While the truth of the existence of dwarven cities is debatable to their physical survival, the old underground roads that once were still exist at least in part. Some have been damaged to the point of collapse, the only way sections of those roads have been found, but they will be suffering the same decay as their supposed cities.
Today these roads are the primary dwarven method in their snuggling of goods and bases for their criminal activities. -Of Dwarves and Their Holes
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Adrian
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The next morning as we are once more heading westward after asking my dad if he can point me towards the nearest dragon, fly off in that direction. K and Ria riding on the back of my dragon form.
Ria is laughing as I take unnecessary turns through the air as K just grins at going hunting with me. We should be heading towards a rather large dragon if Randy’s reading of reality can be trusted. I don’t know the type of dragon but I haven’t had any in a while.
My mother was of course not pleased with me running off into danger alone until Kylana went off when she tried to talk us out of it. It is very hard to say no to anything Kylana says. She can be very scary when she wants to, even without using any of the methods she uses during training.
Is that just who she is or due to her being my mother-in-law equivalent?
I glance down over the rolling hills, looking for something out of place. Something that calls out to my draconic instincts. Randy said that there should be a dragon around here amidst the hills and sparse patches of trees.
I look for scorched earth and other marks of a several ton beast moving around the area on a constant basis. There should be something I can use to get a clue to narrow down where my meal will be.
Sadly I see nothing, no upturned earth, blackened ground or upturned trees. At least nothing on the scale that I expect. I circle around again before landing outside of a small village. Randy couldn’t have read the results of his spell wrong, and reality itself does not lie. So I must be missing some piece of information.
Ria and K jump down from my back before I revert to human form. K scanning our surroundings as Ria looks over me during each stage of the transformation.
“You don’t have to stare” I say towards her only for her to smile at me.
I shake my head, silly perverted fox.
“Something smells odd” K says and I immediately sniff the air, focusing on the various scents.
I can smell fires, both for cooking and metalwork, the smell of humans and the rot and filth that lays in the streets. I can’t however tell what scent it is that K finds odd.
“Lets go shopping” Ria says without a care as she grabs both of our arms and tries to pull us towards the gate; not that she succeeds in moving either of us.
“This is a small village” I say.
“So?”
“They’re not going to have what you are looking for.”
“Even more if they saw a flying dragon and panicked” K adds on and I nod. Hopefully I was high enough that I wasn’t noticeable.
“Really?” Ria asks before both of us nod.
She looks down for a moment before smiling and asking “can we try anyways?”
“Sure, but only if both you and Kythia want to” I answer.
Ria then looks over to K, making the best begging puppy dog like eyes she can, only for K to say, “maybe after the hunt is finished” before grumbling something under her breath.
With that we begin the rather long and boring walk to the city gate, arriving there almost an hour later regardless of our quick pace. The gates are open and the guards are chatting unconcerned with the few people moving around. I would have thought that they had missed me flying around earlier if it were not for part of a conversation that I overheard as we passed through the gates.
“. . . ying thing that was over head earlier?”
“Probably just some contender against our lord.”
“Think we should pack up until the inevitable fight is over?”
“No, it probably won’t take long.”
“Yeah but this one was smart enough not to just rush right in.”
“Intelligence and power aren’t the same thing.”
“Fair point.”
I glance at K as Ria is completely ignoring everything as she looks forward towards the few stall that line the main street. K nods at me, she heard it too.
The three of us walk in unimpeded, the guards at the gate not even looking at us as we enter. Something is definitely wrong with this place. I would have thought it was just lazy guards, nothing I haven’t seen before, but not something I would have expected here. Every village, town and city has some sort of toll in this country.
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Ria pokes at me and whispers, “can I gives spoilers? I wanna shop earlier.”
“Ria spoilers? Really?” I ask.
“But divination and all the proper words are long, archaic or boring.”
“Do you even have anything important to say?” K asks.
“The dragon will show up if we start a giant fight” Ria answers.
“That sounds like a terrible idea” I say.
“Why?”
“Fighting a whole town at once is a horrible idea” K answers.
“Why? You can take them.”
I roll my eyes, “if you start a giant fight and kill a bunch of townspeople, who will sell you things?”
Ria straight up stops for a moment before saying “what if it was looting instead of shopping?”
“Why do you want to get this done quickly?” I ask.
“Fighting isn’t fun.”
K looks at her in confusion as she says “so you want to start a giant fight?”
“The fighting gets done sooner if this happens.”
“We aren’t going to cause a giant brawl and kill a bunch of random people” I say.
K nods as she says “It’s a bad idea even if there wasn’t a bunch of people looking for us.”
“Okay, then can . . . can . . . dibs on not telling Katherine.”
“Telling her about what?” I ask.
“Uhh, that’s not important. I’ll tell you later.”
I don’t really know what to do, or even what Ria is talking about now.
“Foreign Languages Are Not Allowed In Commercial Areas!” someone shouts at the three of us.
I frown and even though I am curious to just what Ria was talking about, we did come here for a particular purpose.
None of us say anything towards the rude comment and continue to walk down the street, K talking a slight lead. She’s still a far better tracker than I am, at least until I figure out how to get more than size of life force out of my Detect Life pings on reality.
I suppose I could try that here, a dragon should have more life in it that any of the villagers but Randy did say that this method of detection broadcasts information on me to any trying to listen.
We wander the village for several minutes before I stop us and ask, “have you smelled anything?”
“No, nothing but the odd animalkin” K answers.
I glance to Ria only to see her shake her head. We already walked most of the streets and after the guards' uncaring attitude of seeing me flying earlier it may not be the best idea to go asking around about a dragon.
Whatever dragon Randy sensed clearly has some sort of relationship with the village. Perhaps we should try something else? Scent tracking hasn’t worked for anything but maybe causing some suspicion from the villagers and asking them straight up is unlikely to be favorable. . .
Crude raw magic it is then. I snap while pushing my will onto the fabric of reality. My fingers silent as if I hadn’t actually snapped as it ripples not through the air but the pattern, specific types of things producing an echo that I can read as I leave not only Detect Life but also for gold, and silver.
I just need to find a powerful life force near a lot of those metals. A dragon's greed would cause any to gather a hoard and of I can find that I’ll find the beast.
I grin, I didn’t find a massive blob of life but there are piles of gold and silver stashed in the village. All of them pretty close to each other too. . .
“We need to go back to the trading area. We won’t find what were looking for here” I say.
“Why? There’s nothing there and I can’t smell anything over all the random stuff laying about” K says.
I just smile but she follows me anyways. With that same smile I lead the two of them to one of the shopping that we passed over earlier. Seeing the sign in front of it gives some cover to the treasures that lay beneath the building but no Goldsmith would have hundreds of pounds of gold and silver just laying scattered in a basement.
The shop itself has several pieces scattered around the shelves, each of fine craftsmanship and intricate detail, placed in a manner I find ascetically pleasing when combined with the paints and rugs that fill the gaps. So many shinny metallic colors.
I don’t pay attention to the proprietor as I take in the scene. I should have come here earlier.
“Did you just want to look at gold and silver?” K asks.
“What? No, it is a coincidence” I answer while taking in the rest of the store.
When I finally look at the owner, he smirks at me. A giant of a man, easily seven feet tall made of mostly muscle and bone. Too much muscle in my opinion but he in his smirk says, “took you long enough little one.”
Little one? . . . Crap, he knows and is a dragon. Why didn’t he show up on my detection?
“Confused little drake? I knew about you before you entered the village. You did manage the best time to find me out of all the other younglings but . . .” he doesn’t get to finish the sentence as K charges at him while drawing the sword at her side.
I glance at Ria who moves to get a shot with her foxfire before moving in to join K in melee. The noise outside of the shop quickly dying down.
The villagers all know he’s a dragon and plan on just watching? Why?
K's blade cuts into the man's skin but does not go near as far as it should have. But the scent of draconic blood hits my nose and I smile. K frowns, and has to lose her blade as the man kicks her away.
“Loyal girls, do they even know what you are?” the man asks as I retrieve a spear from Void Cache and thrusting forward.
The sudden appearance of the dwarven made spear surprises him though not enough for me to get a lethal hit. The tip slices into his side, leaving a gash but not deep enough to hit any of his organs.
Pushing my advantage, I cast on of the simplest of spells. A cantrip, Jolt releasing a small jolt of electricity onto the metal shaft of my spear as I twist reality. With ease, the fabric bends to my will and a bolt of lightning erupts out of my hand and races down the path of least resistance.
With crackling thunder the tip of my weapon releases the electrical charge into the flesh of the dragon in human form. The scent of ozone fills the room as the lightning is discharged. Unlike all the others that I have used this on, he does not get blown back nor fall over dead. No, instead the electricity is drawn up to a ring on his finger which absorbs it.
The man laughs, “you’re going to have to do better than that drakeling” clearly not taking me seriously before taking a step forward. Now too close for my spear to be of use, he makes a jab at my throat I manage to dodge only due to the reflexes that I’ve gained through spars with K.
I slam my palm on his chest trying another element, or rather the inverse of an element. Artic blue flames cover the two of us, the dropping temperature doesn’t bother me but I smile as it does have an effect on my foe. Not as much as I would have liked. Another one of the rings on his fingers glows slightly probably doing something to fight off the cold.
The man shoves me backwards as he inhales sharply. Drawing in far more air than the humanoid torso should be able to before he exhales a torrent of flames.