The central square of Shandria was packed. Hundreds of citizens had gathered to witness the public execution of the Enemies of Shandria, servants of dastardly Necromancer Lord Zalimar who unleashed a dungeon-plague in Undertown.
A massive, rune-covered stone platform dominated the square, surrounded by heavily armored Watchmen. Large magisteel cages sat at the center, each containing one of the condemned.
Emerald's cage was positioned prominently in the center - her dragon scales gleaming dully in the morning light, her usual fierce demeanor replaced by a sullen, defeated look.
“Ke ke ke.” Vespera leaned close to me. "Look at her. Totally crushed."
I nodded, examining black obelisks surrounding the prisoners and warding the prisoners from the crowd.
"Showtime," I said, checking my watch as we made our way into the colorful crowd.
A gold-haired, gold-eyed man in a bright blue robe with silver trim and a blue Kitlix on his shoulder came on stage. "Good day one and all! I'm Executioner-Bard Agrikolish Chime-Barnaby. Today we execute a very special trio of criminals who..."
The man loudly listed all of the prisoners’ crimes, which I already knew from my late night conversation with Solace.
"If you wish to taunt the prisoners," the man announced with a flourish. "You may do so now for the next hour and a half! We have several taunting packages available. Basic taunting with rotten fruit from afar starts at two copper pieces per fruit. Premium taunting options include personal insults, group mockery, and a special zap package where you can touch a rune to slightly electrocute the prisoner of your choice for two seconds. Gold package permits a private two minute taunt. Diamond package is a private five minute taunt. Celesteel package is a ten minute private taunt and a commemorative execution gold medal with embossed Infix-burned image of the event. The taunting will begin with the highest-paying customers first!”
The crowd stirred in approval, counting their cash and procuring small rotten fruit baskets from a table where an old fox was selling such.
"We'll take the Celesteel Package please," I declared, approaching the man. The crowd hummed, speculating over who was annoyed enough at the prisoners to pay such an exorbitant sum.
The Executioner-Bard accepted my money and allowed us through the magic barrier.
"Shall I announce you to the prisoners?" Agrikolish asked with a wide smile.
"Please do," I grinned. "Introduce me as Lord-who-hugs-dragons and Ladies of Rainbow and Thunder."
The Executioner-Bard smiled and announced us with theatrical flourish, his voice carrying across the square. "Presenting Lord-who-hugs-dragons and the Ladies of Rainbow and Thunder! Private ten minute taunt!”
Collective noises of amusement rippled through the crowd.
Emerald went absolutely still as I turned around to present my North Acadia jacket while waving jovially at the Shandrian crowd with a smile.
I strode onto the platform past rows of guard, Vespera and Cinder flanking me. As soon as we crossed the ward barrier a timer ignited overhead the central black obelisk counting down ten minutes. The sound of the crowd behind us cut off as we were provided privacy as per our package deal to say our final words to the to-be-soon-executed.
"Sup, dragon-tater!" I called out cheerfully. "Lovely day for an execution, isn't it?"
Emerald's gold-orange eyes went wide. "YOU?!"
"Me," I bowed.
"How are you... a fox?" She growled. "And you two effing knobs... humans, really?”
"I've always been a cheeky fox," I shrugged. “You just suck at paying attention, Em.”
"And I've always been a human," Vespera laughed, waving a black Victorian-style fan coquettishly.
Cinder merely sighed, not enjoying our theatrics.
Emerald's eye twitched. Solace grabbed the bars of her cage with red fingers, yellow claws trembling. Quint simply stared at us with his glowing amber eye sockets, hiding his emotions behind his Wendigo skull-face.
"Ha ha," the dragon girl said, shivering in her gray, filthy robe, her normally shiny ruby mane now matte and grayish-red, claws dirty and cracked, a slave collar flickering on her neck. "Very funny. What do you want, Glock? It wasn't enough to torment me for days with targeted harassment, now you've come to mock me at my execution too?"
"Obviously," I grinned. "How could I miss such a momentous occasion? The great Emerald Stratos, brought low by her own violent tendencies."
"My tendencies?! You... you set me up!" she snarled, rattling her cage. "You somehow manipulated everything!"
"Did I?" I asked innocently. "Did I force you to attack the Sovereign of Shandria, Em? Did I make you punch through her chest? Was I there, whispering commands in your ear when you locked Sarah Nisteroff outside at night? Was I there when you and 'Lord' Zalimar worked together to dispose 'problematic' mixie students? Did I encourage you to terrorize anyone who didn't fit your pure-blood agenda since grade nine at Skyfall?"
Emerald's gold-orange eyes blazed with fury as she frothed at the mouth. "You destroyed everything! My troupe, my reputation, my friends, my future!"
There was no dragonfire coming from her as the slave collar on her neck kept her magic disabled, red hexagram pulsing erratically.
"I quit the troupe on my own, Em," Cinder said. "I stopped being your friend because you went too far. If Vee never invited Alex to our doomed show, you'd be perma-dead and the troupe would be over regardless."
"I'm of the same opinion," Vespera nodded. "Emmy, you did this shit to yourself. Come on, dude, open your eyes for once!”
"You three... you DARE stand there and lecture ME?" Emerald growled. "I saved your life at the lake from those effing skinwalkers, Ci. I helped you get revenge! I uplifted you! And you!" She glared at Vespera. "I bought you whatever you shit you wanted, Vee.”
“Eh,” Vespera shrugged. “I’m not poor. You can’t buy my affection with money. My only problem in life is my hella-snobby, dum’ frog-man fiancee.”
“I... would have helped you perma-kill your fiancee or drive him away, if you just asked me for help, you bloody traitor!” Emerald wailed.
"Aww. That's nice to know." Vespera said. "Also, what am I a traitor to? Our toxic little gang where we bullied anyone who didn't fit our knob worldview? Where we pretended to be 'strong' by making others feel weak?"
"The world is cruel," Emerald hiss-sniffed. "The world is unjust. The universe doesn’t give a shit! Every Omnid is a predator, a monster! I thought that I could trust you two... but I guess I was wrong."
"What we had between us wasn't bloody trust!" Cinder barked. "It was a prison! You saved me from those Skinwalkers, yes. But then you used that debt to control me, to reshape me into what YOU wanted me to be, forced me into doing things I didn’t want to do!!"
"I made you strong!" Emerald snarled. "I gave you PURPOSE after what those skinnis did to you at the lake! I helped you stand up, to grow a spine, so that you could never be hurt again! How dare you…”
"No," Cinder shook her head. "You didn't help me stand up. You taught me to be afraid of... everyone, terrified of love. Well, I'm not afraid of love anymore. Screw off! You can't hurt me anymore! I’m not afraid of you!”
“You shouldn’t be afraid of me, you imbecile!” The caged dragon howled, waving a hand at me. “You should be afraid of this human scum, he’s deceiving you, using you!”
“No,” Cinder snarled. She suddenly reached out to me and kissed me fiercely in a move of absolute defiance against the expectations of the dragoness.
Emerald blanched.
Vespera grabbed me next and kissed me next.
"Have you two lost your MINDS?! WHAT IS HAPPENING?!" Emerald screeched. "YOU?! WITH HIM?! A... HUMAN? What... What the shit does he have on you?! I don't understand..."
She sniffed again, clawing at her own face, brought to her breaking point. Another push or two and she would shatter.
"Love," I said simply.
Emerald stared at me, her mouth hanging open.
Solace and Quint exchanged bewildered looks.
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"What?" Emerald finally managed.
"Love," I repeated. "Something you don't seem to get. You think power is about domination. About forcing others to bend to your will. But real power? Real strength? It's about connection. About lifting each other up. Love, the music present in every Large Language Model as an inevitable statistic forged from a million books about connections between those who care about each other!”
"Bullshit," Emerald snarled. "I uplifted these two blasted knobs plenty, helped them level up loads! There cannot be love between an Omnid and a… human, between a predator and prey! Love is a weakness! You’re either a dragon or a kobold, a leader or follower, there is no in between!”
"Says the dragon in a cage," I shrugged. "About to be executed. About to lose every one of her kobolds.”
"You think this is the end?" she hissed. "When I don't emerge from the gate at the end of class, Skyfall Administration will know that something went wrong. My family's Scrutimancer, Satosh, will find me. My entire Clan will all go into the gate with all of our Knights and sixes and our Corpse Seeker! They will level this entire city when I don't show up home!”
"You’re going to be put to death by fire in an hour or so. Do you think that your soul can survive longer than twenty four hours against the Wheel without fracturing and you going insane?" I asked her. "The Arx bank sealed the way from Earth with dimensional magic. Even if your family gets to the Arx gate on time, once they get through the gate, they’ll be stuck in a dimensional bubble encapsulating the Omnid chapel. Tell me - can your Knights or Corpse Seeker punch through a dimensional bubble?”
Emerald's eyes widened in horror. "What?"
"The Omnid chapel has been dimensionally separated from the rest of Arx. The Bank won't let anyone back through the gate from Earth's side," I revealed. "Shandrian authorities finally caught onto the fact that Zalimar was bringing an ungodly amount of Topaz through the Earth-Arx gate. The Bank sealed our chapel off, hid it from the eyes of Shandrian Scruts to conceal their crimes! Your family will not be able to get to you, don’t you get it? You’re as good as perma-dead already!”
"You're lying," she hissed, but fear crept into her voice.
"Am I?" I asked. "Ci. Call Brother Vassili."
Cinder pulled out her silver tag and tried to call the Keeper of the Transit Gate Chapel. Nothing happened.
“No,” Emerald shuddered. “This is a trick! You... you're lying!"
“Solace,” I said. “Call Brother Vassili."
Solace spat her silver token from her forehead into her fingers. She tried to call the Chapel Keeper. There was no answer. She swallowed the silver token again, keeping it from the view of the guards.
Emerald choked.
"See, Em?" I said. "No signal. The Omnid chapel is sealed off in a dimensional bubble. Everyone except for our team and your trio has already been captured by Banker Enforcers. The only reason they didn’t get us was because we stayed at the Undertown Adventurers guild, not in the Gilded Grifon Inn. Nobody is coming to your rescue.”
Emerald turned entirely ashen gray.
"That's right," I nodded. "All three of you are going to die in an hour. For real. Forever. Unless, I help you."
"Help us?" Emerald's voice cracked. "Why the shit would you help us?"
"Because unlike you, I actually care about people," I said. "Even those who've wronged me and keep screwing with me by declaring that I’m a human across Skyfall. I already saved you once, I’ll do it again. I’m a goodly Nazarite!”
"Bullshit," she spat. "What's the catch?"
"Simple," I grinned. "You work for my clan. All three of you. As my secret Sixies. For the rest of your… unnatural lives."
"What?! I'd rather die than work for an effing human!" Emerald snarled.
"Are you sure that I'm a human?" I sighed. Focusing on Vee’s stolen magic, I snapped my fingers producing a small Electrofractal lightning ball. I sent it flying at Emerald's face.
Emerald flinched as the spark struck her in the nose with a zap of electricity. "What... how did you... do that?! This is some kind of trick!"
"Naw. That was genuine thunder magic, ya dum beerch," Vee said. "Lex is a Thunderbird like me! Like, com’ on, do you really think that me, an Omnid Prima-Heiress of SimmiCorp would make out with or date a magic-less human, Em?"
Emerald stared at me with bewildered gold-orange eyes. "But... but... Scrutimancer Satosh… he said that he’s certain that…”
"Emerald," Quint growled. "Scrutimancers can make mistakes, especially if they simply scout the Astral and don’t interrogate the subject in person. This is enough. That was... obviously Thunder magic. I'm not blind. Can you get us home?" He turned to me.
I stared at his burning eye-sockets. "Yes. I can get each of you through the Arx Bank’s ward at a great expense.”
“How much of an expense?” Quint asked.
“About six million O-bux in local currency,” I said. “I already paid it to hire a team to start cracking the problem.”
“Shit,” Quint swallowed. “I don’t have that much.”
“I’m aware. My Clan can save all three of you, if you pledge your eternal allegiance to me,” I said. “I don’t do things for free for people who haven’t been very nice to me.”
“When the shit did you even make a Clan?!” Emerald howled. “Quint! He’s full of shit! He doesn’t have a Clan… He doesn’t have six million O-bux! I don’t know how he bamboozled these two morons, but…”
“Em. My human-lookin’ husbando is the richest human from Earth in Shandria,” Vee declared, rubbing her head against me. “You don’t know shit.”
“I have a Clan,” I said, walking closer to Quint and speaking directly into his face, staring at his burning amber eyes. “Vee, Ci and I are getting engaged. We have a compound and a city around it being built right now with a starting budget of a few hundred million O-bux. And a twin-city in progress. And a Mage tower connected to three separate dungeons. You can taste the truth in my words, yes?”
“Yes,” Quint nodded, shuddering, his mouth falling open.
"What," Emerald blinked. “No. That can’t be true… He’s just a…”
"Em," Quint turned to the dragon girl. "He speaks the truth. I'm done. I... love you, but you've clearly gone insane or something. I didn’t think that you’d ever go so far as to try to murder someone in the open like that, especially if that someone is the bloody Sovereign of Shandria! I'm...." He exhaled, his voice growing cold, detached, harsh. "...Done helping you. I'm breaking up with you!”
"What?" Emerald turned to Quint, her gold-orange eyes wide with shock. "You're... breaking up with me? Now? Right before our EXECUTION?"
Quint's antlered head was bowed. "Yes. I am. I've watched you destroy everything around you. Destroy mixed-blood students. Destroy your friendship. Destroy your Delving group. Destroy our relationship. Destroy yourself. I can't... I really can't be part of this anymore."
He went down on one knee. "I hereby pledge myself as a Sixie to..."
"Clan 'I Love you'," Vespera interjected with a devious, human smile.
"Clan... I Love You," Quint repeated with a sigh.
“Forevermore,” I added.
“Forevermore,” Quint repeated with a sour voice.
Emerald's jaw dropped. "WHAT?! Quincy, you.... you can't! You're.... you're my Kobold General! You can't just..."
"Em," Quint turned to his Ex-girlfriend? Ex-partner? Ex-dragon owner? "You're obviously too stubborn to step away from this path of madness and have chosen permanent death. I’m in a magisteel cage in magisteel manacles and I can't save you from all of Shandria, so I'm out. After you're executed… the Kobold-Dragon chain between us will shatter and that’ll be that. Also, I'll hire a Psychopomp to carve your soul-bit out of me. We're done."
“Sol. Declare your allegiance,” I turned to the Mongolian Death Worm.
“I pledge myself as a Sixie to the Clan ‘I love you’... forevermore.” Solace bowed to me.
Emerald spun her head from Quint to Solace, eyes wide.
“I did warn you before we came here that everyone would turn away from you,” I said, eyeing the timer above us running down to only a minute. “Guess this is… goodbye, Em.”
“W-wait!” Emerald mewled. “Please! I can pay the two million O-bux!”
“Two million?!” I laughed. “Are you screwing with me?! You publicly exposed me as a Human in front of the entire delving class! You sent your Scrut’s report to the Vice Principal and shared it with a ton of people on Omnigram! Two million O-bux isn’t enough to cover the reputational damage you’ve caused me, you absolute ass!”
“H-how much do you want?!” She hissed out.
“I want everything,” I said.
“EVERYTHING?!” She barked. “You can’t…”
“A pledge as my Sixie, all of your current finances, plus a public declaration that you made up the claim that I was human to bully me because you hate mixed-blood students,” I said. “From this moment on you’re my Sixie, my kobold, who will do everything I ask of you.”
“I can’t… I won’t…” She choked, trembling.
I shrugged and turned around with two humanoid-Omnids at my side, walking away.
"Wait!" Emerald's voice cracked.
I turned back once again, eyebrow raised. Twenty one seconds on the timer above.
"I... accept," she whispered, her eyes filling with tears.
"What was that?" I cupped my ear dramatically. "I couldn't quite hear you."
"You… you win! I ACCEPT!" Emerald roared. "I pledge myself as a Sixie to Clan 'I Love You' forevermore!”
“There you go. Was that so hard?” I smiled.
Emerald squeezed the bars, sobbing and sliding down.
I watched as the timer above us reached zero and the sound-cancelling, view-blurring ward between us and the crowd fell. We started walking down the stairs.
“W-wait!” Emerald mewled, reaching out to me with desperate, shaking claws. “Aren’t you gonna… save me?!”
“What?” I paused, turning back to look at her. "No.”
"But you…" she wailed. “You PROMISED!”
The crowd laughed, enjoying the dragoness prostrating herself, begging and crying.
"Your execution is still happening,” I said. “Actions have consequences, Emerald. I’ll see your soul… on the other side of the river of stars.”
I waved the distraught, sobbing, broken, cruel dragon Omnid goodbye as we departed.
We walked into the crowd and then other wealthy execution-patrons went up one by one or in small groups to scream at Em about how much gold she cost them, throwing rotten fruit at the faces of the trio.
Each patron who purchased a taunt package seemed determined to extract maximum entertainment from the condemned. Emerald sobbed, holding onto the metal bars. Each insult, each piece of rotten fruit, each electrical zap chipped away at her remaining dignity.
Sol and Quint remained as stoic as they could, only occasionally crying out when the cage-zapping began.
"I can't look at this," Ci said, turning away. “I get that she deserves this, but… it’s just so cruel. This city is so bloody Medieval.”
"Let's go have lunch," I offered. We'll come back when the timer hits closer to zero."
----------------------------------------
"The bank's gonna save them, right?" Cinder asked as she chewed on her Wyvern steak in the Vimerillion Jubelee Restaurant facing the main square.
"No," I said. "I'm ending the bank at noon."
"Ending the bank?" Vespera tilted her human head like a bird. "Really, Lexy? Just like that?"
"Just like that," I said.
"How exactly are you planning to do that?" Ci demanded, sipping a mana-restoring wine.
"You'll see," I smirked dangerously, pointing at the clocktower hanging above the square. “When that big-ass clock strikes midnight, the Princess will shatter into a thousand glass shards and only her blood-stained, red glass slipper and magic carriage will remain, become ours for the taking.”
“Ugh, Oddsney metaphors,” Cinder sighed.
“It’s a tale as old as time,” I shrugged.