GRIM

Drakon again asked me to tell the story of what happened while he is sitting in bed getting pampered by five women. Moira Aura Missy Sissy and the twin's mother.

We left the bridge in a rush, the first few hours on full speed. Queenie had sneakily been keeping us up to speed by sending a sprite to us every twenty minutes or so.

As Drakon was holding well on the bridge we were able to give our mounts a bit of a breather, and take a twenty-minute rest.

Missy and Sissy came up to me asking "Do you think he will be okay, and will he hold."

"He will hold that bridge for as long as he is able. Remember he is immortal so if he does get killed he will just reappear in Storm Cove." I didn't tell them that I still had a bit of primal fear in me that death would just mean dead. But with all the time we had been spending together lately I think they could read it on my face.

The twins had come to me a few days ago asking me if I would like to date both of them. Apparently in Gorgon society having multiple girlfriends is fine. To be fair, gorgons are all women so. All babies born to a gorgon, no matter the fathers' race, are all born as full gorgons. Same thing with harpies

The only exceptions are minotaurs and satyrs. With them, the boys are the father's race the girls are the mothers' race. Minotaurs satyrs gorgons and harpies all came from the same world.

They also didn't mind my business deal with queenie as it would only be a once every few years thing.

We got on the road again pretty soon and tried to go as far as we could. We knew that Drakon would only be able to hold out for a few days at best.

On the morning of the third day, we ran into a patrol of Knights from Maiden's rest.

Maiden's rest was founded by the same elephant-kin monastic order as the dwarven village, but this town was defended by a more militant branch. They had a few units of cavalry composed of Paladins of the order mounted on Rhino's.

We told them what happened and they would immediately ride out towards where queenie had reported last seeing Drakon and Moira. I begged to join them on one of their spare mounts.

If it wasn't for my worry about Drakon I would have gotten off the damn thing in like five minutes. Riding a rhino while not being an elephant-kin and having huge natural, padding so to speak is a painful experience.

By the time we got to the fight, I was already battered bruised and really pissed off. I had my mount stop its charge short and catapult me off towards the enemy.

Within a couple of minutes, the fight was over with Drakon looking at me with surprise. I saw him stumble over to the cavalry commander, then keel over and fall on his face.

I was kinda worried until I got close and just saw him curled up and drooling.

Moira and I lifted him onto the rhino I rode on, and I mounted Luna. It took us two days to make it back to Maiden's rest. By that time the caravan had made it there as well.

Missy and Sissy's parents were at the gates waiting and we quickly moved Drakon to their house. It took three more days before Drakon finally woke up.

While waiting for Drakon to get off his ass I was able to get to know my girlfriends' parents.

Euridice just looked like an older version of her daughters. The scales she had on the outside of her arms and legs were Darkgreen compared to the lighter colours her daughters had. She was, strange, that was the best way to describe her. She had this bubbly personality most of the time. Warm, joking, motherly.

But you do something she didn't like, or if she wanted her daughters to do something. She got this look in her eye that meant basically said, don't mess with me or I will cut you. And then ten seconds later she would be back to her bubbly self again.

As her class, she was an earth mage with a speciality in stone shaping.

Their dad Dwalin Stonehammer was also a real character. He was a Dwarf with bright red hair blue tattoos running down his arms. He would only wear vests so his arms were always on display. And when leaving the house had a big Warhammer strapped to his back. He was relatively young for a dwarf. only about 70.

His class was architect, but he always wanted to be a warrior when he was a kid so outside the house he tended to act like the stereotypical dwarf. Drinking, brawling and so on. Inside the house, he was always with his head in the books or working on his latest project.

He met Euridice on one of his first jobs as an architect and within a year they were married and Missy and Sissy were born. Not long after that they came to Storm Cove to help build it. And their adventuring company did a lot of exploring in the early days. When maiden's rest was built they were in the first caravan and Dwalin helped design a lot of the city. They left Missy and Sissy in Storm Cove as they had all their friends there and it was a lot safer.

He was a bit cold towards me at first. The whole half-orc thing and dwarves. But after Missy and Sissy went on and on about how I protected them on the way, we quickly became friends. He later confided in me that he knew his daughters were exaggerating a little bit, but if they went to all that trouble to try lying to him, he would see if I was worth it.

Aura

After reading Grim's part, nothing much to add by me on the trip itself. I was welcomed with open arms as well. Me being part dwarf and having scales really helped break the ice.

Missy Sissy and I had become friends on the trip sharing the wagon during the night. Euridice after hearing my tale and finding out that I never really knew my mother started to call us three her triplets. I didn't mind that one bit, I would love to have had sisters and, Missy and Sissy were great. I didn't join them in dating Grim though. I had my sights set on someone else, who was fairly oblivious to my interest so far.

I was able to get most of my work done on the automatons I was making. I had also started to work on a device called a power suit. At the moment it was just an external skeleton that offered some protection and that added some strength when lifting things. Later on, I would be able to upgrade it with all sorts of gadgets.

I spent a lot of time shopping with the girls, Maiden's Rest was a weird city. Founded by monks who valued freedom in any form. Anything goes in the city, as long as your not treading onto someone else's freedom. Gambling, prostitution, all forms of drugs and alcohol were all legal here.

The paladins of the order of the maiden made sure that there was very little crime. Stealing and murder were rare. And the greatest crime in the city was slavery.

The city was built a few miles up a river from the coast. Because the coastal area had tons of reefs it was very hazardous for shipping and goods to come in from that side, hence the caravan.

The centre of the city was a statue built in the middle of the river. It was a statue of the Maiden a huge female elephant-kin holding scales in one hand and a book in the other. From there the city was built in a large spiral, even the bridges going back and forth over the river were curved. And unlike any other city I've ever been to, the buildings got bigger and bigger the further out from the centre you got. Usually, it's the other way around.

As Grim noted already, Drakon woke up after three days. After that we didn't let him leave his room for another week, just to make sure he was ok.