The forest of Telnessíer is home to the light elves. The ancient forest is home to many dangerous creatures and few that venture into the woods without both their permission and one as a guide ever exit. The south-western edge of the woods has a semi stationary camp where they trade with the nation of Alamar that resells their goods to the other nations and it is rumored that there is another for trading with the city of Drake’s Home. Legend also states that the forest is named after the elven capital city but no non-elf has ever been able to prove that they have been to such a place since the creation of the Darklands and the Althaen Council believes that the real city lies to the west of the Darkwall Mountains.

Adrian

After looting all that I can from the basement; little more than the bag of holding, a few golden trinkets and a magic ring from the torturer, I have to decide what to do with the prisoners other than Ria. All of them have dead eyes and haven’t responded to anything that I have done so far; so, I think that there is not much that I can do for them. They are already broken and have lost the will to live. Releasing them is not really an option since they would probably just sit wherever I left them until they died or someone else came along and took them.

I have to admit that the torturer was good. He made these people into broken remnants of what they were. They are probably completely compliant to anything asked of them but I have no need or even use for slaves.

“Ria, would you wait for me upstairs?” I ask, having made my decision.

“Okay” she says while her tails wag happily.

After she has left the room I pull out a knife, at least I can give them a quick death that has little pain rather than leaving them to burn alive when I light this place up. I stop by each of the six cages and end their lives. They give no form of resistance and one of them even thanked me for ending her life.

Still, I feel bad for doing it. It was needed but they’re the first people that I killed without provocation. The first thing I’ve done that I couldn’t fully justify in a way my mother would accept. I can’t even say that they deserve death, just that their lives were bad enough they wanted it. Once I finish wiping the blood off my hands and knife on a rag I move the candles that light the room to the four corners of the basement. I put one next to each wooden support for the house.

Then I walk upstairs to see Ria once more disguised as a human eating an apple. When she sees me she holds it out, offering it to me and I just shake my head before saying, “thanks for the offer but we should get out of here.”

“Okay” she says with a smile before following me outside.

Once we a clear of the building I pour everything I can into the Sphere of Fire and command the candles I placed under the house to burn hotter and larger. Less than a minute later smoke begins to rise from within the house but I hold it until flames rise out of the floor boards and begin to consume the whole building.

Only then do I allow my concentration to break and notice that there are several people on the street. Shit, witnesses are bad. They may think that. . .

“We’re invisible” Ria whispers in my ear and I don’t question why I can still see her. I glance around and none of the locals are looking at either of us.

“Thanks” I say before leading us back to the small building where I have stayed since returning from Karthas.

I ignore the other plumes of smoke that are rising from the other targets Griff is having hit to take out the competition. My deal with him is done; though his 'smuggling' is just setting us up where we could escape ourselves, everything else he has kept. More than I had hoped for in most cases.

When I open the door to the common room in the front, I once more catch Bryan and Abagail kissing. I gently close the door before knocking and then opening it again. They really should just do that in one of their rooms rather than the table.

“Oh Adrian, a dwarf came by earlier and dropped off a. . . Who is that?” Bryan says.

“Her name's Ria. She helped me during my last job and wanted to follow me” I answer before Abagail asks, “why is she in my clothes?”

How can she even tell? Aside from what we brought from Earth the tunics all look the same to me.

“They were the only clothes close enough to her size that I knew the location of.”

Ria closes the door behind us before she pulls my arm I’m to her bosom and says, “I’m hungry.”

“I expect to get those back” Abagail says with a frown no doubt meaning her clothes but that is not going to happen until I get her her own clothes.

“I'll get her her own clothes tomorrow. Tonight, there is going to be too much going on.”

“What is going on?” Bryan asks.

“The group I was working with is taking out their competitors violently.”

“Then. . .” he says while looking towards Ria.

“No, she was a captive.”

“Food please” Ria whispers into my ear.

“Sit at the table, there will be food soon.”

“Okay” she says immediately doing what I said with a smile.

“Captive?” Abagail asks.

“Bad men wanted to make me a slave but master saved me” Ria answers.

“Master?” I ask, she never mentioned that. Bryan and Abagail frown at the word and connotations it brings.

She nods enthusiastically before answering the partially worded question. “A master is someone you obey. Since good girls are obedient and I’m your good girl then you must be my master.”

“Adrian, is she safe to be around?” Bryan asks.

“I think so. She probably just needs time to get over the torture she’s been through. They were trying to break her” I answer while picking up some bread from the small amount that has been built up as rations for when we leave.

As soon as I set them on the table Ria looks at me, silently asking for some and I just nod. She smiles and begins to eat while I turn my attention to the box on the table that must be what Bryan was talking about when I walked in. It’s a small chest, no more than two-foot by three-foot by two-foot with a small padlock of dwarven design holding it closed.

None of us talk for a moment, I don't want to talk about what I've had to see and do recently and Abagail and Bryan don't seem to want to know.

“Any idea what’s in it?” Bryan eventually asks after seeing that none of us want to continue witht he current conversation.

“No, did they leave a key behind?” I ask in return.

He shakes his head and I just let out a sigh. Of course not, but that is not much of a problem. I may be shit when it comes to picking locks as Griff keeps telling me but it doesn’t matter if you can just move the lock out of the way. I grab hold of some empty air while focusing on the lock through Translocation Grasp and then set the lock on the table and flip the latch that prevents it from being opened.

I open the chest and see that most of it is filled with dark brown bottles, there are roughly a dozen of those. Another section has some smaller bottles that are filled with a dark red liquid, that seem to draw my attention more than the larger bottles, and there is a note sitting on top of them. I pick it up and open it only to see that it is written in a language that I do not recognize. It isn’t dwarven but something else. Something I haven’t seen before.

“Can you read this?” I ask everyone at the table while showing it to them.

Bryan and Abagail shake their heads but Ria gives me a verbal answer, “no, but it is in Draconic.”

“Why would anyone write me a note in Draconic?”

“Because you’re a dragon.”

I just look at her in confusion. Maybe Bryan's question of her sanity has even more merit than I thought.

“Sorry, that must not have happened yet. Your Racial Class does it.”

Dragon Knight is turning me into a dragon? Did she see this in her dreams? Should I trust that her dreams see true? I’ll have to see if I can get a description of Dragon Knight from the Architect's system. Even then how accurate are her dreams of the future if they are true? I would really like at least this specific thing to be true. . .

“Did your dreams tell you what is in these bottles?” I ask.

“You’re just leaving it like that? This is clearly crazy” Abagail interjects and I sigh.

Ria however answers the accusation I was about to, “sometimes, I dream things that haven’t happened yet. It’s one of my Gifts.”

None of us understand the explanation so she continues, “kitsune have special powers from each tail they gain. It’s magic and it always gave me something to look forward to.”

“How much of the future do you see, and how accurate is it?” I ask.

“Not much and I don’t know, sometimes they are about different ways things might happen. It is ever changing and I don’t have control of what I see but some things always happen.”

As she answers the question I pick up one of the small red vials and hold it up for me to get a better look at its contents. The deep dark red looks different than the healing potions I’ve seen and gathered. It feels different too. Why would Griff give me this?

“So you have semi-passive Divination abilities?” Bryan asks and Ria nods and leans over before pulling the cork off of the vial I am holding.

Then the smell of blood fills my nose but it also smells different. My mouth waters for it but I do not understand why.

“So, what is. . .” Bryan begins to ask before I drink the small glass like a shot of alcohol. Terrance made sure I knew the right ways to drink after he saw me drinking the wrong way. . .

Adrian Flashback

After finishing another job of helping Laura and her crew sneak in and stealing information. The short job this time must have kept her from giving all of today's beard lesson as she says, “lad, you’ve done good. How would you like to join us in drinking? I still need to finish telling you about beards today after all.”

“Sure, lead the way” I answer. After all I am getting SP for learning Pogonology. That and I don’t have anything else planned but reading and gathering supplies.

Not a few minutes later we are in some run-down tavern, The Drunken Pony I think the sign said but it was hard to read. I sit down at the table with a bottle of Drakeflame Whiskey, the only one that the bartender had behind the counter. It was covered in dust so I think I may just be the only person in this city that will buy it. I don’t know why I like it, I shouldn’t taste the strange taste that I do. No one else seems to.

Laura begins her lecture on proper beardage and various ornaments that are worn on specific holidays. I uncork the bottle and take a swig, enjoying the taste that makes no sense before a large rough hand pulls the bottle from my lips.

“Lad, I won’t let you disgrace your drink and yourself like that” Terrance says as he manages to take the bottle from my hand. I don’t even notice how he did so but I barely felt it as it left my hand.

“Disgrace? I know there is as much to alcohol as beards for your people but. . .”

“Don’t finish that sentence, it won’t end well” Lynn interrupts me.

“The smooth chin knows, she once did what you were about to. It seems that no one ever taught you to drink” Laura says before Terrance pick up where she left off by shouting.

“A bottle of everything, I got to teach this young lad how to drink!”

All of the dwarves in the tavern shout out in their native tongue. There were only four of them but the bartender smiles at announcement. I think I am going to be sick after this. . .

Flashback End

The liquid tastes like the strange taste I get from Drakeflame Whiskey, the one that I’ve only ever found in it but stronger. Almost as if it was distilled. I’m not even sure it is liquor of any type, I don’t know what it is but I like it. I want more, but there are only a few in what Griff gave me. I wonder if I can find and get any more. . .

Before I know it I’ve drunken all of the vials. I don’t notice anything that was said as I enjoyed each and every drop of the spicy and sweet but actually neither dark red liquid that washes over my tongue. I want more of that taste. I want more of those vials, but all I have are the larger bottles. Maybe they are the same?

I pull one of them out and find that they are labeled, Drakeflame Whiskey. My hopes that they were larger versions of the small bottles are instantly crushed but at least I get the consolidation prize of a drink that still has some of the taste.

“Adrian are you okay?” Bryan asks with some desperation. That clearly wasn’t the first time.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” I answer.

“You just went to town on six unidentified potions. You didn’t start using drugs, did you?”

“Drugs? No, it just tastes really good.”

He looks at me skeptically before I say, “I’m fine, they didn’t do anything to my mind and it is the first time I’ve run into them. They have the strange taste that was in Drakeflame Whiskey.”

“So, you think drinking a bunch of it is a good idea?”

“It’s good for him” Ria interjects.

I end up taking a swig of the larger bottle as Bryan looks at her in confusion. Terrance would be pissed but he isn't here and I don't have any shot glasses. She said that before, or something like it. Dragon’s Blood, she said something about an addiction to that and that and growing stronger. . . That must be what caused my Dragon Knight class to grow.

I look at the bottles once more, Griff knows. He knows what I am and that this would help me. How? Magic like how Ria ‘saw’ it? Was that why he originally made a deal with me? It doesn’t matter, this is good for me. I’ll just drink all of it.