CHAPTER 5 - I INSIST YOU STAY

Roe and Laureline returned to her home and over the next few months he began serious renovations. As an enchanter, household appliances and modern conveniences were one of his greatest products. He decided to figure them out with Laureline before selling them in his future travels. As a result Laureline’s cabin gained indoor plumbing, a modern kitchen and indoor magic lights.

Roe created all of these marvels but Laureline directed their placements, directing him to shift stone and add rooms to truly reshape the cabin to her ideal, and she didn't stop there. Every evening they would journey to Roeg-Hiam's Realm and work on its layout.

Roeg-Hiam's Realm was now a large flat disc of ocean with a 50 square mile island in the middle. The island was a true garden of Eden. Every imaginable plant grew there. At the centre of the island was a cone shaped keep, an artificial mountain which served as Roeg-Hiam's home. At the cathedral arched cave entrance stood several gigantic stone golems sculpted into knights. Laureline had insisted that the Realm needed protecting.

"You never know when someone might stumble

across your frequency." She insisted.

The door that led to Laureline’s cabin was embedded into a long blank hallway in the keep. Laureline’s idea was to add more doors as he added more women. She warned him that having more women than days of the week may lead to problems. Roe decided her advice had merit, of course this world’s calendar had 9 day weeks.

Their new homes were not the only changes that had happened; the two went into a business agreement with the Wildorf family. Laureline had always sold her healing potions through the Wildorf General store, which was run by Ludlow and Kate Wildorf with assistance from their two kids, Ash and Steph.

Laureline's potions were the General store's best selling products so she was able to negotiate with the Wildorfs to sell her and Roe’s products for a percentage of the sales. The Wildorfs would also take orders, requests and down-payments for the couple.

Roe would come into town once a week and fulfill the enchantment requests using one of the Store's back rooms as his work area. Laureline expanded her range of products As an Alchemist she wasn't limited to healing potions but she didn't want to enable any criminal elements in the society so she avoided explosives, stealth, poison and polymorphic potions and focused on cosmetics and hygienic potions instead. Her shampoos, soaps and creams sold well but it was her vitality potion which put a 'pep in an older man's step' that was the real winner.

As for Roe's product line he aimed at the many adventures passing through Babel. Roe made magic lanterns which were basically flashlights, foldable magical hotplates with two burners, water conjuring flasks that refilled themselves once every 6 hours, insect repelling necklaces, magic compasses which pointed to the last place you said it's magic word, temperature controlled blankets and his most popular item the backpack of holding. These backpacks were only 1 ft wide and 2ft high but they contained a 6ft square storage space and no matter what you filled it with, the most it ever weighed was 20 pounds.

An evening Roe and Laureline were in the General store Roe was working on enchantment requests when he felt a peculiar vibration he'd never felt before.

Dragon Lore:

‘Alien incursion imminent.'

Roe froze in his actions. An invasion like this is how the Dragon Lords came to this world. Another power may ruin the peaceful balance that currently existed.

"Laurel, I think something really bad is happening. I'm heading out, don't wait for me here, I'll see you at home."

Roe reached out to find the disturbance teleported while he activated all of his Dragon Rules, by the time the teleportation ended the human Magister Roe was replaced by the Dragon Lord Roeg-Hiam the Midnight .

He was in the air over a Kingdom he'd never seen before high in the mountains. The town just outside of the Castle walls was bisected by a disc of energy. A gateway half buried like a plate in the sand.

Roeg-Hiam observed the situation. ten Gods battled what could only be called a spaceship. A massive long grey shape was halfway out of the portal. Smaller attack fighters were flying about . 3 Gods applied a barrier to contain the smaller ships from getting out and ravaging the surrounding lands while the rest battled the invaders.

Inside the barrier the Gods were not doing well, the sheer number of enemies was overwhelming them. The massive barrier also stopped the people from the Kingdom and its city from fleeing the battle. The invaders rained down destruction on Gods and mortals with abandon.

Roeg-Hiam watched, debating if he should intervene when he noticed Zuriel, the Goddess he had met before. She was one of the 3 maintaining the barrier. Every energy blast or ship that crashed into the barrier taxed them.

Zuriel looked up to Roeg-Hiam, he wasn't hiding. Just lazily floating in the sky. Zuriel's whisper was clear to him.

"Help us!” she demanded. Roeg-Hiam inspected his claws, unperturbed.

Stolen story; please report.

“They will threaten your harem and hoard as they threaten our congregations.” Zuriel tried to convince him. Roeg-Hiam was thinking it over.

“Please." She finally asked politely. Her plea was followed by the barrier shattering.

Roeg-Hiam expanded his Domain and dove through the clouds, the goddess was right the invaders were a threat but if she hadn’t said please, he would have waited until they were dead before acting.

As soon as the barrier was destroyed the Dreadnought deployed dropships which shot away from it. These would most likely hide themselves somewhere and then open more breaches so the invasion could spread like an infection.

Before any of those ships could leave Roeg-Hiam's domain they crumpled in upon themselves as gravity and heat crushed them into hot metal spheres about the size of basketballs. Roeg-Hiam spared no thought for the crew of those ships. Each one of them was coming to steal from him. Giving them a quick death was already mercy.

Roeg-Hiam twisted space to pull the smaller attack crafts together before using a wave of heat to liquefy them.

Roeg-Hiam tried the same gravity trick with the Dreadnought carrier but it resisted him, it's anti-gravity field was too strong.

The carrier opened fire on Roeg-Hiam but he twisted space around himself and returned it all. Under its own Barrage the carrier's shields failed. Roeg-Hiam did not miss the opportunity to attack. Black shadow spikes appeared all around the ship and pierced it. Many explosions rocked the carrier as it tried to slowly move back through the breach but now that those invaders knew the location of this world Roeg-Hiam could not let it escape.

"Since you came all this way I insist you stay, permanently!" With the carrier's systems damaged, Roeg-Hiam once again used his gravity well. This time it was very effective, the carrier began to compress in upon itself until it was a sphere of metal roughly a few hundred metres in diameter. The metal burned and churned, melting away imperfections that were probably lesser materials, like the crew members.

With the ship that was generating it gone, the breach quickly faded out of existence.

From the kingdom below a roaring cheer went up.

Roeg-Hiam flew down over the city outing fires started by stray volleys.

Roeg-Hiam landed in front of the gathered Gods who had moved to a nearby mountain.

The tallest of the golden beings had taken a height of twenty feet so Roeg-Hiam remained in his Draconian form. Of the ten Gods here Roeg-Hiam only recognised two, Zuriel and Woedel. These other eight immediately took defensive stances as he approached. One going so far to level a spear at him. Roeg-Hiam recognised her as Asturiel, her face looked young but her body was mature perfection. Her overall atmosphere was of a person who had recently blossomed into womanhood.

"You will retract your domain at once Dragon Lord. These are the God Lands, we will not be threatened here!" Asturiel demanded while brandishing her weapon..

Roeg-Hiam was not impressed. He leaned toward the Goddess threateningly.

"I'm not so trusting to drop my guard when faced with ungrateful little shits."

The tension in the air grew. Roeg-Hiam's domain was abnormally large, the only way to fight a Dragon Lord was for some of the Gods to get outside of his domain to support the ones inside.

"Everybody step back and take a breath. I asked for his help." Zuriel commanded as she moved to the front, pushing the spear tip away from Roeg-Hiam before turning to face the Dragon Lord herself.

"Roeg-Hiam the Midnight I presume, in the magnificence of your true form. Thank you for your aid, what brings you back to the God Lands?"

Although his expression seemed indifferent, the tip of Roeg-Hiam’s tail started to wag. All the Gods noticed the change and the tension disappeared.

"Ahem." Roeg-Hiam cleared his throat, after stopping his traitorous tail.

"It's about my territory, I had no method of contacting you Gods but when I felt the disturbance I figured a God would be here."

"Ah I see. Woedel is the God who manages the Dragon territories. You and he can negotiate while the rest of us will begin restoration of the land now that the incursion is over." Zuriel motioned to the Gods to move out. Most teleported to the city and began repairs and resurrections. Zuriel, Asturiel and Woedel remained.

"Dragon Lord Roeg-Hiam, can I trouble you to sell some of that Orichalcum?" Zuriel asked him.

Roeg-Hiam pointed at the larger burning sphere of metal that was once the Dreadnought and the smaller ones, made from the dropships along with the floating liquid metal that was the attack ships rushed together to meld into one. The sphere quickly cooled. Into a yellow metal.

Dragon Lore:

Purified Orichalcum, perfectly conducts energy.

Fantastic for crafting magical items.

"Orichalcum is the ultimate treasure, Dragon Lords are only interested in treasure and beautiful females. So what are you, a beautiful female Goddess, offering me, a Dragon Lord, so that I would part with the ultimate treasure?" Roeg-Hiam inquired.

Zuriel's smile was strained.

"You are not the first Dragon Lord to want to add a Goddess to his harem but I refuse to be the first Goddess to succumb."

She tossed him a square tile with her effigy on one side and her sigil on the other.

"If I can think of something to trade. I'll contact you."

Unlike the other Gods she walked down the mountain rather than teleport. Asturiel followed her, keeping eyes on the Dragon Lord.

Roeg-Hiam ignored Asturiel's hostility and blatantly watched Zuriel's ass as she left.

Woedel cleared his throat to get Roeg-Hiam's attention.

"What is the issue with your territory Dragon Lord?"

"Basically I really love the sea but my territory is landlocked. I need to exchange it with another."

Woedel waved his hand and a very accurate map of the Dragon Lands appeared.

The locals called their world Earth but having come from another Earth Roeg-Hiam a hard time doing that, referred to this world as New-Earth. New-Earth had two ice caps and one large continent aptly named Pangea which mostly wrapped itself around the equator. The Dragon Lands and the rest of Pangea were separated the same way North and South America were, by a thinner piece of land. The town of Babel was just before this land bridge, and it was here Adventurers would make their fortune hunting monstrous beasts.

Roeg-Hiam realised that this wasn't an actual map but a true vision of what was happening in the Dragon Lands when he recognised several spheres of nothing moving about. Dragon Lords were most likely at the centre of each sphere.

"Does anyone hold the territory here?" Roeg-Hiam asked, pointing at the land bridge.

"Well no, it's not enough land for most Dragon Lords. I would not want to short change you Roeg-Hiam." A Dragon Lord's territory was usually 100,000 square km. The land bridge's length was about 118,000 km but it's area was barely 7,000 square km.

"Well give me the entire bridge, its surrounding seas and all these islands over here." Roeg-Hiam said as he tried to look nonchalant, if you counted the seas Roeg-Hiam's territory would be over 800 billion square km.

With just the developed islands and the small Land bridge the taxes Roeg-Hiam would be able to levy would be a pittance but Roe had learned that the Underdark below the seas of that area was a highly developed urban mecha.

‘A Black Dragon ruling the underworld sounds about right.’ Roeg-Hiam chuckled to himself, since no other Dragon Lord had ever wanted the land bridge, sea or the islands there were no issues for the transfer.

Wodel changed Roeg-Hiam's deed and the very happy Black Dragon left.