Amidst the chaos, the group sneaked back to their rooms and slept like logs for the night. The noise and rumble downstairs due to the bar fight couldn’t faze them. The inn wasn’t a high quality one, but having a bed was always better than sleeping on a bedroll. As such, they had an amazing night’s sleep for the first time in a good while.
The next morning, they ate breakfast in the middle of broken chairs and collapsed tables while listening to the innkeeper complain as he served their dishes. They settled their tab, adding some extra coins to the innkeeper for the trouble, before leaving to the adventurers’ guild. In the guild’s lobby, Liza talked with a clerk to clear up their status that currently read as missing/dead in action and collected the reward for clearing Fang Chu’s task.
As for the other tasks, although they’d already defaulted, she officially declared them as failed. It would hurt her record a bit, but there was nothing that could be done. Although they’d spent a lot of time in the forest, most of that time they were stuck at the mausoleum. The only other commission they could turn in was for the Dancing Sage, but now that money wasn’t an issue, they had little reason to do so.
Liza also didn’t sell any information this time. She was afraid that if news about an ancient resting place of a Mirsha believer was found out, it would put them on the crosshairs of other people. Having wealth was a good thing, but it could also lead to one’s demise. Another strong reason for not selling information was because she didn’t want other people to have contact with that devil. Who knew what kind of troubles it could bring?
With all this resolved, they restocked on food and started their journey back to Kalafrana. There was less than a month before their agreed meeting with Lawrence and Liza finally had the funds to learn the information she always sought after. She was impatient to get back.
The return journey was a breeze. There were no problems on the road and not having to carry their gear, a benefit of having Fang Chu around, made everything easier. Though that didn’t apply to Ben. He’d to carry a rucksack with Boro’s cocoon on his back (that was now rather big and heavy) and strange metal weights that clamped on his wrists and ankles. To him, the march back was a torture. He was only spared when they reached the city, something he thanked the heavens for.
To avoid troubles, Fang Chu disguised herself and entered Kalafrana by a different gate from the others. She never expected she would have to return and had no idea of how the situation inside looked like right now. She thought that by this point, Richard and Albek must have learned the truth about her and were on the lookout.
The only reason she even dared to return was because too much time had passed. After they went missing for this long, the security was bound to become laxer. Of course, she was overthinking things. House Ranna strangely hadn’t blown her cover, so there was no one out to get her specifically. It was just something she’d no idea about.
== \\ ==
Liza held Eliot’s hand as they walked, and Ben followed after them while carrying the rucksack with Boro inside. They’d agreed to meet with Fang Chu on the plaza where they first met, so they were going ahead to wait for her. Liza and Eliot made quite the dashing pair and drew the attention of the other people walking in the streets.
The passersby would brazenly look over and whisper amongst themselves, sometimes even pointing at them. Ben was glossed over as usual. To everyone watching he was just someone going in the same direction as the other two. To them, he was clearly not related to that couple.
“Look at that perfect couple.”
“She’s beautiful.”
“What a hunk.”
“The world is really unfair...”
All the attention and whispers made Eliot suddenly feel a bit hot and bothered. He freed his hand from Liza’s and rushed a few steps ahead.
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“I can walk by myself!”
Everyone was flabbergasted. What was that reaction? Were they having a fight? Liza was stunned for a moment. She looked at her hand then at Eliot’s red face as he ran ahead and felt like a bolt of lightning had struck her. Eliot was embarrassed! She tried to contain herself, but in the end she couldn’t. Liza turned her head to the sky and began laughing.
“I won! For the first time, I won!”
Nobody understood what was going on, including Ben. He could only nudge Liza out of her crazy spell and rush after Eliot before he disappeared in the crowd. They did manage to regroup in the end, though the atmosphere was a bit awkward. Things only went back to normal after Fang Chu arrived, as Liza stopped savouring whatever she was going weird about and Eliot got distracted by other matters.
Now that they were all inside the city, the first thing they did was go to Boni’s Family Jewels. Their current wealth was mostly in the form of precious stones and materials, so they needed to exchange them for gold coins they could use. They wouldn’t exchange all of it in one go, as that would draw in too much attention and they weren’t sure Boni would have enough money or even want to exchange for it all. Thus, they turned in a small pouch of stones for a couple thousand gold coins. This amount of money was so large to them that they could barely get excited, as it was all just so surreal.
Since their arrival in Kalafrana was late in the afternoon, they decided to book a large room on Fang Chu’s favourite inn and rest for the remainder of the day. They ordered some snacks and were leisurely eating them while talking.
“That went better than I expected,” said Liza.
“Indeed. I was sure there were going to be people looking for me, yet there was nothing of the sort,” said Fang Chu.
“Still we better keep a low profile and get out as soon as possible,” added Ben.
“We need to buy my sword before we go! I’m not budging before we do!”
“We will. Not only your sword, we’ll buy a lot of things this time. We finally have the funds to do so.”
As they were discussing what to do with the money, Boro’s cocoon that was placed on one of the chairs around the table began to emit faint rays of light. The cocoon had grown nonstop all this while and for the first time it was showing signs of cracking. Thin lines spread through its surface until it finally broke into pieces. From inside of it flew a dark green dragon. His body was much thicker than before and his length was now of three meters. He’d an imposing air previously, but it contrasted strangely with his smaller size. Now he could finally display some of his majesty.
“Ha, now I’m even more amazing and stronger than before!” exclaimed a deep and powerful voice.
“Boro! Finally! I was wondering for how long you were going to be napping!” exclaimed Eliot.
“You can talk now?” asked the others in unison. They were all shocked.
“Talk? That’s nothing! Watch this!” exclaimed Boro.
The dragon rolled itself up and was soon covered in light. Fang Chu could feel a strong fluctuation in the local mana as this happened. A few seconds later the light subsided. Standing where the dragon had been was a small child, probably around ten years old. His skin was black and had a greenish tint to it. The same was true for his long hair that reached all the way to his back. His eyes were of a clear green that would leave anyone looking mesmerized.
“Impressive, right?” he asked with his deep voice.
“Wow, you became a human Boro?” asked Eliot in excitement.
“Just a form I can use to make things easier when traveling. Why would I want to be human?”
“Hey, I’m human!”
“You’re my brother Eliot, that doesn’t count. Besides, the other humans we encountered aren’t as awesome as you are.”
“True, I’m awesome!”
“We are awesome,” corrected Boro.
“Right. Hahahaha.”
“Hahahaha. Oh, food!”
The others were speechless as the two brothers conversed and praised each other while eating what was left of the snacks. It took them a good while to recover. Nobody even mentioned Boro’s rude comment towards humanity. It was true that few could compare if your measure stick was Eliot. They were much more perturbed by the deep voice coming from the frame of a small child.
“Shapeshifting!” exclaimed Ben. “Or is it polymorphing?”
“Ok, I’m now a hundred percent convinced, he is a dragon.”
“You didn’t believe me before?”
“I did, but part of me also found it impossible to be true. How could a dragon just be lying around? Also, he didn’t look like one at all. I know, you explained about western dragons and eastern dragons, but that’s from where you came from. Who knew if it would hold up here in Flanac?”
“Fair enough, I guess.”
“How did you learn to do that Boro?” asked Eliot.
“I don’t know, I just did. After I ate that gem, I just acted on instinct and went to rest. As I digested the power inside of it, I grew increasingly more powerful and discover I could do new things.”
“That’s the power of your race for you,” said Liza. “Every creature has some things it was born knowing how to do. Spiders spin webs, beavers build dams and you can change forms it seems.”
“I’m sure I can do much more!” he said proudly. “I just haven’t seemed to grasp it yet.”
“Right, right, you can stop all the bragging now. I’m going out for a bit. We need to buy some clothes for you. Now that you’ve a human form we can’t have you running around naked.”