Dragon Sorcerer 2- Chapter 100 (Patreon)

Chapter 100- Into the Lair

I stood up and shook myself off. The taste of blood was still in my mouth. My heart was pounding and a part of me wanted nothing more than to tear into this foe again. He wisely laid still, knowing the way of the dragon. He had to be rescued by another, so his pride was already stinging. However, assuming he didn’t have a bond, he had to be a couple hundred years old at least, so I hoped that meant he had enough wisdom to know he was truly beaten.

A casting of Lesser Regeneration followed by another one stacked on top of it closed any wounds I had. He really hadn’t hurt me seriously. So much for the vaunted strength of red dragons. I knew it had to all be overblown. What could be more perfect than a blue?

I felt Cami wasn’t far away, but she had stayed back. Discretion was probably the better part of valor when you’re as soft and squishy as a human. Still, I immediately started looking for her and found her a quarter mile down the beach. Rather than stir up the sand I just walked toward her, all the while listening for any signs that the fallen red was going to betray the word of his sire.

He didn’t move, so when I got to Cami, I lowered my head. She reached and started to rub the scales between my nostrils. It felt surprisingly good. “You know I’m not a dog?”

She pulled her hand back. “Of course, Nico. How could you think that? It was just instinct. You were so majestic when you were fighting.”

“I was, wasn’t I? Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt for you to scratch my scales a bit longer.”

She reached out her hand and began again. I let out a sigh. This must be part of the spoils of victory. I don’t know if it was the bond, but she seemed to know just how to rub my scales so that it felt divine.

“You weren’t too bad yourself. You have the wit of a blue to fool the moron into thinking that shadow clone was you. That and the audacity of a dragon to make the attack in the first place, with the courage of one too for you to make that jump into open air.”

She shrugged, but was careful to keep rubbing my scales. “I knew you’d catch me.”

“Of course. I wasn’t so sure about this to begin with, but we truly are stronger together. He wasn’t even really a challenge between the two of us.”

Then before Cami could say anything further, Draconis bellowed out, “Well are you coming?”

I lowered my shoulder to make it each for her to climb on and a second later; I had lifted off the beach and was flying for the volcano. The heat rose the closer we got and I could see the stream of lava which flowed slowly toward the ocean, but it wasn’t truly uncomfortable.

The entrance was really just a massive cave in the side of the volcano. It had to be at least five times as wide across as my body, without my wings spread. I landed and began to slowly walk in with Cami staying on my back. There were a few guards with weapons and such, but I paid them no attention. They weren’t there to protect Draconis from me. They were beneath my notice.

The heat continued to rise as I went further in. There were stacks of coins, piles of weapons and armor, and a wide assortment of other treasures which looked to have been taken from merchant caravans and such. Most of it I couldn’t envision Draconis having any use for, but I expected that he only kept it because a dragon doesn’t give up loot.

The walls of the outer chamber were just those of the natural cave. I was more than ever of a mind to use human servants to design a more aesthetically appealing lair when I got to that point. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too much longer. Then I turned further into the cave. The inner chamber was even wider, if that was possible, and open to the sky through a massive vent at the top of the volcano.

Down beneath us, pools of magma boiled, and the heat reached a point that it was annoying to me. None of his human or other servants were in here.  “Are you okay Cami?”

“Elemental Armor makes it, so this is just warm. I can handle anything other than a swim in that lava.”

“Magma,” I corrected. “Don’t ask me why they have two words for the same thing, but my memories tell me it’s important to reds.

I searched around because there were mounds of metal taller than me and I still couldn’t see Draconis. I did see worn trails where something had been repeatedly drug along the ground. Then, as I turned around one of the mounds of gold and other metals, I shook my head.

It was beyond imagining.

Draconis was fat. Not a little fat, no, he was truly fat. In all my time in the dragon dream, I had never seen a fat dragon. It was almost like a comedy bit put into a story solely for the benefit of humans. The next thing I knew he’d be sliding on his belly done one of the mounds of gold.

“The servants are still getting things cleaned up, but I have to give them blessings to be able to endure the heat in here. Even the orcs are too fragile. It’s almost enough to make me long for some dwarves as minions, if only…”

“They weren’t such crooked thieves.” Draconis and I finished together.

He blew out a small puff of smoke. “So at least you aren’t lost to all the ways of your people.”

I found it oddly uncomfortable being around him, so I immediately asked, “I was told to come here, do you know why?”

“It is the right of all dragons to ask Draconis a question once every century and to seek protection if the Pact is being challenged. Although you’re lucky that I was awake.”

I didn’t laugh. He probably thought he was funny, but there was a reason for the expression, let sleeping dragons lie. It applied to smaller dragons and when you were talking about a great wyrm that applied to most all dragons. Although, I had to admit that his bulk made me wonder just how strong he could be.

“So, how does this work?”

“Well, first off, I need to fill you in. Your generation is woefully ignorant about our role in the world. Then you can ask me a question or two until I get bored. I’m actually feeling rather talkative since I haven’t had any dragons visit me other than my one son who I keep around to maintain things. He probably thinks he’ll inherit all of this, but a dragon inheritance is always a bloody matter, not a matter of blood.”

I nodded, understanding the sentiment that he expressed. “You probably haven’t been visited of late because so many of the dragons have been domesticated.”

He snorted flame. “Stop talking nonsense. Dragons aren’t cows.”

“I didn’t believe so either.” Then I explained about Matilda and the notification I obtained from the system.

The discussion took far longer than necessary because a few times he bellowed in outrage and stood up moving his massive bulk around and crushing any number of precious items underneath him. At one point, some of his minions came in to check on him and he was so worked up that he actually sat on a poor elf before the woman could get out of the way. So much for always protecting your minions. I guess it didn’t count if it wasn’t intentional.

Once we had finally discussed the dragons in detail and he had vented his frustration, he explained that someone was constantly trying to spy on him. We figured out it was likely the emperor because he explained to me that dragons are notoriously hard to scry because of our innate magic resistance.

“So, why did you have to go and bond? You’re probably one of his descendants are you?”

“Who?”

Then he mentally projected an image of my ancestor who I knew as Draconis. When I nodded, he said, “Yeah, I thought so. He was my predecessor before he died along with a great many of the wyrms. I found myself at the top of the food chain, so to speak, by default.”

“I don’t understand what you mean. Is Draconis simply a title?”

“That and more. I will tell you some, but some things have to be discovered. Have you had a vision of Tiamat’s burial mound?”

“I don’t know. Should I have?”

Then he described the mountain with the twelve caves in in from the dragon dream where I saw three dragons discussing something.

“Oh, that. Yes. Was Tiamat real? Is she really the mother of all dragons?”

“How should I know? That was tens of thousands of years ago, by all rational thought. It predates the dream which only came about when the Pact was formed and even then it is still broken in places. You’ll notice that most of your visions come from the past few millennia. The question, though, is did you count how many caves were in the mound?”

“Twelve.”

“Good, and how many gods are there?”

“Twelve as far as I know.”

“And I’ll give you one guess how many eldritch horrors there are.”

“Eldritch horrors?”

“Yeah, you didn’t think the baloths or horror that you fought in the forest were the true enemies did you? Just like the gods have mortal servants and angelic or fiendish servants depending upon their bent, so to do the eldritch beings who control the beings like the horrors you met.”

“So there must be twelve of them as well.”

“Yes, the cursed system likes balance in things. We have our role to play and as long as we do, we are mostly allowed to be free. At least that’s how I see it. Dragons want to be left alone, gods want everyone to praise them, horrors want… well I guess they want everyone to die screaming, but they never really made much sense to me. As for the lesser races, who knows what they want? It isn’t like I ask the fly buzzing around what it wants and that might as well be a human for how short their life spans are.

“So to answer your question, Draconis is a role, a title, a position, and more. Under the right circumstances, Draconis is the god of dragons if you like, the ultimate arbiter of balance.”

I thought about the title which I had received. Immediately, I decided that Draconis had his own set of biased views and I’d need to learn many things for myself.

“What can you tell me about growing stronger? There are threats out there and I need more power.”

He chuckled. “Now that is a desire I can understand. The young seek power so that they may find comfort in their old age, as I have. If there was one good thing about the bond, it enables young dragons to seize power more quickly, although my predecessor would have hated that you bonded at such a young age.

“Beyond that, dragons grow strong in battle.”

“What about evolutions?” I asked.

“What do you mean? Haven’t you already chosen your first evolution of breath? I know you used a green’s breath weapon.”

“No, I found another way to do that.” I decided I wouldn’t tell him anything about the hatchlings I had helped save.

“Ah, interesting.” He sniffed at me and then didn’t say anything for at least half an hour. Finally, he spoke again, “It appears you’re telling the truth. I always recommend to my offspring that they chose the evolution of scale. What does all the power in the world do for you if you die, but I have a sense that you will go your own way? Whatever, you decide, it is important that you choose it sooner rather than later. Most dragons choose I in the adult stage, but you are already into mature adult so it will be harder on you.”

“Harder how?”

“It is a refining of who you are. Up to this point you’ve been developing everything. You seemed rather strong in the fight but were also agile and used magic and breath attacks, so you are balanced now. Evolution will make you stronger but will push you more in one direction and leave some of the others behind you.”

“Isn’t that bad?”

“It is its own sort of balance. Otherwise, a dragon might keep growing stronger in all areas and become a threat to the Pact.”

I thought about that for a moment.

“And what is the Pact?”

As I asked, the air around us began to shimmer.