Mid Morning - Late Spring : Kingdom of Kaelallan

"So how about you tell us some of the stories from when you all were adventuring together, Father.." I casually asked without thinking of the rabbit hole it would lead me down.

Each of the adults ended up taking turns telling stories, all about general adventures they had in the past.

Father was a swordsman, Oliver was an archer, Sarah was an assassin along with a man named Lewis, but the most surprising of all was Helen. She was a brawler.

Even though the makeup of the party seemed odd, it worked out quite well with Father and Helen as the vanguard, Sarah and Lewis as rear guard and Oliver as the ranger.

But I was far more concerned about something else.

I simply couldn't see the elegant woman in front of me as a brawler. -Is that what Oliver was talking about when he mentioned her personality? She seems.. normal..-

After a bit more thinking, I shook out the thought and continued listening to the other stories.

It wasn't for a decent while that they finally got to telling the story I had been waiting for.

The story of the fight that exposed fathers identity as a dragon. It was quite a long story but an interesting one nonetheless.

It all started when they were on a private ship to the Kingdom of Elynnor when a strong sea serpent strayed out of its normal path and ran into the ship.

The fight took several hours before the ship got damaged enough to where it was about to sink.

They couldn't let it sink the ship at all costs since they would be sitting ducks in the water and were already over 3,000 km offshore.

But even with this urgency, both Oliver and Sarah were knocked out by the serpent and the fight turned for the worst.

The serpent's next attack was a strong one that finally broke past Father and blew a hole into the hull.

The ship was going to sink and they were all going to die, but Father couldn't continue to hold back and let that happen.

In a flash, he transformed back into his dragon form and one sidedly beat the sh*t out of the serpent.

As the water filled with blood, Father quickly swam around and put everyone on his back with all the rations he could find.

The silence following a fight didn't last long though.

"That was a long swim.." Father looked down, as if traumatized about something.

"Of course it was, it was a few thousand kilometers."

"That's not what made it long, Helen… It was all of your questions since everyone else was too tired to worry about it."

"Hmph, you're just weak willed, you should've told us you were a dragon earlier."

They had been adventuring together for several years before this incident, going through near death scenarios more than once, but father never exposed his identity.. -I don't think I'd be able to do that..- I wouldn't be able to hold back if my friend's life was in danger. It's a reason I've vowed to myself to not get attached to humanoids.

"I couldn't, exposing my identity was only possible because we were in the middle of the ocean, you guys were the only ones who saw and you're all tight lipped.."

Helen gave him an eye of scrutiny. "Yea, yea. Well let's leave that in the past."

Lucy, who had looked like she was waiting for something, finally took the opportunity to jump into the conversation. "Can I see your dragon form?!" Her enthusiasm was mind boggling when compared to earlier.

Although Lucy was looking at Father, Helen was looking at me with a peculiar look. "I'd also like to see it."

Trying to ignore the odd feeling in my gut, I turned back to Lucy. -I guess her wanting to see Fathers dragon form is kind of like her seeing the character of a novel she loves, since Helen told her stories of him as a kid..-

Father wasn't so keen on the idea though. "Haah.. it's not that simple.."

Wanting to eventually see my form, Helen gave a suggestion. "How about we go to the shelter? It should be comfortable for you to be in your dragon form there."

-What? A ‘shelter’ is big enough for a dragon to stand in?- "How tall is it's ceiling?"

"80 meters." She wore an innocent smile as she said the outrageous number.

"Haaahh.." Father let out a long sigh. "Is this the thing you said you were building for me all those years ago.."

Helen held her head up high. "Mhhmmm, I told you I wanted to make you a room so you could 'stretch' in when you visited, but this is the best I could do."

"Well, I don't think-"

"Can we go?" I was quick to interrupt Father.

I wanted to take the opportunity to go to my dragon form to 'breathe' some, even though it had only been a half a day since we arrived.

-It's already so stuffy.. just how did father stay in this form for over a year at a time..- I gave Father a look of admiration which made him cave.

"Haah.. fine.."

Hearing his agreement, Lucy and Helen had wide smiles on their faces, it was just that something about Helens felt 'off'. "Well, shall we get going?"

Trying not to think much about it, I got up with everyone else and followed Helen inside.

There was an elven maid that looked very nervous as we came through the door.

"Young Miss!" She ran over to Lucy, not seeing her beaming smile. "Are you okay?!"

"Of course I'm alright, you know me better than anyone." Lucy just went along with the embrace of her maid, letting her calm down some.

"Martha," Helen called out to the maid. "Please clear the Main Hall."

Martha gave a shocked expression before nodding and quickly leaving the area.

Making our way down several hallways, Helen and Oliver would periodically touch the corners or edges of paintings.

Although I couldn’t exactly see what they were doing, I didn't question it much.

After several minutes, we finally came into the main hall, a massive hallway-like room with a fancy throne on top of several stairs at one end.

The room was devoid of people which made it feel very empty. -Its quite a beautiful room though..-

Quickly making our way up the stairs, Oliver leaned down and touched something on the underside of the throne.

*Click*

As the switch was flipped, the area behind the throne lowered to form the top of a staircase.

-To think those paintings were really the password..- Although I thought that might be the case earlier, I figured if it was, they would've been more sneaky about it.

Looking over at Father, I noticed he wasn't very surprised either. "That's a pretty secure secret passage."

Helen puffed up her chest with pride. "Yeah, it took a very.. very long time to set up."

Following Helen down the stairs, we eventually made it to a small room.

"This is where we will take the lift down." She spoke like a tour guide.

-What? She can't mean an elevator right?- "A lift?"

"Mhm! We use a very strong artifact for wind magic to let us go up and down long distances, we've started calling it a lift."

-It really is.. an elevator-

Walking out onto the floating slab of stone, it shook slightly. -Oh lord.. that's a little too unstable isn't it?- But as I looked around, no one was worried.

Everyone casually walked out onto the lift, not paying mind to the shake before we started our descent down the dark 'elevator shaft'.

It was an odd sensation being lowered into the ground on a primitive, shaky platform. -This is so sketchy..-