Chapter 61: DD3 Chapter 007 – War Council

Despite the relative ease in which it had been conquered, the Nauron estate boasted excellent privacy wards and enough luxuries to soothe her draconic need to hoard treasure. It was a poor substitute compared to the palace she had hoped to claim, but of her remaining options it was the obvious choice for Typh’s new base of operations. 

Its vaunted halls and large chambers would provide ample working space for the veritable army of scribes, clerks, and administrators who had been essential in the smooth running of the nomadic tent-city she had ruled over for half a year. Hopefully, the trade-up from folding chairs and canvas walls would translate into fewer late nights and heated debates, but she wasn’t optimistic. Helion was only ever going to cause more problems before it started granting her solutions. Worse, her staff would need to be bloated even further now that she had added several hundred thousand less-than-loyal subjects to her domain. Finding qualified and trustworthy candidates was a headache she was not looking forward to although that issue could wait, if only for a little bit. 

While it was going to be a shame to lose the manicured flower beds and artfully shaped hedgerows, the extensive grounds could be repurposed to hold a decent portion of her armed forces. Not enough to prevent the various tribes and groups that made up her army from being broken up and distributed to the other noble manors that had fallen under her control during the conquest, but that was probably for the best. A singular concentrated force would be much harder to assault, but it would also struggle to sally out at any real speed. Her army’s need for mobility was now an unfortunate necessity, one which would be sorely tested over the coming months stamping out riots before they could truly begin. 

Her narrative as an ‘invading liberator for the common people’ was about as dead as the Terythia’s King.

Stories had power, and the Queen’s was simply better than hers. Betrayed and besieged by monsters who had come proclaiming peace. Her beloved husband—assassinated in an attack that had claimed the lives of countless guardsmen. The undeniable presence of a necromancer within the dragon’s ranks... No matter how poor a ruler the previous King had been, or how much Typh gave the people of Helion, they would rise up against her—the Queen wouldn’t even have to try, and try she most certainly would.

The idea of friendly ‘monsters’ coming to save humanity from extinction was always going to be a tough sell, but when the counter-narrative sits in the centre of your city, actively being besieged by the same ‘monsters’ you’ve been told to hate from birth, it doesn’t take much to side with your patriotic instincts and become Typh’s enemy.

The dragon sighed as she limped along the cobbled path leading to the estate’s main house. She was battered, bruised, but ultimately unbroken. She had survived to fight for another day, whereas the Alchemic Knights who had faced her were either dead or stuck inside the city’s inner walls where Terythia’s Queen was no doubt plotting her next move. 

It irked her to have had to flee from humans, even if they were corrupted by eldritch alchemies, it was not in her nature to run away. Her fighting retreat, if not her injuries, were another painful reminder of her innate failings. Even with their lower levels, her siblings could have fought and emerged victorious whereas she had pulled out every trick she had and still very nearly lost. 

System damn her runt trait.

The sight of the noble hostages who had all-too-recently looked down their noses at her being roughly ushered into carriages did little to lighten her mood. Although seeing how they flinched under the claws of her nonhuman soldiers did bring the beginnings of a traitorous smile to her lips. 

They were to be sent off to different parts of the city where they would remain under constant guard for the foreseeable future. Without the Royal Family in her custody, the nobles’ continued well-being was now more important than ever, and it wouldn’t take the Queen long to realise it. If they died she’d lose what little leverage she had left, if they lived, she still didn’t have enough to get what she wanted. The temptation to just eat them all and be done with it was a hard one to resist.

For the second time in the same night, the sovereign dragon stood at the bottom of the estate’s front steps. She reached for her human form and immediately recoiled as if struck. Flashes of what she had allowed to happen to her favoured flesh superimposed themselves before her eyes, only to be banished from her vision with an uncomfortable shudder. Everything about that fight had been far too close for comfort, yet before her wounds could heal naturally she was forced to face them again.

The small human-sized doorway at the top of the steps looked down mockingly at her, and it was only after she summoned a team of high-level healers that she felt confident enough to revert back into her human body.

Normally the change was like stretching out a stiff muscle, a brief amount of pain swiftly followed by another brief period of blissful relief. In the heat of a battle there was some resistance, the skill reluctant to be used outside of its System issued parameters, and when there was not enough space or the consequences would be immediately dire the resistance only got worse. 

When Typh flooded her skill with more than enough mana, intent on becoming human again, [Sovereign's Form] drank deep, but staunchly refused to budge. As her reserves trickled down before her eyes, she pushed her draconic will against the resistance, forcing her skill to comply. The near-instantaneous bout of mild discomfort stretched and amplified, going from an uncomfortable fraction of a second and extending into a brief eternity of searing pain. With a near audible snap, she changed and a wave of dizzying sensations hit her all at once. The agony of her wounds rose triumphant over the overwhelming everything else. The ghost of a missing arm. Large chunks of her that were pulped, slashed, or simply gone, and nowhere near enough blood in her body for her to remain conscious. She swayed precariously on her feet only to be caught in a thick cloak by the white-robed classers who had rushed in close to surround her. 

Typh sagged in their strong arms, choking back a tearful sob while they bathed her in the soft glow of healing magic. She was the Lord Sovereign now and even with Creation spinning beneath her there was no time for tears.

She briefly felt a pang of jealousy for Arilla, whose unconscious state granted her a few hours of reprieve from all this, but in the morning she’d be rested enough that she’d be thrust back into her duties. She may not have taken the Traylan name, but she was still the Lord of Rhelea and all that entailed.

The dragon stepped forwards long before the healers were done and when they complained she barked orders at them to see to someone more injured than her. Her current body was one made from mana and will. It healed fast, and now that it wasn’t haemorrhaging blood from more places than she cared to count she’d be fine, whereas the mana they’d used so she could pass through a doorway could save a life if used elsewhere on someone more deserving. 

The stairs still loomed above her, and this time she didn’t have a warrior to lean on or the strength to ascend by herself. With a puff of mana and a twist of her will she dragged herself up and away from the ground. Creation moved underneath her for a handful of seconds while she flew up the steps, free in spirit for the duration of her spell. She landed softly at the top of the stairs, her bare feet skipping over the polished stone just in time for Halith to emerge from within the manor to greet her. 

The ratling was dressed in the usual mix of silken finery and well-worn armour that she now preferred, styling herself as some kind of warrior queen that Arilla had taken more than a little bit of wardrobe inspiration from. Halith made a point of sticking to products made by her kind’s tailors and armorsmiths rather than taking advantage of the woodlings’ silks or the higher-level human craftsmen whose services she could no doubt afford.

“Is everyone ready?” Typh asked, not bothering to slow down as she transitioned from her brief flight to a quick walk and strode past the other woman who fell in step beside her.

“Yes. Everyone who could be roused is present, with the exception of Marysias who claimed some ‘important clan business’ took precedence,” Halith commented dryly.

“You disapprove?” the dragon asked.

“She’s a satyr. ‘Important clan business’ either means drinking, fucking, or some inane combination of the two.” 

“You’re probably right,” Typh groaned, exaggerating her frustrations so that she could pause for a moment and discreetly catch her breath. Her one remaining hand gently rubbed her temples in faux annoyance while she steadied herself. “Her absence, while it requires a punishment, isn’t an issue. There are barely more than a hundred satyrs who journeyed east. Marysias only has a seat at the table because her hundred are loud and refuse to share a representative with the other nature spirits. Ensure they end up housed in the same manor as the goblins and then be slow to find them new quarters when she inevitably complains.”

“I’ll see it done, Lord Sovereign,” Halith replied with a feral grin.

“Is there anything else I should know before we go in?” Typh asked, coming to a stop outside the room that had been designated for the war councils meeting.

“Tamlin reached level 49 tonight. I suspect the only thing delaying his rank up is exhaustion. He’ll be 50 in the morning or soon after, once he’s made his choice.”

“50…” she repeated. “That was faster than I expected.”

“He is a necromancer. A handful more battles like this one and he’ll reach a hundred while the rest of us languish. Most of the goblins and kobolds are already at their cap, it won’t be long until my kind and the wargs reach ours. Only a few of the nature spirits can even make it into fourth-tier and none bar you the fifth,” Halith said.

“What’s your point?” Typh asked.

“The human kings keep their people weak for a reason. You should consider doing the same. They’re weak now but they don’t have a cap. When they turn on us—we might lose.”

The dragon gave Halith a more considering look. What she was suggesting went against everything Typh had planned for Helion, and Terythia by extension. She was reminded then, that the ratling while loyal, had always been in favour of more brutal approaches to enlisting the humans’ aid. 

But that wasn’t what Typh saw now.

Halith’s fur was pristine, her claws filed to fine points and her teeth bleached a perfect white by some cosmetic spell or another. She looked every bit the regal ruler she wanted to be, but her tail told a different story. It was stiff and unmoving, held tightly under the woman's control so as not to give away her anxiety. Typh inhaled once and found that beneath all that perfume she could taste the ratling’s visceral fear and the dragon felt her stomach grumble in anticipation.

“Tamlin scared you.” It wasn’t a question, but if it was the way Halith’s tail twitched all but confirmed it.

“We can handle Tamlin. No matter how much he grows he’s only one crippled boy, but Helion has a population of hundreds of thousands. If you give them all classes and let them choose without repercussions… What if there are more necromancers than we can handle, what if there’s worse, what then?”

“We’ll handle it the way we always have. I won’t leave the humans vulnerable out of fear of what they might be capable of. If they scare you so much, then maybe you should talk to your people about raising their secondary classes beyond their species class,” the dragon said before opening the door and heading into the room. 

Typh heard the sharp intake of breath behind her, but paid it no mind, despite her outward confidence, 50 was a large number. Too large a number for a human as young and as damaged as Tamlin. She was not looking forwards to the morning when he would wake. Arilla was right that Typh needed to do something, System knows that no one else was looking to help the youth.

****

The mood in the hall was grim.

Bright magelights cast every gathered face in harsh relief. Looks of concern, fatigue and frustration were far more common than Typh would have liked following what was ostensibly a victory. Of the myriad of species sitting around the wide table, perhaps only the goblins’ representative looked to be in a celebratory mood, with all the others appearing to be in various states of quiet distress. 

Typh desperately hoped that the fight hadn’t been beaten out of them already. While her forces hadn’t achieved the resounding win they’d all hoped for, they had taken the majority of Helion in a single night. It was a staggering achievement, but completing the conquest was going to be a much longer—much more difficult affair than they had prepared for.

“Enough with the detailed reports. Just tell me, exactly how bad is it?” Typh growled.

“Perhaps we should reconvene in the morning when we’ve had some rest and have a better idea of the situation at hand. There are still pockets of fighting throughout the city and our losses beyond the walls can only be roughly estimated,” Halith offered, taking a conciliatory tone as she leant over the table from her high-backed seat. 

“No. I want to do this now, we’ve wasted enough time. The Queen could launch a counterattack at any moment and I want to be ready!” the dragon finished, slamming her balled fist down on the varnished wood which splintered accordingly. Her audience shifted in their seats at that—some more noticeably than others—even in her human form, her anger was a powerful thing and few of her generals were willing to meet it head-on. 

“We will be. Labourers are clearing terrain before the inner walls. We’re raiding warehouses for lumber and supplementing it with our own from the camps. We have engineers sketching out positions for siege weapons and barricades while combat classers draw up patrols. But the human Queen won’t attack, not tonight. The darkness is our ally, not theirs. If she makes a move this early on—which she won’t—it will come after the dawn,” Amantin offered dourly. The fungoids’ representative looked and sounded perpetually gloomy. Their too-large eyes, twin pits of darkness, peered out with a scowl from beneath the hooded cap of their mushroom-like head. Typh wasn’t sure if it was an actual facial expression or just how their face rested, but either way, Amantin like everyone else was exhausted and it was starting to show.

“I’m not tired. And I wasn’t suggesting we carry on—I was telling you to give me a clear answer,” Typh glowered.

You are reading story Dragon’s Dilemma at novel35.com

“You may not be tired, Lord Sovereign, but we all are. How about we take 15 minutes before carrying on,” Halith suggested.

A hush descended on the already quiet meeting room while the dragon stared down the ratling, and her remaining generals held their breath. Typh briefly considered doing something rash and irreversible but stopped herself before it was too late. She was tired, she was also angry and in no small amount of pain, but none of it was Halith’s fault. Typh had been played by Terythia’s Queen and she was furious that she’d been blindsided by the occurrence.

She’d discounted the woman, and now it was biting her and her plans for the city. Typh could only blame herself and the rogues whose reports she had so naively trusted.

“Best make it thirty, when we reconvene I want wine to have been poured and a healer on standby,” Typh commanded, and the room breathed a collective sigh of relief.

The time spent first planning the assault on Rhelea and then on the road had made all of them, if not friends, then at least acquainted. There had been a few late arrivals and departures over the long months, but the main fixtures of her war council were largely unchanged. Almost all of them had fond memories of drinking together while plans were formed, so when servants came with decanters of wine from Lord Nauron’s basement the war council relaxed into that familiar state of assembly.

“Let’s try this again. How bad are our losses?” Typh asked, relaxing into the soft glow emanating from a healer’s hands that banished the last of the dragon’s painful aches.

“We got off lightly. Once the bulk of our forces entered the city, the majority of the defenders were quick to surrender once it became apparent that we were taking prisoners. The losses we did accrue primarily came from the initial charge on the gate and the secondary charges against those two knights you dropped on us,” Amantin paused for effect while Braknagh, the wargs’ representative, stared into his cup and grumbled his discontent. The charges were almost entirely composed of his packmates and those of neighbouring warg tribes. Typh had only brought five thousand wargs from Rhelea, and any serious casualties worth mentioning would be hitting him especially hard. 

A cold draconic part of her wasn’t particularly upset about this. Wargs were fearsome foes in the open, but they were poorly suited for siege warfare which they were all about to experience firsthand. She’d much rather lose a thousand wargs than anything else at this point.

“Twenty-one hundred dead so far and thrice that injured. With the healers we have on hand the number of the fallen is unlikely to rise much higher. We’ll have most of the wounded ready to fight again by the end of the week. We can squeeze that down to a few days but we’ll be using up the last of the goblins’ brew and our healers won't be of any use to us until they recover from the mana burn,” Amantin succinctly concluded.

“No… There’s no need for that,” Typh shuddered. Seeing the aftereffects of the goblins’ concoction on Tamlin and a few other unfortunates who lacked the vitality score to handle it had dampened her zeal for that particular resource. “Proceed with preparing the ground for a siege. Do we have any idea how long it will take to starve them out?”

Amantin looked to her side, and a kobold with surprisingly fine scales stepped forwards from the rear of the room with a bundle of parchment scrolls tucked under his thin arms.

“Lord Sovereign, we know the Queen’s forces have ample stores of grain and deep wells within the inner walls. We can’t do anything about their access to water without harming the rest of the city and with their smaller numbers we simply have no idea how long their food supplies will last, but a year isn’t out of the question. Worse, if they convert the palace’s gardens into farmland, with their access to mages and chained dungeons they should have enough land to produce fresh food indefinitely. Unless we get lucky with a magical plague affecting the ground, or we perform a ritual to create one, there will be no starving them out,” the kobold said before bowing deeply and retreating to the rear of the room following a wave of Amantin’s stubby hand.

“That’s hardly ideal. I won’t authorise formulating any plagues—magical or otherwise—not in the heart of a city I intend to rule,” Typh said firmly, making sure to initiate eye contact with the species more known for such things, most of whom had the decency to look suitably abashed. “Does anyone have any suggestions?”

“We can’t storm the palace. Not without knowing how many Alchemic Knights remain. One well placed can stall an advance indefinitely. With ease if tainted. They haven’t stormed out the palace yet so their numbers are limited. Whether there’s 5 or 50, it’s too many to face at the top of a fortified wall,” Tumbling-Gravel grumbled. The earth sprite’s voice echoed out through the room much like their namesake and shattered the image of the taciturn individual that had been building in Typh’s head for some time. Hunched down in their comparatively tiny chair, the large rocky-creature almost looked comical, but it was an opinion Typh knew would never be voiced.

“We can send soldiers in through the sewers and tunnels that lead beneath the palace, but they were warded to detect incursions before our assault and they’ll only be patrolled tighter now. While tunnel fighting suits us more than it does them, the limited numbers we can send through any one tunnel only suits a defending knight better,” Glorious said, the heavily scarred goblin not bothering to look up from her drink which she then downed in one. 

“I asked for suggestions, not problems. We’ve already done the impossible, twice, are you all telling me that we’re done?” Typh asked. Her words caused all but one of her generals to shrink in their seats, their reactions more transparent from the alcohol they had consumed.

“We could retreat,” Halith offered, and when she wasn’t immediately shouted down she continued. “The number of humans sworn to your banner has only grown since we first camped outside Helion. While the majority are low-tiered and weak, they are numerous. Instead of bleeding any more of our own for this doomed country, we could just make the offer of free classes for all and leave. We could take as many of the huddled masses that care to follow us and head west to the Dragonspines. Traylra isn’t the only attempt humanity has made to tame the wilderness, and with the species under your banner it would be childsplay to take an abandoned fortress and prepare.”

“Prepare for what exactly? The end?” Typh asked scornfully.

“Yes,” the ratling woman responded and when the dragon looked across the room she saw nothing but slowly nodding heads. Internally she despaired. Typh understood that preventing the end of everything was a tall if not impossible order, but she needed them to believe that it could be done. Not just because she needed them motivated, but because belief moved Creation. 

It was how magic worked. 

“We’re not giving up. Not on this city. Not on preventing the end. We can stop another Monster from ever stepping foot on Creation, but to do it we need to take Helion,” Typh said imploringly.

“It can’t be done. We tried, and we failed. Maybe if things went differently that wouldn't be the case, but with the Queen sitting tight in her palace, free classes or not, if we stay here the people will rise up against us—and when a Terythian army eventually comes to shake us loose, with enemies on all sides we’ll be slaughtered,” Halith argued.

“So we just have to take the palace before that happens.”

“Typh—Lord Sovereign, we simply can’t do it. We don’t have the numbers or the levels. The Queen played us, if she slaughtered the King and his concubines the moment we attacked then she’s been preparing for something like this since before we arrived. That means armies from the north could be as little as six months away—less if they're led by powerful classers, you know how the Old Road is.”

“We have hostages—”

“Southern hostages, not enough from the north to stop an angry Lord’s army, and if we’re unlucky, not enough to stop a southern noble who doesn’t particularly like his offspring.”

Typh clenched her fist while she tried to come up with something to refute the ratling’s words. They were so close to victory that it hurt more than her lingering wounds. She wanted to say that Halith was wrong, but she couldn’t, everything looked like she had failed.

“I don’t think taking Helion is impossible.”

The voice was small and barely familiar. When Typh extended her senses she saw the kobold from earlier with the bundle of parchment practically quivering beneath the dragon’s indirect gaze.

“Speak when you’re spoken to, mutt!” Halith snapped.

“It’s okay,” Typh interjected. “Please, step forward and explain yourself.”

“Lord Tumbling-Gravel is right. Despite our numerical advantages, we can’t face a force of steel ranks defending a fortified position. Conversely, Alchemic Knights, even tainted ones, can’t be everywhere at once. They can take ground from us in retaliatory strikes, but they can’t hold it for long enough to move the rest of their forces through, not without risking being overwhelmed,” the kobold offered. “While the Alchemic Knights’ presence does prevent us from taking the palace, the Queen’s reliance on them does offer us a glimmer of hope. We know from the notes Xan left us that they require a steady supply of exotic alchemical reagents to function. We don’t know precisely what, and with the Alchemical Stables on the other side of the Palace’s walls we likely never will, but we do know that they were reliant on regular shipments from Rhelea—shipments they haven’t received in over six months now. While it's possible they’ve secured an interim supplier from Terythia’s neighbours to the south or east, it would be less regular, and we certainly won’t be allowing those caravans to pass into the palace now that we have it surrounded.”

“Do we know what happens if they are suitably deprived?” the dragon asked, feeling that glimmer of hope start to shine.

“A growing weakness that leaves them bedridden up until their deaths. Precisely how long that takes is dependent on their vitality score, and we don’t know how being tainted will change that, but we can wait them out,” the kobold concluded.

“Fascinating…” Typh muttered. “What’s your name?”

“Mik-Mek, Lord Sovereign,” the kobold stiffly replied.

“With all due respect, Lord Sovereign. You’re ignoring the fact that we have no idea how long it will take for the Alchemic Knights to succumb to this fate, if they even will, now that they are tainted. There’s still the issue of the hostile armies marching our way, an unruly populace that will never accept us, the alchemists with the ability to taint System knows what creatures they have confined in their stables, and this says nothing—nothing—of the very active Monster to the west which has already sent out missionaries to spawn more of its kind in human cities throughout Astresia!”

“Are you done, Halith?”

The ratling took a moment to compose herself.

“Yes, Lord Sovereign.”

“Good. Don’t worry about the other cities, for now the Inquisition has that well in hand.”

If you liked this chapter, do make sure to rate, review, favourite, and follow as appropriate. Everything you do really helps get this fiction discovered, which gets it in the faces of new readers and keeps me writing.

If you really liked this chapter and can't wait for the next one. I have a Patreon where you can read up to 15 chapters ahead and contribute towards keeping the lights on.

If you want to chat with me your humble author in real-time, or other fans of the series feel free to join the discord .

If you want to help with my visibility and don't fancy any of the above then give me a .

And last but not least, Dragon's Dilemma Book 1: A Sovereign's Scorn, is on sale on  With the 

You can find story with these keywords: Dragon’s Dilemma, Read Dragon’s Dilemma, Dragon’s Dilemma novel, Dragon’s Dilemma book, Dragon’s Dilemma story, Dragon’s Dilemma full, Dragon’s Dilemma Latest Chapter