RP:Hell Hath No Fury Like A Dragon Scorned

Summary: When their friend Alariel is kidnapped by slavers, Locke and Scandal must assist in her escape. A schoolteacher-turned-ringleader and his unscrupulous associates stand in the way of that plan. As Alariel and Scandal fight mercilessly against their enemies, Locke Abigail turns sick with the weight of all this killing and nearly loses his life for it.

North by Northwest

Normally Scandal didn’t fly northwest of the Venturil. But when he did, he always admired how the valley where the fengoth falls descended into was by far one if not thee most peaceful place to fly. Beneath him the clouds of the valley stretched on as far as the eye could see. It was peaceful. The air was light and cool and the sun above him filled him with warmth, from its rays. From the way he saw it it seemed other dragons had the same idea. Already due west he could see a dragon gliding across the surface of the clouds. Scandal smiled. The valley was always covered with the cloud layer so it left it magical, on how one could just soar across the clouds without needing to flap one's wings more often than once every five minutes. This was where the best flying was. That is until he saw flash of light from the west. He turned his eyes and saw several projectile rise up out of the cloudlayer and strike the other flying dragon. He saw its eyes widen and as ropes of light seemed attached to the exploding projectiles winding around the dragon, and then in an instant he saw the dragon get pulled down into the clouds. “OH Shi..” Scandal started turning just as several projectiles rose up after him now. He twisted violently to avoid them, and turn 180 degrees to avoid the going further into this dangerous territory. He flapped harder and faster, trying to build his momentum and height above the cloud layer. And Yet still those infernal projectile kept climbing twisting and moving with him.

Focusing his mana into the strength of his wings he carried himself faster and faster, until he seemed to rumble across the cloud layer leaving a cloud wake. Nearly half way to the falls, he pulled up in a loop just in time as massive beam of light shot up from the valley thundering past him, and up into the sky. “Oh Geez!” As he quickened his pace he shot past the falls. Flying over the thick jungle and rainforest, he darted to and fro, trying to avoid the still following projectiles intending to collide with him. He counted five and they weren’t losing momentum. Ducking past the stone arch, he watched as two of the projectiles smashed against the stone exploding in a purple blaze of glory. “Two down, three to flee from.” Scandal said this time adjusting his climb, over sailing up over the steep slope up Mt. Ventrix, as he turns hard left at the last second so that the two projectiles collide with top of the mountain, causing a sulphuric explosion of blue as they strike mountain top, shaving off its capstone. He looked behind to see the Mountain’s top to see smoke rising up from the eerie blue flames. “Man I hope i didn’t start the fire under the mountain.” He said casting his head underneath him to still see the lone projectile in pursuit. With agility he dodged through the Ancient City of Caklom, and the a forgotten pyramid, still the projectile followed him. Lastly as he neared the exit of the valley he spotted a lake. “That will do.” Tucking his wings in, plummets towards the waters.

The projectile hurls behind him, inching closer and closer with each second. Then in the last scandal opens his wings and flies across the surface of the lake, as the projectile hits the surface of the lake exploding and casting a tidal wave of water outward in all directions. Scandal for second laughs but lose concentration on his flying. He flips he skips, and skids across the lake surface like an enormous skipping stone. Before he slams hard into the cliff side with a crash that shakes the cliffs. Boulders fall in the oncoming avalanche, and fall around him. Scandal shakes his dragon head back in forth as he sneezes out the dust. “*Cough, Choke, wheeze* Damn, those Razurath!” He tries sitting up, his form transitioning to his 12’ draconian self. As the dust settles he finds himself amongst a bunch of Yellow ore. “Gods Dangit, I can’t crash into something and not find gold!” He said picking up and then tossing the ore aside. He coughs audibly as he steps out of the cliff side. Glancing down, he realizes that he is without clothing, instantly wrapping his tail around his waist hiding it. “Oh Geez, I forgot to get dressed this morning.” He cast his eyes into the town of Venturil, and then at the ore. “Oh well, not a bad time to get a new set.” His efforts to sneak into town and get clothing begin.

Locke tossed another small pebble into the water, watching it bounce and skip until it’s inevitable final descent. As a child he was fascinated with this simple pastime. One trite midsummer afternoon, he had even been scolded for tossing so many pebbles into a river that the shoreline had been stripped bare. Elven elders were very particular about their shorelines. There were thousands of pebbles by the lake he now gazed upon — it would take weeks to clear them all. Yet old punishments died hard, and Locke stopped tossing after just six. Memories of simpler times had him chuckling, and when a nearby squirrel came out from a thick patch of bushes to sniff him he laughed even more. “Come to question my sanity, little one?” He smiled and patted the squirrel very gently. “Or maybe you smell this.” Snapping the top off his small sapphire pouch, he plucked a few bits of crushed fruits and nuts and fed the hungry creature by hand. “I thought so. Run along now. Go on, run along. It’s dangerous in these parts.”

The squirrel hesitated and then sprinted skillfully uphill and out of sight. It was indeed rather dangerous around here. Locke had spotted a dragon flying overhead not one hour ago and a strange reptilian creature with short, stubby arms but powerful legs and jaws out across the valley. He was a little scared, himself. Soon he would retreat into the woods, following the clearings back toward the eastern road‍. Stifling a yawn, he glanced up at the midday sun until he squinted. But before he could close his mouth it involuntarily widened at the sight of that dragon from earlier. It was no longer flying overhead. It was dive-bombing toward the lake. “Seven hells,” Locke said, and then he was off; he needed to be lightning-quick to find cover if he wanted to escape that great beast’s fangs. Why the dragon would take such rabid interest in the flesh of a lone half-elf wasn’t a question he bothered pondering just now. He thought only of survival. At the last second he flung himself beneath a large pile of rocks which had effectively created a small cave. The force of his impact knocked several rocks loose from the top of the pile, sealing him inside the makeshift den. He would have cursed his luck if it weren’t for the sudden ear-splitting sound of waves of water crashing over the cave and slamming into the side of the mountain. The dragon had missed! Locke was saved but the lake had felt the full impact of the creature’s wrath.

There was a second dramatic crashing noise, like a titans blasted into the earth. It had to be the dragon, and from its groans it must have missed its prey so completely that it had broken its flight against the mountain cliff. “Take that, you scoundrel!” Locke probably should have been quieter. He might have done to be a bit more cautious, too. His ceaseless curiosity got the better of him, and he gently pushed the rocks that had saved his life out of his way to investigate the scene of the crime. Several inches of water had flooded the ground, leaving his ankles and knees sopping wet, but he cared little about it at the time. What mattered was the dragon. He didn’t see it. Where could it have gone in such a hurry? Surely it must have been wounded. Locke was unsettled. Was it preparing for another aerial assault? He braced for impact and took another glance at his cave. “Oh geez, I forgot to get dressed this morning.” Locke blinked. “Who the bloody heck just said that? C-come out, you! Slowly! And quietly, damn you! There’s a dragon nearby, or are you stark raving deaf?” The intruder was going on about the town of Venturil as they came into view. A draconian — with an oddly familiar face. “Wait,” Locke gasped. “You’re not… I mean. You can’t be… I say. My word. This is a Scandal.”

Muffled voices and sounds brought Alariel back into consciousness. Upon her face she felt a hard surface, an unpleasant feeling that made her squeeze her eyes more closed than they had already been, and the taste of dirt sat upon her dry lips. Upon licking her parched lips, she immediately coughed out the dirt; it was an unpleasant. Her green eyes flicked open and then closed again, but she consciously heard a great commotion all around her. Her body felt numb and the pain at the back of her skull was enough to make her feel a sleepy stupor. It felt as though her body was being cruel and didn't know what it wanted to do...wake up or sleep. Her head felt so heavy as she tried to lift her head which had fallen back onto the ground with her cheek lying flat. Again her eyes flicked open and closed.

"It looks as if this one is stirring." An unfamiliar gruff voice said as another approached. "Ah, just whip her awake." The other said, meaning it full well. "We can't wait for everyone to come to their senses, can we?" The man with gruff voice drew a whip and was ready to strike her on the back before the sound of a rumble was heard. Her eyes flicked open and as her vision returned it became blurry once more with the toe camp of a boot within a few inches of her eyes made her go cross eyed. But he had not been able to strike her as shrieks were heard, and someone alerted them that a dragon had been seen overhead. "Dragon! Retreat to the caves post haste! Keep all of them safe." The more commanding of the two had barked out.

Feet shuffled over the ground and the sound of chains rattling forced her to have an instinctive adrenaline rush, but it had been the cry of "Dragon!" that had truly startled her awake. Before she knew it, Alariel was forcibly plucked from the ground and slammed onto the shoulder of the gruff-voiced man, clad in leather and iron spiked pauldrons which dragged across her skin as his movement shifted. He pointed his whip at a grouping of women who did not hesitate to run along towards a larger cave they were being directed to. Complete irony it was, to have wanted to keep them safe when it was the opposite of what their trade was accomplishing. Sick and cruel it was to sell the lives of others, and to force them into situations so wrongly intended. The mountain had shaken but in an attempt at keeping their cargo safe, the slavers had to indeed rush them all to safety however it had been their own lives they cared more about, for they didn't want to temper the wrath of their leader for losing such a large stock of bodies, whatever their use was.

Alariel beat upon the man's back until he was angered enough to throw her onto the ground. She had successfully cushioned herself, her forearms had dug into gravel. "Oh, what I wouldn't give to smash your face." Alariel said angrily before a whip cracked and connected with her back. She arched her back, writhing in pain and he smiled at her suffering. "It would be wise to keep your mouth shut or do you need reminded?" He barked at her through his teeth, and it was more of a command than a question. Alariel rolled onto her side. "Apparently I have been kidnapped." She grumbled out loud before he snapped his teeth at her. "But if you were smart, you'd have shackled me like the rest of them. Fancy a few more missing teeth for that terrible smile of yours?" The man lunged at her but he had failed to use his whip and he struck ground after she managed to pull him down by it. She had another idea up her sleeve but she was too worn to exact what little revenge she could, and gasped for air.

Scandal reluctantly came out, his tail wrapped around his waist like a towel. and part of his jaw bent into the most draconian way of disgust. His draconian face which normally was black as ebony, and the lower jaw bright red was now flushed with silver. His right foot tapped the ground at an irritating pace. Likely because the dragon was irritated. Being dragon of course came with basic privilege of being able to hide one's equipment within their bodies, but for Scandal the idea of being appearing like an anthro dragon, without proper clothing, left the dragon with all the same embarrassment had he been a human. "There's a dragon nearby. Oh Gods spare the children, I don't wan't to be gobbled up." He said feigning fear as if it were an act. "Oh Gods my wife, whatever shall I do? I know, I will send you out to meet it and then I shall run off, sending each of the kids out one at a time and when he's full I will live." Scandal finally took a breath, if Locke were still staring. "Can I have some privacy please?" Scandal begged, his face so flushed with silver, it might have passed as a boulder. "A Scandal." He paused rolling his eyes, "I walked right into that one." Taking a seat on a boulder by the lake he face with his back to Locke. He sighed as the color of silver began to depart. "Sorry about my entrance, didn't mean to startle anyone, become such a common sight here people stopped being terrified when i showed up. One of things you'll learn quickly about Venturil is, if you stay here, is that there are the threats that scare you at first, but later become a nuisance, Spinosaurs and Razurath are the sole exception to nuisance here, they are a threat." As if to emphasis that. The projectile washed a shore, like an arrow but with a runed tip and runed metal fletching. Which then sparked with electrical arcs. "They are getting smarter every day." Scandal shook his head.

By the time Scandal had stopped imitating cliched humanoid reactions to his species, Locke was only just beginning to realize he was joking. Locke’s bright green eyes were still wide with surprise even then. “Privacy,” he mumbled dumbly, amazed to be repeating a word that a dragon -- even this one -- just spoke. Locke had never been up close with a dragon before and he never imagined it would be quite like this if he did. He gave his friend his request and slowly calmed down as Scandal went on about Venturil. “Spinosaurs. Razurath. Egads, my man, I know neither of these words even a little.” And, despite what common sense might have dictated, that intrigued him. “Tell me more of these Spinosaurs and Razurath! This land is so wild. I’d write a book about it all if I had much calling as a writer.” He winced. “Never really interested me. Why look down upon paper when there’s so much to see looking all around us, right?” Locke started to trot in circles around Scandal now. “Are you hurt? I know a bit of healing.” He shrugged. “Raised by elves over here.” He chuckled. “I…” Screams in the distance, near a far larger cave than the one that just saved Locke’s life, cut off the half-elf’s rambling in a hurry. They were the screams of the slavers and their slaves, but Locke hadn’t seen their ilk on his way here. If he had, he would have been behaving very differently. “Let’s go see if someone needs our assistance!” The lad said it so earnestly he might have been a traveling half-time hero if it weren’t for his scrawniness and inability to stop talking.

Whip-Smart

Alariel looked over to where the man had still been on the ground and it was a split decision to just go for it. She reached out an arm to snatch the whip from him but he was much quicker, snatching it up and rising from the ground. He looked like a menacing tower of muscle and before she knew it she had been struck across the chest as she rolled over in an attempt at beating him to the punch. Blood was drawn again and she had let out a scream, instinctively moving her arm to cover the wound but the whip had caught her wrist and he pulled it forcefully. Pulling with all her might against him she knew she wouldn’t win, she was overpowered by this brute. He loosened the whip and grabbed her forearm, pulling her up in front of him. “You’re a fiery one. Now I know why they were so eager to seek you out.” he mused with pleasure and squeezed her arm mercilessly, dragging her along as she writhed.

“What are you talking about?” she said, seething through gritted teeth. He laughed menacingly at her, not saying a word and continued to drag her along with her struggling to pull away from him, and his grasp only became stronger. Surely when this was all over she’d be quite maimed, bruised, and bloodied. Oh finally, the chance to probably earn a few scars and have a tale to tell, not that anyone would really have an interest. Who would even be nearby in this far off secluded area? No one was around, and she hadn’t heard there was a dragon in the area. It might have given her hope, or it could have just made her more terrified and in danger with a fearsome beast lurking. They were the only two that had not yet made it up to the large cave, and with her stumbling he dragged her along once her feet had been too tired to catch up. She gathered enough stamina to keep up and instead of fighting, gave in to being pulled along forcefully. “I should have left you there, but no. That is not up for me to decide. They would have my head for such a thing.” Alariel’s eyes widened, images of things in her imagination plagued her though they were not the real threat, yet. What were they doing? Who were they? She had a suspicion about who was behind it.

Scandal's initial reaction as he sat down was met with only minor discomfort. At first he arched his back and adjusted his spine. The crackling sound of his bones and muscles emitting from his back and tail. He focused for a second, then slowly as if by magic two things happened. Clothing seemed to materialize over him, and secondly trees and grass turned grey nearby as if they were experiencing an incredible pain. Scandal opened his jaw and with his hands massaged the muscles from where he had held his jaw so tightly, as the pain had been excruciating. "Spinosaurs can be dragon sized problems. They like the T'Rexes are large saurian carnivores. The difference is the Spinosaur is a lot larger, tougher, stronger, and is always hungry. Its pretty common to hear about them picking off hunters in the forest, or even storming a bryg eating women and children, and then storming out before the men folk can respond. Killing one is no easy task, even as a dragon. I would argue the two advantages dragons have over them are at average the ability to fly, and emit a breath power. If a dragon didn't have either of those, well, you'd want to build an arena, and start a betting on fights. Because either the dragon or the Spinosaur, could win." He said explaining. He shook his head trying to shake his head free of the lingering pain. "Razurath, they are a different problem altogether. From what I am told almost two years ago they had a run in with the Warrior's Guild, and even managed to drive a herd of carnivorous dinosaurs on a war path to Larket. Now from what I am told they were just a maddened group of what some believe the Razurath call them, The Shadowed ones, or the Blacks, or even the Prim'ar. Now from what i am told before hand is, Razurath were never really a problem, they stayed in their valley and kept out of sight. They live in the valley beneath the fengoth falls. But, in the last year, the Razurath have become different.

Sure some dress tribally, and others occasionally enter the byrgs to trade, but they have also been seen as far as cenril, as if they are planning something big, if you look out to their valley at night, you can see pulsating glows beneath the cloud cover, and you can hear and odd rumble that ends in a hum, every three minutes only to start up again. Just today i had to escape their fire. Saw them take down another dragon over their valley when i was flying over it, and they shot well, strange arrows that are runed. To make matters worse, they have been forcing anyone who has settled near their lands to clear out. If a woman is pregnant, then they give the head of the house a choice. If the woman gives birth on their lands, the child belongs to the Razurath, or if they leave, the child remains the wife and her husbands. I don't know what they do with them. But I will say, something in the last year, made them change. Having met one of them, and talked, they no longer even have tribes anymore. So something is going on." Scandal shook his head. "I am sorry, that was a lot of information on a simple question." He paused about to listen to locke when the scream occurred. "I would say that common to hear, but no reason to not assist. Come on. let’s go find out what it is."

There weren’t a lot of things in the world which could distract a lad like Locke from giving knowledgeable folk his undivided attention. As it happened, a person magically materializing clothing at the tormenting expense of local flora was one of them. Locke did not retain the first half of Scandal’s Spinosaur story. By the time the dragon had moved on to the Razurath, however, Locke was all-pointed-ears. He’d never before heard of any Warrior’s Guild, but the name implied a certain enviable might. Larket? Byrgs? Locke knew little and less about war paths and far-west townships, but he understood the magnitude of the threat that Scandal claimed these razurath now posed. What a horrifying thing, and what good fortune and fortitude Locke wished upon whomever led the gallant charge to stop those madmen from whatever diabolical schemes they surely sought to bring to fruition. But the young ranger would not be among the gallant. He had no stomach for such things and certainly he believed he lacked the physical and mental prowess to be of any use to any noble fairytale knight or sorceress anyway. No, Locke thought to himself as he and his friend ran toward the sources of the screams. No, there was only one type of madman he hunted — slavers of all shapes, sizes, and areas of expertise. Locke was hardly fit to hunt anyone at all, but that didn’t stop him from putting his life on the line every time he caught sight of a slaver. There were reasons for this. Complicated reasons.

Sometimes irony seemed the one true god to Locke Abigail. Not only did it appear to Locke that a powerful slaver was dragging a woman across the ground with predictably ill intent, but the woman in question was even a familiar face for the lad. It was Alariel, the very elf that Locke and Scandal had met only recently. So the stage was now set, and all the actors were of a type; there was Scandal, whom he knew, and there was Alariel, whom they both knew, and there was a slaver, whom he instantly detested, and there was even a slaver’s victim with whom he’d had prior correspondence, guaranteeing a personal vested interest. ‘Dramatic irony is especially all-knowing,’ the half-elf thought in sullen silence. “Stand back if you must, my good man. Dragon. My good… dragon… man. But I cannot sanction this injustice.” Bold words for a man of 119 pounds, but they were said with undeniable conviction.

Locke’s bow was drawn and an arrow readied before he’d taken five more steps, and his steps were at a sprinter’s pace. “Out of respect that my companions might not enjoy the sight of your ample chest riddled with arrows to reveal your ugly innards, I offer you this one chance to leave that woman and run home to whatever hellscape you call your life.”

Alariel’s ears detected a familiar voice before it had approached, an elven one and with bated breath she stopped in her tracks with him attempting to pull her along. As her attention moved from her captor, her eyes widened at the sight of the towering dragon before realizing who it was, and who was with him. Her captor had seen as he reached for the long sword sheathed at his hip. Her heart thumped in her chest knowing the two of them had been in the right place at the right time.

There had been no sense in telling them not to be seen before her captor would discover them, because Scandal wouldn’t have fooled anyone into thinking he was a tree, and they had already been seen. As he let go of Alariel’s arm she was struck in the back with the blunt end of his sword and thrust before Locke, falling onto her knees clutching at the clothing they had forced her to wear, an beaded top of bright colors that bared her wounded midriff leading down to her curvy waist donning a belted skirt of a silky material, not to mention the other lashes and bruises being noticeable with her revealing uniform.

She might have blushed in embarrassment but she was quicker to seethe at her captor, despite her back facing him. “You’re going to be no gallant hero today, boy.” he said, sniffling mucus back into his nasal passages before holding the long sword with a firm grip behind Alariel, his feet already placed in a stance, shoulder width apart. He whistled and swiftly dark figures appeared from behind the trees, circling the pair dragon/elf pair with weapons drawn. Their clothes had blended so well into the surrounding flora as a natural camouflage.

Alariel gasped, feeling cold iron kiss of the blade against her neck. “Don’t you dare.” Alariel warned, shifting her eyes to the side and she would have glared at him if she could. “And my head would roll along with yours...and such a confident lad you are." He addressed Locke. "No bite and all bark, probably with a mother at home who would call you back in for supper. An idiotic child.” He scoffed, shifting his glare to the dragon.

Scandal had no control over the nature around him. This was likely something passive his body did to try vent the amount of pain he went through. His eye would note the change in the grass after they started moving. He would have to get that item from Craughmoyle so that his sisters could finish that ritual to fix his shapeshifting, so that their would be no more pain. If it started here, with nature, how soon would involve people? As he followed Locke and soo found the confrontation between recognized faces at least that of alariel. He kept his thoughts to himself until Locke stumbled over what to call him, "As dramatically cool as that started to sound Locke, I think we need to work on your delivery." Scandal himself didn't bear any weapons traditionally, but also he didn't want to use his range ability. It was known to be well, last time he used it the flaming crater in Vailkrin was still smoking. So he was against using that. More so he kept his eyes locked on alariel eyes or on locke's face. He didn't need to know what the slavers had put her in, he just needed to be ready. "I am not against seeing this slavers spilt, I only dismayed i can't spew them over a quarter of mile."

When he woke up today Locke had envisioned himself going for a stroll through unfamiliar ground, gaining some insight into another part of the world, settling at a local inn someplace, ordering a nice bowl of vegetable stew and passing out at half past eight with his nose to the binding of a fascinating book about who-knows-what. Standing alongside a dragon to save a scantily-clad woman from exceptionally ugly men wasn’t even a cliff note on his itinerary. Alas, there were some things Locke Abigail simply couldn’t abide. Besides, he wasn’t entirely convinced Alariel needed saving. She needed help, certainly. And not a shred of him considered denying her that help. But outright saving? No, he had other ideas in mind. It would be difficult for her to fight in the perplexingly silk attire she’d been given; the survival advantages of that outfit were even slimmer than she was. Truly, the concept of clothing expressly designed to expose one’s skin was as foreign to the lad as that strange liquid he’d heard Mesthak refer to as “whiskey”. Nevertheless, Locke was confident that if he could reach the woman she’d be an ally.

If only he had half as much confidence in himself. It was good to know that he and Scandal were on the same page, but was it a page worth reading? Surely Scandal had a dozen deadly tricks to unveil, but when the fighting started, what could Locke do but shoot his arrows and pray they didn’t miss? The slaver they’d first spotted, before the others came out of hiding, spoke words that hurt Locke to the bone. He really was just a boy, and he knew it was luck that guided his few victories against slave traders in the past -- not skill. He shook his head. ‘Snap out of it, Locke,’ he thought. ‘This is real. You’re standing here because you chose to stand here. You might die if you go toe-to-toe with this lot. You -will- die if you don’t resist.’ He swallowed hard and exhaled, loosening his limbs as best he could to guide his shot. He didn’t bother responding to the slaver’s taunt with words. He responded with an arrow.

War is Hell...

Ludger had a stupid horse laugh, and he knew it. All throughout his childhood he’d been ridiculed for it. The only children who stood by his side were those who had no other choice. They bonded because they had to, and when raiders came to their village they were among the last picks for prisoners. They were going to be killed, brutalized, because they were all skin and bones and they screamed for their mothers and fathers. And, as far as Ludger was concerned, they were going to make his death the most painful of them all… because of his stupid horse laugh. But when the able-bodied boys and the prettiest girls gave the raiders defiance until their last breaths, the raiders took in Ludger and his little band of misfit rejects instead. Because they had no other choice. They trained them because they had to, and when it came time for Ludger to assist in the pillaging and raping practices himself he was simply glad to have been accepted. He’d found his calling; he was respected because he threw himself into strengthening his body and had never quite found a moral center. He had no qualms with doing whatever needed doing because he realized one simple, fruitful truth along the way: he felt very, very good when he made other people submit to his whims. He’d never be able to get rid of his stupid horse laugh, but it didn’t matter because anyone who might have ever ridiculed him for it was dead or sold into destitution.

The arrow pierced Ludger’s thick neck and drove straight through his throat. Immediately he coughed, and blood splattered down his lip and fell all over the brown grass beneath him. He wasn’t sure why his stupid horse laugh was the last thing he ever thought about, but as his vision went black as night, he remembered the boy he used to be.

“Seven hells,” a thin slaver with a lilting accent muttered in disgust. “He got Ludger. Avenge him, gods damn it! Avenge him!” The slaver ran ahead at full speed, tripping over Ludger’s corpse almost comically. Locke didn’t think about it; he had a perfect shot again, so he took it. The thin man crumpled over the much larger corpse, squealing in agony and disappearing into Ludger’s cold embrace. The other slavers hesitated. One of them let out something like a war cry, the words -- if there were any -- harshly distorted. And then they spread out, six in all, encircling Locke and Scandal like vipers. One of them even hissed. They drew their swords, all but one, who had come prepared with a bow to rival Locke’s. That one sneered, readied his arrow, and fired. His aim was far superior to Locke’s, such that he didn’t need perfect alignment in the least; as Locke jumped to the side evasively, the slaver’s arrow still came perilously close to his chest. Instead it buzzed by in a frightening whoosh, narrowly missing the half-elf’s spry frame but sending a clear message.

Locke knew it was now or never. Alariel needed their help and it was time he made good on that. He ran as fast as he could to the woman’s side, drew his lone serrated steel dagger from his belt, quickly searched for the thinnest sliver of metal on her chain and slashed it with what little might a lad of his size and stature could muster. Over and over he slashed, cognizant of the fact that the men with swords were heading his way to end his folly and the man with a bow had everything in the world in his favor for his pending second draw. When at last Alariel’s chains severed, Locke actually let out a gasp, surprised by his own success. He handed her his bow and all his arrows. Whether or not she could use them remained to be seen, but he had faith. She was an elf, she was of good fitness, and perhaps most importantly of all she was angry. Locke afforded her one quick meaningful glance and turned to face the men who were meters away from slicing them to ribbons.

Closing her eyes, Alariel likely had thought about things as moments flashing before her eyes. Visions of how short her time had been in this different world, so far away from her own. The sprawling land covered in a green forest and the vines creeping up the sides of buildings, throughout time eventually encasing them...it seemed even further away. There were many sights and sounds she’d miss there, but the one thing she would never get back was already gone, they had slipped through her fingers. And yet day by day and with each step she reminded herself of her goal to return. But it would not be today, and perhaps not for many other years, for here and now she kneeled on the ground beaten, bruised, and bloodied and though she had almost cracked under the pressure her thoughts settled on another one. The many others that had suffered at the slaver’s hands.

She opened her eyes and hadn’t felt the blade any more, the thing she couldn’t help but previously concentrate on the most. As Alariel looked over her shoulder she saw Ludger’s body fall beside her and slam down to the ground with the other on top of him. A look of horror flooded her face, as she saw the very same vision before that she had seen before, but with her father in Ludger’s place. “The King is dead…” she said in a flat tone, as if repeating something she had heard another say before as she looked down upon them. For but a moment a memory passed in her vision and she was utterly frozen, only coming back to her senses once she saw Locke dodge the arrow. She gasped in disbelief, he was free of physical harm, and he was heading towards her. “Locke.” she cried out with a smile in her eyes before worry crossed her face. “What are you doing? You don’t have time for this.”

Alariel watched all around them as Locke sawed away, noting the movement patterns of the others before a chain was broken and a bow was thrust against her chest, and the quiver of arrows. She spotted one approaching Locke at a quicker speed than the others, ready to deal a fatal blow with a sword as he closed the distance. She caught the meaningful look from Locke and smiled back. “I’d say watch out, but…” She hadn’t had time to put the quiver on her back and yet no time at all she had swiftly knocked an arrow, drew her arm back, let go, and released the arrow into the skull of the one at a closer range than the others. It hit her target with a terrifying thwack and she would have never forgiven herself if she hadn’t left the quiver on the ground. The timing had been crucial. The thought of seeing Locke become another body on the ground would have haunted her. Alariel knew Locke had given her a better fighting chance. “There are more!” Alariel shouted to Scandal. “More of us...innocents! They made them go east of here to a larger cave.” She swiftly drew back another arrow and shot it into the air.

Scandal realizing that the slavers has decided to circle him and Locke now that Locke had taken down one of their own, drew in a breath. He scanned the enemies. The one with the spear was to his liking, and has locke darted towards Alariel, Scandal began. First a slave with crossbow fired his arrow at him, but Scandal slipped to the side, catching the arrow in his hand and then whipping it around to man with the spear. Ripping the spear away from the dying man he spun it around and impaled the man with halberd. Breaking the spear into a quarterstaff, he caught one of the slavers swords blades on it middle the, with the sword blade briefly stuck, scandal pulled upward taking the man's sword from his hands and then with his foot he grabbed the man by his face and slammed his head into the ground breaking his neck. Twisting his body he hurled the corpse with a roundhouse kick into the other man causing him suddenly find himself impaled by a corpse. Then scandal stepped on his own tail, cringed, as the pain shot up his spine, this momentarily gave one soldier the time to draw out his dagger and prepare to leap on top of him to strike.

Locke’s run of good luck held firm when Alariel saved his life. The arrow she loosed was the only thing that stopped the closest slaver from ending his root from stem. No meaningful nod would ever suffice for what she had just done, but nothing more could be afforded unless they got out of this intact. His head was throbbing. Was this what it meant to fight in a real battle? He wanted nothing more to do with it but he couldn’t deny his conscience. He felt blood pumping through his veins in ways he’d never before felt, as if suddenly it had dawned upon the half-elf that he was meat and bones and utterly mortal. It was so cool and crisp out here just moments ago. Why did it feel like he had stepped inside an Erendite sauna now? The shapes of remaining slavers were becoming a blur. Locke’s whole world went pear-shaped and he tasted bile somewhere deep within, desperate to come out and play with the rest of this suddenly-wretched world. Despite the fear, despite the sick pit in his stomach and the twisted pain in his brain, the only words that could possibly compel Locke to continue fighting had just been uttered. Alariel’s voice, however distorted it sounded to him now, had said that there were more people whose freedom was being ripped away and more captors who needed to pay for the ripping. “We’ll save them,” he practically coughed out of his throat. His green eyes, perhaps a bit darker than they were before, searched the blurring shapes for Scandal.

Along the way, he felt his left hand’s grip tighten on his dagger and then an ugly squishy sensation reverberated from the hilt. He narrowed his eyes and realized he had just stabbed an oncoming slaver in the gut. The slaver’s sword fell clanging against a rock and was still. Locke picked up the sword and almost fell down beside the slaver’s corpse. He had never in all his short years held a sword, never needed to, never wanted to. It wasn’t as heavy as he thought it would be, and yet it weighed him down just the same. He couldn’t figure out how to hold it in one hand without feeling like he was flailing his way into death so he slid his dagger back into his belt and gripped the sword with both hands instead. Alariel was behind him, or perhaps she was beside him. The only thing he knew for sure was that she wasn’t yet ahead of him. His vision was returning, his blood pressure normalizing. The fog in Locke’s brain gave way to imperfect clarity. Adrenaline. Pure, unfiltered adrenaline. Scandal was more than holding his own, doing things against his opponents Locke could scarcely conceive, and then suddenly Scandal was in pain. “Get away from my friend, you filth! I’ll kill you too if I have to!” It was Locke’s own voice and it was loud and clear but it may as well have been a stranger’s from a league away. He didn’t hear it, couldn’t believe he had said it. He rushed the man whose dagger was almost upon the dragon and sliced him unevenly, an amateur’s cut, from shoulder to hip. The man howled like a dying dog and collapsed, his mouth foaming. “Alariel?” Locke turned to face her. His glance was pleading. “Alariel,” he repeated. “Can you help him? Can you stay by his side?” More men, the last two of holdouts from Ludger’s surprise ambush party, were nearby, but they were had become far more cautious and kept their distance. For now. “I’m going to the cave, Alariel. I’m going to the cave and I am going to finish this.”

In the cave, six more men and even two women periodically took their eyes off their remaining collection of female prisoners to look outside, squinting for signs of Ludger and his men. They had been gone too long, and there’d been no great and terrible flying beast seen in the skies for several minutes. “He frakked it all to piss,” the ringleader said. He was a head shorter than a few of his subordinates but his stance commanded the utmost respect. He had platinum blond hair and a clean-shaven face and in another life, another time, he might have been a kind and reasonable man. Catal’s mass extinction event changed all that forever. “He frakked it all to piss, and we’re gonna be the ones to clean up his mess. Got himself killed, I bet. Eaten and ingested. He’s dragon done and dusted, he is.” Another slaver spat. “More’s the coin for the rest of us. We hold out until it’s safe from gorram dragons and then we leave. Back to Chartsend, back to the boat, and off to our clients happy as we like. Next mission lines up, we hire some more men. Men without stupid horse laughs.” The ringleader nodded. “We hold,” he agreed, “until the gorram dragon has gone and flown away.”

Outside, a boy with a sword he barely knew how to hold drew close.

Alariel’s eyes fell on her target as she watched a slaver’s body hit the ground with such force his bones had cracked. His body lay contorted on the ground and she looked on in disgust of what she had done, looking from the bow back to the fallen slaver. She quickly pushed her thoughts aside as her green eyes looked Locke once more, analyzing his current state. It seemed as if he had been paralyzed and she had wanted to reach out to shake him back to his senses and remind him of what was going on but he had already stabbed another slaver. Alariel stepped beside him watched as Locke drew his arm back and looked on at what he had done with wide eyes. It was not as if she looked on in horror, but though she had been slightly disgusted she was impressed that he had caught his assailant just in time. Upon his handling of the sword, it had quickly become evident that Locke was perhaps biting off more than he could chew.

Alariel would have handed his bow back to him if she could but he took off with the sword and she caught up to flank beside him, her sandaled feet falling on the ground. She held the bow before her with conviction, ceasing to search around for anything nearing besides who was ahead of them. After seeing what work they had almost done to Locke, she became brazen and with narrowed eyes she could have stared straight into the souls of the two who considered assailing further. She targeted them and they picked up their pace in the other direction, ducking behind trees that were further off. Ignoring Locke’s pleading glance, hardly hearing his words at all, she raged and something primal had struck her as she started bounding towards their direction, wanting to fire off arrows at them. “Get back here!” she shouted mercilessly as she continued running in pursuit at full speed past rows and rows of trees. She was mighty quick and knew then she would have to take them down. It appeared that the rest of their kind had headed towards the caves and to give Locke and herself the best chance at not being followed, she dared to defy her legs and feet that ached so much.

Two arrows effortlessly flew past rows of trees, striking the pair of them as they attempted to dart between them. At the end Alariel fell from exhaustion, dropping the bow to grasp at anything she could to steady herself so she could rise back up. At a slow pace she nearly caught up to Locke before he set off towards the cave. Alariel looked up at Scandal to see if he was alright and coughed some air out of her lungs. “Kill me, spare me!” a man begged, pulling at her thin skirt. Just moments before she had dared to pursue the others, she hadn’t had to heart to do what this man asked, and there was nothing that could be done to save him. It was too late, and he continued to writhe in pain. Tears fell from her eyes in as she looked towards Scandal. She wrapped her arms around herself and couldn’t do anything but wipe away her tears with every pleading tug the dying man made.

Scandal swore. He swore in the common, he swore in elf, he swore in dwarven, he swore in saurian, and then he swore in his native tongue. If had not been clear Scandal had not been raised by a mother, it was clear now, no mother would have allowed any child or chick to go without a snout full of soap for the words that he sputtered from his maw. For a dragon stepping on one's tail was like well, insulting and painful, but stepping on your own tail, which you have control of and yet still stepped on, is nothing short of humiliating. Scandal's eyes burned between the pain and the ego that were now smarting, but also because he was quite needing to let the anger out from the humiliation. With one unfortunately stupid and unlucky slaver who had tripped over a root as he made his way to the other cave. Scandal was on him in an instant.

Grabbing the man by his skull he lifted the man up to his head level. The dragon's eyes burning with rage, as the man's eyes bugged out of his head, the blood withdrawing from his face, his hair suddenly turning white, with fear as he stared right into the unrelenting fury behind Scandal's eyes. For a second the man's white pants were turning to an awful shade of brown, and then the next, to those who might have the ability to do so, it was, like a horrendous slow motion replay. The powerful dragons muscles flexing the way he twisted his body and arm, hurling the poor sap through the air like the human baseball. The first obstacle of impact a tree is shattered by the man's skull as if like in a tornado a piece of straw is driven through a stone, the second obstacle another tree, suddenly resembles sawdust and matchstick, and finally the very cliff side, now has a unique formation of human male spread out like an odd shaped X. For a brief second there is silence but then a mild case of thunder can be heard, As the impact or the speed at which the man was thrown makes ones ears ache. A flock of bats soon emerged from the new formation.

Scandal eyes turned to see the Alariel’s flight as she ran from cave only to see one last poor sap, tugging onto her in his deathroes. He moved as so his massive frame reaching for the man's skull and drawing him away from her, before his fist closed, the man who had been screaming was suddenly cut off. His body dropping as scandal opened his blood soaked hand. He motioned with a shrug of his shoulder before he turned toward where Locke had run off too. He past by Alariel, "Stay if you want, you've earned it. Or come with me if you want more blood." He said, as he moved after. Only to see Locke approaching the mouth of the cave entrance.

As he moved a slaver who had been hiding in a tree stepped out with a blow gun to stun the dragon. Only for an arrow to rip through the forest, and implanting itself in the man's lower spine, a second later the pain face turned into frozen silent agonizing scream, as he crumpled tilted and fell like a statue, smoke rising from his body and fire starting. Scandal eyes looked up the path of the arrow’s origin, and in the distance what could have been almost kilometer away, he clearly saw a near humanoid shape, albeit with some common recognizable differenced he had seen before, its white skin plain as day despite its green and brown cloak and cowl. A odd shaped crossbow in its right claw. "Razurath." He said shaking his head and then moving to his hand to his nostrils trying to stop the horrendous smell of cooking human. "Bleh." He said moving off.

The ringleader, whose name was Giuseppe, was the only slaver who didn’t laugh when they all caught sight of the scrawny half-elf headed their way while clutching a sword hilt like it was more liable to kill him than his apparent targets. Giuseppe recognized how blatantly unthreatening the lad appeared and immediately looked past him. “Seven hells,” the slaver growled. Ludger’s unseasoned swine had harmed Giuseppe’s golden goose. That wounded woman, highborn and proud, far more useful in far more ways than the rest of this lot, prisoners and associates alike. “You idiots,” Giuseppe yelled, unfazed by the fact that nearly all of Ludger’s swine had already slain. The slaver nearest him, who had been making conversation with him about the trip back to Chartsend, shook his head in disbelief. He, too, knew the value of Alariel. He joined Giuseppe and together they stepped briskly past Locke, keeping their distance from the irrelevant boy on their way to Alariel. Her skirt was being tugged by the last living Ludger-affiliated holdout, but the injured draconian beside her put an end to that. “Your assistance is noted,” Giuseppe told Scandal. “It won’t save your life, of course, but nevertheless it is noted.” His sword, all iron and edges and bloodstained from frequent use, was bigger than any other sword on the battlefield. He wielded it like he was born with it, but his training had only began a few short years ago; Giuseppe Halvain had been a schoolteacher before his life of crime. That more than anything was the global impact of the end of the country of Catal. Even school teachers had turned to grievous sin.

Locke doubled back. He was close enough to Alariel and Scandal to cover the distance between Giuseppe and himself in mere seconds. He drew his sword with feeble gracelessness and took a poorly-planned horizontal slice toward the ringleader. Giuseppe didn’t even look at him; he simply moved out of the way as if avoiding an annoying fly. Instead, Giuseppe’s burly and rough-spoken companion threw his gauntleted right hand into the air and smacked it against Locke’s forehead hard enough to knock him down. “You’re too pretty to die,” the slaver chuckled. “Might fetch a fair price in Tretenne or the Confederation. The gents there have exontric tastes, they do.” It could be reasonably assumed that the slaver meant “exotic.” Locke felt the blow like he’d never felt one before, and he coughed into the dry grass uncontrollably. His vision was fading. He dropped his sword. “Good, meat. You had no frakkin’ business with that thing in the first place.” Something like stubbornness brought Locke’s vision back just enough for what he aimed to do. “You’re right,” Locke conceded. He stuck his knife through the slaver’s gut. Daggers, he knew. The slaver took the time in dying to afford the half-elf a horrified look.

Giuseppe was smart enough to reassess Locke’s capabilities now. He took a wider berth despite knowing his sword would cleave through the boy’s skull long before that knife could ever find him. Unlike the most recent dead man, Giussepe had no interest in enslaving the half-elf. Tretenne and the Confederation had entirely too many soldiers in entirely too many districts to be worth the bother, and anyplace else he’d be lucky to make six gold off the boy. Hardly worth the effort. But there was much gold to be made here in Lithrydel in years to come -- and worthy clients at that. “Gul Venek and his friends charge a handful of silver for every slave we take off their hands,” he said to Alariel, as if it was the most fascinating thing she would ever hear. The name -- Gul Venek -- might have sounded familiar to her, or to Scandal or Locke for that matter. After all, it had been painted in garish colors upon the wagon from which that unscrupulous merchant back on the road from Kelay to Cenril had tried to swindle a crowd into buying his sham tonics. “But you, my dear,” Giuseppe continued, obviously meaning Alariel, “are of completely separate stock. I may as well have snagged a princess, no?” He sneered. Behind him, the remaining slavers emerged from the cave as if on cue. “Do not test me further, girl, or I’ll make these knaves’ deaths worse than necessary.” With that he was off, a quick and furious swoosh of his sword meant for Scandal’s left hip.

One of the other slavers took a crossbow bolt to the head, distracting the rest of them momentarily. They panicked, redoubling their efforts to catch up to their leader. The Razurath were hungry.

...And So Are We

Before Alariel stood Giuseppe and the moment her watery eyes fell upon him she defensively dropped her hands back at her side, she recognized him. His words stabbed at her for a moment, leaving her feeling nothing but numb. Her eyes searched from left to right, assessing the situation, and she buried her chin into her right shoulder squeezing her eyes shut. It was then she realized pawning off some of her finery to another merchant had been the wrong choice, they had informed his lot of miscreants and word had gotten to their leader, Giuseppe. She had only sold a silver circlet, but it had been just enough that someone who had been well-informed could use to learn she was worth tracking down. The fair elf did indeed recall the words on the side of the merchant cart, though its meaning was foreign to her at the time. Alariel wondered how many others must have been similarly dealt with, though she seemed to have been their biggest catch yet.

She turned her head to look back at them and stood frozen, only her eyes tracked his movements. “Yes.” Alariel said, swallowing her singular word out of regret. They had been able to surmise things on their own, and they had been close enough a simple word would do. The elf bit her bottom lip, calculating and waiting for Giuseppe to walk even closer and he could have drifted as closely as he wanted to her, leaving others to wonder if she was prey that willingly fell into their trap. If he stood beside her, she would focus on nothing but the numbness she felt, and the temptation to strike him. Her eyes would unfocus for a moment, staring ahead at nothing - not even who may have stood in close proximity before she would glower at him.

“There is no honor in this trade you call a profitable business.” she said flatly as she barely reached the tip of the iceberg of her vocalized dissection, her following words vehement. “Trading the lives of others, as if life were some profitable gift bestowed on you. Not concerning yourself in their welfare, and yet protecting your ‘investment.’ You and your kind are the filthiest criminals, never taking advantage of your freedom to do anything else with it...instead, taking away freedom for personal gain. Where I’m from, mages were enslaved for their power that the common people couldn’t understand, and it was out of fear. Do you have any fear? Slinging your sword at anyone weak enough with no defense for themself does not mean you are powerful and have nothing to fear. So tell me, who would you strike down first?”

She continued to stand there, appearing as if she were weak and unthinking enough to fall into a trap, simply engaging Giuseppe through talking, egging him on. Perhaps it had been a mistake to leave Locke’s bow beside the dying man, but hindsight was unhelpful in this instance. It wasn’t in her reach but she didn’t seem to feel too threatened as a look of confidence surfaced along with a smirk. Within her body she felt power welling up, waiting to be used and though she didn’t know how to harness it quite yet, and Giuseppe didn’t seem to be the type who was conscious of the magic of a spell blade.

Scandal's reflexes were what saved his hip from injury. But not his dignity. Such a rapid sword swing that had aimed form him while the slaver had been previously speaking, was partially unexpect despite Scandal knowing it had been entirely expect. A dragon could only hold their battle rage so long, and Uldenbraug dragons were much quicker at losing it than dragon born within the last 150k years. This gave them both an advantage and a curse. The Advantage being they were able to swallow the intelligence draining rage and resume logical thought quickly, however the con was physically they no longer had that fast thinking reflexes, and berserk level strength. In its Scandal's case however, it was different, he would revert his form recurring as that dragon he was, the difference being, he would not be able to control the size, when he did.

As Scandal spun in the air his form rapidly changed the clothing melting away his arms and legs becoming like the beast he was, his form swelling already he was over 20’ tall and 70’ long, but he was still growing and he wasn’t stopping five seconds from then he would double in size. The slavers finally realizing that the dragon they had seen earlier was in fact the draconian, sent them into an even bigger panic as they tried to flee the scene. Scandal landed on the ground with intense force causing those within forty feet of him to be thrown to the ground, and those 60’ to a hundred were almost lost their footing. Beyond that it was just loud.

Scandal was not happy, for one he hated this, he hated not being in control of his own body, if anything his greatest pet peeve, was not being in control of himself at all times. It terrified him, and it also made him very uncomfortable. Thirdly he hated people touching his treasure, but what dragon didn’t, the thing with Scandal was though that, when it came to treasure he only chose the most priceless treasure there was. That was people, friends, and family. He may not have been able to control the size morphing, but he knew out to dominate the conversation.

“You have 30 seconds to release your prisoners, and surrender. Or I will leave a mark here worse than I did in Vailkrin.” He spoke however softly, but his voice was amplified by his increasing size. His shadow already was beginning to encompass the area. The shadow growing darker as he did so. His mouth opened and glow seemed to take form in his throat. It was eerie like an acidic green glow. Which continued to grown from within his teeth which transformed from their pearly whites to a terrible ebony. The red parts of him turning negative and toxic green. While his eyes did the same, filled with a fire rather than flesh. His wings opened as he pushed the 200’ tall ceiling his body still growing, as he raised a claw and because of it size it may have felt like slow motion movement, but Scandal’s moves were deliberate, he didn’t aim for where some slavers were, he aimed for where they were going to be, and his claw connected with some of them, the ground quaking as the heavy object struck the earth.

In the distance a Razurath could be seen directing orders at two others, they eyed Scandal, one of them nodding its head. Their conversations beyond the human’s ears. “That's enough weapon testing for the day, the Dragon and his friends can handle it from here.” Said a white skinned one, to a red Skinned one which towered over him. “Yes sir.”

Locke’s second wave of survivalism-fueled adrenaline may have given him the opportunity to stab the man who’d threatened to chain him, but it didn’t change the reality of his physical condition. His head was ringing like a bell and he was nauseous and dizzy and altogether disgusted by his recent actions. In the past, on the few occasions that he’d ever come into combat with another humanoid life, he took every effort to harm them and bring them to justice but killing them either never happened or he had deluded himself into believing that. They had been slavers, one and all, slavers like the ones he’d brutally slain her today. ‘Murdered,’ he thought glumly. ‘The word is murdered. You murdered them as they would have murdered you.’ It was cold comfort. Before he could stand, one of the female slavers twisted his with the ease and casual demeanor of a butcher twisting a fish. Would she soon fillet him, too?

Despite the incredible pain of having his left arm bent and broken backwards, Locke still managed to wonder. He didn’t have to wonder long. The woman, who smirked at him from above with lips the color of crimson, lifted an ax overhead. The ax looked sharp. Locke tried focusing as best a dizzied and arm-fresh broken man could focus. His knife was still lodged in a corpse too far away and he’d stupidly dropped his sword without ever fetching it back up. Try as he might, he could not bring himself to move. The only weapon Locke had left would surely be a fool’s errand. He had been born with a gift rare even among the elves who had raised him — the ability to befriend most animals to in hardly a heartbeat’s time. No one know from whence that power stemmed. Under very different circumstances Locke might have been wondering right now himself. He closed his eyes and reached out to any who would listen. The woman whose ax was held ready for swinging suddenly cackled. “Accepting your fate, lad? Well that’s just pitiful.” Locke opened his eyes as a squirrel — small even among squirrels — took its best chomp into the woman’s ankle. She hardly seemed to feel a thing, but she did lose focus enough to look down and raise her eyebrows at the sheer ridiculousness of it. This was Locke’s chance to stand himself and swiftly grab a weapon. And yet, no matter how much he wished it, he simply couldn’t budge. ‘I guess this is it, then,’ he thought. ‘I hope the squirrel gets away safely. I do feel bad about that.’ He readied himself for his end.

A few scant meters away, Giuseppe was falling for Alariel’s bait like the proverbial fish the female slaver had twisted. “I know,” Giuseppe conceded to the fair elf. “I know it’s wrong.” He sighed, and it seemed to be a genuine sigh of shame. If Alariel had expected him to gloat and smirk and laugh evilly, she might have been confused. Still, the ringleader approached her anyway, unaware of her charging magics. “I tell myself I didn’t have a choice. I tell myself whatever the rest of this lot says is a fact of life. Maybe I did have a choice. But I’ve made my bed and I’ll lie in it. Even if that means, girl, you and -your- lot are sent to lie in the beds of others.” She didn’t know what it was like. She’d never understand. Smart with a bow or not, she was high-born and her nation probably hadn’t been destroyed by a cataclysm spawned by wicked men. She would shut up or he would make her shut up. He brought his blade to rise, defensively, and crossed the remaining distance from Alariel. The elf was given plenty of time before Scandal’s pending display of dragonhood to exact her revenge upon this well-spoken miscreant. If she wished him dead not by a dragon’s claws and flame but by her own honed means, she could see to it.

When the earth shook, the woman with the ax and the tiny gash on her ankle toppled over beside Locke before she could slice him. “What in the name of the suffering gods was that?!” Her face went from fury to fear as she rose, witnessing the impossibly large dragon as it tore through at least one slaver and sent the others scrambling for their lives. She felt something small on her leg and then her hip but ignored it in light of what she was seeing from afar. Turning to face Locke, she sneered and swung. The small something was on her shoulder and then her bare throat. She felt little claws gripping on her skin and stumbled, her ax’s steel only inches from her target. By the time she reached for the squirrel, it had already bitten into her throat with all its vigor. Locke, wounded and weary but conscious by a thread, stared in spectacular awe as the slaver’s blood poured down onto his tunic like a geyser. The squirrel, having dutifully murdered the woman, hopped onto Locke’s shoulder and — heedless of the booming dragon — went to sleep.

For a moment Alariel's attention was split between Giuseppe and the cracking noise of Locke’s arm. She gasped and then swallowed to clear the horrible sound from her thoughts before looking back upon the slaver as he spoke. Alariel knew the game Giuseppe was playing, she wasn’t completely naive. She had been out in the world enough to know some people were all talk and no action, but he did have a weapon to arm himself with. It had been all too easy to draw him nearer and though he threatened her she didn't let it show on her face, despite a flood of bad visions.

She stood resolute despite his disgusting words about her supposed fate that had yet to be decided. "Has no one shown you any kindness?" Alariel asked, her lips parting as she took in a deep breath and was slow to breathe it out again. Oh yes, the elf possessed enough nerve to either madden him further or tempt him. With Scandal nearby it was reassurance that she wasn't completely unarmed, in a sense that they were fighting on the same side. He'd likely strike if her daring behavior backfired on her, because Giuseppe had stepped only as close as he would let himself, his blade a few inches from her.

He had clearly made it known that she wasn't to be harmed, and with his intention made clear long before the confidence built enough that she would go for it. An aura ran along her veins and a faint silver stream of magic left her fingertips of one hand as if it were smoke, briskly twisting around in the air before him with its dance before it encircled the blade as if it were a rope of fire. She heard a few of his kind let out laughter at her "meager" attempt at magic but before he would know it, his sword would feel hotter to the touch as it grew in intensity and engulfed in flames from the very edge to the hilt, burning his hand if he did not let go of his weapon.

There were gasps put of the mouths of their prisoners and some were bold enough to shout insults at the slavers in seeing they might soon outnumber them as their numbers fell. The ground shook from Scandal's claw striking it, promptly tossing people about and though Alariel had braced herself, it brought her down backwards to the ground, breaking her concentration until things went dark. The cave floor had been unforgiving, and many people ran about as the dragon raged.

Ringing. Intense, unyielding ringing. Locke Abigail had never heard so many bells in his life. It was a cacophony of clamor and he knew that couldn’t be good. It was so loud that it even seemed to absorb some -- though certainly not all -- of the pain shooting through his broken arm. The world was too bright by half; the sun had started to set and the clouds were a vivid orange when last he’d checked, but now everything had a saturated shine to it like it had showered in heavenly light. Even the ground seemed to shake when Locke knew that surely there hadn’t been a sudden earthquake. It vibrated, sending rhythmic spasms through his wounded body and causing his sets of teeth to clang into one-another and chip in several places. Amid all this, the only thing Locke knew for sure was that his life-saving squirrel had decided to depart. A moment later, a woman as blaringly white as the rest of Locke’s perception said something soft to him but he heard only static distortion. She offered him her hand and he took it with his one good arm. Was she carrying him? Maybe. He couldn’t tell. She was bringing him toward a towering structure taller and broader than any he’d ever seen. It was dark even to him and it seemed to be moving with great purpose. Locke recalled a story he’d once heard back in the Confederation about the Black Gates of Zakhosh. Was he being taken to the Smoldering Land? He hadn’t given much thought to the possibility that the tale-telling Confederation peddler held the singular truth concerning the afterlife’s bleak alternative to peace and comfort, but now he was wondering if he had ever done anything to warrant damnation. He remembered his knife slipping through a slaver’s flesh. He remembered the feeling of watching a man’s life wither and fester and rot away to nothing. Perhaps he had.

Giuseppe, too, had begun to wonder. As his hands burned from the dawning flames upon his blade, he felt shocks and tremors of heat pass through his arms and he yelped pitifully. By now, the only other slavers left standing were being clobbered and shanked by the very women they had sought to sell. By now, the dragon who had roasted the rest was roaring triumphantly. By now, Giuseppe Halvain was well aware that everything had gone to shit. He’d dropped his sword, of course, though he had no recollection of it. He looked upon Alariel in anguish, bitterly pondering how well he’d done for himself before she had entered his life. In the very real heat of the moment, he couldn’t see for the forest for the trees; his mind didn’t tread upon the fact that he had brought this upon himself, only that she had brought the tempest down upon him and his now his livelihood was up in flames. And not for the first time. Catal had succumbed to the blaze just as his hands did. His school, his wife, his children, all consumed in the terrible meltdown. Giuseppe was spared only because he had stood in the one section of the building that hadn’t collapsed. That was the doing of the surviving faithful of the Dark Immortals, those fell creatures who had come perilously close to destroying Lithrydel beforehand -- and who, he’d heard-tell at Chartsend’s docks, were responsible for the sorry state of that city. ‘They’re back,’ he’d been told. ‘The Dark Immortals, or something like them. Kahran, they say. His armies will blanket the earth.’ When Giuseppe looked at Alariel, seething and self-righteous in all her highborn frankness, he wondered if she was in league with all that. He wondered if the creatures who had ended his first life had sought fit to end his second. “No,” he said, laughing despite himself. “I’m not nearly so important as all that.” He shook his head, his arms throbbing and shaking though the fire hadn’t cooked much more than his wrists. “You’ve won, girl. You’ve beaten me and slaughtered the rest.” Once again, his voice was sincere. “I haven’t yet decided whether I’ll repent for this wickedness or take up the whip and chains all over again. Either way, this will not be the last you see of me. We have unfinished business now, you and I. And I hate unfinished --”

Scandal cut off his sentence -- and the rest of him -- with the slamming of his tail against the ground ahead of Alariel. When the dragon’s tail rose back up and whooshed elsewhere, all that was left of Giuseppe Halvain was a puddle of meat and bones and fats with the familiar imprints of his final attire.

Taking Wing

The woman dragged Locke onto Scandal’s flank. She spoke again, but it was still distorted. He could make out a few of the words now: something about owing her freedom to him and his friends, and asking whether or not she and the rest of the prisoners could hitch a ride aboard the dragon. Locke had no idea if he’d signaled anything at all by way of response, but she seemed to believe he had given the affirmative. What’s more, when Scandal tilted his long, bony neck back to address his sudden swarm of passengers, he bellowed a low “Please be gentle with my three hundred and thirty-fifth set of scales; an arrow wound is not yet healed. Otherwise, welcome aboard.” Locke heard every word of that -- it would have been impossible not to with such bass and boom. “Wait for Alariel,” he croaked. Scandal clearly had no intention of doing otherwise. He held firm, his wings up high protectively just in case there were any further interlopers with last-minute plans of ill-advised assault.

Alariel was out cold on the ground, her head had struck the floor. She slipped in and out of consciousness as someone shook her, pleading for her to wake up. “I think she’s gone.” a thin blonde woman said, a bit sorrowful that her shaking the elf in an attempt to wake her was a fruitless effort. The dragon awaited his requested passenger and though convenient, some of the women complained about boarding a dragon, stating they would never trust such a monstrous creature. A brunette with a pixie cut simply glad finally be out of harm’s way pushed pash the huddle of people that had gathered around Alariel, not giving a darn about anyone’s feelings in knowing there was more to do just to leave. “She’s not dead, though she’s been through far worse than the lot of you. We have no time for your complaining. If you would rather walk the rest of the way...” the woman let her sentence hang for them to begrudgingly accept the offer of a ride out of there.

“To the rest of you, good luck with the trek.” The blonde woman looked at the brunette, to which the brunette gestured with a toss of her head towards the dragon. “You’ll want to get on there, Mina. I promise the dragon isn’t going to harm you or he wouldn’t offered.” her words had gotten through to the other woman, who must have been a friend because she used her name. “As long as we stick together but don’t leave her here, Isla.” Mina begged. She hadn’t planned on it, why would she leave the elf to lay there should she come to and suddenly find herself in a strange scene of dead bodies lying around her. “Are you crazy? Why would we leave her and the other if they saved us? The dragon ordered it as well...” Isla shouted in disbelief, probably being the only brazen one out of the entire group, especially after what they had gone through. “Where did he go?” Mina shouted from atop the dragon, looking for Locke but not spotting him. Isla’s voice boomed as she addressed the group. “Everyone...just board the dragon and we’ll...figure this out together.” Isla raised her voice despite her waning confidence, so everyone clambering around the small area could hear her.

She picked Alariel up with another woman coming to her side to sling Alariel’s other arm across her. Most had made it onto to dragon’s back and the blonde woman sat with a tight grip on Alariel, who had faintly awoken with a terrible pain at the back of her skull. It was like her world was spinning but there was no movement, not yet at least. She wanted the pounding in her head to go away and reflexively put a hand on either side to try and make it stop, but it didn’t. Everything around her was a blur for a few minutes The brunette noticed Locke being dragged onto the dragon. “Looks like your half-elf is here after all.” Mina whispered into Alariel’s ear as she let her grasp on Alariel go once she appeared to be a bit more conscious.

A dazed look played across her face for a moment before she gathered her senses, taking in a deep breath of air to hopefully regain some stamina. A few of the timid women aboard looked distressed. Alariel winced through the pain she felt and immediately spoke up in his defense. Her agitation would only be brief, for it was associated with the conk on the back of the head that made her feel woozy. “I know this dragon. If it weren’t for him that evil man would still be breathing air and back to his terrible ways!” She had been on the back of Scandal once before and he had used his mana to affect the immediate air current around him to ensure others would not fall off, so perhaps he would use it to steady the inexperienced riders, but still she worried about Locke, with only one good arm to keep him atop the dragon. “Do you think you can hold on, Locke?” she asked with a gentle voice that sounded more like the Alariel he knew.

“I can, and thank you for asking -- I appreciate the concern,” Locke practically spat out in spite of his condition. Even in an unbearable physical condition, the young ranger felt that politeness was mandatory. He was a good lad, and it seemed he had paid the price for it. But he couldn’t have imagined any other course of action but to help Alariel and her peers. He had serious doubts about himself, his abilities, his moral compass, and his reliability. He felt like he was going to vomit every time he remembered his knife ripping through that slaver’s flesh, and he couldn’t seem to forget it in the first place. He held firm to Scandal’s nearest scale with his good arm, but in truth it might not have been enough. As Scandal took to the sky, flapping his great wings to pick up speed, the woman who had kindly helped Locke extended an arm to his side to help support him. “I thank you as well,” he said, and with that it appeared that he had exhausted his limited vocal correspondence entirely.

Moments passed, and the slavers’ cave was out of sight. The lake that Scandal had so loudly splashed into remained in view for longer, leaving the dragon feeling uneasy -- but not as uneasy as he felt in knowing that razurath arrows could pierce his flesh, and worse still, the flesh of his friends, at any turn. Should he have warned them? Probably. Did he? He couldn’t bring himself to do so. They’d been through so much, and although he was wounded he felt at least vaguely confident in his continued ability to outmaneuver the arrows should they come. Where would he bring these riders? As yet, he was uncertain. Temporary retreats were plentiful, but where would they go thereafter? He felt it was his responsibility to bring them home, wherever home happened to be. As for Locke’s current state, Scandal wept for his friend and recalled a passing comment the ranger had made concerning a powerful healer in the Northern Sage. ‘Yerrell,’ Locke had said. ‘And Penelope, too, for that matter.’ Had Locke been conscious enough to say so, he might have suggested it himself. It made the most sense given limited options, so as night set upon the land he made for the forest and scanned the area for signs of this Yerrel. Before long he spotted a lone structure near the center of the forest, smoke billowing out from its chimney. It was little more than a hut, but it seemed homely and good and true. Scandal informed his passengers of his intentions and set down low. He’d have aided in bringing the wounded Locke to the door of this homely hut, but it would have been a painful, embarrassing thing to transform just now and he needed what strength remained to him if he was to bring Alariel and her companions elsewhere. The woman who had helped Locke aboard assisted in bringing him to the door, knocked loudly, and waited until a middle-aged man opened it and immediately helped hoist the half-elf inside. “Say no more,” Yerrel muttered, eyes wide at the sight of an absolutely massive dragon just outside his hut. “In fact, by all accounts I feel it would, ahem, be better if you said nothing at all.” He mumbled something about unexpected evening guests capable of blowing him and his pupil away with but a single breath and brought Locke all the way inside.

As Locke lost sight of Scandal and Alariel, he felt a pang of guilt that he was departing from them so suddenly and couldn’t even bid them farewell. He knew he would see them again, however, and for now that was all he could cling to. Then his consciousness failed him completely, and he faded into a world of too-real nightmares.