Cloud giants are rarely encountered. They are actually peaceful and so long as you do not upset one they tend to be willing to discuss events and various fields of study should you happen to know about a similar subject as the one they are currently studing. Should you be lucky enought to meet one of these recluses but unlucky enough to upset you are probably going to die. They are more powerful than all their kin save storm giants in both physical and magical power. - Common Monsters

Adrian

I see Bryan’s hand come from behind me, Talia is now fighting alongside her sister.

“Can I remove it.”

I try to talk but nonsense flows from my mouth. This form does not have the same vocals that I am used to, or are they immature? I quickly nod instead, and see the spear get pulled out by a quick jerk. I ignore the noises Abagail is making due to the pain and push her to heal as fast as I can.

She is pale when I finish causing her to regenerate what I can. As soon as I back up from her though I am picked up by one of the twins. Lysan is hugging me and has decided to start petting me as if I were a lap dog.

I start to struggle to get out of her grasp, though I make sure I don’t start cutting her with my claws.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were such a cute looking dragon?”

That is a question I didn’t want to hear. How can a man be called cute?

“Can I hold him?”

No, I am not letting this happen. My body ripples and then expands back to human form. Bryan looks away and all the girls turn red. Lysan lets go of me and I walk over to where my clothes fell.

They were torn a bit from the transformation but still wearable. After putting them on I turn back to the twins, and point at them.

“Don’t you dare start treating me like some pet.”

“What about me? Can I hold and play with you?”

I smile at K, “depends on what you mean by play.”

The twins start to blush a bit more, and Bryan interjects. His accent worse than Talia's English, but he is learning.

“Stop flirting and just get a room later. We have things to do now.”

That sounds like fun, could I? They thought I wanted all of them the day we met, so maybe. Talia has some trust issues though. I should think of this later, right now loot and find out why they wanted to attack us.

“Bryan is right. Gather the weapons, armor and anything else useful. Don’t take the food.”

The girls nod, and begin to search and strip the bodies. The twins seem shy about stripping the dead men. I go through the two nobles’ belongings. Chain shirts that are too small for me, two longbows, some arrows, two rapiers, and two satchels.

I open the satchel that the Sunchaser had, it’s bigger on the inside. A satchel of holding, there is quite a lot of stuff here: potions, a few books, rations, water skins, a small pile of coins, and a few letters.

What will the other noble’s satchel hold? I open it and smile, it is also a satchel of holding. The contents are about the same and the Sunchaser noble had; except for one thing a box that I saw Sunchaser pass to Talphith.

I strip the nobles of their clothes before burning them to ash. I dump the items that were not the satchels of holding into my Void Cache. I don’t want to risk the bag of holding in a bag of holding astral rift being real. I don’t want to be in the void even if I can live there.

The soldiers each had either leather or chainmail of lesser quality than the nobles along with a short sword and spear. Though many of the spears are now broken. I take care of burning the bodies to ash, why waste the other’s mana.

“Anything good on the nobles" asks Bryan.

“Yes, I’ll show it once we have a place to camp for the night. The Althaen camp is between us and the homes where our families may be, which way should we detour?”

“I think Aaron may still be around. Should we risk moving through their ‘hood’?”

“I think he won’t attack us or try to kill us like the Althaen did.”

“I agree.”

“Any objections?”

Nobody responds, though I doubt the trio cares and Abagail is only semi-conscious. So, we begin to head east. I start pulling out the letters from the satchels and passing them to the trio. Soon enough one of them, Lysan got one that explained what was going on. While the other letters were sometimes entertaining, they were ultimately useless for us.

The translation for the letter Lysan got is as follows.

Tyrus Suncatcher,

Tomorrow at dawn you will be sent on an excursion to locate and capture more slaves. The Vithrã household will be aiding us in this. Along with them the upstart barbarian claiming to be from house Ravnos we be sent along. He nor any of his ‘followers’ will have horse nor will they have rations.

If you can fool him into telling us where some natives would be hiding, but the following mission is more important. He is not to return alive. Tire them if you can first but make sure they are all dead. He could have made a good slave as he does have magic but it is too late now. Serve the Sunchaser house well and avenge the deaths of those slain by this barbarian.

The noble from Vithrã will help, they have realized that being allied with this fraud was a poor decision. The soldiers being sent are loyal to us but after returning make sure that no one will speak of this. High Lord Andrus ordered this excursion and he is not aware of our problems with the fraud.

Hellionus Suncatcher House Patriarch

I guess my act was not as good as I thought. At least it held well enough that they didn’t fight me in the open. I could not have dealt with their entire camp at once. Bryan begins to talk to me as we continue walking.

“Where you also always a dragon? And what type are you? You look like a shadow dragon without the shadows and have blue light coming from under the scales. There was also a pattern on the wings.”

“That’s more recent, and I am a void dragon.”

My voice holds a bit of pride on the type, as if I find it the best type to be. Well it has to be since that is what I am. Is this more draconian pride? Well I do look way better than the others so it has merit.

“Never heard of it.”

“I didn’t hear about them until I woke up as one. How’s stuff on your side?”

“Haven’t heard anything from my patron, but I’m picking up my paladin abilities quickly. I ended up as an Undead Hunter. Did you have any books on beginner’s magic though?”

“I think I might, I’ll make sure to put them on the table when we sort the loot later. If you need help reading them just ask.”

Bryan looks over at the others, they are far enough away to not hear if we talk lightly. Except K I think she can hear better than the sisters.

“So, is it as fun as the jocks always braged about?”

I smirk at him, “quiet or Abagail might hear you.”

“Just tell me.”

“It’s great, you should try it.”

He stops for a second, “stop mocking me. Do you think I even have anyone to do that with?”

“Abagail might agree, she likes you more than me.”

He smiles, and we stop talking the girls have noticed us whispering to each other. I for one don’t want them mad, even if it weren’t for my interactions with K they are more than half our fighting power.

We run into a few small packs of goblinoids. Never over a half dozen but they still slow you down when traveling. Nothing worth using on the bodies though. Due to the few encounters we don’t reach where I expect Aaron and the others to be before nightfall. So, we started breaking into the houses to see if there was anything to salvage and places to sleep.

In the end, I lucked out. I found a war veteran’s home. It only had one bed but it was a king sized one, but more importantly there were some guns still here. I also found the body of an old man, probably the owner of the house.

I thanked him for the service he gave before cremating him. The guns were in a gun safe but the old man had the key in a jar in the cupboards of the kitchen. The food was all gone though. There was another pistol, two rifles, some boxes of .22, .308, and 9mm rounds. They all fit in the guns I now have. There was also a shotgun shells but the twelve gadge shotgun itself was missing. Plenty of magazines though.

The others found some beds but all the food and possible weapons were gone. We got back together at the house of the veteran for me to share the loot.

Once everyone was in the dining room of the home, I dumped out the satchels on the table.

“Take anything you will use. Spell books are communal, so help others if you can learn anything from them.”

I pick up the box that I should have looted from Talphith. Within it are several vials I immediately recognize, dragon’s blood, a letter, some coins, and a key. As much as I want to drink the vials I set them aside for now. I see the others look at the box but I pull it closer to me. This is my treasure, I won’t share those.

I pick up the letter to find it surprisingly in elvish.

“Lord Adrian Ravnos,

If you are reading this than my grandson is dead. I am disappointed in how you have been treated by my fellow nobility but you have upset too many of them. The houses here want your head, even my own. While most of your actions have been justified too many wish you dead.

I know that you are mad with the members of the Althaen but not all of us are terrible people. I am sorry for how even my own house has tried to cheat and control you ever since you walked into New Althrá. These are the possessions of Magister Talphith that I could get, items that you should have been given already. The key is for some sort of extradimensional vault but I do not know how to open it, don’t put it in a storage device though.

I hope that you will not die from what happened in the expedition but know this there are those in the Althaen that are not like what you have been subjected to. Even if there are not many of us.

Gremíor Vithrã, if it is you who reads this please destroy this letter. Know that while I disagree with some of the decisions of our house I am loyal to the Vithrã, should the intended recipient actually escape or kill you we will have infuriated the Ravnos house. If he is dead our house is doomed. He is no fraud, I have seen him cast spells and he uses no mana.

Trían Vithrã, Clan Elder”

Again with all this house Ravnos crap? I am not a noble. It was a bluff, Ravnos has never been a noble name. Maybe some history book of their’s will tell me. I drop the letter into my Void Cache along with the coins.

The key I pocket, I don’t know how to use it but I have plenty of time to mess with it while the others sleep. Now for the dragon’s blood, I kept glancing at it while going over the letter. Before I actually do anything, Bryan asks me a question.

“What’s in the box, drugs?”

“Only if you’re a dragon.”

“Really dragon drugs, can I try?”

“No, it would kill you.”

“I’m telling you parents you did supernatural drugs if you don’t share.”

I give him a glare, “I won’t share they’re mine.”

K interjects, with an accent but better than Talia’s.

“It’s not drugs, they are like potions of . . . experience?”

“Then we should let Abagail have them.”

Abagil looks over. I pick up my box, and K responds before me I do verbally.

“They would kill her, it’s dragon blood. Right?”

I nod and Abagail goes back to looking through book titles. The sisters look over with concern at me, but don’t say anything. I know I am acting like an addict, I should not act like this. I set the box down and start drinking the vials.

We keep going through the loot, not much else I can use though.