Dragon Sorcerer 2- Chapter 73 (Patreon)

Sorry about the delay getting this out. Just going through some stuff, but who isn't? Anyway, hope you enjoy.


Chapter 73- Flickers of a Dream

With Modessa and all the guards downstairs, I immediately transformed. With my upgrades, it only took seconds to complete the change now. I stretched my wings, flexed forward on my legs and swung both my neck and tail side to side. I knew that my neck really hadn’t been squished. That wasn’t the way that the transformation worked. Knowing that didn’t reduce the feeling of a crook in my neck at all.

Matilda’s demeanor towards me changed. Her hissing got quieter, and she pulled back into a more protective posture. At first I was confused by that. She knew who I was from the beginning. I was almost certain of that. Then I realized what had just happened. For Matilda, my transformation into my dragon form was the ultimate bearing of teeth of as I’d heard some of the humans say, flexing of muscle.

I looked at the smaller green dragon and put it into perspective. She was essentially half my size. Actually, she was less than half my size in both length and weight. I did bare my teeth at that, although it was more of a human grin. I wondered how much various human expressions might carry over into my behavior when I was in my natural form. I certainly didn’t feel like a human, but I also was staying in that shape an awful lot. Either way, I couldn’t help but be pleased with how much the bond had increased my size, and so rapidly.

It was a powerful reminder that the bond did provide me with benefits. Simply seeing how I dwarfed Matilda drove that point home. If I was going to be free, I needed to be powerful. Then I heard that faint whisper again and my thoughts were pulled back to why I was here.

I reached out to Matilda reflexively pushing my presence through the dream, but she was still nothing more than a blank spot, a void in the dream. As I looked at her more, it felt increasingly unnatural. It was like a wound in the dream. Or perhaps a way to think of it would have been as holes in one of those tapestries the humans hung on their walls. The integrity of the tapestry itself would be weakened by those holes. She should have been there. It was her destiny, and the dream was made less for her absence.

I let out a low growl. We’d have to do this more directly. She stopped hissing at me with that and lowered her head in submissive posture.

“I won’t hurt your eggs or hatchlings. I still intend to find a way to free them.”

She stared at me but didn’t reply. It was almost like talking to Rollie and Patch. They clearly understood at least part of what I said to them, but it was always hard to be certain how much they understood. That was an uncomfortable comparison though, so I pushed it aside.

“May I see your eggs?” My question caused her head to pop up, with a hint of defiance in her eyes. I quickly added, “Remember, I will protect them.”

It took at least a good minute, but what did that matter between dragons even if she wasn’t what she could have been? The fact that the humans had to wait, especially Modessa, only made it sweeter.

Eventually, she pulled back from the eggs. She didn’t move far, but just enough to expose them so I could see them. There were only three eggs. It was a pathetically small clutch, and the eggs themselves were smaller than what seemed natural. I had seen a couple of the other eggs in my clutch, which hadn’t hatched before I did, but I’d been busy at the time eating the egg for sustenance. My clutch had over a dozen dragons in it, though.

Of course, as small as Matilda was, I could understand how she might not be able to bear them. These eggs were a light green mottled with streaks of black. Each was about two feet long, although the hatchling growing inside of them could easily be curled up and twice that length. I felt a humming coming from the eggs and as I reached out to them with my mind; they had a presence in the dream. The problem was that the presence kept flickering. It was like they couldn’t find their place within the dream.

I leaned my head into them, sniffing at the eggs. They smelled like dragon eggs. I nudged one of them with my nose. It was cool to the touch, as I’d expect. The eggs could hatch without a mother dragon sitting on them, they didn’t need the heat of a mother for that. Dragons could survive in the coldest of weather. We might not like it very much, which was why I was glad to have been born in the warmth of the desert, but I could just as easily survive in the arctic.

Then a notification popped up.

Adopt these eggs?

For the price of 250 DKP per egg, you may imprint yourself upon them. They will be recognized as true dragons and your descendants with a connection to the dragon dream through you.

Error… insufficient DKP. Gain more DKP if you wish to restore your race.

How the Proud Have Fallen- progress: 34%

I jerked my head back when that notification popped up.

Something was off about that notification. I didn’t recall ever getting a system notification for something which I couldn’t afford before. Typically, those only came when they were things I could choose. Why give me an option that I wasn’t capable of selecting?

Unless this was more system manipulation. I growled under my breath and Matilda shivered. Was this the gods trying to reach me through these eggs, or was it the system trying to correct an imbalance in the world? There were simply too many questions.

Then a second notification popped up.

New Quest Available: The Nature of Eternity 1

Objective: You have made some observations and asked enough questions to qualify. Learn more about the system. Determine which came first: the system or the gods.

Reward: Continue the quest line, 250 DKP, a random chest of treasure

Timeline: Unlimited

Do you wish to accept this quest?

I thought about it for a minute. This might very well be another attempt at manipulation. The sheer fact that part of the reward was 250 DKP when I needed that much to save one of Matilda’s children was enough for me to question it. Still, it was a question that I wanted to have answered.

I accepted the quest and felt it fill my mind. Then I shook my head and focused on why I was here. I had come to talk to Matilda about Cami and the plan for her freedom. I stepped back to give her some room. With my increased size, I could barely fit in the room. Rapid movement would have been destructive to say the least.

“We need to talk about the human’s plan to free you.”

She stared at me.

After a minute, I became frustrated. Patience was all fine and good, but not answering was also disrespecting me. “I know you can speak. You need to answer me even if you just nod your head. If you can’t be bothered to do that, then I’ll leave you here to your fate.”

Her upper lip curled back, but only for a second before she must have thought better of it and dropped her head again.

‘

“No trust humans.”

“Good. I don’t trust them, except for one. My bonded companion can be trusted.”

Her eyes shot wide open and almost bulged. She darted forward, and reflexively I lashed out with my mouth, thinking she was attacking me. We wrestled for a second, but even with my limited mobility, she was simply too weak to resist me. Soon, I had her pinned on the floor with my jaws locked around her neck.

Only when she went limp, did I pull back, but I called up my magic. I would have activated my Shocking Aura and Dragon Fear but I worried about harming the eggs.

She kept her head down and her eyes on the ground. “No attack. Look collar.”

I was confused for a second till it hit me. “You thought I would wear a collar. No, I have a genuine bond with Cami, not one forced by a collar.”

“How?”

Then I told her the story about my magic activating and Cami being caught in that wave. I left out any part about me fleeing from the adventurers. She didn’t need to know about that.

She raised her head just slightly and looked at me. I shifted enough so she could see all of my neck and know that there wasn’t a collar there. I just also had to be careful not to give her any opening to attack me.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why stay humans?”

I settled back and thought about that. It was the question, after all. I wanted to afford Matilda a certain level or respect. She had been mistreated, and I didn’t want to continue that, but then a rumble worked its way up my throat.

“You have no right to question me. Do you want my help or not?”

She nodded her head.

“Do you submit?”

It came slower, but she nodded her head.

“Then stop asking questions. ‘Why’ doesn’t matter. What matters is what and how. It is what a dragon does and how he lives which defines him. Why is a question asked by the weak?”

Silence was my only answer, but she didn’t argue with me anymore.

“The humans will eventually expect you to have a new rider. Cami, my bonded, has gained the class dragon rider, not just a fake dragon rider like these others. This will be very important to the humans. We are going to arrange for her to come and become your rider. She will not actually bond with you, as she is already bonded with me. But she will act like she is. Once she is allowed to fly with you on her own, we will arrange to take the eggs, or more likely the hatchlings, by that time and teleport you to the mainland. You’ll have to get away from the university first, though.”

I broke my explanation down into single sentences and spoke slowly. Matilda was likely smarter than the humans could have ever imagined, but also stupider than I expected. It was clear she wasn’t thrilled with the prospect, but she simply said, “Okay.”

“I’m going to introduce Cami to you. If you harm her, then I will kill you and your eggs. Do you understand me? You are to treat her as though she were my hatchling. If I even think you might act out, then I will end you and free your eggs. Cami is mine. Do you understand that?”

“Your minion?”

“Good, that you know that word. Something like that.”

Matilda smiled, and I hoped for just a second that there was more to her, but as I reached out again, there still wasn’t the slightest flicker of the dragon dream coming off of her. She was still a gaping hole in the world, and the system hadn’t offered me a way to restore her. Perhaps it was too late, but not for the eggs.

“I protect her. You keep word.”

“Yes, exactly.”

Then I transformed back and called out with my human voice for Cami to come upstairs. The adventurers started up with her. I smiled and waited till they go all the way to the top of the stairs and then said, “No, not you Modessa. Matilda doesn’t like the way you smell.”

“What? I have to walk all the way back down the stairs? Why didn’t you tell me before I came up here?”

My only answer was to smile at her.