Lasair didn’t know if she was angry, or sad, or both. Sad that Sparky left, or mad at herself for even trying this stupid little endeavor. What was she thinking? Did she really think she could just run off from her responsibilities and live a life of whimsical adventure with her magical dragon friend?

Fully disheartened from adventuring, Lasair made the choice to give up the notion of leaving the forest and go back to her village. She still had the means to, with the two rings giving her all the magic she needed to survive, but didn’t see much point in doing so alone. That was human country. It wasn’t likely she’d make it far anyway, given their clear hatred for any species that wasn’t their own.

It was ridiculous for her to even leave in the first place. What will her father think when she comes back? She was supposed to only have left to get the rings back from that wannabe-chieftain, but had spent over a week longer than she was supposed to be away mucking about in the woods!

To be fair, she didn’t expect a single human to raid the whole camp and take all the rings before she and her team could reach it. She hadn’t even been able to retrieve her own tribe’s ring, just two from some other allied ones. Everything she sought out to do was a failure. Why she got the idea to leave when she saw Sparky was a mystery, even to herself. For now, she was stuck moping her way back to her tribe, essentially empty-handed. No one was going to be happy when she got back.

It would be a ways before she made it back to her own tribe, at least a four-hour walk. That healing ring would have been nice, if it still worked. Healing spells were great for tired muscles, but for some reason, it seemed out of juice. Yet another reason why her journey was a failure.

She didn’t feel any better when she finally reached the edge of her village. This settlement made the encampment look like an anthill. Hundreds of orcs lived in the territory. Plenty of whom she was not looking forwards to seeing again. The village was made up of log cabins dotting the carefully pruned forest, leaving enough open space for farming and activities, and enough forest to keep the area saturated with magic. In the center stood one of the largest shellwood trees in the entire forest, nearly 40 feet in diameter. It sat inside the courtyard of the village hall. The walls of the building were a mixture of felled and live trees, as were most of the older constructions in the village. It was two stories tall with four arched gates, one for each cardinal direction. The bottom floor and courtyard were for village hall meetings and court cases, while the second floor was built as housing for the chieftain, his family, and his council.

And her.

Entering the building through the courtyard for anyone else would be hard because of all the guards, but for her, it was because she feared what would happen when she went inside. Certainly, the goblins appointed to her side would have told them she had run off by now, and hell would be waiting for her.

She took a deep breath and entered the complex. She was met by her father’s assistant, Ciethel. He was short for an orc, only 6’5, and scrawny to boot. While he wasn’t the spitting image of the perfect orc warrior, his organizational skills basically held together the rapidly growing settlement with glue and string. If he wasn’t there to organize all the daily goings of the growing government, all hell would break loose. He was an invaluable asset to the village, but her father would be damned if Ciethel ever found that out.

“Lasair, it’s been some time since I last saw you.”

She reached back and rubbed the nape of her neck.

“Yeah, about that, is my father busy? I… need to talk to him.”

“Oh, no, your father isn’t busy. Nothing has been important enough for his royal highness to bother with yet, so he left it all with me. You know, sometimes I don’t know who really runs this place. You can go right ahead into his chamber.” He said as he rolled his eyes.

“Don’t tell him I said that, though.”

And that’s how you could tell who really ran this place.

“Of course not. What a waste of valuable blackmail.” She jested, before ambling into the courtroom.

That little respite helped her keep her cool as she walked towards her father’s position and stood before him. To her surprise, he stood up, walked over, and hugged her.

“Lasair, you’re back!” He cheered as he released her from his embrace, grabbing her shoulders. Whatever Ciethel lacked physically seemed to have been added to her father. He stood over 7 and a half feet tall, dwarfing even her own height.

“The goblins said you ran off chasing some human after he stole a creature and you never returned! I feared the worst happened to you! You should know better than to run off on your own like that.”

“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I made a mistake.”

Letting go of her shoulders, her father dropped the worried look and continued with a more formal attitude.

“Yes, you did. You left your post and abandoned your troops. You will need to start thinking about more than just yourself if you ever want to become the chieftain.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

Her father sighed.

“Look, I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.”

She’d never heard that one before.

“But you should know better by now. I know you’re only 16, but in times like these, you need to grow up fast. We have a war going on.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?!” Lasair spat out in anger, throwing back her arms.

She took a short, stifled breath.

“I know. I know,” she repeated, burying her face into her hands.

“I understand this is hard for you. No one expected your brother to-”

“Please. Don’t talk about him. Not now.”

There was an awkward silence between them, before Ciethel opened the door, interrupting them.

“Sir, two villagers are fighting over property rights. What should we do?” He stated, with a bored tone.

The chieftain grabbed the bridge of his nose.

“Now. Is not. The time. Figure something out. I’m busy”

“Oookay, sir.”

Ciethel mumbled to himself as he closed the door.

“Lasair, I can’t let you go out on missions like that anymore if you are going to perform like that. Until further notice, you are not to leave the village.”

Lasair opened her eyes wide in shock.

“What? But-but I didn’t even finish the one I’m on yet! I only got two of the rings back! What about the rest?!”

“We will put that mission on hold until I can find another suitable team to retrieve them. Speaking of the two rings you collected, hand them over.”

Lasair grumbled as she removed the rings from her ears as she placed them into his hands.

“Thank you.”

The chieftain turned to the door.

“CIETHEL!”

Ciethel opened the door again, and peered through.

“Yes, boss?”

“Find me a team of warriors, and make sure Lasair doesn’t leave the village.”

“Okay, sir. I’m on it.”

Lasair stormed through the door as Ciethel held it open.

When Ciethel closed the door, he turned to Lasair.

“Grounded, eh? If it makes you feel better, I can’t really leave either.”

Lasair turned to him and gave a fake tight-lipped smile.

“Yeah. Thanks for that.”

With that, she stormed away into her room.

Night fell, and the village was quiet. Lasair lay in her bed, at the edge of sleep. Once unconsciousness finally gripped her, she shot back up, sitting awake on her bed. But instead of seeing her room surrounding her, it was a blank void. Just below her feet lay the remaining four rings. Just like the healing ring before, all but one of them was completely drained. All the way on the right remained the final ring, the one of her own clan. Inscribed on the ring was her own name, Lasair.

Before she could reach for it, a stream of smoke flew out the hole in the ring, filling the room around her. The smoke swirled around in a powerful vortex before settling, leaving behind an image of a room. The rings at her feet had moved, shifted onto a peg on the wall. All but the one from her own clan, which was on the finger of the human she and Parker had encountered while he was lost in the forest. In the corner of the room, she saw a small dark figure tied and unconscious. It was Sparky! The human must have caught him after he ran away!

The smoke returned to a vortex, shrinking closer and closer towards Lasair, before converging around her head.

She tried swatting it away, but it wouldn’t budge. To her horror, the smoke rushed into her mouth and nose, filling her lungs, before suddenly,

She woke up.

She was back in her room, panting for breath, still disoriented from sleep. She looked out her window, and saw that it was still night.

Sitting in her bed, she racked her brain over her strange dream. When she reached the memory of the room, she felt a strange sense. She could feel where it was. It was a distance northwest, but still inside the bounds of the forest. That was good. She wouldn’t need to sneak one of the rings with her.

Lasair did her best to stay quiet as she packed her supplies. Her bag was still mostly full from before, but she decided it would be good to replace the meat she had been giving Sparky as a treat. Even with the preservative power of crimson mint, the meat left in her pack for almost a week had gone rancid. She snuck into the kitchen and pulled a jar of the spice from the bottom cabinet. The cooks didn’t put it in their food, of course, but they kept it for the hunting dogs.

As Lasair closed the cabinet and turned around, she saw Ciethel standing at the entrance.

“I’m guessing you’re not taking that for a midnight snack.”

Lasair put the jar behind her back in an already failed attempt to hide it.

“Oh, uh, no. I was, um-”

“You were sneaking out,” Ciethel stated matter-of-factly.

Lasair groaned.

“Fine. You caught me.”

“Thought so. Don’t worry. I won’t tell. You’ve kept quiet about enough stuff I’ve said about your father. We can call it even.”

“Really?” Lasair exclaimed, much too loudly for the silence of the night.

“Hey, quiet down there,” Ciethel retorted with a hushed voice.

“I won’t say anything, but that doesn’t mean nobody else will. I’m not the only one your father told to keep you here. I’m just the most observant. It’s up to you to make sure no one else stops you.”

“Right. Thanks, Ciethel. When I become the Chieftain, I’ll make sure you get a raise. That is, if you listen to me better than you do my father.”

Lasair snuck her way out of the hall, and to the exterior of the village. There were guards patrolling the perimeter at all times, but she knew their patterns. She had to learn them as part of her chieftain training

After watching the fourth guard pass by, she snuck through a short opening where no one would see for another few minutes, escaping the range of the guard’s view, and heading off towards the mysterious room.