SOMD 39: Expedition 4 (Patreon)

Alice’s only warning was Prim’s sudden cry of alarm – it sounded similar to a diving hawk.

The next thing she knew, the vegetation seemed to shift and melt around her. And instead of standing on a close-in forest path with dark vegetation close around her, she suddenly stood in front of two dragons who should have been too large to fit in between the trees, much less sneak up on her.

But they were wood dragons and the plants bent to their will.

This close, it looked as if their scales were made of dark, rich brown bark with twisting horns that looked like the branches of trees coming off their head. It made the golden chains around them, including the ones looped through nose rings, stand out more. 

Alice’s gaze flicked upward past their heads. No one currently rode the dragons, but they were threatening enough all by themselves. Each was bad enough to eat her with one snap of teeth.

Iggy and Spark broke out of the foliage to either side of Alice, roaring. Little zips of electricity arced off of Spark’s hide.

The slightly larger of the two wood dragons – what Alice guessed was the male – snorted and shook his head.

A branch came down and slapped Iggy out of the way, though Spark, being smaller, was slightly more nimble and was able to duck out of the way in time.

Iggy sailed backward over Alice’s head into the bushes beyond.

“Iggy!”

Uncaring about her own danger, Alice turned and ran to him. The wood dragons didn’t try to stop her, nor did they attack.

Though, behind, she heard one mutter. “She has a sorcerer’s amulet.”

She came upon Iggy who was just standing to his feet again, snorting and shaking himself to dislodge a fall of leaves. He did not look hurt at all. Just annoyed. His tough scales had protected him.

She bent to him. “Iggy, are you alright?”

“Behind you!” he said.

Alice turned to see the wood dragons had followed. They were so large and the woods so thick that they should have crashed through. But they had ghosted along, more silent than deer in the thick woods.

And they were shooting each other puzzled looks.

“She has not run away, properly,” one said in a low muttered. He seemed torn between interest and annoyance.

“We’re to kill the ones who run,” said the other with a lighter, more feminine voice. “But this one hasn’t. And she has an amulet.”

By this point, Alice had scooped Iggy up in her arms. Her fierce red dragon still tried to rear up, hissing. “You will not touch Alice!”

The wood dragons focused on him, and then on Prim who canceled her illusion to angrily spread her wings. Behind the wood dragons stood Numi who looked to be just in the right spot to bite down on a hock should they attack. 

Above, Spark circled and chittered angrily. He did not seem to know what to do without a direct order from Iggy. Everyone ignored him. The wood dragons focused on Iggy and Prim.

“I don’t see how you could stop us, little dragons,” the male said.

“I have never seen one of our kind so little,” the female added. She turned flat eyes on Alice. “You have captured and tamed them?”

“There are no chains,” the male said.

“She could be a powerful sorceress–”

Clearly, the two were used to chatting among themselves with no input from anyone else. Alice had felt a stunning spike of fear at the realization they were there to kill her, but now, at the suggestion that she had captured her friends, she felt only anger.

“I have done no such thing!” Alice snapped. “These are my aspects–they’re my friends.”

“Aspects?” the male reared back in shock.

The female had the opposite reaction and thrust her muzzle forward to sniff over Alice. This close, she saw blood crusted where the metal ring went through the cartilage in her nose. It looked painful.

“You are She of Many Dragons,” she said.

“I am. You… know me?”

“She cannot be!” the male said. His golden eyes were so wide that Alice saw the whites around them. Though she couldn’t tell if it was fear or desperate hope.

With nothing left to lose, Alice changed her class from the fake visible class to She of Many Dragons.

Both wood dragons took several steps back.

Alice considered taking that moment to turn and run, but she was much less afraid than she ought to be. Certainly, there was some fear, but any sane person put in a similar position would have gone running.

Alice mostly felt inconvenienced.

“You know me?” she asked again.

“No,” the male dragon was still staring at her as if she were a ghost. “We know of your extraordinarily rare class.”

“A Legendary class,” the female dragon corrected.

The male rolled his eyes. “That is not by any means certain.”

“What do you know about Alice’s class?” Prim asked.

From behind the wood dragons, Numi piped up, “And are you still going to eat her?”

The two dragons looked at each other.

“We are under chains,” the male said.

The female said, “And they do require we stop people from fleeing the mining camp.”

He spoke. “But she is not of the mining camp, is she?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“I… take it that’s important?” Alice said.

The male nodded vigorously. “We are required to stop any humans from breaking their contract and fleeing from the boundaries of the camp.”

“If we don’t,” the female said, “the chains will become tighter and tighter. It is… most unpleasant.”

Alice suspected it was even worse than unpleasant, considering the blood on the dragon’s nose. Every time the chains tightened they would aggravate the piercing.

Her heart went out to the wood dragons. “Oh, you poor things. What can I do?”

“Can they be removed?” Iggy rumbled.

“No,” the female said with sorrow tinging her words. “Only by a sorcerer of great power, and you are not a magical class.”

Alice had suspected as much, but she wouldn’t give up that easily. Also, it didn’t escape her notice that these two were possibly a great source of information. “Do your chains stop you from telling me about the mining camp?”

The male gave her an odd look. “What do you want to know? It is a camp full of humans. Surely, mining isn’t your business—dragons are your business.”

From the corner of her eye, Alice saw Prim give a nod.

Numi scuttled, lizard-like, from around the back of the wood dragon’s legs and up onto the nearby trunk of a tree so that she was at eye level with the much larger dragons. “That’s where you’re wrong. Alice has many businesses.”

“Numi, they won’t be interested in that,” Alice said hastily, wanting to keep the secret of the store to herself.

“Oh, I won’t tell them details. But believe me when I say that our Alice is quite accomplished and involves herself in many things.”

Prim picked up where she left off. “She is kind, too. She has a dishonorable friend who is in the mining camp. That’s why she worries — and that’s why it is her business.”

The female wood dragon nodded and gave Alice another look. “It is odd to see someone of such high rank take notice of a low classer.”

“They knew each other before she became She of Many Dragons,” Prim said.

This was too much for Alice. She broke in. “I don’t like seeing anyone made to work against their will. Not you, and not anyone else.”

“We cannot speak badly of our masters,” the male said.

The female wined. “These chains go more than scale-deep, do you understand? They wrap around our spirits as well as our bones.”

Prim made a soft sound in the base of her throat.

Again, Alice’s heart went out to them. Before she could think better of it, she reached out a hand. The male dragon stood closest to her, and he tilted his head to place the tip of his muzzle to her palm. His scales were ever bit as rough as they looked, but at the same time it wasn’t displeasing in the least.

Alice extended her other hand to the female, who did the same.

For a moment they stood there. Through their touch, Alice felt the pure power of the dragons. They were leveled high — much above her — but they respected her as if they were equals.

It was also scary knowing that such magnificent creatures could be put in confining chains.

“I wish there was something I could do for you,” Alice said. “There are other wood dragons in the forest. Could I perhaps pass the word along to them from you?”

The female jerked back. “There are no others like us in our territory. Unless…?” She swung her head to look at the male, and Alice saw her heart in her eyes.

A whole conversation seemed to pass between them. The female looked at the other dragon -- her mate. Alice was starting to suspect -- with pleading eyes.

Finally, the male let out a growling breath and nodded. They had seemed to decide to tell Alice the truth.

But she had already guessed.

"It's your hatchling," Alice said.

The two once more looked at each other, and then the female nodded. "The sorcerers were close, and we were forced to hide the egg deep in the woods."

"It nearly attacked Alice," Iggy said.

The female looked at him. "I did not want to see my hatchling in chains. Let us hope you were never given such a terrible choice to make."

Iggy was much too fierce of a personality to back down that easily. But he did snort, which was a neutral enough reaction to satisfy the wood dragons.

The male wood dragon spoke, "It is a relief to hear that it hatched, but if you’ve seen it, why then is the hatchling not with you?”

Alice paused, weighing how much she should say. The wood dragons were rather more relaxed about the hatchling than she would expect from anxious parents. Were all wood dragons that way, or did that have to do with the fact they were under sorcerer control?

It also didn’t feel right to trust someone with additional secrets who was under magical enslavement. They may be compelled to speak about her if their masters ever questioned them about Alice.

 But at the same time, they already knew much about her just by discovering her. There was little point in hiding the fine details.

"I'm not high leveled in my class yet, and I was unable to bring him in." She paused. "You... wouldn't mind if I did?"

This time, the dragons did not have to check with each other to find the answer. The female spoke for both.

"We want our child to be free, and She of Many Dragons will surely take care of them."

"I would never enslave my dragons or make them do something that went against their nature," Alice said hotly, but then had to stop because that wasn't necessarily true. She had chastised Iggy for being too blood-thirsty, after all.

Prim seemed to read her thoughts and audibly scoffed. "Enforcing basic discipline and making sure we do not get caught by committing murders is not enslavement," she said with a narrow-eyed look towards Iggy.

Iggy sighed at that. "Yes, yes, but I still say that my way is much easier."

"Sometimes enemies must be killed," the female wood dragon said, "and my mate and I have done many things that we do not like."

"Prim, Iggy, and Numi are my aspects. I hatched them," Alice said. "But now that I’ve had time to reflect on it, I'm not sure how I would feel about bringing someone who had already lived out in the wild into my family... Not unless they absolutely wanted it."

"We dragons can live without society," the male wood dragon said, "but I'm afraid the hatchling will grow up quite fierce and will definitely be a danger to humans, and perhaps to other dragons when it is older."

"But I do want to help," Alice said. "I may be low level and new to my class, but surely there's something I can do for you?"

Now the male wood dragon scoffed. "I don't see an army around you, little high classer. I don't see how you could help."

The female was a little gentler. "Unfortunately, these people are strong. They would have to be to capture me and my mate.”

Despite her words, the pride in her voice reminded Alice of Iggy. Her heart clenched anew for their plight.

"Tell me what you can. Who are the people who run the mining company?"

"Well, they are the mining company," the male said, unhelpfully. "They dig gold and transfer it back to the ships and take it to other places. I’ve heard ‘the noble house of Murr’ spoken a few times, though I cannot be certain that is where the gold goes."

"We don't know much," the female wood dragon added. "The sorcerers do not speak freely in front of miners and low peasants, and they take care to obscure their conversation around us." Though she did not move, the chains clinked a little against her scales, tightening, and she added, "But it is not all terrible. They take low peasants from the city and raise them to be Miners if their class is able to change. The children are treated well, from what I understand. Everybody is fed, and the only people who are beaten are the ones who try to escape."

"It certainly could be worse for them," the male said, and he winced as his chains also tightened. "We must continue our patrol. They have ways to track our movements and will become suspicious if we stay in one place for too long."

"Perhaps you could walk with us," the female wood dragon said, "and join us at the mining camp. The sorcerers will be able to tell you more. You do have their amulet."

In all the excitement, she had forgotten about that. She slipped her hand under the amulet and brought it up. “What can you tell me about this?”

“It is a sorcerer’s tool,” the male said. “A magical tool. We are not to touch it.”

Alice waited a moment, but that was all he had to say. The female nodded vigorously to the side.

“Will you return with us?” she asked again. Her chains clinked and tightened a bit further, causing her to wince, but she stayed in place.

"Uh, not now, but I will be back soon to speak with you again," Alice said, delicately.

She wondered if the wood dragons were going to press the issue, but they nodded, and the female lingered for a moment longer. "If you see our hatchling again, be kind. They have no one to teach them right from wrong."

Then, with a bob of their heads, they both faded into the forest. Or maybe the forest faded around them. Their command of the vegetation was absolute, so it was hard to tell.

Alice's three dragons looked at her in confusion. That conversation had taken quite a turn at the end.

"Alice?" Prim asked.

Alice shook her head and said, "Let's go, dears."

The wood dragons simply letting them go felt too easy, and she could tell from the way that Iggy was bristling that he thought so too.

Her fierce dragon scrambled out of Alice's arms and took off into the air, not showing any sign that he had been injured from being struck by the branch.

He barked at Spark to follow him, and they quickly set up a scouting path ahead, and one behind to watch for followers. Not that it would matter. If the wood dragons were shadowing them, they would never know.

Nevertheless, Alice kept looking over her shoulder for any signs they were being followed. There was nothing, of course. And despite her anxiety, she never felt the prickle on the back of her neck that suggested unfriendly eyes were watching.

Iggy took them on a direct route that led them down the main ridge that had led to the mining camp, though they stayed on deer paths in the foliage to keep from being spotted by any patrolling guards.

As they rejoined the main road at the bottom of the ridge. Alice fell into a heavy-footed jog.

She was exhausted from the night of travel and sneaking.

I don't care if it does look suspicious, I am not opening the store up today, she thought to herself. 

Several times along the journey, her dragons tried to get Alice to speak about the wood dragons. Each time she shushed them with significant glances to the foliage beyond. She had no intention of speaking openly until they were safely behind muffling walls. 

By the time she stumbled into the village, it was so early that only a few men and women were up and about. Nobody paid her any mind.

She went through the store via the back door and nearly startled all over again when Fixie gave a glad cry at their return. The little sub-aspect ignored Alice completely to pull Numi aside to start showing off what she had repaired during the night.

From the slightly manic gleam in the little dragon's eyes, it seemed that she had been in absolute paradise because no one had been around to tell her to quiet down at night. 

Alice waited until Numi settled her down in a pile of soft fabric scraps. The little dragon immediately started to madly sew several complementary colors together. Withing a few moments, her movements slowed, and her head dipped. Soon she was asleep.

Numi joined the rest with a smug look on her face. 

Alice looked at all the dragons. “What did you think?”

"The wood dragons were... quite positive about the mining camp at the end," Iggy said, doubtfully. The others nodded.

She nodded. "The dragons said it themselves. Those chains are wrapped around their spirits as well as their scales. They can't speak ill of that place." Alice felt a little sick. "The fact that they could say anything negative at all at first probably speaks to their will power, but by the end..." She shrugged, helplessly.

"What do we do?" Numi asked. 

That was the big question, and the one that Alice had been wrestling with all the way back. There were two clear options: fight or flee.

She had started to make a life for herself here, yet she could not stay as the way things stood now. Not when dragons who weren’t under her control knew of her class and existence. And not when someone like Dolly could easily point suspicious eyes in her direction. 

But if Alice fled, there was every chance that she and her dragons would end up near another branch of this mining operation.

If word spread, then they would be on the lookout for her as well. And besides, she did not really want to flee. 

But she could not stay here.