Aside from the wounds, I do feel a lot better, so she must have healed something. Nudging one of the guards, I ask if he’s up for making a very shallow cut on his arm for her to heal, and he’s quick to do so. It’s indeed a very shallow cut as it barely bleeds, and he walks over to Lauren with it, but as she casts her spell again, it doesn’t do anything, and he can’t feel magic like I do, so all we get is a shrug.


    Geez, that was her whole thing and how she saw herself. She’s the Healer. We’ll need to figure out what her magic spell did to give her a new purpose, but for now, she needs a nudge and some comfort.


    Letting the remaining goblins know that they’re welcome to come by tomorrow for a visit, I glance at Lauren and she’s crying, so I pick her up with my tongue, fighting the urge to run away from the perfume. We’re just gonna go to my den and snuggle, I’m pretty sure she just needs a friend right now.


    Letting no distraction stand in our way, we reach my hoard and I coil up, nuzzling her into the crevice by my neck as she leans against me, almost trying to press herself into me.


    I want to reassure her that it will be okay, that Merciferus must have a plan if she’s preparing equipment, but I don’t know how to put it into words. I think the best thing for her right now is just a good cry. That’s okay, that is sometimes what the doctor ordered.


    We end up spending quite some time just snuggling, and eventually she manages to fall asleep. A day spent comforting a friend and resting on my hoard is a day well spent.


    The sound of Jeannie’s door opening is the only disruption of the peace I’ve heard in quite some time, and it sounds like both Jeannie and Tiffy are heading out. Before they go, Jeannie climbs up on me and mimes eating as she points to Lauren, so I give her as slight a nod as I can manage. They’re great, always so considerate.


    Judging by how quick they are to return, I’m growing increasingly confident that my perception of time is screwy when I’m resting here. They’re already back and I feel like they’ve just left. Nudging Lauren, she wakes up and looks around, there’s a hint of fear in her scent as she struggles to recognize the place.


    With the heavy clouds, the place is darker than usual, and if I didn’t funnel more magic into my eyes, I would likely struggle to see as well. Tiffy climbing on me with a stick topped with glowing mushrooms does help brighten the room for her, calming her down. Torches without fire seem very convenient for not accidentally burning things down.


    Jeannie joins Tiffy on top of my hips, and the two look at Lauren before walking along my spine to join her. Jeannie is carrying a small pack with some delicious smells coming from it, and I want some.


    Reaching my shoulder, they slide down to meet Lauren and Jeannie, handing off a package of refreshing foods and a few potion-looking bottles, but I can’t see anything magical about them. Sniffing them, Jeannie pushes my head away and lets me know it’s just water. That’s a little boring, Lauren deserves a fun drink for her hardships.


    Tiffy plunges the mushroom stick into the ground, and the three of them sit around it, and I don’t want to be left out, so I shift a little to lay my head down alongside them. For some reason, that makes Lauren laugh at me.


    “You’re so needy, you adorable beast.”


    I’m about to retort, but then she uses my snout as a backrest, disarming me completely.


    It’s pretty obvious that she’s still bothered by her lack of healing abilities, but she’s strong, so we just need to figure out where her specialties lie now. It’ll work out, I’m sure. And I’m extra sure that her spell did something, I just don’t know what.


    For now, we settle in to spend the night chatting about this and that as Tiffy starts talking about how she met me, and she’s got it all wrong. She’s making up stuff about broken fences, shattered jars, things knocked off shelves, and damaged walls. All this hearsay is complete nonsense, I was an excellent guest who didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, I’m the wounded party who didn’t consent to getting shocked in the neck!


    Nostril puff of smoke at you, lady!


    Through the smoke, I can see Jeannie whisper something to Tiffy. Focusing my hearing to listen in, it becomes obvious that they''re whispering about me taking offense as they giggle at my very obvious and not at all overly dramatic misery. Controlling her giggling, Tiffy gets up and walks over to me, jumping onto my snout and hugging me. My forgiveness requires a lot more effort than that!


    “My apologies for mistreating you, Great Guardian Dragon. It was not my intention to hurt you, and I appreciate the effort you made to minimize the damage done to my home. And most of all, I love my new home.”


    “Lauren, tell her that I accept her apology.”


    “You can do that on your own, Kira.”


    With a mighty ‘whoa,’ Lauren falls backwards as I lift my head to thank Tiffy for the apology. Tiffy is very appreciative as she lies on my face and stares into one of my eyes. I’m not sure what she’s thinking, but she seems to be settling in here quite well, so I’m just gonna be happy for her.


    “You did that on purpose, beast...”


    “I did, yes. And what are you going to do about it, Champion of Merciferus? The mighty Guardian Dragon has toppled you.”


    “I’ll wait two more days before I cook a dish from my homeland.”


    Oh crap! That reminds me that I never tried Lily’s cooking, aside from the cookies. I’ll need to rectify that soon. Maybe if I coordinate it, Lily and Lauren can both cook, and I can have a bunch of food for my dinner. I’d like that a lot.


    The sounds of laughter draw my attention away from the delicious thoughts of food, and it appears everyone else is seeing something funny, and I want in on the joke. Asking about it earns me more laughter as Lauren tells me what’s going on.


    “We’re laughing at the mere mention of food causing you to drool. Who needs rain when we have a gluttonous Dragon?”


    “Pfft, you eat every day, Lauren, I don’t. So who is the real glutton?”


    “You are.”


    Dang it, she got me with that one... Just for that, I''m gonna retaliate with a lick! Take that, Lauren! She gets up from the floor to wipe off the saliva, and besides, I’m a young, hopefully done growing dragon, and I need a bunch of sustenance because I want it.


    Speaking of my munching habits, I do have a crop to empty of hoard material. So focusing on the internal muscles in my chest, the sensation of a glob of things ascending my throat again. With a plop, it lands on the ground with the protective mucus bursting open, spilling glorious hoard material all over the ground.


    Jeannie seems transfixed by the glittering gold and other things, and Lauren is a lot bolder as she gets up to explore the goods with very little restraint. She just shoves her hands right into the remaining goop.


    “Uhm... Do you do that with all of your wealth, Kira?”


    Huh... Jeannie is looking a little pale now, but I let her know that I do, since I can’t really carry a bucket of gold and I tend to forget my backpack. And even if I did have my backpack, robbing the dead isn’t likely to be less messy with my giant claws.


    “I need to wash my hands...”


    And with that, Jeannie is off. Tiffy taps my face a few times, reminding me that she’s still on me, and with a quick request, I let her down and she runs after Jeannie. I’m beginning to suspect they’ve been playing around in my hoard, and I get it. If I were tiny like them, I would do that as well.


    It’s beginning to be a respectable pile of hoard by now, a little on the flat side, but it’s getting wider. Lauren could probably spread out on it, but for now she seems content with gathering my crop mucus in bottles for some reason. That seems like odd behavior, and I’m gonna nudge her about it.


    “Joras has asked everyone to gather samples of anything you might... expel... This qualifies.”


    That Joras seems to be taking quite a lot of liberties, and he hasn’t even asked for permission. And Lauren is just doing it, which is also kinda rude. That’s my mucus and I’m feeling weirdly defensive about it. She doesn’t even stop there, now she’s sorting my things into little piles. Coins in one, small weapons in another, and trinkets in a third. That weapon pile is a lot larger than it should be for things I’ve eaten.


    “Kira, can I have this one?”


    She’s holding up a pretty knife, and it looks engraved with some sort of symbols. It looks quite well-crafted with wavy golden veins going down the blue edge of it. I can’t think of a reason to decline aside from not wanting my hoard to lose any value, and as she sees my hesitation, she grabs a few coins and offers them in return with a smile. She gets me.


    She removes her old knife, adding it to my pile and sheathes her new one before getting back to sorting my things. I’m curious why she’s interested in it, though, and she unsheathes it again, holding it out for me to inspect, but aside from looking fancy and magical, I can’t tell why it’s good.


    “The material is magic-forged brightsteel, and the engravings make it a lot sturdier as well as sharper.”


    To prove her point, she grabs a vambrace and channels a bit of magic before carving into the protective gear with ease. Geez, that looks dangerous, and it should come with a warning label to let me know that it isn’t safe to swallow. Naturally, I disregard that and ask her to put the next valuable knife like that aside for Raya.


    It doesn’t take her long to find another valuable knife like hers, and she sets it aside for Raya by throwing it, lodging it in the wall of my den. I didn’t know Lauren had knife skills like that! And judging by her being somewhat surprised by it, I suspect she didn’t know she had knife skills like that either. She picks up another knife and throws it as well, lodging it next to the other one.


    And another, and another...


    “Lauren, stop throwing my knives, they’re for hoarding, not for wall-decorating.”


    Instead of stopping, she picks up her old knife and throws it as well, letting it join the others in the wall. She’s frowning at this development, but I should be frowning at my property being thrown all over the place and the casual damage to my beautiful, undecorated clay wall.


    “Kira, the adventurers who shot you with arrows, what weapons did they use?”


    “A bow.”


    She has an impressive ability to look amused and exasperated at the same time, and I think that could be a valuable skill to learn.


    “Even with the limited evidence you provided, I could have figured that out on my own, thank you.”


    Since she seems to want more information, I’m just gonna tell her about the fight itself, and how they were going to attack me, so I got them first. She’s listening quite intently, but I’m realizing that I might not have been considerate enough of her feelings. They were adventurers who made a mistake in taking me on, just like her, and that could trigger some bad memories for her.


    “Can we go there? I would like to see if there are any weapons left behind that might be useful. If they used this many giant-killer arrows, I would wager that this blade was from one of them as well, but I don’t see anything that looks like the weapon of a defender or striker.”


    I don’t see why not. Aside from the trauma thing, she’s free to go if she wants to, and going there with me would be the safest option. She’s still not done sorting my things, though, but that seems all but forgotten as she gets up and meanders toward the entrance.


    “Coming?”


    Geez, now she’s rushing me. But of course I am, I can’t leave her alone to get into trouble. The sky outside is still quite dark, leaving me with no clue what time it is. Studying the skies, I can’t see the sun anywhere, or the moon, for that matter. All I see is black, blue, and gray magic swirling around in those pesky clouds cloaking the skies in a quite pretty but very ominous appearance. With a nudge, I ask Lauren what time it is, and that just leads her to throw lies my way.


    “It’s past midday, the sun is right there.”


    It really isn’t. She’s just pointing to an area with more of those black, blue, and gray clouds.


    “Are you using your mage sight?”


    I am using my mage sight... Okay, so reducing the magic in my eyes reveals that the sun does, in fact, still exist and I may have been a bit hasty in my judgment of Lauren’s lies. I like my sight better with the magic flowing through my eyes, so it’s time to turn that back on now that I’ve confirmed the existence of the sun.


    “Are you going to apologize for doubting me?”


    “No. I gave you a good deal on that knife, so consider us even.”


    I win this one, Lauren!


    “I can live with that, considering you seem unaware of the value this blade holds.”


    Dang it! She’s right, I don’t know. All I can do is smell that it’s quite valuable, but so were the coins and I can’t determine its sale value... That rascally first-aid kit is laughing at me as she motions for me to lower my head, and as I do, she tries to climb on, but I didn’t go as low as I usually do, so take that, Lauren!


    To settle the peace, she bribes me with a few scritches, and I can’t fight that, so with a turn of my head, she grabs my horn and I lift her up. She settles down on me and before taking off, I unfold my wings to inspect them. They aren’t quite healed yet, but they’re doing better than I expected now, so that’s quite nice. Who knew rest and recovery would help recover? It’s sorcery and a great excuse to snooze.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    Lauren looks at the damage and frowns as her shoulders sink, it’s pretty obvious what she’s thinking, but it’s okay. For now, I’ll just focus some magic into them to speed up my recovery and dang it, that still hurts! At least they were lighter wounds, but the sensation of regrowing nerves and flesh stitching together is enough to bring a tear to this dragon’s eye. And being the considerate friend that she is, Lauren leans down to comfort me... She’s collecting my tear in a bottle...


    I do get a few pats and scritches, so we’ll call it even. The scratching at the back of my head feels amazing and as she moves her hands closer to my horns, it gets so much better, freakin hell... I didn’t know I needed this... Geez, this is so good...


    ———————


    “Kira! Kira, wake up!


    I think I fell asleep for a moment there. Lauren seems to be pushing on my face, and I appear to be a lot more lying down than standing up, which was certainly not the case when she started the scritches. For some reason, she’s forcing my eye open, leaving me no choice but to stare at her, but as I blink, she lets go.


    “Kira, what happened? Why did you collapse like that?”


    “Felt good. Do it again.”


    She declines with quite a stern tone, ranting about how she won’t be making me pass out again and other nonsense like that. But I just got a little overstimulated by the sensation, and I need to get used to it, so I don’t get lured in by wicked promises of scritches from the bad guys. I tell Lauren as much, but then that amused, yet exasperated expression returns.


    “You’re incorrigible, you silly beast... When it’s time to sleep, we can talk about it, but for now, falling asleep is not in the interest of our goals.”


    Sounds more like her goals of finding fancy weaponry, but I kinda want to be lazy and get scritches now. She seems to understand this as she starts pushing on my face again, telling me to get moving. It’s pretty clear that she doesn’t agree with my interests. Fine, we’ll go look through the remnants of the fight...


    Getting up brings up the subject of whatever her spell did, as my body feels lighter, and jumping around a bit makes it even clearer. It feels as if I were being weighed down and now that weight is gone. The ground is being rude by disagreeing with my feeling of being lighter, as it forms indents wherever I land.


    “Kira, calm down!”


    Spoilsport... She does seem to be struggling to stay standing somewhat whenever I land after a jump, so it might be another thing I need to be mindful of. I wouldn’t want to shake buildings apart by accident. Well, since I’m done jumping around anyway, we might as well get going. Lowering my head with the customary turning it sideways lets Lauren grab hold, and with a quick lift, she’s up and ready to go. Just as we’re about to take off, Jeannie and Tiffy return, so of course they get the offer to join.


    We’re not getting much of a response as they whisper back and forth, leaving Lauren and me to wait until they settle on something. Their whispering changes a little by including giggling, so I’m pretty sure they aren’t coming. Instead of lingering while they make up their mind, I’ll just offer them a flight some other time.


    And we’re off!


    “Whoa!”


    We’re off a lot! Geez, I didn’t use that much magic, but we really took off and Lauren must really appreciate holding on tight. I’m growing more confident that I am somehow lighter, which is her doing, so I’m not to blame for her almost falling off me. We should bring Raya, so turning around it is, taking us in the direction of her house. When we reach the building, I settle into a hover, calling out for her. A moment later, she appears in a window, which she then proceeds to climb out of. She could have used a door, but she seems intent on scaling the side of the building from the window.


    It is pretty fun to climb buildings, so I don’t blame her. As the little goblin reaches the roof, she takes a running start and leaps toward me. She manages to grab hold of one of my claws and drag herself up, followed by climbing up my arm and settling in with Lauren. And we’re-


    “Kira, can we stop by Joras’ alchemical shop? I would like to drop off a few items.”


    So that’s what Lauren meant by goals plural. Well, it’s not much of a problem, so we’ll just stop by and drop off all that biological material she’s been pilfering. Flying over the town makes me pretty happy that I can see so well in the dark with the help of a little magic.


    When we reach the alchemical store, Lauren hands off a bag to Raya, who then climbs down me and leaps onto the building. Before I know it, she’s at street level, knocking on Joras’ door and handing off the goods before just climbing up the wall, leaving small marks where her nails bite into the material.


    As soon as she’s back on me, we leave for my lake, with no more detours, deliveries, or other such things. Even flying slowly, we reach the lake quite fast, making me groan in annoyance a little. I’m too dang big! It is pretty fun to have the mass to stand up to animals like the steelback boarhino, though. I forgot to fetch the meat! Dang it...


    “Raya, what did they do with my meat from the steelback?”


    Instead of bringing me good news of how they made even more meat available than I brought back, she brings me dire news... It turns out the butchers got together to carve it up and they split most of the meat between the chefs of the town. My delicious treat source has been given away!


    “And they are planning a cooking fight.”


    Oh, that sounds like a great idea. I want some of that. I don’t get much time to think about what sort of interesting dishes they might cook up before Lauren interrupts my thoughts by pointing out that we flew too far and we have to turn around to go back to the lake. That’s easy, though, so circling around, we get back on course and land by my tree a moment later.


    “Hey Lauren, did you find a knife for Raya?”


    The moment we touch down, the two of them dismount and Lauren shows me a beautiful light golden blade with engravings covering it and a handle made of some sort of dark wood, creating a lovely contrast. She’ll love it!


    I’m not sure where she went, though, so we’ll have to solve that mystery first. Looking around reveals that the goblin has gone exploring, and when I call to her, she’s quick to come running. Nudging Lauren, she holds the knife ready for Raya to inspect, and I let her know that I want her to have it!


    Grabbing the handle, Raya starts inspecting the weapon, turning it this way and that as she tries jabbing the air a few times.


    “I like it.”


    Success!


    “Lauren, tussle her hair!”


    It’s time for me to lie down as Lauren throws around that exasperated smile again, I doubt she’s going to do what I tell her. Focusing instead on Raya, she stashes the blade in the rim of her belt and starts exploring again. She walks straight to the glass where I burned the mage and begins inspecting and tapping on it.


    Lauren seems more interested in a pool of blood with two halves of a shield. She picks up the top half and inspects it, no doubt impressed with how well I bisected it.


    “I know this shield.”


    Crap... I doubt ‘they started it’ is going to work in this situation, so I’ll have to see where she takes it.


    “Did you offer them a chance to not fight, Kira?”


    “I told them I didn’t want to fight, and if they attacked me, I would defend myself. They didn’t listen and got ready to attack. I’m sorry...”


    “I believe you. Rakhel wouldn’t leave something as valuable as you behind, and I’d have lost a friend either way. How did the healer die?”


    I don’t see any reason to hide it, so I tell her the story of how I bit down on his barrier until it cracked, imprisoning him in my mouth before unleashing flames to burn the mage.


    “Good. He was not a good man.”


    She seems to have mixed feelings about the situation, and I am a little curious about the healer, but she doesn’t seem to be interested in talking about it, so it’s not something I want to push. Instead, she starts digging at the ground until she pulls out a spiked ball mace. I didn’t even notice the frontliner having a weapon like that.


    “I am sorry for killing another one of your friends, Lauren.”


    She walks right up to my face as I’m lying in the sand, with her mace in hand, she stares me right in an eye as she places her empty hand on my nose.


    “His greed killed him. It’s part of the job and we all know it. Don’t mistake my grief for blame. The Guild has chosen to make you an enemy, they are to blame for what happens. The Guild has rules for missions that become too difficult or when the conditions change significantly. For example, when you’re sent to cull a goblin tribe and a Dragon shows up with Neithro the Absolute, then the rule is to retreat and abandon the mission.”


    Yeah, that makes sense. It’s not helping me feel better, though. But it does help when she presses her forehead against my nose and caresses the side of my muzzle.


    “Promise me, Kira. Promise me that you won’t hold back if you’re attacked. Don’t let the possibility of killing someone I know be your death. Give them a chance, but don’t hold back...”


    I’m not sure what to say to that, it feels like she’s signing the death warrant of all of her colleagues, which is a bit much. I had no intentions of holding back, considering I don’t feel bad about killing them, I just feel bad about hurting Lauren. She hits my muzzle with a closed fist, demanding I make the promise, so I do.


    “Thank you.”


    She gets off me and asks if I burned the archer as well, which I, of course, didn’t, so she starts walking down the path of destroyed and toppled trees.


    “How do you know the archer died down that path?”


    She points to each of the spots where someone died and then points out that the only one missing is the archer, which makes sense... I could do without the smug smile, though, know-it-all.


    I feel like following Lauren, so first I need to make sure Raya is fine, and she’s just playing with the chunk of unrefined glass, and then she drags her nails across it, encouraging me to follow Lauren. That is a terrible sound! Interrupting my goblin friend’s experimentation, I ask her if she’d be fine if we went to explore a little, and she waves me off and returns to whatever she’s doing.


    “Are you sure you don’t blame me, Lauren? I would understand if you did, but we would need to talk it out.”


    “Do I blame the giant murder lizard for being a giant murder lizard when people attack it? No, Kira, I don’t. I blame the Guild members for being too stubborn to spare a thought for their own survival.”


    “I’m not a lizard...”


    She laughs at me, which gets much worse as we hear Raya shouting.


    “You’re an overgrown lizard, Kira!”


    Dang... They’re both attacking me now. I kinda wanna call Raya something, but I can’t think of anything that she wouldn’t just enjoy. If I call her a lesser dragon, she’d take pride in the dragon part. If I called her a lizard, she’d talk about growing up to be a dragon. She’s impervious to nicknames and teasing!


    I’ll just focus on following the very slow Lauren as she proceeds down the path of broken trees. Looking around at the plants, I recognize some of the ones Raya and I gathered when I was tiny, and with a nudge, I catch Lauren with my tongue. I may have nudged her just as she was climbing over a log...


    She’s really perfecting that stare of exasperation with the accompanying smile.


    “Thank you for catching me, you clumsy beast.”


    Ooh, I earned pats on the nose. Putting her down again, I point out a few herbs around us and she starts gathering them, but she’s not as good at it as Raya. That still means she’s so much better than me and I’m not even gonna attempt gathering herbs anymore.


    We’re making terrible time reaching the end of this path, but we’re doing very well gathering an assortment of plants, so we win some and we lose some. I hope we win a lot with these plants.


    “How far did you chase her, Kira?”


    “I don’t know, not that far. You’re just taking a lot more steps than I am.”


    She stares at me for a moment, and I don’t think she considered that when she started walking because now she’s indicating for me to give her a ride. So, picking her up with my tongue again, we get moving!


    “No! Kira, put me down! This isn’t what I meant! Kira!”


    Too bad! With me in charge, the distance is covered a lot faster as we’re running at my pace, and Lauren is kept safe from falling by having me carry her.


    She’s squirming a bit, but I’m the stronger one and it doesn’t take us long before we reach the end of the path of fallen trees.


    “How you manage to hold your head that still, I’ll never understand. It is akin to standing in the spot and just moving through the air. Now put me down!”


    She sounds stern, but she’s also struggling to hide a smile. It helps that I can also feel how she feels when we’re this close and, while she objects, there’s a hopefulness that I’ll do what I say in situations like that, letting her have fun.


    She takes a moment to steady herself before she walks to the bloodied patch on the ground and picks up the bow I left behind. It’s very obvious that it has a bunch of magic going on, and I should have taken it with me the first time.


    “How much do you think this is worth, Kira?”


    “A lot.”


    I don’t really know, and I’m unsure of how the economy in this world works, whether it’s commodity-based or not, but I’m sure I’ll learn about that eventually.


    “Selling this bow to a lord would pay for Raya’s survival through five cycles at least.”


    So... Valuable... Sounds like we need to stop by Wreyn’s place to unload it. Crap! I forgot to tell Wreyn about those tainted potions. That’s really bad! That’s really, really bad! Lying down on the ground, I tell Lauren to get on, and when she does, we rush back to the lake to fetch Raya.


    “What’s wrong, Kira?!”


    I tell her what we found out about the potions as we run, and by the time we reach Raya, I’ve given her a quick rundown, and calling for Raya, I tell her that we need to get going. I walk toward her and she runs to meet me. Just as I take a step, she jumps and lands on the wrist of the arm I’m moving, using the momentum to fly upward, catching one of my horns and sliding down to land by Lauren.


    Spreading my wings, we take off toward Oakhold and I push magic into my wings to fly faster. Lauren and Raya are holding on tight, allowing us to go quite fast. It still takes a while to get there, since I can’t fly so fast that Lauren and Raya fall off me, but we do make it to Oakhold and land in Wreyn’s courtyard. And as soon as we touch down, ignoring the sudden shift in color of Wreyn’s yard as my claws dig into the soil, I tell Raya to knock on the door and get Wreyn out here so we can warn him.


    “I already told them about the potions.”


    “What?...”


    “I have this ring, and it lets me talk to Nei from home, didn’t I tell you? It’s very nice.”


    Dang it, Raya!... I''m pretty sure she didn’t tell me. She just somehow got messages to and from Cranky and it was odd, but so many things are odd to me... And dang it, Lauren! Stop laughing at me. As I’m feeling increasingly flustered, Raya stands around admiring her ring without a care in the world while the guards gather around us, quite upset at our sudden arrival.


    Before things escalate, Wreyn steps out of his house wearing a very casual robe as he tells the guards to stand down and return to their posts. There’s a tingle of magic and he greets me like an old friend, reminding me that I might not have told him that I’ve been learning Lauren’s language. I feel like my position of superiority just disintegrated... I’ll make sure to speak Raya’s language so he doesn’t waste the spell.


    “A marvelous surprise and excellent timing, Kira. We have uncovered a cell within our ranks and begun isolating those suspected of assisting the Cult of the Affront. As a secondary concern, it would be prudent to warn you of Maya’s oath of vengeance. I suspect she isn’t quite your biggest admirer.”


    I’m drawing a blank here... Nudging Raya, I ask who Maya is and she’s quick to talk about some angry lady who hates me and wanted her hammerhead back... Oh! Shaft! I remember now, we met in the ruins of Plainshold where this whole thing started!


    He’s right about that being secondary, she’s upset with me and I get it, but she joined in on the troublemaking. More importantly, Wreyn mentioned excellent timing, so I feel like that’s what we should focus on.


    Asking the old man about what’s going on is a quick way to make Raya lose interest as she wanders into Wreyn’s home, and the sound of Emily squealing with joy disrupts any chance of a conversation.


    She isn’t coming out, so I assume she and Raya are doing fun stuff in there as she settles down and the squealing stops.


    “Now then. Our knowledge at this point is rather limited, although it isn’t nonexistent. We’ve learned that the potions you’ve informed us of are coming through shipments from the southwest, most likely Margwen or beyond. I have already sent messengers to the Council of Margwen to share our findings, allowing them to act. What we need from you, Kira, is intimidation. Those with confirmed ties to the Cult are quite unwilling to share their thoughts.”


    That sounds like he wants me to torture people, and I’m not sure I want to go in with the intention of torturing someone.


    He’s staring directly into my eye and as he’s about to say something, Lauren shushes him. They’re keeping something secret from me and I want to know what it is, dang it! And now he’s got a mischievous smile as well...


    He changes the subject, even though I’d like to dwell on this secret, and brings up the captives they have as he begins leading us into town. He doesn’t seem to care that he’s wearing shaggy robes or that I barely fit in most of these streets.


    I don’t really see any of the trenches that Tuiran has been digging, so I suspect they have some other system in place to combat the rains. Maybe it’s something we can get in Tuiran, too. We could always try building storm drains for next year.


    Walking behind a walking human is the worst... One step and then wait for them to move before taking another step.


    We reach a t-junction, which poses a bit of a problem... It’s too tight a turn and I don’t think I can do it without breaking anything... And I can’t turn around, and I can’t fly away.


    “Wreyn, we have a problem. I’m too big for this junction...”


    He stops and looks at me while stroking his beard with a ‘hmm...’


    “I do believe you might be correct.”


    I’m not sure what sort of solution he’s cooking up, but he’s gathering a bunch of magic and chanting a bunch of words, none of those usual small spells. This feels powerful. With a mighty stomp into the ground while spreading his arms out, the area cools down rapidly, ice forming on the walls around us, creating a protective layer but also making the street narrower.


    He just froze the entire street, covering my full length in all directions, and now he’s back to stroking his beard as if he didn’t just create an ice age for the residents of this street.


    With a wave of his hand, he continues walking, and Lauren and I follow along. Bending my body as I turn the corner is annoying, but I don''t know if the ice would hold against the impact of my belly. At least it does its job as my tail impacts the wall, but only chips the ice. As soon as I clear the junction, he cancels the spell, causing the ice to disappear in sparkly glimmers of magic. That was a lot of magic used as a convenient solution to a problem that we might have solved in a more mundane way.


    I’d nudge Lauren about it, but she’s walking under my throat, so I’d have to headbutt the street to do it...


    I’ll leave that for later, we’re arriving at a broken house in another t-junction and it looks like some sort of giant mole dug its way into the place, causing- That was me... It’s the bandit hideout I wrecked trying to find Raya...


    “You recognize it. The building has been repurposed as it gained a somewhat dramatic reputation for leading to death by Dragon. I wish to lean into that reputation, for which I would like your consent to threaten the cultists we keep here with their fate being left in the hands of the local Dragon, should they refuse to work with me.”