Chapter 86: DD3 Chapter 032 – Messages

On the grand stage of continental powers, Terythia was a small, mountainous nation rich in minerals, ‘monsters,’ and very little else. Its western provinces were by far the most prosperous, and they were both physically and economically dominated by the imposing Dragonspines that ran along the country’s border. Terythia’s sustained success in extracting the wealth of arcane and alchemic materials contained within that massive mountain range was the defining reason behind the country’s continued independence. 

With an intermittently expansionist power on the other side of the Dragonspines, and wealthier, more populous countries bordering it on all other sides, the landlocked nation had leaned hard into both alchemy and steel. This decision not only allowed the soldiers they could field to be significantly better equipped than their nearest neighbours, but the resulting exports funded Terythia’s stout fortifications which were a class above what a country its size should have been able to afford.

The abundance of classers in Rhelea had only exacerbated this slant in the country's already lopsided economy. Over the past century, Terythia had experienced a year-on-year increase in both the quantity and quality of the weapons and alchemical compounds that it produced. While the crafters within Rhelea had certainly led the way, every noble dynasty of note maintained private cadres of oath-sworn smiths and alchemists. With their substantial resources and their craftsmens’ skills, Terythia’s nobility had gotten obscenely rich owning a sizable stake of the country’s most profitable trade. Some reinvested that wealth in the lands they administered, but most did not. Although, the real issue that plagued Typh’s burgeoning regime was that under the nobility’s narrow focus, other arguably more important industries had fallen by the wayside.

Farming, in particular, had been neglected for far too long. Terythia didn’t produce nearly enough food to sustain its population. With the influx of refugees from the east and a disruption in the regular grain shipments from Terythia’s neighbours, famine loomed menacingly on the horizon. With enough classed farmers it could be prevented, but only if Typh moved fast in securing the south.

Located two hundred miles to Rhelea’s south—and just shy of five hundred west of Helion—Boutrorida was ostensibly different in character to the Terythian cities that Typh was more familiar with. It was twice as large as Rhelea, albeit with half as many buildings occupying that increased space. That sparseness gave the city an open, welcoming atmosphere, and the palace atop a gentle hill looked out over the city’s walls at the cultivated fields and picturesque scenery. 

The abundance of green spaces not only made Boutrorida an inviting place to live in, but it nicely complemented the open farmland that surrounded the city. Official tax records gave it a population of seventy-five thousand or so—less than three-quarters of what Rhelea had contained before its fall. 

Due to the differing natures of the communities—or perhaps just due to superior administration—Boutrorida lacked any kind of sprawling slums where the unfortunate poor remained uncounted. While labouring in the farms and warehouses that the city relied upon may have been hard, backbreaking work, at least at the end of the day, the people who performed it all enjoyed a properly tiled roof over their heads. 

From the skies, it quickly became apparent that the surrounding countryside had seen better days. In far too many cases fields lay fallow and abandoned, only partially ploughed if touched at all. Numerous farmhouses and rural hamlets had been destroyed or overrun, and it was only the larger villages with warded walls and barricades that showed signs of weathering the trying times. 

Although all too often, even that was not enough. 

Large groups of people—survivors from fallen settlements or perhaps refugees from afar—roamed the Old Roads and the wilderness between villages. When they traversed the ancient structure they always moved without the benefit of a classed guide, and often lacked the barest of essentials like wagons or pack animals to hold their meagre belongings. The keen-eyed archers on Typh’s back were keen to point out that the humans below seemed ill-prepared for travel. Shoes, supplies, and food were sporadically distributed at best. The prevalence of weapons in these groups—improvised more often than not—made it hard to tell if they were innocents fleeing their homes or bandits intent on spreading misfortune. 

Where humans weren’t roaming the ravaged countryside, magical beasts larger than houses often took their place. Typh counted five separate wandering goliaths, and four abandoned communities infested with feral goblins. In places, there were other, far more concerning nonhuman infestations, and while she saw numerous signs of conflict between humans and their many, many foes, it was clear to her that the armed interventions were not nearly enough to ensure peace.

It was only when they got within a day's ride of Boutrorida that things noticeably changed for the better. Although even then, things were far from alright. The settlement’s tall walls were battle-scarred, and the defenders manning them seemed to be on high alert. Knights rode out on warhorses across the surrounding farms in full-battle gear, and everywhere her eyes looked, she saw people preparing themselves to deal with hostile threats.

Fortunately, none of them seemed prepared to deal with her.

Typh craned her serpentine neck over her shoulders and made eye contact with each of the classers atop her back. Twenty sets of iron-rank eyes stared back, and in that moment Typh wished she was large enough to carry more. There was a weight to the classers beyond their physical mass, and she found that while she hated the indignity of being a mere mount, she loved the sense of ephemeral power they gave her. 

Boutrorida would not be the first city Typh would claim with these twenty—nor would it be the last—but she still found the stench of their anticipation to be exhilarating. The classers weren’t scared, and to call them excited for what was about to come failed to give the intensity of their emotions justice. There was a profound sense of righteousness held in each one of them—and not one of them possessed that in greater abundance than Arilla. The determination wafting off of the king was only a hair's breadth away from terrifying, and Typh found herself forced to acknowledge that this was no longer her venture anymore. 

The Ashen King was claiming Boutrorida, and Typh was just giving her a ride. 

The classers adjusted their grips on the netting tied around the dragon, and with a nod from their king, Typh tucked her wings and dived.

The wind rushed over her scales, and the humans clinging to her body pressed themselves flat against her. She spent mana to increase the speed of their decline, and she raced down until she felt the air thicken and threaten to snap. Whoops of exhilaration were quickly swallowed by the roar of the racing winds, and Typh had to suppress the urge to add her voice to the sound thundering in her ears. This was a solemn affair after all, and even the irrepressible classers felt some of the significance.

Either Boutrorida’s aerial defences were abysmal or the people manning them were just caught off guard. No arcane barriers shimmered to life to repel her rapid descent. Nor did archers, siege weapons, or mages fire up at her until it was far, far too late. Typh flared her wings at the last second before she hit the ground, bringing her fall to a sudden halt with a thunderous beat of her wings. Her membranes strained against the change as she haemorrhaged her momentum, and swept forwards while hostile spellfire trailed in her wake. She briefly flew across the centre of the city to an audience of increasingly fearful civilians before she violently crashed through the eastern wall of Boutrorida’s palace.

The lord’s seat truly was a grand building, but by now, Typh was so used to ostentatious displays of wealth that she found herself criticising the paper-thin walls and stained-glass windows as her scaled bulk tore through the structure. The refined scent of money hit her nostrils, and she felt that incessant itch to lay claim to the palace arise first from her dragon class only to be quietly echoed by her noble one. 

Panicked screams echoed from within the building, while behind her, shouts of alarm rose along with hurried steps. Shaking off broken stone and shattered glass, Typh lumbered into the throne room where a noblewoman surrounded by attendants reared back in her high-backed chair. Elsewhere guards in fullplate ran forth, while servants retreated, and the iron-rankers Typh had carried disembarked from her back.

The twenty iron rankers were not nearly enough to fight all the knights that Lady Boutroune had to command. But the noblewoman was only low-bronze, and if they fought this close to her, she stood next to no chance of surviving. The dragon stalked forwards, trailing rubble and devastation across the room's fine carpet as she entered the palace fully and turned to face the noble-tagged lord. Adventurers swaggered up to the knights swarming the chamber with their weapons drawn and all but dared them to escalate the conflict into actual violence. 

Typh approached Lady Boutroune with Arilla by her side.

For the ruler of a farming community, Typh had expected someone with the look of a farmer about them—broad shoulders, stout figure, that sort of thing. Instead, the woman trying very hard not to cower in her seat looked far more accustomed to the quill than she did the plough. She reeked of fear, albeit with an undertone of incredulous fury. When neither Typh nor Arilla attempted to attack the noblewoman, that anger quickly rose to conquer her terror. By the time they’d reached the foot of the steps leading to her gilded throne, the woman had recovered enough to sit bolt upright in her chair where she exuded an air of frustrated indifference.

“What do you think you are doing here?! I know you have aspirations to the throne, but this is not how we do things in Terythia,” Lady Boutroune demanded.

“We have a letter for you from your son,” Typh rumbled, while Arilla retrieved a piece of rolled parchment from within the folds of her smouldering cloak. The Ashen King took the final few steps forwards and handed the note to the noblewoman who did a good job at hiding her spike of anxiety at the mention of her son.

Time passed while the woman carefully read the letter, while an increasingly large number of classers arrived to contest the perimeter established by Arilla’s adventurers. There was the possibility that the noblewoman was stalling for time, but Typh didn’t think so. That jolt of anxiety smelled authentic, and a good mother wouldn’t be able to resist finding out more.

“Is this real? Did Gwylim really write this?” Lady Boutroune asked.

“Yes, he did,” Arilla answered.

“And it's all true?”

“Why would we lie when killing you would be simpler?” Typh answered.

The noblewoman looked up into Typh’s draconic eyes and shuddered.

“Very well, I’ll permit this,” Lady Boutroune consented.

“How very gracious of you,” Arilla said.

The noblewoman gestured for her guards to stand down, and they did—although this did not mean that they sheathed their weapons or left the room. Three of Arilla’s mages broke off from the threatening formation, and with hurried gestures and beams of searing light, they burnt an intricate pattern of runes through the carpets and onto the hardwood below. When they were done, they flooded the runic circle with mana until it began to glow.

A man no older than twenty instantaneously appeared in the centre of the runes. He was lounging in a wooden chair and looked spectacularly bored as he investigated his nails for any traces of hidden amusement. Still, his mere appearance was enough to instigate a sharp intake of breath from Lady Boutroune and several other attendants who’d been unable to flee the room. One of the mages who’d etched the circle produced a wooden token marked ‘#4’ and snapped it in half. A corresponding token on the youth’s lap also broke, and the man startled.

“It broke, does it mean it's on?” he asked someone outside the spell’s field of view. He proceeded to nod for a bit, before standing up from his chair. He took a moment to find his bearings, and then staring off in the vague direction of Lady Boutroune, he spoke:

“Hello, Mother—”

“Gwylim! Are you unharmed I’ve—”

“—no doubt you’re trying to say something inane and self-serving, but this connection is only one way, so for the first time in your life, you’re going to have to shut up and actually listen to what I have to say,” the youth said with a steadily widening smile.

“This is going to be very unpleasant isn’t it?” Arilla asked.

“It always is,” Typh grumbled.

It was. 

The dragon tried to tune out what the boy had to say—so too did everyone else in the room. Lady Boutroune struggled not to go red in the face as her son detailed a long list of parental mistakes ranging from the petty to the extremely petty. While questions about Gwylim’s character and Lady Boutroune’s parenting abilities were certainly raised, after a few minutes any doubts about her son’s well-being were thoroughly quashed.

“...so I will not be marrying that horse-faced crone from Thytos. I don’t care how fertile she is, or how it will serve our house to tie our families together. She’s twice my age and I’ve… already made a commitment with Lurielle of the Dolenars. Now I know what you're thinking. They're not even a main-branch line, but she’s already pregnant so it’s done and you can’t do anything to stop it! 

“Furthermore, I’ll need you to send a letter affirming your fealty to the Ashen King. Since I’m technically the scion of a rebellious house,” he said, shooting his mother a glare. “The Tolisians have cut off my line of credit! I lost most of my remaining allowance on a series of bets that were voided when the Academy’s Martial Tournament was called off—on account of you hiring adventurers to ransack the place, I might add!

“Seriously, Mother, you have the worst timing! Another two days and I’d have made the better part of five-hundred talents! Not to mention the prestige of sponsoring a commoner with a gift for the sword!” Gwylim said with a disappointed sigh.

“You wouldn’t believe the things I’m learning here,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially. “The dragon’s a fool for teaching us so much, but I will not miss this chance—not for you, not for anyone. I don’t understand why the beast is just giving away so much knowledge, but it has every mage in the city up in arms trying to get inside, and that's after you burnt half of the Academy down! Queen Constancia is as good as done, everyone is saying it and the carrot the dragon is offering is so damn good, that I don’t even want to think about the stick. I’m serious, Mother, take the deal. If you won’t, I will. 

“Anyway, I’m being urged to finish up. Do send the money note soon, and the wedding is in a month—I know it's rushed, but Lurielle wants to be in a dress before the baby shows too much to hide. If you can get a guide, I’m sure you can make it in time.

“Take care, and do try not to be your usual self. The dragon still eats people, and you know how annoying you can be.”

With his piece done, the youth walked to the edge of the runic circle and the connection cut out. The image of the abandoned chair disintegrated into motes of light, and everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.

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“Well he was awful,” Arilla said. “Congratulations on becoming a grandmother, Lady Boutroune.”

The woman in question had an inscrutable look on her face. and she was clenching the arms of her seat so tight that Typh could hear the wood creak. The dragon was genuinely worried that the lady might have had a stroke.

“It seems, I have no choice but to offer you guest rights,” she eventually said, and a large amount of the tension fled the room. “I take it you’ll kill me if I don’t immediately offer you my fealty.”

“Yes. Although so far the threat hasn’t proved necessary,” Arilla stated.

“I’m not the first—No. Of course, I’m not. You must have gone through Thytos or Nemetriamia to get here…”

“Your fourth, we’ve also hit Teosmenus, and tomorrow we’ll claim Simedespen,” Typh explained.

“How? The distances involved… Oh yes…” Lady Boutroune said, gazing up at Typh’s wings. “Flight. I suppose that’s very convenient.” The noblewoman sighed. “Do we have to do it here?”

“I suppose we can discuss it over dinner, I’m hungry,” the dragon said, and not for the first time, Lady Boutroune shuddered.

***

Lady Boutroune swore her oaths in the lull between their fourth and fifth courses—meals that were unremarkable except for their diminutive size, and the number of forks they were served with. Typh, like most of the adventurers seated, ate with her hands and went so far as to lick her fingers clean. The noblewoman quickly recovered from the embarrassment of her son’s scathing diatribe and ended up making several urgent pleas for aid. The visceral impact of her dire warnings was significantly reduced by the sweetness of the cinnamon pastries being consumed, but her words stank of desperation nonetheless. 

The threats assailing her territory were getting worse by the day, and she claimed to lack the resources to deal with them. While her knights could easily quash the magical beasts and bandits terrorising her lands, they couldn’t be everywhere at once. With the scale of the devastation affecting the southern countryside, she didn’t dare send them further than a day away from Boutrorida which meant large swathes of her territory were essentially undefended.

Her requests were nothing they hadn’t heard before, and in the morning when they flew to Simedespen, they left behind vague promises to send high-level help once the kingdom was at peace. In the meantime, Lady Boutroune would have to manage with the classers she already had, although with the new laws regarding class stones, Typh was hopeful that the noblewoman would develop fresh talent of her own in a short matter of time.

The end of everything may have been bad for just about everyone, but it was a godsend for combat classers looking to quickly rise through the ranks.

There were no surprises in Simedespen or Itaroponia after that, and Typh flew from city to city conquering as she went. Each time the noble lords in charge of their domains put up the faintest bit of resistance before saying the words and ultimately begging for aid. It was so easy that she nearly forgot how tenuous it all was. It worked because it had never been done before—not because she was all-powerful. This was her one shot to take what she needed before word of her methods could spread and countermeasures could be put in place. 

A small, greedy part of her was tempted to keep going beyond Terythia’s borders. The western cities in Padia and Argrovia were especially ripe for the taking, but Typh quickly decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. She had her hands full with Terythia, and the potential gain of new territory wasn’t worth alienating the few potential allies she had left.

Five days after Boutrorida, Typh was standing on a balcony overlooking Dolieis and the woods beyond its walls. Most of the problems she had seen throughout the south were evident here too. Magical beasts emerged from the forest to assault the city and surrounding villages in unprecedented numbers. While Dolieis itself was in no real danger, the smaller settlements could not say the same.

Typh knew that it was only going to get worse. Small villages had always suffered from the occasional roaming beast attack. But as the Great Wards steadily degraded, the ambient mana in the air would continue to rise, pushing up the average level of the creatures out in the wilds. Without combat classers to protect them, those isolated settlements were helpless before this ever-increasing threat. Classes for all would change that, but it would take time for them to be distributed, and longer still for levels and expertise to reach the point where people would truly feel safe outside of a city’s warded walls.

The consequences of this were predictably quite dire, and despite how much she’d enjoyed storming a palace a day, she was doing the best she could to try and avert the coming catastrophe. Typh was so nearly done with her preparations. Only the Queen behind Helion’s inner walls stood in the way of enacting real change. Of course, there was danger there. Everyone said how brilliant Queen Constancia was, and yet so far, she’d done little more beyond writing impassioned letters and stilted poetry. She had Terythia’s greatest arsenal at her disposal, and besides flooding some subterranean tunnels with blister fog, she’d yet to use it.

Had she given up? Was she conserving her strength? Was she acting right now while Typh was away?

If it wasn’t for the daily updates through casting a scrying ritual, Typh would be in the dark, but as of this morning, Helion’s palace was still locked down under siege.

The dragon let out a long, remorseful sigh as she tried not to think about how avoidable it all was. If any one of a dozen ‘ifs’ and ‘maybes’ had gone the other way, then none of this would be necessary. 

At least the sunset was beautiful. As the sun descended over the forest, the light filtered through the canopy's leaves taking on autumnal hues far before its time. The shadows grew longer and lights from the city started to take the sun's place, as the citizens of Dolieis came out to celebrate the end of the work day. If Typh ignored the distant fires on the horizon, she could pretend that the countryside was alight with fireflies and that the flickering orange-gold was something to be happy about.

It was quiet in the guest wing of the palace. Arilla’s twenty had finally gotten bored of their largely bloodless crusade, and the iron rankers had fled Dolieis for the night to go and kill something memorable. Or at least that’s what they said. Typh would be thoroughly unsurprised if the city’s brothels and taverns experienced a very healthy evening’s trade.

When Arilla emerged from the room behind her and moved to stand next to Typh against the edge of the balcony, she was genuinely shocked.

“I thought you’d be out there with the others, chasing levels, kill xp, and all that adventurer stuff,” the dragon commented.

“No. I thought about joining them, but the urge to go out and fight something is… gone,” Arilla said.

“Do you miss it?” Typh asked.

“Maybe?” Arilla answered, briefly looking down at her hands. “I’m not sure. I miss the certainty from before, but I don’t hate being a less violent woman. Honestly, I’m perturbed by how different I feel. Since my tag switched from warrior to king, everything’s changed. I thought that urge to fight was a part of me, but it wasn’t. It was just the System in my chest pulling me around like a puppet.”

“You weren’t that bad,” Typh said.

“I was. I’m not better now either. If anything it’s worse, it’s just different enough for me to recognise its influence.”

“Is it… too much? You’ve been distant lately.”

“I can handle it. And if I was being distant, it was because I was giving you space.”

“Why?” Typh asked, before wincing when her brain caught up with her mouth. “Oh, right… Because of my very obvious and very juvenile jealousy.”

“Are you ready to talk about it?” Arilla asked in turn.

“No, but I should anyway,” she said with another sigh. “It’s just… I’ve tried so hard, and I don’t understand why they hate me so much. I’m trying to save them, and in exchange, they keep trying to kill me. The only time I can get humans to be passably polite is when I let them exploit my ideas or resources to an outrageous degree. Even now, that they’ve sworn to obey you, half of them still won’t meet my eyes. I don’t expect them to like me, but if they would treat me like a person rather than a thing to be used and discarded later… it would be a start.

“Every time one of the nobles swore fealty to you, rather than me, it was a reminder of how little I am in their eyes. I thought if I were their Queen, they’d be forced to acknowledge me. That the System would then recognise what I’ve done and offer me both a class and a story. I just want to be…”

“Human?” Arilla asked.

“Humanised at least. I’m a person—no matter what else I deserve to be treated as such,” Typh stated.

“You do,” Arilla said, placing her hand over Typh's. “If it helps at all, they despise me too. I can feel the strands of their ‘loyalty’ squirming in the back of my mind. You’d hate it. The moment they get a chance they’ll turn on me. I may be human, I may be Terythian, but I’m not one of them.”

“I'm not sure that helped,” Typh admitted, and Arilla laughed. Typh interlaced her fingers with Arilla’s and leaned her head against the taller woman’s shoulder. “We have to go back tomorrow. To Helion, the Queen, and all that horrid violence.”

“We do, but at least we have tonight.”

With nothing else to say, the two held each other close and watched the sun slowly set over Terythia.

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