Path of The Dragon Mage (Nomad) 60. Nest Guardian (Patreon)

Corvus kicked a mossy tree trunk. When that didn’t prove satisfying enough, he grabbed one of his single-blade kunai’s from his holster and sunk the blade deep into the bark.

Standing some ten feet away, Charm snorted. “Feeling better?”

“No.” He yanked it out and checked the blade for damage. Finding none, he looked at the trunk.

The tree had already healed itself.

Down on the ground level of the city, the foliage was so thick he had to use his Night Vision to see. Though this particular tree was perhaps sixteen hours old, it was bigger around than Corvus was tall. The roots sank deep within what had been the cobblestone street, and the branches splayed wide overhead like a leafy carpet. The air around him was thick and cool with moisture and the scent of growing things.

Daffodil’s innate plant magic was… impressive.

That fact annoyed Corvus even more. How could he and Charm hope to defeat this? He was level twenty-three, and she eighteen. He didn’t even know Daffodil’s level, but he’d had centuries to build up his magic reserves. As far as Corvus could guess, this jungle had been made by accident.

“Yet, we chased him away.” Charm cocked her head to tilt one eye up to the canopy level. More than ten stories above, people were using the vast branches like bridges to cross from one tower to another.

The fears of roaming ratkin and man-eating plants had not yet proven out. There was no doubt that the ratkin had fed the initial growth of the plants — Corvus had found skeletons in many of the root systems, and had located the corpses of two more Rat Queens still lootable, netting them another two Bonding essences and a low-grade bag of holding. But the jungle’s rapid growth had slowed, except for the self-repairing trees.

Meadow City had changed overnight, and not for the worse. What had been a dry desert city was now flush with green. It was akin to one of the stories of the Kings and their bonded dragons of old.

He had Charm were nowhere near the level of power to do magic like this. That scared him.

But what annoyed him at the moment were the fissures that had opened up on the ground level. Some were cracks small enough to trip over. Others were much, much larger.

Just past the tree Corvus had attacked sat a gaping sinkhole. It was half as large as a city block and so far deep down he couldn’t see the bottom — even with his Night Vision. Slippery moss and algae grew thick along the edges as if temping someone to fall in. From above it looked like a monster’s mouth that gaped open.

And he was certain that Starella’s egg lay at the bottom.

The giant sinkhole sat close enough to the tower to make him worry about its foundation. It was well within tossing distance. He and Charm had made a slow circle around the tower without any sign of the egg. Unless a ratkin discovered and took off with the thing, it had to have rolled in.

Grimacing, Corvus snapped a branch off a nearby tree. He then carved a quick Ever-Flame rune on one end.

His mana dropped by one hundred points, lighting the branch like a burning torch.

Corvus lobbed it over the edge of the hole and watched it fall. And fall. And fall…

Charm craned her head over to observe. “Is it still falling?”

“I think it’s stopped.”

The fire was so far down it was a pinpoint of light. He couldn’t see what lay around it if anything.

“I could glide down there.” But Charm sounded doubtful.

“You couldn’t fly up. You would have to climb, assuming that the walls could support your weight. And assuming it remains stable and doesn’t collapse.” Charm needed to propel herself forward to gain lift. She simply couldn’t fly vertically. Corvus looked down at the bottom of the hole. “The egg’s as good as lost.”

Charm made a displeased sound in the back of her throat.

He looked at her. “You’re upset.” He wasn’t exactly happy about the loss of the egg, either. Starella would be beside herself, but… “You know what it means if she hatches that egg.”

“It will cost you a throne you’re not certain you want,” Charm said. “Have you thought of what it will cost me?”

He stepped back, stung at her words. But he couldn’t help asking the question. “What do you mean?”

Charm shook her large head and made a frustrated sound, halfway between a snarl and a hiss. “The only other royal dragon is Daffodil. The ferals are too different to interest me. If I should ever want to have viable eggs it would be nice if the sire was not a ratkin loving lunatic.” She paused. “And I do not care if he can bat cannonballs out of the air like flies, the shade of his scales is not appropriate for a warrior dragon. How can anyone take yellow seriously?”

Corvus distantly realized he was gaping like a fish. “Oh. I… hadn’t thought about that.” He should have. Until recently, he thought Charm was the only other royal dragon in the world. Continuing the species never struck him as a problem as there were so many more eggs in the royal hatching grounds, but…

… But he’d never stopped to consider her feelings on the matter.

She flicked her wings back in agitation. “It’s not an immediate problem now. If Starella’s male hatches and if I find him worthy of my eggs, it may be something I consider.”

Charm was growing up. Only a few weeks ago, she had trouble with subjects like ‘consequences’ and ‘cause and effect’. Now she was planning out —hopefully— years down the line.

He shook his head and glanced down to the flickering point of light at the bottom of the sinkhole. “This is too much of a coincidence. I think if I complete Perry’s quest and explore the dungeon, I might end up close to where the egg ended up.”

“You want to do it. So do it.”

“I have my duties. Daffodil may be headed to the palace—“

She flicked her wings in a shrug. Charm didn’t much care what the other dragon did to gain his own territory – at least, until she wanted that territory for herself. “The royals have elemental talents, do they not? Maybe they should put them to good use and fight.”

That would be a sight to see: King Orphus using the might of his fire, earth, and air talents against Daffodil. Corvus almost smiled at the thought.

“I wish I could talk to the King,” Corvus said. “I want to ask him if what Starella said was true. My Deception Skill didn’t go off, but she might be thinking she was telling the truth when she wasn’t, or… she misunderstood the situation.”

Charm was silent. Something caught her attention and she craned her head to look back down into the pit. "Is the fire growing brighter?"

"What?" Corvus walked back over to the edge. Sure enough, the fire the flickering little flame seemed to be growing brighter… No… He squinted his eyes, peering with his night vision. "It's not getting brighter. It's getting closer."

Was something moving?

Suddenly, Charm hooked a claw in the back of his shirt and yanked him backward. At that moment, something scuttled up and out of the edge of the pit.

It was a creature the size of a donkey. Its hide was suede black, and it was disturbingly skeletal looking; in the general shape of a bat with a sloping back leading to splayed hind legs, and straight forelimbs that had a thin connecting layer of webbing like proto-wings. The head was wedge-shaped and dragon-like with a wide mouth and nostrils… and only slits where its eyes should be,

It held the still burning branch in its ugly maw, and spit it out on the ground, almost contemptuously.

To Corvus's site, it was also outlined in purple. Not the blue of an item, the green of an ally, or the red of an enemy. Something in between.

Species: Nest Guardian

Level: 61

Charm hissed, low and threatening. Runes bloomed across her hide as she summoned her sunlit breath… But such little sunlight filtered down from the through the canopy, that the light which escaped her muzzle was weak and diffused into nothing after a few feet.

The Nest Guardian was less than impressed. It parted its jaws and hissed back at Charm.

A collar of linked runes flashed into life around its neck. It closed its mouth with a snap, a forked tongue darting out as if to taste the air.

Then, with a low rumble, it turned and dropped back into the hole. Corvus ran to the edge in time to see it spread its stunted wings to slow its descent.

In a moment, it was lost to the shadows.

He stared after, slack-jawed.

"Was that… a demon?"

From his studies when he was a prince, they came in many shapes and sizes, most of them horrific. Many of them subterranean.

That ugly beast would qualify.

"The description said it was a Nest Guardian," charm said, one lip curling up in disgust.

She reached out a claw to scrape a line through the still burning ever-flame rune branch. Immediately, the barrier circle broke. The flames on the branch sputtered and died.

“Yes, I got that much.” He shook his head. “That was a level sixty-one. If it were guarding a nest of those things…”

She hissed again. “It’s worse than that. Corvus, we cannot allow the demons to hatch a royal dragon egg.”