“I’m sorry, Lady Liliana. Magically speaking, this is an unremarkable piece. However, I’ve never seen this metal or type of stone. It’s probably just a dungeon made piece as unusual materials aren’t uncommon in such instances,” the appraiser returned the pendant to her and Liliana glared at the difficult piece of jewelry.

She’d managed to get out of the manor long enough to visit the city. Her father had allowed it. Even if her stepmother was looking for any small misstep to crucify her with, her father had become more willing to listen to her wishes. She had passed the mark for Academy entrance and leveled past even that all with one dungeon. She was well on her way to becoming the prodigy she knew he was hoping she would be, and he was willing to invest in that.

Liliana didn’t fool herself into thinking it meant her father loved her, no matter how much she wished he did. Stupid, it may be. She had memories of a father that loved her unconditionally. But like how the memories of her own mother were fading, and insubstantial when faced with the reality that was her stepmother, so too were her memories of her original father fading. Weak memories were no good shield against harsh reality.

No, she knew her father saw her as an investment. Same as he saw the horses he bought for breeding stock as an investment. Or how he saw his marriage to Imogen as an investment that returned him with a legitimate heir, one not tainted with the blood of a commoner, power, and money. Liliana was just another investment he could use to further consolidate his power.

Even if the Rosengarde duchy was arguably the most powerful noble family, there were always threats from both their own homeland and other countries. And as Liliana had been shown repeatedly, the only thing that would protect someone in this world was power so great, none would dare to raise a hand to you.

“Could you try again?” Liliana asked the appraiser, and the man shook his head.

“I checked twice myself, and then again with enchanted glasses meant to show the truth behind anything Rank 3 or lower, I’m sorry Lady Liliana, this is nothing more than a beautiful bauble,” the man told her and Liliana sighed.

She could still feel the power radiating from the trinket. It was almost suffocating in the small confines of the shop. She knew she wasn’t insane, as Lelantos could still feel the power from the pendant as well as she did. Yet they two seemed alone in that sense, as no other person she’d shown the pendant to had detected it as being anything more than a hunk of metal and stone.

“Well, thank you for your time,” Liliana told the man as she returned the pendant to her storage bracelet. When it was gone, she felt like she could breathe again. The power had begun to have a familiar taste that felt like more than a simple result of her time spent with it. She couldn’t pinpoint how it felt familiar, though, and it just made her even more wary of it than she was before. The other part that raised her hackles was that there was a growing part of her that wanted to wear the pendant. She couldn’t fathom where the urge came from. It was against every bit of sense she had. You never wore the obviously cursed jewelry. That’s how you got possessed.

Liliana hadn’t dared to wear the pendant, no matter the urges she felt. She barely even touched the thing, holding it by its chain when she dealt with it. She’d have blamed her recent nightmares on the damned thing if it hadn’t been sitting in her storage at night. Since storage devices used Spatial magic, they were both technically in stasis, frozen time, and in another plane of existence. Nothing inside of a spatial device could affect you outside of it. Liliana had looked it up as soon as the nightmares started. Her nightmares were nothing more than the product of increased stress. In her last life, she’d had vivid nightmares anytime the doctors came with their dour prognosis.

Could be a message from the gods, Liliana thought idly, before disregarding the thought. Vita had obviously wiped her hands of this affair as soon as she dumped Liliana in this world, otherwise her life would be far easier than it was.

She’d written down her dream one night when she still remembered it. She’d almost burnt the entire notebook when her mind fully processed what she’d dreamt up. If it was a warning, Liliana could only guess that it was a warning to not become the villainess the original Liliana had been. Not that she’d needed such a warning, from her own mind or a god.

Liliana pulled her cloak tighter around herself, almost snuggling into the comforting Horned Hare fur that lined it as she walked out of the appraiser’s shop. Outside waited Jason and two more guards she didn’t recognize. She’d requested that half the guards with her wait with the carriage that they’d parked at stables specifically made for the Rosengarde family. She’d told them she’d wanted to explore the city herself, though she couldn’t convince them to let her go alone. No matter how hotly she’d argued that she could take care of herself.

“My Lady, you may be strong for your age, but you are nothing but a whelp in comparison to many who have evil in their hearts and the power to see it done,” Jason had told her when she had argued, leaving Liliana with little to argue back with.

While this area was low ranked, she’d already seen three adventurers well into Rank 6, and one in Rank 5. She knew they didn’t get those ranks from fighting the monsters in the area, not the beast kind anyway. She might be sheltered, but she’d listened to the news that played in her hospital room often enough to know the cruelty and malice that lurked behind the faces of other humans, monsters in everything but looks.

She might not like the constant bodyguards, but she could admit, if only to herself, that if she found herself surrounded by others of Jason’s level or higher, even Lelantos would struggle to see her safe. Her life might not be ideal, but her overactive imagination could easily see how it could be so much worse. Her eyes trailed over beggar children, not much younger than herself, scrambling out of the way of the guards with her. Their faces were gaunt with hunger and eyes heavy with shadows and pain she couldn’t begin to fathom.

Yes, life could easily be more difficult, Liliana told herself as she looked away and forward.

“Astrid?” Liliana called and her maid came to her side.

Liliana gave her a smile, noticing the stress that lined the woman’s face. Her nightmares that had been plaguing her for weeks now had taken their toll on her beloved maid, too. The woman had begun to sleep in Liliana’s attached room, so she could be there as soon as Liliana woke to help console her from the panic and terror brought on the heels of the horrors she was forced to watch every night. Liliana had done much to stress her maid since she’d arrived in this world, yet not once had the woman spoken a complaint. Never had she shown any resentment for the work Liliana forced on her. She showed Liliana only a love so deep and unconditional that on many days it was the only thing that got Liliana out of bed.

“Yes, my lady?” Astrid inquired, and Liliana tilted her head back at the beggar children.

“Can you see they get some good food, maybe a bit of coin hidden in it? If you could do it discreetly, it would be best,” Liliana asked and Astrid worried her lip but nodded. The woman dropped back and turned away from their party, though Liliana knew she did not want to. However, it was better this way. If Liliana was seen giving out gold to the beggars at best, she herself would be mobbed. At worse, the other beggars would turn on those gifted coins. Liliana had nearly incited a riot when she’d tried to just that the second time she’d come to the city.

It hurt her to walk past those struggling and do nothing for them. Yet she couldn’t be seen handing out food or money to them, or it would end awfully for everyone. So Liliana had devised to have Astrid do it in her stead, usually by sneaking the food or coin around the beggars before they ever saw the maid. Stealth was apparently vitally important to a servant, and Astrid could sneak around as well as any thief. Liliana wished there was more she could do, but her own funds were paltry.

She had been given a small ‘allowance’ for her shopping trips, but that was the only time. Astrid had to keep a close calculation of what was spent. Anything left over that went above 50 gold was returned to the Steward. Anything uncounted was docked from whatever gold Liliana would have made with her hunting, or would be docked from Astrid’s own pay.

So Liliana did what she could when she had the money. Oddly enough, charitable donations were apparently an acceptable usage of her allowance. Provided they were not too expensive. Liliana looked around the city as they moved. It was full of noise and life. She could hear merchants shouting about their wares from stalls, and their patrons shouting back. The scent of the city was almost overpowering for her more sensitive country nose. People, beasts, sweat it all combined into one overwhelming miasma that was hard to palate.

Liliana directed them through the madness until they entered the bazaar proper and were utterly surrounded by colorful stalls and bombarded on all sides by merchants hawking their wares. They seemed to all notice she was some kind of highborn lady, smelling a substantial payday. It seemed every merchant in the area had focused in on them.

“A necklace for the lady? It will complement your eyes!”

“A bejeweled dagger to hold at your side for any overzealous suitors!”

“A companion pet that will match the lady’s beauty!”

“A book of medical treatments to keep your skin young and beautiful!”

Liliana passed by the stalls, pausing for a moment at any that held something that caught her gaze, but the overeager merchants made her shy and unwilling to spend too long at any of them. She felt awful walking away, their disappointed gazes following her. She knew the merchants here weren’t wealthy enough to afford a true storefront and likely had very little money of their own. Liliana’s patronage could mean the difference between food for their family for the next week or going to bed hungry. But she had little enough gold as it was. She could not afford to buy something from everyone.

“Scales from a Dark Dragon! Got them fresh from the beast myself!” A voice called and Liliana’s head perked up. She moved closer to the stall, following the tales of a ferocious scaled beast. She paused only when Astrid moved to rejoin them, somehow finding Liliana in the crowd with ease. The nod Astrid gave her said she had completed her task.

“Look at this pitch black scale, how it shifts its color in the light! It’ll repel anything you throw at it: fire, stone, even steel!” The man shouted at the crowd gathering around his stall. Liliana’s eyes narrowed as she focused in on the scale. Her [Identify] wouldn’t give her information on the item, meaning it was being blocked somehow, probably by the merchant. That was the first tell she had that the man was lying, the other was the shape and size of the scale.

Liliana had been overjoyed learning that dragons were a very real thing that existed in this world. Even if she’d known from the game, she had been cautious to think they truly did. However, unlike other games and books she’d read that featured the beasts, the dragons that existed in this world were rare and reclusive, and wanted about as much to do with sacrificed princesses as the princesses would want to do with them. Liliana couldn’t even find a record in the manor library of a dragon attacking a country or town. Sightings of them were rare, and often nothing more than fever dreams. Dragons were accepted as real, but so few people ever saw, let alone had dealings with them, they may as well have been legend.

However, while Liliana had found no true bestiary that held information on dragons, she had a couple of bestiaries now that detailed more than a few scaled monsters. Looking at the scale, Liliana could match it to at least three different creatures from a distance it would belong to. A dragon, most certainly not. Those were said to be so large they could flatten a city by laying on it. Their scales would be the size of houses, even the small ones. No, that scale belonged to either a wyrm, flowered serpent, or greater salamander. Based on the shape, she was inclined towards a flowered serpent since the scale was leaf shaped, which was characteristic of all flowered serpent types.

Liliana moved through the gathered crowd, her guards making it far easier than it would normally be. People complained but quieted as soon as they used [Identify] on the guards or herself. No one wanted to irritate a noble.

When she was at the front, Liliana could see a table covered in scales and claws laid before her and, though she looked, she could see no other pieces of the beast. An uncomfortable feeling rose in her chest as she approached the table. The merchant, sensing a customer, focused on her and his face widened into a smile when he inevitably saw who had come to his stall.

“Lady Liliana! Do you need dragon scales to accent your armor, or perhaps to wear as ornaments that none, even in the royal court, could compare to?” The man asked, rubbing his hands together eagerly as he looked at her.

“Where did you get these?” Liliana asked, and the man jolted a bit, surprised by the question.

“Why I took it off the fierce beast myself! I dodged flame and fang to acquire these rare goods!” The man told her, and Liliana’s eyes narrowed. The man twitched nervously under her heavy gaze.

“I asked you, merchant, where did you get these?” She asked, her voice deadly and low, yet heard perfectly clear even over the roar of the market.

“I ah, f-found them towards the southern end of the Rosengarde territory. You know dragons, they prefer the heat,” the man tried to appease her and Liliana grit her teeth. Lies, more lies. Dragons were believed to have as many types as there were affinities, if not more. They could be as comfortable in the frozen seas to the north as they’d be in the bubbling volcanoes on the southern continent. And had there been a dragon in Rosengarde territory Liliana would’ve known, her father would have been going insane over such a nation-scale threat in his domain.

“These aren’t dragon scales, they’re flowered serpent scales. Now, where exactly did you find them?” Liliana asked once more, leaning forward as her eyes flashed.

“Are you calling me a liar, Lady Liliana?” the merchant asked, outrage at the insult overriding his fear. A harsh clatter shut his mouth as Jason brought his fist down on the table, the cracking noise foretelling that the merchant would need to replace the table later.

“The lady will call you anything she pleases, merchant, and you will take it gladly. Now tell the lady what she wished to know,” Jason growled at the man. Liliana turned her head slightly, one surprised eyebrow raised.

For a man who stood on so little ceremony around her, he seemed to take grave offense to anyone else trying to do the same. She wouldn’t say the display was unwelcome, though, as the merchant seemed even more cowed by the hulking guard than by her.

“I-I got them from a townsman! He told me they were from a young flowered serpent they’d trapped in a cave nearby! They’d killed the garden of them and already taken the eggs, but hadn’t realized a juvenile had survived. They managed to take some of his scales before he flew out of their range! They probably sent in a request to the adventurers’ guild already for it! That’s all I know. I swear on my honor as a merchant.” The words spilled from the man’s lips freely and Liliana’s eyes narrowed further.

“Flowered serpents are seen as good omens, believed to bring luck in the area they live in. Beasts get fatter, crops grow better. Why would a village hunt them out? And why would they break the hunting rules of clearing out babies and eggs? Let alone the laws on killing rare endangered creatures such as flowered serpents?” Liliana asked the man, her hands shaking in anger. She might seem heartless when hunting, but she would never stoop so low as to kill a juvenile beast. Killing baby creatures, except in very specific circumstances, was seen as anathema in their queendom.

While full grown monsters could and did frequently spawn by Mana, those that were birthed differed. Believed by many to have a naturally higher intelligence and better chance of rising to higher ranks, many didn’t cull the young for that very reason. They could become a threat, but they could also become a boon to the area by handling over influxes of Mana spawned creatures. Even helping with dungeons that had overflowed.

There were more than a few legends of beasts believed to be naturally born, taking up a role of protector for an area or village. Flowered serpents were an almost famous example of such, even believed to be incapable of being born of Mana, which was why they had the excess protections. Known to protect and benefit whatever territory they lived in, they were one of the few creatures it was almost universally banned to hunt, unless one had gone mad and attacked a settlement.

Liliana knew there were legends of such born beasts in their own territory, and had heard a bard or two singing of them occasionally on her trips into the city. There was even the legend of how the Cista Queendom came to be. Aided by such natural beasts exceeding even the peak of Rank 1 who had aided their first queen in settling and protecting her people here. Said to have been the reasoning the laws for killing baby creatures were outlawed, the punishment death unless the venture had been approved by the royal family specifically. The law was almost as old as the Cista Queendom itself.

However, they could also cause problems, as they were smarter and could seek out human prey, as the Mana they gained from them was better. But they were rare. So rare, Liliana had yet to see a single baby or juvenile beast out in the wild, though she knew Lelantos had been one such creature. She suspected Polaris had been as well. The fox had simply been too smart to not be.

Flowered serpents enjoyed almost the exact same protections as any natural born baby beast. The punishment for killing one without approval from your area’s Lord or Lady at the very least, and they often needed approval from the crown, was death or imprisonment depending on circumstance. So why on earth would an entire village risk that kind of punishment? Her father was known to be a fair man to his people, but was also known to be one who followed the queendom’s law in both letter and spirit. He wouldn’t hesitate to put an entire village in irons if they had broken a law of the queendom, if only to save himself the disgrace of becoming known to harbor such criminals.

“I’m not sure my Lady! Truly! I heard they’d had a bad run of a plague soon after the arrival of the flowered serpents and had blamed them, but that is truly everything I know!” The man insisted, eyes flicking between Liliana and Jason who was still doing his utmost to intimidate the man. Though Liliana was inclined to believe Jason was doing it partially now to ferret out if this merchant himself had taken part in an illegal action. She wasn’t sure if simply knowing and not reporting such actions would land him in chains, but the way the man was sweating, she thought it might.

“What’s the town?” Liliana asked, and the man hastened to reply. All bit of resistance firmly fled him.

“Timberborn, Lady Liliana. It is the town Timberborn,”