Sable had known she might need to involve herself directly during this mission. Still, as she flew back to Skatikk with her passengers in tow, she chewed over the events of the last minute.

She’d been ready to fight enemy classed, even to the point of lethality. The subject had been something she’d spent significant time considering. Not only that, the classed of Bragghaven had been the aggressors in this situation; they’d attacked Quil’s team and captured her for unknown reasons. So Sable was entirely justified in scorching the enemy team to secure her own team’s safety.

Still, her thoughts lingered on two points of surprise. First, how little emotion she could drag up for their fates. She knew first-hand how brutal frostfire was as an element, and she’d coated the five individuals with a small mountain of it. Their classes, improved constitutions, and magical items surely helped, but whether they lived through the attack was no guarantee, because she hadn’t gone easy on them. She’d dumped a massive amount of mana into the spell, knowing that if she failed to properly disable them, it could come back to Aylin, Granite, or one of Skatikk’s members being hurt. She wouldn’t risk that.

But that she felt something close to apathy when wondering whether they lived or died surprised her. Over the days since her awakening in this world, her so-called ‘dragon and human halves’ had settled into each other. She no longer viewed her thoughts and actions with that lens. She was simply her, now. Something more ruthless than the normal modern-day college student she’d been, though not as monstrous as her newfound lineage, either.

A part of her even wondered whether that was the truth of the matter, or an excuse she was inventing for her easy adaptation into this life. Maybe Sable had always had this disposition, even when she’d been fully human. Maybe her circumstances had just never dragged it out. She wasn’t entirely sure.

The second thing that surprised her from the prison-break was just how easy it had been. Those five individuals were supposed to be some of the stronger classed in the Red Plains. They’d taken down Quil’s party, which was, according to Kirak and Alaniz, roughly their third strongest team of warriors. Yet Sable had completely incapacitated them with one large burst of frostfire? And not even from a sneak attack, but head-on, swooping down in full sight, with all of them prepared for her?

The only mitigating factor, really, had been that they’d possibly been tired or injured from their fight against Quil’s team. Even so, Sable had squashed them with shocking ease. That was the strength of some of the Red Plain’s mightiest classed?

Perhaps when she’d been a fledgling level three, she would have had more difficulty, but with her recent growth, she wondered whether any amount of high-leveled goblin warriors could pose a serious threat to her. Ten? Twenty? Fifty of them? Surely at some point numbers alone would cause her problems, though she couldn’t say that for certainty. It was seeming more and more like Sable’s conquering of the Red Plains would be borderline trivial—or at least more of a political problem than a militant one.

Soon, Sable had returned to Skatikk with her comically large collection of individuals. A flurry of activity took place. Several of Quil’s teammates were injured and needed medical attention. Naturally, they were rushed off to the hospital.

Quil, one of her other teammates, and the orc man—Drun—were in good enough condition they insisted on staying. Or at least the first two insisted; Drun wasn’t offered treatment, not out of hostility, but certainly some suspicion. The leadership of Skatikk wanted to know why an orc had arrived into their city.

Sable would admit some curiosity too. She’d seen plenty of alien creatures since arriving to this world, but only a single truly sapient one, the goblins. Orcs were much as she expected them. First, they were taller, though how much so Sable struggled to tell, with the proportions of both herself and the goblin city having throwing her sense of scale off. However, probably somewhere around human height, if not taller.

Drun himself was a wiry-muscled man, clearly accustomed to physical labor, though not bulky. He had two jutting tusks—teeth?—poking from his lower mouth. He had a large jaw, nearly oversized, and was completely bald, his wrinkly dark green skin on full display. Sable wondered whether orcs and goblins were related, somehow, through genealogy. A common ancestor from far back?

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As for his dress, he was in the same plain clothes all the prisoners had been; obviously, the city of Bragghaven hadn’t let him keep whatever magical gear he had. He seemed well-groomed, despite his somewhat monstrous appearance, and was presumably an adventurer of some sort. Black stubble had appeared on his chin from lack of shaving equipment.

Quil seemed stubbornly determined to defend the tall green-skinned man, and the story of how he had ended up in their company came out in short order. It wasn’t that much of a story. Apparently, it had been a coincidence; the orc had bumped into the dungeon nearly as soon as it had opened, and had been delving it well before Quil and her party had. After some initial distrust and friction after bumping into each other, they decided to team up.

His reasoning for being inside goblin territory was a bit odder, though nothing unbelievable, either. He’d been banished from the orc lands to the north. The details behind why he seemed somewhat tight-lipped on, but he admitted freely that he’d killed someone he wasn’t supposed to. Sable got the feeling that wasn’t all that uncommon of a story in these warlike lands. Maybe not even in the ‘more civilized’ places, either.

He’d fought in defense of Quil’s team when they had been ambushed, so naturally, Quil had insisted the orc be treated as a team member. Honor wasn’t a dead concept out here, despite the violence of the Red Plains.

Sable listened and watched these happenings with vague interest. Eventually, a debriefing of the mission itself took place, and the collected leadership of Skatikk eyed Sable with a wary expression, hearing that she’d essentially iced an entire squad of powerful classed with a single spell. She preened under that attention, though another part of her was annoyed that they hadn’t known that she had such might to call on. Of course she did. Who did they think she was?

Finally, all of that taken care of, Sable went and fulfilled the other task she’d promised Skatikk: to scout out troop movements and gatherings across the Red Plains, at least near Rustspike territory, as things would be turning tumultuous there quickly, both by instigation of Sable’s plans and the natural power vacuum of Gadenrock’s fall.

She brought Aylin along to properly read the map and take notes, which wasn’t an easy task mid-air, but something her minion was quickly becoming more adroit at. Granite, Sable left behind to hang out at Skatikk. She didn’t feel like lugging him off to a hunting grounds or back to the hoard, and didn’t think he’d mind relaxing for a while. He was blessedly low maintenance.

Hours later, Sable returned, and using the information she’d gathered, she and the leaders of Skatikk formalized official plans. With the sun creeping down, and the construction of the transport still underway, they had no intentions of beginning the assault yet, with tomorrow morning being the prime candidate. One of Sable’s greatest advantages was being able to move and strike fast, and with the tentative situation in Rustspike, they wanted to make use of it.

Afterward, Chieftain Kirak requested a private audience with her in which he gave his personal thanks for saving Quil and her team. As Sable had suspected, she was his daughter, and Kirak was more than aware of how impossible rescuing her from Bragghaven without the help of a dragon would have been.

Sable was pleased she’d garnered some genuine good will with the old goblin leader, though she also held no doubts in her mind whether it had bought allegiance. Without a doubt, should it benefit his people, he wouldn’t think twice about turning on Sable—so long as it made sense to do so. There was no love between them, and Sable expected none. She was their tyrant and little more, regardless that they had no major grievances with her as the people of Rustspike did. Still, the earnestly offered thanks pleased her, for all she sniffed and treated the ordeal as unnecessary and a waste of time.

Without much more to be done, Sable flew back with Aylin and Granite in tow. Before sleeping, she imbued Ignisfang with a title geared for protecting her hoard—though she planned on coming up with more permanent defenses shortly. The [Vicious Treasure Guardian] title granted the wyrm a rather significant attack bonus when defending Sable’s wealth, and seeing how he was already an impressive high-level monster—by the standards of the Red Plains—it meant she shouldn’t have too much to fear in the way of random robbery. Even an accomplished adventuring squad would have difficulty tussling with the scaled creature.

A long rest on her hoard overnight meant she was topped off and in full fighting condition for the following misadventures, and so Sable set out. And she suspected there would be misadventures. However the conquest of the Red Plains went, she doubted she’d be squeaking by with just threats, as she had with the Bonecracker Tribe.

Displays of might would be the minimum to convince the following cities to bend, and even that might not be enough, depending on how deep the hate ran. After having exterminated a capital city of theirs? Probably pretty deep.

One way or another, there would be blood in the coming day.