The half-dragon smiled. “I’m Kryos,” he said, trying to muster up as much polite cordialness as he could, just like his dad had taught him. “Well met.”
The black-skinned man stared at him for a few seconds, then clicked his tongue. “You’re covered in their suckers. Tremorleeches are nasty.” His voice was flat, and almost . . . bored. As if this was routine. He glanced back behind him. “Hey! Let’s get some extra hands over here!” He looked back to Kryos. “I’m Trork, foreman of the silver mine here at Suncrest.”
Suncrest, Kryos thought.
He racked his memories, trying to recall the name from the maps his dad and mom had drawn and made him study. But he didn’t recognize it. “What’s the nearest large city?”
“That would be Shivv’s Spear,” Trork replied. “If you don’t mind me asking, how’d you get here?”
Kryos answered, “I was magically transported.”
He recognized the name of the large city. Shivv’s Spear was a tropical, coastal megacity and major trade hub on the flat, ever-expanding world. It was one of the major powers and eastern-most on that continent.
I think . . . wasn’t the continent called Sheoldrin?
Trork stood up as other miners came over. “Get some arms under him. Kryos here looks pretty heavy.”
Kryos pushed himself up, using the wall behind for support. “I can manage on my own.” He looked at the faces of the miners, who seemed relieved, and quickly backed away behind Trork. “Thanks for the information. Any chance you’ve got someone who can help deal with these suckers?”
Trork nodded and turned around. “Come along with me. There is a medical building in town, and a Medic who can see to your needs.”
Kryos activated his SAVE system, and glanced at the various Classes and Tiers above everyone’s heads. All of the miners were just that, Miners (I), with a few Prospectors (II). The exception was this Trork fellow, who was a Foreman (III).
Kryos also knew that every one of them could see what he was. Mass Dragon (I). His Class would never change, only his Tier. They knew what he was at a glance—half-dragon, and there were stories about his kind. He walked behind Trork, and the miners gave him a wide berth, quickly backing away.
All except the ones he had saved. Those followed more closely. One, holding his hand which looked like it had been bleeding, but was wrapped in cloth, asked, “Boss, you’re good if we go with you to get checked out?”
Trork glanced back. “You can, Gary. The rest of you look fine to me.”
Kryos looked over the other miners. They did look in pretty stable condition, just panicked and tired. Those ones stopped following. But, one of them dipped his head, and said, “Thanks, stranger.” This was echoed by the others at varying volume levels.
“Happy to help,” Kryos replied.
Gary, the one who had the badly injured hand, walked right alongside Kryos. He was a brown-haired human who looked to be in his middling years, and was a head shorter than the tall half-dragon. “If you need a place to stay, my wife and I have a spare room.”
Kryos glanced down at him and smiled as genuinely as he could. “Thanks. I may take you up on that offer.”
He felt that warmth in his chest again, and it surged to be all around his whole body. As he looked around himself, he saw the source of his instinctual urge going off. Silver ore, waiting to be processed and refined, was in barrels. Rails had been placed down on the floor, and some miners who had not been caught up in the commotion were hauling the barrels to the carts to dump the ore into them.
But their activity stopped as Trork led Kryos past them. All eyes were glued to Kryos, and he watched their expressions as he repressed his urge to start grabbing pieces of silver ore to add to his hoard. Their expressions were mixed—fear, awe, shock, and distrust. The most dominant Kryos observed was the last.
Thank the Drakemount dad taught me all those emotions and how to recognize them.
That was a benefit of having a Maestro (VIII) for a dad. The man was a master performer, and prepared Kryos for meeting people and learning how to read them, including reading facial expressions.
Kryos was also made well-aware of the stories told about half-dragons—towards the central continents, they were powerful magic-focused Classes who could only be identified by their draconic irises. Those half-dragons tended to be cold, calculating, and ruthless. They made for excellent politicians, rulers, and nobles. Those ones had dragon fathers and humanoid mothers.
The stories told about Kryos’ type of half-dragon were far less flattering. They were often described as more bestial, greedy, arrogant, and domineering. Easily discernible from the general population by their obvious draconic features, Kryos’ type were seen as warmongers and violent vagabonds.
Judging by the looks Kryos was receiving, most of these people believed the stories. It would be a struggle to win them over like his dad would want him to. Once more, his mom’s words rang in his thoughts: he could use their distrust and fear and lean into the stereotypical mytho-history of his type of half-dragon to leverage his position.
The lengthy, thirty-minute walk through the mine was silent. Kryos was acutely aware of the noises all around him—the tink, tink of picks on stone, the crunch of rock being processed through large crushing tools to break apart chunks to reveal the ore within, and the shhfft of those ore-infused pieces being slid into barrels or into carts. Yet every time he approached a new group of miners, they stopped their work and stared silently at him as he passed.
The smells were something new, too. Kryos wasn’t used to the smell of sweat, as he didn’t sweat—no dragons did. This mine reeked of the stench, and that mixed with the copper-y smell of the blood still coating his body. He winced as the suckers across him seemed to bite down a little bit more.
Gary glanced at him. “You okay, big guy?”
“I’ll be better once these things are off me,” Kryos replied. “What were they?”
“Tremorleeches,” Gary replied.
Trork spoke from further ahead, adding, “They are a dormant monster that only wakes up with loud sounds. The cave-in woke them up. Then, when they got close, their heat detection picked up our trapped fellows. The suckers can be removed with care to prevent further injury, but we don’t have the tools.”
“And,” Gary said, “The Irontrail Guild said they cleared all of them out.”
Trork grunted in affirmation and kept walking.
Kryos had no clue what the Irontrail was, but sensed that Trork was a man of few words. “What’s the Irontrail?” he asked quietly.
“Adventuring Guild,” Gary replied.
Ah, Kryos thought. So they’re part of the Quest Conclave. That is one of the places I could look to go to to build wealth. His eyes panned across the silver ore that was all around him, calling out to him to take it. Well, legitimate wealth that isn’t stealing from hard workers.
They reached the mine entrance, and Kryos saw that they were on a raised spur of mountain. Below them was a huge valley, that was easily fifty-miles across in all directions: a giant circle. Snow-capped peaks extended in all directions, save for the western edge, which led to a massive cliff. Dominating the center of the valley was a lake, which had a rise at the center that reflected the silvery-white moon up above—Kryos assumed some type of spring fed the reservoir, as the bulge continued to pulsate up at every-few-second intervals. A waterfall cascaded down that western cliff, with a watermill near the shoreline.
All across the lakeshore boats were moored in small fishing villages—clusters of houses in little communities. Farther away, copses of trees and handfuls of houses with lazily-drifting smoke coming out of the chimneys stood like silent sentinels watching over pastures where animals slept in the soft, green grass.
On the side of the lake closest to them, perhaps one-hundred feet below them and three-hundred feet away, was a sprawling town. Buildings of all shapes and sizes were sprawled throughout the place, right up to the cliff’s edge which had a wall going along it all the way up to the waterfall. From the cave entrance, a series of metal pylons had been buried into the ground, and chains ran down from there to a building down the dirt ramp leading to town alongside rails.
Kryos was able to track the chains through other pillars going around the town and eventually linking up to the waterfall, and then to some type of system that went over the cliff’s edge.
Trork walked down the ramp, and Gary gently nudged Kryos. “It’s a gorgeous sight,” he said, “But if we want to get properly fixed up, we better move before the boss leaves us behind.”
Kryos hustled to follow the man as they descended into the moonlit streets. There were steel spikes planted into the ground at regular intervals, and atop them were glowing, orange stones that had metal hoods which cast a dim illumination across the space.
Kryos was immediately hit first by the smells—metal that had a weird tang to it that tickled the back of his throat. Cooking of some type, food that he had never smelled before that made his mouth water with the promise of some new culinary confection that the Drakemount could never have provided. Animals, with their various stenches as they stayed locked up in small pens outside of some buildings. A strong urine smell as they passed a tanner, causing his nose to wrinkle despite him covering it with his claw-retracted hand.
Strongest of all was his sense for wealth. It was almost like a constant, low hum going off in all directions around him. No longer was it a heat in his chest, or an itch: it had graduated to become something in his thoughts and ears. Little whispers that were like voices, but not. He could hear other noises over them, but if he really listened, those whispers could be honed in on.
This is what mom talked about, he thought, and why she founded her own town. Civilizations bring value. This is why high Tier dragons tend to focus themselves in places where strong economies are established, and ingrain themselves into it. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a dragon in Shivv’s Spear.
Noises hit him as well. He could hear people talking inside of buildings. More voices than he had ever heard before. It brought a little grin to his face, as he had grown up with only three voices around him.
Yet this new experience was tempered by the discomfort he felt at how exposed he was. He was in the open, in an environment that might view him as a hostile intruder. The open sky above him made him feel like he could be swooped down upon by a galerider any moment, and for a moment he considered ducking under the eave of a building.
But, he pushed through the discomfort and kept following the black-skinned man through the town.
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After five minutes they came across a well-lit central square. The buildings here were uniform in shape and size, save for two. One of them was squat and long, while the other was tall and narrow. In the central square, tables were set up, and there were dozens of people seated and speaking as they drank from steins and cups, pouring themselves more drink from casks mounted on some of the tables.
As if they all detected a predator entering their space, everyone’s heads turned when Kryos entered the light of the town square in his path of following the mine foreman. That sense of exposure immediately increased and set to the verge of panic as he heard the voices overlapping.
“What in the Star-seal above is that?” one woman asked.
“It looks like a monster,” an older man uttered, his voice trembling.
A middle-aged man asked, “Should we call the guard?”
At that, Trork looked at them. “This newcomer saved Gary’s life, along with a few other of the night-shift. Back to your drink.”
The rebuke from Trork seemed to quiet the mutterings, and Kryos realized that the mine foreman had to carry some substantial political weight in the town if they all followed his words like that. Yet, the half-dragon knew the fear was still there, the suspicion was still there, and the wide-eyes in some of the people’s gazes told him that a handful were curious.
Gary chuckled. “They’re probably a little put off by the suckers still all over your body.”
Ah, that is true, Kyros thought as he glanced down. The multitude of tendrils still attached to him gave him a more monstrous appearance than his baseline half-dragon body normally conveyed. He probably did look like some abomination, splattered in blue blood and dangling white-grey appendages that looked like phantasmal strands.
Trork led them to the squat building and opened the door without knocking, shuttering his lamp as he did so. “Mender Marcella? You awake?”
Kryos went inside the building. The front entrance had two benches on either side, with a small lectern that had a few papers and inkpots that were capped. Further past it, the reason for the length of the building was made quite apparent—there were several niches with clean, white-linen-covered beds. There was enough space for someone to sleep comfortably, and a person could walk next to each bed. A curtain hung up which could allow for privacy, but it was as if each person could have their own little booth. The center of the room held a series of large wooden shelves with all manner of poultices and curatives in bottles.
Trork glanced back at the two of them. “Go claim a bed. I’ll find her and wake her up.”
Kryos didn’t ask which bed. He just strode across the room and chose one in the farthest corner of the hospital, where the back and side wall jutted against one another to make the closest approximation to a cave possible. He took off his Trader’s Pouch, sliding it under the bed, and tried to extricate himself from the scale armor as best he could. Thankfully, he was able to get it off, and a few of the suckers came with it.
That left him in just his usual clothes—a normally grey jerkin that was stained purple with his blood and blue with that of the creatures he fought, and trousers that were also stained purple and blue—the original brown completely gone.
“All right!” a woman’s voice said, not quite shrill but close to it. “I heard you the first time!”
Kryos stood at the foot of the bed and waited, watching, and he kept one hand next to his thigh, ready to pop out a claw in self-defense at a moment’s notice.
Trork came into view from another room, followed by a petite thing, a young woman whose blonde hair was tied back in a messy bun. She had brown eyes, a tanned complexion, and looked quite tired and annoyed. She didn’t seem to notice Kryos in the far corner, and made right for the injured miner.
“Gary, what happened?” she asked as she moved towards the man and began to unwrap his hand.
“Cave in. We got attacked.” Gary pointed at Kryos with his other hand. “A stranger arrived and saved us. You should go help him. I’m feeling okay.”
The woman looked over at Kryos and froze in place. He could hear her audible gasp, and also saw Trork’s red eyes staring at him. Kryos gave a little wave. “Hi there. I’m Kryos.”
Trork put a hand on the healer’s shoulder, and she jumped a little. “He helped. He might look scary, but he won’t bite.”
Kryos accessed the SAVE system and glanced at her Class and Tier. Medic (II). She was at least level eleven, but not above twenty. That implied she had some decent knowledge and skill, but was nowhere near the powers that his dad had achieved in the seventies.
The woman looked back to Gary. “I’ll patch you up first. Just a finger. That’s easy.” She turned around, moved to the shelves, grabbed a few vials, and then went back to the miner. She worked quickly, and within fifteen seconds had applied something, re-wrapped the wound, and pointed at the bed. “Now, sleep.” Then, she turned and began walking to Kryos.
Trork loudly said, “Thanks once more, Kryos. See you around town.” He then headed toward the door out of Kryos’ sight.
The woman came up next to Kryos, easily two heads shorter than him. She looked him up and down, and there was no fear in her eyes. Instead, there was a mix of irritation and curiosity. “You’re a big boy, aren’t you?” she asked. “Six-foot seven and two-hundred ninety-two pounds? Mostly muscle, too, not much fat. The scales make up some of the weight, as do the claws and horns. But it is mostly skeleto-musculature.”
Kryos almost unintentionally reached a hand up to his horns atop his skull. “How’d you know all that?” he asked. “I don’t even know my height.”
She flashed a smile. “Ah, well, it’s a Skill of mine. I should introduce myself. I’m Marcella. I run this place.” She moved past Kryos to the wall, and spun a knob. He heard a hiss somewhere inside the wall, and then she grabbed a stick from her pocket, dragged it across the stone, and shoved it into a slot he had not seen along the brick-work. With a little fwoosh, lights appeared on the stonework around him. She then pulled the stick out, shook it a few times, and put it back in her pocket. “Now, let’s take a look . . . ah, yes. Please stay standing.”
“Can you get these things off without more pain?” Kryos asked.
“Yes,” Marcella replied as she turned on her heel, walked to the central shelves, and came back with a few vials of some cloudy liquid and two sets of what looked to be tongs one would use to pick something up out of a fire. “Now, I need to peel them off little by little. I might ask for your hands to help a bit.”
Kryos helped her when she asked, and she peppered him with questions—they were primarily about his anatomy. She didn’t seem to have any fear about him, just curiosity. Were his horns sensitive—they weren’t. Were his scales capable of feeling changes in temperature—they were. The questions continued throughout the laborious, hour-long process of slowly peeling off the suckers of the tentacles.
He had to strip down as part of the process, and she looked him up and down. “Huh, I wouldn’t have expected male bits down there. Go figure.”
Kryos raised an eyebrow at that. “Sorry . . . what were you expecting?”
She shrugged. “I always heard that half-dragons were sterile.”
“They aren’t,” Kryos replied as he used the pliers on the one sucker that had wriggled its way toward the top of his hip edging toward the inner thigh. Marcella was all business-professional as she used the other two sets she brought over and removed the rest of that sucker from him, then handed him a clean, white set of simple pants to slip on. “A half-dragon can mate with any humanoid species and produce something called a Dragonkin.”
“Are those sterile?” she asked, her voice filled with genuine curiosity.
“No,” Kryos replied. “Not unless two Dragonkin mate. Then it’s a fifty-percent chance the child will be. But they’ll still have their bits and pieces.”
“Fascinating,” Marcella replied. “I only ask because . . . well, half-dragons are only talked about in myth and legend. I never thought I’d get to see one up close and personal . . . ever.”
Kryos felt a little relieved that she was completely unafraid and seemed intrigued by him just being what he was. “You’re not afraid of me at all?”
“No,” she replied quickly. “Just when I saw a scale and tendril-covered creature silhouetted in the corner of the hospital, I got a little jumpy was all.”
Finally, they finished the process, and Kryos breathed a deep sigh of relief. Marcella gathered up the now-dead tendrils in a basket and handed Kryos the vial of cloudy liquid. “Start applying this to those clean bandages there, and I’ll be back once I’ve disposed of these.”
He did as he was told, and she came back a few moments later with more clean linen. She began applying the liquid-soaked bandages to his wounds, and then tied them securely with the bandages. “What exactly is this stuff?” Kryos asked as he sniffed at the antiseptic smelling pieces.
“Just something to speed up the recovery process. You took a lot of damage. Your HP is fairly low. A few days of bedrest and you’ll be right as rain.” She patted his bicep. “And the treatment is on the house for saving Gary and the others who got trapped behind whatever rockfall led to . . . well, a fight with those things.”
“Thanks,” Kryos replied.
“Now, bed,” she said, pointing to the spot behind him. “Go on. Doctor’s orders.” She reached over to that knob in the wall, turned it, and the slight hissing that had faded to background noise ceased as the lights surrounding them flicked off.
Kryos didn’t complain, crawling back onto the bed and wriggling his way under the covers. He took a few deep breaths and could hear the voices outside, still talking and mumbling. He couldn’t make them out, but the people up and talking late into the night sounded like they were still mixed. Afraid, curious, distrusting.
Now alone, he had a moment to himself. He replayed the whole fight with those tentacle monsters in his mind. It was scary, thrilling, and also dangerous. He had done something his dad would have approved of, but his mom would have absolutely warned him away from. He shuddered as he remembered the pain he felt, and he touched a few of the bandages on his chest, wincing as he felt the pain throbbing beneath them.
The building was quiet. Louder than the Drakemount, and not as quiet as the cave he had initially holed up in, but still somewhat peaceful. And yet he was still unsure. What should his next step be? He had his hoard, and the bag could hold a good bit of wealth. Should he leverage the fact that he saved people and ask for—no, demand a reward? His mom would approve of that. He was a dragon, after all, and he had saved people. If not for his timely intervention, people might have died.
Then there was that Adventurer Guild that was mentioned. His father had talked about the Quest Conclave, and Kryos knew that every Adventurer Guild was like a local branch of that larger organization. He could do jobs for them and receive money for completing those. Plus, some even offered food and lodging—that would let him build his hoard even faster.
He had a lot of options, but at that moment . . .
He felt vulnerable at that moment. He was in a building, sure, with walls all around him. But he wasn’t in a safe place. The doors to the hospital were easily accessible, there was nothing separating him from an assailant, and his armor was useless scraps thanks to the tendrils that had ripped them to shreds. He reached under the bed and grabbed his Trader’s Pouch, clutching it close to his chest under the covers.
I could be so easily overwhelmed here, he thought. This whole city business might have been the wrong move. What if they all turn on me because of what I am?
He shut his eyes and tried to rest, knowing that he had done all he could and made the best of the situation he was in. He just hoped his dad’s words were true, and that most people were decent.
Kryos woke up to the sound of a door slamming open. He bolted upright and jumped out of the bed, slipping the bag around his neck and immediately brandishing his claws as he prepared to defend himself. He heard the door slam shut once more, and was heaving breaths as he waited, counting down seconds.
Marcella walked out of her chambers, to where the front door was, and walked back toward the beds with a basket filled with an orange-colored, log-shaped series of objects inside. She looked at Kryos. “What’s wrong?”
He let the claws recede. “I heard the door slam and thought we were being attacked.”
She giggled. “Jumpy, aren’t you?” Then, she pursed her lips. “Ah, well, I guess you would be, given the whole half-dragon thing. Don’t worry, Kryos. No one is going to come in here and hurt someone I just finished curing. I’d kick their arse.”
Gary chuckled, and Kryos saw his feet hanging off the edge of his bed while the rest of him was out of sight thanks to the wall partitions. “I’m sure word spread from the night crew. ‘The purple half-dragon who saved us all’.”
Kryos walked over to the duo and crossed his arms as he stood there. Gary looked to be in hale spirits. “I am not purple,” Kryos replied.
Gary squinted. “Ah, I suppose not. Darkness and whatnot. I guess you’re more black with a bit of purple shine.”
Marcella handed Kryos one of the bars of orange, her fingers crunching into the exterior and revealing a white interior. “Eat. Doctor’s orders.”
Kryos took the bar and bit into it. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it definitely was not tasty. He chewed it a few times and then swallowed it. “What is it?”
Gary looked up at him. “Never had Bakerswood before?”
“Can’t say I have,” Kryos replied as he took another bite and gobbled it down.
Marcella replied, “It’s bread made from a special mold that acts like flour. It’s great for places like Suncrest out on the frontier, since the spores can grow on practically any wood. Most folks grow some in their house, or on it. A nice backup food option.”
“Are times lean?” Kryos asked.
“No,” Marcella replied.
Gary chewed through bite, wincing as he did so, then swallowed. “The hospital gets free food delivered every day from the baker.”
“Ah,” Kryos replied. He finished the loaf of bread. “Thank you for tending me, and for the food.”
The doors opened once more, and all three of their heads turned. Two people—one man with black skin and red eyes just like the foreman, and one woman with light green skin and grass strewn with leaves for hair—came marching in wearing chainmail and holding short spears in their right hands. They had round shields on their left. As they both came in, they stood to either side of the door.
“Ah, great,” Marcella muttered under her breath. “The mayor’s come to visit.”