Dragon Sorcerer 2- Chapter 94 (Patreon)

Sorry about being slow to get this one out. The next one is almost written as well, but release day threw me off yesterday.

Chapter 94- Crafted Protections

The other students joined us and soon they were serving a meal. They all ate on the ground cross-legged and while they used utensils, they actually ate their food with their hands from a bowl.

Killian said, “You will be provided a bowl and a uniform as well as a bedroll. Master requires that we leave all our possessions elsewhere as this is a place of training in the purity of combat. It has paid off though as many of the students have acquired the Dragon Disciple class and I recently evolved my class to Transformed Dragon Disciple.”

Lisella asked, “What do you mean? I thought that he was going to only train here in the afternoons.”

Killian smiled, but Edgar cleared his voice and said, “I apologize if it appears that I have deceived you. I will be blunt esteemed grand priestess. I did not believe you had a student as good as you indicated. Now that I know you do, he must give himself wholeheartedly to the training. There is no doing things halfway in the way of the dragon.”

Lisella looked worried. I too felt worried. I wasn’t signing up to join some order of monks for the rest of my life or even for a normal human lifespan. No quality of training we get me to make that commitment. “He has other commitments.”

“Then perhaps this is not the place for him. He will eventually be able to do other training, but he needs to commit to stay until he meets his potential. If he begins, he may not leave until he reaches at least Transformed Dragon Disciple, which is the epic evolution of the class chain. If he has as much a potential as I hope, perhaps he will be the first to reach Ascended Dragon Disciple.”

She pursed her lips. She clearly was thinking about it, but I had no use for people talking about me as though I wasn’t there. My fate was not something to be bartered between humans.

“I am here and will make my own decision. I will embark on your training, but my mentor is correct. I do have other commitments. The first of those is something which I must do this evening. I will however report back here first thing in the morning and begin this training which you call the way of the dragon.”

“Oh, have no doubt that it is the way of the dragon. These names won’t mean anything to you because so much history has been destroyed, but Reegor was an ancient shaman. He spoke to the spirits and was called by the gods to meet a dragon, the greatest of his kind in all the world. Together, they formed the first dragon rider bond.

“Some of Reegor’s descendants live in the far south. Others were scattered across this continent for the past two thousand years, but he also had a foreign wife. She was from my homeland. The legends are lost in the mists of time, but what we do know is that her son by Reegor was the one who founded the way of the dragon. He learned it from watching his father and that great dragon. He was never able to become a bonded rider on his own, but he did travel back to his mother’s homeland and there we have nurtured this pursuit.”

I thought about what he said. Pieces were forming a puzzle before me, but I didn’t want to dwell on that now. I had project which I had spent good gold on and I wasn’t going to miss out on it. “That is good, but I still can not begin until tomorrow. If that is not good enough, then we will leave.”

One of the other students erupted in outrage, but Edgar held up his hand. “Dragons must sometimes fly free. Very well, Nico, your training can begin tomorrow, but I will expect you to focus in earnest.”

I smiled. “You don’t want some system oath from me?”

“No, those of the dragon way have no use for such things.”

With that settled, we ate their food and then headed out in the carriage. Once we were a good way from the building, Lisella asked, “What’s so important that you have to do it tonight?”

“That is my business, but you can rest easy because I’m not planning on harming any humans tonight.”

She frowned but didn’t push the issue. Eventually, I had the cart drop me off in a part of the city dedicated to craftsmanship and then made a beeline for Daggin’s shop. I had only spoken with him once since he had come to Urgoi with us. That was when I had made my request of him. A note had arrived saying that it would be ready this afternoon, and so I was anxious.

When I walked into his shop, it was clear he was doing a good trade. Cami’s gold must have gone to good use getting him set up. He had a clerk in front taking custom orders and an apprentice in back working the forge. It took a bit of threatening, but eventually the clerk got the half-dwarf for me and after he apologized; he led me to the back.

I couldn’t wait any longer, though. “Do you have it?”

“Aye, lad, I do. You’re just as impatient as I remember. You could stand to learn from that lass of yours. She is a join to train.”

“Lass? What? Oh, you mean, Cami. It isn’t like that. We are only training partners.”

He laughed. “Oh, she’s training you for something. There’s no doubt about that, but don’t worry yourself about it. In my experience, when a woman is as driven as Cami is, she will always get what she wants. Not that it will be a bad thing. There could be far worse women to end up hitched to.”

As before, only some of his words made sense. I groaned. “I didn’t come here to talk about Cami. I just need to know if you made it.”

“I already told you, that I could only make the actual piece, I can’t make place the enchantment that you requested. It’s what you’d call a specialty  enchantment. If you wanted me to make a sword that caught on fire, that I could do.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Ugh, fire is the tool of brutes. Lighting is so much more refined.”

The dwarf blacksmith shrugged. “Dead’s dead. I doubt it matters much to the fellow on the pointy end of the sword.” Then he reached out and grabbed a metal band. It was delicate metal but cost a fortune because it was made of mithril. It was designed to be worn around my neck like a collar.

I had chosen that design for two reasons. First, it was a statement of defiance against those who had been enslaving my people. Secondly, it would be much harder for someone to get off unlike an amulet or something of that sort. If they took my head off to remove the collar, I wouldn’t really care if they had stolen the collar.

I turned it over in my hands and examined it. After I found no flaws in the workmanship, I asked, “What use is it to me without the enchantments?”

“Hold your horses there. I didn’t say it wouldn’t have enchantments. The enchanter will be here shortly. I’ll close the shop and he said he could improve it if he cast the enchantments with you present.”

I grumbled, but sat down to wait. What couldn’t be overcome had to either be avoided or endured? In this case, patience would be required of me. After about thirty minutes of waiting, the dwarf finished whatever he was working on at the forge. I had used the time to think through some of what had happened recently.

More than ever, I was convinced that humans had something to teach my race, or at least me. It might be foolish of me to think of myself as a representative for all dragons. While it was true, that humans were in general, soft and squishy as well as being ugly and stupid to the point they couldn’t even figure out a decent way to take care of their bodily functions they also had learned to overcome many of their weaknesses.

For example, they worked together much better than dragons ever could. One hundred times out of hundred, two dragons would fight each other for dominance rather than work together to subjugate an area. Perhaps it was because of their very limitations that humans had figured out how to work together.

There was also no disputing the benefits I was gaining by gaining a class. In fact, I wanted to work both on evolving the Dragon Disciple class and activating my second class. Edgar and his people had shown me that there was another evolution for Dragon Disciple. If anyone was worthy of that, it should be an actual dragon, right?

As for my second class, much as I had realized during the fight with the baloth, I wanted… no I needed more magic. The second class would need to be something impressive, but some type of mage. Perhaps the storm mage that Lisella had set up would have a suitable class. I liked the sound of it. But then that was on hold now for an unknown period of time. Master Hellegers was clear. I had to commit myself to his training.

At first I had balked about that, but given a few minutes to think about it, I realized that it didn’t really matter if I spent a few months doing some training. What was that compared to the totality of my lifespan? Even Matilda and the hatchlings would have to deal with it. It wasn’t like I actually owed them or the other domesticated dragons anything. Even my sister, Sheraleigh, was not truly my responsibility.

The harder part in all of this was accepting the realization that my instincts were sometimes counterproductive. I tended to try to control or smash any threat. As with the ogres, gathering information would have been useful. I needed to learn how to apply both finesse and power in equal measures. Yet at the same time, my attempt at suppressing my nature when undergoing Master Helleger’s test proved that Lisella was not always right. Even in the human world, sometimes the dragon way was the only way.

Daggin coughed as he said, “There is one other thing. I don’t know how much of an issue this is going to be since you’ve got a princess for a mentor, but the enchanter mentioned something about it was going to cost a lot of gold to do what you wanted.”

I popped up from where I was standing. I felt like my skin was hot. “What? Why didn’t you mention this sooner?”

“Uh, Cami said that you might not like hearing it. She stressed that I needed to make sure and tell you before the enchanter got here, but something about the way she said it made me nervous.”

I grinned. My companion knew me well. Gold wasn’t something I wanted to part with. “How much gold are we talking about?”

Another voice from the front of the building answered. “That depends on how many of the enchantments you want me to put on there and how much space there is to work with.”

I turned around and saw a rather elderly human. If he was a high level enchanter, he had to be pretty old for his hair to have gone entirely white, well other than where it had fallen out. He was stooped over and it seemed that but for his staff he likely would have fallen to the floor.

“Just tell me the price.” I gritted my teeth as I said the words.

“As I said it depends on how many of the enchantments you want. I’ve spoken to both your friend, the dragon rider, and the master smith here. Let me make sure I understand what you want, but first, I need to sit down.”

With that, he hobbled across the floor. Watching him move was annoying. He was so frustratingly slow. How could any creature stand to live like that? It was beyond me. It took him a full minute to reach a table, which Daggin must have set up for him. I hadn’t paid attention before because of being lost in thought, but there were a number of small tools and such on the table. Truthfully, I didn’t recognize any of them.

There were also two chairs at the table. He sat down in one and motioned for me to sit at the other. I really needed him to enchant this choker for me, so I went and sat down.

“So, as I understand it, you want a number of different enchantments. First you want an enchantment which will prevent any attempts and controlling you either your mind or your emotions.”

“Or my body,” I added.

He simply nodded and smiled. His teeth were yellow and this close I could smell him. He even smelled old.

“Then you also want an enchantment to prevent any cursed or hostile enchanted items from being put on your body. Is that correct?”

I nodded. “Is that a problem?”

“Uh, that was actually the enchantment that I had to research. I’d never heard of it’s like but I think I can make it. In fact, if it works I will likely be able to duplicate it and make a fortune. Which I should add is the only reason I’m willing to give you such a good deal.”

I grimaced. I might not know this human, but I could recognize a fellow lover of gold.

“Then you also want an enchantment to hide the item from scrying and from visual detection.”

“Actually, what I want is an item that will protect me from being scyed or from having the choker scryed and I want it to be invisible to the naked eye.”

“Ah, so that is actually three separate enchantments which will have to be entangled together. Are there any others?”

I wanted to tell him about my desire for stat buffing enchantments, but realized from his demeanor this was already going to cost more than I wanted to spend. “No, that will suffice.”

“Okay, so if you let me attune the item to you tonight, I should be able to complete the enchantments within a month, three at the most.”

That wasn’t good. I was constantly worried about how a collar like had been used against the other dragons might be used on me. Then again, if I was going to be training with Master Hellegers for a while, it might be okay.

“And the cost?”

“Well, what you need to understand is that many things affect the cost of an enchantment. The material I’ll be enchanting, because that controls how much space I have to work on. The gems and other material components that I’ll have to use, the level of the enchantments, and of course the complexity. I can make enchantments which will stand up to anything that isn’t of an epic level, but it’s going to cost you.

“For the anti-control, it will be 500 gold. I’ll only add 100 gold to cover the materials for the anti-cursed item enchantment. Where it gets tricky is with the non-detection. Normally it would be 400 gold for the first, 800 for the second, and 1600 for the third. But because you want them all to work together and be able to resist anything up to epic level, then I’ll have to use an expensive ingredient to temper the entire item. That will add at least another 1000 gold and will depend on if I can even find any.”

“What’s the ingredient?” Even as I asked, I had a sinking feeling.

With a completely straight face, the enchanter said, “Dragon’s blood. But only so much of it can be taken from the dragons at the university, and their riders are always very protective of them.”

“How much do you need?”

He picked up the choker from where I had set it on the table and seemed to weigh it in his hands as he moved it around, getting a sense of its size. “I’d say that I four, maybe five vials should do it but not the tiny ones. If I scrimp too much, then it will affect the quality of the enchantments.”

“And what if I could get you a dozen vials, how much would you charge me for the enchantment then?”

His eyes got wide. “You have a supplier?”

“That’s my business. What would the final price be?”

He started doing some numbers in his head based upon the expression on his face. I did the same. He finally said, “I could do it for 2000 gold if you supplied me twelve vials of blood.”

“1000.”

He scoffed. “I can’t go that low. I could maybe do 1800.”

“1200.”

He countered with, “1500.”

“1350, final offer.” I tried to adopt a stoney expression. I really needed this and would have to pay whatever it cost.

“Fine, done, but when can you get the dragon’s blood?”

“I’ll have my companion drop it off tomorrow.”

His eyes got wide, and I realized then that I should have made it seem like it was going to be a bigger deal to get the blood. He simply nodded then and said, “You have a deal.”

With that, I pulled half the gold out from my Soul Space and then left them. I was sickened and felt like I might puke after having to part with so much gold. Now, I just had to see a certain poison using rogue about some vials I could use to fill with my blood. It was going to be a long night.