Amdirlain’s PoV - Veht?
Upon leaving the Lizardfolk village they’d restored, the group bypassed the other settlements on the peninsula and traced a route westward along the sea. Once they passed through the strait into the Atlantic, they followed the coast again until they reached a scenic spot on the eastern edge of the ocean, west of where Lisbon would be. The rocky area Amdirlain picked provided a suitable terrain to push Jinfeng’s training.
A grey rock cliff face, stone-littered beaches, and steep hills challenged her manoeuvrability and balance. Amdirlain stretched out her Telepathy and noted only creatures and assorted monsters within the gullies anywhere close.
“There are only normal and monstrous animal species about the place,” announced Amdirlain, and she waved towards one of the jagged grey clifftops. “Let’s have a place with a view.”
They perched the house on the lip of the cliff, and Amdirlain curled up with Sarah to enjoy the colours of the setting sun the first evening they arrived. As the aroma of cooking seafood wafted from inside, Amdirlain snuggled closer. “This is very nice.”
“You’re not second-guessing yourself about leaving them to sort things out?”
Amdirlain smiled ruefully. “There is a bit of niggling, but I’m dealing with it. I’m focusing on the fact I gave them an opportunity. What they do with it as a society is up to them. I’ve no interest in going around judging the guilty and punishing them. I’ll let their laws and Goddess figure things out.”
“Let me know if you need a reminder,” said Sarah.
“How about a distraction?”
Sarah leaned in and nuzzled her earlobe. “I’m only a distraction?”
Doubts niggled at the back of Amdirlain’s thoughts, and she pressed lightly on Sarah’s nose.
“Don’t tease me that way, please. You provide wonderful distractions, but you’re not a distraction.”
“Then I’ll stick with teasing you in other ways,” smirked Sarah playfully.
“Get a room, you two,” called Kadaklan from inside.
“We had a house to ourselves,” grumbled Sarah.
“I don’t mind a floor show,” giggled Klipyl.
The strains of one of Amdirlain’s songs from Qil Tris started to play from the caster, and Klipyl sang along to the innuendo-filled lyrics.
Amdirlain groaned and hid her face in her hands. “Can’t we implement a rule: what happened on Qil Tris stays on Qil Tris?”
“The evidence follows you wherever you go,” laughed Sarah.
“Only because you brought it with you,” huffed Amdirlain. “And then played it for Klipyl.”
“What’s wrong with my singing?” protested Klipyl. Appearing on the porch, she planted her hands on her hips, the white ribbon straining as she thrust out her chest.
She’s worried about her singing, not the lyrics.
“It’s not your singing that is the issue,” reassured Amdirlain.
With a satisfied nod, Klipyl vanished back inside and resumed singing.
“I’ll set up the forge in the morning and keep Klipyl entertained while you train with Jinfeng,” said Sarah.
The first night in their temporary home felt incredibly restful, knowing they wouldn’t travel anywhere the following day. When Sarah fell asleep, Amdirlain ventured onto the porch and watched the gleaming stars. Their patterns weren’t the night sky that either remembered; Veht? was only one of thousands of cloned Earths within Ori’s plans, and setting the same night sky above each to match Earth was an impossible feat.
The scent of late-season blooms tickled her nose, and Amdirlain turned her attention to the landscape, picking out familiar plants from the darkness.
Should I continue making Kadaklan research each plant or give him the details from Anna’s Orb? He seems to have fun, and I don’t know if the Tao Alchemical techniques bring out extra properties. Maybe it’s best to leave it be.
Amdirlain got busy testing her knowledge of the plant life.
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Though winter was another two moons away, settling in early allowed Amdirlain to spend extra time with Sarah and on herself. The quiet enjoyment of time spent with Sarah helped soften the scars in her Soul and gave the Ki that cycling sent from her spiritual net fertile ground for healing old wounds now clear of foulness. During her breaks from training Jinfeng in the following weeks, she progressed the Change Form Power and studied more techniques and spells.
“Do you want to do anything for the winter solstice?” asked Sarah after an evening of mutual enjoyment.
Sprawled out on her stomach, Amdirlain grunted. “I’ve not celebrated any holidays for years. Why do you want to start with pagan holidays?”
Sarah trailed a fingertip slowly along her spine, eliciting a delighted shiver. “It seemed fitting. Technically, folks at home would classify you as a pagan god.”
“Christmas substituted for it, didn’t it?”
“In the old Julian calendar,” confirmed Sarah.
“Do I get a present to unwrap?”
“Definitely,” laughed Sarah.
“Think you can enchant a ribbon?”
A purr rumbled in the back of Sarah’s throat. “Only if you’ll wear one for me.”
“Maybe,” squeaked Amdirlain.
? ? ? ? ? ?
At midnight, on the longest night of the year, Amdirlain had two presents to unwrap. The first was a small rosewood box carved with a phoenix pattern containing an azure ribbon. The second was the crimson ribbon around Sarah.
Despite Klipyl’s pouts, Amdirlain refused to model the ribbon for anyone else.
? ? ? ? ? ?
On a late winter morning with a hint of spring in the warming air, Jinfeng eyed the battered hazel switch Amdirlain had tossed her. “Sifu, weren’t we training with blades today?”
“I didn’t say when we’d conduct sword drills,” stated Amdirlain. “A minute before midnight would still count as today.”
“Cruel.”
“Hideously so,” laughed Amdirlain lightly. “I want your touches for this exercise to be mere taps, and an off-balance weapon makes you focus. You can drill with your actual weapon once we’re done.”
Later, when Amdirlain returned inside, she watched Jinfeng through the window, drilling with extra intensity using her blade. The sunlight flashed from the mithril as she flowed across the rough landscape.
It was getting towards sunset when Klipyl appeared in Lizardfolk form on a rock ledge near the training ground. The fading daylight glinted off her greenish-blue scales. As her body blurred, the white ribbon appeared in her hand and wrapped around the curves of her usual elven form.
“Is everything okay?” asked Jinfeng.
“They’ve had the usual dramas of village life, but they survived winter without issues,” advised Klipyl.
“So you didn’t need to worry,” noted Jinfeng. “You were gone for a while.”
Klipyl shrugged. “It was niggling at me, and the goats weren’t their herds. There might have been some surprises, and I wanted to make sure everyone was well.”
“We ensured they had healthy livestock,” Jinfeng insisted. “There is a fine line between getting someone to their feet and carrying them. Go too far into the second and they will start to depend on you.”
“I just wanted to verify they were okay. Being raised weakened them,” said Klipyl.
Jinfeng frowned. “They had greater opportunities than if they’d remained dead.”
“Are you feeling combative today?” asked Klipyl.
“Despite knowing you for months, I don’t understand your perspective,” said Jinfeng. “You dress more scandalously than a brothel worker but aren’t after coins. You are a Celestial being, yet you can be so sensual. The Shen I’ve met are nothing like you. They’ve all been serene beings.”
Klipyl shrugged lightly. “I was a whore for centuries. Aren’t you supposed to only worry about your path?”
“The Emperor’s koan advised not to follow blindly, but is accompanying others without understanding their motivations not equally blind? One should understand one’s Dao, but the lens of the world provides focus.”
“Maybe you’re just feeling restless and craving action,” observed Klipyl. “I’m me. I’m not into philosophy. The only thing I look to do is help people fill places of hollowness and pain. Sometimes that involves sex, but other times it’s just a friendly ear to listen to their problems.”
Jinfeng sheathed her blade. “You are a strange individual, Klipyl.”
The statement set Klipyl giggling. “Among this group, I fit right in. Why do you wave your hands about before drawing your blade?”
“I don’t always wave my hands. It depends on the technique I’m practising.”
“But you immediately knew what I meant,” countered Klipyl, mimicking one of Jinfeng’s technique openers. “So why the hand waving?”
“Mortal practitioners don’t have a spiritual network. We have the chakras, and some techniques need energy to flow through the body in particular ways,” explained Jinfeng.
“It looks like part of a dance,” observed Klipyl. “I’ve seen no extra visible effect from all the clapping and hand waving.”
“While you might think they’re part of a dance, the Martial Pavilion''s techniques aren’t as showy as those of other schools. The exorcist techniques are the most visually dramatic,” said Jinfeng.
“Why the difference?”
“With the exorcists, they are trying to banish ghosts from potentially wide areas, so their Ki techniques are big and broad. A flower opening outwards, and the energy blooms all around them,” said Jinfeng.
“So you’re forging layers to focus energy, and they’re putting up scaffolding to project it outwards?” asked Klipyl.
Jinfeng nodded.
“Just seems like those extra motions in battle would get you killed,” said Klipyl.
“They are for the more powerful techniques. To utilise them in battle, you have someone else to keep the foe busy and give you the moments to prepare,” said Jinfeng. “If you are already engaged, they’re not an option. However, a particular combination of blows can also activate a technique.”
“Such as?”
Jinfeng drew and moved through the first steps of a kata. Her blade shone with Ki on the fourth slice in the sequence, and a boulder beyond the reach of her blade fell into two pieces. “The initial draw, parry, and attacks had Ki flow through my muscles in the required way to activate the technique and focus my Ki precisely.”
“It sounds like you’re using your body to create a Spell form,” said Klipyl.
“I would not put it that way.”
“Of course not,” Klipyl nodded sharply. “It lacks the mystic mumbo jumbo.”
A tight frown breached Jinfeng’s composure. “Mumbo Jumbo?”
Klipyl nodded happily. “Though there is no point arguing about it at the moment. Since Am doesn’t use the same hand waving, we should ask one of the Wizard types when we return to the monastery.”
“True, aside from already having a spiritual network, Sifu doesn’t use elaborate variations within her abilities,” said Jinfeng.
? ? ? ? ? ? This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Klipyl dropped next to Amdirlain. “It’s just as well you didn’t offer them a name at any of your stops. They’re still talking about the black-scaled messenger.”
“I thought you were just hopping back to the village,” said Amdirlain.
“Since I was there anyway, I stopped at a few other places and listened,” advised Klipyl. “You made quite the impression, but they think your appearance was that of an Avatar. I’m unsure, but Jithlo might have encouraged that belief.”
“Good. The last thing I need are prayers directed at me while I can’t hear a Mantle forming,” said Amdirlain.
Sarah patted the couch beside her. “Maybe the next problem you want to handle, you can try for subtle.”
“Yeah, I think I’ve given up all hope of that,” Amdirlain laughed and sat beside Sarah, tucking her feet under her bum.
“I don’t know why you sit like that,” said Klipyl. “You sit on a soft couch and then contort yourself to make it uncomfortable.”
“Never mind how I sit. Was there anything of interest going on?” asked Amdirlain.
Klipyl shrugged broadly. “The priests from the disease sect are all busy making amends. A few other groups are using the situation to exploit their acts of contrition, but that’s not our problem.”
? ? ? ? ? ?
They broke camp when the winter lost its grip on the coast. Amdirlain moved out front of the group, her gaze roaming the coastline. With no ley line before them, the shore should be clear of giant crabs and magical variations of other animals, yet she felt something hostile watching. As her gaze brushed across a clump of bushes a half kilometre ahead, she caught a reptilian gaze concealed within it. The hint of sunlight reflecting off its eyes let her pick out the general shape of a Kobold, scales naturally tinted to match the surrounding greenery.
The gender isn’t clear at this distance.
“Kobolds ahead. If they don’t bother us, let’s not bother them. There isn’t anything in these parts I need,” said Amdirlain.
“Kobolds aren’t worth fussing over,” said Sarah. “Though the Green Dragon I smell on them might have a different opinion about us.”
“How long ago did you pick it up?”
“About three kilometres. He’s only a young adult, and his lair is at least that distance further north. I caught a fishy scent, so the Dragon’s lair is probably in an ocean cave, or a wooded area a few kilometres inland, and he’s been eating a lot of seafood. Another Dragon’s territory is all that would prevent it from hunting further inland. If we head east and cut off this curve of the coast, we can avoid this Dragon, but that might have us cross paths with whatever Dragon borders its territory,” said Sarah. “It will be an older Dragon, maybe one of its parents, but another Green is the most probable. When dragons move out of the nest, they usually move as far as possible.”
Jinfeng’s brows lifted. “You can tell that just from its scent?”
“That and many lifetimes as a Dragon. They’ve got hard-wired behaviours that don’t vary between worlds or planes,” explained Sarah.
“And do those hard-wired behaviours cause you issues?” asked Jinfeng.
Sarah smiled ruefully. “Yeah.”
“Would it come out and bother us?” asked Kadaklan.
“Klipyl’s storage ring and ribbon alone are enough magic to draw his greed, let alone what you and Jinfeng are carrying,” explained Sarah. “We’ve been lucky so far. I had expected to run into more dragons.”
Amdirlain sighed. “Options?”
“It’s a Green Dragon. They’re not the worst of the chromatics, and they actually like living among trees, so they leave a functional ecosystem. Kill it, negotiate passage, or scare the crap out of it so it keeps hidden in its den," said Sarah. “You can guess I’m in favour of option one.”
“I feel killing chromatics is one of those instincts hard-wired into other dragons,” offered Amdirlain.
“Only in metallics, but I’ve had enough lifetimes of it influencing my thoughts for it to be part of my natural disposition.”
“I want to talk to it,” said Amdirlain.
“Why?”
Amdirlain waved to the northeast. “He’ll know the local territories.”
“I could just pick his brain before I kill him,” suggested Sarah.
“You can do that while I tell him to keep his paws to himself,” proposed Amdirlain. “And then we can skirt along the coast. The scent of his death won’t waft around to set anyone curious on our tail.”
Kadaklan smiled. “Have you become a functional pacifist, Am?”
“Hardly. If something takes a swing at me, then I won’t turn the other cheek,” said Amdirlain.
“Make sure you don’t deactivate your pendant,” suggested Sarah.
“Why not?” asked Amdirlain. “He’s going to think I’m just an Elf with it on.”
“Your slaughter aura is the easiest option to scare him, but you’ve gone up so many levels you’ll stop his heart. If you want him to pick up another scent, change form, but don’t deactivate it.”
Amdirlain retrieved a few magical items and set a pair of mithril blades in a harness at her waist. “That should provide sufficient bait.”
“And warning,” said Sarah. “The enchantment on those is strong enough that he’ll be cautious about your strength.”
Amdirlain moved ahead of the group, and they slowed their pace to allow her to focus the Dragon’s attention on her alone.
When she rounded a forested hill, a wagon-sized head lifted from the gully between the trees, and yellow and black reptilian eyes considered Amdirlain as the Dragon’s nostrils flexed, and greed flared in his gaze. The light emerald scales showed minimal scars on his shoulders and neck, possibly from sibling conflicts. Beyond him in the hillside was a cave mouth, and she caught the wards across its entrance.
“What toll do you offer, Elf?”
Amdirlain smiled. “Advice to leave me and the friends following me alone. Also, I’m not an Elf.”
“Scents don’t lie.”
“Mine does,” replied Amdirlain. She transformed between a Green Hag, a Kobold, and back to an Elf; each time, the adopted species was all the scent he caught, and the Dragon edged backwards. “Instead of a toll, how about you sell me information?”
“About what?”
“Tell me about the territories to the north. I’m looking to travel the coast unbothered by the need to slaughter anyone who looks at me wrong,” declared Amdirlain firmly.
“Looks at you wrong?” questioned the Dragon.
“Like the acquisitive gaze you had earlier. You’re not getting any magical items from us, but I might pay you with some metals. Annoy me, and the conversation won’t be so pleasant,” Amdirlain’s tone turned arctic cold, and Primordial Mana eased beneath her skin via Ki Body. The white flames produced a brilliant illumination that obliterated the afternoon shadows.
The Dragon sunk to the ground, and he folded his paws daintily across each other. “I understand. Ask your questions.”
By the time they were done, Amdirlain learnt of another twenty Dragon territories that lay along their path before they even reached the eastern edge of the Bay of Biscay.
Amdirlain returned to the group and provided a summary.
“Want to go west around the isles and approach from the ocean?”
“I don’t know exactly where the Norse called home. From the descriptions of the fjords, I think it’s in the region that mirrors their ancestral lands, but I wanted to approach from the south to avoid missing them,” said Amdirlain.
“You could use Precognition to guide us once we’re far enough north,” proposed Sarah. “How about we hit the top of the North Sea and then go southeast, landing somewhere around the Netherlands? That avoids a lot of forest ahead of us.”
“You said the Titan duplicated your world as it was his original home,” said Jinfeng. “Is it strange to be so far from your birthplace yet see landscapes that echo it?”
“Humans had long cultivated this region, so having thick woods like this over the hills hides the similarities for me,” said Sarah. “It’s just place names for landmarks, and that’s easier than using grid references.”
How do I explain tour planning to Jinfeng?
Amdirlain shrugged lightly. “I find it weird, but then I had planned to see the countryside around here. We had information and pictures from around the world, so those showed me what the place was like.”
“I’m not sure I’d ever understand a lifestyle where you get pictures of places and plan travelling for fun alone,” said Jinfeng.
Klipyl frowned. “Doesn’t it cause problems with how you expect things to be in societies?”
“Yes, and no. There are some things that I won’t accept from a society that calls itself good, but I won’t interfere with how they rule themselves,” said Amdirlain. “I didn’t like the patron system on Qil Tris, but I left it alone. We can talk about that later. How about we head west and follow the continental shelf until we hit the bay north of us and go straight up towards the British Isles?”
“That works,” said Sarah, and deployed the house onto the rocky beach. The claws flexed as it adjusted to the perch, shattering boulders.
They were soon underway in a comparative rush compared to the relaxed stroll along the coast they’d been enjoying. The defensive wards that crawled over the house warned the local dragons to steer clear of the travellers off the coast.
They’d only left the shallows of the continental shelf ten minutes behind when a sharp impact against the floor sent Kadaklan’s cup spinning from the table. Amdirlain quickly leapt for the front door, only to discover the cause immediately. Through the window by the door, she could see a pink flesh wall dripping seawater, the curvature of a gigantic sucker spreading flat against the house’s barrier.
[Species: Kraken, Lesser
Level: 130
Defence: 1,560
Health: 9,360
Magic: 135
Mana: 17,550
Melee Attack Power: 1,950
Combat Skills: Bite [S] (36), Grapple [S] (81), Crush [G] (21)
Details: A fortunately infertile species, they spawn when a Giant Octopus reacts to the mana at a deep-sea ley line junction. The reaction more commonly causes the Giant Octopus to gain innate magical abilities than transform.]
It’s just like the bestial demons. The monsters without classes can level more quickly.
“Unleash the Kraken,” snorted Amdirlain. “I blame Sarah.”
“Why?” asked Kadaklan.
Amdirlain yanked open the front door. “This is the second one which has turned up on her doorstep.”
The house rocked again and bobbed like a cork when the Kraken attempted to pull them beneath the water.
The barrier that encapsulated the house had two giant tentacles wrapped around it, with their hooks and suckers scrabbling fruitlessly for purchase. The main body of the Kraken was the size of a sperm whale and had a rough, deep blue hide. Soul sight showed her no presence beyond the empty flesh monsters possessed. As the house bounced upwards again, Amdirlain leapt forward and ignited. She blasted straight through the tentacle and came out the other side, leaving a cauterised hole in her wake. A foul stench of overcooked seafood and smouldering seaweed wafted upwards.
The creature flinched yet still tried to drag the corner of the house into its segmented maw, which comprised eight beak-like pieces. Amdirlain aimed and raced along a new path. The Kraken’s tentacle had stiffened but hadn’t released the house when Amdirlain blasted along the length of its grip, carving an ashen trench along its lumpy hide. The Kraken’s eyes went wide too late as Amdirlain plunged past the tentacle and into its mouth. Unleashing Ki blasts that tore open a path, she exploded through its body, roasting the monster’s brain on the way out the back of its head.
[Combat Summary:
Kraken x1
Total Experience gained: 12,060
Empress Malfex: +12,060
Ki Body [S] (110->111)]
The loops of tentacles relaxed, and the Kraken sank beneath the waves, leaving a trail of strange blood in its wake.
As Amdirlain landed on the front porch, Kadaklan looked at her incredulously. “Ki Flight training should help you avoid hitting things.”
“You do things your way, and I’ll do them mine,” laughed Amdirlain. “I never enjoyed running into gropers in bars.”
“What’s that got to do with that thing?”
Amdirlain pretended to hug the air in front of her. “It had its hands all over the house.”
“Really?”
“My mind is weird,” said Amdirlain.
“True, but frequently in a good way. Shall we clean up this tea?” Sarah asked from the living room.
“You missed all the fun.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “I’ll figure out how it ambushed us and make improvements.”
? ? ? ? ? ?
Amdirlain’s stomach twisted at the desolate and barren landscape as they approached the southern tip of Ireland. Where she’d expected green fields, there was but parched soil, long baked and blackened by fire. Winds and rains had removed the topsoil in many places; in some spots, erosion had exposed the bedrock. Not even lichen grew.
“Red dragons!” spat Sarah, her voice humming with rage. “This is what they do. Why let anything live nearby when they only need the Mana?”
“With your satellite, did you know about this?”
Sarah’s expression turned grim, and she gave the slightest headshake. “This is far off the route I expected us to take at the start of this trip. Since I didn’t want to be tempted to start more fights, I’ve just been using it to tell me which way to steer.”
“Sorry. I thought you might have proposed this route to get a shot at some more reds. The mountain covered in launchers to butcher the Great Wyrm popped into my mind.”
A tight smile softened Sarah’s bleakness. “Yeah, the amount of permutations I had ready for that first one would be reason enough. If I’d known, I’d have told you directly and let you decide. Do you want to do something about it?”
“Yes,” Amdirlain laughed bitterly. “This place is a wound upon the world. Will you show me how bad the rest of the isles are?”
“Let’s go back inside. I might as well bring up the display and show everyone.”
The display in the living room showed a horrid story: the blackened landscape that lay ahead covered all of Ireland, Wales, England and up into Scotland to just north of where Edinburgh would have been. It made isolating the dragons’ lairs a simple task for Sarah.
“Looking at this, I want to kill them,” hissed Sarah. “Every world where red dragons breed to sufficient numbers has blighted places like this. You get a critical mass of a hundred reds in proximity, and their paranoia has them wipe out everything nearby. Then, the next generations add layers to their territorial shell, killing off more surrounding land. It’s even worse since they can shapeshift like golds, and hundreds could live hidden in a city if they wanted and leave no one the wiser.”
“Is that what gold dragons do?”
“Gold and silver dragons will have hatchlings in a remote location. Once they hit fifteen or twenty and can control their shapeshifting properly, the family will generally move into an elven settlement,” Sarah said. “Then no one questions why their children aren’t ageing fast.”
Klipyl used the touch control on the screen to move the display, focusing on a patch along the east coast where smaller dragons’ lairs were located. “Can I fight any of these younger ones?”
“Why?”
“I want to smack them for making bad choices,” said Klipyl. “The green dragons left all that woodland, and the reds did this. I like the smell of the woodlands, but this place looks like something I’d find in the Abyss. If we kill them off, will life return?”
“It will eventually, even without help,” said Amdirlain. “The wind will carry soil and seeds, and then birds and other life will follow.”
“A few hundred red dragons versus a landscape filled with life seems the wrong option,” said Klipyl.
Jinfeng nodded. “When do we start?”
“I wouldn’t have figured you’d be interested in Dragon slaying,” said Sarah.
“There are tales of what dragons did to the villagers during the scourge,” said Jinfeng. “And here are hundreds of dragons living in a wasteland. Am I right in supposing these lands should harbour far more creatures and monsters than just one species?”
“Yes,” confirmed Amdirlain.
Kadaklan sighed sadly, and Amdirlain shot him an enquiring glance.
“I also would like to restore these lands to life,” admitted Kadaklan. “The dragons represent an abnormal growth, feeding ravenously on a patient. From the look of the landscape, they are like Gaki, consuming everything and never feeling fulfilled. There is no point in hoping that a Gaki will learn the errors of its ways. One can only stop it before it consumes the next village.”
This wasn’t what Ori intended. The ability to feed off Mana should prevent them from having to strip the surrounding landscape bare; instead, they’d done exactly that.
If I banish them to a Demi-Plane, I’d be moving the problem. If I lock them in stasis like I did the eggs, I’m setting up the same situation in which I found Demeter. I killed him in part because he was years out of his own time and a menace to the Lizardfolk if I left him there, or a threat to the peace of humanity’s kingdoms if I sent him over to the Greek people.
“Do we kill them?” asked Sarah.
“Can you hide our presence? I want time to consider alternatives,” said Amdirlain.
“I’ll activate the barrier so the smell of all this mithril and Mana doesn’t carry inland,” said Sarah.
A barrier. A stormwater canal is a barrier to prevent farmlands from being swept away. How do I channel their paranoia into something that prevents them from destroying everything around them?
Red dragons are greedy, and they like to display their greatness. Can I use their greed and paranoia to stop this sort of destruction? I’d also need something so they’ll keep each other contained.