Meroa flew the relatively short distance to the bankers' army in the pass, giving the AshMourn password let her land without being attacked, but once on the ground she was relentlessly assaulted with questions and exclamations until the most beautiful man she ever saw pushed through the crowd and all she wanted to do was add him to her hoard and ply him with jewels and gemstones from head to toe.
"Are you Sutul?" She had to know.
Sighing magnificiently he answerd, "yes", and asked her, "did Allen send you?"
"I need you", she exhaled, "please come with me" equipping her palanquin so he was comfortable while flying with her.
Looking at her with his adorable eyes he finally nodded and let her carry him and the three others the guilds requested brought in sooner, immediately after he was on her back she shook her head and tried to find out what was wrong with her.
Demanding that the children wouldn't meet with Allen before reaching the safe zone and logging off was a nuisance but at least she was available to establish communications with the expedition, remembering at the last moment she dropped the message orb in Suzan's hand and took off.
A simple computing device, the orb allowed long distance communications using spatial magical formulae applied by Hatula and Allen, because the spatial spells created minor manifestations in the destination even if failed or cancelled the device read these changes and translated them to message spells sent directly to the holder, the computation part was the instantaneous translation of the original message to the spatial phenomena and reverse translation at the recieving device.
Lifting off, Meroa wished she had magical instruction books so she could start adding spells to her now empty repertoire, without even the simple 'message' spell she couldn't interface with the magnificient items Allen created and couldn't use the space armor she wanted desperately to try.
Flying silently she looked at the discrepencies Allen was so interested in between the Afriat map and real terrain, the comparison passed the time quickly and she reached the castle before she even noticed, only alerted by the excited cries from her palanquin.
Landing in front of the main keep she was happy Allen and Shovermatsor designed all the main architecture with dragon inhabitants in their minds.
After leaving the kids with RedFox21 and Kyatha she went down to the basement where Allen was moping at his temporal exile and tinkering with his computers to achieve even greater effects, the staff and sword were also there and she knew the spear would be in the back yard drilling Alaska in endless manouvers until the girl will drop dead some day and the spear will give orders to her corpse.
"I am going to buy tomes of magic", Meroa told Allen, "do you need anything?" luckily credits were personal and not linked to the avatar so she still had her money.
"Can you bring me a tome of water magic?" Came a thoughtful reply.
"Sure" thinking, "any specific school or general elemental?"
"Conjuration would be best but general elemental will be fine too", scratching the floor his depression was almost tangible.
Unsure how to cheer him up she left and took off toward the nearest town, being a dragon was a problem when dealing with locals, even if Allen changed her language tag and filling in her second class and job mitigated the dragon behavioural supressants the people didn't know it.
Landing near the Andorian's headquarters where she knew they had a shop stocked enough to have ultimate spells and resigned to giving up on offlife comforts like restaurants and the clubs she liked to party in when off duty and not in the middle of a war, she had a substantial amount of money for a shopping spree and she didn't need to actually read every book to get the spells inside.
Knocking on the little door with her finger got no response so she shook the shop a little until the shopkeeper came out, "who is making all that rauckus", shouting at his wide eyed neighbors.
Following their stares he saw an amethyst scaled paw grabbing his shop, then the arm, followed by a scaly shoulder and familiar long neck leading to a toothful mouth and plate sized eyes staring at him, "nope" he said and closed the door.
"Please come out shopkeeper", giving a final good shake to the house.
"I don't want to be eaten", came a shaking response.
"I just want to buy some magic books", adding "eating you would be bad for business"
"What kinds of magic?", selling items was his business and a talking sparkly dragon was the avatar of a Player that could pay his prices.
"I need all the basics and any ultimates you have", then adding, "and water conjuration magic if you have it"
The door opened and the man took a step outside, "you know ultimates clash?"
"They don't in this avatar", made his jaw drop.
"The basics I can take a chance with but for the ultimates I need payment up front and legacy registration from your guild", the assured tone of his voice told her the man knew his business and wasn't going to break alliance rules for a first time customer.
Knowing this was coming she was prepared, "I only have paralegacy documents from the AshMourn guild", namedropping should have worked but the man squinted his eyes in thought.
"We have a legal dispute with the AshMourns", adding, "you will have to get permission from the guildmaster to purchase anything higher than level three", pause, "and I won't sell you any ultimate spells until the dispute is resolved"
Sighing shook the shop, "fine", she breathed, "then just give me all the basics and make sure 'message' is included".
After about fifteen minutes people started exiting the shop and stacking books in front of her, ending with over a hundred books the price was going to hurt, "that will cost you seventeen thousand gold rounded down" actually wasn't going to beggar her.
Passing the money to him gave her a list of all the book names and content, using it in an array upload command the shopkeeper gawked as the books despawned and weren't stored in her inventort, turning to flaming sparks he started to protest at the waste when they all floated in a glowing river and entered the dragons scaly chest.
"Ahhh so much better", Meroa cast a conjure flame in her palm just to test the spell, "thank you kind shopkeeper", then sending him another two thousand gold, "for a fair deal and doing business with me"
"Wait", he ran into the store and brought out another book, "this is my pride and joy", sounding excited, "none of my patrons could appretiate it", sadness lacing his words, "but I think you can make it work", looking lovingly at the book, "it's an ultimate divination spell", meeting her eyes, "only a seeker of knowlege like you would be willing and powerful enough to take the risk and reap the reward that it can provide".
Intrigued by the prospect of an ultimate divination spell though his description would probably fit Allen much more than it would her, an ultimate spell even non combatant one was still the first step for a legacy character, "how much?"
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"If you promise to cast it once just to tell me the ingrediants required for another spell I will give it to you for free", seeing her distrust he quickly explained, "I need to know the ingrediants for the greater call of darkness so I can finish the spell scroll", adding, "I have a skill that allows me to infer complete spells from partial knowlege", looking at the book again, "my constitution isn't high enough to cast this spell"
"Deal", she decided it was worth it to have a weak ultimate for now.
Uploading the misnamed 'surge of lost lore' she was informed of the possible dangers and damage it would cause regardless of her resistances.
Settling down on the street she cast the spell to her immediate regret, pain laced her mind like a spike had been driven through her skull, writhing and roaring in pain her tail shattered the magic shop window and bent it in an angle making everyone inside run away screaming.
Coming to her senses the streets were empty, the shopkeeper crawled from inside his wrecked shop and she could hear soldiers marching in her direction, looking balefully at the man even knowing it wasn't completely his fault, "the ingrediants for the 'greater call of darkness' are a dash of midnight and a sprig of moonshadow bush", shaking her head she was sure he would have died if he tried the spell himself, "the cooldown on the 'surge of lost lore' is quite phenomenal and the requirement that the requested spell wasn't cast in the last hundred years make it almost completely useless", then thinking, "but two ultimates for the price of one splitting headache isna good deal", smiling, "you also get to tell your friends how you drove away the dragon so all around a good business day for both of us"
Taking off in a gust of wind and dirt she evaded the few arrows shot by the guild troops and climbed beyond their range before gliding back toward the castle while examining her new spell list.
By the time she returned from the round trip the bankers had reached the castle and Meroa hurried to her roost to log off.
"Why did you attack the Andorians?" Was her father's first words when she entered the conference server and he pulled her aside.
"I", thinking about it, "didn't attack them"
"Holograms showing your avatar destroying their magic shop and burning books are circulated for the past twenty minutes", adding, "I would be surprised to find a waiter who doesn't know you attacked them unprovoked".
"I just bought some spells from the nearest shop", was definitely not her best defense.
"The shopkeeper sais you extorted two ultimate spells from him by crushing his shop", stopping her with a glare, "if I checked your full spell list would I find a legacy surge divination and a greater call spells?", nodding she realised she was duped but the joke was on the shopkeeper if she could find the names of other unused spells and aquire them, the joke really was on her.
"I am sorry dad", unable to fathom a reason for her actions when portrayed in that fashion.
"And you should be", sighing, "there will be consequences to your actions", looking sadly at her, "whatever came over you since you met that dragon you need to get yourself together", taking her hand, "Nirash is the new guild leader", pulling her back from a rush twist, "Hatula has the sea alliance to manage and you can't join a guild until level fifteen", adding, "and right now no one will support you if you try to usurp the title so don't even try".
Explaining further, "if you stayed quiet we could keep the title uncontested for a while", pulling her to look in his eyes, "but now we can't afford a division", releasing her hand, "so we expect you to act as a guilder even if you are not registered at the moment", putting his hands on her shoulders, "the guild will bear your burdens", sighing, "just don't make it too heavy".
With a hand on her waist he lead her to the auditorium where the previously half empty hall was now packed with people even standing in the eisles, Hatula was sitting on a podium and answering question with a line of children walking to the stage and delivering their personal experiences with bleary eyes and broken voices, most of them changed their personal avatars to reflect the emblems of loss and misery that RedFox21 told her about.
More than one eye was moist in the crowd and some were screaming for blood when the more violent stories started to surface, torture and extortion lasting for days at a time and then wandering lost and without equipment in a dungeon to survive on whatever skills and spells they could manage.
At some point the stories twisted, not talking about struggles and misdeeds but about their shiny saviour, coming from the sky and bringing civilised conduct to their lives, frightening at first but giving them real jobs, things to do that mattered to them, ways to grow without fighting for every scrap against the other children.
Was this Allen? the carefree dragon who'se idea of tacatical maneuvers was smash head first into a ship, rinse and repeat until it sunk? paint crazed schemes of colors on every surface that pulled his attention and act in absolute disregard to law, best practices or common sense?
The children were mostly old blood clanners, they had a clear vision of how civilisation worked, banks, loans and jobs were all in their common vocabulary and he just let them in to the grownup world through a back door, if it wasn't so reckless she might even laugh from his joke at everyone's expense.
The 'customers' were more reserved in their praise but 'employees' looked like they were going to get into any fight to defend his honor, every question bashed, doubts were crushed with disdain and any implication of misconduct met with stalwart defenses and a unified front she wished to find in her elite troops on the battlefield.
Meroa was speechless, when the children refused to let the guilds pay their debt, even 'customers' quoted ancient guilder codes of working your own field and debts bond us as a society only if we agree to their value.
When asked about their jobs Meroa thought there would be some garbled answers about things they heard in their offlife, but to her and other's astonishment the answers were precise, describing duties and responsibilities, going as far as studying different fields under digital tutors and passing tests to aquire more responsibilities.
Then it hit her, Allen did this in a week, with survival binged children in the middle of a dungeon, this wasn't a game to them, the guilds failed them, and they found a new path, going from savage survival to corporate allegience in the blink of an eye.
Remembering her own childhood, her first adventures in the supervised dungeon, it was thrilling and fun, sometimes scary and demanding but never fearful, she never went to sleep hungry or even gone on a survival binge before she was twenty, some of these kids were thirteen and already had days of binge stress, it shattered them, they weren't broken, they were crushed.
Then Allen came along with diamond scales and rainbow breath that made the world alive with color, even helping them face their grief.
In return he only asked that they help each other, holding their hands and leading them to a new kind of game where they were in control, deciding for themselves if they wanted to fight or do nothing at all and they chose him over the people that let them down.
Feeling tears falling down her cheeks she could hear muffled sniffs and sobs from the audience of world leaders that betrayed their own children.
"Before you joined us", Hatula took the stage, "it was decided that the guilds will pay back your loans to the dragon", looking sternly at the defying children, "and in case the debt was too high a mature guilder will take your indentured service for the alotted time", finding someone in the crowd, "the Andorians guild will return or reimburse any item extorted in the Goliath's pass to this day"
A girl stood up, "I won't go back", she protested against shocked gasps, "I will relinquish Sutul to a guilder", she sniffed, "and start with a new avatar", her shoulders shaking uncontrollably, "but I will not give up my position in the bank" she fell back to her seat.
A chorus of similar sentiments started growing from the children's rows, "ebough", a blonde hair man shouted, "we will not be dictated to by errant children", adding, "it is obvious none of them can be trusted with priceless avatars", turning to the children, "but you all have duties in your own guilds".
"The guilds abandoned us", this coming from a boy about fifteen, "when the bandits broke Sherin's hand they laughed and told us how nobody cared for a bunch of children too weak to defend themselves", addind, "and when we came to ask for help from the guild patrol they were the same men".
"We heard the children" the arbiter stopped the arguments starting to rise, "let them log off", looking at the crowd, "so we can come to rational decisions about the situation"
In a short time none of the children were present and more than a few adults were replaced by different representatives.
"The children are in the dragon's castle right now", the arbiter started laying the negotiations table, "it will be three days before the teleportation circle is complete", moving his gaze through the crowd, "I will personally be in the castle to supervise their treatment until they can be retrieved", stopping to look at Meroa, "how are you doing in supplies?"
Shaking her stupor, "we are well provisioned for at least a month of siege", adding, "and can forage the surrounding dungeon regions for more"
"Aren't you in the middle of the Afriat path?" The arbiter sounded surprised, "are the giants not threatening you?"
"We pushed back the giants and have plans to start patrollimg the area soon", the answer won her more than a few surprised stares.
"Then lets get to business", the arbiter struck his hammer, "negotiations for the release of the stolen children begins now with the AshMourn guild representing the absent perpetrator and the Andorians guild representing themselves for instigating the situation that allowed this to happen"