Hearty laughter and jovial conversations faded into nostalgic whispers as they made their way into the tavern’s basement. A calming warmth soon enveloped them, like they were all sitting around a blazing bonfire or huddled up near a roaring hearth. Draig’s shouldered axe teetered left and right as he took mighty steps down the creaking stairs and, finally, onto the night-black concrete.

Before them was a great hearth, and in front of it were a myriad of strange machines. In the middle of the technological nightmare was a large rounded plate made of an unknown metal. On the plate were three hefty eggs, each nearly the size of a human head.

Sato’s shimmering gaze ignited with amazement. Her stupor was nothing in the face of her unlimited curiosity it seemed. “They’re real…! Real dragon eggs! But, I thought dragons didn’t lay eggs! Mother always told me that dragons were born in the midst of terrible storms.”

“Heh. Aye, maybe in fairytales. Or, perhaps the dragons of old did spring up from magical storms in the sky. Who can say? …But, yes, modern dragons do lay eggs, rare as they are.” Draig rested his arm over the hilt of his axe, the weapon becoming akin to a pendulum as it crossed over his muscular upper body. “What you see are three that we’ve found on our journeys. This contraption they’re on stabilizes them, keeps ‘em warm enough, and keeps track of their health.”

Ma’at walked to Draig’s side with crossed arms. She played it cool, but her eyes were dead-locked on the miraculous embryos. “Where did you find this kind of tech…?”

Draig sucked air up through his nostrils, the musty air filling his lungs and smelling of sizzling dust. “We were delvers, once. My gang and I. In our only attempt at going down into the Pit of Azoras, bits of this tech were all we found. Technicist machines, I’m sure. But that was only on the higher levels. Something… very dark lies far below that place. It isn’t for mortal men to venture into.”

The egg leaning on the left of the others had a silver tinge to it, and in its frame were jagged lines like levin strikes that burned with an amber hue. The egg leaning on the right was an onyx black with searing red marks burned into its casing like claw marks. The middle egg was the same onyx color, except swirling azure accents like ephemeral smoke lined its shell.

“These eggs have been through hell and back, but they’ve never once cracked. They’re hard as iron, likely. Maybe even as tough as noctite. For all we know, they could survive in the scorching heat of a volcano, maybe even live through floating in liquid magma. In all my years, I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

“Makes sense,” Ma’at said, nodding. “If those winged monsters evolved to have the durable scales they do, it could easily apply to their offspring and the eggs protecting them.”

Sato got up close and raised a finger to gently touch the middle one with blue traces.

“Don’t touch ‘em, miss. They’re superheated. That plate keeps ‘em at a temperature that’d burn the flesh off your hands.” He smirked, though the creases of his eyes did not squint. It wasn’t a joke.

“Sorry,” Sato replied, lowering her hand and moving her face closer. A few inches were between her and the humming egg. An almost overwhelming heat filled her cheeks like hot liquid injected into her skin. As she turned away from them slightly, a faint sound met her ears. Not only were they humming from the intense temperature they were put under, but faint noises emanated from them as well. Talking?

Ma’at watched her colleague with unease, fearing they’d soon need to run her face under cold water. A vicious third-degree burn mark on Sato’s face flashed through her mind as if an oracle had just given her a true vision of the coming future. Believing in her, however, she decided against pulling her back. Sato rarely did things for no reason. She trusted her.

Sato leaned in ever closer, the faint sound becoming clearer and clearer. With it, the heat grew fiercer and fiercer, nearly burning her cheeks for real.

“Responsibility…” the egg whispered. She could have been mistaken, but the word had immediately come to mind as she attempted to decipher the embryo’s strange hums. “My… responsibility…”

The Maiden drew her head back, perturbed.

“Were these eggs also found in the Pit?” Ma’at asked, relieved that Sato hadn’t burned her face off on accident.

Draig shook his head, his rugged facial hair unwavering as he did so. The ever-burning hearth plastered his face in warm autumn colors. “No. We bought the silver and amber one off some bloke somewhere in the Aaskiminuvien Theocracy. Don’t remember exactly where, though. The other two we found as we made our way farther north and back around to Reville. Once we had this many, we gave up doin’ merc work all around the continent.”

“To be dragon hatchers? Or to scare tavern owners into housing you?”

Draig sighed dismissively. He continued, ignoring Ma’at’s jab. “Yes. Don’t you get it? Once these babies hatch, we can start breeding ‘em. If they’re different sexes, of course. Think about the load of Kin we’ll be making then. It’ll be enough to pay that chickenshit tavern owner and then some.”

Ma’at looked at her old friend with smoldering contempt. “That doesn’t give you the right to destroy his property and force him to let you use his basement as a hatchery. Especially when you’re betting on this dream even becoming a reality. They might all be male, or all female. What will you do then?”

“The odds are in our favor. Hmph. You haven’t changed a bit. Still scared of taking a gamble, huh?” An annoying smirk appeared on his face. His eyes gleamed with sudden excitement as an idea conceptualized within his mind.

“What are you planning?” The Sirithisian’s voice was low, almost a grumble. The face he was making… She had seen it countless times before. That gleam in his eyes, similar to Sato’s when she was amazed, but slightly different from that. An insidious plan was being concocted in that head of his.

Draig let out a raucous, almost jovial laughter like the ones barely heard upstairs. “Look, Ma’at… I know you’re just doing your job. You always are. That’s all you care about, right?”

She remained quiet, locked in a one-sided staring contest.

“I think we’re on the same page, darling.” He dropped his axe to the ground. It clattered and filled the basement with loud clangs, then fell silent on the floor. “I don’t want to fight either. I’ve had enough bloodshed, lately. Hell, my men just want some rest. They say that winter is the season of eternal rest, after all. When the Blissful Sleep is closest to our hearts. So, let’s keep it civil, eh? Why don’t we settle this over a game of cards?”

“Cards!?” Sato exclaimed.

Ma’at tossed her head from side to side, bewildered. It was no surprise that he’d offer to play a game of chance. When the times called for it, Draig could be a valiant warrior. When they didn’t, when violence was simply an option in a row of hundreds of paths to take, he was a coward and gambler at heart. However, what truly perplexed her was why he’d take this route at all. He had the advantage in an all-out brawl. Everyone upstairs talking happily and drunk out of their minds were probably affiliated with him to some degree. Either way, he could pay them to take their side. That was probably what he’d done to dissuade the Union’s interjection; he must have bribed them. If they did fight, there was a very real chance of Ma’at and Sato losing, even with the Maiden of the Rain’s powerful Paracosm. So… why?

“Come on, Ma’at! Let’s play! I’m sure we could beat him. Plus, if either of us wins, Vroque wins!”

Draig shook his head. “No, no. It’ll be a fair game. One of you will sit out, and I reckon it’ll be you, drunk lass. Haha!”

There was no ill will she could glean from the man’s mannerisms. Maybe… he was being completely honest for once. He really didn’t want to fight her. He didn’t want to see her hurt. Though they hadn’t talked in ages, though their travels and tribulations experienced together had faded into tiny, vague spots in her memory, they burned fervently in Draig’s mind. He wanted to play a fair game of cards and be done with it.

“Fine. Then what are your terms?”

Draig gave her a pleasant smile. It didn’t fit his features one bit, but in a way, it lightened his gruff exterior and showed his tender personality. “If I win, you both run along back to Vroque HQ and give them the bad news. We stay here. If you win, we’ll leave. Simple as.”

“There has to be something in it for you. We need to raise the stakes.”

Draig raised an eyebrow. “Haha. Maybe I was wrong about you. You are willing to take a gamble!” He motioned toward one of his gang members who had been standing guard at the top of the rickety old staircase. “Hey, you! Get us a table and some chairs!”

“Right away, boss.” The man left in a hurry, closing the door at the top of the stairs firmly behind him.

“Alright. If I win, we get to stay… and you give us all the money you’ve got.”

Sato opened her mouth to deny such a harsh bet, but Ma’at spoke up first.

“Okay. If we win, you leave Inkwell for good… and you give us a dragon egg.”

“Pwahahaha! That a joke, lass? Didn’t know you could be so funny.” Though a smile still adorned his mouth, he gritted his teeth. He didn’t like where this was going, now. Not one bit.

“You said all of our money. Not just in our pockets, right? We could give you Tien’s… maybe the Writer’s… maybe even some trinkets from her bag.”

“I don’t need some shitty knick-knacks you bought off some alley merchant.”

Ma’at stared deeply into Draig’s eyes, unwavering beneath his commanding features. “Nothing of the sort. Not too long ago, we killed a Nye Inkorpt agent and pilfered his gear.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“W-What!?” Draig shouted. Quelling his outburst, he coughed and retained his previous demeanor.

“A sword and mask from… well, he didn’t say where exactly, but somewhere in the Technicist underground below us. They seem quite valuable.”

Sato, seeing where she was guiding the negotiation, nodded wildly. “Mhm. Our friend Tien is keeping them nice and secure in her suitcase.”

“A Nye Inkorpt agent…? And they haven’t come to kill you yet?”

Ma’at and Sato looked at each other, then glanced back at Draig with uncertainty.

“No,” Ma’at replied.

“You Vroque suits are playing a dangerous game. More dangerous than we are, I can tell you that. Even those Union bastards are afraid of the Inkorpt. If they weren’t busy taking contracts to kill off bigger fish like Blue Lotus, we’d be dead by now…”

“We aren’t scared of those clowns,” Sato said. “Now, do you accept our terms or not?”

Draig stared at the duo as if he were looking at a pair of madwomen that had just escaped the Crowclaw Asylum. “Aye, ya crazy idiots. Nowhere we can go from here, anyway. Nowhere but the cards.” The amiable grin appeared on his face again.

After an indeterminate amount of time, the gang member came back with some help and dragged three chairs and an oaken table from the bar down the stairs and set them up right in front of the eggs warming before the hearthfire. It was time to play.

“How are we deciding the game?” Ma’at asked.

“I’ll let you two decide. Ladies first and all,” Draig dryly intoned the chivalric saying.

“Uh, I don’t think that really applies here…”

Ma’at thought long and hard. The answer was quite simple when she reached it. What better game to play than one played most recently? “How about Malarri? You know how to play it?”

“‘Course I do! Do you take me for some wealthy aristocrat, Ma’at? I’m a northerner by birth. Every self-respecting Frostlander knows the game by heart.” He obviously took immense pride in having a great amount of knowledge and experience with the game, a fact that made Ma’at a little uneasy at first.

But she realized that there could have been worse games to pick, and what better game to beat him at than one that was so close to home? At last, they began playing, sitting opposite each other with the roaring flame and humming eggs between them. The prize was in their grasp, should the cards favor them.

“Three rounds is the classic way to play. Get ready,” he said, shuffling the cards haphazardly in his huge hands.

The game began. The fire on their fingertips. The rugged sheen on the paper cards. The gleam of the red and black suits when reflecting the dancing flame. Sato’s wandering eye, and Draig’s stern reprimand. Though there was so much at stake… Ma’at felt as if she was having fun. She wasn’t a gambler, but she purely enjoyed the act of playing such games.

A memory sprang to mind, one she hadn’t thought of for many days and nights.

She and Camelia sat on the grass. A picnic. Her fiery hair and light pink, almost pastel eyes against the backdrop of rustling verdant leaves and creaking pale branches. They played cards together, the wind tossing them to and fro every now and then.

Ma’at beat her for the nth time, and Camelia, being the sore loser she was, threw all of the cards up and burnt them to ash. Until they were no more. And Ma’at laughed upon staring into her rage-fueled fury. Camelia fell to the ground, embarrassed, and promised her she’d buy her a new deck. “One day,” she said. “I’ll make up for it.”

“...One day… I’ll make up for it…”

“Hm?” Draig stared daggers at his opponent, a fan of cards held in his hand.

Ma’at shook the memory from her mind, her fluffy black hair dancing above her shoulders. “It’s nothing.” She grew lost in the pile in the middle of the table. She couldn’t remember what Draig had called on his turn. “Six clubs,” she called.

“Malarri!” Draig announced, splaying the middle cards up and over onto their other sides, revealing them all. “Two, three, four.” He grinned. “Only four clubs. You lose.”

That was one chance tarnished. If they lost another, it was over. They’d lose everything. Ma’at cursed herself under her breath, urging herself to focus.

Draig played a card face down. “One heart.” He leaned one arm on the ancient table. Its legs let out small whimpers as if they were about to break and scatter everything to the floor. “Win or lose… I’m glad we were able to meet again, Ma’at. Under the circumstances, it was still nice to see you after all this time. Hah… if only Camelia was with you two. Been even longer for her. Last time we talked… must’ve been near the Plaguelands the day we met Orion.”

“Hmph.” Ma’at jolted as she let out a half-hearted chuckle. “Those days… were some of the worst of my life.”

Silence took hold.

Ma’at played two cards. “Two hearts.”

Draig tapped his fingers on the table idly. “What happened between you and Camelia? You two were thick as thieves last I saw.” He played a card. “Two clubs.”

Ma’at sighed. “I told you. We had an argument and… stopped talking. She didn’t want anything to do with me after that.” She played a card, resting her forefinger on it for a moment, then letting it slap down on the table. “Two spades.”

“What makes you so confident that she’ll want to talk to you now?”

For merely a second, she glanced Sato’s way, then returned her gaze to the cards in her hand. “Nothing, really. Just… hoping. Hoping we’ll leave Reville soon. Hoping I’ll see her eventually. Hoping she’ll forgive me.”

“Couldn’t have been any normal argument,” Draig replied coldly. He played a card. “Four spades,” he called.

Raw emotion left Ma’at’s face as she stared into Draig’s. Her hazel eyes grew dark, black as a doll’s eyes. She looked at him as if she were about to draw one of her blades. “Stop talking about her. You think I don’t realize what you’re trying to do?”

“What?”

“You’re trying to distract me again. Don’t play dumb.” She touched a card in her hand, then let it go. If there ever was a time to call his bluff, it would be now. The odds were in both their favor, but Ma’at was sure she hadn’t played any spades. “Malarri!” she yelled.

“Really, now? If I win this round, darling, I win the whole thing.”

Ignoring his remark, the Sirithisian turned over the cards and spread them outward across the slapdash table. “Two spades. You lose.”

“Damn…!” he made his free hand into a tightly-wound fist and nearly pounded the table with it. At the last second, though, he calmed himself and drew it back.

“Last round,” Ma’at said, shuffling the deck. The cards were dealt one last time. She played a card. “One spade.”

Draig played two cards. “Two spades.” His voice was serious this time. The arm belonging to the fist he had made moments before was now leaning on the table, and the cards in his other hand were right in front of his face as if he meant to hide his expression.

Ma’at played two cards. “Two hearts.”

Draig narrowed his gaze, his pupils dilating into tiny points of darkness. The hearthfire roared, tiny embers flittering to their feet like wandering butterflies before fading into specks of ash. He could call her now and end it before she would get another turn, but doing so could lose him the game as well. If there were just two hearts in there, she’d win. He hadn’t played any, so she must have played them both or was extremely confident that he had played at least one. Time ticked by. He made a decision. “Hm… Malarri,” he said without enthusiasm. A gut feeling told him he was wrong, but for once, he went against it. A call now would be easier and just as risky as a call later. Now was the time. He spread the cards. “One…” He sighed deeply, deeper than he had ever sighed since speaking with the two women. “Two. You win.”

“Yes!” Sato cheered, giving Ma’at a sudden and unprompted hug in celebration. “See!? This is why you gamble~”

Ma’at blushed from the contact. A faint yet soothing fragrance met her senses. The smell of lavender wafted from Sato’s body. Her raincoat, too, was very warm from being near the fireplace for so long. Ma’at thought that she would nearly pass out from heat exhaustion, and thought the same of her colleague. “Okay, okay. Get off of me… drunky.”

“I’m not drunk! I only had one drink.” Sato did not let her go.

“Yeah, and that one drink had you tripping over yourself at the bar! Now get off me…”

Sato let her go, the warmth receding.

“Aren’t you dying with that raincoat on? Felt like a thousand degrees.”

“No! I’m fine. I use my magic to keep myself cool. The water I create is always cold, remember?”

Thinking back, she was right. When she’d saved Ma’at’s life back at the old warehouse, the rainwater was as cold as it would be if it had really fallen out of the clouds on an autumn day. Chilly, yet comforting in a way.

Draig witnessed the display with a massive grin despite having lost the game. The Dragon Hatcher Gang would have to set up shop somewhere else, and they would lose an egg to boot. To make things even worse, one less egg lowered the chances of them being able to breed the beasts. Even so, his gruff grin did not falter.

“The hell are you smiling about, reht’ka?”

“We won, Ma’at! We get to choose a dragon egg!” Sato returned to her childlike glee as if nothing had happened, like she had so many times. Like a switch being flipped, she would transform from a demure and intellectual woman with astonishing fighting prowess and magical capabilities to an easily excitable kid in no more than a second.

“Aye, I lost… fair and square. Pick one. Ah, but… how are you going to take care of it?”

“The friend we- I mean… our colleague Tien has a suitcase she can use.”

“A suitcase…?”

“It’s no ordinary suitcase, Draig. It’s an Arcane Construct that can hold an infinite amount of items. She explained to me a few days ago that it keeps whatever’s inside in stasis. So, if we hurry to her, it should keep the egg at a stable heat as long as it remains in the case. Eventually, we’ll find a use for it.”

“Find a use for it!?” he exclaimed. “Blimey, I thought you’d take care of the damn thing! This is my baby we’re talkin’ about here! You’re not gonna sell him, are ya?”

Ma’at glared at him, this time with the warmth returning to her face and the flames turning her dark hair into streaks of auburn gold. “You lost, remember? It’s ours now. It doesn’t matter what we do with it.” She turned away from him and knelt down to observe the embryos again. “We’ll take the middle one. The one with blue accents.”

“Let us borrow these tongs,” Sato chimed, dragging the metal tool out of the blazing fire.

“Fine, fine, ya lunatics.” Draig relinquished his possessions.

Sato clasped the azure egg with the tongs, raised it carefully off of the heating plate, and made her way upstairs.

Draig shook his head in sheer disbelief. One night is all it took to flip one’s life upside down, a fact that had been made known to him countless times already. It just so happened that this night was one of them. “Take good care of him, please. Or her. Don’t sell it to some random bloke, eh?” he pleaded.

Ma’at smiled genuinely. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

As she started to leave, Draig softly grabbed hold of her arm to stop her. “Hey, sorry ‘bout what I said before. You’ve changed plenty.”

She stared at him in confusion. “I don’t-”

“For the better, I’ll add. Before, it took the mother of all witches to calm you down. Even Camelia would struggle to help you when ya needed it. Now, though…” He stared blankly at the ascending staircase where Sato had just tiptoed with egg in tow. “Now, you seem to be enjoying yourself. Taking life a little less seriously, eh? I’m proud of you, is all.”

The mercenary woman went quiet again.

Draig let go of her arm. “Go tell that dumbass at the bar that we’ll be out of his hair by sundown tomorrow.”

Ma’at nodded and walked toward the stairs.

“Ma’at,” he said.

“Yeah?”

Another wry grin appeared on his bearded face. Thin, indelible scars across his face glowed in the light of the crackling fire. They were eerily similar to her own. “It was good to see ya. Really. I mean it. And… I hope you find her. I hope you find Camelia and work things out. Hate to see good friends fight.”

Ma’at nodded again, the firelight dimming. She took one last look at the man known as Draig, his hatchery, and the messy shoddy table they had just played cards on. Then, she left. She had to find Sato, run with her and the egg back to Vroque, throw it in Tien’s case, and that would be that. Of course, the Writer and Tien would have to ask about it all. For the Writer, though, such a story was an added bonus atop another successful mission.