Crystal dragons are a strange group. They have no biological relation to any other group of dragons or most other living things. They are living beings made of pure crystal, almost golems but for their need to eat, sleep and ability to grow and breed as loving creatures do.

They can gain sustenance from eating other living creatures but would rather eat crystals such as gemstones. They do not care for the conflicts of any sort out idea of their immediate surroundings, content to stay where they are.

While their personality traits do not vary much between the species of these dragons their abilities do. The known kinds of Crystal Dragons are: Amber, Garnet, Quartz, Onyx, Malachite, Topaz, Opal, Amethyst, Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire, Jade, Diamond. There seems to be no correlation between type and size or strength for crystal dragons.

Adrian

“I know no more than you would save that there is an association between a Ravnos and the Duke of St. Louis. You can find answers to the questions you have there. Timmy, show these two out and give them what they ask for.”

I find myself frowning, I had hoped for more information than try St. Louis but at least we will be given resources.

“Thank you for your benevolence” I say with a bow without taking my eyes off any of the vampires in the room.

We leave without issue, following the doorman.

Mateus Maximus

I grin as the young Ravnos leaves ignoring the whisperings of my court. The young fools don’t really matter they have no power, they exist to be a show of my prestige but that young man is different. He has more power than he knows and does not yet have the experience he needs to keep himself from being manipulated.

“Charles, you have done well” I say to my youngest childe.

He bows to me but begins to frown as a vampire of another’s court begins to call me out on my apparent weakness.

“How can you let that mortal walk? Let alone reward it for harming us?” a no name upstart sired in the last decade shouts.

Charles rips the fools arms off in a blur before I speak up, as he should. Now this fool will owe me his afterlife for saving him.

“Stop, you are mistaken about everything whelp. Do you even know who those two are? Or what I really did?”

“They’re mortals, food. There is no reason for me to . . .” I wave my hand and Charles decapitates the waste of blood. He would have caused more problems then he is worth as a pawn. At least his disposal raises my prestige with the rest of the visiting members of my court.

“They are Adrian Ravnos and Bryan Grace. The latter alone would not be worth much but the prior is more powerful than everyone in this room save myself. The youngest to join the House of Ravnos, those who commands the world around us to their own will. But he is also more than just a Ravnos, there is something else in that blood of his I don’t recognize.

And I just sent him to look for answers in our enemies’ territory and they will not know who he is until it is too late. . .”

“Shall I prepare more blood bound soldiers, my lord?” Charles asks and I nod, this coupled with everything else going on will weaken that duke enough for me to rule two cities, even if I may lose one of my blood doll facilities to the Ravnos. Perhaps more if my ‘talks’ with the mortal rulers of this land continue to go so well. . .

Adrian

The door guard brings us to a warehouse in one of the most luxurious cars I have ever seen let alone been in. As he opens the side door to allow us entry I can see the contents of this building. People in cages and the supplies to keep them healthy.

“Adrian . . .” Bryan says and I cut him off with a nod. This is clearly slavery and even if I’m propably going to kill one of these people after experimenting on them I’m going to have to back Bryan up on his moral compulsions.

I tap our guide on the back as I try to erase the negative energy within him. I don’t manage to remove all of it but I feel it start to collapse as Bryan draws and hits the vampire. The undead dies a second time soon after but we now have the attention of the few workers in this place.

They all take cover and draw various guns. I barely manage to suppress fire in time to keep us from becoming swiss cheese. I feel blood drip from my nose as the familiar pressure of a backlash wraps around me.

Shit, not enough of these people are exposed to magic. As soon as I get behind cover while pushing Bryan to do the same I let go of my grip on reality.

A torrent of gunfire follows as the six workers or guards make use of the now working firearms. Bryan looks at me for a second in confusion, before realizing why I would have dropped my no gun zone. That type of overt magic isn’t going to work. Should I try the grenades I stole or dragon stuff?

I end up deciding on something in between the two and pull a few smoke grenades and toss them between the guards and me. I force a surge of electricity in the buildings wiring to trip the breakers and the lights shut down as the room fills with smoke. The guards seem to be humans so they should now be blinded. . .

Bryan and I rush out of our cover, relying on our inhuman senses to find our opponents. They panic and start shooting where we were taking cover and I smirk as the sound of flying bullets keep them from noticing us get into melee with the nearest two. I can see a few feet in the dim smoke and get behind one just as Bryan leaves my current visual range.

A claw slips into the spine of the guard. This one is female so she’ll be my test subject and I won’t have to risk putting my friend into a moral dilemma.

A third source of gunfire is silenced before I manage to find my next target. My claws separate his head though I have to be careful with the falling corpse who is still holding the trigger of his rifle until it runs out of ammo.

The last gun goes silent and I wonder how Bryan moved around that quickly, magic obviously but I’m not sure what spell. Only the coughing of the caged humans echoes through the building as I examine the nearest cage.

It’s just a simple steel cage that would normally be used to transport large animals but for the clear plastic tubes filled with red liquid that is slowly flowing from the prisoners to somewhere else in the building. This is some sort of blood farm and resource depot for the vampires of the city. Good plan though before the conjunction there was probably enough crime to mask their predation.

Most of the prisoners are younger men and women. There are children but they are not feeding the lines of blood. I break the lock with a claw not caring about the fearful stares the occupants of the nearest cage are giving me.

“I’m not hear to hurt you” I say but they don’t respond. I look at them and can see a small scar at the base of their neck and one of the women opens her mouth to show me her lack of tongue. She seems slightly healthier than the others and I remove the needle in her veins first before she begins to help me do the same with the others.

The lights turn back on and the snake begins to dissipate as fans for a climate control system start up. The prisoners recoil from me in fear of my eyes regardless of how I tell them I mean them no harm. I hear Bryan approach behind me.

“You should probably take over this part, they are scared of me. Is there anything else I should take care of while you handle this?” I ask.

“No, just starting to pack up what we need from here unless you can heal their injuries. Is there a reason you left one of the guards paralyzed instead of dead?” Bryan responds.

“No, they’ll subconsciously reject my magic. You'll have to heal them if we are going to.”

Bryan nods and begins chanting in a prayerful cadence as he helps the prisoners. He can’t give them their tongues back like I could but their completions become less pale and they begin to leave the building. No doubt fleeing towards either the police or minions of Mateus.

Personally I don’t care which, Mateus will likely end up with most of them back in his care before too long. I don’t know why he hadn’t wiped out the tainted the first night they were in the city. Maybe the weakness of not being able to survive in the sun? He’s probably vulnerable during the day.

I make plans for dealing with the vampires of St. Louis as I place everything I can into Void Cache. Smiling that I can do this even when others deem it impossible.

It takes me an hour maybe two to finish my task roughly the same time as Bryan finished releasing all the prisoners having to spend a few minutes on each one to make sure the needles are removed properly. He stopped his healing spells a while ago, probably running low on mana. I wonder if I can artificially increase everyone’s mana pool.

Something I may have to test later as I don’t think my paralyzed victim has one for me to try to tamper with. I walk over to the still breathing paralyzed woman before slinging me over my shoulder.

“What are you going to do with her?” Bryan asks more out of curiosity than concern.

“Try to duplicate what I did for my mother but not for dragons.”

“Is that safe?”

“No, that’s why I’m using someone who tried to kill me for practice. Let’s go though, someone should have shown up already with the noise and fleeing people by now.”

He nods and we slip down into the nearest entrance to the sewers. I may not know a way back from this point but after I use this woman for what I need we can just fly.

“Do you know any silencing magic? She is probably going to be in a lot of pain.”

Bryan shakes his head. I retrieve some rope from Void Cache and bind her to keep her from fighting back. I add an additional cloth gag to keep the noise down before I warp the nerves of her spine back together. There is a pained groan and a seizure lasting for several seconds before she stops moving and regains control of her body.

“I’m sorry if this ends up making you uncomfortable Bryan as I’m basically torturing her but it will raise Abagail's, Lysan’s and Talia’s ability to survive.”

I don’t know if Abagail has anything for me to awaken but I can at least optimize what she does have if I get this right. Bryan nods in appreciation, accepting this as an evil lesser than the good of helping our friends survive.

I take hold of the woman's head and sense everything I can about her physical body. It’s not as good as any of my girls and that makes me happy even though I have to repair organ damage and some scarring before I have the closest thing to a blank slate as I can get.

Some time passes before I move from the physical to her metaphysical essence on the fabric of reality. Dragon’s Blessing starts here so whatever I need to do to force a racial awakening should start here.

I ignore the screams of my unwilling victim as I push against the resistance of the pattern to increase the strength of her essence. I feel some of the connections between her and the rest of reality tear before I manage to alter anything. I end up making a mistake somewhere and a fragment of what she is breaks off and dissolves into something else.

I let go of the woman and lose my connection to her as pain erupts in my head and I scream. I manage to hold on the fragment but the woman is dead. I failed and will need another test subject but I should learn all I can of the fragment I managed to hold onto. It feels like the background stuff in the fabric of reality but slightly different, as if it is the same stuff but in a different form.

I let go of the fragment ready to grab it if it leaves as the rest of the woman’s essence did but it just sits inside of me. It’s not a part of me, or anything else at the moment so what is it?

I sit and compare it to nearby things before coming to the conclusion that it is some sort of raw essence. I think I could refine it somehow and imbue it into a twist I make in reality but I’m not sure.

“Are you done?” Bryan asks in impatience, clearly not the first time.

“I failed but I have more ideas I need to try. We can go back to the others though” I say while releasing a pulse to detect life.

Nothing in the immediate vicinity but some of the prisoners are hiding nearby stationary. I’ll come back here later.

“How neither of us know the sewers well enough.”

“Well you wanted to fly so this is your chance, still want to?”

“Hell Yeah!” Bryan yells more excited than I’ve seen him in years.