Spectral dragons are native to the astral and ethereal planned. They are in truth remnants of a material plane dragon after it’s death. They tend to remember and aside from actions requiring a physical body are capable of what they could do in their previous life while having many of the advantages and powers that astral or ethereal creatures have. They always have an obsession which acts as an anchor to existence.

Adrian

I look around as I get up, my injuries slowly but visibly closing. I’m standing where Ria was, I turn to the dragon and can see some of her tail sticking out from under the foot of the dragon. She took the hit for me.

I don’t care about her nearly as much as my other friends but she had started to be a friend. I hear myself growl and the world is getting smaller. I take a step but I’m not the one who is commanding my body, the instinct and rage of dragon-me is.

I don’t resist as he has us run at the other dragon. Our balance shifts and as the shadow dragon begins to retreat into the shadows he uses some magic that is not like what I do. The dragon hesitates when it finds itself unable to shadow walk as it had been.

Mindless anger floods over to me from dragon-me, images of destroying this dragon with claw and teeth flash between us. No longer are we fighting to eat and help my mother, now it is to kill and make her suffer for hurting a friend.

I twist reality to reinforce the concept of weapons on my claws and teeth as dragon-me brings forth a dark glow of the void over us. Shadowy blood splatters over me as I tear into the shadow dragon’s flank. I can feel her essence resisting my twisting of reality but even so my claws and whatever void power covers them rend her hide.

She tries to move away via shadow walk but something I am doing bars her from the extradimensional movement. I find myself shifting the rest of the way into dragon form as I start swallowing chunks of the still living dragon.

A shadowy breath weapon washes over me and I abandon dragon-me to his mauling of the dragon’s side to push back the death that would harm me. I don’t block all of it but I hold enough at bay to puncture the dragon's lungs before I am weakened too much.

I feel the dragon begin to die around me and the rage of my dragon half is replaced with hunger. I want, need to eat and have to assert my control as the dominant consciousness to pull away from the feast of dying dragon.

My mouth waters and stomach protests but I pull away from the corpse, I can’t help but lick the blood off my hands as I become human. I rush over to the rubble where Ria lies.

“Why didn’t you do whatever that was at the start?” Bryan asks upset as he rushes as I do to our mortally injured if not dead companion.

“I didn’t know I could, I’m learning everything as I go just like you.” I respond just before reaching the hole containing Ria.

Her chest is caved in and limbs have broken bones visibly showing compound fractures but her head is intact. Her mouth is moving and there is still the slightest bit if life in her form. It hasn’t been much more that a minute since the injury maybe I can save her.

I touch her cheek and wrap what little is left of her life in my reality altering will, kindling it to grow but not too much to burn itself out like what happened to Bryan's mother. I start fixing the vital functions of her body first.

“Adrian, she’s dead. She couldn’t have lived through that.”

“No, not dead her mind is still there and the spirit doesn’t immediately leave the body. Help me heal her” I say with more emotion than I thought I would.

I hear Bryan chant and dull blue light wash over the near corpse supplementing the energy I pull from her cells as I piece her back together. Each piece seems easier than the last. Within a minute I start her heart and force her to start breathing.

Her dwindling life force stabilizes and begins to grow supported by the still damaged body but I don’t stop. I keep working on her until every bone is in place, every injury removed, every scar and blemish from her life as a slave erased. I don’t know how long it took but she sleeps gently when I’m finished.

I stand up after wrapping her in a blanket from Void Cache to see Bryan resting against a wall and K keeping watch. She didn’t speak the whole time but she looks at me and asks “will my new pack sister make it?”

Surprised by the concern in her voice I ask a question and feel bad about the regret on K's face from it, “I thought you didn’t like her, why do you care?”

“She is still a coward and is physically pathetic but she risked her life and was willing to die for the good of the pack. She’s earned her place and my respect. She has strength in things I don’t.”

K struggled to say the last sentence, and I pull her into a hug.

“Rest, we’ll go back to the others when she wakes up. “

K nods and I hold her for a bit before my insatiable hunger for the flesh of the cooling dragon becomes too much and I move to eat and store what I manage to restrain myself from eating.

Lysan

I wake up holding my sister and missing Adrian. I know he will only be gone for a bit, a few days at most but the world just seems dimmer when I’m not around him. As I get out of bed sister mumbles something I’m not sure I want to decipher as she pulls a pillow between her legs, enjoying whatever it is she is dreaming about.

I rub a shirt against my cheek, the fabric far nicer than the Althaen tunics I’ve had to use for years. There almost as nice as the elven clothes I had as a kid. After getting dressed I walk into the kitchen to find my love’s mother setting up a meal on the table. Bread, fruit preserves and juice and a few dried meats.

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asks and I nod.

“I couldn’t either when Randy started having to travel for his work. Now I worry about my kids” she says with some sadness.

I think she knows she will never see Adrian’s younger brothers again. I’m not sure if I should mention what happened. Adrian is hiding it from her, probably from breaking her heart. She notices something on my face but misinterprets it.

“Don’t worry, I may not like how your relationship with my son started but being with you makes him happy. So long as that is true I’ll help you with anything you need.”

The affectionate smile on her face brings one to my own.

“Do you know how to make bread?”

I shake my head and she continues, “well come here and help me. I’ll teach you, if yesterday was anything to go by all three of you need lessons if you want to cook anything better than campfire cuisine.”

I walk over to the counter as she pulls off a piece of white cloth to show a light brown blob.

“I’ll teach you to make the dough tonight for tomorrow’s bread but you need to mix the dough like so periodically. . .”

I listen with as much attention as I give to Adrian when he is teaching as she reveals the secrets of bakers, explaining how little differences like the water in the air can affect the outcome.

A few hours later we finish the breakfast and I am amazed that bread was always so cheap to buy. As we proceed to clean up after the cooking, Kathrine asks me a question with some awkwardness and I immediately become embarrassed.

“When you’re with my son, are you using protection?”

I don’t get part of the question even though I understand the subject.

“Protection?”

“To keep from getting pregnant before you’re ready.”

“Why would we do that?”

“Because you’re not in a position to be able to care for a child. You don’t have a place to live or a steady source of food.”

I just look at her confused, Adrian is really strong. He can do anything with his magic so how are those issues? I’ve had better food traveling with him than I’ve had for over a decade.

“I don’t think you need to worry about that honey” I hear Randy say as he walks into the room to both of our embarrassment.

“Of course I do, he isn’t ready for fatherhood” Kathrine says.

“No, you don’t, not with how easy fertility magic is when you understand biology.”

Both of us look at him in confusion and he starts to explain.

“It isn’t difficult for the conditions of a womb to be optimized or made infertile with minor changes. He probably already figured it out.

What? How do you think Kathrine that you got pregnant the very month you started begging and praying to have a son? Not every miracle in your life has been because of god, sometimes it was your husband trying to make you happy.”

I leave the room thinking about what he mentioned about biology and fertility magic. Maybe physics shouldn’t be the only books I look at. Kathrine has a few tears in her eyes as she moves to hug her husband.

I only hear the next two pieces of their conversation.

“Why did you stop granting some of the things I prayed for?”

“Sometimes what you asked for was not what was best for you.”

I walk back to the room sister and me are sharing with Abagail while the boys are away to find them getting dressed.

“Breakfast is ready. Sister, mother-in-law wants to teach us how to cook” I say.

“Why? Adrian is a better cook than us” she responds as Abagail nods in appreciation.

“He won’t always be available for that. Shouldn’t we learn so we can cook for him and our future kids?”

She thinks for a minute but I know she is content with what we already know how to make. “I will go with you but I don’t see what’s wrong with what we can already do, besides won’t he end up getting servants for stuff like this?”

I’m not sure, they don’t seem to have any now but he might get some to make us happy. I just shrug, I no longer care about any of that. I just want to stay near him and have him accept my love as he is.

I follow sister and as there are fewer people here today we all fit at the table.

“So, what are everyone’s plans?” Randy asks and Kathrine answers him.

“I’m going to teach anyone who wants to learn how to cook.”

She looks at me and I nod, I want her to teach me. Then maybe I can make a meal that makes Adrian smile for a reason other than it was for him.

Sister shrugs and nods too when she is looked at.

Abagail says something about reading but I wasn’t paying much attention to her.

Late in the afternoon the cooking lessons are interrupted as Randy walks into the kitchen and pulls our teacher away.

“I’m sorry and I can’t really explain why but you should take the girls and go down I-70. You’ll meet up with our son on the way.”

“What? Why? Is he in danger?”

“No, not right now but there are people coming and this is the only way you and our son can be safe. Adrian has a journal, the last page I wrote a note for you in lemon juice, it will explain things.”

“No, not until you tell me what’s going on.”

He sighs, “my family is evil, everything I’ve done since they found out he could do magic has been to protect him and you. The note and the rest of the journal will explain but you won’t like any of it.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

The sound of my alarm spells going off echoes through the house. Randy knew and mutters something to himself before he turns to sister and me, “save my wife, I’ll hold off the other Ravnos long enough for you to get away. Adrian will understand, tell him to soak my book in human blood after Kathrine gets her note.”

I nod as sister moves to grab our mother-in-law. Abagail runs into the room, “three men, no visible weapons.”

Randy

“Follow the elves, they know what to do” I tell Abagail as she lists off the details I was hoping for. This isn’t the worst path. They can escape but I might be captured, I wouldn’t have the reverse but it isn’t the best of the scenarios I planned for.

As soon as they have left by the back door I open the counter under the sink and enter the combination to the safe I hid there years ago. I hope Kathrine forgives me when she finds out I actually own the farm and lied to her and our son. He has killed people, he is old enough to bed his girls if he wants to.

Inside are vials of the only substance that will give me a chance against my stronger cousins; my version of Philosopher’s Stones. Life and blood of supernatural and natural creatures alike refined into the pure essence of reality.

I grab the and push one into my arm before pocketing all but one other. One that was made slightly differently which I drop to the ground. Perfect duplicates of everyone who stayed in the building the last few days form and get ready to fight. They probably don’t have half the strength as their real selves but the corpses they leave behind will be permanent, I might be able to fake all our deaths if I can hold on long enough.

I recognize the first man who enters the kitchen as one of the former archmages, I could never have beaten him in his prime but my prime against what is left of his souls, maybe.

“How convenient, the thunder twins' report must have been exaggerated. You never would have made such a poor tactical decision like this if you had regained you powers like they reported.”

He is smirking and left his two allies to cover my possible retreat as they did not follow him in. Situation 138, plan F13 has the best outcomes. Viability of Philosopher’s Stone made from psions is a confirmed despite mental oddities and instability that are beneficial at this moment.

“Unless I already foresaw this decades or even lifetimes ago and have been mapping out every possible action and reaction possible as I prepared for the days after the conjunction.”

“And you’re bluffing, you always were the weakest of us only good at prolonging your life and running from death.”

Underestimation confirmed, possible outcomes: 102 end in my death, 312 in capture, 14 escape after opponents' death, 0 capture of wife and daughters-in-law, 1 possible reawakening of second soul, 1 critical failure of Philosopher’s Stones, minimum combat length 23 minutes 14 seconds in true time.

My fake wife pulls a gun from under the table and shoots at my enemy, he blocks it but how he blocked it was planned for and the shot was never meant to kill as he thought it would be, instead it broke a focus he so often uses in combat, reducing the outcomes of my death and capture.

I sidestep his opening attack of lightning and it hits a talisman hidden in the wall, now waiting for me to release his own attack at a target of my choosing later. The attack was weaker than I expected, the erosion of his souls may have been underestimated.

Compensation for the new information in plans is not viable, chance that it is part of an unseen outcome insignificant. Power scale must have been skewed by proximity to archmage power level son and his lack of skill in use of power.

Conclusion: beneficial, chances of survival and escape are increasing as are chances of wife inflicting psychological pain due to prior actions.