Chapter 27: DD2 Chapter 021 – Friend

*Congratulations, Alternate Form has reached level 50. You must rank up the skill to progress it further.*

Alternate Form - Used by dragons since the dawn of Creation to infiltrate, interbreed and otherwise observe the other enlightened species, this skill allows you to adopt the form of another species indefinitely.

Available Forms:

Human Female.

Whilst active, skills dependent on your dragon physiology are suppressed, physical attributes are capped at Alternate Form's skill level, and your Dragon Class will be hidden for the duration of this skill's use.

Choose once from the list of modifications…

Additional Forms -  This modification grants you additional forms to sculpt and choose from with the total number available being limited to this skill’s overall rank.

Hidden Form -  This modification reduces the separation between your original and alternate forms, making them less real by allowing you to use your stats’ original baseline rather than that of your chosen form.

Twin Forms -  This modification increases the separation between your original and alternate forms, making them more real by granting each one distinct resource pools of their own.

[Alternate Form] had levelled during the night. The skill that Typh was so dependent on had finally made it to the next rank, its progression having slowed dramatically as it begrudgingly approached 50. She had been growing increasingly worried that it would never make it there by itself, not without finding some way of stressing its capabilities. The thin trickle of mana that it steadily consumed while Typh remained in her human body was essentially negligible, which was a small boon that allowed her to cast as many spells as she wanted without the fear of accidentally reverting back into a dragon. But that low mana consumption also led to a painfully slow rate of levelling, at least compared to her more active mage skills.

Of her three choices all were appealing; the first, for it would let her choose an additional two forms, perhaps one to let her stay safely in Rhelea by Arilla’s side, and another for hiding in plain sight. The allure of spending some of her time in the shape of a bird or a beloved housecat was surprisingly enough something that she could not easily resist, but what stopped her from considering it too deeply however was her fear. She identified so strongly with her human body that she simply couldn’t imagine giving it up, tactical advantage or the ability to lick one's own crotch in public be damned.

Her second option was easily the most powerful. If she was reading it right it would let her use her draconic baseline with her restricted physical stats. Her human skin would become as tough as her scales, the muscles of a five-foot woman would become as strong as those of a hundred-and-ten foot long dragon, her arcane reservoir and potency rising to match the mana channels of her original body. It was hands down the most powerful upgrade that she could imagine to her skill, but there was a catch, it would make her ‘less real’. Typh didn’t know precisely what that meant, but it was enough to scare her away. Would she lose some of the intensity to her feelings? Would her cold draconic thoughts intrude on her time spent as Typh? As much as she lusted over the potential power, it wasn’t worth the risk of losing her human self to her dragon side, not least because she was being hunted and her realness as a human woman was easily her greatest defence.

The last was the most mediocre of her options, strong in its own right but lacking the versatility of the first, or the raw power of the second. It was a second chance, a further separation of her two selves giving her much deeper reserves to draw upon in a fight. It was potentially accompanied by a dulling of her draconic instincts, but she realised then that she could live with that, her nature to hoard wealth and salivate in the face of exotic metals was hardly something she couldn’t live without.

She made her choice.

Alternate Form - Used by dragons since the dawn of Creation to infiltrate, interbreed and otherwise observe the other enlightened species, this skill allows you to adopt the form of another species indefinitely with its own resource pools based on your adjusted stats.

Available Forms:

Human Female.

Whilst active, skills dependent on your dragon physiology are suppressed, physical attributes are capped at Alternate Form's skill level, and your Dragon Class will be hidden for the duration of this skill's use.

“Why would he even want five thousand people?” Arilla asked, punctuating the silence that had grown between them while Typh had consulted her status.

“He doesn’t. It’s an impossibly large number that he pulled out of his ass to punish me for choosing you and rejecting him,” Typh said quickly, finding the whole thing unpleasant to think about in any real detail.

“I mean maybe…” Arilla began.

“Arilla. He wants me by his side. Deformed as I am, a Sovereign Dragon who willingly kneels to a Shadow would be quite the coup.”

“I don’t know; I’m not saying this isn’t about you. I mean, I saw the way he looked at you, but like you said he asked Kalle and others for humans. Maybe he did give you an impossibly large number, but he still wants people for some reason, and I think we should be concerned with the why.”

“Maybe,” Typh shrugged, trying not to dwell on the ridiculous demand that she had agreed to—if only under duress. “Perhaps he simply wants to repopulate his city?”

“That can’t be it,” Arilla said, shaking her head. “If that was all he was bothered about then why would he specify that he wanted mages or the unclassed? And why would he care about their ages either?”

Typh paused for a moment, and actually thought about it. Stirring once more the ancient memories of long dead dragons that resided within her, and for a brief moment their past experiences flowed over her like a river. With practiced delicacy she skimmed along the surface of that vast wealth of knowledge, searching for what she knew but did not yet remember. 

“Well that’s obvious,” she eventually said, suppressing a grimace as she found what she was looking for amongst her inherited memories, the details finally sparking in her mind in all too vivid detail. “He probably wants to do some kind of large-scale ritual magic. That, or he’s building a mage army, but considering what he is and that he already has a pretty substantial force of Shades, I find that option unlikely.”

“What does ritual magic have to do with their ages?”

“Children below a certain age, human children specifically, are the only sapient creatures in all of Creation who are never integrated into the System. That makes them useful in a way.”

“You’re going to have to explain that.”

“Remember when I said that the System works on belief and will? That the collective expectations of every creature living and dead give it the power to change us, to sculpt the mana that runs through Creation into classes, stats, and skills?”

“I remember you saying that I could will myself to be stronger,” Arilla added unhelpfully.

“I said technically you could. If it was that easy I’d have just willed away my runt trait,” she scoffed, before remembering herself. “Yes, some people—usually the completely insane or self-delusional—can do that sort of thing for admittedly very brief periods of time. When they do so they’re actively pitting their will against the System, rather than having it help them move their mana into the patterns we’re used to. For however long it lasts they’re essentially saying they know better than literally everyone else who has ever lived and shaping their internal mana themselves.”

“And what? Children don't have this problem?”

“The unclassed as a whole don’t. While the vast majority of them won’t have a clue how to actively harness it, humans are an inherently magical species. You don’t need a Mage class to do magic, it’s just a lot easier with one, and almost impossible to perform if you're already in the System and lack one altogether.”

“If you get enough of the unclassed together all believing the same thing, then Creation will bend just a little in the right direction. Ordinarily for large scale rituals you’re better off integrating unclassed participants into the System and taking advantage of the extra mana from the low-level mages, but there’s one notable exception to this.”

“Children,” Arilla interjected.

“Correct. Children believe harder and easier than adults. It’s not like you can easily use this sort of thing, much less make your castle suddenly begin floating through the sky, but if you’re pretty much there already then the belief of a few hundred human children might push you over the edge. Even better, if properly exploited their belief can smooth over any minor errors in a ritual circle, although getting a large enough group of children to all believe the same thing with intense certainty is rarely palatable.”

“I’m assuming by unpalatable you mean human sacrifice?”

“Well yes, correct again. How did you know that?” Typh asked, unsettled by Arilla actually knowing things about magic for once.

“Really underselling it with your vocabulary there, Typh,” Arilla said disparagingly, and then, upon catching the dragon's insistent look, the warrior sighed before continuing. “And I know that because it makes sense. It's in practically every bard’s tale there is about evil Mages, although I’ve never heard the reason why they’re so keen to carve up innocents on bloodstained altars until now.”

“I mean, he might not want them for that, you can elicit a similar empowering effect from children with hope, but that’s a much taller ask.”

“Are you really going to suggest that Erebus, the paranoid, mind-violating, necromancer, Shadow Dragon who murdered a city wants to use the power of childrens’ hope to cast a big spell?”

“...I see your point,” she conceded. “How are you holding up?”

Arilla’s face contorted itself into a pained grimace before settling back into her easy smile.

“I’m okay, it’s just…”

“Just what?”

“He was in my head, and I didn’t know. He pushed me to do things, and I can’t even tell where his influence stopped and my own desires started. He’s silver rank, how do I know if he’s even left my mind? What if he changed things, and I’m not still me anymore?”

Typh winced, the knee jerk reaction to sell Arilla a comforting lie made itself known, but it was less insistent for a change, and she bit down on that urge.

“You can’t know, not for certain. I could look for you, but his skill in such things far outstripps my own. In theory, with your [Dragon’s Resilience] skill, all you need to do is raise it to seventh tier, or gold, and it should fight off anything he may have left behind, but until then you kind of just have to live with the uncertainty.”

“So gold rank? God-hood essentially,” Arilla said with exasperation.

“If you have a very limited view of what a god is, sure,” Typh shrugged.

“Well fuck. I was hoping you had some kind of dragon mojo that would help.”

“Dragon mojo?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “Sorry, I’m all out.”

They walked on in silence for a time, the steady crunch of snow under their boots as they made their way ever closer to Rhelea. The Old Road almost blended into the surrounding hillsides, only noticeable for its slightly raised edges amongst all that white. In the distance, the city still stood, and they would reach the slums by mid-afternoon. They could cut that down if they pushed, but Typh was starting to feel anxious about the thought of leaving Rhelea never to return—or at least not for several hundred years—and felt no need to hurry.

“You’d still do it, wouldn’t you?” Arilla asked, breaking her silent contemplation as Typh shifted her focus from the snow shrouded cityscape in the distance to the human classer she would have to leave behind.

“Do what?”

“You’d give Erebus the five-thousand if you could, even knowing what he has planned for them.”

“I don’t know what he has planned for them.”

“But you would give them to him if you could.”

“Well, yes. Five-thousand human lives isn’t really that many in the grand scheme of things.”

“How can you say that? I’m human.” 

“I can say that because far more lives would be lost if a Monster actually spawned inside of a human city. With all the focusing runes your kind has built up around your settlement walls to help you passively level faster, right now they’re all just summoning grounds waiting to happen,” Typh said. “Five thousand humans, some of whom may be sacrificed to fuel a ritual spell, is nothing in comparison to the lives that would be lost if we remain ignorant and unable to change anything.”

Arilla looked at her long and hard.

“You can’t just trade human lives like that. Every one of those five-thousand is a person, they all deserve a chance to live. What would you do if someone sacrificed my life for the greater good?”

“Then I’d find out who they were and eat them alive. Slowly.”

“I’m serious, Typh.”

“So am I. I’m a Sovereign Dragon, Arilla. A Sovereign. That means something; I have a duty to make the hard decisions in times like these, a duty that I’ve been putting off for far too long.”

“Because of me?”

“In part, but mostly because I don’t want to die.”

“Typh...”

Arilla reached over to take her by the hand. The solid steel of her thick gauntlets was comforting to her even if it served to highlight how the majority of her warrior’s armour had been irreparably damaged defending Cawic. Still, the unsolicited touch and the strength in Arilla’s firm grip were reassuring.

“We don’t have to die for this. It's not too late for you to change your mind. Fly away with me. Please,” Typh pleaded, knowing long before the words had left her mouth that it was pointless, Arilla’s mind was set, and so was hers in a way. 

She had shirked her responsibilities for far too long. The class that she knew she had to take weighed heavily in her mind even as she stepped in closer to her chosen warrior. Arilla’s scent filled her nostrils, all those conflicting feelings wafting off of her were enough to make Typh’s head spin. She couldn’t begin to imagine how her warrior tolerated it, why she was so intent on holding on to the past when it could only offer her pain. Then again, Arilla wasn’t the only one who let their past hold them back.

Sovereign Magus - You are of a noble bloodline and have led an army into battle raining down spells on your enemies. As a result, you are given the option of further strengthening your ability to command and empower others with your spellcraft.

+2 Vit, +5 Int, +1 Will, +2 Cha, +3 Free Stats at each interval, [Noble] tagged.

The choice called to her, and surprisingly enough, both of her classes called back, her usually silent Sovereign Dragon class wanted her to reach out and take it. Now that Arilla was finally starting to pull away, her reasons for stalling were falling flat, while her classes, frustrated for remaining capped for so long, desperately cried out for her to rank up and resume her upward progression. There was no reason to wait; it was past time for her to once again lead the motley collection of desperate species she had half-heartedly gathered throughout the long autumn months. And yet, when she looked at her warrior, so much more now than she had been when they first met, her thoughts of duty and self-sacrifice paled in comparison to the tantalising prospect of what they could still have together. 

If only Arilla felt the same way.

Her chosen human was an orphan, a nobody; she was not obligated to help, nor did anyone expect her to. She possessed no special ability to do so—at least, nothing more than the enchantments that Typh had hidden away in her new sword—but she was so set on giving up her own chance at happiness to try and save what in all likelihood could not be saved.

Typh was jealous of that certainty, that self-righteous belief in herself. All her life she had been told that she was unworthy of the blood that ran through her veins, that she would never amount to anything, and a large part of her still believed that. When she thought of the army she had forged and left to Halith to grow in her absence, she couldn’t help but compare it to the forces that lived in her memories. How inferior it was to the hosts of old, even to the contemporary ones that would be fielded by the other council races.

“We’ve been through this before. You know I won't run from this fight,” Arilla finally said, and Typh only half listened when she continued. “We should get moving.”

“No. We’re not done with this conversation,” the dragon replied, surprising herself that she was even speaking.

“What more is there to say?” Arilla asked, sounding profoundly sad whilst still remaining ever so certain.

“Once I leave Rhelea with Tamlin, you’ll likely never see me again,” Typh stated, knowing it to be the truth.

“Wait…”

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“Depending on what class you choose for your rank up, you’ll feel the pull of me in your chest, but we’ll never meet again. Not unless you come find me, and we both know that you won't do that. If you can somehow save Rhelea from eating itself alive then there will always be another problem, another battle for you to fight, another reason to stay and put others before your own needs. This could very well be our last day together, and you want to spend it pretending that you don’t want me, that a goodbye between us is a trivial thing.” 

“So if you’re intent on staying—”

And then Arilla kissed her. 

As their lips locked it was suddenly like it was months ago, back when the only barrier between them were Typh’s many lies. She felt herself melt into Arilla’s grasp as her warrior held her close and all of her thoughts of duty and destiny faded away.

She found her hands fumbling at the buttons over Arilla’s chest. The biting cold was quickly dispelled by her aura that almost instinctively blossomed out around them. The air within its bounds grew noticeably warmer as she fed her skill [Sovereign’s Aura] with a trickle of her potent mana. Snow melted into water, which quickly transitioned into a thick steam that clouded the air. Her lungs were filled with a heady warmth that persisted even as she was pushed down onto her back.

The Old Road was firm beneath her when her hands found their way inside of Arilla’s winter coat. The plush fur from some beast provided a delightful contrast to the supple softness of her lover’s small breasts and the firm muscles beneath them. Arilla arched her back, pressing herself down into Typh’s hands while the dragon’s fingers found and encircled an erect nipple. She pinched it, and her warrior moaned, Typh laughing with delight as she spurred on the other woman’s advances. Her own chest was soon bared to the elements while Arilla’s hungry lips travelled down her body, kissing and biting with equal measure until Typh felt hot breath against the opening of her sex.

They had made love outdoors before, but there was something especially salacious about doing so atop the paved slabs of the Old Road rather than a hilltop in the middle of nowhere. It may have been private, in the sense that there was nobody around for miles in every direction, but just being out in the open and able to see Rhelea in the distance made it feel different.

Arilla’s tongue travelled up and down the length of her vulva, barely making contact with her clitoris before she pulled back and Typh groaned and bucked her hips against her lover's face in her urgent need for more. Strong hands dimpled her thighs and pulled her legs apart, her feigned resistance evaporated beneath her lover's intimate kisses where her warm tongue plundered her already slick depths.

And then, just as quickly as it had started, it was over.

“Stop. We have company,” Typh said reluctantly, her skill-enhanced ears picking up the riders from afar just as they crossed the boundary into what she could sense.

The two of them hurriedly put their clothes back on and stepped away from the wide circle of melted snow when, as predicted, a patrol of soldiers on horseback could be seen approaching with their mundane vision. A squad of six riders, men and women in Traylan colours who made it abundantly clear that they were both well-armed and armoured. Their aggressive postures indicated that this was not going to be a pleasant interaction when they stopped their horses just short of what could be considered polite.

Still flustered from before, Typh absentmindedly smoothed out a wrinkle in her dress and pulled her coat tighter over her chest, while she tried to ignore how one of the soldiers stared intently at Arilla. The spike of possessive jealousy that accompanied that look suggested strongly that her draconic instincts hadn’t gone anywhere from ranking up her [Alternate Form] skill. 

“Ho there, adventurers,” the lead soldier said, the man was tagged as a low bronze warrior; his five accompanying guards displayed the same class although their levels varied from high-clay to mid-pewter.

“Is there a problem?” Typh asked, instantly regretting her choice of words and tone when the lead soldier's eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“Not necessarily,” the man responded slowly. “A small dragon was spotted descending through the cloud cover last night and we’ve been on high-alert ever since. When our mage ranks picked up your spell we were dispatched to investigate,” he explained. “Now what are you doing out here at this time of year?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“Fine…” Typh sighed. “We were returning to Rhelea after helping out the village of Cawic to the north of here. We have signed letters and everything requesting our help, is that enough for you?”

“I’ll have to see those letters, but yes, that should suffice. I don’t suppose you’ve seen any signs of the dragon or its rider?” the soldier asked.

“I’m afraid we haven’t seen anything. Although, I imagine even a small dragon would be pretty hard to miss,” Arilla offered, while she produced the old letter from Kalle and walked forwards to hand it over to a soldier who met her midway before returning to his position with the others.

“That’s a shame. I would have certainly liked a piece of that bounty,” the bronze rank said while he examined the letter. “Now everything seems in order. I just need to see your badges and I can let you go.” 

“Our Adventurers Guild badges?” Typh replied, confused by the request.

“Yes, you are registered with the guild?” the man asked again.

“We are, one moment,” Arilla said, before bending low to rummage through her pack again, this time for the old pieces of fired clay that had been issued to them months ago. Once she found them, she then tossed the badges underarm across the wide stretch of road between her and the soldiers, the leader of which snatched the pieces of clay out of the air effortlessly. Time passed in an uncomfortable silence while the bronze-rank human looked at them both in turn frowning all the while. 

“Is there a problem? I think Maneous can vouch for me,” Arilla eventually volunteered, the warrior seemingly unnerved by the odd nature of the interaction.

“Recruit Maneous, is it true? Do you know these women?” the bronze ranker asked, turning to face the high-clay soldier who had been staring conspicuously at Arilla for the entire time.

“Yes Sergeant. At least I know the Warrior. Arilla is her name, although she was level 37 only a few weeks ago…” Maneous said before trailing off, clearly unsettled by Arilla’s rapid level gain. 

“Anything else? Level gain like that is hardly illegal,” the Sergeant responded pointedly, the recruit choosing to look down at the horse that he was perched upon unnaturally rather than meet the higher levelled soldier's gaze.

“Just that uhh… she uhm, volunteers at the temple most weekdays, or at least... she did until recently, that is,” Maneous continued, his words coming out in a nervous tumble from between his too-straight teeth.

“Well, I’m afraid that as godly as you are, you’re both going to have to come with me,” the Sergeant said, turning his attention back to Typh and Arilla. “These badges are for clay ranks, which neither of you two are. You should have a pair of pewters, especially as you’re both on the cusp of bronze.”

“We’ve been a bit lax on getting them upgraded,” Arilla admitted awkwardly, the lie came out smoothly, especially for someone who seemed to demand honesty in all of her meaningful interactions. 

“They’re expensive and like you said, we’re both on the cusp of bronze. Why buy a pewter badge when we're so close to ranking up?” Typh added.

“Be that as it may, I have to insist on escorting you back to Rhelea. If you’re not sworn into the service of a Terythian noble house, or have up to date membership with the Adventurers Guild then you have to get your classes inspected by an appraiser.”

“I’m sorry, can you say that last bit again,” Typh interjected, steeling herself for what she strongly suspected she was going to have to do.

“We’ll need to get an appraiser to check your classes. I’m sorry, I know it’s intrusive, but the results are kept strictly confidential, and it’s the law, at least until they catch the Dragonrider.”

“I see,” Typh said, momentarily regretting her modification to [Alternate Form] as she leaned into her draconic coldness. “And there’s no way around it?”

“Not unless you swear an oath to serve Lord Traylan, or another house before we get to the city, and they’ll certainly make sure you’re appraised as well,” he explained sympathetically. “I wouldn’t worry, I’ve been through it myself and it—”

“Typh, no!” Arilla cried out interrupting the soldier, the warrior seeming to anticipate her actions, but Typh paid her no mind. She was a Sovereign, and it was her job to make the hard decisions.

Although if she was being honest with herself, this decision was far more distasteful than it was hard. While she could probably bluff, bribe, or threaten her way past these troops, the soldiers knew Arilla’s name and that made them dangerous. Leaving the soldiers alive was a loose end she was not comfortable with. She had learned her lesson about letting potentially dangerous humans live for longer than she should. Once she left Rhelea, Arilla would be on her own, and the possibility that someone might eventually see through whatever subterfuge she employed and question her warrior was too great.

There was only one way to be sure that Arilla was safe.

She accepted the prompt and the Great System’s power surged through her veins. Her level finally ticked up to 50 as the words Sovereign Magus replaced Artillery Mage on her status.

Name: Typh

Species: Human

Age: 19

HP: 500/500

SP: 496/500

MP: 5320/5320

Strength: 50

Dexterity: 50

Vitality: 50

Intelligence: 171

Willpower: 143 

Charisma: 110

Free Stats: 3

Class: Sovereign Magus - Level 50

Artillerist’s Abjurations - Level 49

Artillerist’s Empowerment - Level 49

Artillerist’s Guidance - Level 49

Artillerist’s Reservoir - Level 49

Unassigned Skill x1

Typh was momentarily surprised that her draconic status didn’t make an appearance like it usually did upon ranking up one of her classes, but she assumed that was due to the recent changes to [Alternate Form] and the separation that now existed between her two selves. She pushed past the prompt to select a new skill, her first Noble ability, and instead the dragon began casting spells.

She was still riding high on the invigorating energy of her newly raised stats when she pushed her mana into a perfectly straight line. A wafer thin blade of golden light empowered with the rune for sharpness streamed forth from between her index and middle finger, and reached out past the Traylan soldiers. [Sovereign’s Arcana] eagerly complied with her demands, her high mental stats enhancing her magic further, and with a wave of her hand she swept the blade of superheated force over the squad of mounted soldiers. 

Two of them died before they even realised they were under attack, a third lost an arm and would have lost more if a defensive skill wasn’t swiftly activated. Typh’s fragile conjuration shattered on a bulwark of force that was projected from the bronze-ranker’s chest. The man’s horse then charged at her along with the three others who were still mounted, and Typh flew forwards skating above the surface of the snow to meet them.

Her heart raced, and her stomach growled. Unsheathed swords flashed through the air, each blade was sharper and moved far faster than should have been possible, but their low-levelled attacks broke against her defencive spells. Lances of light ripped their way through the air, vaporising leather, and steel, before burying themselves deep inside the people they impacted against who then promptly burst into bright golden flames. [Artillerist’s Empowerment] subjected each one of her victims to the full effects of her dragonfire, albeit if her breath weapon had originated from a wound inside of them.

Maneous died like the others with a silent scream in his throat, his eyes pleadingly turned towards Arilla who stood there amidst the snow, frozen in her horror while Typh bit through the neck of the Sergeant as he burned. A torrent of bronze-ranked blood gushed forth from the wound until it stilled when it finally cooked in his still-burning corpse. Until then Typh had delighted in swallowing the delicious red by the mouthful, bloating her stomach while she eagerly devoured her meal. When she stepped away from his body, the man's hot blood dripped down her chin and onto her coat while she suppressed a satisfied moan that almost made up for the ones she had just missed out on. 

The seductive taste of a human.

It had been far too long since she had last indulged.

When her reverie passed, and the rush from her class-up finally faded, Typh looked around her to see that the entirety of the guard patrol was dead. The horses were thoroughly routed, and the System was trying to notify her about her kills. Unfortunately it was nowhere near enough experience to get to 51, and so she was much more concerned with how in her earlier enthusiasm she had thoroughly ruined her winter coat.

“Typh, what have you done!” Arilla exclaimed, finally coming unstuck as her shock wore off and the extent of her horror set it.

“What? I just saved your life. You should be thanking me,” Typh said, resisting the urge to lick the blood from her lips while she belatedly realised that she probably should have phrased that better.

“You killed them!”

“Yes, I did, but if I had let them escort us back to Rhelea then we’d both be killed. Well, I’d be shipped off to Helion to be mutilated for centuries by alchemists, and you’d be tortured until they figured out that you can’t tame dragons, and then they’d kill you,” Typh replied. “They are after you, remember. They’re not checking classes looking for a Shapeshifted Dragon, they’re looking for the Dragonrider.”

“It doesn’t matter, we could have found another way. We could have talked our way out of it, offered a bribe, anything but this carnage!” Arilla yelled, gesturing to the dismembered corpses around them. “These people had families! People who will miss them!”

“That’s very sad, but all of your suggestions would have garnered you too much attention. This is the only permanent solution if you want to continue living in Rhelea. This is the price you have to pay if you want to help your city.”

“No, it’s not. You can’t put this on me!” Arilla exclaimed, her anger quickly fading into despair. ”I didn’t want to kill them...”

“It’s okay, you didn’t. I did,” Typh shushed, reaching out with bloody hands and taking Arilla’s in her own while her warrior let out a choked sob. “This is all my fault, I made the decision, not you. Now we need to get moving unless you want us to join them. Their Sergeant said they have mages on high-alert looking for us. So we need to go before a steel rank gets here.”

“But Maneous… I knew him, he wasn’t a friend but…”

“He who would have killed you in a heartbeat if he knew what you’d done. Now come on, I can get us into Rhelea without any more fuss, but only if we move now.”

Typh knew better than to try and resume where they left off as she led a tearful Arilla away from the Old Road and towards Rhelea. While they walked in a silence only punctuated by her warrior’s intermittent sobs, Typh’s mind kept replaying Arilla’s words, when she had spoken about every life having value, and the dragon wondered if only for a moment, if she had maybe done something profoundly wrong. 

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