Verna was buried in paperwork, she had a whole team of skilled people working for her in aiding in administrating this city. They had, at her direction started a whole series of new enterprises, all owned by the crown, employing huge numbers of former slaves and starting to create something akin to a functioning economy in the city. In reality most of the leg work was being done by the Seneschal who seemed to have a good head for business. But she liked to keep her hands in everything to keep the man on his toes. She didn’t know him well enough to leave him unsupervised.

Still the changes to the city had been mostly positive. Now many of the abandoned building were homes for new families (a policy she had started, which rewarded marriages with a home), there were still a number of issues confronting the city, crime for example continued to be an issue, but she felt like it was starting to stabilize into something approaching functional. This place had come a long way in the weeks since Jace left.

Correcting the morals of the populace was an ongoing war. There was a huge social upheaval which she was now overseeing. In the first week after Jace left she had to put down a huge revolt lead by a number of the remaining nobles and freemen aiming to take back ‘their’ city. This lead to a week-long battle where perhaps 1 in 3 of the men in the city had to be killed to end opposition to the new laws. Thankfully the women and army were almost completely behind her, which made the battle turn into a general slaughter.

Following the purge of dissents, she focused on a census and citizenship. What she found was depressing, 90% of the population was

The problems were endless, and she was poorly educated or suited to fix them. In the end she had to find people who knew things about ruling, economy, business. She created a bank, she created a lending mechanism, she created businesses (on paper) then sold the land and buildings for them. Remembering Jace’s stories about his home, she created schools for children and adults, located teachers or at least educated people to teach reading and counting. She created a magic academy, and put to work anyone who could channel to teach in it, using the handful of focuses Jace had designed.

It was seemingly endless work, which she was still fighting with on a daily basis to make work properly. Currently she had set up soup kitchens and shelters for people who weren’t employed yet, the whole city was being reworked from the ground up, and if it wasn’t for the fact that the citizens were young and enthusiastic for the change, and started to take initiative, she probably would be destroying the city rather than building it up.

The workload and paperwork was enormous so when she heard the explosion sound coming from the main gates she actually felt a moment of relief to know that she didn’t have to look at this paper anymore. Grabbing her sword, she moved toward the southern entrance. She had been waiting for this day since Easol told her about it. The girl Kay’rin was coming for a visit.

The halls of the palace stretched before her eyes as she teleported to the main southern entrance. She recalled what Easol had told her of this event, and had made what preparations she could. Part of her was a little worried as the future sometimes changed, but she trusted the girl would have told her if something changed to make her plans invalidated.

She quietly backed into a small corner near the southern entrance, drew her blade and waited silently.

There was no sound of battle. Which meant the soldiers were following her orders. So far everything was progressing according to plan.

Kay'rin was staggering through the hole she made in the gates. She was surprised no soldiers were coming to fight her, and stood there puzzled.

“Move quickly, its likely no one is in charge now that this animal Jace went missing. Head to the palace.” Melis’s voice echoed in her head.

Nodding to her friend she made her way straight for the palace, it’s ruined dome covered in wooden scaffolding, the whole inner courtyard of the keep covered with snow. She saw footprints everywhere but no one around, so she walked toward the keep, her feet hurting badly, the pulse surging in her grip, threatening her hold on it.

She could feel her skin crawling and knew she must be bleeding again, as she felt something wet trailing down her face. She fumbled with unfeeling fingers, their tips now black, and smelling of rot, in a pouch, pulling out a purple/yellow leaf, then lifting the corner of her mask to put it into her mouth. The taste was bitter as always and her head swam. Melis didn’t say anything as she paused to treat her pain. Lowering the mask, she started to make way toward the palace again.

Shawey was sitting by a burning brazer, a bored expression etched on her face, the clipped screams of a tormented Fairly barely registering in her ears. It had been weeks since she was captured by this group of humans. The called themselves “Free folk” and as far as she could tell they lived a migrant life well away from cities and human villages. They were a strange mix of peoples. Some were clearly wanted fugitives, scum really, fleeing from the authorities wherever it was they committed their crimes. But the majority of the people were living this lifestyle for generations.

She remembered a conversation with the leader of this group of humans. He was the chief of the band, a man named Mah’di. Mah’di told her the verbal history of the “Free Folk”, apparently, they had been formed around the time humans decided to make their “laws” about women. A group of men with their wives, daughters and sons, refused to abide by the new “human” laws and fled civilization to live by the “old” laws. These people were strange, there was no forced public sex as she had seen her whole life. Women were married to men, and the men slept only with those women. They raised children as a family, similar to how she was raised, and how she saw some of the older human noble families. None of the horrible treatment of their fellow man occurred in this people.

Of course, that was one side of the coin. The other was the crushing poverty. Because these people couldn’t farm they were basically hunter/gatherers. They all were marked with the moon; their lives were short and sickly. The girls married early, of course this was a polygamous society, so this Mah’di had half a dozen wives.

These people were not saints, they had a sizeable number of female slaves as well, and while their slaves were all dressed they were used much like female slaves were elsewhere. She, herself had a slave collar on, but unlike the other female slaves, none of the men dared approach her for those services. She had long since proved her bonafides as a witch to these people.

As such she served as Mah’di’s personal “Witch” whatever that was supposed to be. Thus, far all she could tell her presence was used to further intimidate and make the man seem like a powerful leader. So, while she couldn’t flee, at least she was well fed and had clothing and a safe place to sleep, so her situation was a lot better than it had been. Still she had no idea where she was and the Mah’di didn’t seem inclined to tell her. Likely in fear she might just try to walk toward civilization if she learned.

Currently their troop was heading toward a small festival that was held randomly between different bands of the “Free people”. Apparently, the main point of the festival was some sort of gladiatorial battles between the tribes. She didn’t particularly care about that either. What she was concerned about was the Fairy that Mah’di was questioning. The torture was disgusting. She really wished she didn’t have to watch it. In a way, she was doing her best not to pay attention to it.

But from what she learned from these people the Fairies did try to capture or kill the Free People whenever they found a band. It was a great concern what this fairy knew. If he was a scout for a company of fairy soldiers they’d soon find themselves in a great deal of trouble. She hated the blood and screams she made herself wait by the fire, and hope this Fairy knew nothing.

Verna waited calmly, her breath coming very slowly, she had woven a net of cold air around her, freezing the walls, the only way someone would know she was here is if they scry’ed for life. Any other form of scrying she was relatively sure would come up with nothing, even done by a sorcerer. Normally she wouldn’t dare take on an alert sorcerer, but from what Easol told her this was one of the rare chances she’d get against this little monster.

Kay’rin walked up the steps of the palace toward the ruined south wing entrance. It wasn’t much of an entrance, the hall was mostly destroyed, however there was a new wall and large door as well as a cleaned pathway to take to enter the door. She idlily wondered at the damage done to the palace but in the end, couldn’t find much interest in it.

Targeting the door with the glyph of air was all she needed to bust open a hole for her entrance. Her vision swam, and she staggered as she lost feeling in her left leg. Pausing she vomited noisily all over the white snow, some sort of brown substance. The cramps that came with the vomiting threatened to take her to her knees.

“Stand up your little worthless child” Melis’s voice rang in her ears.

“Meli… “She whined between heaves.

Verna flinched slightly as she heard the door burst off its hinges, however she didn’t move a step and continued to control her breathing. She heard some noises that sounded like someone being sick outside, but restrained herself from approaching. The waiting was making her bladder tighten, bringing on a strong urge to pee. She suppressed the urge and kept herself as still as she could. She was hunting one of the most dangerous existences on the continent. This wasn't the time to get distracted.

After almost 5 minutes Kay’rin regained her footing, and placed another leaf in her mouth. The mask was washed off as was most of the vomit from her clothing. She had taken some time to wash the black blood off her forehead as well, snowmelt worked well for most of that. Then she progressed groggily toward the open door.

The difference from the outside light and indoor was enough to blind her blurry vision. Taking an unsteady step forward into the darker interior of the entrance hall she had only a moment to look around. Her eyes spotted something that looked like a main hall and blackened tiles in the distance. Something told her this was what she needed to see.

She took a step forward, toward the main hall and the world tilted in her vision, then went black. The shock of the moment seemed to drag on for an eternity.

Verna smiled as the body of the girl dropped to the floor, headless. Kay’rin’s head bouncing on the floor separate from the body. Her blade stained with blood. She strode forward and almost gagged on the stench coming from the corpse. Her curiosity warred with her sense of caution, curiosity winning out, she used her sword to remove the leather mask on the face of the head.

What was under the mask was a nightmare. There was almost no skin remaining. Just rotting flesh like a corpse. No eyelids. No lips. Ooozing black liquid and yellow/green puss everywhere. The nose was gone, leaving a hole in the face.

She gagged and the stench grew thicker, without even a moment’s thought she seized the pulse and channeled the glyph of “fire” incinerating the corpse on the spot. Whatever it was that made a sorcerer immune to magic left the body with its death, as the corpse burned quickly, leaving nothing behind.

She recognized that black liquid, and couldn’t help but hope Jace was refraining from using the pulse as he was warned.

Jace was too busy cursing Jeanah and dragons in general to care about drying off. He was standing on a desolate shoreline. Black wet stones underneath his feet his ship smashed into pieces most of his provisions in the bottom of the sea.

A raging storm had appeared almost within seconds of tossing that stupid little dragon into the ocean. Without a chance to set an anchor, and with almost no warning, he was washed overboard by a rogue wave that hit the boat within seconds of the little dragon hitting the water. He had managed to get back onto the boat, after 20 minutes of struggling in the stormy waters, but by that point in time it was too late, as between flashes of lighting and 40 foot swells he could tell he was already close to shore. He made a dangerous choice, and abandoned the ship, keeping what he deemed most valuable for survival, and taking a floatation device and his sword while he plunged into the raging waters.

Normally leaving your boat was the worst thing you can do in a storm. However, he could clearly see how close shore was getting when illuminated by flashes of lightning in the raging storm, and the idea of being on this boat when it hit a rock seemed suicidal to him. So, he took the plunge and struggled to remain afloat.

The following hour was a struggle to survive and not drown. Somehow, he kept a hold of his things and as his strength ebbed, he felt rocks underfoot. Staggering out of the water battered and bruised, into the icy and wet air was miserable, yet what really pissed him off was the knowledge he had just been shipwrecked by a stupid little dragon throwing a tantrum.

Leaving the shoreline, he found some shelter from the wind and rain a little way inland and spent the next 10 hours trying not to die from hypothermia. When the following dawn came he finally made a small fire, he took the opportunity to chop down a small Wollumba plant and build a much larger fire with its fibrous wood then warmed himself up, finally he stopped shivering violently in the icy and foggy dawn. After the fog lifted he found his way back to the shore, and saw the ruins of his boat scattered across the shore. Thoroughly cursing the stupid dragon out, he picked through the wreckage looking for useful supplies.

In retrospect, had he known a baby dragon had the power to do this, he had to admit he probably wouldn’t have bullied it so much.