“Oh, you know we’re going hunting for loot, baby.” Yohsuke grinned at the rest of us.
“Sure,” Bokaj smiled back, “right after this word from our sponsors.”
The Ranger fell to the ground laughing as the rest of us joined him. The running noxious fumes from the corpse were beginning to affect us. I laughed as I wandered over to the corpse. James huffed breathlessly on the gashed chest as he tore the flesh away, exposing something inside. He growled when he didn’t find what he was looking for, then moved further up the neck toward the base of the throat, near the skull. He wiped his hands on something from his inventory and held a book to his face then tracing along the flesh before him.
He nicked it with his bladed fist weapon and closed the book before throwing it into his inventory. I blinked, the toxicity of the Dragon’s closeness abating slightly due to my shock at his actions and the breeze from the ocean floating through the area.
Like a surgeon, James dug his blade into the fleshy jawline of the corpse, creating a large gash in one side, then the other, then took his weapons off completely and slipped them into his inventory. He reached inside the first gash and pulled out an oblong-shaped organ the size of his torso that pulsed with a faint, purplish light.
He sat the one gently on the ground before stepping over to the second gash. This one seemed to give him a little more trouble than the last; he had to balance the item in one hand and use his clawed fingers to dig it out.
I decided it was time to investigate, so I began to move his way, bumping my dislocated arm on the corpse. I hissed at the fresh pain and carefully made my way over to him.
“Do me a favor, since you’re up and about?” He looked over at me as I spoke and nodded. “Help me relocate my arm in the socket so I can heal it right?”
James stepped closer to me, his bloody hands grasping my wrist and the shoulder and pulled before the bone shifted and sat in the socket correctly. I cast Regrowth, and my health began to truly replenish.
I watched as he tore several of the black scales from the corpse; some were large, and others were small. He took the blade of his hand, enhanced it with ki, and made a Ki Blade before cutting a tooth and a claw from the body.
“What’re you doing, man?” I asked as he positioned the items in a rough circle around him. He took the blood on his hands and rubbed it on his chest, reached inside the gash of the last organ he had dug out and rubbed more on his face before sitting in the center of the rough circle.
“I plan on taking his strength for myself,” he responded simply. He closed his eyes and began to intone a mantra that sounded oddly like the chanting of a spell spoken harshly.
I watched in morbid fascination as his form began to glow and lift into the air, levitating as he might normally, but then the items around him began to lift into the air as well. As the chant began to repeat, the fang and claw took on an ethereal appearance and began to fade. Then the scales. And the blood. Finally, the two organs burst in a shower of fetid black rain that stopped short of me and the area surrounding the monk floating between them.
The liquid began to turn to fog and flit toward James, spinning around him like a nimbus of doom. I was beginning to freak out a little, and if he hadn’t looked so calm, I would’ve tried to intercede. The fog swirled thinner and thinner until it covered him completely in an oval shape, like an egg.
Then the fog grew dense and slowed until it was a solid wall of darkness. It lowered until it sat on the ground and stilled completely. Runes began to crawl all over the outer layer of the item, and I lost my fucking mind.
My friend was stuck in some kind of egg.
Chapter Eleven
“So our friend is stuck in an egg?” Bokaj looked as confused as the others had when I told them what had happened, but the evidence was right in front of him.
“So do we have to crack this egg to get to the punch line of this yoke or what?” Muu asked with a cheesy grin on his face.
“Shitty time for a pun, man.” I sighed.
“Can you put him in your necklace for now?” Yohsuke looked over the runes but found nothing he could understand that I could see.
I touched the shell and willed it into the necklace. It resisted, but then went into it with no other issues. Inside the necklace was a sort of stasis zone to protect a willing creature. The egg must not have been conscious enough to choose, so it went in.
“We need to get rid of the body somehow, but first, we need to get some of the scales, the claws, fangs and anything else that can be used.” I looked to my friends. “Muu, you wanna pick it as clean as you can while we go and try to find the loot?”
“I doubt my knife will be able to pierce the hide.” He pulled out his skinning blade and held it out to me. I still had some diamond powder in my inventory, so I enchanted the blade with a diamond's hardness and to be sharp enough to cut stone. I hoped it would work on Dragon hide.
“Do as much as you can, brother.” I looked back at the others in time to see Bokaj walking over to the darkened trees. “What’s up?”
“These are infected.” He touched the one he stood in front of, then grinned wolfishly. “I’m gonna take some of this wood and craft some arrow shafts from them. Should make for some fucked up attacks. Mind chopping this one down for me? I’ll cleanse the area while you guys go look around. T’ and Coal can look out for Muu and me while you guys go.”
I shrugged. It wasn’t a bad idea. I took Storm Caller out of my inventory and sliced cleanly through the thick trunk in two good chops and a final Cleave.
I left the two crafters to their tasks and walked back into the cave with Jaken, Yohsuke, and Maebe.
“He said it was hidden. You think it could’ve been some kind of lever pull? A false wall?” Jaken had wandered toward where the tunnel we had used had been as he spoke.
It would make sense, but I didn’t think that would be the case. They would likely have had to have humans or humanoids build that for them.
“Probably hidden by magic.” Yohsuke looked over the bones of the red Dragon, picked clean of all meat and sinew. I took his Astral Blade and began to slowly saw through some of the fangs and claws. “He did something with the fungus in here, willed it to be brighter.”
A command word. With my True Sight, I’d be able to see through any illusions, but that didn’t mean I could see through stone.
I’m a fucking moron, I growled to myself.
I shifted into my earth elemental form and began to feel along the wall closest to me. The stone I touched felt dense and seemed to connect to the outside. Over the next half an hour, I walked the walls until I couldn’t find anything.
“Where the fuck could it be?!” Yohsuke threw a stone at the wall. It clinked loudly, echoing longer than I would’ve thought.
“Well, if it isn’t down here, maybe up top?” Jaken suggested.
We looked at him in confusion, and he sighed before pointing up at the roof of the cave hundreds of feet above us.
“Think about it. You have a ledge that only you know is there? No one can see it because it’s stone—the same as the material around it. False walls are a common thing in a lot of haunted houses and mazes.”
I walked right up to him, put a hand on his shoulder, looked him dead into the windows of his soul, and I said, “I love you, you crazy bastard.”
“How else could a huge-ass Dragon have snuck behind us without us knowing that you can see through illusions?” He shrugged.
I shushed him softly. “No more words, evil genius. Save that for later.” I slapped his face playfully, and he laughed at my antics.
I shifted into my owl form and flew toward the roof of the cave. Sure enough, there was a false overhang with a rather large hideaway in it. There were mounds of treasures, piles of gold and jewels, some weapons—some of them looked more ornate than others—but the whole place was rife with it.
I shifted back and called back down. “Get out! I’m gonna shove all this over the side of the ledge!”
I
waited a second before one of the two responded with, “‘Kay!”
I gave them a few minutes to get out of the way as I worked my way toward the back of the pile. I blinked, and suddenly, Maebe was there. She surveyed the piles with a sly smile.
“Take your pick, my Queen.” I bowed my head.
She lifted her hand toward a pile of gold and items, and the shadows consumed it. The majority was still there; there was simply too much to get rid of all at once anyway.
“That will suffice,” she stated. “What was it you were planning to do now?”
I couldn’t help the shit-eating grin that split my face as I set my mana expenditure at 500 MP for this Void Shield. “I’m gonna make it rain, baby.”
I cast the spell, the shield becoming a large line of shadows. I took a breath and walked forward, shoving the shield into the mounds of gold and items. It was slow work, and this time, Mae helped bolster the spell.
After a few minutes, we finished clearing the loot from the overhang. I did a final walk through, slowly searching for anything we might have missed. I didn’t note anything, but Maebe stopped me from leaping over the edge and going down.
“Time for another lesson.” She touched my face and pulled me close. “I want you to reach out to the shadows with your conscious mind and feel around.”
I stared at her oddly but did as she said to, closing my eyes and casting myself out into the shadows. It was weird at first, warmer than it had been before. But this? This was weird. Then as I rose with them, I gasped.
“There is another overhang.” I nodded to her once and jumped as high as I could with a lazy try and shifted into an owl to get up to the next level.
What I saw there was enough to make me both sad, overjoyed, and sent me into an internal rage so deep that I couldn’t comprehend the full range of the anger I felt at the black Dragon that had taken this cave as his own.
Sitting in a nest of melted gold, gems, and platinum nestled three red Dragon eggs.
I shifted and fell to my knees, cursing softly as I took the view in. Were they alive? Did they stand a chance of making it? If they did, how would they care for themselves? They’d die.
“Mae,” I whispered. Tears crept from my eyes. If I had known these were here, I would’ve been much more brutal in killing that Dragon.
I felt a hand on my shoulder as she grasped me in shock, the pain of her grip somehow centering me. I needed to be strong now. I could mourn later. There was a chance these guys could make it.
“Can Winterheart care for eggs?” She seemed to think about it for a moment before shaking her head.
“Not three. He’s not going to be around for too much longer,” the thought made her sad for a moment, the pain flickering across her features, “but he might be able to help raise one.”
“We need to see if they’re even still alive.” I gritted my teeth and prayed that Mother Nature was looking out for these guys.
Maebe and I stepped forward into the nest and were rewarded with a wash of intense heat from inside, as if I had just opened an oven and it was at the perfect temperature to bake something.
I touched the closest egg. Unfurling my fingers wide as I felt toward the little Dragonling inside—I just knew it was devoid of life. The warmth of the shell outside was a lie that made me curse vehemently.
“This one yet lives, Zeke, but it is weak.” Maebe removed her hand, and I felt for a sign that let me know she was right. I sensed it—a tiny heartbeat. A shred of warmth. I pressed a Heal through the shell into the little baby and hoped that it would help. The beating heart felt a little healthier, and I sighed in relief.
I turned to the last egg with a determined gaze. Please be okay, I prayed.
I touched the egg, and the pulse that greeted me was leaps and bounds stronger than the other egg. I cast Heal on the other egg once more and looked to Mae just before a notification burst into my view.
QUEST ALERT!
Secret quest now available.
Great Egg Scramble - Mother Nature loves all her creatures, and Dragons fall into that category. As a Druid and as a special breed yourself, these young ones’ plight falls to you for assistance. Find someone suitable to bring these creatures into adulthood, or their line will perish, and the world will be poorer for it.
Reward - Unknown, favor with Mother Nature.
Failure - Loss of two great powers in this world and a severe loss of favor with Mother Nature.
Do you accept? Yes / No
I accepted readily, though whoever was naming these quests was seriously demented.
“If you put them into your shadows for transport, they may die, right?” I asked Maebe. She thought for a moment, then thought a little harder.
“I do not know.” She touched a shadow and pulled a living rat out. “This one lives because I will it, but it is mutated and cold. The shadows would steal the warmth from these eggs.”
I sighed to myself. “Come on. Let’s get to the others and explain what’s going on.”
We both left the overhang for the time being. I landed on the floor to find my friends gathered around the treasure, mouths hanging low and eyes wider than I had seen so far. Muu and Bokaj must have opted to come when they heard the cacophonous crash of coin and items hitting the ground.
Coins and items were scattered throughout the room, but information needed passing on now.
“Bad news guys.” I cleared my throat to get their attention. When they all finally looked at me, I continued, “That fucking asshole killed a mom. Mae and I found her clutch. Three eggs. One egg was gone, another was well on its way to joining the first, and the third seemed healthy. We gotta find them a home.”
“Can’t you take one as a companion or a familiar?” Muu asked as he started shoveling coins into a bag.
“No, you GREEDY FUCK!” Without thinking, I advanced on him a little. He stopped what he was doing, and I cooled down a little. “Sorry, man. There’s a kid dead up there. You think Ampharia would take one?”
I didn’t know if I could handle having a Dragon as a pet. It was bad enough having Kayda, a giant fucking bird who was a creature of myth in her own right. A Dragon too? And feeding it.
Look, the gamer in me has some serious doubts in my lineage right now. Like, I’m pretty sure the only thing that part of me hasn’t called me is a wheelbarrow, which is upsetting. But logistically speaking? That big of a mouth to feed would be a huge drain on us.
“A green Dragon raising a red?” He scoffed at the incredulous thought. “In a jungle she sees as her home? No. Not likely. They have a tendency to want to burn things, man. What about Dinnia?”
That suggestion gave me pause. She was strong, at least as strong as I was, and she knew a lot about nature in general. She could do it with help, and Sharo would help. He would likely complain—but he’d help.
“Okay. Yeah, that’s a solid idea.” I motioned toward the pile in front of him. “Let’s get our loot on and then get to getting. We need to dispose of the body and then get these eggs taken care of. Right away.” I took a second then to think before looking at Muu. “Did you and Bokaj finish what you were doing?”
The Ranger nodded, and Muu did too. “Got about a hundred pounds of scales that should likely be armor quality. I think we should just take the tail itself back to the village so that the smiths and the enchanters get to look at it and scour for components.”
“Yeah, and I sure as fuck ain’t cooking that nasty-ass Dragon for food, y’all.” Yohsuke crossed his arms resolutely, and I had to agree that I didn’t want that fucker anywhere near my mouth.
I went outside with Yohsuke and began the slow process of burning the corpse away and purifying the ashes as we worked through the body. Coal helped us where he could. Then I had a face-palm moment—the shadows!
I cast my will out and gathered the darkness in the world around me, beckoning it to me. As it swirled, I redirected it toward the corpse and said, “Consume.”
The nether slowly crept
over the corpse and ate away at it, joyfully sucking it into nothingness. It took ten minutes, but the darkness consumed all of it, and there was nothing left of the Dragon but the tail off to the side where we had left it.
We went back into the cave and helped the others gather loot. At least the loot that would be the most useful. The money would always help, and with some new items, we would be set for items to enchant. I noticed a small glint of light refracted off something and reached down to pick up a skeletal hand with two rings on on it. One was a ring of diamond and the other of sapphire—both wholly made of the precious gems.
Both were exquisitely made, and they weren’t enchanted, so I would take them for now, and if anyone had any objections—I’d hear them out then.
We spent some time throwing weapons, armor, accessories and other things into piles while Muu and Maebe gathered the money into large sacks.
After a mind-numbing amount of time, we finally just decided to stop; if we needed money, we could come back. Nothing was going to come here and take anything unless they were brave enough to risk the waters around this set of islands. If they were? They could have our leftovers.
We gathered the tail and had Muu throw us up to the first ledge above us. With my intelligence at seventy-five, I’d be able to Teleport with up to fifteen creatures. That meant my full party of five, Maebe, the tail, and the eggs if I took Coal back into my body—with plenty of room to spare.
We spaced ourselves out and touched each of the desired items, making sure that we were also in contact with each other before we teleported to our first waypoint. There, I would let the cooldown pass and finish the trip. We would be most of the way to the village with seven hundred and fifty miles per Teleport. When we arrived, I realized we had accidentally brought the nest of precious metals. Half an hour later, we stood in the center of a wildly surprised village.
I cast Mental Message and called to Dinnia, “Dinnia, we have a huge favor to ask of you. We will be in the center of the village.”
“I’m flying there now,” I heard her respond through panting.
I blinked in surprise. I didn’t know she could respond while shapeshifted, but ten minutes later, a falcon crested the roof south of the square, and she shifted as she landed.
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