In the end I decide to stick with my original intent and just slaughter him in front of his troops. Finding the army camp is easy, and the soldiers panic as I circle above it. Eventually the commotion brings Sevaris out in the open and when it does I dive at him.
As soon as I begin my dive all the people around Sevaris take off, leaving him alone. At first he is staring at me with a contemptuous look, but as I get closer it quickly changes to fear. Seeing his fear makes me smile, and my smile is all teeth, which scares Sevaris even more.
When I am right on top of him, instead of running, Sevaris drops to the ground screaming. He is screaming for his guards and his soldiers, but no one is coming to help him. I land with my four feet surrounding him so he is directly beneath my chest.
At this point I could simply flop down and kill him, but that wouldn't be painful enough. Then again, considering his crimes, I don't know that Dark Mark is painful enough either. However, that is easy enough to solve, so I aim carefully and then step on his left ankle.
His ankle is crushed by my foot causing his screams to increase in volume. As he is screaming and thrashing around I carefully aim and then crush his other ankle. A quick look around shows no one is going to try and save him, in fact the soldiers are all running deeper into the empire.
It makes sense for those that were conscripted to run, and the mercenaries if they have been paid. Yet, even his household soldiers are running just as fast as the others. I didn't think that a drake, especially a small one, would be that terrifying to them.
Since I don't have to worry about being interrupted I can take my time and make Sevaris suffer. Normally, I wouldn't torture someone like this, but in my opinion he deserves this and so much more. Next I crush his hands and wrists one by one, then I use a healing spell on him so he doesn't die of shock.
With my healing spells I can only heal him as much as I want, so I can keep him alive and suffering for a long time. However, even though he deserves every bit of pain, it is starting to make me feel dirty. So, when I can't take it anymore, I activate Dark Mark and watch it kill him.
Once he is dead I leave his corpse lying there and launch myself into the air. I stay low enough to be easily spotted as I fly east, deeper into the empire. I quickly catch up to the soldiers who fled and they have quite the reaction when they spot me.
Some try to hide in bushes, some simply curl up on the ground, others start praying, and others drop to their knees and start begging. However, no matter what they do, I simply fly overhead and ignore them all. The news of me will absolutely spread now, yet they still seem to be overreacting.
Maybe I am just too used to fighting monsters, but I just don't see a young drake as being that terrifying. It could just be that all these people are commoners who have never seen a monster before. However, that doesn't seem too likely, especially for the mercenaries.
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They definitely should have seen combat against beasts before this, unless Sevaris just hired rookies. As I think about it I just can't see him being that cheap, especially with his own life on the line. Thinking about Sevaris and what I know about him I suddenly have a horrible thought.
Immediately I slightly change my direction and start flapping my wings as hard as I can. With the thought in my head I can't ignore it, so I head for Sevaris' capital as fast as I can. When I reach the capital I fly straight over and dive at the ruins of the castle.
The pile of melted stone cracks as I slam into it, but that is all that happens. Forming a fist I start frantically punching the stone, I need to get through it. The thought that is tormenting me is if Sevaris kept prisoners at his country manor, then he may have kept them here as well.
If he did I am just hoping they were kept in the dungeon, because if they were in the castle then I already killed them. That is currently my biggest fear, that I killed a bunch of kids without knowing it. The stone quickly gives way under my fists and I have soon punched a tunnel through the stone.
When I break through the last of the melted stone I find myself in a basement. The basement is full of boxes and crates, but I ignore them and look for some stairs. If this is the basement then if the castle has a dungeon it should be below this.
At first I can't find the stairs, but then I hear quiet crying, the sound leads me to the stairs. Quickly rushing down the stairs I find the dungeon, and it is full of people. Not just children, but adults as well, it looks like over a hundred people.
Of course, when they see me, a drake, they start screaming in terror. The screams die down a bit when I go down the hallway ripping the cell doors off. The fact that I am freeing them and haven't eaten any of them yet leaves them confused.
When I speak to tell them they are free to leave all I get in response are looks of shock. Apparently me being able to speak is even more shocking than me freeing all of them. A simple roar from the far end of the dungeon is far more effective in getting them moving.
The fact that the adults make sure to take the children with them is reassuring. It is a huge relief to me that they are all still alive and I didn't kill them by accident. Watching them all leave the dungeon alive is a great feeling, even if they fear me.
I am really glad that I found them before they ran out of air, if I had been later I don't know if I could live with it. The servants I accidentally killed at least chose to work in the castle, these people had no choice. I wait until the last person heads up the stairs before I slowly follow.
When I reach the basement I find that all the people have stopped, but not because they can't get out. They have broken open some of the boxes and crates and are sitting around eating what they found inside. They probably haven't been fed well while being prisoners so it is understandable.
However, I don't plan to wait around while they eat, they are free now and no longer my problem. So I walk past them, causing them all to freeze and stare at me, and head outside. When my head pops up out of the hole, the crowds that have gathered take off running.
Ignoring them I climb the rest of the way out and take off, no point to stick around now. From the capital I head northeast, still flying low, and look for a place to rest. After passing a couple of towns I find an area of hills, when I spot a cave I land to investigate.
Finding that the cave is small and unoccupied, I enter and lay down to rest. While it hasn't been all that long since I last slept, I still feel exhausted for some reason. So I curl up in the cave to take a nap, just for a few hours or so.