Late Fall, Season of Reddening Leaves

Daedalus, Flying Dreadnought of the Republic

The skies above the Republic were sunny and blue, the outlines of every fluffy white cloud clearly visible. Yet close observers watching the sky might have noticed the occasional misshapen cloud, warped and curled at their edges or parted down the center like some enormous mass had passed through them.

And yet, the skies were clear. Such was the marvelous cloaking of Daedalus, the flying ship of the Elven Republic and widely considered its true capitol with how much time the Imperator Lucius Vindicus III spent on it.

Few would blame Lucius.

The Daedalus was likely the most formidable weapon of war in the world, and it made sense for its origins hailed from another world entirely, one where the marvels of technology had reached fantastical peaks that far overshadowed magic, greatly outpacing even the technology that the Republic itself currently relied on.

It was not a stretch to say that there was no safer place on the world than atop the Daedalus.

Lucius stood with his hands behind his back in the front of the circular command room. He was perched atop an elevated metal platform at the center where he had a view of the room around him. Monitors mimicking windows formed the walls of the room, showing a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view outside the aircraft.

Lucius's one good eye flitted from side to side, the golden pupil shining against black sclera.

Nothing of much note worth. The western ranges of the Republic were yet safe, the airspace unclouded aside from a thin layer of grey smog that had risen from the industrial centers further east and north.

But of course, Lucius was not here to merely scout. That was the job of the command crew, and for them, underneath every window-like monitor, were control panels as well as a plethora of glowing buttons and switches.

Right now, however, the Daedalus flew on autopilot, with Lucius having sent the command crew temporarily away for his real purpose. He kept an eye on the monitor directly in front of him, the one that showed what stood right in front of the ship, and soon enough, through a veil of thick fog, the towering stone face of mount Torr Valeris appeared.

Lucius could understand why, when the superstition of rabble still held strong clutch over the wills of the elves, many believed the mountain to be a link between the earth and the heavens.

Torr Valeries was massive. Far, far larger than any mountain.

Simply the face of the mountain was so wide that it was impossible to tell where it began and ended, stretching endless into the horizon. In the monitor, it appeared to be like an impossibly tall wall of rock. Its peak escaped normal eyesight even from this elevation where the Daedalus flew side by side with clouds.

"Does it awe your little mortal eyes to gaze upon our grand abode, elf?" came a high-pitched, girlish voice. "Though, in your case, it is but one eye."

Lucius's elven ears twitched, their tips almost vibrating as they felt the intense surge of magical energy congregate behind him. It was a crushing feeling, this magic, a heavy, suffocating sensation that crawled from his ears to his head down to his chest, but he did not turn around.

"A pleasure to meet you, too, Valerikynthimos," said Lucius, his voice gruff and grating.

"Please, my surname is far too unwieldy when spoken in your crude language. Call me Aenshei. And it is no pleasure to reduce myself to listening to the prattling of inferior beings, but in my boundless generosity, I do."

Lucius felt the presence behind him circle around until it floated just in front of him. The figure of an Elven child, her lengthy blonde hair tied into two tails that hung below her shoulders. She was dressed in typical Elven garb. White tunic and robes wrapped with a sky-blue sash that indicated she was Puriter, of full Elven blood – a first class citizen.

"This form again?" said Lucius, a hint of distaste laden in his tone.

"I thought you'd like it," said Aenshei as she floated up to Lucius's platform, taking a seat atop his own control panel. "It always does seem that the older and sterner your kind becomes, the more perverse their generation grows, and you, little one, are nearing 170 – the twilight of your existence draws near, and that is when your kind become ever more desperate, ever more depraved."

Lucius maintained a stony expression, his striking black eye never widening, never showing emotion, only ever shooting a piercing stare forwards. "Halt this nonsense."

"Or perhaps, you would prefer this?" A sparkling sheen of white covered Aenshei's form, and when it dissipated, she had become entirely different. She now had the form of a young elven woman.

Typically attractive in the way Elves were. Tall and slender with elegant features. Curly locks of red hair – the same shade as that which flowed down from Lucius's own head – spilling down her forehead and just barely covering her gold and black eyes.

"I see that dragonkin have no respect for the dead," said Lucius as he gazed at the spitting image of his daughter, back when she was alive, when times were far less tumultuous, far less chaotic.

"The dead of lesser creatures amuses me not, but I should stop squandering time." Aenshei yawned before the same white sheen covered her again, this time transforming her into yet another elven woman, but this time, it was the regular avatar she adopted when interacting with elves.

A tall, slender Elf dressed in black robes with roughly cut, neck-length hair that radiated many colors – black, red, gold, white, green, blue – all in rhythmic succession. Rocky draconic horns sprouted from the sides of her head, and behind her unfurled a pair of clawed and scaled wings, each wing larger than her own body.

"Now then, speak your business with the dragonkin of Torr Valeris, and pray that your words are amusing enough to ensure your survival."

"My scouts have reported mass demonic activity encroaching eastwards from the center of chaos. The invading swarm has mobilized," said Lucius.

"Hm? And what of it?" said Aenshei as she looked at her claws.

"Were you aware of this?"

Aenshei shrugged. "Certainly. A member of a tainted bloodline made her way to the mountain sometime ago. Beseeched us for aid and spoke of the encroaching demonic horde."

"And?"

"I slew her for her insolence in tainting the sacred space of Torr Valeris with her impure blood, of course. And the daughter she spoke of too shall be purged soon," Aenshei sighed and gave a disappointed look to Lucius.

"Come now, Lucius, are you here also to grovel for our assistance? For none shall we give. The matters of mortals and demons and undead and spirits are all the matters of ants, for all we could care, with some ants being bigger than others."

"Then I hold no further business being here," said Lucius curtly. "I did not come here to kneel. I am here largely to inform. After all, in the Republic that welcomes all races, you, the dragons, occupy the highest seat, and it is my duty as Imperator to ensure that all the races within our great Republic are defended and represented."

"And you know well that it is a formality. We simply wish to occupy the top of any hierarchy such that you lot understand you are below us. Any matters of governance, well, that is why you are the Imperator, no?"

Aenshei giggled as she looked at Lucius's stern posture. "My, are you, perhaps, worried about your people? Are you certain you can do without our aid? This could be the cataclysmic vision you witness in your sleep.

The one that spurred you to sacrifice almost the entirety of the Club Tribes and forests to summon another quaint trinket such as the one we stand upon, but I hear that ritual failed, no?"

"Our current military capabilities are adequate to fend against the demonic horde," said Lucius simply. "I simply wished to ask the dragons if they wished to lend some form of aid as a formality, but if none will be given, then we should part ways now."

Aenshei smiled. "Did the club tribes scream?"

Lucius glared at Aenshei.

"I wonder, little old Lucius," continued Aenshei. "How you tricked them all into that ritual. How they must have felt as their bodies dissolved slowly and painfully into nothingness all in the name of aiding a Republic they have no concept of.

A Republic they were conquered into and where they spent their lives as third-rate citizens. Glorified slaves building the skyward towers and smoke spewing mounds you so heavily rely upon, their ugly forms packed away into reservations where your clean elven kin would not have to face guilty consciences seeing them.

And yet, you stand here tall and proud, chest puffed up, the belief of moral superiority strongly embedded in your head. What is it that spurs you? Some notion of a greater good? I hope not, little one, because that would be oh so very boring and quite overdone."

"We are done here," said Lucius, his face expressionless but his jaw set.

"Then so be it," said Aenshei. "Do take care not to fall to the demons as your dear daughter did, little one. Unlike many of my kind, I find some amusement in the thrashing of mortals, and I still see much potential in you."

Aenshei pushed herself off the panel and vanished, her form instantly dissipating in a cloud of sparks.

Lucius calmly reached out and pressed a combination of buttons on the panel, navigating eastwards, back to Elven territory. Knowing the dragons and their motto of inaction and disinterest, he had not truly expected any direct aid. More so he was here to confirm their inaction as that would confirm they would not interfere with his own plans.

He did not feel disheartened any for aid as well, for he had plenty.

He put his hands in front of him and thumbed the ring on his index finger. A ring fashioned in the shape of two serpents devouring each other.