Purple dragons are the second largest of the chromatic dragons making them quite rare. They prefer warmer climates when they have a choice and consider themselves the royalty of dragons as their scales are the color of royalty. This of course drives other dragons to hate them as they often decide that they rule over the domains of other dragons. While not particularly powerful in a single element, purple dragons are very powerful in warping the minds of others to serve them and can use most of the abilities of the other chromatics to a lesser extent.

Adrian

After healing myself and glancing around to see that the others are finishing off what foes remain, though some of the undead are fleeing, I walk over to the other unwilling participant to this ritual. She is a young woman with canine? ears and tail and though she is dirty I can tell her hair is a yellow with a reddish tint at the end of her tail and tips of the ears on her head.

She is dirty and horrifically injured, her legs and one of her hands are broken. There are a lot of bruises and scabs covering her too. My touch brings her pain as I begin to look over her injuries. I am not entirely sure why but I start to heal her. Probably curiosity and that even in this state she tried to help in the fight.

When I prop her up as I continue to heal her she jumps into my arms and licks my face before rubbing her hair against my cheek. I hear K begin to growl but get distracted by this beastkin going through a rapid growth spurt of an inch or two before growing a second tail.

I’m not sure if I managed to push her off me or if she left on her own but she moves to half hide behind me from K.

“Adrian, don’t fall for that fox’s tricks” K says without stopping a death stare at the two-tailed fox girl behind me.

“Please don’t let the angry werewolf hurt me” the foxkin? behind me whimpers. No, she has more than one tail now Kitsune?

“Are we going to kill the cowardly fox my alpha?”

“What? No, why would we?” I respond.

“They are all cowards that run away and trick people.”

Really? The girl tried to help but K has never misled me before. Fox creatures are supposed to be tricksters but not malevolent ones.

“Kythia, she hasn’t done anything to us so lets not jump to violence.”

K puts her sword away but keeps her death stare going.

“Please don’t let her hurt me” the kitsune behind me almost whispers.

“She won’t, not unless you start it. So please get off of me.”

“Okay” she mumbles and backs away, still keeping me between her and K.

I turn to my other four friends as they walk up, Bryan slightly behind Abagail as he looks at the Kitsune girl. Talia is frowning slightly, mostly at her new weapon. Lysan and Abagail move to help the kitsune girl into less revealing clothes, and seem to have some trouble comunicating.

The undead business man I let loose is nowhere to be seen. I can feel a few undead in the vicinity, or at least blobs of negative energy, though they are slowly being taken out by one that seems to be moving; the maybe vampire?

I begin to go through the possessions of the robed men only to be interrupted by the girl I just healed.

“My name is Ria, thanks for saving me. Can I travel with you? I want to repay you for making the pain go away.”

I look up at the kitsune, and I’m not entirely sure how I want to answer. I don’t have anything against it and she will have abilities that the others don’t but I don’t want to have K upset.

“What can you do?”

“I can use some magic, mostly illusions, shapeshift some and am really good at finding things.”

“When we can we make decisions as a group, I'll ask the others” I tell her before switching to a language that everyone should understand. “She says her name is Ria, and wants to follow us for saving her. Any thoughts before a vote?”

Apparently none had any questions on her abilities, did they see her try to fight already? As we vote by raised hands the tally comes out to K being against it, Talia abstaining while the rest of us are ok with it.

Ria looks confused at the end so she must not know elvish. “Welcome to the group, what languages do you speak?”

“The tongues of canines, the woodlands, and lycanthropes.”

So only K and me will be able to talk with her at the moment, we need to fix that as soon as possible.

“You can run with my pack but I’m watching you” K all but growls at Ria before storming off to loot.

That is going to be a problem, why does K hate her? Racial enmity? I look at the fallen items from the robed men for a moment before following after K, she is more important that gathering shiny baubles. I can pick them up later anyways.

Once we are out of earshot of the others K turns around, “what?”

“Kythia why are you so upset?”

“Foxes are almost as bad as demons and you’re letting one run in our pack.”

Racial enmity or racism then, is there a difference? Enmity is probably deserved or earned. . .

“Why do you think that, did something happen to you?”

“No, not me but foxes always steal, lie and seduce. They cause problems for their amusement and run away when they should fight.”

“Have you meet one before?”

“No but. . .”

“Kythia, judge her on her actions not . . .”

“Why are you taking her side, I’m your mate not her. You should be trusting me not. . .”

“I don’t trust her.”

K looks at me stunned for a moment before I continue, “trust has to be earned. I don’t know her enough to trust. She did however try to help while I fought the called demon so she deserves a chance.

Hate also needs to be earned, set yours aside until she earns it, please.”

“And this isn’t because you want to mate with her?”

“Kythia, I’m male. Any pretty girl is going to catch my eye, that doesn't mean I'll act on it.” I pull her into a hug and give her a light kiss before continuing, “now lets go find everything halfway valuable our now dead foes left behind.”

She nods calmer than before as I pull her to start searching the building.

A few hours of searching have passed and while we found the spell books and wealth of the robed men I am disappointed by the amount. Most of their wealth must have been spent in spells to animate an undead army that had not yet brought back any spoils of war.

There was still a few thousand gold coins among the dozens of nearly empty chests, at least there were a lot of metal weapons we can sell as scrap to the dwarves. We are sorting through and dividing up what was found when Ria walks back from the partially collapsed high school with a black bag she is having trouble holding and a skull covered in runes.

She presents them both to me as she smiles and asks, “did I do good?”

I can’t help but nod as I pass what I recognize as a still active nexus skull to K. The bag itself feels like it is nearly fifty pounds, I open it up and see nothing inside so I flip it inside out.

Lots of magical paraphernalia fall out, most of which looks like it was expensive and I damaged it by just dumping it out. A bag of holding, we need some more of these. I flip the bag back to its normal state and it now weighs next to nothing.

Not a bag of holding then, it has extradimensional space but not full weight cancelation. I pass the bag back to her and answer the confusion on her face by telling her the bag is now her's.

The contents are now mostly broken glass, dissection and preparation tools for necromancy, chalk, candles and preserved parts of creatures. Aside from a few gemstones that are now in the pile of money to split it all ends up in Void Cache. I do leave the broken glass though, I don’t have a use for it nor is it valuable.

We didn’t find any food and it is getting close to being dawn. I look over to Bryan and Talia who are still packing up the share of loot going into their satchels of holding before speaking up.

“Should we head back now or should I find another group of enemies for us to fight after sleeping?”

“We should do all we can while we are out here” Abagail says and everyone save Ria who does not know the language nods in agreement.

“Alright, I'll find out if there are more monster encampments around.”

We begin to set up a small camp inside the school, to be able to sleep in easier. I walk up to K who is, albeit frowning, helping Ria getting a place to sleep set up.

“Kythia, when there is time could you help me teach Ria Elvish and English?”

She nods, but is not enthusiastic about it. “I’ll be going out scouting, I’ll take either Lysan or Talia with me.”

I walk over to the twins and as they had not noticed me I startle Lysan by grabbing her and whispering in her ear, “wanna go flying?”

Talia looks over as her sister nods. She wants to go too but seems more tired than her sister. “Next time Talia.”

With that I leave Lysan in tow to fly around in the morning sun.

Kythia

My face goes back to frowning as my mate leaves me with the foxgirl. If I didn’t respect my mate as much as I do I would kill her as soon as he was gone.

“Is he your mate?”

I can’t help but smile as I nod to the question. “He is, and he is the alpha of my pack. I don’t like you and if you betray my pack I will kill you.”

I stare into her eyes daring her to challenge me but she submits.

“Good, now my mate wants you to learn how to speak with the rest of the pack. I can tell you how to have learned it by the time he returns but I want you to make an oath first.”

“On my tails, I promise never to go against the best interests of your pack.”

I sit stunned that she gave into this so easily, the echoes of a magical binding wash over her. That was not the one I was going to ask for but it will do, and save me a lot of time teaching her to talk with the others. Time that can be spent making the pack stronger.

Ria

The werewolf woman scares me as she talks but unlike the stories of my mother she didn’t attack me. She doesn’t like me and I don’t understand why she talks like the humans and elves are part of her pack. None of them smell like wolves, just like people.

She smiles when I ask her about the man who saved me, she is happy and loyal to him. I have to concentrate to keep my tail from moving, happy that these people I owe my life to is a good one. I don't want the pain to come back.

I’m still not used to my second one I forgot I gained it until it twitched slightly. The werewolf stares into my eyes, she wants me to submit to her.

I break eye contact and lower myself slightly and she keeps talking. I listen and when she asks for an oath I give one no kitsune would ever break. Our tails are everything to us, our power, status and even our life span is tied to them. The werewolf is surprised I just promised away everything I am.

“I did not expect that” the werewolf says and her eyes seem less threatening now. “You know of the Grey Dream?”

I nod and she continues, “good, I am going to give you instructions my mate gave me. The Grey Dream responds to . . .”