- - - - -

Race: Saurian

Bloodline Powers: Strength, Rending, Emberbreath

Greater Mysteries: Fire (Noble) 3, Wind (Noble) 1

Lesser Mysteries: Heat 4, Oxygen 4, Embers 4, Pressure 4, Current/Flow 4

- - - - -

“What a nice day,” Samazzar said cheerfully, adjusting the straps on his backpack as he glanced up at the cloudless sky. “The sun is shining, birds are chirping, and I don’t have to deal with any humans gawking at us.”

A gust of wind blew across the prairie, sending ripples through the grass as it flowed over the three saurians’ scales. Dussok grunted.

“Easy for the person only carrying a third of our supplies to say,” he replied, lifting the heavy axe off of his left shoulder and switching it to his right. “We’ve been hiking for the better part of a day, and between the packs and my weapon this excursion is growing tiring.”

Sam glanced at the bigger saurian taking note of the two backpacks slung across his sibling’s shoulders. Despite Dussok’s complaints, his heavily-muscled chest was moving evenly and his legs pumped out a regular beat through the endless grass. No matter how close Samazzar looked, he couldn’t find even the faintest sign of stress or discomfort.

“Didn’t you offer to take Takkla’s pack?” He asked cautiously, nodding at the second backpack slung over Dussok’s shoulder. “I don’t think she said anything about needing help-”

“I didn’t,” Takkla agreed. “The big lunk just figured that it was his manly duty to carry my share of the supplies whether I wanted him too or not.”

“You also didn’t complain when I took the pack,” Dussok replied gruffly. “I can always give it back to you if you want to prove some sort of point.”

“No,” Takkla said with a sniff. “I think the current arrangement is working just fine. This way I can keep an eye out for threats and game animals while you handle unimportant matters such as carrying heavy objects for me.”

Samazzar bit back a chuckle as Dussok rolled his eyes. The two of them were always like this, bickering without any heat and acting like he wasn’t there. At first, Sam hadn’t quite been able to understand their actions, but ever since he had seen Fel’Annthor, it had all clicked.

Even thinking her name made Sam’s heart flutter. Even the casual arrogance of the dragoness’ flight called to him. The way she floated through the sky, barely bothering to flap her powerful wins, daring some other predator to challenge her dominion.

He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to be her or date her, but Sam wouldn’t settle for half-measures. It didn’t matter if he needed to drain oceans and level mountains to achieve his goals. He was going to do both.

“But it is a nice day right?” Sam questioned, motioning with a claw at the light-blue sky. “The wind is blowing, there’s not a worry on the horizon, and we’re away from all the angry hustle-bustle of the city. Finally we have a minute to breathe and relax.”

“True,” Takkla replied with a chuckle. “I like the Academy and most of the humans seem nice, at least a quarter of them look at me like I just set their pets aflame when they think I’m not looking. It’s exhausting.”

“I can handle it on my own,” Dussok said unhappily. “They are waiting for me to make a mistake. The solution is simple. I just don’t. But when I see how they look at Takkla and you little dragon, judging your every word and move. It chafes under my scales.”

“Ignore them,” Samazzar responded with a shrug. “I don’t plan on staying in Vereton long enough to change their opinions, so it’s best to just pretend we can’t see the looks they cast our way. If it becomes a problem, we put it down swiftly and efficiently, but there is no use in clutching our claws and worrying about something that may or may not come to pass.?

“After all,” he continued, a glint in his eye, “a dragon doesn’t need to spend all of their energy planning for the future. Their future should plan for them.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Dussok said, rolling his eyes. “I’m not even going to address the fact that an abstract concept like the future is not capable of planning or foresight. Instead I must ask why you think that ignoring potential problems is a good idea? We are alone in a dangerous world, surrounded by forces that could squash us like bugs without any notice. It would be imprudent bordering on insane for us to not make plans and contingencies to prepare for these potential outcomes.”

To their side Takkla buried her muzzle in a hand, barely suppressing a giggle.

“Nonsense,” Sam replied. “Being a dragon is a state of mind. If you carry yourself with enough confidence the world will make space for you. I’m not sure if it's a mystery or simply an unspoken fact, but some people just have a presence to them. Great men and empires instinctively know that they can either make room for them or be crushed under their claws when the time comes. The most important part of being a dragon is acting like one. I am temporarily smaller and weaker than I should be, but I refuse to let that change anything about how I interact with the outside world.”

Dussok shook his head, snorting over the sound of his axe scraping back and forth across the tough scales of his shoulders.

“That is entirely irresponsible, little dragon,” Dussok rumbled. “I do not pretend to understand causality on the same level as some of the Academy’s experts, but the idea that you can change reality simply by willing it so is-”

“I am not changing reality,” Sam cut in placidly, “it reorients itself to accommodate me.”

The big saurian stopped, cocking his head to stare at Samazzar. His jaws opened and closed soundlessly as he gaped, unable to process his sibling.

“Is THAT where your plans come from?” Dussok asked incredulously. “Do you seriously just act in whatever why you want, and then assume that the rest of existence will reorient itself to accommodate you? By the mysteries, we’ve been attacked, we’ve been enslaved, and the entire time you’ve remained calm. Is this your secret? Blind faith that things would work out simply because you approach the world as a dragon?”

“There’s nothing simple about it,” Sam said with a sniff. “Being a dragon isn’t just a matter of being large and having wings. It is a way of looking at the world and understanding at a very fundamental level that everything is beneath you. Every thought and action needs to be structured correctly. You can’t decide to be a dragon and then have the entire world accommodate you. You need to BE a dragon if you expect the outside world to bend to your will.”

“I-I-just-” Dussok sputtered only for Takkla to put up a single hand and hiss him into silence.

“We are being watched. Four figures to our left, about sixty paces.”

Sam froze for a fraction of a second before continuing as nonchalantly as possible. It was unlikely that an observer would have noticed the hitch in his step, but at the same time, he didn’t want to push his luck.

“Do you have any idea whether or not they’re hostile?” He asked, trying to keep trying to keep the pitch of his voice as constant as possible.

Takkla didn’t respond at first, instead keeping her muzzle pointed straight ahead while she glanced furtively in the direction of the concealed individuals.

“At least one of them has a bow,” she answered, her voice strained. “I can’t be completely sure, but I think another one of them has either a staff or a spear. Regardless, all four of them are wearing armor of some sort. I doubt they’re out here on a hunting expedition.”

Before Sam could respond, a bird called shrilly from the direction that Takkla had identified their observers. He made eye contact with his smaller sibling, and she shook her head grimly.

Without speaking, Samazzar reached down into the smoldering embers of his gut, willing a fistful of sparks and flame up his throat even as he ducked down and scooped up a double handful of the golden grass that grew around his waist. He packed the mostly dry plant matter together, making a large ball of vegetation before hacking a narrow stream of fire into it.

Just as he pushed slightly with his mind, feeding oxygen and heat to the smoldering cluster of grass, a shout went up from the field. Sam’s gaze flickered to the prairie, taking in the four warriors that Takkla had identified. Another five hundred paces past them, another quartered popped up from the swaying grass.

Another warcry from behind him confirmed his suspicions even as a third group popped into view near the edge of Samazzar’s eyesight. Evidently, there were people stretched in line, gathered in small groups across the plains, waiting in ambush for anyone foolish enough to try and pass through.

Samazzar stood up, the ball of grass between his hands blackening and crackling as flames began to dance above it. Distantly he heard some more shouting followed by the twang of a bow.

A poorly aimed arrow arced upward. Sam tracked it with his mind, assuring himself that it would miss everyone in his group by at least a dozen paces even as he pulled a fist sized ball of flame from the grass sphere.

Takkla returned fire, a second arrow already nocked and in her short bow even as the first struck a spear wielding human in the shoulder. The man spun to the side from the impact, but the arrow failed to penetrate the layers of treated leather and cloth that he was using as make-shift armor.

The two groups nearest Samazzar’s party charged. He turned to the right, throwing his magically tamed flames into the grass just in front of them. A woman managed to yelp in surprise before Sam pumped oxygen into the fire. In barely a second, the rough formation of warriors was replaced by a bonfire, screams warring with the rush and crackle of flames.

He spun on his heel, the ball of grass still burning in his grip. A human swung a two-handed sword at Dussok, only for the saurian to slash the massive black axe downward toward his attacker. The blade clashed with Dussok’s weapon only for the axe to shatter the steel of the sword like it was made from ice.

The human stumbled backward, clutching an arm where shards from their blade had drawn blood. One of their companions leapt at Dussok before he could press his advantage, thrusting a spear at the larger saurian in order to ward him off.

Takkla’s bow twanged from Samazzar’s side and an arrow sprouted from the spearman’s throat as he closed his eyes. The grass in his hands was almost burned through, but there was enough fire left for him to scoop it up with his mind.

The flames jumped from Sam’s hands, curling together into a dart that slammed into the side of a woman carrying a short sword and a wooden shield as she tried to flank Dussok. Samazzar grunted, struggling to maintain his control of the conflagration behind them even as he pumped more oxygen and heat into the smoldering embers covering her gambeson.

She burst into flames, falling into the grass. Dussok slid past her struggling form, bringing his axe down on the now disarmed human that had first attacked him. The blade shredded the man’s layered armor, biting into his chest with a sickening crunch of broken bones and torn flesh.

Samazzar bit his lower lip, struggling to keep the flames from his magic tamed. With each second, he could feel the fire trying to escape his grip and ignite the dry grass around his targets.

Takkla fired another arrow, and Sam dropped to one knee. He dug one of his clawed hands into the dirt and roots of the prairie as he tried to regulate his breathing. Through his screwed shut eyes, all he could see was the pair of fires, squirming and struggling.

Studying the mysteries had improved Sam’s control. Where before the flame would have had ragged boundaries, now he was able to keep it within a carefully defined oval, smothering any sparks that sought to escape.

But in that moment, Samazzar couldn’t help but confront a fundamental truth about the mystery of fire. It might not be alive, but it wanted to escape. It writhed in his grasp like an animal, squirming as it sought to wriggle free and consume more fuel. For every tendril of fire he stopped, another three sought to slip around his attention and set waiting grass alight.

That was its nature. Fire was almost as free as the wind itself. Any attempt to constrain it was a temporary thing. It was in both mysteries nature to expand, to spread themselves as wide as possible.

He could feel something. A deep connection that felt somehow different from his previous epiphanies, but also so much further away. Like he was taking the first steps toward something monumental, a distant mountain that he couldn’t quite see through the clinging mist.

Then a horn blew. Three short notes.

Distantly, he noted that the humans were turning and jogging away. The archers fired a couple of inaccurate arrows toward the saurians, but they too were also withdrawing.

The sheer number of the humans was disturbing. They had killed or severely wounded six of the raiders, but at least another seven or eight four person teams had emerged from the grass, and all of them were filtering to the South, away from the saurians now that the element of surprise was gone.

Sam exhaled, cutting the flow of oxygen to the two fires he controlled. Over the course of ten seconds, the flames guttered out leaving only smoldering red embers and charred bodies. He stood up, chewing on his lower lip worriedly as he watched the human forces leave. They were still keeping an eye on his party, but even as they regrouped, none of them made an aggressive move.

Dussok broke the tense silence.

“I think we should get moving, little dragon.”

Sam nodded slowly, willing his hands to unclench. Redfern Vale wasn’t that far away, and once they arrived, the three of them could disappear into its numerous crags and wooded areas. Unless they were pursued by a team with a dedicated tracker, there was no way they would be found.

“Do you think they’ll follow us?” Takkla asked worriedly, her eyes never leaving the cluster of almost forty humans that was slowly walking away from the three of them. “There are a lot of them.”

“I don’t know,” Samazzar replied. “I don’t think they have a practitioner. Maybe they’d win if they attacked us, but I don’t think any of them want to volunteer to be the first person burned alive.”

He exhaled, running a hand over the smooth scales atop his head before continuing his line of thought.

“I do know that they shouldn’t be here. We’re to the North of Vereton. This is supposed to be wild territory, populated only by monsters and tribal creatures such as orcs, goblins and kobolds. That many humans under arms isn’t a good sign.”

“Agreed,” Dussok said unhappily. “A dozen bandits scraping a life from raiding is one thing, but when I look at our attackers, I see organization and funding. Their weapons were haphazard, but they were armed with well-crafted steel blades. Someone sent them here to interfere with travel and trade. That is not an accident.”

“No,” Sam responded. “It’s not. But it’s also someone else’s problem. We need to get the flame garnets. The Knights and City Guard can worry themselves with this lot. All this attack means for us is that we will have to take the long way home.”