Rok Chapter: Growing Pains (Patreon)

“I’ll say it again, Rok, I don’t care if you have the Guilds’ backing, I don’t care that because of Finder’s Law saying that you own this island and that bit of reef around the dungeon, I don’t care about any of it! All I care about, and all you need to know, is that when I come back again, you just need to help me out with a smile on your face, and we’ll all be happy.”

The rant ended with a short bout of angered huffing from the party stood opposite Rok’s desk, all while the man himself sat, looking dumfounded at the golden scaled woman who still didn’t come up to his eye level. For a moment, there was no sound aside from the gentle lapping of the waves outside the building, carrying with them a tide of dead seaweed, seemingly designed to fill the room with an appropriate stench for her sermon.

“So,” Began Rok, taking a moment to once more review the past five minutes of his life, when the irate woman stormed in, and began shouting cryptic nonsense while trying to use her blood to pressure him into agreeing.

“You mean to tell me that, because you say so, I’m supposed to roll over and say ‘yes ma’am’ at any whim you may have, and set aside my obligations towards my employers and my people?”

Her mouth twitched upwards at that, the beginnings of a smug grin playing on her lips, anticipating his next line. “Are you a moron?”

That line shattered her demeanor, and her face froze. The air around her seemed to grow cold, and her own aggrieved hissing filled the room before she started to suck in a truly worrying amount of air. 

Thankfully, before she could unleash what was no doubt to be a wail to put a banshee to shame, Rok continued.

“I should’ve expected this much from you, Petra Goldwing” The name she gave him just minutes ago was spat back at her with venom “Really, I should’ve from any of your kind that would’ve bothered to grace me with their presence.”

His tone oozed disgust, and had he not been forced to maintain professionalism he would’ve found himself using more choice words. Once again, he waved a hand to silence her, this time, however, she wasn’t able to hide the confusion beginning to well up inside of her, unused to her

“Well, I’ll give you my answer: I don’t care. I don’t care that you have some grand, ambitious plan. I don’t care that you seem to think that, even if I wanted you to, you could take over my post. I don’t care that you have some big bad bloodline, and I take offence to you thinking that, just because mommy and daddy gave made such a special little girl, that means an unflighted whelp like you could lord over the rest of us.”

The man took a deep breath himself, though in his case it was more to calm himself than continue his tirade. He chided himself for letting himself get that mad to begin with, even if he had his reasons. He had very little tolerance for arrogance, and even less for those who tried to use it as a token against him. Unfortunately, the young dragonkin before him had these two qualities, and quite a few other, equally unsavory ones, in spades.

“To put it plainly, feel free to go explore the reef dungeon, or simply enjoy the sights and sounds of our lovely little island. I hope this helps ease your concerns, feel free to show yourself out if there’s nothing else.” He finished, more a command than any sort of invitation to continue speaking.

Unfortunately, it seemed Petra was nothing if not dense, and after a moment of dumbfounded thinking, she spoke again anyways, surprisingly calm. “I’m not sure if you really understand what you’re getting yourself into, Rok. I’ll give you one more chance to-”

Of course, Rok had little patience to hear her entire spiel again, and interjected. “Don’t worry about that, I’m sure I’ll regret it. Honestly, if I believed the warnings of every speech and letter I’ve gotten this week, I have plenty to worry about already, so what’s one more threat.” 

He stood up, walking around the desk and moving to the door as he continued to speak, “Though, I’m pretty sure that your parents won’t even bother to leave their hoard to come deal with mean, nasty old me, but you’re welcome to try and get them to anyways. I hope they’re that smart, at least.”

The girl, now craning her neck just to be able to see Rok’s face, tried one more time, this time she didn’t even seem mad, simply eager to correct something, and probably, Rok thought, intimidated by his hulking frame.

“What? No, my parents don’t have anything to do with this, I’m working with-” The door swung open as Rok put her out of his mind, turning to face one very pouty siren.

“Hey, Kelly, can you show her the way out, please? Make sure you’re really thorough about it, too.” The unspoken meaning behind his words brought a smile to the girl’s face, and she cleared her throat and swam in with a bit of flair.

“If you would be so kind, please follow me, and we can get right on our way. Rok is quite busy today, too, please don’t come back again, he needs his quiet, you see.” The young woman, although stronger than Kelly herself, was wholly unprepared for the sentences to practically slam into her mind. 

The lack of readiness, combined with the fact that Rok had apparently frightened her worse than he’d thought, or at least threw her thoughts into disarray for just long enough, meant that Kelly’s Charm worked like, well, a charm. Even better, the relatively mundane nature of the commands meant that she wasn’t able to shake free of the daze she found herself in until after she was standing outside the Guilds, staring dumbly at the siren. 

She blinked a few times, shaking away her stupor, before glaring at Kelly. This was quite frustrating to the young dragonkin, but she wasn’t so simpleminded to think that she’d actually get anything from trying to start a second round. Not for some time, at least. And so, with an angry scowl marring her perceived beauty, she huffed off, no doubt to meet with someone and report.

Not that anyone in the hall cared about who she ran off to, and a few people, those who were closest to Rok’s office while she’d had her ‘discussion’ actually thanked the siren secretary, not that they’d be mad at her even if they didn’t know the reason why she used her Charm. In the few days the building had been open, she had taken to her role well. This meant she was not only assisting Rok, but also being a crowd favorite with the various Guilds members.

It wasn’t any surprise, she had a way with words alongside the requisite charming looks, and most anyone who had come to her for whatever they may found themselves walking away with a grin plastered on their face, and this was without using any Charm. Combined with the fact that just her being a siren meant that there was hardly ever a chance for a confrontation to grow past some insults before she calmed the parties down, sometimes by force of will, and she was quickly becoming something of the mascot for the place.

Rok finally sat back in his chair after Kelly swam by again and told him that she’d left, and without any further hassle, which was definitely nice. He couldn’t help but stew over getting mad, something that had always been a problem for him and much of his race. He could wave it away as normal, most people would be fuming when someone tries to dominate their mind with bloodline and false entitlement, but Rok knew better than that, and he’d need to rein in his temper if he wanted to get any stronger. And unfortunately, he now had a reason to not only want, but need to get stronger.

He shook his head after that, pushing aside the thought to instead focus on more pressing issues, and, surprisingly enough, not all of it was crawling out from the apparent pit of madness he managed, only a great deal of it. For one, he’d probably managed to find the missing Hector, and unfortunately also the man who rendered him unfit for questioning, but finding him at all was a start. Rok was almost hopeful that they could figure something out.

His thoughts turned towards the island that the Guilds had chosen to set up their refinery on, and it was both further away and smaller than he’d expected, made especially confusing considering that there was a much better location that was also closer to Sleepy Gills that nobody had so much as hinted at acquiring. At least the construction of that temple was conforming to his expectations, he considered it a small victory that there were no moves to do anything too absurd with this one like make the windows out of elemental crystals, or anything on that level.

He hoped that it remained that way too, but his hopes weren’t too high. Houses of Vol weren’t known for subtlety in their works, and Rok was worried what the local ‘twist’ was going to be. He counted himself lucky that they didn’t have the same fervor in most other aspects, else he wouldn’t have allowed them to build so close to the Guilds’ building, or even on his island at all. 

But as it was, outside of pushing the boundaries of what could be considered interior design, exterior design, fashion, and art whenever they could get away with it, and hoarding knowledge with the same ferocity a dragon their treasure, they weren’t disruptive or even overtly involved with most worldly matters. Because of this, and the fact that Rok couldn’t get a more reliable information broker if he tried, he was willing to give up a plot of his land not too far from the Hall. The bill he was writing up for them at the moment made even made him the slightest bit enthusiastic to do so, too.

There were a few more things on his agenda, more than a few really, but many of them were simply tedious to work through. He still had to figure out to do with his steadily growing prison population, sort through the many missives winding up on his desk daily for anything important, and worry about optimizing his dungeon hall, and this was only the gist of it. He very pointedly ignored whatever was happening with the Mapper who was likely headed his way at that very moment, as it wouldn’t do him any good to dwell on that man anyways, and he was the one who invited him to begin with.

He could only hope for mercy in the coming weeks, after he sorted out his town’s initial growing pains. Unfortunately, Rok was well aware of what hope has earned him before.