Black dragons are an oddity, they tend to live in swamps and marshes yet even with their acridic magics and affinity towards rot and decay there are some that also can breathe fire. They are also the least ascetically pleasing dragon to see and even more smell, a point that drives them to hate their cousins. The few with the atavism of fire breath are less brutish in appearance than those without.

Kythia

I sheath my sword as I once more walk towards the door of a room full of women who I have already warned to leave my mate alone. I knock at the door, will they be stupid enough to just open it?

They are and even as a brown headed temptress quickly closes the door once she sees me, it is too late. My foot is in the door . . .

Secretary Jasmine

It is near noon when I finish all the calls for that dwarf. If I didn’t need the favors to be able to go behind Director Talmage's back I never would have spent the night informing the White House of just how useful dwarven trade could be.

I down another cup of coffee, barely able to get it down with the ration on dairy products preventing me from getting a civilized amount of creamer. I stand up from my desk and walk down the hall, every soldier I pass standing at attention until I am out of sight.

That is the favorite part of my job. Now I unfortunately have to go do the worst part, taking care of problems others don’t notice and keep them from noticing I did anything. I leave the military portion of the hotel turned semipublic housing and head to the hallway where Adrian and his group ended up. He should not have been given rooms here, they were supposed to be for when officials from DC or other high-ranking politicians visit.

I slide a card and enter into where I had some agents set up so they could become my leash on the boy. I frown, no one is here. There should have been three of my best spies but they are gone. A quick scan of the room does not show me any signs of a fight, some disorder but no signs of lethal combat.

I pull out my phone and call each of the agents only to be sent to voicemail. Their phones are off, I call their GPS trackers as well only to find that the trackers are offline. Did they go AWOL? What is going on?

I storm out of the room off to speak with some intelligence officers who still owe me. I have to find out what happened to my agents and make new plans.

Adrian

Just after my hand cramps up after writing for what seemed to be hours, I hear the steps of the twins and turn to see a look of awe on Talia’s face. I glance at the clock, about ten minutes has passed outside of the temporal distortion. They must have had a discussion before coming to me.

“Why is it dimmer all of a sudden” Talia asks.

Is it? I hadn’t noticed. “Probably from how light has to get in just as you did.”

She nods, but did not really understand what that meant. I don’t explain further, she doesn’t use light or time effects anyways so she doesn’t need to understand right now.

“How much did you get done” Lysan asks as she looks at the stacks of papers.

“I finished up what I promised you weeks ago and just started on the lists I promised Thrane.”

Lysan grabs the stack of papers in my hands before giving me a quick kiss and a smile. She and her sister then restart their reading of the textbooks I gave them, occasionally asking me for clarification on the translation of a phrase. I pull food from Void Cache feeling oddly hungry as I keep writing and reading.

The twins fell asleep at least once as I am bored out of my mind as I finish up what I had promised Thrane. I’m never going to write down so much for anyone again.

At least I found out what had been freaking me out last night was just another aspect of being a dragon I had picked up. A passage from a bestiary I found is,

Both genders of dragons become nigh insatiable when they mate. Something that has been a great joy to their mates from other species, and great embarrassment to men who caught a dragoness's eye.

I think this bestiary was made by a bard as such passages were added to most of the creatures with at least a halfway decent looking form.

Several hours had passed on the clock outside of the circle but K still had not returned. I’ve reset this time bubble a few times too. Did she have something she needed to do?

I stand up and stretch, glancing at the currently sleeping twins. It’s almost noon, so I should get to visiting the dwarves. I wonder if their work is done? Probably not, but it could be.

I end my time bubble thing before I pull up all the tape, and found that it did not in fact damage the walls. The twins wake back up while I was doing so and we depart for the dwarven part of the safe section of the city.

Once we arrive there I try to raise my hand and greet one of the guardsmen but find myself unable to. Why can’t I talk to the guard? I turn to the twins to ask them to take over but likewise find myself unable to ask them to talk with the dwarf.

I frown and finally realize why I felt like Thrane took advantage of me during our contract. I begin to walk away from this corner of the city towards the mansion that Thrane stays in.

“Why didn’t you talk to the dwarves like you wanted too?” Talia asks as we walk.

“I need to have something amended in my deal with Thrane.”

When we arrive at Thane's home I once more find myself unable to interact with the dwarves though they let me in anyways, Thrane must have expected something like this to happen.

Once more we end up waiting for a while though Thrane comes with several servants, “dragon Ravnos, are you here to check on the equipment ordered yesterday?” he asks.

“I was, but it’s come to my attention that our contract needs to be altered.”

Thrane frowns but nods, “I thought you would change your mind. I had our contract pulled.” He then passes me the piece of paper where on we made our first deal.

“I only want a part altered, why are you giving it to me to destroy?”

“You have the information I wanted written, down right?”

I nod and he continues, “the only thing in the contract you would want to change is the only long term left on your side. My duties to you in this contract are duplicated elsewhere, there is no longer a need for it.”

Alright then, I tear the paper and feel something change in the room. Some sort of weight had been lifted, nothing significant but noticeable.

“So back to my original intention when I left the hotel, when will the equipment be ready?”

“It is already finished, chain shirts have been made for your companions, weapons have been made for them as well as an item made for you. The smiths ask that they see you real body and they hope you will gift that with fallen scales. Shall I lead you to them?”

See my real body? I guess that means they want to see my dragon form. I wonder what that will look like now.

“No point in waiting around, please do” I respond.

The older dwarf and his apprentices immediately begin to pass the chain shirts and weapons for the trio when we arrive at the yard of his house turned forge. The armor is an alloy of some sort, a steel with a blue tint. The three weapons given to them are also made from this metal. Lysan was given a small mace, Talia a thin almost rapier while there was a new longsword for K.

The older dwarf has a box behind him, a long rectangle of a box but he does not move to open it. He just looks at me, is there something I am supposed to say?

“Thank you master dwarf for the gifts you have given my girlfriends. I know that you are hoping for me to give you scales I have shed but I have none.” The dwarf immediately begins to look dejected and I continue. “That said, I do have some of the remains from two other dragons.”

I remove enough scales from the red dragon to make a shield from Void Cache, the old dwarf eagerly begins to search through the small pile of dragon scales completely forgetting about everything else.

The younger dwarves sigh before one of them brings me the box left abandoned on the ground. I open it as the dwarf apprentice explains what it is but I don’t pay attention to him one the box has opened.

Inside it is a polearm with a hooked blade on the end, a glaive. The entire weapon is metal, a black wooden haft and the blade a blue silver, mithril? It is engraved as if it were a piece of art with dragons flying.

I pick it up and find it heavier than most would be able to use with the finese needed for combat. I can lift and swing it but the balance seems off. It’s a decorative piece and I feel my interest in the weapon fall. The idea of using a glaive is a good one though.

“Why spend so much material on a decorative piece” I mutter to myself.

The dwarves of course do not understand me even if they heard me. Even with the balance problem the weapon is better than any other I have, at least before my lack of experiance with a glaive is taken into account.

The old dwarf does not come to his senses in time to see the twins and me depart. On our way back to the hotel K, Lysan passes her the equipment from the dwarves as I ask her “what have you been doing?”

“Nothing important” she answers with a light kiss. I doubt that since it was important enough to leave for several hours but I'm not going to question her about it, probably something personal.

It is not five minutes later that we run into Bryan and Abagail returning from a different part of where the dwarves have set themselves up.

“Should we have our party meeting?”

The two of them agree and we end up in a small restaurant which seems to be the only one open. We first go over what we have been doing in town and what things we are currently capable of. Something that is easy to do by just drawing up our last character sheet from the Grey Dream.

We do this all in elvish so that we are not over heard by the few people in the other tables and booths. It is not long before we arrive at the topic of our plans going forward, more specifically we arrive at the topic of my deal with Secretary Jasmine.

“I think you’re getting the bad end in this deal” Bryan says as soon as I finish explaining.

“Maybe so, but we are going to loot everything that is there.”

“Do you at least have a plan on what to do or idea of what we will end up fighting?”

“Supposedly infernalist deathspeakers, so devil worshiping necromancers, undead and maybe fiends.”

“And your plan?”

“Scout out tonight, find out if they are preparing an army of undead or summoning fiends. Either way destroy their method of creating an army then kill them and take their stuff.”

“That is not much of a plan.”

I just shrug, “I know but that is just about all that can be planned without knowing more, hence the scouting.”

“When do we start?” asks K with a smile.

“I was thinking of doing the scouting once the sun goes down.”

“Flying I assume, how will we be able to follow?” Bryan asks.

“I can carry someone, but that is just one. I’ll have to return and let everyone else know.”

“What if there isn’t time for you to notify us?” Abagail asks.

“I’ll do something flashy you should be able to see.”

Bryan and Abagail do not seem to be particularly thrilled by this plan but are not decrying it as there really isn’t a better one to make without the scouting. We continue to leisurely eat as we wait for time to pass.