Technomagica 2 : 32 The Hoard of Skyisle (Patreon)

I went over the downed Violets. The barmaids were asleep, not responding to my prodding, their bodies still obeying the Charisma-infused order.

Can't you wake them up? Delta asked.

I can, I said, but I want our dragon girl to get experience of purging enemy magic from her kobolds.

I sat down on the floor next to Kliss and resumed my scan of the cavern system around us with my Infoscopes, noting points of interest.

Positively-charged magic now radiated from gold-covered Kliss like a furnace, the warmth reaching me half a meter away without touching her. 

Delta sat next to us, her face stretching into a content smile.

“You knew that we were gonna win, right?” She asked.

“Yep,” I nodded. “Negatively-charged spells just don't work well against dragons, it’s why Aradria was able to decimate so many skyships and burn so many villages and towns, destroying a third of Cessna with incredible ease. The Empire never figured out this important fact–if you want to bring a dragon down from the sky you have to use positively-charged magic.”

“I don’t get it. How did Giovashi even control Aradria if her Charisma doesn’t work on dragons?” Delta asked.

“Gold,” Kliss said, turning to us, eyes glowing with brilliant yellow-orange rings. “Pesky human mages tricked me, vaporised my lovely hoard with a bomb… I sought vengeance and met Giovashi. She said that she was an enemy of my enemies and offered me yummy gold and artifacts, to replace what I had lost.”

“Why didn’t Aradria just rob banks or something?” Delta mulled.

“I tried to,” Kliss said. “The vaults of Cessna were buried deep below the earth and the white towers kept firing at me. It was… unpleasant. They kept blinding me, striking at my face and my eyes felt like they were on fire without actually burning, so I retreated. It was easier to just get gold from Giovashi.”

“Mage towers can hurt dragons?” Delta asked.

“From what I was told by Cessna Librarians, mage towers are basically superstructures that Archmages build over centuries to magnify their power a hundredfold,” I explained. “They’re still negatively-charged magic, but that of a ridiculously high level. They can’t physically hurt dragons but they can target organic nerves, vibrate them, cause the dragon pain, drive them away.”

“Hang on… are you Aradria now?” Delta demanded, eyeing the dragon girl. “Or Kliss?”

“A bit of both,” Kliss shrugged, chewing on another slither of gold runework she pried from the torn up obelisk. “Mostly Kliss. Talking to you requires being human. Eating gold is a dragon thing though. I can recall more of Aradria’s memories when I am chewing this gold.”

“Where’s your hoard?” Delta pressed on, seeing an opportunity.

“Far,” Kliss replied. “Too far to walk on human feet. The land of storms, in the spine of blue-gray-white mountains.”

“Can we get there via a skyship?”

“No,” Kliss replied. “Only I could pass through the storms by bending the clouds away with my magic.”

“Did you have Kobolds?” Delta asked.

“I did,” Kliss nodded. “I… left them behind to clean up what was left of my hoard. Scores of them, with red and blue and green manes. That bomb might have killed them all now that I think about it. I… Aradria didn’t consider her kobolds that valuable, they were just moving, dumb things to her.”

Delta pursed her lips.

“Damn it… now I feel bad for kobolds that I didn’t even make,” KIiss sighed. She turned her attention back to the obelisk, punching it with a look of annoyance and exhuming more gold. She was getting better at it, the entire thing crumbling in her hands the more she struck it.

I left her to it, focusing on my scouting. Delta focused her mind on returning the ants and the bees back into the Bishop’s body. 

In about an hour, Kliss had demolished the entire obelisk, leaving only crumbled magnetite all over the floor. She stood up, sparkling more than ever. A lush coat of sparkling yellow crystals covered her head to toe and her backpack was now packed full of gold slithers, adding to the gold there.

“Someone’s extra shiny,” Delta commented.

“I feel like I could take on the world now,” Kliss grinned with her pointy canines. 

She walked to the passed out Magenta and poked her in the head with a gold-covered hand. A flash of lightning jumped from the orange claw to Magenta’s forehead. The girl’s pink eyes shot open.

“Wha-what happened?” The barmaid sat up. She looked at the remnants of the obelisk and her mouth fell open. 

Kliss went to wake up her other Kobolds.

“Necromage Giovashi stored a fraction of her soul in this Alanian Astral Engine obelisk,” I pointed the ant-mech’s finger at the magnetite crystal remnants. “It was a threat to us and it managed to put you to sleep, so I destroyed it. My third apprentice Eliza just woke you up.”

“Thank you, my Bishop,” Magenta said with a small bow. “I could not control myself.”

“Show me where Giovashi stored other tools, weapons, books,” I said. “We’re going to take everything of value from these old catacombs.”

“Yes, my Lady,” Magenta bowed. 

She led us to a smaller blood-iron door which Kliss tore out of the wall with even greater ease. Inside was a room lined with more blood-iron artifacts, blood-iron armor sets, a chest of coins and thousand-year-old Alanian spellbooks lining a shelf. 

“The treasures for arming the faithful,” Magenta said.

[Claim it all for your hoard,] I ordered Kliss. 

[With pleasure,] the dragon knight replied as she marched into the room.

“Cleanse these artifacts of the taint of the Necromancer as I have taught you, my blessed one,” I said as the Bishop. “While my apprentice is preoccupied with removing curses from these tools, show me more of these catacombs, Magenta.”

“My Lady,” Magenta asked as we walked away from the armory. “If I may ask, what exactly is Apprentice Eliza? I’ve never seen anyone like her, those gemstone hair are absolutely beautiful.”

“She was a brave knight who was gravely injured and lost her hair, skin and eyes while aiding me against a dire enemy,” I replied. With the blessings of our Goddess I fused her body with Ishira-blessed crystals and now she serves me once more, capable of great feats. She is my first Radiant Knight of Skyisle and will be in charge of all of you as your Officer.”

After I pulled as much information about the catacombs from Magenta and the other barmaids, I sent them upstairs to make us lunch. 

Kliss emerged from the armory, her backpack absolutely bursting with claimed things.

“I’m going to need a way bigger bag to contain my hoard,” she said. “With this much silver, I can order a Space bag from Cessna.”

 “What’s that?” Delta asked.

“An extradimensional storage bag,” Kliss replied. “One that’s bigger on the inside and reduces the weight.”

She turned to me.

“Blood-iron absorbs human spellfire and doesn’t drain my soul. Wearing a full set of it and using one of these doors as a shield seems like a good way to protect you two,” she said.

“It’ll only work till the little shards of human souls already inside the iron don’t burn out,” I said. “It’s a good temporary solution.”

“Till Kliss grows dragonscales?” Delta asked.

“She’s not going to grow dragon scales,” I said. “But… I can theoretically figure out how to make Kliss dragonscale liquid-solid armor that’s 100% compatible with her anatomy.”

“Would it not be safer to make a hoard somewhere in Skyisle?” Delta asked. “Can’t a dragon not pull magic through the Astral from their hoard from anywhere?”

“We can do both,” I said. “A bag-hoard and several hoards scattered throughout Skyisle.”

“Not sure how I feel about splitting up the hoard,” Kliss said. “I think that I need to be in physical contact with my hoard, sleep on my artifacts and gold as often as possible to align them with myself.”

“Yes,” I nodded. “But, you’re relying on Aradia’s memories, not thinking wide enough.”

“How wide should I be thinking?” Kliss arched an eyebrow.

“All of Skyisle could be your hoard,” I offered. 

“How?” Kliss demanded. “I’m just one little human-sized dragon and Skyisle is a wide-ass human village that stretches up and down this entire valley.”

“Claim Leemy as you kobold,” I grinned. “Claim each of her saplings that we’ve been planting as your kobolds. Claim every anchoring stone of my valley-wide hexagram as part of your hoard. Claim everything with an iota of magic, every tool, every ward, every hex-lantern, every house as part of your hoard.”

Kliss opened and closed her mouth.

“I suspect that it’s not often that dragons get to collaborate with someone who can build seven-kilometer-wide hexagrams and a Dryad whose roots are going to connect an entire valley together,” I grinned. 

“The people of Skyisle?” the dragon girl’s gaze bore into mine.

“Will all be your kobolds,” I said. “You can wear bandages and thick armor as our Baroness to increase your height and we’ll make a ceremony where each person in Skyisle offers you their oath of fealty and a hand for you to kiss.”

“Aren’t they gonna notice the stat change in their soul-song?” Kliss mulled. “Aren’t they gonna see that they’re basically my… thralls?”

“Did the Violets notice anything this morning or when you pried those doors off?” I asked.

“No, but…” Kliss mulled. 

“When you bit them all one by one, I modified the connection between you and them with my Infoscopes, changed the title data,” I said. “You’re pulling magic through them, not from them. They don’t see [Status: Kobold of Eliza's Hoard] in their soul-song, what they see is [Status: Bishop Delta’s Radiant Knight]. Likewise, when Skyisle citizens offer you their hand and allegiance, they will see the [Status: Baroness Kliss' Knight of Skyisle].”

“All of the people here, as my knights?” Kliss mulled.

I nodded.

“Plus all of Skyisle below them, tied together via Leemy’s roots?” Kliss swallowed, eyes lighting up from within. “But most of it isn’t even magical…”

“Not yet. However, I’m going to make ALL of Skyisle into a supermassive, interconnected magic jewel, one that I'm going to gift to you,” I said. “This is just the beginning! You, Leemy, Delta and me are going to infuse every blade of grass, every blade of sand in Skyisle with positively-charged magic, make the biggest dragon hoard possible!”