Caleb followed Crave through the twilit fortress, glancing around nervously, “Are you sure you want to go yourself? You aren’t exactly… normal looking. Nor inconspicuous.” Caleb wanted to drag the floating meatball back to the tread bound fortress badly, but he knew that it was a fool's errand. That meatball with his spindly arms was far stronger than Caleb was, making him the one being dragged around.

“If they attack me, then they can take it up with the mistress when all is said and done,” Crave replied, “My hunger for knowledge will not be interrupted by ignorant meatheads who think I’m some sort of monster. I am an undead raised by the greatest lichess of this world, and I have a goal that no amount of violence will dissuade me from accomplishing.”

Caleb eyed Crave as they walked through the dark streets, “And that goal is…? What? Knowledge?” Caleb asked. Crave merely nodded, floating on. That was another strange thing about Crave. He obviously did not have legs, but Caleb expected the undead to descend at some point. He was wrong. Crave floated along unhindered by tiredness or the need to rest, bringing Caleb along for the ride.

It was a miracle that Crave had not been attacked at that point. After the gate guards let them in with confused looks-- and when his wallmates stared at him with utter confusion-- they only ran into one other person as they traversed the dense town of huts. That one person was a woman who took one look at the pair, turned around, and walked away while chugging from a bottle of some hard spirits or other.

Whatever their experience walking through the fortress was, they eventually reached the keep, the centerpiece of the fortress. As was common, soldiers bustled around the gate in a frenzy, carrying files, documents, supplies, and any other conceivable thing to be kept in the keep of a city, and even some things that did not enjoy the luxury of common sense.

Crave was a second from floating into the open to be seen by every gun-toting soldier there before Caleb yanked him into an alleyway. The undead did not seem very surprised, and instead turned his way, “Is there a problem with my appearance?” Crave asked.

Caleb sighed, “They would shoot you before you had the chance to offer any interesting question of appeals to logic,” he replied, walking down the alley, “There’s a way around the courtyard over here.” Caleb continued on, noticing how Crave fell in behind him.

There was a temptation in Caleb to lead Crave around in circles, but he had two good reasons to avoid that. The first was that, even if Caleb distracted Crave for a while, the undead seemed far more determined to complete his goal than Caleb was in not parading around a flying meatball. The second, however, was that Crave was certainly smart enough to notice if Caleb was giving him the runaround. Crave would notice immediately if they crossed their path or even reached an adjacent street. Trying to fool Crave seemed unwise.

So, instead, Caleb simply brought Crave to his goal, which was the north of the city. In truth, they could have reached the dragons’ den faster if Caleb led the way from the beginning, but he did not want to bring Crave there at first. Nevertheless, they reached the border between the city of huts and the dragons’ den quickly. That border was signified by a sudden end of the dense urban-like city and a sudden beginning of a flat, stony landscape. Caleb never visited the dragons’ den, as it was far out of his way, but he never expected the ground to be compressed into sandstone, especially when none of the dragons, to his knowledge, knew how to compress sand into stronger materials. He could have been wrong, of course, but Caleb found noticing such things important.

“So…” Caleb said, “What’s the plan?” He glanced over to his companion, only to see the undead’s single eye staring at the sole non-homogenous feature of the entire landscape. That feature was a massive cave in the center of the parking lot-like field, large enough to allow a line of five dragons to stand shoulder to shoulder in the entrance alone, not to mention the area behind the cavernous opening in the ground.

Crave began to float towards the opening and away from the huts quickly, leaving Caleb standing on the last street confused and stunned. Just as Caleb was about to run after the undead, a mist that reeked of magic emerged from the small meatball’s body, bounding outward like a rolling fog. The smoke coalesced in an instant, leaving the once-small Crave before him.

Caleb, for how unprepared he was for being dropped into Granulous, never thought that dragons could look even similarly to Crave. His body was shaped like a dragon’s in the broad strokes, but many things did not align with a normal dragon’s biology.

His head, instead of being shaped like a lizard’s, was shaped like a flower with every ‘petal’ being an eyestalk with a massive eye on the end. Every eye bumped up against each other, like a bouquet of sight. Gill-like gaps ran down Crave’s neck, each one opening to reveal an eye within. The rest of his forty feet long body was not as fundamentally strange, with the only oddity being the eye-like patterns on Crave’s wings, reminding Caleb of a peacock. Looking at the dragon standing in the twilight, Caleb could not help but stare for a while, almost as if the sight before him was beautiful in some strange way.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Then he snapped out of it, “What the hell…?” Caleb muttered, staring at the creature before him once more, “Crave, since when could you turn into… this!?”

Crave turned to Caleb, his thousand eyes staring at him unblinkingly, “Since we became dragons?” Crave answered, his tone suggesting that Caleb’s question was so obvious that it boggled the mind that someone asked it.

“Why didn’t you tell me-” At that moment, there was a shift in the massive cavern in the center of the field. A silhouette stalked from the dark, large and with scales of pitch black, and with eyes that seemed to shine like the beating sun.

“You…” the dragon remarked as he approached, “I remember you. You are the minion of that interesting lich. Do you, perhaps, remember who I am?”

Crave turned his eyes towards the newcomer dragon, eliciting a wince from him. A wince. From a dragon. Caleb was thankful that he was not the only one disturbed by Crave’s dragon form, “You are Xylgst. The one who gave us our dragon mana,” Crave replied, “I came here to ask some questions, ones that I believe are important.”

The other dragon, Xylgst, gave a smile, “That’s fair, I suppose. I will have to forbid your… acquaintance… from joining us, however. He does not smell of death, so he does not serve your mistress as you do. This is secret among our kind, and your mistress only deserves such knowledge because she mothered you and your kin.”

Crave sighed, turning to Caleb, “I’m sorry, but I am loath to break the rules of my hosts, so… Can you go do… something else?” Crave asked kindly. Caleb, having seen enough crazy for one night, wordlessly nodded and turned around. As he walked away, he could hear Xylgst speak to Crave, “That was easier than expected. Anyway, let us go inside. Most of the others are asleep and those awake are meditating. I will answer any questions you have from there.”

Caleb walked into the city of huts, trying to think of a way to spend his time. In the end, he decided to get some sleep. That was far preferable to getting into another incident like what he just got wrapped up in.

*=====*

VII wandered under the twilight sky, thinking, pondering. She could not deny it anymore. Mori, Fara, and whoever else they brought with them were only a week or so from ascending from Granulous and being wrapped up in the problems of the Rift. That thought, on one hand, scared her. She did not want her friends to be killed in that chaotic place. But, on the other hand, it also excited her.

VII, had never physically been in the Rift. Her mother used some other method of transdimensional transportation to ferry her and her fellow E-X models between worlds. There was a bit of a rule between the gods that stated that beings of the Rift, far more powerful than their non-Riftborn counterparts, and to fight over faith worlds, they needed proxies.

That was what VII and her siblings were. Proxies. Loved, sure, but proxies nonetheless.

And Mori was about to be brought from the position of believer to Riftborn subordinate. VII, even if the war did continue, knew that she and Mori would never fight on different sides after their respective gods reconciled. Nonetheless, VII knew more than Mori, and even if she were to remain in her position she wanted Mori to not be killed by another Riftborn or the geology of the Rift or the massive swarm of aberrated monsters that sought out all forms of sentient and sapient life to devour and use to grow more powerful.

To do all of that, she needed a plan, and walking aimlessly through the streets of the fortress did wonders for her creativity.

As she rounded a corner, in the midst of her thoughts, she found an interesting sight. A young man was on the ground, kneeling, while another man in armor stood over him, his sword drawn, “Fucking peasant,” the man in armor said. Any and all possible sympathy VII had for the man drained in that moment. He was a knight of Gribnik. And an abusive one as well, “Did you really think that I would let you go so easily? You spoke back without begging for forgiveness.” VII decided to do something about the knight, and began to creep up behind the monologuing man. “I let you off easily, but you keep disrespecting me. Talking to women I told you were mine. Talking to men I told you were mine. Lying about me behind my back-”

“That’s a fucking lie,” the man ground out, “You fucked up and just don’t want to face the consequ- Argh!” The knight slammed the pommel of his sword into the young man’s face, sending him tumbling.

“You don’t get to say shit like that.” The knight walked forward, just out of VII’s reach, and aimed his sword at the young man, who laid on the ground, “Apologize. Beg for forgiveness. And I might forgive you.” The young man did not reply, simply staring up at VII, who had managed to sneak behind the oblivious knight. Just as she was about to slash his neck into ribbons, something flashed in VII’s mind. It was Mori, scrambling to protect the soul of one of her undead experiments.

She wrapped an arm around the knight’s throat, pulling hard. The man toppled, kicking and gurgling, as she slowly and methodically cut off his windpipe. It took far longer than she would have liked, as her technique was imperfect and let little breaths of air reach the man’s lungs, but the man toppled to the ground soon enough, unconscious.

VII looked down at the stunned and more than a bit frightened young man, “Good evening,” she said, “So… Do you want to talk about it?”