Chapter 13

Vella strode through the streets of Aroster with newfound confidence. She had a hard time not reveling in what had just occurred. Not to mention she also had a rather large, rather intimidating dragon following her quite obediently. It seemed as though word of her altercation in the marketplace had spread rather quickly because Vella could hear whispers crisscrossing the people around her as she passed. She enjoyed the notion that she was being viewed as someone intimidating for once. It was the first time in her life that people had parted in her way, that others had made special notice of her in this sort of manner. It was empowering and she liked it. Occasionally her new friend would get distracted by the alluring smell of food, leading to a momentary slowing of the pace, but with a little tug on the collar, the dragon would resume obediently following Vella. As they passed one particular building the dragon gave greater resistance and Vella couldn’t blame him. The smell of charring meat filled the air. Rather than tugging Vella gave a wave and motioned for the dragon to stay, with a faint glow in its eyes Vella knew it would comply. She walked in and bought the largest piece of meat on the grill inside, paying far more than she assumed it was worth. She tossed the meat to the dragon, which happily gulped it down with scarcely a moment’s time to chew. Unfortunately, Vella took this to mean that this was likely the largest meal the dragon had received in quite some time.

Vella didn’t really have much clue what to do with the dragon, so she decided it was best to bring him to the same stable that the horses and aegis were currently inhabiting. It crossed her mind that the stable might not have enough space to house the dragon, but it wasn’t like she had any other ideas anyway. She paused at the gate to the stable, taking care to examine the emblem. It was exactly the same as the one on the coins and on some of the buildings in Aroster. She pressed her hand to the metal and could feel a light humming of magic throughout it. She pulled on the lead again and brought her dragon friend inside the gate, looking around to see if the stable master was anywhere in sight. “I take it you’ll be wanting another stall then?” a voice said behind Vella.

She turned to see the old man who ran the stables, he was closing the gate and must have been behind them when she entered the gate. “Yes actually, how much will another stall be?” she asked. She began to dig into her bag to find the coin purse but the man held up his hand to stop her.

“You’re all paid up miss, Greenbraid took care of that earlier. Besides, I think this great beast could use a little time in the field, don’t ya think?” The man gave Vella a smile that reassured her. She looked back to the dragon and gave it a pat on the head.

“Yes, I suppose he could,” Vella replied, “You don’t think he’ll fly away do you?”

“No, I doubt that,” the stablemaster replied. “He seems quite smitten with you, I doubt he’d fly off unless you told him to do so.”

“Yeah, I guess so. I know I treat him better than his last owner, that’s for sure,” Vella said.

“Ahh, so that ruckus was you then, I thought so based on the dragon,” The stablemaster said with a grin.

“You heard about that?” Vella asked.

“Course I did, it doesn’t take long in a place like Aroster for the word to travel miss, especially if some newcomer waltzes in and makes something like that happen. Was happy to hear about it too, I’ve always hated the poachers who come through here. Serves them right, if you ask me that is.” He gave Vella a big grin. His weather skin stretched across his face, but Vella could tell it was a very genuine sentiment. “Now what do I call this dragon then?” he asked Vella.

“Oh, you know I hadn’t thought about that,” Vella took a quick look at the dragon. “He didn’t exactly have a nameplate or anything.” She looked the dragon over slowly, the moss dragon title fit it well. Even in its rather poor condition, the dragon had thick moss on its back that looked almost like a pelt. She patted it on the back and the moss felt like fur. “How about Licher, does that work for you big guy?” she said as she gave the dragon a pat behind the ears. Licher rubbed his head against Vella’s hand in a gesture that Vella took to be approval. ‘I guess he says yes. Well boy, I have to go check on a few things, but I promise that I will be back.

Vella gave the lead and held it out to the stablemaster as she gave Licher one more nuzzle. The stablemaster took the lead from Vella and started walking toward the grassy clearing behind the stable. He pointed to the field and gave the dragon a pat on the head. He muttered something to the dragon that Vella couldn’t hear and then the dragon tromped off happily and dove into the grass. The stablemaster started to walk back toward the stable when Vella realized she wasn’t completely sure where to head next. She pulled out her map and looked at Aroster again. She had been down and through several streets. She didn’t particularly take Kraevos for the sort of individual that would be at the docks, and she didn’t particularly want to head to the docks alone either. She saw a rather large apothecary marked on the map. Maybe that was the sort of place where magical ideas were exchanged Vella thought. She checked the streets on the map and then decided that was the best place to go next.

By the time Vella reached the apothecary the sun was high in the sky, beating straight down upon the city. She wiped the sweat from her brow and took a deep breath as she looked around. She gazed up at the building, it appeared to be one of the older ones in the city based on the flaking paint and the design. The apothecary was a good floor or two taller than most of the surrounding buildings, but it was the tall white spire rising from its roof that made the building stand out more than anything. At several different spots on the building’s outer walls, Vella could make out the same emblem she’d been seeing around the city. Whatever this symbol meant they sure seemed to take up a lot of the older places in the city.

As Vella surveyed the building, taking care to look for entrances and exits she began to hear a commotion coming from the alleyway at the back of the building. Thoughtlessly, Vella crept quietly to see what was going on. As she began to recognize the voices she ducked behind a stack of crates, keeping herself hidden. There was shouting back and forth, threats being uttered, but what made Vella hide was the fact that she could make out Aren’s gruff voice amongst the others. Vella cautiously peered from behind the crates trying to get a good look at the situation. She saw both Aren and Sani standing in the alley across from a group of men who had blades unsheathed.

The man at the front of the group had a broadsword out and was pointing it directly at Aren as he spoke. “Don’t know who you think you are, but we don’t really like foreigners here, especially not the kind with ties to the kingdoms,” He said menacingly. He wasn’t a particularly tall man, but he was covered in scars and tattoos. From the way he was holding the sword, it was clear that he knew how to handle it and that the threat wasn’t just for show. The men behind him readied their blades as well, though neither of them uttered a word.

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“Don’t know what yer talkin’ bout,” Aren grumbled in reply. “I ain’t got ties to the kingdoms.”

“Wyrm’s dung,” The man spat in reply. “It don’t take a trained eye to see you ain’t from here. Besides, you reek o the kingdoms, just cause you ain’t wearing an emblem doesn’t mean we can’t all see it.”

“Fine, fine, ya got me, I ain’t from here.” Aren began to roll up his sleeves. Vella could make out some tattoos on his arms, though she couldn’t quite tell what the symbols meant. “I was tryin’ to do this peacefully, but if you won’t let that happen, oh well. All I did was ask you a question, thought that was simple enough. You want a fight, you got one, just don’t go sayin’ I didn’t warn you bout this.” Aren cracked his knuckles loudly and then rolled his head from side to side, loosening his muscles. As he did this Sani took a step behind him and then knelt to the ground, placing her palms on the dirt.

“You might be a big fella, but it sure seems like a lot more gut than muscle anyway. Besides, you gotta protect that little lady there with you. It’d be a darn shame if anything were to happen to her,” the man said with an ugly smile cracking his lips. “You ain’t even got a weapon!” the man said as he lunged forward slashing down at Aren. Vella couldn’t help but close her eyes to try and avoid the horrible image about to come. She started to pull her sword from its sheath to go and join the fight when her thoughts were interrupted by the loud cracking sound of metal shattering on impact. She quickly looked back toward the fight and saw Aren standing still, unmoved by the attack. He was unharmed and instead, his opponent’s sword was shattered into countless pieces flying through the air. “What in the name of the gods did you do?” The man yelled out as he dropped what was left of his sword from his hand. “You two, get him!” he yelled at the other men behind him. They both jumped in, swinging wildly at Aren. Vella kept her eyes fixed, to catch whatever she had missed before. As the two men lunged she saw the markings on Aren’s arms glow silver and his skin changed to a slate gray color. With one heaving swing of his arms, he crashed through both of the attackers and sent them flying into the alley’s wall with a crunching sound at impact.

“Fraid’ you got a few things wrong here my friend,” Aren said with a chuckle. “First off, I got the only two weapons I’ll ever need right here. A blade, well it can rust, it can break; arrows, they can miss, but let me tell you, these two big ol’ arms o mine, I trust them just fine. Ain’t any normal blade capable of breaking through my hide anyway. Secondly, an probably more important for you, I ain’t protecting anybody right now, if anything this “little lady” behind me is the one you oughta be afraid of.” Aren stepped to the side with a big grin on his face and said, “All yours.”

Sani smiled and said “Herbae Verum!” Green ripples of energy shot from her fingers into the ground. The tattoos twisting along her arms flowed with green energy, seemingly writhing to life and plunging into the ground like roots. Vines and roots shot forth from the ground, twisting around the unconscious thugs against the wall and two very large branches shot out and grabbed the lead thug, holding him in place. Flowers began to grow from the branches holding the thug in place, and as they opened a green cloud of spores released. As he inhaled the spores his eyes flickered the same bright green and he stopped struggling.

Sani stood up and walked over to the now seemingly willing captive, “This should make you a little more flexible shall we say, help you play those lips loose.” She smiled again before snapping her fingers. The branches let go and went back into the ground, leaving the man standing, staring blankly at Sani. “Now, I’m going to ask you the same questions as before, but this time I really do hope you have basic manners and answer for us. Like I asked before, we’re here looking for someone. Funny as it sounds we’re looking for Kraevos, he probably goes by an alias. He can change his face, so not much to go on there, but he would be someone very strong with magic. He’s somebody who would have been in Aroster a long time, any guesses where we might find him?”

The man, in his stupefied state, took a moment to answer. “You should know, Kraevos is everywhere, he is Aroster. Names change, faces change, places change, but Aroster is Kraevos, his eyes are everywhere.”

Sani frowned, “Care to give me a little more detail? It would help us a lot.” The man just shrugged, unfortunately, he seemed to know scarce little. “Great, that was pretty useless,” Sani said with a sigh. She raised her hand up and with a snap said “Nox,” man dropped to the ground unconscious. “At least we can assume Kraevos is here, not much else though.”

Sani turned around to Aren with a shrug. Aren spoke, “Yeah, not much, but I guess it’s better than nothing.” He brushed a few small pieces of metal off his clothes. “Been a while since I saw you work Greenbraid, still as impressive as ever.”

“That’s just the small stuff, I’ve learned a lot since we last partnered up,” Sani replied. She looked at Aren, “Nice to see that those runes I put on you still work Ironhide. It’d be bad for my reputation if they wore off.” They shared an uneasy laugh. “Seems like forever since we used to go out like this.”

“Yeah,” Aren said scratching his head. “I ain’t been called Ironhide in years.” Aren looked at Sani, fumbling for the right words. “I can’t undo the past here Sani, but I can tell you I’m sorry, and I’d really like to be able to move forward. You an me, we got a lot o history, it’d be a shame if we couldn’t at least get along.” Aren looked down at his feet, clearly afraid of what Sani’s reply would be.

“You’re right, for all the problems we’ve had, I still wouldn’t have made it on the street without you Aren.” Sani took a step forward and put a hand on Aren’s shoulder, “I’ll never understand why you left me, but you’re still the only brother I’ve ever had. It’s not easy, but we need to move on. Besides, right now the whole world could be headed in the wrong direction, can’t say this is the time to hold on to grudges.” Aren grabbed Sani and gave her a big bear hug, trying hard to hide the fact that he was beginning to cry. At first, Sani resisted, but then she gave in and hugged him back. “Come on now big guy, you know you hug like a darned mountain, we just stopped fighting, don’t crush me.”

“Sorry, old habits and whatnot,” Aren said as he wiped some tears from his eyes. “My kingdom's in danger and here I am tearing up like a moron. If Dracyr could see me now she’d make fun o me.”

“How is your little queen anyway?” Sani asked playfully. “Plenty of rumors about you two being an item.”

“Not in this lifetime, that was news from a long time ago.” Aren was red in the face by now, “Not time for gossipin’ now anyways. We gotta keep pounding the cobblestones and shaking down informants. The sooner we’re out of there the sooner we can get Vella out o this mess.”

“She’s fine Aren,” Sani replied quickly. “That girl is a lot more capable than you give her credit for. You’re just overprotective of anybody around you.’

“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ bout, I’m just lookin’ out fer her,” He replied.

“You are such a mother hen you know that?” Sani said as she gave Aren a playful jab to the shoulder. “Anyways, let’s get going, lots more people to ask nicely.”

Sani Turned around and started to head in the opposite direction, with Aren following, grumbling something behind her. As they turned the corner away from Vella she stood up and took a deep breath. It was nice to see the two of them getting along better. Not to mention it made Vella feel a lot safer to see what they were both capable of in a fight. She turned to head back out the way she had entered the alley and heard a voice as she turned. “It’s about time you and I had a talk young one,” Vella turned around to see a short balding man wearing a brown mage's robe. He raised up his hand, his palm open to Vella. He closed his hand into a fist and the world around Vella swirled around her and everything went pitch black.