When Sable had caught her breath, and the animalistic terror that had seized her had lessened, she asked as calmly as she could:

[What was that?]

Like Sable, Aylin was shaken. Her response came slowly, still gathering her wits. “Well. [Inspect] told us, didn’t it? The Lady of Consumption. Or an aspect of hers.”

That didn’t mean anything to Sable. [And who is that?]

“A … story. I thought.”

Sable waited for Aylin to compose herself. She hardly faulted her minion for being rattled. Sable had seen some crazy stuff since arriving to this world, but nothing on the level of that.

Aylin said, “Lady Xenaya is one of the Old Gods. The beings that ruled this world before structure was brought to it. That’s what the Elders say, at least.”

Normally, Sable might ask for more details, but she was more interested in the immediately relevant information. [Okay. And that thing was one of them. A goddess.]

“An aspect of one,” Aylin said. “I really don’t know.”

[But it’s not normal,] Sable said. [Something that strong, being here.] She had to assume, even for a fantasy world crammed with magic, that god-like threats didn’t consume remote goblin cities with that much regularity.

“No,” Aylin said. “I haven’t even heard of something like that thing, except in stories. Maybe in faraway places where magic is denser, but not here.”

They’d just gotten exceptionally unlucky, then.

Aylin swallowed, looking in the direction of what had a few minutes ago seemed like a harmless city. “The stories say she’s contagious. She’s the goddess of consumption. She spreads.”

[Spreads?]

Aylin shrugged. “I don’t know what that means exactly. But yeah. She’s a plague.”

Sable contemplated these revelations.

And, as her thoughts steadied, an idea formed.

She had, of course, zero intent to try to fight that monstrosity, or even get within range of it again, but if there was a way for her to help, to contain something that would be spreading if no one intervened, then maybe she should. An entire city had been cleansed by it, and from what Aylin said, it sounded like one would turn into many—if there weren’t already many infected cities. This was territory Sable had wanted to conquer.

She didn’t intend to be recklessly benevolent, but she wanted to help where she could. Maybe she could deal with this in a way that didn’t endanger her too much.

And, more selfishly, seeing the consumed city had sparked an idea.

She might be able to use this tragedy to her advantage. Doing good things, while seeming evil. That was her original plan.

In the same way she intended to steal kingdoms, maybe stealing evil deeds was a fast path to earning notoriety. A city, corrupted and destroyed by a goddess of consumption? What if Sable claimed she’d done the destroying?

And in the process of covering the truth up, do good. Help the northern tribes. Purge the corruption, hide the evidence of what really happened, and claim it as her own.

Though how—that was, of course, the tricky part.

[Can I burn it?] Sable asked. [The city? Would that cleanse her?]

Aylin started in surprise.

[Because nobody lived through … that, I’m assuming.] Sable didn’t think there were innocents to worry about. Though, she winced a second later at bringing it up. Worrying about innocents probably wasn’t something she should do in front of Aylin. But she was disoriented by this encounter.

“I seriously doubt that.”

[Then I should burn it. Contain the spread.] Or, more accurately, possibly contain the spread. Neither of them knew how this worked.

“Burn it how?” Aylin asked. “You aren’t going to get close, are you?”

Obviously not. Sable wasn’t suicidal, for all she wanted to help prevent further innocents being affected.

[I shouldn’t need to.]

Aylin looked at her, confused.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

[I can drop burning trees into the city,] Sable said. Or, could she? Would a fall of a thousand feet put the fire out? [From high up. The monster only appeared when I got close. I think it has a trigger distance, or something similar?] She was working on guesses. Which wasn’t great, dealing with something that could likely kill her in a single blow. [If not that, I can set the surrounding terrain on fire. Raze an enormous circle and hope it spreads inward.]

Sable stopped hovering in place, soaring parallel to the far-off city. She eyed it.

[Something needs to be done,] Sable said. [I intended to claim this territory as my own.] Then, to create an excuse so that Aylin didn’t think she was simply worried for the people here, she explained her ‘real’ intentions. Which weren’t completely false. [Letting it spread will be a problem, if it’s contagious as you say. And burning the city will serve as a useful introduction. I’ll raze it, and when word spreads, I’ll claim they refused to align under me. It’s a quick way to earn respect, and to earn leverage against my next target.]

Aylin seemed a bit baffled at the plan, and Sable admitted it wasn’t the best idea from a safety and ease perspective, but after considering her reasoning, Aylin chewed her lip. “I suppose it is clever,” she said slowly, “and could work. But risky. Won’t she fight back?”

[Perhaps,] Sable said. That was obviously the most worrying part of the plan. [If she does, I’ll withdraw.]

She had no intentions to die trying to burn the city down. But she had to try. Though this city had already fallen to the strange, abominable threat, Sable didn’t intend to abandon all nearby peoples to their fate. She didn’t know whether the black goo—the essence of a goddess, apparently—was contagious like Aylin said, but better to assume it was.

If it posed too much risk, then she would abandon the effort. But attempting to help, she could at least do that. Especially when succeeding benefited her in a personal manner, too.

She set Aylin down a fair distance away, on an outcropping of rocks atop a tall hill, then took back into the air. Approaching the corrupted city a second time, Sable’s resolve faltered. She was seriously returning? To the ten-story tall abomination that had flung a javelin as large as her entire body? She’d almost been plucked from the sky with contemptuous ease—a similar fight to how Sable had handled that first rat down in the dungeon.

It was risky. But she’d already settled on her reasoning.

And it did solve an enormous problem. Having to earn a horrible reputation without actually being horrible—what better way than burning a city to the ground for “refusing to align under her”? And, based on how thoroughly and swiftly the city had fallen, Sable suspected—or hoped, at least—that news of its demise hadn’t spread. Produce hadn’t even begun to rot, as she’d noticed from the knocked-over market stands. The Lady of Consumption had taken over this city recently and swiftly, possibly this very day. She ought to be able to claim the terrible act as her own doing, after she burned the evidence down.

Though, what had happened to the surrounding farmlands? Why were those abandoned, too? And a city of this size should have a steady stream of trade, shouldn’t it? Wagons coming in and out? Those, too, sat on dirt roads, unmoving. Everything in a massive radius had simply … been consumed? And further visitors were being repelled, maybe? Something. Sable had no clue. Maybe anything that got close enough had simply been absorbed, befalling the same fate as the original souls.

Maybe it wasn’t a perfect plan, and word might have already spread of what had really been responsible for the city’s demise. She didn’t know. But it was an opportunity, and Sable needed to try to contain it, regardless of whether it would be personally beneficial.

A safe distance away, Sable set down, then worked away at chopping down a tree. She found her tail the best utensil for the task. Though an odd motion, something her human self found unnatural, her dragon-self found the whipping movement efficient. With several vicious smacks, the full-grown tree cracked, then tipped. Sable had to scramble away for it not to fall on her. Not that something so mundane could hurt her, especially after her level-ups and stat gains, but still. Hard instincts to shake.

A large piece of tinder prepped, she set it ablaze with a quick application of fire breath. When it was nice and smoldering, Sable tentatively grabbed it, testing the heat. Unsurprisingly, she was resistant to the scalding temperature. Her immunity to the freezing cold of the mountains wasn’t a one-way resistance; heat did little to her, too.

Heaving the tree into the air wasn’t as hard as she’d expected, considering even Granite had been a bit of an annoyance to carry around. Though, that had been before she’d had her stat debuff had lifted. And before her levels and size increases. She’d grown many times more powerful, even in that short time.

Finally headed toward the city proper, Sable’s heart slammed in her chest. This might be an awful idea. She was antagonizing what was, from what Aylin had said, an actual deity—or a fragment of one.

Still. Her nerve held. From far, far up in the air, maybe an excessively safe distance, Sable dropped the burning tree—which had set fully ablaze, by now, dancing with blue-white flames—and watched it descend. The fire seemed to flicker out, but Sable thought it would hold. Flaming arrows worked, didn’t they? Or were those coated in some sort of oil that allowed it? But her fire was magical in origin, so. Fifty-fifty.

Far below, the tree crashed into the city proper, burying into the top of a three-story building. Most of the architecture, despite being a city, was crude. While bustling, and several steps more advanced than Aylin’s clan, this northern clan’s city was hardly something close to what Sable knew back home. Not even of medieval quality, really.

She waited with bated breath. Eventually, she saw the plan had worked. The building started to stream smoke, the tree’s fire having rekindled and caught its surroundings ablaze. The hulking black-essence monstrosity didn’t rear up in anger, flinging a barrage of javelins at Sable for her insolence. Seeing how it had missed her from only a few hundred feet away, trying to pluck her from the sky when she was more than a mile up would likely have been out of its capabilities, anyways.

But not appearing at all, and not testing the theory. That was definitely better. As Sable had thought, it likely had a range activation requirement. She had to be within a certain distance. It had exploded into black liquid as soon as she’d gotten far enough away, and hadn’t seemed happy about having to give up.

Okay, then. Time to get to work. She had wanted to establish a foothold in this area today, subjugate a clan or two, but she had other short term goals, now. It would take most of the day to properly raze this city, dropping a tree at a time from a safe distance, and beyond that, she wanted to cleanse the forest and farmland for a good radius in each direction. To start a wildfire of truly impressive proportions. Better safe than sorry, when it came to contagious evil gods.

Setting off, watching the plume of smoke grow far beneath her, Sable readied herself for a long day of work.