“Beth? You’ve seen Beth?” Jack asked in surprise. When Eliza nodded, he broke out into a huge grin. “Ain’t that somethin’. Big old woods, and I run into someone who’s met my family. Guess that Luck stat is worth something, after all. So how is my little girl? She okay? What about Peter and the kids?”

“They were fine when I left them,” she said. “I found Beth and Peter in the woods a week ago and got them to Palmyre. The kids made it there on their own.”

A giant coil of tension broke within Jack, and for the first time he found himself thankful for the rain that obscured his tears. He opened his mouth a couple of times to try and respond to the woman who had helped his family, but the best he could manage was a gravelly “thank you” from the bottom of his heart.

Eliza nodded. “It was my pleasure. If half of what they said about you is true, I can understand how you’ve managed to survive. I assume you managed to get some sort of Ability or Trait to shake off the effects of old age?”

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “That common around here?”

“Not even remotely,” she said. “You’re a family of Legends, though. Anything is possible.”

“You’d know better than me,” he said. Clearing his throat, he nodded. “Alright, let’s stop dilly-dallying. You know anything about this crew?”

“Not really,” Eliza said with a frown. “I need more information, but if you’re here at the behest of the dragon, you likely know more than I do. If you want to share some of that knowledge, I may be able to put the pieces together.”

Jack considered the ranger’s words. Val’s situation was precarious, and he knew sharing information about her weakness was risky. That said, Eliza would already know some of what was going on if she’d spoken to the dragon. There were arguments both ways.

Ultimately, what decided things was that Eliza had helped his family, and leaning on her again might be the difference maker in saving Val. If the group they were chasing was just part of a larger whole—and that seemed to be the case—he couldn’t do it alone. That said, he wouldn’t ask Eliza to risk her life and then hold back on details. This wasn’t the army, after all.

“Alright,” he said, “I’m fine telling you what’s going on, but only if you’re agreeing to help me out. Can you do that?”

“I’m a ranger,” she said simply. “These are my forests, and those people are messing with someone who calls them home. Even if you didn’t tell me what you know, I would still try to help the dragon.”

“Good answer,” Jack said. He then broke down the situation as he knew it, leaving nothing out. The more he spoke, the more concerned the woman looked.

A paper appeared. Jack grunted and batted at the thing, but it didn’t immediately vanish, continuing to flit around in his face. Eventually annoyance won out over stubbornness and he opened the page:

Share Quest: “The Dying Dragon Part 1” with Eliza Grey?

Sharing this quest will also invite Eliza into the ongoing quest chain. This won’t affect your rewards, but it’s up to you to decide if the dragon will be okay with it. Which, y’know, is kind of a big deal.

SHARE QUEST? YES/NO

“I guess now is as good a time as any to test the limits of that Luck stat,” Jack muttered as he shared the quest.

As soon as the quest was shared, Jack’s Tome appeared of its own accord. The paper flitted into it, and he discovered that it was open to a section called “Quests.” It listed his “The Dying Dragon” quest, but another bit below was titled “‘Owned Quest’ Permissions.”

“OWNED QUEST” PERMISSIONS

The Dying Dragon Part 1

Shared with:

Name: Eliza Grey

2nd-Degree Shares: None permitted

He assumed the part about 2nd-degree sharing meant Eliza couldn’t share it with anyone else, which was probably a good thing. Less good was the amount of concern on the woman’s face as she read and re-read the quest description that had added itself to her Tome.

“This is bad,” she said, shaking her head. “If those people are somehow able to drain a dragon’s magic, that puts an enormous amount of power at their disposal. I can’t imagine anyone with good intentions doing something so vile. And that doesn’t even get into the issue of the dragons they’ve allowed to hatch. While it’s true that newborn dragons are little more than beasts, they are still formidable and chaotic. How these people expect to control them is beyond me.”

“You know more about this than I do, so I’m gonna take your word on all that,” he said. “There is one problem we need to tackle first, though.”

“What’s that?” Eliza asked.

“We’ve got no idea why these folks split off from the main group. They don’t have any eggs, and I checked out their tracks. They’re headed west, not east. At first, I thought they might be doubling back to kill off Val, but now I’m not so sure. That dragon’s still pretty tough. Took out the rabbit without much trouble once she set her mind to it, so I can’t picture this crew having enough firepower to take her down.”

“The feaster bunny is dead?” Eliza asked with surprise. When Jack nodded, she let out a sigh of relief. “Thank the gods. One less thing to worry about. As for these people, I know exactly why they’re here.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?” Jack asked.

She shrugged. “They’re here to kill me.”

Jack stared at Eliza. “They wanna kill you? Wait, you know who these folks are?”

Eliza shifted her position in the dirt. “Not specifically. I’ve got enemies, same as most, but that list gets a lot shorter when you start pulling mages and cultists into the mix.”

“You think they’re cultists?” he asked.

She nodded. “The man in the robe is a mage, but the woman is something else. I’m getting a magic-user sense from her, but she’s no cleric so far as I can tell. That likely means cultist or warlock. You can pretty much rule out warlock, given that she’s paired with a traditional mage. Warlocks and mages don’t mix. For now, it’s best to treat her like a mage and keep an eye out for any summons.”

Jack looked at her in confusion. “What’s a summons? Actually, never mind. I’m more interested in the fact that your enemies apparently send random folks out into the woods to kill you. Lady, what are you doing to piss people off so much?”

“This is hardly normal,” she said, giving him a withering look. “My guess is that when the delegation was formed to parlay with the dragon, someone planted a mole to ensure things went poorly. One of the mages was especially vocal in arguing against us lending our aid. When I refused to turn my back on the dragon and broke off from the group, the mole must have sent word to the group that stole the eggs.” She nodded towards the campsite. “Given the presence of this lot, I can only assume they decided I needed to be dealt with before I found out what was really going on.”

Jack’s bushy eyebrows pursed. “You’re relying on a lot of circumstantial evidence there. Either you’ve got a better reason to suspect they’re hunting you, or you’ve got a mighty puffed-up opinion of yourself.”

Eliza smiled. “You wouldn’t be the first person to make that accusation. In this case, I know they’re hunting me because the mage has been using the kind of mana-intensive tracking magic you only utilize when looking for someone with considerable anti-detection measures. Which I have. Combine that with the fact that I have the ear of some powerful folks in Palmyre and it stands to reason that they don’t want me finding out what they’re up to.”

“So why haven’t they found you yet?” Jack asked.

“Because these idiots are magic users, and magic users always think they’re better than the other classes,” she said, shaking her head. “As though some Tier-3 spell is going to get past a Master-level Ability. No, the better question is why they haven’t found you.”

“Whadda ya mean?”

“Jack, we’re fifteen metres from their camp,” she said, gesturing in towards the egg thieves. “That mage’s tracking spells should have spotted you the very first time he cast them.”

“Huh,” he said. “Guess that Luck score is really working overtime.”

“This isn’t the kind of thing your Luck score can influence,” Eliza said emphatically.

Jack shrugged. “Well, I’ve gotten this far without asking a whole lot of questions. Right now, all I care about is the fact that I can see them and they can’t see me. I’d rather spend my time thinkin’ about how to take advantage of that fact instead of pondering how it came about.”

Eliza stared at him for a moment, then let out a small chuckle. “You might be a lunatic, but you’re my kind of lunatic.”

“Lotta people told me that during the war.”

“I’d imagine.”

They looked back at the camp. They clearly needed to take action against the group of thieves, especially if they were after Eliza. Not only would that take some heat off of her, it would also give them an opportunity to learn what the plan was for Val’s eggs. Assuming they caught someone alive. Problem was, up until that point, Jack had been trying to avoid killing anyone. How was he supposed to handle a situation like this without taking a life? Especially if his attempts at morality put Eliza at risk?

Oh well. He had his club. The rest he could sort out later.

He glanced at Eliza. “Alright, what kinda fighter are you? Anythin’ special I should know about?”

“I can handle myself up close, but I’m best at range,” she said. “I’ve got a bow stashed nearby. How about you?”

Jack chuckled. “Any chance you got an M1 Garand stashed over there with your bow?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Too bad. Looks like I’m gonna have to get close to do any damage.”

“That’s fine,” she said. “What do you have for weaponry?”

He gestured at the club attached to his belt. Eliza looked at it, then back up at Jack. “Is that a wyvern bone?”

“Yeah, got it from one of them Chian’dir fellows,” he said. “Nice guy. Said it was blessed by Nochd, but it works fine anyway.”

His words did nothing to alleviate her confusion. “It was blessed by the god of Death? And you got it from a…Chian’dir? What is that?”

“Y’know. Big guys, live in the forests. Only eat meat.”

He reconsidered his words. “I guess the little guys are a bit scrawny until they do their whole rebirth thing. The warriors are impressive fighters though, I’ll hand them that.”

Eliza’s jaw dropped. “Are you talking about shadow beasts?”

Jack pointed at her. “That’s right! I forgot most folks call ’em that. Their real name is the Chian’dir. Nice folks once you get used to ’em. Even gave me some supplies and this club when I left their village. Food’s awful though.”

“When you left their…?” Eliza rubbed her temples. “Let me recap. After arriving in Arenia you encountered a band of shadow beasts, befriended them, spent some time in their village, and then were sent on your way with a pat on the back and a complementary weapon blessed by the god of Death. In the time since then, you have killed a feaster bunny, made friends with a dragon, and somehow did all of this without getting a class?”

“Well, it’s not like I killed the rabbit myself. I was just tryin’ to lead it away from some goblins when Val showed up. And I ain’t so sure she’s my friend.”

“Why in the name of the gods would you risk your life for some goblins?” Eliza asked incredulously. “They’re evil creatures! It would have been better if you let the feaster bunny devour the lot of them.”

It was a good thing they were able to speak silently or Eliza’s rising pitch would have been heard by the sentries at the camp. As it was, her words made Jack’s jaw clench.

“Evil’s a choice, girl, not a people. I ain’t gonna let a buncha kids die just ’cause they’re green.”

“Maybe you should hold off your judgments until you’ve learned more about them,” Eliza snapped.

“Yeah, you ever had a conversation with one?” he asked. Eliza chuckled mirthlessly and turned back to the camp, but her refusal to answer was an answer in and of itself.

“I thought so,” he muttered. “Maybe you should hold off your own judgments until you tick that box.”

Jack then turned his own attention to the camp, the pair silently agreeing to let the heat of the discussion cool before planning their next steps. They couldn’t delay long, though, as the rising sun was brightening the forest around them, putting their secrecy at risk.

“Okay, I think we should pull back,” Eliza finally said, pretending the goblin conversation had never happened. “There’s no advantage to attacking them now. With a little planning we can do some real damage before they realize what’s happening.”

“Agreed,” Jack said. “You’re a forester, so you grab your kit and I’ll follow. We’ll regroup, get a plan, and then hit these guys like a bat out of hell when they’re not expecting it.”

Eliza grinned. “On that, we are agreed.”