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Race: Saurian

Bloodline Powers: Improved Strength, Rending, Firebreath

Greater Mysteries: Fire (Noble) 5, Wind (Noble) 3, Sound (Advanced) 2

Lesser Mysteries: Heat 4, Oxygen 4, Embers 4, Pressure 4, Current/Flow 4

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“I have the shot,” Takkla whispered, her shortbow drawn taut next to her cheek as the three saurians sat crouched in the tall grass of the prairie. “Just say the word and I’ll bring the one in robes down.”

“Only if they spot us,” Sam replied quietly. “Until then, hold tight. With any luck they’ll just pass us by.”

Five humans walked through the endless fields, one wearing a robe and bearing a rod or staff of some sort while the others wore the motley body armor of the ‘bandits’ that had been plaguing the area. The ordinary soldiers didn’t look like anything special. Their weapons were poorly maintained and didn’t match, and they didn’t carry themselves with any level of discipline or alertness.

Still, the robed man was almost certainly a practitioner. Samazzar didn’t have any way of knowing what mysteries he used, but there was no denying the way the air itself was magically charged as it flowed around the magus, likely the result of an active spell or an enchantment woven into his gear.

“I don’t like the looks of that one in cloth,” Dussok mumbled uncomfortably. Unlike the rest of the group, he was too large to hide simply by crouching down. Instead he was on his hands and knees, axe gripped tight against the dry soil. “We can take the rest of them down fairly quickly if we need to, but I don’t know what he’s hiding up those sleeves of his. Better to take him down with an arrow in the dark rather than risk a full blown magic battle.”

Samazzar shook his head sharply, careful to keep his voice from growing loud enough to draw the patrol’s attention.

“We’re barely half a league from the lift into Whistling Gorge. If we kill a patrol here, they’ll scour the plains looking for the cause, and there’s no way that the mine could survive a full fledged attack if the ‘bandits’ are willing to commit some magi. It’s better for us to wait ten minutes for them to pass so that we can avoid a fight.”

“But if he notices us,” Dussok hissed insistently, “we lose the element of surprise. Against an unknown magus, that could be fatal. We don’t have any idea what mysteries he practices or how to cope with them. Unless it’s the royal mystery of life and he can heal himself from near death, a surprise arrow to the throat is a hard counter to most schools of magic.”

“Unless he studies metal and can flatten the arrow’s point, or wood and shatters the arrows shaft, or earth and can raise a wall, or vegetation and can grow a grass barrier, or sharpness, or magnetism, or-” Sam trailed off, fixing Dussok with a stern glance.

“I know,” the big saurian grumbled from his hands and knees. “We have no idea what he can do, and that includes how he could detect or stop an attack. Still, it feels wrong for us to hide here doing nothing while he walks away.”

“It is the right choice though,” Sam replied. “Our goal here is to check our traps at the bottom of the gorge and pick up the supplies loaded into the wagon for our return journey. There is no need to court trouble when it is likely to find us anyway.”

Dussok fell silent. For a minute, the only sound was the drifting wind and the light creak of Takkla’s bow as she struggled to keep it drawn. Then, one of the soldiers spoke up, her voice muted and distant.

Samazzar focused on the mystery of sound, quickly tuning out the riot of noise that surrounded him before he singled out the responding magus.

“-don’t care if you have ‘bad vibes’ Michelle.” The robed man’s voice was deep, somewhat of a surprise given how slight his figure was. “The Commander said that something has come up and I know better than to piss him off. He’s the one paying for our mutton and wine, so I’m inclined to listen.”

“But Aaron,” the woman replied, her leather armor and furs groaning slightly as she slipped through the tall grass. “Our contact in Vereton said that there was an elite group heading out here to gather resources. The rest of Lieutenant Anders’ team doesn’t have a full blown practitioner, just a couple of warriors that have picked up a complimentary mystery to accompany their elixirs. Without you present, I don’t know that the Lieutenant will be able handle-”

“I really do not care Michelle,” the man, Aaron, cut her off. “The Commander sent me to this forsaken wasteland to help you with your magi problem. Nothing showed up. Now the Commander wants me to head back to the main base. I am sympathetic to Lieutenant Anders’ worries, but at the end of the day, he is significantly less likely to hang me from a stake in the middle of the camp as a ‘lesson’ on disobeying orders.

“Can it at least wait a day?” Michelle begged. “Please? I’m sure that the targets will travel this way any time now.”

“If the commander orders me to come back, I’ll be back,” he replied. “There’s really nothing more to say on the issue. I’m not going to disobey a direct order.”

The woman lapsed into silence. Samazzar liked to imagine that she was gloomy or brooding, but it was more or less in his imagination. The humans were far enough away that he couldn’t even really see them as anything more than blobs or blurs in his heat vision. There was no real way for him to interpret her facial expression or body language. Still, there was no doubt in his mind that she was upset.

But she didn’t say anything. Evidently the magus was the one calling the shots. With only a couple of grumbles the five humans continued walking away from the hiding saurians.

Sam didn’t have to wait long. Fifteen minutes later, they were a barely visible smudge on the horizon. Another twenty minutes and they were gone entirely.

Finally, after he couldn’t feel even the slightest hint of the humans his wind and sound magic, Samazzar stood up, motioning for Takkla and Dussok to join him. The two other saurians emerged from the grass, concerned looks on their faces as they glanced at each other before casting their eyes in the general direction of Whistling Gorge.

“Are you sure we should set up the winch?” Takkla began, her voice hesitant. “I saw the bandits too. If we were just going to climb down to the bottom of the valley, I wouldn’t have a problem, but if we are setting up an entire apparatus, any patrols will be able to see us from a half league away.”

“And even if they don’t.” Dussok’s rumbling bass joined her concerns. “We will be stuck carrying a wagon laden with iron ore for smelting. That means that we can’t duck into the grass and hide the next time we see a patrol. Worse, our chances at outrunning it are nonexistent. If we do this, we are risking not just ourselves, but the mine itself.”

Samazzar thoughtfully turned his gaze in the general direction the humans had disappeared in. They were far enough away that he couldn’t even pick up the echo of their sound or wind signature, but that didn’t stop him from sending out another pulse of magic. Finally, after his fourth or fifth check assured him that the three of them were alone, Sam addressed his siblings’ concerns.

“It should be safe. I was listening to the conversation between the humans and it sounds like something has happened. Units are being recalled so that their commander can issue new orders, so we should have a narrow window to get in and get out before the bandits can redeploy in force. Of course, that implies they are going to redeploy. For all we know, the new orders mean that they are giving up on the siege of Vereton.”

“Or it means they are done playing around and they are finally ready to assault the city’s walls,” Dussok growled.

“And if that happens,” Sam replied smoothly, “we adapt. Maybe at one time, Vereton was going to be our permanent home, but the last couple of months made it clear that although there are good people there, there are enough bad people to make that a bad idea.”

Both Takkla and Dussok nodded, slowly and almost reluctantly as they absorbed Samazzar’s words.

“But for now Vereton has resources and knowledge that we need,” he continued. “In exchange, the city needs this load of iron. Dussok, you’ve been working the forge with Henry. Surely you’ve noticed the changes.”

“More arrows and less swords,” the big saurian said thoughtfully. “I don’t think we’ve forged a breastplate in weeks. Now it’s more metal plates and strips that can be sewn into leather or cloth armor. Even the shields are different. Etanne used to pride himself on being able to make lightweight metal long shields. Lately it has been all iron rims for bucklers. They’ve been substituting wood or cured leather everywhere they can to make up for shortages.”

“It’s worse among the Knights,” Samazzar responded. “There isn’t enough iron to repair their armor. That isn’t the end of the world, dented plate is still better than a gambeson, but they are running low on horseshoes too. That’s a problem for calvary. Adam won’t admit it, but I can hear him talking from a building away if I want. My visits to share a bottle with him haven’t made me feel happier or more confident to put it lightly.”

For a couple of seconds, Sam’s companions didn’t respond, digesting his words in silence. Finally, after the situation stretched on Takkla nodded at Dussok, drawing a sigh from him.

“Fine, little dragon,” he replied, nodding grudgingly. “It makes sense for us to take the risk. There really aren’t any safe options at this point. Choosing the most advantageous unsafe option seems logical even if it is a bit counterintuitive.”

“Then let’s get to it,” Samazzar said happily, setting out in the direction of the hidden valley. “They probably know roughly where the gorge is, but not the specific location of the mine. The sooner we head down and come back up the less likely the humans are to notice the setup.”

“Good,” Takkla replied. “The last thing I want is to die at the hands of some common thug cutting the rope on the winch while we’re being hauled up. I can fly a little bit, but not enough to survive a massive drop. Really, it’s difficult to think of a more embarrassing way to die.”

“Don’t worry,” Sam said with a breezy wink. “I have a good feeling about the traps we set at the bottom of the ravine. By the time we are ready to resurface, who knows? All three of us will probably have wings.”

Two hours later, Samazzar wished that he would grow wings sooner rather than later. The winch itself took almost a half hour to set up, and although it was much quicker and safer to lower themselves to the mine than climb down the ladder in nothing but a harness, that didn’t make the process fun. At least five minutes of slowly traveling downward through the dark, wood and rope creaking ominously while the three of them waited for a hidden bandit to sabotage the machinery and send them plummeting into the depths.

Finally, after touching down and talking briefly with the foreman, the saurians resumed their journey while the miners loaded ore onto their cart for the return trip. This time, they were forced to climb. One stone rung after another into the endless black. It wasn’t as bad as Sam’s first trip into the dark, but before long the darkness was suffocating him like a blanket, leaving on the huff of saurians struggling for breath and the click of claws on rock.

By the time they reached the dark valley floor, all of his muscles were sore. Samazzar was stronger than the average human with the endurance to match, but that didn’t mean he could handle a grueling climb without any comment or repercussion.

He spat out an ember, using his new achievements in the mystery of fire to transform the scrap of hot ash into flame. A nudge of his mind fed the dancing fire, shaping it into a ball that floated above the three of them, casting a hesitant flickering light over the uneven rocky terrain that lay at the bottom of the valley.

Takkla glanced around nervously, squinting her eyes as she strained to make out what was happening in the darkness. Sam felt some sympathy for her. Her senses were naturally much more sensitive than Dussok or his, but without a proper light source, she was incredibly limited. Right now, their visible sight was clear for about ten paces before it faded into shadows and gloom. Out past thirty paces, it was about as bright as a moonless but starless night. Enough that they could probably make out movement, but not illuminated to the point that he could determine any specific details.

Samazzar coughed gently to gather her attention before he began walking in the direction of the first net trap. He reached out with his magic as they went, tasting the wind and echoes around them. Almost immediately a black and white map of his surroundings appeared in his mind’s eye. Everywhere the wind couldn’t touch remained dark, still and lifeless. On its own, that information was useful, but not enough to make him feel truly safe given their short lines of sight.

Inert matter could be anything from a rock, to a pool of water, to an enemy lying in wait. That was where his other senses came into play. The mystery of sound let Sam tune out extraneous noises and focus for the telltale hiss of breath being drawn in. If they were closer, he could use heat sense to look for body warmth.

Months of careful practice with his magical perception under Pothas and Rose’s tutelage had turned those senses into second nature. Samazzar was no longer overwhelmed by the unending stream of input that resulted from his use of the mysteries to perceive the world. Instead, the rich tapestry of color and depth that erupted every time he slipped into the comforting world of his magic seemed more real and intuitive than his eyes and ears.

Scavengers perked up and ran away as their ball of flame approached the first net, and a frown creased his muzzle. He grabbed hold of the wind barreling through the gorge and redirected it slightly, letting it play over the trap. His senses didn’t transform completely. The mystery wouldn’t let him see color detail, but the extra wind under Sam’s control let him map the cables and ropes much more closely.

It was like touching someone’s face to try and determine how they looked. Given enough time and practice, Sam had grown much better at it, but there would always be facts he missed. That said, it was almost impossible for him to miss that the net was broken. He had no way of knowing if the envenomed barbs were submerged or if they had washed away in the current after the torn edges of the trap fell into the river, but most of them simply weren’t there.

“The trap had a visitor,” he whispered, slowing his steps to quiet them. Even if he was confident in his magical senses, that didn’t mean that Samazzar wanted to tempt fate. The fact that he could perceive in other spectrums didn’t mean that his opponents couldn’t do the same. In fact, something as simple as the mystery of sound could pick up a normal conversation almost a league away if the practitioner focused hard enough.

“Cliff drake?” Dussok asked, his hands tightening around the haft of his axe.

“Maybe.” Sam shook his head. “Something as big as a drake for sure, but it’s gone now. Whatever it was, metal chains weren’t enough to stop it from breaking free. I have no idea if the barbs managed to pierce its hide, and even if they did, who knows if I got the dosage right. For all we know, all the traps have done is pissed off some sort of undiscovered subterranean behemoth or a river monster that didn’t make it into the bestiaries.”

“You’re right,” Dussok replied, eyes warily surveying their surroundings in the dim light of the floating ball of fire. “We should turn back now. There’s no telling what’s down here. By the mysteries, we didn’t even know what to bait those traps with. Anything could be in them, and knowing our luck, we probably did catch some unimaginable horror.”

“Back?” Samazzar cocked his head, a wide grin blossoming on his muzzle. “Why would we go back? Who knows what we might find? If we’re lucky, it might even be something new. Then we can make a contribution to the Academy records. I might even get another trip into the archives if it’s something unique enough.”

Takkla laughed, a clear tinkling bell over the howling gusts of wind that filled the dark valley. Dussok simply gaped at Sam’s retreating back. The smaller saurian elbowed her mate in the side as she passed him, shaking her head theatrically.

“Come on Dussy, you should have known to expect that response by now. Frankly, it would have been stranger if the little dragon reacted normally to an unknown threat and we both know it.”

“Dussy?” Sam inquired, twisting his body slightly to look at his clutchmates. “I don’t think I’ve heard that one before.”

His counterpart’s face glowed brightly in Samazzar’s heat vision, twisting through a thousand expressions in a handful of seconds before Dussok finally just groaned.

“That’s not a real name Samazzar,” he said hastily. “Seriously, Takkla has some pet names for me, but I swear she made that up on the fly right now. Please, forget that you overheard that. Please.”

“Whatever are you talking about Dussy?” Takkla asked, batting her eyelashes. “You get all weak in the knees when I call you that. Why are you denying it now in front of Samazzar? If there’s anyone that can know my little names for you, he-”

“I swear,” Dussok choked out, coming to a halt.

Sam and Takkla stopped, turning to look at their stricken clutch mate. Dussok opened his mouth to say something only to cut himself off. Finally, after almost ten seconds of gaping like a fish while he tried to find a reply, he spoke up.

“If you promise to forget that Takkla called me that, I won’t complain about us not heading back to the surface. At least if an unspeakable horror eats all three of us, then I won’t have to worry about this conversation resurfacing in a couple of months.”

“Deal,” Samazzar said, grin still stretched across his muzzle. “Now we should quiet down. As excited as I am to see if we managed to catch something, It would probably be best if it didn’t know we were coming.”

Dussok looked like he wanted to say something more, but ultimately he gave up. That was enough for Sam. As funny as it was to watch the normally taciturn and dour saurian squirm, they were here for a better reason. More importantly, that better reason could easily kill all three of them if they weren’t careful.

Despite Samazzar’s flippant attitude, he was paying close attention as the three of them crept through the ragged rocks and rushing water of the dark valley. The howling wind would likely stop anything from hearing them, but even a little sound magic would let an opponent sort through the noise in their surroundings and pick out unwanted footfalls. The bestiaries he read weren’t clear as to how cliff drakes perceived their surroundings, but it was clear that they could see in the dark. Sam kept the floating ball of flames dim, but even if he concealed it the moment he sensed his quarry, that was no promise that it wouldn’t sight them first.

The three of them took every precaution they could think of, stopping periodically to have Samazzar cast his magical senses ahead of them. Periodically, he would leave his siblings behind with the fire, relying solely on his magic to map their surroundings.

It was the second of these scouting trips where he noticed it. Ordinarily, their group would be tailed by scavengers. Really, the assortment of monsters were more opportunists than anything. Samazzar was pretty sure that without the warding light of the fire, they would have attacked the party a while ago, but now, as they were following the river, there was no sign of the creatures clinging to the walls.

He cast his senses further, letting the wind tearing through the gorge carry them in the direction of the next trap.

Nothing. Just bare rock and the occasional pile of lichen. No heat, no rounded shapes that could be the shoulders or hips of a predator. It was as barren as one of the empty caves back home in the mountains.

Sam sucked in his breath, biting into his lower lip in an effort to stifle any noise. He closed his eyes. It didn’t really matter in the twilight at the bottom of the valley, but his training with Pothas had emphasized shutting off his senses one by one so that he could focus on nothing but the mysteries that surrounded him.

Then, Samazzar willed those from his mind too. First heat disappeared. Its range was short compared to wind or sound anyway and he had only been using it as a last line of defense in case something managed to sneak up on him. Next he willed wind from his perception.

Finally, there was only sound.

Everything around him was filled with the all-consuming roar of the wind as it howled down the valley. It assaulted and disoriented him as it raced through the narrow gaps and crannies of the gorge, filling the air with discordant notes that drowned out the rest of the world.

Samazzar turned it off. A twist of his mind and he was wrapped in a comforting blanket of silence. Then, order began to trickle back in. The river rushed and gurgled past him. It was soft, almost pleasant in the wake of the windstorm that was still buffeting and rocking Sam’s body.

Underneath it was… something. He couldn’t quite put his finger on the faint noise, but it was familiar. A thud, followed exactly a half second later by another thud. Steady, slow and even.

He opened his eyes, mouthing curving up into a toothy grin as he stared ineffectually into the black. A heartbeat. It sounded like a hibernating bear, beating like a drum as it pushed enough blood through the large animal’s body to keep it asleep but alive.

A hand touched Samazzar’s shoulder and he opened his eyes. Dussok was standing beside him, arm extended and a look of concern on his face. That was one of the downsides of selectively turning your senses off and filtering your perception. It was hard to notice someone sneaking up on you when your entire perception was centered some three hundred paces away.

“I found it,” Sam said, shaking his head to clear the disorientation of his returning senses. “We caught something in the next trap, and it doesn’t seem to be moving.”

Dussok shared a long, worried glance with Takkla before replying.

“Doesn’t seem to be moving or isn’t moving, little dragon? Those are two very different things. Differences that would hopefully impact how we approach the situation.”

Samazzar’s tongue darted, out wetting the scales of his muzzle as he shifted his weight and pondered the question. Ultimately, he could only shrug.

“Doesn’t seem to be moving. It’s far enough away that I’m only tracking it by its heartbeat. If the creature isn’t in a coma or hibernating, I doubt it can move fast. I’ve heard of sloths and giant snails that have pulses like it does, but nothing that can sprint or chase us. If we are out of our league, I can just create a flare with flame magic and the three of us can run away.”

“I promised to not present complaints, no matter how logical, for the remainder of this trip,” Dussok replied, his voice intentionally flat. “We may as well proceed with your ‘distract the ancient monster with something shiny so that we can escape’ plan. We both know I wouldn’t be able to convince you to take a smarter course even without my oath.”

Sam barely noted the sarcasm. With a wave of his hand, the ball of flames flickered out, plunging them into darkness. Seamlessly, he turned to his other magical senses, letting them click back into place before he continued his walk beside the river.

Takkla and Dussok stood sputtering in the darkness for a second, reeling while they turned to their own mysteries and followed Samazzar, but he barely noticed. The heartbeat felt like it was right in front of his snout, guiding him through the depths of the gorge. Fire might alert their quarry, so they would simply have to do without it as they moved into the final stretch.

He clambered over boulders and slipped over jagged fallen rocks, careful to use the mystery of heat to leave bright red handprints on the stones so that his bumbling siblings could pick out the obstacles. They weren’t perfect, but the two of them managed to make due. Dussok had been developing a couple minor mysteries from his time at the forge that let him barely sense some of the larger stones. Takkla on the other hand simply had borderline supernatural senses and agility from her bloodline. Other than an occasional stumble as they got used to moving in darkness there weren’t any major problems.

The heartbeat grew louder, until Samazzar felt like he could have heard it without the mystery of sound. It almost felt like it was drowning out the rushing of the river itself as it echoed off the walls of the gorge, clamoring at him with its even, heavy thudthump.

His siblings couldn’t notice the noise, but that hardly mattered. Sam was close. He could feel each beat of the organ hammering into him like the wind itself, and excitement filled his body until it was almost brimming over. He was almost there. Almost ready to find something new and important to collect, to add to his tiny hoard of knowledge and magical reagents.

Samazzar slipped around a corner, rounding a curve in the valley wall carved by the intrepid river, and stopped, his face drooping. He stepped to the side, reaching out to catch Dussok’s arm as the big mass of scales and muscle almost crashed into him.

With a quick cough, Sam spat out a handful of sparks that flared to life, once again creating a globe of bobbing flame. In the river, half submerged about twenty paces from them was a mountain of flesh and sinew. Dark scaled limbs were tangled in ropes and chain, barbs pressed deep in scarlet gashes caused by the beast’s struggle.

“Wow.” Takkla’s eyes were round, her voice breathy as she stared at the creature. Slowly, almost at a glacial pace, its ribcage rose only to fall again.

“Is that?” Dussok asked, not finishing his sentence but instead glancing to Sam for confirmation.

“It’s only a cliff drake after all,” Samazzar replied, pointing at the contours of the ancient monster’s body. “You can tell by its scale coloration and the membrane connecting its limbs to its body. It isn’t a wyvern so it can’t fly on its own, but it has the innate ability to make its body lighter, letting it glide and maneuver through the air for fairly impressive distances.”

“Only?” Dussok questioned incredulously. “That thing could tear the three of us apart in the darkness. Without your venom, it probably would have ambushed and killed all three of us already.”

“I was hoping for something more exciting after it broke through the first trap,” Sam mumbled, looking down at his feet as he shifted them across the stone. “Still, it is a pretty big one. I’m sure I can harvest some useful reagents from its body.”

Takkla snorted, shaking her head as she rolled her eyes in the darkness.

“Don’t forget why you dragged us down here, little dragon. The goal wasn’t to get into a fight that could leave us injured and unable to travel back to Vereton. We made the climb to try and trigger another evolution. If I recall, a cliff drake is exactly what we needed for that.”

“You’re right,” Samazzar said, perking up. “I was hoping we’d find something further up the ladder of the bloodline, but it isn’t all bad. I’ll grab the dagger, needles and hose from my satchel. We have a lot of scales to get through, but it looks like its big enough to push all three of us over the edge.“