Our conversation ended abruptly when one of Christophe’s assistants pulled him away. He was a busy Vanalq after all. I made my way back to the students and spent the day with Sally.
I casually gazed at her like a lovestruck fool, but the reason my eyes rested on her wasn’t love, no. I pondered what to do about the situation. If he knows who I spoke to, then I’m being followed. If this is the first time a human was summoned through a dragon-summoning ritual, then I get why the situation was escalated to the higherups so quickly.
The statement Christophe made about Sally dying irked me, because I wondered if they planned to eradicate the half-breeds or something. But that doesn’t make sense. The low-paid jobs are taken up mostly by half-breeds, which means the bigwig humans still need them to do the dirty work. It wouldn’t make sense to wipe out half-breeds then force other humans to fill-in for them. Genocide isn’t the issue here, I thought. We flew back to Sally’s home, where I sat in thought for a while.
I watched her squirm, still walking the edges of certain thoughts to see just how much my decisions here would cost others. With my eyes closed and mind calmed, I could see out of my own mental playground and use Scry. Yes, after finally mastering mind manipulation, I acquired the ability to see into the future, around a month of foresight. Sadly, it was much vaguer than I’d imagined; the images were simply focused on a subject.
For example, you could Scry to see what would happen to the country on a whole a month from now, but if the changes are the behaviours of the people, you might not know much because that behaviour might be subtle. If the subject of focus was people, you wouldn’t know what mental state they were at based on simply staring at them. It wasn’t like I could read their mind in my visions. Really, trying to get a firm grasp of the things about to happen while using Scry was a long and arduous task. I ended up with nil in this case; perhaps I knew not enough people or groups in Et Draco to properly use it.
After feeding Sally a health potion, I met with Saya secretly; I owed her a ride on Skyer after all. Invisibility took care of prying eyes, but the same couldn’t be said about prying ears. Saya couldn’t stop laughing and screaming whilst Skyer took to the skies. It perturbed me to think Saya’s future in this world would be so diminished just because of her birth, something she had no control over.
The rest of the evening was spent wandering about around town, mostly where the humans lived. Their living situation was night and day compared to the human-dragon hybrids in the forests. These purebreds, as they called themselves, had adequate housing and markets. It was heavily one-sided, so much so that it disgusted me to think I was of the same biological makeup as them.
Their nightlife, debauchery, and hedonism were certainly something to behold. As Eric, I couldn’t possibly hate people having fun, for that’s what it was. But should one look closer, one would see the waitress being abused and harassed, one would see the cleaner being pushed around, would one see the subtle, yet overt injustices happening every minute of every day. And judging by how these half-dragons lived, I’d imagine their salaries were as poor as the human behaviour in this world.
Hmm, the summit should only have a couple days remaining, huh? I wonder how it’s going? I asked myself, but refused to tell my clone to transfer his memories. I wanted to focus on Et Draco, and acquire their help against Apollyon as soon as possible.
The next day, I lent Skyer to Sally and began a journey to find the biggest cities so I could get a feel for this world. The nearest was Entel, and truth be told, it wasn’t as bad as I imagined. Half-breeds lived amongst the humans here, instead of being outcast and manipulated. They were a lot happier, but after a couple days of eavesdropping, mind manipulating with Subservience, Enthral, and Mind Break, I found that there had been cases of missing half-breeds.
I followed a victim of Subservience in Invisibility, after finally holding onto a lead. He showed me the way to a big estate, and according to his memories, he’d seen a caravan of sedated half-breeds go into the place late at night when he was drunk. I thanked the man and let him go on his way. The place was eerily quiet, reminding me of the night I trespassed into the Genuks’ household in Tyrr.
Hmm, I activated Life Perception and saw dozens of life essences beneath the earth. A basement? Going down into the place via Voidwalk, I beheld the dimly lit underground dungeon. Prison cells rammed full of weakened half-breeds with metal slave collars and manacles that were linked to each other so no one person could play hero.
Dammit Entel! Nice and rosy on the outside and festering on the inside, huh? Releasing them here might simply have them end up in the same situation. I need to deal with the one responsible for doing this. What a pain in the ass! Can’t people just be nice and stuff? Ugh!
I flew upwards into the mansion, finding a couple sleeping in a fancy bedroom. Perfect! I thought, approaching them. With a little sleep spell, I ensured they weren’t about to feel someone poking around their mind and wake up. Scour searched their minds for any place, person, or organisation related to half-breed slave trade. So, turned out, there are eleven Houses, including the House of Vanalq, and they were all the bigshots of society that still carried out slave-trade secretly, despite the ruler’s decree to abolish it.
Hydra’s ass, man! I really gotta thank Hethekk. I admitted, mind magic made things a lot easier. Getting the kind of information that I just got would take weeks or months judging from my past experiences with other worlds. Speaking of Hethekk, I should merge with mind and become an Avatar of Mind when I get the chance.
Since the night was still young that night, I chose to find where the other big Houses were and absorbed the location in my memory, giving me the ability to Riftwalk there. By the end of the night, I knew their own business better than they did.
I sat on a rock staring off at the calm morning waters of the ocean. Guess it’s time to shake up Et Draco, eh? But… I paused and reverted my attention to the Order of Mages. How did Saeryn get to Methelia? Why was a half-breed able to traverse worlds? Hmm, an artefact, obviously. “Ah, fuck,” I rubbed my temples, wondering if I should involve Saeryn in this. It seemed he didn’t even know of Et Draco, which meant he came to Methelia at a very young age. Well, whatever. You’re part of the Order now, buddy. I’ll leave you to be happy there.
According to the memories I absorbed, the House of Vanalq wasn’t a house at all – obviously – it was a fuckin’ palace. It was no Hellfire Fortress in terms of size, but still, it was the second largest estate I’d seen, containing several mansions. Basically, a housing complex for the rich and human. I made my way there, a bit early in the morning. “Chris,” I said, appearing out of nowhere from Voidwalk, “sorry about the sneaking and trespassing, but there’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”
“Oh, Eric. Pay it no mind, you’re a welcomed guest. So,” he signed some document whilst flicking his wrist at his guards to stand down, “how’ve you been?”
“Investigating, and whilst I don’t have all the information that I want to make my decisions – which we rarely ever do – I still intend to do something about Et Draco’s, problem.”
An eyebrow of his shot up, “Half-breeds?”
“Aye.”
“Can you return here tomorrow at noon?” he asked, quite direct. His eyes showed a burning determination, but the glint of an opportunist pouncing even more so. I could only imagine that an anomaly that was able to make so much ice looked like a golden ticket to his dreams.
I shrugged, “Tomorrow at noon it is then. So,” I turned my back, “until then…”
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The rest of the day I spent with Sally. I learnt that she was finally able to summon her whelpling dragon, quite easily at that. She had a beaming smile, very proud of her achievement. “Sally,” I called to her, “I reckon there’s going to be some nasty business in Et Draco very soon.”
“Isn’t there always?”
I was about to correct her, but my laughter came out instead. It definitely was not something to joke about, but the truth of slave trade made it funny to me. Does she even know? I wondered if most half-breeds were privy to their kind being actual slaves even after the ruler stopped it. I tapped her lightly on the noggin, “You silly goose.”
“Aren’t I always?” She continued and I chuckled yet again.
After a short period of silence, I cut in front of her to stop her from walking and instead had her focus on me. “Sally, I’m serious. I may send you to my world for your own safety until I can be sure that things in Et Draco doesn’t get out of hand.”
She broke eye contact and looked downward, curling her fists up. “What gives you the right?” she asked softly, but her intonation was quite loud; I knew where this was going.
With an audible exhale, I shrugged, “Have it your way, but know that the offer is still open if you change your mind.”
“You don’t get it, Eric!” she fumed. “Half-breeds cannot reproduce! We depend on people like you for there to even be a future for us. We’re little more than cattle here, and we cannot fight them. No matter what you do, the gap between humans and half breeds will only grow bigger!”
I hugged her and rubbed my knuckles in her head, “You think I don’t know that, you cheeky dragon lady?!”
“If you know, then–”
“I’m still going to do something about the way half-breeds are treated, and if I fail, I’ll search out and find every single half-breed and bring them to my world, where you would be accepted for who you are. Besides,” I winked, “I’m going to learn the insemination process tomorrow.”
“Oh yeah?” she rolled her eyes. “And what of actual human seed? Will you use yours?”
“Sally! You dirty, dirty girl! Are you hitting on me?” I gave a sly grin.
She palmed her face, “I can’t keep up with you…” She then went serious all of a sudden. “Hey, is your world really like that? Do they really not care about if someone is a half-breed?”
“Honey,” I rested my hand on her shoulder, “there are orcs and elves that live amongst humans in my world and they don’t look as human as you do. Trust me,” I tapped her on the cheek, “you’re way overthinking this.” I turned my back, but her hand reached out to my robe before I could walk off. There were slight trembles I could feel that signalled a very hard decision she was going to make.
“Can y–can you promi–”
She stopped talking, and I soon came to realise why after I jerked forward and acrimony held fast to my midsection. Looking back at her, a Stone Spear – which was exactly what it sounds like – impaled her, then me, binding us together. A few others came at us, their speed nothing but a blur; but I was aware now, aware and agitated. I placed us in the protection of a water sphere and transmuted the spear into Hydrotendrils. I carefully removed the Stone Spear with earth manipulation. The wounds we sustained were reversed with Convalesce. It also calmed her increasingly frantic mind.
I stepped out of the water and left her in it. There were quite a bit of people looking on, wondering what was going on. The attacker was covert with his or her actions. Can’t believe I let my guard down like that. I was furious at myself more than anything, and wondered if I was approaching this situation too amicably or too gently. An attempted murder in broad daylight, amongst people, like this. Bold. I released the sphere of water and the Hydrotendrils.
I squatted down, thoughts stampeding through my head in every which way. This was a concerning matter particularly because I knew not the reason behind the attack. Hmm? Xenophobia? Do they just wanna get rid of the thing that doesn’t belong? Or are they more concerned with me taking the half-breeds’ side? Do they simply feel threatened and lashed out? I pondered if I should forego the meeting with the House of Vanalq tomorrow and simply do what I wanted to do in order to give the swiftest protection to the half-breeds. I can’t leave this as is…
After a deep breath, I spread forth a huge area-of-effect Enthral with mind manipulation, but then cancelled it. Wait, that wasn’t a warning shot or a scare tactic. They were actually tryin’ to kill me. And if that’s the case, then they’ll show themselves again. Only a matter of time now. I laughed out suddenly, yelling, “Alright, Et Draco! Let’s play!” If the culprit was in earshot, they would know it was a clear sign of war. They’d either back off, or become a lot more offensive to meet my challenge.
I had a clone from the summit in the spirit world go out and make contracts with some spirits, as I’d been lacking in contracts ever since I died to save Aviana. Once he had the contracts, I summoned some wyrms, making sure to have earth and water wyrms for healing and defence, and fire and lightning wyrms for offense. Mobility would be left to the wind wyrm should Sally need it. Wyrms were more than enough, and to top it off, she had all draconic wyrms tailing her. An attack like that wouldn’t be possible on her again, and definitely not on me.
I cast Riftshear to get us back to her house, “You’ve got four seals remaining, right?”
“Y-yeah. Why?”
“Drink and lie down,” I handed her a health and mana potion. “Take your blouse off too, get comfortable.”
She looked at me weirdly, but the urgency in my voice shone a different light on my words. I could see she was getting nervous, so I weaved some light manipulation through her and performed a sleeping spell as well. One by one, I removed the other four seals, only stopping to have her mana stabilise a little before going to the other. The potions worked wonders, especially the mana potion.
Mana Perception showed a much more concentrated form of mana in her, as it should’ve been. Going through this process, her skin began getting a bit more of a scaly look as well as darkening a little. Her mana getting to what it should be was probably allowing her cells to revert to their normal and natural state. It reminded me to tackle nature magic and master it, in preparation to learn soul magic.
She slept soundly the entire evening, only waking up super early in the morning. Not even the sun had come anywhere close to the horizon when she anxiously woke me up. I woke up in a daze, trying to calm her down as she kept pushing me to get up. Hydra’s ass, Sally! Can’t a guy just sleep until noon?
“Eric, get the fuck up! Some weird people are here!”
I finally yielded, because she wouldn’t. A nice stretch of my arms later and I saw the figures looming in the distance, trying to hide in the forests but very carefully observing the house. “Don’t worry, we’re both in the void. They are unable to make any type of contact with us. Just go to sle–”
I paused in awe and shock when I looked upon Sally. She looked way more reptilian than ever, with longer than usual nails, a hybrid of human skin and dragon scales, and two little stumps poking from either side of her forehead. Wow! I looked on in awe. “You look, exotic.”
“Hmm?” she tilted her head. “Oh, well, yeah, thanks. It’s taking me some getting used to. It’s like I can actually breathe now? I’m not sure how to describe the feeling. Anyway, forget that! What are we doing to do about them?”
Hmm… I rubbed my eyes to get the dirt out, and floated over to the unassuming duo with Levitate. The second I returned from the void, I touched them on the shoulders and used Discharge, then followed up their stunned states with a weak Mind Break. “You’re going to answer a few questions of mine,” I told the petrified two. “Who you are, who you work for, and what your objective is.”
They both shivered, and nodded agreeably to my demands. “We’re spies hired by the House of Kargan. W-we were sent to gather information about you and the girl in that house.”
“Please, please spare us!”
Hmm, no. These two ain’t related to the attack yesterday. But these Houses sure seem troublesome. Ugh, whatever! “You may leave,” I told them, and they gobbled that opportunity up.
Later that day, I had Sally skip class and come with me to the House of Vanalq for the meeting. It was located in one of the most prestigious cities of Et Draco, Nhorn. Christophe, who I thought was just a member of the Vanalq House, turned out to be the ruler. I’d learnt that from the knowledge I siphoned from the slave-traders. He really had me fooled by the way he spoke about the ruler in third person.
A long table, sectioned by the emblems of each House was where we would gather for our meeting. And when I said ‘we’, I meant the masters of all the Houses. What a curious change of events. I wasn’t sure what Christophe was planning to do here by gathering the other Houses, but I ended up going along with it. Sally was shot a lot of mean and disgusted looks, but she kept steadfast and unfettered.
There was a subtly tense atmosphere overall, one I learnt to discern from experience; I’d have been none the wiser otherwise. I was just surprised that they weren’t surprised about her appearance. Well, it wasn’t like they were ignorant of what a half-breed without seals would look like. Maybe that’s why they were so tense, because they knew she was more powerful than any of them.
Christophe started off by thanking them for becoming available on such short notice, although I’m sure he sent them the type of summons that would warrant very unwanted consequences should they pay no heed to it.
“Ruler Vanalq, I’m certain one as wise as you would not hold a meeting with such distinguished people to speak about unimportant matters, so this meeting must be quite the touchy subject,” one man said.
Another nodded her head in agreement, “Yes, and I think I speak for us all when I say that I will not sit in the presence of a filthy half-breed abomination; it has no place here.”
I chuckled, “Man, that stick must be buried pretty far up your ass. You should get that checked out by a doctor or something, there’s a good chance you have internal bleeding.”