Silver dragons are the metallics that prefer the cold and damp regions of the world, much like white dragons they are more than willing to warp the climate around their homes to match their preferences if they must. They are known as the most civil of metallic and in truth all dragons, so long as they are able to have a respectable winter in a city they will happily pretend to be a member of the race of that city and live among the people there. Female silver dragons have also been known to fall in love with the men of civilized races, often elves and humans. Often not even telling their lover of their true form before the birth of a child or to save their love from danger. Their instinctual magic is over ice, snow, wind and water.

Adrian

Nothing ends up disturbing our rest and I can only assume that the alarm spells are going to end up replacing our night watches. Only a few hours after dawn we are on our way outside of the city. We walk westwards, even though I am not sure it will be safe at Grandpa’s anymore it is better than aimless wandering.

A few hours out of town we are waylaid by another small group of people and unlike the previous three times it didn’t become part of K’s rehabilitation plan for Ria. This time it was by another group of survivors. It was meant to be an ambush but K noticed them before we walked into the kill zone of their crossfire.

There are seven of them, a mix between people from Althrá and Earth. K seems agitated by one of the scents and drew her sword. The rest of our group save me pulls out one of their own weapons as she shouts out.

“We know you are there come out” K yells.

I motion Abagail and Lysan to move behind one of the empty abandoned cars. Even with their armor and that they have had to fight in melee before I would rather they stay at range where their skills are put to better use.

They follow the gestured order as the party of seven whose ambush was called show themselves. Six I don’t recognize, three humans, two beastkin canines of some sort and an elf; every one of them female. The last is a person I do recognize, the seductress that I healed on the road to Kansas City. So, she survived and seeing that she is the one who responds to K's shout, I think she is in charge of this group.

“Fellow women you don’t need to stay subjugated to the men with you. Turn against them and join us, you don’t need to spread your legs just to get food and a place to sleep” the temptress says with quite a bit of passion only to get weird looks from all our group save Ria.

The looks given by the trio do not show as much confusion as the one from Abagail. I’ve heard from them how the situation this woman is assuming is happening in Althrá but not here with us.

“We decline” I hear from the trio followed by a “no” from Abagail. Ria does not respond but she hasn’t been with us long nor should she be capable of any meaningful betrayal.

“Why? Even if you haven’t been forced to yet those males will make you nothing more than an object of theirs eventually” the temptress says and I cannot help but laugh.

A laugh I am glad to hear others in my group join, they all know Bryan and me, we would never become someone who would do something like that.

“Why are you laughing? Haven’t you learned that men will never just help you?”

I crack up further, she is going off on this anti male thing even though I saved her life a while ago. My actions earn the ire of one of the human women, a young woman with a boy’s haircut. She threatens me with a drawn arrow, “silence male. If you disrespect Raena again I will kill you.”

So Raena is the temptress's name? Odd name, but I get tired of this and decide to speak up before K decides to attack the girl who is targeting me with a bow. They managed to cross the language barrier though.

“temptress of honeyed words is this any way to treat someone who saved your life?”

“Like a man would ever try do anything but possess a woman” Raena scoffs.

Blinded by her hate of men, I can see that with what I saw her suffer before. Do I show her that she is wrong or just start the fight? Their weapons are crude like the goblins, so I think our armor will handle anything aside from magic that they throw at us. . .

Should I play the role of wise dragon again? If I do her followers will probably attack during my transformation and there is no guarantee that she won’t deny it. She did manage to survive and gather followers so I should probably take this more seriously but I can’t seem to take her seriously with what she is saying.

My dilemma over what to do is taken out of my hands as I hear the clapping from a man in the shadows. Raena’s group immediately begins to shoot their bows at the man though he moves in some preternatural blur dodging the attacks.

In another blur two of Raena’s group are knocked to the ground. The remaining members of Raena’s group panic, they have not been in much if any combat and all save Raena herself. Bolts of some strange fire form in front of her before flying at the man who was clapping.

Bryan and K look at me, a silent asking if we should get involved in the fight. I shake my head, if that man wanted to attack us he would have from his concealment. If we join it will just be a three-way fight since Raena seemed to have no interest in dealing with men. I try and sense the fire she is using, maybe her magic could have been of use.

I can feel the fire but there are gaps in that energy, it is blended with something else. Not pure fire, and not the same oddity that Ria’s flames hold. Different magic, too bad, she could have been useful.

By the time I stop examining the fire, the man had killed or perhaps knocked out all of Raena’s crew save herself. Raena vanishes from sight but I can hear her shoes on the pavement as she runs away. The man who surprised us puts away a knife I only now notice as he turns to us.

“Apologies Adrian Ravnos, my master thanks you for the release of his childe and owes you a favor. If you need the help of the children of the night in this city you need but ask and tell them to bring you to Charles Del Mon” the man says as he bows before blurring out of our perception, leaving me slightly confused as to why he said what he did. The only person aside from Ria we saved was a vampire, did I guess wrong about what he was? Or do the vampires have at minimum servants who can walk in the light? Daywalkers maybe?

“I guess you were right to keep us from getting involved in that fight” Bryan says and I nod.

“When did you meet that tiefling?” K asks.

Tiefling? She does smell odd but I didn’t notice any deformity aren’t they supposed to have some sort of mutation?

“I was killing some orcs in dragon form on our way to Kansas City. She was a captive in one of the camps, dragon-me wanted to heal her” I answer.

[Don’t say that, I don’t want the hoard upset with me.]

[Too late.] I respond to dragon-me.

I get a few weird looks from everyone but K who just nods. I guess Moonlight Runner sometimes tells her to do stuff. What would Moonlight Runner’s requests be about?

“Shall we get going?” I ask the others and they nod, we have a lot of walking to do without a vehicle.

A few hours past noon we are several miles down I-70 we stop as a pickup truck with a motorcycle in the back comes up from behind us. We move to the side of the road to let it pass but it slows down to match our pace, the mirror tint on the windows keep me from seeing the inside before the window rolls down.

“Want a ride?” I hear as I recognize both the face and voice of my father.

“Dad?” I say confused by the military uniform he wears. The others stopping as I do, K begins to sniff the air. Is she expecting to find something specific?

The truck stops and my dad opens the passenger door, “get in, mom is at a farmhouse on the other side of Lawrence. There aren’t enough seats in the back for all your friends so some will have to get in the back of the truck.”

Is this actually happening? Even if it is what if he is like Frank and will betray me? Would he have given me that journal if he was going to do so? Is this a trick? No, someone pretending to be dad wouldn’t make the mistake of being in a military uniform. There is also mom. . .

I take a step towards the car and give a nod to K’s questioning gaze. K, Abagail and Lysan end up in the back seats. I am sitting shotgun while the others are all in the tail bed.

We ride in silence for a few minutes before my dad speaks up.

“How have you been?”

How am I supposed to answer that? Tell him of Frank trying to kill me, of how the government has tried to kill me both with and without Frank. Or do I answer with how the trio are the source of most of my happiness outside of my growing magic since this apocalypse?

“Adrian, I know about the problems you were having with the government. I know about your younger brothers, your girlfriends and even some about your powers. It doesn’t matter about what, you’ll feel better after talking about it.

And don’t worry, no one can hear what we say” he says as if he knew what I was thinking about, my conflicting thoughts must have been an easy read. . .

“Is what you wrote in that journal true?”

“Every word, how much of it have you read?”

“About a third, I don’t really get the idea of how or even why you would steal the bodies of others. Wouldn’t it be easier to just make yourself live longer or just go and make a new body?”

“It would be easier to do but both are more noticeable and more likely to cause the world to reject you. By stealing someone else’s life and growing up all over no one will question your age or where you came from. Everyone will just assume you are skilled from being a genius or savant. That’s the logic for body theft over the more direct methods of immortality, at least for those with the powers of our family.”

I nod, I didn’t think about that problem. “What was all the stuff about a curse being a side effect? You never explained it.”

“I never was able to confirm it but the archmages that perform the reincarnation on us said that it had something to do with the second soul and it eroding during they cycle of reincarnation. It is this erosion that weakens our ability to perform our magic and the weaker binding between the new body and the souls than normal prevents the damage from healing.

Regardless of it is a side effect of how they twisted reality or a literal curse from a god, as I am more inclined to think personally, the effects prevent our power from growing stronger and our posterity save for you have never awakened to this power.”

“I get it but why all the focus on living longer? Don’t we live long enough as dragons?”

“We’re not dragons, you didn’t get that from being a Ravnos. If anything, that should have kept you from being one.”

We are not dragons? No, I definitely am one, I’m not messing with reality when I use the dragon stuff. There isn’t any backlash no matter what I do. Wait, if the dragon stuff isn’t from dad’s side of the family, then they have to be from mom.

“Why would that keep me from having the family magic?”

“Previous experiments on crossbreeding during the middle ages were unsuccessful.”

Breeding experiments? I hadn’t read about that in the journal, but somehow, I believe it with all the other stuff in it that I have read.