Chapter 24: DD2 Chapter 018 – Agreements

Typh finally found her being dragged limply through the wide halls of Erebus’s palace by a squad of armed and armoured Shades. Arilla’s long hair was matted down with blood; her auburn locks hung wet and lanky across her face, the red veil serving to obscure the bruises around her eyes that had only just started to bloom. Her fine clothes were torn where their weapons had cut her; the buttons on her shirt were ripped off where uncaring hands had roughly grabbed her by the collar. All of it was abundant evidence of the dead creatures’ contentment when it came to denying Typh’s chosen warrior their care while they transported Arilla to what the dragon could only assume was to be a jail cell of some sort.

Typh allowed her fury to overcome her.

She roared with anger. The not-quite draconic sound escaped her open mouth as she hardened her aura around her into thick overlapping scales and neglected to slow down when her small human form collided with the leading Shades. Her ballistic flight at extreme speeds through the halls of Erebus’s palace came to an abrupt halt with torn limbs and broken bones as the bronze rank creatures began to die for the second time around her.

Green fires burned in the pits of their eye sockets as they came at Typh. The Shades clambered to their feet with swords and axes raised high in the air. The dried husks that were their bodies thrummed with power as they fueled their offensive skills, transparently clear in their intent to do her harm. 

She never gave them the chance.

Typh wasn’t playing around. With golden claws of hardened light extending from her fingernails, she tore through their frail bodies, expressions of relief, sorrow and anger appearing on their withered faces in their final moments before they died. Their moves were expertly performed, well-timed, and trained to near-perfection, but the gap between low-bronze and peak-iron was too much for them to overcome. At irregular intervals, lances of golden light erupted from her aura’s defences and pulverised the Shades. Each hastily cast spell pulped rib cages and disintegrated heads, causing a slew of System notifications that Typh ignored as she quickly killed them all.

She had to hurry. With how he had avoided the call, Erebus was one of the closest things there was to an actual God left on Astresia’s surface, and she knew that she only had an extremely brief window of time before he would arrive. How she had finally found Arilla was far too convenient for anything else to happen, especially when she considered the extreme difficulty she had had with following what appeared at first glance to be an easy trail. 

“Arilla, I need you to stand. We need to go,” she urged, bending down low to caress her warrior's upturned face once the last Shade had been reduced to a broken wreck of a corpse.

“What?” her warrior muttered, her body trembling as it processed the massive influx of mana that had raised her to what appeared to be the peak of level 49. Typh didn’t know the specifics of what had happened, but she knew that such occurrences were usually less than healthy.

She quickly dismissed the possibility of healing Arilla. The woman's body was obviously saturated with mana and there was nothing Typh could do about that which wouldn’t make it far worse. So instead she picked up her warrior from the cold, corpse-ridden floor and slung her human over her narrow shoulders. 

The dragon tried her best to recall the nearest exit from Erebus’s palace, deciding then and there that their trip to Doomhold was a definite bust. Unfortunately, whatever bit of magic Erebus had layered over his palace that made it impossible for her to find Arilla until now, also infuriatingly made it so that Typh was completely and utterly lost within the almost labyrinthian maze of shadow filled halls.

At random she picked a direction, extended her arm and channelled her mana into a lance that erupted from her open palm. [Artillerist’s Empowerment] came into play as her health dipped along with her mana and with a crashing boom, the thick stone wall in her way promptly exploded outwards. The blast momentarily deafened her human ears and left a neat-ish, glowing, Typh-sized hole for her to clamber though. On the other side, she was almost immediately greeted by another wall, which another spell and another echoing blast took care of and soon Typh was on her way, content that if she couldn’t escape the spell affecting her sense of direction, that she could at least head in a straight line until she eventually found her freedom.

“I would really appreciate it if you would stop doing that.”

She turned to see Erebus calmly step out from a patch of gloom far too narrow to have contained him, his own draconic shadow needing no light source to fill the long hallway behind him in a deeper darkness. Agonisingly slowly she lowered her arm, resisting the suicidal impulse to throw a spell at him as she instead smiled rather than scream the obscenities he at the very least deserved.

“Shadow-walking?” Typh asked with false congeniality.

“More or less. Now are you going to stop destroying my palace, or do I have to stop you?”

“That depends, are you going to let us go?” 

“Perhaps,” the Shadow Dragon smiled. “But you’ll have to let go of that mana you’re holding first.”

She bit her lip with frustration at the unfairness of it all, before dismissing the mana she had gathered around her, her aura relaxing back into its non-combative state and the half formed mana-bolts winking out of existence. She stood there before Erebus, truly defenceless and tried her best not to panic when the thin shadows bloomed in depth and darkness, reaching out from the walls to swallow them whole.

***

When they emerged from the umbra they were in a large nondescript room that would have been mundane if not for the row of shackles lining the walls of the chamber. Each set of manacles was thoroughly etched in intricate runes and contained enough exotic alloys to set her stomach rumbling. The two dragons stood a fair distance away, facing Arilla who was trussed up in the metal restraints like a common prisoner, clearly the worse for wear having been transported so. Typh herself felt the pressing urge to bathe. The cloying almost oily shadows had crawled langoriously over her skin in what she highly suspected was another unnecessary invasion during the brief handful of seconds they had spent skirting the edges of Creation.

“I feel like the chains are unnecessary. She isn’t going anywhere and even if she was it’s not like you’d have any trouble in stopping her,” Typh complained, trying to act nonplussed by her current set of circumstances.

“Your human broke one of my favourite trophies. I invested a lot of time and energy in keeping it intact over the decades,” Erebus responded calmly, clearly unphased by the apparently grievous loss. “And given the damage you caused in your hurry to get her out of here. You should really count yourself lucky that you aren’t chained up next to her.”

Typh had to put a lot of effort into biting back a growl at that. By all rights she should have caught up to Arilla long before her warrior ever found her way to Erebus’s prized trophy. That she had gotten ‘lost’ in the gloomy halls of the palace could only be ascribed to the Shadow Dragon’s interference. The clear trail that Arilla had left, had swiftly become anything but, as it crossed and doubled back on itself more times than she could count. The scent trail, if not Typh’s mind, had clearly been manipulated by the elder creature's mana. Not that she could say any of that without further stressing the thin bit of theatre that was all that prevented Erebus from simply violating her until he extorted out whatever he wanted.

She hated Mind Mages with a passion.

“Fine. Although I find it highly suspicious that your prized possession was left unguarded and in the path of my human. Have you ever heard of a locked door?” she asked condescendingly, choosing to ignore his offhand comment about the Shades and his walls.

“I don't care how you find it. Your human killed my trophy. That is not in dispute.”

“It was already dead.”

“Now you’re just being pedantic. By all rights, I should kill her and raise her corpse to replace the one she broke. That I have yet to do so is an example of my magnanimity. You. Owe. Me. Typh,” he said, smiling wide with self-satisfaction. 

The troubling thing was that he was right. Convoluted plot or not, he was well within his rights to kill both her and Arilla, and she knew it. In fighting her way to her warrior, she had flagrantly violated the hospitality that she as an exile was barely entitled to. Of course, Typh had only done so after Erebus had manipulated Arilla’s mind, but she was only human, and amongst their kind, the sum total of his abuse amounted to little more than bad manners.

How she wished she had the power to exact her more than justified revenge, but Erebus was two ranks above her, meaning she was effectively little more than an ant to be squashed before him, almost incapable of causing him actual harm. So instead of slinging a spell or attempting to claw off his grinning face with her nails, she bit her tongue—metaphorically speaking of course.

“What do you want, Erebus?” she asked, resigned to at least hearing out his ploy.

“I want to make a trade.”

“Don’t...” Arilla groaned, her eyes full of pain and not just from how rough Erebus’s Shades had been in apprehending her. The trauma of her abrupt level rise clearly hadn’t passed yet.

“Oh, so the human feels like talking, does she?” he teased, laughing to himself while Arilla struggled in her chains. Typh knew from their smell alone that the heavy manacles were more than enough to keep her indefinitely restrained, not that that stopped Arilla from trying, she noted with some small amount of pride.

“Don’t taunt her Erebus. What do you want?” Typh asked, trying to ignore Arilla’s pained and frustrated moans as her muscles strained while the warrior spent her stamina fuelling that skill of hers.

“Needless to say, the goodwill you bought with the gold from Cawic is gone, but I am not entirely without mercy. If you still want the information that you came here for, you’ll have to offer me something of equal value in trade,” Erebus gloated. “She will suffice nicely,” he said, gesturing towards Arilla.

Typh’s pretence at amiability faltered, her face fell and the Shadow Dragon laughed even harder. 

“You will have to decide what is more important to you, Typhoeus, the human you lust over or the knowledge you seek that will save your life, because I’ll give you this for free: Ignorant as you are, you will surely die long before you reach fifth rank,” Erebus continued, his perfect smile growing wide and predatory. “I know you, Typhoeus. You are more like me than you think. We’re not the first of our kind to feel things for our lessers, but like me, you’ll never compromise your own well-being for theirs. This is an important lesson that you’re better off learning now before—” 

“I’ll take Arilla and leave if it's all the same. I’ll find out what I need to know some other way,” she said quickly without hesitating.

“Huh... Really?” Erebus asked, momentarily taken aback. “You know there’s no-one else you can ask. No-one who won’t kill you on sight for what you are.”

“I didn’t say I’d go elsewhere. I’ll get you something else you want instead, but Arilla is mine and will not be harmed,” she declared firmly, ignoring the obvious fact that her warrior had already been injured and violated by Erebus’s scemes.

“This has been a pleasant enough diversion Typhoeus, but what could you possibly offer me? You. A deformed runt. Barely more than a child?” Erebus sneered, his demeanor having rapidly changed for the worse now that she had upset his game.

“Humans.”

“What?”

“Typh, no...” Arilla interjected weakly.

“You made a deal with Kalle once, and no doubt others. Humans for gold, mages and the unclassed, the younger the better. Correct?” Typh went on.

“You don’t know what you are offering,” Erebus warned.

“I know that you want them and that you don’t yet possess them. So do you accept? I’ll deliver you humans, unclassed and mages, and in exchange you’ll tell me why the Great Ward’s are being allowed to fail.”

Erebus looked at her carefully, his shadow blurring as it raced around the room.

“I accept those terms, but I am growing impatient and dislike being manipulated. If you fail to deliver them to me by the spring thaws, I’ll consider you acting in bad faith. I’ll come for Arilla and any other humans you care about. I’ll kill them slowly, and bring them back to serve me as Shades for all eternity.”

Typh grit her teeth, an involuntary hiss escaping her lips at his harsh terms. Erebus had her bent over a mountain and he wasn’t being gentle in taking advantage. She wanted so desperately to refuse the offer, but accepting now would get them both out of Doomhold and buy them time until Spring, while refusing him would almost certainly bring about a swift death and an unlifetime of servitude. 

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Like so many things it wasn’t a real choice.

“Deal. Now how many do you want?”

“From you… no less than five thousand,” Erebus smiled and Typh visibly balked. “If you fail in this, I think that I’ll make sure to have a conversation with your siblings about your new lifestyle choices. I’m sure they’d be very interested to hear about how and where you’re living your new life.”

She grit her teeth as she forced her face back into a smile. It wasn’t a very convincing one. 

“Come on, Arilla, we are leaving,” she said, waving a hand as the heavy chains weighing her warrior down snapped open along every joint. The metal restraints fell to the floor around Arilla in their component pieces. Erebus had cheaped out with the solder.

“Oh, and Typh, or Typhoeus, or whatever you want to call yourself,” Erebus began.

“What?” she spat, already halfway to the door.

“That offer I once made you. If you’re so set on being adversarial when I’m just trying to teach you an important lesson you can consider it firmly closed. At least until you learn your place and get over your attachments to your lessers.”

“If I wanted to stay with you, I wouldn’t have left the first time,” Typh answered, holding Arilla close to her as she continued out of the room. 

The two of them then left Erebus’s presence, palace, and city without another word.

***

They spent the rest of the morning and the entire day flying back most of the way to Rhelea. The two of them quickly decided that the risk of being intercepted by steel-rank dragon hunters was far less than that of Erebus changing his mind. Neither of them talked much during their peaceful flight above the thick snow clouds, although Arilla as ever, seemed to delight in the freeing sensation of riding atop Typh’s draconic back. 

The freezing winds rushed through Arilla’s hair and she only squeezed her legs tighter around her patron dragon in response as she settled into the recessed point in front of the base of Typh’s resplendent wings. The Sovereign Dragon banked slowly to the west as she began her long descent, the green moonlight scintillating in its beauty as it glinted off of her thick golden scales. She lowered herself beneath the cloud cover, taking her time to savour the last opportunity she would have to fly in such a natural fashion for a good long while. 

As Arilla rode her, Typh was acutely aware of how serene it was now that she was being ridden not into battle, but to safety. It was quite possibly the most enjoyable flight she had ever had, the joy of companionship and physical contact elevating the primal pleasure to new heights. The horrors and dangers that they had both found within Doomhold retreated in her mind with every beat of her wings. The miles passed easily like the wind beneath her massive bulk, her true strength score, not to mention her dexterity, made her sustained flight effortless as she put physical distance between them and Erebus’s stronghold.

She finally set down in the snow under the cover of darkness less than a day’s walk away from Rhelea. They made their camp on a lonely hill that overlooked the Old Road to the north of the growing city, the grand construction of the new walls visible even in the distance. When she changed back into the human form that she was so fond of, Arilla had the decency to look away as Typh retrieved her clothes from her warrior’s bulging pack. A gesture she wasn’t sure that she was grateful for. 

Their night of halted passion still weighed heavily on Typh’s mind. Her fear that she had taken advantage of Arilla when she was unable to truly consent ate at her, the dragon still so new to her life as a human that she didn’t even know how to begin to ask if Arilla was okay, let alone if she could ever forgive her.

“Thank you,” her warrior said, surprising her as she broke the silence that sat between them while she made a point of stoking their campfire with a long partially-frozen tree branch.

“For what? We failed didn’t we?” she asked, perplexed by their current line of conversation.

“For choosing me I mean, after everything that has happened that night. I wasn’t sure that you would choose me over the information he was offering.”

“Don’t be silly. Of course I would choose you. You are mine, and I will never let you go,” Typh stated without thinking, trying to ignore how Arilla blushed in response, her freckled cheeks going bright red in spite of the frigid cold.

“You know we can’t give him any humans, right?” Arilla said after a brief pause.

“I know, it’s a fool’s errand. I haven’t a clue where we could get so many, mages or unclassed,” Typh answered, leaning back away from the fire, her breath misting in the cool night air.

“Typh, we can’t do it because it’s wrong, not because it’s hard. Gaius hinted that Erebus is planning something with mages, something that we cannot let happen,” the warrior said seriously.

“Of course he’s planning something,” the dragon answered dismissively. “He always is, but it’s not like dealing with Erebus is a priority. Five-thousand human lives is ultimately nothing compared to how many will be lost when the Great Wards fail.”

“I’m not sure that I agree that the greater threat of the wards justifies sacrificing five-thousand souls on the altar of Erebus. You saw how downtrodden those servants were in Doomhold.”

“Downtrodden, not dead. But you’re right, it doesn’t. Not that it really matters when we can’t achieve it anyway. What we need to concern ourselves with is where do we go for the information next, what are we going to do when he comes for you, and what am I going to do when he contacts my siblings?“

“Are they that bad?”

“They are the worst. Ironically, I think the steel-ranked dragon hunters will be the only thing to keep them away if they find out I’m here living like this,” she explained, gesturing to her body. “Without them, they’d probably sack Rhelea just to get to me, assuming of course, that Erebus doesn’t destroy it first.”

“And I thought I had it bad, absentee father, dead mother and all that.”

“Please, I can match that and raise you four siblings and an entire culture who want you dead.”

“...So what do we do?”

“Running remains the most sensible option. Astresia is a big place. It won't help with the mystery of the weakening wards, but leaving Terythia will make avoiding my siblings, Erebus and the Inquisition child's play.”

“You know I can’t run. Not when Rhelea needs me.”

“And you know that I don’t want to leave you, but it isn’t safe for me here anymore. We’ll be taking a risk with just you staying. I can’t guarantee that he won't hurt you even if I leave you behind.”

“I know…” she trailed off. “But where does that leave us?”

“Us?”

“Don’t be obtuse, Typh. I came to you, not the other way around. We’re clearly not done, not completely, at least, not unless you want to be after I hurt you,” Arilla confessed, her eyes downcast, her tone almost fearful. 

Typh’s breath caught in her throat, and the dragon had to resist the urge to hold her, to leap into her human’s arms and kiss her until the question about her wants was firmly answered.

But it wouldn’t be right.

Typh realised then that Arilla didn’t know about Erebus’s mental manipulation, at least not the full extent of it. That she was internalising the things she had been mystically pushed into as her own deeper desires. The dragon knew that in many ways this was another chance for them, one she couldn’t guarantee that she would get again, not before she had to leave. It was an opportunity to start over, to be together. 

With a little needling she was sure that she could get Arilla to run away with her. Half-imagined visions of the life they could have together appeared before her eyes as the appealing thoughts played out with vivid clarity. 

It would be so easy to say nothing, to offer forgiveness where there was no insult, to take advantage.

Strictly speaking, it wouldn’t even be her lie.

But it was still a lie. Another broken foundation for them to build a relationship upon. Just like the last time.

“Arilla I…” she began, before faltering. Fighting down her fear before trying again. “The thing you need to know about that night is…”

The conversation went about as well as could be expected.

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