I woke the following day, half expecting the city guards at my door. Thankfully the peaceful sounds of late morning were all that greeted me. After cleaning up and getting dressed is some comfortable but upscale clothes I rang for breakfast.
Badb and me sat on the main balcony enjoying the meal after it arrived. Our plans for the day were simple, I was checking out the market while Badb checked out the city from above. We were working on the simple principle that the most warded area was likely where the dragon was held. With no real need to stay long our main goal was finding that, freeing the dragon and getting out of town.
“Try not to get into trouble.” I warned Badb knowing his passion for shiny objects.
“Me? Never.” His not so innocent voice had a hallow ring in my head but there wasn’t much I could do.
“Yeah sure.” All I could really do is laugh.
With that he flew out the window laughing off to accomplish his tasks. I headed down the lift to head into the market. The main city market wasn’t far from the inn luckily and as I wandered the various shops and stalls my mind wandered. All of these people could be dead in the next few days, at least most of them. Their blood would be on my hands in some way or another, but still I knew my actions wouldn’t change.
It wasn’t that I didn’t feel for them it was that I truly believed what I had been told. This domain would fail if I didn’t act. If the dragons weren’t freed and the hatchlings released the magic of this domain would continue to dwindle. It wouldn’t be fast, but it would happen maybe a hundred or even a thousand years from now this domain would collapse. The lack of magic being distributed throughout the domain would cause the barriers that held it together would fray, becoming untethered. Once that happened it would only be a matter of years for it to be absorbed into the void.
In my eyes there was no choice, thousands dead today or millions tomorrow? That was the choice I faced. There wasn’t an easy answer and I knew the majority of the blood fell on the hands of greedy nobles, it let me act and keep my sanity. I picked up a couple of random items at various shops, nothing specific really. A bauble here or there and an extra cloak, nothing stood out. The few minor magical items I saw held no interest. Most of what I bought were books, at one stall I bought three books on the dwarves just in hopes that they would expand my understanding of the hearty folk under the mountains. I found a couple on the elves and picked those up as well.
By midafternoon I was headed back to the inn, having mostly forgotten about the night before. That was until I saw Kerick swaggering through the market, his arrogance on full display. I watched him stop to bully a dwarf at his stall and felt my anger flare. Without thinking about it my will twisted across the market focusing on the man. Suddenly he froze in place at the feel of my grip on his shard. His face paled and I watched as his knees gave way, my grip slowly tightening on his singular shard. Once he was unconscious I let go, strolling away from the crowd the was growing around the guard. He lay on the ground, completely at a loss as to what had happened.
I hadn’t crushed his shard, though I had been tempted. The pressure on it had just been painful enough to make the man pass out. His death wasn’t what I wanted, at least not yet mostly because I didn’t want the blame to fall on someone else. Killing him just wasn’t important, not to me I guess it might matter to him. After that I headed back to the inn, disgusted with the entire scene. I took the lift to my penthouse and ordered some lunch with nothing left to do but wait for Badb to return. He made it back before I ordered dinner, after spending most of the day on the balcony reading casually.
“Found it.” Was his first words as he landed across from me on the balcony railing. “It’s not in the city center this time, the lords manner is on the outskirts.”
“Might not be as destructive then?” I asked curiously.
“Probably not for anyone but the nobles, everything around it is nobility.”
“That’ll be a nice change.” I smiled thinking that if we were lucky only those who deserved it would die.
“The wards look the same as the last one.” He hopped to my shoulder as I rose to order dinner. “Order some pork, your fascination with beef is getting boring.”
“It’s the preferred red meat don’t knock it.”
“This inn is known if for its roasted pork boy, if you won’t try it I will.”
He was right, the pork was exceptional. We ate and then waited for the full darkness of night before slipping into the night. I took the form of a shadow again to get close to the manor before we slipped into the earth. The wards had the same weakness underneath, meant to stop dragons not men.
I passed the wards as the overwhelming pressure pushed down on me again, it was easier to resist this time. Either this dragon wasn’t as strong or just wasn’t capable any longer. Rising from the ground the giant red dragons eyes slowly turned toward me, glaring in hate.
“What are you doing here youngling?” His rumbling voice dug into my mind. This time I knew I could resist it but I didn’t. Rather than explain I simple let the previous experience come to the forefront. The red blinked in surprise, taking it all in. “So you’ve come to me, I see.”
“Is it what you seek dragon?” I asked.
“Call me Ferus mage, it is what I seek. Go do your looting then return and allow me my brief vengeance.”
“We will be back soon.” With that we left, floating through the walls. The vault wasn’t any different from the last except there was no powerful items, no ring either which made me wonder. I knew there were two more but who had them? I knew one of them had to be the king, it only made sense but who had the other one? I needed to recover those rings and destroy them or releasing the dragons would be pointless.
We emptied the vault almost casually, collecting the riches like they were nothing but baubles. The truth was at this point I didn’t need it for personal use, I just didn’t want someone else using it to start the process over again. I had enough wealth to support myself and thousands of others for generations. It did make me question the amount of gold in the vault, what was the point? The amount served no purpose, the nobility controlled every aspect of the country so why the obsession over collecting wealth? Things to try and understand later, now I had a dragon to free.
We drifted back down to the chamber and respected the same trick. Removing the earth that bound it from breaking the chains, then we slipped into the ground and waited. Several hours later the destruction began, again the first to die was the lord and his guards. From there the chaos spread, Ferus ended up destroying the noble district completely but luckily for the commoners he died before making it out of the district. The body was harvested much like Krexels , and we moved on without anymore fanfare. Quickly teleporting to the next bolt hole, the inn would likely assume I fled in the chaos.
Checking the map again, there were three captive dragons left that gave off the warning. One in another major city and oddly enough two in or around the capitol, though after a few minutes of thought it made sense. The king and his family had to maintain a power base and controlling two of the dragons would grant that. It also meant both rings were likely there. I decided to hit the remaining city before heading to the capital. Badb spoke up before I headed to bed for the night.
“What are your plans for the harvested dragons?”
“I don’t have any, mainly I took them to stop others from having it.”
“You should craft some true armor from them. With your magic it would t be to difficult and you never know when you’ll need it.”
“From which one?” I hadn’t thought about, assuming my magical armor would good enough for me but maybe he had a point.
“Krexel of course!” He sounded surprised I would even consider Ferus.
“Is that just because he was a black and you’re biased?” His cackling laugh was all the response I needed.
“Not the only reason.” Came through his laughter finally. “You’re also not someone to stand out and his armor will be more oriented toward the stealth you prefer.”
“That’s fair, I’ll work on it tomorrow.” Than with another thought I added. “Or the day after, I want to check out this cottage. I still don’t know why I was drawn to it.”
I had been thinking about that piece of land, what was it that had made me take it. There was something there, but I had no clue what it was. The mystery was driving me nuts right now, there was no logic to the act. After studying the map the closest bolt hole was two days travel from the cottage, but I couldn’t let it go. I would have to take the time and it might help keep suspicion from us, if the king was paying attention the odd half elf showing up in each city before the dragons were freed might get noticed.
I went to bed still puzzling out the mysterious cottage. I would solve that mystery, make myself some armor and figure out the next step tomorrow. For now the days activity was enough and sleep called me to its embrace. I was as drained as the previous experience but the feeling of drain was still strong enough to exhaust me.