Chapter 6: Chapter 6: New Recruits

Wandering through the ever changing halls of the old fortress, Illyxa felt her temper burning. They’d had barely anything to fight. Just more giant spiders and a few slimes. Nothing to get her blood pumping.

Even worse, the only treasure they’d found were a few bones. Which weren’t very valuable.

Heck, the elves barely even recognised them as treasure.  At least until Illyxa reminded them that bones could be used for magical ingredients. (They also looked cool, but clearly elves didn’t respect that.)

“If we don’t get something satisfying to burn in the next ten minutes,” she muttered as she and Gragya lead the way deeper into the dungeon.

“Mhm. I’d like to punch something properly,” Gragya added.

Illyxa was debating trying to take a shortcut to the lower levels by blowing a hole in the floor when the sounds of shouting reached the small group. Hyi rushed ahead, apparently concerned about whoever was making all the racket, which left the other three rushing after her out of concern for, well, her.

A few moments of running later they found a large chamber, dimly lit by the glow of electric slimes more than any light spells or torches. The slimes had cornered a pair of adventurers on the far end of the chamber. 

The one looked to be human, or maybe a silver elf, based on size and paleness. They were trying to beat the slimes off with their sword and proving… surprisingly successful. In that they were withstanding the metallic blade making contact with the electric slimes at all.

Had they worn rubber gloves, perhaps?

Not that it mattered. This was a full colony of slimes. They were going to be worn down eventually.

Behind them was a smaller figure. A halflet with pink hair and wearing a rather poofy and frilly outfit. The halflet was playing a stringed instrument of some sort, though which type of bardic magic they were singing was hard to tell over the crackles of electricity.

“We have to help them!” Hyi proclaimed.

“Why?” Illyxa asked.

“Why—what do you mean ‘why’? They’re in danger!” the elven priestess replied.

“So?” Illyxa countered. “We don’t know them. They could be dangerous murderers or something.”

“She has a point,” Gragya replied. “Lots of unsavory types in these parts.”

“Do they look like murderers?” Hyi asked.

Illyxa turned, taking a second look at the pair. “As a goblin? Yeah. People looking like that burn down goblin villages all the time.”

Hyi’s face scrunched up in a clearly confused mix of emotions that brought Illyxa a bit of satisfaction. The ‘civilized’ folks never liked to be reminded how casual their violence against goblin kind could be. 

“They might pay us out of gratitude,” Fuan offered. “We could use the money.”

“If the slimes kill them we can take all their money,” Illyxa countered.

“They might not have brought much money with them into this fortress. Surely there’s banks back in the town?”

Illyxa opened her mouth, about to argue more… before admitting he had a point. “Alright. Alright. We’ll help them. If they’re cheapskates we steal their stuff later, though,” she replied.

“Works for me,” Fuan said.

Illyxa walked forward, muttering a magical incantation, before lobbing a spread of fireballs into the centre of the slimes.

The colony scattered in confusion for a moment, before realising the direction of the attack and charging towards Illyxa.

Hyi rushed forward, raising a shield to defend them while Illyxa spun in a circle, channeling the energies around her. She then let out a shout of ‘leeji’eitja’, releasing a stream of fire from her hands that she sprayed across the charging slimes. With Fuan moving forward to pick off a few of the slimes that scattered from the main force of Illyxa’s flame they cleared out enough of the hive to force them into retreat. The fleeing slimes squeezing into the various cracks off the chamber’s decaying walls.

The rescued pair took a moment to process what had just happened before the taller one sheathed their sword and they both hurried over.

“Thank you for your help!” the taller one called out with a smile as they got closer. 

Close enough for the group to realise she was a woman… as well as that she had horns, a reptilian tail, and scales growing on the edge of her face. Which mean that she was a—

“H-half dragon?” Hyi squeaked, before slipping behind Fuan and Gragya.

“A golden half dragon,” Illyxa added.

That explained how she’d been fine with the electricity of the slimes. As well as why equally electricity resistant creatures were giving the pair such difficulty.

“Hello there,” Gragya said, with a smile, walking forward. “I hope you ladies weren’t stuck dealing with those rude slimes for two long.”

Illyxa was about to make a comment about Gragya being shameless, however she found herself cut off by the mousy pink haired halflet charging forward to glare at Gragya.

“I’m a guy!” the halflet shouted.

The four party members gave the long flowing hair and adorable ruffled outfit a once over. Hyi had to resist the temptation to squeeze those adorable cheeks.

Processing that, Illyxa was left with one thought on how to respond. “They do make potions for that, you know. They taste horrible, but they work.”

The halflet blinked then stared at her. “I’m aware of such potions, but I am firmly a guy.”

“Huh,” the cousins said in unison, while the elves still seemed confused. 

As well as on guard due to the half dragon present.

Undeterred, Gragya’s attention returned to the half-dragon woman. “Well, apologies for that, but—”

“He’s my boyfriend,” she said, ruffling the halflet’s hair a little.

Gragya deflated, slumping against a pillar. Illyxa rolled her eyes. She really wondered about her cousin’s libido sometimes.

However, there were bigger concerns to be had.

“Being a half dragon, you wouldn’t happen to be familiar with the North, would you?” Illyxa asked.

“Reasonably. We lived up there with my dad for a bit. Until my mother left and took me south,” she replied.

“Ah! Excellent! We’re in the market for a guide up there,” Illyxa said. “As repayment for saving you both from those electric slimes how about we negotiate a discount rate for your work as a guide?”

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“You don’t even know where her loyalties lie,” Fuan hissed.

“I’m not loyal to any factions right now, but… I’m not sure if we can afford to go all that way. Pin and I were headed somewhere specific,” the half dragon said. “Right?”

She turned to her halflet boyfriend, however he seemed deeply focused on Illyxa.

“Can I help you?” she asked, worried he was about to propose they run away together or something.

Halflets were known to find goblins wildly attractive. According to goblins. If you asked a halflet they’d say it was just a small number of odd balls who fell for goblins. (The reality, of course, being that it was a fairly small number, but there were mildly more halflets interested in goblins than goblins interested in halflets, which led to a skewed impression.)

However, none of that was relevant to what Pin was actually thinking about.

“You’re Illyxa, aren’t you?” he asked.

Illyxa blinked, before lighting up. “I am indeed. The Scarlet Sorceress, in the flesh. The Goblin Queen of Flames.”

“Oh my! Illyxa the Inferno! You remember me telling you about her, right Nr’atha?” Pin said, seeming excited.

“The… one that blew up some cities?” the woman asked.

“And the greatest goblin sorceress to ever live!” Pin replied.

“Yep, that’s me,” Illyxa added with a grin. “Illyxa the Magnificent.”

“Where are you going?” Pin asked, continuing to seem excited.

“The Moon Goddess’ Palace,” Illyxa replied. 

“The goddess of change… we need to travel with her,” Pin said, staring up at his girlfriend with puppy eyes. “If she’s going to the Moon Goddess’ with two elves then…”

“Mhm,” Nr’ath replied, nodding cryptically. “Well, I suppose we can, then. If you think it’s worth it.”

“The stories I could get travelling with her would be more than worth it,” Pin replied.

Right. He was a bard. They loved stories.

Well, Illyxa felt she deserved more stories about her, so she wasn’t going to complain. 

The elves seemed a bit less thrilled about the specific new party members, but they weren’t about to complain. Gragya, though, remained lethargic in the corner when Illyxa was ready to head off to explore more.

“C’mon, we’ve got to go treasure hunting,” Illyxa said.

“The world hates me, though,” her cousin muttered.

“If we get enough money from treasure you can have some fun with the ladies back in Zindat Town.”

Gragya’s mind processed that for a moment. Then she perked up and rushed ahead, calling for the others. Illyxa shook her head, but followed along.

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With Gragya’s enthusiasm leading the way, the expanded party made good time through the dungeon. Three melee fighters, two support providers, and then Illyxa’s damage output made for a highly effective little unit.  There weren’t many things in the fortress that stood up to them for long.

They also discovered a banquet hall after a few hours, which the four original members of the group were thrilled for. Even hardened warriors could only be expected to go so far on spider meat. 

Hyi, to Illyxa’s surprise, made the quite sensible offer to cleanse the meal of any possible curses or poisons before they ate, however. Normally Illyxa wouldn’t have bothered, but… in Zindat Fortress it paid to be cautious.

Once they’d eaten a decent fill it was off for further exploration (after grabbing all the cutlery and plates they could carry). The battled enchanted armour, wolves, more spiders and slimes, as well as a small band of minotaurs. Nothing overly interesting, but a nice workout, at least. 

Also, they were collecting a pretty good haul of stuff. Lots of it was very random things, as the Fortress wasn’t sentient or anything. It just grabbed things.

Some of it was obviously valuable. They found a painting (a mediocre one of what seemed to be a random human merchant) and a few bags of coins now and again. They also found some lumps of marble, which probably weren’t worth carrying out. Lots of broken pottery (whether it had been summoned broken or not was anyone’s guess). A large pile of sand blocked their way at one point. More than a few piles of clothing appeared; they grabbed the nicer and cleaner stuff.

Oh. Also. There were pine cones.

So many pine cones.

Illyxa had to wonder if maybe the fortress was slowly gaining sentience based on the sheer amount of those it had gathered. Well, that or she’d underestimated what percentage of the total amount of ‘stuff’ in the world was pine cones.

All in all, their haul of both treasure and ‘not quite junk’ managed to fetch a decent bit of coin back in town. Enough to pay off their bills, cover a few weeks' rations to hopefully get them across the Waste, and… some money for Gragya to go amuse herself for the evening in the town’s brothels.

Illyxa had headed to her room, to relax and read over some of her tomes, when there was a knock at her door. Opening it, she was surprised to see Fuan standing there, wanting to talk to her in private. She let him in, and suspected what he was going to say.

“You don’t like working with a half dragon, right?” she asked.

“Not when we’re travelling through dragon country. A kobold would be bad enough, but someone with actual draconic blood?”

“She said she’s not pro-dragon,” Illyxa countered, as he paced about.

“She’s a complete stranger. We can’t just take her word for it,” Fuan hissed. “Especially not when they agreed to follow us for only a cut of any profits and permission to ‘write songs about you’…”

“We saved their lives. They owed us… and you underestimate how much money songs about me are likely to earn that bard boy,” Illyxa replied with a shrug.

“But—”

“Plus, it’s a well known fact that dragons tend to consider halflets a delicacy. Smallfolk bones are edible for them. Apparently it’s just a nice crunch. But lizard kobolds riot if they eat too many of them and goblins taste terrible, so halflets and dog kobolds they can really go for,” Illyxa replied. “Which tells me she’s not likely to betray us.”

Fuan paled at the implication. “A… a delicacy.”

“Mhm. Learned that the one time I ran into a green dragon. He kept muttering about whether to eat me or not,” Illyxa replied. “Took him so long to figure it out I’d regained my strength to fry his insides with a… with fire magic.”

“Well… I still want my protest noted,” Fuan muttered.

“I get one whiff that they’re planning to betray us and they’re both charcoal. Don’t worry. I don’t want to be dragon food any more than you do,” Illyxa replied with a grin.

Before trying to push him out of her room so she could get back to reading. She wasn’t really strong enough, since he probably weighed a good three to four times what she did, but he got the hint and left.

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