Astrid felt both relief and a curse to have Hreti sitting to the side of the room, watching over her second attempt to bring one of their packmates back. Skarde was having none of her arguments. Every time she mentioned the dungeon or magic, he'd spit the word heretic at her. "Then choose."

"You have made a foul deal with this hole?" Skarde kept none of the anger and fury from his words. When Astrid nodded, he spat on the ground. "And Hreti hasn't?" Another nod. "Then I'll fight him. I want a clean death. Burn me afterwards." His eyes were fixed on Hreti, not Astrid.

Hreti had insisted on a more formal fight arena. They would both be given a shield, a sword, and the terms would be decided just prior to the fight. "Take up your damned weapon and shield and fight me, then." Unlike Astrid and Skarde, Hreti was once more his human self. He'd donned a fine set of mithril plate armor and marveled at how light it was. His people, generally, had no use for the weaker of the two metals; it was either steel or adamantine.

Hefting a shield in his off-side talons and one of the adamantine swords in his good hand, Skarde tried to pull back from the pure rage that would have normally driven him in this form. He focused on Hreti across the open ground of the dark room, his eyes picking out every detail. Hreti had been his first choice for two reasons: he didn't want to die to a heretic and of the two, he trusted Hreti to kill him cleanly.

Looking across at his pack-mate, Hreti heaved a sigh, and then banged his shield with his sword. When Skarde did the same, he advanced, but not slow and steady like a good soldier. He had enough wolf in his heart, though not showing, to charge at Skarde.

The rushed tactic took Skarde off-guard. He tried to pivot away from the flash of metal, but had to raise his shield to block the strike before Hreti tore his side open. Stealing the momentum of the blade, the shield nonetheless lost its integrity to the edge of adamantine and broke apart.

"You're a pig-headed old wolf, Skarde, but you're one of the best fighters I've trained with," Hreti said as he drew back, his own shield intact. "It's an honor to fight one who has fought so long and so well."

Skarde could see his end in the younger man's face. Swift, good with his sword, and moving with the instinct of a soldier twice his age. "And an honor to fight a talented one, but you have two more shields to break, lad."

The next time Hreti took things a little slower. He circled around Skarde, always advancing on his off-hand. Positioning, he knew, could be Skarde's weaker points. As he took one step, putting him just beyond Skarde's reach, he juggled his sword to his other hand and swung fast.

Skarde had never managed the trick of hand-changing his sword, but he'd lived long enough to have counters for it. He deflected the sword with the edge of his shield, then brought his own blade to crash into Hreti's shield to salvage a draw from the encounter. Despite smelling his death approaching, he gave Hreti a big grin.

"Recognized that counter. Knew you would use it." Picking up a fresh shield, Hreti slung it on his right arm and kept the sword in his left. "You always had a dozen counters for every trick I could master. Did you teach me all of them?"

Laughing, Skarde picked up his final shield and fitted it to his still wolfish arm. "Not even half!" It was bluster. Skarde had never held back in teaching Hreti or any other wolf the tricks he knew. Even when Hreti had surpassed him, he hadn't held back.

Hreti hated what he was planning. The big wolf before him knew a lot of counters, but there were some he didn't. Turning to face Skarde again, Hreti dug his feet into the dirt-covered rock and sprinted at the big man. Though Skarde was still in his wolf form, the fact he was holding a sword and shield would be the important part, or so Hreti hoped.

"Wha—?" Skarde had to bring his own shield up to protect his face from Hreti's thrown shield. The metal edges clanged, but neither broke from the impact. The action had been enough, though, to put Hreti into the blind-spot created by the shields. Skarde's eyes widened as, when the shields finally ceased blocking his sight of the faster man, the tip of his sword was coming up toward Skarde's chest.

Astrid lowered her head and closed her eyes a moment before Hreti's blade drove home into Skarde's torso. She already knew the angle and position of the weapon would set it between two ribs and guide the tip to the major arteries above Skarde's heart. Her keen ears could hear the gasped breath, the shuddering motions of someone trying to get the blood flowing into their head again—and failing.

Turning her head up, she howled at the pain of losing one of her companions—one of her pack. When a second voice met hers, she snapped her eyes open to see Hreti having turned back into his wolf form, destroying the light armor he'd been wearing, and loosing his own cry.

Only when their howls ended did Astrid stand up. "Travis, I'd like to burn his body by the forest entrance."

"Yeah. Do you need wood or will you drop a few trees to use?" Travis asked, trying not to get in the way of their ritual.

"We will need wood for his pyre." Walking over to her lost pack-mate, Astrid reached down and hefted his body up and over her shoulder. She hated losing him, and worse still was the knowledge that she could have Brayden revive him, but she knew not only would Skarde hate her for it—she'd hate herself for doing it.

The walk wasn't as labyrinthine as it could have been, not with Fife and Brayden ensuring the tunnels were open and shortcuts made. As she neared the exit, Astrid nodded to Fife and Brayden, and took Skarde out with only Hreti as her companion.

----------------------------------------

"Okay, Pen, we need to talk. You maxed out mage. What do you want next?" Travis was relieved now everything was calm, that he could talk with his love. That it was business only slightly bugged him. "Or do you want to know what spells you got first?"

"Sure, lay on me what I can do while I think of what to work on next. If those goblins are going to keep sending out armies, I'm going to get all the levels in everything." Penelope stretched out in her boss room, enjoying that it was now big enough that she could really extend her wings.

"Okay. You have Magic Dart, still. You have Fire Rain, Shield of Mana, Ice Storm, Forgefire, Confuse, Elemental Shift, Summon Spirit, and Shield Other." Travis read off the impressive list for Penelope. "I have an idea what some will do, but you're definitely going to want to talk to Katelyn about this."

"Yeah, yeah. Any other classes researched?" Penelope asked.

"Not yet. I have the four basic ones, and unlocked Helping Hands. I don't know if anyone in the city has noticed yet, or even if it's affecting them. Maybe they do need to be in the dungeon to count?"

Penelope ran through the list in her head. "Shield of Mana?" A shiver ran through her as her green scales shimmered with blue light. "Ooh, I've seen wizards use something like this on other people. Really nice way to help someone take a few hits before getting hurt. Right, testing. Northridge doesn't have a lot of magic users. You have the two priests, our own resident adventuring group, and that's about it."

"So we ask our regular contact, Rupert?" Travis asked.

"Yeah, I can do that. In the meantime, you might as well give me the Soldier class." Standing up, Penelope still had moments where she forgot she was now quadrupedal. She grunted and glared at the wall—then breathed a gout of finely atomized acid. The stone fizzled and hissed for a moment, but the green mist slowly poured down it and into the moat of the stuff around her room.

After squeezing into the tunnel, she then felt a shiver. "So I'm a Soldier now?"

"According to this you are. Do you still have those spells?" Travis asked.

"Shield of Mana." Laughing, Penelope nodded. "Yeah, I still got that. What did that cost to do?"

"A thousand steel for Soldier. I think I've got a pile of that still in the buffer. Enough to eventually give it to everyone. You should have Shielding Stance."

"Shielding Stance? Oh, I felt that. Any idea what it does?" Making her way through a gap that Fife and Brayden had left, Penelope started taking the stairs up to the surface. "At some point it would be nice to get stairs down here to my room. Or another big room up near the surface that a dragon can fit in."

"Why not use the tower? There are rooms in there that should be big enough for you."

"I like being underground, though, and I also like being close to you. The tower is nice, because I can be lazy and fall off it to fly, but I enjoy napping close enough that I can reach you fast." It wasn't so much of a squeeze for her in the last part of the dungeon. With the tunnel still being extra wide, she could make it past people without pressing them against the wall. She nodded to each as she passed and even paused when Mixie came running out and wanted to pet her nose. Stopping, Penelope made a soft rumble that, after Mixie had run off squealing in excitement, she realized was a purr.

Only when Penelope had slipped from the big doors of Travis' tower did she shake herself and shiver. Her wings were now merely folded at her sides and no longer sandwiched there. "I have no idea how this will work if I get bigger. I might have to start living in the tower then, and only come down for special occasions."

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"So no more snuggling around my crystal?"

"Trav, I would destroy an army to snuggle you." She let out a deep laugh as she walked through the city street. "I did destroy an army to snuggle you." After a week of flying and walking around, Penelope could see that she was just another common sight for most folk. Except for the children. She seemed to be followed by a perpetual swell of young faces all peeking out from behind crates, barrels, or bags. Part of her wanted to stop, pull apart their hiding spots, and shout Boo at them.

Travis wasn't privy to Penelope's thoughts, but he did feel the need to get something off his proverbial chest. "I'm sorry this upgrade had to go so far. It seemed like something we needed, but—"

"Don't, Trav. I'd made peace with this a while back. Without a dragon, you'd always appear weaker than the city, let alone when Breath of Spring gets her boss upgrades. It's not so bad, especially since I can fly." Penelope put a lot of joy into the final words, especially since taking to the skies did engender that level of giddy happiness in her.

Trying to let it be, Travis knew he'd apologize again at some point, but for now he moved on. "I still remember that first time Robert and Katelyn came to the city to trade. We've all come so far thanks to that."

Blushing a little as soldiers nodded and saluted at her, Penelope remembered the feeling of panic back then. "I felt so exposed. When it was just you and me, or when we had the two of them and Steph…" She winced at bringing up his name. Like Travis, she felt bad about that act. Almost at her destination, she took note of the guards at the temple. "Looks like the priest gets his own squad of guards to defend him now."

"Even when things were getting really grim on the walls, there was always a squad here," Travis told her. "I don't know if he negotiated that or if Brolly was not taking chances. Either way, a good investment."

"I'd invite you in," Brother Rupert said, responding to the commotion he heard in the street outside his temple, "but I am not sure you would fit. I will probably need to add a larger section to the temple if you are going to be Travis' messenger with any regularity. What can I assist you with?"

"We—Travis, that is—gained a new upgrade… When did you get that?" Penelope asked.

"Yesterday," Travis said.

Penelope nodded. "A new upgrade yesterday. It is a boost to specifically allow allies to receive boosts as if they were dungeon creatures. Have you noticed any change in your spellcasting?"

"I am not sure if you noticed, but my services have seen a recent downturn in their requirements. I'd exclaim about the horror of peace breaking out, but I rather like giving sermons to the living." With his piece said, and the situation already understood, Rupert focused himself and cast a simple heal spell. At least, it should have been a simple heal spell.

After having trained as a neophyte for over a decade, and then spent years as a priest in his own right, Rupert had a grip on what his divine magic could do and how much he had to work with. Now, however, instead of the calm river he'd cultivated with his dedication and training—he had a wild river that only fed his spell more power while he tried to draw back and reduce it. When he finally managed to control his spell and finish it, Rupert looked around and felt a touch of his magic in everyone nearby—when he'd only planned to heal himself. "Interesting."

"You just said 'interesting' like Katelyn says interesting. So?"

"Something is enhancing my mana. Both my own capacity and my conduit to the Scales seem greatly increased. I'll need to send a message for someone to come and investigate it further, but I didn't detect any hostility." Rupert had previously sensed something a little like what he described, but it was only when he'd visited the most developed city in the kingdom. "I believe I should contact that dear lady Fairheart, before she does something that would be spectacularly entertaining."

The gleam of anticipation in Rupert's eyes told Penelope all she needed to know about how quickly he would contact his peer. "I'll leave that to you, of course. I wouldn't want to overstep or anything."

"He's going to prank her, isn't he?" Travis asked. His vision through Penelope's eyes dipped slightly. "Figured. I guess with the siege lifted there's not going to be as much gold flowing to either of them, but Rupert got the bulk of it. Speaking of gold, I have a pile of people mining it now. I want to pay this army to go away."

Nodding to what Travis had said, Penelope wound up turning it into a slight bow toward Rupert. "Thanks for confirming that it worked. That effect should be city-wide." She thought about waiting for a reply, but decided against it. Being a dragon surely had perks that included avoiding small-talk. Still, she waved her wing toward Rupert as she turned and started to walk off.

Sighing as Penelope left, Rupert let out a small laugh. "A little more exciting than working in the inner parts of the kingdom. Oh, no, Your Balanceship, I look forward to roughing it." He spat on the ground and then laughed more. "The way this is going, they'll own the damn city. Better than a noble doing it."

"You heard that last bit?" Penelope asked Travis, her hearing more than up to the task of hearing Rupert's angry rejoinder to the conversation. "We're going to have to be careful of that."

"Brolly said some stuff about it once too, I think. I get the feeling that there are still a lot of ways this could all screw up for us if we don't take the right path."

"Sounds like Brolly is my next person to talk to. It's funny, Trav, but being a dragon seems to be opening doors." The oddness of the phrase hit Penelope the moment she'd said it. "That's one of your sayings, isn't it?"

"Yeah. And that's probably a good ide— Oh. Interesting. There are a pair of soldiers from the relief army trying to shake someone down in the alley nearby. I can't hear what they're saying, but they're talking to a gun merchant who doesn't want to be there. Second alleyway on your left."

Following Travis' directions, Penelope paused at the entrance and looked in. Sure enough, two soldiers in the foreign army's livery were standing over a man who was on the ground.

"It's not much, you see. Only, we saw you had sold out and, what with being owed for this disappearing northerner army, we figured you could help pay," one of the soldiers said.

"Pen, Stephan just left the dungeon and he's getting some city guards to come here. Only stop them if they try to hurt the guy again. Let him give them any gold they ask for, we can sort that out later," Travis said to Penelope. "Ugh. I hate stuff like this. They don't need to do it."

Nodding her head, Penelope managed to make eye-contact with the merchant and she winked at him.

"P-Please, I don't have much! The dungeon is giving away guns to anyone who wants one. Why don't you go ask them?" Seeing a dragon standing behind the two thugs, the merchant did his best to defuse the situation. He didn't want to be there anymore. When they didn't seem to take to that idea, he pulled a gold coin out of his pouch. "Take it, then. This is all I—"

"Don't lie to us. We saw how full that pouch was just now." Swinging his leg back, the thug intended to kick the merchant—but his leg got hooked on something and he almost fell over. "Wha—?"

Turning too, the second soldier spotted the inches-long talon that had hooked his sergeant's greave and froze. "D-D-D—"

"I think you should both sit down and wait right there." Penelope stretched her neck out and loomed over the two, but the alley wasn't quite wide enough for her to get more than one leg to them, which she'd already done. Of course, she could breathe on them, but something told her that Brolly would be upset if she did that. Travis too. "Did you know that my dungeon can see anything happening in this city? He likes merchants. He likes the locals. Can either of you two guess what he doesn't like?"

"Keep them talking. Steph is almost there and he has a few friends," Travis said.

With one claw hooked on the straps of the guy's greave, Penelope cleared her throat at the absolute silence of the pair. "Nothing to say? You're lucky, really. If it had been Fife that caught you shaking down the guy who sold her her first gun, she'd probably have taken your arms off, or worse…"

"W-Worse?" Realizing his leg was trapped, the thug looked back and up at the dragon, starting to reach full-panic.

"You've seen her, surely? A bit shorter than you, wearing so much adamantine that she laughs at a rifle shot. She even fought one of those northerner commanders to a standstill." Penelope tried to keep the talk going, making them focus on her while the other end of the alley was open. "Yeah, you were lucky it was me and not her. She has a temper, too."

It was a morbid fascination that kept them both there, listening to the dragon's patter as she described a demon wearing kobold skin.

"Then there's Katelyn. Hooo boy. If Fife has a temper, Katelyn is a keg of black powder. I saw her melting holes through adamantine. She was taking out those huge brutes the northerners sent at us, the wolves. Well, she focuses all her fire magic down to this little dot, and anything that touches—even adamantine—just melts and boils away." In her groove now, Penelope moved on to others. "And then there's Robert. You know, I thought sludge traps were the worst thing I've ever seen in a dungeon, then he went and made the sludge fireproof, potion proof, and also acidic enough to melt a human into a puddle in seconds. Nice guy, though, but fiercely protective of the merchants in Northridge."

"Are you going to do something?" the merchant asked.

"I have been doing something. I've been keeping these idiots' attention on me so the city guards could get here to catch them." Penelope smiled broadly, showing off all her teeth to their best effect. When the two thugs turned to run—one ripping his greave free of her claw—they both stopped before they'd taken two paces.

"You handled that great, Pen!" Travis was trying his best not to giggle, but was failing at it. "I would have told you they were close, but I didn't want to interrupt."

Timothy Devin hadn't been happy with his break being interrupted. He was rotating off duty at the south-eastern dungeon fort when he and his squad had been co-opted by Stephan. He knew enough about that particular kobold to know his commander, Brolly Windchime, listened to him. Now, with the explanation on the way, he could see the problem. "Hello! I'm sure you both understand the trouble you're in. Sir"—he turned his attention to the merchant, who was standing up—"you want to make a complaint?"

"I absolutely do! They were trying to shake me down! If the—uh…" Something in the merchant's brain sparked, warning him to not insult a dragon. "If this heroic dungeon creature hadn't happened along, I don't know what would have become of me!"

Edging around the two thugs after they'd been disarmed, Stephan approached Penelope at the other end of the alleyway and didn't stop until he'd slumped against her foreleg. "I'm glad I don't have to worry about you getting hurt anymore, but next time can we find a different kobold for the action?"

Travis winced at the question. "Sorry, but you were the closest, and I didn't want them to get away with that." He always felt bad about putting undue weight on Stephan's shoulders. "Take a few days off if you want. Let Pen pull her weight as spokesperson."

"Hey, just because I'm bigger now, doesn't mean you can make jokes about my weight." Penelope leaned low and tilted her shoulder down. "You want a ride back to the dungeon?"

"Let me guess, 'Don't tell Fife'?" Stephan accepted the ride as graciously as he could, even having to use his claws to get onto Penelope's back.

"Got it in one. If she finds out I'm giving out rides, I'll never get her off my back." Rolling her shoulders and spreading out her wings, Penelope checked around to make sure no one was too close, then launched herself into the air. "And, after this, I need to talk to Brolly."

Available at: https://www.royalroad.com/profile/220350/fictions

This story is released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. If you are paying money to see this or the original creator, Damaged, is not credited, you are viewing a plagiarized copy of the story.