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Sent Kobold

Chapter 15: Dragon's Vendetta

As revenge stirs in Iskdiwercaesin, a chance to strike at the one he hates above all else presents itself, and he will take it, whatever the cost.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Resting his head at the edge of the railing, Serhis stared out into the ocean from the deck of the ship lost in thought. To his front he could see and hear the waves of the ocean lapping against the hull and behind him he could listen to the usual business of Jiak. It had been a full day since they had gotten back to the city, five days after leaving Vocos' prison. They would have arrived a day sooner, though they had to make a side trip to collect the centuries old cache of supplies. As Nadia had said, it had remained untouched since the Second War, a cave hidden among the dunes full of things needed for a war effort.

A few things were unusable, artifacts and items that depended on Vocos' power, several objects that hadn't been properly stored and were damaged, despite the almost hermetically preserved conditions of the cave, and trinkets that seemed to have more personal value to the people that had owned them. The decanter of endless water was something that would be useful no matter what circumstances, but the preserved foodstuffs they avoided. Certainly they had been meant to endure the nature of the desert, though after so much time, no one wanted to try and find out if they were still good. The rest of what they found was put on the wagon; a trove of weapons, most of regular quality, a few that still retained their edge and balanced natures, many potions meant for combat, some scrolls, three barrels of salt, and even two chests full of gold, jewels, and silks. It seemed unusual for something so expensive to be placed in a cache for war materials and Iskdiwercaesin guessed that it seemed more likely that the treasure was captured as war booty from someplace and the people who knew about it had died before they could come back to claim it. It was only supposition for the fun of it since there was no way to prove it, but he was more than happy to take it anyway. After loading up everything of worth, they went back to the ship and continued to Jiak.

Immediately after they came back, Keianc and his band of mercenaries went to leave the ship, heading to report to Rahsh about the events there. The kobolds and dragon went along with them, subtly hinting that while the gnoll should report as much as he could on the matter, he and the mercenaries shouldn't look too deeply into the matter and that returning to the site wasn't the best of ideas. Considering that they saw a trumpet archon appear before them and casually mentioning how those of Tomond's band were to have their own memories cleared of the reverent information and that they weren't to share the same treatment because they didn't know enough, they went along with it. They were not interested in interfering with what sounded to be some very serious matters of the divine and liked it to stay that way.

When Keianc and the others gave their reports to Rahsh, she asked for the kobolds and the dragon to come into her smoky office and explain things a bit more in depth. She wasn't enthralled to hear that Tomond was unaccounted for, that he might be dead or alive and there was no way to confirm it. Whether they had come back with him alive and in chains or simply had his head in a sack, it would have been a feather in her cap to claim that she had systematically deconstructed Tomond's entire network. She had been busy while they had been gone; she went rooting out whatever corruption was in House Ihthei while using whatever else she discovered during her investigation to implicate members of the other Houses of shady dealings or outright attacks. The group suspected that she may have also done a little blackmailing too on both sides. At the end of it though, she was rapidly rising in standing in her House while humiliating their rivals, so as long as Tomond was out of the way, she was fine with that. After hearing everything, the gnoll decided that the mountain site had nothing else going back for and was not interested in meeting any of those undead statues she had heard of, so the matter was dropped. Bidding them farewell on their journey, the gnoll did mention that she would still be happy to conduct further business if they needed it.

So far, the only business they had done was being unable to decide where to go next. Now that they had a ship of their own, they could go towards any port, any seaside town, and as long as they carried the right cargo to trade or had enough passengers on board, they would be able to go anywhere.

The only problem was they had no idea where to go.

With no quest or personal agenda to pursue, Serhis and Baous were back to their previous thoughts of wandering around and maybe looking for one of the ancient kobold cities if they were close. Now that Xet and Rhasalis knew the conditions of their curse, they still didn't have much of an idea of how to meet the condition of saving a hundred thousand lives short of going to a war and getting involved. They had even went to the Ashes the previous night, wandering around and looking for any signs of trouble, and managed to stop four people from being mugged, beaten, or murdered, among other things. They knew it wouldn't make much of a difference in terms of their curse, four was a dismally small number, and yet having those people personally thanking them did encourage them a little. Even Iskdiwercaesin seemed struck with indecision, the best he could do was think of the most profitable seeming trade route and go from there. He couldn't even figure out what to name his new ship.

The dragon wasn't the only one wondering what to do. Taking out the key stone from his pack, Serhis looked at the strange rock as it kept shifting in his gaze. It was no longer only red and black, eddies of green, blue, teal, and white had entered the stone. He had forgotten to ask Nadia about what he should do with it; the rewards she had given out had pushed it from his mind. At least he knew that she would come back to them at some point in time to tell Baous about meeting the souls of his parents, so he could ask her then. Until then, he held a piece of a deity in physical form in his claws. He prayed to Bahamut for guidance on what to do.

"Looking at that thing again, huh?"

Serhis startled a little and turned around, seeing Baous approach. For a moment, he had thought he had heard the voice of a god, but if Bahamut had the decided to use same voice as his friend, he could have safely said to anyone that asked that the dragon god had a sense of humor. "Mhmm," the kobold nodded his head as he put it back again. "I was wondering what to do with it."

Shrugging, Baous stood next to Serhis by the railing, looking out to sea. "Yeah, it's bad enough that we can't seem to figure out where we're going. We have our own ship now and we're still stuck in port. Well, it's Iskdiwercaesin's ship really, but at least he's not charging us while we stay on it."

"We could offer to pay him some of what it cost him, enough that we'd have equal shares in the ship." It was simple idle chatter, nothing about it was serious. Serhis had missed this so much for that one week he and Xet had been forced to journey with Tomond. The basic thing of just talking to a friend about random things didn't sound like much, but when he had to watch his tongue because of a guard always listening in, it was a relief to speak his mind.

"I'm not opposed to the idea myself." Turning around once more, Serhis saw his hatchmates coming up to greet them as well as Rhasalis held out a vial. "I took this off one of those attackers from last night. I thought it was poison, but Xet told me it had a faint aura of magic to it."

Her hatchmate nodded. "I've tried to identify it without magic, but it doesn't smell like anything I've ever seen in potion form before, so it's not a healing potion or something common, but it's way too weak to be anything special."

Uncorking the vial, Serhis took a sniff. "Hmm, no, I don't know what it is either. Where's Iskdiwercaesin?"

"I'm over here, you know, getting this ship actually running," the dragon's muffled voice could be heard from his cabin in the stern. He'd been inside all morning, attempting to plot out a course. "By the way, if you feel like having equal share in the ship, go ahead, dump more gold in my coffers. What did you need me for?"

"The spectacles, can we use it now?" Serhis asked. Among some of the items they found in the cache were the spectacles. Everyone had assumed it was only a personal item and hadn't given it much thought when they found it, but when Xet made a sweep of the room for anything magical that could have been buried or hidden, he found that they were aglow with an arcane aura. Sure enough, under more intense scrutiny, they had found what was probably the second most useful thing compared to the decanter. Even then, it was more of a matter of opinion. Whoever wore the spectacles could determine the nature of any magical item it saw, an extremely useful thing to have among their stacks upon stacks of still unidentified potions, scrolls, and various knickknacks that had a trace of magic on them.

"One moment, one moment," Iskdiwercaesin said as they heard him getting out of the cabin, holding a rolled up scroll. Sure enough, the spectacles were still perched on his snout. It was something else to see the dragon in his armor, but to see him wearing glasses was another thing entirely. Joining the group of kobolds, he leaned down as Serhis held the vial up to examine it. "A sleep potion. Looks like someone wanted someone else to go night-night."

"Ah. Guess it's not all that useful for us then, I can sling sleep spells anyway," Xet said. "So Iskdiwercaesin, is there anywhere that you're thinking we should head off to?" the sorcerer asked as he counted his gold and gave him an equal share of the ship. The others also gave him their shares, making the dragon's mood much happier than before.

"From what I can tell, we've got a few destinations. None of them close by. I've already got the crates loaded with cotton, dyed cloths, glassware, some spices, jars of oil, basically whatever I could tell was cheap here. At least, what I think will bring in a big profit. I'm almost guessing here," the dragon shrugged, one of the few admissions of ignorance he'd ever say. "I'm mostly getting stuff here that's not available in other places. That's the whole idea of trading. And then there's finding someone to buy all this stuff when we get there..." Despite having little experience in the field of being a captain and trading, at least he was thinking this through.

"So where are we going?" Baous asked.

Unfurling the scroll in his claws, the dragon laid out the map. "Here, here, and here," Iskdiwercaesin pointed out port cities, places they hadn't been to before. All of them looked to be rather far off. It would be weeks of sailing to get to those destinations, the longest one a full month away. "If my guesses are right and we do bring in loads of gold, we might be well off enough that we can make some necessary purchases."

"What sort of purchases?" Serhis examined the map. He recognized none of the destinations, names he hadn't even said before.

"Things that will give a black dragon some trouble," Iskdiwercaesin growled.

Looking back down at the map, Serhis realized that all of the destinations were in the direction of Tiichi de Soves. "Wait, you're not thinking of going after him now?" he asked, his voice filled with concern.

"Not just yet, but soon. I'm thinking that while he's using his gold on equipping his army, I'm using mine to specifically get to him."

"A sound inference." Once again, Serhis startled as a voice spoke suddenly. Again, it was a friendly voice as Nadia had returned.

"You're back, so soon?" Serhis saw the trumpet archon next to the group. What crew that was on deck was now as surprised at Serhis, likely even more. It was times like these that Serhis began to realize how out of the ordinary they were. Iskdiwercaesin quickly shooed them away and back to work.

"Did it work? Did you find them?" Baous asked excitedly, full of anticipation.

"No, your parents' souls have yet to be found, I still search for them," Nadia shook her head slowly. "I come to you for less joyful reasons. I am here to inform you of the happening in Tiichi de Soves. Dianekesswhedabkeari readies to launch his war."

"What? Now?!" Iskdiwercaesin shouted.

"Yes. He was not as patient as I anticipated. His forces will be arrayed and in position to strike within the month," Nadia said sadly. "I recommend that as you travel, you avoid that area. Do what you can to build up your strength."

"So... we can't do anything?" Serhis asked. They had been working so hard to prepare, they were even prepared heading towards the black dragon's domain in the hopes that they would be ready when they arrived. If the black dragon succeeded in seizing parts of the surface before they could get there, then all their preparations wouldn't be worth much compared to the resources his armies would take from the towns. "How could he have gotten ready so quickly?"

"He is not. From what I could tell, parts of his army remain unsupported and unequipped. As Gixbias had set the city towards an economy of trade and productivity, Dianekesswhedabkeari has had to gear the industries of Tiichi de Soves towards one that could support a war effort. It has provided us some time, but he appears to think that he has the necessary resources now to take control parts of the surface. I cannot predict with any certainty whether his hasty attacks will lead to his success or failure, all I know without a doubt is that the lives lost would be many."

Looking back at the map Iskdiwercaesin still had in his claws, Serhis tried to remember the distances involved. It could take two months to get to Tiichi de Soves, perhaps one and a half if they didn't stop at certain ports. Even if they could get the best possible speed out of their ship, it would still be too late before Dianekesswhedabkeari would have a town under siege. Whether they would arrive to find a town that repulsed the attack, one still holding out, or one that had fallen to the surprise attack, it was all guesswork. "We have to set sail as fast as we can then. We'll pick up what things we need along the ways, we already have things that will resist acid breath similar attacks, but we'll still need to look for things to keep his army at bay."

"No we won't," Iskdiwercaesin gripped the map hard, making it crumple in his claws. "We'll go there. Right now," he looked at Nadia. "If you've got any way to get us to Tiichi de Soves fast, I want to hear it. A dimensional door, teleportation circles, a rift through the planes, anything."

"But we're not ready yet either! We've still got to find something to use against Dianekesswhedabkeari, there's nothing we have that's effective! And what about the kobold army?" Baous said.

"Then we'll work with what we've got!" the green dragon growled at the canine kobold, not feeling up to have any opposition in the matter. "As long as we can get around that army and kill him, then we won't have to worry about his army since it'll be mine."

At least that part Serhis knew was certain. A kobold tribe was loyal to its dragon master, but if a rival managed to kill that dragon without wiping out the tribe beforehand, the survivors would accept the new dragon in his or her place. That might not work with a tribe that had been serving a dragon for generations, but since Dianekesswhedabkeari was a relative newcomer, such bonds of loyalty wouldn't have formed yet. Still, this sounded nothing like a solid plan. "Maybe we can just slow him down instead of confronting him. We might be able to do something to give us more time to prepare."

"I can think of one idea," Rhasalis spoke up. "We can find and destroy his equipment. If Nadia is right and Dianekesswhedabkeari is launching his attack with just enough resources, then if we remove those resources, he'll have to wait until he has enough again or will take time to build up a reserve so it won't happen again."

"I can also think of a way to get us in," Xet said.

"How? If he's getting ready for a war, he's probably got the whole mountain rigged to push back any kind of counterattack," Iskdiwercaesin pointed out.

"We knock on the front and ask if they can let us in. It's not like Dianekesswhedabkeari knows who we are and what we want. Also, since Serhis and Baous have been there before, it'd explain how we knew to come to them," Xet explained. Everyone except Nadia nodded slowly as they processed the idea.

"Yeah, nice idea, if you plan to leave me behind. He might not care about a few kobolds coming in, but once he knows I'm there, I can just bet he'll try and finish me off," Iskdiwercaesin's throat rumbled as he emitted a low growl.

Holding up a potion, Xet shook his head. "I've already thought of that. We have a few potions that when you drink it can alter yourself. You can disguise yourself as a kobold too."

Iskdiwercaesin looked like he was about to protest, the idea of being something else than a dragon offensive to him, but then he swallowed his pride. "If it'll get us in, I'll go along with it," he grumbled. "Still, we'd need a way to get there," he looked at Nadia again.

"There is a way I can take you all there," the trumpet archon nodded. "If it is necessary to forestall a conflict long enough that it can be halted for good, then me and those of my plane will do what we can to assist in bringing you there. Though we cannot directly interfere, bringing those such as you that act on our behalf to the right place and the right time has been a long time tactic that we have used. If you so wish, you can depart right at this moment."

"What are we waiting for? Let's go," Iskdiwercaesin said.

"I must warn you, while I can bring you there, I cannot return you to this location. At least, not for any short amount of time. Once you are within Dianekesswhedabkeari's domain, you must rely on your own methods to escape after you accomplish your goal."

"So we have to plan our exit too. Fair enough," Rhasalis commented.

"Wait, before we go," Serhis quickly brought the keystone forwards. "What should I do with this? I'm not sure carrying it wherever we go is such a good idea. Only Tomond and us know what this stone can do and what its purpose is, but even then I don't think it's something we should have. Do the deities you work for have a plan or ask that I give it to you?"

Inspecting the key stone with great care, Nadia peered into the stone as if looking at more than its physical from. After a moment of silence, she shook her head. "Neither I nor any other agent of the divine can take it. It must remain in the hands of mortals."

"You can't huh? Let me guess, more rules," Iskdiwercaesin said.

"Yes. It may have been a replica, but now that it is infused with Vocos' divine essence and has become the true key stone, it became subject under the laws that I operate in. It is now a vessel of divine power, to touch it is to directly interfere in the affairs of another deity. There are exceptions to this rule, but that is because it is a mortal's will that carries them out."

"Then... what am I supposed to do with it?" Serhis pulled the key stone back.

"You can choose to carry it, hide it, or seek a method of destroying it. As it now carries Vocos' essence, destruction would be something beyond yours and most other's abilities. Now that it has become the true keystone, it carries the same attributes as the original had. It cannot be detected by any normal means of divination, so if you hid it as you saw fit, only by the eyes of others can it be found. However, the hand of fate is not an idle one, especially concerning the artifacts of the divine. Time and again, things thought lost in the depths of the sea or at the bottom of a cave are brought back, so beware of simply tossing it aside. To carry it would be your own choice, but the one those who command me would prefer. In the hands of a mortal servant, it can be kept under watch."

"Then, I suppose I will keep it with us," Serhis muttered as he stowed it away. Now he and the others were carriers of a divine relic, one he wasn't sure would attract any sort of wanted attention.

"Then are you prepared to go to Tiichi de Soves?" Nadia asked. Everyone said yes, but everyone also knew they weren't prepared to face Dianekesswhedabkeari. They could only hope the black dragon wouldn't even deign to notice their presence. So as Nadia disappeared once more, they were left standing alone.

"Hey wait! If we're going, what happens to my ship?" Iskdiwercaesin called out to open air. When no answer came, he started to get agitated. "She had better teleport us back to this place when she can. I don't like the idea of leaving it behind."

No sooner had he said that did everyone feel a slight jolt underneath their feet. Slightly stumbling as the deck swayed, everyone looked around to see what had happened.

"... I think Nadia solved that for us," Baous said as he looked over the railing. He had thought something might have hit them, but that certainly wasn't the case. Instead of the city of Jiak to one side of the ship and the sea to the other, he and the others saw the banks of a river, their ship anchored in the middle of it and pointed upstream. Off in the distance, they could see the faint signs of a town.

Looking at unfamiliar surroundings, Xet could only scratch his head. "Where are we?" That question was similarly echoed by the crew that came back from below deck, utterly amazed and completely shocked about the turn of events. If any of them had thought working for a dragon would be unique, this was simple confirmation. "I thought she was going to drop us off at Tiichi de Soves."

"Let's find out where we're at, she must have put us on a river nearby. Or the first target on Dianekesswhedabkeari's list. Get moving people! I want the sails unfurled and us heading into port!" Iskdiwercaesin barked orders to his crew, getting them out of their stupor.

As the crew got them underway, Serhis thought about how quickly their fortunes had changed. Certainly they had an objective now, but things were moving too quickly. They had no real plan, what they could do to slow Dianekesswhedabkeari depended entirely on what they could find when they got inside. There was no time for preparation, the only thing they had in their advantage was that the black dragon and his kobold servants weren't expecting them. If that advantage was taken away... he didn't know what they could do. It unnerved him enough to voice it.

"It's not like we have much else to go on," Baous nodded apprehensively. "All we can do is make stuff up as we go along."

"It shouldn't be too bad, we've done that a lot lately," Iskdiwercaesin said.

"While finding his stockpile of equipment and supplies was my original plan, I wouldn't mind doing else that'll accomplish the same thing," Rhasalis noted.

"That depends on how we'll get inside. I'm still not sure where we're supposed to go from here," Xet said. As the ship got closer to the town, they figured they could figure that out soon enough.

They didn't even need to pull into the dock before Serhis and Baous saw the long and high bridge that crossed over the river. "We're in Lusion," Baous recognized the landmark as soon as he saw it, remembered seeing the masts of sailing ships had glided underneath. It looked weird now that he was the one sailing under it. As they approached an unoccupied pier and got ready to make berth, he pulled out the map for them to see where they were. Pointing out were Lusion was and tracing his paw over in a line towards Tiichi de Soves, he tried to remember the way they took last time to get there as he showed the others that hadn't been here before where they had reappeared. Since the first hour of his last trip to Tiichi de Soves was hidden under a tarp in a wagon, he had to guess which road they took before they reached their destination. It wasn't that he didn't know where the entrance was, Nadia had shown it on their map the first time they worked for her, but he still had little knowledge on the way back. At the very worst, they'd tag on an extra hour of travel time.

"Heh, teleporting a ship and everyone on it all that way. Looks like Nadia and whoever she works for really want this done now," Iskdiwercaesin smirked as he saw the distance they had skipped, almost half the continent.

Serhis considered their options now that they had located themselves. He had thought about looking for the kobold merchant that would have replaced Nastrad after she left. Though Dianekesswhedabkeari would be keeping the choice supplies the city produced for his war, it was doubtful he would cut off all trade, not when he could get things his city normally couldn't produce cheaply. However, that also assumed they would arrive on one of the days the trade caravan arrived and that also assumed if he could locate the merchant before the caravan left. Even then, that depended on if the merchant was willing to take them with them, so it looked like heading directly for the undercity would have to be the best option. Now that he thought about her, he wondered how Nastrad was doing away from her city, he hadn't thought about her since they last saw each other leaving the place. Was she doing like he did when he left Lehaskeral, wandering around and seeing the world? Perhaps they didn't know each other well, but Serhis still wished her well regardless.

As the crew lashed the ship to the pier, the ramp was extended as they landed. "Okay, so now that we're here, do we start walking?" Xet asked.

"First, I'd like to do a little business. Especially since I've got a cargo hold full of exotic merchandise and a whole market to sell it to," Iskdiwercaesin grinned. "It wouldn't take too long to find a buyer, the unloading would take all day, but the crew won't need us around to oversee them."

"I suppose if we're staying in the town for a bit, we can get some supplies for ourselves," Rhasalis said. "We might not be confronting this Dianekesswhedabkeari directly for the moment, but I'd still like to be as well prepared as we can. If we're going to have an impact, we also need a quick getaway when someone realizes something's gone wrong. And hopefully that someone isn't us and what's wrong is what's happening to us."

"I'll check our potion and scroll stockpile, something tells me we're going to be using a bit of it," Xet said.

"I hope we won't have to meet Dianekesswhedabkeari directly, but if we do, I want us to be as ready as we can. Not for a fight, but we should at least have something to ensure we can run, so Baous and I will also go looking for what we originally wanted to get," Serhis said.

With everyone doing something, they all agreed to meet back at the ship in an hour before fanning out. Since Xet was staying on the ship, he waited on the deck for the others, organizing the potions so that if they needed a specific on in a hurry, he'd know which pouch to get it from. He was very surprised to find an unknown wand in the midst of the potions, but with the small scroll wrapped around the handle written in celestial script made it obvious who it was from. The thing simply read "To aid in your task," and he identified it as a wand that could alter someone's form. When the hour had passed, everyone had eventually returned, though with varying rates of success. Rhasalis came back with a few potions that would hasten a withdrawal and mask their scents if Dianekesswhedabkeari started tracking them. He would likely use his servants to do it, but since they were about to be ticking off a dragon, she wasn't going to settle for 'likely' in any regard. For Serhis and Baous, their own success was mixed. They found potions that could do things like make them acid resistant for a short while, but they had already those in stock on the ship. What they really wanted were things that could help to overcome Dianekesswhedabkeari's defenses or protect them better against his physical attack, but they had no luck of it this time, they couldn't find enough for everyone. As for Iskdiwercaesin, the dragon seemed to have a knack for business. It helped to have more teeth than the other person when both were smiling. He found buyers for his merchandise, some of the merchants on the main street of the city rather than one of them waiting at the docks, looking to offload the goods at a slightly raised price for convenience. The wide array of goods that were so cheaply bought in Jiak either fetched a decent price, while the more exotic ones he haggled and growled to get a high as profit as he could drive, exploiting the advantage that Nadia had given him as much as possible. He hadn't sold all of his cargo, saturating the market was a good way of driving down long term gains, but even then the amount of money he had made very much tempted him to go back to his cabin, dump it all on the carpet, and roll around in it since he never made so much in a single day. He secretly resolved to do it after their victory over Dianekesswhedabkeari so he could enjoy everything in a single rush.

Creaking under the weight of the loaded crates, the crane overhead lifted the sold cargo off of the ship as the group got ready to leave, though after talking to an annoyed dock master about berthing fees. At least conversation didn't go into tariffs.

"We're not taking the wagon I suppose," Baous looked down into the open cargo hold and at the horses and wagon still inside.

"Not the wagon, but at least the horses," Iskdiwercaesin came back in a slightly soured mood, meaning he was still ecstatic. "I can ride with Xet and Rhasalis while you and Serhis take the other." Normally the dragon wouldn't have even considered riding a horse, but considering the circumstances, he was willing to endure the discomfort. At least he was lucky enough he was still small enough to ride one, to the misfortune of the horse that would have the green wyrmling on his back. If they hadn't been so acclimated to him, they'd likely have bolted.

"Sure. Let's hope they haven't gotten used to their sea legs," Xet chuckled. Again, his first step off the ship was as wobbly as the last time.

Bringing the horses out of the hold and onto the dock and with Iskdiwercaesin telling the crew to watch the ship, the group was as ready as they ever were to depart. Riding through Lusion with the usual attention, they passed through the city gates and into the wilderness.

After a few confused turns and minutes looking at the map, they managed to find the right trails that lead them up the hills. Since Serhis and Baous had only been through the place once, they regularly checked their map and compass when as they took the trail, checking to see if there were wagon imprints on it. After a few hours of not even being sure that they really were on the right path, Serhis and Baous were relieved to see a familiar stone and cave. Knocking on it with his foot as it dangled off the side of the horse, Serhis held up a claw to stop the others from going inside the cave and pointed up. Getting the hint, they all passed the opening and found the actual entrance. Tying up the horses some distance away so that they'd be out of sight, they went inside.

"A nice trap," Rhasalis said with due respect as they went through the hidden entrance.

"Not too nice. We're hoping to get out of it," Iskdiwercaesin replied. Now inside, he popped the cork off a vial. After a bit of hesitance, he drank.

For a brief moment, nothing about the green dragon changed, and then he started to shrink in size. Soon he went from nearly Baous' height to the hatchmates', the frill lining his back receding, his hornlets disappearing in places while growing in others, green scales turned brown and emerald eyes turned into those of orange-red. Inspecting his new form, the dragon-turned-kobold was disorientated and a little shocked despite the anticipated result.

"Iskdiwercaesin, are you okay?" Serhis asked. The transformed dragon was slightly on the tall side for a kobold, his scales had a tinge of green to them, and something about the way he carried himself noted that he was more used to moving on all fours, but otherwise he was still incredibly passable.

"It's cold. Why is that?" Iskdiwercaesin replied.

"I think you need some clothes," Baous noted to the naked kobold. Iskdiwercaesin was no longer endothermic; he was now more reliant on the temperature of the area and like Baous had said, it helped to have something on to keep what warmth he had.

"One sec, I've got some spare robes for you to use," Xet dug through his pack and brought out one of this garments, much like what he was already wearing. Despite being the tallest of the three hatchmates, his outfit was still somewhat snug on the dragon-kobold and they had to settle for the good enough fit.

"Better, but it still feels like it's somewhat cold," Iskdiwercaesin shifted around in his borrowed clothes.

"Wait until we get inside the city, I remember it was rather warm. Really warm," Baous said.

As Iskdiwercaesin turned to reply, he looked at Baous. More accurately he looked up at Baous. "... this is what it's like to talk to us? All the time?" Iskdiwercaesin directed his comment to the reptilian kobolds while pointing at himself and Baous. The size change was starting to unsettle him. Then again, if he had turned into the size of his actual age, he'd be even shorter than the reptilian kobolds.

Rhasalis shrugged. "It doesn't seem to matter much."

"Of course, of course," Iskdiwercaesin hid his discomfort. "Let's get inside and mess his stuff up."

Walking through the dark tunnels that led to the undercity, they went didn't go in completely silence, making some noise as they walked and idly chatted about whatever topic came to mind. They didn't want to seem to be thieves coming in through the night, they wanted to appear like they were waiting to be noticed when they came across the sentries. Sure enough, they heard a kobold's voice call out though the dark from a hidden alcove. "Stop right there! You're not one of our patrols, who are you, how'd you get in here?!"

Even though they couldn't see whoever called out to them, they knew that there were all manner of pointy objects were directed their way. Baous had learned more than enough Draconic to give a reply of his own, but for now he let Serhis pass ahead of him, ready to spring forward with his shield if they weren't in the mood for visitors.

Spreading his wings slightly so that whoever was looking at them saw that he was a Dragonwrought, Serhis announced their presence. "I am Serhis, along with my hatchmates and friends. We serve as explorers for my home city of Lehaskeral, mapping the surface world and have come to here to restock supplies, share information, and rest. I came here with my friend," he gestured towards Baous behind him, "some months back for the same reasons, though this time I am heading in another direction. May we enter Tiichi de Soves?"

For over a minute, they heard little except the scrapings of a few claws on rock or barely perceptible whispers. They expected that they were either conferring amongst themselves or more likely were talking to someone in charge, perhaps even whoever replaced Gixbias as All-Watcher. It was highly doubtful Dianekesswhedabkeari would be notified about something like this, that was what his servants were for, but the All-Watcher was expected to report to their master about any recent events of the day. Sooner or later, he would find out, and it was anyone's guess whether he'd want to do something about it. Eventually, they heard the same voice call back. "You may enter after we've inspected you. Then, you'll be seen by the All-Watcher to discuss things."

"Go ahead," Serhis called out, relaxing a fraction and lowering his wings. They might have gotten in even if he wasn't a dragonwrought and he was still hesitant to use his birthright as a means of status, yet at this critical juncture, it helped to tip as much of anything into their favor. Creeping out of the hidden tunnels that lined the main highway, a team of sentries approached. They weren't pointing their weapons at them as a precaution, so that was a good sign, though they still gave Baous that odd look.

The inspection was brief, it wasn't hard to determine that they were who they said they were (with the sole exception of Iskdiwercaesin). That Serhis had mentioned that they had been here before likely helped a lot. "How long will you be staying?" the captain of the team asked.

"Maybe a day, possibly two," Serhis replied. That was as long as Iskdiwercaesin's potion and scroll supply would last, plus the wand they got from Nadia. As long as he applied it every half hour, he would remain disguised as a kobold. He dearly hoped that it wouldn't take that long to find some sort of weakness in Dianekesswhedabkeari's scheme. If they did run out of time, they would have to leave Iskdiwercaesin on the surface. A prospect that became much more unpleasant when they were escorted further in.

Standing at the first checkpoint, it was as big as it was last time, but what occupied it made it seem smaller. A pair of trolls sat to one side, their beady eyes watching the new arrivals. When they began to get up, one of the kobolds barked at them in Giant and they sat back down. They still kept looking at them.

"Looks like some of them survived," Baous muttered to Serhis, who silently nodded. Just how many remained to be seen. This was going to make things even more difficult. The size of the trolls ensured that they would never be able to fit in any of the side tunnels that made up Tiichi de Soves, but if they were placed along the main highways and areas of importance, then it could complicate matters if they needed to leave in a hurry. Iskdiwercaesin's acidic breath became much more necessary.

Moving past the checkpoint, the sentries took them past the staging area as well. Like last time, there was a mass of kobolds in there, moving materials about and training. Unlike last time, the materials were weapons and pieces of unassembled siege equipment instead of trade goods and the training was geared towards assaulting a position instead of defending their own ground. Seeing the place made Serhis realize just how close they were to being ready, the unassembled catapults and trebuchets were already lined up and ready to go.

"Are we going somewhere?" Baous asked as they passed through the crowds. Again, he was the center of attention as the canine kobold stood over almost everyone else, the exception being the squad of trolls in the staging area helping to carry the heavier loads around. And again, the kobolds around him were a little surprised to hear him speak their language. He had become as fluent as Serhis was with Common now and since he spoke it to the others regularly, he did it with an accent most would think be reserved for those that spoke it as their first language.

"You're to speak with our All-Watcher. He'll determine if you can stay," the captain replied.

Going through the staging area and towards the elevators, the only other question asked was by Iskdiwercaesin. "Is the All-Watcher going to meet us in this tiny room?" he asked as he saw the tight space. They might all get in, if they crammed together uncomfortably close.

"It's an elevator," Serhis explained, recalling how he also explained it to Baous when they were first here. He even got to see how Iskdiwercaesin was startled when he experienced the moment of descent and slight loss of weight when the captain pulled the lever to bring them down. By the time they were half way down, Iskdiwercaesin was struggling not to appear impressed as he saw the passing levels.

"You don't have elevators in where you're from? Lehaskeral was it? You only know about them from here?" the captain asked.

"There are elevators there. I helped make certain mechanisms for maintenance. My friend here... he's not from Lehaskeral, he's from another place," Serhis explained. Now he was really wishing that they had talked about Iskdiwercaesin's new identity as a kobold.

The captain shrugged and didn't ask anything else, saving them the trouble of making things up as they went along. Just like how we're doing things now, Serhis ruefully thought to himself. Reaching their intended level, the captain slowed the elevator down and stopping it at a level Serhis and Baous hadn't been on before. "Hmm, did the All-Watcher move his quarters?" Serhis asked.

"He's currently on the observation platform, his quarters are in the same place," the captain explained as they walked out. Serhis had asked not only to get an answer to that question, but it helped to subtly reinforce that they really had been here before.

Approaching what looked to be an open room, the group was surprised to see just how open it was. It looked like a wide tunnel had been carved out of one side of the large cavern with one wall absent gone except for the small stone railing. From the view, they could see the main chamber underneath, see how the mass of kobolds underneath were flowing around each other as they moved on their tasks. Serhis and Baous could also see what had changed in the passing months. What had been a blank wall had been carved out as steps leading slightly up towards an extremely detailed wall of engravings depicting a black dragon surrounded a heavy iron door. A very large heavy iron door, about four times the size of a troll. It didn't take much to guess who was residing there. Dianekesswhedabkeari obviously thought he would be ruling Tiichi de Soves for a long, long time. It made Iskdiwercaesin want to prove how wrong he was and smash the engraving of the black dragon. He most certainly didn't want to see that every time he entered the city when he came to rule it. He also didn't want the trolls that were guarding the front to be around either. Since those were some rather large doors, there had to be something to open them and Dianekesswhedabkeari decided his doormen would be a group of four trolls, along with a somewhat larger fifth one that wore custom fit armor, likely the leader of the trolls. The trolls there not only served as a means to open the door, but also as bodyguards. As the kobold and transformed dragon came into area and saw the view, they also saw a kobold in war gear approach.

"Admiring the improvements we've made?" the approaching kobold asked.

"It's something new," Serhis acknowledged, hoping his voice drowned out Iskdiwercaesin's muttered reply of "not really". Taking on what he hoped would look like an appropriate mask of puzzlement, he looked at the other kobold. "Where is the All-Watcher? I don't see Gixbias." He knew that the one in front of him was the new All-Watcher, but it wouldn't do well to say anything that made anyone question how he got that information.

The metal clad kobold shook his head. "Many things have changed since you last were here. Our old All-Watcher has died of old age and his services to our city have been honored. I am Hest Steelhorn and I am All-Watcher."

"I am honored to once again visit Tiichi de Soves," Serhis said diplomatically. "What did you call us here to discuss?"

"As scouts for your city, I want to see your maps and what you've found on the surface. Gixbias probably did the same thing the last time you were here too, since you haven't been here in months, I expect that you've found new things and update our own. Our own scouts are out there and report in from time to time, but like you, it'll be a while between visits, so whatever you've got will do. You can update your own maps with what we've found."

Serhis nodded and waved his claw for Baous to take out their map. It was something of an unspoken rule for scouts entering an undercity to share what they found, a type of common courtesy and sign of trust. Even if the scout's map didn't show anything new, it was still considered a sign of respect, though if the map shown did have a few things the All-Watcher's didn't, it helped to smooth over things faster.

The guards around tensed slightly as Baous extended his paw out with the rolled up map in it. Guest or not, the xenophobia that was common in kobold culture remained pervasive. Hest took the map without a sign of discomfort, likely masking his suspicion of the non-reptilian kobold to show he wasn't at all unsettled by him. Taking the map to a nearby table, he motioned for everyone else to follow. The square table was large and an equally large map was draped on it, its size allowing for the cartographers to go into detail about certain areas. Tiichi de Soves was in the center of the map, the amount of detail decreasing the further away it was from the undercity. That meant that the area around Tiichi de Soves showed things like elevation, trails, patrol routes, caches, trap locations, tunnel routes, and other minute details necessary for its defense. Further away, there were the surface cities, villages, rivers, mountains, hills, and forests, and it was with keen interest they looked at which cities had been circled in red. Further than that, the details were sparse and only the location of major cities, roads, and landmarks could be see, the exception being the area around Lehaskeral from when he and Baous had last shared that location.

Comparing the map he was holding and the one on the table, Hest nodded in approval as he handed it to the cartographer. "You either travel very fast or peeked at a lot of other maps to get so many details for places so far away. From half the continent away?"

"Let's say we move fast when the need calls for it," Iskdiwercaesin said with a grin.

"Not to say my own scouts are bad, but I wish they all had your speed," Hest complimented them as he looked at each of them individually. "I heard that it was just you and you that were here last," he pointed at Serhis and Baous.

"We went back to my home city during that time, to update their maps too and to report about finding Tiichi de Soves. While I was there, my hatchmates decided to go with me," Serhis said

"Ah, so except for... whatever this is," Hest motioned at the canine kobold, "you have all your hatchmates with you?"

"Sir, this one is from a different place," the captain nudged his arm in Iskdiwercaesin's direction, the dragon-kobold suddenly wishing he wasn't the center of attention, as did the others.

"Hmm, what's your name? What city do you come from? How'd you meet them?" Hest asked. Serhis' tail fidgeted, their poor planning was starting to tell.

"My name's... Iskdi." Again, he had to swallow his pride, not only having to endure being a creature that was meant to serve dragons, but he had to endure the shortening of his name. He could have picked something, anything else for a false name, but he wouldn't sacrifice that part of himself no matter what. He only hoped that Dianekesswhedabkeari hadn't heard of his name by some circumstance and that even if the All-Watcher for some reason divulged all of their names to the black dragon, he'd think it was a coincidence. "I saw Serhis and Baous for the first time in Milianso and we've been traveling since," the dragon figured it didn't hurt to mesh a little of the truth in, neglecting the part where he was unconscious for almost a week as they got there. He wasn't sure how to feel when he noticed that Milianso was one of the towns circled in red. "As for where I'm from..." the dragon-kobold paused for a half-second, trying to think of anything that might be plausible. Again he could lie and Hest would be none the wiser, but an idea sprang to mind to cover for him. "I'm from this region," he pointed to an area up to the north, indicating the mountain range that followed the coast, towards the area where the kitsunes had mentioned hearing of a threat of an orc and kobold army.

"Ah, I've heard reports from my scouts about that," Hest shook his head. "A new colony overrun by orcs. I see why you're traveling with them, you can't return to your home while the orcs are there."

Iskdiwercaesin quickly nodded. That part was news to him as well as the others about how it was a colony taken over by an orc army instead of a cooperative effort, but he wasn't about to dispel Hest's assumptions.

"Was there anything else you wanted to ask of us?" Serhis took the brief moment of silence as an opportunity to steer the topic away from having to make up Iskdiwercaesin's history in the space of a few seconds.

As the cartographer finished penning out the last lines of ink, Hest shook his head as he handed the updated map back to Baous. "I think that's all... ah, except for one thing," Hest went over to the side of the room with the open view, looking down at the troll guarded entrance. "A black dragon came to our city shortly after you left, giving us a new direction and a goal to pursue. Dianekesswhedabkeari has plans for the surface, so try not to go to any of the nearby surface towns when you leave, at least undisguised. If you were there when we attack, I think the surfacers would attack you on sight whether you were involved or not.

"Thank you for the warning," Serhis gave a measured nod.

"... Say, do you want to lend a hand with the attack? After being on the surface for so long, I'd think that all of you would know how to handle yourselves against surfacers. I would mention you favorably to our master and perhaps this may secure an alliance between our two cities," Hest said as he looked back to the map.

It took all of Serhis' effort not to balk. He certainly wanted to help protect Lehaskeral and an alliance would be nice, but not like this. "It is an intriguing offer, but I can't speak for my All-Watcher about important matters like this. It'd be above my position to decide such a thing."

"That's true," Hest shrugged. "Still, your help would be appreciated if you were nearby a surface town when an attack comes. Anyway, enjoy your stay in our home and conduct yourself accordingly," he turned to look at the group. More specifically, towards Serhis and the Star of Bahamut he wore. There was no doubt what he meant by that.

"We will be respectful of your city and its people, you have my word," Serhis nodded. As for Tiichi de Soves' master, that was another thing altogether.

"Captain, you can take them to the common room so they can resupply," Hest said to the head of the team, then looked back to the group. "If you're staying for the night, that can also be arranged."

"Thank you for your hospitality," Serhis replied cordially, as did the others in several variations before they were led back into the elevator. When they arrived at the common room's main floor, the captain and his team said farewell to them before they went back up, back to guard the main approach of Tiichi de Soves again. Going around until they found a place where they could talk privately, they found a small alcove to speak to each other.

"That was a bit close," Iskdiwercaesin breathed out as he tapped himself with the wand as he had started to feel the spell starting to wear off. "A little more time or another question and they would have gotten to see the real me."

"A bit? That was far too close," Rhasalis said. "We're going to have to arrange everything about your cover story soon, I don't like the idea of us making it all up as we go along. We almost slipped up there."

"We can arrange it in whatever room Hest can give us. Something tells me making it up is going to take some time and we don't have too much of it. At least in a private room, he won't have to keep using the wand and spend more charges on it," Xet said.

Baous shook his head. "I hope we don't have to stay that long at all. Let's just... find whatever we can do to slow Dianekesswhedabkeari's plans down first. Let's go out, see what there is and then come back here in three hours."

"Sounds good," Serhis nodded. "First, let's talk about where we need to go."

From there, they determined what their objectives would be. Rhasalis would go to the armory, both to restock on certain supplies and to see where might be keeping their stockpiles. Xet would head to the workshops, gathering what alchemical supplies he needed as well as seeing potential avenues for sabotage. Iskdiwercaesin would go back to the staging area, his experiences with war could help to see if he could find a weak link in their organization. Serhis' status as a dragonwrought allowed him almost unlimited access to the whole city, the places he couldn't enter would be areas he wouldn't want to go to, such as Dianekesswhedabkeari's lair for obvious reasons and the hatchery, which he would never even consider damaging. For now, his goal would be looking into the industrial areas and seeing what might be done to halt production.

As for Baous, he might be allowed in some places, but he would draw far too much attention if he started poking around.

"All I can think of is finding a place for us to stay," Baous shrugged, out of ideas. "They're expecting us to do that anyway, but I'm not sure if there's anything in the residential wing that we can use to stall the attack."

"Well, I hope we find something else in the other areas, there's only so much we can do too," Serhis shook his head.

"Then, I might as well wander around the place after that until it's time to come back here," Baous shrugged. It wasn't that he felt useless, but with circumstances as they were, he had to acknowledge that his role in this was limited, he didn't have the expertise that the other kobolds had in terms of seeing potential weaknesses in the operations of a whole city.

Rhasalis kept watch, glancing around and listening behind them to make sure they weren't being observed from time to time. "Then we'll meet back here when we're done." Everyone nodded, and then departed from the common room on different paths to their different objectives.

Taking the main stairwell up to the residential ring, again having to weave through the crowded packs of reptilian kobolds, he found that Hest had already had a room opened up for them, a kobold in charge of housing had come up to Baous and pointed out a large room their group could use. Suddenly, he was freed up from having to do anything and it would be some time before any of the others had finished scouting the place. He really did have nothing to do except wander about.

Try as he might, Serhis had been right about the canine kobold drawing too much attention from only his mere presence. Anywhere he went to observe what was happening, whether it was a bunch of kobold moving a large shipment of clothes and food or simply sweeping the cave floor, the all looked at him, their eyes glancing at him every now and then while they worked on their tasks. Those looks weren't hostile, something Baous was relieved to feel, but they did bear suspicion towards the outsider. Not comfortable staying in one place long, he kept moving. Eventually, Baous started to feel the warmth of the undercity getting to him again, the heat of the earth contained in the space of the mountain perfectly suiting the reptilian kobolds, but not so for him. It wasn't a sweltering heat, though it did make it hard to think clearly or do anything strenuous. Figuring that he might as well wait things out for at least an hour, he headed to the one place he knew would be at least a bearable temperature in Tiichi de Soves, the farms.

Climbing the stairwells again, he knew he was approaching the right place as he felt a cool breeze start to ruffle his fur before he felt a refreshing rush of chilled air sweep past his face as he entered the large cavern. It was mostly as he remembered it, an enormous multi-level cavern with large, roughhewn pillars that supported the roof while an underground river swept by, giving the farms the much needed moisture, and above all for Baous, cold. Walking among the large fields of fungi and plants that could grow without sunlight, all of it needed to feed the population of the Tiichi de Soves. He could see the farmers glance at him like the others, though there were far fewer of them and it was attention he could stand. Heading further in, he could see the newer additions to the farmland, more sections of the mountain carved out to produce more food with the intent of maximizing surface area. Shelves of mushrooms and plants rose up the cavern walls while the pillars had been shaped like screws, every place covered in something that could be used as food, whether on top, to the side, or growing hanging upside down.

Seeing that there was any bare space to sit down that wasn't a path, Baous went the largest mushroom he could find growing underneath a pillar, rested himself on the spongy thing and found that it supported his weight rather well. From his new vantage point, he could also see more new things that had been added. The pens that held livestock weren't new, he had seen them before, but now there was a great deal of animals from the surface. The number of pigs and sheep might have quadrupled from his best guess and he was certain that there had been no cows before. His best guess as to why that was could only be chalked up to one thing, Dianekesswhedabkeari. Like Iskdiwercaesin, he could live off of almost anything on the land, but also like the green dragon, it didn't mean he'd do it. He could well imaging Iskdiwercaesin passing over a plate of bean sprouts and moss for some mutton and veal... though he was certain he wouldn't pass over mushrooms, he knew the green dragon loved them when they all started in a race to eat as much of the stuff after cooking it when they found a patch of edible mushrooms before. Yet he was sure that Iskdiwercaesin wouldn't like the mushrooms growing on the carcass of a cow that lay in a shallow pond, Dianekesswhedabkeari seemed to like his steak well aged.

It was idle thoughts like that which made Baous miss the six figures creeping up behind him, their claws stepping on soft moss and hiding their approach. By the time the furry kobold heard the cushioned sound of six pairs of legs pressing down hard to jump, it was too late.

"Whaigh!" His shout of surprise echoed throughout the cavern as he was roughly tackled by the ambushing team. One might have jostled him, two would have thrown him down, but six kobolds all knocking into him blew him off the mushroom. Getting some air back into his lungs, he could barely see anything at the bottom of the lizard pile.

"Wow. For a guardian, you're not very good at it," one of the kobolds muttered through the mass of scales.

Baous stopped struggling to get to his hammer when he heard that. Outside of his own group, there was only one other gang of kobolds that used that term for him. "Jiyir?"

"Yep," the muffled voice of a kobold youth replied.

Laughing a bit, Baous tried to push them off. "Okay guys, off, off." Untangling themselves from the pile, the furry kobold rolled into a sitting position on the mossy ground to look at the small kobolds standing around him face to face.

"Heh, hi there. What are you doing back in our home?" Jiyir asked. Baous didn't exactly recognize his voice, even if it wasn't being muffled, the growing kobold's voice had changed somewhat from their last encounter all those months back. Only the self-assured confidence in his stance and tone of voice hadn't changed.

"Just visiting again, getting some supplies." Though he knew he couldn't say the truth, Baous still felt a little bad for lying to them about his purpose here or those of his companions. "It's nice to see you all again."

"Nice to see you too Baous," one of the kobolds said as she picked up her spectacles from the ground after it had been thrown off in the surprise attack/welcome.

"Ooh yeah, that's what his name was," Jiyir said before a light slap to the back of his head interrupted him. "Ouch! What was that for?"

"For being a big dummy," the other female said in a reprimanding and somehow friendly tone. "You don't go saying that you forgot someone's name when someone else said it for you."

Baous stifled a laugh, he hadn't expected his tense day to be met with such mirth, as it looked like he was in for another bout of fun. "Well let's see if I remember all of your names first," he dredged through his memories. He was surprised he actually did manage to recall Jiyir's name after so long, he began to suspect that what happened in Keifcroutt may have reinforced his ability to remember things after being toyed around so much. You're Ayit, right?" In response, the one who gave Jiyir his comeuppance nodded with a small smile. "Mertal," he nodded to the spectacled girl, "Navihie," to the one with the cloth bindings on her arms and feet, "Quilias," the biggest kobold grinned at the mention of his name, "and Reatxil," the energetic kobold nodded rapidly.

"All right!" Jiyir grinned as he popped a small mushroom off the ground and ate it in one bite. "So what are you doing here though? Don't need to watch over your friend?"

"He's fine, he's in no danger here."

"Except maybe for those nasty trolls. Every time I pass them, I think they want to eat me," Navihie said.

"Don't worry, Master Dianekesswhedabkeari has them under control. I think," Jiyir shrugged.

Baous wasn't sure what he felt when he heard the kobold say something like that, but what he couldn't describe specifically, he simply knew it was nothing good. "We also have his hatchmates with him too, so he should be okay if something happens."

"He brought his hatchmates to the surface and to here? Wow. Are they dragonwroughts too?" Reatxil asked excitedly.

"I don't think that's likely," Quilias shrugged as he heard Reatxil ask, then looked at Baous. "Is it?"

"No they aren't dragonwroughts," Baous answered to Reatxil's "aww" of disappointment. "I'm just here to cool off."

"Cool off? It's way too cold here," Jiyir said as he rubbed his arms. The group of kobolds had made sure they were in a place by the pillar that weren't being swept by the cold winds the underground stream pushed in.

"It's cold for us, but for someone with lots of fur like that, I think he's fine," Mertal said.

"We could go someplace warmer if you need to, I think I'm good for now," Baous moved to get up, but the others waved for him to sit back down.

"It's fine, we want to stay here, no need to go anywhere else," Jiyir said.

"... you're not skipping out on your lessons again, are you?" Remembering what had happened last time, Baous felt a bit embarrassed that he was drawing so much attention from the group of youths that they'd drop what they were doing just to see him again.

"Nonononono... well, maybe a little," Reatxil mumbled.

"We all finished our things early again, so we're not skipping anything," Jiyir explained.

"Though we were supposed to keep going on our next assignments if we finished early," Ayit said.

"The teachers won't notice a difference as long as it's done on time," Jiyir replied.

Shaking his head with a chuckle, Baous wondered if this was how Serhis, Xet, and Rhasalis were like when they were just as little. Considering their first trip to the surface, he expected it to have been very much like this. Then again, though the three were a bit more mature, the way they talked to each other and did things hadn't changed much, only the recklessness had been tamped down. "So I'm guess you're here to find out what we've been doing since I left?"

Six voices of approval sounded near simultaneously, though they didn't use the exact words. "Oh, and also do you know anything about some of the surface cities? Since everyone's really busy with that, maybe you can tell us a few things, like where the walls are or important places? If we give that to our teachers, then they'll be sure to reward us... well, I'm sure Master Dianekesswhedabkeari has others doing that, but it'd be nice to tell them," Jiyir indirectly tried to have an excuse to have for their instructors again if they got into trouble.

Immediately, Baous wished he hadn't said anything. The focus of the kobolds suddenly turned very uncomfortable for him, despite their genuinely friendly expressions. That they were asking something like that made him wonder how far Dianekesswhedabkeari's influence had spread. Even worse, he had driven himself into a corner. The moment he started to tell them what occurred after they last saw each other meant telling them about Iskdiwercaesin. If he omitted the dragon's presence as he told them, it would mean leaving inconsistencies that he couldn't explain. He was left only with two options, either to back out of telling them without an explanation or telling them the truth in full. He could have come up with any number of excuses to leave, he had every reason to lie to them to protect the others, and yet from their expectant looks of excitement, it wouldn't be fair to them either since they were looking for someone, anyone, to give them a taste of excitement in their lives. Making up his mind, Baous breathed out slowly. "How well do you know Dianekesswhedabkeari?"

He could tell that the question caught the kobolds off guard as they looked at each other with some confusion. "The master? Not very well," Jiyir shrugged.

"Do you know what happened the day he came here?"

The group shook their heads. "I was with Ayit in the staging area practicing when he came in," Quilias spoke up. "I heard him saying how he was the master of Tiichi de Soves and wanted to see the All-Watcher. When All-Watcher Gixbias got there, Dianekesswhedabkeari starting ordering stuff like going out and fighting drow in the forest. After the two walked away to talk only to each other. It was weird."

"What would you do if I said he wasn't supposed to be your master?" Baous spoke very carefully, he wasn't as skilled with words as Serhis went parsing through delicate situations like this.

The confusion the group felt only grew and the uncomfortable sensation the canine was experiencing spread to them. "I... what do you mean?" Jiyir asked.

Watching to see that no one else was around to hear them, Baous gave them what he hoped would be his most serious look. "This is going to be a big secret I'm going to tell you, okay? Really big, it might hurt others if you told anyone else and I'm trusting you to keep this because I don't want to lie to you or anything. Can I trust you?"

The group looked amongst each other again, their trepidation matched only with their excitement that they might be told something that Baous had to ask them that. Their curiosity primed, they all nodded. "We swear not to tell anyone," Jiyir said.

Silently, Baous told them everything about their activities here, both before and now. How Gixbias had contacted Iskdiwercaesin, to swear that Tiichi de Soves would be under his rule and protection, of Nadia's own plans, of what Nadia was when he told them she was an trumpet archon and they only gave him perplexed expressions, of how those plans went awry before they were even before the first step. It was when he told them about their discovery of the critically wounded Iskdiwercaesin that they interrupted with a flurry of questions, both at Baous and to each other.

"Whoa, hold up! You wanted to trick All-Watcher Gixbias?" Jiyir exclaimed, much to the shushing of everyone else.

"It wasn't really a trick, Tiichi de Soves would have still had someone to protect it. The only person that would have been tricked would have been Iskdiwercaesin." Even as Baous said it, it sounded like an extremely flimsy excuse.

"Well... that's true I guess," Jiyir muttered in acknowledgement, to Baous surprise. The canine could only assume it was by the reasoning of children that it worked, either that or some kind of difference in culture or values.

"So Dianekesswhedabkeari wasn't supposed to be the one to come here? He just came out of nowhere?" Navihie asked.

"Nadia thought that he must have intercepted one of her messages, either between her or her agent and he found out."

"Obviously it had to be something like that, otherwise he wouldn't have had all those trolls ready to squish all those drow," Reatxil said.

"Can everyone quiet down, I want Baous to keep going," Mertal spoke up, one of the few times her voice had ever been raised.

"Yeah, I want him to keep going too. Like what happened after he found the green dragon," Quilias nodded.

"I'd like for him to get to the part about why he came back," Ayit muttered as she looked at Baous with a stony expression.

Continuing on, Baous struggled somewhat in the next part. They showed some signs of relief when they heard that he and Serhis wanted to save Iskdiwercaesin's life, before the mood took on a hard edge when he tried to explain Serhis' plans for the green wyrmling. It took him a while to parse out what the both of them had intended, that what would happen to Iskdiwercaesin wasn't going to force his mind into something completely different, that it would only remove the impulses his bloodline ingrained in their beings, and he eventually managed to spell it out as best he could. This was despite him not understanding the full mechanisms of the ritual, some of the questions they asked him he had to admit he didn't know.

From there, he skipped right to what they were doing here now, of Nadia coming to them and telling them about Dianekesswhedabkeari's plans for invasion, of their rapid response, and of their goals here. That was enough to get the group riled up again to ask questions.

"So you're here to damage our home and hurt our friends?" Ayit glared at him coldly. Her voice wasn't as loud as Jiyir's had been, but it carried a menace to it that her hatchmate didn't possess.

"No! No, we don't want to hurt your friends," Baous quickly replied, meaning every word of it as he tried to recover. "It's only that we have to stop Dianekesswhedabkeari from attacking the surface. We're afraid that he might hurt our own friends." He refused to say "your master" to them out of some sense that they were more than just servants to the dragon. His words about protecting others on the surface seemed to have made them settle down, a bit of understanding helping to relieve the tension. "If Iskdiwercaesin wants this place for himself, he's going to have to do something about it. Right now, we just want to stop Dianekesswhedabkeari. It's only him and his trolls that we worry about, not any of the kobolds who live here. I mean, Gixbias didn't want things to turn out like this. He just wanted you all to live happily. Now that Dianekesswhedabkeari came here..."

"Yeah, since he came here, everyone started getting a little... meaner," Jiyir shrugged, not knowing the right word to describe it. "Like our teachers yelling at us, Master Dianekesswhedabkeari pushing everyone to make a lot of weapons and armor and stuff. No one can tell us why we should go to the surface, it's only Master Dianekesswhedabkeari that wants to do that." Jiyir's words seemed to settle his hatchmates down, saying things that everyone else was thinking, but were too unsure to say aloud.

"So you're not going to tell anyone, right?" Baous asked them. After a moment of silent consensus, they all nodded.

"You still haven't told us what you or the others are thinking about doing." Ayit had lost her coldness, though she still carried a small wariness towards Baous.

"We're... still trying to figure that out," Baous scratched the back of his head as he said that. "Since we didn't know what we were getting into, we really didn't have much of a solid plan. You... um, you don't mind that we're doing this?"

Again the kobolds looked at each other without saying a word. Baous had seen Serhis, Xet, and Rhasalis do the same thing at times, using subtle body gestures and expressions to convey their feelings, but seeing this large group of hatchmates doing the same thing about something so important was simply eerie. He figured it had to do something with the ambush tactics some of them learned where they had to keep quiet and still communicate, but constant use among the hatchmates had made it grow into something more. "It's... as long as you don't hurt anyone."

Quickly nodding, Baous felt a bit of the tension ease off of him. "Thank you. I promise you that we'll only go after Dianekesswhedabkeari and his trolls, we need to slow down his attack." In his mind he knew it was going to be a hard promise to keep, but under the circumstances, it might as well be said. If something did happen that forced them to face off against the whole of Tiichi de Soves... he didn't want to think about it, it would be an easy promise to keep at that point.

"Well... now that you've told us that, what are you going to do? Was there something here you were supposed to do? Keeping cold isn't the only reason you're here, huh?" Navihie asked.

"Uh, no. Not really. I did come here to keep cold, I didn't lie to you about that. It's that I can't go around doing things like the others like watching things and checking, it's that I'm so..."

"Tall?" "Big?" "Furry?" The group offered.

"Noticeable, but those too. So I'm only here to wait until the others are done."

"Sounds boring," Reatxil said, throwing pebbles into the not so far off river.

Chuckling, the canine offered them a big smile. "It was boring until you all came along."

"Pfft! Same for us!" Jiyir gave back just a big of a smile. "You came back to do some secret stuff, make Master Dianekesswhedabkeari all sorts of mad, and you told us about that and the stuff with Gixbias and a green dragon that was supposed to be the one he wanted? It's way too cool!"

"It's also going to be a lot of trouble. We might get in a lot of trouble if anybody finds out that we knew and didn't tell anyone," Ayit said.

"Then we won't tell anyone and they won't find out," Jiyir smirked.

It was amazing to Baous how the situation turned from something so tense and nerve wracking and now it was all in good fun. Shaking his head, he gave each of them a hug. "Thanks for not going off and getting me in trouble too."

"Nah, it's alright. Thanks for telling us this at all," Reatxil patted the canine on the back.

"Hey wait, are you telling us this because you need us to do something for you? Do we get to blow stuff up too?!" Jiyir was almost bouncing in excitement.

"Oh no, nonononono," Baous needed to dash that particular notion quickly. "If I might get you in trouble already, something like that is way too much!"

"Ooh, yeah. Sorry, I got all excited. I never had a chance to blow anything up before. Yeah, I don't want to wreck anything that someone else owns."

"Then why did you tell us? This sounds like something you really don't want to tell anyone else. You're not very good at keeping secrets," Ayit remarked. Baous was starting to think that these kids were a lot more perceptive than they let on.

"But that would have meant I would need to lie to you or I'd suddenly stop talking, then you'd bug me to tell you anyway," he replied to some slow nods.

"That makes sense. Thanks for not lying to us," Jiyir said.

"Well... since you're telling us everything and you still have nothing to do if we go, can we hear what happened between you finding Iskdiwercaesin and here? You skipped a really big part," Mertal asked.

Settling himself comfortably against the large mushroom, Baous recounted as much of what he could remember from that point on. Again, he was surprised to call so much in detail. He first started slow, from the point where the ritual had been completed and how Iskdiwercaesin had decided to go along with them, to Natade and the revolt and beyond. When he got to the part where he got to see Serhis' home city of Lehaskeral, they immediately asked questions about what that city was like, how it was different from their own home. After going through that part in detail, he continued, though he tread with extreme care as he came to the part where they entered Keifcroutt. While the geas on him prevented him from speaking of where the hidden city was, it didn't stop him from telling of its existence and what had happened to them there. Of course, when he got to the part where they had the geas placed on them, the kids burst out in gasps and questions. On an on, he kept telling of their journey and the events that occurred that led them here. He still didn't feel like he was a story teller, he felt his skills hadn't improved from the last time, but from the way the cluster of kobold kids looked at him with eyes filled with wonder and imagination, he thought he did a fair enough job.

"... after getting what we could, we left the ship and here we are," Baous concluded, knowing it wasn't the most artful of endings, but since the story was technically still being written, he couldn't really provide one.

After a moment of silence, the cluster of kobolds remaining still as if they were expecting more. "Wow... you did all that while you were away? All of that?" Jiyir said in an awestruck voice. "All we got to do was watch the wall in the common room get blown up and mined out to make room for Master Dianekesswhedabkeari."

Nodding once, Baous glanced up reflexively before remembering that he was underground, unable to see the sun to estimate how much time had passed. While the kids had been enthralled by the events that he had told, he also lost track of time while he told it. "Ah! Sorry, but I have to go right now. The others might be waiting for me and they'll get worried if I don't show up," the canine quickly rose to his feet.

Suddenly the whole group stood up as well, a bit of panic in their own faces. "Oh no! How long were we here?!" Mertal cried out. "Our teachers are going to tan our hides for being late!"

"Hold on hold on, we're not in trouble just yet," Jiyir's tail twitched around, trying to figure a way to worm out of their instructor's eventual wrath and punishment. "Hey Baous, that town you came to, Lusion, tell us everything you can about the place, we can tell it to them!"

Baous figured that they would eventually get to that and recalled what he could of the city they had passed through twice. He had no trouble telling what the towns defenses looked like as he saw the place circled in red on the map, he could guess that All-Watcher Hest and Dianekesswhedabkeari had already sent in spies to scout the area and had saboteurs in place now that they were nearly ready. Since he and the others were here to at least stall those plans, all he was doing was saving the hatchmates from an earful and punishment. Maybe. He didn't know if their teachers were going to accept this as an explanation. As he told them what he could, Mertal was jotting down notes in her book, so at least they had somewhat to keep the facts straight.

"Thanks for that," Jiyir breathed out in relief, thinking that they were already free and clear. "And thanks for telling us... everything."

"Thank me by not telling anyone else," Baous said as he gave them each a pat on the head. Going back to the main stairwell, they parted ways. "Bye everyone."

"Bye Baous!" the kobolds said in near unison as they split up, the kids rushing off to their respective teachers and to try and save themselves from their displeasure. As their tails vanished around the bend of the large mass of other kobolds in the main stairwell, he had to rush down as well to meet up with the others, hoping that he hadn't made himself too late.

Everyone else was already there waiting for him, their eyes scanning the crowd for a patch of fur in a sea of scales. When they saw him, he could tell from a distance that they were relieved to spot him, Rhasalis pointing him out for the others as he came into view.

"Where were you?" Serhis asked him as he got into the alcove, the worry evident in his voice. "We thought something might have happened or that you got into trouble. I was about to send a message spell."

"There wasn't any trouble. I just ran into some friends," Baous' sentences were as short as his breath, he had been running all the way down, getting all sorts of lessons in Draconic curses when he bumped into a few kobolds in his haste.

"Friends?" Iskdiwercaesin asked skeptically, then looked at the passing wave of kobolds outside the alcove. He was almost certain no one could hear them in here, it was noisy enough where they stood that they could barely listen to each other speak. "We can get to that later. Did you get us a place to stay at least?"

"Yeah, Hest already made arrangements for us, there was a room for us right when I got there."

"We should move up there. Then we can talk about what we found out," Rhasalis shared Iskdiwercaesin's caution about being overheard.

"Well I can tell you this much about what I found out that probably everyone else here does. The alchemy labs here stink. I mean really stink, the ventilation is miserable," Xet waved his claw over his nose.

"Let's get going. The sooner we get this finished, the better, then we can get to the real plan." Gazing at the guarded doors, Iskdiwercaesin only felt smoldering hatred for the one that was behind the gate, his anger so intense that if he could channel it into actual force, it would move them aside. When the doors began to rumble open, his foul mood was turned into surprise when he thought for a moment that he caused that, only to return in full force when he saw that the trolls were pulling them open. Dianekesswhedabkeari was coming.

As the gate swung open, the imposing figure of a black dragon framed by the torches behind him looked out towards the common room, seeing the mass of kobolds bowing to him reverently. Serhis and Iskdiwercaesin pulled Baous out of the way, behind the wall of the alcove to get him out of sight as the last thing they needed was the Dianekesswhedabkeari taking interest in why a non-reptilian kobold was in his domain. After a slight nod to the kobolds that served him when they gave him his due respect, the black dragon walked forward, flanked by his troll bodyguards as he went to the center of the room.

As Baous pressed his back to the stone wall, he could feel Iskdiwercaesin's claws tighten hard around his arm. "Hey! Ow! You can let go."

The dragon turned kobold barely heard Baous, his grip only getting tighter as he saw the dragon that almost killed him in the skies above. It was taking all of Iskdiwercaesin's willpower not to charge ahead and turn back into his true form to rip and tear into his most deeply hated foe as the black dragon went towards the center of the room to perch atop the flat of the spire.

Dianekesswhedabkeari Nocudithroden had come forth to address his servants.

In the center of the fire lit room, the group could see the black dragon clearly. Since that was the purpose of the spire, to act as a podium, it was hard not to. A twin set of horns jutted out from the side of his head, curving forwards parallel to his snout, though slightly longer, the segmented horns the regular color of bone which black as jet as it reached the tip. Close to the base of those horns were his deep socketed eyes, behind them and at the top of his head were a crown of backswept hornlets. These were the features that gave black dragons their other name, skull dragons. Like Iskdiwercaesin, he was an aquatic dragon, sharing a few features such as a lithe body for passing through water. Another similar thing were the crest frills that ran down the backs of their necks, though Dianekesswhedabkeari's peaked at the middle and ended halfway down his long neck rather than extending down the length of his body like Iskdiwercaesin's. The major difference between them was size. Where Iskdiwercaesin could be compared to that of Baous, himself compared to that of an average human, Dianekesswhedabkeari was easily twice or even three times his size in every proportion, length, width, and mass, from snout to tail, from wing tip to wing tip. For Iskdiwercaesin, who had no wings and was currently a kobold, the difference was even starker. Appeased that all present were showing him attention and respect, the master of Tiichi de Soves spoke.

"My servants! In three days, we will march to the surface and I expect everything to be ready! Those on the surface are not prepared, they think themselves safe and out of danger, their luxuries and time of peace have made them complacent and weak, I expect them to be crushed quickly. However, this can only be done if you are fast, harsh, and powerful! I expect all of you to work hard, to fight furiously, to win gloriously! I will have victory, the first one of many as we build an empire, ruled by one that rightly should. Those that become our subjects and slaves will serve us as they deserve. When we go to them, take those that realize their place in life as slaves, but kill all those that think they can resist. I would like to take the towns intact, I don't want my new possessions in ruin as I take them, but do what you have to when we take it! If we have to burn it all to the ground to make them realize that to fight us is to be destroyed, then let them be destroyed! Let everyone know that their only options are to serve or to die! In the empire we will build, Tiichi de Soves will be our capital and we will grow large from the tribute that our vassals will bring to us. In serving me, you will grow stronger, grow more prosperous than you were ever before! We will rise above all!" Spreading his wings wide, he let loose a roar that resounded throughout the chamber, his presence commanding everybody to watch him as he demanded.

As one, the kobolds in the common room chanted Dianekesswhedabkeari's name, the big black dragon with a toothy grin on his face as was given support. "For now, do as your All-Watcher asks of you, he's the one who does as I ask of him," he pointed upwards, towards the observation room where the armored kobold stood, looking down at the mass below. Many pairs of eyes looked upwards, to which Hest subtly nodded. "I've seen that you are working hard to make this work. For now, I'll return to my chambers and await the news that all is ready to go. That all is ready to do what needs to be done." Leaping off the spire and flapping his wings before landing, Dianekesswhedabkeari disappeared through the gates as they closed, once again putting him out of reach.

It was only when he was gone that Iskdiwercaesin realized that Baous had been trying to say something to him the entire time. "Iskdi, let go! I can't feel my arm!"

"Huh? Oh. Sorry," Iskdiwercaesin muttered, each breath he took felt like a searing burst as rage heated his mind and body. His hands were numb, both had been gripping hard enough that his claws dug in, drawing blood from his own palms and Baous' arm, little droplets falling from his claws as he finally untightened his fists.

Tapping Baous and Iskdiwercaesin each the lightest healing spell he had, the scratches faded away as Serhis looked at Iskdiwercaesin with a worried look. "I don't really know what you're feeling right now Iskdiwercaesin, but you have to calm down. I think we should get to that room everyone, we need to talk... and relax."

Nodding stiffly, Iskdiwercaesin moved his feet, following the others as they made their way back up the stairwell. His thoughts weren't of blind rage anymore, they had coalesced into more formed ideas, ideas about how to destroy his enemy. If he didn't have Baous to pick out from the crowd to follow at times, he would have gotten lost in his distraction. Only when they reached the room assigned to them for the night did he finally snap out of his reverie. The room was the same one that was given to Serhis and Baous the last time they were here, still slightly cooled, much to the furry kobold's relief. Though now that there were five in the room instead of two, it was a lot more crowded. Only the hatchmates didn't seem to mind as they sat on one bed together.

"What did everyone find out?" Serhis asked as he took off his mantle and armor after laying the appropriate traps at the door. He hoped that returning Iskdiwercaesin's thoughts to the matter would be enough to snap him out of the trance he seemed to be in.

"Like you heard me back down there, they're alchemy workshops stink," Xet replied first. "But that might be useful. If the fumes are getting trapped somewhere and they're volatile, a big enough spark might punch a hole in the place. Thing is, I couldn't find out where they were keeping their materials. I asked to buy some raw stuff so I could make my own, but the overseer in charge told me to stay put while he got it. Also, it's like the place is constantly being used, so there's not much chance to sneak in and fiddle around with the stuff."

"It's almost the same in the ore processing areas," Serhis nodded. "They run the place efficiently, they keep the hazards at a minimal and I couldn't see much of a way to ruin their production line, or at least in a big way. We might find a chance to destroy one or two of the smelters, but it wouldn't slow them down much at all. It might delay them for a week, at most. Actually, I think they were working better when I was there," he said sheepishly. "I think they wanted to impress me."

Now that he was inside a private area, Iskdiwercaesin reverted back to his normal form and made what little spare space there was even smaller, causing Baous to go sit on his own bed to avoid getting crowded. Looking at himself up and down, the dragon made sure he was a full dragon again rather than a jammed up mix of dragon and kobold. Satisfied that he wasn't, he sat down on his own bed as he spoke. "The staging area was run well enough," he said grudgingly, reluctant to give praise to anything related to Dianekesswhedabkeari. "There's not much we can do about hundreds of kobolds at once, so I looked at what we could do. Those siege engines were ready to go at a moment's notice, but since they aren't going anywhere for three days, no one is really looking after them. I'm sure if you got a ditherbomb or a fireball in there, you'd get three of the things in one go. If anything will slow them down, it's not having the heavy equipment. But... I'm sure that's going to get noticed really fast when it goes off."

"It might be something we can do when we're passing by as we're leaving," Rhasalis suggested as she gave her own report. "I couldn't get into the armory when I asked around for some new throwing daggers, but from what I've seen, I can guess where they're keeping the arms and armor for the army. Every now and then, I see someone carrying in a crate, but barely anyone takes anything out. If I'm right and barely anyone is in the storage area, we might be able to get in and destroy their stockpile without being noticed."

Iskdiwercaesin craned his head to look at her. "Destroy it how? It wouldn't take long before someone notices us breaking everything."

"We can use a fire. Some oil with flint and steel and we can ignite the straw they use to pad the insides of the crates. I don't think one fire would spread far enough to get everything, so we'd have to do it more than once to maybe get most of the equipment. It really depends on how big the storage room is and how they organized everything."

"That sounds... pretty simple. Are you sure a fire will work?"

Rhasalis' expression of confidence answered that for him. "Even if the fire isn't going to last long or hot as a forge, it'll warp metal, burn off any leather or rope that's holding anything together, any spears are just kindling, and they'll have to do replace all the storage material that is going to be destroyed. Sabotage was part of my training... though I never thought I'd have to use it against other kobolds," she admitted with a bit of guilt. "I'm definitely going to have to put in a few recommendations about our own security when we get back home. This plan isn't much, but it's the only workable one I've been able to make. As for making our escape, I've checked the rooms around the area, at least the places I could get in without any attention. We could blow a hole in one of the walls and exit that way instead of the doors which are going to be full of people coming in to extinguish the fire."

"At least it's something," Serhis gave his hatchmate a hug, reassuring her as Xet also joined in. Before letting the warm fuzzy feeling take over as he saw her smile a bit, he heard Iskdiwercaesin cough a bit to get their attention.

"What about you Baous? You didn't say what took you so long to get back. All you said was that you met some friends. You have friends here?" the green dragon asked skeptically.

"Yep. A bunch of hatchmates. We were in the fields again," Baous said.

"Oh, I remember them," Serhis nodded. "Were you busy telling them stories... again...?" Baous inwardly cringed, he could tell that his friend was reading the easy logical signs. "Did you?"

"I was," Baous was quick with his words, saying something before the others could reply. "Don't worry, we can trust them."

"Trust them with what?" Iskdiwercaesin narrowed his eyes at the canine. "What did you tell them?"

There isn't a comparable sensation to being suddenly placed under the stares of close friends, each of them with different amounts of curiosity and wariness. There were other feelings in play, but those two were the most abundant. Again, Baous stuck with the truth. "About... almost everything since we last left Tiichi de Soves."

"Do you mean...?" Serhis looked over from Baous to Iskdiwercaesin, to which the canine's head barely dipped his head in a nod.

"What were you thinking?!" Iskdiwercaesin demanded in a hiss, trying not to shout and attract the attention of anyone outside.

"They came to me to ask, I had to say something."

"You could have said nothing!" the wyrmling pointed an accusing claw at him. "Just how much did you tell them?"

"... like I said, just about everything."

"You mean like why we're here too?" Xet sounded worried.

"... that too."

"What in the nine Hells and all the Abyss were you thinking?!" Iskdiwercaesin had to again keep his voice down, no matter how much he wanted to shout and holler. "What made you think that was ever a good idea?!"

"I was thinking that I couldn't lie to my friends." Baous kept his voice firm in contrast to Iskdiwercaesin's intense words. He would make no excuses from either himself or to his friends as he spoke what he felt. "I could have told you that I didn't do anything and no one would have asked anything else. I wouldn't lie to any one of you, I don't want to do that, not to anybody that's my friend. They risked getting in trouble just to see me and to make their day special, I didn't want to disappoint them."

"And you didn't you think telling them about what we're going to do is going to get us in a lot worse trouble than anything they'd have?" Iskdiwercaesin snarled. "If any of your little friends, just one of them peeps a word about us, we're finished! There'd be no way that Dianekesswhedabkeari wouldn't hear of this and do something about it. We'd have the whole army coming down on us instead of towards a town!"

"But they won't," Baous filled his words with his self-confidence. "From the things they said, they serve Dianekesswhedabkeari, but they don't like him or the idea of what he's doing with Tiichi de Soves. I told them about you, yes, I also told them what happened to you. When I described how we found you and how badly you were hurt, they all looked upset. They were concerned about you too, not because you were the dragon that was meant to rule this city, but because they were sad that you, my friend, got hurt so much. They don't really know you, but they care about you a lot more than Dianekesswhedabkeari. That's why I trust them."

Scoffing, the wyrmling seemed to have his anger blunted, but not by much. "It still wasn't a smart idea. Sure you trust them, maybe you're right and they won't tattle, but did telling them all that do anything for us? If you thought they were willing to help us, then I'd say it's worth it, but since they aren't, you might have given us some unneeded trouble."

"... they did offer to help a little in their own way," Baous said.

"What? No!" Serhis exclaimed. He had kept silent as the two argued, his own feelings mixed. Iskdiwercaesin was right about needing to keep secrecy, but he also appreciated that Baous was true to himself and would never lie to them. Admittedly, he was nervous about Baous' decision to put them in danger like that, but if his companion felt that they could be trusted, he wouldn't object. What he did object to was putting the gang of kobold kids in danger themselves. "We're already in enough danger, we can't involve them! If anyone learns that they helped us after we sabotage things and leave, they could be killed!"

"Yeah, I don't know how much help they could be anyway. How young are they? If they're barely apprentices, then it's safer if they stay out of it," Xet said, a rare moment where his caution won over his normal senses.

"They don't have to do anything directly," Rhasalis looked thoughtful as she spoke. "If they're willing, then they could useful as a distraction. Nothing that can get them punished, all they need to do is draw attention to themselves while we slip into the storage room. No one will realize that they were involved with us at all and even if they did, it'd can be explained as a coincidence."

"But... we don't really need them as a distraction, do we?" Serhis asked.

Rhasalis shook her head. "No, but things would go a lot smoother if they helped."

"We've already exposed ourselves to them. We might as well make use of them for it. If they prefer me over their master, then I'm all for letting them prove it," Iskdiwercaesin nodded, his anger having finally diminished.

"Still..." Serhis couldn't come up with anything else to say. He was loathe to endanger others for their own cause, especially since they were involving kids. And yet, there wasn't much he could argue at this point. They were already in danger for simply knowing about this and not reporting it. Acting as a distraction that would be hard to prove was part of their plans wasn't going to add much more to that. As the others looked at him to say something more, he closed his mouth and nodded his head.

Baous wasn't so certain himself. "I'm not sure how much they'd like to help, but it doesn't matter much if I can't find them again. I don't know where they are and they might not come looking for me again, not when they know what we're doing."

"Where did they meet you then? Right here in this room?" Rhasalis asked.

"The farm area. I went there to get away from the heat and they found me there again," Baous answered.

About to say something, Rhasalis blinked as another idea came to her, making her pause before she voiced it. "... the farms. You're saying that they just let you in, no one stopped you?"

"Nobody did, I had a lot of stares though."

"Then I can think of another way to delay Dianekesswhedabkeari's campaign. They must have built up a reserve of preserved food by now to be used when the siege begins. The army might be able to live off the land, but if they have a safe supply of food only hours away, then they'll use it. No matter what, they need to have something to eat."

Serhis nodded, the principle of the idea was sound... until he thought about it more in depth. "Wait... no, we can't do that."

"Why not? It sounds like a perfect way to slow things down. Dianekesswhedabkeari can push everyone as hard as he can to repair the damage in the warehouse and replace whatever we get in the fire, but he can't rush how fast crops can regrow," said Iskdiwercaesin.

"But it would mean hurting the rest of the city as well, not just the army. I don't think we'd get everything if we did try, but what would be left won't be enough for the whole city. There would be mass starvation." The group looked at each other in their cramped quarters, each with their own thoughts on the matter. Serhis wanted to stop Dianekesswhedabkeari's invasion, he had no qualms about that, but if it meant harming those that served under him, a city that would otherwise have not made attacks of their own, he wouldn't accept that method.

"Serhis is right. We're here to stop the attack, not make a famine," Baous felt the same way, but now he also had his promise to the hatchmates to keep.

"Can't we only destroy the surplus?" Xet suggested.

Rhasalis shook her head. "How can we tell what's the surplus and what's going to last Tiichi de Soves to the next harvest? We'd have to guess, and we'd guess very badly. Even if we did know how much they would need, once we set a fire, there's no way to control it. We'd have to leave the area quickly so no one would spot us, same with the storage area. Plus, I don't know how their granaries are set up, we might only get half of their supplies or the fire might spread so far and it would get everything. All that would matter is that Dianekesswhedabkeari would have another thing that would stop him. I don't like the idea of making others starve because of him, but it wouldn't compare to the deaths that would be taken once he starts his sieges, on both sides."

Huffing, Iskdiwercaesin kept his eyes and ears towards the door, wary of anyone snooping around that might hear their conversations about sabotage and arson. "We're here to keep Dianekesswhedabkeari from getting a foothold on the surface, so we had better do everything we can to do that. If everyone that serves him is willing to fight for him, then they can settle for going without something to eat for a while. If they're smart about it they can do a tight rationing and even that's going to keep them all from marching to the surface for at least three months."

Inwardly, the hatchmates remembered the time when their own city suffered a famine. It was when they were five, nearly half a lifetime ago. A disease mold had gotten into the fields and had spoiled almost everything before it could be eradicated, but the real problem came when the farmers found that some of the diseased crops had been put in the granaries before the mold was discovered. By then, most of what was inside had been spoiled and was hastily destroyed. Only a quarter of the food stocks could be saved, hardly enough to last through to the next harvest. They remembered the rationing afterwards. Almost every night, they had to go to bed still feeling hungry after their meager dinners, but it was worse for the adults. They saw the pained looks in their instructor's faces, the grimaces of all the grown-ups passing by in the corridors as near-empty bellies gnawed at their minds, the adults were willingly eating less so that the hatchlings and children had more for themselves. Barely anyone could work, everyone had to conserve energy and all production went to a standstill. Serhis wouldn't mention to that openly as it might convince Iskdiwercaesin to pursue that plan all the more. The sense of guilt they felt would stay with them and it made its presence known now, the thought that they were even considering making others suffer through that made them cringe.

"This might not be the best idea," Serhis replied. "If they get really desperate, they might even launch the attack early to make a grab for the town's food, either in the fields or in the granaries. If we're not careful, they might attack even without their equipment and wouldn't are about conquering, we'll have pushed them into pure desperation."

It took the green dragon a while to consider his words, weighing his options and the risks involved. Slowly, Iskdiwercaesin nodded, assuaging the hatchmates' sense of guilt and to Baous' relief. "Yeah, that might push them too far. So that's only our option, blowing up the siege engines and frying their armory?"

"It will have to be, at least until we're ready ourselves for a confrontation with Dianekesswhedabkeari," Serhis said.

"I hope by then we'll have figured out some sort of way to get him away from his bodyguards and the army that he's making," Baous said.

Iskdiwercaesin laid his head down on the bed, a simmering heat in his mind that would bother him for as long as he was here. "We'll figure it out when we get the chance. For now let's just get to making this next week a pain in the ass for him."

For the next hour, they hammered out their plans and ideas, their main targets and their escape. They all knew that there wouldn't be any second chances about this, if they were caught, it was over for them, they had to be absolutely certain that no one realized that they were the ones to cause the sabotage until they were out of the city, meaning they had to rely on the panic of the fire to cover their escape. They sketched out the floor plans of Tiichi de Soves as best they could, pouring over it to see which ways were best to take while avoiding places that would be filled with kobolds rushing in and out to handle the emergency. Having prepared as best they could, they got ready to go to sleep. It would be hard for them all as their alert minds would almost stop them from resting from every sound beyond the door, a possible indication that they had been betrayed and their plans ruined before they could even be started. Sleep would come to them, but it was not easy or filled with pleasant dreams.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The noise of the door opening was equivalent to the sound of a cast iron bell being rung to Serhis, his eyes snapping open as his gaze went to the door, half expecting a group of soldiers armed to the teeth to kill them in their sleep. By the time his blurry vision cleared however, the door had shut again just as quietly, making him blink in confusion. The traps they had set hadn't been sprung and no one had come into their room. Had something like the wind open and shut the door? He hadn't been the only one to be awakened by the brief and muted noise. His hatchmates shuffled around him, their heads also looking at the door with alarm, Xet with a wand in his claws, Rhasalis with a claw in hers. Eyes flickering to the side for a moment, he also saw Baous having tensed up, ready to roll off his bed and war hammer braced to his side. Serhis had no doubts that he would have been ready and expected to see the same in Iskdiwercaesin... only to find the bed the dragon had been sleeping in empty. "Iskdiwercaesin-"

"Mhmm," Rhasalis nodded her head, not sure if she should put away her weapon yet, then she pointed at the trap they had set next to the door. It had been moved aside.

"What is he doing going out?" Baous wondered aloud as he swung his feet off the bed and started putting on his armor before Serhis held up a claw to stop him.

"I'll go after him. Everyone else stay here," Serhis said as he got off the bed. "I don't want us to attract attention by having us all go out. I'll use a sending spell if I need help." Technically, Serhis would attract attention wherever he went, but at least it was attention that wouldn't be readily questioned. Everyone silently nodded their heads as Serhis opened the door, though Baous and Rhasalis were still taking the precaution of putting on their armor even as he shut the door.

Standing outside their room, Serhis saw the city of Tiichi de Soves late at night. Which was to say, not much different from what it was during the day, the sun and the moon having little bearing underground and the city never stopped, there would always be a shift of workers stoking the fires of the forges or crafting the newest trap. Looking around the hallway, he wasn't looking for a dragon, but a dragon turned kobold. At least he hoped as much and Iskdiwercaesin hadn't been crazy enough to go about in his true form. Since he didn't hear any cries of surprise, he could safely assume the wyrmling hadn't done so. Not seeing Xet's robes that Iskdiwercaesin had been wearing among the crowd, he had to wonder where the dragon would have gone alone, and why.

Only one clear answer came to Serhis and it made him run like mad.

Charging down one of the main stairwells, Serhis looked for any sign of Iskdiwercaesin among the many he passed, attracting looks of his own as he ran. When he reached the level of the common room, he half expected to be running into a fight between the green dragon and the troll guards that blocked the way to Dianekesswhedabkeari's inner sanctum. All he found was the usual activities of sorcerer's practicing their skills, scribes filling out scrolls, and of the heavy bustle of people moving about their business. Confused, he scanned the crowd, doubts creeping in that maybe Iskdiwercaesin hadn't went down to do battle with Dianekesswhedabkeari, making him consider what else the wyrmling would be doing by leaving their room without telling anyone. He was starting to feel embarrassed if Iskdiwercaesin had gone out to answer the call of nature and they had all panicked about it until he looked at the alcove they had used as a meeting place. Standing there and looking at the guarded gate was a lone kobold. Cautiously, Serhis approached.

Staring out across the common room towards the gate, Iskdiwercaesin's thoughts were heavily occupied enough that he didn't noticed Serhis coming towards him until the kobold was already next to him. Blinking in surprise, he nodded at Serhis. "... what are you doing up?"

"I could ask the same of you," Serhis said in exasperation. "Everyone woke when you went out, you gave us a bad shock." To that, Iskdiwercaesin didn't answer, his eyes turned from Serhis back to the gate, past the trolls and trying to look past solid metal. "Iskdi," Serhis kept in mind the green dragon's semi-assumed name, "we should go. The other are getting worried."

"... worried about me, huh?" Iskdiwercaesin snorted and shook his head. With a sigh, he looked back at Serhis. "... you meant it when you said you all were my friends, didn't you? Even... even after I almost left you?"

Serhis was taken slightly aback at Iskdiwercaesin's openness, trying to comprehend what brought this about. "Of course I do. I meant what I said back on the mountain and I won't recant a single word about it."

Looking into the kobold's face, Iskdiwercaesin believed every word of it as well. His mind was roiling with so many emotions, his rage at Dianekesswhedabkeari, his envy of the city around them, and now, that he now truly believed that he had true friends for once, friends that weren't there simply to use him. That could still forgive him after his abandonment, even as temporary as it was. With every emotion touched in some way, the only thing he could feel in the end was weariness. As strong as he wanted to be, as tough as he tried to make himself appear, there was no getting around that he was five years old, a wyrmling, a child thrown into something that even adults were hesitant to face, and yet he had to face all the hardships no matter what. He was a child that understood for almost all of his life that he would be alone, given what could be considered the barest minimum of parenting, and that he had to be independent eventually. Now, he found that he had true friends. Not one, but many, a whole group that he could know trust, where he could remain safe. He had been scared of that. As much as he wanted to explain it to himself, he couldn't, all of his fears seemed so irrational when he examined them now, when he finally came to the point that he accepted that he could have friends. The only thing he could think was that he had been scared to trust because of the risk of betrayal. Except, he had been the one to leave them and betray their trust instead, only for them to still accept him afterwards. It only made him feel even more conflicted.

"Thanks."

Tilting his head towards Iskdiwercaesin, Serhis looked at the green dragon curiously. It sounded so strange to him that he should be thanked for something simple as that. Even more so, it sounded strange coming from Iskdiwercaesin. The wyrmling had barely, if ever, said thanks for anything. The closest he'd ever done so was when they were by the lighthouse in Arcwell and even that was more of a hypothetical one. Iskdiwercaesin was simply not the sort to show thanks for anything. In all honesty he wasn't sure how to respond to the sudden expression of gratitude. "No need to-"

"Oh stuff your humility for once and just take it," Iskdiwercaesin huffed. It made Serhis pause, which then made him stop completely. "You're friends with a dragon, not exactly the most common thing in the planes. Show a little pride in it."

That made Serhis laugh a little. Even in his gratitude, Iskdiwercaesin found a way to bolster his ego by making his friendship and thanks seem like coveted things. Serhis couldn't say there weren't in truth. "Okay, I'll take your thanks."

"What was with the laugh?"

"Nothing, nothing," Serhis shook his head. Looking over at the gate as well, Serhis' mood turned somber again. "What were you doing coming down here by yourself and not telling anyone? Please tell me you weren't thinking of doing something rash."

Shrugging lightly, the dragon-kobold watched the gate and all the activity between it and him. "... not really. Good as I am, I know I'd need some help to get past that thing."

"Then... why did you come here?"

Iskdiwercaesin shrugged again, his eyes explaining things where words were absent. He simply didn't have a good reason.

"That's... not the best explanation."

"No, no it's not." Leaning against the wall of the alcove, Iskdiwercaesin shook his head. "I was hoping that he'd show his face again and start making another one of those big stupid speeches. At least when he's up there, he's away from all his guards and walls that he's hiding behind."

"But you'd only be able to surprise him for a little bit. Then there would be everyone around you and the trolls."

Iskdiwercaesin let out a weak sigh. It was wishful thinking, simple as that. "Yeah, I know. I just want to ruin his day, even for only a little moment."

Going over to Iskdiwercaesin, Serhis patted him on the shoulder, though he was getting concerned about the dragon's increasing desire at harming Dianekesswhedabkeari. "Iskdi, we'll stop him, you don't have to do things on your own."

"I don't want to just stop him," the dragon-kobold growled, though it sounded a bit strange in his new voice. "I want him to suffer. Then I want him dead."

"You don't need to do that."

"I want to," Iskdiwercaesin snarled at the kobold. "I can't let him get away with what he's taken from me."

As Iskdiwercaesin snarled at him, Serhis was about to take a step back... then stopped himself. If he kept letting Iskdiwercaesin's desire run rampant, the dragon's obsession had the potential not only to destroy his nemesis, but Iskdiwercaesin as well. Standing his ground, Serhis wouldn't back down this time. "You can't keep thinking about this," he said in a quiet voice.

"And why not? What do you care what I think?" Iskdiwercaesin focused his attention from the gate towards Serhis.

"It's not worth almost killing yourself to kill him. Iskdi, I'm getting worried about you."

The growling stopped. What hostility the dragon-kobold had felt towards Dianekesswhedabkeari which had shifted towards Serhis suddenly had nowhere to go. "Worried? What do you need to be worried about?" he said, his voice with only a fraction of the anger from before.

"... It's like it's almost all you think about lately."

"And there's something wrong with that?"

Serhis nodded his head. "Iskdi, you've been trying to push things for a while. I can understand why you feel like doing that, but when you heard that he was almost ready to attack, you've almost done some reckless things. Like when we were here earlier and he made his speech." He looked down at Iskdiwercaesin's palm, the scratches gone after being healed. "It's not worth killing yourself to get to him."

"You're not the one who had almost everything taken from him," Iskdiwercaesin's anger started to build up again. "Everything was going well for me. Then he took everything. The city that should have been mine. The minions that served me. My wings..." he glanced back, though now that he was a kobold, he didn't even have the stumps. "And almost my life. And what have I gotten back from him? Nothing but pain. I can't forget what he did, especially when my wings ache, when I have to ask you to get rid of the pain for me, so don't you dare tell me what I want."

Keeping his grip on Iskdiwercaesin's shoulder, Serhis nodded slightly. "I... understand that." Memories of fire, of a bloodied knife, of night of pain and the laugh of an orc ran through his mind, then he shook his head, pushing them back. He had to focus on what was happening, on the situation at hand. "But that doesn't mean I shouldn't be worried about you. I'm worried that you'll lose control and get yourself killed."

He could feel Iskdiwercaesin's shoulder tense under his grip. "Then what the hells do you expect me to do? Feel nothing? I can't do that," Iskdiwercaesin's said.

"No, no I can't ask you to do that, I know," Serhis sighed. "But... I'm asking that you please, please, think of your life. That you think about your life without Dianekesswhedabkeari in it, whether be alive or not. Can you please focus on those things?"

For a long moment, Iskdiwercaesin was still and said nothing. It began to trouble Serhis, he was about to ask what was wrong when the dragon-kobold stirred. "... I... I haven't really been thinking about anything after I kill him." What disquiet Serhis felt before only deepened. He couldn't ask anything, he felt he already knew the answer and he wasn't eager to hear it, though Iskdiwercaesin saw the comprehension on his face, quelling his rage for a moment. "... It was that bad, huh?"

"Yes, that's really bad," Serhis gripped Iskdiwercaesin's other shoulder, his face looking into the other's. "You mean you haven't been thinking about your future at all?"

"I guess not," Iskdiwercaesin muttered.

"What about Tiichi de Soves?" Serhis glanced to his side, checking if anyone had been close enough to listen, but everyone was still working on whatever tasks they were committed to.

"Yeah, I still want to rule this place once I've kicked him out of his little throne."

"But you don't know what to really do with it, do you? You just want the city because it's his?"

"Pretty much," Iskdiwercaesin shrugged, his shoulders raising and falling in Serhis' claws. Turning his head to the side, he also looked out at the bustling activity in the common room, his attention now on the kobolds at their work rather than the gate.

"Well..." Serhis tried to think about something to say in this situation. He'd been raised to accept dragons as their masters and superiors, yet after so long traveling with Iskdiwercaesin, as strong, intelligent and wise as they were, they were still fallible to the same emotions and feelings everyone else had. He also wasn't sure if having the whole of Tiichi de Soves become the Iskdiwercaesin's was for the best either, he wasn't sure if the green dragon would see the inhabitants as more than minions to fulfill his own ambitions, though at the same time Dianekesswhedabkeari was already doing as much. "... I have to ask, what would you do if you commanded Tiichi de Soves?"

"I haven't thought too much about it like I said... I just wanted Dianekesswhedabkeari gone," looked about the common room as it was the first time he had really seen it.

"What have you thought of so far at least? Or what you are thinking right now?"

"... I don't know," Iskdiwercaesin sighed, another admission that he normally wouldn't have said aloud. "I guess keep the mines running? Get myself an even bigger hoard than before while I protect the city?"

"I think that's something you'd do no matter what. What I'm asking is how you'd lead the city, how do you want it to grow and thrive?" Serhis didn't want to push Iskdiwercaesin into answering such difficult questions, but he felt he needed to. Anything that made him start thinking past a single event would be needed.

Iskdiwercaesin looked at Serhis, then back to the common room as he took a deep breath, then let out a sigh. "I said I don't know. I'll have to have some time to think about it."

"Take your time then," Serhis then nodded over to the stairwell. "We should get back to the others, the longer we're gone the more they're going to get worried."

"Right, right, you're all worried about me." As Iskdiwercaesin turned to move out of the alcove, Serhis' grip tightened slightly at his shoulders. "What the-?" His question was answered quickly as Serhis gave him a tight hug, though it didn't really explain much. "Uh, Serhis, what are you doing?"

After a moment, Serhis stepped back, letting go of the wyrmling. "Proving that I care, that I worry about you for a reason." If Iskdiwercaesin was in his true form, he wasn't sure he'd have the courage to do something so bold.

"Was that to show it somehow?" Iskdiwercaesin asked with some confusion.

"How else was I supposed to show it?" Serhis said.

Iskdiwercaesin shrugged. "Eh, if that's what you feel like," he replied. "I've never been given one of those gestures before."

"What, you mean you've never been hugged like that before?" Serhis asked in further surprise, to which the response was a shake of the head. He'd been given hugs before, but those were out of gratitude than pure friendship. He could understand how few would dare ever hug a dragon, but that the wyrmling had never been given any sign of affection more than a hug made him pity the dragon.

"Felt nice though," Iskdiwercaesin admitted, his thoughts finally turning away from revenge, at least for a little while. As Serhis smiled at that, Iskdiwercaesin raised a claw. "But don't do that again without asking me first."

"Noted," Serhis nodded as they made their way back up the stairwell. Perhaps the best sign of that night was when Iskdiwercaesin didn't look back as they went up.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Waiting in their room, the group sat and held in a nervous energy. It was amazing that they got any decent amount of sleep that night to fuel that energy. When Serhis and Iskdiwercaesin returned, they were lucky that they knocked before they came in or they would have walked into the ambush that had been laid out for any other intruders. Serhis was certain that Baous, Xet, and Rhasalis wouldn't have attacked right as they opened the door to see who it was, but it was best to be safe. After shutting the door behind them, the rest of the group asked Serhis and Iskdiwercaesin where the dragon had gone and why, to which the wyrmling replied that he went down to watch if Dianekesswhedabkeari had left his lair again. After some brief explanations, Iskdiwercaesin dropped himself back on his bed and bade everyone a good night. The others then returned to their own beds, though after helping Baous and Rhasalis take off their armor after they had so quickly put it on. Eventually, everyone had settled down back to the state before, which was still the tense rest of before, wary of any suspicious sound.

Now it was morning and they had started the first part of their plan. And that was to wait.

"Do you think they'll be there?" Xet wondered.

"I don't know, but we'll give Baous the time to find out," Serhis shrugged. They had thought about all of them going out to meet the group of hatchmates that Baous had made friends with and talk to them about their help, but they thought better of it. If they all went out, it would attract attention if they were loitering near the farms for no discernible reason and it might deter the kids from approaching. Since they knew that the group was up to something to disrupt Dianekesswhedabkeari's plans, seeing the group together might cause them to think that they were doing something in the farm and cause them to stay out of it. Baous had went out to try and meet them again, hoping that they would try and talk to him again in their spare time. Nearly an hour had passed since he had gone. "I should have gone out with him," Serhis said. "At least if something happened, I could use a sending spell."

"Yeah, and if something happened, we sure would be able to do something when we're separated and have half an irate city to go through," Iskdiwercaesin's voice was muffled, but that was because of the sheets as he was still in bed. As a precaution, they had the wyrmling hide in the event that someone else asides from Baous and the hatchmates came in. Normally, he wouldn't have minded the chance to get a little extra sleep, but the fact that he had to hide irritated him enough to keep him awake and annoyed. He could have used the wand to stay out, but they couldn't waste the energy in the wand if nothing did happen and the sheets were a decent enough substitute.

Rhasalis already had her armor on as she sat by the edge of the bed, a throwing dagger in her claws as she watched the door. "If they're not here in an hour, we can get Baous and make our way to the storage area without their distraction. We can use-," her suggestion was quickly silenced when there was a knock on the door. "Who is it?"

"It's me and they're with me," Baous voice came through the door. Serhis breathed a sigh of relief as he went to the door to unlock it as well as to take away the snare behind it, though Rhasalis and Xet still covered the door in the meanwhile. When he was done, he opened the door for them. As Serhis stepped aside to let them in, Baous motioned for the group to follow and the group of six filed in.

Where the room had been lacking space already with only three beds, four kobolds, one of which being twice as big as any other kobold, and a dragon occupied the place, adding six more inside made sure that any chance of anyone having some personal space was simply gone. Shutting the door behind them, Serhis turned to face the group of fellow hatchmates. "Did Baous tell you why he wanted you all to meet with us?"

One of the kobolds nodded. "Uh huh. He said you needed our help with something?"

"Yep, we need your help with something important," Baous replied. "I guess I should introduce you all to my friends. You already know Serhis," to which the kids all nodded emphatically, "and these are his hatchmates, Rhasalis and Xet." Rhasalis had palmed her dagger when they had come through the door, the both of them nodded politely to the children. "And... where's Iskdiwercaesin?"

"I'm here." With a huff, the dragon threw off the sheets covering him, apparently his reveal was dramatic enough to make the kids squeal in excitement and awe as they had come face to face with a dragon. "Took you long enough, it was getting stuffy in there."

"I didn't know you had to hide like that and besides, I didn't know how when they were going to talk to me again," Baous replied. "Everyone, this is Jiyir, Navihie, Quilias, Mertal, Ayit, and Reatxil." All of the hatchmates greeted one another, a cacophony of greetings filling the room for a moment before everyone quieted down.

Of course, by that time the young hatchmates all had turned their attention to Iskdiwercaesin. "Can we... talk to you?" Jiyir asked. It was one thing to have a dragon talking at them as he gave a speech, but for the hatchmates, it was a unique experience being able to talk to a dragon face to face.

"You can," Iskdiwercaesin replied, feeling a little pleased that he was able to command respect like that. Admittedly, they were children, but since they were barely two to three years younger than him, it still mattered on some level to the wyrmling.

"Wow, you're Iskdiwercaesin? You fought our master above Tiichi de Soves?" Reatxil's voice was filled with awe and fear.

Iskdiwercaesin frowned slightly as he heard that and looked at Baous, "so you told them stuff other than the important things, huh?" to which the canine kobold only shrugged. His ruined wings twitching slightly, he sighed and nodded. "Yeah, I did. He might have surprised me once, but he's not going to be getting the chance to do that again when I have get a rematch with him."

Hearing the conversation turning towards a subject he had helped Iskdiwercaesin get out of last night, he tried to get back to the main topic. "We wanted to ask you to do something for us. Asking, we're not demanding you help us if you don't want to."

The large group of hatchmates looked at one another, a sense of unease creeping in. They may have been eager to offer their help to Baous yesterday, but it carried a sense of mischief and some of the things they said weren't said in all seriousness. Now that they had been asked to do something, it made them realize that they might have gotten involved in something far bigger than they thought.

"W-what do you want us to do?" Jiyir asked with trepidation and then looked at Baous. "Did you want us to really blow something up?"

"Oh no. No no no no," he quickly shook his head. "I meant it when I said I don't want to put you in any danger or get you in trouble. We need you do something else for us."

"We want you to be a distraction so we can get into the storage area without anyone seeing us," Rhasalis said.

Some of the tension in the group was lifted, but not all of it. "What sort of distraction? What are you going to do?" Ayit asked.

"Any sort of distraction you can think of. As long as it doesn't bring more people in or causes way too much trouble, that's all we need. What we're going to do is to destroy as much of the equipment in the armory as we can," Serhis answered.

Again, the unease lifted a bit from the group when they heard the plan. "You only want us to do that and nobody will get hurt? I guess that's okay," Navihie said.

"But... do you really need us to help? Can't you make a distraction for yourselves?" Mertal asked.

"We could, but that might mean one of us might get seen while we do it. A lot of people are going to be very suspicious that we were around when something happens near the armory," Rhasalis explained. "When we make our getaway, we can't have someone trying to stop us for questioning."

"I suppose that makes sense," Reatxil shrugged. "But... why us?"

"Because Baous here figured he could trust you enough to tell you everything," Iskdiwercaesin grumbled, "and since you know, all of you would be the only ones we could ask. Are you going to help us or not?"

The group of hatchmates conferred amongst themselves for a bit, speaking in low toned whispers. Each passing moment made the others more nervous, it meant that someone wasn't entirely in support of giving their aid. Eventually, they broke from their huddle.

"Can we ask you one more thing?" Quilias spoke up.

"You might as well, we've already been answering everything else," Iskdiwercaesin shrugged.

"What's going to happen after you do that?" Jiyir asked.

"... We don't exactly know," Serhis admitted hesitantly. "All we can do for the moment is to stall Dianekesswhedabkeari's invasion as long as we can, at least until we have more time to prepare."

"Prepare for what?"

"What else? Getting my revenge on him. He'll pay for what he did to me," Iskdiwercaesin growled, making Serhis hope that the green dragon still remembered what they had talked about last night. For once, it seemed like he did as the wyrmling calmed down, if only slightly.

Jiyir shook his head. "I mean what's going to happen after that. Are you going to be the one that's going to keep us safe? Are you going to be the new master if you do? What's going to happen to us then?"

Taken aback, Serhis was surprised that such a young child could comprehend such long term and huge things and he wasn't the only one. Iskdiwercaesin's mouth was somewhat ajar as he tried to come up with an answer, its similarity to the question Serhis asked him the night startling. "... well, I wouldn't go out conquering the surface just because I felt like it for starters."

"Does that mean you'll make things the way there were before?" Mertal asked, a bit of hope in her voice.

"I don't know how things were before, so I can't say for sure."

"Iskdiwercaesin..." Serhis got the dragon's attention, as well as everyone else's. "Do you really want Tiichi de Soves? Would you know what to do if you did take command?"

Green eyes meet gold, their gazes held for several seconds. "I want to be able to do something. I'm tired of not making decisions for myself, so yes, I want to."

There was an awkward pause in the room, no one sure what to say at this point. It was Jiyir that spoke what he thought. "If... if that's the case, we'll help you..." The group was about to relax when Jiyir continued, "... if we can get something for it."

Serhis examined Jiyir curiously wondering what a bunch of young kobolds would want. Having been one himself, he recalled what things he had wanted then. It couldn't be gold or silver, most of what they needed was already provided by their caregivers and masters and most of what they wanted like treats and rewards were also given by them. Money wouldn't get them any more of those and it would likely create suspicion of where they had gotten it and he seriously doubted they'd do something so serious simply for candy. Unless what they wanted was small, that also presented the same problem of their masters questioning where they had gotten it if they saw it, but at least it could be explained as a gift rather than a reward. If he had to guess, the most likely thing they could want would be a favor of some sort. He didn't need to guess when he could simply ask. "What do you want?"

"We want to see the surface."

A wave of memories washed over the trio of hatchmates, of the crazed moments of their lives when their own adventures could have considered to have started. They might be just ten years old going on eleven, but the nostalgia was no less strong, as well as the memories of the moments of panic. They didn't get the urge for adventure until they were five, about a year older than the Tiichi de Soves' hatchmates were now, though Serhis understood that after all the stories that Baous had told them, their own spirits for adventure would have been kindled by the tales. He only hoped they didn't mean that they wanted to go up for an extended period of time.

"So that's it, you just want to see the surface?" Iskdiwercaesin asked incredulously. "Well, I suppose for what you're doing, that's fair, but we can't bring you up now, we've got to deal with our plans now.

"But when you make all that trouble, won't that mean you won't be able to take us to the surface because you have to leave?" Mertal asked.

"Yeah... then when can you bring us to the surface?" Navihie asked. For those in the room, the discomfort began to grow as it seemed to be a promise that couldn't be kept.

In the silence, it was Baous that bridged the gap between both groups. "I suppose... when we come back, we'll do it then."

"When you come back?" Jiyir looked at the canine perplexed.

"We have to come back if we want to stop Dianekesswhedabkeari for good. Can you wait until then, please?"

"But won't Master Dianekesswhedabkeari be looking for you then? How can you get us to the surface then without being seen?"

"He won't be a problem," Iskdiwercaesin said, "because by then, I'll be the one in charge. If that's what you want, than that an easy enough promise to make."

"I guess that's true..." Jiyir still sounded uncertain.

"Great, now can we finally-"

"... but I want one more promise if you're going to be our new master."

"... you're really pushing me, you know that?" Iskdiwercaesin growled. "So what do you want?"

"It's only a promise you can keep if you become our master, so it's not too bad," Jiyir pointed out. "Well, what we want is, I know you said you can't make things the way before, like bringing All-Watcher Gixbias back and all that, but can you please promise that you won't be like Master Dianekesswhedabkeari?"

It started slow, like a pot gradually coming to a boil. Then, it burst out, a loud, uproarious laughter that came from deep inside his lungs as Iskdiwercaesin almost rolled over in his bed. When it finally stopped, all the kobolds were probably a lot more uneasy than any time before as they wonder what had come over the dragon. When he finally got some air into his lungs, he grinned at the group. "So that's the promise you want me to keep huh? Fine, that's one I'd have made even if you hadn't asked. I'll never, ever be like that scumbag. Not even when I'm a thousand years old will I ever be like him." Leaning forwards, he extended a claw towards the group, "a shake to seal the promise?"

Extremely nervous, Jiyir reached forwards first, then the rest of his hatchmates as well, each both frightened and excited that they would actually be able to touch a dragon. "It's a promise," he said as he and the others held onto the claw.

"Good," Iskdiwercaesin shook once, affirming the promise. "We better get started then. Before anyone else comes up with a new thing I have to do."

Rhasalis raised her claw to get everyone's attention. "Then the first thing we have to do is determine how all of you can be our decoys. I'm sure you can start a ruckus of some sort, but I think we need something more than that to get the ones in front of the armory away from their posts."

"Oh, that's easy. There are three grown-ups there, right?" Quilias asked.

"That's what I saw when I went through there," Rhasalis nodded.

"Then leave it to us, we can get them out of the way," Reatxil announced confidently.

"But how would you do that?"

"Simple, we just talk to them," Jiyir said. "We're all apprentices, so they won't mind teaching us a few things. We can ask them to teach us about how they work, so they might bring us to their office to explain things. And if they won't, we can think up of other stuff."

"If you're so sure of that, I can go with it," Rhasalis was reticent to let it be so simple and let their backup be equally as flimsy, but if simple worked, then it would be enough to get them inside.

"Then is everyone ready?" Serhis asked as he looked around and everyone nodded their heads. Standing up from the bed, he motioned for Baous to open the door since he was the closest and none of them could really move. As the door unlatched, Iskdiwercaesin concentrated on the wand in has claws and was ready to go out. With the way open, everyone filed out and into the hallway.

The large group walked down the main stairwell, moving towards the armory of Tiichi de Soves. As they neared the area, they slowed and prepared themselves.

As they stood in the passage way just before the armory, Baous turned and kneeled to talk to the kids, his face serious. "After you distract them, get out of here as fast as you can. Get someplace safe."

"Don't go near the entrance, avoid the main stairwells, and make sure to stay in someplace that has good ventilation," Rhasalis advised. "Do you have someplace to hide until this is all over?"

"We have a few hiding spots," Ayit said.

"Are there any that are close by?"

Smiling, Ayit shook her head. "It wouldn't be a good hiding spot if we told you."

"Smart," Rhasalis smiled back as she double checked to make sure she had all of her equipment ready. "Okay, go for it."

As the kids went into the armory, the group went around the next corner, towards a spot that Rhasalis had picked out earlier as an area where few people passed through in an effort to keep their profile to a minimum. From there, they could hear Jiyir calling out to the three working the front of the armory, but little more than that. Waiting around nervously, Serhis looked at Baous and Iskdiwercaesin, the two likely having the keenest hearing of the group. He could see Baous' ears perked, twitching once or twice. "Do you hear anything?"

"Shh," Iskdiwercaesin hushed him. "I can barely make out what they're saying." After a moment of silence, he looked at Baous who then nodded back. "They're moving away."

After waiting a minute more to be safe, the group rounded the corner, back into the hallway, and into the armory. Just as the kids had said, they had managed to get the three working there to go away. Rushing forward to the door, Rhasalis sighed as she tried to open it. "As I figured, locked. Someone keep a lookout while I get it open."

Xet stood at near the hallway, he was the one to keep watch since everyone else would have attracted attention if they were spotted. For a minute, all they could hear were the sounds of Rhasalis' lockpicks scrapping against metal.

"How long is this going to take?" Iskdiwercaesin asked.

"Just a moment more," Rhasalis whispered, her breathing slowed as much as she could force herself to as she edged the lock closer to opening. Seeing as they were breaking into an armory, there was no doubt that the iron cast door would be of good quality.

*click*

"There, that did it," Rhasalis hastily packed up her tools and swung the iron door open. "Go, go." Ushering everyone past the door, she gently closed it, sealing themselves in.

Now inside, they could see the full extent of Dianekesswhedabkeari's ambitions. Crates upon crates stacked nearly five meters high lined the room, rows of weapons and armor in racks extended into the darkness, and there were many, many rows.

"How big of an army did he want to make?" Baous said, not expecting an answer.

"If I had to guess, there's enough stuff here to supply an army of five hundred," Iskdiwercaesin provided an answer anyway. "If he waited some more, he'd probably have gotten twice that," the dragon pointed over to the far side of the armory, the weapon racks there were empty.

Doing some quick and messy math, Serhis did not like the end result of the equation he was getting. The nearest town of Lusion probably had fifty professional soldiers at best, the town was at peace and there was no news of any kind of marauding army nearby. If he included a local militia or there was conscription, the number could have easily swelled to three hundred, but those two hundred and fifty wouldn't be as skilled or equipped as the other soldiers. That all depended on them being prepared at all. If Dianekesswhedabkeari could make his attack, there wouldn't be any time to rally those troops. The walls of the town would invariably slow down the attack, but he knew that the black dragon would have prepared for that and would have set events in motion that would make any advantages those walls would give negligible, the siege engines at the front were proof of that. If the master of Tiichi de Soves had so wanted, he could split his army in two and attack another town and would still have enough to take both. The facts simply were that Dianekesswhedabkeari had months of preparation to attack an unsuspecting surface.

The fact was that they were here to undo as much of it as they could.

"Time to go with the plan, one of these crates should have a supply of oil in it," Serhis said as he moved to take off the lid of the nearest crate. His first pick wasn't on the mark, the one he had opened contained tools such as pickaxes and shovels. The others began searching through the other crates as well, finding other supplies needed in the maintenance and upkeep of an army. Bedrolls, canvas, chains, buckets, kits to maintain weapons and armor, tents, wads of cotton and wool, pots and pans. Looking through it all, Serhis wondered how much of it had been produced here and what other things had been traded for, the irony that Lusion might have supplied the army that would attack them wasn't lost on the cleric.

"Hey! Everyone over here!" His voice echoing through the room and distorted behind the stacks of crates, Xet's call wasn't panicked, so it didn't sound as if he had run into trouble, though he did sound very excited.

"What is it? Did you find the oil?" Baous' own voice was distant, his own search having taken him to a far corner of the room.

"No, it's not oil."

"Then what is it? It had better be important," Iskdiwercaesin's response echoed through the chamber as well, though the distortion was weakening as everyone began moving towards Xet's voice.

Standing next to a pair of open crates, Xet was leaning over one, fishing something from inside. "It's even better than oil." As he stood back up, he was holding a bag, a familiar draconic word written on it. "Alchemist's fire, we won't have to worry about getting close to set the oil on fire. This whole crate is full of the stuff."

"Ah... you want to be careful and not drop it then," Serhis cautioned. The thing about alchemist's fire was that the chemicals involved would ignite as soon as it touched air, the bags that were meant to carry the chemicals were sturdy enough to be handled somewhat roughly, but were purposefully weak enough to burst out when thrown, making it handy for entrenched foes

"Serhis, I know, I've been burned by it before," Xet replied, though the last time he had been burned was when he was an apprentice and he was hasty taking the alchemist's fire out.

"I know, I just mean if the whole box is full of it, it's going to do more than just burn you," Serhis looked inside the wooden container. The insides were lined with copper, a precaution incase such a thing did happen, but anyone nearby was going to feel the heat no matter what.

Shrugging, Xet nodded over to the next box. "Believe me, I'm going to be very careful with what is in this once.

Peering over the lid of the next crate, everyone else immediately took a step back. From top to bottom, it had been stuffed with ditherbomb spheres and enough straw to pad them. There was no copper plating for this box, if it blew, the plating would only be turned into shrapnel.

"That's... that's a lot of ditherbombs in there," Baous said as he took another step back.

"Yes... and Xet was right. This is better than oil," Rhasalis carefully picked one out of the container, her claws gripping it tight. "If we had used only oil, it would have taken a long time to spread it out. With these, we can set one down and blow up a whole shipment of supplies quickly. We also won't have to toss a torch into each patch of oil, if we set them all right, the explosion from one can set off another."

With extreme care, everyone took a number of ditherbombs and laid out how they were going to place them around the room. Rhasalis had originally planned to use one of their own ditherbombs to blow open an exit in one of the walls, but now that they had the opportunity to time the explosion for later instead of immediately running when the fire was set, they figured that they could leave the way they came after setting it all up.

"The rope and candle trick should work. It'll be quick to set up," Rhasalis said as she took some rope out of one of the crates they had searched. By this point, the group had picked through some of the crates to supply themselves since everything else was meant to be destroyed anyway. Coiling the rope around the ditherbomb, she hung it high enough so that when she set a lit candle underneath, the resulting drop would cause it to explode, causing two other nearby ditherbombs to detonate. All around, each ditherbomb was paired with a bag of alchemist's fire. When the resulting conflagration was over, it would be a sure thing that the entire armory supply would be ruined. As well as the armory itself. "Is everyone ready?" she asked, holding the wax candle, the light casting long shadows around everybody as it was the only one in the room. When everyone nodded, she set it underneath the rope.

"Time for us to go," Iskdiwercaesin said as he and the others turned to leave. Approaching the exit, they felt a brief gust of wind, like a draft had blown through the room, the flame on the candle flickering slightly.

Everyone froze. "What was that?" Baous asked in a whisper, so low that barely anyone could hear. As if in answer, they could hear many pairs of clawed feet from near the exit of the armory. There were voices, kobolds talking to one another.

"Hide, hide!" Serhis said urgently. He didn't need to say anything at all as they all bent down behind a row of crates, the tops of their heads looking about for the source of the voices.

"-ipment of supplies is to be moved to the staging area, at least half of it should be there when our shift is over. Then, the next shift will bring the rest up," they could hear a foreman direct the incoming group.

"Uh oh..." Iskdiwercaesin quietly muttered as he bent down very low, his knees on the floor. "Great, interruptions. New plan?"

Before anyone could say anything, let alone have time to think of a new plan, a cry of alarm rang out through the armory. "Aah! What's a ditherbomb doing on that crate?!" "Wha-?! There's a bag of alchemist's fire with it!" "There's a pair of them over here!" "There's more over here this side too!" That was it, their scheme had been found.

"The new plan is we go back to the old one," Rhasalis began moving back towards the center of the armory, towards the starter pair. The others blinked in surprise for moment, then ran to keep up with her.

By the time they reached the center of the armory, the candle had burned halfway through the rope. As Rhasalis came up to the rope, instead of taking the rope away from the burning candle, she cut the weakened rope with her dagger as she ran. Serhis felt as if his stomach was dropping with the ditherbomb and it landing with an equally disturbing thud as the sphere bounced on the group.

"Keep running!" Rhasalis urged in a strange mix of a hushed yell over her shoulder, her pace never slowing as she ran deeper into the armory. The others likely didn't need such urging as they kept up with her to get away from the resulting explosion. They had five to twenty seconds before the shocked chemicals would mix, then blow up, and they would spend every single one getting as far away as they could before that happened.

They got only six.

The blast rammed into each of their backs, the heat grazing scales and fur. Then, the secondary detonations blew as the first touched off the nearby pair of ditherbombs. The results of those were far worse than the first as they blew up next to the bags of alchemist's fire, so that not only would the force of the explosion wreck destruction, but would also spray the burning liquid out in a wide area, touching off more flames. The group would keep running before those explosions set off the next set.

Turning to look over his shoulder, Serhis glanced to see what the workers at the far side of the room were doing. At first, they had been running towards the explosion the first ditherbomb had made, but when the second ones erupted, they quickly realized that the whole place had been set to blow and were making haste towards the door. The only door.

"We need an exit!" Rhasalis yelled out as they saw the far end of the armory get closer.

"I got it I got it," Xet yelled as he took one of the ditherbombs out of his bag. They had originally planned to use one of their own to make their escape, though the amount they found gave them plenty to spare, and the thought had been that they would have enough time for the ditherbomb to trigger as the armory burned. Now that the plan had been modified so that the flames were spread by explosive force, that cut down on their time considerably. As Xet was about to shake it for use, everything went numb.

Blinking to clear his eyes and wonder why he was suddenly on his front on the floor, Serhis pushed himself up, feeling sore and battered, fearful that the ditherbomb his hatchmate wanted to use had blown up in his face. "X-Xet?!" His hearing had also been deafened, what had felt to him like shouting his lungs out sounded to him as if it had passed through a clump of wool stuffed in his mouth.

"I- I'm okay!" Xet yelled from nearby, sounding equally muffled. Also picking himself up, he still had the ditherbomb in his claws, so it wasn't that which had knocked them down.

"Uuugh," Baous groaned as he shifted from the floor, his armor clanking on stone as he moved. "Is everyone okay?"

"No, not in the least," Iskdiwercaesin rose unsteadily to his feet, still unused to standing and walking on two feet. "Okay is when we're not about to get turned into roasted, tenderized steaks. What was that?!"

"It could have been another box of ditherbombs." Shaking her head, Rhasalis looked back with the others to see a huge swath of destruction that had been centered on one area, a section of the armory had caved in and simply turned into rubble.

As they stood up to get their bearings, another ditherbomb exploded nearby, continuing the chain. "Make with that ditherbomb Xet, fast!" Iskdiwercaesin demanded.

Doing his best to comply, the kobold sorcerer was about to shake the sphere when Rhasalis held his arm. "Don't throw it at that wall, use it over there!" she pointed to a much further spot. "We can't leave that way, the tunnel we wanted to use could have collapsed."

It was another delay they could ill afford, but if she was right, haste would also get them killed eventually. As they moved to the indicated spot while the armory disintegrated around them, Xet shook the sphere hard, then lobbed it over.

The next few seconds were tense and punctuated with sporadic *booms*. Where they had wanted the first ditherbomb to be as delayed as possible, this one they wanted to have detonate as fast as possible, but this one was taking its time, much to their agony.

After ten seconds, Xet had had enough. "It's taking too long!" his voice filled with frustration as he pointed his finger at the sphere and sent a bolt of energy into it, forcing it to explode and showering everyone with stone chips and dust. Though the haze of the dust cloud, they could see an opening at the corner of the room, one that led both to the passageway on their level, but had also punched a hole in the floor that could bring them downwards.

Running over to the edge of the hole, Baous looked at the two potential ways to go. "Which way?!"

"Down! Don't stay on this level!" Rhasalis said as she jumped through the gap in the floor, the others scrambling to follow. The landing was rough as their feet hit the rubble of the floor, each of them stumbling to get out of the way before the next one jumped down and land on each other. Getting their bearings, they found themselves in a workshop, mercifully empty at this time, though that might have been because whoever was working here at the time had the good sense to leave after hearing the first or second explosion and had left the door ajar.

Speeding out of the invitingly open door and into the corridors of Tiichi de Soves, they followed the original plan as best they could, they didn't need to slow down to ask each other where to go or what was their next move. Rather than taking the nearest stairwell, they made way towards the next nearest one. The closest one would be clogged by now as everyone nearby would respond to the emergency, trying to get through that crowd would have been far too difficult and their presence there would have again led to questions. At the very least, their modified plan had ensured that nearly all of Dianekesswhedabkeari's war stocks would have been eliminated. Had it only been with fire, the fire crews would have had time to extinguish the blaze, but since they had planted ditherbombs, no one could risk entering the armory without getting blown up. Hopefully, the ones heading to the scene wouldn't try to rush in and grab them.

As they ran towards the stairwell, they went past several kobolds, some of which gave them curious looks, but no one stopped them as they reached the steps. Heading upwards, they would pass through the staging area and leave the city. If they found an opportunity to destroy the catapults and trebuchets as well, so much the better, but their primary objective had been accomplished and they had to focus on leaving. Even as they went up the flight of steps, they could still here the dull *thump* of another ditherbomb going off and once as they were halfway up, a knee buckling quake that made them stumble, likely another crate of ditherbombs finishing things up. It had to have been finished, as they heard nothing else as they reached the top.

As they figured, the staging area was in an uproar, everyone moving to do something in the current crisis, orders being shouted in the din of the chamber. So far, the orders they could hear were mostly about assembling and preparing, but the ones issuing the orders had little idea what they were preparing for and there were already enough crews at the scene to handle the situation, any more and they would be getting in each other's way. That meant the group would pass rank upon rank of assembled soldiers as they went towards the exit, trying not to look too out of place and feeling hundreds of eyes look at them.

At this point, Baous dearly wished he had drunk one of those potions to make himself look like a reptilian kobold. However, entering with a canine kobold and leaving with a reptilian one would have drawn even more questions.

As they neared the exit to the city, a familiar soldier at the gate noticed them as they approached, the captain turning to meet them. "What are you doing up here?" he asked. Much to their hidden relief, he asked the question in a tone of curiosity rather than suspicion.

"We would like to leave the city now, it sounds like something happened and we don't want to stay to be a bother to you," Serhis replied.

The captain shook his head. "I'm sorry, but you can't leave."

"But why?" Iskdiwercaesin half asked, half demanded, hiding his fear that they had been found out.

"Master Dianekesswhedabkeari has ordered the city sealed, no one is allowed in or out until he and All-Watcher Hest can deal with the accident on the storage level."

A small measure of relief was felt by Serhis, but also a deep foreboding dread. He hadn't expected for Dianekesswhedabkeari's orders to move that quickly, the black dragon likely had a method he hadn't learned about or was using the same sending spells to deliver messages for emergencies like this. The one word that caught his attention was "accident", they still thought it was a bad turn of events. However, once the workers that had been in the armory spoke about how they say the ditherbombs and bags of alchemist's fire set up, that impression wasn't going to last and getting trapped in the city was not going to end well. In the list of possible suspects, the names would be short and they would be at the top of the list. "We don't want the All-Watcher to worry about us, it'd be disrespectful for us to remain here as his guests while he has more important matters," Serhis replied diplomatically.

Again, the captain shook his head. "I can't, the way is sealed. Anyone going through here would have to walk through the activated traps and I can't risk the safety of the city to let you leave early. If you're concerned about the All-Watcher, I'll have a runner go to him and let him know you're alright, but you should return to your quarters in the meantime until this is all sorted out. I'm sure the All-Watcher will send someone to let you know when you can leave."

Unable to push the issue any further without getting confrontational, Serhis could only nod. Getting more insistent didn't seem like it would work on the captain and irking the captain in front of half an assembled army sounded nothing like a good idea. "You don't need to do that. We'll see him ourselves when things calm down." Bowing to the captain, Serhis and the others went back towards the main stairwell.

Now things had gone bad enough to ask. "What do we do next?" Baous asked.

"We find another way out," Iskdiwercaesin pointed out the obvious. There wasn't much else he could say aside from that, he had no detailed moves to speak of.

As they moved back towards the corridor they had come from, they noticed a familiar face waiting for them at the side of the entrance. It was Reatxil, looking around through the crowd and he had easily spotted Baous amongst the masses. As their gazes met for a moment, the young kobold nodded meaningfully before heading into the corridor at a slow pace, keeping to the side to avoid the crowd.

"What's he doing here?" Baous subtly gestured towards him, trying to avoid directly pointing him out. They had already done what they could to keep their activities disconnected from the young hatchmates to avoid implicating them, but now one had been purposefully waiting for them and seemed to want them to follow.

Not having the same height advantage that Baous had, Serhis took a moment to locate who he was talking about. "I thought we told them to stay away from here."

"So he's ignoring our advice, what else do you need to ask?" Iskdiwercaesin sarcastically pointed out the obvious.

"I think what he means is why he wants us to follow him," Xet said as the young kobold looked back for a moment to make sure he hadn't lost them.

"We're going to find out and hope it's important. We to find a way to leave quickly, we can't stay around if it's not," Rhasalis said.

Keeping pace with Reatxil while also maintaining their distance, he turned and faced a door. Knocking once, he waited for a while before knocking twice before the door opened for him. He quickly made his way in and the door shut behind him before the others could catch up.

"I think he wanted us to see that," Rhasalis motioned for them to stop. "Let's wait a bit." For a while, they stood a fair distance from the door, her intent was that by that time, anyone who had seen Reatxil entering would have gone by then. When she was satisfied that no one had stuck around to watch, they went towards the door and did the same knock. They could hear something wooden sliding past the door before it opened and when everyone had gotten inside, the wooden portal once again closed shut.

Reatxil had led them to another storage area, except this one was much smaller than the armory and instead of weapons and armor, contained more mundane items like buckets and mops. Aside from the cleaning items, there was also the whole group of young hatchmates again. Where they had been pensive before, the recent turn of events had left them shaken and jittery. For a moment, neither group spoke in the quiet of the broom closet and it was Iskdiwercaesin that got past the growing tension.

"What are you doing? Why'd you bring us here? We're trying to make a get-away," he spoke neutrally, masking his growing irritation and fear.

"We know, we know," Jiyir said as he braced a broom across the door, creating a makeshift lock and giving them the semblance of privacy.

"I guess this is one of your hiding places?" Rhasalis asked skeptically as she stood near the door, keeping an ear out for anyone who might want to get close and listen in if they got curious as to why a group of outsiders had walked into a random broom closet.

Ayit shook her head. "Nope, our other spots are a lot better than this one. We needed to get someplace close though."

"Close to what? The staging area? I thought we told you to stay away from there," Serhis said.

"Yeah, but then we heard that the city was going to be closed. We thought that they found out it was you and we wanted to warn you before you walked into Captain Marife's claws," Quilias explained while also giving the previously unknown captain's name. "That's why Reatxil was waiting for you."

"They sort of passed me when they came in, I tried to get them to see me but they kept going towards the gate. I thought they were caught for sure," the jittery kobold said, his usual overabundance of energy was almost making him hop on his toes from all the excitement, though it did make him talk in a rapid manner. "Then I saw them just talking, no one was swinging their swords and stuff around, they were just talking, then they started coming back towards me and saw me."

"Well, the warning was a little late, but thank you for trying," Serhis said to them. "But... why did you want to bring us here? We have to start looking for a way out before they learn it was us and start making a search."

"If you tell me that there's a hidden passageway in this closet that goes straight to the surface, I will personally give you all a pile of gold the size of yourselves," Iskdiwercaesin with a worrying degree of seriousness.

"Sorry, no," Navihie shook her head. "There is another way you can get out though."

"What? Seriously?" the green dragon blinked in surprise. "Don't just say it's there, tell us where it is."

"Uhm, well, what she meant to say was there might be a way out you could you," Mertal replied. "Like, as in, we're not too sure."

"Please tell us," Baous asked. "We don't have any other ways out."

"It's that... the miners finally reached low enough to get to the Underdark," Jiyir told them.

So there was a way out and it was through one of the most dangerous places in the world. It made Serhis seriously consider risk going through the gauntlet of traps and having an army chasing behind them all the way. "Please tell me there are other ways."

Jiyir shook his head. "Nuh uh, nope. Well, maybe there are, but I don't know of them."

The Underdark. A series of tunnels and caverns running underneath the surface of the world, vast almost without measure and hazardous even those native to those that live subterranean lives, only those hardy, brazen, foolish, or desperate would dare go into its depths. For the group, they fell within that last category. It was only Iskdiwercaesin that understood the full extent of the dangers they would face and he did not like what he was hearing. "So they willingly went that deep?" he asked incredulously.

"Master Dianekesswhedabkeari said that to get enough metal and stuff for the army, everyone needed to get to the parts that had lots of it," Ayit shrugged.

In a way, Iskdiwercaesin could understand the other dragon's logic. By reaching the tunnels of the Underdark, there was a good chance to reach veins of metals just by walking to them instead of digging and the resources the Underdark could provide were almost boundless, provided that they knew how to harvest them. It wouldn't just be metals like copper and iron, but also rarer things like mithril and adamantine, fungi with unique properties or more mystical materials. It was also very risky and could get someone killed. "So there's a way out, but we'd be running into a prison if we're not careful," he said skeptically. Not all of the Underdark was connected to each other, some parts weren't even connected to the surface at all except for one or two tunnels, if any. It was speculated that there were parts that had no contact to the surface at all, that there were pockets of caverns that were unique from the rest, each bearing its own strange and weird ecosystem. Iskdiwercaesin's concern was that the miners of Tiichi de Soves had dug their way into one of them and that if they attempted to leave by that route, there was no way back up.

"Oh no," Mertal shook her claws. "There's a way through to the surface. Master Dianekesswhedabkeari sent a big exploring party to map the new tunnels and they found one way out. When they came back, the people who work in the mines started digging again, making all sorts of walls and pits and stuff to make sure nothing from the Underdark or the surface tried to come up to our home."

"Great, so that way out is trapped too?" Iskdiwercaesin groaned.

"Not really so much yet, they've only started putting them in," Reatxil said. "I should know, my master has me running back and forth getting him tools and metals for the traps he's making for it."

That was one major concern that had turned into a minor one, but the problem about knowing the way was still there. "I guess you don't know which way that is, huh?" Baous sighed.

"No, but if she's right and they mapped the tunnels they explored, we can use that to get out. I know one place that probably has a copy of it," Rhasalis said.

"The All-Watcher's room," Xet replied.

"Not only there, there might also be one in the observation room. It already has maps of the surface, maybe there's one of the underground as well," Serhis made an educated guess. There wouldn't be any guarantee that there would be a map there, but as they were grasping at straws as it was, anything had to be used.

"So there's a chance that going through the Underdark isn't as assuredly suicidal as going through a kobold death trap maze? That's new," Iskdiwercaesin said as he looked at the group of young hatchmates. "Okay, so maybe I won't shower you with piles of gold, but I can promise that you're going to be doing a lot better than the other kids around here."

"As long as you keep your first promise," Jiyir pointed out.

"Fine, fine," Iskdiwercaesin said as he tapped himself with the wand once more. "Come on, let's get out of this place, it's way too crowded anyways."

"Thanks, and take care, all of you," Baous said as he moved the broom out of the way so they could leave. Rhasalis held up a claw before they opened the door, listening for a few seconds before she nodded. When it swung open, there was no ambush party waiting for them on the other side.

"We can take care of ourselves just fine. You should be the ones who need to," Jiyir smirked. "We'll stay here until the shouting stops."

"Thank you," Serhis nodded to them as the group of hatchmates stayed inside as they left. When everyone else had gotten out, they closed the door behind them. Now that they had an objective, they headed towards it with all haste.

Speeding down the same stairwell as before, they had to walk a fair distance before they got back to the level where the observation room was, though they had enough time in the storage room to catch a breather and they were now going down instead of up. No one had stopped them yet, they didn't know how long it would before their group of outsiders would be halted for questioning and they weren't going to wait to find exactly when that would happen.

Their jog turned into a brisk walk as they neared the observation room. At the doors was a pair of guards, standing to attention and looking a fair bit tense. As they group neared, one of them raised an arm. "What are you doing here?"

"We're here to see the All-Watcher, we were wondering about the quakes we felt earlier," Iskdiwercaesin lied through his teeth.

"All-Watcher Hest is currently at the scene of an incident, he won't be back until it's sorted out," the other guard said. It didn't sound like they understood what had happened and had stayed at their post this entire time and since no one passed them, they hadn't received an update on what had occurred. Not that it was going to help the group much.

"Then can we go inside to wait for him?"

The guards shook their heads. "No one is allowed inside when the All-Watcher is gone, you can wait here for him."

"Please? We don't want to block the hall," Xet asked them. When they shook their heads once more, the group looked at one another and nodded. "Well, I suppose that - vdri!" he suddenly shouted the draconic word for sleep. As the spell washed over their minds, the two guards dropped to the floor, deep in slumber.

Leaning down, Rhasalis searched the pair's belts for the keys to open the door and quickly motioned for the group to go inside. "Get them in," she urged the others, looking down the corridor to make sure no one was passing by to catch them. Baous and Iskdiwercaesin easily dragged in one of the guards while Serhis and Xet pulled the other one in before Rhasalis quickly shut the door and twisted the key to lock it once more.

As they set the sleeping guards to one side of the room, Rhasalis rushed over to the table. It was still strewn with papers, scrolls, maps and charts, though a new set had been laid out. Laid out on the very top of the pile was a map of Lusion and all its defenses, each street and wall plotted out to the smallest detail with markings labeling where an attacking force was to march and assault as well as areas where that were to be avoided. As the others also came to the table, they saw the plans of the assault.

"Focus! We're not looking for these," Iskdiwercaesin put the map aside as he started flipping through the pile of maps. At the very least Hest was organized, each stack of parchments was dedicated to one subject.

As their search was turning up nothing, Serhis noticed a cabinet next to the wall behind him. "It might be in there," he said as he tried to open it, only to find it resist against his pull. "Locked."

"I've got it," Rhasalis moved forwards while Serhis stood back. Taking out her set of lockpicks, she set to work, "keep looking. It might be on one of the shelves too."

Spreading out, the group looked for any scrap of parchment that could be a map or give an indication that it held more importance then an accounting report of the amount of dirt that had been removed from a subsector of the mines. Looking through small box near the open viewing area, Serhis stood up from kneeling to place the top back onto it when he noticed Iskdiwercaesin staring down into the cavernous common room. The intense expression he carried answered to what he saw.

"He's out."

Moving to Iskdiwercaesin's side, they looked down into the common room as well. Dianekesswhedabkeari had appeared, passing through the open gate as the kobolds kneeled before him, his looming figure passing through the parting crowd. Even from up above, they could tell the black dragon was not in a good mood as he took the same position as the day before to address his city.

"There are enemies inside our city!"

"Ah crap," Iskdiwercaesin vocalized what was essentially the sinking feeling the whole group felt. They had run out of time.

"The weapons of the city have been destroyed not on accident, but intentionally! I have heard that the ones who witnessed the event say that the armory was purposefully demolished!"

Glaring at the black dragon below, it took a hard tug from Serhis to get his attention. "We have to find that map now!" Serhis pulled the dragon-kobold's attention back to their objective, "listening isn't going to help."

Slowly, Iskdiwercaesin turned away from the balcony, though they could still hear Dianekesswhedabkeari's voice echo throughout the high stone walls. "I'm almost done here," Rhasalis said as she returned to the cabinet after opening and rifling through three of the four drawers. If the map wasn't there, they wouldn't even have the chance to infiltrate the All-Watcher's private room, they would have to enter the mines directly and brave the Underdark without guidance.

"I've known that there will always be those opposed to my rightful rule. Those that dare to think above their station and threaten all that I rule. They are fools whose bones will be ground beneath my claws and their flesh to feed your children!"

"Keep talking, don't mention us at all while we get away," Iskdiwercaesin snarled as he ransacked a desk, no longer searching items methodically but throwing them out of the way when he saw they weren't of any use.

"There will no mercy for the ones who attacked our city! Their attempts to oppose my will are meaningless and futile!"

*Click* "It's in here!" Rhasalis yelled as she opened the last drawer, holding up a fresh piece of parchment with ink that had barely dried. She only had to look at it once to see that it detailed open chambers, naturally branching paths, and wide crevices. A quick glance was all she had time for before she stuck it into her pack, they would have time to read it later when they were in the Underdark. "Let's hurry and get out of here."

Everyone was in agreement on that point. Going back towards the door, they could still hear Dianekesswhedabkeari speechifying, winding up the crowd with his inflammatory rhetoric. The party was content to ignore it as long as the black dragon failed to get to the point in time. As they were about to reach the door, he got to the point.

"Our enemies have disguised themselves as one of us, they came to our homes as friends when they only sought to destroy us! Keep an eye out for a group of five outsiders, one a gold dragonwrought who wears the robes of Bahamut named Serhis, one a sorcerer named Xet, one a scout and assassin named Rhasalis, one who is an armor clad canine named Baous, and one who dares to challenge my rightful rule, a dragon disguised named Iskdiwercaesin!"

"He knows my name..." There was no curse or swear that could properly convey how the wyrmling felt. In an instant, things had changed for the worse, they were now hunted. What was more, Iskdiwercaesin had determined that his arch-nemesis had known of him before.

During their entire stay of the city, they had only referred to the dragon in his shortened name. The one thing he could assume was that Dianekesswhedabkeari had known his name previously, even before their duel in the skies. He already knew that their meeting and the battle against one another's armies was no mere coincidence, but hearing that the black dragon had known his name was infuriating to him, it was a challenge.

"How are we going to get out now?" Baous asked worriedly. For him, every move they've made, they achieved their goal only to find a new obstacle blocking their path, each one more daunting than before. This latest one seemed almost insurmountable.

"Wait. Wait wait wait," Xet said as he looked at Iskdiwercaesin. "The wand, I need to use it, we can still get out of here unseen."

The dragon blinked, his attention returning to the group. "Huh? What are you thinking of? The wand won't work for everyone, Baous has no magical training."

"I know, but-" Before Xet could explain, the door clicked as it was unlocked and swiftly opened. To add to their already dire situation, All-Watcher Hest and what looked to be a section of soldiers stood in the hallway, a forest of spears and swords aimed down the opened path.

"Found you," Hest said coldly to the group of five, his scales and robes smelling heavily of smoke and soot. Serhis pondered how the All-Watcher had managed to locate them so quickly after Dianekesswhedabkeari's declarations, but he could easily assume that Hest had already been looking for them before that. As for actually finding them, the All-Watcher only had to ask for someone to point them in the direction of where the group had been last seen. There was a painful silence in the room as the two groups looked at each other, waiting to see what the other would do first. His eyes scanning the room, Hest's eyes fell on the sleeping guards against the wall before he looked back towards the party. "I had intended that you would be called in for questioning, but from what I've seen and heard, that won't be necessary." Before anyone else could reply, he took in a deep lungful of air. "Master Dianekesswhedabkeari!" he bellowed, his shout echoing throughout the observation room and out into the common room.

All at once, hundreds of pairs of eyes were directed from the black dragon towards the observation room window where they could see the upper half of the group. Where those hundreds of stares were disheartening, it was the gaze of one that struck the most fear. Dianekesswhedabkeari had seen them.

For the next few seconds, the air was deathly still. No one spoke or moved, it was hard to tell if anyone breathed. "So you're the ones who've been messing things up for me," Dianekesswhedabkeari said, his voice still easily heard from the chamber even if he wasn't shouting to make a near deafening speech. "I can't imagine how you thought you could get away with it." The black dragon's tone and manner of speech were different when he wasn't addressing a mass of people, less grand in scope, but that just meant when his words were directed at specific individuals, it was with an unnerving focus.

"We're still working on that," Iskdiwercaesin snarled back.

Dianekesswhedabkeari paused for a moment, he hadn't expected anyone to reply as such. "... you're Iskdiwercaesin. The pathetic wyrmling from before," he assumed, thinking that the only one so bold to talk back could only be another dragon.

"I'm not pathetic!" Iskdiwercaesin shouted down, almost ignoring the kobolds nearby that had their weapons directed at them in favor of the black dragon below. In terms of relative danger, it was hard to figure which one was more dangerous. "You're the one whose plans just got blown to bits! That's pathetic!"

"Don't insult the master!" Hest raised an arm about the same time half a dozen crossbows did, each selecting their target. "Ready, aim-!"

"Hold you fire!" Dianekesswhedabkeari shouted as he heard the commands. "I don't want to kill them... maybe not yet. They're as good as dead anyways if they try to escape."

Holding his shield in front of himself and using his armored body as a larger shield as he stood in front of the others, Baous kept his attention on the forces arrayed to their front. "... he doesn't want us dead? Not yet?"

"Search me," Xet replied, just as bereft of information about the black dragon's thinking.

"... holding fire master," Hest acknowledged, though the crossbows remained leveled at the group. "What do you intend we do with them?"

"For now, I want them to satisfy my curiosity," Dianekesswhedabkeari said. "If they don't answer quickly or they start whispering to each other, go ahead and kill them."

"Then what happens after we answer your questions?" Serhis had to raise his voice so that the black dragon could hear. They needed time to think of how to get out of their predicament and if some back and forth banter between them made that time, he'd be eager to discuss just about any subject.

"I'll be the one asking, not you. I can guess a few things, but it's better if they're confirmed. Asking if you all were the ones to sabotage my armory is a pointless question, but I am going to ask why. Was it because of you, cleric of Bahamut? Or was it because of the green twerp?"

"Get over yourself, you're not that dangerous that you'd get the attention of a god. Seeing your plans go up in smoke was my doing," Iskdiwercaesin replied testily. Technically this was true, it wasn't as if Bahamut himself sent an aspect of himself and commanded Serhis to stop the invasion and the wyrmling had very much said the truth about his own desires. However, he also wanted to avoid mention of Nadia. It wasn't as if he knew what Dianekesswhedabkeari would do if he did find out about her, but it was better to leave as many things unsaid as possible.

"... you've got quite the mouth on you," the black dragon narrowed his eyes at Iskdiwercaesin. "Apparently our previous encounter hasn't taught you to show me the appropriate respect. If you're not careful, I'll be sure to end it the same way as last time as well, though I ensure you won't survive, though I wasn't sure if you did survive before. When I went back to claim your hoard and your find your body, both were missing. I wasn't certain if that meant that someone else had stumbled across both and taken you or if you and some of your drow band had survived and run off. I searched for any sign of you, either by sight or by smell, but I couldn't find either. How did you manage to elude me?"

"... we didn't do anything special, did we?" Baous asked Serhis with a puzzled expression.

"I didn't use or have anything that made us undetectable," Serhis was also equally bereft of answers.

Iskdiwercaesin sighed and rolled his eyes. "It's the wagon, you don't think I'd have transported my entire hoard without doing something to make sure it'd be hard to find." The group looked at Iskdiwercaesin, surprised to hear that the run down wagon they had been using so much had actually been enchanted. Then again, it was a perfect precaution for him to make considering the situation.

"An enchanted wagon? That's a new one," Dianekesswhedabkeari chuckled. "What I really want to know at the moment is why a cleric of Bahamut is working with him? Someone you would call a spawn of Tiamat like myself. I understand the saying about how an enemy of my enemy is my friend, but this still sounds to me like you'd just have two enemies. Why is this?"

"We came to a mutual agreement about how you couldn't live," Iskdiwercaesin quickly replied.

Shaking his head, Dianekesswhedabkeari didn't seem to accept that as the whole answer. "That's not the whole story, is it? I want the cleric to answer, not you weak wyrmling." Iskdiwercaesin opened his mouth to say something cutting, only for the black dragon to quickly add, "Don't interrupt or I will have you killed now! I admit I'm curious and letting you live to satisfy that, but I can handle being left curious if I have to. Now cleric of Bahamut, speak. Explain how someone such as you didn't kill this poor excuse of a dragon. I image he'd have been horribly weak and easy to dispatch, even without my aid."

Serhis thought fast, but the only thing that came to him was the truth. He couldn't come up with some explanation that would work under scrutiny and he had the very certain feeling that if he was caught lying, the conversation and their lives would come to an abrupt and untimely end. Even now, they didn't have enough time to find a way out, all the exits seemed to be blocked and he couldn't think of anything he had that would tip the balance in their favor enough to make a difference. "... I spared him because I thought he could be redeemed."

Impatience crept into Dianekesswhedabkeari's voice. "I want more than that. Explain quickly or never at all."

"... after I brought him to a place to recover, he was placed in a ritual. He was given freedom of will from his linage."

There was a tense and uncomfortable silence as the master of Tiichi de Soves judged whether what he said had been true or not. Even as Serhis had said it, he thought that it sounded somewhat farfetched. The low, rumbling growl that grew louder from Dianekesswhedabkeari's throat made him quiver, he thought he had condemned them all by speaking the truth poorly. It was only a moment later he realized that it was the black dragon laughing.

"Grahahahahaha! Like I needed any more proof that he was a wretched, weak dragon! To be captured?! By you?! And put into a ritual?! If I had heard this from someone else, I'd have pitied you Iskdiwercaesin." The laughter echoed through the chamber, each resounding wave of it hammering into Iskdiwercaesin's rapidly thinning self-control. "Have you warped him so much he can't speak his own mind anymore? Have he become your puppet?"

"I have a mind of my own! I can speak for myself!" Iskdiwercaesin's shout echoed back through the chamber, almost as loud as the taunting laughs. "I am my own master!"

"Really?" the black dragon said with bemusement. "Then why have you stayed with your captor all this time? I can't imagine he'd have let you do as you wished."

"He's not my captor," Iskdiwercaesin hissed. "He's my... He's my friend."

"Him, a kobold? Your friend?! Ahahaha!" Dianekesswhedabkeari laughed even more as it made Iskdiwercaesin distinctly uncomfortable.

At least until Serhis placed a hand on his shoulder. "There's nothing to be ashamed of in having friends."

"Quiet!" the black dragon shouted. "There's plenty for him to be ashamed of if he has forgotten his pride. I knew he was no true dragon, not if he was changed into some twisted thing that denies his true nature, but this only proves it! My servants," Dianekesswhedabkeari swept a wing over of the gathered assembly, making a light breeze that blew through the chamber and made the torches through it flicker, "are loyal without a doubt, but they are not my equals. They are not friends. For someone such as you to stoop so low, to claim one of them as your friend, it shows that you have fallen far."

"That's your belief, but not mine. For anyone to deny themself a friend because they think they are superior is a poor excuse because while you have your servants, you have no one else you can trust," Serhis said.

"I told you to be quiet! Talk one more time without me asking and you die!" Dianekesswhedabkeari declared. Biting his tongue, Serhis said nothing else. As the black dragon returned his gaze to Iskdiwercaesin, a small smile crept onto his face. "Although... the dragonwrought might be correct in one thing, I see that you've taken on the form of a kobold. It's rather suiting that you'd change into a form more befitting your station. No doubt you thought it would deceive me, so much so that you were stupid enough to tell the All-Watcher part of your name. Now that your act is over, how about you show yourself. Your real self," he watched Iskdiwercaesin intently, making it clear that wasn't a request.

Again, hundreds of eyes focused on one individual, Iskdiwercaesin. It enraged him to no end that he was being bossed around by his tormenter and worse, that he hadn't found a way to escape yet. Taking a deep, calming breath, the dragon turned kobold shed his altered form. His body elongating, the shape of his head shifting, his eyes turning from red to green, Iskdiwercaesin has assumed his original form. He still wore Xet's borrowed robes as they stretched tight across his chest.

Dianekesswhedabkeari examined him critically, judging Iskdiwercaesin with no trace of compassion or mercy. The malicious smile he wore only grew larger as the green dragon had fully changed back. "You still carry the scars from our last meeting," he said. Snarling, the stumps of Iskdiwercaesin's wings jerked as harshly as his head as he glared at the dragon below, to which Dianekesswhedabkeari dismissed. "I don't see what you were complaining about earlier. Your crippled, ruined body is all the proof I need to know that I'm right." Even from a distance, he could sense the discomfort he was causing. "Maybe you were right. You are somewhat equals to that dragonwrought. He carries wings, but no other part that sets him as a dragon aside from a few scales and you're missing your own wings. If you two had fused together, you might approach something close to a true dragon. More likely, it'll just make a monster."

"I'm this way because of you, you twisted scumbag! You tore my wings off and almost killed me! You're the one who's a monster you damn piece of shit!"

Iskdiwercaesin's tirade didn't seem to faze Dianekesswhedabkeari, it was more like it was entertaining to him. "The words of a petty wyrmling that doesn't know his place is worthless to me. I take no pride in fighting children, but you are arrogant if you think a wyrmling such as yourself deserved to rule this place. One of the drow I captured on the day I fought you told me about you. You weren't really in control, you never were. You were just a puppet for some drow commander that got it into her head that she could control you and you let her. A real dragon would have slain her and taken her place. You know nothing about ruling, about conquest and how to do things right! Now look at yourself! You should have killed himself after being placed in a ritual and instead you continue living as a twisted freak!"

The two dragons began yelling and cursing at one another, each coming up with an insult viler than the one before. Hearing all this, Serhis couldn't help but wonder why. Why would Dianekesswhedabkeari keep them alive, at least for now? What purpose did he have? He considered the possibility that the dragon was simply cruel and was toying with them, but after all the damage they had done to his battle plans, he should have been furious and have them execute them on the spot. He didn't mind that this wasn't the case, though it gnawed on his mind.

After Iskdiwercaesin spouted a few choice sentences that he probably picked up from Captain Harel, Dianekesswhedabkeari drew himself up, his patience likely having come to its end. "Enough! You've satisfied my curiosity and I will need you alive. Preferably. You will all go with the All-Watcher and you won't resist, because if you try, all of you will die, no exceptions."

"Where are you going to take us?" Rhasalis said as she took a step forward next to Serhis. "What do you want from us?"

Serhis felt a slight nudge from his side. Glancing over for the briefest moment, he saw that her hand had reached into his belt pouch as she stood next to him, using both his body and her own to avoid getting spotted. Had she tried to reach for her own tools, it would have been too easy for her to get spotted.

"First, I'm going to make you pay for your actions in blood and tears. After that though, I have someone that would be very interested in meeting you all," Dianekesswhedabkeari said ambiguously. Before anyone could ask further, he waved for Hest to take them. "Get them locked up and get all the tools ready for when I get there," he gave a frightful grin to Iskdiwercaesin. "Have saws strong enough to cut through bone and muscle so I can finish the job."

Just as Rhasalis made her planned move, Iskdiwercaesin made an impulsive one. While she was pulling something out of Serhis' pack, the green dragon roared in utter rage and fury at the black dragon beneath him, his claw directed at the other and sending two bolts of arcane energy at his tormenter. The missiles struck with unerring accuracy, only to dissipate as they hit hardened scales. Dianekesswhedabkeari's hide was thick enough that it could resist magic energy, Iskdiwercaesin's attack had been completely ineffectual as he was not powerful enough to overcome that resistance.

For Rhasalis, her own actions were somewhat more effective. From within Serhis' pouch, she withdrew a smokestick which she snapped in her claw as it came out and it began to fill the room with a thick haze. However, the soldiers that had been pointing their crossbows at the group immediately fired at the sudden movements and pulled their triggers. Over half a dozen taut strings snapped straight as they sent their bolts into the room and at the party.

Baous did his best, two of the bolts meant for the others bounced off his armor while a third meant for him cracked against his shield. Another two simply missed outright as Serhis and Xet dodged out of the way, but one impacted against Baous' arm, another flew and struck Rhasalis in the shoulder, and a third caught Iskdiwercaesin in the side.

"Nrgh! Flip the table!" Rhasalis shouted past the pain as she threw the smokestick through the door, landing amongst the group outside and fouling their aim. She was somewhat fortunate it had hit her other shoulder or it might have made her drop the item.

Serhis and Xet immediately shoved the table over, spilling papers and ink pots everywhere on the floor before ducking behind it, the makeshift barrier would make them last a little longer if the crossbowmen outside were going to keep blindly firing into the smoke. This wasn't going to get them out though. "How are we getting out?!" Serhis yelled.

"We blow another hole in the wall," Xet immediately replied, searching through his pack for another ditherbomb.

His eyes widening in alarm, Serhis grabbed his arm. "The room's too small, we'll get caught in the blast!"

"I know, but I can't think of anything else besides going through there!" he nudged his head towards the smoke filled hallway full of soldiers waiting for them to panic and go into the kill zone. "We'll just... have to hope the table can withstand it." It was a flimsy and forlorn hope, the table was more likely to be turned into shrapnel and splinters than protect them. And yet, Serhis hadn't been able to puzzle out a way out of their predicament.

Pulling back from the open part of the room, Baous crouched next to the table, taking shelter as another flurry of bolts shot into the room and imbedding themselves into wood, either from the table or Baous' shield. "Baous, your arm?" Serhis looked to where he had gotten hit.

"Just a scratch," Baous muttered as he felt the impact of another bolt against his shield. What might have sounded like a false reassurance was an actual fact this time, the bolt had broken on his armored limb at an angle, leaving a dent in the metal and likely a forming bruise underneath.

Looking around, Serhis assessed the others' condition as well. Rhasalis' own leather armor seemed to have taken the worst of it, a thin trail of blood leaking from where the bolt had landed and Iskdiwercaesin snarled as he yanked the one in his side out, that one seemed to have penetrated a painful half inch into his hide. Surprisingly light injuries considering they had been in the sights of a team of crossbowmen, but that had only been the first volley. None of the soldiers outside were advancing into the room, they knew that they had the party trapped and were content to sling death from afar. That was clear when a few javelins where thrown into the room and clattered around, coming perilously close to their heads. Even blinded by the smoke, the amount of fast moving and sharp implements that were coming in was eventually going to get them killed.

There was another reason the soldiers wanted to stay outside.

Laughing as he was hit by the ineffectual bolt, Dianekesswhedabkeari spread his wings and bent his knees, then sent himself towards the open window of the observation room. He couldn't fit inside the room without some extreme squeezing, though that wasn't his intent. Everyone felt the impact of the large dragon as he landed on the side of the cavernous wall as he gripped the open ledge with his claws so he could hang on the side, then he opened his mouth.

A spray of acid washed into the room, its caustic touch burning everything and almost everyone. Only Iskdiwercaesin was spared its pain, despite being at the very front of Dianekesswhedabkeari, as he was as immune as his enemy to the acid. Rhasalis had managed to roll out of the way by ducking low next to the ledge, but the others took the full blast.

Serhis screamed, he felt as if his scales were boiling off his body, a sentiment that was felt by Baous and Xet as well. He could barely open his eyes for fear of getting it in his eyes, but he couldn't risk fighting blind here as he shook his head. Fortunately, the spray was short lived and he could see the others were still standing, but they were obviously in pain.

For one who felt another sort of pain entirely, it didn't stop him from throwing himself at the black dragon that had gotten right into his face. Iskdiwercaesin bellowed and howled as he slashed his claws at the other dragon's face, trying to harm the one who had done so much to him. His claws raked blacked scales, he drew blood, but they were shallow wounds that were only an annoyance to Dianekesswhedabkeari.

"This is the best you can do? This is your revenge? Weak spells and pathetic scratches? I'm still fighting a child!" Dianekesswhedabkeari bit and swiped with his free claw, his other and his feet bracing against the wall so he could stay put. By either good luck or the sheer audacity of Iskdiwercaesin's charge, the wyrmling avoided the attacks, he was too close in for the other dragon to hit properly, but that wasn't going to last.

Fighting through the pain, Serhis took out a potion from his belt and drank it immediately. Rather than using something that would have tended to his chemical burns, he had drunk a potion that would help him resist any further blasts of acid. With the sole exception of Iskdiwercaesin who was already immune and would have been far too enraged to even think doing anything else aside from attacking his enemy, the others drank their own vials of the stuff. It would give them a chance to withstand those blasts of acid, but it wouldn't last for long. They still weren't ready and the situation that they were fighting in meant that there was an almost certainty that they would die if they stayed where they were. One way or another, they had to escape.

As Iskdiwercaesin kept Dianekesswhedabkeari occupied, Xet dug out a ditherbomb and shook hard. "Everyone brace yourselves! This is going to hurt!" he yelled as he tossed it against the wall.

"You could have waited until I healed you!" Serhis yelled as he grabbed Xet's arm again, this time sending a charge of positive energy into his hatchmate. They all had been hit equally hard from Dianekesswhedabkeari's acid, but it was Xet that was the closest to collapsing.

In the confined space of the observation room, they all were going to get hit by the blast, but they still tried to get as far away from it as they could. That meant having to get closer to Dianekesswhedabkeari as he clung to the open window.

"Grah!!! Die! Die! Fall to the bottom!" Iskdiwercaesin bellowed as he and Dianekesswhedabkeari traded blows. Iskdiwercaesin had the advantage of being able to move while Dianekesswhedabkeari had to stay put on the ledge, but the older black dragon was strong and durable, each slash he inflicted on the green dragon was deep and painful while Iskdiwercaesin's own weren't near as damaging.

Baous and Rhasalis helped as they could, striking out the window, but the hail of projectile fire kept pouring through the smoke, sometimes catching them in their armor and making them stumble, but they had to keep Dianekesswhedabkeari occupied long enough for the ditherbomb to make an exit for them.

Dianekesswhedabkeari would speed up the process by unleashing another tide of acid into the room. The party's precaution of drinking the potions paid off, the new breath of acidic chemicals splashed onto scales and fur, but didn't burn. What did burn was the casing of the ditherbomb.

Everyone felt the explosion crash against their backs, almost pushing them into Dianekesswhedabkeari or right out the window. Serhis hissed through his teeth as he felt flecks of stone chips across his wings and back, yet the explosion hadn't been as damaging as he thought it could have been. He didn't mind that his backside had remained a bit more intact because of that, but when he turned around, he was dismayed to find that the ditherbomb had barely even cracked the wall. "We need another one!" he yelled.

"Sorry, that was my last one, you'll have to use one of yours!" Xet replied.

"They're coming in!" Rhasalis shouted at she pointed at the doorway. The explosion had apparently been too much for the soldiers' patience and they were starting to swarm in. Before one could enter the room completely, she tossed a bag at the hallway. Rather than exploding in fire, it released a glob of sticky tanglefoot goo as it landed at the front kobold's feet. The soldier wasn't fast enough and was covered in the substance, gluing himself to the floor and blocking the way of the others.

"Get in here! I don't care if they're dead or alive by the end of it, just take them down!" Dianekesswhedabkeari yelled at his servants as he held Iskdiwercaesin back, who had been trying in vain to bite at his throat.

This could be it, Serhis thought. They were about to get overwhelmed, they couldn't fight against an entire city. They had one more chance, one more ditherbomb before the soldiers could force themselves through the tanglefoot goo. Reaching into his satchel, he could only pray to Bahamut that one would be enough.

What he felt at the tip of his claws was not the sphere of a ditherbomb.

In his haste, Serhis realized too late that he hadn't taken out what he wanted, but instead had withdrawn something else altogether. Before he could stuff whatever was in his claws back into his satchel, he felt a tremor running through the floor.

"Earthquake!" Hest shouted as the smoke started to clear from the room, the All-Watcher bracing himself against the door post. Everyone else was also struggling to keep their foot, most of all Dianekesswhedabkeari as he clung to the side of the room. Serhis fell to his knees hard, the jolt sending a stab of pain through his leg and stayed on the ground as it violently shook, before a harsh gust of wind blew through the room. When the shaking stopped, he carefully pushed himself back up, wondering just what had happened. Then he realized as he looked up, he could see a crack that had opened through the room. Not a crack, his brain strained to comprehend what he was seeing, but a tunnel that went upwards. It was then he looked down at what he was carrying. The keystone.

It was unreal. He couldn't believe his eyes as he looked at what had to be a miracle. From the depths of the mountain he was looking at a straight shot to the surface. It was when Rhasalis gave him a hard tug up onto his feet did he remember he had to run.

"Go! Go!" she yelled at the others as she pulled Serhis towards the opening. She had no idea where the tunnel had come from, but she wasn't going to question anything that was going to save their lives. Xet was already on his own feet and heading for the exit.

"Iskdi! Iskdi we have to go!" Baous shouted at the green dragon still combatting the other. Iskdiwercaesin had barely gotten back to his feet before he continued his fight with Dianekesswhedabkeari.

"He dies first!" Iskdiwercaesin bellowed as he continued his assaults, heedless of the soldiers still trying to pick themselves up and get around the blockage in the hallway.

"We can't stay, we have to go now!"

"Fall! Fall! Let's see how you like it!" he screamed in rage as his claws dug into Dianekesswhedabkeari's own as they gripped the sides of the window. The black dragon had to clamp onto the opening when the earthquake shook to stop himself from plummeting onto the floor below and had slipped a bit from the shaking, making him have to use both his claws to keep himself up.

Snarling as his claws were getting raked, Dianekesswhedabkeari saw the tunnel. "Kill them! Argh! Kill them and get this wyrmling!" he shouted at his servants.

Seeing no other way, Baous hooked his arm around Iskdiwercaesin's neck and started dragging him towards the tunnel. "We'll get him later, but we can't now!"

"NO!" Iskdiwercaesin struggled in Baous' grasp, still trying to reach for Dianekesswhedabkeari.

Now that he was no longer distracted by the green dragon, Dianekesswhedabkeari pulled himself up and into a better position and sent another spray of acid at them. Again the potion protected them, but they could feel that whatever alchemy was in the potions was weakening considerably, it was likely it wouldn't stand another blast. "Grah! After them! I'll get them soon!" he yelled one more time to his servants. Bunching up his legs and pressing against the wall, he flung himself away from the wall, spreading his wings before gliding down into the common room."

"Aaaaargh!" Iskdiwercaesin screamed in impotent fury, his chance to kill Dianekesswhedabkeari gone. By now, the soldiers had hacked away at the tanglefoot goo, they were able to enter the room. "I'll get you, I swear I'll get you Dianekesswhedabkeari!" he shouted through the window.

"Go!" Baous kept dragging Iskdiwercaesin through to the tunnel. The hatchmates were waiting at the entrance, not wanting to leave the others behind. Now that Dianekesswhedabkeari had gone, Iskdiwercaesin no longer struggled to go after him and was stormed up the ramp.

From the deep parts of the mountain, they made their escape. The tunnel had carved itself in complete disregard of the city running through it to the surface, the group ran past openings to the sides, going through each level of Tiichi de Soves. As they ran, they could hear the sounds of pursuit from behind. Slowing down slightly, Rhasalis reached into her belt pouch and threw down marbles and caltrops down the ramp in an effort to slow the soldiers down. That was all she had time to do before bolts and arrows were fired up the ramp, the cracks of the projectiles hitting the walls echoing through the tunnel.

They kept running, up to the upper most level of Tiichi de Soves before it turned to solid rock. No more did the sides open to levels where curious kobolds stuck their heads in to see the hole that went through their homes before they quickly pulled back to avoid getting hit by the projectile fire. Each step got them closer to the light of the surface above. Even when their feet touched grass, they still hadn't completely escaped.

"They're still coming after us," Xet didn't have enough breath to shout, his statement was a weak exhale as he spoke.

"Serhis, that's the keystone, right? You used it? Can you close it?" Rhasalis asked her questions rapid fire, but it was the last question that was obviously the one she wanted to have answered most.

"I, I don't know, I'll try." Gripping it in his claws, Serhis tried to focus again, remembering what he had done last time to bring its powers to bear. Once more, he prayed.

Once more, the stone answered.

The earth shook for a second time, dropping everyone to their knees. They were too close to the opening through as they saw stone mold like clay, sucking in on itself as the tunnel closed and drawing them in with it and they crawled to get away. As sudden as the first one, the tremor stopped and the passage had closed as if had never existed.

It was so sudden. There was simply silence as the frantic chase had come to an abrupt end. The only thing they could hear was their own labored breathing and the rustling of the trees as the falling leaves dropped onto them from the shaking.

"That... how did that happen?" Baous asked in amazement. "I thought the keystone only worked on the prison?"

"I did too," Serhis muttered as he stared at the stone in his claws. The light in it had faded slightly, the dark black and red starting to bleed back into the surface. He thanked Bahamut for their salvation... but in the back of his mind, he acknowledged that a dead god had likely also been the one that provided them their escape.

"... damn it..." Off to the side, Iskdiwercaesin quietly cursed. At the world, at fate, at his miserable luck, at Dianekesswhedabkeari. "I wasn't strong enough. I couldn't..."

"We, we have to get up. We have to keep going," Rhasalis said as she rose to her feet and making the leaves fall off her back. "They're still going to send out search parties for us."

The sounds of leaves rustling filled the air as everyone also stood up in various states of pain and exhaustion. Baous grunted as he looked around, trying to reorient himself. "The town is this way... I think?" Baous pointed towards one area of the forest. After abruptly emerging from underground at a new location, even with the sun to guide him, it was difficult to tell, even more so when a full day had passed and had left him unsure if the sun was rising or setting. Feeling the wind blow past his fur, he nodded. "It's that way," he said assuredly.

"Thanks Serhis," Xet sighed in relief, grateful for both the timely exit and the healing his hatchmate was providing him at that moment.

"You're welcome, I'll heal us on the move," Serhis said as he stepped towards the direction Baous indicated before Rhasalis grabbed his tail.

"We have to go get the horses," she tugged him towards where she thought they had left them.

"Back near the entrance to the city?!" Iskdiwercaesin exclaimed. "How about we go inside again and just forget about giving them a chase?" he said sarcastically.

"They're going to need time to deactivate the traps, but we can't go on foot if they're going to chase use. It's the horses or nothing."

"Gah, fine, go, go!" Iskdiwercaesin urged.

The next several minutes were of frantic searching, looking for familiar trails and landmarks that would bring them back to the hidden caves. Finding the one boulder on the side of the hill, they looked up, towards the entrance to Tiichi de Soves and to their relief, a band of kobolds had erupted from the earth hounding after their blood. Mounting their horses, they sped down the side of the mountain.

Riding at a gallop, Baous turned slightly to look behind him towards the mountain. "Serhis, how did you do that with the key stone?" he asked, bewildered at what had happened as he, like the others, thought it was only meant for Vocos' prison.

"I... I think it responded to my prayer to Bahamut like last time, but...I don't know. I didn't know it could anything like that, I thought it was specifically only for that mountain."

"I'm not going to complain about that. Thank you Bahamut!" Iskdiwercaesin exulted as he held the reins. "But next time, try crushing Dianekesswhedabkeari," he growled.

"I don't know if it can do that or not," Serhis replied. "We're going to have to-"

Whatever Serhis was going to say next was drowned out by a sky splitting roar. The horses reared up in panic, almost throwing their riders onto the path before bolting at as much of a gallop. However, as they were in a forest with winding dirt paths, their speed was severely hampered.

Looking all about and above them, the group searched for the source of the roar. They had no illusions who had made it, Dianekesswhedabkeari was in the air, hunting for them. The forest was a mixed blessing now, it may have slowed them down, but it was also preventing the black dragon circling above from seeing them clearly.

"How are we going to lose him? It's not going to take long for him to find us!" Xet raised his voice so that the others could hear him through the gallop of hooves.

"Get off the trail!" Baous pulled on the reins hard to the right, "he'll see us through the opening if we stay on it!"

"See? He can smell us!" Iskdiwercaesin shouted. "He has our scent, he can track us."

"The potions, drink the potions we prepared," Serhis replied as he reached for the potion on his belt. They had expected to mask their scent from the dragon more as a stealth measure to get close to him. Now it was going to have to serve as a way to get away from the pursuing enraged dragon. It was tricky drinking a potion on a galloping horse without spilling it, even more so for Baous and Iskdiwercaesin who had to have Serhis and Rhasalis help them drink theirs as they directed the horses, but desperation and the need to live steadied their hands enough to bring the vials to their mouths, though the vials were then dropped instead of pocketed for future use when they were drained.

Dashing through the woods, Baous did what he thought best to elude the black dragon. They could hear the wing beats and the furious roars somewhere behind him though they couldn't see him through the thick foliage. That was how they wanted to keep it. They went left and right, rapidly changing direction both though a need to navigate the woods and to lose the Dianekesswhedabkeari. Despite that, they could hear the wing beats getting closer.

"How's he following us?!" Baous didn't have the luxury to turn around to look as he steered through the trees. "We should have lost him by now."

Iskdiwercaesin inhaled to say something, only to visibly pause as something came into mind. "It's the horses! He's following the scent of the horses! Does anyone have one of those potions left?"

"Here!" Rhasalis held up a pair of vials. "But how are we going to give it to them?"

"Here!" Iskdiwercaesin pulled his horse next to Baous' as they rode hard. "Give it to Serhis!"

Gripping onto Baous' arm, Serhis leaned as far as he dared over the side of the horse as Rhasalis did the same from hers, reaching out to hold a vial to him. They tried to keep their arms steady atop two galloping horses, a slip would mean that the vial would drop between Serhis' fingers if he wasn't careful, or rose, he'd slip off the horse. When Serhis did grab the vial, Baous tugged on his arm to bring the reptilian kobold back as Iskdiwercaesin and Xet did the same for Rhasalis.

"Give it to them!" Iskdiwercaesin shouted again as he slowed down only slightly so that the head of the horse he was riding was next to Serhis.

"What? How can I make them drink?" the cleric asked in bewilderment, suddenly remembering a certain proverb.

"Just make them!" the green dragon replied, though he knew his answer wasn't the most helpful of advice. "It either that or we stop running." There was no doubt that Iskdiwercaesin wanted to confront Dianekesswhedabkeari, them against the lone dragon instead having to deal with the army that supported him. What stopped him was the one advantage the black dragon had, the thing that enraged Iskdiwercaesin to no end, flight. Now that they were out in the open, Dianekesswhedabkeari could swoop down and blast them at his leisure, stopping to fight wouldn't help them at all when they couldn't counterattack. In the choice of fight or flight, fighting was to the black dragon's victory while flight was his domain until they could escape even that.

Removing the cork from the bottle, Serhis placed his thumb over the opening so it wouldn't splash out from the movements of the horse he rode on. They'd have to get very close to deliver the potion to its mouth, a challenge hard enough as the gasping beast's nostrils flared as it too understood the danger behind it, if it didn't count Iskdiwercaesin already. "Baous, hold on!" he said as he grasped the canine kobold's paw. He had to lean even further than before, one arm outstretched to reach the equine's mouth while the other gripped onto Baous' own outstretched arm.

The horse Iskdiwercaesin was riding whinnied and turned its head away from the vial, before the dragon jerked the reins so he'd bring the head back into reach and at the same time nearly ramming their horses together. "Whoa! Come on, it's mouth is open!"

Not wasting the opportunity, Serhis flung the contents of the vial into the horse's mouth. It stumbled and slowed for a moment before it recovered. Taking a deep smell, Iskdiwercaesin nodded. "Mine's clean, your turn."

"I think he's getting closer!" Xet said as he looked over his shoulder. In the breaks of the canopy, he could see brief glimpses of a dark shape in the air, still some distance off, but it wouldn't remain so for long if the black dragon kept homing in on them.

"Ready?" Rhasalis removed the cork of her own potion by now as Baous slowed his steed enough so that Iskdiwercaesin's could catch up and slightly overtake them. As Baous nodded, he watched as she deftly flung the fluid into his horse's mouth, about as much spilling past its lips as Iskdiwercaesin's had. Taking a sniff, Baous wordlessly nodded.

Ten minutes of silent, tense riding passed with everyone unsure if what they had done had been effective. The hatchmates kept constant watch as Baous and Iskdiwercaesin focused on finding the quickest path towards Lusion. "I saw him, he's further off," Rhasalis breathed out, slumping against Iskdiwercaesin's back as Xet did the same to her.

"He's circling in the air and still trying to find us," Serhis nodded in confirmation. He couldn't rest just yet, they hadn't completely made their escape, but if they hadn't, even being prepared wouldn't have made a difference. He did as his hatchmates did, sagging somewhat as they rode.

Another ten minutes passed, their anticipation of being spotted fading as they had fled the dragon. It was then that they had to slow down to give the horses a chance to recover after being driven so hard, any more and they'd have been blown. The group said nothing to each other as they shared in the exhaustion, the only thing that could lift their spirits was seeing the river town in the distance when they finally did come out of the forest. That was when they knew they had escaped him. Should Dianekesswhedabkeari be spotted anywhere near the town, it would have caused an uproar and put the guard on alert.

Slowly riding into town, Baous was the one to speak his mind first. "We... we did it. Right? We stopped him."

"Not quite," Iskdiwercaesin muttered. He was glad to be alive without a doubt, but that came at the price of what would have made him truly elated. "We stalled him. Not stopped."

"That's what we came here to do. That's all we could have done," Serhis said.

"We could have done more," Iskdiwercaesin said.

"We did do more. We destroyed almost his entire supply of war equipment," Rhasalis shrugged.

"And we're alive, that's something," Xet rested his head on Rhasalis' back, he'd never realized that simply riding a horse could have been so tiring.

"We didn't do enough. He still has his siege equipment and it's not like he can't replace what's been wrecked. He's going to be ready for us next time," Iskdiwercaesin shook his head.

"Perhaps, but so will we. Properly," Serhis gave Iskdiwercaesin an encouraging nod.

Iskdiwercaesin said nothing to that. Everyone also kept their thoughts to themselves until they reached the ship, the only one who spoke was the green dragon as he ordered his crew to bring them out of the dock as quickly as possible. Though they may have gotten away from the master of Tiichi de Soves, the black dragon still had his spies within the city. It wouldn't be until the whole group had a chance to recuperate before they even had the energy to speak. One by one, they gathered on the deck below, taking seats in the galley as they ate. They were down there not only to replenish their strength, but also to keep out of sight.

"... What now?" Looking to the others as they sat around him, Baous slowly ate his loaf of bread as he asked.

"We wait for Nadia I suppose," Serhis rested his head on the table, tracing his claw through the inside of the empty soup bowl.

"And? After that?" Iskdiwercaesin muttered as he chewed on a piece of jerky, his teeth gnashing away at the tough meat. "I'm not doing anything else for her. At least not for now, because we're going to keep on trying to kill that piece of shit." He was still fuming after their encounter with Dianekesswhedabkeari.

"No one has an idea where to go then? No destination?" Toss an apple core into a bin, Rhasalis reached for another in a barrel.

"We could do what we originally planned perhaps? Sailing around and building up our supplies?" Xet said as he deposited the bones of the fish he ate into the same bin.

"That doesn't help. I planned that so each stop got us closer to here. Now we can only get farther from here," Iskdiwercaesin shook his head.

They had their own ship, the freedom to sail to which ever direction of the compass they wanted so long as water spread out beneath them, and yet they had nowhere to go. They were already at their ultimate destination and could not do anything while they were here.

"Then I may provide an answer." A soft glow filled the room. Everyone raised their heads to see Nadia appear before them once more.

Rising from their seats, they stood to talk. "An answer? If it's one that can bring Dianekesswhedabkeari down, then I want to hear it now, plus why you didn't tell me it earlier?" Growling, Iskdiwercaesin let his irritation show.

"I cannot provide one beyond the ones you already have. You are already on your path to his defeat, though the road runs near its end. For now, you have blocked his own path."

"Then, what's the answer for us?" Serhis asked.

"I cannot be certain when he will be ready once more. I can only say I will know when he nears completion again. Until then, I shall give you a moment to gather your own strength faster than Dianekesswhedabkeari's own. Whether this be through respite or through challenges overcome, that depends on your own choosing."

"Is this another mission for us?" Baous looked at Iskdiwercaesin as the dragon was about to reiterate his intentions.

The archon quickly answered before him. "No, I have nothing for you at this time, only advice given freely and with good will for your efforts today, to follow or disregard as you wish. Follow the river until it reaches the ocean, then travel south to follow the coast. In every port, stay for at least one day."

"What? Why? Would something happen if we do or don't?" Xet asked.

"If you seek to become the lord of Tiichi de Soves' downfall, you must strengthen yourselves. Look to these places as opportunities to expand your knowledge and power, to experience what he cannot as he remains within the confines of his domain. You can grow in the world as he stagnates beneath it," Nadia said.

"That's it? That's all you have for us?" Iskdiwercaesin asked skeptically.

"That is all, unless you wish to make a request of me."

"Bah, no, I don't," the wyrmling quickly replied.

"None else have a need to ask?" Her irisless eyes looked over the group, though she briefly regarded the sailors that were gathering around when they noticed her presence.

"I have one." Suddenly stepped forwards, Serhis took out the key stone for her to see as he asked the question that was in all of their minds. "We escaped the city by using this. It... opened the mountain for us. How? I thought it could only work in..." he glanced at the crew of the ship, they didn't know about the full events in Vocos' prison, "one place."

Directing her gaze at the stone, they could see how Nadia's deeply examine the stone. "It has been awakened. The power of forgotten and dead gods may have diminished to obscurity, but even in death, they have power over the world by their simple presence. In this, you have tapped the power of Jahau as it has been graced by the touch of divinity. This god of stone imbued his essence in the key stone and as such, the earth will move as it commands."

As everyone stared at it in shocked silence, Iskdiwercaesin began to laugh. "You're saying we can use the power of a god?! Yes! We can use the whole mountain that's protecting him to crush him flat! Hold on, I'm going up to tell the crew to turn this thing around and-"

"You mustn't," Nadia quickly said.

"Huh? Why not? If we can get him now, then I'm not going to wait until later. It's not like he can stop us."

"He may not, but you do not fully comprehend the powers in which you wish to use. The key stone is an artifact of an age past, so there is little fear of others aside from Tomond who know of its existence. However, it will not go unnoticed for long if it is used. Such is the nature of power. Where it was made to be used, its presence was hidden as it only triggered the magic that was already imbued in the mountain. Now though, as it has been activated, the power that can open a mountain has drawn attention. Fortunately, no one was prepared, all that most likely known is that a great amount of energy had been unleashed and those interested in such power cannot locate where it originated. That will not be the case if you use it again so soon."

"Okay, so it'd get us a lot of attention. We'll say no the people who ask for it and crush the ones who won't," Iskdiwercaesin said.

"I fear those who desire such power would not even give you the chance to strike back. If you did have the chance, you could not do so forever as the keystone uses the essence of a dead god, it cannot replenish it. I do not know if it is capable of one more miracle or many, but to use it so soon would bring undesired attention to you all," Nadia warned.

"So we have a powerful artifact that can crush our enemies in an instant, but we can't use it because we'd get crushed by even bigger people who aren't exactly our enemies but want the keystone. It might as well be just a hunk of rock!" Iskdiwercaesin exclaimed.

"I did not say you cannot use it, but take care of the risks that are inherent with doing so. Perhaps as times passes and interest fades or on the hopeful chance that you all can keep it safe when you are strong enough, you can use its abilities. For now, only use it for grave circumstances."

"We'll take your advice to heart," Serhis nodded as he was about to place the key stone back into his pack. "... are you sure you can't take it with you?"

"The deities were certain in their judgment. It must remain the realm of the material plane. They no doubt wish for it to remain hidden in the eyes of the divine and mortal alike, but they cannot influence when it might be used. On that note, I must inform them of this recent development and that the key stone has awakened."

"Then... I guess it's goodbye for now," Baous said as Nadia nodded.

"Though it seems sad, my fondest hope is that it will be a long time before we encounter one another again. Until that day, I wish you all the best of luck."

"Goodbye Nadia..." Serhis waved to her as everyone else also gave their farewells, watching as she faded from sight and leaving the galley darkened.

Left to their own devices, they all still had no clear objective to reach. "So should we do like she said? Go along the coast?" Xet asked.

"It's not as if we have anywhere we have to be," Rhasalis said.

"... I'll tell the crew. If you don't mind me, I'll head up. I need some air," Iskdiwercaesin slowly made his way back onto the deck of the ship, enough time had passed that they were out of sight of Lusion and any spies Dianekesswhedabkeari had there. As he left, the others could tell that something was bothering him.

Watching as the wyrmling went up the stairs, Serhis could make a guess as to why he was bothered. He could make several guesses. The most likely thing was that he had faced his enemy again and couldn't kill him, he likely hadn't even done any lasting damage. A team of healers in Tiichi de Soves had probably made sure that their master was completely healthy by now. It could also have been that they had the power to confront Dianekesswhedabkeari and actually stand a chance now that they realized they had a powerful artifact in their possession, but to use it could invite dangers worse than the black dragon. It may even have been because he was following the advice of someone who had previously tried to mean him ill. Whatever the case, Serhis wasn't going to let the dragon sulk if he had a chance to help.

"I think you should go talk to him."

Serhis blinked in surprise as Baous had whispered to him. "Huh?"

"He seems to calm down a lot more when you talk to him." Baous had noticed those times when Iskdiwercaesin had stormed off or had gotten into a foul mood, whenever Serhis went to him, it got better. That wasn't to say Iskdiwercaesin was happy when he did come back, but the worst seem to pass a bit smoother when Serhis had a few words with him. In Baous' own mind, he knew why, the reptilian kobold could get discouraged and feel sad at times, but he never lost hope.

Nodding to Baous, Serhis went up to follow.

Iskdiwercaesin had finished directing a course for the helmsman and was at the bow of the ship, his front arms resting at the top of the railing. When Serhis walked towards him, the dragon tilted his head slightly as he heard the kobold's approach. "What is it?"

"I... we're all wondering if you're okay," Serhis replied.

"Do you even have to ask after what happened?" Iskdiwercaesin huffed.

Shaking his head, Serhis took a step closer. "I still have to."

"Do I even get a choice about talking to you?"

"Would you feel any better if I let you be?"

Turning his head, Iskdiwercaesin gave Serhis a hard stare before sighing. "That didn't really answer my question, but no, it wouldn't. Does that mean you can make me feel better?"

"I can't say for sure, but it's a better chance than letting you be this way and have no chance," Serhis said as he leaned his arms against the railing of the ship, looking out towards the same horizon Iskdiwercaesin had been staring at. "We did what we set out to do..."

"I don't have to feel about not putting Dianekesswhedabkeari in his grave, you don't have to tell me what I already know what you're going to say," Iskdiwercaesin muttered.

Turning his head towards the wyrmling, Serhis looked at him, trying to tell what he was thinking. "If you knew that, they why-?"

"Do I still feel shitty? After all that, do I need a better reason?"

"But this wasn't a defeat. It might not have been a permanent victory, but we're on the path to it."

"Yeah, except now he's going to be ready for us next time. He's going to be ready and there's nothing we can do about it," Iskdiwercaesin grumbled. "Our greatest advantage, gone. He's going to be watching for us from now on, the next fight is going to be even harder and we already did near nothing to him! I had him, I had him in my claws!" Iskdiwercaesin gripped the railing, the tips of his talons making gouges in the wood. "My spells was completely worthless, I couldn't rip his damn throat out and it was right there! Then we had to run from him! Our best chance was right there and we screwed it up!"

"We never intended to confront him then though, we all knew we weren't prepared," Serhis tried to calm him down. That was going to be a challenge and he knew it. "Things didn't go as we planned, but we overcame those obstacles. We escaped, we're still alive and we can still fight him."

Green eyes focused on Serhis as Iskdiwercaesin still looked extremely upset. "... yeah, we can fight him again. And I'm going to be useless again. He practically had one arm tied behind his back and we were still losing to him."

"Because we weren't ready," Serhis repeated. "He caught us unaware, we weren't set and had no time to prepare. We were in a fight we weren't ready for in more ways than one and we still managed to get out, we got out after we did what we needed to do."

Iskdiwercaesin lowered his eyes a bit, taking in what Serhis had said. "Then what's going to happen next time? My claws aren't going to get any bigger. He's... he's right. I'm just a kid. He's bigger and stronger than me and that's always going to be true, no matter how much we prepare," he said dejectedly.

It was then Serhis realized just how much the face to face confrontation between the two of them had affected the green dragon. Before, Iskdiwercaesin despised Dianekesswhedabkeari for attacking him, for almost destroying him, yet it was a simple ambush that carried no true spite or rancor, it wouldn't compare to what had happened scant hours before. Now they both had personal reasons to let their hatred grow, though the effects would be different for each. No doubt Dianekesswhedabkeari would be furious that the group had escaped after thwarting his plans, but for Iskdiwercaesin, their exchange of words had shaken him.

Serhis couldn't let that stand. "He might be bigger and stronger, but he still failed to get us. He'll fail again the next time we see him because we'll defeat him."

"Defeat him? How? Throw rocks at him before he scoops me into the air and drops me?" Iskdiwercaesin asked dejectedly.

"I don't know how yet. We'll find a way though. We always find a way."

His eyes coming back up to see the kobold, Iskdiwercaesin breathed out a sigh. "Damn it... he's right again. I'm so weak I need to get help."

"There's no shame in that. He wasn't objecting to having All-Watcher Hest and those soldiers assisting him."

"Those were his minions, his servants. He could have taken us without them. I have to rely on you and the others."

Thinking back to what Dianekesswhedabkeari had said to them, Serhis shook his head. "His strength doesn't make him any more right. Whether you accept your help from a fellow dragon or kobolds, it doesn't matter because we help you willingly. He hasn't done much to earn the respect of those he commands, he promises them glory in battles that would benefit himself. You've earned my respect Iskdiwercaesin. I can't say so for the others, but I think they think the same way. Kobold or not, that's something special."

His gaze still on Serhis, Iskdiwercaesin closed his eyes for a while. Serhis watched and waited, letting him go through his thoughts in quiet. When they finally opened, the wyrmling seemed calmer. "A respect of a friend... I suppose that's one thing I know Dianekesswhedabkeari doesn't have."

"More than just respect. And more than one friend. We care about you Iskdiwercaesin, we care about how you're doing and how you feel. That's what it means to be a friend, or at least, that's what I believe."

"Considering what you believe tends to have lasting and meaningful effects, I don't see why you needed to make an exception for it what with everything else you do," the dragon snorts back a laugh before his expression turned serious once more. "What you or I believe doesn't matter much anymore. It's that... I don't know what to do now. I thought I had a plan, I knew exactly what we needed to get back at him. Now... I've got no idea."

"Then... you should think about something else besides revenge," Serhis offered hesitantly. He expected some sort of rebuke from Iskdiwercaesin, something about how he wouldn't accept that, and Serhis would give his ready reply. Instead, the wyrmling only gave the kobold a tired look.

"What else can I think? It's the only thing I look forward to now. The chance to humiliate him, to show that I'm stronger than him despite what he says, it's what keeps me going. If I stop now, then what was this all for?"

"You can live."

There was a brief pause as Iskdiwercaesin looked at Serhis, expecting that there was more to it than that. As the pause turned into a lengthened silence, Serhis sighed as he answered the obvious question. Iskdiwercaesin would probably have been insulted simply having to ask it. "What I mean is that instead of living for revenge, you can live for yourself. Do what would make you happy, not what would hurt Dianekesswhedabkeari. We're still going to put a stop to his schemes, but until then, you can try to simply be you, not only someone who's going to be his doom."

Slowly, Iskdiwercaesin's gaze left Serhis, turning to look at the river running in front of them. There was another silence, this one the kobold would leave unbroken until Iskdiwercaesin knew what to say. Taking a deep breath, the dragon nodded. "Right... I got a ship of my own that'll take me wherever I want. It's not my wings, but it'll do. For now. I'm going to get my wings back no matter what, so that I don't have to worry about. I got a nice hoard I can take with me, no need to worry about defending a lair. Which isn't to say it couldn't stand a bit more bulking up. Plus, I've got good friends to watch my back and more," he smiles as he considered things, only for it to go away just as quickly. "Yeah, I think I can do this. Just... what now?"

"Now? I don't know either," Serhis shrugged. "All I can think of is to follow the course we've set and... find out what happens. Not the best plan, but what with the record of our plans working as intended..."

"Pfft, yeah, that's something I can definitely agree on."

"So. Off to the next port?"

"Yep. Next port. Then the next one. And the one after that. And damn anyone who thinks they can get in our way."

Serhis smiles as he rests his arms on the railing of the ship, feeling the bobbing of the deck beneath his feet as he watches the world pass by with a clear direction of what would happen next. That didn't seem so bad. "Bahamut bless us on our journeys then."