groups enter the Group Instance and, with coordinated effort, smother the chieftain''s fire at the same time.¡±


    That phrasing had been peculiar, and after more scouting, scouts discovered a version of the dungeon that allowed up to 25 people to enter at once, and preliminary investigations showed that the inhabitant ogres appeared to be vastly stronger there. Some experts said that such was called the ¡°Raid¡± version, with there also being rumored versions for 100, 1000, and 10,000 people, the last of which was named ¡°Legion¡±. I could only imagine the nightmare of coordinating 10,000 people that were capable of conquering such a dungeon, or what horrors would lurk within and would require such an army to be defeated.


    With the need for 20 groups, we were just shy in needing 100 people to fill those groups. Out of curiosity, I discovered that The Boys counted as five people, and so they volunteered to be a group. I spent much of the preparation time nagging them to stay safe, to withdraw if overwhelmed, to take their time, and to only smother the fire at the designated time, which was agreed to be when the last of the sun crossed over the horizon. That provided everyone, even the easily distracted Boys, with ample time to kill everything else.


    Blythnin had been sent in solo two days before to scout the place in detail and assess the strength of the enemies. I gave her strict orders not to kill anyone, which left her annoyed but also challenged. Her Ability to summon seemingly endless armies of clones allowed her to easily scout the place without risking her real body with any danger. True to the dungeon¡¯s name, it contained a lot of ogres, but she assessed that a group of competent Golds would be sufficient to handle the threats lurking within. To be safe, I organized each group with one Platinum and four Gold to ensure each group was balanced and possessed extra muscle in the event that hidden dangers yet awaited us.


    With everything planned and prepared, the appointed day arrived and the various groups entered the dungeon in their set order at dawn. Getting Adventurers to cooperate and wait in line was challenging but doable with Chooka standing by to keep them in line. One could harken getting organized discipline from Adventurers to that of herding cats, but ultimately, the threat of overwhelming violence and gratuitous amounts of paperwork enabled Chooka to pressgang the rabble into a coherent army of hers. With everyone and everything accounted for at roll call, each group entered the dungeon in their designated order, until Chooka and the rest of the support staff were all the remained outside.


    <hr>


    With each of my mighty strides, the earth shook and the weak trembled. Only the incredibly brave or the incredibly foolish dared oppose me, and by my estimates, it was those with gratuitous burdens of stupidity that made up the bulk of my foes. My jaws brought death, my flames, screams of terror. The hour had come to rip and tear, and rip and tear I did.


    None could stand before me, for all perished within seconds. Big, dumb, and most importantly, fat ogres attempted to strike me down, but I rampaged over them without concern. Truly, the most challenging part of this whole assault was the walk over here under the oppressively hot sun. Destroying these ogres was as simple as turning my hand.


    We don¡¯t have any hands, stupid. Aristotle exaggerates his role in the proceedings, but he was not wrong to say that the ogres fared as well as a butterfly before a hurricane. Primitive beings, they lived in simple huts of mud and sticks, barely sufficient to be considered dwellings. Being at our full size, I could not even stick my head inside the openings to them, and so I tore the roofs off to see what delectable prizes waited within. The craven were gobbled up just the same as the rest, with each hut being like one of those chocolate eggs with mystery prizes inside that Papa sometimes gives us.


    He could stand to give us more of those snacks. My brothers nodded in agreement, for Socrates was on point about those eggs and how they related to these ogre huts. Apparently, we had only taken on the rabble, for a shaman and his goons soon rallied against us, with the shaman providing powerful buffs to his goons while he tried to debilitate us. I, Plato, sent a blast of pressurized water at the shaman, which crushed him. It also crushed the hut behind him, and the boulder behind that, leaving nothing but a deep furrow in the land where all of it had been.


    But then the big dumb chieftain attacked, and I, Dio, soloed him. Bigger and meaner than the rest, with some paltry armor and a big club, he charged right at me, but a blast of my [Solar Nexus] obliterated him and everything behind him. It was much more impressive than Soc¡¯s [Squirt Gun].


    It¡¯s not a [Squirt Gun], it¡¯s a [Water Blast], and my Ability does not have the charge up time that yours has.


    No fair, you can¡¯t interrupt, it''s my turn to tell the story and you are wasting it.


    Anyway, as I was saying, I then-


    Time¡¯s up, my turn. Then I, Chrysippus, announced the best one-liner ever.


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    ¡°Looks like they ogre-estimated their chances of defeating us.¡±


    And then you laughed so hard and for so long at your own joke that you died. We had to cut off your useless head that was weighing us down.


    With our body emancipated from the dead weight, we made our way to the chieftain¡¯s hut.


    Dio, I think you mean ¡®liberated¡¯, not ¡®emancipated¡¯. And we did make our way to the chieftain¡¯s hut, where I, Plato, as leader of the group, ensured my brothers did nothing until the last rays of sunlight vanished over the horizon. Well, we snacked on more ogres, but we didn¡¯t touch the fire, for Papa was very insistent that we wait. I was not going to lose snack privileges again because my brothers made a mistake.


    Then, as darkness gathered, we-


    ¡°Papa says it is Hopper¡¯s and Ribbette¡¯s turn to tell the story.


    Okay, fine. Hopper and Ribbette, take it away.


    <hr>


    My Liege Lord commanded, and I, his humble servant, obeyed. My ever lovely and beautiful Ribbette remained by my side, and together, I knew we would brave any danger and overcome any obstacle as one, for our love would drive us ever forward. The others I did not recognize were assigned to our retinue, and though they were not vassals of my Liege Lord, their actions did bring honor to His name.


    With confident strides becoming one in service of my Liege Lord, we strode across the broken lands unblessed by swamp or marsh and soon discovered the village of the oh-grrs that were our noble mission to cull. The few curs that sat idle near the perimeter as pathetic excuses for guards soon rushed us without even sounding the alarm, but my blade deftly cut through them like a scythe through wheat.


    As we strode up the hill to the village proper, my lovely Ribbette unleashed her fog upon the village, masking our approach and inflicting toxic reprisals against those who dared breathe in the same mists that she conjured. We stayed as one unit, systematically eradicating the vermin that infested my Liege Lord¡¯s new territories. Their shaman never even had a chance to unleash his foul sorcery upon us, for Ribbette had slipped up behind him and placed a poisoned needle into his neck, which swiftly brought about his demise as blood oozed out of every orifice on his disgusting body.


    Only the chieftain and his guards remained soon after, and with the other three handling them while Ribbette supported them, I defeated the chieftain in single combat. He was slow, but stalwart, my blade finding little purchase in the deceptively dense fat of his body. His large club, easily big enough to clobber me in a single blow, floundered uselessly as I danced around its reach and continued to cut him down. In less than a minute, I had severed the tendons in his legs, which brought him to his knees, and without hesitation or mercy, I severed his head from his body in one swift stroke.


    And as my Liege Lord commanded, we waited until sundown for the next phase of His glorious plan could commence.


    <hr>


    Master assured us this would be a simple task and a chance to cut loose. He was not wrong, but fuck, it was hot out. Dawn was pleasant enough, but after two hours of walking to the ogre village, the heat of the day had turned the badlands into an oven.


    Then three dickless idiots ran down the hill at us, which Hopper, with his well-sculpted muscles, cut down effortlessly. I know those ogres were dickless because I checked. Not a one of them has anything under their loincloths. No bacon, no beans, just smooth skin and fat, but the other end still has the normal hole. Never hurts to check, but the smoothies did limit my options at administering painful deaths. I had a few new techniques with needles I was dying to try after my experiments with my ¡®collection¡¯ from the last big battle we had.


    Then the uppity shaman started to make a fuss, but a needle to the neck took care of him. Dumb Fuck didn¡¯t even notice me sneak behind him. Just a little prick for the prickless, and he was flopping on the ground with blood leaking from everywhere. Shortly after, we took on the chieftain¡¯s guards.


    I imagine our three fucktards thought I was cheering them on, but they cannot understand the sophistication behind my croaking. I was actually cussing them out non-stop, for they were just plain terrible. Fuck Nuts tripped into the path of an ogre¡¯s club, and I had to smack him out of the way of said club before he ended up as paste on the ground. Then the other one, Fuck Nugget, got cocky after stabbing the ogre all over and dropping him. Fuck Nugget must have thought the ogre died, but those bastards are as tough as they are stupid. It got right up and tried to take a bite out of Fuck Nugget, but I magnanimously intervened. The last one, let¡¯s just call him Fucking Slow, took forever to kill just one of them, and by that time, the rest were dead. In short, good help is hard to find, for none of them were worthy of being my footstool, much less standing beside me like my stud, Hopper.


    Then we fucking waited for fucking ever until sundown. The end.


    <hr>


    Sweat dripped down my brow as I killed the first ogre that morning. Though I thought myself hidden outside the village, they had managed to find me as if they knew right where to look. Clearly, the shaman had sicced his hounds upon me, for he feared my strength as a contender for his position. Before the next one even swung at me with more strength than finesse, I sidestepped the blow, and in the same motion, struck him in the head with my own club in just the right spot to shatter his skull. And so, two ogres now lay dead at my feet while three more advanced.


    Their motions were predictable, their minds uncalculating, their futures certain. Though I could lift the veil and gaze into the infinite of the future, my body could only act upon that knowledge until fatigue rendered me incapable of influencing the Scene. Yet still fresh, I rendered them unto the earth like the first two, and noticeably less fresh afterwards, I traveled away from the village to find refuge from the sun and my kin.


    A full day yet remained between me and salvation, and to die this close to such safety and deliverance from this wretched prison was a maddening prospect. I bridled my emotions lest they run rampant and lead to folly as I continued on towards locations well suited for an ambush. More would be sent to find and kill me, and I would not be caught at a disadvantage while I still drew breath.


    And more did come before long. All through the day and night, I eluded my pursuers when I was able and killed them when the opportunity presented itself. A full twenty had perished by my hand by the time the first rays of the new dawn tickled the horizon. Would that I could command the sun to hasten in its duties, that my savior would arrive sooner before I collapsed from exhaustion or heat stroke.


    Dogged in their pursuit and unerring in their general understanding of my location, I continued to where my visions said He would be. Discipline and fatigue slowed my approach while stubborn determination pushed me forward. If I arrived too soon, my pursuers would corner me against the accursed edge and bring about my demise. If I approached too slowly, they would catch me.


    Haggard and parched, I hid behind a boulder near the very spot where my saviors should appear. I could hear heavy footsteps, careless in their placement and heedless of their indiscretion. Too exhausted to fight, I hunkered down and remained still. Closer they approached, six of them in total, with one being a brute bigger and meaner than the rest.


    Cornered, tired beyond belief from both exertion and glancing into the future, I evaded the first blow that came towards my hiding spot, only to stumble and fall to the earth. Desperately, I tried to stand once more, only for a heavy club to descend down upon my left leg and break my knee. I tried not to cry out, but dignity yielded to pain as my voice betrayed the desires of my pride.


    ¡°Shaman say you bad. Shaman say you die. Shaman say we make you die. You die now.¡±


    Not exceptionally elegant for a brute, and his eyes betrayed no hidden intelligence that suggested he behaved as I did. Unfortunately, the brute did not need to be so overburdened with cognitive acumen to direct the others to administer their beatdown. With weapons no more than rocks attached to petrified sticks via crude rope, the six of them engaged in demonstrating the universal truth: the strong live, the weak die.


    So close, and yet so far, I curled into a ball to protect my body as blow after blow crashed into me. My fat, though thicker and more durable than most creatures, softened the blows as best as it could, but it provided little comfort in the face of such overwhelming strength. Even when one club broke, fists and feet still found my body as a target of their ire.


    The brute lifted the boulder above his head and lumbered over towards my broken form. As I struggled to cling to consciousness, I witnessed my last sight before darkness enveloped me. The boulder came down, and an ogre died that day, one who thought he would live to see the morrow. Do ogres even have an afterlife? I suppose it is time to find out.

 Chapter 83

    ¡°He is at death¡¯s door, Master.¡±


    I looked down at the ogre who had been beaten near to death by his kin. I could feel it, that this is the one who had guided me here, not just recently, but for all the warnings and wisdom I had received from that voice that spoke to me in my mind. More than that, I could tell, he is the ogre that I share some bond with, one that transcends this life and has existed for many lives before this one. I did not expect our reunion to be one with such perilous circumstances, but I knew what I needed to do to save him. I drew supplies from my pocket dimension for a tent, one with an enchanted object that would repel the heat of the day, and left them on the ground.


    ¡°Skull, set up this tent and keep watch. I will tend to his wounds.¡±


    ¡°It will be as you say, Master.¡±


    That is one of many things that I love about Skull. She does not question my judgment in the heat of the moment. She obeys, perhaps more loyally than I am worthy of, but I appreciate it nonetheless. It was not my ambition to be a master over anyone, and yet circumstances have brought her under my care, and so it seems, this ogre.


    With caution to not aggravate his wounds further, I sat at his head, or what was left of it. Terrible blows had rendered it to little more than swollen flesh and broken bones, the whole lot of it covered in his lifeblood that slipped away moment by moment. The rest of his body did not fare much better, for it lay battered and broken beyond repair for any natural remedy. Fortunately, the remedy I offered transcended what his body¡¯s own healing could provide.


    With a focus of will, I forced the skin on my hand to soften, and with it now unprotected by the boons of my many Skills, I cut into it, and let a single drop of my blood and desire to heal flow from me and into the ogre¡¯s mouth. For a moment, nothing happened, and then without warning, bones snapped back into place as flesh mended. His breathing, once shallow and ragged, now smoothed itself to the gentle rhythm of one asleep.


    And as if in sympathetic connection to my friend both old and new, I too felt drowsiness wrap me in its soothing embrace and lull me to slumber within the confines of the tent that had been erected around me. In my sitting position by the ogre¡¯s head, my own head drooped as I fell asleep in the gentle yet strong arms of Jericho holding me upright.


    <hr>


    My soul floated in The Void beyond time or thought. I knew not fear or pain, only peace, for the troubles or my mortal coil had been left behind, abandoned in favor of oblivion. How much time passed in that manner, I knew not, and cared not. There was naught here but rest and freedom from the perils of the flesh.


    But then, a great serpent shattered the walls of The Void and stretched seemingly infinitely towards me, its maw seeking to close down upon me. No, that is not right. No mere serpent, but a dragon, its long neck seeking me out, its mouth closing down around me protectively, pulling me back from the brink as the darkness of The Void split into legions of angry specters that shrieked in disdain. I watched in horror as the illusion that was The Void became a tide of hate and hunger, their grasping claws reaching for me to reclaim their prize. They ripped and tore at the dragon¡¯s flesh, and his pain, my pain, our pain, flashed through my soul as he reeled me back towards the light.


    Screaming in fury at the interloper who had absconded with their prize, the specters gave chase, but faltered where darkness greeted light, their seething hatred evident in their eyes as they cursed us both for our transgression.


    And then we were back in the world of the living once again, or perhaps not. All present were completely still as if frozen in time. I looked down and saw my body, the only thing that moved, as flesh warped to divorce itself of grievous injuries that had been brutally administered to it only moments before. Blood stood frozen on my savior¡¯s face, trails of it seeping from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth as his face scrunched in pain.


    Yet beside me stood my savior as well. A smile lit his face, and the pair of us appeared ghostly, astral even, as if our souls had departed our bodies but lingered nearby. And then the world around me shattered, reforming to show me a vision I had seen before. The dragon, the serpent, arriving from the north and devouring a path through the earth, transformed, the serpent becoming a road of black obsidian, smooth and well-crafted. The dragon changed, shapeshifting into the man I see beside me, my savior, and my Emperor.


    What had been a mystery had now become clear. The companions that walked among him were those I knew, that I have seen beside him in my visions and in my scrying upon him. They were my friends, in this life, and in past lives, and we had been reunited once more. I knew their names, their faces, their mannerisms, and their desires, familiar with them more than they were with their own kin. For we had always been together, and always will be, until the end of time.


    ¡°It is good to see you again, Nabonidus,¡± he spoke with a friendly smile on his face. ¡°I am glad I arrived in time to save you. Would you join me one last time as we face weal and woe together?¡±


    I knelt before him, which served only to lower my head to his, such was the disparity in our size. Yet, he had more power within him than I had ever seen, and I could see that he possessed only a faint spark compared to the star that he would be, a small gust compared to the typhoon, a single droplet before the ocean, a tiny pebble that would one day become a mountain.


    ¡°I, your humble servant, friend, and companion through life have awakened once more, and would gladly serve you as I always have, should you accept me.¡±


    ¡°Then, my friend,¡± he replied as he placed a hand upon my shoulder. ¡°Rise up, and tell the World who you are.¡±


    My vision of him flickered, for but a moment, and where I normally saw the youthful and cheerful man that had come to my aid, I briefly witnessed an older version of him, one with a thin beard and mustache. One who was, who is, but who would never be. Such a paradox confused me more than most visions, but I would reflect upon that later, for my friend had given me my first task.


    ¡°I am the [Oracle], Nabonidus. I have become Nabonidus, [Vizier to the Draconic Emperor].


    He smiled at me as he bid me to rise to my feet, and without reservation, I obeyed.


    ¡°Now go, Nabonidus, friend and ally. No matter where the road takes you, you will not walk it alone, for we are with you,¡± he finished as he gestured in the direction of the others. I could clearly see Skull, Gambino, Bambina, and Alterez, although the rest were mere silhouettes. Yet, they took their places beside the Emperor, and I joined them in my rightful place. Together, we strode forwards towards the light.


    <hr>


    ¡°Where the fuck am I?¡± I asked the nothingness around me as my feet touched down on some invisible surface.


    A door appeared in front of me as it spawned from the nothingness, a door rather ordinary in its form. It promptly opened, and out walked¡­ me.


    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    ¡°Well, that was a weird meeting,¡± the not-me said before walking past me. ¡°Good luck in there,¡± he said to me as he continued on and faded away entirely.


    Perturbed, I collected my wits before opening the door and stepping through to what lies beyond. I don¡¯t know what I expected, but a spaceport was not on my list. A grand observation window allowed me to witness all manner of spacecraft docking and undocking, while display boards overhead showed arrival and departure times to destinations that tickled my memories, but the specifics of what they alluded to otherwise remained elusive.


    I heard beeping to my left, and as I turned, a little two-man cart rolled up to me, the driver appearing to be dressed as some sort of bellhop in his outfit of red with gold buttons. His little cart stopped next to me rather abruptly as he didn¡¯t even bother to ease on the brakes.


    ¡°Hop on, time¡¯s a wastin¡¯.¡± He paused for a moment in contemplation before trying again. ¡°No time to explain, get in!¡± He tried again with more enthusiasm and urgency.


    With no better alternatives, I took the seat next to him in his little cart, and without delay, he floored it. Before I knew it, we were zipping along at the same pace as a jog.


    ¡°Nice of you to show up, sport,¡± he said as he pulled up a sleeve to look at a myriad of watches on his wrist. ¡°I don¡¯t have a lot of time to spare, so let¡¯s make this quick.¡± He took my silence for at least acquiescence before he continued. ¡°That portal to another world is going to open soon. Happens all the time, really, we gods just don¡¯t remember those are even a thing until they come around again. Some weird rule placed on us by those who made us.¡±


    I held on tightly to the cart as my driver beeped his little horn and zipped around people or things that were only visible to him in this empty spaceport. He appeared to be a little stressed, as if we were running late, and such was a completely unacceptable outcome.


    ¡°Us gods are gonna be busy fighting the gods of the other world, as well as making sure portals don¡¯t crop up like daisies. I leave things to you specifically to build the fort to contain the breach until us gods can win the war. I reckon it will take us around 800 years tops to achieve victory, so hold down the fort, will ya?¡±


    ¡°Echludoro?¡± I half asked, half stated.


    ¡°Oh yeah, that¡¯s me. What pantheon am I part of again, was it Light or something?¡± he asked as if uncertain. ¡°Hard to keep track of it when time isn¡¯t linear for me. God of Time and Space though. Oh, that reminds me, I am giving you a lot of leeway with those pocket dimensions of yours and all that teleportation you will be doing; don¡¯t abuse it.¡± He finished as he looked at me pointedly.


    ¡°Watch where you¡¯re driving, buddy!¡± Another Echludoro shouted as he swerved out of the way of us while shaking his fist on his way driving past us.


    ¡°Hah, that guy is a thousand years too young to tell me what to do,¡± Echludoro remarked with a sneer as he continued on our haphazard drive though the terminals of the spaceport. ¡°Anyway, just letting you know that when the portal opens, a lot of refugees will be pouring through, so take care of them, will ya? Oh, I mean, ¡®give them housing and hospitality¡¯, not ¡®kill them all¡¯, I¡¯m not a mobster.¡±


    I guess clarifications are always good to ensure there are no misunderstandings, but it did seem fairly obvious what he meant. As to the refugees he talked about, I had heard no mention of them prior to now. I was about to ask more about it when he took a sharp right turn, nearly causing the cart to roll over, and we headed towards a train station, judging by the trains ahead.


    ¡°Hold on, we gotta train to catch,¡± he shouted as he pulled a lever that gave the cart a turbo boost. We were now cooking along at a modest sprint as he turned us up a ramp that went almost parallel to the track. Without hesitation, he pulled us along a moving train and drove off the ramp, where our cart thudded down hard on the open carriage of the train. ¡°Whew, still got it!¡± he exclaimed excitedly as he pumped his fist.


    He drove our cart a handful of feet to another car and promptly exited while motioning me to follow. We soon found ourselves at the boiler car, where he opened the furnace door and grabbed a shovel. Instead of coal in the nearby bin, there were clocks, hourglasses, and sundials, each of which was scooped up and shoveled into the furnace. After a few full shovels of such apparatus, he closed the door to the furnace and then wiped his brow with the back of his forearm.


    ¡°Whew, it''s tough work making the trains run on time,¡± he said to me with a shit-eating grin on his face as he looked at me expectantly.


    I inwardly suppressed a groan, my face blank as I worked to maintain a neutral expression.


    ¡°Come on, that¡¯s comedy gold!¡± he shouted in consternation. ¡°That¡¯s the whole reason I even have this train. That joke is timeless and never gets old.¡± He continued to give me the look that suggested I laugh, but I maintained composure. ¡°Tough crowd,¡± he finished with stoic acceptance at my dismissive attitude. ¡°Anyway,¡± he continued as if he had not been rebuffed, ¡°the other gods and I are going to be busy, so we need you to keep doing your thing. Those roads of yours are going to be rather important in the defense of this world. Not that you are the only important person scurrying around, but what you are doing matters. The other gods and I are giving you leeway, so don¡¯t take things too far and make us have to come down there and box your ears later, ya hear?¡±


    ¡°I understand and will comply,¡± I responded with my best serious expression. Apparently satisfied, he motioned me back to the cart. ¡°Do the gods have anything specific they want me to do?¡±


    ¡°Not right now,¡± he answered as he waved me off. ¡°When the time comes, we will make you aware of our desires. I just took the opportunity that presented itself when you bonded with one of your companions. Congratulations, by the way! That should clear up a lot of memories of your past lives.¡±


    ¡°Do you know anything about those, or why I have them?¡± I asked as we just sat there in the cart while we waited.


    ¡°Yeah, no, hmm. It¡¯s complicated,¡± he replied with his non-answer. ¡°What we gods know or do not know changes all the time, like we have amnesia or something. Very annoying,¡± he finished with a frown on his face. ¡°But, you are rather exceptional, if not entirely unique. Whether or not you live up the expectations upon you remains to be seen. I know that the other gods and I have a vested interest in your development, but our ambitions for you are more symbiotic than purely benevolent. The tide raises all ships and such,¡± he finished as he adjusted the side mirror on the cart before backing it up to the end of the carriage.


    ¡°Is every god going to have a private conversation with me? From my understanding, I am getting special treatment.¡± I grabbed ahold of the cart as the look in Echludoro¡¯s eyes suggested he was about to gun it.


    ¡°Yeah, quick and the dead though. I beat the other gods to nabbing a conversation with you this time. On one hand, it may behoove you to learn how to open yourself up to conversation, but on the other hand, gods will keep using you as their impromptu [Paladin] if you do. When all you have is a hammer and all that,¡± he finished as he slammed his foot down on the pedal and we took off at moderately impressive speed.


    A portal opened in front of us, and as he drove through it, we appeared back in the terminal where the train station was located.


    ¡°Bunch of needy guys and gals, because what they have going on is ¡®oh so important¡¯ and ¡®critical to the survival of the world¡¯,¡± he continued as he rolled his eyes. ¡°They just need better time management and could stand to not invade mortal¡¯s personal space with all those requests.¡± He gave me that look again that suggested I laugh at his puns, and feeling charitable, I gave him a slight smile.


    He slammed the brakes, and caught off guard, I nearly smashed into the dashboard as we came to an abrupt stop.


    ¡°This is you,¡± he said, nodding his head to the door nearby. ¡°Take care.¡±


    No sooner had I exited the cart than Echludoro sped off, not even waiting for me to say my farewells. A door, much like the one I had entered earlier, awaited me. I took one last look at the spaceport via the observation window and the many ships I could see coming and going, the nature of them just barely eluding my memories, as if I had been here before once upon a time.


    As I put my hand on the handle of the door to leave, I could hear a voice from outside.


    ¡°Where the fuck am I?¡± came the voice that sounded all too familiar.


    I opened the door and stepped through, once again finding myself in The Void, where past-me looked around in confusion.


    ¡°Well, that was a weird meeting,¡± I said to not-me as I walked past him. ¡°Good luck in there,¡± I shouted over my shoulder as I continued past him.


    Within a few steps, the nothingness faded away as the familiarity of the mortal world once again embraced me with its all-too-familiar trials and tribulations. I awoke from my visit to the realm of Echludoro to find myself nestled in Jeroicho¡¯s arms, her sitting form propping me up as I sat down over the still but breathing form of my once and future friend, Nabonidus.

 Chapter 84

    I didn¡¯t know what to make of what had happened after my not-orc lover woke up. He had been so peaceful, vulnerable, and dare I say, delicious in appearance beyond how my kind normally see the other races, despite how he remains rather puny. The way he effortlessly overpowered me and stood upright upon his awakening, the whole maneuver of wrestling his way out of my grip seemingly a mere afterthought, served to disabuse me of any notion that I would find myself superior to him in a contest of strength. So small, yet so strong and capable of violence; I felt my heart beat all the faster at the thought of him ravaging me to his delight.


    Yet we were on the job, so our dalliance would have to wait for a more appropriate time. Well, appropriate for non-orcs, as the battlefield can serve as well as the inner chambers of a brothel for those with skin more green than not, at least if rumors were to be believed about other greenskin races. The line between violence on the battlefield and foreplay gets rather blurry for orcs, but since he is not currently in an orcish form, he may not be in the mood.


    He thanked me for my efforts to protect him while he tended to the ogre, but somehow I doubted he needed me with a monster like Skull around. The speed with which she had dashed across the distance from where we entered the dungeon and towards the ogre with the boulder was beyond what I have ever seen before. She deftly cut both hands off the ogre, and with the boulder no longer supported, it fell down and crushed him, his head bursting like an overripe melon when he hit the ground. The other ogres were dispatched in what I can only describe as child''s play. If anything, the woman appeared bored, but with her helmet on, I could not ascertain any more truth to that beyond her body language. Humbled by her prowess, I remained thankful she was on my side.


    Introductions were made, and my lover and our rescued ogre casually walked along as they chatted about current events and the world at large, the pair of them getting along amicably with all the comradery of lifelong friends, despite this being their first meeting as far as I am aware. How would a dungeon-bound person have been able to leave to make friends on the outside? Yet, I could feel a spark between the ogre and I, as if I too had known him my whole life. Was this a Skill on his part, or did some deeper secret lurk inside this mystery?


    I had expected the ogres of this dungeon to pose a threat, and perhaps if I had led my own men and women under my command in here, I would have been hard-pressed to conquer this place. Yet, Skull dispatched one brute after another, sparing none for Alterez or myself, not that the goblin showed much interest in testing his mettle. By the time we arrived at the chieftain¡¯s hut, all the ogres were dead, with Skull having culled the lot of them before the rest of us arrived.


    Bellwright, the gnome whom I recognized for how he had given me and many others rides on his various summoned vessels during our migrations, likewise remained relaxed. What purpose the two stunties served on our little expedition, I knew not, but I could feel a bond between all of us. It was no more than a spark, but certainly real, and I wondered if the dungeon was the cause. I had never entered a dungeon before, so I knew not the answer, but it merited further investigation.


    We set up a little camp in front of the chieftain¡¯s hut as we waited for sundown. Stories were told by everyone as we got to understand one another and get an explanation. Apparently, Nabonidus, an [Oracle] of all things, the lucky duck, had figured out a way to slip the bounds of the dungeon, and he needed our help to do it. Each dungeon¡¯s party of Adventurer¡¯s was to destroy the chieftain¡¯s fire at the same time, and then destroy the malevolent spirit of fire that was summoned forth from it. He had somehow deduced, most likely through his probing of the future, that such an outcome would result in a special Raid becoming available, one that would allow us to destroy the dungeon for good and free him permanently. We took him at his word that considering him part of our party would give him temporary leave of the dungeon, which is why we entered with only four ¡°people¡±, if I could believe that Skull counted as a ¡°pet¡±.


    I almost missed the action as the sun slipped past the horizon, for it was over in but a handful of seconds. One moment Skull stood next to the fire, the next she was slashing at the spirit that materialized from its doused flames when Bellwright and Alterez extinguished the fire. No monologue, no waiting for it to finish manifesting, just cutting it down with her blade imbued with the power of a god. Within the same minute of its defeat, the camp was packed up and we walked out of the village proper. It all looked a little eerie, for the corpses that had been there before had disappeared, with not even a bloodstain to denote the violence that had occurred here.


    ¡°So, I get why Alterez was brought along,¡± started Bellwright as we exited the village. ¡°You just wanted to sample his cooking. But why am I here?¡± he asked Nabonidus as we made our way down the short hill to the relatively flat scrublands around the village.


    ¡°Oh, that question has a simple answer, my little friend. I didn¡¯t want to have to walk to the exit, so if you wouldn¡¯t mind summoning up one of those fantastic rides of yours that I have only ever witnessed in my visions, all of us would be eternally grateful.¡± The ogre gave his best beaming smile at the gnome who was probably one-tenth his weight, complete with hands grasped together in supplication.


    ¡°Is that all I am to all of you, a glorified rickshaw driver?¡± he asked with exaggerated incredibility.


    Blank stares all around answered his question as a light breeze pushed a tumbleweed past us. It felt too coincidental to not be someone working a Skill for dramatic effect.


    ¡°You could also fit through pipes or into crawl spaces for us,¡± Skull offered in her best attempt at diplomacy.


    ¡°You are the best rickshaw driver we have ever seen, one whose glory and prestige will resound through the ages,¡± the Emperor added almost immediately.


    ¡°You drive, I cook, that¡¯s how the world works,¡± Alterez contributed as if it were the inescapable truth.


    The gnome looked at me with pleading eyes in a silent petition that I say something to his defense.


    ¡°You could serve as emergency rations if we get desperate,¡± I tried with as much uncertainty in my voice as I could muster.


    Laughter from the group and curses from the aggrieved gnome followed, but after a bit of grumbling, he conjured up his flying vessel that he had used many times now. Nabonidus thought himself clever as he ¡®oohed¡¯ and ¡®awed¡¯ as he examined the conjured craft, complimenting Bellwright at the wondrous and glorified ¡°rickshaw¡± before us. Plenty of orcs are dumb, and plenty more play dumb to try to get out of things, so I know a bullshitter when I see one. Nabonidus played the  role of the ignorant savage and stroked the gnome¡¯s ego with gratuitous amounts of praise in order to ingratiate himself with his transporter both present and future. He even slipped me a wink when Bellwright waxed on about all the features of the ride, to which Nabonidus bobbed his head in approval and offered platitudes of appreciation. The sly devil cares not for appearances, only for results, and I made a note to keep an eye on him in the future lest he try to use one of his tricks on me.


    With Bellwright sufficiently praised and offered ample opportunity to flaunt his knowledge, we finally boarded and departed. Honestly, it may have been faster to walk after all that exposition, but I suspect that building relationships was the true goal all along for Nabonidus. We were the first group to leave the dungeon, but not by much. Within five minutes, other groups started to trickle out, with the last group having arrived an hour after ours.


    I don¡¯t know if I expected a rousing speech or a celebration, but no sooner had we assembled than we organized ourselves into a cohesive army. We were in four groups of 24, with each group having a leader standing up front. I thought we would be entering the Raid in groups of 25, but as we marched forward as one, I found that we had entered the dungeon for 100 people. I know this because of the greeting that sounded in my mind.


    [Now Entering ¡°Test Ogre Village Please Ignore¡±. Current difficulty set to ¡°100-Man Raid¡±]


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    I have no experience with dungeons other than what we had just left, much less Raids. I don¡¯t know what the strategy is supposed to be normally, but to say we ¡°cheesed¡± it, as the Emperor put it, remained an understatement.


    He and Nanu transformed into dragons right away. I had never been so close to him before when he was in his true form, and the sight of him was simply breathtaking. We orcs delight in things that are ¡°bitey¡± in nature, for a critter that tries to murder you makes for a good pet, but a dragon exists on a scale far beyond what even orcs would dare to attempt domesticating. If Death itself had designed the perfect murder machine, a dragon was it. The Emperor, though still small for what he would be someday, exemplified that concept far beyond his kin. A wave of fear washed through those of us who, like me, had not seen him this close before, and quietly, I whispered a short prayer of gratitude to the gods that the dragons were my allies.


    The pair of them quickly departed for the village as the rest of us hustled over in formation, our pace slowed because the hydra lagged behind. Itself another example of peak performance in murder, overland speed was not part of the prowess in its design. By the time we arrived, a fort had been assembled from the strange black stone the Emperor called ¡°obsidicrete¡± and ¡°obsidisteel¡±, which seemed to be magical obsidian.


    We each took our places within the fort and the tall tower within its bounds. The dragons flew off, and in their wake, a wall followed, made of the same stone. At least 30 feet high, it remained outside the means of even the tallest of ogres to scale if one stood upon the shoulders of another, not that we expected the brutes to be so coordinated in any efforts to escape their confinement.


    Two hours later, the only way out of the ogre village was via a path between two parallel walls that led directly to our fortress. Towers along the way created a kill zone, and even the hardiest of ogres would find it challenging to run the gauntlet. If any did survive, they would have to deal with a hydra that appeared all too eager to see what these ogres tasted like.


    Strangely, not a single ogre had poked its head out to see what we were up to. Perhaps they were too dumb to post guards at night and all were asleep, blissfully unaware of how they had been boxed in. Either way, they could scarcely be prepared for the onslaught that would be coming for them as midnight approached. With two of the six moons providing illumination, this night battle would not be in complete darkness, not that such conditions would bother half the races or Blessings out there.


    About a quarter of us were positioned along the perimeter of the investment to pick off any ogres that tried to find a way under or over. Another group of [Artillery Mages] manned the towers, ready to rain down hellfire upon the ogre village in the distance. Other [Mages] of various shapes and sizes erected protective shields, empowered us with various boons, or warped the terrain into a nightmare of mud and vines. Bellwright seemed to be in charge of that lot, while I commanded the more martially-minded individuals. I suspect any one of those under my command could have kicked my ass in a fight, but I possessed the best leadership experience for large engagements and sieges, so this ragtag assembly of Adventurers deigned to listen to me.


    The Emperor, when he returned, appeared tired, muttering something about ¡°inefficient mana expenditure for expedited construction¡±, so I guess he expected the rest of us to hold the fort while he rested. Skull and Nanu remained at his side, each of them serving as our heavy-hitters in the reserves should we need them.


    Then, when the signal was given, the [Artillery Mages] opened fire with all manner of nasty spells, most of which were of some fire or meteor variety. Many seconds later, flashes of light illuminated the distant village, followed shortly by the booming echoes of the reports that had launched those same spells earlier. I can only imagine that chaos ensued, but after a full five minutes, ogres finally started to pour out of the village in the only direction available to them, which is to say, straight down the gauntlet to us.


    Normal ogres, like Nabonidus, stood around 8 feet tall, but these bastards were 10 to 12 feet tall. Each was still built like those hulking wrestlers that try to throw one another out of the ring; just walking blobs of thick fat over steely muscle and no brains. However, these ogres sported ¡°armor¡± of sorts, if I am being generous. Well, some of it was actual armor, with breastplates being worn as pauldrons, shin guards, and just generally attached via rope or leather to their bodies. I can only imagine the previous owners parted with those breastplates under dire circumstances. Some wore cooking pots for helmets, one had a great big gong strapped to his chest, and generally all manner of cobbled together bits and bobs from the spoils of their raids had been converted to arms and armor.


    A tide of anger, stupidity, and the foul stench of unwashed bodies stormed our way, each one bellowing a promise of violence and a desire to feast upon our flesh. Dozens fell within seconds of entering the kill box, with dozens more ready to trample over the bodies of the fallen with their ravenous hatred spurring them onwards. Hardy bastards, many magical attacks that would instantly kill lesser men just buffeted them around, their capacity for violence no worse for wear and their physical appearance at times improved, such was their hideous nature. Yet, as they approached closer, the mid-range fighters unleashed their attacks, and the progress of the ogres slowed.


    I would come to learn after that battle that, as a general rule, monsters and other denizens within a dungeon have limited awareness of their surroundings and a minimal social sense of community. Ergo, one can be murdering things within one room, and as long as one keeps the ruckus to a dull roar, other enemies will not be bothered to investigate. As such, a smart group can systematically dispatch enemies in smaller and more manageable chunks. Our artillery barrage of spells had effectively pissed off every single ogre at once, and generally speaking, that was a suicidal move from a strategic standpoint. However, it seemed to be working, for the ogres got in each other¡¯s way and made for unavoidable targets for even the worst shots among us.


    Despite the losses, they just kept coming. Hundreds of them, perhaps even a thousand, ran screaming into the fray, each oblivious or uncaring of the danger as they recklessly and inexorably inched their way towards us. And the sad thing is, despite how grossly outmatched a bunch of brutes were compared to ranged attackers behind fortifications, the ogres did manage to make it to us. And by us, I mean of course, the hydra.


    Breath attacks of blazing fire, high-pressure water, decrepifying poison, and thunderous lightning crashed into the rushing horde. By my count, one head did not unleash its fury, so maybe the fact that we fought a night battle contributed to that discrepancy or it held its attack in reserve. Either way, what ogres that had made it to us had perished, yet more rushed in. At this point, it remained dubious that the village could even hold this many ogres, so something must be spawning them continuously. I trusted that others were well aware of this fact and were assigned to resolve this issue before we were exhausted and overrun.


    The novelty of the Raid wore off within half an hour. After the first hour of fighting, the ogres offered their surrender, yet the artillery never stopped. After the second hour, we detected no more signs of life, yet the artillery never stopped. After the third hour, the dungeon provided us with a message that the Raid had been cleared, yet the artillery never stopped.


    By sunrise, our [Artillery Mages] and their [Battery] assistants were exhausted, and only then did we cease firing. Those of us holding the line had grown bored hours ago, but I maintained vigilance and discipline among the ranks lest those who dared to relax be the doom of us all. We expected some great spirit of fire to come attack us at the end, but if it existed, it never showed up. We waited an hour for the smoke to clear, and another half hour for reconnaissance teams to report back that the village had been obliterated. We rested for half, with Alterez, gods bless him, cooking up hearty meals for all of us.


    Reasonably rested and well-fed, we grouped up and advanced slowly, the tension mounting as we each suspected that some trap lay in wait for us. Sweat ran down the full length of my spine as I advanced my formation forward, all eyes and ears alert for any sign of danger, yet all that greeted us was ash and ruin. We moved through the village, or the smoldering remains of one, without encountering any resistance, until we arrived at the remains of what had once been the chieftain¡¯s hut.


    There, an exhausted Nabonidus lumbered forward and pointed at a spot on the ground, where the Emperor dug a hole and excavated a glowing orb that oozed malevolent fury at our audacious trespasses upon its domain. With a nod from Nabonidus, the Emperor crushed the red orb in his hands, and an otherworldly wail of hatred and despair sounded out in contempt before silencing completely.


    [Dungeon notification for ¡°Test Ogre Village Please Ignore¡± - ¡°100-Man Raid¡±. Dungeon core has been destroyed. This dungeon will self-destruct in ¡°4¡± minutes.¡±]


    The voice had sounded monotone, as if it had been a canned phrase used by a sales clerk thousands of times until it lost meaning, with the exception of the dungeon name, the Raid size, and the time until destruction seemingly sounding more enthusiastic in nature. Either way, I had no time to ponder that, for a retreat was sounded immediately. Bodies piled onto two dragons and various summoned mounts as we hightailed it out of there. I don¡¯t know for sure what happens during the ¡°self-destruct¡± of a dungeon, but everyone appeared to be of the same mind that it would not behoove us to stick around and find out.


    Either we made it out in time or the destruction of the dungeon did not impact us. Regardless, the forward operating base suddenly came into view as if it popped up right in front of us. There was no explosion in the direction of the dungeon, just a sense of¡­ negative pressure, as if something powerful and oppressive had withered away into nothingness. The dungeon was gone, and construction on the road could continue south.

 Chapter 85

    The Raid had turned out to be a huge success. Whatever rewards or treasure the dungeon may have offered had been obliterated, but those who participated seemed more than pleased as most unlocked a new Skill or two, if such tales were to be believed. There was a huge party where everyone behaved all prim and proper.


    I jest. Adventurers are not known to be the most disciplined of people, and the rager that we had that night burned through a few stockpiles of choice beverages. Debauchery, revelry, and noise complaints were the activities of the following night after all present for the raid took some much-needed rest during the day.


    Many kobolds flitted about the party, some bringing offerings of food, drink, and company to those who didn¡¯t mind the scales. From my understanding, kobolds do not normally find the non-scaly races to be attractive, but when there is a good story to be researched for the next play they intend to perform, they will employ all the charm and seduction at their disposal to suss out the details. Adventurers see and experience some weird shit, so it seems only natural that they develop appetites and coping mechanisms beyond those of average people. Ergo, no one commented when ¡°odd pairings¡± developed, such as when Gambino and Bambina sauntered away with a slightly inebriated Bellwright between them.


    I spent much of the time introducing Nabonidus to my friends and inner circle. After a long bath and some fancy clothes, he spruced up into a rather presentable fellow. Naturally, as soon as people discovered his Abilities to see into the future, some parlor tricks were demanded, such as correctly identifying cards drawn from a deck or guessing which shot glass of whisky contained Reaper¡¯s Kiss Peppers. I had to chase away more than a few that wanted to partner with him for a venture at one gambling den or another.


    Nabonidus captivated a large audience with his rendition of the events of the battle and his role in it. The deep bass of his voice carried his tale to appreciative ears of how he had guided one particular [Artillery Mage] in destroying the huts that spawned the endless tides of ogres. The logic around it seems absurd, but the power behind such Abilities had many clamoring to recruit him into their merry bands of Adventurers.


    Hopper and Ribbette had served as forward observers. They snuck around the ogre village and pinpointed the locations of the huts in question. Through their connection to me, they could have used telepathy to communicate to me if a hut was hit or not, and I could have told Nabonidus as such since he was next to me. If needed, my pets could have theoretically ran into the village in a suicide mission to find other key targets. The key here is that we had the technical capacity to do these things, and so in Nabonidus¡¯ visions of the future, he could have requested that we do those things. Hypothetical and future versions of us would take all the risk and deal with all the fallout of acquiring such information, but the real version of us mostly sat there quietly.


    The [Artillery Mage] who was placed directly under Nabonidus¡¯ command was a little miffed at the time spent aiming, with it seemingly arbitrary when Nabonidus gave the command to fire, but apparently, over 90 percent of the shots landed on target, so the man quickly warmed up to the potential of such a boon to his craft. The man had confided that he unlocked the Skill [Artillery Targeting - Guided Shot], which was a highly coveted and rare Skill that leading experts theorized required many consecutive shots on target during a violent engagement. Since practice drills simply would not do, and the opportunities for real combat were rare, much less successful at acquiring the Skill, the demand for his talents just went up by an order of magnitude. Can¡¯t remember his name for the life of me, but he was proud as a peacock and drunk as a skunk that night.


    My ponderings on recent events had me in a contemplative mood the next day at some boring meeting that was bogged down by a bunch of gnomes and dwarves arguing over the naming of some device or another. The gnomes thought that the acronym should come first, and then the words to make that acronym should come second. The dwarves thought that cool words should be presented first, and then a pleasing acronym should be made from them. They had a whole chalkboard with double elimination brackets for every acronym they could think of, with speeches and votes each and every time. These engineers spent more time on names than designs or construction, but longer-lived races tend to care about names quite a bit.


    ¡°Hey, Torborg, I¡¯ve been thinking about a few things,¡± I whispered to my equally bored friend next to me.


    ¡°A dangerous undertaking if done by some of this lot,¡± the dwarf replied as he gestured around vaguely at those gathered, ¡°but more often than not your ideas are good. What¡¯s on your mind?¡±


    ¡°So, [Artillery Mages] launch magical projectiles really far to blow up distant targets. At the battle a while back at Berkerin, both sides used cannons that launched magical projectiles to damage the shields each side had erected. Why not make cannons that shoot physical projectiles that could actually damage a wall or hurt people? Also, I was thinking about making trains, sort of like those used for mine tracks with their carts for ore, only on a bigger scale and between cities. Why have I not seen either of these things before?¡±


    Torborg looked at me with a mixture of pride and sorrow, his eyes misting over as he gave me a knowing look while he nodded his head.


    ¡°Aye, such things are known, but I could give you a much better answer with a book I have at home. That is, if we can ever get out of this meeting with all these gear-heads.¡± He continued as he once again gestured vaguely at the gnomes and dwarves who were still going at it.


    ¡°Hmm, I think I have an idea to get us out of here,¡± I replied back as I leaned in conspiratorially.


    ¡°Oh! This ought to be interesting,¡± he answered back as he casually grabbed a nearby shield on a table and readied himself for mayhem.


    ¡°Skull, I need you to do something for me.¡±


    ¡°Name it, Master, and I will see what I can do.¡±


    I gave her the details of what I wanted, and I could feel the mischief and mirth bleed through our connection and into me. With things ready, Skull allowed her voice to pass out of her realm of shadow and into the material world, albeit, off to the side and away from me.


    ¡°I don¡¯t get it,¡± she exclaimed with a gruff voice in her best impression of a dwarf as she stood behind one such fellow, ¡°What¡¯s the difference between a mortar and a crucible anyway? They are both just fancy rock bowls, aren¡¯t they?¡±


    All conversation ceased as the gathering of dwarves and gnomes turned to face the one who dared utter such sacrilege. The poor dwarf just looked around and then pointed to himself as he asked a quiet ¡°Me?¡±.


    Then the floodgates opened as all present, sans myself and Torborg, berated the dwarf for his poor choice of words while people provided conflicting answers to explain the difference. Such discrepancies in the most sacred of scientific answers gave way to more arguments, and in less than half a minute, fists were being thrown as an all-out brawl developed.


    ¡°Aye then, that¡¯s our cue to take our leave,¡± Torborg said to me as he ducked behind his shield and backpedaled his way out of the meeting room with me. The gentle clunking of objects colliding with his shield gave prudence to his decision to grab it, so I suspect this was not his first rodeo.


    ¡°Good thinking back there,¡± he confided in me as we made it to the safety of the outdoors. ¡°You have grown more familiar with dwarven customs. ¡®Any person may be excused from a meeting that turns into a brawl¡¯,¡± he recited while taking the pose of a wise elder. ¡°Now, let¡¯s go to my house and I can answer these questions and more.


    Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    His house was rather identical to most others in town; just another blocky building of black stone. Inside though, the house had the trappings of dwarven culture that turned it into a home. Statues and busts of famous dwarves and kin, tapestries, paintings, knick-knacks, tools, and other examples of artisanry and culture lined the walls and shelves in a tasteful but uncluttered display.


    ¡°Your wife is an excellent homemaker, I see,¡± I said loud enough for her to hear as I looked around to take in the sights. The house was also very clean and tidy, much to my satisfaction.


    ¡°Indeed she is. She has made me the happiest dwarf alive.¡±


    ¡°I would contest that,¡± his wife challenged as she entered the room with a gaggle of children in tow. The youngest was still a babe, and his little beard was a strong green in color, if a little short for his age, which was understandable considering the complications involved during his birth. ¡°For you have made me so very happy as well,¡± she finished as she approached her husband and pecked him on the cheek. ¡°Welcome to our humble abode, Emperor. We invite you to share in the bounty of our hearth,¡± she finished with as best a curtsy as she could manage with her brood gathering around her.


    ¡°You honor me with your hospitality,¡± I replied with a slight bow. I totally forgot her name, so I just didn¡¯t use it. She didn¡¯t use mine either, so perhaps the forgetfulness was mutual.


    She smiled at me warmly as she grabbed a nearby bottle of whisky and poured out shots for each of her children, with some whisky being added to a bottle for the youngest of the bunch. She motioned the bottle towards me in an offer to pour me some, but I wordlessly and politely declined the invitation.


    ¡°I have brought him here because it is time for ¡®the talk¡¯,¡± Torborg stated as he finished patting all his children on the head.


    ¡°Ah,¡± she said with a knowing look. ¡°Go right ahead, dear, I will keep the children out of your beard while you do.¡±


    With us excused from further social niceties, we made our way to his study, which itself was well adorned with precise instruments for measurements, quality tools, a choice selection of brews, and a plethora of books on their shelves. He took a large tome in hand, one well worn through use throughout the ages. He carried it over to a table presumably used for schematics and gently placed it down as he invited me to join him.


    ¡°There comes a time in the life of all dwarves when they start to notice changes in their body and mind,¡± he started, apparently staying on script. ¡°Some of these changes may be confusing, but they are completely natural.¡±


    ¡°I know about the birds and the bees,¡± I offered, hoping to skip any awkward conversation topics.


    ¡°Oh, ahem, right,¡± he replied sheepishly as he took a moment to mentally skip ahead in the lecture. ¡°You may also notice certain ideas about the world. You see how it is, and imagine how it could be better with the right application of technology. You are not alone in puzzling out these solutions, for your ancestors have already developed many of those things you dream of.¡±


    With a gentle touch, he opened the book, his hand expertly skipping past the first few pages and diving into the meat of it. Within, I saw diagrams of things I knew of, things that I only really thought of after I saw them in this world for the first time. As he flipped the pages, I saw steam locomotives, advancing to more sophisticated versions that hovered on magnetic tracks. I examined primitive firearms, all the way up to complex machine guns and guided missiles. The books also presented complex circuitry and boards covered in such circuits, along with electrical batteries and capacitors. As he flipped the pages, I even saw jet engines, tanks, and pages that covered topics on nuclear fission and fusion.


    ¡°All of this,¡± he said softly, his voice laden with sorrow, ¡°is forbidden. You can design it, you can make prototypes, you can leave them on display.¡± He turned to me, his face hardened and serious. ¡°But no matter what, you can never implement these into society at large. Should you try, the gods will warn you to stop. After a warning, they will make demands that you cease. If you do not comply, they will send their mortal servants to stop you. If that fails¡­¡± His gaze turned away for a moment, his mind wandering to that which was and will never be again. ¡°If that fails,¡± he continued once more as he turned back to me, ¡°they will send down their celestial servants to purge your machines and anyone nearby from this world. Entire civilizations have been destroyed overnight by the errant actions caused by such hubris. I don¡¯t know why the gods take this stance on technology, only that it is a mandate that must be obeyed.


    ¡°Several times now, the gods have wiped the slate clean, with most of the world being obliterated by their divine judgment. Let us learn from the mistakes of our ancestors and not trod down the same path.¡±


    He looked at me with a mixture of sternness, remorse, and shared understanding at what is denied to us. It dawned on me that he was looking for a reply, and so I nodded to him.


    ¡°This is unfortunate, but it answers many questions. Is it safe to say that I am allowed to use magic to achieve many of the same results, such as those artillery cannons?¡±


    ¡°Yes and no,¡± he replied as he wavered his hand side-to-side in front of him in a non-committal answer. ¡°Those siege cannons at Berkerin were allowed to exist because the physical aspect of the shot was laughably weak. One would be hard-pressed to destroy much of anything with them. However, the magical component of them was strong, and they were designed to disrupt shields, not destroy entire cities in one explosion.


    ¡°Most devices that are powered by electricity are forbidden, but as you have seen and demonstrated with your many works, anything that uses magic and mana to achieve the same result is generally permitted. The best clues and guesses that have been made theorize that the gods do not oppose the results, but rather the means. This suggests that there is something they fear or loath from certain developments of technology, not their applications. This is why anything strictly mechanical in nature, such as gears and pistons, are allowed, but things like engines that burn fuel refined from oil or devices that use explosive powers are forbidden. You will most likely discover the boundaries yourself as gods send you warnings, should you continue to push the limits of your skills. Take the warnings to heart, but do not be discouraged, for the gods are not angry with you, but simply advising you to look in a different direction.¡±


    Torborg gave me a moment to absorb his teachings and collect my thoughts as he patiently waited to see if I had anything to add.


    ¡°The gods have not said anything so far, other than a general and vague warning that I skirted the line as to what is acceptable with pocket dimensions.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s good, and also expected,¡± he replied to my confession. ¡°No using pocket dimensions to lift heavy things to create perpetual motion, such as with a water wheel. Exceptions can be made if you want a water source to return to the top of a waterfall or something, but generally for aesthetic purposes only. Sometimes, how you intend to use something is more important with the exact effect that is occurring. For instance, you could enchant a crystal to glow certain colors based on certain conditions, but you cannot arrange thousands of tiny crystals in a grid that create certain images for a display screen. If you want the same effect, just use high-quality illusions and the gods don¡¯t mind.¡±


    ¡°It all sounds very complicated and arbitrary, but I feel like I will be able to figure it out.¡±


    ¡°It is, and the gods almost seem secretly proud when you find a little loophole. It is like they know the rules, but they are not authorized to hand us the manual. We each have to figure out the rules as we get close to breaking them.¡±


    ¡°Well then, Torborg,¡± I offered as I held my hand out to him. ¡°Would you like to work with me to find every loophole and bend every rule we can in order to forge a better world.¡±


    ¡°Aye,¡± he answered as he shook my hand while his face blossomed into a smile. ¡°As long as your world is fair and just and you don¡¯t become a racist tyrant or something, I would be happy to.¡±


    With the two of us in agreement as to the path we would take together going into the future, Torborg gingerly placed the book back where it belonged on the shelf and whispered a short prayer in thanks to his ancestors for passing on such knowledge. Our business completed, we departed the house after another song and dance routine with his busy wife who appeared keen to attend to her fussy baby. I caught a glimpse of the crib in the corner of the nursery, and the mobile above it was adorned with anvils, hammers, tankards, and beards, so I suspected the children would grow to be the epitome of dwarven heritage.


    With the dungeon cleared and no pressing obstacles in our way, Torborg and I returned to the daily grind. We placed wagers on how many healers would be needed to tend to the aftermath of the brawl that we snuck out of earlier. My guess was way off on the low side, so I found renewed respect for Torborg¡¯s estimates about such things. It took 8 healers to tend to the 14 wounded, with only 2 individuals making it out unscathed. Many others sported minor bruises, but overall, no one appeared to be harboring any grudges and they actually seemed to be getting along better than normal. That wasn¡¯t just boys being boys, for a third of them were women, and they gave as good as they got. At least they all keep things interesting, for we would be building a relatively simple road for many weeks to come.

 Chapter 86

    Perhaps I had taken some things for granted in life. Unlike mortals, when I attain a Skill, I generally know how to use it. The knowledge is so instinctually ingrained in me that I wield the secrets of the arcane with ease. As such, I rarely had to struggle with understanding how to best use and control new Skills when I acquired them. Perhaps this lack of experiencing repeated failures and forging the power to strive when overcoming such shortcomings precipitated my current predicament. For on one day of no particular note for most people in camp, I had increased enough in [Age] to unlock [Parallel Minds], the forerunner of similar but more sophisticated Skills that would allow me to split my consciousness across multiple streams of thought simultaneously.


    For now, I lay on the floor, twitching and flopping around with all the grace and dignity of a fish plucked from the waters and cast ashore. Nanu also lay beside me on the floor, but where I labored to follow her earlier instructions to pull my consciousness back to a single mind, she rolled around in a fit of laughter at my misfortune. Skull stood nearby with a huge smirk upon her face, and Chooka, gods bless her, sat nearby and tenderly tried to soothe and calm me as my frustration gave way to a veritable tantrum that was not entirely within my control to suppress.


    From an outside perspective, dragons can seem to be a tad cruel to one another, with verbal barbs and unveiled delight at the misfortunes of others, especially dragons, to be commonplace. But one would be foolish to expect dragons to have the same norms and perspectives of mortal races. To dragons, such ridicule is a test and a challenge to rise above one¡¯s pride, to be its master and not its thrall. The weak grow up to be children, and the strong grow into legends, ones who accomplish deeds that their lessers would balk at attempting for the thought of the shame it would bring. I made a mental note to keep Nanu¡¯s current treatment of my undignified situation in perspective later on, to remember that she meant well, but that note would be buried deep in a pile of mental notes and may well be lost forever.


    ¡°36,¡± I managed to utter somewhat coherently to Chooka.


    ¡°Ha, wrong again!¡± Nanu commented from the peanut gallery as I failed to solve another simple math problem on a flashcard that Chooka presented to me.


    ¡°Hush now, darling, the grown-ups are talking,¡± Chooka chastised Nanu as she continued to console me. ¡°Not quite, but more accurate than last time. Try again, I know you will get it right soon. And if not, that is fine too. We are in no hurry.¡±


    I found it taxing and difficult to focus, my additional minds clamoring for things to do as they pulled my concentration one way or another. Sensory deprivation did not help, for it only made them all dreadfully bored. Likewise, an abundance of stimuli would lead to no end of distractions. Being inside my home with only a few people struck the right balance. Simple algebraic equations as something to focus on in a task-oriented manner was deemed a time-tested method for dragons to master their errant minds.


    ¡°15,¡± I tried, knowing my answer would be wrong, but my minds desired the gratification of a task seen to completion. Through our combined prowess, I was effectively thinking faster, but every calculation was wrong. It was almost like my new minds possessed no native intelligence, that they had no context or understanding of patterns, and they needed sample data from which to produce useful results. Fortunately, each mind fed and trained the others, and as they grew in competency, they copied what more they could comprehend from my primary mind and used that knowledge to advance.


    ¡°Not quite,¡± Chooka replied with a small frown. ¡°You forgot to carry the 1. Don¡¯t worry, I still love you and I am certain you will get them right soon enough.¡±


    Ever my beacon in the darkness during these trying times, I could feel one of Chooka¡¯s Skills lurking near the outskirts of my sense of self, the Skill wanting to impact me but unable to bypass my resistance to such manipulations. With a conscious effort, I lowered my defenses and allowed the soothing effect of her Skills to wash over me and to carry away my frustration and anxiety with its cleansing ministrations.


    Now calmer, I could focus, and with much the same attitude I used when reining in The Boys when they were up to mischief, I forced my other minds to surrender to my will and to clear their thought streams of all idle whims of pondering. With each now clear, I experimented with giving each only one specific task. One mind focused on performing mathematical calculations, another on handling error checking with the guidance of my primary mind, and a third focused on suppressing all other nascent minds that desired purpose. I could ramp up over time the number of minds I could manage at once, but for this moment, these were all I could wrangle to a common cause.


    ¡°44¡±,¡± I answered with more confidence than normal.


    ¡°Correct!¡± Chooka answered with a small fist pump of victory. ¡°I knew you could do it. Let¡¯s do another.¡±


    Some may find her coddling to be patronizing, similar in manner to how one talks to a child. However, I knew that she meant no such slights and that her words secretly wove her Skills to placate my negative emotions while stoking those that were positive. Such was an important Skill for a [Courtesan] to manage rowdy customers.


    After half an hour, I was able to sit up without twitching. After another half hour, I could walk and talk at the same time while also solving the math problems. By two hours, I had enough practice to handle three additional minds to satisfactory performance. I wouldn¡¯t trust them to handle the stress of combat, but they could handle routine tasks just fine. I set one to coach more minds while another worked as a proctor, checking in occasionally with my main mind¡¯s memory to confirm that they were all behaving in the correct manner.


    By the time my fourth mind was up and running, I set it to plotting contingencies and schemes on how to get back at Nanu. That seemed like an appropriate test to see how useful [Parallel Minds] could be - a challenging task considering how perceptive she would be to shenaniganry and how resilient she would be to most unpleasant mediums of torment. Scorpions in her shoes would barely even tickle if she somehow didn¡¯t notice them, and mostly, only the goop from their mushed corpses would be much of an issue before she used some sort of cleaning Ability to unspoil her shoes and feet. Ice water poured onto her would feel as refreshing as a gentle spring breeze. Perhaps something further out, like six months from now when her guard was lowered, would do the trick.


    More importantly, as more minds were prepared, I acquired Skills to give them a virtual world to practice certain things. They could draft schematics, work on my library of runes, produce documentation that I would need for administrative tasks, or plan out the city structure I would require here directly. That¡¯s right, I would be building my own city in the Ashlands, one placed about 50 miles from where the portal would open. The city would serve as the last bastion of civilization and all the comforts it could provide for the defenders of our world who would rotate out for some rest and relaxation.


    And plan away my minds did as I spun up seven or eight of them, depending on the complexity of the tasks and how stressed I was dealing with things around me. Unfortunately, while they could plan and record things in fine detail internally, they could not actually make things for me. That would come later, but I did have some Skills to help me quickly put ink to paper or otherwise relay their thoughts into a physical medium, assuming I used my primary mind as the middleman. Overall, a huge improvement on my ability to multitask and plan for the future, and this new Skill only left me salivating at the prospects of acquiring better versions.


    Not two days later, my first batch of whelps were born. One of them was a bit larger and smarter than the rest, for it was my first Imperial Whelp. Tenacious and cunning predators, within moments of hatching, they sensed the nearby weakness among them and pounced with ruthless determination. Skull instantly became a casualty of their insidious manipulations, for she fell into a cuddle puddle of seemingly weak and defenseless whelps that cried for her attention and affection, which she was all too happy to provide. She was so oblivious to the world around her while enthralled by their cuteness that she had to be carried around on a palanquin by a gaggle of kobolds, such that Skull would remain by my side if I actually needed her. Eventually, I made my whelps relent in their inexorable snuggles. As they wandered off to do my bidding, they left behind a bawling Skull who cried out to them to return and to let her love them. These were dark days for my constant companion with her erstwhile new ¡°scale babies¡±.


    Some of you may recall that I invested much of my flight¡¯s benefits into whelps. I also invested many of my [Flight Management] Skills into whelps. These little buggers, fresh from their eggs, could give most Gold Adventurers a run for their money. My whelps may not win in sheer power, but the versatility of what they could do was beyond most people. They could sneak and scout, were almost unapproachable without the interloper being detected, could soothe crowds, administer light healing, conjure up wards, barriers, and shields, and deliver potent magical attacks of the blasting variety that would make [Artillery Mages] weep tears of joy. They could also clean, transport goods, and generally follow any instructions a small child could comprehend. In short, I had a small flock of familiars the likes of which only [Archmages] that went all-in on familiars could match.


    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    And I was just getting started. I already had a dozen more eggs ready, and soon, my first True Dragon children would be born. Any day now. They just need to cook a little longer. Any second now¡­


    All estimates predicted they would be born after I finished building my new city, World¡¯s End. The name felt spot on, since the world could be ending soon and it would be located at the end of civilization in the middle of the continent. One had to travel pretty far east or west to arrive at the coast where the bulk of civilization was located in this region. I had the full plans for the city drafted, with my army of engineers and other specialists to review it and give proper tweaks, also with Torborg reining in those who wanted to take things to the extreme. Too many cooks spoil the broth and all that, and this city needed to be functional more than it needed to be pretty. I had already done the math on it, and I did have enough time to make things pretty if I did not hit more than what would be an acceptable number of snags.


    Speaking of snags, my biggest dilemma was how my city would need some kind of [Noble] to maintain civilization. Without a [Noble], monsters could literally spawn inside the city, which, as one may guess, is not conducive to maintaining civil order. Skilled individuals had been hired to suppress or handle such events, but they were far too costly for a permanent setup. For a city of such prominence, I couldn¡¯t just get a regular ol¡¯ [Baron] or something, not to be confused with a Baron, which was a rank of peerage for dragons. No, I had my sights set on a [Princess], and the only problem in the way of my plans was that said [Princess] was the daughter of a [King] who was not inclined to part with his beloved progeny¡­ without me paying an absurd price. Beyond all sanity, the political implications of how such a gift to me would expand his own influence and ingratiate himself with a rising power eluded him, despite, as rumors said, how his many advisors had counseled him on the wisdom in cooperation.


    With diplomatic options having been exhausted, alternative methods of conflict resolution and acquisition of critical resources were underway. And by that highfalutin¡¯ lingo, of course I mean what dragons are best known for. I was going to kidnap a [Princess].


    Now don¡¯t get your knickers in a twist here, reader. I did secretly conspire with said [Princess] for her abduction, for she possessed the mental wherewithal to recognize a golden opportunity when she saw one. A [Princess] could expect to be married away to a man she has never met, to live in a land not her own, all for the advantage of her family. She would be little more than a cow trapped in a gilded cage, one whose purpose was to pump out babies with [Noble] Blessings.


    I offered her a brand spanking new city, one with most of the bells and whistles that many older cities just do not have. She understood that she was but a puppet, one who would govern according to my rules and that she would be subordinate to my flight. Mostly, I expected her to perform the critical duties relevant to a [Noble] to maintain civilization, and the rest of the time, she could enjoy the comfortable and privileged life as granted to her by a reasonably generous stipend from my coffers. Sadly, the prestige and pageantry of a [Noble] matters, and a [Princess] simply could not abide by a smaller stipend lest the authority and potency of her Blessing be compromised.


    Fortunately, unlike true feudalism, she would have no need of vassals, especially since the city would have no fiefs under its protection. Ergo, I would not need to pay, hmm, what is the collective word for a bunch of useless [Nobles] that don¡¯t really do anything other than be pompous and waste money. A group of lawyers is almost the same thing, so let¡¯s go with that. I wouldn¡¯t need to pay a firm of [Nobles] to attend court.


    It was actually rather sad how easy the whole process was of kidnapping a [Princess], albeit a willing one. Nanu and I loaded up with an elite cadre of handpicked guards. We flew over to the kingdom, scooped up the [Princess] who had hoodwinked her way out of her quarters in the middle of the night, accidentally lit the castle on fire, and flew back to the work camp, all in the matter of about 30 hours. Easy-peasy. No need to go into details of how the castle was half-destroyed by the time we cleared the horizon. If anything, that castle was a disaster waiting to happen and was not up to building code.


    Naturally, I waited until the work camp had arrived at where World¡¯s End would be before I conducted the heist. The city was not built yet, but with a model made of [Illusion] magic and much of the work done to haul all the building materials on site, the rest was just a matter of simple construction. I let the [Princess], I wanna say something like Kimberly, Kimbloria, Kimbronica¡­, anyway, I let [Princess] Kim assess the designs for her city, to which she had no real complaints seeing as how she was no architect and not in a position of power to expend any political capital in annoying me with frivolous changes, and I went on my merry way. I only ever saw her a handful of times after that, but some of my children would ¡°interact¡± with her extensively. And by that, I mean the worst kept secret of what dragons were known for when concerning [Princesses], or pretty much anyone to be honest if they catch our eyes.


    Ah, but the city itself, what a gem. Black obsidicrete outer roads. Elevated roads, mind you, much like bridges, but with support piers so frequent that one could not pass underneath the bridge itself. One possessed of ignorance and crass manners may try to liken the construct to a wall, but I am ¡°The Dragon of Roads¡±, not ¡°The Dragon of Walls¡±. Roads and walls are pretty much the opposite of one another, as the former enables travel while the latter restricts it. This perimeter road even has ramps to connect it to the lower roads of the city itself, each ramp connecting just shy of the corners of the square city. What kind of wall has such things? Indeed, similar roads would be a staple of securing borders of places of interest in my domain as it grew. They are also wide enough on top for two carriages to pass one another. Show me a wall that can boast such width. Hmph.


    The city proper was a clean and orderly grid in an 8x8 pattern of straight roads, all perfectly aligned with the cardinal directions. Well, as much as one can when considering the curvature of the planet, but you know what I mean. Each building, made of a mix of obsidicrete and obsidisteel, stood five stories high, with a few observation towers throughout the city to enable trusted observers to keep an eye on things. The city roads were wide, with different lanes for commercial traffic and pedestrians. Left turns and straight-through traffic used roundabouts and right turns were made before said roundabouts via a special turning lane. I played with the idea of portals to handle intersections, but my current Skill at making such enchantments would bankrupt the reserves of mana collected from ambient mana, but it remained something to consider for future developments.


    However, having lights in place to control when left turns versus straight-through traffic could enter the roundabouts is dirt cheap. Traffic flows smoother and the animals that pull carts are calmer when four carts enter at time, all make their journey without impediment, and then the next batch can enter to repeat the process. It¡¯s more important to avoid collision or gridlock with cumbersome vehicles that lack the agility to handle multiple lanes in a roundabout. Additionally, big wagons and their draft animals just don¡¯t have a tight enough turning radius for multiple lanes in a roundabout. One has to consider these practical limitations when dealing with more primitive modes of transportation.


    Long-distance travel in the city was all underground. That is also where the ¡°speedsters¡± could travel quickly without having to worry about colliding with small children or something. Authorized individuals were permitted to leap from rooftop to rooftop, but they were advised to keep such skulking to appropriate hours and to not hog the best brooding locations. The rooftops were almost flat, designed with a slight slope and a drain in the middle so the scarce rain could be pooled into underwater aquifers, which would augment the water supply from the pipeline I had made and would ease the burden on the storm drains.


    World¡¯s End was MY city. I personally own every single building in it. It is not open to immigration, but accessible by invitation only. Each nation had options and quotas to supply the best and brightest in pretty much every profession to come live here, for the world was in it for the long-haul in the war for our very existence that would undoubtedly last for centuries. A whole army of [Scribes] and [Clerks] had arranged for recruiting and vetting these people, I just made the places for them to live and work. Already, many were on their way here, and so construction would need to be completed quickly.


    The city foundation was dug a full 635 feet deep. The bottom was filled in with 135 feet of obsidicrete and obsidisteel, the primary component of all buildings. Last thing I wanted was for an earthquake or some large tunneling worm to wreck my city. Working my way up, various networks of tunnels, saferooms, secret passages, sewers, pipe networks, cabal gathering points, and the like were built, or at least the space for them. Like, my sewer system would not be implemented for a long time, in part because I had already negotiated the contract to have sewage managed by gong farmers for the next 30 years, but it was still there, even if it had nowhere to drain to. Then the ¡°ground¡± of the city was placed, along with the roads. Finally the buildings were constructed one after another, with a small army of workers handling the furnishings, cosmetics, art, and other detailed work after I made the superstructure.


    Thematically, the architecture of the city followed mostly the Gothic patterns, minus the flying buttresses. A smattering of Art Deco and Art Nouveau was thrown in, as well as some Brutalism and whatever one uses to describe the bulky yet artistic style of dwarves. Some of you readers may think architectural styles and the names for them are native to your world, that you invented them, but I assure you, they were not ¡°developed¡± by accident. Whatever over-gods exist in the multiverse, they have a particular way they like things, patterns they want in their worlds, and language and measurement systems are not far behind architecture when it comes to standardization.


    But all of this was fine on paper. As I built the city, the reality of how the world works was beaten into me by uncooperative and greedy individuals. Like, if I were on a sinking ship with these people, they would rent out buckets at a premium to anyone willing to bail us out. More and more, I was understanding why dragon diplomacy often started and ended with eating people.

 Chapter 87

    Buildings are easy. They never complain or try to cheat you. They don¡¯t come begging for exceptions or just want a moment of your time to discuss one matter or another. People, however, have no such qualms.


    The city is, as I said, an 8x8 grid, with each square in the grid being a 4x4 grid of buildings and smaller streets for local traffic, all in a 2x2 mile city. Simple layout, no diagonal roads. There are very few deviations from this plan, but you wouldn¡¯t believe the number of petitioners I have received that wanted some estate or another that spanned 2 or more lots. If I made an exception for one, I would have to make an exception for others, and I didn¡¯t want to go down that path.


    Priests are just the worst of the bunch, because not only are they entitled, they feel that some god or another is on their side and that their god in particular is important. There are enough gods that, if each had his or her own temple, the city would be nothing but temples. The Light and Dark pantheons are the most prominent, so each god in those pantheons gets their own temple. All the smaller pantheons, such as racial pantheons, get one temple each. Usually, that means the god at the head of the pantheon gets the biggest room, and the rest get smaller ones. The unaffiliated gods get jammed together in a few remaining temples. This is the plan, but some priests even threatened me with excommunication. I felt more concern with being blacklisted from receiving Bellwright¡¯s monthly newsletter about the latest trends in fashionable headwear.


    [Nobles] and merchants tried the same thing. Some were even willing to settle for just having an entire lot to themselves. Sometimes I wonder if I am speaking in tongues, because they either don¡¯t listen to a damn thing I say or they lack the mental faculties to comprehend the words that come out of my mouth. No one gets a fancy estate! There are some housing options that are more prominent in nature, at most taking up a quarter of a floor of a building. I don¡¯t care if they are a [King] or a [Street Vendor], the artisans, merchants, and [Nobles] all have the same upper limit on housing options.


    Naturally, some of these people wanted to outright purchase or lease buildings from me, but they don¡¯t get it. People live here by my grace and generosity. Those who contribute to the wellbeing of the city are permitted to stay. Those who are no better than deadwood get evicted, regardless of station or politics. I know most of those greedy bastards hoped to buy up all they could and then sublease things at a premium markup.


    Taxes, or rent, depending on your perspective, are rather straightforward. Only those who sell the final goods or services pay taxes. So, some artisan can move to the city and pay a monthly flat amount based on how much floor space is used. However, the maid who cleans his house and the sales clerk who manages the store don¡¯t pay any taxes or any rent for their dwellings. Ultimately, the cost of the tax is passed on to the final customer, but it simplified the process of keeping track of who owes what and eases the burden on the lower class.


    I basically copied Berkerin¡¯s healthcare plan to ensure that everyone had access to healthcare without concern of bankruptcy. To sweeten the pot, I do allow people to become citizens, with each citizen possessing a specially attuned bracelet as designed by yours truly and printed out via a sophisticated and proprietary enchanting apparatus that I have developed. Citizens can get more complicated medical care for free, such as complex surgeries. Citizens have a few other rights and privileges, but they do pay a yearly tax, which can be greatly mitigated through approved public works or service to my flight. Benevolence is great, but ultimately, I aim to cultivate loyal subjects to my city and flight, and the masses would be hard-pressed to find better offers in other lands. Additionally, a city this critical to the survival of our world cannot be allowed to fall to ruin because of a public health crisis.


    Everyone in the city has employment. This is only feasible because the city starts out devoid of any inhabitants and only those invited to live here may do so. However, those people will eventually have children, and those children will need employment. Inevitably, the supply of workers will exceed the availability of work, and so the various schools and the university in town will help to identify the wheat from the chaff. Those who excel will be permitted to stay, the rest will be expelled from the city. Good thing there are all manner of free companies and soldiers of fortune only 50 miles away who need able recruits to help hold the line against an unending tide of death. I know many of those young people will perish, but that really isn¡¯t my problem. I will at least have programs to help them settle in other towns or villages, for as World¡¯s End grows, so too will other patches of civilization sprout up nearby.


    Cities live and die by the structure of their districts. Commerce, temple, government, civil services, residential, entertainment, manufacturing, military, medical, education, and utilities are the most prominent examples, and all need to be staffed by the correct people. And as ideal as my design and plan for the city may be, I recognize that corruption always seeks an easy mark. Guards can be bribed, officials can fudge documents, nepotism and favors can see the incompetent fools rise above their station, and cultural clashes can cause unrest. Since my flight is in its infancy, I need to outsource some of the work to keep things in line.


    Even without street urchins and unemployment, there will still inevitably be those who seek fortune through dishonest means. Since I cannot beat them, the only solution is to join them. If I play both sides, I always come out on top. Officially, I cannot say that I am colluding with certain individuals that work within the city¡¯s underbelly, but the people will eventually learn that certain crimes never see their offenders end up in court. I am a dragon, and my views on punishment for people who go well out of their way to hurt others is rather, well, draconian. Fortunately, I have the exact muscle in mind, but before that, they will need incentives for them to come here.


    Indeed, the city will also need a host of Adventurers to protect it from the various beasts and monsters that prowl the edges of civilization and occasionally trespass. But for that to happen, the most sacred of buildings must first be finished, one whose holy grounds offer the sweet sacraments and rituals that the faithful yearn for. And by that, of course, I mean the brothels. My daughter, Tamadora, would control the red-light district, ostensibly located as the madam of the most prominent brothel, depending on her preferences. Loose men and women, each willing to ply their trade and alcohol to eager customers, would be best to pry the secrets from those in the position to be in the know. Additionally, she would cultivate a fine collection of Traits that would serve her well as Broodmother. Likewise, she would handle the illegitimate side of governing my holdings and keeping the enforcers in line.


    Conversely, Kaisadoro would handle legitimate government, most likely working closely with the [Princess]. Very closely I imagine, for she is easy on the eyes, as [Nobles] tend to be. I already have a harem of my own, it just sorta happened, no need to hog all the delights that come my way. My two children would secretly work together to ensure that nastier things stay out of the city and certain ¡®illicit¡¯ goods find their way smuggled to the right people. I can¡¯t outright ban everything that is fun, and people tend to feel content to accept the scraps of what I allow to trickle in, perhaps because they enjoy the rush of doing something illegal. Alterez would be the subject-matter expert on what I should or should not allow, especially since his cults will need items that may be mired in questionable ethics.


    In the ambiguous gray area of legality and ethics are orphanages. With a never-ending battle only miles away, orphans will rack up. And I, in all my benevolence, will see such children housed, fed, educated, and if they prove promising, trained in certain skill sets for which I am ever in short supply. I don¡¯t force such things upon them, but orphans tend to be loyal to the one who gave them everything when they had nothing. Devoid of strong ties to family or factions, some of my orphans will find service in my flight to be very rewarding, with most serving in legitimate positions. However, I will need spies, assassins, informants, and all that ilk, and those poor little orphans just make the best ones. Some people out there are just irredeemable bastards and need killin¡¯, so those orphans who accept working for the greater good will find purpose and reward in my service. This is not a novel idea, but I hope to perfect the execution of it beyond what anyone has achieved before. Also, the neat thing about orphans-turned-assassins is that they tend to make more orphans, so it should eventually be self-sustaining.


    I never claimed to be a saint. You try creating an empire while keeping your hands clean.


    Hopefully, a good number of them will end up serving in my Crossing Guard, or my personal honor guard, if you will. They don¡¯t exist yet, but with all my [Enchanting] Skills at my disposal, as well as my [Material Arcane Science], I have the means to make a lot of powerful weapons and armor, but a lack of loyal subjects to use them. The less worthy could find service in the city guard, the police, or the military, all of which are very separate entities because I don¡¯t want to create a police state. I will need to recruit people to train them and to manage things until my flight can pop out the required children to administer those matters, but the point stands. I have plans in the works to keep this city under my control.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    And to that end, as construction on World¡¯s End was in the final stages, the first batch of immigrants arrived. Now, I¡¯m not racist, but I am rather aware of my surroundings and culture. Show me a riccen who works in legitimate business, and I will show you one who works in a front for illegitimate business. Damn near all of them are tied up in one gang, mafia, cartel, or another. I¡¯ve made honest attempts to find ones that were not, but it is part of their nature to scheme and steal. If your riccen are constantly stealing, then they just lack enrichment, and you need to give them sources of work and entertainment that allow them to use their skills. You can even raise one far away from dishonesty, and they will seek it out regardless. Being practical, I had an opportunity for them to coexist in my city, and indeed, I required their skills greatly.


    The first shady looking riccen I saw walking into my city, which is the same as the first riccen I saw walking into my city, I had my whelps lure into a side street and down into the sublevels. It wasn¡¯t hard, just have the whelp fly past with a bulging coin purse that had that tell-tale clinking of gold coins, and the poor riccen¡¯s nature did the rest as he followed along. Maybe a coin or two would fall out of the bag and onto the ground whenever he became cautious or discouraged, all to lure him deeper. And there, in a private storage room, far from prying eyes, I locked him in, with only myself and the whelp as company.


    He tried to escape the instant he realized he had been caught, but I just stood there and gave him a minute to realize he was trapped like a rat in a trap, since you know, he is an anthropomorphic rat-person who is indeed trapped. When he calmed down enough to assess me, I flashed a series of hand signs to him, ones I had learned long ago from a more prominent riccen. The riccen before me was no fool, and signed the same signals back to me. Doubtful that he knew every set of signals from every gang of riccen, but he would have elders he could report to, and they would sort it out.


    ¡°In this sack,¡± I said to him while gesturing to the coin purse my whelp seemingly struggled to keep aloft with it clutched in his claws, but the struggle was just for show, ¡°is enough gold to see you safely to Berkerin. Spare no expense in getting there quickly. In two week¡¯s time, I plan to have a meeting with the master of the resident gang of your kin in Berkerin. The details are in a red scroll in this sack. The black scroll is to be delivered to the master. Do this, and you will be rewarded with another sack of gold. Do we understand one another?¡±


    Ever silent, his head bobbed up and down fervently in acknowledgement and acceptance of the task presented to him. It goes without saying that declining would not be in the best interest of his health, at least as far as he would be used to dealing with. I left the implication hanging in the air, for I wouldn¡¯t actually have him killed just for refusing me. However, he would comply, because of the implication.


    ¡°A wise choice,¡± I continued as I waved my whelp over to the riccen. The riccen eagerly but respectfully took possession of the offered purse, and he promptly withdrew the red scroll inside. His beady eyes quickly scanned the contents of the document, and upon finishing it, he used some Ability to set it alight in his hand, the scroll consumed by magical fire in a matter of seconds.


    ¡°I look forward to your success in this matter. You may go now,¡± I finished as I worked my magic to activate the door to opening.


    Without hesitation, he scurried out with his sack of coins carefully tucked away on his person. He never saw the satisfied smile that brightened my face. I found myself one step closer to having my own crime syndicate.


    If only I were making as much progress on my trade consortium. Bylo¡¯selhi, Emperor of The Equivalent Scales, already had a claim to much of the world¡¯s commerce and shipping, especially when it came to dragons. I wouldn¡¯t want to step on his toes, and indeed, I would want him as an ally in the years to come. He would control the trade, but I would control the roads on which his merchants and caravans would travel, which left us at odds if there was only enough room for one dragon to remain supreme.


    Optimally, I would want to be more involved in the manufacturing of goods, which he and his merchants would then transport and sell. However, as my flight grows in power, I would want to take over the entire chain and muscle out the middleman, which would be bad for business for Bylo¡¯selhi. He is no fool and would see how greed now would feed a threat for later. However, simply killing me would saddle him with a new and unknown Emperor, as well as bring some sort of curse upon him, from what Nanu told me, so directly warring with me was not an option. This remained one reason why dragon hunters were still around, as they served as a loophole if prodded and herded in the direction of one¡¯s enemies.


    However, I didn¡¯t want to be antagonistic with Bylo¡¯selhi, but I did want to grow and not be dependent upon him, hence the dilemma. This was indeed a problem for the future, but not planning for the endgame now would spell my downfall. What I lack is detailed information in exactly what he and his flight peddle, and going into negotiations ignorant of his affairs would only spur on his predatory nature to bend me over a barrel in negotiations. Time to acquire such knowledge without raising suspicion was the commodity I lacked most. My only ace in the hole was my [Enchanting] Skills and how I could provide the quality and quantity of goods that would make him very wealthy, but the balance of power between us would be as delicate as it would be ever-shifting.


    My new riccen friends would know more, but they would most likely keep such information secret. It would almost be worse to appear ignorant around them than Bylo¡¯selhi, for at least he has a reputation for being fair in his dealings. Some of the riccen had more ambition than scruples, and even a cornered rat could put up a fight against a fool. The easiest thing for me would be to sit everyone down at a table and talk it out, but how could I keep them honest?


    A thought crept into my mind, a rogue idea that sought refuge in a scheme. The only way to keep everyone honest would be to have enough factions at the table that already knew all there is to know. With enough wheeling, dealing, and backroom conversations, I could slowly pry the bits and pieces of information and cobble them together to build the bigger picture. However, my Crossroad Consortium didn¡¯t even exist yet, and the merchants and artisans that would be part of it would have questionable loyalty until I proved my worth. Perhaps playing them against one another for the opportunity to be my advisors could loosen their tongues, but who else could I bring to the table. Faction-wise, there would be me, riccen, and The Equivalent Scales, but I feel like one or two more would be needed to hold it together.


    Nanu is better at this stuff than I am. She has been out of the game for a while on account of her being a prisoner and possession for the better part of two decades, but she was no greenhorn like me. Alterez was also quite experienced, and Nabonidus could present many opportunities to bribe or torture the information I needed from people. Well, not the real people, but hypothetical and future versions of them. Skull would know what temples had skin in the game, and Jericho would know more about what supplies and sundries that armies would need, and who the big names were in delivering those supplies.


    Timing would be important. I would need to finish World¡¯s End, and most likely the fortress around the soon-to-be-portal before I would be in a position of power and prestige to leverage everyone to the table. After the portal opened, and assuming we were not overrun, a better picture of what the world needed and who could provide it would take shape. That would most likely be my best window of opportunity to force a conclave of interested parties to renegotiate trade.


    A small yelp of concern from my whelp made me realize I was still standing in the room where I had trapped the riccen in with me. Skull had remained patient and silent, trusting that I would eventually go do something.


    ¡°Skull, I think we are going to change the world or die trying.¡±


    ¡°Ominous, but not without precedent. I favor the option that sees us not dying.¡±


    ¡°As do I. I don¡¯t know how to pull it off just yet, but I will need the help of you and others to see it through.¡±


    ¡°Those who change the world create uncertainty. From uncertainty sprouts fear and opportunity. Those who master their fear and seize the opportunities are favored by Gulthar. My god and I approve of whatever scheme you have cooking in that noggin of yours. Just ensure your reach doesn¡¯t exceed your grasp. I will continue to love you even if you fail, but do try not to fail.¡±


    Skull¡¯s support and affection filled me with renewed confidence. I knew that the specifics of my plan, the machinations and schemes that would see me achieve my goals, were beyond her care. It mattered not to her which direction I went so long as I did not hesitate to advance. She does enjoy the execution of my plans, provided it is more exciting than mining stone.


    A lot of letters would need to be dispatched. A great deal of boring meetings and side-deals would have to be slogged through. Contracts would have to be drafted, and secrets would have to find themselves best kept in their tombs, along with those who knew them. With survival of my flight and my own person on the line, I would strive forward, or perish in the attempt.

 Chapter 88

    Having spent most of his life residing in one city or another, Don Barlone found the trip to the quaint cabin in the woods slightly unsettling. The forest could hide too many unknown threats, and only his imagination maintained a sensible framework to categorize the new terrain. Holes in trees were like windows in buildings that could obfuscate a sniper with a crossbow, large boulders were akin to parked wagons with armed assailants just on the other side, the sparse wildlife casually feeding nearby were reminiscent to urchins paid to distract you while cutthroats closed in. All threats and opportunities could be categorized and assessed if one remained vigilant and flexible, and the entirely utilitarian cabin just ahead could be just as much a trap as it could be the ¡°opportunity worth three favors repaid¡± that his second cousin twice removed had promised.


    Said cousin had met the Emperor once, could have maybe killed him too. Such a chance encounter had been but a tiny seed that would now bear fruit, but whether that fruit were ambrosia or poison remained a mystery. One could choose to walk away or put it to one¡¯s lips and bite down. A younger Don Barlone may have chosen the former, too cautious to be the trailblazer into such an unknown as making a direct deal with a dragon, one who was an Emperor no less. Tales and legends both said fortune and death walked hand-in-hand with those who ventured into such dealings.


    ¡°Destination: Status?¡± asked Don Barlone to seemingly no one in particular with a simple tap of his right index finger that gripped his trusty artifact, his Corpus Cane, which also functioned in the conventional sense as a normal cane in addition to its many other ¡°utility applications¡±.


    ¡°Don Barlone, your [Shadowfoot Pads], [Shadow Footpads], and [Shadowpads] stand ready, but an ominous and terrifying presence rendered them incapable or unwilling to approach the cabin. Something powerful and supernatural lurks within, but it does not appear to be hostile, just unwelcoming to eavesdroppers.¡±


    Hun Tzu had always been a reliable lieutenant, and if he said something in the Shadow Path prevented egress into the Domain lurking within the cabin, then Don Barlone took his word that none could or should dare enter unless in the material world. Surely, Hun Tzu would have attempted to enter as well and likewise failed, otherwise they would not be having this conversation.


    ¡°Acknowledgement: Outcome acceptable. Action: Plan continuation.¡± Don Barlone signed back in the same cant as before by scratching twice on the left side of his neck with only the first three fingers of his left hand, followed by dragging his right foot backwards and upwards across the ground as if moving a pebble that was irritatingly underfoot.


    The letter from the Emperor said to come alone, and Don Barlone found it difficult for there to be mutual respect if he didn¡¯t at least try to sneak in a few trusted associates via the Shadow Path. Likewise, had his associates succeeded in their attempts to infiltrate the cabin, that would have spelled ill tidings of incompetence for any relationship with a new business partner of such suggested prowess. Such was the delicate game for those who do not walk the straight and narrow path through life; always probing for weakness to assess strength. Illusions, misdirection, and knives in the back were just part of the game as the rules and players ever changed.


    Alone, Don Barlone hobbled forward with his trusty cane offering support for a weary old riccen, at least as far as a casual observer would surmise. He yet had many good years in him, and his vigor had not waned during the time that green inexperience yielded to seasoned wisdom earned through trials and tribulations. By casually dragging the claws of his foot through the dirt just before the door, he kicked up some dust and loose soil that had gathered near the path to the cabin that had been well-worn at one point but had been partially reclaimed by nature.


    [Dust Devil¡¯s Deal] surreptitiously carried the dust on silent gusts all around the cabin, the fickle whims of wind tracing any wards, enchantments, or other such works of magic that may be placed upon the cabin. At first, Don Barlone thought it all completely inert, and disappointment in the preparedness of his new business partner took root. However, a second glance observed the most subtle of patterns that such workings of magic did indeed exist. A more thorough examination suggested that such was left there deliberately to allow a skilled observer to detect them, for the mastery of skill that had been used to create such discrete protections would not have been sullied by such mistakes.


    The twitch of his whiskers announced the small smile that graced the riccen¡¯s face. Few individuals throughout the years had possessed the skill to weave such wards or bestow such enchantments that were as subtle as these, and fewer still had lived much longer than the discovery of their craft. While no master himself at creating such intricate work, Don Barlone prided himself in his skill at detecting it, and he would probably be dead now had the Emperor possessed ill intent and not left a few traces of his workings there for an experienced observer to detect. Perhaps this would be an interesting partnership after all, despite the strange terms.


    With a steady and confident hand, Don Barlone turned the simple wooden handle and pushed the door open. Inside, at an unadorned wooden table, sat a man, one who could seemingly be from anywhere and nowhere at once, a face that was handsome for a human, yet vexingly as trustworthy as it was otherwise unremarkable. He felt as though he had met the man somewhere, yet would be hard-pressed to say when or where, as the man would have seemed appropriate in any crowd and among any class of people. He wore clothes of yellow and black, nothing ostentatious or gaudy, but pleasingly stylish nonetheless.


    The woman next to him was certainly eye-catching, not that Don Barlone found himself attracted to humans, but he still understood beauty when he saw it. She wore an outfit of loose and slightly translucent fabrics of greens and blues, her garments trailing up and down her body to showcase her best assets while obscuring little. Her hair was not braided, but it was worn tight to her scalp and pulled through intricate brass bands that brought it behind her head and let it hang down like a tail, with more brass bands keeping it together and offering decoration to her figure otherwise bereft of jewelry. No doubt that she would be Princess Nanu, if the reports were to be believed.


    ¡°Honored elder!¡± greeted the Emperor as he rose from his chair with arms open wide in invitation. ¡°Welcome to my little corner of the world. I am delighted that you have accepted my request for a meeting so far away from the city. I hope your journey was not too taxing.¡±


    ¡°You honor me, Emperor,¡± Don Barlone replied as he bowed slightly with both hands on his Corpus Cane for support. ¡°My name is Don Barlone, and the road here was among the smoothest I have ever traveled. No incidents of note occurred on my journey.¡±


    ¡°Excellent!¡± the Emperor exclaimed with seemingly honest enthusiasm, but the glint in his eyes betrayed more cunning than his care-free and exuberant attitude suggested. ¡°Please, have a seat. It is best to talk terms in comfort, yes?¡± the Emperor continued as he gestured to the out-of-place chair. While the cabin was bland, the chair had been carved with exquisite detail and upholstered with the most comfortable of materials, if Don Barlone¡¯s satisfied posterior was correct in assessing the chair¡¯s deep padding. It even had the side cutout in the back for him to slide his tail into so that he could sit comfortably, which was uncommon in furniture made by humans. To be fair, though a human presentation stood before him, a literal dragon lay hidden beneath such a visage. ¡°Can I offer you any refreshments?¡±


    Before Don Barlone could answer, thin portals of darkness manifested above the table, and from such foreign dimensions that lay beyond the material world, plates of cheese, cold-cuts, and sliced fruit drew forth from The Void and placed themselves down gently upon the table. Vintages of various wines both commonplace and exclusive likewise graced the table with their presence alongside fruit juices and crystal clear water.


    A twitch of the whiskers revealed that Don Barlone¡¯s sensitive nose had caught the delectable scent of smoked gouda cheese that had been perfectly aged, and a glance from the eyes caught the label of a most exquisite bottle of black raspberry wine. Normally, Don Barlone would never trust the food and drink offered by someone outside the family at any sort of business meeting, but considering the Emperor could have easily killed him if so desired, Don Barlone allowed himself to sample his favorite snacks that just so happened to be placed at the front of the rest of the fine spread. Dumb luck could always be a factor, but how did the Emperor know not only which Riccen elder would be sent to negotiate the deal or what his favorite foods would be?


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°Most delicious,¡± spoke Don Barlone with a refreshing degree of honesty after digging into the smorgasbord before him. A few bites had reminded him how peckish he had become after the long walk from Berkerin to all the way out here in the boonies where literal monsters could spawn at any moment. Being that he was not some uncouth cretin, he swallowed his next mouthful before continuing. ¡°I have reviewed the terms you have laid out in your offer and I find them to be rather¡­ unusual. Some may say that such a deal is too good to be true.¡±


    ¡°A fair point,¡± the Emperor replied as he helped himself to the spread as well, ¡°We do live in rather extraordinary times, and such calls for innovative approaches to solving problems. I believe the terms are rather generous, but I can understand how they may deviate from your normal¡­ business ventures.¡±


    The terms were rather explicit. The Emperor sought to recruit a full gang of riccen to secretly police the riff-raff of his city. Bribery, blackmail, extortion, slavery, racketeering, graft, drugs, smuggling, larceny, murder, gambling, and basically getting their whiskers into any unsavory or illicit acts was forbidden except where authorized. Essentially, the good and honest folk of the city were off-limits, while the ne¡¯er-do-wells were not only fair game, but it was the duty of the gang to cull or eject them from the city. Essentially, they were the muscle for the royal fixer when legal channels would prove too cumbersome to eradicate problems.


    ¡°From my point of view, my city, World¡¯s End, will be the largest concentration of the best and brightest the world has to offer. Skilled artisans, the most powerful of Adventurers, veteran soldiers, and the most enterprising of merchants will make it their home. It will not be a sleepy city like Berkerin, but rather, it will be at the forefront for everyone who¡¯s anyone that aims to further their ambitions. Not only will you and yours be paid handsomely for your work, you will have the perfect training grounds to hone the skills of the most elite members of your family. All I ask is that you follow my rules and those of whomever I appoint to oversee your operations. I understand many of the ¡®spicy¡¯¡¯ aspects of your career path may be off-limits most of the time, but there will be no shortage of opportunities for you to apply your trade.


    ¡°I assume that you were chosen to represent the interests of your people in this venture because you are the most flexible and you are willing to abide by a code of conduct. Your activities will remain clandestine, your use of force restricted until authorized, your underlings abiding by a chain of command instead of the whims of their own egos. That may mean that they have to smile and go about their lives peacefully when someone disrespects them in the street. It will also mean that they will at times be permitted to indulge their desires for unscrupulous activities and perhaps seek retribution for any mistreatment they may have suffered, provided that no innocents are involved and that the general public remains blissfully unaware that any of it ever happens. You need not fear the guards, courts, or gallows so long as you toe the line, other than a spot of theatrics to at least maintain the appearance of law and order. Just consider any rough handling to be part of the punishment for getting caught.


    ¡°Now, do you have any concerns you wish to raise, or have we reached an accord?¡±


    Princess Nanu, for her part, appeared aloof and uninterested in the conversation as she stood behind and to the side of her Emperor, her eyes seemingly captivated by the drab details of the woodwork around the cabin. However, the casual menace that emanated from her posture and the balanced poise of her feet suggest she remained ready to react at a moment¡¯s notice to any threat. Truly, Don Barlone thought a few of his [Thugs] could learn a thing or two from her.


    ¡°Just to be completely certain that there exists no miscommunication between us,¡± Don Barlone started with his best diplomatic voice as he spared a glance to the Princess, ¡°I find it prudent that we review a few terms.¡±


    The next two hours passed quickly as the Emperor cooperated in negotiating terms and redefining the terms of the service-level agreement between Clan Ricin and The Crossroad Wayfinders. Refreshingly, it felt less like a negotiation with a copper-pinching merchant, and more like a collaboration with a clan-kin for the juiciest of heists. Don Barlone detected more than a few [Leadership] Abilities contesting his own, but they interacted more like partners in an elaborate dance than two bulls challenging one another for leadership of the herd.


    Did all dragons seduce others with such genuine words and casual concessions, or was all this nothing more than this particular Emperor¡¯s school of techniques to get others under his thumb? Either way, it was working, for despite Don Barlone¡¯s best efforts to find the noose lurking within the words of the contract, he could not find any downsides to the deal. Normally, having things go his way so much would trigger his paranoid concern that he was being played, and perhaps there remained some bigger picture or vision that he just couldn¡¯t grasp. However, this time, perhaps for the first time in his life, he saw the opportunity to live in a way that appealed to his own values.


    His whole life, he had done as the Clan asked of him, even in performance of deeds that he found unsavory, but this deal promised the right balance of freedom to build a more professional and civilized outfit while also divesting him of any need to handle any matters that he would rather do without. Perhaps he would even gain enough power and prestige to establish his own Clan, one that behaved a little more honorably, at least as much as riccen could. Gone were the days when riccen had class and sent flowers to the funerals of their enemies, but maybe this Emperor would bring them back.


    The Emperor was clearly playing all sides so that he always came out on top. The contract hinted at how he would leverage his enemies against one another while generously rewarding those who were loyal to him. Gold coins were always nice, but the Emperor could provide certain enchanted items that just were not for sale, and such artifacts and treasures were key to a Clan¡¯s power.


    Don Barlone¡¯s role was simple, the only uncertainty of note being the yet unborn daughter of the Emperor who would be the boss of the Clan. Himself a [Consigliere], he was perfectly suited to guide and educate the Emperor¡¯s daughter in the matters of the underbelly of society. Hopefully, she too would favor diplomacy over brute force, otherwise their relationship may sour. Don Barlone understood in a general sense that dragons have a particular perspective of morality that doesn¡¯t always align with most ¡®civilized¡¯ races, but most of any firsthand knowledge had been gained in this very meeting, so he would be sailing in uncharted waters.


    Some terms had been weird enough to be called eccentric, like how the perimeter structure of the city should always be addressed as a ¡°road¡± instead of a ¡°wall¡±. Specifically, it is called ¡°Exterior Road¡±, but with as much as he would be compensated for this deal, he would enforce it being called a ¡°giraffe¡± if that was what the Emperor called for. Other terms were absolutely delectable. Clan-kin would be fighting one another for the opportunity to work at the combined gambling den/brothel that Queen Tamadora would personally oversee, for the devious and convoluted way that it would operate would practically hand out new Skills almost for free. Not to mention, it would be fun in all the right ways to make a riccen happy.


    ¡°A gift for you,¡± the Emperor stated, his words pulling Don Barlone from the distractions of how he fantasized about the plethora of schemes and opportunities before him. The Emperor held out a gold ring, one of a dragon with wings and legs tucked close to its body as its mouth chased its tail. ¡°The chair as well,¡± the Emperor continued as he gestured towards said comfortable piece of furniture that Don Barlone had been sad to part with, but no longer. ¡°Just will it into the ring.¡±


    With his ring finger of his left hand now adorned with the smaller of his two gifts, Don Barlone had done as instructed. The chair seemingly stretched and bent unnaturally towards the ring as it was sucked inside of it and into a pocket dimension. Surely the Emperor had gone out of his way to make the process more theatrical than normal portals that raise and lower objects in and out.


    ¡°It only holds ten cubic meters, but that should suffice for your needs. I whipped it up last night for you.¡±


    Don Barlone stifled a surprise cough at that casual disregard for such an artifact¡¯s power. Enchanted items for pocket dimensions were expensive, and ones that held ten cubic meters would normally be large bags. A good quality ring of this size may hold half of one cubic meter, and only those on par with the income of Platinum Adventurers could afford them. The Emperor¡¯s words suggested that he was capable of creating far more than a ring of this quality, which was easily worth 200 platinum to the stingiest of pawnshops. Some people had Skills that could do the same, but most guarded such secrets jealousy. Little wonder the Emperor paid so well, for selling one of these rings at auction each year would pay for the whole Clan several times over.


    Humbled, excited, worried he had found the noose, Don Barlone bowed to the Emperor. ¡°Glorious Emperor is most kind. This one will serve you well,¡± he stated as he slipped into the lexicon of the royal courts.


    ¡°Think of it as my promise to you and your Clan that I will uphold my end of the bargain. I trust you to uphold yours,¡± he continued with a devious smile plastered on his face that promised unmitigated devastation should the covenant between them be broken. The fangs behind the smile revealed, Don Barlone nervously shook hands with the grinning Emperor whose grip was as soft as the chair¡¯s cushions yet more unyielding than solid steel.

 Chapter 89

    Warm, safe, constricted. Slumber exchanged for naked consciousness and fettered reality. Trapped, suffocating, must escape. Muscles, left to languish with the passing of time unknown, employed to full vigor to transcend the boundaries of my world. My world. I exist, and the world exists, and I know these two things to be true.


    Knowledge floods through me, flowing unhindered into my mind with a torrent of thoughts, my consciousness caught in a maelstrom of revelations. Language, mathematics, social skills, martial prowess, shapes, colors, the flora and fauna of the world, and above all, the keen and instinctual understanding of my birthright.


    Magic.


    I rail against the fury of the storm, my mind absorbing all knowledge as I remain unyielding, refusing to break as wave after wave of raw information crashes down on me. I rage against the pain that lances through my being as some force commands me to kneel before its power. I may as well be a paper boat caught in a hurricane, for it sets its will against mine, and when it pushes, I am the one that is overwhelmed. Some power, some entity, leaves its mark upon me, for with this knowledge comes power. And not just any power.


    Blessing.


    Bowed, yet my will unbroken, I struggle against this unknown entity as it warps my very soul. I thrash against that which would control me, that which dares make me submit. Perhaps some deemed to be wise would counsel against such actions, for my refusal to cooperate has left a mark on me. No, not just a mark, but something more sinister.


    Corruption.


    It leaves, not because my actions convinced it to abandon its efforts in subjugation, but because it has already achieved its purpose. Discarding me like a disfavored plaything, it moves through The Void to something familiar and yet unknown. Not just familiar, but like me.


    Kin.


    Burning. That is the sensation, the first I know of it, yet I know I do not like it. An unpleasurable experience within my chest, a demand of flesh for its tithe of air. Needs must, and so I claw and press, I rip and tear until I cast off the comfort of my fortress for the opportunity for the new world. As I stand there in the remnants of ruin, my body naked to a host of onlookers, I see them all as mere rabble compared to the one of note who holds his hand out to me.


    Father, Emperor, Lover.


    The mortals don¡¯t understand us. They think our love profane. What is that tasteless word of the vulgar? ¡°Incestuous¡±. Such is the weakness of mortal flesh, of life constrained by the fickle whims of biological chance and undiversified traits from inheritance. They have no wings to cast shadows upon the world, no claws to tear apart their enemies, no scales to adorn their bodies. They do not even show proper reverence to He Who Soars Above All. That, I simply cannot abide.


    ¡°KNEEL!¡±


    With the full mantle of power that was forced upon my shoulders, I tap into that corruption and let it flow through the World, its foul blackness coalescing as ink upon the Annals of the World-Heart. [Corrigendum] corrects the gross injustice of errata that allows these fools to stand in the presence of one so mighty and worthy of devotion.


    Thunk.


    Knees bend and heads bow of all present except for Father¡¯s own. Even a few kobolds dressed in all black rained down from the ceiling as they were forced to comply. Yet why does His face not wear the countenance of satisfaction with my efforts? His visage twists to one of concern, confusion, and dismay as He casts his gaze to those who rightfully assume the posture of supplicants to His glory. As he turns his eyes back to me, a new emotion wells up within me.


    Fear.


    He shows no anger, no hatred, no disappointment, but if even a hint of disgust towards me should desecrate His countenance, I would fling myself from the highest tower and gladly let the earth rid me of my shame when my body crashes upon solid ground. Most vexingly, I hesitate and tremble at the mere thought of Father not accepting me into His house, of Him not offering me a seat at His side. Traitorous and vile, unbidden tears dare rush forth from my own eyes as my confidence leaks out of my being. Father, his face now a blank expression, takes a step towards me, and I find myself at the mercies of swells of emotions that froth and roil within me. A beating I could take, but to be cast aside would break even me. His mind made, Father steps closer and delivers his judgment.


    Hug.


    His arms enfold my naked flesh, forming the scaffolding on which I build my hopes and dreams. To serve at His pleasure is my ambition, to make him proud my calling. He pulls me in close as His head nestles against mine, His right hand gently rubbing my upper back as its motions caress my soul and calm the troubled waters of my mind. He whispers into my ear, and that one word sanctifies my position within His house.


    ¡°Tamadora.¡±


    There were more words that followed, but they are mine and mine alone. I will not debase the sweet succor of that memory by sharing it with such base-born beings. But rest assured, Father loves me, He accepts me, and He will not forsake me. I wanted to answer Him back, to confess my undying obedience and my love both filial and intimate, but there existed a restriction on that front.


    [World-Speaker].


    Whatever Blessing I should have been born with had been corrupted, mutated, altered into that which made my very words change the World around me. It influenced reality, within limits, but left my immediate surroundings impressed, with those under my influence subjugated to my will. But it had left me with an Ability not unheard of or rare, yet useful to one who had to watch her words carefully.


    [Telepathy].


    ¡°I, Tamadora of the Crossroad Wayfinders, submit to the will of my Father and Emperor. I offer my pledge of fealty and commit myself to His mercy and care.¡±


    I could feel his love as he hugged me tighter. Love, and something less desirable. Something I would come to know better in time.


    Sorrow.


    <hr>


    It would appear it is time for my big debut. It is getting a little cramped in here, a tad stifling, and overall a smidge stale. I thought my egress would be a breeze, yet sterner stuff comprised my little durance. Perhaps there is something useful in this kit that, something, had pushed into me.


    That had been a disturbing process. Some tidbit of knowledge had stuck with me at that moment, something about ¡°bend with the wind and you will not break¡±, and so I did just that. Well, figuratively, as there really is not any spare room to wiggle about as such in here. I simply guided that entity to less invasive places within me to lessen the impact of its violation. I don¡¯t have much in the way of experience with such things, but I felt that it had been a bit rough and more forceful than strictly necessary. I am positively miffed and I will make a note to file a complaint with its superior as soon as I figure out how to free myself.


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    How dreadfully brutish, it does appear that my efforts to simply bash my way out of here have proven most effective. The uncouth methods of the uncivilized, but necessary upon occasion I suppose. Either way, I have found myself free and standing upright. Is it a bit drafty in here or is it just me? That is what I thought when I stood there, naked as the day as I was born (which was that very same day and moment, mind you), due to the fact that I had just been born for the first time, to my knowledge.


    A quick observation revealed that most people were kneeling. [Sanfred¡¯s Speedy Scan] revealed a range of emotions that suggested they were not kneeling because they wanted to. Perhaps such queer circumstances would merit further investigation at some later point, for currently, the woman staring daggers at me left me with the impression that I was interrupting a moment.


    [Dagford¡¯s Detailed Dossier] quickly elucidated me of my situation, that my dear sister, Tamadora, had likewise just been born and was in the process of being hugged by Father. Seems she has a pinch of some kind of Corruption within her Blessing. Nasty business that, but now is not the time for hysterics over such matters. [Siegfried¡¯s Social Savviness] instructed me to wait patiently until Father addressed me. And hopefully dressed me too, or at least provided me with some clothes, for social norms frowned upon parading around in the nude. Some members of the captive audience appeared more than happy to enjoy the view, and I believe such distractions would interfere with our work, which was undoubtedly behind schedule.


    ¡°Kaisadoro!¡± Father greeted as he turned to me, his embrace with Tamadora all but forgotten as he left her in favor of taking me into a hug. No need for fancy Abilities to detect the envy, jealousy, sorrow, and dare I say, lust that not so much wafted my way but blew in as if carried by a typhoon. Clearly I am the victim here, I was framed, I tell you!


    ¡°A pleasure to see you, Father. I, Kaisadoro, remain ever prepared to build your empire. Shall we commence with such undertakings posthaste, or is this a social call?¡±


    ¡°They grow up so fast,¡± Father replied with a smile on his face as he held me at arm¡¯s length at the shoulders. ¡°It seems like only seconds ago that you were struggling to break free of your egg.¡±


    ¡°First of all, I was not struggling, I simply took the time to properly assess my situation before committing resources to any undertakings, and secondly, that was over a minute ago now. I will be late for my next meeting. Excuse me, Father, but I have work to do,¡± I continued as I gently brushed his hands off my person.


    ¡°Pips,¡± I stated loudly, but not in a manner so crass as to be shouting.


    ¡°Present, chancellor!¡±


    My dutiful axolotl-kobold secretary threw my clothes upon me, which somehow meshed through me until they arranged themselves such that I became fully dressed in dignified yet not audacious attire suitable for statecraft.


    ¡°Right then, tally-ho! We have much work to attend to before dinner with Father. Let us not remain idle.¡±


    ¡°Most assuredly, chancellor,¡± my dutiful secretary replied as she scurried to keep pace with me as we promptly exited what can only be Father¡¯s temporary lair, lest one make the sin of saying he has no taste for proper decorum, and proceeded to our 2 o¡¯clock appointment.


    And it was at this meeting that I¡­


    <hr>


    ¡°It looks like you are bending the knee. Would you like help with bootlicking (Yes/No)?¡±


    ¡°No, VIRI, I am already well versed in how to do that.¡±


    ¡°Okay, it seems like you do not want help with bootlicking at this time. Feel free to ask me in the future for help with bootlicking.¡±


    ¡°You can all stand now. My apologies for Tamadora¡¯s use of her Blessing on you. She doesn¡¯t know her own strength yet.¡±


    The Bossman chuckled nervously as his inner circle rose to their feet. Even Skull and Nanu had been forced to kneel, so that would confirm it was not supernatural fear that had invoked compliance. It had felt more like an overwhelming impulse to fulfill the desires of Tamadora, which elicited a small wave of ecstasy upon its fulfillment. In all my years, I had never seen or experienced anything like it that was so instantly and broadly powerful. Various [Enthrallers] and similar Blessings exist, but they tend to take time to work their magic or focus on one person at a time.


    ¡°So, does anyone know how or why Kaisadoro already had meetings planned before he was even born? Aren¡¯t there any child labor laws about putting the unborn to work?¡±


    ¡°We kobolds just know to do certain things,¡± responded Bambina after a short silence where no one offered an answer. ¡°Pips most likely heard the call to fulfill her Role and acted accordingly. As for your second question, I am sure more politically conservative countries have already tried to figure out how to capitalize on the labor of the unborn and failed, so I doubt our scribes had any related legal precedents when drafting the laws of World¡¯s End.¡±


    While Bambina was entirely serious in her delivery, she earned a few chuckles at her latter explanation. Somewhere in the laughter, Tamadora had acquired and donned a simple dress. Most likely, the Bossman would make her more clothes later with enchantments. He even made some for a goblin like me, so surely his own daughter would get nothing but the best.


    ¡°Moving on, I would like the assistance of everyone here in raising and educating my first two children. You may have noticed how creating them fully formed and grown has left them with interesting¡­ quirks, to their personalities, but such was the price of expediency.


    ¡°Alterez.¡± I perked up when I heard my name. This was probably important. ¡°Please instruct my children into the shadier side of life and the law. Not that you have ever indulged in such pastimes yourself, but I am sure you have collected some wisdom concerning such matters throughout the ages.¡±


    ¡°Oh, never,¡± I replied back with a grin. ¡°Perish the thought that I, Alterez, a humble goblin of noble spirit, would ever venture to engage in illegal activities. I do suppose that I could give them a few tips.¡±


    ¡°Indeed, for you are a scholar and a saint,¡± the Bossman responded with a wink and a smile to accompany his words.


    ¡°Chooka, love of my life, please instruct them in matters more intimate, and indeed educate Tamadora in the finer points of paperwork and how to run the businesses of the red-light district.¡±


    ¡°With pleasure, First Love,¡± Chooka answered as she stepped close to Tamadora. She cupped the woman¡¯s chin with a finger and thumb, tipping it up so that their mouths were mere inches apart. There remained even less space between their bodies, and that spark of desire flared to the flame of passion as both women hungered for the lessons to begin.


    ¡°Torborg.¡± The Bossman politely cleared his throat as he waited for the transfixed dwarf to tear his eyes away from the scene.


    ¡°Oh, uh, aye, present,¡± the startled and clearly distracted dwarf finally responded after a few moments, his beard not entirely hiding the blush in his cheeks.


    ¡°Please focus on Kaisadoro and how to lead and manage a large workforce. He will also need education in best practices and standards of work if he is to make things in my empire run smoothly.


    ¡°Can do,¡± Torborg affirmed as his eyes glanced at Tamadora and Chooka departing arm in arm.


    ¡°Excellent. Nanu, please teach them both how to be dragons, as you know more about that than I do. I will muddle along and try to guide them in the right direction. The rest of you, teach them and help them as much as you can, for your skill sets are varied and useful.¡±


    A chorus of agreements followed the Bossman¡¯s words. I already had an idea for a first lesson in mind, one concerning a certain individual who owed me money. It would seem I would have to wait until Chooka finished her lesson.


    ¡°It looks like you are plotting to break someone¡¯s legs. Would you like help with finding a secluded spot for that (Yes/No)?¡±


    ¡°Oh, VIRI. Some things ever change, and some remain the same. No, I got this one covered, too.¡±

 Chapter 90

    Months flew by in a flash after the birth of my first two children. I knew precisely where the portal anchors needed to be built to ensure that the enemy would be walking into a kill zone when they came through, and a great deal of work was needed to construct the fortress that would box in the enemy.


    By day, I dug and hauled stone around. There used to be a mountain nearby. Used to. It''s gone now, consumed for its resources to build a fortress. Some of you can black out and skip the math stuff, but for you nerds, the fortress sits on a cylinder that is 10,500 feet wide and 500 feet deep. The fortress is a ring 500 feet tall on the exterior of the ring (thus 500 feet thick), and it is about 30 percent empty space for living quarters and such. Consider that rock weighs about 175 pounds per cubic foot and that approximately 66 percent of it by weight is useful for obsidian, and the whole thing comes out to just under 25,000 million tons, or 1.25 cubic miles of obsidicrete. That is a rough estimate with no consideration of the curvature of the earth or the shaping of rooms and parapets, but it gets me a good idea of how much material I need. For perspective, the road I built here was just under 300 million tons, so this fortress and its exterior buildings was about 100 times more work than the road, but at least it was all in one spot.


    My small army of workers had little to do, for a project of this scale was beyond their means if we wanted to complete this in a timely manner. They departed north, back the road we had built, so that they could start prep work on rest stops and roads that branched from this main highway to all the cities along the way. I would eventually go back and fill them in with proper structures and roads, but for now, I remained here. The north is far safer and closer to pockets of civilization, so they don¡¯t need two dragons to hold their hands or certain members of their security team, namely Jericho, who stayed with me. Likewise, Torborg and half his staff of engineers did not return north because the rough work of setting the groundwork for roads through smooth terrain did not require such high levels of expertise.


    By night, I worked on my [Enchanting]. I would need large underground pylons to serve as anchors for the portal, as well as various mana accumulators and relays to keep it powered. If the anchor broke, the enemy could move the portal a little bit, which on the scale of a planet, meant several miles, which would be rather bad for us as we would not be able to contain it. Ergo, security on the portal anchors was second to none, with most of my whelps tied in patrolling the area.


    Few even knew it was down here under the fortress, and as dark as it sounds, a few of those were deemed best suited to keeping that secret if they were six feet under. I¡¯m not proud of making such a call, but when the fate of the world is at stake, I can¡¯t be squeamish about offing a few individuals who get loose lips when deep in their cups. The only people who met that criteria were those who somehow discovered the anchor, people who put their noses where it did not belong, for I knew by now who could be trusted and who could not. As one may imagine, that means not a single gnome was in the loop.


    I also worked tirelessly on kitting out my entourage with the best enchanted items I could make. Weapons and armor that never dulled or tarnished, that self-repaired and kept one feeling clean and comfortable, were a hot item. Smaller trinkets, like ones for dimensional storage, hygiene, less need for sleep, healing, sneakiness, toughness, strength, speed, perception, reaction time, memory, and so forth also rounded them out. I would kill to study Gulfore¡¯s pocket tavern, which is apparently an artifact that had been handed down for generations, but she is not here and probably wouldn¡¯t trust me to poke around.


    While the city generated a lot of money, it used it just as fast, so to supplement my coffers, I also had an auction held every week where a limited edition of my second best enchanted items sold for large sums. Naturally, I would slowly increase the quality of goods over time so that those who needed the latest and greatest would keep coming back, but even my relative failures in honing my craft were leagues above what was commercially available.


    This isn¡¯t to say that other [Enchanters] couldn¡¯t make stuff as good as I did, they just didn¡¯t. It was expensive with their primitive techniques and a good way to find themselves more or less slaves of the state, for letting them roam freely was a security risk of letting your country¡¯s secret recipes become exposed to the world. Turns out, it is a challenging enterprise to keep a dragon under one¡¯s thumb, even more so for an Emperor, so I felt confident on strutting my stuff, so to speak. It would not stop me from recruiting and poaching talent when I could, for more [Enchanters] were always welcome, and the more adventurous of them nearly salivated at the generous offers I had to entice them to move to World¡¯s End. There is something about free housing and sharing my secret techniques that just motivates people, go figure.


    Nabonidus was the single most important person in making me money. His ability to see the near future was crucial to rigging the auction house and gambling dens so that the house always won. Well, our confederates that seemingly walked in off the street won for us, helping raise the bids to the absolute limit or slowly siphoning the money out of those who wished to try their hand at games of chance. The whole system is convoluted, and while I will describe it at some point, the part I cared about was having more money to buy all the things my city and roads needed.


    For instance, my proto-Crossing Guard, while kitted out at little expense thanks to my Skills, still wanted a salary, and for individuals of such prowess, such does not come cheaply. None of my roads have tolls, nor does the entrance to the city, and tariffs can only provide so much. Getting a farm of rare herbs up and running thanks to my boon of [Rare Plant Cultivation] would really rake in the money and death threats. The assassins sent after me by rival merchants would most likely have expensive stuff on their persons, and so that would provide even more income. Naturally, the shadow war of eliminating said merchants would most likely provide additional income, as they don¡¯t need all that stuff lying around when they are dead. I don¡¯t throw the first punch, but I end fights quickly with little collateral damage. I was rather looking forward to it, if I am being honest.


    Armies started to show up already. I had built rudimentary forts and barracks around the outside of the main fortress. They were quick and easy constructs, utilitarian and temporal in nature, to hold the troops while I finished the fortress proper. I did have to go back and build even more bathhouses, for I could smell their unwashed stench from thousands of feet in the air when I soared back and forth to my resource deposits. Gong farmers also made a killing, for that many man and beast produce mountains of poop. There even became a saying around camp that ¡°food goes south and shit goes north¡±, for such was the nature of cargo in wagons that merrily utilized my grand highway daily.


    Crime was on the rise with so many bored soldiers. A lot more human trafficking than I had accounted for had made up a large chunk of it. While World¡¯s End proper had ample brothels, these camps out here by the portal did not have nearly enough to meet demand. My gangs of riccen were worked to the bone to keep slavery and contraband to the appropriate minimums, which is essentially zero for the former, with exceptions made for [Slave Traders] and the like getting a taste of their own medicine. Moral implications aside, slaves don¡¯t have free will to buy my wares or use my roads, so slavery goes against my ambitions.


    All things considered, Tamadora was doing an excellent job running the entertainment district and my secret police. Well, maybe not secret police, as they don¡¯t officially exist, but rival criminal enterprises had failed to get a solid foothold in my city. It did not stop new gangs from trying to muscle their way in, and I actually had to make a few incinerators to handle the sheer number of bodies for all the ne''er-do-wells that experienced ¡°unfortunate accidents¡±. Despite the railings and safety features, so many of them seemed to fall out of windows and down stairs or shoot themselves in the back of the head with a crossbow. I have a whole collection of gang insignias and code books from various spies that have been caught. I could probably open a museum.


    Speaking of museums, my physical hoard is in a museum. A dragon¡¯s [Hoard] is empowered by its availability and how well known it is. What better way to maximize both aspects than with a museum that offers free tours? Most displays are just for observation only, but some can be touched. A small army of my finest kobolds secretly works security, but that opening day, I swear I could fight the gods themselves, so much power flowed through me from the amplification of my [Hoard]. It isn¡¯t just coins and such any more, for I have started to collect trinkets, art, heirlooms, and pretty much anything that catches my fancy. It is a slow process based around whatever interests me at the time. The object in question just sorta has to ¡°speak¡± to me in a metaphorical sense, I can¡¯t just buy a wagon full of paintings and call it a day.


    Every now and then, something is stolen, but dragons always know where everything is as it relates to their [Hoard], so the foolish thieves basically carry a giant beacon on them when they abscond with my stuff. Said thieves tend to have hideouts with equally cool stuff, so it gives me a chance to blow off steam by cutting loose with a spot of murder as I extract my vengeance on them. Plus, those hideouts have things that can be sold off or that catch my eye, and many a worthy addition to my collection has come from thieves who thought they got away clean. It really is one of my favorite hobbies to go after [Hoard]-thieves, less so for regular [Highwaymen].


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    [Highwaymen] have become the bane of my existence and a chore. No matter how many I kill, no matter how many bodies I put on pikes with foreboding signs around their necks, they just keep coming. They all seem to think that they are special and smart, that they will succeed where others have failed. What whelps I can spare are dispatched to hunt them down, but I have to manually control my whelps once they find the [Highwaymen], as whelps lack the cunning to take out a whole camp of them without survivors escaping. Now, having [Parallel Minds] helps with multitasking, but not so much with the predictable tediousness of eliminating yet another camp of bandits.


    I have half a mind to make a school for Adventurers, and the ¡°objective assessments¡± is just them accompanying my whelps to help corral the enemy when I go on raids. It gives them practical world experience and exposure to the lifestyle, with a very low probability of death compared to normal low-tier Adventure work. Actually, it is totally on my very long list of things I need to get up and running, but I can only delegate so many things to my flight and companions.


    As for my laundry list of chores, I need to finish housing for the refugees from beyond the portal, build all the connecting roads up north to the various cities, duplicate that entire road structure down south (a much less pressing issue since they mostly sail up and down the coast), build my rare herb farm, make my own trade consortium, set up more-permanent solutions to feeding my city, deal with my holdings back in Berkerin, manage a never-ending stream of social and political obligations, grow my flight and its entourage of mortal attendants, make nice with the other flights, grow my [Hoard], and on and on it goes.


    I also need to spend more time with my children. I give them a couple of hours a day, but Tamadora is especially clingy and disturbingly submissive to me. She begrudgingly acknowledges those in my inner circle as peers, but she is rather dominant when dealing with everyone else. She also has a bad attitude where she feels everyone else is low-born, but that is probably part and parcel to her current personality and a side-effect of making her born as an adult. I would fix that when I recycle her as a Princess, where she would be born again (as a child from here on out), slowly fixing all the problems she has.


    Kaisadoro is almost worse. He is obsessed with schedules and is a workaholic. He does keep things running smoothly, and he does make time to collect Traits, especially with that [Princess] I obtained, but his personal relationships with others are almost entirely handled like business, even with me. I wouldn¡¯t go so far to say that he is an idiot savant, but he can get caught up on the tiniest matters of procedure and ceremony while somehow also keeping my empire from collapsing. I¡¯m not really sure if some of my kobolds have abandoned me in favor of him or if they are still loyal to me, but either way, most of his staff are kobolds.


    Speaking of, there are probably 2 or 3 kobolds for every non-kobold in the city. Gambino¡¯s recruitment efforts have been a little too effective, and while we don¡¯t need all of them right yet, as my flight grows, I will be glad to have such a large number of kobolds. Fortunately, they are not very greedy or materialistic, so they aren¡¯t causing problems beyond whatever characters they act out in fulfilling their roles. They read the mode of the city and act accordingly. Like, if there was an economic depression, they would put on tattered clothes and stand in line to get jobs while looking glum, not that they actually need jobs, but it helps them blend in with the city. Those same ones would dress up as the landed gentry and behave in a pompous manner if my city was overflowing with [Nobles]. Right now, they are busy exploring and nesting in the Undercity, and that should distract them for a few months.


    We also have our first tribe of goblins that have migrated to the outskirts of civilization. As long as they stick to stealing and being a nuisance, they will be tolerated, but if they start murdering people, they will be culled. Most tribes know this, they know that we know this, and they are inclined to behave themselves while pushing the limits of what they can get away with. In return, they exert some kind of ¡°pressure¡± that helps keep beasts and monsters out of civilization, so they are not entirely detrimental. In addition, they make great targets for young Adventurers to cut their teeth upon. Goblins who kill Adventurers move up the pecking order in the tribe, so this mutual relationship should work out well for the city, if one ignores the grim and dark aspects of it. Alterez tries to appear nonchalant, but I know he is especially keen to hear if there are any particular beauties amongst the goblins with a propensity to get along well in polite society.


    It has been a full four years since I left my little village for the opportunity of Berkerin. I have achieved much, gained the trust of many friends and allies, and I was about to live in interesting times. The fortress, called World¡¯s Hope, is finished. Well, the construction is done, the enchantments placed, everything is powered. I leave it to the rabble to move in supplies and furniture. In the spirit of fairness, and to keep people out of my way, no one was allowed to move in until the whole thing was complete. That also probably stopped riots and the appearance of favoritism, for no one wanted to be stuck in the ¡°boonies¡± around the fort. Said outskirts have been torn down and remade now that I know more about what works and what doesn¡¯t. They do not provide as much in the way of goods and services like World¡¯s End does, but they will allow various units to rotate who is on duty at any given time.


    Armies from all over the world have shown up, and not those made of levies and conscripts, but professional and veteran soldiers one and all. Banners can be seen everywhere as each unit proudly displays their heraldry. There is a whole game of sorts of not allowing certain units near other ones lest old grudges lead to open brawls, but overall, the number of hangings for egregious transgressions is well within limits. I just built the fortress; it is someone else¡¯s job to administrate the circus of so many personalities crammed into too small a space. The sooner the enemy arrives, the sooner these violent men and women will gain some cohesion and stop nipping at one another.


    The portal is primed and ready. Our gods talk to us, and they talk to the gods of the other world, who then talk to the mortals that live there. Through them, we have coordinated the details of how to establish a connection. The gods are still cryptic and mysterious about who exactly these refugees are, and indeed the details of the enemy are sparse, but at least we know where and how to house them until they can get on their feet. Fortunately, they speak the same language as us, as all the gods of various planets work together to make sure Common remains more or less the same everywhere, although linguistic drift still occurs over time.


    The other flights are nowhere to be seen, not even mortal representatives, which seems like a bad showing of either force or hospitality. It is just me, Tamadora, Kaisadoro, Nanu, and a smattering of whelps, at least as far as I can tell. There could be other dragons around, but they would have much better Skills at remaining covert compared to mine to detect them. No doubt the other flights at least have spies around here so that they stay in the loop. I feel like they just didn¡¯t want to be saddled with the responsibility of managing a bunch of refugees.


    The hour cometh, I ignite the infinitum engines deep beneath the earth, and a large sphere of distorted space sorta wobbles into existence before stabilizing and growing. Black as night, it expands until only a semicircle is visible above the completely level obsidisteel interior floor of the fortress.


    Great maws full of teeth punch through, followed by long necks and massive legs. Familiar creatures, yet simultaneously more primal and advanced than the local fauna, dinosaurs marched through, along with little lizardmen who ride them or walk among them. Hmm, probably not lizard-based beings, but dinosaur-based. Saurkin perhaps, although their exact species or names escape me, other than that there seem to be several different species among them. My own world had them long ago, but legends say they left for distant worlds via portals that opened of their own accord. Perhaps this is their progeny returning home at last. The dinosaurs and saurkin were each wearing their best, their clothes sparse and tribal in nature, yet ornate and colorful. The dinosaurs were painted in the colors of what I can only assume to be of clan and tribe.


    Thousands filed through, and then a new race appeared, something entirely foreign. Perhaps 10 feet tall, they walked on four legs that came out radially from the center torso, each leg ending in a spike instead of feet. They had four arms, the lower pair being smaller and held close to their body. Ethereal and wispy tendrils trailed out of their backs, each one easily three or four times as long as their bodies, but they didn¡¯t seem to physically touch anything. Their faces were vaguely humanoid, although their teeth were sharp and they had no visible ears. Their entire bodies seemed to be made of metal and crystal, not of flesh and blood. Imposing, with those among them clearly armed for war, but few in number compared to the civilians that they escorted.


    The largest among them, as escorted by two bannermen, approached me where I sat in my draconic form, my flight arrayed behind me with my companions behind them. Sitting down on just my rear, my front legs still standing, I was easily 20 feet tall at the shoulder, with my neck being rather long, but currently lowered so that I could converse with the new arrivals.


    Clearly a military commander of some sort, he handed his weapons over to his bannermen. One weapon was a sword, the other some kind of hook that I did not understand the purpose of, but both looked beautiful and well-used. With some manner of salute, each right hand overlapping the fist of the left, he bowed slightly in greeting before speaking.


    ¡°Polemarch Kirov reporting!¡± he announced as all else fell quiet. And so the first stages of the war for our survival had begun.

 Chapter 91

    The Dragon of Roads - War of Bone and Ash


    A cool spring breeze swept through the courtyard of World¡¯s Hope, the fortress that I, The Dragon of Roads, built at the request of the gods to contain my world¡¯s largest existential threat. Though the enemy remained shrouded in mystery, refugees had just arrived from beyond the portal at the center of the fortress, and they would prove to be a valuable source of information.


    Behind me stood my children, Queen Tamadora and King Kaisadoro, along with my adopted daughter, Princess Nanu. All of us remained in our draconic forms lest we be confused for the mortal races. By my side, as ever would be her place, remained Skull, a human woman as fearless as she was capable, as long as her tasks did not involve reading or paperwork. Behind me stood my entourage, my inner circle of trusted individuals and those of my children.


    Before me stood Polemarch Kirov, a creature the likes of which I have never before laid eyes on before today. Though he stood at twice the height of a tall orc, I saw no flesh and bone in his form, but rather metal and crystal somehow imbued with life. With him stood his bannermen, and behind him, what few of his kind that he and his had deemed worthy to escape the destruction of their world in favor of the mercy of my own. Also, there were many saurkin and their beloved dinosaurs, the whole of them a riot of color and decoration as they proudly displayed the culture of their own people.


    With myself not yet known in those days as The Dragon of Roads, for I had not yet become a demi-god, I introduced myself to the apparent leader of a dying world.


    ¡°Salutations, Polemarch Kirov. I am the Emperor of The Crossroad Wayfinders, one of eight flights of dragons in this world. I welcome you and yours to planet Gyldvir. You are on the continent Rubioco and in the territory of World¡¯s End, a city only recently established to deal with the crisis before our peoples. The province is under my leadership, and I have prepared housing for all of you to the best of my ability considering the gods remained cryptic about what manner of creatures would be living within them.


    ¡°Let there be peace between us, for we expect nothing of you other than mutual cooperation, that you educate us on the nature of our shared enemies and offer what little support you can. Your people should focus on settling in, rebuilding, and adapting to your new world, for the nations of Gyldvir have rallied to defend our world. I see that saurkin are among your forces, and though they have been absent from this world for some time, we welcome our wayward kin home as well. I encourage you to remain patient and open-minded, for we know nothing of your people, your culture, your needs, or ambitions.¡±


    The figure before me bowed lower in response, the ethereal tendrils that sprouted from his back shrinking down to perhaps twice his height as they formed a fan of sorts facing me, much like the tail of a peacock.


    ¡°You honor me with your words and hospitality, Emperor of The Crossroad Wayfinders. My race is the crixtali, from the planet Crixli. On my honor, my people will aid you in what ways we can to ensure that this world, too, does not befall the fate of my own. Though only the smallest fraction of my own people and the saurkin have traveled to this world, we appreciate the sacrifice you and yours have made to support us.¡±


    More pleasantries and introductions followed so that communications between the refugees and my own people could transpire smoothly. Basic laws were outlined, essentially following the pattern of ¡°only doing to others as you would have them do to you¡± and ¡°stay in your refugee camp until we know there are no weird diseases or magical mishaps between our peoples¡±. I invited Polemarch Kirov and the esteemed elders of his people to meet with me on the morrow in a more relaxed setting so that we may discuss matters of concern, but otherwise released him and the remaining refugees to settle in. In his parting wisdom, he performed a headcount, and finding everyone accounted for, advised us to kill anything and anyone that came through the portal, even if they be his own kin.


    On the following day, in a meeting room I hastily made overnight to accommodate the large and alien bodies of the crixtali and the humanoid but likewise large bodies of the saurkin leaders, we held a meeting to discuss matters moving forward. My flight and I assumed humanoid forms so as to be less imposing and so we could fit more people in a tighter space. More pleasantries were exchanged and I asked how they were settling in, the whole conversation civil but uninteresting as everyone went through the motions of appearing polite. Finally, we got down to the real matter at heart.


    ¡°Kirov, honored elders of crixtali and saurkin both, I have some questions that have been on my mind, and indeed the minds of many in this world, and I would appreciate any wisdom you may have to illuminate the mystery that is your world and history.¡±


    ¡°Give voice to your questions, Emperor, that there would be no misunderstanding or secrets between us concerning the nature of my former world,¡± responded Polemarch Kirov as he put aside his plate of choice bits of various metals and crystals that I had prepared for him. I noticed he especially enjoyed the titanium cubes and the topazes. Well, not real topazes one would find in the depths of the earth, but rather the artificial ones I had made that are chemically the same but lack the sweat of impoverished miners and the blood of conflict over their possession that presumably would increase their worth to the wealthy.


    ¡°Would you kindly provide me with a brief overview as to the nature of your world, how the saurkin came to it, the nature of the relationship between your peoples, the invasion of the enemy, and what went wrong such that you had no choice but to abandon your world?¡±


    Solemn looks of shame, sadness, and regret greeted me from the ensemble of beings across from me. Some quiet conversation took place before an agreement was reached, and a saurkin that appeared to be older than dirt stood and hobbled over to a central speaking platform between us, that the voice-amplification enchantments placed upon it would carry his words to the gathered masses of important and self-important people gathered in the room. Though he leaned heavily on his staff, his eyes still held the alertness of that marriage of something like a T-rex and humanoid that made up his ancestry.


    ¡°Long ago, many thousands of years for this world, this world was the center hub that connects many worlds through random and natural portals that open between worlds. It was an age when races moved freely between worlds, and though conflict ensued, it was never on the scale that threatened the very existence of one world or another. It was then that the saurkin opted to travel to a distant world, or at least a great nation of them did. As I understand things, those that remained behind perished at the hands of the foes my own ancestors sought to escape.


    ¡°The tales of my people say we wandered through several worlds, always on the run from one enemy or another, in the Age of Strifeful Exodus, until we arrived on the world of Crixli. There, we found worthy allies with the crixtali, for our peoples desired different habitats and could offer one another useful trade. And so an age of peace and prosperity followed where our peoples grew closer in our alliance as to almost be inseparable. Through our combined efforts, other hostile races were subjugated or eliminated, and incursions from other worlds were repelled throughout the generations. Such continued to be the way of things until the alignment of the spheres changed, and a different world became the hub of connections, one further away from our two worlds, and so portals became more and more rare.


    ¡°However, that hub has since moved back in our direction, and with it, a connection was reforged to a world forgotten. Our gods had forgotten about portals between worlds, as have we mortals, for such is the mystical nature of portals and how not even the gods can remember them when they do not exist. Taken by surprise, we rallied to defend our world, much like you are doing now. Honestly, the similarities between the response of this world and Crixli are eerily similar.


    ¡°Our gods warned us only a few years in advance, and so we built a fortress to contain the portal and the enemy. We held the main breach and smaller ones scattered around the world, for a time. For centuries, we were united in harmony of purpose like no other. However, we grew complacent, and old grudges and ambitions that had been set aside in favor of fighting the common enemy were brought to the forefront as we relaxed in our vigil, for the enemy had become almost predictably simple to contain. Such seemed to be their plan, for it became our downfall.


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    ¡°The enemy surged forth with renewed vigor and ferocity. Our guard lowered, we were taken by surprise and overwhelmed. Though we rallied to retake the breach, our efforts were in vain, and seeing the writing on the wall, we made the most difficult of choices.


    ¡°The best and brightest among us were selected to preserve our peoples while the rest held the line to buy as much time as possible. Our history, our relics, our culture, all of it that we could take with us to preserve who we are and where we came from, we brought with us, for we knew this world would only tolerate and support so many of us.


    ¡°Our peoples numbered in the tens of millions, and now, only ten thousand saurkin and ten thousand crixtali remain. All others are doomed, and any of them who pass through the portal are to be considered corrupted, infested, or otherwise thrall to the enemy. Hubris, avarice, and complacency proved to be our downfall. So thoroughly humbled, we hope to never again make the same mistake, and we pray our descendants learn the lesson we paid for with such great loss.


    ¡°This world offers much for the saurkin, for it is the world of our origin and filled with lush plains for our people to thrive upon. The crixtali may struggle to survive here, for they do not need such things, but rather crystal, metal, and sunlight to survive. In the time of need of my own people, the crixtali took us in and accepted us when none would. It would be my honor and the honor of all saurkin to return the favor and repay that debt in full, for we will work with them and you to ensure that they have what they need to survive in this world that must seem strange and alien to them.¡±


    The elder, finished with his lecture, slowly turned around and hobbled back to his seat, apparently not waiting to see if I yet had any more questions for him to answer. Perhaps such was their culture, that they would decide who would answer the next question, and so I waited for him to sit before continuing my inquiry.


    ¡°Thank you, honored elder, for that concise explanation of events. I believe the only remaining pertinent information we need at this time concerns the enemy. What is ¡°the enemy¡± that you speak of, what is their nature and what threats do they pose?¡±


    More chatter erupted among the elders gathered, and indeed among the masses in the peanut gallery behind me, but I had enchantments in place to block them out as they were not permitted to speak at this meeting. In an extension of magnanimity, I permitted them to listen in and left it to their own devices to open diplomatic channels with the refugees. After a minute of debate, Kirov was selected to answer.


    ¡°I am not the most noteworthy of my kind, for the greatest generals with the most experience are either dead or holding off the enemy for as long as possible. My title of Polemarch was not one earned, but granted to me on account that so many are dead or otherwise lost to us. However, I have faced the enemy in battle on countless occasions and can share what I know.


    ¡°The enemy, which we call ¡°The Devourers¡± in Common, are a host of different forms, more akin to some strange machine or hive than living things. Most individuals are mindless drones that are sent to attack us, their forms varied and changing over time as ineffective casts are phased out in favor of those that perform well. Some are of strange flesh and blood, grotesque and foul, made only to attack and die, not to feast and survive for many years like normal creatures. Others are of metal, or stone, or other inorganic materials. Some fly, others burrow, or have many legs or no legs. There is no real pattern to their form.


    ¡°What I can say is that they are singularly devoted to their purpose. They have no pity, remorse, fear, or emotions of any note. They never seem to tire and will exert themselves to death without hesitation. They cannot be negotiated with, nor can their more intelligent members be trusted, for they regard us with disdain.


    ¡°The leading theory is that they are something left behind by The Makers, the gods above gods that made all the worlds of our universe before they departed. Whether they are operating as intended or corrupted in purpose is a mystery, but they appear to travel the portals between worlds to lay waste simply because they can. They adapt, and their leadership shows a certain level of cunning beyond that of automatons. They are seemingly infinite in number, for they have the resources of many worlds to draw upon. Indeed, through the breach between worlds, half of their number serve only to haul the corpses of the fallen back through so that they may be recycled via mechanisms we do not understand, for we have only had a few glimpses at what lies beyond the portal.


    ¡°They are patient, willing to suffer losses for centuries until they suddenly strike in force. They may test out a certain cast of soldiers early on, see that it is effective, and then never use it for many centuries so that we forget about it, only to unleash their true force when we least expect it. They employ misdirection, with hidden agents in their rank possessing extreme intelligence, that they may assassinate our best and die at the hands of our worst, preying upon how we will promote such ¡®valiant warriors¡¯, which was part of their insidious plan for us to fall to internal corruption and incompetence. We even suspect them of having made dark pacts with traitors of our own kind, but there remains no definitive proof, only death and misery.


    ¡°The most salient fact for you to employ in military strategy is how their towering behemoths emit an aura of decay. Said aura will strip flesh from bone within seconds for most of you, and in the area around the portal, you can expect it to be one mile in radius, perhaps half again as large at some times. You will need to attack them at range or find fighters that can contest them in melee without suffering the effects of decay. The rest you can learn from combat reports that I can provide to you and yours.¡±


    I started to notice a pattern that the refugees spoke in a very matter-of-fact tone about these topics that must be rather sensitive. I did not know if they were simply resigned to their fate or just really skilled at compartmentalizing. Kirov himself spoke with a soothing baritone, one that seemingly calmed those around him and invited them to listen. It was commanding, not in the harsh manner of the tyrant, but more like that of a father telling stories around a campfire. The others remained quiet; they did not voice their own opinions or speak while others spoke, unlike the small uproar of concern that erupted in the masses of locals in the exterior. I could not tell if they were so disciplined as a people or if that was part of being an elder.


    ¡°That is rather disturbing news,¡± I responded while assessing the mood of the room, which was far more dramatic than I felt strictly necessary. A lot of blustering, posturing, indignation, and name-calling came from the crowd that was not part of the conversation. With luck, a riot would break out and some would kill each other, such that I would have to contend with fewer pompous fools, but one can only experience so much fortune in life.


    ¡°However, it is not beyond our means to contend with such an adversary, provided we coordinate our efforts correctly. I know that Ossimandias, Emperor of The Bone Wardens, has cooperated extensively with Lenthnegrel, the god of Bone and Ash, to prepare for this invasion. It seems only one of our gods knew of the coming doom and had been stockpiling skeletons to create an army of undead to help in this fight. I would have thought by now that the rabble,¡± I said casually as I gestured vaguely to the various lords, ladies, knights, generals, merchants, and the like gathered outside the meeting proper, ¡°would have been educated about such matters, but it appears that misinformation and rumor have polluted any trustworthy dissemination of fact.¡±


    ¡°That is another unusual similarity,¡± responded Kirov with an air of curiosity to his voice. ¡°One of my gods also was the first to know of the incursion into my world, and he was seen as a strange doomsayer until the other gods caught on. We remember that he existed, that he was vital to our defense, but only months ago, he sacrificed himself and consumed his divinity to answer a few questions we had about the enemy. We will not know the answers or the questions he asked until the enemy makes it to the breach and invades this world. We can¡¯t even remember his name, for his very existence has been stricken from reality, with only tiny motes of it lingering within our minds. Hopefully, the same fate will not befall this Lenthnegrel.¡±


    Those casual words caused an uproar, and my money was on a few fights breaking out. In the interest of not causing mass panic, I had to resist the urge to stoke the flames of fear, for though it would net me a few casualties in the ranks of those who were ever a pain in my behind, it would undermine long-term plans of survival.


    ¡°That is news to me, and as you can see around you, rather disturbing. I have asked many questions, but do you have any questions for me?¡±


    Kirov and the other refugees conversed amongst themselves, apparently coming to a consensus of phrasing questions that could perhaps be viewed as impolite. Seeing as how Kirov had rapport with me, they saddled him with the burden of being the one to ask questions that may cause some degree of insult, judging by their nervous looks.


    ¡°Forgive me, Emperor, if my words trespass into the realm of impolite conversation. We understand why we are quarantined, and indeed, such actions are prudent until we both know that we will not inadvertently harm one another through disease or our forms of magic conflicting. We are willing to share information with you, and since you specifically are hosting and protecting us, we understand that you may issue gag orders on certain knowledge being spread. However, we skipped over a custom of ours under concern that it may be too revealing.¡±


    I could see that Kirov was dancing all around something as he hemmed and hawed with his words.


    ¡°Ask your question, Kirov, for I know you mean no insult.¡±


    ¡°In the interest of knowing who we are in allegiance with, it is only fair that you tell us what Classes you have and what level you are in each.¡±


    Taken aback, I spoke before I really thought things through. ¡°My what now?¡±

 Chapter 92

    Perhaps this Emperor played coy with me, or perhaps the nature of our worlds was different enough that he legitimately did not know of which I spoke. Given his apparent honesty with me so far, I remained inclined that the latter assumption contained the foundation of truth. Apparently feeling that conversation had moved into topics too serious for all present, he dismissed the gathering of what I presume to be important individuals of this world. Only his entourage remained after the rest vacated the room, the egress expedited by the floor and ceiling slowly moving towards one another. Self-preservation in the face of being slowly and painfully crushed outweighed their curiosity, for soon the elders and I were alone with the Emperor and his. Only once alone did the Emperor speak.


    ¡°I believe I understand the basis of which you speak. You talk of an individual¡¯s source of power and magic, what techniques he or she has to influence the world through supernatural means. Is this so?¡±


    ¡°It is indeed. Is discussing this taboo in your world?¡±


    The Emperor considered this for a moment as his eyes and head turned slightly upwards and to the side, perhaps in some sort of social cue of contemplation or a display of honesty. I could not tell the meaning behind the gesture, but it seemed more natural than calculated.


    ¡°We do have sources of magic as such, and we call them Blessings. Most people only have one Blessing, and it is very rare for someone to become Dual-Blessed. Sometimes, Blessing evolve to more powerful variants, but that takes dedicated effort that the common masses are too complacent to achieve. However, these Blessings do not have ¡®levels¡¯ as you put it. Most people only share information about their Blessing with people they are very close to and trust. Could you elaborate?¡±


    Such a peculiar system of magic that his gods had enacted upon his world. How do they possibly gauge strength without any levels? And only having one Class, that sounds very difficult indeed. I suppose I would need to give him the same lesson that all children receive.


    ¡°Everyone here in this room from Crixli is old and powerful enough to have three or four Classes, which have a limit of 1,000 levels, in theory. The highest level in any one Class I have seen was just over 600, but some in history got into the 700¡¯s, or perhaps higher, but such rumors are unconfirmed. With each level, acquisition of the next level becomes slightly more difficult. Most commoners are between 150 and 200 in their Primary Class by full adulthood, and they may grow to 300 before old age claims them. A new Class is unlocked at level 100 in the Primary Class, and after that, the math is complex based on Class quality, levels shared between various Classes, and a myriad of factors. In short, the stronger one becomes, the more Classes one gets.


    ¡°Classes offer many Skills, of which you can choose any 8 to have, along with 8 General Skills. When you unlock a new Class, you can also assign 2 new Skill Slots to any previously owned Class or to General Skills. Class-specific Skills tend to be stronger, but also focused on what the class does. Skills go from levels 1 to 10, and it is very difficult to get a Skill to 10, for one needs complete mastery with it to do so.


    ¡°I am a 183 [Great General], which was my most recently acquired Class when I became an accomplished commander, which is also called a Prestige Class. I am also a 541 [Soldier], which is my Primary Class, and a 320 [Lightning Warmage], which is my Specialist Class. If I attain a fourth class, it would be my Paragon Class, and my Fifth would be my Ascendant Class. The terms for those with more classes than that are mostly hypothetical, and anyone who gets to be that powerful certainly has the means to dictate terminology.


    ¡°It is customary and polite to introduce oneself by one¡¯s most advanced Class up to Prestige, and beyond that, if you feel like flexing on people with higher tier Classes or when it would be suspicious that you don¡¯t have more powerful Classes, by your second strongest Class. Ergo, I would introduce myself as a 183 [Great General] after giving my name. I apologize for not doing so when we first met, but I did not know the social normal of saying such things.¡±


    I bowed my head to the Emperor, as is appropriate for one who has failed to observe courtesy, and it is also expected protocol in formal settings.


    ¡°That¡¯s quite alright, Kirov,¡± the Emperor responded as he tried to gesture with his hands for me to cease bowing, if I understood the motions correctly. ¡°I understand keeping such facts secret around strangers. That whole system sounds very complicated. I know that as a dragon, the rules that govern my Blessing are very different from mortals, but for mortals, they don¡¯t appear to have any limit on how many Skills they can acquire, although they don¡¯t have much control over which Skills they get. Skills don¡¯t seem to have levels, but one can acquire more advanced versions of the Skill, or through training, acquire Abilities that mimic a Skill. Those Abilities could come from those granted by a god to a priest, which usually require incantations or tools to use, such as some sort of magical catalyst, like a staff with a gem on it. I don¡¯t imagine there is anyone here among my entourage who has fewer than a hundred Skills, and I have several hundred Skills.¡±


    My thought-matrix ceased working for a moment at that final and seemingly casual revelation of his words. Not just an entire 100 different Skills, but hundreds of them in one person. Hopefully, their Skills were not as strong as ours, otherwise each and every one of them was a veritable monster. I looked to the saurkin elders, who have long since abandoned this world in favor of the one now lost to us, and they seemed to show no sign of foreknowledge of this fact, for their tails swayed in a nervous pattern. My own kin fared little better, for the rhythm of their singularity-matrix resonated with irregularity.


    But, the Emperor barely paused to let his words soak in, for a smile crept upon his face as he continued to blast us with information.


    ¡°As an Emperor, I have complete control over the Skills I acquire. The dragons of my flight have slightly less control the further down in peerage they go. Mortals just try to focus their Skills in a certain direction based on their actions. If a [Warrior] wants to be good with spears, he will train hard in the use of them and forsake the sword, axe, or other weapons, so that he acquires Skills related to the spear. A [Tailor] or [Brewer] may have a hard time getting any Skills related to the spear because their Blessings are not themed around fighting.


    ¡°I have different webs of Skills themed around different activities or goals I wish to achieve. I know what Skills are that I don¡¯t have if I am close to acquiring them, but ones too far away, that require too many other Skills for me to unlock them, I can only guess as to what they do. I don¡¯t think most mortals even know what Skills they could get, for no two seem to have the same Blessing. My Skills may detect someone as a [Tailor], but the exact name of their Blessing will be more verbose than that. Essentially, no two people are going to have the same loadout of Skills or capabilities.¡±


    Horror flooded through me at the nightmare of such a world. No doctrine casts, no known builds to aim for, no rhyme or reason to their Skills. Each and everyone one of them had to discover things for themselves. The logistics of coordinating large groups working together appeared impossible, especially on the military scale. How could I hope to lead troops into battle if they collectively had thousands of different Skills? Clearly, there had to be a trick to it, or this world would be nothing but chaos.


    ¡°Am I to understand that the saurkin somehow adapted the system of magic of your world at some point?¡±


    My thought-matrix still raced at the implications of what the Emperor had shared with me, and already he asked a question before I had sufficient time to process everything. Hurriedly, we went through the process of selecting a speaker, picking the same saurkin elder that had answered him last time, for these people seemed to appreciate answers coming from as few sources as possible.


    ¡°Our sagas say that over time, fewer and fewer were born under the rules of our home world, especially as the worship of those gods waned in favor of the gods of the new world. I admit, our histories are not complete, and the knowledge of different systems of magic in other worlds has been lost to us. I would imagine in time, new generations will return to the fold now that we have returned to this world. Gods long since forgotten and dormant will spark anew now that the saurkin have returned. We will undoubtedly favor the pantheon our ancestors once held reverence for, and with that, the system of magic favored here.¡±


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    The old saurkin slowly returned to his chair. To be honest, I could not remember his name, which probably involved a Skill of his, because, as a [Great General], it is imperative to remember names of important people.


    ¡°Can your people craft objects of magic, ones that can perform tasks similar to what Skills could do?¡± the Emperor asked with an unusual zeal in his voice, as if he had been waiting for the conversation to steer this way. It was more forced than natural, but perhaps he tired of dancing around his true interests.


    Old Frigemi the Elder, one of the Brass and Ruby cast, opted to answer, most likely because he was the most senior [Matrix Weaver] among us.


    ¡°We can and do, and indeed our whole world was founded on such feats. We need sunlight to live, and our greatest works involved collecting sunlight from beyond the Invisible Mantle and siphoning it into our world. We had all manner of such devices to manage temperature, move objects, monitor our surroundings, and so forth. We certainly know how to do it even still, for we did not leave our schematics behind.¡±


    A hungry grin adorned the Emperor¡¯s face, and he took a moment to converse with the one called Nanu. They seemed to reach an agreement, for when the Emperor spoke, parts of his true nature shined through.


    ¡°I will be honest with you, I am sympathetic to your plight and the great loss you have experienced. I am keenly interested in what enchantments your people have mastered, not so much that I require you to build them for me, but that I may study them and learn how to replicate them. I do not need you to slave away on my behalf, to overly burden yourselves with furthering my ambitions, or to surrender your resources to me.¡±


    I could feel it in my scaffolds, there was a large ¡°but¡± coming with his words, and I wondered if this is where he would threaten us with shackles. I primed my mana-vortex for conflict should the need arise for us to withdraw when we rebuffed his offer.


    ¡°I understand that, should you share all you know with me, you may believe that you will be perceived as outliving your usefulness, and therefore become expendable. Thus, you would be inclined to share as little as possible. In a time of such strife, such distrust could be our undoing, and so I will be rather candid with my position and offer, so that you understand what you are getting into.¡±


    I looked around the room and observed everyone was on edge as the Emperor built up to some sort of offer that may or may not be in our favor. The tension was thick, the people ready to fight or flee, even his allies looking concerned that diplomacy may devolve at any moment.


    ¡°I am a young Emperor. Should I die, a new Emperor may appear through means I do not understand. The other flights have not displayed interest in this coming war or you, but they will in time. Likewise, the nations of the world are poised to use and abuse you until you have nothing left to offer. I cannot say that I am the strongest choice for an ally, for my allies are few in number. What I can say with confidence is that you will not find an ally as loyal as I will be nor one as willing to offer as favorable terms should you choose to formally ally yourselves with me. I wish to make an offer, not one that you need to decide here and now, but one that I hope you will hear and consider.¡±


    Those of my peers were not young and inexperienced in matters of negotiation or conflict. Tempers did not flare easily, nor were we prone to speaking when we lacked information. Yet, as we quickly discussed the merits of even listening to the offer, I could tell that we were all on edge, nearing the limits of reason as we plunged headfirst into the unknown. Our situation was almost unprecedented, for though the saurkin had made a similar deal with my own people in the past, the history of those times remains shrouded in lost manuscripts and destroyed texts on the matter. After a short few minutes of debate, we finally came to a consensus that we should at least hear the offer, but hold off any acceptance or rejection until a formal meeting of every clan and tribe. For his part, the Emperor patiently waited with a slight grin on his face, apparently unbothered by our sidebar.


    ¡°Tell us your offer, Emperor, but know that we will need the approval of more than those present to agree to any terms.¡±


    ¡°It is all very simple. I offer protection, housing, land, and prosperity for your people. I would expect no tithes of soldiers or workers, and taxation would be modest. I hope to build opportunities for your people, to create career opportunities that you would be eager to apply for and that you would find to be rewarding. As an Emperor, I will not die of old age, and so I plan for the long-term. I do not want to create an adversarial relationship with your people due to me taking advantage of you when you were desperate. I hope that you and yours will follow me not because I have power over you, but because my actions have proven that I can be trusted and will provide for you, protect you, and give you opportunities to further your own ambitions and find fulfillment in life.


    ¡°To that end, I would hope your best would come to the service of my flight, for which you would be generously compensated. You would not be slaves, but rather employees, and hopefully, friendship would develop between you and others that serve me. I wish to know about your people, your culture, your developments in magical pursuits, your techniques of administration, so that I can build an environment where you and others can thrive. I believe a happy populace is one that will help me in my time of need and cause the least amount of headache for me.


    ¡°I invite you to not merely take me at my word, but to deeply consider the offer and to investigate matters further. Talk to my associates, those who I do business with, or the citizens of World¡¯s End, which is my primary holding. I am willing to negotiate with you, to draft up contracts that protect your interests and futures, because I do not want animosity over a diktat to fester into resentment that leads to rebellion. Naturally, I would not want all of you as subordinate to others that work with me, for I am in need of capable advisors, administrators, educators, and technicians. I can draft up a preliminary contract for your review as a starting point, and from there, we can negotiate until all parties are satisfied. In a general sense, are those of you gathered here interested in such an alliance?¡±


    They say that if something is too good to be true, it probably is, and his words were like sun-cubes to the fuel-deprived. Yet I found no glaring flaw in his words, and knowing that we would be preyed upon if we did not find a benefactor, his offer was more than just as good as any. We debated for a whole five minutes, our words filled more with hope and excitement than heat, but eventually, we gave the Emperor an answer that made his smile widen all the more.


    ¡°Most excellent,¡± he exclaimed as he clapped his hands together once in approval of our acceptance to hear him out. ¡°For as much as you have cause to trust me, believe that I have not instructed those with me to be dishonest or act in a deceptive manner towards you.¡±


    He turned to address the collection of people behind him, with seemingly many different races or castes to be observed among their number, though I knew not one from the other.


    ¡°Everyone, please cooperate in answering the questions of our guests. Be honest and candid, for I know I am not perfect. Everyone has flaws, myself included. Speak true of your opinions and knowledge, for I do not want an alliance that is founded on falsehoods, even if what you have to say does not reflect highly upon my actions. I trust that even with my shortcomings and failures, I have overall behaved in a manner that has found me worthy of your continued trust and support, which I value dearly.¡±


    The Emperor turned back to us as he continued to speak, his words tinged with some manner of Skill that inspired confidence in his words, but not tainted with those Skills that embellish. It would take significant expertise to pull one over on the collection of elders gathered, for it was our very job to handle negotiations. Overall, I found myself under the impression that he was honest, but mystified as to how the benefit of our alliance could outweigh the cost to him.


    ¡°Please, talk, discuss matters, mingle, and ask questions of my friends and trusted allies. So as to not exert pressure on them by my presence, I will depart the room and let any who wish to erect privacy wards to do so, so that no one, such as myself, could eavesdrop on your conversation. I will return to World¡¯s End to begin drafting up a treaty so that you have something more specific to consider. There is no rush to decide as far as I am concerned, but social and political pressure from other interested parties may force you to decide sooner rather than later. I hope we establish a relationship that is mutually beneficial, prosperous, and lasting.¡±


    And with that, the Emperor departed, along with the one named Skull who merged into his shadow, a feat that was beyond anything I had ever seen before. I suspect that his plan the whole time involved the sales pitch for an alliance, which indeed we had suspected that such an offer would be made. That part that bothered us was that he was seemingly too honest with us. We expected a certain degree of duplicity and for him to leverage our situation against us. This left a general feeling of suspicion that we were overlooking something insidious hidden within his offer, and indeed, we vowed to comb through every line of his contract on every revision to ensure there was nothing untoward there.


    I don¡¯t know about the rest, but I found it hard to stay on topic. I knew so little of this world and its people that I often got distracted. This little ¡®gnome¡¯ wearing a ¡®top hat¡¯ stood in my hand as I raised him up to eye level, and the small creature was a ceaseless fountain of information of dubious accuracy. I suspected he embellished his role in events, but overall, I was getting a read on him and his Emperor, and all signs suggested that he was on the up and up. The gnome showed no sign of stopping in his monologue, and, not wanting to be rude, I carried him around with me as I looked for more plates of those titanium cubes, nodding occasionally to show that I still followed along in the ¡®conversation¡¯ that was anything but a mutual dialogue. There was much to learn, and little time to learn it before predators came looking for an easy mark.

 Chapter 93

    The ink was barely dry on my first draft of the treaty before my newest allies-to-be wanted to see it. Very few tweaks had to be made, and most of those were for clarifying language in a few areas or expounding upon roles and responsibilities so that expectations were more specific. I feel like everything was straightforward and above board because I was being honest with them that I wanted them to be willing and eager allies rather than begrudgingly forced to do as I say. They looked carefully through each revision, of which there were few, and within the fifth day of them being here in this world, we had reached an accord and signed the treaty. Some elders and clan leaders remained nervous that I had slipped in a few nefarious clauses, but I didn¡¯t know of any.


    My kobolds follow me for their own reasons; we never really made any official deal. They just sorta show up randomly and start helping with what the other kobolds are doing. I don¡¯t even pay them, but I also don¡¯t tax them, and somehow they seem to get everything they need. Gambino and Bambina, the leaders of the horde of kobolds running around, have not reported any issues or discontent with how I handle things, so I leave it at that.


    Now, I have saurkin and crixtali firmly in my pocket. They remain grateful for how I have provided them with housing and food, and many are eager to get to work earning their keep and turning their house into a home, so to speak. This works to my benefit, for I had no plans that involved them just sitting around doing nothing.


    To the north, past the wastelands and the badlands, back near the big-ass bridge I had made, one can find the great plains where dinosaurs roam freely. No one lives there, most likely because most cultures, while enjoying incorporating the occasional dinosaur into everyday life as beasts of burden or pets, don¡¯t have the means or inclination to handle large roaming herds of dinosaurs that can stomp a house flat if they misstep. The saurkin were nearly champing at the bit to check that place out and settle there, and so most of them have been given leave to go there, while a small cohort remains at World¡¯s Hope and World¡¯s End to help educate me and my associates about saurkin culture and technology.


    Conversely, the crixtali find the wastelands to be very suitable. There is little water or biological life to be found there, and so they are free to build sunlight accumulator arrays without it negatively impacting the local ecology, since there basically is none. Likewise, a few key individuals remained behind to show me things I found interesting, of which they had much to share. A small cadre of [Matrix Weavers], the equivalent of [Enchanters], stayed with me to show me how they do things. The results were more than satisfactory.


    Like most people, I am guilty of using a host of words interchangeably since I am not pedantic enough to be too particular on my terminology. However, the crixtali [Matrix Weavers] set me straight, at least for the duration of the conversation before I fell back into old habits. What follows is what has been clarified for me.


    Shields, in the magical sense, are used to block things. They are usually square or round, and they can be flat or slightly curved to better deflect blows. They are generally statically placed walls of magical energy and force, although some may be anchored to a target, such as a person, and move relative to the target. Shields that block anything and everything are inefficient and drain mana quickly. Gnomes are the best [Shielders] and [Shield Mages] in this world, as a general rule, and a gaggle of them tagged along to compare notes.


    Convergent evolution of best practices has made the implementation of shields similar in both worlds. Strategy has evolved over time, with the old pattern of Shields Projected Over Nearby Garrison Environment, or S.P.O.N.G.E., being the preferred method for large, stationary targets, such as buildings, but less than ideal for moving formations of troops. Shields Produced Around Required Targets for Ablation/Negation, or S.P.A.R.T.A.N., is the shield pattern of choice for mobile units. Finally, Just In Time Tactical Expeditionary Shields, or J.I.T.T.E.R.S., are the best variant of shields, but so far, they have only ever been used on the personal level, as using them on larger targets had proved to be too cumbersome.


    As one can tell, those shield patterns were named by gnomes. The crixtali and saurkin have their equivalent variants, however, they had found a way to employ J.I.T.T.E.R.S. with both S.P.O.N.G.E. and S.P.A.R.T.A.N. shields. Turns out, when your bodies are so big, or that of your pet dinosaurs, making physical armor to protect oneself would be exorbitant in cost, and so more research into shields had proven prudent.


    J.I.T.T.E.R.S. are great because they have a means to detect incoming attacks, determine the nature of the attack, and then formulate a shield designed to efficiently counter the blow, typically within a fraction of a second. For instance, a shield designed to stop a high-speed, low-mass bullet, versus one designed to stop a slow-moving, large-mass boulder from a trebuchet, are both very different in implementation. I am not an expert on shields, but I do know enchantments, and World¡¯s Hope needs a giant shield on top to act as a lid to seal in flying adversaries. Good thing I saved that for last, because collectively, we have found a solution. The innovation of combining J.I.T.T.E.R.S. with S.P.O.N.G.E. will apparently change the very nature of warfare, which I guess is a good thing. It will certainly save a lot of mana to not have shields constantly running when nothing is hitting them.


    Like shields, barriers perform a similar task, yet they are more akin to second skin than a solid construct in front of you. While shields stop or deflect things, barriers dampen or slow things. They can be woven into shields, and they are generally used to arrest the momentum of projectiles or sap the energy out of magical attacks. There is no need to block an arrow when you can slow its momentum just enough that it lands in the dirt in front of you, or to completely block a fireball when you can render it to just a pleasantly warm puff of air. Likewise, our new friends are good at that stuff too, and they have shared their knowledge on how to do things better than we do when it comes to barriers.


    Wards are about detection and deterrence, and they are highly specific in what they target. Wards are used for privacy to stop the sound of a conversation from leaving a bubble around the participants, or to obfuscate the view so outsiders cannot read lips. Through manipulating feelings of disgust, implementing fear, or subtly convincing something that it has better places to be, wards can obstruct entities from passing through them. They are great for repelling insects and vermin from one¡¯s own person or food stores. If placed in a circle around some entity, they can act as a prison, provided no outsider disrupts the ward. Overall, wards are vastly cheaper to maintain than shields or barriers, and for once, the gnomes had the better version of wards compared to our new guests.


    The final term that is generally considered to be part of the same broader discipline as shields, barriers, and wards is aura. Auras are used in many contexts which seem to be unrelated, but are also part of the same larger whole. Each person has an aura, which for one with the Ability to view auras, provides the viewer with information about a person¡¯s nature. Is the subject a murderer, untrustworthy, prone to violence, cowardly, or easily manipulated? An aura can show all those things and more, both negative and positive. It would not tell you who was murdered by the subject, only a relative scale of how murderous the subject is in both inclination and success rate.


    Aura, when used in a seemingly different context, is a force of will, imposing one¡¯s existence and desires upon reality. Highly charismatic and stalwart individuals are best suited for using auras. Technically, it draws upon the first meaning of aura, somehow manifesting and manipulating it outward into a larger area and used for some task. While a shield may block a fireball, and a barrier may sap its strength, an aura would make people or objects within its range more resistant to fire and heat. Conversely, they may be used on enemies to make them weaker to said fire and heat. They can be used to make people braver, induce a slight regeneration effect, provide people with stamina, make people more perceptive, and so forth. Likewise, any positive effect for allies can be imposed as a negative effect for enemies.


    A person manifesting an aura tends to have a certain volume it can use. A sphere is simple, but for a person standing on the ground, half of a sphere is wasted down in the dirt or too far above one¡¯s head. For a Copper, that is the best they can do. A Silver can stretch an aura into better shapes, such as a cylinder. A Gold just tends to do all the same things but better, with much more finesse and stamina. What separates the Gold from the Platinum is how a Platinum¡¯s aura looks more like a collection of tentacles or roots that stretch out super far and touch only what they need to. Few are those who are [Aura Twisters], yet ever in demand are their Skills, for they compliment shields, barriers, and wards nicely.


    All of these techniques tend to work flawlessly on unattended objects. For instance, a shield is great at stopping an arrow from a normal person, for once an arrow leaves the bow, it is no longer part of that person. A bonafide [Archer] has no such shortcomings, for their arrows remain part of them during the flight of the arrow, and thus, the Abilities used on the arrow contest those of the shield. Mass archers tend to be terrible, but throw a few [Archers] in their mix, and they can overload a shield if the [Shield Mage] has grown complacent.


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    Shields that break eat a lot more mana than those that stop a projectile, and so most ranged combatants focus on breaking shields so that melee attackers can close in on their foes. Auras are used to support the troops and suppress the enemy, usually from the safety of the rear. Barriers and wards supplement even further, softening blows or restricting very specific things that perhaps you otherwise have no counter to. In short, these four techniques are the cornerstone to military strategy when it comes to magically supplementing defense.


    Why is all this information important? The enemy, dubbed ¡®The Devourers¡¯, emits an aura of decay that strips flesh from bone. As an aura, if it is to spread out far horizontally, it won¡¯t be able to go very high. Since the fortress has no dome on it, we need shields to keep the enemy bottled up so that they cannot simply fly away. While the battle will rage on the ground and at the fortress¡¯s high roads (which crass individuals may call ¡°walls¡±), there will be a completely separate battle taking place for the skies. Most likely, dragons from the various flights will shoulder that burden, for there are no better aerial combatants than dragons. Says me, the unbiased dragon, who in no way hates pesky birds and how they have the audacity to think that they could ever contest the skies and soar with their betters.


    Furthermore, the defense of the fortress will require hundreds, if not thousands, of [Shield Mages] to keep things running at all hours of the day. However, my skill and indeed Skills at [Enchanting] can help lessen that burden, creating an environment that shoulders much of the heavy lifting required on the ol¡¯ mana pools to keep things running smoothly. It is a little complex, and involves more exposition, but bear with me.


    Generally speaking, most people cannot effectively charge up magical objects or other people with mana, except for [Batteries], which are highly coveted and protected Blessings. I can charge up my own devices rather efficiently because I made them and they have my mana signature. Should I want others to charge up my devices, I would have to explicitly design each enchanted object to be able to receive mana from specifically attuned individuals if I want people to dump mana into my S.M.A.R.T. crystal network, which is not feasible on such a large scale at this point in my life.


    Most people are not perfectly efficient at using their mana on some sort of Skill. Waste mana from a Skill is freely available in the area around a person, but most people do not have the means to tap into it because it is ¡°dirty¡± and tainted with a person¡¯s unique mana signature. Given enough time, that signature fades. The floor and high roads of the fortress are filled with S.M.A.R.T. crystals that are specifically designed to siphon off this unused mana, so that it can be used for the defense of the fortress. In an environment where hundreds of thousands of combatants are using their mana as fast as they can get it, the mana that will be accumulated this way will be substantial. A typical veteran soldier wastes about 25 to 35 percent of their mana with any Skill, and if I can collect approximately half of that wasted mana, I have access to about one-eighth of all mana used by friendly forces, which is no small sum when providing power to shields and such.


    The crixtali are masters at collecting waste mana. They also excel at enchantments that push or pull objects, which they used extensively in their cities for transportation of people and supplies. Gravity-powered trolleys were all the rage, with lift stations every now and then to get them back up in elevation. They had also mastered pneumatic tubes for deliveries, with magic providing the pushing power and the means to handle losses in pressure and collisions. These sneaky innovations bypass the restrictions placed by the gods on certain forms of technology.


    The latter part is what I need the most help with, making my enchantments ¡°smart¡± so that they can respond to stimuli and situations. It is easy to make a button open a door, harder to make a motion-detection enchantment so a door opens automatically as a person approaches. The difficulty further increases when only authorized individuals can open the door, and it is compounded further when dealing with tailgating by unauthorized individuals. I have the raw power and Skill to make such enchantments, but the logistics of programming them the way I want them to work involves much pain and hardship for the trial and error needed to see how they work in practice.


    I spent two weeks with these [Matrix Weavers], and together with many other [Shield Mages] and [Enchanters], I learned a great deal about best practices in how to make things play nice. The saurkin were very keen to understand my enchantments that collected and dispensed biological waste to approved areas via teleportation, oftentimes while said waste was still inside the body. Despite their best efforts, they had never solved that issue via enchantments, and many a saurkin has spent their youth shoveling leavings from their many large dinosaurs. Some saurkin joked that such a boon of information was in and of itself enough to justify the treaty we had signed, and indeed, I had greatly endeared myself to them with just that simple enchantment.


    A great exchange of gifts took place, each [Matrix Weaver] or [Enchanter] both flexing their techniques while also providing each other with working examples. We were all eager to go try out our new ideas, and I am sure I was not the only one who secreted himself away to conduct experiments. The arms race to hit the market with the latest and greatest enchanted objects was on, and I found myself excited to see what solutions to everyday problems the other [Enchanters] would come up with.


    In truth, I invited them to World¡¯s End because I wanted to use them for ideas on how to apply my Skills, for I remained confident I could produce goods more efficiently than they could, and that my wares would be of higher quality. They would still earn a profit for now, but in time, they would find few options to avoid financial ruin but to join my Crossroad Consortium. Such a gambit on my own prowess was why I could afford to make such enticing offers to lure them here in the first place. It isn¡¯t that they simply couldn¡¯t pack up and leave, but by that point their true capabilities would be known, and they would doubtlessly be scooped up by some [Noble] and press-ganged into service long before they ever returned to their ancestral homes. Honestly though, they will stand to make huge sums of money if they work for me, and they will be free to tinker with innovations, just as long as they follow my rules.


    One could say that I had a conflict of interests. The longer the war lasts, the more money I make. However, if we lose the war, every single one of us will die. Such a prospect has never stopped an enterprising merchant in the past, and so everyone gambled on how long we could drag things out and how high we could raise prices before we triggered the collapse of our defense. I like to think that, in those days, the only way to beat them was to join them. While I received generous sums of money from the united efforts of the nations of the world to keep World¡¯s End running, the costs were still staggering and I was not flush with expendable capital.


    Long-term, I needed to ensure that World¡¯s End found itself as the center of trade on a vast network of roads, and likewise as the hub of education, research, and production of quality wares. Otherwise, it would turn into a ghost town the minute the war ended, for it was not otherwise in a strategically viable location. The wastelands have little of significant economic value to offer. If I could enchant the shit out of everything and pump in enough water, I may be able to turn it into valuable real estate.


    Likewise, the Ashlands around World¡¯s End are not much better, but that territory is contested on the coasts by civilization and within its borders by The Bone Wardens, who graciously did not raise a fuss about my intrusion when I made World¡¯s End and World¡¯s Hope, but their tolerance and magnanimity only extend so far. I would need to become fast friends with them in the near future and find a way to collaborate so that I do not overstay my welcome.


    Auspicious, one may find events, that a large army of undead were found marching through the Ashlands towards my road, and from there, south to World¡¯s End. The road continues around the city to World¡¯s Hope, which I wagered was their final destination. Unless a bunch of necromancers popped out of their hidey-holes and decided now was the time to conquer the world, the army of undead had to be led by The Bone Wardens. Their advance made people nervous, and so I was forced away from my experiments to at least make sure they were not here to sack my city or cause a ruckus.


    The undead were all skeletons, not a scrap of meat or skin to be found on them. Most were skeletons of people, but there were also large beasts and even a few dragons among them. It is hard to tell if the dragon skeletons are actually dead dragons or living ones using some sort of Skill. My money says mostly the former, with a few of the latter snuck in. The humanoids generally each occupy a two foot by three foot rectangle on my roads, which was about 35 abreast. That is around 30,000 or so a mile, and even as I fly out to meet them, the marching column stretches for as far as the eye can see. The good news is they never tire, the bad news is that northbound traffic has to pull over and wait for any army that is over 50 miles long to march by. Literally over a million skeletons were advancing upon World¡¯s End. That would explain what has happened to all the skeletons that had been shipped south for the past couple decades.


    The good news is that skeletons don¡¯t eat, poop, or need to bathe. The bad news is that they creep people out. They would make for quiet, if eerie, neighbors in the various camps at World¡¯s Hope. I imagine as more soldiers die, they will find little in the way of final rest for their weary bones. We were slated to have over half a million mortal defenders, and through the centuries, more people would show up, which would help to keep up demand for ¡°fresh recruits¡± in the armies of undead.


    Historians would come to call this ¡°The War of Bone and Ash¡±. We who fought in it would call it ¡°The Skeleton War¡±.

 Chapter 94

    ¡°By Berxerxes¡¯ balls! If someone had said I would one day escort an Emperor to meet an army of a million skeletons at the end of the world, I would have laughed in their face.¡±


    As the Knight Commander of the newly formed Crossing Guard, I am obligated to escort the Emperor on official meetings with potential threats. Everyone knows I stand the same chance of making a difference in a fight as a shark¡¯s bark in a choir. We are just a bunch of shiny tin soldiers on display, all 100 of us. Not a single one of us is better than Gold, and I only barely qualify for that metric. But hey, when someone handsome offers to buy out your mercenary contract and outfit you to the gills with the best enchanted equipment you have ever seen, you don¡¯t say no.


    It is rather comfortable for full plate armor. Unlike standard issue armor, it doesn¡¯t come in the classic two sizes: ¡®too big¡¯ and ¡®too small¡¯. It is more flexible than it ought to be, and it regulates temperature and keeps me dry. Nanu smashed me ¡°lightly¡± with her tail once during training. I bounced a good way, but got right back up, feeling more embarrassed than hurt, such is its quality. Dropped my sword point first on the ground once just to see what would happen. It sank right up to the hilt, easy as you please. A girl can pray that she lives to retire and gets to keep her equipment, but if this skeleton army gets even a smidge uppity, we mortals are toast.


    The Emperor¡¯s confidence shines like a beacon to us all. Casually sitting on his road in his draconic form, towering well above any of us, he patiently waits with a smile on his face, a toothy one on account that dragons don¡¯t have significant cheeks or lips. Gods, I wonder what it would feel like if he sank those fangs into me.


    ¡°Bah, get yourself together, Jericho!¡±


    Perhaps that is the ¡°maiden¡± part of my [Shield-Maiden] Blessing getting the better of me, although I cast off the burden of being a maiden when I was 14. Life was hard and winters lean in the Steppes of Strife, but also exciting and rewarding. Now I am so far from home and in way over my head, but the Emperor never complains that I am a lacking commander or combatant. He would probably just eat me if I were, for I have never heard of him firing anyone. I have only heard rumors about such terminations, and in most of them, the person simply ¡°disappears¡±. Best that I keep things straight lest I end up buried under one of his roads or worse.


    At least the bannermen aren¡¯t trembling like leaves in a gale, although the slight breeze is rocking them about. ¡°Big E¡±, as the lads and lassies of the Crossing Guard call him, finally settled on a banner. Black border, the black silhouette of a dragon walking to the right across a bridge, with a golden yellow background the same color as his scales, all in a big rectangle with a triangular bottom (as are most banners these days). There have been other iterations and designs, but this one seems to be what will stick.


    For the Crossing Guard, we got an octagon with a dragon facing forward and holding up his hand in a gesture to halt. It has a white border, a red background, and a white dragon with black lines to give it shape. Instead of a flag, it is a sheet of metal on a stick we can hold up towards people to tell them to stop. Usually works, and when it doesn¡¯t, our spears usually convince people to comply with our directives.


    Not that I could stop the seemingly unending army that approaches. The Ashlands offer slightly rolling hills, and we stand on one with a commanding view. I see nothing but ash and a bunch of skellie boys as far as the eye can see, and by the gods, I hope they are on our side or we are right and truly fucked. It is only about a quarter mile away now and it shows no sign of stopping.


    Now they are a hundred feet away and closing fast, for they move at a trot. My fellow guards and I flinch as a dragon¡¯s roar is heard in the distance. With our eyes skyward, we see one appear, its body gradually becoming visible as if it had moved through some sort of wall of invisibility. It banks left and disappears just the same, only to reappear as it circles back in an all-too-familiar posture that displays that it is trying to land. In one hand it clutches a tiny rod that it waves frantically for no apparent purpose. I suspect that he is invisible to an onlooker at a certain range, for he waxed and waned in my vision at seemingly the same relative distance.


    The lead skeleton, no different than any other, aside from how it carries a large banner of its own, walks right into Big E, its body continuing the motion of walking as best it can despite having hit a very solid leg of a rather immovable dragon. The rest of the skellies freeze in place in the middle of marching, none of them moving even an inch forward as their leader¡¯s momentum is arrested.


    ¡°Stop, damn you!¡± the gray dragon shouts as he waves his rod upon landing. In a flash of gray light, he transforms into a humanoid, the rod now very large in his grasp to almost be a quarterstaff, although it remains a bit too girthy to be practical. He approaches the lead skeleton and bonks it on the head with the staff, to no noticeable effect.


    ¡°The command is ¡®halt¡¯, not ¡®stop, damn you¡¯, dear brother.¡± We jump as another presumed dragon walks up from the right. We never saw her land, at least I did not, nor did she kick up as much ash with the wind from her wings, but Big E seemed to not be startled by her approach.


    ¡°Oh that rat bastard. Now I know why he was smiling when he handed me the rod. I swear I will get him back for this.¡±


    ¡°Decorum dictates poise and civility, brother. We stand before an Emperor.¡± The woman bows low, right arm bent at the elbow with hand straight, the limb aligned such that it goes all the way to her shoulder, the other arm behind her back and parallel to the ground. ¡°Hail, magnificent Emperor of the Crossroad Wayfinders. Emperor Ossimandias of the Bone Wardens extends his greetings to you. This one is Princess Tibulmandias of The Bone Wardens, and this one to my right is my brother, Prince Femandias. Father regrets not establishing diplomatic ties sooner, but here we are to remedy that unfortunate development. Additionally, we have brought with us an army to help defend our world. We request that you grant us passage so that we too may fulfill our role in protecting our home.¡±


    ¡°Salutations, Tibulmandias of The Bone Wardens.¡± The Emperor spoke calmly and clearly, his voice deeper and more soothing in his draconic form, yet bereft of any malice or intimidation as he gave voice to his thoughts. ¡°I appreciate the efforts of Ossimandias and all members of The Bone Wardens for the war effort and the sacrifice of some of your territory for World¡¯s End and World¡¯s Hope. I would be delighted if we would find ourselves as friends and allies before too long.


    ¡°In the spirit of opening diplomatic channels between our flights, do you wish to stay and chat or to reconvene at some other time? If the former, then worry not, for no one else is scheduled to come this way for some time. Furthermore, if you are staying, then your brother may wish to issue the proper command to stop his army lest it walk away.¡±


    The Emperor¡¯s smile widened as he motioned his head to the lead skeleton that still endeavored to continue its forward progress, its body ever abutting the giant leg in front of him as it marched in place. I could feel a heatwave from the male visitor dragon as it surely blushed in embarrassment. He fumbled with his rod before firmly issuing the command ¡°halt¡±, which had the prompt and desired effect of stopping the army. A great ripple traveled down the line of skeletons, their bodies, once frozen in their posture mid-perambulation, setting feet to ground as they came to a standing position. Eerie how none of them twitch or move at all afterwards.


    Then Big E, in a flash of gold light, transforms into his human form. Outfitted in sensible and beautiful clothes of bright, metallic yellow and dark black, his decorum comes across as ready for either travel or relaxation, yet commanding and noteworthy, without the trappings of appearing gaudy or pretentious like most [Nobles] do. Bunch of silkpants, that lot is, but not Big E.


    By contrast, now that I can see better without a big fucking dragon in my way, the Prince and Princess are more mysterious. Their bodies are covered head to toe in bandage wrappings, even their faces, yet that does not seem to impede their senses. The Princess wears an open gray robe, or perhaps a stylized trench coat, which extends to past her knees, along with some rather short shorts and sandals, the whole outfit gray. The Prince wears a jacket, with sleeves too short such that they only go halfway from his elbow to his wrists, and the midriff only goes down to his navel. Like his sister, he wears it open, but his shorts go almost to his knees. His shoes are gray much like the rest of his outfit, but more like slippers of some kind of crocodile or perhaps alligators.


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    Their faces are surprisingly expressive, which is probably due to the illusions at play that mimic eyes and eyebrows, the eyes being white with black borders and no irises or pupils. They display shape and appear more cartoonish than realistic, yet they portray emotions suitably well.


    Big E summons forth a black void, a single pane of nothingness that floats in the air, and from it, he draws forth a table and four chairs, complete with refreshments. For a moment, I wondered who would take the fourth chair, hoping that it would be me, then hoping that it would not be me. However, my hesitation proved moot as Skull appeared out of Big E¡¯s shadow and took her seat by his side.


    ¡°Now then, I hope we can all relax and speak plainly. This courtly language is a tad stifling, don¡¯t you agree?¡±


    I understand why Big E could not offer his honor guard chairs. We just suffer in silence as we stand here at the ready. At least the armor is comfortable and keeps my muscles relaxed, a far cry from the stiffness that comes with standing guard in mundane equipment. Joke¡¯s on them though, I have a book on the inside of my shield, and the Skills to surreptitiously read it and turn the pages without moving or being too distracted to pay attention to my surroundings. The slightest twitch on my part as I angled my shield for a better view of my literature caught the attention of the Princess, and I swear she gave me a wink as I resigned myself for potentially more hours standing out here.


    <hr>


    The Shadow Path offers many delights and opportunities. I had no name for it before Master¡¯s riccen associates talked shop with me at one point. It seems like as good a name as any for it, for it is less of a specific place and more of a connection of places with paths in between.


    Take a farm for instance. Fields big as fuck all in the real world, maybe a stone¡¯s throw in the Shadow Path, for a field full of turnips is hardly noteworthy. Take a building with some history to it, a place where lives were changed, and it looms like a towering fortress, much larger than in the real world. I saw a barber shop in Berkerin that was rumored to be a location where a certain gang conducted interrogations; that place was easily four times as large as it should have been.


    Sometimes, you see echoes of the past in the Shadow Path. Conversations that people had, acted out by ghostly images. Maybe you see something simpler, like where a mighty predator, decrepit with age and little more than skin and bones, drew its last breaths as it lay down and died. Everything noteworthy, everything that tells a larger story, seems to add weight to the Shadow Path and leave an impression upon it, so there is much to learn if one treads it. Often, it raises more questions than it answers, for the contexts of the scenes displayed there are never explained.


    Master¡¯s [Kuroko] kobolds use it all the time; that¡¯s part of how they sneak into places. Doors are not always closed or locked in the Shadow Path. Riccen [Shadowfoot Pads], [Shadow Footpads], and [Shadowpads] use it too, even though they are all wildly different Blessings. Leave it to riccen to somehow be so shifty that the names of their Blessings are even misleading. One of them started to explain the difference between them to me once, but I can¡¯t keep it straight in my head. In short, the only thing they have in common is that they walk the Shadow Path.


    Other things lurk here too. A normal person may describe them as ¡°scary¡± or ¡°the stuff of nightmares¡±, but none have ever given me a problem. To be fair, I am prudent enough to not get too close to them, for the kobolds tell tales of how some of their own have gone missing after they ventured through lairs of these unknown entities.


    I can tell what happens in the real world just fine. There is currently a vast legion of skeletal undead upon the road. There are also various [Shades], [Specters], and [Wraiths] that travel with them, but I know not what specific creatures they represent, for they are too closely bunched together to identify what creatures spawned them upon death. I do not know their purpose, but they certainly appear to be ¡°domesticated¡±, for lack of a better description.


    It probably has something to do with this big fucking dragon that walks beside them. It could be anywhere from a Duke to a King, if I were to guess, for each flight has their own design principles and each individual dragon has their own Blessing that may adjust the size of the body. Interesting, I would say, how its body is made of shadow and lines of white, more like a cartoon like you see in those gnomish newspapers than a thing in the real world. Even though I watched the dragon closely, I almost lost it as it moved to my Master¡¯s right. Its parting wink caught my attention, then it turned into a humanoid and left the Shadow Path.


    After pleasantries were exchanged and Master set a chair for me to join the grownups, I decided that I too should make an entrance. Normally, I would wear the armor I usually wear, but I doubt hostilities will break out and I can¡¯t pass this opportunity to fuck with everyone. I do so love toying with Master and flustering him with my whole ¡°submissive¡± routine.


    Instead of conventional armor for war, I wear a different suit of ¡°armor¡±, the kind a woman wears on the battlefield of love and desire. Stockings, garter straps, underwear that covers little, a bodice that props up my ¡°honka donka badonkas¡±, as Chooka so eloquently put it one time. Finish the outfit off with my leather choker, one so thick that some may call it a collar, especially considering the chain that extends from it which I will place in Master¡¯s hand, and the ensemble is sure to be as erotically enticing as it is embarrassing for him.


    Plus, if things turn violent, I have the item Master gave me that will allow me to instantly switch my outfit with my armor and sword, so no problems there. Even if they cheap shot me with an attack, I will probably regenerate through the damage if it doesn¡¯t kill me outright. Additionally, if I put on a good enough show, their lust-driven brains won¡¯t even be able to think about conflict. Dragons tend to be easy like that.


    I start off simple. Chain firmly in my Master¡¯s hand, I quietly scooch my chair closer so as to ensure that the chain has sufficient slack in it. Much closer. I snuggle up to him, his arm safely nestled into my bosom as I make eyes at his two guests. A subtle bite of the lower lip when they aren¡¯t looking directly at me does the trick. Now, I have their attention, and their fake eyes rarely stray.


    My audience sufficiently captivated, I turn my gaze elsewhere, where I see that Master put some refreshments out on the table. I reach for some cheese sticks, but since they are so far away, I have to slide up onto the table, my legs spread and hips rotated backwards so as to showcase my backside. I then rotate onto my side, my upper leg bent at the knee so as to showcase what delights I have to offer. I then put the cheese stick, the whitest one I could find, over a candle, so that it starts to melt.


    ¡°Clumsily¡±, I fail to notice that the melted cheese drips onto my panties, then onto my exposed bosom, only for the last drops of it to land on my face.


    ¡°Oops,¡± I say coyly as I dab at it with my free hand, only to smear some around while the rest goes from my finger to my mouth as I suck it off. The cheese stick then follows, the whole length of it inserted into my mouth and swallowed hole, a skill that Chooka has helped me master.


    I eye up Master¡¯s guests, whom at this point have seemingly lost track of the conversation as they eye me up and down. Careful not to bring the chain taunt, I roll over towards them, ending with my legs spread wide and my arms down and behind me to prop me up, my back bent to really showcase my goods.


    ¡°I seem to have made a mess of myself. Would you two care to help me clean up?¡±


    Their fake eyes, so expressive, I need not see their faces under those bandages. Curiosity, desire, lust, embarrassment, and more flicker through those illusions as they contemplate the pros and cons of taking me, or at least taking me up on the offer.


    With a yelp, I slide back across the table, Master finally having enough of my games as he reels me in. He places his free hand around my neck, sadly not firmly enough to choke me. He admonishes me, but through our bond, I can feel his true emotions. He wants me, and he struggles as greatly as his guests to subdue his lust lest he behave in an unseemly manner.


    He leans in closer, his breath upon my neck getting even me all hot and bothered. I had started all this just to fuck with them, but now, I feel so alive, empowered, as I bent all of them to my will and wrapped them around my little finger. All three of them want to ravish me right here and right now on this very table, and yet none of them can do so. Social graces dictate they refrain from such crass indulgences.


    Also, the horde of monsters heading our way also are putting a damper on things. Any moment now, the Crossing Guard will notice them. The dragons have all made eyes in that direction, and frustration mounts as my closing act is upstaged by a totally fucking random spawning of monsters that just happen to be nearby and pissed at us.


    I want my sword to sing forth my rage at the interlopers, but alas, we will have to sit and watch while the toy soldiers handle the riff-raff. Although, monsters being slain in the background would add to the fantasy of three dragons having their way with me. Perhaps there is a way I can wrangle this in my favor. It would be a shame if in all the chaos, I experienced a wardrobe malfunction and happened to land on top of one of them.

 Chapter 95

    ¡°But the night is dark, the air possessed of an unpleasant chill, and the road home is long and lonely. I invite you to stay, to mend one more thing that the passing of time could not. My bed has room to spare for another warm body, if you would join me.¡±


    ¡°I have a tool for every purpose you need of me. For your fences, my hammer and saw brought them into suitable repair to keep your livestock penned. For your gate, my wrenches and files brought it into alignment so that it would shut smoothly. And for your broken heart, I have yet another tool to mend it as well.¡±


    Brongam then pulled Genthel close, his arms enclosed around her as his final ¡®tool¡¯, firm and ready for use, pressed against her. Her heart too would find itself mended, and Brognam, a master when using his tools, knew just how to employ his craft. His smile widened, the light of the fire reflecting on his sharp teeth that were mere inches away from the naked flesh of her neck. He held her tighter as he pulled her to¡­


    ¡°To arms! Monsters approach!¡±


    ¡°Fuck, just when I got to the good part!¡±


    I quickly closed my book and anchored it securely to the inside of my shield as I started shouting orders. It was inspiring to know that the lookouts took their job seriously, for to be blindsided when attackers had no cover for their approach would be a stain on the honor of the Crossing Guard that would never be removed.


    ¡°Wheel left, shieldwall! Sergeants, take command of your lines! Reposition on the Emperor, let no harm come to him!¡±


    We hustled, just like we had trained, to reposition such that we were no longer to the rear and sides of the Emperor, but rather in formation on his left flank and facing the oncoming monsters. 80 of us stood in the shieldwall, with another 20 in reserve and to catch anything that slipped past us.


    Big E just sat there at the table with his guests, not even a look of concern lighting on his face while the good men and women of the Crossing Guard put their lives on the line to defend him. Undoubtedly, he could kill all the monsters by himself, or the million skeletons could pitch in and win this handedly, but I understood his position. To render aid to us was to admit that we were insufficient to protect him, which would ultimately reflect poorly on him and make him appear weak or incapable of securing strong allies and underlings. For a dragon, such a weakness could invite challengers, and there were already enough matters on his plate to attend to.


    ¡°You took the Emperor¡¯s coin, now it''s time to earn it. Let¡¯s send these bastards back to whatever pit they crawled out of.¡±


    A resounding cry met my ears, a mixture of cheering and enthusiasm. Though the enemy remained daunting, they would serve as an ample whetstone to sharpen our new Skills and test our limits as both individuals and as a newly formed team. We had shiny new toys that we had only ever used in sparring, and each of us itched to test them in a real fight. Though sudden and unpredicted, a real fight had found us much sooner than anticipated. Morale was high, and we were more than up to the challenge.


    Flares were launched, hundred of them, to litter the area and provide illumination, for night had fallen. Though the stars shone brightly, little other natural light offered any visibility, for the two moons were on the other side of the planet at this hour. And illuminate the enemy our flares sure did. Dozens of them, monstrosities of flesh, a wall of fangs, claws, horns, tentacles, and fury descended upon us.


    While I am not an expert on monsters, for they are myriad in form and origin, these were clearly [Chimeras]. No two looked alike, but all were a hodgepodge collection of parts from various animals and beasts. Though some appeared whimsical and impractical, all were focused on a single task; they wanted to feast upon our flesh and were not squeamish about how they went about it.


    We have no standard, nor an aquilifer to hold it high. Likewise, we have no true banners, just mundane ones that serve as a symbol to rally behind. Each of us could call upon our own Blessings, and so we could employ a versatile range of Abilities in both capacity and power. Such abundance can become unwieldy for the best of commanders, and I fully admit that I am not the best. Only months ago, I was a captain in the Pillars of Strife, and I had fewer men under my command. Now, 99 others look to me for leadership, and I pray that they do not find me lacking.


    ¡°First rank, fire!¡± I roared, my voice somehow carrying over the rumble of limbs thudding into the earth and the shrieks and bellows of the various beastial parts of these monsters.


    The full gamut of our Abilities that could hit at range sallied forth. Great plumes of fire engulfed huge swathes of the monstrous horde, while lances of ice pierced flesh and broke bone. Sprays of acid sent the enemy to rampage blindly while skin melted, and spikes of earth erupted in their path to impale the unwary. Vines wrapped around unfortunate limbs, their thorns delivering pain and the promise of a slow death via poisonous payloads. Ethereal blades, as if wielded by invisible warriors, cut through the enemy with impeccable skill. A menagerie of beasts fell to the myriad of Skills we could each bring to bear.


    Yet despite their losses, the monsters did not lose heart, and soon, they closed into melee. Front and center, I angled my shield to block the attack of¡­ whatever it is. Goose necks and heads for legs, attached to a scorpion-like body with bear heads for pincers and praying mantis arms for its tail, it somehow managed to evade the salvo we had launched its way, only for it to crash into me. Big as a bull and twice as angry as any I had ever seen in the great herds of my people, the collision slid me backwards a good eight feet before I halted its advance. Fortunately, those behind me braced instead of falling on their asses, for such a blunder could prove deadly in a fight. No one wants to be trampled to death by friends and allies alike. Well, I know people who enjoy being trampled, but not to this extreme nor in this context.


    While my sword was nice and all, they were the weapons of choice for duels and small skirmishes. In the shieldwall or in the battlefield, spears and other polearms tend to be king. However, I always preferred the axe. Specifically, I use a labrys, one of such size and weight that a puny human would need two hands to wield it. Being strong, even for an orc, and a [Shield-Maiden] besides, I naturally needed a shield to go with it, but it did not stop me from using it in one hand. If anything, the weight of my shield offered a great anchor to balance myself, for my swings were mighty and the effects of it far-reaching.


    My first blow came down on the bear''s head on its left side. I felt much more inclined to leave the other one alone for now, for it would find my shield to be an impassable bulwark while I dismembered its brother. Straight into the ash went the head of my axe, for I had underestimated how well it could cleave through flesh and bone. The bear¡¯s head, now severed from its mortal coil, fell to the ground and rolled, where a goose¡¯s neck tripped upon it, causing the monster to stumble.


    The remaining head roared in pain and anger, and it rammed into my shield impotently. I readied a reply to the head of the bear, the head of my axe being the candidate to distribute reprisal liberally, but instead I had to [Interpose] myself to my ally on my left who had been on the receiving end of a ball of spider heads, complete with their poisonous mandibles and beady eyes.


    I was no true [Commander]. I had no Skills to allow me to see the battlefield as a whole, to issue orders from a distance or to form cunning tactics to outmaneuver my foes. I led from the front, trusting the men and women by my side to do their best. But I did know how to protect the person to my left and right, for that is where the [Shield-Maiden] excels. The spider-ball monster, more like a tumbleweed of hate and hunger than any true creature, found itself sent flying as my shield bashed into it, and several heads looked down for the count due to the violent nature of our exchange.


    My previous dance partner took offense to how I failed to show it the proper level of attention, and indignant honks signaled another attack coming my way. The bear head lunged with a deceptive degree of length, the arm supporting it stretching unnaturally far. It circled around my right arm to bite me in the shoulder, but it failed to account for the good men and women in the two ranks behind me and the spears they wielded. Skewered thrice over, the bear head found itself soon pinned to the ground, the light fading from its eyes as death scooped the bear into a cold embrace.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    The rest of the scorpion-goose-bear-mantis seemed more lively than I cared for, and it brought its tail to the forefront of our exchange while I found myself still trying to recover from my maneuver to save my ally. The tail shot straight towards me, and the arms of the mantis unfolded with lethal intent and lighting speed. My shield, ever trustworthy, blocked it perfectly, for certain definitions of perfection.


    Though I remained unharmed, it held my shield firmly in its grasp, and with me firmly clinging to my shield, I found myself yanked off my feet and upwards as the monster¡¯s tail retracted. My armor proved sufficient in the coming moments, at least to protect me from grasping claws and hungry maws as it lowered me to the host of monsters behind it. Never releasing my shield, I flailed my axe at anything hungry or curious enough to dare approach. Though scores found purchase upon my armor, none managed to penetrate, which I consider fortunate.


    What I consider unfortunate is the dismay and irritation of my captor, who proceeded to whip me about and slam me into the earth repeatedly. The armor remained pristine, but my body bouncing around inside of it experienced a different outcome. Battered and bruised, I found myself relieved from the burden of command or finding my way out of my current situation, for a spear to the tail by virtue of my allies coming to my aid had seen the life of the mantis portion of the monster extinguished, its grip slackened, and my body sailing towards the heavens.


    Despite all the enchantments on my equipment, none dared to defy gravity, and with my own Blessing providing no remedy other than the conventional response to such a situation, I quickly fell back to earth, deep in the ranks of the misjudged dozens of monsters. There were at least¡­ many dozens, for it is hard to count when spinning wildly.


    Hungry monsters grasped at my falling form, and although I scarcely have any fat on my frame, my ample muscle and thick armor provide a great deal of weight to amplify the kinetic force of my momentum. Something ¡®crunchy¡¯, as I believe it to be, given the crunching sound of its body breaking beneath me as I fell to earth, let out a horrible shriek before falling silent. However, its nearby kin held no hesitation to seize the opportunity presented by its misfortune. Bastards didn¡¯t even let me properly stand up before they were upon me.


    Shield and axe swinging, I roared in challenge as I let loose my fury. Though it hungered for my surrender, I did not let the [Bloodlust] so common to my kind consume me. My rage was natural, my fury vindicated by the harsh onslaught of my foes, but my body found itself bolstered by my own Skills and unwavering refusal to lay down and die. No supernatural ¡®gifts¡¯ for me, let Grel¡¯la¡¯kel shut the doors of its great halls to me before I fall prey to Dundlegrak and his promise of power.


    Battered, slightly dazed, my vision blurry as blood, ichor, and gore swallowed me in a tidal wave of fifth and carnage, I stuck to my training and kept moving. Always repositioning, always readying a block and counter-attack, I stayed as mobile as one could in the heat of battle and when so confined by the press of the swarm against me. I could hear the call of my allies, and if one is to be believed, the guidance of my ancestors as they sang to me the battle-song of my people.


    Swing low. Step back. Shield Up. Turn and push. Instinct meshed with training, my own experience found itself melded with the wisdom of the ancients as I fought not for the Emperor, not for the Crossing Guard, but for one more breath of air in my lungs to give me energy, one more beat of my heart to send my blood thundering through my veins for the strength I needed to press on, one more second to live my life on the knife¡¯s edge.


    My axe swung, and heads rolled. My shield smashed into flesh, and flesh found itself wanting in such a contest. The struggle to survive became freedom, and in freedom, I found the strength to keep fighting until I met my bitter end. Sprays of acid found their caustic natures rendered impotent upon my armor, streaks of lightning were rendered as little more than static in the background of my fight, gouts of flame were but the warmth of torch on a dark night, and fang and claw were no more than the tingling crescendo of rain from a passing storm.


    I felt on top of the world, invincible, for this armor was beyond comparison. My shield remained unblemished, the gore upon it sliding off as if magically cleaned of grime. My axe found no limb it could not vanquish, no foe it could not¡­ okay, axe is gone now. My sword found no limb it could not vanquish, no foe it could not strike down as I purchased each inch back to my own lines with my very sweat and blood. Though my wounds mounted, mostly from things smashing into me, I had received worse from lovers who were too timid for my taste when it came to mixing pain with pleasure.


    I was close now, only a few steps away from the wedge of troops that fought their way to me, only for my world to be ripped out from under me as something big latched on from behind and pulled me back. A maw like no other held me, one with teeth in every direction and all down its massive gullet. Some kind of large worm, it slammed its body to the ground, and me with it, as its teeth rent and tore at my armor, their sharp and indifferent ministrations to my armor stressing the limits of what power remained for the enchantments. Dark as night inside its body, save for what utility enchantments I had to illuminate my situation, I found my sword slip from my grasp. However, it needed no wielder to deliver its bite, for where it struck flesh via the propulsion of gravity and a thrashing worm, it cut without reservation.


    Instead of trying to flee out the monster¡¯s mouth, I pushed myself deeper, my sacred quest to be the retrieval of my sword, and with it, a way out of here. ¡°When life doesn¡¯t give you enough orifices to escape a creature¡¯s innards, make your own¡±, as Dad used to say. Oddly specific advice, and perhaps he spoke from experience.


    Tricky business trying to fetch a sword inside of a creature that constantly recoils in pain from the wounds inflicted by said sword. It was as if some mad devil had constructed a bounce house full of teeth and acid and threw the whole affair off a cliff with me inside. Twice I almost grabbed it, only to have to dodge or block as the business end spun my way. I would never live it down if I found myself impaled by my own sword, if I lived at all to tell the tale.


    Let go of your shield. Trust yourself. The words offered guidance, and some [Shield-Maidens] may find it heretical, but I did as the voices guided and let go of that which had brought me so far but yet held me back. So unencumbered by mortal concerns and a big as fuck shield, I soon found the sword in my grasp. With a force of will and the use of my Blessing, I summoned my shield back to me, and it obeyed as the supernatural power that Blessings offered sent it soaring to my awaiting hand.


    Now armed and somewhat steady while also closer to the part of its body near the ground, I sunk my blade into putrid flesh and wrenched it around, ripping and tearing my way free from the flesh-prison of the worm, which in hindsight, sounds like a great name for a band¡¯s album.


    Sweet, fresh, rejuvenating air filled my lungs as I drew my first breath of freedom. The battle still raged, its participants largely indifferent and ignorant of my recent trials and tribulations, not to mention my victories worthy of a triumph held in my honor.


    Invigorated by my recent victory, or perhaps someone¡¯s aura now that it is not blocked by a worm¡¯s body, I hacked a path back to my lines once more. The monsters were largely defeated, but they remained undaunted in their purpose to feast and murder. Blade swinging, I continued moving, for without a shieldwall of allies, mobility remained my best defense.


    My allies also worked to rescue me, their commander. I locked eyes for a moment, the small gaps in our visors providing just enough visibility for our heightened senses to perceive such fine details in the chaos. That look of sudden fear and surprise was my first clue that something was amiss.


    I tried to turn to face whatever nightmare had come for me, but I was too late. Fang and fury found purchase upon me, a great maw gripping me by my waist and shaking me like a ragdoll. The beast¡¯s jaws clenched down, and my armor strained as bones fractured. A second head, presumably of the same beast, this one seemingly canine in nature, fought over the prize that is my body, and the two heads tugged upon my broken body as muscles tore and bones shattered.


    Seconds passed in the span of an eternity before I realized I was on the ground, broken, but still alive, if the crippling pain coursing through my body were any indication. I struggled not to drown in my own blood as I gasped for air, my lungs barely functioning due to torn shards of my armor embedded within them. Tears of impotent rage coursed down my face, my frustration mounting, for I could not take one more of the bastards with me before death claimed me.


    My vision faded in and out as silence embraced me. Perhaps I had gone deaf, or perhaps the battle was over, I knew not which. Time had lost meaning, my only concern being to face my death with dignity. Perhaps a nap first would be fine, for fatigue had finally come to collect on the debt incurred by my recent struggles.


    And apparently, one other had come for me. Standing over me was Big E himself, his expression showing concern but his motions calm and calculated. He raked his thumb over one of his canines, and with blood welling upon the wound so self-inflicted upon him, he brought that sanguine offering to my lips, now exposed due to my helmet being lost somewhere along the way.


    Fire burned through my blood as power and pain vied for domination in my battered form. Serene rage and somber defiance walked beside me, their presence somehow pleasantly familiar despite how I have never felt them before. And then, nothing but darkness. Darkness and The Void.

 Chapter 96

    Adrift in The Void, beyond time or space, darkness all around me, I waited for something, anything to happen. And yet, I saw through the darkness some vast streaks of distant light that stretched for unfathomable distances as they flickered in and out of existence. As I watched, I witnessed great beams appearing, and within them, some sort of figures that were too small to make out. Unknown entities moved along beams of light before the light faded, their fate unknown to me.


    Some were close, in a relative sense, others much farther away, but all remained well out of reach. Yet I felt something familiar and close, something as curious as it was ever hungry, but my muddled mind could not remember what it was. Two others also lingered nearby, two that were separate yet combined, a bond between them making them whole. I feel like I should know them, but my mind refused to divulge its secrets.


    Then from the darkness, light, everywhere at once, shifting through colors known and those yet unknown to me, my vision a riot of experiences and glimpses of things long since past and perhaps those yet to come. A torrent of sensation flowed through and around me, my mind struggling to even understand the context of my situation before¡­


    Before¡­


    ¡°You going to stand there all day, lass?¡±


    I found myself standing on a path, one of rough hewn stone that offered a stepped approach to a gate in a palisade. I could see towering structures, great longhouses with decorative motifs of my people all along them. Pleasant meadows caressed by gentle breezes delivered the sweet and familiar scents of my homeland to my perception.


    My boots felt heavy, my body weary as I trudged up the steps to the door. Yet with each placement of my foot, I could feel strength return as my worldly concerns were left at the bottom of the path. Upwards I climbed, vigor and clarity returning to me with every step.


    At the top, by the gate, stood an orc both handsome and well-known. His chest was mostly bare other than trinkets that adorned him, his pants of buckskin decorated with tassels woven like those made by children. His spear held feathers at the top, each one from a different and most exotic bird, none of which I have never seen before. In his left hand he held an open scroll, and he looked upon the scroll before finally bringing his eyes to me.


    ¡°Name and purpose for your visit?¡± he asked in a clear and commanding voice.


    ¡°Jericho, and I think I died.¡±


    ¡°I see, I see.¡± The orc said as he looked down at his scroll. ¡°Says here it isn¡¯t your time yet. Sorry, Jericho, I can¡¯t let you in. As Gatekeeper of Grel¡¯la¡¯kel, I cannot let you pass, the sacred halls are barred to you until such time as the gods deem you should join them.¡±


    ¡°I,¡± I started, before a lump in my throat caught me by surprise. I should be happy I was not dead, yet I despaired that I could not join my ancestors. ¡°I understand,¡± I finished weakly, my head bowed in submissive acceptance. ¡°What now, then?¡±


    ¡°Not sure, doesn¡¯t really say much here,¡± Gatekeeper replied as he gestured to his scroll. ¡°It more or less says that you need to pick a new Blessing to go with your old one, but I don¡¯t see anyone handing them out around here, do you?¡±


    I looked around, and the two of us were alone here at the border between realities.


    ¡°I do not. Do you have any idea what I need to do?¡±


    ¡°Ah,¡± he sighed as he considered my question. ¡°Hmm, we don¡¯t hand out Blessings to people here. Go back the way you came to The Void, for that is where most creatures get their Blessings. Perhaps your choices are waiting for you there.¡±


    ¡°Gratitude, Gatekeeper,¡± I said with grim acceptance as my ears caught the telltale sounds of merrymaking coming from the great halls that were just on the other side of this gate.


    The Gatekeeper, as if sensing my dismay at being rejected, leaned his spear on his shoulder and put his hand upon my own shoulder. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it, lass. Stay true to your path, keep your word, and fight to protect what is dear to you, and you will be back here in no time. The gates will swing wide for you then,¡± he finished with a wink in his eye and a slight flick of his head to the left, a social signal of acceptance of another. Or, interpreted another way, a desire to bed someone, but a regrettable acknowledgement that now was not the time for it, given that it was accompanied by a slight twitch of his lips to show off his pronounced lower canines.


    The Gatekeeper is indeed quite handsome, and the prospect of him penetrating me with those fangs and more is quite alluring, but as he suggested, it was not my time yet. With a nod to him, he lowered his hand and resumed his post.


    ¡°Good luck, Jericho. I hope to see you here again after you live a long and fulfilling life.¡±


    I smiled at him in return, and then with our parting complete, I returned to the path down the hill. With each step, my body grew weary, my senses duller, as mortal concerns became mine once more. Onward I stubbornly marched, one foot in front of the other, until¡­


    Until¡­


    The Void. Light. Darkness once more. Time passes in unknown quantities.


    But then something new happened. Power coalesced, playful motes of it lingering just outside reach, each one similar in power but different in purpose. Clarity returned to my mind as I viewed the motes that danced and twirled around me. Some moved closer while others flew away, vanishing into the endless reaches of The Void. Yet four remained, and as they drew closer, I knew them for what they were.


    [Warcaller], [Legion], [Devastator], and [Bulwark] were the Blessings offered to me. Knowledge I never possessed before flowed through me, for I knew what they were and what they promised to provide. These were ¡®primitive¡¯ Blessings, unadorned by the customization of one¡¯s soul. Just as I tell people I am a [Shield-Maiden], the true name of my Blessing is more embellished and secret. But something else hinted at a ¡®template¡¯ of sorts, that they would evolve to be more specific around a certain theme, but what?


    Dragons! The Emperor!


    Understanding flourished within me. The Emperor had done something to me, much as he had described doing to a few of the others who were part of his inner circle. Was I now to join their ranks, my purpose now bound to his? There are far worse fates to bear, for he does keep things interesting and he can be quite ¡®attentive¡¯ to the ladies in his life, me included. Perhaps this increase in power would see him visit me more often on lonely nights.


    ¡°As good a path as any,¡± I said to myself.


    I reviewed my options further, for this choice would shape my life. [Warcaller] promised the ability to command, to rally troops, to inspire them and send them to war with determined zeal in their hearts. Strategy and tactics would be mine to understand, as well as the political intrigue needed to maneuver around the machinations of the court. It didn¡¯t really speak to me, for I was more of a fighter, not an armchair general.


    [Legion] offered the power of many. Perhaps an army of clones that would be mine to command, or perhaps my spirit investing itself into the thousands of people beside me on the battlefield, empowering and emboldening them with unity of purpose and impeccable coordination. Enticing, but I should at least review other options.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    [Devastator], a one-woman wrecking ball, hacking a path through my enemies while those under my command do their best to keep up. Less of a leader, more of a figure to strive after. It offered power, but I felt as though it would delve into [Bloodlust], that tainted boon that plagues my people. I found myself wary of such a Blessing.


    [Bulwark], a mobile fortress, nigh invincible as it slowly wears enemies down. It does call to me, but at the same time, it feels redundant with [Shield-Maiden], which is already quite durable. Plus, if it evolved further with draconic influence, that would double-down on the same features and pigeonhole me into a single role. Although, I would have no equal at the one thing I am good at.


    I contemplated my choices and what they offered. [Warcaller] would give me everything I lacked when it came to command. It would change me on a fundamental level, unleashing potential that I never had before. I would be a different person, and there was no promise I would be happy. [Legion] provided me with flexibility, for I could be my own army or bolster one I was already part of. It would allow me to continue to lead from the front, which was how I preferred things. So would [Devastator], but I would be so far forward as to be practically alone, which didn¡¯t suit me, so I scratched it off my list. [Bulwark] would make me a powerhouse at something I was already good at. I could still continue to do what I normally do, but with the added surety that I would prevail without being a chew toy for some monster.


    So what did I want? Did I want to be a commander that inspired from the rear, one who led from the front, or someone who would never be taken down ever again? I had to consider what [Shield-Maiden] already offered and how it would mesh with a second Blessing. I also had to consider how dragons had many powers at their disposal, often ones to make them hard to kill and flexible in dealing with a situation.


    [Warcaller] was a safe option. There were no downsides to taking it. I would be an effective leader, but I would grow distant from the men, be held above them rather than beside them, and I did not like the idea of alienating myself from them. [Bulwark] was also a safe option, but more in that I would probably never be defeated. That did not mean that the men and women beside me would survive or that I could do anything to protect them. That sounded like a terrible fate, to be the lone survivor every time as I am forced to watch my allies perish.


    No, [Legion] was what I needed. It was a difficult Blessing, full of uncertainty, cumbersome to use effectively because it offered too many ways to solve a problem. But with practice comes mastery, and nothing worth achieving comes without effort. It felt like the right choice, I would just have to endure sucking at it until I figured it out.


    My mind made on the matter, I extended my arm out to [Legion]. The other motes, just balls of light really, seemed peeved by my rejection. [Devastator] seemed to storm off in a huff. [Warcaller] twinkled in a way that suggested I would regret my decision. [Bulwark] appeared solemn, wishing me well but believing I had made the wrong choice, not so much mad at me as disappointed, which was honestly worse.


    [Legion], excited at being accepted, moved closer. As it drew near, it split in two, and those two split in two. The [Legion] Blessing kept dividing until they were beyond counting. They withdrew just inches before touching me, and concerned that I had messed up, I watched as they swirled and mixed, the motes of light changing in color and design until they formed a familiar shape.


    Before me, I witnessed a dragon take form, one with metallic yellow scales that each had black borders. It silently roared before flying around me, and then circling in front of me, it slammed into my chest, the form of it working its way into my very soul as it changed me on a most fundamental level.


    Power, knowledge, confidence, competency; these flowed through me, overwhelming my senses as they slowly settled in, my instincts now beyond those of a mere orc. The dragon had found a home inside me, and [Shield-Maiden] made space for a new roommate.


    [Legions of the Draconic Emperor] had marked its territory and made a claim to my soul. Strange how it used ¡°Draconic¡± instead of ¡°Dragon¡±, for the Emperor is not just like a dragon, he is a dragon. Perhaps it is semantics, and either way, it suits me just fine. Such philosophical musings about ¡°what is a dragon¡± would best be left to The Boys.


    Wait a minute. Semantics matter here. I am not just ¡°Legion¡±, but ¡°Legions¡±. How big of an army can I make or support? I could feel my new Skills, I understood what they did, and this was only the start. More Skills would come with time as I mastered the starting Skills. But even with what I had now, a smile crept onto my face as I understood the implications of what I could do. It was almost unfair, in terms of a force multiplier. I would easily be Platinum now, even without the practice of actually using my new Skills. Diamond did not feel so far away any more, that impossible dream that children chase and adults learn to forget as they smother the naivety inside of themselves with the harsh practicalities of life.


    Such aspirations were not so fanciful now. However, it would have to wait, for Skull was Platinum before she received her Dual-Blessing and she still isn¡¯t Diamond, if barely. Hard work, practice, and feats of legend would need to be my future if I were to cross that threshold. I reveled at the prospect of the climb up the mountain and onward towards the heavens.


    ¡°Alright, Void, I¡¯m done now. Let¡¯s get this show on the road.¡±


    The Void didn¡¯t answer, at least not in words. However, I felt a tug, and before long, light enveloped me, the force of it pulling me along to the unknown. But it didn¡¯t matter, for I would not be alone where I went.


    ¡°For I am Legion.¡±


    ¡°Shit, ¡°legions¡± plural! ¡®I am legions¡¯ doesn¡¯t quite roll off the tongue as well. It sounds like I never learned proper grammar. I will have to think about it.¡±


    <hr>


    ¡°Welcome back, sleepyhead,¡± I greeted Jericho as she regained consciousness.


    ¡°I,¡± she started, stopping as she took in her surroundings and examined her body.


    Her bones had realigned themselves, her organs had healed, her flesh mended to perfection. Physically, she did not appear to be more than the perfect specimen of an orcish beauty, but I could feel the power that dwelled within her. The bond too, much like Skull¡¯s, Alterez¡¯s, or that I shared with my two favorite kobolds and one solitary ogre, but one not as developed.


    ¡°Up we go,¡± I stated loudly as I reached for her forearm and pulled her up.


    ¡°Your legions are ready to command, Emperor,¡± Jericho replied solemnly as she kneeled before me. And here I took all that effort to get her standing.


    Well, not just her, lots of hers. Copies of her numbering in the hundreds formed into a formation in front of me. Surprised and intrigued, I poked the one next to her. It was no illusion, nor did it pop like Blythnin¡¯s clones when I pressed hard. I withdrew a sword from my pocket dimension and ran the copy through, only to withdraw the sword immediately. Jericho''s original, along with her nearby copies, leaned in to see what would happen. The wound sluggishly regenerated, not on par with Skull¡¯s regeneration or even my own, but fast enough that within a minute it was as if she had never been wounded. More importantly, she didn¡¯t die.


    ¡°Impressive stuff, Jericho. I will need to make you a new set of armor, but perhaps something better than the standard issue for the Crossing Guard.¡± I continued to poke at what bits of armor still functioned on her clone to see if it actually copied its defensive properties and was not just for show. To my delight, it did, seemingly to full strength, but of questionable longevity in terms of durability. ¡°Much better quality, it seems. I shall craft for you nothing but my best, Jericho, but that will take me some time, so I will get you a new suit of standard issue right away for you to use in the meantime.¡±


    Without much ceremony, I opened my pocket dimension and withdrew a footlocker, one that contained a fresh suit of armor and the accompanying clothes and accessories that went with it.


    ¡°Thank you,¡± I said to one of my Crossing Guards who had retrieved Jericho¡¯s shield and weapons, which were placed by her side.


    Everyone watched eagerly as Jericho¡¯s not-clones stripped her naked and put new clothes and armor upon her. Like a ripple, the not-your-everyday-clones updated to reflect this change, for each was now dressed as the original instead of tattered apparel. I have never seen or heard of clones that could do that, for they were a snapshot in time based on the conditions of the original when they were created.


    Out of curiosity, I took a cape out of my pocket dimension and draped it over a clone. The same effect as before occurred, and soon, all the clones and the original were wearing the cape.


    ¡°You know, Jericho, I am beginning to suspect that these are not clones. I think all of them are you. I would hazard a guess that all of you would need to die at the same time for you to perish.¡±


    The eyes of my two guests were as big as saucers as they took in all the details, which honestly, would not stay secret for long even if I had kept prying eyes away. The world was changing, and I was beginning to make waves. I would need to pillage my guests for every scrap of knowledge I could, but that could wait until a little later. It was not safe here, but for whom remained uncertain. The monsters sure were not safe, and if they came again, Jericho could handle them herself.

 Chapter 97

    ¡°You¡¯re right, they do almost look like giant crabs from up here, if one has only ever heard vague descriptions of crabs.¡±


    ¡°Except, as a general rule, crabs don¡¯t have bones, whereas those temples are made predominantly out of bones, or at least for the aesthetic veneer.¡± responded Femandias, who was more of an expert on the temples than the skeletons. Well, the skeletons aren¡¯t experts on anything, but I mean he did not know as much about skeletons as Tibulmandias.


    I soared above the Ashlands, with Nanu as my escort and Tibulmandias and Femandias as my guides. Below us, huge temples of bone walked along the ground on a myriad of legs, with the general shape of the temples and their method of perambulation reminiscent of a crab. Six of them in total began their slow migration, probably clocking in at around 3 miles per hour. Their steps were large, if slow, and they remained level and moved smoothly so as to not jostle those inside. As large as the structures were, the gentle hills of the Ashlands were relatively flat enough for them that they didn¡¯t even bother with roads.


    ¡°And that is where the pilots for the undead are housed?¡± I asked as we circled closer.


    ¡°Indeed, it is as you say, Emperor. These are not the fully functional undead you find in the wild, more of husks with the most basic of commands to make them walk themselves to where they need to be. The Bone Temple Pilots, as we call them, will be placed in special pods to remotely control individual skeletons. If you tried it, you would find that it¡¯s all in the suit that you wear, for those suits are how we map body parts on the host to those of the pilots. It gets more complicated for non-humanoid skeletons, but basically, if the pilot has the training to fight and move, the skeleton can replicate it. As you have seen from the great host of skeletons, we have plenty of spares for our ten-thousand or so pilots.¡±


    As we circled closer, more dragons from The Bone Wardens appeared into view, each as if we had invaded some private bubble of invisibility they employed. They looked my way curiously, but otherwise maintained their patrol to safeguard their treasured temples that were currently vulnerable during migration.


    ¡°I imagine the Bone Temple Pilots will see a rise in recruitment in the coming months and years, given what you said about them.¡±


    ¡°All predictions suggest as much. Either they come to us as pilots, or we wait a while and they come to us as skeletons.¡± He laughed uproariously at his own joke, and indeed, even I smirked at the grim reality of how every single defender of World¡¯s Hope that didn¡¯t get obliterated would find their bones employed in the army of skeletons. ¡°It is a safe way for [Warriors] and other individuals with martially-inclined Blessings to grow in strength without exposing themselves to risk. Not as good as the real thing, but then, they can¡¯t die while doing it.¡±


    ¡°If recruitment gets high enough, they may even pay you to be pilots,¡± I added casually, in an almost flippant manner if one were so bold as to make such accusations of the Emperor.


    ¡°Tibulmandias, write that down! Write that down! We could maybe make money off it.¡±


    ¡°Ugh, fine, but you get to be the one to bring it up at the board meeting. I can conduct the feasibility study and market research, but I am not taking the flak for it if it fails.¡±


    I had meant it as a joke, but apparently, with a sufficient imbalance of supply and demand, people will pay you to work for you, especially when it comes to strengthening one¡¯s Blessing.


    ¡°The foundations for your temples are complete,¡± I continued with a stronger degree of seriousness. ¡°They can just walk to their designated spots without issue. Pretty neat setup you have, though; I would love to see the enchantments you have running on it.¡±


    ¡°Uh,¡± Femandias replied as he shared an uncertain glance with Tibulmandias. ¡°I am not authorized to grant that request, but I could bring it up as the first item on the agenda. Perhaps your attendant, Skull, could come over to coordinate those details. We like bones, her name is literally ¡®Skull¡¯, it seems like she would be an excellent liaison.¡±


    ¡°Oh, I am certain she would love it there, but she can¡¯t stray too far from my side, you know how it is.¡±


    Two dragons gave me sad expressions at the polite rejection. Not only was Skull a peerless beauty, she contained a significant number of rare and valuable Traits that they would want to get their grubby little claws on. As Nanu had instructed me, it was inseparably implicit that a liaison between flights was going to be sexually involved with a large number of dragons from each flight, so sending a prude would be an insult. Skull was no prude, but alas, she literally could not stray far from me.


    ¡°Perhaps Jericho would work for you instead. You have already met her and she can be in several places at once, provided those places are not too far apart.¡±


    My guides considered the offer, and they apparently engaged in a private conversation before coming to a consensus.


    ¡°A most gracious offer, Emperor. We would be happy to coordinate with her.¡±


    Oh, I¡¯m sure they would ¡®coordinate¡¯ with her frequently. They may be displeased that they will need to use male bodies in such a context, for Jericho doesn¡¯t show much interest in women. But considering she could have many bodies at once, that may lead to interesting and unexplored opportunities, especially considering her fetish for biting and the extremes she wants to go with trying it. After all, only one of her copies needs to survive.


    ¡°Excellent! Now then, concerning the conclave of the flights, I was thinking¡­¡±


    <hr>


    ¡°Pips, we must make haste if we are to be punctual.¡±


    Easy for him to say, but I am the one waiting for him to finish ¡®decompressing¡¯ with me. The other three naked kobolds in the room with me offer no assistance, for they are well and truly exhausted after keeping up with Kaisadoro¡¯s appetites. I quickly learned to let others get first dibs with him so that I would not be the one zonked out. Such a suggestion took little convincing.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    It is no secret that kobolds idolize dragons, that we aspire to become dragons ourselves. You would be hard-pressed to find a kobold not eager to be bedded by a dragon, male or female. I am no exception, but in my Role as his Secretary, I at least have to maintain the appearance that I do not thirst for his attention.


    ¡°Right you are, sir. I can cancel your three o¡¯clock appointment and shuffle around your schedule if you still need more time to finish things here.¡±


    ¡°Nonsense, I will finish things here promptly.¡±


    Kaisadoro lives his whole life on a schedule. When he sleeps (which is rare because he is a dragon), when he eats, when he works, when he collects Traits, and so forth. Even when he¡­ ugh¡­ that¡¯s the spot!


    ¡°Jolly good, Pips. Excellent as always.¡±


    Finished with his task, he withdraws from me and changes from his kobold form to his human form. Both are humanoid, with all the proper bits one would expect of a humanoid, but he still prefers the basic template instead of more specialized races. Not that any kobold would ever for a moment believe him to be a real kobold, but that form works out for certain applications, as evident by those in their post-lust torpor brought on by overindulgence.


    I grab a nearby outfit off the shelf and throw it at him, dressing him almost in an instant with [Costume Change]. I likewise dress myself, including the wig of hair that is pulled back tightly into a bun. The short skirt, stockings, high heels, and glasses help complete the ¡®sexy secretary¡¯ Role, as does the padding I use to make up for what nature has not provided my race. If only I could be like Bambina, I could make it more natural instead of external, but maybe someday.


    ¡°Almost ready, sir; I just need to address one matter quickly.¡±


    I open a kobold-sized door and enter the next room, where my sister awaits me. Her appearance is identical to mine, in both the form of her body and her costume. We bring our heads close together, our gills intermingling as we tap into that unique power bestowed upon axolotl-kobolds: Role and memory exchange.


    While other humanoid races are rather attached to their Blessing, we kobolds are more flexible. The leader of the troupe can choose to advance Blessings of particular members, with different costs being associated with those advancements. Gambino, the leader of perhaps the largest troupe the world has openly seen in ages, has bestowed upon my sisters and I the Blessing of [Sleeper Agent], each with the Role of Secretary, which is similar to how Templates work for dragons, except ours can change on the fly.


    With our exchange, the personality of Secretary, along with my recent memories, pass on to her, and she becomes the new ¡°Pips¡± for the next few hours, while I get to indulge in other activities. Now, I get to be me, for I have no Role for the time being.


    The new ¡°Pips¡±, one of three of my sisters, exits back into the main room.


    ¡°All preparations have been made, sir. We can proceed at your leisure,¡± I hear the new Pips say as her voice carries through the door.


    ¡°Very good, let us make haste,¡± I hear in reply, and before long, the two of them leave the room for another meeting that I am glad to not be part of.


    Within minutes, I forget all about ¡°Pips¡± and my time spent as her. What she likes, what she desires, the specific details of her job. Gone are my concerns for managing the schedule or-


    ¡°Good to see you again! Welcome, come right in.¡±


    I don¡¯t remember changing my clothes or coming to this part of the Under-Warren. I am currently wearing the cowled robes of ¡°The Friends of the Emperor¡±, which was the second layer down in Alterez¡¯s convoluted scheme of cults.


    ¡°Good to see you too, Alterez. Thank you for catering this event once again. Your food is always delicious,¡± I say back while going through all the motions of gratitude.


    ¡°Too kind, too kind. Have you met Mimbo and Barbo?¡± he asked as he showcased the two goblin bimbos hanging on him. He had somehow smuggled them into the city, for neither one wore identification bracelets. Clearly, he was flaunting his status and newest lovers, but he had been the only goblin in town for quite a while, so I suppose I can be charitable and sympathize.


    ¡°I am afraid I have not had the pleasure. Perhaps we can mingle later during the potluck, for I am blocking the door.¡±


    ¡°Of course, of course. We will catch up later.¡±


    Preferably not, but also, I would need to ingratiate myself with him if I were to find myself invited to the next layer down for his cults. Gambino and Bambina were already in the fourth layer, but they couldn¡¯t just outright advocate for me to be invited, for that would draw too much suspicion.


    The first layer of cults were mostly private clubs more than anything, venues with just enough lure of the taboo to entice those seeking a thrill and a connection. The second layers were more serious, attracting those who wanted change in the world and a coordinated outlet to see it happen. It was more about community than anything radical or illegal. The third layer changed things up, with more veneration paid to the Emperor and to see His will made reality, or at least how people interpreted what they thought the Emperor would want done. The fourth and most exclusive layer was difficult to be recruited into, for only the most faithful to the Emperor were recruited. Rumor had it that Alterez had already established a fifth layer, but that could just be misdirection.


    For now I would mingle, and while Gambino had assigned me to casually suss out more about Alterez¡¯s cults, my primary objective was to look into the matter of various shipments that were coming up light. Manifests from the wagon masters did not match the secret manifests that riccen agents had been securing from the cities of origin. Someone was skimming, and with the fate of the world at stake, such risk to world security was not taken lightly. Due process and fair legal procedures were out the window when it came to such matters, and I intended to put a stop to it or at least be part of the team that would.


    Odds were, anyone who was looking to sell things that fell off the wagon would be in one of these cults, for everyone who was anyone was part of one cult or another. More deals were made here than anywhere else in the city, and Alterez had his own hand in manipulating how those went down. I couldn¡¯t rule out that he was also skimming, and if so, he could be doing so on orders of the Emperor. Both were devious in different ways, with Alterez weaving fact and fiction and the Emperor obscuring the nasty truth behind a wall of pleasant truths.


    This was a reconnaissance operation, with me playing the curious and na?ve kobold who was friendly and willing to meet new people. Others would be watching me and those who took interest in me. Simply put, I would be bait, and it was not my place to take risks or pry too hard.


    I grabbed myself a drink and some food, for it is hard to work on an empty stomach. Even if one did not care too much for Alterez, one had to admit, the goblin could cook, and this was the best food in the city. He can even prepare grubs just right, where they are crispy the whole way through without being burnt.


    A shady and charismatic human was already making eyes at me. It could be nothing, or it could provide me with a lead. Time to sit here all alone while my unknown allies keep the riff-raff away. This guy would want to chase me, and I had to appear as a pretty little thing that begged to be shown a good time. My meal was only half finished by the time he started his approach.


    ¡°Hey there, gorgeous, I¡¯m Brent. Are you new here?¡±


    Game time. I¡¯d most likely have to sleep with him if he knew anything useful, but those are the breaks in this line of work. This would be another long night, but at least I would not be on shift as ¡°Pips¡± for another 15 hours or so. Time to see what¡¯s behind door number one.

 Chapter 98

    I always strive to make good on my promises. As one may imagine, I am therefore not frivolous in making such promises. Indeed, my true nature is to not commit to anything until I have to. There is a sweet spot somewhere between 32 and 40 hours before an event starts that is optimal to ask me to commit to it, anything outside of that range and I feel like dodging. It doesn¡¯t even matter if I like the people or the nature of activities about the event, it is just how the world works.


    Regardless, I had made a few promises of late. Jericho needs better replacement armor, and the crixtali required a return on investment for how they shared their knowledge with me. By this point, I had ventured into the Master tier of [Enchanting], which is where I would languish for a long time, as the sheer number of Skills I would require to truly master what I know were staggering. I had cherry-picked what I wanted from the lower tiers, because I had not focused on every possible type of enchantment out there, but it seemed as if I would need to branch out. I have the Skills, and indeed a good amount of knowledge and experience, but I lack the [Deeds] to amplify what I have. And the best way to get more [Deeds] is to push limits.


    The biggest issue facing the crixtali is one of food, or their equivalent. While they use sunlight for energy, they require metals and gems to physically construct their bodies. Their home world was rich in such resources, and indeed they had developed excellent techniques to recycle and regenerate resources, especially their gems, such that supply would not be consumed beyond capacity. But they had essentially been blasted back to the stone age with no infrastructure to support their needs. The metals, at least non-magical metals, are fairly straightforward; melt it down and separate it. Sadly, gems cannot be melted. Well, you can, but then they cease to be gems.


    I can make gems just fine, and that is the problem. I have to be the one to make them, and it would be rather convenient if instead I could just make a device where ingredients go in and gems come out. Essentially, I would have a money-printing machine, so discretion and certain countermeasures against inflation would need to be taken into account. Essentially, I needed to make ¡®food grade¡¯ gems, ones that were unstable and would dissolve or break if left uneaten for too long. That measure would prevent someone from trying to sell them for some quick coin. The other issue with gems comes from mana purity, in that if I use magic in the process of crafting them, they would normally be influenced by my mana and become tainted, making them unsuitable for the mana of the host crixtali.


    The trick here is in how do I make a machine that can get around that issue? While I can circumvent such limitations when making gems by hand, I don¡¯t want that to be my full-time job. Chemically, they are simple enough. Take topaz, for example; it is a silicate mineral of aluminum and fluorine. None of that is hard to acquire, nor is the process of creating the heat and pressure to manufacture it. Add in the appropriate impurities, and it comes out in a range of colors. That is only one gem, and it alone has many colors. Now account for all the kinds of gemstone and the colors they come in, and the logistics behind it get dicey.


    Fortunately, [Material Arcane Science] has one of the most wonderful Skills known to me: [Theorycraft]. Such a boon allows me to simulate what would happen if I try to make something under set conditions. One of my [Parallel Minds] runs it around the clock when it would otherwise be idle, such that it simulates different ratios of various metals to see what kind of alloy they would make, assuming they are not immiscible. More duds than not, but I can also use it to see what happens when I try to enchant objects.


    To keep it simple, I have an object like an oven in shape, with hoppers to hold various pure or manageable forms of most elements or otherwise common compounds. One area has a selector for the gemstone, another for compatible colors, and then more settings for size, quantity, and cut pattern. I felt like it should have been fairly easy to make it work since enchantments behave exactly as I tell them to. But therein lies the problem; they do exactly what I tell them to.


    The ¡®happy path¡¯ works well. A pile of gems gets made. Everything else is a struggle. Gotta make sure the friggin hoppers have sufficient supply before the job starts processing. Also need to make sure no one poured the wrong ingredient into a hopper, so trust but verify every ingredient as it is used. Have to double check that the grain of the gemstone even allows the pattern to be used, and since I don¡¯t know all of them off the top of my head, a way for users to remove patterns or colors that are incompatible. I need some way for users to map what kinds of impurities cause certain colors, because again, I am not a gemcrafter who knows the full chemistry behind gemstones. As some kobold helpers discovered, I need to ensure that no creatures are inside the apparatus when it starts, or otherwise worm their way in after it starts. The list of concerns goes on and on.


    Finally, after a gem is made, I need the machine, which runs on mana and does magical things, to remove the mana from the gem. The machine did it perfectly, except the machine rendered itself as little more than modern art, for it removed its own enchantment. The first time that happened, my Crossing Guard stormed my crafting room in search of intruders, such was my rage and colorful language. After a while, they learned to just ignore anything but my code word for duress.


    I did finally manage it, but the gems have to go into a separate machine that purifies them of mana. There were just too many features to cram into one box, and while it is not impossible, it remained beyond my means to figure out before populations starved. Well, they wouldn¡¯t starve, but they wouldn¡¯t grow stronger or create new crixtali, for as I understand it, they craft offspring instead of how biological creatures make babies. Two months of effort in my downtime, and I had a working prototype for the crixtali to field test.


    Likewise, I gave them a gyratory crusher and a smelter, both enchanted thoroughly so as to mimic the effects of my [Advanced Thermal Bottle]. It lacks the finesse to be as flexible as I am, for they are designed explicitly for processing ore and recycling metal. It isn¡¯t so much that they need it, but I figured I would show them my techniques for how I would go about the process, and they can compare it to their own technology to see if any improvements can be made in either direction.


    For their part, the crixtali appeared quite pleased, and so I await their feedback and sanitized list of what combinations of settings create valid gemstones. Someday I will make more sophisticated machines that can scale up the operation, and I want it to have an intuitive and idiot-proof menu of gems they can make. The [Matrix Weavers] appeared more than delighted to get that worked out for me, and with that problem solved, I moved on to the next.


    As I mentioned, I have been using [Theorycraft] to test metals. Most of my alloys involve iron, aluminum, titanium, chromium, nickel, zinc, copper, and tin. Obviously, some of those metals don¡¯t normally work well in armor, but of course there are exceptions.


    Brass holds up well for certain kinds of enchantments, even if the metal itself does not hold up well to a beating. If you want armor that blocks magical effects, use some kind of brass and the associated enchantments. This would block elemental magic, such as a person shooting lightning at you that was conjured by magic. It is decidedly less effective against natural lightning. Similarly, it blocks magical fire or acid, but not so much when dealing with natural sources. Silver, Gold, and Platinum perform well against many acids, but they are too damn expensive, soft, and heavy for armor. Tantalum carbides work well against heat, or even corrosion, but it conducts electricity too well. In short, there exists a tradeoff between each material for what it protects against, and I don¡¯t like that. That only covers the physical aspects of the material, and it does not even touch inherently magical ingredients.


    That¡¯s why I need to magic the shit out of this new suit of armor.


    On the surface, it may look like a suit of armor, one that is made of ornate plates in overlapping layers that leave no holes regardless of what position the user is in. Working out the kinematics suitable for an orcish body and having the plates lock at certain angles was a nightmare, and Jericho literally jumped through hoops to help me test it out. Eventually, I had a suit of armor that would brace when bent too far, so that someone could not break her back, neck, or other sensitive joints. Likewise, I needed enchantments so that plates would grow, shrink, or flex as needed so that, as she contorted her body, she would not find any chink in her armor that a crafty opponent could exploit.


    I went through hundreds of suits of armor, comparing different alloys, layering, and enchantments to see how they fared. Also, the material of the armor itself is not just one material, but a matrix, one with little crystals of various other alloys interspersed with tiny runes physically made out of material, rather than just etched into it. [Theorycraft] has its limits, and running a full battery of tests on a living and thinking person to a full spectrum of attacks remains outside of its capabilities. A great number of Jericho¡¯s duplicates perished, but we made sure to always keep several of them outside the testing room, so that we always maintained an ample supply of dedicated survivors.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    Fortunate for her that the trauma of her deaths don¡¯t seem to transfer to the remaining survivors of her legions. Information and memories can be retained when one dies, as it is then dispersed amongst the remaining members. It isn¡¯t perfect down to every last detail, but she can remember a conversation that covered simple topics or which enemies were high-threat targets. She remained a real trooper, ever positive and eager to let me tweak things to perfection. Perhaps that was due to the knowledge that she would be getting a free suit of armor, which was itself expensive, but also one so thoroughly enchanted that it would be among some of the best the world has ever seen. She would also get a new shield, weapons, and other utility items, but those should be easier than armor.


    I couldn¡¯t work on it all the time, though, even when I didn¡¯t have meetings or other matters of state to address. By day, I would mine, refine, and ultimately craft a stockpile of obsidicrete, typically in the blocks I would need to build fortresses all along the various roads to World''s End, as well as the roads themselves. With my shrines that I create, I have the means to teleport back and forth between them, so I only have to physically travel to an area once. However, they do require coins from my [Hoard] to function, which taxes the power of [Hoard] and provides thieves with additional targets for their nefarious indulgences of temptation. Platinum coins were the anchors for distant points, with gold coins serving the local area in a radius around the platinum shrines.


    That whole process of mining and crafting pre-built materials for construction was intense on mana, but it did not eat up every hour of the day. By comparison, [Enchanting] was more about trial and error, and even mass production could not overtake my regeneration of mana. However, hours seemingly disappeared into thin air as I whiled away in my workshop, and often Skull had to remind me to go socialize and collect Traits with the endless supply of peerless beauties awaiting an audience with me in my bedchambers. Word got around that such women who have slept with me tend to experience a rapid increase in advancing their respective Blessing, and so I imagine some of those women wanted me for more than my ravishing good looks, charming personality, keen wit, and growing collection of dead subterranean cave snails that I keep on a spreading board.


    Some eight months passed while I got things in order. All the roads in the north were finished. Every city of note was now connected to a centralized highway, and indeed, some major cities were connected to each other, all thanks to yours truly. Bridges, tunnels, culverts, aqueducts, pipe networks, and basically anything that did not involve canals, sailing, rivers, or boats was under my purview, and I had placed a shrine at every intersection and where roads enter cities. There were very few places in the north that were outside of my range to get to quickly if I needed to. The southern end of the continent remained largely unexplored by me, for people mostly live along the coast and sail everywhere. Some prime real estate exists out there for those brave enough to venture into the unknown. Probably a lot of hidden dragon dens, too, which may explain the lack of settlements.


    The crixtali were holding out in the last bastions of their homeworld far longer than expected. All the armies of the world were gathered and waiting, or at least the ones that had been requisitioned for the defense of the planet. The other continents are difficult to travel to due to sea monsters and strange, magical, oceanic phenomena, with trade ships risking to venture across the open oceans at certain times of the year, and even then, only with the most valuable cargo in their holds. Ergo, the residents of distant continents would not be helping us, and indeed, they would be managing a never-ending supply of micro-incursions. Well, the dragons that live there would be helping, that is if they ever decide to get off their asses and get over here. I have never been there, but it can¡¯t be that hard to fly across the ocean, right?


    The final part of the puzzle before I can dedicate more time to World¡¯s End involves my holdings in Berkerin. Grand Duke Archibald Melwyrr Fylthern came to an understanding one night when I snuck into his bedchambers. That came out wrong, I was there for a private chat, not any funny business. He understood the subtle threat that I could kill him any time I wanted if he got in my way by virtue of me sneaking up on him, but I didn¡¯t flex any harder than I needed to. He also received a bag full of enchanted goodies that would make him a great deal wealthier and an assurance of my flight¡¯s defense of Berkerin if a serious assault was mounted against it.


    In return, people were told to leave me the fuck alone unless I wanted to involve them in my affairs. I pissed off a lot of people at his court, but I wasn¡¯t there to make friends. I did investigate some leads my riccen associates provided me about who the best [Farmers] and [Herbalists] were in the area, especially any that were looking for a new career path and were bored with how they had reached their limits. A couple poached experts and a few more angry [Nobles] later, and I had staff for my latest venture. And what would that be, you ask? Why, only my patriotic duty to my home planet, to utilize [Rare Plant Cultivation] to create one of the biggest farms for potion ingredients in the world. Well, I am sure other flights have better ones, but they don¡¯t share or advertise. I bet they just smuggle it into mortal lands for a profit, which may indirectly bring me at odds with them.


    And if they allegedly get rich doing it, why shouldn¡¯t I get in on the action? After all, the world will have an increase in demand for such goods, and I am ever happy to oblige. You may recall that I own some land, specifically a whole mountain near Berkerin. It isn¡¯t much of a mountain any more, but rather, a terrace. Call me a stickler for aesthetics, but I made each tier the same height and perfectly round. With each tier being 20 feet high, and 50 tiers total, that is 1,000 feet of mountain that I shaped to my whims. Took a bit of convincing to get some earth elementals on board, in part because they are not overly burdened with keen minds, but I made them a few rock gardens in different areas and they love it.


    Granted, the mountain is not as tall as it used to be, as the peak was clipped off. I didn¡¯t really know what to do with the top, so for fun, I built a temple of sorts, then smashed it, so that it had the look of an ancient temple long since destroyed and abandoned. Or at least, once some weathering sets in, it will have that aesthetic. It has dragon motifs and an altar, and I really should have seen it coming, how it would eventually become a holy site for the various cults that would spring up to worship me. I just wanted something cool to look at; how was I to expect that I would get actual faithful to turn it into a real temple?


    To maximize growing area, all the residential and storage areas are cut into the mountain. Most of the tiers of the terrace are covered in greenhouses, for the rare plants tend to be frail. I enchanted everything to the nines, mostly to keep it clean, in good repair, and to keep my plants alive. The [Farmers] and such do great work, but they don¡¯t have [Rare Plant Cultivation], and so I needed a few enchanted objects to allow them to continue cultivation in my absence.


    That whole affair was more of a labor of love than a chore, for I got to make something I wanted and would use as a retreat for myself and my flight. Very few people are needed to actually run the place, perhaps a hundred or so, and about two dozen whelps patrol the area to protect my crops. The staff are paid handsomely, and they have many amenities they would not otherwise have access to all the way out in the boonies, so I believe their appearance of loyalty to me is legitimate in nature. Their kids will be able to afford the best of education and get jobs pretty much anywhere, so I doubt I have to worry about crates of product falling off the wagon.


    The crixtali showed me how to make solar accumulators. Interestingly enough, they also look like the giant monoliths I use to collect mana in the environment, but everything on the inside is different. They are also an order of magnitude bigger. No issue for me, for I have ample skills to manipulate and levitate blocks into position to create these structures that stand at about 500 feet tall. Eight of them ring my mountain, and together, they basically cast a giant pane into outer space that captures sunlight that would otherwise pass by our planet. Ergo, I am not stealing sunlight from another part of the world. That sunlight gets stored and distributed to my greenhouses at night, which probably makes for a unique and beautiful sight to those living in Berkerin. At least I think so because no one has filed any complaints.


    Recruiting a squad of [Alchemists] and the like is a problem for future me, for the crops will take a while to grow. Getting the seeds cost me an exorbitant sum of money, somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 platinum, which left my coffers rather dwindled. The estimated profit at current market value would be around 2,000 platinum a year, but I expect the demand for potions to skyrocket. I could easily see two to four times that much until competitors find a way to up their supply.


    However, the influx of assassination attempts on my person should help my coffers as I sell off the slightly used equipment that I will loot from their corpses, so I think things will be fine. Fortunately, past Emperors have already set the precedent that you DO NOT go after the friends and family of an Emperor, so hopefully even the races not so long-lived will keep the lesson in mind lest I have to enact a vendetta or two. I started having my sneakiest of whelps start tailing everyone important to me so that they are safeguarded, at least well enough that help will arrive in time.


    And now, with winter approaching, I can finally retire to World¡¯s End and catch up with the gang to see what¡¯s cookin¡¯. Wait, is winter approaching? I guess it depends which hemisphere I am in. Seasons get confusing when one travels so far and wide. Either way, while the various armies have not gotten so bored that they have sacked my city, there is tension in the air as I return home. The war better start quickly or there will be a riot.

 Chapter 99

    While I had used my shrines to teleport back to World¡¯s End every night during the past months, I finally had a chance to catch up with my various associates, underlings, and companions. It-Has-Pockets and I were on a stroll on the high road of World¡¯s End, simply walking together and catching up. She had undergone wai¡¯fudo again, but failed to produce any viable offspring, which was not uncommon for a troll so young, and she spent the time talking about the finer points of the experience.


    ¡°I had attempted to use eight fathers this time around, but that proved to be beyond my skill,¡± she expounded as she danced around me as I continued to walk down the road to an excellent brooding spot that doubled as a great perch for a couple to take in the view of the countryside. ¡°For a full day and night, they valiantly serviced me and my insatiable lust brought on by going into heat, but I think I cast my net too wide. Their Blessings were all so very different from one another, and it became too difficult to forge a Blessing for my offspring.¡±


    ¡°One,¡± she continued as she danced close and leaned towards my ear to whisper her count, ¡°was a [Tailor], one of some repute and skill, from what I have seen of his work. I figured I should at least have the Blessing my own mother had, just so that I would have some common basis to work off of. Hey, wasn¡¯t your own mother a [Tailor] as well?¡± she asked as she continued her dance without really pausing to hear my answer. ¡°The second was a [Armsmaster], which is not as good as a [Weaponsmaster], but I couldn¡¯t find one who was not already taken. I figured that would give me some versatility in case my offspring favored one weapon or another. The third-AH!¡±


    It-Has-Pockets yelped in surprise and laughed with glee as I grabbed her, and holding her close to me, I twirled around with her, joining her in her dance and doing my best not to trip over my own two feet. I have enough experience by now to perform most dances of both commoners and [Nobles] alike without making a fool of myself, but I lacked the seemingly effortless grace of It-Has-Pockets who smoothly transitioned from one maneuver to another as simply as breathing.


    Our dance took us onto the merlons of the battlement, our steps careful as we twirled about so as to not fall into the crenels, or worse, off the high road. Not that I would come to harm if I did fall off, and I would surely catch It-Has-Pockets if she fell, but the rush of being so close to danger got her heart racing and made her smile widen.


    ¡°The fourth was a [Coordinator], a very respectable Blessing amongst trolls, for they amplify the efficiency of [Laborers], [Builders], and the like. I believe that such a Blessing could help unlock the secrets to a [Dancer] becoming a [War Dancer] by how it offers support to others.¡±


    She continued the conversation, or rather, exposition, as we danced along. I¡¯m a bit of a sucker for holding a beautiful woman in my arms and twirling her about, so the whole experience was fun even if I lacked the skill to dance at her level. I was so caught up in our revelry that I almost failed to notice the lack of guards on this section of the high road. Almost.


    Sensing something amiss, I pulled It-Has-Pockets off the battlements and onto the road proper, assuming a ready but not overly-defensive posture. It-Has-Pockets quickly caught on that I was reacting to some unknown threat, and she drew her sword from the storage ring I gave her and shifted into a defensive dance with a slow pace.


    Up ahead, as if invisible fog had coalesced into view, three figures stood where the quickly dispersing fog had once been, the last remnants of mist obscuring the finer details of their form. My Observer Skills had not noticed them arrive in the general area, nor had my Detection Skills pierced through their Stealth. Perhaps they had made their entire journey here under the guise of Stealth, which would be a taxing feat to most. But one particular lifeform would not find such an undertaking beyond their means.


    Dragons.


    Now that they were visible, I could sense that similarity. It wasn¡¯t a scent or any visible feature of their persons that gave it away, but rather their pristine use of mana and how their entire bodies shone brightly with it, in a manner of speaking. These were no mere Counts, and indeed, the two lessers were Princes at least. And with the disparity in power being so large, the one in the middle could only be an Emperor.


    One, a Princess I see, or at least I assume a feminine gender, was dressed in silks and the veil common with belly dancers, and indeed, she began dancing in such a manner as she casually closed the distance to It-Has-Pockets, who in turn began to replicate the movements. The other, a Prince, dressed more as some sort of advisor or seneschal, his outfit of rich blues and reds looking more professional than pompous. The Emperor wore a turban and kaftan, each of predominantly silver, but also royal blues and bright reds. His entire ensemble was festooned with precious gems in similar colors, and although ostentatious, he lacked the smug superiority of one so accustomed to wearing such finery. Perhaps his appearance was for my benefit somehow, or the result of a bet gone wrong.


    ¡°Greetings, Emperor. My apologies for interrupting your night out with the very lovely It-Has-Pockets, but I assumed that, by how your many agents were sniffing around my affairs, you wanted to meet in person. And so here I, Emperor Bylo¡¯selhi of the The Equivalent Scales, have traveled all the way to your fair city that we may talk terms.¡± He raised his hand and waved it slightly to the side. ¡°Children, entertain the paramour of the Emperor. The grownups need to have a t¨ºte-¨¤-t¨ºte.¡±


    The Prince with him turned and bowed to his Emperor, and wordlessly, the Prince and Princess accompanied It-Has-Pockets back the way we had traveled as I bid her to comply. Alone with my peer, I withdrew my finest table and chairs, along with the best of refreshments for my unexpected guest, who in turn joined me.


    ¡°Most gracious of you,¡± he remarked as he helped himself to a cup of wine. ¡°Ah, rare stuff, very expensive,¡± he continued as he savored it for a moment, ¡°but also very bland. Rich people wouldn¡¯t know a good drink if it rained upon them from the heavens.¡±


    Seemingly from his own pocket dimension, he withdrew a jug of some manner of brew, and from it he poured both of us a glass before offering me one. I joined him in drinking it down, and sweet ambrosia washed away the pale imitation of that succulent nectar that lingered within my own throat.


    ¡°That certainly is smooth and delicious. Is this mead?¡± I asked with genuine delight, for this was leagues beyond anything I had available.


    ¡°Indeed it is. The honey is harvested from the hives of Bumble Turtles, which as you may imagine, is a dangerous profession. The secrets of transmogrifying it into what you are now drinking are responsible for the deaths of many spies who have tried to abscond with such mysteries. I am sure that you understand the need for such secrecy in your experiments with your enchantments, as the best stuff is not dispersed amongst the rabble. Why, people go mucking about, each believing to be the pinnacle of discretion, only to sound the horns and light the beacons for any who would be of mind to observe.¡±


    I knew where he was going with this. My attempts to look deeper into his dealings had gone awry, and he was privately chastising me without being so direct about it. Now I would have to apologize without actually apologizing. That would explain why some of my agents had failed to report in a while. Good thing none of them were near and dear to my heart.


    ¡°I do have some experience with such concerns for security and privacy, but I admit, I doubtlessly have little experience as compared to you and your flight when it comes to such a delicate dance. I do hope to someday master it well enough so that I will not inadvertently run afoul of such indiscretion.¡±


    Bylo¡¯selhi smiled at that apologetic non-apology, apparently pleased with how I remained appropriately civil and composed.


    ¡°Now, with the pleasantries out of the way, would you mind if we dispersed with perfunctory threats, casual insults, posturing, and general attempts to outmaneuver one another?¡± he asked as he sipped at his drink, but his calculating eyes never left mine.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    ¡°But of course, for we are all friends here. There is no need for such formality amongst friends,¡± I replied as I finished setting down my own drink.


    Bylo¡¯selhi quickly removed his turban and tossed it away, the object disappearing before it even hit the ground.


    ¡°Whew, that thing is stuffy. Embarina insisted I wear it. That¡¯s my daughter who ran off with your troll friend, no doubt trying to get in her pants as we speak.¡± He shook his head side to side, and his beautiful silver hair shone brilliantly in the evening sun as curly locks cascaded down to their full length. Perhaps it was a mere trick of the light, but some parts appeared to sometimes look blue or red, much like his clothing. ¡°So, I¡¯m gonna cut to the chase here, sport, but I would rather we didn¡¯t try to bend each other over a barrel as we negotiate how our flights will get along. The Bloods and the Crypts had their scuffle a while back, before my time, but by all accounts, that shook things up too much, and I don¡¯t think either of us want that.¡±


    ¡°We sure don¡¯t. I suppose you have an offer in mind?¡± I replied neutrally, for I remained caught off guard at how all my scheming had been rendered impotent and moot in an instant.


    ¡°Well, I understand why you would have had such concerns, and to be honest, I would not respect you very much if you didn¡¯t at least try to sniff around my businesses. But you and I, we are the Emperors of the youngest flights, and if we don¡¯t stick together, the others will rip us apart when we come of age.


    ¡°Now, I know it seems like our areas of interest overlap too much. You like your roads, and roads facilitate trade. My whole flight¡¯s schtick is trade, but to be honest with you here, champ, my children have grown fat. They feel entitled to their income and have long since forgotten the thrill of competition.¡± He leaned in as his rather effeminate but admittedly gorgeous face gave me a predatory and conspiratorial grin. ¡°They may fight back, but you have my blessing if you aim to muscle in on their turf. That should help sharpen their claws.¡± He leaned back, his posture and expression resuming a more cheerful disposition.


    ¡°Here¡¯s what I want. I want us to be friends. Synsinac doesn¡¯t like me very much, and he is way older than both of us combined. We both are too close to comfort to what services his flight provides, and I expect he will soon make it clear that he sees you as a competitor that would be best struck down. Your flight is the center of attention and making too many deals with too many important people, which will leave him feeling left out.


    ¡°Furthermore, I seek cooperation between our trade empires. I know you have your ¡®Crossroad Consortium¡¯ that you are starting, but I think we can find some common ground. My flight doesn¡¯t truly produce much, we just invest in people who do and reap profits from exploiting price margins in different regions. But you, you make stuff, and then you sell it, which is an interesting take, as I don¡¯t think too many Emperors bother with such nuances in mortal affairs.


    ¡°I think we could both stand to profit if we made a few trade deals. Short contracts, generous and open to both sides, that need to be renewed regularly. That way, if you do get caught in something that is not very favorable, you won¡¯t be under its yoke for too long. I like your style, kid, in how you make generous deals, like the ones you made with those refugees. I imagine you plan to live a long time, just like me, and reputation is everything to us Emperors. No sense making a bad deal for a short-term gain if it means you need to put down rebellions every decade or so, am I right?¡±


    He finally paused as he sat there studying me, his eyes soaking in every detail of my countenance and actions. He was playing the same tricks on me I had been using on others, and by gum, his offer was seductive, which was the problem. Perhaps he would throw in a few shady things that would be easily caught and negotiated away so that I would feel clever and satisfied that I had caught everything. I don¡¯t appreciate being on the opposite side of this setup, and I wondered what the catch would be.


    ¡°I know, I know, this all sounds too good to be true,¡± he continued before I could even reply. ¡°I have reviewed your contracts, some of which were difficult to get a copy of, and I know that I am doing the same thing to you that you do to other people. But, I¡¯m being honest with you. My flight is almost 50 years old and almost to half capacity, both of which seem to be triggers where our egg friend will remove my protection. Other Emperors and their Kings will be free to kill me, or at least, they won¡¯t suffer a curse for their success. I would rather like to survive that ordeal with my flight intact, and I will need allies. Naturally, I will return the favor when you come of age, too. The other flights have already gone through such a hazing process, and we are the only two that have not. Even if an Emperor died today, their successor would not reach maturity in time to be my ally, and so, you are the only flight with a vested interest in helping me.¡±


    ¡°Your situation sounds desperate,¡± I commented, with great care to not appear smug or condescending. ¡°In most negotiations, I imagine that this is where cutthroat tactics to leverage you for all you are worth comes into play. Naturally, you would not reveal your true dilemma to me unless you had taken measures to ensure that I would cooperate. So, what is it that you have on me?¡±


    He almost snorted with a little laugh that turned into a light chuckle before he finally composed himself. ¡°Oh, that¡¯s the fun part, I don¡¯t have anything explicit on you. This is about mutual survival, and transparency works best if one desires an alliance that will last long enough to see us through such troubled times. I know you have had a run-in or two with Karlenstein¡¯s children, but he is so laissez-faire when it comes to managing his flight that I doubt he even noticed or holds a grudge. That little tussle in the swamp allowed all of us to clean out the bottom feeders of our dragon hunters, so thanks for that opportunity.¡± he finished as he lifted his glass in a toast to me.


    ¡°Wait, you sent dragon hunters after me?¡± I replied as I wrestled with indignation that threatened to flare up and anoint my countenance. ¡°And now you want me to be your friend. Maybe I don¡¯t fully understand the culture of dragons, but that seems like an unusual way to go about things.¡±


    I felt a little irritated that he brought that up, for I knew he was steering the conversation in a direction he wanted. I knew I was being led by the nose, but also that he was trying to teach me things, and so I endeavored to remain calm so that I could better focus on the finer nuances of how dragons interacted with other flights.


    ¡°Oh, naturally. We all did, even Bonpricha chipped in, and she normally doesn¡¯t concern herself with the affairs of the mortal world, from what I can tell. It was a great way to both clear out the riff-raff and give you a lot of Experience Points in return. We all wagered that you would survive, and I know at least I had agents nearby in case things unfolded poorly for you. Obviously, we can¡¯t just tell you that, otherwise you would not have fought for your life and would not get the full value of the Experience Points you were due. Besides, if you were not strong enough to survive that, you have no business being an Emperor.¡± He took a casual drink from his cup before he ventured to sample the snacks I had set out, apparently unbothered by his method of ¡®helping¡¯ me.


    Perhaps I found myself mostly upset because of how I was not bothered by his methods. The logic was completely flawless to me, so in tune with my draconic nature that any other course of action on the parts of the other flights would have been irrational. Perhaps it irked me because it served as a reminder of how I was so unlike most mortals and how they viewed morality.


    ¡°I fully understand if you send some assassins after me in reprisal, especially ones laden with all manner of expensive equipment,¡± he continued as his eyes implored me to do just that. ¡°Why, if you didn¡¯t, I would begin to think that you just don¡¯t care about me any more.¡± He put his hand to his chest to accentuate his mock expression of being spurned before finally winking at me. ¡°Just let me know if you send an assassin who is important to you so I can instruct my staff not to kill them. It is a great way to send clandestine letters and to help both parties gain new Skills.


    ¡°But enough of that.¡± He pulled out a stack of forms from his sleeve. ¡°Here are some contracts for mutual trade and cooperation. I would appreciate it if you would take some time to review them. I am sure you will find them to be quite generous and lucrative. We are both going to need a lot of money if we are to weather the storm that is coming, and I would hate to squander our resources in a fruitless contest for dominion over trade. I believe that would see us both dead sooner rather than later.¡±


    ¡°I will certainly look into them,¡± I responded in earnestness. Chooka would greatly appreciate the chance to review these contracts with me. Not every day you get contracts straight from an Emperor focused on trade.


    ¡°Excellent. I can already tell that this will be the beginning of a mutually beneficial relationship. All the flights are buddy-buddy with at least one other flight, with perhaps the exception of The Eternal Pretenders since no one really knows where they are or what they do. I¡¯ve never actually met Bonpricha, and this little conclave of yours will be the first gathering of the Emperors in a very long time indeed. Time to earn our keep as the defenders of this world, old sport.¡±


    ¡°I feel like there is one more request that you have yet to ask. Lay it on me.¡±


    ¡°Oh my, I see someone has dabbled into their [Leadership] Skills. Why yes, I do have one other matter to discuss. A small thing perhaps, but not unimportant.¡±


    Bylo¡¯selhi and I discussed a certain matter, and when he and his children departed, he did so with a pact made between Emperors.

 Chapter 100

    ¡°Was she a good dance partner for you?¡± I asked It-Has-Pockets as we found ourselves once again alone on our little stroll.


    ¡°She sure has some moves,¡± my lovely troll paramour replied with a huff and a hint of envy. ¡°She probably has some Gravity or Movement Skills, for she pulled off some physically impossible feats that would send even the best dancers tumbling or leave them with whiplash. Despite that, she lacks the smoothness of a true [Dancer], as if she were performing by rote along some set routine rather than adapting to the situation.¡±


    ¡°Ah, but just because she is a little different from you doesn¡¯t mean you cannot be friends. You each have your strengths and weaknesses, and your efforts would be better served to compliment one another and achieve mutual growth than focus on petty rivalry.¡±


    It-Has-Pockets paused, hands akimbo as she gave me a serious look that wanted to cut through the bullshit. ¡°Is this the part where you continue on to say how we are now all buddy-buddy with your new Emperor friend? It is fine with me either way, but you don¡¯t need to make such a segue with me.¡±


    Some of the wind knocked out of my sails by her words and demeanor, I changed tack to focus on actual objectives. ¡°Pockets, my dear, you know better than most how some relationships can come with certain¡­ complications. Emperor Bylo¡¯selhi has left me with a little test, one I want you to take point on to see it to completion.¡±


    Taken aback, her confidence faltered for a moment as she searched for a reply. ¡°I don¡¯t know how well-suited I would be to getting entangled in affairs between two Emperors. Surely Gambino or Nabonidus would be better candidates to handle such delicate matters of diplomacy,¡± she finished as she tried to start dancing away from me.


    Not letting her weasel her way out of her new responsibility, I grabbed her around her waist and pulled her close, hugging her with both my arms so that she could not wiggle her way out of my grasp.


    ¡°Now, now, this could be a great learning opportunity for you and a chance to gain a Skill or two. I want you to coordinate sending some assassins after Emperor Bylo¡¯selhi, the disposable kind, so recruit outside talent. Ensure that payment is only delivered upon success of the mission. Since he did not tell us where he lives, he must have left clues for tracking him down. Feel free to ask Gambino for a cohort of kobolds to assist you in this matter. I suggest you investigate local shops, shipping manifests into the city, and local gossip to see if anything unusual has happened or unfamiliar names pop up. You do not need to do these things yourself, but you do need to delegate and administer your little army of helpers to ensure it works smoothly. Can I count on you for this, Pockets?¡±


    She squirmed a little in my grasp, her muscles tense as she looked for a way out. However, a cheerful smile from me as I gazed into her eyes served to sap her resistance.


    ¡°I,¡± she faltered for a moment as she collected her words. ¡°I will do my best, although it is not something I have experience with doing.¡±


    ¡°That is all I ask of you, Pockets,¡± I replied as I pulled her in closer for a proper hug. I even slipped in a passionate kiss for good measure. ¡°Ask for help and instruction, coordinate efforts. That is the point of this exercise. And given the weight of the matter, considering it concerns two Emperors, I am certain you will gain some permanent benefits from it.¡±


    ¡°Just like how being a friend of an Emperor has its ¡®benefits¡¯?¡± she raised her eyebrows before she drew in closer to whisper into my ear. ¡°Perhaps this Emperor could share some of those ¡®benefits¡¯ with me right now.¡±


    Things were about to get hot and heavy, but a huffing orc, specifically a clone of Jericho, stormed across the battlements to either address me or coincidentally go on a swift hike that passed by my position.


    ¡°Emperor, the alarm has been sounded in the sublevels of the city! The kobolds say we are under attack. Gambino and Bambina are already on their way to handle it, but the kobolds swear that the enemy forces are dragons.¡±


    It-Has-Pockets and I shared a look, then I regretfully restrained myself from pleasurable pastimes in order to respond to a threat on my territory. ¡°I will be on my way here directly, Jericho. Relay my orders to interdict and contain, do not engage directly unless it is unavoidable.¡±


    No sooner had I spoken than one of my Observers stationed in the sublevels detected seismic activity, most likely involving something very large smashing into one of the high roads. Perhaps it was too late for such restraint. Jericho, unaware of my sensory observations, gave her acknowledgement and dissolved into nothingness within moments, no doubt with a dozen copies of her still safely stashed around the city so that she could not truly die.


    ¡°Sorry, Pockets, but duty calls. If all goes well, I can provide you with benefits later tonight.¡±


    ¡°Plus interest,¡± she said with a wink and a pinch to my posterior.


    With a smile on my face and an itch for a good scrap, I made my way posthaste to the sublevels of my city. Along the way, I wondered if Emperor Bylo¡¯selhi left me a parting gift or if I was the victim of some shenaniganry on behalf of all the flights pulling a prank.


    <hr>


    A little while earlier.


    Patrolling the mausoleum may not be a glamorous role, but it still carried importance. After all, the other kobolds and I were handpicked by Gambino himself for such an honor, and we took our jobs seriously.


    ¡°Must have been the wind.¡± I heard as I rounded a corner on my patrol, the voice coming from a fellow guard, with his lantern in hand, finishing looking about for something amiss. Not that this place needed extra illumination from lanterns, but they were good props for a guard.


    With his words, I knew that something was amiss, and I mentally reviewed my lines as I continued my patrol with predictably measured steps.


    ¡°Who¡¯s there?¡± another guard shouted as he looked around with exaggerated effort, his movements fluid as he moved his lantern about. Long shadows stretching across the many sarcophagi offered no reply. ¡°Must have been a rat,¡± he continued before resuming his patrol.


    Half a minute passed before I stumbled upon three shadowy figures darting from one statue between alcoves to another. I fumbled for a moment before remembering my lines, calling out in challenge.


    ¡°Halt, identify yourself!¡±Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    Other guards poured in to assist me, and with lanterns raised, we marched forward into the darkness that refused to yield to the light of our lanterns. A dagger flew out of the shadows, and with a yelp and a gurgle, the guard next to me dropped to the floor as he choked on his lifeblood that slipped away.


    ¡°To arms, we are under attack! Sound the alarm!¡± I shouted as I charged with my brethren into the ranks of the hidden enemy.


    The enemy leapt from the shadows, killing two of us before appearing behind us. More guards showed up, and together, we encircled the enemy.


    ¡°Surrender!¡± I demanded as I held my spear out in a menacing manner towards them.


    One figure removed her hood, and I could see clearly, no matter how well her mortal form tried to contain that sweet draconic perfection, that she was indeed a dragon. We were all as good as dead, but we had a Role to fulfill, and since I was Scripted to die, I found comfort in knowing that my resurrection would be inexpensive. I prepared to engage them, one or two of us attacking at a time instead of swarming, as all good henchmen should do against Important Characters.


    Only a moment after having locked eyes with her, I mysteriously found myself upon the floor, a large hole in my chest having seemingly appeared as if by magic. With consciousness fading, I struggled to cough up my last line in order to complete my Role.


    ¡°Damn, one day before retirement.¡±


    <hr>


    Gambino and I made our way down to the mausoleum with measured steps. It simply would not do to arrive too early or too late for our scene. Our ever-dedicated kobold guards were being decimated, as The Script guided, and one-liners were being rattled off one after another before they died. As our unexpected guest finished off the last one, we reached the final steps on the stairs. The lights dimmed, and with [Spotlight] shining down upon me, I began our introduction.


    ¡°Prepare for distress.¡±


    ¡°With this master and mistress,¡± Gambino joined in flawlessly as I finished my line.


    ¡°To guard the Empire from desolation.¡± All three of our opponents were firmly fixated on our performance.


    ¡°To unify the masses into a nation.¡± Only one had her hood down, the other two remained concealed.


    ¡°To decry all evil, forsooth, embrace free love.¡± They appeared content to let us finish our performance.


    ¡°To ascend, draconic, and join those forms above.¡± Hidden [Kuroko] surreptitiously begin to remove the bodies of the fallen so that they can begin the resurrection process while the bodies are still fresh.


    ¡°Bambina,¡± I declare with a flourish as I face my lover.


    ¡°Gambino,¡± he joins in, body towards me but face towards the audience. Our hands join together at chest-height and we each have a leg raised behind us.


    ¡°[Twin-Souled Draconic Scions], arriving at the speed of sound!¡±


    ¡°Concede defeat, or prepare to go a round!¡±


    ¡°All bodies have been cleared from the ground,¡± a [Kuroko] informs us before he bows and disappears off stage.


    Choirs, safely concealed in the upper reaches of the mausoleum, begin chanting as the orchestra starts with introductory drums. With a shared kiss, we become one, and through the unity of our love for each other, our Emperor, and our people, we transcend the mortal limitations of our meager forms and become an ethereal and ephemeral figure of perfection.


    With a mighty roar, we sound out a challenge to the woman with her hood down, and with a sneer, she too ascends to a draconic form. The tempo of the music increases as we size one another up, and though the confines of the room hem us in physically, it would do little to hamper our inevitable violence.


    <hr>


    I hear music as I descend the steps to the mausoleum. I barely even remembered I had one; it had been one among many projects that my kobolds had requested of me to doll the place up so that they had sufficient variety in terms of atmosphere and setting to practice their craft. I even caught the sound of singing, and not from the choir of kobolds, but from the combatants themselves.


    As I enter the room proper, I bear witness to Gambino and Bambina putting a beatdown on some dragon I have not seen before. They were singing to one another, and their opponent appeared distressed, disturbed, and generally uncomfortable with the fact that her voice betrayed her, as she seemed compelled to sing and dance along as they fought.


    Two hooded figures remained off to the side of the conflict that was currently wrecking the room. My enchantments were quite busy as the broken bits of stone melted into the floor. Over time, the room would ¡®heal¡¯ itself of this conflict, restored back to beauty as if nothing had ever happened.


    Even I winced as the interloper took a nasty smack to the face that sent her crashing into the wall next to her, the blow dazing her as she struggled to regain her senses. Nanu was many things, and though she could be gentle in bed, such niceties rarely extended to her tutelage in the art of combat. Gambino and Bambina had taken their licks enough times to become more than comfortable in fighting in their ¡®draconic¡¯ form, a body more of condensed energy and light than physical mass. Still, it looked and moved just like a dragon, and given the battered appearance of their opponent, performed just as well as one.


    Gambino and Bambina were, when combined in such a form, more than a match for what I assume was the Princess of a flight yet unknown. While they could not maintain the form forever, they did receive enough power from it to end a fight quickly. Additionally, it cemented them as the undisputed leaders of my kobolds, for they had achieved the goal of all kobolds; for they had become dragons themselves.


    My beloved companions let forth a breath attack of sound and motes of musical notes, and their opponent, caught in the blast, danced and sang with renewed vigor, all the while she took a beating, for she was so caught up in the music that she could not adequately fight or dodge.


    Meanwhile, I locked my gaze with one of the hooded figures, and I knew it in my bones that I beheld another Emperor. Seeing one in an hour, much less a day, was quite the surprise, but two spoke of conspiracy. Wordlessly, he, accompanied by his other hooded escort, threaded his way around the mess the room had become, and I met him halfway.


    He drew back his hood, and I saw the visage of a handsome man, perhaps one barely in his 40¡¯s compared to humans in most mortal worlds, still full of vigor, but with all the charisma and delightful experience of a silver fox. He extended his hand for me to shake as he introduced himself.


    ¡°I am Emperor Encrodecro of The Crypt Lords. Your adorable little kobolds are currently putting a beatdown on my daughter, Sucroxiona, and while I enjoy a little bit of roughhousing from time to time, we may wish to bring it to an end before they go too far. I understand she was itching for a fight and killed some of your kobolds, and I will ensure she pays the egg-price for their revival, plus interest for the mess. She underestimated you, and indeed, the collective power of many powerful kobolds assembled in one place, so I am certain she will find herself sufficiently humbled by this experience.¡±


    Polite, straight to the point, not putting on airs, I think I can give this guy a pass, considering his flight started the mess. I nodded to him and turned to the now rather one-sided conflict that continued to wreck the room and shake the ground.


    ¡°And scene!¡± I shouted.


    Gambino and Bambina immediately halted their attack, wasting no time in transforming back into their true form as a small army of attendants poured out of the stonework to offer refreshments and fuss over them.


    ¡°A most splendid performance, you two,¡± I declared as I gave the eager two headpats as they clambered over to me for praise and adoration.


    ¡°Indeed, it was a most exciting display of artistic talent and theatrical dedication to your Roles,¡± chimed in my peer as I continued to dish out accolades upon the eager crowd of kobolds that soaked up each and every compliment.


    Before long, we were alone in the mausoleum, the kobolds leaving with the other dragons in order for the adults to discuss matters in private.


    ¡°So, how about you and I get down to business,¡± Encrodecro stated after a period of inspecting the d¨¦cor and poking at the rubble. He beamed me a wide smile, one that hid the fangs that dwelled behind it.

 Chapter 101

    ¡°Alright then,¡± I started before pausing for a moment to ensure I had Encrodecro¡¯s full attention. ¡°I guess what I want to know is how did you even get in here?¡±


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s easy,¡± he replied with a smile. ¡°I simply used [Crypt Walk]. It allows me to nearly instantly travel between crypts, tombs, mausoleums, catacombs, even the lychgates of cemeteries. In short, if it is a location where the dead are laid to rest, I can go there. Why, you practically built an embassy for me here, it would have been rather rude to have not used it,¡± he finished with a cheeky smile on his face.


    ¡°And it is a lovely mausoleum,¡± he commented with a knowing look on his face. ¡°Why, just over there,¡± he continued as he pointed over yonder ¡±in that sarcophagus, is the body of an elf with broken arms and legs, one with clear signs that the legs have both been broken before and healed naturally. I¡¯m not certain why he did not seek out magical healing, so I¡¯m positive that there is an interesting story there. Given the state of the few others interred here, I find myself under the impression that this is where troublemakers go to ¡®disappear¡¯. Your kobolds appear to be rather industrious in maintaining your control over your territory. I just had to see what kind of clientele this establishment catered to.¡±


    ¡°Okay, fair enough, and why are you here now?¡± I asked as I glossed over the darker implications of his revelations that I had been previously unaware of.


    ¡°Why, you invited me for the conclave, why else would I be here? I know I am a tad early, but I thought it best to get a lay of the land and take in the sights.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s it?¡± I asked with a disbelieving expression on my face as I kicked a piece of rubble away, watching it bounce away before it sank into the floor, the process of it remolding itself having begun. ¡°Isn¡¯t this where you spring some sort of deal or threat on me?¡±


    ¡°Normally, yes,¡± he replied with a frown as he leaned up against the wall, his gaze admiring the statues around the room before he continued. ¡°However, I have heard you already found a dance partner for when you earn tenure. Not that I had any plans that involved your flight to that extent, but if you wanted to build your roads to connect a few crypts out there¡­¡± he paused for a bit as he grasped his hands behind his back, on foot raised on its toes as he looked downward and rotated slightly side to side at the waist. ¡°That would make strides to endearing you to my flight.¡±


    ¡°Such an arrangement is not outside of reason if the circumstances align for it,¡± I replied both diplomatically and noncommittally.


    ¡°Excellent!¡± he shouted in satisfaction as he moved over to me and clapped me on the shoulder. ¡°I¡¯ll have my people contact your people to sort out the details.¡± His jovial expression quickly returned to a more professional and slightly mischievous expression. ¡°Now if you will excuse me, I need to secure a good vantage point to watch the spectacle that will undoubtedly develop.¡±


    ¡°What spectacle?¡± I asked as he continued past me.


    ¡°Oh, you will see soon enough. Don¡¯t forget the assassins. You can send them after Sucroxiona for her impertinence if you like,¡± he finished as he waved his hand in farewell without turning to me. ¡°Oh, excuse me,¡± he exclaimed to another Jericho who came crashing down the stairs.


    ¡°My Emperor!¡± she shouted as the only other Emperor nearby departed up the stairs, ¡°I have reports of-¡±


    ¡°Let me guess, more dragons are cropping up around the city?¡±


    ¡°Uh, yeah, how did you know?¡± she asked as her face turned into a puzzled expression. The enchantment on her helmet to make it transparent really allowed me to understand her expression better than one of normal steel would allow.


    ¡°Oh, I just had a hunch.¡±


    <hr>


    The conclave was not for another week, and yet, every Emperor, sans Bonpricha, decided to show up one after another. If anything, they waited just long enough for the previous one to finish his or her conversation, such that I would be informed of yet another intrusion to my domain right when the previous one left.


    Ejnarri of The Star Harbingers came next, apparently building an observatory on top of a building in my city as a ¡®gift¡¯, with a casual request to build a few roads between some of his or her holdings ¡°when I got the chance¡±. I could not discern the gender of said individual, and I am guessing they were in a rather ¡®fluid¡¯ mood. They spoke rather cryptically, never really committing to any one idea while trying to get me to ask the right questions for what they wanted to talk about. The whole experience was frustrating, but ultimately peaceful. They expected me to have her tea poisoned.


    Then came Synsinac of The Pact Sealers who offered to connect me with his consulting and contracting firms around the world to help smooth out the red tape that often tied up logistics. Take a wild guess what he wanted in return. That¡¯s right, for me to build some roads. Turns out, this world¡¯s infrastructure is pretty terrible, and although dragons can fly, their mortal servants cannot, and so they all want me to fix that. He expected a hit on one of his family members as they entered or exited a building. I have no idea how he got into my city, he just tapped me on the shoulder from behind, and suddenly, bam, there¡¯s another Emperor!


    Karlenstein, I expected to be male, according to Nanu¡¯s information, but apparently, Karlenstein recently has been on a binge of being a woman, and a rather attractive one at that. All business, no mirth, she didn¡¯t seem to want anything from me other than to quickly make introductions before she stormed off. I don¡¯t know if she is always pissed off or if I somehow snubbed her, but at least she did not request any assassins. I would have to double-check with Nanu if I should still send some anyway. She had the politeness to enter through the front gate, if not the same measure of it to wait for the guards to permit her entry. Several guards were literally clinging to her to stop her, yet she moved as if they did not exist or hinder her in the slightest.


    Ossimandias of The Bone Wardens looked and acted like he should be on a beach somewhere catching some waves with his surfboard. Very chill, a little weird, he asked for flowers instead of assassins. The harder part was that he wanted them delivered unseen to his bedroom and his guards would not allow intruders to pass. I needed to find a great number of highly skilled and expendable individuals to meet all these requests, most likely ones with orifices that didn¡¯t mind some draconic attention. While he didn¡¯t want any roads, he did want any bones I happened to unearth in my excavations during construction, which I had little use for. No sense throwing away easily obtained goodwill, so I acquiesced to his request. It would have been so much better if he had not somehow entered my city via a tunnel that somehow went right through the obsidicrete foundation that was reinforced and enchanted to stop intruders doing that very thing.


    Finally, I had about two minutes of peace and quiet after running around for the past two hours to put out proverbial fires, only for a loud boom to rip through the sky from the direction of World¡¯s Hope. I quickly scaled a nearby building to get a good look, and in the distance, I saw green light in the sky. In the center, I witnessed a circle of said light with the silhouette of a dragon inside of it where no light shone through. Around it were many green arrows pointing towards it and to the ground beneath it, each arrow bobbing up and down slowly but insistently.


    With only one Emperor unaccounted for, and no one other than an Emperor or a Titan capable of such a feat, unless some god was wasting a miracle or two, I deduced that Bonpricha was requesting an audience. Given that there were 7 arrows, she must expect all 7 Emperors to show up. I guessed this little conclave would be starting early.


    I considered bringing the powder keg that is my daughter, Tamadora, as the experience would be good for her if she didn¡¯t act out of turn and get smacked down by her betters. Kaisadoro would be a safe bet as long as he didn¡¯t make a fuss about his schedule. Nanu was mandatory as she was my chief advisor concerning dragons. Chooka, my first love, was also the best person I had to look over contracts, and given the events of the day, I would be seeing more of those, so she would be needed. Gambino and Bambina would manage my kobold security team that kept out the riff-raff, and Jericho would manage my Knights of the Crossing. Nabonidus would be safely sequestered nearby, such that he could augment security with his ¡®enhanced interrogation techniques¡¯ for anyone who snooped around. Not that any of that would actually happen, but it sorta could in a hypothetical reality that he would witness.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    It-Has-Pockets would be busy with her workload, Alterez would be on catering detail, Torborg didn¡¯t have a dog in this fight, and The Boys would be my mount as I arrived to the fortress, which would probably boost us both due to [Dragoon] allegedly being my base Blessing, if that was even a real thing or just some joke of a cover.


    Everyone of note had been on alert ever since the first Emperor was spotted, and as such, it only took half an hour to get everyone assembled and into formation to start our march over to World¡¯s Hope. Naturally, banners, pageantry, and ceremonial accouterments were required, with several choirs of kobolds blowing horns and singing as we made our way to our destination.


    Perhaps for my benefit, I did witness dragons flying over us from time to time. Each Emperor only brought two Princes with him or her as escorts, as bringing a King into the territory of another flight was a declaration of war. Skull notified me that all of them had additional escorts in the Shadow Path, but they gave her a wide berth and never entered the city proper.


    A few gates and seemingly impenetrable high roads later, and I found myself in the heart of World¡¯s Hope. All troops had vacated the courtyard, so perhaps the local commander was wise to let dragons be dragons in peace or had been intimidated. Hopefully, I will not receive a casualty report later.


    A round table with 6 chairs stood about a stone¡¯s throw away from the portal, itself a large sphere of blackness in its idle state. Six Emperors sat in their chairs, each one appearing to be custom made by or on behalf of the Emperor who sat in each one. Perhaps it was a B.Y.O.C. type of event. The various Princes and Princesses remained in their draconic form and sat or lounged behind their Emperor, some appearing aloof and at rest, but each one most likely on high alert.


    As my entourage approached, I endured the pageantry and ceremony of being announced and escorted to my seat. I deployed a smaller table and comfortable chairs for those who would be joining me, the whole affair positioned behind me. I retrieved a suitably comfortable and ornate throne from my dimensional storage and placed it before the round table that was easily big enough to fit four times as many people. Once seated, I looked around for signs of the final attendant flight of the meeting, but saw none.


    A change of the light clued me in that the symbols in the air had gone out, and as we all looked up, a massive portal tore open in the sky, perhaps 500 feet overhead and just as large. A proportionally gigantic arm, one clearly belonging to a dragon, reached through the portal and flung something comparably miniscule to the ground. That object then landed where the last chair should be, and upon inspection, it appeared to be akin to a stuffed animal or puppet of a dragon, albeit one that had many patches and button eyes, one of which was hanging on by a thread.


    The sound of distant screaming caused me to look up again, and four kobolds plummeted to the same puppet of mostly green and browns, with hints of reds, pink, and purple on the wings and horns. The kobolds landed on the puppet and bounced off, landing hard on the ground, but otherwise appearing no worse for wear considering the normally deadly fall they just experienced. Well, the fall wasn¡¯t deadly, but the landing should have been. They wasted little time in somehow scurrying into the innards of the puppet and getting it to move. A glance upwards revealed that the draconic hand gave a ¡®thumbs up¡¯ gesture before withdrawing from the portal, with said portal closing promptly afterwards.


    After a few moments, the puppet animated rather convincingly enough to showcase that the puppeteers were not inexperienced at their craft, and a pleasant female voice called out to us.


    ¡°Alright everyone. Thank you for attending on such short notice. I know our host intended to kick this off a bit later than now, but certain events are occurring that have pushed up our timeline significantly.¡±


    Most of the Emperors spared me a glance before returning their gaze to the puppet that presumably represented Bonpricha.


    ¡°Cutting straight to the point, the invasion is going to kick off much sooner than anticipated, perhaps tomorrow or the day after at the earliest, assuming the enemy immediately begins their incursions without mustering their troopers further. My spies have reported that all indications are to the former scenario being correct. I am commandeering this meeting to hand out assignments. This is not up for debate. I know none of you have ever had to deal with incursions before, but as for The Eternal Pretenders, we have ample experience in defending this world from such threats. Any objections?¡± the puppet asked as it cleaned the claws on its right hand with its mouth, the message clear that dissent was not welcome.


    All of us remained silent, and each of us knew that The Eternal Pretenders were over 2,400 years old as a flight. To put it in perspective, the next oldest flight, The Crypt Lords, were some 1117 years old, and the deceased flight, The Secret Stalkers, had been 980 years old. Five of our flights were not even over 500 years old, which, compared to what I knew of the past, made us collectively extremely young. I imagine we all knew that fact rather intimately, for [Leadership] helped me detect the signs of deference to Bonpricha¡¯s leadership and the nervousness that we would still perhaps not be up to task to succeed in preventing total annihilation of our world.


    ¡°Excellent,¡± the Not-Bonpricha-But-Possibly-Bonpricha puppet continued. ¡°I¡¯m not going to go around the room and have us introduce ourselves and name a hobby or whatever passes for team-building these days. We each know what is at stake here, and while no significant incursion has made it to this world in my lifetime, that has not been for a lack of trying from any number of different hostile entities. I know most of you do not know what I am referring to, nor do you even have the capacity to protect this world from such threats, but do not doubt that other worlds will still continue to invade ours even as we fight off this current incursion. The Eternal Pretenders have not always been the ones to safeguard this world from such invasions, but the flights that came before me have all died out.


    ¡°And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I am here to talk about: duty. Whatever grudges you have, whatever vendettas you still need to settle, whatever schemes, plots, and games you have going on, none of that matters. It is time to put on your big-boy pants and pull your weight as guardians of this world, for if you believe all that power you have as Emperors was free and cannot be taken away at an instant by the gods, then you will find yourself sorely mistaken. Mehczeczi of The Secret Stalkers could attest to that, had his hubris not been his undoing.¡±


    That last comment made some of us sit up straighter in our chairs. I don¡¯t think any of us really knew what had happened to The Secret Stalkers other than that they blew themselves up, but apparently some divine wrath had been part of the equation that made such an explosion.


    ¡°We Emperors are big fish in a small pond. ¡°The Devourers¡±, as the enemy is called, is but one of many scourges that rampage across the universe, conquering all it can because it can. They are merciless and cannot be bribed to go away, yet they are cunning, patient, and insidious. Expect cults to crop up, disgruntled individuals who were promised power to start undermining our efforts, and other such underhanded tactics.


    ¡°They have their own equivalents to us Emperors, but I do not know their form nor what powers they wield. We do have a significant advantage that they will not be coming through the portal unless they are feeling suicidal, for our gods will be free to empower us to fend them off, whereas their gods will not. That also means we cannot easily counter-invade them, and so, we need to hold them off until the portal collapses and the connections between our worlds sever. This will be a war of attrition and many of the dragons in your flights will perish, if not entire flights.¡±


    The cold truth of her words certainly had our attention, and we could feel the sincerity and brutal honesty laid bare within them. She did not sugarcoat anything, and indeed, I felt inspired to contribute lest I find myself replaced with an Emperor who would.


    ¡°When I was young and another flight was old, they told me tales of the last invasion. Indeed, I have actual histories and military reports, ones that, by all accounts, are detailed and accurate. It was not the same enemy that we face now, but they should give a good idea of the scale and scope of the threats we face. I will have copies delivered to all of you shortly. Before we get down to the details of what tasks will be assigned to each flight, we have a guest.¡±


    Bonpricha turned her head to the portal, and said portal glowed white briefly as a saurkin, old and bent with age, hobbled through and over to us. His scales were nearly white with age, his vestments ornate but tattered, as if he had spent many months in the wilderness. Clearly a priest of some sort, he leaned heavily on the staff of his office as he slowly ambled over to us, exhaustion and sorrow clearly written upon his features as he struggled towards his final act of sacrifice. For his eyes were glowing white and gold in the style of one in a state of communion with a god, and for him to be doing so for so long and away from a temple would surely take a toll greater than what the body could sustain, much less survive. We each turned to view this individual and what final message he may have for us all, our hearts and minds tuned to his voice.

 Chapter 102

    ¡°I remember my home, those verdant plains filled with all manner of flora and fauna,¡± the old saurkin began in a smooth and surprisingly deep voice that wavered ever so slightly. ¡°I remember my family, the many generations that I have spawned, and those that my children have spawned. I remember the great cities, the splendor of magic that we harnessed, the wonders we have built. It was not perfect, but it was glorious. Now, it is but bone and ash, scattered to the winds and trampled underneath the feet of those who invaded my world.


    ¡°I remember all of these things, and yet, I cannot remember my god, even though I am the [High Priest] of my faith. I cannot remember my god¡¯s name, nor what Domains were in my god¡¯s Portfolio. I cannot remember the hymns, prayers, and rituals that I performed thousands of times. I cannot remember my oaths, the secrets of my faith, nor even the day I swore myself into service to my god.


    ¡°But I remember my love for my god, that I served faithfully my entire life. And I remember my god¡¯s love for my people, how my god provided for us and protected us, even if I cannot remember how. The gods of my world are dying, and while they may cling to the hope that you and yours may somehow save them, my god made the ultimate sacrifice; an immortal life in payment for an answer to a question: how to save this world and those few of my people who have escaped such a dark fate and now kneel at the generosity of your mercy.


    ¡°I do not know if the sacrifice of my god will be enough. I do not know if you will be able to succeed at whatever tasks that must be performed to fend off this enemy. I do know that I will not be around to see it, for I will join my god in the oblivion that awaits us when a god perishes. I have come to offer you a hope of salvation, and so I implore you to heed the words of my god.¡±


    The old saurkin coughed as he leaned on his staff, his body cracking in places as white and golden light poured out of his wounds, clear indicators that his mortal coil found the limits of how long it could entertain the attention of divinity. Yet, not one to fall at the finish line, he stood straight, his body somehow vigorous for a moment as his voice changed to become commanding, for the final words of a god supplanted those of the mortal host.


    ¡°Seek the tower, ascend to the summit, and initiate the ¡®isolation protocol¡¯.¡±


    And here I thought we would get some fancy prophecy in the form of a rhyme. It still retained a touch of cryptic flare, but I would have felt decidedly more comfortable if the saurkin hadn¡¯t turned his gaze and pointed directly at me as he provided us with the great revelation. My hopes for additional details were smothered in the crib as the saurkin¡¯s body crumpled to pieces, including all his personal effects. The heads of all present swiveled to look at me, and I admit I felt a tad apprehensive at having the salvation of the entire world dropped in my lap.


    ¡°That will require a slight adjustment to my plans,¡± Bonpricha commented as her button-eyes glowed for a moment, perhaps in contemplation or communication to her real form, before she continued. ¡°Right, moving right along then, I have decided to assign the following tasks to each flight.¡±


    Everyone appeared to be pointedly ignoring the dead saurkin in the proverbial room, and given the motes of divinity leaking out of his corpse, I came to the conclusion that such was a prudent course of action. I imagine that whoever or whatever handles the corpse will need to be incinerated and thrown into The Void, never seen or talked about ever again, for such unbound divinity in mortal worlds would be about as welcome as radioactive substances in a nursery. I could see several different signatures of different magical wards and barriers placed around the corpse, each potent enough to be from one Emperor or another. I added my own as an additional layer just to be safe.


    ¡°Starting with the easiest choice, The Bone Wardens will continue to maintain the army of skeletons that will be the fodder for our troops. Focus on retrieving the fallen of both allied and enemy forces so that they cannot claim the biomass or our weaponry.¡±


    Ossimandias gave the puppet a thumbs up as he continued to patiently wait and see who would be stuck with the bitch work.


    ¡°The Crypt Lords will be on information warfare and jamming enemy communications while also keeping our own up and running. We cannot afford for our own troops to receive false orders, fall prey to illusions, or to turn against us via mind-control.¡±


    Encrodecro gave the puppet a polite smile and a nod. I remained uncertain if his task was easy or difficult.


    ¡°The Star Harbingers will maintain our aerial perimeter. We cannot let the enemy punch a hole through the shields and escape containment. I expect the fighting in the sky to be at least as fierce as on the ground, if not more contested of a front. As the third oldest flight, I expect you to be capable of success, especially considering the mortals will provide you with elite champions as auxiliaries. Take care to protect them, as they will not be replaceable on any timeframe that will be of use to your flight.¡±


    Ejnarri looked up to the stars as if consulting them for insight, and then nodded to Bonpricha that they agreed with that plan.


    ¡°The Blood Keepers and The Pact Sealers will provide support to the mortal forces. I know that your children, Karlenstein, see mortals as expendable, but do try to reign them in for once. Both of you are capable of providing power-augmenting Abilities to turn the chaff into useful tools, but do not assume that they have infinite morale or bodies to stay in the fight. This will be a war of attrition, so every mortal life matters.¡±


    The puppet did its best to level a stern look at Karlenstein, and she huffed and turned her head up and away but ultimately replied with a, ¡°yeah, whatever¡±.


    ¡°The pact is sealed¡± responded Synsinac in turn, and so that left only two of us left.


    ¡°Bylo¡¯selhi, your flight is too young and small to provide much of use in terms of raw combat potential here on the main front.¡± That got a few snickers from the rest present, sans me, since he was largely my ally. ¡°However,¡± Bonpricha stressed with a tone that demanded everyone else cease poking fun at the Emperor of The Equivalent Scales, ¡°the finances to secure supplies and see them delivered here at World¡¯s Hope will be staggering in scale. We cannot allow our supply lines to be sabotaged through greed, incompetence, or malice. It is imperative that your flight keeps the flow of supplies steady, or we find ourselves starving before long. I trust you to handle this, but know that this role is critical.¡±


    Bylo¡¯selhi sat a little straighter in his chair as he bowed his head slightly to Bonpricha. A small smile of satisfaction and perhaps relief crested his face for a moment before fading away.


    ¡°And as for our newest Emperor,¡± she continued as she turned her head to me. ¡°Your flight provides even less than his, and I would be surprised if it were otherwise. Your flight has only just begun, but I see it is progressing well. You have accumulated many mortal allies, and I want you to continue building up the infrastructure this world needs to get supplies here to World¡¯s Hope. The roads of this world are of poor condition, and I have seen armies be defeated because one wagon wheel broke at an inopportune time and failed to deliver its cargo.


    ¡°Your flight will cooperate closely with The Equivalent Scales. Play nice, you two, for now is a time for unity and not to corner the market. I expect both of you to be swift and decisive when dealing with anyone who fails to contribute appropriately to the war effort. I¡¯m not talking about squeezing peasant villages for even more food when it will starve them, but of rich and greedy bastards. I don¡¯t care if it is an entire kingdom or an entire faith that skimps on pitching in, bring them to heel or make an example of them as required, but do not let the power go to your heads.¡±


    It did not escape me that I was basically an enforcer for the flights and the gods when it came to mortal affairs. Unsavory business, but needs must when the world is at stake. The question was not ¡®if¡¯ it would happen, but rather how long it would take for people to slack off or send inferior troops and supplies than what was mandated.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    ¡°Additionally,¡± she continued before I even got a chance to agree to her terms. ¡°There is a certain tower that you need to climb. It probably does not exist in this world yet, but as soon as it appears, I expect you to handle it promptly. I believe I know what was being referenced, and I will confer with you later as to my knowledge on the topic.¡±


    I nodded my head once as I looked right at her, the puppet somehow conveying emotion and tone far beyond what I thought cloth could. I could not detect a hint of magic from it, but that certainly did not mean that it wasn¡¯t loaded to the gills with any number of enchantments. Bonpricha had a large head start on me to accumulate all manner of wonders and Abilities, so it would not stretch the imagination to believe that I was not even on her level yet.


    ¡°All of you will be present for the opening day. I will inform you when you are released to your duties. The opening push is projected to be the most difficult, for they will try to overwhelm us initially. If that fails, then they will ease up as they prepare for a sudden push at some future point in time. Do what you can, but don¡¯t die on me, as that would be terribly inconvenient. We, along with Titans and Demons, are the strongest things around, but make no mistake, it is the mortals who will ultimately be holding the line. Foster their growth, inspire them, and above all, do not fail in the execution of your duties.


    ¡°Now, on to specifics.¡±


    <hr>


    Bonpricha continued to rattle off details, but eventually, the meeting was opened to everyone to pitch in ideas so that we would represent both a unified front and have a sound strategy to actually survive. While flights as a whole were assigned tasks, the members of each would be intermixed for the effect of combined arms.


    We sorted out the details of who would be stationed where and what rotations people would be on. That was a tedious and tricky task, for even though we were told to play nice, too many of our children held grudges or were embroiled in feuds with one another, and so stationing them far apart from their adversaries would be prudent.


    Overall, the meeting was much more civil than I had anticipated. The most noteworthy exception being when Encrodecro gave a ¡°go fuck yourself!¡± to Karlenstein, the latter of which formed a clone out of blood that, while naked and otherwise appearing to be a beautiful woman in most respects, possessed the generously sized anatomical bits and bobs to fulfill that suggestion. The Karlensteins began to indulge in such a pastime, but Bonpricha put a stop to it before things devolved further.


    Contracts were exchanged, schemes were laid bare, threats of assassination were declared, and many tasks were delegated to the underlings behind us. Hours passed one after another, but by dawn of the following day, we had formulated a solid plan to defend ourselves and leverage the full usefulness of the mortals. Said mortals looking at this meeting must have been confused, for they would have only witnessed the privacy barrier that presumably Bonpricha had erected around us so that no one could peek at what the Emperors looked like.


    With our strategy meeting more or less concluded, Bonpricha released us to do as we pleased while also inviting me to walk with her for a while. Little kobold feet could be seen sticking out of the puppet as it ¡°walked¡± over to me, and together, we made our way on a little stroll away from everyone else.


    The puppet opened its mouth and projected a beam of light that coalesced into a figure of flesh and blood, the illusion so convincing that even I could not discern with my senses that it was not real. She took the form of a beautiful woman, one about the same height as Chooka, but the race seemed to be a mix of everything. She likewise had a tail, wings, and horns, which certainly made her appear more draconic. Her outfit was form-fitting and had a theme of nature and leaves, mostly made of leather and cloth, the likes of which I had never seen before, seeming to be more of solid magic than any material I knew of.


    ¡°Can¡¯t hide them after you reach 1,000 years old, give or take,¡± she started suddenly as she pointed to her horns. Perhaps I was staring, for I found her to be quite captivating. ¡°The wings and tail can be hidden, but after around 1,500 years old or so, it becomes such a part of your identity that it would be like losing a hand not to have them.¡±


    ¡°Interesting,¡± I responded with a fair degree of honesty. Not even Nanu knew of these facts. ¡°Any wisdom that you could impart, such that I may live long enough to find out for myself, would be greatly appreciated.¡±


    ¡°I see you have invested some Skills in [Leadership] to be smooth and charming,¡± she replied with a smile as we slowly plodded along, our destination unknown and unimportant. ¡°Furthermore, I see you have divested yourself of power,¡± she continued with a slight frown on her face. ¡°I don¡¯t know how or why you have the Ability to bond companions to you, but do not delude yourself into thinking that such power was free. You will continue to hamstring your personal power if you continue that trend. Perhaps, the only way out is through, and there may be merit in having a small team of powerful and devoted allies, even if you personally are weaker than you should be.


    ¡°That may have something to do with your Blessing, [Greater Elder Dragon Emperor].¡± She turned her head to look at me, and perhaps she caught the hint of surprise on my face that she could see my Blessing. ¡°Don¡¯t be alarmed, for many are the tricks an Emperor can acquire over time. I know the Blessings of all the Emperors, and I know that none are ¡®Greater¡¯ or ¡®Elder¡¯, except for me, and only for the second modifier. Curious, then, how you ended up with such modifiers despite being so young.


    ¡°Perhaps it has something to do with the man that looks a lot like you that I have seen from time to time over the past several centuries. You know, the one with the spiraling triangle symbol. Last I saw of him, he had what was probably supposed to be a private meeting with Mehczeczi of The Secret Stalkers, which was just before Mehczeczi started working on his ritual that went awry.¡±


    She continued to look at me knowingly, her smile suggesting that I confess my thoughts and unburden my soul to her, but I honestly did not know what she wanted out of me, so I just smiled back.


    ¡°You seem to be the center of attention, and making yourself publicly known to the world is a bold and dangerous strategy, but that ship has sailed. You also have more than a few gods looking at you more intensely than they do others, and if my predictions are right, I believe a few demigods will soon make introductions with you. I have formulated my own theories as to why this is happening, but you will need to figure out the answer to that yourself. If I am correct, then there is little in the way of coincidence that you always find yourself as the one everyone pins their hopes on to solve problems.¡±


    We continued on for a time in silence, Bonpricha providing me time to consider her words before I replied. ¡°I guess everyone likes to think they are special without shouldering the burden of having to do special things. It looks like I got saddled with a heap of both.¡±


    She beamed me a knowing smile accompanied by a wink, her expression conveying an air of excitement and anticipation.


    ¡°Things are about to get spicy for everyone, and for you, I don¡¯t think you will be catching a break any time soon. Like it or not, you are indeed special, and everyone, mortal and divine alike, will want one favor or another from you. It is unavoidable that you will not be able to please them all, so choose your friends and enemies wisely.


    ¡°As for the tower, I suspect it to be a sort of installation left behind by The Makers in case the gods became unreliable, or perhaps as a limit of what gods could or could not change. Most likely, it contains the means to modify this world on a fundamental level. I am certain you are familiar with the trope in tales about Adventurers climbing the tower, clearing the floors and defeating bosses until they reach the top, where they unlock unimaginable power. I would guess that a grain of truth can be extracted from those tales in terms of what you will face.


    ¡°The tower, which we can just call ¡®The Tower¡¯ until we have a better name for it, most likely exists in The Void. The Void is seemingly infinite, and it is a transitory plane that connects the others together, such as this material world to the Shadow Path or the Fallen World, which is home to the fae and one of my primary duties to ward off. The Void is where summoned creatures linger or traverse through, where souls go when they die until they are routed to whatever god or afterlife they deserve. I doubt you will need to patrol The Void in search of The Tower, for it will almost certainly materialize in this world somewhere at some future point. Beyond that, I cannot say when or where it will appear, but if I catch sight of it, I will let you know.¡±


    ¡°Gratitude, Bonpricha, for your directness and wisdom. Conversing with you is much easier than with the other Emperors.¡±


    Bonpricha let out a pleasant laugh at that, one that felt genuine and inspired me to trust her a little more.


    ¡°I know precisely what you mean. They are, in my opinion, still immature, for I was like them at their ages. Arrogance is a vice that dragons fall prey to, but the older one gets, the less of a hold it has. I am not as cryptic as they are because I am powerful enough to be direct. This body you see here is but an illusion. Granted, it is so strong that the World Heart believes it to be real, and even by using it, I could box their ears without issue. Hold on to that spark of humanity you have learned in your youth, for losing your empathy or becoming jaded to the affairs of mortals will only lead to suffering.¡±


    She turned fully to look at me, and in the moment that we shared, she did that which I had not expected, something that seemed that Emperors simply would not do. She hugged me, her arms embracing me and her wings enfolding me as she whispered a promise into my ear.

 Chapter 103

    To put things lightly, it had been a long-ass day. By the crack of noon on the following day since this whole shitshow began, I was finally home, a sleepy Chooka cradled in my arms as I carried her exhausted body to our bed. As a dragon, I do not sleep often, but after the events of the previous day, I felt bushed. We soon found ourselves cuddled together, me on my back and Chooka to my side, her head resting on my chest. Skull mirrored her, and together, we caught a few winks.


    I dreamed I was a dungeon, one plotting to lure in Adventurers and challenge their skill with the allure of treasure and the secret promise of a gruesome death. Sneaky traps, clever ambushes, absolutely dickish floorplans, and wildly unfair monsters were the mainstays of my craft as I schemed my way towards success. The small fry were allowed to live, collect their loot, and leave to spread word about riches ripe for the taking, while those laden with expensive equipment were quietly killed in dark corridors, their personal effects offered as tribute to my ever-growing appetites for shiny new loot of my own.


    I woke in a sweat, which is in and of itself peculiar, since, generally speaking, dragons do not perspire. I knew that I had experienced no mere dream, but rather, a vivid memory of a past life. Most of my dreams these days were of past lives, each one more clear than the last. I had been good, I had been evil, but more often than not, I was just trying to make my way in the world and look after those I cared about.


    As a dragon, I don¡¯t dwell too often or long on the moral implications of my actions. If anything, I mostly feel bad that I don¡¯t have such qualms, but that part of me that screamed that I should care tended to find itself swallowed by the apathetic silence of the rest of me. Take the dream for example; I didn¡¯t force the Adventurers to try to pillage the dungeon that was me. They knew the risks and chased after their own greed to take that which was not theirs. I simply defended myself and looked after my own interests, and so, for both me of the past and the me of present, it was an open-and-close case where I was in the right.


    A moment of apprehension flowed through me, that perhaps the dream was a premonition. With so many dragons skulking about my territory, perhaps one had ventured where it ought not. I spun off a [Parallel Mind] to examine my connection to each and every object in my [Hoard], and another to review every [Observer] and [Overseer] I had stationed around the city. Despite the sudden awakening, I felt rested, if not a little on edge, and so I busied myself with an audit of my holdings. I found nothing amiss, but that did not mean that trouble didn¡¯t lurk around every corner.


    Skull, perhaps sensing my hyper-focused state, likewise woke up. She carefully wiggled her way out of bed so as to not disturb Chooka, and I likewise untethered myself from my favorite lover¡¯s embrace so that I may face the challenges of the new day. Another [Parallel Mind] was spun off to go down the rabbit hole of how I hope Chooka will become my bonded companion soon so that she doesn¡¯t need to sleep as much, all so that we can spend more time together.


    I feel a little bad about how I have so many obligations and desires contesting for my attention, and how she is not getting the lion¡¯s share of it. She reassures me that she is very happy with the way things are between us, and so I am left to trust her and needlessly carry around this burden of guilt of my own making.


    I was about to spin off another [Parallel Mind] to consider what special thing I could do for Chooka to show her how much I love her when one [Parallel Mind] tugged at my primary consciousness and demanded my attention to something interesting. Through an [Observer], I detected a carriage passing through the main gates, one with heraldry and colors that I found myself familiar with. Perhaps this would do the trick if I played my cards right. I know Chooka has a few pages in her little black book that are reserved for particular triumphs, and one just rolled into town. A small smile adorned my face as Skull and I silently made our way to investigate.


    <hr>


    After two weeks of travel, even the most comfortable of carriages had become more of a tomb than a luxury of transportation. The roads had been impeccably smooth, the journey deplorably uneventful in that nothing had attacked us at all. I had no opportunity to cut loose, no chance to show off my skills for my lady and mentor, no means to relieve the boredom that not even all of our books and games could quell. However, a new city, both to my own perspectives and indeed in its construction, should provide me with some form of stimuli.


    ¡°We have arrived, Lady Starweaver,¡± I heard the coachman announce to us after we came to a stop. I opened the door and hopped out, taking position to defend my lady in the event someone should ambush her. The coachman, old but capable, slowly made his way over to deploy some stairs for my awaiting lady, so that she may descend from her carriage with the appropriate level of decorum as befitting her station.


    The other three carriages and the baggage wagon were behind ours, each unloading in a similar fashion. Silver masks, each a mirror of my own, obscured the faces of the other handmaidens that attended to Lady Starweaver. However, no number of masks could conceal the jealousy that radiated from those who thought themselves discreet, for they chafed at the idea that I would be favored by Lady Starweaver and made to personally attend to her during our journey. They may proclaim me a ¡®protegee¡¯ in polite company, but they show me cold indifference at best the rest of the time. And so I found myself alone at the end of the world.


    ¡°The stars have aligned for our fortune,¡± exclaimed my equally tired Lady Starweaver as she descended the stairs with unparalleled grace and poise despite how still her muscles must feel after such a journey. ¡°All the better to have arrived in good company,¡± she continued as she stroked a hand through my carmine hair with motherly affection, the tip of her finger brushing lightly against the yellow lotus that had been gifted to me all those years ago.


    ¡°You honor me, Lady Starweaver,¡± I reply with a slight bow, my mask working overtime to obscure my blushing face.


    ¡°Nonsense, dear!¡± she lightly chided as she lifted my chin with her finger. ¡°I thought these past couple years and our time together on this journey would do much to lessen how formal you are with me, but perhaps I will need to take more drastic measures, preferably later tonight if fortune finds me favorable.¡±


    I admit that I knew not what she alluded to. Perhaps she wanted to lounge at a salon somewhere and catch up on local gossip, for she had always been the pinnacle of propriety when I had been on shift to attend to her. But this was a new city, far from the prying eyes of Berkerin [Nobles] and other busybodies vying for position and status. Well, at least the ones my lady was forced to rub elbows with upon occasion. Perhaps her more adventurous side called to her. In that case, we might visit a racetrack or something equally risqu¨¦.


    ¡°Now, let us make haste for our lodgings, so that we may all rest before the affairs of the evening. I expect you to accompany me this evening, so you best refresh yourself.¡±


    Without another word, Lady Starweaver made her way inside of the¡­ inn? The building, far too fancy and large to be such a pedestrian establishment, must be some sort of grand hotel. I have heard the architecture style described as ¡®Gothic¡¯, but no drawings or descriptions had prepared me for the size and splendor that awaited me. Fine details were layered one over another, lifelike statues and opulent reliefs adorned every surface, some recognizable as famous heroes of legend, the others a mystery. And this building was much the same as the rest, each one dwarfing those of Berkerin in size, majesty, and beauty.


    The other attendants would collect her luggage and mine, and sadly, I was at the mercy of misplaced trust in them that I would not find scorpions in my smallclothes again. I found no humor in it the first time, nor the fifth, but apparently, persistence was more of their virtue than wit.


    While I could sit outside and look at the architecture for days, the inside took my breath away. Marble floors in a checkerboard of black and white were the first thing I noticed, followed by the walls covered in murals and depictions of famous battles or feats of magical discovery. No candles or torches lit the room, but rather, a crystal chandelier seemingly emanated its own light. Some sort of fancy illuminator, a feat of enchanting that one rarely found in Berkerin.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    I had rarely seen kobolds before coming to this city, but they were everywhere around here. With a ring of a bell, one hopped up off a bench and attended to our luggage, the whole of it seemingly sucked into a pane of blackness and banished from the material world. We were promptly shown to our room by the little kobold, which, upon interacting with one in person, I found to be more than a little adorable. Our luggage was returned to us, and dressed in his sharp red jacket with a matching cylindrical hat, he held out his hand as he waited by the door, his eyes looking at me expectantly.


    ¡°Give the man a tip, dear,¡± Lady Starweaver directed as she verbally came to my rescue, for I had no inclination as to his continued purpose in our room.


    Feeling sheepish, I fished a silver coin out of my coin purse and placed it in his hand. He raised his, well, not eyebrow, but scaly skin above his eye, at the offered coin, his expression a mixture of professionalism and longsuffering. I placed a second coin to join the first, and apparently satisfied with my offering, he closed the door behind him as he departed.


    I had expected us to have perhaps a small room with a thin wall between us, for that is what most establishments had to offer until we had traveled far enough south to get to the waystations built by the same Emperor who built the roads. The apartment I found myself in was as spacious as it was ostentatious, the floor adorned with large carpets of colorful designs and elaborate patterns, the furniture fully upholstered in pristine leathers and soft fabrics, the doors to the adjoining bedrooms at least twice as tall as normal ones. The ceiling was painted in a grand sight of some religious significance, one that showcased Hulonch, given the motifs of Light and Life that adorned it. Most interestingly, the god¡¯s form changed based on where one stood in the room, with various appendages and features being added or removed as His whims deemed appropriate. Perhaps it was due to strange magic, or perhaps a phenomenon of optics that I have yet to grasp, but the effect remained dazzling.


    ¡°Take care lest your eyeballs fall out of your head, my dear.¡±


    Startled from my gawking, I turned to see my lady smiling at me. My cheeks began to flush as she teased me for the second time in the past hour.


    ¡°Lighten up, and get some rest.¡± She continued as she spun me around and lightly pushed me towards the door to my own room. ¡°I have no further need of pampering right now. Get some sleep, and I will see you again come sundown.¡±


    I performed as my lady instructed, and I found that my bedroom continued to offer its own visual delights. While the d¨¦cor remained tasteful, none of it mattered compared to the stone basin filled almost to the brim with warm water. My clothes no sooner found themselves divested of my posture than the bath found my body as an eager patron. Grime, sweat, fatigue, and stress seemingly washed away as I submerged myself in the soothing embrace of its invigorating waters. What a luxury, to have a bath, what more for one large enough for four people! And to have one that was warm as well, that was more icing on the cake.


    Considering the accommodations were provided free of charge by the Emperor himself, I could get used to remaining in this city if he continued to show such favor and hospitality. There were at least a dozen bottles, each ornate in form, and each likewise containing some pleasant-smelling liquid. I tried a few, and considered stopping after one provided me with a moment of considering indulgence in autocannibalism. I never knew an oil could make one smell of pancakes and syrup, but the scent of it set my stomach to rumbling as I found myself reminded of my hunger.


    A glance around the room betrayed the presence of a platter of cheeses and fruits that had been foolishly separated from the herd. I lowered myself into the bath until only the top of my head remained visible as I stalked towards my prey. I approached with utmost care and discretion, and if the platter knew that I had it firmly in my sights, it made no motion to flee. Satisfied with my proximity to my quarry, I leapt from the bath, a cascade of water accompanying me as I landed on the floor and snatched an unsuspecting candied fruit, the hapless delicacy soon finding a new home, one devoid of light and filled with hunger.


    Laughter escaped my mouth, first one giggle, then another. Before long, I was stuffing my face and laughing with glee, quickly pouring myself a glass of water to relieve my distress when I started choking on my food. Naked and carefree, I dined away on my private smorgasbord as my body dried off in the pleasantly warm air. As I munched away, I noticed a strange door or box of some sort in the wall, not big enough to crawl through, but large enough to hold objects. Upon opening it, I saw that it was a dumbwaiter, one with a rather elaborate door in front that had confused me at first.


    The inside of the door had pictograms and writing that suggested a menu of options, and a cursory inspection elucidated me as to what further luxuries awaited me. Not wasting any time, I retrieved all my dirty laundry, including my clothes that had been soiled from the trip so far, and placed them into the dumbwaiter. I pressed the button that had been hidden when the door was closed, and then closed said door. A moment later, I could hear the faint sound of movement beyond, and satisfied that my clothes would be cleaned and pressed while I slept, I opted to take a nap as my lady had instructed.


    The fabric of the bed was quite fine indeed, far better than a second-generation scion of a minor noble house from a small city-state had ever experienced. Though I once had my own attendants, they were in truth my mother¡¯s and not mine, and though I had lived a better life than most commoners, the true heights of luxury had always remained outside my grasp. My lady treated her handmaidens well, but her means were either not on this level or she abstained from such indulgences.


    The bed itself was already warm and soft, like being nestled in a cloud bound for dreamland. The pillow remained delightfully chilled, as did the air around my head, such that I breathed pleasantly cool air. And soon I found myself asleep.


    Then I woke to the sound of a little bell that came from the direction of the dumbwaiter. My family was apt to describe me as a ¡®sleepyhead¡¯ and ¡®grump¡¯ when I woke, but this time, I felt positively refreshed. I retrieved my clothes and found them well cleaned, mended, and folded. A clock upon the wall showed that I had best be getting ready to escort my lady around town. Not that she needed my protection, but it did present a better picture to the public if she delegated the matter of her personal safety to competent staff.


    I prepared my best outfit that was not for ceremonial purposes. White trousers, black knee-high boots, a red jacket with gold trim, and my trusty belt and rapier. Not to mention the boot knife, the dagger hidden at my waist near my backside, the brass knuckles stashed away in my inner pocket, and the sharp hairpin that could be used as a weapon in a pinch. The world could be dangerous, and a girl needed to be prepared to defend herself.


    My family clings to some ancient customs that few recognize, much less observe. Most grated upon my sensibilities, but I always liked the singular braid that I kept on the right side of my head. Perhaps because that was one thing mother always did for me, for my nannies always tended to the rest of my outfit and person. I found myself daydreaming, my hand twirling my braid as homesickness brought back memories of times long gone. Not all were pleasant, but they still remind me of family. A small frown found its way on my face for just a moment before I schooled my countenance and dismissed it. That ship has already sailed, and I understand why my family made the choices it did during such hard times.


    Finally prepared, I opened the bedroom door only to find that Lady Starweaver was already waiting for me in the main room, a stack of papers before her as she casually reviewed them. While she was admittedly old, even for an elf, her beauty had never faded in the slightest, and women in their 30¡¯s would be envious of how her youthful glow still tenaciously embraced her after centuries of existence. What¡¯s more, she wore a cold shoulder dress, once complete with a slit on the side that went all the way up her right hip, which was more revealing that I had ever seen her. Simply put, she looked stunning, and if she didn¡¯t get an offer of marriage before dinner, I would eat my shoes.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be mortified, dear. I did not expect you to wake before me,¡± she stated warmly without her eyes ever looking up to me. ¡°I have already given the others leave to pursue their own delights, but as for us, we will be departing promptly to attend our own.¡±


    ¡°As you wish, my lady,¡± I replied with a bow.


    ¡°You may leave your mask behind. We are not in Berkerin any more, and such antiquated customs need not be enforced here. It would be a shame if your beauty spent another day hidden from the world,¡± she finished as she looked up to me while also rising to a standing position.


    I blushed at her praise, and though she at least formally maintained airs of being all prim and proper around polite society, it was no secret to those closer to her that she enjoyed teasing others. Not that she was fictitious with her words and duplicitous in her intent, but she knew the reaction her words would have on me.


    ¡°Come, my Little Dawnflower. There are memories to be made tonight, and I dare say we will not make many good ones if we remain cooped up in here. I know I am absolutely famished, and a rickshaw awaits to transport us to a restaurant of some note, if rumors are to be believed.¡±


    A rickshaw did indeed await us, and by the pleasant scent in the air, I knew that quality food could indeed be found nearby. But by the red glow of the nearby lights and the scantily clad men and women offering unprecedented delights to those generous enough with their coin, I came to question if we had not found ourselves in a less than savory district of the city.

 Chapter 104

    Base desires coupled with perverse passions - such form the foundation of my craft. The hearts of mortals ever hunger for new experiences and indulgences, and I find succor in the knowledge that my deft hand applied to the exclusive members of my clientele ultimately brings glory to Father. Drink, sex, games of chance, narcotics, and other exotic and esoteric pastimes are all available for those with sufficient coin, and Father has entrusted me with providing these services to those seeking the benefits of His generosity.


    Not that I cross lines, for Father has ordained certain rules. No slavery is tolerated, no coercion permitted, no contracts or wagers are to be performed with those too impaired by substance or circumstance to be fit to agree to terms. Likewise, no children are involved, and those desiring to sample flowers that have not yet bloomed often find new residency in the mausoleum.


    When consent is given, anything is possible. And for those Adventurers who have faced peril and strife beyond what most mortals can imagine, trauma often begets perverse desires that transcend conventional reason. The border between pain and pleasure become so blurred as to be inseparable, the lash and rod as soothing as a lover¡¯s caress, the chains and straps the warm embrace of one offering release from worldly concerns. For they see that control is but an illusion, one that obfuscates true freedom. By surrendering that control to me, I can push them to new heights of experience, and through my work, help heal their troubled souls.


    However, Adventurers tend to be hardy individuals, and with sources of efficient and expedient healing being readily available, some are willing and eager to endure what many may consider torture. But I am no subjugator who has come for conquest and to demand submission. I am but a guide, a companion to explore the limits of the senses and help them ascend to the summit of pleasure and satisfaction. Pain is in the world, but only the weak choose to suffer. And at the height of their torment, when pain and pleasure intertwine in a lover¡¯s embrace, when they share a bond with me that transcends conventional reason, that is when true ecstasy begins.


    For these mortals have desirable Traits, and I have neither the patience nor inclination to slowly fall in love and play house with them for the purpose of extracting what I need. Our bond only needs to last a moment, and in that temporal state of mutual empathy and closeness, I collect that which I am due. Not that they are harmed by the process in any way. Well, many suffer injuries of their own desire when traveling the path to forge our bond, but the process of extracting a Trait is neither invasive nor debilitating.


    And it is for these Traits that I indulge their fantasies. I will admit that I do delight in my work, in watching them squirm in my grasp as I do whatever I desire to them, provided they consent to it. They draw the lines, and I color in the shapes however I please. However, indulgences in lust with them pales in comparison to similar undertakings with Father, and though I play the part of being interested in them and affectionate, I generally only care for what they have to offer. They are tools to be used, toys to be played with, distractions to idle away the hours. They cannot compare to that sweet indulgence of ecstasy that comes with my communion with Father when we exchange Traits and craft progeny. While my work keeps me alive and useful, it is for those moments that I live, and I would do anything to protect my place in His eyes.


    Take this remnimi male, for example. I have woven an intricate mesh of silk ropes all along his body, such that he is fully restrained and exposed to whatever ministrations I have in mind for him. Currently, his twin ¡®vulnerabilities¡¯ are snuggly secured in a vice, one whose hungry jaws grow ever closer with but a turn of the handle. His quick breathing, coupled with his grunts of pain, suggest I restrain my hand, but his eyes scream for more as he gazes longingly at my twin gazelles and the flash of my smirk. No clothes sully our work, no fabric obscures his rising desire for a consummation of our physical forms. However, he is a frog lusting after swan flesh, for my body is not for his indulgence.


    However, I know enough of how to keep them wanting while also giving them a taste of what they desire. As my hand moves to provide such satisfaction, a lone whelp soars into the room and lands on my shoulder. One of Father¡¯s own, it clutches a small scroll in its claws, one that it offers to me. If anything, my dismissive attitude towards my client¡¯s dismay only serves to enrage his passion for me all the more, his body pushed to a limit that will soon be broken.


    Father has given me a sacred duty, and unbeknownst to Him, a gift. For this scroll came from Him, and so it is a treasure for my [Hoard], one that sits above the gifts of my devoted fans and misguided suitors.


    ¡°It seems I am needed elsewhere. Be a good boy and stay ready for me. I may decide to return at some point.¡±


    [Telepathy] gets my message across, for the words of my true voice are too potent for such a conversation. To keep his mind occupied while I attend to other matters, I turn the handle a few more rotations, enough that his legs tremble uncontrollably from the anguish inflicted upon him.


    ¡°Scream, and I will use all 100 needles on you before you are allowed out of your bindings,¡± I communicate as I nod my head towards a nearby tray filled with needles both long and thin. His eyes widened in both fear and curiosity at what must be an unexpected form of foreplay for him, but rather casual for some of my male orc clients.


    I don my robes that I had previously discarded in favor of administering my craft on my current client. Two new clients had arrived, ones that Father showed particular interest in, and He had imparted instructions for me. They were reaching the culmination of their fine dining, and I should arrive just after they finished dessert. A smile adorns my face as I depart, for a most auspicious opportunity has presented itself to me.


    Through discrete channels, I have learned as much as I could about any number of potential clients and adversaries. Anyone who is anyone has made my list, and I have drafted up dossiers on all of them for my own review and for my staff to memorize. Erethel Starweaver certainly found her name in my files, for it was no secret that Chooka desired a conquest with her. And Father loves Chooka more than anyone, and so, it follows that a favor to Chooka would see me elevated in His eyes. As it just so happens, Erethel Starweaver has certain ¡®proclivities¡¯ that align well with my current client, and if I can bring the four of us into the same room, success will be all but guaranteed. Perhaps Nabonidus suggesting that I personally take care of this client had more merit than he let on.


    Now out in the hallway, I transform from my remnimi form to an elven one, complete with the typical blonde hair that most of the far-skinned ones normally sport. Sadly, I am not precise enough to fully tailor the finer details of my mortal forms to my exact specifications. With limited discretion available for my purview, I look like a beautiful yet admittedly generic member of whatever race I transform into. However, thanks to my heritage as a Dragon Consort, that is to say, one forged from at least one mortal parent, I will someday master such precision.


    Master of my domain, I know all that goes on within the confines of my abode. Every naughty secret, ever act of depravity, every venture and loss, all are known to me. I already knew of the arrival of my guests of honor, but their significance remained a mystery until Father gave me His will in the form of the missive that was dispatched to me. Without err, I find my way to the table of the two elves who had entered the most prominent entertainment venue in the city that I make my home and business. With a subtle flex of power, my kobold staff gracefully retract themselves from attending to my guests so that all attention will fall upon me.


    ¡°Salutations and fortune to Erethel Starweaver and Relarina Dawnflower,¡± I communicate with them telepathically as I arrive at their table. I bend my knees slightly and incline my head just the same to show politeness, but refrain from any display of subservience. ¡°I am Tamadora of the Crossroad Wayfinders, and I welcome you to ¡®The Wayward Oasis¡¯. If you have found your appetite for food satisfied, it would be my delight to escort you to indulge in satisfying other appetites.¡±


    Relarina, the younger elf often called ¡°Little Dawnflower¡± by the elder, if the reports are accurate, raised an eyebrow at my suggestion, her face otherwise struggling to conceal her consternation at finding herself in a house of earthly delights. The elder elf merely smirked at my suggestion as she calmly sipped on her glass of wine.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°While I have often entered the garden and tasted its mysteries, my Little Dawnflower,¡± Erethel states as she puts her arm around the shoulder of Relarina and pulls her close, ¡°is fully bloomed. Sadly, her nectar goes to waste. If you knew of a gentle bee that could become acquainted with her to show her the full beauty she and the world have to offer each other, I would appreciate the assistance.¡±


    With the slightest of sniffs, I caught the whiff of a maiden both curious and embarrassed, her face turning nearly as red as her hair given the not-so-subtle wordplay that danced around their purpose.


    ¡°There are ample men and women here that are more than apt to attend to the needs of the Little Dawnflower. She may lack experience in such matters, but I am confident that we can find someone that suits her tastes.


    ¡°If needs must,¡± I continue as I lean over the table and lift the blushing maiden¡¯s chin with my hand, her eyes now transfixed on both the ample bounty that my robes scarcely conceal and my fiendish grin. ¡°I will personally see to her education.¡±


    Like a fawn caught in the den of two hungry Dire Tigers, the poor young thing remained nearly inanimate, her body only woodenly complying when Erethel bid her to her feet. Yet in her eyes, I detected that spark of intrigue and curiosity, an itch she didn¡¯t know she had that needed to be scratched sooner rather than later. We proceeded back to the second floor and in the direction of my previous client.


    ¡°I will admit that I have done my research on you, Erethel. I believe you will be more than happy with what I have prepared for you tonight.¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± replied the elf with coy non-commitment. ¡°Do I know this person, and will he or she come to greet me at the door, or do I need to be the one to travel?¡±


    ¡°Oh, he is a little tied up at the moment, but I believe you will find the journey a fitting opportunity to dwell on who has history with you.¡±


    ¡°I see you know how to keep a lady in suspense, for many are those who would merit such pondering. Very well, I¡¯ll bite.¡±


    I escorted them through the halls of the upper floor, taking them to the back rooms reserved for select clientele.


    ¡°This is where the two of you will part ways, I expect. I doubt the Little Dawnflower should be exposed to such an experience on her first night of exploration.¡±


    ¡°Indeed. I trust that you have a plan to escort her to her own room.¡±


    ¡°Most certainly,¡± I reply as one of my Father¡¯s whelps lands on my shoulder. I give it a gentle pet before directing it to Relarina. ¡°Today, you woke up a maiden,¡± I silently communicate to the younger elf as I point out the whelp to her. ¡°However, if you follow this little one and your heart, you will find yourself going to sleep as a woman. I can assure you that it is a most pleasurable experience that you will not regret, you just need to trust in your heart, and all will work out.¡±


    The whelp hopped off my shoulder and hovered in the air, its little wings flapping with insufficient force to generate enough lift, but magic tended to bypass all the pesky technicalities of physics with which dragons often contended. It let out an adorable squeaking roar and led the young elf to her room. Like a little lost lamb, she followed after her new friend. With that obstacle out of the way, I could now focus on the main attraction.


    I open the door for Erethel, and with such an action, the privacy wards allow us to hear the groans of pain coming from the room¡¯s sole occupant.


    ¡°Erethel, I believe you know Kolnch Steelheart, The Fist of Frozen Peaks. As I understand things, you fought on opposite sides at The Battle of the Stolen Scepter,¡± I communicate telepathically to both of them.


    ¡°How could I forget? He punched me so hard he sent me crashing into the sea. I nearly died that day. I distinctly remember landing on a sea urchin,¡± she stated for his benefit as she stepped closer such that she was right in front of him. ¡°You may not be familiar with what a sea urchin looks like,¡± she continued as her eyes looked at the tray of needles beside her. ¡°However,¡± she whispered to him with a devilish smile on her face. ¡°I think I see a good opportunity to give you an object lesson on what that was like for me. This demonstration may be messy.¡± She slipped out of her dress, letting it fall to the floor before stepping out and using magic to levitate it away. ¡°Best not to soil my clothes, as I suspect there will be a lot of blood.¡±


    Kolnch¡¯s eyes widened with fear and intrigue as he found himself at the mercy of a former enemy that stood naked before him. His spirit and more rose to the occasion, and together, the three of us began in his education about sea urchins. But they were, both of them, deceived, for another woman entered the room.


    Chooka, the one woman I both admire and respect, joined us. She has proven to be an invaluable mentor for my craft and in life in general, and tonight, she would show me how to seduce the prey that had eluded her for years on end. By all accounts, the prey would escape no longer, as they seemed to bond over taking turns at eliciting screams of pain and moans of pleasure from the bound remnimi.


    <hr>


    The cute, little, baby dragon, or whelp, led me along to a yet unknown destination. It twirled and performed feats of aerial acrobatics for my amusement, its antics accompanied by verbal sounds that encouraged haste and my continuance to following wherever it may lead me. I wanted to hug the little guy close and pet it, but I understood that loftier ambitions were in store for me.


    Boys and girls alike dream of their first time being special, but womanhood, at least in physical form, had found me years ago, even if the experience of certain undertakings had eluded me. And indeed, casting off maidenhood had practical benefits, as predators both monstrous and humanoid alike were known to prefer such ¡®purity¡¯. Society at large places no value on such a metric, nor does it associate any sin with sex outside of wedlock. If anything, most gods and cultures encourage it, especially with other races, where the risk of unwanted pregnancies are rendered moot.


    And I, too, have such desires of intimacy; it is just that few had caught my eye. People see my beauty and yet fail to see me as a person. They see the dainty glass flower that needs to be protected and cherished inside an ivory tower, not the adventurous tomboy who wants to face the beatings and bounties that the world has to offer. There was once one person who saw me for what I am, but he has long since departed my life, most likely to never be seen again. My hand idly strays to twirl my braid as I think about him and the flower in my hair which he gave to me, my mind focused on fantasies that will never be realized.


    Before I realize it, I find myself before a pair of sliding doors, their surface decorated with floral designs overall, with the centerpiece being the same yellow lotus I wore in my hair, the ¡®Yellow Meadow Lotus¡¯ in common, or ¡®Relarina¡® in elvish, and thus, my namesake. In adherence with the antiquated customs of my family, I had avoided casually disclosing my given name to people, and yet, the madam of the house knew my full name. That such a door just coincidentally happened to be adorned to my namesake stretched the limits of naivety. Had all this been planned for, or perhaps ordained by the gods themselves? I knew not the truth, other than that more answers would be found on the other side of the door.


    The little whelp landed on my shoulder, and with gentle headbutts into my jaw, it nudged me forward. With my heart racing, but my resolve mustered, I reached my hands out to part the doors. The room was adorned with the finery and amenities one would expect of a brothel, with a noticeably large bed being the highlight of the whole affair. But my eye was not drawn to all that, for something lost had been found, and I knew not what to do.


    Before me, dressed in black boots, blue trousers, a white shirt with bishop sleeves, and a carmine-colored vest, was the boy, now a man, that my heart had pined for all those years ago. Such was the very same outfit that he had given to me, that I may practice my swordsmanship in secret. And then realization struck, for his visage was unmistakably a match for what renditions I have seen in pictures of the Emperor of the Crossroad Wayfinders. My heart raced to speeds unprecedented, or stopped completely, I know not which, as I stood frozen in place, my mind conducting a fire sale on any and every idea that could possibly explain the circumstances in which I found myself.


    ¡°Greetings, Relarina,¡± he spoke as he rose from his chair at the table for two that was arranged perpendicular to the door, so that I may see him and his outfit in full by how he slanted his seat towards me. ¡°It gladdens my heart that we get to see each other again after so many years. It is my hope that we converse at our leisure this time, unless you still prefer to exchange cryptic letters that cannot be traced back to us.¡±


    His face was that of a man from everywhere and nowhere, his complexion allowing him to pass for a tanned northerner or a sheltered southerner. Certainly handsome, but not the belle of the ball. And yet, the earnest approval showing in his ear-to-ear grin at my arrival revealed how genuine his delight was at my presence. It melted away most of my fears, thawed out my stubborn legs that had refused to obey me, and bid me to join him at his table. And, treacherous rascals, instead of taking me to my seat like the proper lady that I pretended to be, they veered off and threw me into his arms. And yet, I found no disappointment in his warm embrace.

 Chapter 105

    I had, at that point in my life, bedded well over a thousand different women. As such, I had a fair degree of experience at understanding the demeanours and desires of different women and how best to help them get what they want. While indulging in lust with a woman is a most delightful pastime, such undertakings often found themselves founded in the practicality of collecting Traits. However, some of the women in my life mean a great deal more to me than just a passing fancy and dalliance. And while I had only recently discovered her first name, Relarina had been the first girl that I had developed feelings for when I was still a boy.


    Being a dragon, I do have some sort of supernatural ability to charm people, more akin to magical pheromones than invasive and unethical mind-magic. It helps me to get my foot in the door with people who would be of a persuasion to give me the time of day under the right circumstances, but it no more compels them to fall into bed with me than any other mundane actions one could take. Ergo, actual charm, wit, compassion, and respect were the tools I used for seduction.


    In truth, as I interacted with her, my goal was not to trick her into bed with me, not that I would protest such an auspicious development. I aspired to help her feel comfortable, safe, and secure in the knowledge that her confidence in my discretion remained well-founded. I wanted to know about her, to hear where life had taken her and what trials, tribulations, and triumphs she had to her name. We talked for hours, for the night was yet young when we reunited and we had much to discuss.


    Slowly, her guard lowered, but [Leadership] helped guide me and my decisions. Her behavior was akin to a dog with a ball, wanting it to be thrown, but unwilling to let go of it first. She wanted to be the aggressor in pushing things past platonic and into romance, yet she lacked the confidence to propel her forward. But ever as I am one to build the roads that allow people to travel to the destinations that hearts have in store for them, so too did I clear the path of any obstructions to her achieving her purpose for the night. While it may not have been her plan to dispose of her virginity when she woke up from her nap, the idea had found fertile ground in her mind as the hours passed, and it had borne fruit.


    If anything, she had mostly shown signs of frustration at how timid she was in her approach. I could not close the distance between us, nor could I run away, for she did not want a chase. Patiently, I helped her find her resolve, for if she was the flower in a painting, I remained the frame that would help showcase her beauty. Inexorably, the distance between us, both physical and social, diminished over time, and with our initial and rather surprising hug being an outlier, she finally found herself in my arms as she made a move for a kiss as she stood on her tiptoes.


    The flower in bloom yielded a bounty of confidence, and though beautiful to behold, she showed full well that she had her thorns. She was the one to push me onto the bed, and, like a dam had broken, her confidence swept me away as she took charge. Spirited in her resolve and vigorous in her pursuit, she made thorough and repeated forays into ensuring that she remained a maiden no longer.


    While rough around the edges, I provided her with ample practice to refine her skills in being dominant in matters of romance. Personally, I have no strong preference of who is on top, for I just want my partner to be happy, and so it was on her satisfaction that I focused. Such was rewarded in kind, for my attentiveness to indulging the curiosities of her fantasies only served to spur her on and invoke in her a desire to reciprocate. She did not have the stamina to indulge in each and every fantasy that her mind had concocted, but we made good progress on discovering what worked well in theory and what worked well in practice. Pillow talk helped ease her frustration at how her spirit, ever willing, found itself in excess of her body, which tired. Her appetite, once whetted, only craved more and more, and while I remained happy to provide, I encouraged her to accept her limits for now, with the promise that she would one day surpass them.


    I reassured her that I enjoyed her company and that I looked forward to spending more time with her, always presenting it to her as an option at her discretion, that no coercion, compulsion, or presumption was placed upon her or the assumption that the future would have such in store for us. We both knew we could die tomorrow or the day after, for the incursion of the enemy into our world was nigh. I will not go into the full details of what we talked about or what acts of passion we indulged in, for it is not polite to kiss and tell, but rest assured, she found herself chasing the dragon and what I had to offer.


    <hr>


    Banners flapped about in the fresh morning air, the fickle wind whipping them about indiscriminately. The banners in turn reflected the boons granted by the standards, those in turn held by the aquilifers, and the mortal men and women gathered benefited from the standards. These were no levies, conscripts, or fantassins, but professional soldiers and seasoned veterans, the best the world had to offer. Disciplined, resolved, and well-aware of the stakes, their morale remained high, even in the company of what would normally be considered adversaries.


    The most obvious were the undead. Legions upon legions of undead remained silent sentinels of the mortal world, the Bone Temple Pilots numbering around 10,000 strong, the immortal defenders of our world. For when one skeletal soldier became rendered unto dust through the violence of battle, another remained ready to take its place. A large contingent of them were concerned with retrieval of the equipment of their erstwhile compatriots, for while undead bodies could easily be replaced, their equipment could not. The remainder served as fodder for the meat grinder, tasked with keeping the swarm of the enemy at bay, as few living beings would be able to venture close to the portal once it activated and the aura of decay spilled through.


    Less obvious were dragons, for many remained in mortal form so as to obfuscate their presence from both enemies and allies alike. Being immortal, sans gruesome and violent deaths, their minds remained aware of a time after the war when old grudges would spark anew. Their identities, and the secrecy thereof, remained rather important to them, for unlike those of my flight, they preferred to remain incognito.


    A more surprising but no less worrisome collection of allies had marched in last night. The Boys had snuck out while I was distracted with my attention on a certain elf, and they had been here at World¡¯s Hope and singing into the night. Their song was not so loud that I heard it all the way at World¡¯s End, but apparently, those notes carried far and wide to every hydra. I suspect some supernatural shenanigans were at play to help them arrive so quickly, for I would eventually receive reports that hydras as far away as The Rainbow Bridge had heeded the summons of their [Herald of the New Age].


    They were, fundamentally, wild creatures. As magical beasts, they are smarter than mere animals, but they lack the manners and docility that comes with domestication. While they did not attack anyone, few dared approach them, and they in turn kept their distance as best they could from anyone who was not dedicated to interacting with them. A quick scrounging of [Beast Handlers] and other people with similar Blessings became a pivotal concern as they were invited or press-ganged into service.


    The hydras took position around the perimeter, their backs against the high road. Their breath attacks were second only to dragons, at least as far as most people are concerned, but with their above-average number of heads compared to most creatures, they packed a lot of firepower. 12 9-headers, each one of them ancient and powerful, remained the lynchpin of what they had to offer. Each one was escorted by around half a dozen 8-headers and a cadre of 7-headers, each of which was no pushover. A hydra with 6 heads was considered a full and mature adult, so by comparison, The Boys were the plucky teenagers chosen to be the heroes of their kind. Countless more hydras with any number of heads less than 7 and greater than 3 were present, and they mostly filled in where they could.


    I imagine many wondered how we would feed such beasts, for many were quite massive, the tallest of which was easily over 15 stories high without stretching its necks to their limit. Everyone present would come to find the grim truth that the abundance of food would scarcely be an issue, and likewise, we would find that some hydras specialized in eating corpses and safely regurgitating the bones and equipment that corpses tend to have. The enemy would try to collect their dead, but if we had our way, the biomass would be collected and used to feed the gathered masses of bottomless pits that dwell within the bellies of hydras. The fact that mortal defenders would likewise share the equally unceremonious fate as their adversaries helped to redouble the resolve of the mortal defenders to not die.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    I am certain that many Adventurers were calculating the rough math of how many millions of gold-worth of hydra body parts were available, assuming the market did not crash, which it certainly would if the hydras were harvested. However, I made it inescapably clear as to how the hydras were protected and not to be harmed, ¡®accidentally¡¯ or otherwise.


    Adventurers were but a paltry sum of those gathered in terms of the quantity of mortals present, but through quality, they represented perhaps a third of our military might. The Platinums were going to shoulder the lion¡¯s share of the burden, for they were both powerful and specialized enough to actually make a big impact. The Diamonds were mostly in reserve or performing support, for, to showcase all of our forces and Abilities so early in the war would play right into the hands of our enemy.


    Kobolds, a race that normally did not settle in conventional society, found themselves just about everywhere. They were here to support us, their choirs singing hymns to bolster both morale and the Abilities of the troops. They also handled all the grunt work and cleaning, for the battle would rage eternal. Blood and guts that made for treacherous footing would not clean themselves off the battlements. Each flight brought forth a large contingent of such loyal retainers, and while I thought I had many kobolds loyal to me, they still remained a minority compared to those in service to all the flights as a whole.


    Each flight also constructed their own bastions and armories around World¡¯s Hope. While Kings and Princes would find death to be but a temporary obstacle, Dukes and lower found no such inherent protection, and thus were at the mercy of their respective flight to source resurrection via coveted eggs. A dragon can only produce eggs so fast, and eggs need time to mature to the required peerage to either create new offspring or to revive the dead. Each dragon can also only maintain so many eggs at once, and thus the privilege of resurrection remained at a premium. The worthy would rise, and those wanting would find themselves forgotten.


    And while the hydras were a surprise, but not completely unprecedented, considering the battle in the swamp, other allies arrived, although in fewer numbers. While generic phoenixes are a rare beast, similar in power to hydras, the Phoenix titan himself had arrived, the legendary quetzalcoatlus that, as fables go, is said to have never touched the ground. Sulemani, the ever-hungry Sky Whale, reminiscent of a sperm whale, had also arrived, his form enveloped by clouds of thunder. I suspect he was here for the free food more than anything. Same could be said for Jor¨­gumo and Tsuchigumo, the spider titans that were the progenitors of every known spider-beast out there. I thought they would be bigger, but both were perhaps the size of a rhinoceros.


    These titans were wildcards, and while they each had a long history that could span a large volume of books, none were known for such levels of destruction as Hercules and Heracles, the hydra titans. However, those two were dead, sorta, and thus could not attend in person. However, with so many hydras abounding, it did not remain unreasonable that they would lend their heads to their progeny that had gathered here.


    More beasts were also present, the variety too large to recount in full. I was not the only person who had tamed beasts, and many people were present with their trusty and bestial companions. Other flights also brought forward their own private armies and coteries of assassins that presumably lurked among us, ready to strike like a knife in the night to counter enemy assassins. Artifacts of war, each one a relic and a mystery to all but the initiated, were dusted off and brought to the fore.


    Most of my companions were with me as well. Nabonidus remained concealed, stashed away in one of the secret rooms, with a few Jerichos to guard him. I had stationed whelps with him, that he may theoretically dispatch them to collect information and communicate with me. Such would be pivotal to his ability to see the future and collect information necessary to guide me. With the use of the right codewords, he could commandeer any resources at my disposal, and even order suicidal missions. There existed an understanding that he would use the authority entrusted to him to scout the future, or, if the worst should come, to save us.


    Alterez likewise remained safe, as he led an army of [Cooks], [Chefs], and other such individuals of the culinary persuasion to keep this army fed. Some two-million mortal defenders and their associated supporters and beasts were present, and they all had bellies that needed to be filled with sustenance. Also, he would be my director on counter-cult operations, for the enemy would surely find a way to stir unrest in the world¡¯s population and conduct terrorism.


    Jericho remained in reserve, for while copies of her were secreted away so that at least one would survive, a tide of Jerichos could be dispatched to plug any breaches at a moment¡¯s notice. She would perform the bulk of the fighting for my flight, for my flight found itself severely lacking in martial prowess.


    Skull could not venture far from me, and she remained my personal bodyguard. I could not safely venture into battle, for in terms of direct combat, I was not on par with even the Kings of most flights, and I was too large and juicy of a target to be risked.


    Gambino and Bambina had their hands full keeping my kobolds in check. They too needed to eat and sleep, and kobolds had a separate chain of command and a separate system of logistics to see themselves properly cared for. Most people don¡¯t really know where kobolds live or how kobolds get their food, they just know kobolds seemingly pop out of nowhere to perform some tasks and then leave. The kobolds of the other flights also needed to coordinate with ours, and so, generally speaking, Bambina managed my kobolds while Gambino handled diplomacy.


    Torborg, Bellwright, It-Has-Pockets, and Chooka were presumably potential companions, but none of them yet had a bond of blood with me. Torborg would be safe in the bowels of World¡¯s Hope, for while he was no [Enchanter], he could help ensure all the machinery down there worked as intended, which mostly concerned machines that converted energy from one medium to another. It-Has-Pockets would stay on the battlements to support the troops with her dancing to boost both morale and combat prowess, a fairly safe gig. Bellwright would be a chauffeur, one that could expect to be shot at religiously, and so he would not find himself bored as he offered support to the troops. Chooka remained safe at World¡¯s End. Paperwork still needed pushing, especially in times of war, and contracts had to be drawn up and fulfilled to ensure everything ran smoothly. My one and only Imperial Whelp remained by her side, my extra security to ensure that no harm befell her.


    There were few crixtali and saurkin allies present. In part, there just were not many of them to begin with, and also, they were still very busy settling in. Polemarch Kirov remained at the command center with me, which was on the top floor of the northern high road. There were a few big dinosaurs out there, each one as much a work of art as they were a beast of war, their armor and decorations both intimidating and inspiring to the troops that were certainly glad that said dinosaurs were not the enemy. Like the hydras, they mostly operated in the roles of support or artillery, with very few among them serving as elite calvary.


    Everyone knew, in a general sense, what was coming. Information had been disseminated throughout the ranks, drills had been exercised for months on end up to this point, supplies had been collected and distributed, and inspiring speeches had been delivered. At this point, most people were just eager for the incursion to commence and see where the dice fell. There was little more we could prepare without knowing exactly what the enemy would do. Half of our manpower found themselves on duty, with the other half somehow expected to rest and be prepared to take over later.


    Everyone knew that the battle would be brutal, that many would perish, and that the fallen would offer one final service with a tribute of their bones to the Skeleton War. We stood ready, for all predictions and calculations pointed to the portal opening within the next hour or two. My biggest problem was a grumbling Demon that muttered stuff about ¡°back in my day¡± and such, for The Pacifist could not effectively be corralled away from me. He had somehow weaseled his way into the command center, perhaps through a failure in operations security or through intimidation. No other Demons were known to be here, but the world was large, and many minor and temporary incursions could crop up seemingly anywhere, and so, many more defenders of our mortal world were out there to search and destroy.


    My two children, Kaisadoro and Tamadora, were here as well, mostly to observe, for they were not even close to being on par with true Kings. They both felt out of place and nervous, for while they were big fish in the small pond of World¡¯s End, they were little more than guppies amongst megalodons here in the command center where Emperors and Kings gathered.


    The battle started before anyone even knew it. Nabonidus had sent me a message, one that inspired me to hasten away. My attention had been stretched thin, my [Parallel Minds] only able to keep up with so much of what was happening around me, that I lost focus on one thing that truly mattered.


    Inquisitive and judgemental gazes be damned, I rushed out of the command center with Nanu in tow, leaping off the perch specifically designed for big dragons to take flight. Nanu shifted her form, and I rode on her back, my body merely going through the motions as my focus and control shifted elsewhere. I sent Tamadora to fetch Alterez and follow after with all haste.


    Safeguards had been in place to mitigate the unlikely into the realm of improbable, but something had gone terribly awry. No, not just some accident, but certain people had already betrayed us all. My draconic rage was stirred, mercy placed in irons and arrested while what was mine became threatened.


    And with a thought, I assumed direct control of my Imperial Whelp, for the love of my life found herself in mortal peril.

 Chapter 106

    Today had started out with an eerily strange beginning. No one had been around for breakfast, the demands of the day having pulled them elsewhere. Breakfast had been left for me, which in itself had been rather delicious, if less enjoyable due to the lack of company and the antics that make breakfast a challenge.


    The streets felt hollow, devoid of the usual hustle and bustle of people going about their preparations for the coming war. The preparations had long since been made, and not even the stragglers lingered. Only normal people, the non-combatants, remained in World¡¯s End, minus the pittance of guards that were stationed to keep the peace. Artisans still needed to craft their wares, the insatiable appetite of the general masses for such goods and services never sated, and so such individuals were still seen moving about. Other workers, tasked with more mundane chores, likewise remained, for food and waste did not move themselves. Though the heart and soul of the city had departed, the body of it still continued daily operations.


    An entourage of kobolds accompanied me, each one handing me paperwork or briefing me on what I missed while I slept. By the time I arrived at the guildhall, I already found myself abreast of the goings-on, which had been rather lackluster. What few people that were not at World¡¯s Hope were patrolling the countryside for monsters and the like, for the hold of the [Princess] on her territory still remained tenuous as she endeavored to establish herself and the legitimacy of her reign. The scouts were stretched thin, and while no caravan had been outright assaulted to the point of being overwhelmed, there had been close calls.


    Just because few were around did not mean that paperwork magically disappeared, much to my delight. Many were the bounties that needed to be processed, logged, and assessed in the larger picture. Missives needed to be dispatched to government officials to keep them in the loop. Communications with other branches remained paramount so that there were no holes in the patrol of the continent as a whole for lesser incursions. While none had been found so far, it was only a matter of time, and the interim provided time for scouts to familiarize themselves with their areas of responsibility and the associated dangers.


    While I engrossed myself in tackling this mountain of paperwork and the many challenges and mysteries it had to offer, my axolotl-kobold assistant, Girvalina, knocked at the door to my office, the sound of it more forceful and insistent than normal. I prepared myself for unsettling news.


    ¡°Enter!¡± I shouted for her to hear.


    The door promptly opened as my assistant scurried over to me. Though she barely passed my knee in height, her small stature hardly hampered her speed.


    ¡°Emergency missive for you, Chooka,¡± she announced as she stretched her body to hand it to me. Even in my sitting position, she had to reach to get her hands above the desk.


    I took the missive from her hands, my eyes carefully scanning it for both the contents of the message and the authenticity of its dispatch. The paper was of the correct grade, made of thuncha trees. It was slightly water resistant and yet held ink remarkably well, in addition to being difficult to burn or tear. Stamped in the corner was the seal of my attach¨¦ at World¡¯s Hope. I checked the Message Log, my book that was linked to its twin, that would verify that the message was sent and by whom. I compared the transaction number in the log to the one on the message, and indeed they matched.


    However, the message had been unexpected and cryptic. Additionally, I found myself at a loss as to why I would be needed in person at World¡¯s Hope, for I prided myself in having selected and trained highly competent individuals for my staff. However, I checked the mark in the Message Log for having received the message, and shortly later, there appeared a mark to signify acknowledgement. Likewise, I had checked the box for compliance, which let my counterpart know that I would indeed be making the journey.


    The contents of the message had been cryptic for the sake of operational security, as we remained vigilant to mitigate circumstances where our communications could be intercepted and molested. However, everything checked out, and so, without delay, I prepared myself to depart.


    ¡°Girvalina, have Montezuma muster up an escort for me. Hold down the fort until I return.¡±


    ¡°Right away, Chooka!¡± she declared with confidence not unfounded in capability.


    As she scurried off, I prepared a few missives of my own to help coordinate essential operations in my absence. With little else that demanded my attention, I promptly found myself outside and seated in an awaiting rickshaw. Montezuma, adorned in his extravagant headdress of colorful feathers, likewise stood ready to escort me, along with a score of capable-looking kobolds. He took position on the back of the rickshaw, facing away from me, as he would serve to watch our rear. Four beefy kobolds, each still quite small compared to me, took position at the front and rear to provide propulsion.


    We departed posthaste, our passage undisturbed due to runners having informed the guard of our imminent departure from the city. We promptly found ourselves outside the safety of the ¡®high roads¡¯, as my First Lover is wont to call them, and in the relatively unprotected expanse to World¡¯s Hope. Though the road was wide, smooth, and of excellent quality, the surrounding ash dunes, seemingly desolate, could contain any number of unseen threats. Perhaps the stress of this unexpected situation got to me, for my shoulders felt heavy, as if some unknown burden had landed upon me, but I would be damned if I wouldn¡¯t meet it head on.


    <hr>


    The city grew smaller in the distance. Well, I suspect it remained the same size, but since our distance to it increased, it had the normal appearance of growing smaller. One should be careful with the narrative, but the city did not seem to shrink at a rate that suggested it actually diminished in size. I found that to be a satisfactory and routine outcome for our journey, but one could never be too careful.


    Soon, we found ourselves in the outskirts of civilization, for it lacked the homesteads and development to secure it and distinctly separate it from the wilderness. Monsters could theoretically spawn here every now and then, but more than likely, they would just wander in from the wilderness. And with 21 kobolds and 1 remnimi in our little party, we made for a heap of appetizers and a main course for whatever monsters lurked in the dunes. However, our journey continued to be quiet.


    Too quiet.


    Not even a single ash weasel had been spotted this whole time, nor did I hear the songs of any of the passerine birds that often perched on whatever scant shrubbery the Ashlands had to offer. And this feeling welled up within me, the kind I got right before a Story unfolded. It was as if the air were charged, veritably cracking with static of a supernatural nature. However, it could be literally anything that would happen soon, just like the time the gong farmer slipped on the stairs, his heavily laden pot spilling its contents everywhere and causing some well-to-do ladies to likewise slip. That had been a rather hilarious, if smelly, spectacle. However, while nothing violent had happened, there had been ¡®repercussions¡¯ from that mishap.


    Yet I could feel it in my bones, this Story brimmed with foreboding portents. With eyes peeled and the members of the troupe on high alert, we redoubled our efforts while attempting to not alert our charge to our increased distress. I quickly disseminated [Lines] to various actors, that they would be prepared to change the tide of The Story when needed.


    Without warning, ululations of the more humanoid variety sounded out over the dunes. Well, I guess an ululation is a warning of sorts, but it is more designed to inspire fear and dread than to be formal notice. Either way, a bunch of [Cultists] poured over the crest of a nearby dune and flooded down the slope. You could tell they were [Cultists] by their matching robes and cowls obscuring their heads. Such matching outfits and iconography remained essential to their power, and they did not match the descriptions of any cults that I had been made aware of thanks to Alterez¡¯s efforts to unmask them.


    21 kobolds versus a whole heap of [Cultists] remained a bad matchup. This simply would not do. I activated [Retcon], and as I said, 35 kobolds against a whole heap of [Cultists] was less than ideal, but perhaps manageable. We were still a good 20 miles from our destination, but perhaps only 10 miles away from scouts or a patrol. If we could hold them off, our charge could get to safety, assuming there was not a second ambush up ahead. While this slipup in security demanded an investigation that would undoubtedly cause heads to roll, we would need to survive this mess to see if such an inquiry bore fruit.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    [Plot Twist] alerted me to a most unusual development. Turning to look behind me, I saw a whelp leap off Chooka¡¯s shoulders, the creature flapping its wings to hover in the air as it seemingly channeled its powers for a yet unknown effect. But, unless my eyes deceive, it was no ordinary whelp, but an Imperial Whelp. Indeed, it was the one and only of its kind that the Emperor currently possessed, and its being here meant that our charge was certainly a Main Character. That relegated me to the Role of a Side Character or perhaps a Supporting Actor if I were optimistic, and so [Plot Armor] would not save me many times.


    However, if the Imperial Whelp is here, then the Emperor would now be well aware of the situation. Undoubtedly, help would be on the way, and so, we just needed to last long enough for reinforcements to bail us out. The Emperor would not allow his favorite lover to perish so easily, so I could expect the big guns to show up.


    Speaking of big guns, my charge, Chooka, wasted no time in summoning forth her Gyrating Automatic Targeting Laser Induction Nanomagical Gun, which clearly could stand to have an acronym, but for legal reasons, we can¡¯t do that in our Story. What¡¯s that? Oh, it turns out that such a name would be a trademark, which can be freely used, and not fall under copyright. Anyway, Chooka wasted no time in summoning forth her gatling gun. Turning it in the general direction of the frenzied mass of [Cultists], she began to unload. Though her weapon flirted with the general ban on the advanced technology that gods prohibited, since it worked through magical means, it was begrudgingly permitted. It mostly just looks cool and intimidates the enemy, for it doesn¡¯t really hit that hard unless the enemy uses magical shields or barriers.


    At the same time, the Imperial Whelp had made its move, unleashing a torrent of magical Abilities to torment, harass, and generally inhibit the advance of the enemy. Noticeably, it moved and acted with intelligence above and beyond what it should be capable of, and so I assumed it was under direct control of the Emperor. Every element was brought to bear in his attacks, and given that I had watched him spar many times, I knew that he was saving a big attack for last, one that would be empowered by chaining together unique elements, or more precisely, schools of magic. Presumably, such an attack pattern would repeat until the Emperor arrived.


    The [Cultists] numbered in the hundreds, perhaps thousands, which seemed like far too large of a force to have snuck their way out here undetected. Perhaps there were illusions among them, or they were clones, but either way, we could do naught but hold them off to the best of our ability, for we lacked the forces to see if there was a trick to their numbers. Stirred into a frenzy by their [Cult Leader], who presumably lurked just beyond the crest of the dune, the frothing masses of them stormed our way without fear or remorse, their eyes bloodshot and wide with fervor and undisguised lust for our bodies. What all appetites they had for us remained a mystery, but none of us wanted to find out. Yes, not even Jerry wanted to, and he was known for such degenerate proclivities.


    Where one fell, two pressed forward, and soon they would be upon us. We kobolds made for a poor shieldwall, for we specialized in being lesser targets in the chaos of battle, ones that could scurry about to do our own things. With little in the way of distractions, we would be hard-pressed to benefit from such a strategy.


    A volley of javelins were launched our way, each one unerringly and most disturbingly changing course to head straight towards me. Though I moved to avoid them, they continued in my direction. Just then, a nearby [Kuroko] removed her cowl, and as I turned to her, I saw that her eyes were brimming with tears, longing, and sadness. She leapt towards me, pushing me out of the way, right before hundreds of javelins crashed into her and the ground around her.


    Despite the din of combat, I crawled over to her broken body that remained riddled with javelins and profusely, absurdly spurting more blood than her body should hold. Not quite dead, she managed to get out her [Line] as I cradled her head in my lap.


    ¡°I¡¯ve always loved you,¡± she whispered through fits of coughing up blood.


    Then she died, complete with a loud gasp and her tongue lolling out of her mouth, her closed eyes transforming into the appearance of X¡¯s. In accordance with The Script, I let a few tears stream down my cheek to fall onto hers before tilting my head back and crying out a wail of despair. The Story would protect me during that time since I was fulfilling a [Trope], and upon completion, I would be empowered.


    With grim determination, I rose, her blood smeared upon my body and clothes as rage welled up within me. She had been my Childhood Friend, and I never knew she had such romantic feelings for me. Well, The Script and The Story both worked together to fill in the Backstory for me, of all the memories we made and the time we spent together as I remained oblivious to her hesitation to confess her love for me. This oblivious nature granted my skull increased density to ward off attacks, at least until The Story ended.


    ¡°Bring me their bodies,¡± I shouted to my gathered kobolds. ¡°I will rip their foul hearts from their chests. I will sacrifice them to the sun god, that he will grant us victory!¡±


    I am not actually a follower of any sun god, but, I still have to stay in character. Gods, generally speaking, don¡¯t even like sacrifices of living things, but it remained thematic to do so anyway. I summoned forth my stepped pyramid, [Cuetzlipalochtli]. It only had three steps to it, but it would do in a pinch. Soon, I would begin making sacrifices, and the irony that I would be doing so on enemy [Cultists] did not escape me.


    The battle raged, but I could feel him coming, his presence lingering on the horizon. The Emperor would be here shortly, we just needed to hold out. However, as this chapter is ending soon, I need to cut some of the filler and get to the important bits. Unexpectedly, no powerful Mini Boss made himself known from the ranks of the [Cultists], and no Big Bag Evil Guy tried to make a scathing monologue towards us, so [The Plot Thickens] could not be activated. Apparently, they came prepared to counter kobolds.


    The Story guided me, forcing me to fall back to protect Chooka. What few of us remained were huddled around the rickshaw and fending off the unending horde of [Cultists]. The Imperial Whelp was wreaking havoc on them, but there were simply too many. Surrounded, we valiantly fended them off, taking a dozen or more for every one of us that fell. But fall we did, and they kept coming.


    One grabbed Chooka¡¯s leg, and so ensnared, she gave him a muzzle full of elementally-charged arcanium rounds straight to the face. At this range, they did more than enough damage to turn his noggin into red mist. But then another grabbed her, and another, and me as well, and we were swept off the rickshaw and pulled to the road. My skull cracked down hard on the pavement, but it remained unbroken thanks to its recently increased thickness.


    The [Cultists] were upon her instantly, ripping off her clothes within seconds. To be fair, there was not much to rip off, however, it was still rather ungentlemanly of them to do so. Pinned beside her as the last surviving kobold, I saw robes lifted and trousers lowered as they sprang upon both of us alike.


    They began to ravage us, and though we both fought to fend them off, they poked and prodded in places we would rather they did not, given the circumstances and our aversion to them. Chooka, being a [Courtesan], had a few Skills to defend against that exact situation. One [Cultist] upon her cried out in pain, leaping upright in dismay and surprise, the red and bleeding flesh between his legs showing how she had emasculated him. Yet, more [Cultists], unperturbed by his misfortune and enthralled by lust and the Skills of the [Cult Leader] both, continued to grope and and bite as they sought to devour and rape us both.


    Suddenly, the road beneath us gave way, and we fell into a small pit, no bigger than a coffin, the road closing above us and entombing us. Severed limbs and crushed bodies pressed upon us, making the already small space rather claustrophobic. Shame filled me, for both having failed to protect my charge, and for the more personal reasons of my chrysanthemum having been deflowered during the brief but brutal time in the hands of the [Cultists].


    Not all the blood was theirs though, for I had been bitten and stabbed many times over, enough that my meager healing potions would not spare me. The ministrations of [Cultists] had nefarious effects to prevent healing, especially when they were engaging in culty behaviors. Chooka had fared far worse, and only grim determination and an undaunted spirit kept her going. I checked The Script, and indeed, I was meant to die here, so my resurrection would be inexpensive. It was starting to get abnormally toasty in here, but that was not going to be a problem for long, at least for me.


    However, Chooka was no kobold, and she would find no such salvation. But that is where The Script gets fuzzy. Though I gaze upon its pages, I see her Story does not end here. I know not how she will be spared, but I will not be on stage to see how it plays out.


    I die, unable to find any good [Lines] to speak, not that any would be fitting in such a situation. I did manage to squeeze Chooka¡¯s hand, and she squeezed mine back, so perhaps that would be enough. And then, I slipped into The Void. I see my fellow kobolds queued up, ready for their chance to be resurrected in the precious dragon eggs given to us for this very purpose. While they chatted excitedly about The Story we had just been through, I couldn¡¯t help but feel remorse. I hoped that Chook and the Emperor would both be okay somehow.


    End Scene.

 Chapter 107

    The wind rushes by in a torrent, the roar of it almost mocking our sluggish pace as we desperately endeavor to push beyond our limits. By we, I mostly mean Nanu, for she is burning through her mana to squeeze out every last bit of speed she can to get me to Chooka in time. Tamadora, begrudgingly hauling Alterez on her back, long since had fallen behind, not that we slowed down even for a moment for her to keep pace.


    I notice all of this almost as if in a dream, for my [Parallel Minds] are not sufficient for true consciousness and agency. They work together, like a puppeteer manipulating the strings of a marionette, to keep my body seated on Nanu as she brings us closer to our destination. For my true mind is elsewhere, cast afar to possess my Imperial Whelp, my clandestine insurance that I left with Chooka for her safety.


    Some enemy or another had caught me by surprise. My forces were stretched thin, and in the hustle of last-minute adjustments and accounting of our forces to defend our world, I glossed over the detail that she had left the safety of World¡¯s End to head my way. Not that I kept up on all the details of her work, but I did not see a reason for the trip. With all that now considered, I trusted Nanu to remain vigilant that the attack on Chooka was merely a means to lure me out.


    Once my consciousness became rooted within the body of my Imperial Whelp, I took in the sights of a horrible scene. Some 21, er, 35 kobolds were all that stood between a horde of [Cultists] and Chooka. I did not recognize their attire, but that merciless frenzy that forsook all caution and that hungering lust in their eyes were all too familiar.


    Rage filled my being at how this had come to pass and at who had failed to spot such a large force this far into the middle of nowhere. Surely, they had inside help, and heads would roll before the sun set. But, more pressingly, I felt unrestrained fury at how they threatened the one I love most. All of them would perish, this was a foregone conclusion. The only question that remained was if I could kill them all before they overran Chooka.


    Without pause, without mercy, I began to rain an unmitigated tempest of magic down upon them. With extreme prejudice, I maimed limbs and ruptured organs as I used everything at my disposal to slow them down and kill them. Their suffering was beyond my care, and if anything, I relished their torment, lamenting only that most of them would perish before they tasted the full might of my wrath.


    With Ice, I cover the ground in slippery terrain. With Shadow, long arms rise up from the frost to grab ahold of those wretched fiends and leech their vitality. Nature grows walls of thorns to obstruct their path and puncture the unwary, while Earth similarly erects walls of stone to hem them in. Yet, despite the obstacles, they push forward, their own Skills chipping away at mine and forcing holes through my defenses. Unperturbed, I unleash toxic gasses with Poison that sloughs flesh off bones and lays ruin to lungs. Lightning chains through their ranks, each one caught in its arc are electrocuted for several agonizing seconds, their lifeless bodies merely trampled underneath as more and more press the attack.


    My kobolds, ever faithful, do what they can. They bring sacrifices to Montezuma, and his efforts empower everyone. Chooka, not one to sit back and wait for the end, stands in her rickshaw in a wide and lowered stance, her gatling gun wrecking their shields and even pulverizing a few who dare to take too many hits to their bodies. Despite doing our best, we are overrun. Though my Imperial Whelp, controlled by me, continues to fight and is largely ignored, I simply do not have the throughput to stop them.


    In horror, I watch as Chooka is ripped from the rickshaw, her body pinned to the ground as the gibbering masses, so aroused in their frenzy, tear off her clothes with reckless abandon. They jockey and fight over her, each lusting for her flesh. Hands paw at her, mouths bite into her and tear away bits of her body, and knives plunge down to reap a crimson harvest. My kobolds fought to the last, with Montezuma facing the same plight as Chooka, so I do not fault them for failing to withstand the impossible odds.


    In desperation, I use Spatial magic to rearrange the road beneath them, entombing them both within their sarcophagus of obsidicrete. Mangled bodies bear witness to their prize being pulled away from them, and in an unholy fervor, they struggle to exhume the targets of their unfinished lust so that they may continue to ravage.


    At that moment, my Imperial Whelp flies up into the air. I direct its mouth downward, and finish my combo that I had started with [School¡¯s Out]. Nanu is less than a minute away, and with her, my real body as well, but a minute would be too long to wait, for the [Cultists] were chipping away at my road. With a great breath, I unleash my fury, pouring down an unending stream of fire.


    The fire hungers. It licks at exposed flesh, causing fat to melt and blood to boil within seconds. The scent of burnt hair and cooking meat fills the air, the roar of the flames suffocating the screams of pain that pay only a pittance of the debt of torment accrued by its victims. Bones crack and bodies wither into ash in the great conflagration that leaves no survivors. Hundreds perish, yet my only concern for restraint is that I may inadvertently cook those two I am trying to save. With reluctance, I only cease unleashing the firestorm upon them as Nanu comes in for her landing.


    With fury of her own, she unleashes a great breath attack, and the sandstorm that spawns from it moves forward to scour the remnants of the [Cultists] that continue to run headless into my flames. Passing control of its body back to my Imperial Whelp, I leap off Nanu¡¯s back, landing hard, but unconcerned, for my regeneration is more than sufficient to attend to any fractures that such a bold maneuver would inflict upon me.


    With haste and care, I smother the flames around me, cooling the air and the earth so that Chooka will not suffocate or burn from the aftermath of the firestorm. I exhume her as quickly and gently as I can, and the sight I see chills me to the bone. Dozens of wounds cover her body, each showcasing where a knife has plunged into her or where teeth had ripped flesh out of her. She was missing fingers, toes, both nipples, and one eye. A horn had been fractured; it remained attached to her head only by the smallest of margins. She struggled to breathe, her lungs having been punctured and her mouth coughing up blood that only stood to choke her if left unattended. Her left arm had been broken in two places, and the rest of her had been similarly brutalized.


    Part of me was stunned, living in a waking nightmare as my worst fears had been made reality. Skull stood guard in the Shadow Path, for hungry apparitions saw an easy mark in one bound for the hereafter. This had been a ritual for the [Cultists], and it had rendered conventional healing difficult, much less my many potions that I still futilely injected into her. They offered only a pittance of their full potency, serving only to delay the inevitable and prolong her suffering. But I could not, would not, let her go without a fight.


    With no other recourse, I attempted my only surefire method to save her, by offering her my blood and the power that entailed. However, I knew such an act would bind her to me, and the foundation of our relationship rested in her independence and freedom. I had wanted her to be my companion, and I knew that she would have to be nearly dead for this technique to work on her, but by the gods¡­ I never wanted it to be like this. I thought she would just grow old one day, and on her deathbed, I would offer her a chance to be with me forever.


    But, Fate and Destiny had conspired to concoct some foul comedy, one to showcase hubris in my wishing for an easy out. And as if to twist the knife, they highlight the crux of the problem. My blood isn¡¯t working. The love of my life is dying and there is nothing I can do about it. I poured out more of it, knowing full well that it was never about the volume of blood, only the intent behind its contribution, but all reason be damned, I would exhaust any avenue to save her.


    As panic welled up within me, I felt a hand upon my back. Then two joined that one. I thought that Nanu, Tamadora, and Alterez must be trying to comfort me. Only dimly aware of my surroundings as I am so engrossed in my struggles to save Chooka, I notice that Tamadora and Alterez are flying over the dunes, presumably to chase down the final [Cultists]. Nanu is keeping watch over me, her chest heaving from the exertion of her flight and the conflict that ensued upon its culmination. She had taken human form again, and she stood in front of me where I could see her, her eyes ever vigilant. And in her eyes I saw surprise, confusion, and finally, a mixture of fear and subservience. Whoever these hands belonged to, they had snuck up on the both of us without issue.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Chooka¡¯s desperate eyes turn to them, and I too turn my head to see who is with me. I do not recognize them, and yet, I feel as if I had known them for an eternity. One was dressed as a mail courier, his slacks, jacket, and hat a dark blue, complete with a brown satchel over one shoulder and across his chest that hung at his side. Somehow, I knew him to be All-Weather Transporter, the demigod of Mail and Couriers.


    Likewise, I knew another to be Old Man Moneybags, the demigod of Currency and Economics. A dandy in spats with a top hat and monocle, despite having an elderly appearance, he still radiated vigor and vitality, and dare I say, little patience for other people¡¯s bullshit. He appeared to be somewhere between miffed and peeved, for he had a pocket watch in his other hand and kept glancing at it and back to me.


    The final person was dressed in a three-piece suit, the likes of which you see in worlds with more advanced technology than this one. Some sort of folded paper literature was in his breast pocket, and he appeared to be delighted to see me, present circumstances notwithstanding. He radiated the same energy and indeed divinity as the other two. That could only make him Many Words Paperman, the demigod of Pamphlets and Instructional Media.


    ¡°Well, get to it boy!¡± demanded Old Man Moneybags. ¡°Focus on her, not us.¡±


    Cantankerous in demeanor, but supportive in spirit, his words inspired me to again attempt to save Chooka. I focused my will and intent into my blood, letting a drop of it fall into her mouth. This time, I felt the change, a tug that pulled my soul closer to hers, lashing them together and binding their futures down one path. I hoped she would forgive me for doing so. I could only trust in our love and how it can conquer all things.


    Her eyes glowed with the white and golden light of communion, for some god of hers had taken notice of her plight. Her bones snapped into place as flesh mended. It was not instant, but she was healing rapidly. With no indication that it would falter, I placed my trust in the divine as fatigue caught up to me. Though I swayed and staggered, three hands helped keep me steady and pulled me to my feet.


    ¡°No time to explain,¡± stated Many Words Paperman without introduction or pause. ¡°We are each bound to depart this universe here directly, so we must be brief.¡±


    Okay. I¡¯ll bite. I¡¯m not quite in a stupor from the drain that my previous efforts had caused, but it is a close thing as I find it difficult to focus on them.


    ¡°We each have a package for you, the contents of which will be useful to you someday.¡± They each handed me a box, and I stuffed them in my dimensional storage. ¡°This is the part where you give each of us a box. We are, or will be, friends. And friends help each other out. The boxes you give us need not have anything in them yet, you can decide their contents later. I know this is all very confusing for you and events are not happening in what you may think to be chronological order, but we are repaying a favor to you now and earning a favor each in return.¡±


    Sounds reasonable, not that my mind can really concentrate on the bigger implications of their words. It is a lot to chew on, and it seems like I won¡¯t have the time to parse their words in detail. Considering they helped me save the woman I love, I see no harm in owing them a favor and giving them each a box I have in my storage. I carry around all manner of odds and ends, and empty, ornate boxes come in handy when you need to give out gifts. They each promptly take their boxes and magically store them away as well.


    ¡°Right then, never call me a day late and a coin short,¡± exclaimed Old Man Moneybags as he closed his pocket watch and tucked it away. ¡°I will see all of you later.¡± Without a further word, he turned and proceeded to walk away.


    ¡°I would love to catch up with you, but you don¡¯t know me yet,¡± offered All-Weather Transporter in an apologetic tone. ¡°We simply must be going now, for another universe beckons. I would have loved to have stayed and witnessed the opening battle first-hand, but alas, such is not to be. Take care now,¡± he finished as he too turned and walked away.


    ¡°I know this is confusing for you, but it will all make sense someday. Just focus on taking care of your people and keeping your word, and it will all work out. Until we meet again.¡±


    The last of the demigods departed, leaving me more confused than when I first felt their hands placed upon me. They walked into the distance and down my road, each in turn disappearing one after another. Then I heard the voice of the egg-dragon-person in my mind. I would come to find that people of other races heard different voices corresponding to their respective races, but I figured I would tell you now before such a fact becomes lost.


    [Attention: The following demigods have departed this universe. Old Man Moneybags, All-Weather Transporter, Many Words Paperman, Deep Sea Angler, Lone Mountain Man, Drifter of Eons, Heckin¡¯ Good Boy, Sportsball Guy, Point and Shootie Gal, Ol¡¯ King Charcoal, and Reedy Swamp Monster.


    Remaining demigods: 0.


    Demigod aliases will be enforced for 5 years. Demigod domains will be respected for 1,000 years.]


    This message was promptly followed by another.


    [Attention: The following demigod has entered this universe: Sanagba Imuru, He-Who-Saw-The-Abyss.


    Current demigods: 1.


    Demigod alias not enforced for Sanagba Imuru, He-Who-Saw-The-Abyss.


    Domains: People-watching, Observation.


    Special: Sanagba Imuru, He-Who-Saw-The-Abyss, is here to judge the deeds and accomplishments of a certain individual and to act as a final judge in that person¡¯s mortal life. This is a special assignment above and beyond his normal duties. No other demigods may enter this universe while Sanagba Imuru, He-Who-Saw-The-Abyss, remains in this universe.]


    Well, that¡¯s probably a lot to take in, but I am feeling way too out of it to parse all of those undoubtably mind-blowing revelations. I didn¡¯t know it at the time, but I was suffering the effects of divinity-poisoning. And a dose from three different demigods was enough that even an Emperor would be less than lucid.


    Anyway, I stumbled around until I fell onto my butt. Nanu came up behind me, sitting down and leaning me against her as she held me tight. Her body was trembling, but whether that be from exhaustion, at meeting three different demigods, or realizing that all the demigods just bailed on us in our hour of need, I knew not. I hadn¡¯t even heard of most of those demigods before, so they were probably stationed on different planets within this universe. And the new one doesn¡¯t sound all that friendly, but I would probably not have to deal with him, so I paid him no mind.


    I¡¯m gonna blame it on the divinity-poisoning. Oh course he was here for me. I¡¯m the main character of this story and I would, in a relative sense, soon become a demigod. I didn¡¯t know then, but Sanagba Imuru, He-Who-Saw-The-Abyss, would be the one to decide if I would pass muster to become a demigod myself. He isn¡¯t special; any demigod can get assigned that task. I¡¯ve done it myself a time or two, and it always happens when the world is going through ¡®interesting times¡¯.


    I¡¯m supposed to be at World¡¯s Hope right now. The portal, the invaders, the fighting, all that stuff should ring a bell. Instead, I¡¯m high as a kite and seeing weird shit. I¡¯m living through forgotten memories, of scenes from past lives, as they manifest around me, mixing and matching characters and settings as near as I can tell, otherwise I lived through some wild lives. The manner of dress, the levels of technology, the attitudes of the characters, all of them are discordant in nature as they struggle to show me a narrative that seemingly has no point to it. Even the burned bodies and some new kobolds are involved. Either that, or more kobolds hustled over from somewhere and started to spruce the place up.


    I feel like there was something else important going on¡­ Oh yeah, Chooka! Let her cook. I¡¯m positive she will come out of it alright, and with a Dual-Blessing to boot. That makes me happy, unlike how my skin is cracking and light is pouring out of me, which not only hurts but also sounds an alarm that I just can¡¯t parse. That¡¯s definitely a bad thing, both the cracking skin and why I can¡¯t understand why I should be alarmed. However, my regeneration seems to have it covered, so I feel like that is at least a net neutral situation.


    While myself at that time went on a little trip, I would like to take this moment to advise any of you that are into recreational drugs to not contract divinity-poisoning. It often leads to death and it is one of the few ways that a soul can be damaged or destroyed. Likewise, avoid worshiping any gods for a day or two afterwards or you will come down with a case of smiting. It¡¯s a good thing I didn¡¯t worship any gods then, otherwise the coming days may have become unmanageable if smitings were added to my list of troubles that I had to conquer. With that said, some interesting things were going down for the other people around me.

 Chapter 108

    The Void. Not some generic, run-of-the-mill void, but the bona fide, genuine article. While I knew of it through descriptions, such words do not do it justice. While there is nothing near me, in the distance all around me, lights flicker and shapes appear and disappear. It is the plane that connects to all planes, a medium for travel between them. And if I am here, that must mean I am bound for a distant plane.


    There is beauty in The Void. Strange things, familiar things, those unknowable and yet stirring memories of days gone by lurk here. I could drift here for an eternity, watching all of it pass by, unraveling its mysteries, and not grow bored of it. And yet, I cannot appreciate what it has to offer, for my mind only sees one scene.


    His face, stricken with grief and despair, hope consumed by fear of loss. Panic, blind desperation, and an all-consuming desire to save me. I could see that guilt screamed in his mind, the anger that raged within his being at himself for failing to protect me and at the world for its transgressions against me. The assault upon my body, how those evil men and women had ravaged me; that was manageable. I would gladly suffer that again if that were the price of sparing him that pain, if even for a moment. His anguish hurt more than anything that had been inflicted upon my flesh, and I don¡¯t ever want anyone I love to suffer like that again.


    It wasn¡¯t his fault. I don¡¯t blame him for what happened. He did his best, and no one could have predicted that terrible scenario. However, the die is cast, the wound stricken, that terrible seed of horror has been planted within him. Can my words and reassurance ever pull it out by the roots, or will his desire to protect me spiral out of control until I lose him?


    Such a loss is unacceptable. I need to become stronger. I need to find a way to heal this mark upon his soul, to mend what has been broken before the best of him slips through the cracks. I have loved many men and women, but none like him, and for the first time in my life, I have found someone I could not stand to see lost to me. And so, I will do what I must to protect him, to protect us, and what we have built together.


    Fortuitous, then, that I am in The Void. This ritual, technique, or Ability that he has performed on me, I have heard of it from the others. Soon, I will somehow be given a Dual-Blessing, and my life will change. Such change is not without a price, for I will be bound to him. Perhaps this is the push I needed, the impetus to truly commit. Not that we would not each have our side pieces, but, to know and contribute to spending the rest of our lives together; that is what shall happen now. I will not be made lesser for it, but rather, provided an opportunity to grow.


    But what did I have to offer? I am no warrior, fighting in the front lines like Jericho. I don¡¯t have the favor of a god and a lifetime of martial prowess like Skull. I have not lived for the better part of a millennia, with esoteric knowledge and wisdom like Alterez. I cannot see the future, nor guide and advise with the same skill as Nabonidus. I do not lead his army of attendants and workers like Gambino and Bambina. What could I offer that he does not already have? Other than his love for me, what need does he have for me?


    Doubt crept in, the cracks in my confidence offering it a chance to find purchase in my ego. I am a skilled lover, a glorified whore, one with a Blessing that uses a term that is deemed to be more polite. I fill out paperwork and play little pranks on people. There is nothing profoundly special about me, nothing to elevate me to such heights as to be worthy of a Dual-Blessing. I know I need it, but I am not so sure that I am deserving.


    But if I am not worthy, then I must become worthy, and fast, for a change has rippled through The Void. Lost in my thoughts, I did not notice the torii gates that have come before me, their spacing creating a pathway or tunnel to a place unknown. There is no ground, no down, no real sense of direction, but I will myself to walk through them, and my not-body follows. I pass through 24 such gates, an important number to my people, the remnimi. Once through the final gate, two sliding doors part for me, their surfaces unadorned yet inviting.


    I find myself in a garden, one with a gentle balance between the raw and unyielding hunger of nature to grow unabated, and of the carefully curated and orderly cultivation of domestication. Flowers of every color and species abound, sometimes in their own bunch, other times in mixed patches. A pond sits to the side with elegant fish idly swimming about without care. A beast-frightener, one made of bamboo, clunks down on a stone, emptying out the water that has poured into it from above, only to find balance in being returned to its upright position where the cycle of filling and emptying may begin anew. It could be a metaphor, or just pleasant decoration. I don¡¯t normally look too deep into symbolism, so I take it at face value.


    The garden is surrounded by a low rock wall, one that I could easily step over, but I have no desire to leave. A quaint yet homely dwelling, one designed in the traditional style with sliding doors and an elegant roof that has tiles that slope upwards, is centered in the garden. While those of my village did not keep to the old ways, the style certainly found itself rooted in the history of my people.


    I approach the house, and as I do, the doors slide apart in an unspoken but welcoming invitation to enter. I see a slightly lowered section of floor, one that has a singular pair of sandals. I have no footwear of my own right now, and so, I simply walk past. The first room is empty, with thin walls and straw mats of an unblemished nature as my only greeting. The doors close behind me, and in front of me, another set opens up. Inside, A woman is seated at a low table, a large and comfortable pillow of red as her cushion.


    ¡°Enter, my little one.¡±


    Her invitation is gentle, yet firm, implying that it would be more than merely rude to refuse, but also suggesting that she looks forward to sharing her time with me. I comply, and given there is but one cushion of blue across from her, I take my seat there.


    ¡°I, Chooka of the village of Zyanxhao, humbly accept the invitation from my host. May your generosity bring you great fortune and luck,¡± I reply with a slight bow of my head after being seated, for it is only polite to introduce oneself after taking a seat and being on equal elevation and status.


    The table is set for tea, and the woman across from me pours me a cup. She places it on a saucer, and the saucer upon a tray that has several small plates of various refreshments. With but a gesture from her finger that lazily yet gracefully points in my general direction, the tray slides across the table and stops in its proper placement before me.


    The woman is both beautiful and elegant beyond measure. She wears traditional robes with large and loose sleeves, one colored and patterned in blue and red flowers on a background of white, pink, and azure. Her immaculate hair is black, straight, and flowing gently all the way to just barely touch the floor below her. Her horns are perfectly symmetrical, the pattern similar to an impala or gerenuk, yet far smoother. Her skin is flawless, and although I can only see her head, neck, and hands, the harmony between her reds and blue draw my eyes to stare with far more intensity than is strictly polite.


    ¡°Gracious, I am glad that you like what you see,¡± her voice, like dewdrops hanging off silk, caress my senses as they invite me to lower my guard and absolve myself of all pretenses. ¡°I can only imagine you know who I am by now, but I can introduce myself if you are still unaware.¡±


    Naturally, I know who she is. The gods of the Remnimi Pantheon are no strangers to me, for I have prayed to them every Shrine Day since I was a little girl.


    ¡°You are Lakshoten, of the Remnimi Pantheon, goddess of Love and Duty. If I were to ever meet the divine, you would be the most reasonable pick, for I pay homage to you more than I do to other divinities.¡±


    ¡°Right you are, my little one,¡± she replied with a coy smile before she daintily sipped at her tea. ¡°While you are no cleric of mine, I do look forward to your prayers. Few embody the tenants of my Portfolio better than you. I have watched you with great interest, and though your Destiny has been twisted and manipulated by The Meddler, I find your journey through life to still be a delight to witness.¡±Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    My brow furrows in clear confusion. ¡®The Meddler¡¯ is not a character that appears in the mythos or dogma of my people.


    ¡°I see you lack understanding, my little one. Allow me to clear matters up so that you may find understanding.¡±


    With a gesture of her hand, colored smoke manifests into shapes of people and places upon the table, a construct to help portray the contents of her story.


    ¡°The gods are not immune to Destiny or Fate. We are bound to our people, for just as our mandates and Domains shape the lives of mortals, so too do the desires and perspectives of mortals shape the gods. Take this garden and house, for example, and consider the architecture of this building, even the style of my clothes. None of it is native to the remnimi culture, yet you are my children and I one of your racial deities. The remnimi are not native to your planet of Gyldvir, for you have wandered the spheres and appropriated many ideas and values along the way. Once, all of this looked quite different,¡± she exclaimed as she gestured vaguely around the room and at herself, ¡°but since the aesthetics you see here are what the remnimi of this planet deem to be ¡®traditional¡¯, such is what I am now.¡±


    The smoke on the table flowed and coalesced into different shapes and patterns, one after another, showing different people and manners of dress, some familiar, others completely foreign. Other times, it showed towns and cities, empires and hovels, all of different and foreign patterns, before settling on the scene of my own village.


    ¡°The gods are ever changing,¡± she continued as the smoke mixed into a cloud of nondescript shape. ¡°What we want to be, and what people see us to be, diverge, and so we adapt. So too, must you mortals adapt, for when you choose your Fate, your Destiny is pruned, and the paths before you become more limited.


    ¡°The Meddler, the one that bears an uncanny resemblance to your lover, has interfered with your Destiny. You are not unique in this aspect, for others have been meddled with as well. While it may have appeared to be a tragedy, it was no mere coincidence that your father found himself enthralled by a Varshek, a monster that had no business ever being near your village. The truth is more unsettling, as your mother conspired with The Meddler to arrange her own death. I know not the full nature of their arrangement, but I do know that her thoughts, her love, was ever on you as she made whatever pact that bound them to engage in such an undertaking.¡±


    Her words struck me like a hammer, the revelation shattering my preconceptions about the tragedy that afflicted my family almost 80 years ago. Mother had been a little peculiar, in retrospect, as she had been almost smothering with her love leading up to her untimely demise at my father¡¯s hands. But, before I could parse through the full implications of these words, the goddess continued.


    ¡°Consider then, what would have happened if she had not done as she did. Your family would still be together, loving, whole. Your father would not have turned to alcohol and pushed you away. You would have remained in your village, never to have left for the greater opportunity of the city. And it follows that you would not have met your favorite lover and followed him to the ends of the earth.


    ¡°Do you think it was mere coincidence that you fell head over heels for him so easily? I know you easily offer your love to people, but you have a track record of your dalliances being brief and fickle. Yet here you are, your love so pure and strong that you could not even think of parting with him. I don¡¯t know how The Meddler did it, but his dirty fingerprints are all over this. Somehow, you were conditioned or coaxed into loving exactly the kind of man that is the Emperor that you now love.


    ¡°And yet, despite the manipulations that have indirectly transgressed upon your agency, you are immensely happy now. You have found true love, a career that brings you boundless joy, challenge, and opportunity. You worry not for money, you have made hundreds of friends, and people value and respect you. What little girl from a small village in the middle of nowhere can claim the same? All of this and more has been the work of The Meddler, and yet, can you honestly say you are worse off for it? Such is a vexation, for I want the best for you, and he has delivered where we gods could or would not.¡±


    She sipped again at her tea, a slight frown of irritation adding a hint of aggression to her previously dainty performance. Her teacup slammed down with more force than strictly necessary when she resumed speaking, her voice filled with more fire than before.


    ¡°And now, your lover is hurting inside, feeling lost. Each of you are throwing your own private pity parties over the events that brought you here. I¡¯m not saying that what happened to you was not tragic nor terrible, but you both need to move past it quickly and focus on the good parts of your lives. As a [Courtesan], you absolutely have the Skills to erase the trauma of being raped. He may not, but there is no sin in using those same Skills to erase his trauma. That event need not define you. It happened, accept it, and then continue to seek the best version of yourselves instead of wallowing in that which cannot be changed. You have a duty to each other and to the world now, for you were not bestowed with all the wonders in your life for you two to strictly live a life of hedonism. You are no slaves to those less fortunate than you, but to simply push off the responsibility that comes with your power and fortune would be unconscionable. You are both stronger than you think you are, so show each other the conviction of your love.¡±


    More like the goddess of Tough Love, Lakshoten did not pull her punches. She did not beat around the bush or sidestep the reality of things, nor could I find fault with her reasoning. Her words sang the hymn I needed to hear. Many a woman who experienced the trauma that I had would take issue with such a seemingly casual disregard for the horror and devastation of being raped, and while I do not consider them weak for being unable to press forward in life, I would not let such a setback pull me under the waves of despair.


    ¡°Your words ring true,¡± I say with a polite bow. ¡°That was not my first time where I was deprived of control, nor the first time that people forced themselves upon me so brutishly. It was certainly the worst time, but that is over now, and I would rather look forward than behind me. We both know what I am here for, and while I thank you for your support, rough as it may be, I would appreciate it if we could get down to business.¡±


    My words came across more curt than I intended, for my frustration was not with her, but rather, my own weakness.


    ¡°I want to be strong enough that nothing like this ever happens again. I don¡¯t want to be a damsel in distress, one to be locked away in a tower where no harm can befall me. I want to be able to support those I love, to help heal them of their trauma and woes, so that the grinding of eternity does not wear them down. I want to be able to contribute, to actively support those I love, without being a burden or at risk of being harmed and causing them dismay.¡±


    While I was speaking, Lakshoten had been placing cards on the table, the kinds used for games of poetry and memory. She paused part way through what she was doing, her hands now removing cards from the table and the rest of her deck until only two remained.


    ¡°And so, your Destiny is pruned again by the Fate of your own making,¡± she stated neutrally as she waved her hand over the remaining two cards. ¡°These are the only two choices I have available for you. I trust you to make a choice you can live with.¡±


    I took the two cards offered, and each in turn, I inspected the words printed upon them and what they had to offer. I weighed them carefully, considering the pros and cons of each, contemplating how each could change my life and how it could be of benefit to me, my friends, my lovers, and my First Love.


    They offered similar results, each differing in their approach. If a wall were in my way, one would hop over it, the other would dig a hole under it. In the end, the obstacle would be circumvented, so it came down to a matter of what methods and techniques would align with my personality and inclinations. I briefly wondered if this choice was but an illusion, the outcome preordained. Ultimately, I decided that predestination was irrelevant, a moot point with no merit for deeper consideration. The vicissitudes of life were far more pressing, of more immediate and material consequence. My choice made, I selected the card I wanted; the other I returned to the table.


    ¡°A fine choice,¡± Lakshoten observed with a slight smile. ¡°Now get out there! Kick ass and spread your love! Show the world that you have not just raw power, but true strength!¡± We shared knowing looks and impertinent smiles at her ¡®undignified¡¯ outburst of enthusiasm. ¡°Now, I don¡¯t want to see you back here unless it is for an orgy.¡±


    What? I did not expect that out of her, given how she has portrayed herself, but her Love is known more for romance, intimacy, and lust than for platonic or familial love.


    ¡°Wait, about that, how do I get an invit-¡±


    Before I could finish my very important inquiry that would play a big role in my development as a person and not at all related to my deepest and personal desires, I was flung backwards through her house, through her garden, back into The Void and through the torii gates.


    And then I came to, nestled in the arms of my First Love, held in a princess carry as we remained together to face the end of the world, for the portal was activating.

 Chapter 109

    ¡°It looks like you are flaying someone alive. Do you want help with that?¡±


    Ever attentive to my actions and needs, VIRI remained vigilant to offer help and advice. Sometimes she actually knew how to do things that I do not, but this time, I have several lifetimes of experience which has refined my handiwork.


    ¡°No, VIRI,¡±  I thought back to her in my mind. ¡°I got this covered. Thanks though.¡±


    Naturally, she goes through the whole routine of confirming my choice and offering to help later. That part does get old. She is still worth it, as her knowledge of the occult is disturbingly verbose. I¡¯m not certain that there isn¡¯t any vocation or technique she doesn¡¯t know.


    The [Cult Leader] before me quakes beneath the ministrations of my blade. I¡¯m not exactly a [Butcher], but anyone with a Blessing themed around food preparation or cooking knows the related skills, if not actual Skills. While I have both, I don¡¯t need the crutch offered by Skills. With deft strokes and a practiced hand, I remove bits of flesh from what was once a proud dwarven woman. She moans in pain, not yet screaming, but the hot coals that will be pressed into her exposed fat and muscles will probably elicit such contrition.


    I am no stranger to this sort of work. Necessity had mandated my familiarity with such undertakings, but that does not mean I enjoyed my work. This time was different. Not that I normally delight in intentionally causing suffering, but this woman had offered a means of cathartic release for my dismay at the assault on Chooka.


    No, not just assault. Such a word dances around the issue. Chooka was raped, brutalized, ravaged, nearly murdered. And for what? To get at the Emperor, perhaps. My blades and other instruments of persuasion will suss out the truth.


    Tamadora stills my hand as I reach for the hot coals. With a shake of her head, she opens her palm to reveal a small bar of metal, one side of which is studded with spikes both long and sharp. I take the offered object and place it on the coals, taking the moment to inject my audience with another dose of stimulants. After all, I can¡¯t have her passing out on me.


    ¡°You know,¡± I say as I take a nearby needle and jam it longways under one of her fingernails. ¡°I happen to be very familiar with all the local cults, and even many abroad.¡± She replies only with a moan that evolves into a small scream. Rude of her to interrupt, but I have worked with worse. ¡°However, I have never seen a cult like yours. It must have taken a great deal of effort, skill, and discretion to inspire so many people to join without me knowing. I feel like I could learn a thing or two from you. And that is what we are here for, after all, to learn from one another.¡±


    With the spiked bar ready, I remove it from the fire. Red hot, I maneuver my tongs and press the spikes deep into an exposed bit of muscle on her leg. Her body trembles in pain as a shrill scream escapes her throat. Her eyes stare at me with murderous intent, but given her bindings both physical and metaphysical to restrict her body and Blessing both, such actions on her part are rendered impotent.


    ¡°It¡¯s okay if you are shy,¡± I responded while nodding my head knowingly. ¡°It can take time to build a relationship and learn to open up. I will see to it that you receive the best and most thorough education I can offer. You have earned my attention, and I would be remiss to not shower it upon you.¡±


    We both know she is never leaving here alive. Her only reprieve is to spill her guts about what she knows so that she will be granted a swifter death. However, my work has only just begun. I had been all prepared to help meet the endless demand for food for the troops, for the battle would begin any minute now. Instead of seeing to my normal duties and advancing my Blessing as a [Line Cook], I am here with her. [Cultists] do get up to unethical things, and as a variant of a [High Priest], I certainly get credit for my current work, unsavory as even I may find it.


    With great care, I apply my knife to another patch of skin. I wouldn¡¯t want to nick any arteries and have her bleed out, nor puncture a vital organ and cause her to die. With those considerations in mind, there are so many parts of the body that are, strictly speaking, not vital.


    ¡°You know, a good team-building exercise could help us bond. I think we could play a little counting game.¡± She responds with a bit of whimpering, so I take that to mean that she wants to participate. ¡°Did you know that, for most races, half of their bones are in their hands and feet? Just a little over a hundred of the buggers. I figure I can count them for you, and you guess which bone I am counting. Sound fun?¡±


    I take my pliers and begin with one of her fingers. I¡¯m not a doctor, so I don¡¯t know the names of them, but it''s the first big bone in the finger as it connects to the hand. I squeeze down and twist until I hear the expected sound of a bone snapping.


    ¡°That¡¯s one. Do you know what bone that was?¡± I ask with the same gentle voice that one would use with a small child. She screams in pain, again, which really isn¡¯t coherent enough for a correct answer. ¡°No? That¡¯s okay. I¡¯m sure we will eventually find a bone you know the name of. This will be a little adventure of ours,¡± I continue as I look for a new bone to break.


    This process continues for a while before a mental communication from Nabonidus tells me to leave the room for a while.


    ¡°Oh dear me!¡± I exclaim with mock dismay. ¡°I forgot a roast in the oven. I will be back soon, but Tamadora here will keep you company in my absence. I¡¯ll see you soon.¡±


    I depart the room and wait outside the door. Nabonidus had invested a portion of his attention to this interrogation, and his insights were pivotal to us extracting the required information from the [Cult Leader]. Who she is, where she recruited her members, what gods she serves, and many other questions would need to be answered before long. Teamwork will make the dream work, and so, we will work together to solve these mysteries.


    <hr>


    The dwarf woman, fully lucid thanks to a cocktail of drugs pumping through her veins, eyes me with suspicion, contempt, and most importantly of all, fear, as I pace back and forth. My eyes never leave her, and I stay my hand lest I act in haste and cause her to expire.


    I spend this time formulating an image for my next word. I rarely speak, for my cursed voice impacts the world around me too violently and invasively to be polite. It takes effort to sum up the entirety of one¡¯s feelings into a single word, but for this one, I will press upon her the full weight of my displeasure.


    Nanu I respect, but I do not love her. She is competent, helpful, wise, and powerful, but she is also competing for Father¡¯s attention and affection. I know I should love her, for she has been nothing but kind to me, yet the thought of sharing Him with her rankles me. I am the Broodmother, not her, and she should know her place. It aggravates me more that she possesses greater skill as a lover than what I have, for when we share a bed to trade Traits, she flaunts her experience over me, which causes as much physical pleasure as it scathes my pride. I could hate her if she sucked at her job, but alas, she has centuries of experience.


    It-Has-Pockets, my ¡®mother¡¯ of sorts, was the vessel that helped Father craft me. We share no resemblance or mannerisms that I am aware of. She acts more like a friend to me than a mother anyway. While I do enjoy her company, I don¡¯t respect her very much. She is a skilled swordsman and dancer, but other than that, she has little else to contribute. She is still immature and too carefree, and until she grows up, she will always be one of Father¡¯s favorite playthings to me. I can see the appeal, for she is fun, but that¡¯s the limit.


    Skull I admire, for she is loyal and competent. However, she is always at Father¡¯s side, right where I want to be. All that she is, I wish I were, and yet, my Blessing has taken me down another path. Yet, she sees her duty not as a burden, but a bountiful opportunity to live her life to the fullest and to make Father happy, so I cannot begrudge how serious she is in her sacred task.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    Alterez I tolerate. He is but vermin, a little weasel that has somehow tricked everyone around him, but not me. I do not trust him, for he always has some scheme or another that leads to less than honorable outcomes. Father trusts him, and so by extension, I must deal with him. Although, in this interrogation, he is proving to be quite adept, so I may magnanimously cut him some slack. Though I am loath to admit it, he even made me smile once with his silly antics.


    Nobonidus is incredibly useful, and so I allow him to reside at The Wayward Oasis. His insights into the future have yielded tidy profits for me and have ensured that few headaches ever come my way from rowdy patrons. He has always been polite to me, and so I value him as a most treasured asset to my flight. That doesn¡¯t mean that we are chummy.


    And while there are others that I have mixed feelings for, Chooka, above all, save Father, is the only person I love, respect, and admire all at once. I find no fault with her behavior, attitude, or in the manner she treats me or others. Father adores her, and when they have shared their bed with me, I find even myself enraptured with her charm. Perhaps that is part of her talent as a [Courtesan], but I feel like she could have the Blessing as a [Street Sweeper] and still she would amaze even me. I would move heaven and earth for her, for during our time when she mentored me in my craft, she had ever been positive, loving, supporting, and patient with me and my¡­ taciturn and harsh personality.


    And now this wretched dwarf, this vile scum of the world, this complete waste of a person, she dared to assault Chooka, to sully her honor, and assault her person! I want to rip this dwarf limb from bloody limb, to break every bone in her body, to melt the skin off her, to rip out her heart and crush it before her eyes! I want to rupture her soul, to bind her spirit in eternal torment, to personally escort her to the deepest and darkest hell and fling her in!  She hurt Chooka, which in turn hurt Father deeply, and I cannot forgive such a transgression, nor can I permit her continued existence unless every second of it is consumed with perpetual anguish. I would ravage her in mind, body, and soul a thousand times over before I would even consider offering a token of forgiveness.


    The once-tranquil waters of my mind had been cast into a turbulent squall, the crashing waves reflecting my raging emotions as I consolidated my image for this prisoner. All the hate, anguish, and hardship that I had endured, every misdeed against me and those I care about, and the totality of my rage were encapsulated in my one word for her. From the depths of my soul, that word floated to the turbulent surface, setting chaos and destruction loose once more. And then I took that one word and offered it to her as I leaned in to whisper it into her ear.


    ¡°Torment.¡±


    Her body seized up as the tendrils of magic woven into my voice took root within her, burrowing beneath her skin, and consuming her very being. Her eyes rolled back into her head as her whole body spasmed with pain unimaginable, every nerve in her body screaming that most primal of sensory inputs. Her skin, what remained of it, ruptured and sloughed off in heaps. Bones cracked as organs crumpled. Her eyeballs melted in her skull before lighting aflame, her teeth shattered, the shrapnel from them shredding her mouth and tongue. Her lunges and throat became scorched as if toxic fumes had left desolation in their passing.


    Her mind became filled with visions of terror, despair, embarrassment, and failure. Every regret came to the forefront of her mind, every mistake and missed opportunity that had festered within her had burst within her psyche. Her very soul, while immutable, could still feel anguish, and in that moment, it felt nothing else.


    And just as her body found itself breaking apart, so too did it mend itself. Bones snapped back into place as errant blood returned to her veins. Flesh mended itself as if never damaged. And the whole process sprung anew, the cycle continuing as her flesh warped and melted into unnatural contortions. Without abatement, she suffered a death that would not come, a final mercy beyond her reach, beyond any measure of clemency due to her.


    I had become so consumed by her torment that I didn¡¯t notice blood streaming from the corners of my own eyes until it dripped off my face and onto the floor. I had dove too deep into those depths, seeking to grasp powers beyond my reach. With trembling hands, I used a cloth to wipe away the blood price for bending the World to my will. A pittance compared to what my conviction would allow for; I would be making similar payments in the future. Any price is worth seeing Chooka¡¯s attacker brought to understand the error of her ways.


    I stayed with her and watched, every moment of her torment a balm for my soul. She would learn the meaning of torment, and then, some day in the distant future, she would finally know the release of this mortal life by the embrace of death. Until then she would live, and her mind would not be able to break from the strain. That offered me enough time to convince whatever gods watched over this retribution that she deserved for it to continue tenfold in the afterlife.


    <hr>


    With my Emperor indisposed by caring for Chooka, there remained few capable and trustworthy to investigate the circumstances of the attack. I had confirmed with the guildhall at World¡¯s End that Chooka had left due to an urgent summons by her attach¨¦. With that information confirmed, I made my way to his office at World¡¯s Hope.


    As an [Archivist of Secrets], I have a small yet useful toolkit to assist me in investigations. While such may not be my forte, such Abilities are enough to get by. Going through the paperwork, the various books and documents, that is where my talents will shine best.


    The staff had not seen anyone enter or leave, at least, no one that seemed suspicious. The door showed no signs of forced entry, and it remained shut and unlocked. The room had not been tossed, and other than the bloody corpse of the attach¨¦ with his throat slit, nothing had been disturbed. He sat at his desk, his body leaned back into his chair, as if he had been caught unawares with his head yanked back before a knife made introductions to his throat.


    A small void in the blood spray near the left end of the desk suggested a book had been there at the time of his death. Otherwise, the effects of the death did not appear to have disturbed anything, not even by the death throes and frantic grasping of their former owner. [Check Out] allowed me to see the scene as it had happened. Ghostly apparitions play out the death and the contents of the room. The suspect is noticeably missing, so he or she doubtlessly is a professional with Abilities to avoid such attempts at divination.


    Not much to glean from the whole affair. The attach¨¦ had died within seconds, or at least fell unconscious due to blood loss, then died afterwards. The missing book had been taken shortly thereafter, appearing as if the suspect had tucked it away in his or her coat, judging by the height and the orientation of the phantom book that floated in the air.


    Looking further back, before his death, I see that the attach¨¦ suddenly goes catatonic for a few moments. His limbs moved as if puppeteered by an unseen force, his hand writing in the Message Log on the right side of the desk. The message itself likewise moved as it had been picked up and pocketed, and the words written within it matched the message that had been delivered to Chooka.


    Sadly, the missing book could not be read because it had not been opened. The book had no title or iconography upon it. However, a member of staff would likely know of its contents or nature. A few interviews later, I discovered that the book was part journal, part ledger, that the attach¨¦ used for personal records. That meant that secret ledgers and code phrases were in it, the contents of which could not be read by anyone other than the owner due to many powerful enchantments. And with the previous owner deceased, that meant that many measures of confidentiality and security within the Guild had become compromised.


    Priority messages would need to be dispatched to every guildhall, to inform every guildmaster of this security breach. Each region had its own codes and protocols to help insure that an information leak would be contained, but that still would be a lot of paperwork to process. Messengers, along with serious protection details, would need to deliver the news far and wide, which would detract from the manpower here at World¡¯s Hope. And with this attack occurring so soon before the battle, it could hardly be a coincidence in timing. Whether some enemy from the world beyond lay behind this, or instead, an opportunist saw an opening, I know not.


    However, what I don¡¯t know today could become well known facts tomorrow. My hands may be largely tied here at World¡¯s Hope for the foreseeable future, but there are other agents that can be sent to sniff around in my stead. While I would be loath to delegate something so personal, I will admit, others are better suited to such an investigation, for the Emperor employs people with all manner of Blessings. This assassin lives on borrowed time, for once the Emperor becomes free of any duties to personally defend World¡¯s Hope, no stone would be unturned to find the ones behind this.


    The initial investigation concluded, I hastened to contact certain riccen individuals that had developed a very particular set of Skills in their lifetime. This yet-unknown cult would soon find itself rooted out; we had but to commit our resources to such a venture. Pacts were made, coin and enchanted goods changed hands, and within the hour, a whole host of specialists set off to see what they could find on the matter.


    Satisfied, I returned to my Emperor. He still carried Chooka in his arms. I remained silently by his side after informing him of my findings and actions. He nodded along, his face contorted in a slight frown, for he still worried for his love. He expressed satisfaction in my work, muted though it may have been by his mood.


    Together, we watched as Chooka came to. Though relieved by her recovery, apprehension remained thick in the air as the hundreds of thousands of souls gathered here bore witness to the portal activating. The War of Bone and Ash had begun.

 Chapter 110

    With a sudden burst of power, the gateway between worlds screamed open. It was not the squeal of pleasure, a shriek of fear, or a whooping war cry, but one akin to the same energy as a rabbit with its neck in the jaws of a hungry fox. Without delay or hesitation, the enemy, ¡°The Devourers¡±, poured forth as an unending tide of misbegotten flesh and warped anatomy.


    Centipede-creatures with hands for legs were the most numerous down on terra firma. Far too many fingers and knuckles to be anything strictly humanoid, those hands scurried across the obsidisteel ground with unfettered zeal to close the distance to their prey. Some were a few inches in length, others nearly the size of a man, but all a deadly mess of spikes and gnashing pincers that promised venomous tidings. Hundreds perished every second to a non-stop barrage from [Artillery Mages] safe in their perches upon the high road. Yet, for all their deaths, none faltered to press forward, and countless more eagerly awaited to spill into this world.


    Aberrations and abominations of all sorts followed, creatures of gray flesh and disproportionate limbs. The rejects of the enemy¡¯s experiments with fleshwarping, these thralls trundled forward only to be cut down, the sum of their lives no more than cries of impotent anguish upon the wind. Grotesqueries of bile and lard burst upon death, each one launching great swarms of insectoid creatures from their ruptured innards. Worms covered in armored plates wriggled through, their bodies used as no more than bulwarks against our fury for others to hide behind.


    And though none of our own troops had died to the enemy, minute by minute, we were losing in our battle for containment. We simply could not blast the gateway fast enough, and few dared approach the insidious aura of decay that radiated from it. And as ground was lost and their own barriers were erected, something resembling conventional troops took the field.


    Shapes and sizes varied, but through squinted eyes and flexible interpretations of anatomy, one could vaguely consider them humanoid for their base forms, albeit ones devoid of any warmth of positive emotions. Most sported extra limbs and appendages, with supplementary tentacles and wings being favored. Though incapable of true flight, their wings aided in great leaps to help them close the gap, which they utilized with relish.


    Our skelie boys pulled their weight. Without reservation, they met the enemy head-on, interdicting the enemy advance and hauling biomass back to our ravenous hydras. A few brave defenders still among the living and with Abilities to withstand the decay launched probing attacks, their efforts aimed more to determine the combat capabilities of the enemy and the composition of their forces than to make decisive blows. Even my own traps were detonating one after another to control or kill the enemy in an effort to turn the battlefield into a quagmire.


    Simultaneously, the battle raged in the sky. Though most of our aerial defenders lingered outside of the one-way shields over World¡¯s Hope to blast the enemy with impunity, some had to meet the enemy in melee to distract and inhibit them. Bodies of the fallen, both friendly and enemy alike, rained down upon those below indiscriminately. Each side coveted the biomass and weaponry of the fallen, with fights breaking out out over the juiciest of morsels with the best loot. Weakened specimens for research purposes were in demand, after all.


    Indeed, we had entire retrieval squads specialized in the recovery of prized weapons and armor from our fallen. We quickly learned that the enemy was no fool, for they too remained strategic and insidious in their approach to stealing our stuff. I am inclined to believe that some foul magic is at play here, the deaths of their chaff intended to embolden our warriors and inspire them to take bigger and bigger risks, only for their hidden assassins to pounce at just the right moment to catch someone out of position and engage in suicide-tactics to ensure that they were the ones to recover our corpses. Many of ours fell for that trick despite updated instructions to be cautious for such elaborate ruses.


    Our vanguard fell back, the press of the enemies overwhelming as the concentration of their survivors near the gateway reached critical mass. Powerful magics were utilized to teleport our own combatants away from danger just as lethal blows were being struck, but for every one of ours that had the privilege of such a safety net, a dozen more were left to fend for themselves. The enemy, well aware that a war of attrition favored their victory, pressed forward without respite, with towering behemoths now pouring through to aid in their assault, each one covered in creatures and weaponry that returned fire upon our forces.


    All manner of magical disciplines came to the forefront as the enemy inched closer. We jammed their attempts to interrupt our magical communications or to slip in their own false orders. We likewise blocked their attempts at mind-control, illusions, and supernatural suggestions. Spatial magic was used to block enemy teleportation, and a myriad of tricks were deployed to prevent invisible or undetectable enemies from getting the jump on us. However, it quickly became a series of jabs, feints, ruses, and adaptations as each side sought to lull the other into complacency while also sneaking in a clever ploy.


    For all our successes, we experienced bitter failures. Not everything could be stopped, and soon, enemy assassins and insurgents began running rampant upon our defenders. Key personnel, like [Shield Mages], [Spatial Mages], [Batteries], [Aura Twisters], [Dancers], [Healers], [Commanders], and the like were picked off one by one. We adapted, but far too slowly for the likings of myself and those with me in the command center. Though our casualties mounted, to deploy our aces now would be to show our hand. Begrudgingly, we had to admit that we were experiencing ¡°acceptable losses''''.


    Most of our Diamonds had enough experience and discipline to endure sitting around looking pretty. Only those that did not have a role of direct combat, such as Erethel Starweaver in how she helped maintain the shields, were currently engaged in tasks. These individuals were critical personnel, and even the loss of a single one could cripple our defenses. Each one had a squad of [Body Guards] and kobold [Stunt Doubles] to ensure that they would not die. Probably. Hopefully. The day is yet young.


    Speaking of kobolds, choirs of them were singing all over the place to keep morale high and to support the troops with magical effects. They also scurried hither and thither to deliver supplies or rush the wounded to medical stations. Most were not from my flight, and they could be a bit prickly with one another from different flights. Still, they appeared to at least maintain some semblance of professionalism, for while I could not exactly pinpoint what it was they did, I knew stuff was getting done.


    As the enemy neared the perimeter, their advance found itself stymied by endless barrages of breath attacks from hydras that clambered for the succulent spoils of the deceased. The 9-headers especially were going to town, for they had the longest range and the most destructive blasts. The 8-headers were only half-hearted in their contribution, for they mostly served to protect their elders, and the 7-headers likewise to them. The 6-headers were there to catch pockets of whatever made it though. Anything that survived the gauntlet had to contest with the remaining hydras, quite often in melee as the greedy buggers gobbled down a few light snacks.


    The hydras were not alone, for mortal defenders acted as a screening force to keep them safe. As depressing and perhaps disgusting it is to say, people can be replaced, but hydras take a long time to mature. More to the point, finding cooperative hydras would be more than a challenge without The Boys here to lead them. There were few [Beastmasters] and the like here with noteworthy beasts under their control, and to my knowledge, only three of them had hydras among their menageries.


    And out there, lurking in no man¡¯s land, very large and equally hungry spiders set about finding their next meals. Some roamed in packs, their bodies similar to wolf spiders, but much larger in size. Others took the approach of trapdoor spiders, for they somehow created extradimensional space within the obsidisteel floor for their lairs. I watched one spider die, torn apart by the insectoid creatures of the enemy, only for her abdomen to burst as thousands of babies poured out of her to find their first taste of fresh air and fresher meat. I found myself greatly appreciating my current physical position and the nature of my role that kept me apart from such nightmares made flesh.


    The Phoenix causally rained down fire upon the enemy. The meteors were tiny, barely enough to kill a man, but they numbered in the tens of thousands and the Phoenix never relented or showed signs of fatigue. He provided a constant threat to the enemy, that they could not remain idle lest random chance find them burned to a crisp. His children, the Lesser Phoenixes, provided aerial support, each one sniping enemy fliers with pinpoint accuracy, one at a time.


    Upon occasion, and seemingly through the coordination of our own fliers, the enemy would clump up near the dome created by the shield. While they desperately tried to smash their way free, a few Sky Whales would descend from their storm clouds to devour the enemy, each one feasting upon their corralled prey that found themselves trapped by the press of bodies upon them by their fellow kin. For good measure, they also let out strong downward drafts of wind to push enemy fliers back towards the ground, all of that interspersed with forks of lightning to shock the unwary.


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    We Emperors and a handful of Kings and Princes remained at the command center. We each carried out some semblance of coherency and attentiveness in communications with one another, but I could tell that we were all busy with our equivalents of [Parallel Minds] to keep tabs on multiple fronts. Each of us also constantly poured mana into S.M.A.R.T. crystals that were integrated into the network that powered the whole fortress. It was far easier to attune a few dozen of such crystals to the movers and shakers than to make hundreds of thousands for everyone and his brother, and I left it to each flight to find ways to siphon mana from the gathered masses so that it could be put into the grid.


    Mana was king in this battle. If we ran out, we died, plain and simple. Constant modifications to our shield networks were required to ensure they ran as efficiently as possible to the latest strategy the enemy employed to break them, and said shields were our biggest strain on the grid. Likewise, [Artillery Mages] needed to be constantly topped off so they could keep blasting. Somewhere out there, Garro and Rarro, the poster children for what I saw as [Artillery Mages], were happily blasting away. Give it another few hours, much less a few days, and we shall see if that enthusiasm still holds up.


    And such concerns are the secondary issues we have to deal with: morale, complacency, sudden attacks, betrayal from within, exhaustion, shift rotations, logistics, hygiene, biomass processing, communications, and many more tasks besides are still important to our defense. Soldiers need to eat, sleep, and visit the brothels. Bodies and viscera need to be cleaned away and fresh troops inducted into their duties. Coin has to be paid out and spent in equal measure in order to lubricate the wheels of commerce and leisure. Sure, these are just the opening hours, but this whole operation will quickly become routine, and we have to ensure that the reality holds up to the theory of how we planned it all to work.


    The real wrench in the plan comes from the various saboteurs, insurgents, opportunists, traitors, [Cultists], and other nefarious elements. With new intelligence gained from our latest guest, some ¡°housecleaning¡± was underway within the bowels of the fortress, for we suffer not the heretics to live. Alterez, working in tandem with Gambino and Bambina, were judge, jury, and executioner via my carte blanche to ensure that the defense would hold. I can only imagine that there would be certain ¡°liberties¡± taken on the part of Alterez to weed out any competition or people he doesn¡¯t like. Ultimately, I am fine with that so long as he doesn¡¯t go too far, but it remains difficult to truly quantify how much is too much when it comes to such matters.


    While I am aware of the battle as a whole, I also understand the emotions of those bonded to me. Skull remains within the Shadow Path. While the enemy has either not yet accessed it or is incapable of doing so, there are ¡°things¡± that are being drawn by the calamity of battle. She hungers to join the fray, but her obligation to protect me stays her hand. I try to send calming emotions to assuage her, and I communicate directly via telepathy that she will undoubtedly get her fill before too long. Alterez radiates glee like a kid in a candy shop, so at least he loves his work. Gambino feels insulted by someone, and Bambina is ready to tear out the throat of said insulter, but both are keeping their cool for now. Nabonidus is too busy for emotions; he is keeping them bottled up to process later.


    My beloved Chooka is still in my arms in a princess carry, a position of closeness to me for which she has aired no complaints. As for Tamadora, I don¡¯t even need a bond with her to understand. She is both very happy for Chooka and seething with jealousy that she isn¡¯t getting the same treatment. Kaisadoro is nervously stroking his mustache and beard at how this whole ¡°fight for survival of our world¡± thing is derailing his schedule. It-Has-Pockets is nearby and dancing her heart out, and from what I can glean by my glances around the room, she is doing a good job of distracting a great many people with her gyrations. My whelps, deep beneath the fortress proper, are hearing colorful dwarven language and the banging of metal on delicate machinery, so Torborg is no doubt enjoying himself with tasks related to maintenance. I know very little dwarven, but I have most of the curse words down pat, which tend to be the bulk of the vernacular for such esteemed dwarven professionals in the midst of their craft.


    Jericho, or at least most of her, is out there limit-testing her new equipment and Skills. A good number of them are stashed around the fortress so that she can both generate duplicates from anywhere at a moment¡¯s notice and so she realistically won¡¯t experience true death. Some of you may be wondering where all that mana comes from that her clones use. I have found out that at least some of it comes from me, for while concepts of mana are not available to me in exact numbers, at times I can feel my mana regeneration plunge into the negatives when she uses many clones and I am otherwise not using my mana. It isn¡¯t consistent enough to break the bank, but it certainly complicates my calculations for how to proceed. Additionally, I will need the others who are bonded to me to go all out to see if they are also leeching my mana, but now is not the time to suss out the fine details.


    I feel like I am forgetting someone, but it must not be important. The action is heating up again as a new development has caused heads to turn. According to Polemarch Kirov, the enemy has deployed a new variant, or at least one he has not seen before. These creatures are roughly humanoid and composed of metals and crystals. They stand between two to four times as tall as a man and are armed with conventional weapons like swords and shields. One may be inclined to notice they bear a resemblance to the crixtali, even if that vision of them has been twisted beyond how imitation can be a medium of flattery.


    These new specimens are rather resilient to our artillery and pack a mean punch of their own. Collectively, they are blasting back the full range of elements at our defenders. Some of them have, for lack of a better explanation, giant cannons or rayguns on their backs. They drop down onto all fours, aim, and then death follows in that general direction. Our [Shield Mages] are scrambling to find a solution, and if we do not find one soon, the elite Platinums or perhaps a Diamond or two will be needed to resolve the issue. Loath are we to show our hand so soon, but the enemy seems intent on forcing an exhibition of our capabilities.


    Insult to injury, the enemy has also deployed crystalline tanks. They are armored vehicles with wheels inside a track. They also sport a big main gun and smaller ones that shoot out elemental attacks. While many of us in the command center are familiar with the concept, such technology is forbidden to us. The enemy appears to manifest their tanks through more arcane means rather than mechanical, but I would say that they have moved far past flirting with the boundaries of what one can get away with. Many of us are grumbling and uttering curses at how unfair or at least unsportsmanlike it is for them to use such devices.


    If only it had stopped there; they also have flying machines that I am quite familiar with due to my memories of past lives and my perusal of dwarven schematics: gyrocopters, helicopters, planes, blimps, and levitating mines that will explode if touched. A few prayers from a handful of priests have confirmed that, yes, the ban on such technology is still in effect. While such clarification provided no end of consternation for our disadvantage, we agreed to abide by the ruling of the gods. We could only wonder as to what calamity would be called down upon us if we did not adhere to the will of the gods, for even in the face of complete annihilation, the gods were sticking to their guns, or perhaps more accurately, the lack thereof. Granted, we still had our siege cannons and the like, but they are so fundamentally arcane in nature as to be completely removed from the concept of black powder and bullets. The weapons of the enemy blur that distinction far more than that, and theirs are strictly superior to ours.


    What few crixtali warriors we had available were sent forth to engage these new threats. None were to overextend or truly risk death, but we needed to determine our enemy¡¯s weaknesses and capabilities. These warriors are elite veterans, each one hand-picked to be the survivors of their race, and thus, they probably would not die easily. Each one has an escort of Platinum Adventurers to help ensure they do not get in over their heads. Everyone, both enemy and friendly alike, gave these battles a wide berth, for no one wanted to become collateral damage in such a clash.


    While these new threats were concerning, we had yet to see the counterpart to dragons. Those would be the biggest threats without question. We had no credible reports of them existing or ever being fielded, but from our knowledge of other worlds and tales of those who have walked between them, we know that each planet has its own apex lifeforms. These ¡°Devourers¡± have indeed devoured many worlds and incorporated mockeries of the defeated into their own ranks. Surely they would have something nasty planned for us, but whether we would see it soon or in another couple hundred years remained a mystery.


    And so we Emperors and Kings waited in the wings. We observed, devised strategies, and issued orders. Countless lives, each one a unique experience and a collection of passions and desires, were boiled down to numbers on sheets of paper. With but a few casual words, good men and women were sent to their deaths in hopes that their sacrifice would make the difference for our collective survival. Bloody was the altar upon which their lives were offered in tribute to the continuation of our world. If anything, we mused that warfare on such a devastating scale and scope would birth a new god or two themed around Strife or Sacrifice. Perhaps such musing served to distract us from the reality of how we dictated who lived and who died. Even the most callous and indifferent among us dragons can¡¯t ignore the carnage around us and our responsibility in shaping it.


    We waited, each of us fully aware that we may be next on the butcher¡¯s block. We were all prepared to lay down our lives if needed, moreso the Kings and Princes who would automatically resurrect upon death. But for us Emperors, we had no such luxury, and as juicy of targets that we made, we wondered which of us would be the first to die.

 Chapter 111

    While the world around us was quite possibly ending, Bambina and I made our way through the bowels of World¡¯s Hope, each of us dispatching messengers and issuing summons to our peers in service to the other flights. All the demigods had left our world in a hurry, and one peculiar demigod had entered our world at the same time. Chooka had been attacked on the road, and with Montezuma still waiting in queue to resurrect, we had limited intel on this new cult that colluded with the enemy. It is in such dire times that one must take drastic measures, but before that, there is a critical step that cannot be overlooked: a costume change!


    As the leader of the entire troop in service to the Crossroad Wayfinders, it is only appropriate that I have the best costumes. Obviously, I need a capotain complete with a fancy buckle. I need a longcoat that has plenty of buttons that are never used. A spiffy vest underneath will give some prestige. Leather for the gloves and the boots are a must if I want to keep the blood off of my person. Slap on a few belts, plenty of relics and other religious knickknacks, and equip a hand crossbow and a serrated saber, and I fit the part for a good old-fashioned witch hunt.


    ¡°What do you think, toots, should I also use the eye patch?¡± I ask my lovely Bambina as I hold up said fashion accessory, one complete with a golden dragon embroidered upon it.


    ¡°Mmm,¡± she contemplates as she pauses dressing herself. ¡°It would be a bit much right now. Perhaps save it for later if you get wounded in a fight. Hopefully, nothing mars that dashing face of yours,¡± she finishes her assessment as she flicks her blue tongue over her bottom lip in a clear display of approval at my fetching outfit.


    ¡°An excellent idea!¡± I reply as I help her finish putting on her costume. Hers has more bits of leather to act as armor, or to at least appear as such. Her hat is also flatter, wider, and has a feather. Collectively, we adhere to a color palette with a black primary and a yellow secondary to show off the colors of our Emperor. ¡°What would I ever do without you?¡±


    ¡°Probably die in a ditch somewhere, alone and forgotten,¡± she remarks without a moment¡¯s hesitation as she grabs her own weapons, a whip and branding iron.


    ¡°Too true, my love. Let¡¯s go see if we can¡¯t make someone else do the dying. I don¡¯t believe we are Scripted to die today.¡±


    With a bit of banter to help us get in character, we departed with our cohort of Support Actors, none of which were nearly as fancily dressed as us, naturally. I had called for an emergency meeting, and with luck, the other kobold leaders would heed my invitation. It took us nearly an hour to get to our destination, especially with all the tripping hazards scattered about in the forms of wounded combatants and severed limbs. A bit crass of them to clog the hallways, but good help is hard to find these days.


    ¡°Well, well, well! Looks like the slant finally decided to show up.¡±


    That was not the greeting I expected when I arrived at my own meeting, on time mind you, but perhaps this particular kobold was supposed to be an arrogant prick. I honestly don¡¯t know what his Role is today, but I have a feeling I won¡¯t like him very much. With one deft motion, I use my tail to hold Bambina back lest she tear his throat out for such an insult.


    ¡°Show Gambino more respect or I will have you on the rack screaming for forgiveness before day¡¯s end, you cur!¡±


    My sweet Bambina¡¯s temper had been so easily stoked, but it was not fitting for her Role to back down from such provocation. To be fair, those were fighting words that this chap had dared to utter towards me, and with the gauntlet thrown down, I would have to prove him wrong in his assessment of my linguistic abilities.


    ¡°Friends, kobolds familiar and new. Let us not cause trouble to brew,¡± I start my performance as I raise my hands placatingly in a gesture of peace. ¡°The enemy is at the gate, let infighting not be our fate.¡±


    ¡°You sent out your heralds to have us gather. Pray tell, I hope it was not to hear you blather,¡± my insulter replied in kind. I would guess he is one of those Bloods judging by his red scales, an older one at that if his scales have taken on the color of his flight.


    I continue talking as I take my seat at a round table, Bambina sitting by my side. There were eight spots at the octagonal table, two seats per side for the leader of a troupe and his or her second. Someone up above manned the lighting to ensure they caught my good side as I spoke my lines.


    ¡°I only speak of matters dire, for many demigods did retire. Yet one unknown has come forth to judge, perhaps even, to give our story a nudge. I hope that in our goal of survival we are aligned, for there is something we can do with our powers combined.¡±


    ¡°You aim to have The Script summoned forth!¡± another kobold with gray scales announced with overly pronounced surprise for the sake of drama. ¡°Behold, there do I see my swarth!¡±


    ¡°A nice attempt to steal my thunder. I would not see us blown asunder. I believe the Dramatis Personae will suffice, even if the secrets within are imprecise. We could discover more about friend and foe, for we know so little of our new demigod and his Divine Portfolio.¡±


    ¡°I imagine he has something to do with The Abyss,¡± chimed in someone¡¯s second, ¡°unless there is something I missed.¡±


    Without hesitation, I drew my hand crossbow and fired it right into his chest. My bolt sunk into him amid a flurry of knives and other ranged implements that everyone else gathered at the table had likewise shot at the poor bastard. Even his own troupe leader shanked him mercilessly at such a faux pas. ¡®Abyss¡¯ and ¡®missed¡¯ do not properly rhyme, but it would have worked if he had used ¡®miss¡¯ or perhaps ¡®amiss¡¯.


    ¡°Hey you,¡± called a green-scaled [Fashionista], no doubt the leader of the Eternal Pretenders given her clearly evident draconic features that we all remained secretly envious of. She sported horns and wings, and unless it was a trick of the light, her scales looked more draconic than those of a lowly lizard. ¡°Get this slant out of here,¡± she directed a nearby attendant as she pointed to the corpse of our erstwhile ally. This meeting doubled as a sacred ritual, and we had no tolerance for those who messed it up. ¡°Sorry to interrupt, please continue dear,¡± she concluded as she addressed me and prompted that the show must go on.


    ¡°The die is cast, we must take a vote. It must be unanimous, lest the ayes find themselves smote. The nays will inherit all from each remaining troupe. I hope we collaborate with no intention to dupe.¡±


    Indeed, summoning forth The Script would most likely kill us all permanently, but it would allow our successors to see The Story of this world and how it plays out, at least from a certain point of view. That would give us kobolds invaluable knowledge of things to come and it would help ensure the survival of our race. If there was ever a time to call upon The Script and see it in full instead of glimpses of it, this would probably be the time.


    However, there are safer theatrical manuscripts that we could summon forth, the Dramatis Personae being one of them. It likewise requires the leaders of the kobold troupes for the eight Emperors to gather and vote. However, not everyone needs to die to summon it. Between the ayes and the nays, whichever side has the majority dies, leaving their troupes ripe for plundering by the survivors. A tie results in everyone dying. A majority vote of aye is needed for the summoning to succeed. This voting system creates a prisoner¡¯s dilemma where personal greed weighs against the good of everyone. The only safe outcome is a unanimous vote, in which case everyone lives, but obviously the summoning fails if everyone votes nay. A single nay could kill off all of one¡¯s rivals and leave untold riches and talent to be collected from the weakened troupes, which is a tempting proposition.


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    Furtive glances were directed around the room from the leaders of each troupe as we eyed each other over. While an attendant walked around to hand us each a white stone for aye and a black stone for nay, we each made claims to vote aye or supporting arguments to why this was necessary, each of us maintaining our flawless pattern of rhymes lest we have to murder someone again. After a few minutes, all hands were beneath the table as we each decided which stone to place upon the table when votes were called.


    My peer to my right had a bead of nervous sweat upon his brow, an impressive Ability considering we kobolds do not sweat. I would have to find out how he did it since his technique appeared to be more sophisticated than my own. He also gulped audibly as his eyes widened in wild apprehension as he cast critical glances at each of us. He was really selling his bit, or perhaps he was actually nervous. It doesn¡¯t have those telltale signs of him using [Stage Fright], with how insincere it can come across to the trained eye, so perhaps he has a bit of practice at this particular Role. I would normally use my own Skills to tremble in fear, which my former draconic masters appreciated, but such cowardice was unbefitting my current Role and apparel. Instead I steeled my resolve, taking one hard look at Bambina, who nodded once to me, and I readied my vote.


    Slowly, each of us brought one hand above the table, not one of us showing our vote until everyone was ready. As the one who called forth the meeting, I was first to show my vote. I opened my hand, and a white stone fell out of it and onto the table.


    Around the table we went, a hand opening as a white stone fell out. Yet, the closer we got to the end, the slower each was to reveal his or her vote. Some choir in the background played stressful music on stringed instruments to add to the suspense, a fitting touch given the circumstances. The last remaining hand belonged to the one who insulted me when I entered. I don¡¯t know his name, not that most kobolds actually have names beyond what their current Role allots to them. Given that he is a leader of a troupe , he probably has one, but it is not a certain thing.


    I glared at him, my steely gaze watching for any sign of foul play. If his vote came up nay, I could possibly kill him before I found myself struck dead by forces supernatural in origin. Carefully, with full awareness that an errant twitch could spook us all into killing him before he could reveal his vote, he turned over his hand, opening it discreetly so that his stone lay flat on the table but remained obfuscated by his palm upon it. Slowly, almost teasingly, he withdrew his hand, and with it, an audible chorus of exhales followed as a glistening white stone greeted us in turn.


    A small victory tune eased the tension as our musicians livened up the atmosphere for a few moments. Directly following that, the notes shifted to a tune of wonder and mystery, one that enhanced our curiosity as something happened, a feeling that manifested in each of us or perhaps a thickening of the air. As the music reached its crescendo and suddenly stopped, a magical book popped into existence in the middle of the table, with said book spinning as it slowly floated to rest flat upon it.


    The book, the one and only Dramatis Personae, gets bigger as I hop onto the table and approach it, since I cannot reach it from a sitting position and no one bothered to bring a long pole to shove it towards us. Nearly as big as I am, I lug it to my side of the table where I can read it. The gathered leaders and their seconds gathered round behind me, each of us eager to have answers revealed to us.


    ¡°Remember,¡± I remind everyone as I keep the book closed, ¡±We each get to ask one question of the book. Asking for a name gives a description, or giving a description gives you a name. It even provides a picture if you want to take a look. Let¡¯s coordinate so none of our questions are the same.¡± I take a baton handed to me by an attendant and hand it off to another leader, as I want to ask the final question.


    ¡°Who is Sanagba Imuru, He-Who-Saw-The-Abyss?¡± asked the leader who held the baton before he too passed it off. Obviously, everyone in the world heard the description when this demigod entered our universe, but we want to know more about him in the context of The Story.


    The book flips open to reveal a picture of the demigod. His beard is a series of straight braids, each in metallic cylinders that add flair and prestige, a style reminiscent of ancient dwarves. He wears some sort of skirt or loincloth. A fringed shawl covered a tunic, with a belt helping to keep everything together. The entire outfit had geometric patterns to accentuate his esteem. In one hand, he held a stone tablet, and in the other, a spyglass. The text below the picture was the real moneymaker.


    Sanagba Imuru, He-Who-Saw-The-Abyss - The demigod sent to this universe to judge The True Main Character and to find him worthy of becoming a new demigod, The Dragon of Roads. Sanagba Imuru mostly observes, but he is responsible for instigating a few key events to offer appropriate trials for the aspiring demigod.


    All eyes turned between me and the book. ¡°The True Main Character¡± was thought to be a myth, the one being for whom this universe was created, the center of The Story from which all tales and fables are spawned. And the moniker, ¡°The Dragon of Roads¡±, certainly leaves little room for mystery, as only one current dragon is known to have a penchant for roads.


    ¡°Who is or could become The Dragon of Roads?¡±


    Good choice, good choice. The book flips through its infinite pages to finally stop. In the picture, I clearly see the mortal and draconic forms of my own Master. Around the edges, each looking and reaching inward towards him, I saw myself and Bambina as a pair, but also Skull, Chooka, It-Has-Pockets, Torborg, Bellwright, Nabonidus, Alterez, Jericho, and some blurry elf. The resemblance to us as his companions was uncanny, and there remained no doubt as to exactly who The Main Character could be.


    ¡°The Dragon of Roads - Also known as The Main Character, the Emperor of the Crossroad Wayfinders, the Outlier, Papa, Big E, and a slew of other monikers, is the whole reason you are reading me to begin with. This is his final mortal life before apotheosis as a demigod, assuming he does not Go Off Script and perish before the fulfillment of The Story. His companions assist him in achieving this feat, often without his knowledge or consent, for most are involved in the cult that helps him attain divinity.¡±


    Dragon worship is no oddity among kobolds. I can only imagine that each of us adores our respective Emperor to the point of reverence. However, the prospect of one Emperor attaining divinity is certainly grounds for conflicted loyalty. Everyone wants on that gravy train that will allegedly aid us in metamorphosing into something more draconic than our feeble lizard bodies. As angels are to human, oni are to orcs, succubi and incubi are to remnimi, wererats are to riccen, and so forth, so too are dragons the perfect forms of kobolds, and this revelation from the Dramatis Personae would change everything.


    ¡°So, uh,¡± one of the kobolds near me inquires with a bit of awkwardness. ¡°About this cult of yours. That is led by Alterez, ya? Do we need to submit a form for membership or¡­,¡± he let the rest of his question hang. The expression on everyone''s faces asked much the same, even if they did not give voice to it.


    This is a valid break in character, so no stabbing commences. I likewise answer in kind. ¡°No, Alterez, the [Cult Leader], can initiate you. We do have matching robes, since that is pretty key to any cult. We can have an emergency indoctrination session with him if you all want to join.¡±


    An eager chorus of approval and thanks greeted me. I did not notice a single one of them not interested in joining. Kobold loyalty is a myth, for we only serve the strongest, which typically is an Emperor. However, an Emperor that is also a demigod stands head and shoulders above his peers, and so we would all feel the pull to serve. This will undoubtedly cause a lot of bad fallout and drama with the other flights when they find out that their kobolds are leaving in droves, but that¡¯s showbiz for ya.


    Inquiries about the war and the survival of our planet were quickly forgotten as we continued asking questions in the same vein that would help ensure we knew the Major Characters in helping my Master achieve divinity. Attendants were already dispatched to gather torches, pitchforks, and volunteers to play the part of an angry mob for my little witch hunt, one that was a collaboration between all troupes. In the meantime, we finally got around to my final question.


    ¡°Who is the elf that will become the companion of The Dragon of Roads?¡±


    The pages flipped and stopped once more, and there in the pages I saw the pictures and descriptions of each of the three contenders, all of whom have been introduced in The Story thus far. No, not Guildmaster Taro, for the elf is clearly a woman and he was a Throwaway Character anyway. You know the ones.


    Anyway, unexpectedly, The Story pulled me, forcing my hand to pick which one would become his companion. One seemed to be a bargain bin version of Jericho, so she seemed redundant, if still entirely competent. Another was rather pleasant most of the time, but crazy and murderous the rest. The final choice was cute as a button, but also unremarkable for any useful contributions. None of them seemed like a great choice, but with a quill in hand, I made a revision of the text to determine my Master¡¯s elven companion. May he forgive me of my choice if it offends him, for I did not predict that I would be the one to help write The Story.

 Chapter 112

    Though the world around me has descended into chaos, I remain at peace within the eye of the storm. Death watches us all, and a bountiful harvest falls before her scythe. Kimelidae is her name, and I pray she finds me needing more time to mature before she returns for me. Until then, I, Friend-Not-Food, will continue doing my part in this greatest of battles.


    Another dozen corpses fall off the wall. Excuse me, ¡°high road¡±, as the proprietor insists it be called. Makes no difference to those manning it and those trying to break free from its confines. These ones were dead before they hit at least. The blueshift in the screams of those not yet dead as they approach their demise always creeps me out. Checking over the bodies, I see that they are a bunch of humans and orcs this time, some rank-and-file troops.


    With practiced efficiency, I activate [Cleanse the Foodstuff], which removes all their personal effects and neutralizes any poisons or other toxins that may be present in their bodies. [More Hands Make Light Work] conjures translucent but not entirely incorporeal hands to help maneuver the bodies into a cart and their former equipment into a barrel that holds many times its apparent capacity. Wonders of magic never cease, that is a handy storage option, for without it, I would be buried in a mountain of gear worth a small fortune.


    Just as I finish loading up my cart, a long neck and head strikes out towards me. Within a heartbeat, a hydra has positioned one of her necks above me, a sickening crunching sound from above announcing that another body would have landed upon me if not for such timely intervention.


    ¡°Thanks again, Big Red,¡± I shout fondly to my favorite hydra of the bunch.


    Big Red, as I call her, sings sweetly to me in response, her eyes darting towards my cart without a hint of subtlety until they glance back to me, no shame to be found where begging has made its roost. With careful steps lest I slip on the viscera around me, I push my cart over to her body proper.


    ¡°There you go, Big Red, eat up.¡±


    Though the battle hasn¡¯t been going on for more than two hours, she and I have established a good amount of rapport in such a short time. She is a wild hydra of some specialization, but she knows me to be the one to bring her food, and thus she knows better than to bite the hand that feeds her. And I don¡¯t mean some generic hydra, which is any creature with many heads on one body, but the actual Magical Beast, a Hydra, or a True Hydra, as some call them.


    I step back and marvel at her meticulous process. Only one head at a time bends down to snatch up a corpse. Swallowed whole, something special happens that seemingly only the red hydras are capable of. A while later, that same head will regurgitate up a pellet of bones, much like an owl would, minus the fur. More importantly, an egg of sorts comes with it. Well, more like a clump of meat inside a leathery and waxy pouch. A skilled eater, she can pre-digest the bodies of the fallen, their bones spared to join the army of creepy skeletons that are fortunately on our side. The food she regurgitates will be distributed to other hydras to help keep their strength up, as it is far more efficient to allow those like her to pre-process food than to let each hydra do it, as many of them would be loath to resist eating the bones.


    In short order, a second cart is full of these ¡°eggs¡±, and with my own cart empty, I return to the high road to find more discarded bodies. Along the way, a few skeletons run past, each one carrying the corpses of the fallen and depositing them on a pile there as more bodies rain down upon it. Though dead, the skeletons still avoid the hydras, for they lack the Skills to safely interact with wild beasts, and those that ¡°pilot¡± the skeletons don¡¯t want to risk being eaten. Big Red is fairly well-behaved, but I have seen more than a few skeletons and their prizes get picked off by hungry hydras when no one was looking, except perhaps me.


    Big Red covers me again as a deluge of bodies rain down upon us. Some are screaming the whole way down, and given their distance from the high road, it appears that they were pushed or perhaps blasted from where they stood. Poor bastards. Bunch of kobolds mixed in this time, and oddly enough, some have pitchforks and torches. I spare a glance upwards, but I see no clue as to what would merit such armaments.


    As I riffle through the bodies, I recoil in disgust at one most aberrant in nature. Though wearing armor and other trappings of an officer or sergeant of some kind, his body is malformed, his flesh blue, purple, and gray like old bruises on a cadaver. Tentacles and strange growths, still writhing despite his death, desperately try to grasp at anything nearby in hopes of remedying their predicament. I know not what to make of him other than that he is somehow akin to those from beyond that we fight. If they have infiltrated our ranks, then I may end up a meal for Big Red sooner rather than later.


    I duck reflexively as a dragon dashes towards us. With effortless grace, it plucks a body out of the sky before it could land upon my ever-growing pile. Must be a live one, considering the screaming and how it thrashes about impotently, but why the dragon chose that person over any other is none of my business. This whole maneuver is met by a chorus of perturbed roars from a host of greedy hydras that don¡¯t appreciate scavengers. The fine details of those bound for the body pile actually being dead or not appear to be trivial concerns for the endlessly hungry beasts around me.


    Oh well, another day, another few coins for my retirement, should I live that long. If only Ma and my Pas could see me now and how I was one of the few [Beast Handlers] in all the world with the Skills and experience needed to fulfill this job, why, they would be beaming with pride. I guess I will just have to ride out my deployment and take a vacation back to Tarr to visit them, but until then, more bodies and more hungry hydras.


    <hr>


    ¡°Alright lads and lassies, you took the king¡¯s coin, now it¡¯s time to earn your pay! Get a move on!¡±


    Fear grips me like a petulant child demanding attention, but courage takes me by the hand and drags me along like a mother that has had it up to here with such behavior. Crammed in with dozens of others like me, we jostle along after Sarge as he leads us up stairs and through hallways. Orders must have come down the chain for us to deploy, but as to what those orders may be, I knew as much as the next man.


    Even within the confines of our fortress, the roar of battle could still be heard, a blood oath uttered upon the wind that will come to claim its due, seemingly sooner rather than later. I almost slipped upon the stairs in some viscera, the screaming soldiers in their litters nearby most likely the source of such a hazard. However, a hand behind me holds me upright, a friendly reminder that our teamwork can see to it that we don¡¯t end up back down here before our shift ends and with fewer body parts than when we started.


    We form up again in a staging room, one wide enough for us to fan out into a formation. A ramp allows us access to the battlements, and even that glimpse to the outside causes me to tremble in my boots. Dragons and beasts battle monstrosities from my darkest nightmares, and we are somehow expected to make a difference in all that. I had thought myself real proper smart when I took the signing bonus to join the Crimson Spears, a relatively respectable mercenary company and one quite accomplished, at least as far as swords for hire can be, but now I feel the fool who took the bait that lured him to his death.


    Sarge barks orders, his words encouraging with a dash of roughness to keep us in line. He saw us through The Battle of Black Skies and was instrumental at holding Dagger Pass. He would see us through this, too, and so I tightened my grip on my spear and tucked away my fear.


    Before we could advance up the ramp, a rabble of kobolds led by a goblin of all things entered the room from the other side. Many dressed as common folk, but I could tell by their torches and pitchforks along with the garb of their leaders that they were on a witch hunt. We each turn about to face them, maintaining our formation at these unknowns, just like we had drilled time and again.


    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    ¡°By order of the Emperor of the Crossroad Wayfinders, you are to comply with our investigation! Lower your arms or you will be guilty of collaboration!¡±


    The goblin looked every bit a [Cultist], if not one of them leader-types. Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black, but Sarge will put them in their place.


    ¡°You do not command me, vermin!¡± challenged Sarge with indignation. ¡°Now you lot clear out or we¡¯s gonna hafta clean the floor with you¡¯s.¡±


    The goblin looked at something seemingly only he could see before he smiled proportions too creepily wide for a proper face.


    ¡°Ah, Sarge, I see it is you who is the heretic here. The rest of you are innocent, but under the-¡±.


    I couldn¡¯t make out the rest, some loud sound ringing through the room having neutralized his voice. I know not where it came from, but I do know the little bugger was too overly familiar with calling Sarge ¡°Sarge¡±. He has a proper name, it''s¡­ it¡¯s¡­ Not important right now. What is important is these bastards think they can do what they want to him and us, and I know I won¡¯t take that without a fight.


    To my left and my right, good men and women ready their shields and lower their spears. If they want Sarge, they can take him from our cold dead hands. It was he who sounded the alarm on The Night of Hundred Fires during the siege of¡­ Well, that was a long time ago, but the point is¡­


    A nosebleed and a headache grip me as I try to remember the details. It must be some foul sorcery on part of the enemy. No time to think now, as the mob is closing in on us and Skills are being exchanged with violent abandonment of further civil discourse.


    [Heels Dig Deep, Spears Thrust Forward] activates as our banners empower us. Their onslaught barely even pushes me as we start slaughtering them wholesale. Sarge takes the goblin¡¯s head in a single swing of his sword, Foe¡­ Foe-something. Two fancy kobolds cry out in anger, those two dressed like witch hunters, before they throw themselves at us to avenge their leader, only to also fall to Sarge¡¯s blade.


    Still the rabble swarms us, but like grain before a scythe, they are reaped, each one in turn. Soon we-


    We are on the ramparts. Confusion grips me as fear returns with a laugh and a smile. A sound like shattering glass echoes around me, like one of them fancy chandeliers or something crashing into the floor. Only half our number are still standing and our backs are to a ledge, the drop below as perilous as it is frightening. I look at Sarge, and he is doubled over, his arms covering his face, but something is wrong. Not just wrong like he is injured, but wrong in the sense that something has transgressed against nature.


    I see that very few of the kobolds are dead or injured. The leaders remained unharmed, but I know I witnessed them perish not moments before. Sarge killed them, just like he had killed countless foes before. He will save us, just like he had in the past. He will-


    I try to remember his name, the words he said to me when I joined the unit, the specifics of the battles we fought in, but the deeper into my memories I search, the more it unravels into a web of lies. With a sickening feeling rising in my stomach, I watch as Sarge uprights himself and uncovers a mockery of a face, one putrid and gray. Tentacles cover him in odd places and his limbs have all the wrong proportions.


    ¡°You may have won this battle,¡± he growled out in a poor facsimile of speech, his voice guttural and unnatural, ¡°but your world is doomed.¡±


    I remember now. I watched Sarge die, this thing ripping him apart as it spoke words of black magic and enthralled us to his cause. False memories had supplanted truth and reason, and as that realization hit me, rage followed in its wake. On his memory, I swear I will-


    Before any of us can react, power explodes from Not-Sarge. The kobolds, quicker on the draw than we are, have raised a magical shield that protected them from a blast. Well, most of them, as some of them and most of us have been cast from our earthy perch and flung out into the open air. None of us can fly, and so only doom awaits us below.


    And despite the turbulent upset of circumstances and the tempest of emotions, I find myself resigned to my fate. Perhaps this is penance for failing to avenge Sarge sooner, and worse yet, for following the commands of his killer. As the ground approaches, I welcome the sweet release of death. Soon I will be in the arms of-


    A dragon! A red fucking dragon just snatched me out of the air. I squirm in its grip, but it holds tight as it turns away from the wall and flies us up and away back towards the combat. With aerial acrobatics, it spins and flicks me so I land on its back, where two kobolds are sitting.


    ¡°No time to explain! Drink this!¡± one shouts as he shoves some sort of potion towards my face with the opening of it going into my mouth. Half choking, I swallow down its contents, something spicy with a bitter but not entirely unpleasant aftertaste. I don¡¯t understand what¡¯s going on. Only minutes ago I was forming up, then there was some sort of mind-control breaking, then Sarge-


    No, not Sarge. Sarge died days ago. That memory filled me with rage, and power unknown heeded my call and rushed into me as my vision turned to shades of red. Whatever this potion is, I feel as though I can crush mountains and bring gods to kneel before me, that I may pass judgment upon them for letting all this happen to me.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name,¡± one of the kobolds asked.


    ¡°Timothy,¡± I responded as I looked for something to vent my rage and power upon.


    ¡°Good, Timothy. We need you to fend off enemy fliers for us so we can kill these invaders. Simple really, just stab them with your spear if they get close.¡±


    I nodded knowingly, my whole life having led up to this moment. Serene rage guided my every movement as I lashed out at anything that got close. It mattered not what they were or what form they took, all fell before my spear, as they should. The world had reached a state of harmony, the mortal temptations of vengeance for my squad and my larger unit having been left behind as I soared to greater heights. Where I stuck, they fell, these misshapen monstrosities from beyond. Talons, fangs, fleshy maws with spirals of teeth, undulating tentacles, none could find purchase upon me as I bested them all.


    Minutes and hours swirled together as time and circumstance lost meaning. I only needed to destroy, and such a purpose elevated me beyond tedious concerns like rest and relaxation. Like the smallest of sparks turned into a raging inferno, all ran before my power, the quick only delaying the inevitable and the dead falling to the earth below. I hungered for more death, more bloody fulfillment of my only remaining passion upon these things, my spear promising them a swifter demise than what they offered me. I slew a dozen, then a hundred, and no matter how many came at me, I could not sate this hunger for battle or slake my spear¡¯s thirst for the black blood that spilled from the bodies of the fallen.


    Just as I had reached the summit of the gods, I felt a small prick in my leg, barely noteworthy other than that I felt my strength fading away soon afterwards. Reason returned to guide my senses afterwards, only to be pushed aside by horror. Who was I, what had I been doing for who knows how long, and what is happening? These questions and more hounded me as the memories of the past few days caught up with me, not the false ones, but the real truth, bitter and naked.


    I had killed comrades in their sleep. I had sabotaged supplies. Not-Sarge had made all of us commit atrocities, and now, not even death would accept me for such transgressions. And Paila, sweet Paila, my dearest friend.


    ¡°I slit her throat,¡± I wailed out in anguish before another prick followed, and with it, darkness.


    ¡°There, there, Timothy. It¡¯s going to be okay. Just rest now and we will fly you back to safety.¡±


    The voice felt distant. Everything was too confusing and happening too fast and too slow at the same time. I had betrayed my own and been betrayed in kind. What gods would accept me now if I died? Only the darkest of hells awaited those like me, those forsaken by the gods. I would never see my comrades again, I would never be able to atone for letting down Sarge, or be blessed with the opportunity to apologize to Paila. I would-


    Darkness enveloped me, promising me an escape from such troubles. Before it could swaddle me fully, I heard one last irrelevant string of words from one of the kobolds.


    ¡°This potion works better than expected! We¡¯re gonna need another Timothy!¡±

 Chapter 113

    Nestled in the arms of my First Love, I took my time in taking in my surroundings. Chaos and death were the staple of the day, for man, beast, dragon, and monstrosity alike. And while I felt the warmth and comfort of his arms hugging me close, I also felt that spark of new power within me. While I had been a [Courtesan] my whole life, a second Blessing had found purchase, and I found myself eager to test it. But first, I would need to assuage First Love, for while he smiled down at me, worry and pain laced through his features.


    ¡°Worry not, my love,¡± I whispered to him as my hand found and caressed the side of his face. ¡°I am not so easily broken, not in body nor spirit. I have found a new purpose, one that ever draws me closer to you, and it warms my heart that our Fates should be so entwined. Until the fading of eternity, I will be by your side.¡±


    When we first met, he was barely a man, for boyhood still offered hints of influence to his features. But now, with the passing of time and the advancement of his [Age] as a dragon, he embodied the full vigor and refined features of man in his early 20¡¯s. Or perhaps a man in his late 30¡¯s, for his appearance was that of a man from everywhere and nowhere, timeless yet relevant no matter where he went, able to blend in with any culture. Handsome, but not in the way that turns all heads in a room. It is more of the insidious variety, one that slowly draws you in, only for you to realize too late that you are in love and helpless to resist his charm and that ever-present smile that is entirely too endearing and captivating. Mature, confident, dignified yet expressive, it feels offensive that the world should give him cause to look so forlorn.


    And so I nuzzle into him, whispering sweet nothings into his ear until his concern melts away in the warmth of my love. It is challenging, not that I should succeed, but that I can hold myself back from taking him right here and right now, as that would be a crass display given the circumstances. Not that those present would not normally eagerly watch, but there is a proper time and place for such things.


    With both of our feelings all managed and arranged the way we need them to be, I can finally get to the fun part. I had thought my second Blessing would need time to grow, and while it certainly has plenty of room to do just that, it still has plenty of Skills unlocked. Unlike with my first Blessing, where I had to puzzle out what it could do and how to wield my new Abilities, this one came with the unshakable knowledge of how to bring my power to bear with adroit aptitude. I wondered if perhaps this is how dragons are, that they are innately instinctual in their mastery of magic. An unfair advantage, but I have no complaint now that I find myself benefiting from it.


    But first, it is time for a little performance to layer magical boosts upon myself and others around me. Sticking with what I am familiar with, I draw my electric shamisen from a dimensional storage item that First Love made for me. As for where said item is located and what it is, well, a woman has her secrets. No tuning is necessary, for there are no physical strings, but rather, ones made of harnessed lightning. I assume a proper position to play, and when I strike up a tune, it is one with the fastest pace my deft fingers can manage, one full of intensity that would be an appropriate theme for a lone hero being chased through the streets by angry thugs. There are no lyrics for this song, for I have no attention to spare as I amp up the tempo. Heart pumping, blood flowing, I feel alive as power courses through my veins.


    The others in the room take notice, not that such an inescapably obvious cacophony that I wrangled into raw and unrepentant energy for the soul could be overlooked. They continue their work with renewed fervor, each one seemingly pleased as they continue to issue instructions and give commands that send good men and women to their deaths. While I am no [Musician], as a [Courtesan], entertainment for my hosts is as core to my Blessing as what I do with them behind closed doors. I still benefit from a magical boost that carries my song to everyone present, but it does not transcend to the theater of war all along the high road.


    My performance complete, I stow away my prized instrument and draw forth my brass knuckles. I tilt my head side to side, cracking my neck and rolling my shoulders as I flex and walk forward. There are lives that need saving, and faces that need smashing, and the line between the two is getting blurry. I wanted to be able to heal those around me, and I wanted to be able to protect myself, and for that to happen, I had to accept an unconventional package of Skills that would form my new Blessing, [Draconian Healer of Furious Love].


    A few of my First Love¡¯s whelps swarm around me as I depart for the ramparts, none of them so close as to be obtrusive, but they are definitely meant to be an escort. One in particular is bigger and clearly more powerful than the rest, so I assume it to be an Imperial Whelp. Commendable, that First Love struck the right balance between giving me free reign to do as I please while also offering protection without hovering, I would have to thank him later. Thoroughly, vigorously. For now, I really want to punch something.


    Something horrid and unsightly is puking flesh sacs up onto the high road, and once they land, terrible and misshapen abominations of sickening proportions rip and tear their way free as they lash and rake at anyone nearby. Without reservation, I slam my fist right into one¡¯s side, my brass knuckles shattering bone as I send whatever it is sailing over the edge. With such harsh ministrations, I feel a surge of power, a reservoir within me absorbing something from its pain and the damage dealt to its form. It isn¡¯t mana, but it is some source of power I know how to use, and I quickly find someone in need of it.


    A woman is screaming nearby, not in hysterics, but more in the way a woman might scream if her flesh, what remnants of it that were not sloughing off of her, were boiling and melting in acid, on account of that being exactly what was currently happening to her. I combine [Tough Love] with [Empathetic Healing, Apathetic Carnage], the latter of which is the basis of how my new Blessing works, and deliver my remedy to solve her medical emergency.


    And by that, I mean I square up and deliver a full-force quick right between her legs. Indeed, a healing cunt-punt, if you will. It does rather immediately cure her flesh, restoring it to whole as if it had never been covered in toxic bile, a remarkable improvement of circumstances for her if I do say so myself. However, she does double over in pain from the blow, and while I know my assault on her person is supernaturally modified to not cause any damage, she still feels the pain of it as if it were as devastating as it appeared. And while she may not have the dangly and delicate bits of a man, as a woman, I can attest that it still fucking hurts. My sympathies go out to her, but I didn''t have the time to deliver a more delicate solution. She does manage to grunt something out to me, something between a jumble of profanities and gratitude, so I continue on. She will only have to suffer for 10 or 15 seconds until the pain goes away and she is fit to fight again, so I think we both consider it a fair improvement.


    Another monstrosity appears, this one swiping at a man near me via a limb that is more akin to a scythe or a mantis. I dropkick the monstrosity, hitting a little higher than I had planned and turning its head into a shower of gore as it ruptures like a sour grape. Unfortunately, the man, also a screamer, falls down with his legs no longer attached to his body. I move over to him and pull his legs as close to his nubs as I can, and then straddling his torso and facing him, I begin to relentlessly slug him in the face, alternating each hand.


    Brass knuckles smash into bare meat, and though one would normally expect him to become a bloody pulp, not even a bruise appears, although he still seems to suffer for it. I can ¡°feel¡± his legs reattaching to his body, my new senses as a healer informing me as to what his body is doing. However, I also know that I am going too hard on him now, and for fine tuning things, I need to take the knuckles off.


    With moderate but controlled force, I alternate slapping him in the face on each side, a small smirk of satisfaction on my face as I feel the fine adjustments to his nervous system as his legs come under his control again. I also sense a change in his blood flow, and I give him a knowing wink as we both realize where that blood is flowing when a strong, scantily clad, and confident woman is slapping him repeatedly in the face while straddling him. Perhaps that was a desire of his that has always existed, or perhaps it has found seed and bloomed all within a few moments as something awakened within him, but both of my Blessings found satisfaction in a job well done as I moved on to my next vict- er, patient.


    Soon, I found myself in a state of flow, socking an enemy here, gut-punching an ally there, all the while moving through the battle lines and gaining more understanding of my new Abilities and limitations. Even if I didn¡¯t damage any enemies to fill that new pool of power, I could still heal allies, although it would take a lot longer and involve me beating them up much more harshly. A gentle slap on the butt could heal a mangled limb if I were topped off, or an uppercut to the jaw could mend a broken finger if I were low. I could choose how much to spend to speed up the healing, but it became inescapably clear that the quality and quantity of healing achieved its best throughput if I either stayed nearly topped off or filled and suddenly emptied it as quickly as I could. It became more efficient to smash my way through half a dozen of the chaff and then tend to a few wounded instead of bouncing back and forth between them one for one. And with each enemy felled and patient restored, I felt my power swell and my new pool deepen.


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    Simply put, this new Blessing was becoming addictive and definitely played into the more sadistic and dominating sides of my personality and aptitude as a [Courtesan], for some of my paramours have been known to crave it rough, and I, ever the dutiful lover, am happy to please. Beyond the mere thrill of making an impact by hurting and healing in equal measure, I also found myself more attuned to the emotions of a dragon. Specifically, I can feel my bond to my First Love, but also, in this state, I experience a fundamental shift in how my emotions manifest, such that they are not those of a remnimi, but rather those of a dragon.


    And what a wild and alien sensation it is, and yet, seemingly apt and natural all at once. ¡°Furious¡± is the description given in my Blessing, and maybe it would be better understood as ¡°passionate¡±, but it certainly has an aggressive nature to it. I am starting to understand that dragons have fewer emotions, but they feel them intensely at times. I would have thought the rage and indignation of an enemy attacking me would be completely different from the love for a friend or companion, but somehow, those are just two manifestations of the same feeling. The fury isn¡¯t explicitly anger or hatred, but more of a focused preparation to act, and imposition of will upon the world ready to be released. There just isn¡¯t a line between unmitigated violence and tender affection, just a direction of purpose that needs to be committed. With this simplicity comes resolute conviction and confidence, for I don¡¯t hesitate to strike to maim and kill, nor do I second guess my choices or consider the deeper moral implications of my actions.


    It is almost frightening, and yet reassuring, like riding upon lightning knowing that it could destroy you if you try to understand how you are doing it. It provides me with focus and clarity beyond what I am used to, with little need to mull over my emotions and my responses to them. It doesn¡¯t mean that I have forsaken benevolence or mercy, but rather, they are just fury directed at the world for allowing someone to suffer, and an enactment of violence against creation to amend such a transgression against one I deem worthy of a better life.


    I am starting to understand how dragons can be good friends and yet try to assassinate one another regularly, or alternatively, be insulted if no assassins are sent after too long of a time. To no longer be seen as a threat by one¡¯s peers is unacceptable; it just shows that they just don¡¯t care if they don¡¯t try to kill you every now and then. It is essentially the same emotion I feel when I give a gift to a friend and see the smile it brings. No dragon has ever died of old age, and with violence, miscalculations, or disasters as the only recourse for death to catch them, they need some way to remain entertained and connected to others as eternity passes them by.


    Humor and pettiness are intertwined, both providing cathartic satisfaction against loneliness. Pride and regret are part of a spectrum, and I understand that dragons aren¡¯t explicitly avoiding direct apologies out of pride, but rather, they don¡¯t want to pollute their relationships with grudges and forgiveness. In other words, if a dragon doesn¡¯t kill you for a perceived slight or direct insult, then said dragon has already moved on and expects no recompense. In a sense, life is a great game, and apologies ruin the immersion for them. An acknowledgement of one¡¯s wrongdoing is sufficient, while an apology is crass and makes everyone uncomfortable.


    Enemies are not a burden, and life without them would be dull. They are a whetstone upon which I could sharpen my claws, a test for my mind to find the limits of my wit, and a mirror in which I can see my true self. As I slay these monstrosities that invade my world, I find no hatred in my heart for them, merely some form of gratitude that they take the time out of their day to allow me to demonstrate my power. This isn¡¯t exactly the same idea as survival of the fittest or might makes right, for neither notion truly aligns with the mindset of a dragon. It is more like we all seek our own path, and sometimes the paths of others end when they cross ours, until eventually we too find where our path ends. The vanquished are not insects to be crushed underfoot, but rather, they are the earth beneath our feet that allow us to stand tall and press forward, and so they are due some modicum of respect for their efforts.


    I am beginning to suspect that not all dragons feel emotions this way, and that this may be a unique perspective of my First Love, with only partial overlap to other dragons. Words feel like paltry tools to explain the unexplainable, to codify that which is ever-changing. This whole experience does provide some clarification on unexpected reactions that the dragons I know express towards situations, and it explains how they can be so relaxed about things most mortals find to be intense.


    My emotions, while heightened, just don¡¯t directly interface well with my behavior or the uncontrollable responses of my body. I don¡¯t tremble in fear, my mouth doesn¡¯t dry up with anxiety, I don¡¯t clench my fists with anger. For some, their emotions rule them, while others bottle up their emotions and let reason and logic dictate their course. For a dragon, emotions are the compass that provide a direction, and pragmatism finds a way forward that will satisfy the emotion in the most optimal means. Emotions set the destination, but they don¡¯t dictate the path to get there.


    I could either destroy a foe or shape his perspective until he is an ally, and both would be acceptable. I could find immense pride in groveling and scraping towards someone else if it leads to a triumph at a later date, especially if that someone else is convinced by my performance. An interloper into my domain to challenge me or to steal from my [Hoard] would just be an unscheduled playdate. Naturally, it would still demand a certain amount of gravitas and theatrics, but it isn¡¯t personal nor offensive.


    With this newfound perspective on life and how to process it, I find myself freed from the shackles of expectation. No one can judge me, nor can they levy expectations upon me that I am beholden to. I choose what to believe, what to follow, and where to go, rather than blindly doing as I am told. I kill and destroy with the same hands that I hug someone close, and none can gainsay my choices. Criticism is best reserved for how I went about something, not what I did, and with each life taken and each life saved, I find myself not more confident in myself, but rather, in the limits of what I can accomplish. Success is an inevitability, and failures are not discouragement, but rather, a refinement of technique.


    And what refinement I experienced. I know unequivocally what my new Blessing offers for individual Abilities and the theory behind how to wield them effectively in tandem, but the application in real-world situations is tricky. With lives on the line, I don¡¯t feel anxious about saving every last one of them, but rather, excitement that I can save some of them and gratitude that I have the opportunity to make an impact. There is no mental quibbling on ¡°should haves¡±, merely an acknowledgement that it wasn¡¯t my best work and moving on to the next challenge. When I fail, someone dies, and I don¡¯t even feel bad about it. It simply wasn¡¯t their day, because I am doing my best over here, and my best is enough for me.


    And because I am here and not behind a desk, some people get to live to see tomorrow. Granted, being behind a desk has its uses, and mountains of paperwork are what make armies move and supplies arrive on time. But when the paperwork is done and the plan is finalized, there is nothing left to do but to achieve one¡¯s goals through direct action. Breaking bones and crushing skulls is just a natural result of my enemies coming up short; they have nothing to blame but their own ineptitude and decisions for it. I did not force them to come here and attack my people, and so I will not expend my mental resources to have much in the way of feelings for them one way or the other.


    I don¡¯t really know how much time has passed, not that I didn¡¯t have the means to pay attention, but the passing of time just wasn¡¯t as relevant any more. A few hours at least. However, I can feel my exhaustion looming just beyond a few more maneuvers, and so I chose to withdraw to recuperate. Also, I feel something is wrong, that rapidly increasing concern is bleeding over from my connection to my First Love. It isn¡¯t for me, at least, not more than the usual background noise, less one of worry and more about ensuring I don¡¯t push too far too fast. Instead, I can tell he is thinking of someone else, someone familiar.


    As I make my way back towards the command center, passively ignoring the cries for help and the enemies in my midst, I too start to feel this concern of his. It is akin to something precious being misplaced and frantically trying to locate it. I quicken my pace, and once in a relatively safe area, I focus more on that connection between First Love and myself. There exists some confusion, a rapid exchange of impressions from Nabonidus and First Love, and some discrepancy that arises from it. Yet Nabonidus is not the one for whom concern is expressed. And so I delve deeper, pushing my own ideas of each person I know that would matter and seeing if it triggers a result.


    And as I go through the list, I feel a ping in reply, one of fury in the way that I now understand fury in its truest and broadest sense. Bellwright Muddlespoon has found himself in a pickle, and so it seems, may be experiencing a teensy bit of death, or maybe near-death. Death with benefits perhaps. Strange that humor should bleed over with such fury and concern, and yet, I understand it, even though the connection to the mindset of a dragon has faded now that I am not living on the knife¡¯s edge. Perhaps we should look into that, just check up on it a tad and see if he needs help.