-Arwen

It was the rumbling of the ground beneath me that woke me up.

Something primal in the back of my brain had screamed at me to open my eyes and be alert, my mind was startled into consciousness without me being cognitive enough to make sense of what was going on. I just blinked awake in the darkness, tense, and waiting for something to happen.

There was something in the air, an ethereal oppressive quality to it. The hairs on my arms were standing on end and I could barely catch a faint background buzzing sound. It was like the very world was poised and ready to strike.

KRAKABOOOM

Another tremor coursed through the ground, the sound felt like it had been near but it was impossible to determine down here, it was absolute darkness down here, not even a flash of light. I was feeling increasingly confused. Was there a storm outside? The whole day had had clear skies.

A little voice in the back of my head was telling me it wasn’t thunder.

The one being locked up on the other slave-cell was shouting something about “Sky” and something that sounded similar to “Down”, I didn’t know enough common to really understand more. Was he saying the sky was falling? I didn’t really know either. What could be…

BOOM

This time I was certain it had not been thunder, it had been an explosion. Dust fell from the shitty cell’s ceiling and I was becoming increasingly re-familiarized with the fact that it was small and cramped and it was underground, basically making it into a marginally oversized coffin waiting for burial.

Welp. If there was a time for panic, this seemed like the best one.

“FIRE!” I screamed in Common at the top of my lungs. I wrangled my fingers around the metal bars and shook the door as best I could. “FIRE!” I refused to die buried underground inside a shitty cell. “FIRE!”

My compatriot seemed to have come to the same conclusion in regards to getting buried alive and was now screaming alongside me while the both of us were doing everything we could to out-volume the apocalypse that was happening outside. “FIRE!”

Only after a small everlasting eternity did the underground door open and Rainer stepped into view. God, it even felt good to see his ugly mug. The relief that washed through me was such I could’ve kissed him.

That particular emotion was summarily executed the instant afterwards as I quickly noted he was not carrying the leather club, instead had a sword on his hip. The look on the minotaur’s face was grave as he made sure I could see his weapon, the message clear: if I tried anything, the attempt would not result in a beating but in my death.

The torchlight flickered, casting shadows against every surface, leaving half of Rainer’s face illuminated and the other half hidden. “Follow.” He ordered harshly, yanking at my chain and I complied without resistance.

“FIRE!” The other slave was shouting as he held himself to the bars in a desperate attempt to get released.

Rainer turned to the slave and said something I didn’t know, then stared back to me. “Follow.” He reiterated.

My eyes turned towards the occupied cell, at the yellow panicked desperate eyes of the man trapped inside, a lump formed on my throat as I tried to think about what to do. Should I fight and try to beat Rainer and then try to escape? Fuck, I didn’t even know the word for ‘Wait’.

I didn’t get a chance to decide, my chain was yanked. “Follow!” Rainer growled as he rushed me out through the door that led to the stables. There I saw Blaire hastily moving from one pen to the next trying to calm down the slightly large ponies (or slightly small horses?) and gearing them up.

She and Rainer shared a few words, and then I had my chains bound to a metal ring on the stable’s door. Rainer did not waste a moment to rush back down towards the manor’s basement.

BOOM

The explosion was closer, the shudder being felt through my soles. Blaire hurried her work and I was left looking at the open stable doors and the small yard in front that was bordered by a hip-height stone wall (stone fence?), but over the wall? I could see the shadows of a city in the distance, silhouettes flickering under the flames that danced on the houses.

I couldn’t stop myself, I moved closer to the stable doors until my chain went taut and left me just underneath the frame. I stared with wide eyes at the burning city. Then, a light appeared from above it, bright like a flash of lightning, but it wasn’t extinguishing. Instead, the light grew brighter, redder, hotter. Then, it shot down.

The flash of the explosion happened, and the sound came only a handful of seconds or so later, as if both had not occurred at the same time.

BOOM

The world shook as something came down from where the light had originated. A shadow larger than the houses, one that landed on the blazing rooftops unafraid of the flames. Its scales shone brightly under the flickering red and yellow lights underneath, its claws tore into the wood and stone structure as if it was wet clay, its tail whipped and destroyed a building like it was nothing.

My chain was loosened and I took a step out of the barn, but my brain didn’t register it, I was too focused on the sight unfolding before me. The creature opened its fang-filled maw, and hell spewed forth, a jet of incinerating fury rushing through the air in a burst of light and heat that set ablaze everything it touched.

I stood there in stunned awe at the massive creature, at the beautifully deadly monster wrecking the city with a mighty roar.

The dragon was here, in all its magnificent glory.

The movies got it wrong. They got it so wrong.

There was nothing that could have ever properly conveyed the sheer awe such a creature inspired. It left me rooted on the spot, unable to look away.

-Cu Krittie

Calamity. There was no other name for it.

Cu was desperately gathering all the most precious items he could dump into a sack from his office and personal room. Deeds, contracts, even a couple of enchanted artefacts came along and were added to the sack. The dwarf was desperately rushing left and right and struggling every second considering whether wasting another moment to grab one item or another would be worth the increasing risk of the dragon moving its rampage in the direction of his estate.

BOOM

He paused long enough to look out the window and towards the burning city of Hightower, the flames flickering in the darkness as the beast continued in its rampage. Cu shuddered at the sight of the dragon, the monster was a calamity, a sure sign of ruin both present and future.

Hightower’s fate was sealed, even if it survived, it would not continue being somewhere Cu could easily gain profit.

Just how had the creature appeared in the capital city? Such a thing would have been spotted months in advance, rumors, whispers, sightings! A dragon was not something to be missed or ignored, all the kingdoms knew well to keep a track of any dragons near its borders. So how had this one managed to reach the very heart of Frostshield without anyone having been any the wiser?

Cu screamed inwardly and renewed his effort to gather as many valuables as he could as quickly as possible.

The dragon’s roar shook the windows and Cu flinched as he turned to look outside once more to confirm the calamity was not headed his way. Once sure the scaly beast was keeping its rampage in place for the time being, he had been just about to turn and continue his gathering of indispensable objects when something caught his attention at the corner of his eye.

The human was standing in the yard, completely still, paralyzed as it looked at the dragon with wide eyes.

And yet, Cu noticed something off.

The human was smiling.

-Arwen

In the world I had created, dragons were a special sort of existence, creatures that had not been created by whimsical gods but instead had survived and evolved throughout the whole of creation, adapting to the magic and integrating it into their very being. And in the same way that the mitochondria became the powerhouse of the cell, magic became as much an integral part to dragons as their DNA.

It was because of this there were certain qualities that were granted to them that other creatures did not have.

Such as “perfect casting”.

The magic system of this world was… complicated, it worked sort of like electromagnetism. Where in one you could get an electromagnet if you spun electrons around in a coil, with magic, if you moved the mana a specific pattern it would create fire. Or ice, or water, or whatever else. It was complicated and it had this thing where everyone thought the patterns were in two dimensions but in reality, the “perfect” patterns to move the mana around were in three dimensions and so the two-dimensional versions were greatly sub-par and… well, there was a whole pamphlet worth of words in a google drive doc somewhere in the internet explaining the thing.

The thing was that, because magic had been part of their evolution for millions of years, dragon had these “3d” patterns inside them, allowing them to cast magic with almost perfect efficiency in terms of mana consumption… whereas humans, in general, had somewhere around… 10% to 20%? Whatever, not the point, the important thing was that dragons had the equivalent of a 3d printed magical circuit-board inside them.

What was currently making me stand deep in thought was that these “Circuit boards” were unique to the individual, and there was a way to “shake” them remotely. Sort of like giving someone a slap to the back of their head.

For dragons though, they commonly called this “shake” as someone calling for their “True name”. They could intuitively sense the direction and distance to whoever had “Rung their bell”, and if they were capable enough, they could even catch the mana-signature of the caller.

The gist of it was that I spent three months and thousands of words and research devising ways to make magic more than “draw a circle in air cast fireball” just so I could allow dragons to have the equivalent of a Facebook “Arwen has poked you” function.

Totally. Worth. Every. Second.

Doubly now that I was in this situation where I knew the true-names of several important dragons… and some less important too.

All of which brought me back to the current unfolding situation. I knew the magical name of this particular dragon, though I was hesitating whether or not it would be a good idea to call her. After all, as curious as she may be about how I had come to learn her magical name, right now she was going in a rampage after having been finally released from her imprisonment under the cathedral of the Church of Swords.

This whole calamity had been started because a particular demon had managed to accidentally find a passage to the secret underground area under the cathedral and had released Rëa. The reason why she was locked down there was a whole conspiracy of its own regarding how the church was forcefully extracting the dragon’s power to “give blessings” to heroes to effectively have a way to ensure their own Holy warriors were above average.

This whole event was meant to be the prelude to the powers-that-be to decide to gather their best summoners and bring forth the prophesied Hero of legend into this world.

Rëa was supposed to keep the rampage going for about a month, going from one city to the next and massacrating thousands as she made her way towards the lair she inhabited once-upon-a-time several hundred years ago… the last location her mate had been at, Thruum.

As I kept pondering whether it would be a good idea or not to call the dragon’s name, I was forced to start considering the ramifications besides whether or not she’d kill me on sight. Without Rëa going on her extended rampage, Frostshield would be in a far more stable position and the slave-revolt that would surge some years down the road would get stomped instantly.

My situation right now might not be ideal, but if I wanted to have a definite prospect to live long enough to find a way back to my world, then all-out war against the demons had to be avoided. The slave-revolt needed to happen successfully as it would greatly deplete resources with the in-fighting and leave everyone in a more vulnerable state, which would make it unlikely they’d gather enough forces to attack the demons head-on.

So no, I couldn’t distract the white dragon from her rampage.

But now that I’d pondered on it, if the rampage was bigger then the slave-revolts would have a likelier chance to occur sooner. I mean, if it went well it could shorten the time the Hero would have to grow up, but I was pretty damn sure that if I had the time to prepare I could help him avoid some of the pitfalls.

The sooner Hero got to the “Everyone must coexist peacefully” part, then the sooner the kingdoms would want to get rid of him and clump their summoning specialists together to research into the matter and come up with a “Send me home” spell.

I racked my brain as I searched the magical name of Rëa’s mate. It was… in Tolkien elvish, something about fire and heaven? Hm… oh. “Réd-o fierui skui.” God I hoped I got the pronunciation right, not that I’d know for sure. Here was hoping he’d use some far-gazing spell or something and spot Rëa and get a move on to join up with the mate he’d thought had died so long ago.

With this in mind, it then came as a surprise when I felt… something… being perturbed in my mind. A presence was making itself clear and my thoughts were being rattled as this something was quickly growing in the corner of my mind. It felt like someone was lowering a boulder on my shoulders, even though my body felt nothing at all and the sensation was purely mental.

Panic blossomed, I couldn’t move, and the act of thinking was becoming burdensome under the overwhelming weight of the presence that had invaded my thoughts.

The voice rumbled through my thoughts like cracking flames searing a forest to ash, it was an overwhelming presence that didn’t ask, it demanded my answer. My knees were shaking from the sudden sensation overwhelming weakness.

Lying was a possibility when speaking through thoughts, but I did not dare to try for I was quite sure I’d fail and die. So I decided to just give the message and pray he’d leave.

If it was possible for a meteorite to ‘seem’ startled, then that was the impression I received through the mental touch of the dragon. It was just that overwhelming that I couldn’t properly visualize his presence as anything other than an uncaring fiery doom falling down on me.

The next instant the connection was cut off and I fell to my knees, drenched in sweat and panting, fear coming out of me in waves and the air in my lungs burning as my body had been just about ready to break into a dead spring.

I had not expected Thruum to have cast a spell to connect to my mind like that. I’d completely forgotten that there were spells that allowed you to telepathically connect to someone so long as you had a general sense of their mana-signature and location… and it made a scary amount of sense that a dragon would know such a spell.

Shit that had been dangerous, I had no protection against anything. He could’ve turned my brain into a flesh smoothie with a whim.

I shuddered at the thought. Yeah, no, no more wanting to meet face-to-face with a dragon unless I was absolutely certain they weren’t going to squish my puny existence into thin red paste.

“Arwen?” A hand touched my shoulder, still shuddering, I turned to see Yselda with a reassuring smile. “Move, order, follow.” She spoke the few words that could convey the situation. Then paused, kneeling down and hugging me. “Orowi.” She muttered.

I froze, wondering where this had come from. Was she trying to reassure me? I didn’t push her away and just remained there, very very still, but feeling she was accomplishing her task as the fear in my chest was slowly ebbing out.

“Orowi .” I spoke the word in an attempt to ask her to give me a further idea as to its meaning.

Yselda grimaced while standing back up, so it was one of those words that couldn’t be easily conveyed. Looking around, she grasped the spear that had been tied up to the back of one of the horses. She pointed the tip at me. “Argru.” She said, pointing at me. Then she turned around to face the other way, with one hand, she thrust the spear towards what seemed like an invisible enemy with practiced ease while her free hand kept its palm pointed at me. “Orowi.”

I was pretty sure ‘Argru’ meant to be in danger… so ‘Orowi’ meant to be protected? I nodded softly since it didn’t look like we were in a situation where it could be further explained through our crude means of communication.

The horned woman returned the nod eagerly, smacking her fist against her chest with a solid thumping sound. “Orowi.”

She turned to continue carrying out her orders and I was left to ponder once more. Paying attention to the happenings around me once more, I realized that Blaire’s work had been in preparation of an evacuation of the place. A wagon had been brought and filled out with many boxes and sacks, Cu appeared to be fretting over the thing as Blaire was tying the horses to pull it. Rainer for his part was nowhere to be seen, but I did spot the man with the yellow eyes standing behind the cart with his wrists chained to it.

At first I thought he was human, but when I noted the anime-protagonist orange hair and slightly pointy ears, I changed that estimate into him being a half-elf. He was dressed with the same state of the art latest fashion of “Burlap sack” I currently wore, and looked rather miserable with sunken cheeks and darkened eyes along with what were clearly signs of malnourishment.

Cu shouted some words, and Yselda came back to grab the chain that held my wrists and tug at it to prompt me to follow along. “Follow.” She said simply. The chain was tied next to the half-elf’s, so that meant I was going to have to remain walking behind the wagon. Great.

“My name is Arwen.” I intoned dejectedly once the padlock was locked.

The half-elf looked at me and gave a half-nod. “My name is Uryuc.” He then said something else, to which I could only shake my head.

“I do not understand.” My words came with a dissatisfied grunt.

That simple phrase had taken an hour to properly convey the need for me knowing such a phrase to Yselda, who then had given me like five variants. I settled on the shortest one since I did not have a clue as to what the different ‘I don’t know’ phrases were meant for.

Uryuc made an ‘oh’ face and fell silent, seemingly deep in thought. For my part I glanced his way for several long seconds as I tried to think about whether or not the half-elf had grown up in elven society or somewhere else. Had he been born free? Would this late teenager be someone who’d potentially help if I tried to escape?

Considering I hadn’t seen him out of his cell throughout the last three days I’d spent making the gruel, it was likely Cu wasn’t interested in having the slave do anything at the manor and instead was going to sell him or something like that. Maybe he’d been tricked and trapped by the bastard dwarf like I had?

Rainer’s voice called out from behind us as he came out of the stables riding one of the small-horses and leading another by the reigns. He approached Yseldal to handle the other horse’s reigns while hurriedly saying some words.

With the both of them on their horses, Cu gave the command and the wagon set out.

Rather than get dragged behind, I moved to sit at the edge at the back of the wagon, something Uryuc imitated after it was clear neither Cu nor Rainer cared about that matter, there was a tension in the air that spoke of their fear and intent to get out as quickly and safely as possible rather than fuss over whether the new slaves walked or not.

Since we were still able to see the rampaging dragon at a distance, that seemed like an understandable sentiment.