“Interesting, a flock of Humans and Centaurs guided by a Saurian and Spriggan.” The feminine voice of the dragon was deep and shook everyone present to their core. “You appear to me in a peculiar fashion young Sapling, for what reason need you export these cargo?”

Standing atop a large outcropping of stone and earth was the grand Stone Dragoness herself. She was even larger than the Queen Hydra Marduk had met, she had thick muscular limbs with impenetrable looking scales with thick plates covering her back, neck and part of her underside particularly over her heart and front of her legs. It was hard not to notice that her heart glowed an amberish red colour through the scales as well which made him wonder what exactly was happening there. Otherwise she had impossibly large wings that could block out the light in the canyon where they were with ease and a tail easily twice her torso length with a dorsal fin along the top of it and her spine. Her head was draconic in the universal sense he remembered from his previous life, much like the hydra with thick horns that dragged back behind her head and up into the air, her eyes glowed golden. Lastly her scales were a rusty red with her underside appearing a lighter pinkish tone.

Marduk wondered how a dragon referred to as being Stone, could be red before remembering a factoid about high concentrations of iron turned stone, sand and dirt red or orange.

“The home of the wyrmlings was attacked and ravaged by Orcneas when I came across it with the Saurian and so we took them in hoping to show them beyond the borders of the Basin. As for the Saurian himself he seeks the world and travels no longer wishing to constrain himself to the world of the swamps.” Once again he could understand the language she spoke this was a different kind, it was that of the Dragons sounding nothing alike Auran.

“Most intriguing, most intriguing…” The voice of the Dragoness echoed throughout the canyon as she raised her left hand to her chin, the primate like fingers caressing her pointed feature as a hum of hot breath spilled out of her throat. “I will let you through, but only for a fee, you must share one of your wyrmlings.”

If he could raise his brow Marduk would be doing it right then, he didn’t even bother feigning ignorance and asking what had been said. One part being he was petrified and one part because he saw this coming, doubtless that the monster would so easily allow them through without some grand boon to them.

“If that is what you wish, then which would you prefer?” The half Spriggan asked back.

“Hrmm…” A grumbling baritone hum rocked his head and body as the Dragoness thought. “The boy there-” She pointed to one of the young boys who they’d found with Luka.

“Of Course.” Without issue or pause Adalgard moved and took the hand of the boy before throwing him to a small wooden raft a few metres from the boat.

On the raft were five dragonoids about four feet tall with thin scaled bodies covered in patchy wooden armour using stone weapons, they all had scales the same colour as Ochre. They were some of the many underlings she had using them purely for transactions like this.

At first the children all yelled in protest as their friend was tossed to the wolves per se, but after a short explanation from their ship's captain they quieted.

“He is to become Ochre’s apprentice and learn the Way of The Dragon from her, when next you meet Erik will be a warrior.” Though her explanation opened Marduk’s mind to more questions instead of quelling his mind about the whole situation.

A chill ran down his spine.

Shaking off the shiver the chill induced he turned to the source of it as large golden eyes rested on him, leering like a beast drooling over its prey.

“I would give advice to the adventurous Suran” The rust scaled Dragon started speaking in a language familiar to the Lizardman “Those which haunt you cannot reach you, those which find you will not break you and those who shared you still desire you.”

“I- what does that mean?” He asked, sounding dumbfounded as all his fear disappeared the moment he heard the confusing ‘Advice’.

“You are from a land of much advice and lessons learned, I am sure that you will come to understand its meaning when it matters most.” With that the enormous dragon shifted her weight and stood before stretching her wings out, eclipsing the light in the canyon before she leapt into the air.

The thundering beat of enormous wings decimated all sound for several minutes as the Dragon vacated the path with her minions retreating to the shore with the boy who cried out for help, begging and pleading not to be left alone. Once the shadow of the dragoness was out of sight a wave of tension left the two adults as they let go of breaths they’d not realised they were holding in as the creature took off.

“Shall we be off then?” Marduk asked the bark skinned woman breaking her from a stupor and she nodded her head before setting sail to leave the Canyon and finally be free of the Great Basin.

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The Saurian man’s first thoughts upon seeing the wide open landscape of mossy grey crags and dark trees with bristled foliage hanging off them was they they’d clearly made a wrong turn and ended up somewhere else.

He’d expected great colourful grasslands where animals roamed freely and monsters stalked each other before being cut down by men and others, instead it was a somewhat dreary sight outside the Basins moist, tropical climate that supported more marsh and bog than most places he’d seen in his whole other life.

But it was a change for the better as far as he was concerned, something different meant they were far from anything close to the Ahkula swamps.

Here at least he could be something more, something greater, something unbound.

Though he wouldn’t deny that he’d jumped out of his skin with terror when the dark shadow of a looming rain cloud covered the boat as he thought Ochre had changed her mind and come back for him.

When the fright of that settled he tried to make sense of her words as they rummaged around in his mind for some time before being pushed to the side as he continued his lessons with Adalgard and the help of the Centaur twins to teach him Auran. Once they’d learned of it the pair lept at the opportunity, though he was still unsure of their reasons for attaching themselves to him for the time being.

“What is this place called?” He asked the half Spriggan shortly after they took a break from the lessons.

“Barcas Crags, it is named for the God of mountains.” She replied in an odd mix of Suran and Auran making the man take moment to understand what she’d said.

“I had hoped you would be more lenient with mixing the languages to help me.” He said with a sigh and the woman shrugged her shoulders.

“Learning goes faster when you’re actually doing the task in question.” She chose to say that much in Suran for his sake. “There is a village ahead. She followed up with a flat tone.

Turning his head forward as the woman informed the rest of the tagalongs he spied a town not a village so he assumed she’d given up on figuring out certain words. The town in question, though, was surrounded in a black stone wall with it sitting at the edge of a taiga forest that spread out into the west behind it. It was much larger than anything he’d seen since his reincarnation, he was excited to see what civilization was like for the people of this world, but he was also weary of how they would respond to his appearance seeing as he wasn’t exactly the most approachable lizard crawling out of the river. The town had a large harbour that had a slew of sloop sized boats that resembled Viking ships from his memory with round U shaped hulls and a single mast supporting a single sail as well they had similar sorts of figureheads that looked like dragons and other creatures.

“What is the village called?” He asked curious and she took a moment to respond, preoccupied with the excited voices of the children who immediately, having forgotten the loss of their friend, were interested in the town.

“Óðal” Her response left him feeling like he’d heard something else and asked her to repeat it slower. “Oth-el, anyway Humans and Krijn live there.”

“Krijn?” He asked hoping she’d be willing to explain.

“Hrm… like the hatchlings here but stronger?” She struggled to make a clear comparison for them, but he still got the idea and an image of stout humans filled his mind.

Marduk listened to the children and the centaur twins talk as they approached the first sign of familiar civilization since leaving their village, he was mostly trying to pull apart his ability to understand them and match it to what they were saying to help him with his own use of their language.

Closing his eyes he let their words fill his mind as he stayed quiet until they reached the harbour.

The harbour was encircled by a large portion of the wall that stretched out into the water and had an assortment of pulley cranes, carts and allsorts of other basic things he felt almost in awe of upon seeing. Though there weren’t many free spots for them to dock.

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“Hail! What brings you to our port?” A man called out to the group as Adalgard’s boat docked.

Looking at the man Marduk noticed he was probably only a little taller than the Teen they carried with them, he was muscular and broad with a thick beard of brown and spots of grey, covering his head was a bandana tied at the back. His clothes were a yellowish-white v-neck tunic with long sleeves and brown trousers with animal hide shoes with tufts of fur around the top of the shoe. Around his waist was a black belt with several tools.

Alongside him were a litany of dock workers dressed very similarly as they moved around, a cacophony of sound deafening near any chance Marduk had of picking out any more languages or words.

“We’ve come from Ale in the Duranki crater, there was an Orcneas attack that left all but these children dead. We were hoping to find someone who might adopt them.” Adalgard replied as she made quick work of hitching the boat before looking to the man.

“And the giant lizard?” The dockman questioned with a raised brow and an unsure tone.

“He’s one of the Lizardfolk from the crater, he wished to see the world outside of it so I agreed to ferry him.” Her answer didn’t seem to assuage the mans worries much he only hummed in acknowledgement with an eye on the bipedal lizard.

“He’s not feral then? Not a monster? Won’t attack anyone?” The man questioned further and the woman shook her head.

“His people are good, loyal to their word and he’s made an effort to learn Auran.” She replied with a warm expression hoping it would make the unsure man more okay with the idea.

This is where the centaur twins jumped in saying a sentence in turns.

“He saved us. from the undead monsters. that killed our parents” To emphasise their support they took one of the Saurian’s arms each hugging them.

All Marduk could do was stare at the two of them before turning his gaze to the man on the dock hoping he would let him into the town. He wasn’t sure why the centaurs were fighting for him and continued to be confused by their acceptance of him, though they had been the least scared of Ochre when they met her so there was something deeper to the way they acted.

Eventually the man relented as a crowd had begun to form nearby clearly interested in the arrival of the giant lizardman.

“But! You will all be held responsible should he disturb the peace and cause any issues!” He quickly added as they disembarked.

It was when he was standing on the pier of the dock that he realised how enormous he really was, sure he knew he was oversized, but when he so completely lorded above those on the dock as they began to move it made him feel subconscious. His height also gave a very good view of the buildings around them on which he noticed a murder, they were hanging around atop the roofs like vultures. It was actually the first time in decades he’d seen a bird so pure black as them, it was novel in its own way.

“Stop!” A voice called as they made their way off the dock halting the whole group. “You didn’t pay the fee!” it was the dockman again as he approached Adalgard who made an ‘O’ with her mouth as the realisation hit her before she fished a handful of clinky metal from a satchel she wore and gave it to the man.

She had to then give her name and a few other details before the man let them leave.

Almost as soon as they’d turned around another voice called for them to stop, this time it was a pair of guardsmen.

They were dressed in black undergarments with iron breast and back plates, vambraces and greaves with rounded helmets that had a T shaped visor. In their hands were tall wooden hafted spears with bronze tips, in their other hand was a painted white kite shield with a black design of a wolf head on it.

“State your business and reason for leaving the dockyard” The guard on the right said.

“Finding a home for the children, their home was destroyed by a Orcneas attack” Adalgard’s response was immediately followed up by-

“Truly?!” Both guards spoke in unison, their bewilderment clear as they looked to the youngest members of the troupe.

Nodding her head the black haired woman was immediately motioned by the guards to let pass through into the town, though they stared up at the Saurian for far longer than the man in question felt comfortable with, he’d never really be comfortable with the stares he would receive in ‘human world’.

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Marduk spent much of their walk through the streets of Óðal admiring the stonework and general architecture with how a lot of it was supported by marble pillars giving him the vague impression of greco-roman architecture though many of the buildings were mostly of wood construction. It was a weird mix of ornately chiselled stoneworks, gorgeously crafted buildings and wooden homes that almost all seemed like they were meant to be the inner walls of the homes who’d yet to be finished.

He came to find his thinking in this manner was correct, apparently it was a Krijn tradition to build your home with the ‘stone of the gods’ but it was very expensive to acquire so many families would build wooden bases that the stone would go up around at a later date. Though he also spied many mudbrick homes which his ferry woman told him were human and centaur homes as they were far more efficient to put up and cheaper to make.

In any case Óðal was laid out into five districts, the warehouse district, port, residential district, crafts district and merchant district. From the port they’d entered the residential district and were making their way to a friend of Adalgards home.

As the group walked the remaining Human children and the teen around the half Spriggan woman and the twin Centaurs continued to walk on either side of the Suarian.

Marduk wanted to ask the twins about themselves, but he was limited to asking questions through the dark haired woman which wasn’t how he would’ve liked to do things so he abstained from asking- or well that was the case until the pair spoke and the woman translated for him still not knowing that he understood it all.

“The Centaurs wanted to know where you’re going after we help the children?”

“I will need to find a language teacher and from there I am unsure.” He answered, putting a hand to his chin as he thought about what his future held.

Part of him wanted to return to the village the children had been in to find answers about the magician controlling the Orcneas, but he wasn’t so stupid as to think he could make a difference regarding that situation. He’d been trained by his tribe to fight rogue Saurians that turned insane and the monsters of the swamps, not fight spell totting dead raisers- especially because he didn’t have any understanding of how magic worked in this world.

His little exposure to magic was through Saurian Shahmen and Seers who both exercised the wills of gods not least of which in the traditionally magic sense he was familiar with from stories and media prior to his reincarnation.

“My friend that we’re visiting may know someone willing to teach you? There aren’t many of those who speak Suran, but this is the closest town to the Basin there are likely to be more than just myself.” The dark green scaled lizard nodded his head to her answer.

Feeling now was a good time, even if he knew the answer.

“Have they said what their names are?” He asked the woman receiving a shake of her head before she turned to the blonde pair.

“He wants to know what your names are? I was wondering myself as well, you two have been very quiet about yourselves until now.”

“Oh… I we are sorry. Miss Adalgard. We forgot to name ourselves.” The pair spoke the sentence together as they had done the other times they were addressed.

“I am Lilia” The sister on his left said.

“And I am Orchid” The sister on his right said.

The group stopped in the street when the pair introduced themselves, though Marduk actually couldn’t tell them apart visually or vocally they were more than just identical twins it was almost like they were the same person.

“You heard their names right?” The half Spriggan woman asked getting a nod from him before she continued walking and talking with the now named pair.

Within half an hour they arrived at the residence of Adalgards friend, Marduk noticed a much smaller murder than the one he’d seen at the docks, but something felt even more unnatural about them this time. Though he didn’t have much time to ponder them as a person emerged from the wooden gate of the wall that surrounded the property.