Regardless of the near total criminalization of their race after the Darklands finished falling to the demons, there is still two reasons why their race was not marked for extermination as many demihumans and most non-humanoids were. While the basics of mithril and several dwarven alloys are known to human smiths, dwarven craftsmanship is still far beyond what even the best of human artisans are capable of. It is assumed to be due to their unnaturally long lifespans much like the elves. While it is difficult to get dwarven weapons and armor in even the smallest quantities, due to the loss of almost all of their surface territory they can be bartered for with food and the grains they need to make their other significant art, brewing.

-Of Dwarves and Their Holes

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Adrian

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As the torrent of flames rushes towards me, I abandon the frostfire I was creating in favor of throwing my will into deflecting the oncoming attack. The flames resist my manipulation even though they do bend to my will. The flames do not touch me though the scorching heat of dragonfire surrounds me. My skin turning red as the radiating heat sears my flesh.

I drop my spear as the man is still inside the reach of the weapon and manifest my claws and striking out at his throat. I grin as the heat of the flames ends, my claws cutting into the flesh of another dragon cooling from the heat in the blood of my next meal. . .

The man glares at me, no longer taking me as a joke after taking an injury to his throat. He backs up a step, getting out of my reach for a moment while holding his throat. Screams from the audience outside of the shop cover up whatever it is that he is muttering while holding the injury on his neck. A pale blue glow of some variation of healing magic is being released from his hand.

I walk over to the man as K manages to set her blade at his neck.

“Why have you attacked me? You are no drakeling seeking his first hoard” the man asks.

I grin at seeing the dragon in human form recognizing his loss. At least until I notice looks of those outside of the shop, they are neither panicked nor enraged.

Something isn’t right. . .

I snap my fingers, loosing another set of detection weaves. At first I find nothing, no mass of fiery, or other, death incoming not a projectile made of any material I know how to detect but I do indeed find something. Thin strands of life, so small I didn’t notice it earlier but they all lead to the man under K's blade.

I frown and ask “what’s with your connection to the citizenry of the town?”

“Payment for the trouble I cause them when people like you come through” the man answers.

I stop for a moment, am I doing the right thing here?

[Eat him.]

Dammit, I thought I got rid of you.

[You can’t get rid of instinct, only fuse with it.]

Didn’t I already do that?

[No I was just busy.]

Busy with what?

[You shouldn’t be doing most of the things you are.]

[And you’re supposed to shut up.]

[You’re driving him to do all this.]

“Adrian?” K asks noticing something.

I glance around, making sure there isn’t some other thing that would mess this whole operation up before nodding at her, regardless of the conflict of the pair of voices that decided to show up.

However just before K makes the necessary movement, the man begins to make a demand “promise me you won’t harm the peo. . .” but is cut off in a grunt of pain from the blade that dogs into his neck.

[You murdered him, we shouldn’t. . .]

[Don’t make me drag you back down into the recesses of the mind.]

[You can’t, I got to the surface.]

What is the second voice?

[The original. . . No you can’t . . .]

[Leftovers you didn’t fully digest.]

The other me that’s was from this timeline?

[That’s the one. I’ll try to keep him from bothering you too much.]

Thanks but I’d rather neither of you be in my head.

[Then master all our power and assimilate instinct.]

“I never intended to do anything to anyone but you here” I tell the man as K's blade sinks deeper before coming to a stop on the bones of his spinal cord. The blade not strong or sharp enough to cut into the bone.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“I invoke my privilege of single combat” the man says and I feel the fabric of reality twist as my most recent sensing weave returns to me.

A voice echoes through the expanse of what can only be a pocket dimension, “Gaelus by invoking your privilege your favor has been called and paid. The fight is to the death and the to the victor the spoils.”

“Why did you do this?” I ask the man.

“Neither of us want to hurt the humans and I don’t want to die without a fight.”

I roll my eyes, “no, I mean why did you not just start with this?”

“Do you think the favor of a someone with the ability to create a pocket dimension is easily gained?”

I glance at the surrounding space and just know I could break it. The void is just so much closer here than on Althrá or Terra. I almost want to do just that but the void would destroy my meal. . .

“It seems shoddily constructed.”

“You are far to young to know what you speak of.”

I just smirk, and before beginning to shift to my dragon body. An action that is copied by Gaelus, revealing a bronze dragon far larger than me covered in scales marred by both age and injuries from previous battles.

The instant my transformation is complete I rush forward and attempt to bite down on the nearest piece of my foe. Somehow he manages to move fast enough to get out of the way of my snapping teeth.

During his dodge, he also swipes a claw down on to my side scraping against my scales before splitting them and wetting the ground of this strange place with my blood.

I growl with the pain, and lash out in the most effective way I know. A bolt filled with death and decay flies forward from my left claw as I twist the reality of this pocket dimension and strikes against the hide of the far larger dragon.

A patch of scales discolors as it succumbs to the entropy within my attack, though his body is simply too large and a dragon’s innate resistance to the supernatural keeps it from simply killing him.

Moving past him, I begin to heal myself drawing on the Sphere of Life accelerating the speed at which I heal to where my flesh knits together in but a second as I jump over the other dragon’s tail.

As soon as it is done, I flip around and exhale a beam of light at the spot I just forced into a decayed state. The laser flies straight and true faster than Gaelus can possibly dodge and sears into the damaged spot. The keratin-like substance splinters at the bombardment even if the generated heat did far less due to the innate immunity to most flames a bronze dragon has.

With a smirk I twist reality yet again as I maintain my Radiance Breath, inverting a single aspect of it an instance the glowing hot scales are subjected to a swift freezing splintering them further.

Gaelus turns faster than I had expected and unleashes a torrent of flames far stronger than the ones I was subjected to within his wooden shop. I swiftly shift to my hybrid form, shrinking the area I have to enforce my will upon as I throw every once of my will into a shield.

Seconds pass as the magically reinforced heat presses against my alterations to the world around me. Slowly my weave and scales are no longer enough to block all of it. At fist it is just the searing of a hot day upon a sunburn but is slowly grows.

I can’t do anything but endure as I move diagonally to get away from the source and spread of the flames, but Gaelus must be turning his head to follow as there is no escape.

After what feels like an eternity, but could only be but a few seconds, the torrent of fire stops as his lungs must draw breath before continuing. In that half a second, as smoke drifts up from my own scales I take a step slashing my clawed hand. Following the subconscious whispers of instinct, my mana flows around them as they catch not on the air but something else.

I hear a ripping sound, like paper torn from a punctured hole. I can feel a calming chill of the void from the tear as I step through it. In an instant I a right against the side of the other dragon, well inside of the reach of anything he could do and I can’t help but smirk regardless of the pain of moving the skin my face.

Abandoning the gun idea I had earlier, I dig my claws into the relatively unarmored patch caused by rapid heating and then cooling followed by a reheating he caused himself. My claws easily sink deep into the muscles underneath as I dig forward. Tearing chunks of flesh out and dropping them into Void Cache for later.

In a blur of preternatural speed as I alter the flow of time in a variation of Haste, I quickly move towards the rhythmic thumping ignoring the screaming and thrashing panic of the multi-ton beast who I will oh so soon be feasting upon with reckless abandon.

There just has to be enough left . . .

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Kythia

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The instant my mate and our prey vanish, the villages rush as the fox and me. I knew something was wrong, the village smelt off and while I can understand the shouts of anger and fear from the humans I ignore it. Turning my blade upon them the instant they are within reach.

The blade easily cutting through the flesh and bone of men as I begin to use one of the few arts that my mother did not share with my mate. With a chant of words that chill the blood of speaker and listener alike, my mana spills forth flooding the area for an instant before returning to me, carrying the blood that has been spilt.

Thin strings of the crimson fluid arc through the air though not all manage to actually reach me. Still some converge onto the bone blade my mother gave me and ignite in a crimson flame. It flickers and fails to draw in all that it should but I begin to move faster, rending life and limb rather than a cut that merely leaves my opponents to bleed to death. Even under the new moon and the silence of my soul sister that comes with it, a mob of poorly and untrained humans can do nothing.

“Fox. . .” I begin to shout only to hear her voice whisper just barely loud enough to be heard, “call my name.”

“Block them from leaving.”

“Not until you ask me.”

“Fox, . . .”

“By name.”

“Just do it already.”

“Not until . . .”

“. . . Ria. . .”

As soon as the words leave my lips, the air almost shimmers in the distance as a thin wall of the fox’s green flames incircles the area. I frown, the fox doesn’t have to power to do something like that in an instant. . .

She hid them from me in an illusion? What was the point of that?

It takes little time to turn the ground red with blood, every moment that passes more of the villagers die yet whoever took my mate and his prey away do not show themselves. In short order none of the villagers are left alive, each and every one of them lie on the ground letting out the last of their blood as their hearts slowly cease to beat. The crimson flames along my blade slowly begin to dwindle as the blood spilt upon it begin to run dry.

I turn to the fox as she just stands there in the open, looking towards the spot that was the last location of my mate without a frown or seeming care in the world.

“Fox. . .”

The fox turns to me and smiles as she says “what?”

“use you find stuff magic.”

“Don’t have to.”

“Then where is our mate?”

“He’ll show back up right there” she answers while pointing towards the spot.