Iron dragons are one of the few metallic dragons who have significant numbers who have sided with the demons. This is not however due to any malice but in that the demons happen to offer them more to do their favored activity, war. Sentient iron dragons are obsessed with armed conflict and the only thing they like more than studying it is to participate in one. They are naturally skilled in metal variant earth magics as well as some physical enhancement enchantments. Before awakening to sentience, they prefer to live in mines where they eat some of the metals causing their scales to be harder and more resistant than other dragons of equal size.
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Adrian
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With that I jump into the air, Ria sitting between my wings. I begin to warp light to keep it from touching me, bending the nonvisible spectrums seem harder and I am not sure how well I do since I can’t see all of them.
Once at the altitude I wanted to glide at I tell Ria what her role in this journey is. She acknowledges it by promising to do her best like a good girl and I am pretty sure she had been broken as a slave before.
Does she think one of us is her owner? I’ll just let K deal with it, she has done a good job so far.
Soon we are passing over the gates to the secured part of the city and I can see several squads of soldiers searching house by house for something, probably my friends and me. A few minutes later and I am descending over the dwarven forges, Ria's soft chanting lingering in my ears.
While my landing threw quite a bit of dust up giving our position away to the now combat ready dwarves it did not make a sound. The plan almost worked. Thankful there are no US soldiers nearby I drop my warping of light before shifting to human form.
I wave at the dwarven team in charge of guarding, “sorry for startling you. I wanted to pick up some orders for a friend and see what I could trade for.”
All but one of the dwarves go back to their work. The dwarven guard with a different patterned helmet gives me a short bow, “of course Lord Dragon. Do you have the receipts for the orders?”
I nod and pull them out of Void Cache. The dwarf nods and a young boy runs up to take the receipts before he goes to fetch the items mentioned.
“Follow me please” the guard says before leading us to a house retrofitted into being a shop. Several weapons of each type or spread out over tables and stored in open barrels.
The guard says something to the shopkeeper but I don’t catch it as I look at the few pieces I recognize as elven chain and plate. Armor as beautiful as it is practical, as much as dwarves dislike the elves they do acknowledge this. I want them but I need to look through the store first. I should ask to get the tools for a smithy while I’m here too.
“Pick out a melee and ranged weapon for yourself Ria.”
“Really?”
I nod and she starts searching through the items much more carefully than me. I have a slight headache from using the dwarven memories but I can tell the quality of each piece easier that she.
In the end aside from the elven armors, I find two glaives, a few crossbows, an elven bow, two more swords and a shield that should all hold up while filling the blanks in our equipment. Ria has picked up a lighter thin but long spear and a repeating hand crossbow.
I move the items I want to the counter and the dwarf there has the same smile I suspect is a racial reaction to opportunity to make money. “Will there be anything else?”
“Yes actually, I would like a full set of smithing hammers anvils tongs bellows and so on for the largest portable forge you can get me.”
“Without disrespect honored customer but I must ask for payment of what you already have here before I can call for such.”
That doesn’t surprise me. No storekeeper wants to pull out merchandise for a customer who can’t pay. “Very well, will this suffice?”
I set down a rib bone from the red dragon on the counter. The dwarf immediately begins nodding before he can stop himself. I smile as I continue, “I’ll double this if you can get me books on fighting styles for these weapons and some more of these elven artworks.”
My dwarvish was somehow not good enough to catch what exactly he said next but the three youth assistants immediately began to run out the door no doubt to grab such items from the other shops for me. I am overpaying but regardless of dragon-me's complaints this is needed.
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I largely ignore the clerk as he tries to sell me dwarven pieces I already deemed unneeded for roughly an hour before the three younger dwarves come back with three wheelbarrows of books and elven pieces, most of which were not even arms or armor. He is going to want more than just two ribs for this.
Before they begin setting the items on the counter with the other items I already showed interest in purchasing I stop them, “I want to look through myself. Some of this may be outside of my budget.”
They all nod in understanding, I may not really have a budget but it is a nice way of saying I not going to want everything you got me. I leave the purely decorative pieces in the wheelbarrows save for a set of rings but find two more sets of elven chain and a very thin longsword. I think it’s called a court blade, a decorative piece relying on the enchantments to stay whole when used, even if it is sharper then a normal blade. At least there were a lot of books, all of which I decided on buying.
After setting a second rib on the table I add a few scales to it bringing an even greater smile to the dwarf. “Thank you for the service.”
The dwarf once more bows as I begin to pack the large pile of items into Void Cache.
Once outside I frown as this store was unfortunately just in sight of the division between the dwarves and the US. I don’t recognize them but they recognize me as one of them begins to point towards me and shouts to the others.
I warp light, not for invisibility but displacement by several feet as I begin to shift into a dragon once more. “Climb on” I say in a voice that gets deeper as I continue to shift. Ria obeys and the displacement saves me from a few bullets as I jump into the air.
I exhale gravity breath at the soldiers at the dwarves assemble in formation as if the attack were against them. I jump into the air and switch from bending light to time until I am out of range for anyone save a sniper. Invisible once more as I pass over the fence set up to keep out the goblins I return to the house where my friends are.
Those soldiers were hostile and that is going to be a problem. I can hide for a time but continual invisibility is not an option. I can take on a squad but that’s mostly just physical power and taking their guns away, I can’t deal with an army and I doubt my ability to do anything should they move to missiles or even a tank.
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Randy Ravnos
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I left my wife at a farm outside the city this morning, it’s too dangerous for her to help with this. Part four of plan B is ready. Jasmine will have made enough mistakes by now for me to have Talmage remove her.
I walk unimpeded as I enter the hotel that has become the feds base of command until they recover the rest of the city. Regardless of the amount of success Jasmine has had she will have lost people by now, too much for her to cover up.
The guards for the door open the door for me without question, they saw what happened last time and I smile, the majority of my actions have been successful then.
Once inside I turn to Jasmine, “somebody found out about your actions, didn’t they?”
She frowns and it is Talmage who answers me, everyone but these two know they have no say in this.
“Yes, but the attack on your son was not her. Care to share why your second son would have tried to kill him?”
Fabricio made a move, then Geldath is worried. Good and bad, Adrian will understand what the others are easier but I tried to kill them to save him from the sting of betrayal. That has failed, “and the condition of those involved in the attack?” I ask ignoring the question.
“Your son and his friends killed most of the soldiers, a general and your other son. Now will you answer my question?”
The thunder twins are now both dead then, they won’t be able to act for several years now even if Geldath does help them steal another set of bodies. Even then they will be as weak as Geldath expects me to be, able to do little more than sense things through the second soul. Good news but this will make my manipulation of the federal government more difficult. Not to mention that Geldath will be expecting something now. . .
“If you insist, it must have been a challenge for the birthright. Adrian is my favorite and he must have been jealous” I give a partial truth and they all seem confused but accept it. “But that is not what I came here for, aside from what Frank was doing Jasmine has been going back on the deal we made. You have been trying to control my son and you’ve taken advantage of another’s attack on him to launch your own.
Did you think I would not notice the patrols searching or that you allowed the attack to happen in the first place? There is also how several of your female assassins have recently gone missing, why do you think that is?”
Jasmine gets angry over my words but she can’t speak up to refute them, this hearing already was about how she and a now dead general just made some of the worst mistakes since the conjunction happened. Everyone in the room already knows and has declared her guilt, there are really only arguing over what to do about it.
“What do you want?” asks Talmage and I pull myself a chair at the opposite side of the table from him. One of the lower ranking officers present having vacated the seat for me.
“The same things as before, leave my son to his own devices. Sell him stuff if he wants it but do not try and manipulate him. Now though I have to make some punitive demands if you want me to keep my family from being hostile. . .
Jasmine will be executed for treason, whatever deals she made with my son you will honor without expecting him to complete his side of the deal, and I do know what those are."
“What makes you think you can make these demands? You can’t fight the whole government” Jasmine interrupts but the other officers ignore her, she is no longer of consequence aside from being an example of what will happen to those that cause problems for my son.
“Don’t have to, you're already at war with a foe you can’t beat without the help of those like me” I say with some sarcasm. I missed being able to do that, those above me in the agency were always less competent than they should be.
“Anything else?” Talmage asks, he and the others in the room already willing to give what I have asked.
“Yes, but the next item is beneficial to you. How would you like to know the names and addresses of every 'negative body' in the US and how to get them to ally with yourselves?”
The look on Jasmine’s face is great. She may have been over the Special Affairs Division for a bit but never had she been able to compile a list of more than a few before other ‘negative bodies’ would remove those on her lists from existence. The living dead have frowned on those who get discovered by the mortal world ever since the inquisition and disjunction.