The Ranger: Ch. 15

"It's a compromise with the Mange guild, and I live in the village just to the east of here, we'd like to open it back up, we had no idea you were here so let's figure this out, slowly and with our words." I don't look to see where the others are, if it's what I think it is, it could roast me where I stand.

The Dragon stares at each of us and then sets her focus back on me, "You have the aura of nature magic, yet you can call spirits, hmm, go on, you lot are very interesting."

"They are old friends of mine, I'd say a better description is they show up when needed, anyway, how many dragons are out and about in this world?" I ask at Soviet.

"Dragon, this world?" The dragon repeats.

"Very few, sightings are from far off, though they can make it so there would be nobody remaining to report anything," Soviet says, he hasn't relaxed since he's spotted her.

"You were with the necromancer that fought the mages?" I ask and she doesn't move, flinch or answer.

"If I release you, we are going to need assurances?" If she lays waste to the entire countryside it will be my fault.

"The last human I held a contract with, put me here." The Dragon shakes more dust off herself.

"I could get into, even more trouble than I'm already in, by letting you go." I answer, a lot more trouble, but then again, I doubt we could handle her without a dozen more helpers.

"Just say what you want." She says flatly.

"A year?." I answer though it sounded more like a question, "If you eat us, or we leave, it could be quite a while before anyone else that can heal, somehow," I wave my arms around, "ends up way down here."

"Doing what exactly?"

"Same thing we are going to do, protect the area from the Mountains to both north and south, west coast, just past Sreport and the edge of Myread."

She chuckles deep down, "They might not like me flying overhead."

"There is something coming, I don't know what it is, I just get the feeling it is equally as strong as we are sooo, a big ass dragon protect.. err, you know what I mean, very large." Corrected a little bit after both her huge amber eyes widened when I said 'big ass'.

"Go on."

"Well, all you gotta do is fly around these lands and not eat the people or their stuff."

"And in return you heal me of this cursed filth and get me out of here, AND, you explain to them that I'm not a threat." She finishes looking at Soviet. "You wear their insignia."

"I'll tell them." Soviet answers.

"If they disagree, I want the freedom to flee to another continent to the south, never to be seen again," the dragon settles back down on the floor.

"Fair enough," I reply and then to Soviet, "Explain to them she might be needed," turning towards the Dragon. "Ready when you are."

"Please do." She bows her head down until it is even with mine, her face is as wide as my shoulders, delving into her I can feel the same thing from Sandy, but she has a huge core empty of mana, removing the filth is only paper thin, but then pouring mana into her to fill her back up.

"Whoa! Slow down, it's been a long time, I don't want you frying my wiring." She gives me a look that from face to face is scary, very scary, so I slow it by half and continue, filling her up and finding out once she has mana, I can't delve her to figure out how full she was, though with her defenses up, probably strong enough.

"Let us move away from the blast area before you clean yourself off." I start shooing Sandy, and then picking her up and flipping her around to my shoulders as I move off, she makes grunting noises every other step, setting her down, she gets behind my legs.

"What's a good name?" Sand says looking around the right side.

"Tia is short for what was somewhat associated with their dragon god Bahamut in my old world, see if she likes that."

"Tia, okay," and then she screeches and holds my legs in a death grip when Tia bursts into flame, blowing all the dirt and dust away from her.

"I need to clean off." She says as the dust settles.

"The Ocean is just outside the door and to your right for the fastest route." I answer and she looks beyond us.

"You called me dragon, know of Bahamut and Tiamat, and you said 'this world' earlier," she walks past us until we can no longer see her, but we can hear her. "Let me stretch and I'll return for a conversation we will have about all of your oddities."

"The Town is called Riverside to the east of here, you can't miss it." I yell back, "Don't eat them!" We hear a laughing echo, her scales and nails stop making my skin crawl when it goes silent.

Cinthia and Grayson walked with us for a moment before settling back inside, "That went better than expected," Cinthia says through me.

"She is a wyvern, or dragon, resistant to magic, and no regular weapons work against her. It would have been Kae's bow vs her." Soviet says, "without her own magic she'd have had to kill us individually."

"She didn't have fire breath, we could have run as plan C." I say and laugh, "though she could have let us walk right past before showing herself."

The library was right there, I can now see why people thought there was a trap in there and why nothing ever came back, Tia got them. Cinthia was doing detect magic and looking for any wards and found none.

Inside had a treasure of books, scrolls and messages with wax seals. Cinthia and Grayson walked around the room first to see if anything happened.

Soviet noticed movement, reached out and down taking hold of the top of Sandy's head, turned her around and nudged her back outside the door. "Didn't you say not to go in there?"

"But, it's all good." She tries to duck and scoot but Soviet's knee blocks the door. "You go in last, we won't touch anything while we are in there, right?" "Sandy?"

"What!? Oh, yeah, won't touch anything." She shakes her head until he lets go.

She lied, we all touched everything in there, I found a letter to Fiona, apparently his apprentice from his first paragraph of the eight pages, flipping through them he explains his sorrow at letting her down and not being able to stop them. I stop after the first page and put it into my pack.

Soviet stops his searching and I figure he found what he was looking for, he starts reading it and then calls me over. Sure enough, this guy was a council member that tried to publish the history of the mages. It wasn't very flattering, they tried to stop him and he basically beat all of them until they ganged up and scorched the entire region.

He goes to turn the page and I cough and hold my hand out to stop his, "Read just enough to say it is what they are after, but not enough to make you the problem." I say after thinking the exact same thing with Fiona's personal letter. He looks at me for a moment and then nods.

"All of the treasure here," He says with a glint in his eye and a curl of a smile on the side of his mouth. "You get a big chunk of it, except for this? What do you want?" He sweeps his arms around the room.

"There are spellbooks over here," Cinthia fingers a few of them. "This one has higher level spells worth a fortune to an ice-focused sorcerer."

"Let them know that Sandy will be staying with us." I've thought about this quite a few times, they could require she come to them, tell them what she knows and never be seen again or given to someone that treats her, like a goblin.

Soviet nods and calls her over, picking her up as she crawls around and wraps her arms around his shoulders. He looks over his right, "You will stay safe with Kae right."

"Are you coming back?"

"Of course, I can't let him raise you like a baby, you are my monster too you know." He says and she nods as he's said it before, "You got me last time we sparred, I owe you a beat down," he reaches back and she pulls her off his shoulders, over his head, and laughs. She had ducked under and got his inside thigh with the practice knife in their last fight. He could have gotten her a dozen times before that, but that is all forgotten when she finally landed a hit.

"We probably won't make it all the way to town, expect a summons the moment we leave." He looks around and then takes Sandy's turning her to look directly into her face.

"You are to speak like you used to if anyone asks you any questions with extra goblin thrown in for good measure, yes." We have started doing this before we leave, every day for the last week. And, after some practice we have her answering the correct way.

Sandy tells him off, and she uses real curse words in her own language that I can understand, but Soviet cannot. "Wow Sandy." I say and she laughs and gives him a big kiss on the cheek.

"I said, he found me, he keep me." she answers.

"I don't think you said that at all," Soviet answers and she laughs again.

"They are going to summon us, the moment Tia left the ruins they saw her. I might have to go, but you get her to town first and I'll send someone back. Keep to the basics the wyvern was waiting for us and Kae talked her into serving him for a year to set her free. We were lucky she didn't eat us and there is nothing the council can do to a full grown wyvern.

"A wyvern's arms are absorbed into the tops of their wings, a dragon has arms and the wings are on the back," I answer on the way back to the surface, it only takes about an hour when not searching the side tunnels, I remembered there are three types of dragons, Dragons, Wyverns, Wyrms with each one having less arms?legs, or something like that.

We were only a few minutes outside, before I had taken more than a few steps when he popped in front of us, he didn't even say anything, just looked at Soviet.

"We have to get her to the village," Soviet states and the guy gives him a look of disbelief.

"Not optional," he nudges me like I'm a real horse, im surprised and rear up making the other guy jump and then I walk past him, 'we can speak, none of that heel into the side stuff.'

He doesn't laugh, but it feels like he wants to.. and I walk where I want to walk the rest of the trip back. Stopping in the middle of the field below Mertil's home, letting everyone know that yes, we saw the dragon and everything is okay, shooing them away to tell everyone the same and not to attack her.

"Attack her? It's a her?! Are you crazy?" Triss says as she runs off with Abby straight at the thin stretch of trees between the field and the town. They don't normally walk all the way around when we are south of the house. "Hey! Are you coming?" Triss says coming to a stop and looking at Sandy who takes off running after her. Forgetting we were even leaving, she has speed in her little legs that they don't have, she catches up to them and they run through the treeline.

"Think this is part of the town?" Soviet asks.

"No idea," I answer looking around, "I'd go with no." The guy showed up again, they don't even talk to each other, we just get poofed to the hallway.

"Wait here, your next," The lady in front of us says before I can even get my bearings.

Time to meet the mage council, I should have talked to Evaine more about what happened here with her.

*Be gentle with the rating, things start to pick up a little bit with a new character joining us...